including the coastal area up to Cefalù, and part of the territory of Messina, including the towns of Mistretta and Tortorici. Lo Piccolo allegedly made his fortune with drug trafficking and skimming off public contracts. He forced the residents of the low-income housing projects in the ZEN area of Palermo to pay him to keep the building corridors lit. He allegedly has strong links with the American Mafia. In March 2005, the Lo Piccolo clan was subject of a police operation known as the "Notte di San Lorenzo". Eighty-four arrest warrants were issued. Nonetheless, Salvatore and his son Sandro Lo Piccolo remained at large. Successor of Provenzano? After the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on 11 April 2006, Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Matteo Messina Denaro were thought to be the new leaders of Cosa Nostra. However, the pizzini (small slips of paper used to communicate with other mafiosi to avoid phone conversations) found at Provenzano's hide-out indicated that Provenzano's joint deputies in Palermo were Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Antonio Rotolo, capo mandamento of Pagliarelli, a Corleonesi loyalist in the days of Totò Riina. In a message referring to an important decision for Cosa Nostra, Provenzano told Rotolo: "It's up to you, me and Lo Piccolo to decide this thing." Anti-Mafia prosecutor Antonio Ingroia of the Direzione distrettuale antimafia (DDA) of Palermo said that it was unlikely that there would be an all-out war over who would fill Provenzano's shoes. "Right now I don't think that's probable," he said. Of the two possible successors, Ingroia thought Lo Piccolo was the more likely heir to the Mafia throne. "He's from Palermo, and that's still the most powerful Mafia stronghold," Ingroia said. A 'pax mafiosa' initially had settled in after Provenzano's arrest because neither Lo Piccolo nor Matteo Messina Denaro appeared to have sufficient forces to seek control of Cosa Nostra, according to the Italian news agency ANSA. Subsequent investigation revealed that Lo Piccolo and Messina Denaro had reached an accommodation and that the real threat to Lo Piccolo came from Rotolo who was arrested in June 2006. According to ANSA, "police were concerned by a couple of top-level hits they feared might spark a full-blown war of succession. Police said Lo Piccolo had the upper hand because he had been Provenzano's right-hand man in Palermo and his greater experience won him the respect of the older generation of bosses as they pursued Provenzano's