italy - Blog 2.0 - Gangsters Inc. - www.gangstersinc.org
2024-03-28T16:48:21Z
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Camorra Mafia takes advantage of opportunities created by COVID-19
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/camorra-mafia-takes-advantage-of-opportunities-created-by-covid-1
2020-10-24T08:45:02.000Z
2020-10-24T08:45:02.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-mafia-takes-advantage-of-opportunities-created-by-covid-1" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237147497,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237147497?profile=original" /></a>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>The thing about operating outside the rules of the law is that you can always find ways to make money. Case in point: The Italian <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-overview" target="_blank">Camorra</a>. When the corona pandemic hit it sent much of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/italian-organized-crime" target="_blank">Italy</a> into a lockdown. Many businesses went bust as a result. The Camorra, however, was eyeing multiple fresh opportunities, as VICE News reports in the video below.</p>
<p>VICE News traveled to Naples, Italy, to report about the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-overview" target="_blank">Camorra</a>’s actions and how the Italian government continues to drop the ball when it comes to keeping organized crime down.</p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IsNN6d_5oJ8?wmode=opaque" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p>
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Georgian organized crime group busted in Madrid, Spain
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/georgian-organized-crime-group-busted-in-madrid-spain
2017-01-12T15:43:06.000Z
2017-01-12T15:43:06.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/georgian-organized-crime-group-busted-in-madrid-spain"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237084081,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237084081?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Spanish National Police arrested 61 members of a sophisticated Georgian organized crime group specialized in burglaries. Overall, agents conducted 26 searches, seizing €33,000 euro, 8 vehicles, 7,100 tobacco packets, and many stolen pieces of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Jewelry">jewelry</a>.</p>
<p>The 61 arrested individuals formed nine different criminal cells, all located in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Madrid">Madrid</a>. Each cell had links to different Spanish provinces such as Malaga, Seville, Sabadell, Barcelona, and Bilbao. Among the arrested individuals are five <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=zedamxedveli">zedamxedveli</a> (Georgian word for a supervisor). These supervisors took over key roles in the organized crime group.</p>
<p>The zedamxedveli were in charge of providing logistical support, monitoring the criminal cells and keeping the leaders of the criminal organization updated. Some of the arrested zedamxedveli had legal jobs in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Spain">Spain</a>, such as staff in a construction company in Seville, or a private security guard in Madrid. In doing so they tried to hide the profits illegally obtained and to avoid suspicions.</p>
<p>The main target of the operation is the boss of the organized crime gang. This man has a vast criminal background involving kidnapping, assassination, and more. He headed the criminal group from Italy, supported by the five supervisors in Spain.</p>
<p>This operation is considered as the second phase of Operation AIKON, which was already conducted by the Spanish National Police and supported by Europol. In the first phase fifty members of Georgian organized crime were detained. Some of them have been arrested again in this second phase, which was supported by Europol and French and Georgian authorities.</p>
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Italian police continue crackdown on Camorra in Naples
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/italian-police-continue-crackdown-on-camorra-in-naples
2016-02-22T15:30:00.000Z
2016-02-22T15:30:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/italian-police-continue-crackdown-on-camorra-in-naples"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237061458,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237061458?profile=original" width="500" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Police in Naples are dealing blow after blow to the region’s Camorra clans. Last week they arrested boss Domenico Ferrara (photo above) and several of his lieutenants, while today, Carabinieri arrested 21 people and seized 35 kilograms of cocaine and 2 kilos of hashish. Police said the cocaine would have netted €2 million euros if it had been sold.</p>
<p>The arrest, last Thursday night, of Domenico Ferrara involved 150 police officers. Around 22:00h, Ferrara, high-ranking lieutenants Vittorio Amato and Rocco Ruocco, together with four others clan members sat down to watch a football match on the television.</p>
<p>Patiently waiting until all guests had arrived, police surrounded the clan's compound in Villaricca, on the outskirts of Naples, and pounced, placing all men under arrest. They have been charged with extortion.</p>
<p>Nicknamed “Mimi 'or muccuso,” Domenico Ferrara’s clan controlled the area in and around Villaricca. He became somewhat famous in Italy after investigators seized more than hundred cell phones which, they claimed, were used to rig the call-in voting on a television talent show in which his daughter was a contestant.</p>
<p>The new extortion charges are much more serious, however, showcasing how the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-overview">Camorra</a> terrorizes and sucks dry honest businessmen. “If you do not want to sell the store you have to give [Ferrara] €230,000 euros,” one of Ferrara’s soldiers was heard saying when he threatened one such businessman, a lawyer.</p>
<p>As news of the arrest hit the news, Italy’s Interior Minister Angelino Alfano called the arrest of Ferrara a “hard hit” to the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-overview">Camorra</a>. “It's always good news to know that little by little we're driving out the many local bosses, in order to weaken organized crime more and more,” he said. “It's not only a victory for the State but also a relief for honest citizens.”</p>
<p>Alfano had recently <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/250-troops-deployed-to-naples-to-halt-camorra-violence">deployed 250 soldiers</a> to Naples to help stop the violence between Camorra clans. While the troops patrol the streets, police are doing an excellent job busting up the various criminal operations run by the Camorra.</p>
<p>Last week, Italian police <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/italian-police-raid-camorra-mafia-run-coke-lab-near-naples">raided a cocaine refining laboratory</a> in a town south of Naples, arresting five people including two members of the Camorra and three Colombian nationals. They found 7 kilos of cocaine paste and 20 liters of a coke-based liquid that would have been worth 3 million euros on the street once processed.</p>
<p>And today, they seized even more drugs in an operation in Marano, near Naples, where they found 35 kilograms of cocaine at the home of one of the suspects and 2 kilograms of hashish in the home of another suspect.</p>
<p>It’s the police’s way of saying “Basta!” to the Camorra.</p>
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Sicilian Mafia boss Toto Riina: Prosecutors have to die
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/sicilian-mafia-boss-toto-riina-prosecutors-have-to-die
2014-01-22T12:12:23.000Z
2014-01-22T12:12:23.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sicilian-mafia-boss-toto-riina-prosecutors-have-to-die"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237033296,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237033296?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>For a Sicilian Cosa Nostra boss loyal to omerta, the code of silence, Toto Riina was quoted in the media an awful lot of times in the past few months. His incriminating and outright hostile words brought back memories of his vicious war on the Italian State during the 1990s in which the Sicilian Mafia terrorized the entire country with bombings and murders costing the lives of judges, politicians, policemen, journalists, and many more.</p>
<p>The trip down memory lane is not so unusual seeing as how Italy is currently dealing with its demons from the past. In May of last year, the so-called Mafia – State trial began, focusing on the alleged truce the Italian government made with <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sicilian-cosa-nostra-overview">Sicilian Cosa Nostra</a> that ended the violence between them and would improve prison conditions for Mafiosi.</p>
<p><em><strong>Read: Angelo Gallitto wrote an <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-state-trial-exposes-italy-s-corrupt-political-system">extensive piece detailing the trial</a> and its defendants in an article for Gangsters Inc.</strong></em></p>
<p>Palermo prosecutors Antonio Ingroia and Nino Di Matteo have indicted men from both worlds as the trial sees mob bosses Toto Riina and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-bernardo">Bernardo Provenzano</a> named on the same page as high ranking police officials and politicians like former interior minister Nicola Mancino, prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s ally Marcello Dell’Utri, and Carabinieri General Mario Mori.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237034064,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237034064,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237034064?profile=original" width="273" /></a>For Toto Riina (photo right, black coat) this trial is a major nuisance. At least that is the impression he himself gives off in conversations recorded by prison officials in November of 2013. “Di Matteo shall die and all the prosecutors of the negotiation [trial] with him,” Riina was overheard saying, La Repubblica newspaper reported in November 2013. “They're driving me crazy. They have to die, even if it's the last thing I do.”</p>
<p>After learning of the threat against his life, Di Matteo beefed up his security detail.</p>
<p>But Riina was not letting up. During recreation time at the prison in Milan, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/italian-organized-crime">Italy</a>, where he is being held, the old boss of bosses spoke to Sacra Corona Unita boss Alberto Lorusso. “We can't forget this this Di Matteo," Riina was recorded as saying. “Corleone does not forget,” referring to his hometown.</p>
<p>“We must take measures for you people. Ones that will make you dance the samba,” Riina <a href="http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2014/01/20/Mafia-boss-Riina-gloats-slain-judges-plots-murders_9933772.html" target="_blank">said</a> of the trial judges in a wiretapped November 16 chat with Lorusso. “Let's organize this thing. Let's make it real big. Because Di Matteo is not leaving. They just gave him more bodyguards. So if possible, an execution like back in the day in Palermo....this prosecutor and this trial are driving me crazy.”</p>
<p>An execution like back in the day in Palermo. The words sent chills down the spines of many Italians who still vividly remember the horrors of Cosa Nostra’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/photo/albums/cosa-nostra-murder-gallery">campaign of terror</a>. For Riina those days were the good old days, a time he remembers fondly.</p>
<p>Like July 29, 1983, when magistrate <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/photo/1980-murder-of-mattarella?context=album&albumId=6329524%3AAlbum%3A576#!/photo/1983-murder-of-judge-chinnici?context=album&albumId=6329524:Album:576">Rocco Chinnici</a> was killed in a brutal car bomb as Riina watched the explosion. Chinnici laid the groundwork for the Maxi Trial against the Sicilian Mafia in 1986, and was a major Antimafia force. Riina saw the magistrate's body fly into the air and fall to the ground. “I had fun thinking about that for a couple of years at least. I messed him up good,” Riina recalled.</p>
<p>And now he’d like to see a couple of new murders. Though Italian authorities are taking the threats extremely seriously, rightly so, one does wonder how much power Riina still wields among Sicily’s Mafiosi.</p>
<p>After his arrest in 1993, he gradually lost his grip on the organization. When <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-bernardo">Bernardo Provenzano</a> succeeded Riina’s brother-in-law <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-leoluca">Leoluca Bagarella</a> as new boss of bosses Cosa Nostra turned into an entire new direction in which violence was only used when all other measures had failed. Riina was nothing more than a relic of a chaotic past as Provenzano started rebuilding the Mafia and everyone tried to forget about the days under Riina.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237034457,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237034457,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237034457?profile=original" width="251" /></a>Of course, Provenzano was still the one who had always stood by Riina. The two rose to Mafia prominence side by side. But with Provenzano himself behind bars, and in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/italian-prison-too-tough-on-mafia-boss-provenzano">miserable condition</a>, does Riina have the connections and influence to start up a new war against the State?</p>
<p>An indication that he does not have that influence anymore are his thoughts on <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-matteo">Matteo Messina Denaro</a>, the alleged current Cosa Nostra boss of bosses.</p>
<p>“I hate to say this,” Riina <a href="http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2014/01/20/Mafia-boss-Riina-gloats-slain-judges-plots-murders_9933772.html" target="_blank">begins</a>, “but this Mr. Messina Denaro, this fugitive who acts like he's the boss, doesn't give a shit about us. He dabbles in streetlights, but he'd look a whole lot better if he shone a light up his ass!”</p>
<p>Had <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-salvatore">Riina</a> reached out to Denaro to try and arrange a few assassinations only to be told “No.” by the younger boss? It would explain why Riina says Denaro “doesn’t give a shit about us.”</p>
<p>Perhaps the 83-year-old Mafia boss is simply venting his anger. The man who once ruled organized crime in Italy now spends his days locked up with only his old war stories. Once the wolf who attacked from the shadows and instilled fear in his enemies, he has now been reduced to a dog who has lost the ability to bite, but can’t stop barking.</p>
<p><em>Watch video of Riina's prison conversations <a href="http://palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/01/21/news/i_dialoghi_di_riina_col_boss_in_carcere_deve_succedere_un_manicomio-76558763/" target="_blank">here</a>.</em></p>
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Italian Prison Too Tough On Mafia Boss Provenzano?
