Italian authorities seized €1.5 billion in business assets linked to the notorious Cosa Nostra mafia.

This week, the Directorate of Anti-Mafia Investigations (DIA), seized real estate and tourism properties - resorts, golf clubs and shipping boats - belonging to the heirs of late mafia boss Carmelo Patti, who died in January 2016 at the age of 81.

The heir, Matteo Messina Denaro, 56, is the mob boss of the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra and has been wanted by Italian authorities since 1993 for planting bombs that killed 10 people in Florence and Milan.

This seizure "is certainly one of the most important in the Italian judicial history," said a statement from the (DIA). "It also allowed to establish links with many characters close to or belonging to the mafia family of Castelvetrano," they added.