Mafia, a secret meeting of mobsters in a giant fridge...

 It was intended as a cunning ruse to evade surveillance by anti-mafia police.

When a bunch of alleged mobsters held their meetings inside a giant fridge in a town in Sicily, they were convinced that the thick insulating walls would protect them being eavesdropped on by police.

But detectives had got wind of the secret summits that were regularly held in the fruit and veg lock-up and had planted recording devices inside, in an operation they code-named “Freezer”.

The supposedly secret meeting resulted in the arrest of six alleged members of a mafia clan linked to Matteo Messina Denaro, a Cosa Nostra kingpin who has been on the run since 1993. His whereabouts are such a mystery, and his evasion of police so successful for more than two decades, that he has been nicknamed The Ghost.

The large fridge was attached to a fruit and vegetable shop in the town of Alcamo near the city of Trapani in western Sicily – the home turf of Messina Denaro.

Among those arrested was 61-year-old Ignazio Melodia, nicknamed “U Dutturi” – Sicilian dialect for The Doctor – because he once trained as a medic. He had already served a 10-year prison sentence, from 2002 until 2012, for mafia activities.

Melodia was recently recorded telling a local businessman: “I control half of Trapani province.” The six men were charged with mafia association, extortion and interference with local elections.

The suspects had been intent on “influencing local elections and controlling the economy,” said Maurizio Agricola, a local official. The collaboration of two business owners who were being extorted by the alleged Mafiosi was crucial to the success of the operation, police said.

Messina Denaro, the fugitive, has become a legendary figure in Sicily. The “capo dei capi”, or boss of bosses, revels in the nickname Diabolik, taken from an Italian comic book character, and once boasted: “I filled a cemetery all by myself.”

Believed to be still living in hiding in western Sicily under the protection of loyal lieutenants, from where he runs an extensive business empire, he is wanted for more than 50 murders.