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/italian-prison-too-tough-on-mafia-boss-provenzano
2013-05-21T11:43:40.000Z
2013-05-21T11:43:40.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/italian-prison-too-tough-on-mafia-boss-provenzano"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237018883,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237018883?profile=original" width="524" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Are Italian authorities too harsh on imprisoned Cosa Nostra boss Bernardo Provenzano? His lawyer and family say yes. In video clips aired by Michele Santoro’s Servizio pubblico, or public affairs program, on television network LA7, viewers see an old and vulnerable Provenzano, who is unable even to use the prison telephone.</p>
<p>Provenzano is credited with bringing the Sicilian Mafia back to power after its power had crumbled under the leadership of Salvatore Riina. He did so while in hiding and spent forty-three years evading authorities and escaping justice until his capture in 2006.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237018673,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237018673,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237018673?profile=original" width="320" /></a>After his arrest in 2006, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-bernardo">Provenzano</a> began serving life under the 41-bis maximum security regime in a prison in the city of Parma in the north of Italy (right). This prison regime was one of the reasons Provenzano’s predecessor <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-salvatore">Salvatore “Toto” Riina</a> decided to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-state-trial-exposes-italy-s-corrupt-political-system">wage war</a> on the Italian state.</p>
<p>The video clips, taken from surveillance cameras inside Parma prison, come a month after a request by Provenzano’s lawyer Rosalba Di Gregorio for his immediate release from the harsh regime on health grounds was denied. According to his family the video proves their father and husband is not treated well and is in need of better care.</p>
<p>Provenzano’s frail health has been a recurring topic. A year ago, the imprisoned mob boss tried to commit suicide by placing a plastic bag over his head. Prison authorities claimed the attempt was part of an elaborate plot of the Mafioso to try and make himself look insane. And in December of last year, he needed surgery to reduce bleeding on his brain caused by a fall.</p>
<p>Check out the video below and see how the most powerful mafia boss in the world is faring behind bars:</p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UYhwA6xnK10?wmode=opaque" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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Mafia-State Trial Exposes Italy’s Corrupt Political System
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/mafia-state-trial-exposes-italy-s-corrupt-political-system
2013-05-10T19:00:00.000Z
2013-05-10T19:00:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-state-trial-exposes-italy-s-corrupt-political-system"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237014086,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237014086?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By Angelo Carmelo Gallitto</p>
<p>No one is untouchable. Of course, others are easier to touch than others. In Italy this is being proven each and every day as Mafiosi and corrupt politicians escape justice by abusing one of the many loopholes the law offers them.</p>
<p>One of the men who managed to escape justice, according to many judges, pentiti, wiretaps, policemen, is Giulio Andreotti, who passed away on May 6th at age 94. Andreotti served as Italy’s prime minister seven times and was tried twice on his alleged connections to the Mafia, he was acquitted both times. But despite the acquittals, he could not shake his shady past.</p>
<p>Another man with a shadowy rise to the top of Italian, and European, business and politics is Silvio Berlusconi. On May 8, the former prime minister lost the first appeal of his tax fraud conviction. He was sentenced to four years in prison on these charges in October of last year. He is also currently on trial on charges that he had sex with an underage prostitute. Just like with Andreotti, there are allegations of collusion with the Mafia with Berlusconi as well.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237014468,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237014468,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237014468?profile=original" /></a>However, proving these, or any, allegations is quite troubling in Italy. And Italians have accepted this truth. While big names like Berlusconi and Andreotti grabbed the headlines this past week, other news was ignored. News that gives insight into the inner workings of a corrupt system.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237014691,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237014691,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237014691?profile=original" width="200" /></a>Last week a Palermo judge destroyed wiretaps of conversations between Italy's president Giorgio Napolitano (right) and ex-interior minister Nicola Mancino (left), in which Mancino allegedly asked about the possibility of getting Italy's chief anti-mafia prosecutor to intervene in his case. Mancino is currently being tried with ten other men for their involvement in talks between the Italian state and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sicilian-cosa-nostra-overview">Cosa Nostra</a> during the Mafia’s deadly bombing campaign in 1992 when it waged war on the state.</p>
<p>The other defendants are informant Massimo Ciancimino, Marcello Dell’Utri, prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's ally and conservative senator, Cologero Mannino, a former minister and MP, jailed mafia boss of bosses <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-salvatore">Salvatore “Toto” Riina</a> and his brother-in-law <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-leoluca">Leoluca Bagarella</a>, Mafiosi Giovanni Brusca and Antonino Cinà, and three members of the Carabinieri.</p>
<p><strong>(Full list and bios of these defendants at the bottom of this page.)</strong></p>
<p>The destroyed wiretaps may shock readers outside of Italy, but for Italians it is business as usual. Corruption involving politicians and several sectors of the public administration is among the most pressing problems of the country. Yet, Italians have grown accustomed to that, and this is perhaps the reason why only a small percentage of the public follows this trial.</p>
<p>Politicians in general, and especially those at the highest levels, are protected and they usually enjoy immunity from prosecution. In the last few years, the government introduced total immunity for the five highest institutional figures (Prime Minister, President of the Republic, President of the Senate, President of the Chamber of Deputies, President of the Constitutional Court). The Berlusconi government even changed some laws in order to decriminalize specific crimes in which Berlusconi himself was involved and a time limit for trials dealing with crimes other than murder. Why prove you are innocent if you can just stall until the time runs out and you are set free?</p>
<p>Dubbed the Mafia-State trial, this is the first trial in Italian history that involves both Mafiosi, politicians, and policemen in a very prominent way. It's the State that is trying itself and its collusion with the mafia. Palermo prosecutors Antonio Ingroia and Nino Di Matteo were brave enough to take on the case and file the indictments against these very powerful figures.</p>
<p>According to them, it all started with the murder of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/photo/1992-murder-of-salvo-lima?context=album&albumId=6329524%3AAlbum%3A576">Salvo Lima</a> in 1992. Lima was the leader of the Sicilian Democratic Christian (DC) political party and right hand of prime minister Giulio Andreotti. His murder signalled the end of the collusion between Cosa Nostra and the DC party that lasted four decades. After his death, some politicians, including Andreotti and Mannino, feared for their own lives and they decided to help the Mafia in order to solve their problems.</p>
<p>The Mafiosi had gone to war because the famous Maxi-trial ended on January 1992 with harsh sentences for many leading members of Cosa Nostra. The trial even proved the existence of the criminal organization called Cosa Nostra for the first time in Italian history. Before that, the existence of Cosa Nostra as a structured organization was just a theoretical postulate, although there was proof of its existence since at least the late 1800s, that proof was periodically ignored.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9236980063,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236980063,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236980063?profile=original" width="300" /></a><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-salvatore">Totò Riina</a> (right) was the supreme leader of Cosa Nostra during this period. From the 1980s up until his arrest in 1993, he had risen to become the boss of the so called “Corleonesi”, a group of Mafiosi that has its origin in the town of Corleone. He would prove to be one of the most violent Mafia bosses in Italian history as he planned and orchestrated the murders of politicians, prosecutors, policemen, and hundreds of Mafiosi.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s, after the verdicts of the Maxi-trial, Riina started a bloody strategy. The strategy began in Sicily with the killing of Anti-Mafia prosecutors and politicians, and later continued on the Italian mainland, with bombs in Milan, Florence and Rome, in order to destabilize the credibility of the State. For these attacks to stop he made several demands, so-called “papello”, to the Italian State, which he sent through intermediaries to the highest levels of the Italian government. Among his demands were the abolition of the 41-bis law (maximum security imprisonment for mafia members), the abolition of the witness protection program, and the abolition of property seizures.</p>
<p>Though the governments has not given in to any of these demands, it is believed a truce was called between powerful politicians and the Sicilian Mafia. This trial aims to seek the truth and facts behind this truce and the negotiations that took place between the State and Cosa Nostra.</p>
<p>With the destroyed wiretaps it seems very few people in high positions are interested in knowing the truth.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><strong>The defendants:</strong></span></p>
<p><strong>Salvatore Riina</strong>: Vicious <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-salvatore">boss of bosses</a> of the Sicilian Mafia who initiated the war on the State. Caught in 1993 he is currently serving multiple life sentences.</p>
