The mafia is regrouping in the Sicilian capital Palermo and surrounding province, the Italian parliament's anti-mafia commission chief, Rosy Bindi, said on Thursday.
"Cosa Nostra is reorganising itself in Palermo and in the Province of Palermo," Bindi stated.
Bindi was speaking after a meeting with the Italian government's top representative in Palermo, Antonella De Miro, and with members of Italy's national security committee.
"After spending two days in Palermo, I am leaving with the conviction that the mafia does exist," Bindi went on.
The release from jail of a number of mafia bosses had created a "critical and worrying" situation, Bindi said.
The Sicilian mafia, known as 'Cosa Nostra' (Our Thing), was Italy's most powerful organised crime syndicate in the 1980s and 1990s, but saw its power diminish following years of probes, mass arrests, and the seizure of hundreds of millions of euros of its assets.
Cosa Nostra also faces growing competition from the Naples mafia (Camorra) and from and the Calabrian mafia ('Ndrangheta) in its criminal activities.
