RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
It would be hard to tap this form of communication - pizzini - scraps of paper containing coded messages. One mafia boss on the lam for two decades kept his Sicilian operation going with pizzini, like the sheep need shearing, and, I've put the ricotta cheese aside for you. But there might have been a rat among the sheep. This week, Italian police arrested 11 Mafioso after intercepting pizzini. Several over 70 - obviously haven't heard of Twitter. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.