<p><strong>Antonino Cinà</strong>: Member of Cosa Nostra and inducted in the San Lorenzo (Palermo) crime family, he was the personal doctor of bosses Riina and Provenzano. According to prosecutors he personally wrote the list of demands (the so-called “papello”) to the State.</p>
<p><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237015263,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237015263,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237015263?profile=original" width="160" /></a>Leoluca Bagarella</strong>: Brother-in-law of Totò Riina, and, for a short period of time, boss of bosses himself. Upon Riina’s arrest in 1993, Cosa Nostra was divided into two large factions: The most violent was run by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-leoluca">Leoluca Bagarella</a> (left) and the other by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-bernardo">Bernardo Provenzano</a>. In 1993, through his friend Tullio Cannella, he formed the political party 'Sicilia Libera', a sort of separatist movement that aimed to liberate Sicily from the rest of Italy, but the plan failed because his arrest in 1995.</p>
<p><strong>Giovanni Brusca</strong>: Son of Bernardo Brusca, boss of San Giuseppe Jato. He was his father's successor and he started cooperating with the government in 1996. He was very close to Totò Riina and an important member of the 'Corleonesi' faction. He was among the turncoats who gave information about the pact between the State and the Mafia at the beginning of the 1990s.</p>
<p><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237015476,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237015476,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237015476?profile=original" width="160" /></a>Marcello Dell’Utri</strong>: Sicilian born from Palermo, he's the former right hand of Silvio Berlusconi. In the 1970s, he moved to Milan where he become a friend of Berlusconi, who was a construction builder at the time. In order to prevent the kidnapping of Berlusconi's sons, Dell’Utri (right) told his friend Vittorio Mangano, a member of Cosa Nostra, to protect Berlusconi and his immediate family. Mangano then moved to Milan officially as a groom and lived near Berlusconi’s home. Dell’Utri also is a former executive of Publitalia, a major publicity's enterprise, and in 1993 he was among the founders of the Forza Italia Party, run by Silvio Berlusconi. In 1999 he was elected to the European Parliamentary and in 2001 he became a Senator of the Republic in the Forza Italia party, later called Party of Freedom (PDL). Prosecutors allege that starting in 1994, Dell’Utri functioned as an intermediary between the Mafia bosses and the newly elected prime minister Berlusconi. Cosa Nostra wanted to reduce the pressure of the government through the new politicians, after the collapse of the old political system, destroyed by inquiries and corruption.</p>
<p><strong>Nicola Mancino</strong>: Born in Montefalcione, he was the head of the Democratic Christian Party in the Senate under the government of De Mita, interior minister from 1992 to 1994, and president of the Senate from 1996 to 2001. In 2012 he was charged in the Stato Mafia trial with perjury. According to prosecutors, in order to stop the trial he called the current President, Giorgio Napolitano, to ask him to put an end to it, but the wiretaps were destroyed at Napolitano’s request.</p>
<p><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237015490,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237015490,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237015490?profile=original" width="160" /></a>Calogero Mannino</strong>: Sicilian born from Sciacca, he was Minister of the Navy, Transport, and Agriculture in the 1980s, with the Democratic Christian party, under the Goria, De Mita, and Andreotti VI governments. In the 1990s, he was charged, and later acquitted, of mafia collusion. He is the only defendant who asked for the 'short trial', which cuts one third of the sentence if pleading guilty. According to the prosecutors, when he felt his life was in danger in the beginning of 1992, because Cosa Nostra wanted him dead, he met with the head of the Special Department of the Carabinieri (ROS), Antonio Subranni, and the Police Chief, Vincenzo Parisi, in order to open a link with Cosa Nostra and to plan a pact to stop the Mafia's violence. But the Mafiosi didn't want to deal with the old Democratic Christian politicians anymore, and so they continued the massacres, killing prosecutors Falcone and Borsellino.</p>
<p><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237015852,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237015852,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237015852?profile=original" width="150" /></a>Massimo Ciancimino</strong> (right): Sicilian born and son of Vito Ciancimino, who was the mayor of Palermo in the 1970s, and friends with the Corleonesi bosses. In 2009, he suddenly started declaring he gave a list of Riina's demands (the so-called 'papello'), which were hidden by his father in a safe, in order to stop the Mafia violence, to the Colonel Mario Mori, who denied receiving anything.</p>
<p><strong>Antonio Subranni</strong>: He was a captain of the Special Department of Carabinieri (ROS) from 1990 to 1993. In 1995 he, together with defendants Mario Mori and Giuseppe De Donno, was charged with abetting the Mafia in order to prevent the arrest of the fugitive boss Bernardo Provenzano.</p>
<p><strong>Mario Mori</strong>: Colonel of the Special Department of Carabinbieri (ROS) and, later, head of the National Secret Services (SISDE). After the killings of the Anti-Mafia prosecutors, he contacted Vito Ciancimino in order to find Riina through him and start talks about a pact. They met Ciancimino for some months, but it's not clear what they exactly said. On 15 January, 1993, he oversaw the arrest of boss Totò Riina. He had previously been a defendant in two other Mafia trials together with Carabinieri captains Antonio Subrannu and Mauro Obinu. In the first trial, he was charged with mafia abetting because, according to prosecutors, he had ordered not to search Riina's home after his arrest. But he was acquitted. In the other trial, he was charged with mafia abetting in 1995 in order to prevent the capture of fugitive Bernardo Provenzano, who became the boss of bosses of Cosa Nostra after the arrest of Riina and Bagarella.</p>
<p><strong>Giuseppe De Donno</strong>: He was a captain of the Special Department of Carabinieri (ROS) and former right hand of the Colonel Mario Mori. He coordinated the arrest of Totò Riina. He is also known as 'Captain Ultimo', the code-name that he used when Riina was nabbed. He is very famous in Italy thanks to many television shows which depict his actions. In the past he was charged with mafia abetting together with Mario Mori, Antonio Subranni, and others, in two important mafia trials. He was accused of preventing the search of Riina’s home in order to avoid finding important documents and helping to prevent the capture of Bernardo Provenzano. The involvement in such trials of a famous anti-mafia hero like him, astonished many people.</p>
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How Not to Shoot the Mafia
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/how-not-to-shoot-the-mafia
2013-01-13T08:06:23.000Z
2013-01-13T08:06:23.000Z
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<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-not-to-shoot-the-mafia"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237003659,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237003659?profile=original" width="400" /></a><strong>Mussomeli, Sicily, once home of the legendary godfather Giuseppe Genco Russo</strong></p>
<p>By Carl Russo</p>
<p>After the spectacular capture of Corleone capomafia Bernardo Provenzano by police in 2006, Sicily braced for a blowback. If history is an indicator, observers warned, a Mafia war will break out. And it will take the form of either an internecine turf battle or a vendetta against the state. Both scenarios assured a high body count.</p>
<p>As an outsider, I could sense the dread of those uncertain days—even as the island was in full spring bloom. Yellow daisies covered the hills that drop into Mussomeli, a postcard village worth its roller-coaster approach. I had come to photograph the tomb of the region’s legendary godfather, Giuseppe Genco Russo (no relation, I assure you). When Mussomeli popped into view, I pulled my car to the side of the road to shoot the panorama.</p>
<p>Up ahead a few hundred meters stood a policeman casually talking to a man seated on a parked scooter. The officer took keen notice of me. As I jumped out of my car, he instinctively jerked into a defensive position, knees bent and ready to spring, his fierce eyes betraying fear. Quickly, I waved my camera before he went for his gun. I don’t know which of us was the more scared. I took the stupid picture and left, vowing to avoid Italian cops forevermore.</p>
<p>Twenty-four hours later I managed to piss off a pair of heavily armed agents of the Finance Guard. This is the paramilitary squad that seizes the assets of mafiosi like Provenzano. My crime? Photographing the Guard’s station house in Corleone. I should have known better.</p>
<p>To frame the shot, I planted myself across the street from the station in the shadow of some trees, then snapped a picture. At that instant, a young uniformed agent stepped outside the building and spotted me.</p>
<p>“O! O!” he shouted. That’s Italian for Hey! He swatted the air furiously with his hand which looked like he was waving goodbye but, in the south, means the opposite.</p>
<p>“Come here!” he demanded. I came out of the shadows waving my camera like the white flag of surrender.</p>
<p>“I’m only a tourist,” I yelled back as I crossed to him cautiously. He had the face of a nervous rookie fronting grit. I pictured a dingy jail cell. Interrogators singing fascist favorites. An international incident.</p>
<p>At that point an older, heavyset officer stepped out of the station, attracted by the commotion. He didn’t look scared or even angry when the younger one informed him I’d taken a picture. I noticed the array of antennae and surveillance cams that covered the razor-wired roof.</p>
<p>“I’ll explain myself,” I said, before they asked. I brought up the image on my camera screen— the only one I’d had the chance to take. “I’m an American tourist.”</p>
<p>“Passport,” the older officer requested in the routine manner of an Alitalia ticket agent. I told him it was in my car and pointed to the rental parked down the hill. He took my camera and sent me to fetch the document as he and the rookie had a hushed discussion. In the car, I quickly stashed my folders stuffed with Mafia notes and news clippings under the seat then grabbed my passport. I returned and handed it over, launching into my explanation. It was the honest truth.</p>
