A secret written code followed and enforced by the Mafia has emerged after police in Italy wiretapped a meeting of a crime clan’s leaders.

The code – said to have been written down as statutes by the Cosa Nostra’s founding fathers generations ago – is understood to control the way the crime families operate.

Its existence emerged when police carried out a wiretap operation on a meeting of the powerful Rocca Mezzomonreale clan at a country house in Sicily.

The meeting – in Caltanissetta province, near Palermo – had been called to sanction the assassination of an architect who had offended one of the crime family.

The carabinieri listening to the meeting later said that it had revealed details of the ultra-secret Mafia code that governs the way clans operate.

Police revealed that the statutes were frequently consulted and referred to during the meeting, showing how strictly they are still followed.

A carabinieri statement obtained by Newsflash on 24th January said the conversation was full of “constant reminders of the respect for the most archaic mafia rules and principles” and that they are still considered, even today, to be the bulwark of the very existence of the Cosa Nostra.

The archaic Mafia rules reportedly still regulate the life of the Cosa Nostra in Palermo today, with the cops adding that they were “written by the founding fathers” of the organisation.

The southern Italian code of silence – or Omerta – is one of the most important rules of the Mafia.

And to hear clan leaders discussing their code is “extremely rare”, said police.

Anti-mafia officers seized seven high-ranking clan bosses, holding five of them in custody and placing two under house arrest, according to Italian media.

Police launched the raid after reconstructing one of the clan’s threats to extort money from businessmen and traders.

To convince one victim to pay – report local media – a doll with a bullet stuck in its forehead was found stuck in the gate of his house.