Looking very sheepish! Police reveal mugshots of 'Mafia crooks who used secret code based on sheep to pass messages to henchmen' 

• Former mafia boss Vito Gondola, 77, among those arrested by Italian police
• He is accused of using cipher to communicate with boss and rest of gang 
• 11 suspects arrested were 'closest to Mafia leader Matteo Messina Denaro'
• Police released mugshots of men said to use secret code based on sheep

By Hannah Parry For Mailonline

Published: 13:26 EST, 4 August 2015 | Updated: 02:10 EST, 5 August 2015

Meet the alleged Mafia crooks who are accused of using a secret code based on sheep to pass secret messages.

Police have released mug shots of the suspects linked to the fugitive head of the Sicilian Mafia Matteo Messina Denaro, 53, who has been on the run since 1993.

Vito Gondola, 77, Pietro Giambalvo, also 77, and Leonardo Agueci, 27, are amongst the eleven men arrested by Italian police officers in a major strike against the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.

Vito Gondola, 77 (left) and Pietro Giambalvo, also 77, (right) are amongst the eleven men arrested by Italian police officers in a major strike against the Sicilian Cosa Nostra

Secret police surveillance recorded a meeting between Vito Gondola (L), 77, and Michele Gucciardi, 62, near Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, Italy 

The investigation, which followed the passing of messages between 2011 and 2014, used hidden cameras and microphones around the farm near Trapani in western Sicily to follow the movements of the clan - and discover Denaro's fading glory

The 'Mafia' gang are said to have communicated with boss Denaro on a a farm in Mazara del Vallo via the aged-old method of 'pizzini' - paper containing messages often written in cipher.

Among the cryptic phrases used to alert clan messages to the presence of the notes were 'the sheep need shearing', 'the shears need sharpening' and 'the hay is ready', police said.

Although Denaro remains at large, among those arrested was former boss Gondola whose job it was to call the clan members to alert them to each new message, which was placed under a rock in a field at the farm and often destroyed on the spot after reading.

'I've put the ricotta cheese aside for you, will you come by later?' he would say on the telephone - a phrase investigators said had nothing to do with dairy products. 

Leonardo Agueci, 27, one of the 11 suspects arrested 'who were closest to Denaro right now,' said police (left). One of the few available pictures of Matteo Messina Denaro, a fugitive since 1993 and said to be the leader of the Sicilian mafia. Eleven of his closest associates have now been arrested (right)

Vito Gondola pictured placing a new messages 'pizzini' under a rock in a field near a farm outside Mazara del Vallom said police

Police said the notes were wadded tight, covered in tape and hidden under rocks or dug into soil until go-betweens retrieved them.

The police investigation, which followed the passing of messages between 2011 and 2014, used hidden cameras and microphones around the farm near Trapani in western Sicily to follow the movements of the clan - and discover Denaro's fading glory.

Gondola is caught in one conversation telling another mobster that Denaro - once a trigger man who reportedly boasted he could 'fill a cemetery' with his victims - was losing control over the latest generation of criminals, who 'disappear without saying anything'.

Gondola, who despite his age rose every morning at 4am to tend to his flock, is believed to have once been a right-hand man to Riina.

In the 1970s he belonged to a gang used by the Mafia to carry out kidnappings, according to Italian media reports. Three of those arrested were over 70 years old.

The only known photos of Denaro date back to the early 1990s.

An Italian police officer takes Michele Gucciardi (left) into custody. He is one of the 11 men suspected of helping Cosa Nostra fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro

The men are accused of helping the fugitive run his operation while in hiding from the police. Pictured is arrested suspect Ugo Di Leonardo being escorted by a police officer

Matteo Messina Denaro, the leader of the Sicilian mafia who remains at large, is believed to have been the successor of the imprisoned godfather Bernardo Provenzano (pictured)

He is believed to be the successor of the godfathers Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, who are both serving life sentences, but less is known about him.

He was convicted in absentia as a mastermind of 1993 bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan aimed at intimidating authorities cracking down on the Cosa Nostra.

The 11 suspects arrested 'were the men who were closest to Denaro right now,' said police official Renato Cortese, adding that it was 'too early to say' whether the sting would help investigators close in on the fugitive.

The Sicilian Mafia, known as 'Cosa Nostra' or 'Our Thing', was the country's most powerful organised crime syndicate in the 1980s and 1990s, but has seen its power diminish following years of investigations and mass arrests.

It also faces fierce underworld competition from the increasingly powerful Naples-based Camorra and Calabria's 'Ndrangheta.

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