<p>“I was at the anti-Mafia museum [in Corleone’s old town] and they told me that Totò Riina’s former villa is now the Finance Guard’s station house.” Riina was Provenzano’s partner when they ruled the Cosa Nostra and the man most responsible for the assassination of dozens of Carabinieri, cops and judges. The Riina name, I knew, was anathema to my inquisitors. The older officer examined my passport.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237004084,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237004084,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237004084?profile=original" width="400" /></a><strong>Photo: Mafia boss Totò Riina's confiscated villa in Corleone, Sicily</strong></p>
<p>“Russo, eh?” he said. “I have relatives named Russo in Naples.”</p>
<p>“There are a lot of Russos in Naples,” I replied in an attempt at levity. The name is the Smith of the region.</p>
<p>“That’s true,” he said, cracking a smile. Then, abruptly, “Let’s erase this picture. Are there more?”</p>
<p>“No, just the one.” I zapped the image into oblivion, relieved to be erasing my crime but sorry to lose the shot.</p>
<p>“Now look there,” he said, pointing down the hill in the direction of my car. “You see that villa? The pink one.” I saw a large, newly built house painted a garish pink. “That’s the former villa of Totò Riina.”</p>
<p>“Ah. So—,” I hesitated, “would it be possible to photograph it?”<br /> “Sure.”</p>
<p>“Without a problem?”</p>
<p>“Without a problem.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’m very sorry about this, signori,” I said, anxious to leave. The older officer handed back my camera. I trod down the hill and started shooting, noticing that the rookie, now standing alone, kept a watchful eye on me. After several exposures, I got in the car and drove back up the hill. I waved to the young officer. He glared. If you go to Corleone today, you can see the former villa of Totò Riina. But don’t photograph it! The house is the now the new headquarters of the Finance Guard.</p>
<p>San Francisco writer Carl Russo blogs at <a href="http://www.MafiaExposed.com" target="_blank">www.MafiaExposed.com</a>. His new book, <em>The Sicilian Mafia: An Illustrated Travel Guide</em> will be published by Strategic Media Books. Russo currently has a crowd-funding <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-sicilian-mafia-an-illustrated-travel-guide">campaign</a> at <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/MafiaGuide" target="_blank">www.indiegogo.com/MafiaGuide</a>.</p>
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Puparo's History of the Camorra
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/puparos-history-of-the-camorra
2011-06-01T11:30:00.000Z
2011-06-01T11:30:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/puparos-history-of-the-camorra"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236999685,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236999685?profile=original" width="460" /></a>The text and chapters below have been collected and written by Puparo. Any new information is much appreciated and can be left in the comments.<br /> <br /> <span class="font-size-3"><strong>Chapters:</strong></span><br /> </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Early Camorra History</strong> (scroll to bottom)</li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-fueds">Camorra Fueds</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sicilian-cosa-nostra-and-the">Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Napolitan Nuvoletta Clan</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/nuovo-famiglia-extermination">Nuovo Famiglia Extermination of Cutolo Supporters</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/secondigliano-and-scampia">Secondigliano and Scampia</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/di-lauro-clan">Di Lauro Clan</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/giuliano-family">Giuliano Family</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/santa-lucia-boss-michele-zaza">Santa Lucia Boss Michele Zaza</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/casalesi-clan">Casalesi Clan</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/naples-inner-city-war">Naples Inner City War</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/rest-material">Rest Material</a></li>
</ul>
<p><br /> <span class="font-size-3"><strong>Early Camorra History:</strong></span><br /> <br /> Early bosses were the brothers Antonio Spavone and Carmine Spavone and Nicola CAPUANO<br /> 3 January 1945 Carmine Spavone died in a duel with Giovanni Mormone. Carmine Spavone’s brother Antonio Spavone (18) revenged the murder by killing in april 1945 Giovanni Mormone in a restaurant in Marechiaro. Antonio Spavone got 20 years for the murder but came free in 1966.<br /> <br /> Antonio Spavone<br /> In 1971 killed Antonio Spavone the man Gennaro Ferrigno<br /> <br /> Naples disappearancecase Pasqualino Simonetti<br /> In january 1974 goes Maresca’s zoon Pasqualino Simonetti (18) to an appointment with Ammaturo on the buildingside of a viaduct there Ammaturo and Antonio Spavone kill him and have his body disappaer.<br /> <br /> In the 50ties were the big camorra bosses: Antonio Spavone “‘O malommo”, Pasquale Simonetti “Pascalone ‘e Nola” and Vito Nappi “O studente”.<br /> <br /> Charlie “Lucky” Luciano in Naples<br /> In 1950 the exiled american Cosa Nostra boss Charlie "Lucky" Luciano settles in Naples and one of his friends is Mario Siniscalchi the camorra boss of Quindici.<br /> <br /> Charlie “Lucky” Luciano in Naples<br /> 13 November 1950 Luciano gets smacked in the face on the Agnano race track of Naples by Vittorio Nappi. Nappi gets later than his skull cracked by his ex partner Pasquale Simonetti “Pascalone”, Nappi survives.<br /> <br /> Camorra boss Vito Nappi “O studente”<br /> 20 january 1953 disappeared Battipaglia’s socialist mayor Lorenzo Rago. His brother is Fiorentino Rago. Vito Nappi was suspected in the disappearing of the mayor. 11 march 1959 was Francesco Scibilia sentenced to 2 years and 6 months for slander because he had accused Salvatore Lucania (Lucky Luciano), Andrea Ingoglia and Vincenzo Paolicchio of the disappearance of Battipaglia’s socialist mayor Lorenzo Rago.<br /> <br /> Nola camorra boss Pasquale Simonetti “Pascalone e Nola” killed<br /> 16 july 1955 camorra boss Pasquale Simonetti “Pascalone e Nola” gets shot down by Gaetano Orlando “Tanino ’e bastimento” (the son of a former Marano mayor) at the command of his friend Antonio Esposito and he dies several weeks later.<br /> <br /> Nola camorra boss Simonetti revenged by his widow Pupetta Maresca<br /> camorraboss Pasquale Simonetti “Pascalone e Nola” his widow Pupetta Maresca (18 and pregnant) then personally shoots and kills 4 august 1955 Antonio Esposito, she was accompanied by her brother Ciro Maresca and their chauffeur Nicola Vistocco.<br /> <br /> Nola camorra boss Simonetti’s widow Pupetta Maresca arrested<br /> Pupetta Maresca was then 14 october 1955 arrested by police.<br /> <br /> Cutoliano capo Giovanni Pandico<br /> Giovanni Pandico (born 24 june 1944) was initiated 8 december 1963 by Cutolo into the camorra.<br /> <br /> Michele Nappi killed<br /> Giovanni Pandico became friends with Giorgio Della Pietra (who got convicted of the 3 april 1956 murder of Michele Nappi and got 24 years).<br /> <br /> Luigi “the tomb” !!!SORRENTINO!!<br /> US deportee Luigi Sorrentino was in Italy accused of a role in an Italian murdergang. 30 January 1961 dies Luigi “the tomb” Sorrentino (who once escaped the electric chair at Sing Sing prison) of a heart attack in jail in NAPLES (Italy) with his appeal against a life sentence still pending.<br /> <br /> (in 1970 Badalamenti ordina a Salvatore Zara (ZAZA ?? ??), un camorrista napoletano affiliato a Cosa nostra, di uccidere un uomo che sul finire degli anni cinquanta si è reso responsabile di un oltraggio nei confronti del famoso Lucky Luciano, espulso dagli USA e da poco residente a Napoli. Luciano è schiaffeggiato all'ippodromo di Agnano da un esuberante guappo in vena di esibizionismo. L'offesa, seppure con molti anni di ritardo, è lavata e Badalamenti, «fiero» di aver ordinato l'assassinio, si precipita a far sapere negli USA quanto è appena accaduto (51).<br /> <br /> Cutoliano capo Giovanni Pandico<br /> Giovanni Pandico concluded that his own father and mother, Liveri mayor Nicola Nappi and his brother Salvatore Nappi (brothers of the killed Michele Nappi) had conspired and testified to have Giorgio Della Pietra convicted. Giovanni Pandico decides to take revenge and two days after Giovanni Pandico was released from Poggioreale prison (18 june 1970) he went to Liveri’s City Hall to kill mayor Nicola Nappi. In City Hall Pandico murders city super visor Giuseppe Gaetano and clerk Guido Adrianopoli and shot and wounded mayor Nicola Nappi and Pasquale Scola. Giuseppe Pandico got 30 years and became in prison Cutolo’s secretary.<br /> <br /> Cutolo's NCO man Giovanni Pandico<br /> In 1982 Andrea Pandico de brother of Giovanni Pandico gets shot to death during an ambush. Andrea Pandico's widow Filomena Schiavone gets killed in 1983? at his grave by Alfredo Guarneri at the command of Giovanni Pandico because she had a member of Nuova Famiglia as a lover.<br /> <br /> 21 march 1983 Giovanni Pandico became pentito<br /> <br /> Murdercase Giovanni Pandico's mother Francesca Muroni<br /> 31 May 1985 a carbomb kills Giovanni Pandico's mother Francesca Muroni (65) and wounds seriously his sister in law Gisella Gioberti, his brother Nicola Pandico is unhurt.</p>
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La Primula Rossa: The Story of Luciano Leggio (Part 2)
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/la-primula-rossa-the-story-of-1
2011-02-20T11:00:00.000Z
2011-02-20T11:00:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/la-primula-rossa-the-story-of-1"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237001077,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237001077?profile=original" width="440" /></a></p>
<p>By Thom L. Jones for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a><br /> <br /> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/la-primula-rossa-the-story-of">Part One</a> - <strong>Part Two</strong><br /> <br /> Through 1958 tensions rose and it was becoming increasingly obvious that Doctor Navarra and Luciano Leggio were heading for a showdown. Navarra, despite being well educated and a man of the world, did not really understand the mentality of the younger man. It is said in Sicily that a man can be as powerful as God, but if someone has the nerve to shoot him, he will die just like anyone.<br /> <br /> The breaking point was water.<br /> <br /> Sicily is a country that suffers extreme temperatures during the summer months, sometimes up to 100 degrees centigrade or even higher. Water is critical to the survival of the agricultural-driven economy of the western regions. Farmers obtained their water supplies from privately held artesian sources. Navarra and his associates controlled most of these wells. <br /> <br /> In the 1950s the Belice River became part of a project created by the <em>Consorzio di Bonifica dell ’Alto Medio Belice</em>-an association of all landowners along the river- to create a huge dam on Piana della Scala, north-west of Corleone. The confederation covered 16000 hectares of land, three provinces, 20 towns and 35,000 owners. The multi-national General Electric Company had indicated it would be interested in being part of the development should it go ahead. This would supply water to a significant area in western Sicily including the hugely profitable fruit growing regions of the Conca D’Oro to the west of the metropolitan area of the city of Palermo. <br /> <br /> The problems surrounding the development of the proposed dam were not confined only to Corleone, but as Salvatore Lupo pointed out in his book on the Mafia, they stretched all the way along State Highway 118 into the biggest city in Sicily. <br /> <br /> For obvious reasons, Navarra as a major owner of artesian water supplies, was against this project, as were many of the major Mafia figures in Palermo who also controlled water rights across north-west Sicily. Leggio on the other hand, could see significant opportunities through lucrative contracts for his haulage business and in the supply of essential goods and services to the main builders and contractors who would be employed in the project. <br /> <br /> He and his group actively supported Prince Giardinelli who chaired the confederation. He was however, overthrown in the annual election, and his place taken by a lawyer, Alberto Genzardi, who just happened to be the son-in-law of Comporeale Mafia boss, Vanni Sacco, a man close to Navarra and someone with as many vested interest in seeing the project stumble. A third of the elected officials in this election turned out to be Mafiosi, or family relatives. <br /> <br /> The doctor and his allies effectively squashed the chance of Leggio making big money. The two men were continually at loggerheads over this. <br /> <br /> In the early days of their relationship, Navarra had looked upon the small, stunted, lop-sided killer with some kind of affection, referring to him as <em>cosa sua personale</em> (his own personal thing.) Now, when talking to his associates, the doctor was so incensed with Leggio he would refer to him as a ‘jerk’ or a ‘tramp.’<br /> <br /> After 14 years, the partnership was about due for termination. Without realizing it, Michele Navarra had according to a local saying, been waiting like a dead man on holiday, to be murdered. <br /> <br /> Angelo Vintaloro was a loyal member of Navarra’s inner circle. A staunch supporter of the doctor and a good friend, as well as a member of the Corleone <em>cosca</em>. He bought an estate of 120 acres and was one of the farmers who resisted the Belice River project. <br /> <br /> Leggio and his group began to badger Vintaloro-breaking into his sheds and destroying casks of wine, and stealing the wheat that had been harvested through the early summer. He even demanded a ransom from Vintaloro to stop the harassment, and it was this that triggered Navarra’s attempt to end the Leggio problem once and for all.<br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237001652,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237001652,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237001652?profile=original" width="162" /></a>At the doctor’s orders, men under Marco Marino set up a plan to kill Leggio in July as he rode on horseback back to his farm from one of his secret abattoirs, thinking he was going to collect on his extortion plan. <br /> <br /> The group of killers including Marino, Antonio Mangiameli, Giovanni Marino, Antonio Maiuri, Francesco Paolo Streva and others, hiding in a barn, set up an ambush outside Leggio’s place at 7:00 am one morning in July as he and a group of his men, including Francesco Leggio, Leoluca Leggio and Giuseppe Ruffino returned. From visiting one of Leggio’s illegal abbatoirs It was a dismal failure. Because of their fear of Leggio (left), the hidden gunmen opened fire too early. <br /> <br /> Although he was wounded, shot in the hand with buckshot, he escaped through the help of one of his own killers, a goatherd called Salvatore Sottile. Another account of the ambush, according to a report published by the <em>carabinieri</em>, credits Leggio’s uncle setting up the hit, and ensuring no one was seriously hurt, intending to provoke a war between Leggio and Navarra. The double, triple and even quadruple-cross have always been an essential element in the psychology of the Mafia.<br /> <br /> In August 1958, Leggio struck back. <br /> <br /> On Saturday the 2nd Dr. Navarra had an appointment with the Mutual Farmers Fund Co-operative in Lercara Friddi. Famous for almost nothing except perhaps the birthplaces of Frank Sinatra’s paternal grandfather and that of notorious American Mafioso, Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano, it lies fifteen miles south-east of Corelone. He was driven there by a medical associate, Dr. Giovanni Russo. Some sources claim he was a doctor, others, a dentist. They went in the doctor’s car, a black Fiat 1100.<br /> <br /> The meeting ended by lunchtime and the two men were motoring along State Highway 118, back to Corleone, when at approximately 12:30 pm near Porta Imbriaca, a few miles out of Prizzi, an Alfa Romeo 1900 travelling in front of them suddenly stopped. Dr. Russo rammed the back of the other car, staving in the front of his, and damaging the rear of the Alfa.<br /> <br /> At that point, the front car emptied out a group of armed men, and according to some reports, a small, red, covered van appeared behind the Fiat filled with other gunmen. Firing a variety of automatic and semi-automatic weapons the hit-team raked the black car. The windows and windscreen were shattered and both passengers were killed instantly.<br /> <br /> Although dozens, perhaps hundreds of shots were fired, autopsies on the two corpses showed that Russo had been hit eight times, and Navarra seven. Each body contained a variety of different calibre bullets.<br /> <br /> When the police arrived at 3:30pm they found Dr. Russo slumped back in the driving seat and Navarra curled up, lying on his lap. Someone, perhaps Leggio, had given Navarra a final benediction, firing a <em>lupara</em> into his mouth, at close range. <br /> <br /> Numerous fragments of broken, red glass, from the shattered rear lights of the Alfa, were found in the middle of the road and collected as evidence. Forensic examination of the scene, revealing 92 shell casings, confirmed that among other weapons, Breda 6.35mm and Thompson .45 calibre sub-machine guns were used in the shooting.<br /> <br /> Police and carabinieri investigating the killings, believed that the hit team consisted of:<br /> <br /> Luciano Leggio along with Francesco, Vincenzo, Giuseppe and Lelucca Leggio, Giacomo Riina, Giuseppe Ruffino and Bernardo Muratore. Almost certainly along for the ride would have been Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and most likely Leoluca and Calogero Bagarella. This was the core of Leggio’s group that he had been developing over ten years.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237001683,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237001683,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237001683?profile=original" width="481" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Luciano Leggio & Giuseppe Ruffino</strong></p>
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<p>The killing of Navarra could be seen to be simply an act of revenge by Leggio, or a matter of self-preservation. However there was another story that went around, that in fact he had been commissioned to carry out the murder by Don Genco Russo, <em>Zi Peppi Jencu</em>, the omnipotent Mafia boss in Sicily, based in Mussomeli, and a leading figure in the honoured society on the island, who wanted the doctor killed for his own, particular reasons. <br /> <br /> The ageing Don was struggling to come to terms with the new, emerging powerhouses on the island, men like Gaspare Ponente, Paolo Bontà, Gaspare Badalmenti, Salvatore Le Barbera, Pietro Torreta, and the Greco cousins- Salvatore and Michele. Navarra was allying himself with some of these and creating heartburn for the old don.<br /> <br /> The ‘Old Mafia’ of Sicily was nothing more than a system of godfathers and clients exchanging favours, services and other advantages; a Mafia as Salvatore Lupo points out, reduced to the general category of clientelism which would gradually wane as the country modernized. Russo was trying to hold back the new wave with a finger in the proverbial dam.<br /> <br /> He had invited Leggio to his home for dinner, and then pronouncing Navarra‘s name, kissed Leggio on the forehead, saying: ‘I give you the life of the traitor in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.’ <br /> <br /> Whatever triggered the act, it set in place events which would change the face of organized crime in Sicily, forever.<br /> <br /> In the house of Doctor Navarra, in the small square in Corleone, down from the mother church, people came and went: ’<em>u vistu</em>, the sympathy visit, The women cried on each other, the men looked stiff and uncomfortable. Everyone exchanged kisses and spoke in hushed voices. The king was dead, but no one knew why, or who would replace him.<br /> <br /> Calogero Vizzini, the Mafia don of Villaba, considered one of the most influential mob bosses Sicily had produced, could see where this was all leading, even before he died in 1954.<br /> <br /> <em>Morto io, morto la Mafia</em>, he told journalist Indro Montinelli, ‘When I die, the Mafia dies.’<br /> <br /> Leonardo Messina, the pentito, or informer, said:<br /> <br /> ‘<em>The rise of the Corleonesi is a tragedy without end</em>.’<br /> <br /> Leggio and his successors began a campaign of organized terror that would turn Sicily into the Lebanon of Italy. This was however, all in the future.</p>
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<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237002088,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237002088,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237002088?profile=original" width="640" /></a></p>
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<p>He was called to account by senior members of the Sicilian Mafia in Palermo, but somehow escaped the normally extreme sanctions they would have imposed on someone with the temerity to carry out an act of this magnitude without their clearance. He simply told the head of this group, Salvatore Greco, the killing was a personal matter, and walked away. <br /> <br /> According to the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, (<em>Dibattimento</em> Vo 1. P. 37) the important Mafia figure who became an informant in 1984, the underlying cause of the crisis that would come to afflict the Mafia in the years that followed, was the unauthorized killing of Doctor Navarra by Leggio. It created the cycle of murder, intrigue and betrayal which would come to epitomize the Sicilian Mafia in the latter part of the twentieth century.<br /> <br /> It was the start of a dynamic shift in the power politics within the mob that would not only encourage, but in fact make mandatory, a scorched earth policy in their approach to dominating their criminal landscape.<br /> <br /> Nicolo Gentile, the ‘Passepartout’ of Italian organized crime, who never seemingly crossed Leggio’s path, although according to his biography, ‘<em>Vita de Capo Mafia</em>,’ the Corleonesi was probably the only one in twentieth century Mafia history who didn’t, wrote: <br /> <br /> ‘<em>There died in Sicily an honoured society, the Mafia, which had its laws, its principles, an organization that protected the weak and ……its place was taken by people without honour, who robbed without restraint and killed for pay</em>.’<br /> <br /> Following the doctor’s death, Leggio set about systematically destroying Navarra‘s men. They were now led by Antonino Governale with Giovanni Trumbaduri as his counsellor and a group of about twenty or thirty hard-core Navarra supporters and second string <em>picciotti</em>. It became known in the town as <em>la burrasca</em>-the war-between the <em>Liggiani</em> (Leggio’s group) and the <em>Navarriani</em> (Dr. Navarra’s clan).<br /> <br /> Leggio would have gathered his men around and said:<br /> <br /> <em>Org ci rumpemu I corna a tutti</em>-‘Now we are going to break all their heads.’<br /> <br /> And they did.<br /> <br /> In the months that followed, killers led by Riina and Provenzano, murdered dozens of men. They were machine-gunned to death in groups as they stood talking on street corners, kidnapped and slaughtered, their bodies dumped into ditches and wells and blown out of chairs as they sat drinking beer or coffee inside and outside trattorias. Two gunmen, dressed identically in foppish, black velvet suits, actually drew down on each other, as they crossed the main piazza -Garibaldi-in Corleone. In a scene reminiscent of a B grade western movie, they approached each other, shooting simultaneously, and killing each other.<br /> <br /> The dead were everywhere. <br /> <br /> The first to be killed were Marco and Giovanni Marino, and Pietro Mauri and then Carmelo Lo Bue, son of the former capo of the family. The first three went down four weeks after the two doctors, on September 6th during an evening town procession celebrating the Madonna della Catena. <br /> <br /> In a massive shoot-out on the Via Bentivegna, a fire-team consisting of Leggio, Giovanni Ruffio, Bernardo Marino, Calogero Bagarella, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Franco Mancusco, launched a fierce attack. In the wild shoot-out three pedestrians were injured including 30 year old Anna Santacolomba and her two year old daughter, and the three men were killed. Bernardo Provenzano was shot in the head and wounded, next to the perfume shop owned by Mrs. Santacolomba. Staggering into the hospital, his shirt soaked in blood, he claimed he’d simply been walking down the street on his way to the cinema and someone had shot him. The doctors were far too smart to argue, patched him up, and sent him on his way. <br /> <br /> Carmelo Lo Bue went down on October 13th.<br /> <br /> Mauri owned the only petrol station in the town, causing major headaches until his estate could be reconciled. <br /> <br /> Paoli Riina and Vincenzo Cortimiglia, a gunslinger as fast and deadly as Franscesco Streva, and Biaggio and Giovanni Liggio, Vincenzo the brother of Pietro Mauri, and Anonio Governale, and Salvatore Cammarata an endless list of dead. <br /> <br /> A man interviewed by a Palermo reporter commented:<br /> <br /> '<em>In Corleone they shoot people everywhere, wherever they happen to be. There’s hardly a corner in the town where people were not shot to death as a moist rag. They stove in their heads and cut off their hands. They use their lupara to send the message with buckshot, and 1911 Colts to blow men’s heads off. They killed people in the squares and on the steps of churches.</em>’<br /> <br /> There wasn’t a corner of the town that had not experienced the ‘Red Harvest’ as Dashiell Hammet described the inexhaustible blooding of the streets, in his classic 1929 detective novel. <br /> <br /> Bastiano Orlando, Navarra’s closest confident and right-hand man, went to Palermo to try and reconcile the problems with the big guys in the big city, and never came back-a classic <em>bianco lupara</em>-the white death-missing in action. He was not the only one who disappeared. <br /> <br /> Antonino Governale, the doctor’s underboss and Giovanni Trombatura the family consigliore, or advisor, also went missing, disappearing consecutively on April 5th and 10th 1961. They were followed by Bernardo Raia on September 22nd Giovanni Delo on December 21st and Vincenzo Listi on July 21st 1962. All vanished into thin air.<br /> <br /> When the old men dressed in black congregated on the street corners, they would spit onto the road and say:<br /> <br /> <em>S’u mangier, ‘they’ve done him in</em>.’ And they had.<br /> <br /> No one of course, saw anything. ‘Who was killed?’ asked a reporter of a woman in black, weeping as she followed her son’s coffin in a funeral procession. ‘Why?’ she asked, ‘is anyone dead?’ <br /> <br /> The scourging of the Navarra faction went on until September 10th 1963. On that day, in a lane, high up in the hills, leading to the feudo Strasatto estate, Bernardo Provenzano accompanied by Leggio, Calogero Bagarella, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Marino, gunned down Francesco Paolo Streva, along with Biaggio Pomilla and Antonio Piraino. Streva had been Dr. Navarra’s number one killer. A fearsome man who could shoot with great accuracy, using a pistol in each hand. Legend had it he could blow out the ace in a playing card at thirty feet, left or right. An ambidextrous assassin. Perhaps the only one in Sicily. There is a saying in the heartland of the Mafia, ‘those with a capacity to kill are left at peace.’ <br /> <br /> In the end, it only helped him live an extra five years.<br /> <br /> The myth handed down from that killing scene is that the three men had been disabled with wounds to their legs. Provenzano then walked among them, executing each man with a gunshot to the head. The corpse of Biagio Pomilla was found kneeling, as though begging for his life.<br /> <br /> More folklore has it that following this event, Leggio would say of Provenzano:<br /> <br /> ‘<em>Brains of a chicken, but shoots like an angel!</em>’<br /> <br /> There had been an earlier attempt to remove Streva.<br /> <br /> On May 9th Leggio and two of his top shooters-Giovanni Ruffino and Calogero Bagarella, along with the Provenzano brothers-ambushed Streva and some of his men at dawn, as they walked along the narrow, rubbish-strewn Via Scorsone, a street where members of the Riina and Bagarella families lived, in squalid houses, which often stabled animals such as goats, pigs, sheep and donkeys on the ground floor beneath the cramped living quarters. Although there were pistol and shotguns fired at close quarters, non one was killed or injured on this occasion except some plastered walls and hens. The local people were used to gunshots. Here, in the San Giovanni district of Corleone, there had been many killings over the years.<br /> <br /> In the carabinieri file392/4 and their report 3508 to the Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry on the Mafia in Sicily/ Document XXIII Volume 2-6th Legislature, is a list of the parents and relatives of the dead who accused Provenzano of the crime against Streva and his associates. It ends: ‘Provenzano-wanted for murder, but untraceable.’<br /> <br /> Streva was the last major player left in the Navarriani. Whatever resistance was left, crumbled and was blown away by a wind of change that had turned into a tsunami of fear and dismay. From 1958 until 1963 there were 153 murders in and around Corleone. On a per capita basis that would be equal to 100,000 in New York. <br /> <br /> In America, the Mafia, when they spoke of Corleone, referred to it as ‘Tombstone’ as though it was like a town out of the Wild West, except of course, it was ten times more deadly there than life had ever been in the days of the American frontier.<br /> <br /> In October 1958, the Communist newspaper, <em>L’Ora</em>, ran a full page exposé on the Mafia war in Corleone. A few days later on Sunday, 19th, at 4.52:am a huge explosion rocked the central Palermo district. Four pounds of TNT had been planted in the basement of the newspaper. A day after, a threatening letter arrived warning the paper off any further reporting in Corleone. It responded by carrying out even more investigations, digging deeper into the confusing situation that had developed in the small rural town, deep in the Sicilian countryside.<br /> <br /> In the years to come, the generic noun Corleonesi, would come to describe men of honour who came not only from the town itself, but from an amalgamation of fifteen or so clans across the island who would group together, working as a team to unhinge the social and political stability of not only Sicily, but at times, the mainland itself. They were cunning, diabolic, clever and ferocious. A rare combination.<br /> <br /> They became a secret and deadly parasite within the body of Cosa Nostra.<br /> <br /> Leggio was now the undisputed king of the melancholy little town of Corleone, leading a pack of killers and hoodlums who would become infamous across Sicily as they became synonymous with savagery and butchery on a scale never ever thought of, even among the most hardened Mafiosi. They had the power of life or death over almost anyone in Sicily, and they exercised it without compunction.<br /> <br /> Between 1944-1962, there were 2000 known homicides or disappearances, recorded in the four provinces of western Sicily controlled by the Mafia, according to Rosario Poma in his book ‘<em>La Mafia: Nonni e nipoti</em>.’ It was a killing field without parallel in the civilized world.<br /> <br /> Dead men were cremated on street corners. Bodies were dumped on the doorsteps of police stations like sacks of forgotten garbage. Killers roamed the streets, shooting their victims with an air of nonchalance that was breathtaking in its insolence.<br /> <br /> In hiding from the law, following his takeover of Navarra’s operation, Leggio spent a lot of his time in Palermo, where he sometimes moved around disguised as a police officer, a monk or a travelling tourist, be-decked in cameras. He visited medical clinics for treatment for his bone problems, shopped at the best salons, and dined in the most exquisite restaurants, where he would always order Ferrarelle bottled water with his food, his favourite meal being steak and white rice. <br /> <br /> Dressed to kill, in linen suits, Panama hats, pinky ring, Rolex watch and gold cufflinks, he strutted through the city. He never carried money, but had someone on hand to pay the bills. He would often socialise at the famous Birreria Italia café, on the via Cavour, near the Teatro Massimo, a restaurant that had been a favourite haunt of another infamous Mafia don, Vito Cascioferro, thirty years before. <br /> <br /> He set up a business as a shipping agent in Piana dei Colli, to the west of Palermo, outside the city limits, and had Giacomo Riina manage it, with help from his young nephew, Salvatore.<br /> <br /> Like the Scarlet Pimpernel of literary legend, Leggio moved freely from place to place, as the police searched for him everywhere. At times, he lived with Lia, the former fiancé of Rizzotto, the man he had murdered ten years before, which would seem to have been an unusual relationship considering its pedigree. She had vowed to eat the heart of the killer when her man was murdered, but when the police came and arrested Leggio in 1964, in a house only a short walk from the Corleone police headquarters, she wept and combed his hair.<br /> <br /> He enjoyed hobnobbing with rich and influential people, wearing the most expensive clothes and always smoking, in public at least, eight-inch cigars. He loved people to call him Il Professore, the professor, even though he had left school at the age of nine. Away from public view, he puffed away all day on America Camel cigarettes. In an article in the August 3rd 1986 edition of the <em>Giornale di Sicilia</em>, he claimed, ‘My life as an outlaw was spent in the salons of Palermo.’ <br /> <br /> Along with his other nick-names, perhaps he could also have been called <em>The Deadly Dilettante</em>! <br /> <br /> For women in the Palermo society, there was a special thrill in being in the presence of someone like Leggio. Highly placed men had their own special reasons for establishing good relations with the little, ugly misfit from the boondocks. Such men, claimed a high-ranking Palermo police officer, were lured into Leggio’s web, ‘held together with the spittle of gold and blood.’<br /> <br /> If nothing else, Luciano Leggio was without doubt, the outstanding Mafioso of the post war period in terms of his media profile. No one grabbed the headlines quite like La Primula Rossa.<br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237002474,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237002474,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237002474?profile=original" /></a>But he was also creating money, and lots of it. He bought himself a luxurious villa, and tracts of real estate. He got into bed in the construction industry with Salvo Lima, the mayor of Palermo and his public works assessor, Vito Ciancimino (right), a one-time barber from Corleone, (he had worked as a youth in his father’ business,) and the only man who every punched Leggio in the face, and lived to remember it. <br /> <br /> These two men helped create ‘the Sack of Palermo’ issuing over 4000 building permits in just four years, from 1959 to 1963, to only four men- a labourer, a charcoal vendor, a bricklayer and a site guard- all acting as front men for various Mafia dons in Palermo, who then used these as pass cards to literally generate fortunes beyond comprehension. Land was bought at sixty lire a square metre and sold a few weeks later for thirty thousand lire a square metre. Mafia bosses found they could make more money in a day working this scam than a year of smuggling cigarettes.<br /> <br /> Tommaso Buscetta called Ciancimino ‘a pushy Corleonese embezzler.’<br /> <br /> There is a Sicilian proverb:<br /> <br /> <em>La font della richezza è il pubblico denoro</em><br /> <br /> ‘The fount of riches is public money,’ and the mob, including Leggio, generated huge revenues from the purse of the city, funded in turn from Rome, as money poured into Palermo as part of the Italian state’s development aid fund for the <em>mezzogiorno</em>, the poor southern regions of Italy, into which was pumped billions of lire. Giovanni Gioia who became secretary of the Christian Democrat party in Palermo in 1954, acted as the Mafia link into Rome, helping coordinate the flow of money until his death in 1981.<br /> <br /> They knocked down historic old villas, bulldozed entire streets of history, and parks that had been part of the city’s heritage for generations, so that they could erect in the empty spaces, hundreds of concrete monstrosities to house the people pouring into the city from rural Sicily, wanting to be part of the great, new wave of government funded economic expansion. During the ‘Sack of Palermo’ the city had the greatest consumption per capita of concrete in the world. As a bye-product, the ghettos created would become the new breeding ground for the piciotti, the young street thugs the Mafia needs for fresh blood. What the organization referred to as avvicinati-hanger-ons. Youths who would be watched and managed for up to twenty years by a man of honour in the neighbourhood cosca. <br /> <br /> Someone who was part of the Mafia and who knew Dr. Navarra, Leggio, Giuseppe Di Cristina and Stefano Bontade, reminisced:<br /> <br /> ‘<em>Then there came a time when the word millions was heard on the lips of people who five years before were counting the change from a thousand lira note (US$10 approximately). Everybody was talking loudly and nobody was listening. Palermo was like that for ten years or so. All drunk in millions. But the side effects…… it all came at a cost.</em>’<br /> <br /> Leonardo Sciascia had the key to the wealth and the frenzy generated by the Mafia:<br /> <br /> ‘<em>The more wealth grows……the more our own death grows and is amplified. The rhythm of accumulation is a rhythm of death</em>.’<br /> <br /> When Leggio moved to Palermo from Corleone, a young carabinieri officer stationed there, sent a report to his opposite number in the city:<br /> <br /> ‘<em>Luciano Leggio is naturally violent in character and criminal by constitution and tendency, habitually guilty of homicide, theft and extortion, odious to the people of Corleone for the mourning and evil he has spread, held in horror for the cold determination and ferocity of his character, author of countless grave acts and bloodshed, which none of his victims dares to denounce for fear of incurring his violence.</em><br /> <br /> <em> He has now seen fit to live in Palermo, seemingly extraneous to the Mafiosi there…..Actually he is extremely active among Palermo’s chiefs…..bound not so much by his friendship with them, as his ascendancy over them</em>.’<br /> <br /> The young officer was Mario Malausa, the same man who led the squad of six one morning in June 1963 to investigate a suspicious Alfa Romeo Giulietta parked in a country lane in the hills above Ciaculli, near Palermo. A bomb in the car exploded, killing all seven men. Three days later, 100,000 people followed the empty coffins to the funeral held at Palermo Cathedral. All that was found of the seven men were a finger, a ring and a beret, along with a shoe, and a belt and a pistol holster. <br /> <br /> Law enforcement believed the bomb was part of the strategy of warring factions in an inter-family dispute involving factions of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Mafia in the Palermo province. It may, however, have been simply a convoluted way to remove a certain police officer who was becoming more than just an irritant, but someone very dangerous to organized crime on the island.<br /> <br /> Leggio carried on diversifying and expanding his business, but he was too big for just Corleone; he was probably in retrospect, too big for even Sicily. He needed a greater stage upon which to act, and started to spread his operation outside the island, linking into the Calabria ‘Ndrangheta and Camorra crime families of Naples, and also establishing criminal links in Rome and Milan.<br /> <br /> The Mafia operated in relative harmony through the late fifties and early sixties, apart from the brief period of savage warfare in Palermo that came to be known as ‘The Produce Market War’ dividing up the growing pie of smuggling cigarettes, cattle rustling, construction, drug trafficking, industry extortion and kidnapping, until it imploded under what became referred to as ‘The First Mafia War,’ culminating in the deaths of the seven police officers, killed in the car bomb explosion at Ciaculli. <br /> <br /> This act of terrorism resulted in the first real war against the Mafia since the days of Mori, and the island was flooded with over 10,000 police. The head of the carabinieri, General Aldo De Marco, ordered his men to arrest anyone with a criminal record and if needed, torture them to see what could be discovered about the bombing. He also indicated that his men, if necessary could shoot suspects on sight. Within a few months, between July and December 1963, 2,000 Mafiosi had been arrested and imprisoned.<br /> <br /> Between 1963 and 1970 every leading figure in the Mafia on the island found themselves either in prison, in compulsory exile or on the ‘most-wanted’ list.<br /> <br /> The Ciaculli bombing came close to doing what Mori had almost done forty years before-destroy the Mafia. Cosa Nostra ceased to exist in the Palermo metropolitan area; it was out of business according to Antonino Calderone.<br /> <br /> At a special meeting of the cupola, it was decided that each boss not yet arrested, would lie low or flee the country, and they did. To Brazil, Venezuela, Canada, Mexico and the United States. These became branch offices of Mafia Inc. One of the men who fled the country was Tommaso Buscetta, who one day, would come back, and turn the Sicilian Mafia on its head. <br /> <br /> On the evening of May 14th 1964, Leggio was himself arrested at 9:30 pm in the home of 45 year old Leoluchina Sorisi, in Cortile Mangiameli at Via Orsini 6, in Corleone. She lived just down the road from the state police barracks. <br /> <br /> ‘He was captured,’ as Giuseppe Fava recounts, in his book <em>I Sicilian</em>, ‘at the very house where by any human logic he should never have been able to find shelter.’<br /> <br /> When the law enforcement officials broke into the property, they found Leggio in bed. Next to him were two books: Tolstoy’s <em>War and Peace</em>, and Kant’s <em>Critique of Pure Reason</em>. He was surrounded by two suitcases, medicine bottles, and a duffel bag filled with drugs, pills and syringes. There was a hand-gun, in the draw of the bed-side table, a Smith & Wesson .38, fully loaded.<br /> <br /> There has always been confusion over just what their relationship was. Some sources claim that Leggio killed Rizzotto not as a means to a political end for Dr. Navarra, but simply because he lusted after Rizzotto’s fiance-Leoluchina. In addition, there was a rumour that circulated that he killed Rizzotto in order to satisfy the honour of the Sorisi family who believed that Placido was stringing their daughter along and avoiding marriage with her.<br /> <br /> Rizzotto’s parents however, claimed that their son was never involved with her.<br /> <br /> Sorisi and her sister Maria Grazia, maintained that they had sheltered Leggio out of fear-he had threatened them with injury or worse, unless they gave him sanctuary. <br /> <br /> Renate Seibert wondered if Leoluchina was actually setting up Leggio to kill him and was simply stopped before she could carry out her plan of revenge, or that even some dialectic of passion had developed between the two.<br /> <br /> Searching the house, the police found in the basement, a stash of illegal arms, including Breda and Thompson sub-machine guns which were believed to have been used in the killing of Dr. Navarra six years earlier.<br /> <br /> The lead cop into the house that night was Angelo Mangano, the Commissioner of Public Safety in the town. Posted to Corleone by the chief of police in Palermo, Angelo Vicari, to track down and arrest Leggio, he had apparently received a tip-off from two of his informants, men who had been supplying him information since he had arrived in Corleone on November 15th 1963 to take up his position These men, Carlo and Alberto Ancora would eventually find fate has a way of catching up. They were murdered in May 1973.<br /> <br /> The carabinieri were also in on the arrest, lead by Colonel Ignazio Milillo, who headed a special unit set up to track down Leggio. His <em>own</em> intelligence sources had confirmed that Leggio had arrived in Corleone on November 2nd 1963. There has been bitter dispute and controversy between these two law enforcement groups over the years as to which of them actually arrested Leggio. The photograph taken that night however, clearly shows Mangano leading Leggio who is supported by Biagio Melita, a sergeant in the state police, with no carabinieri in sight. <br /> <br /> The <em>mammasantissima</em> of the Mafia, bleary-eyed and struggling to stand up, as though just awakened from a bad dream that he can’t escape from, staggers from the house (photo below), assisted by the men he hated most-the police.<br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237002697,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237002697,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237002697?profile=original" width="342" /></a>He had been on the run from the law for sixteen years.<br /> <br /> Many years later Leggio confirmed that he was indeed arrested by the caribinieri, and not by the state police, who took centre stage for the photographers, who had in fact been tipped-off by Mangano about the upcoming arrest!<br /> <br /> Colonel Ignazio Milillo was made an ‘honorary citizen’ by the town of Corleone for his part in capturing Leggio. In addition, he was awarded by the Italian Head of State the Knight Officer of Merit of the Italian Republic, and given a financial reward by the Minister of the Interior for his efforts in arresting Sicily’s most wanted man. <br /> <br /> Ten years down the track, this arrest would come back to haunt Angelo Mangano. <br /> <br /> Leggio had been spotted in Corleone by state police units, driving in a car, on at least two occasions: once with the children of Giuseppe Ruffino, and again with Leoluchina Sorisi, dressed in her nurse’s uniform, returning to the town at dawn. On neither occasion had the police stopped the cars.<br /> <br /> There has always been controversy and innuendo regarding the relationship between Leggio and Mangano. The state police for example knew that Ludovico Benigno, the nephew of Sorisi, had purchased an orthopaedic bed, bed-side table and television set in November, just two days after Leggio had returned to the town. It was claimed they were for an invalid, a family member, returning from America.<br /> <br /> Beningo ironically, was one of the men who had met with Placido Rizzottto at the town square that night in March, 1948.<br /> <br /> There has been speculation over the years that Angelo Mangano had been sent to Corleone not to capture Leggio, but to protect him or at least delay his arrest, in order to protect the interest of people such as Vito Ciancimino, Salvo Lima and Giovanni Gioai. Powerful men with powerful contacts at local and state level. Leggio seemingly had the key to a Pandora Box that was not to be opened.<br /> <br /> Mangano received his orders from the head of the State police, Angelo Vicari, whose name comes up again as the former prefect of Palermo, in the enigmatic and confusing conundrum surrounding the bandit Salvatore Giuliano, and his violent death. <br /> <br /> With the arrest and imprisonment of Leggio, Sicily for the second time in almost a hundred years was close to breaking its ties with the Mafia and asserting state control over law and order. The Mafia’s men of honour were in disarray. Half had fled the country following the massacre of Ciaculli, and were watching to see what would happen to the other half if justice was to prevail. It wasn‘t of course. No one really knew the true nature of the Mafia and the court system was in no way able to determine this. <br /> <br /> Taken into custody and transferred at 2 am on May 15th into the infamous Ucciardone Prison in Palermo, Leggio finally came to court in December 1967 in what became known as ‘The Trial of 114,’ the first real attempt since the 1897 Palermo trials, to try to convict the Mafia as a corporate body. <br /> <br /> The accused included Leggio, Tommaso Buscetta, Gateano Badalamenti (notorious for his subsequent connection in the American Pizza Trial of the 1980s), and Salvatore Catalano, a made man, who would one day become the first Sicilian ever, to help run an American Mafia clan, when he took over partial control of the Bonanno crime family of New York, and who was also indicted in the Pizza Trial. The defendants were a whose-who of the Sicilian Mafia. The hearing lasted over a year and was held in Catanzaro in Calabria in southern Italy, as Sicily was not considered safe enough for the prosecution or its witnesses. All, but ten of the accused, including Leggio were acquitted.<br /> <br /> But presiding Judge Terranova, who had signed the order for the trial in May 1965, and a man who had spent his life fighting the Mafia, was determined to get Leggio, and had him re-arrested to face trial in nine other murders he had been implicated in. The Mafia boss hated the judge with such venom, he would literally foam at the mouth when he spoke about him. <br /> <br /> The second trial opened in February 1969 in Bari, on the Adriatic Coast. Months later as it drew to a close, the judge received an anonymous letter, warning him and the members of the jury:<br /> <br /> <em> To the President of the Court of Assise, and members of the jury: You have not understood, or rather you do not want to understand, what Corleone means. You are judging honest gentlemen of Corleone, denounced through caprice by the Carabinieri and Police. We simply want to warn you that if a single gentleman from Corleone is convicted, you will be blown sky high, you will be wiped out, you will be butchered and so will every member of your family. We think we have been clear. Nobody must be convicted. Otherwise, you will be condemned to death-you and your families. A Sicilian proverb says: ‘A man warned is a man saved.’ It‘s up to you. Be wise……</em> <br /> <br /> Although found guilty of theft, Leggio and almost his entire cosca of 64 men, who had also been indicted, were found not guilty of the main charges. The illustrious judge spent the next seven years working for the Italian judiciary in Rome. He was transferred to Palermo in September 1979, and two days after arriving, as he left his apartment to go to work, he was assassinated by two men wielding Kalashnikov rifles, who caught him helpless in the driving seat of his car. His bodyguard, Lenin Mancusco, died by his side.<br /> <br /> The killers were Giuseppe Madonia and Leloluca Bagarella, assisted by Giacomo Gambino and Vincenzo Pucio, according to pentiti Francesco Di Carlo and Gaspare Mutolo. The killing of the judge had been rubber-stamped by the Mafia commission at a meeting held at the Faverella estate in Ciaculli of Michele Greco, in June 1979.<br /> <br /> Giuseppe di Cristina the boss of Reisi who became an informant, had told his carabinieri handler of Liggio’s plan to assassinate the judge almost two years before the murders took place.<br /> <br /> The judge’s removal was conceived on instructions from Leggio, even though by this time he had been committed to prison for life. His memory was long, and his power in controlling the Mafia, even from a prison cell, was formidable. Terranova was killed because he was convinced of the importance of Leggio in the scheme of things in the Mafia hierarchy, and how his control of the Corleonesi would impact on the emerging dynamics of criminal power. He had also insulted Leggio when he was questioning him before the trials in Catanzano.<br /> <br /> During an interrogation preparing for the trial, Leggio adopting his usual insulting manner, refused to answer questions. When in response to one of them, Leggio replied that he could not even recall his own name or his parents, Terranova instructed the clerk: ‘<em>Write that Leggio does not know whose son he is</em>.’ <br /> <br /> Leggio was infuriated with the implication that he was a bastard. According to the judge, he actually foamed at the mouth and would have killed Terranova on the spot. Leggio as always, never forgot, and ten years later, extracted his revenge. <br /> <br /> It was Terranova’s wife, Giovanna Giaconia, who in an interview after her husband’s murder, referred to Leggio as ‘<em>The Little King of Corleone</em>.’ She also told Rosario Costa whose husband Vito Schifani was killed along with Judge Falcone in the Capaci massacre, ‘Remember, this is a state that has signed a blank cheque with the Mafia, and that this was when the war broke out for the takeover and annihilation of the magistrate’s power of jurisdiction.’<br /> <br /> In October 1997, Giovanna brought a civil case against the instigators of her husband’s death, which including the two surviving assassins, Madonia and Bagarella, and a group of mob luminaries including Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. <br /> <br /> After Leggio was finally released from prison on bail in 1969, he was supposed to be re-arrested by the authorities in Palermo, but instead, he moved into a private hospital in Reggio Calabria for treatment on his bladder. He then simply walked out, avoiding his guards, and did his usual disappearing act, driving off in a black Mercedes Benz provided by his old friend Frank Coppola. <br /> <br /> Accompanied by Salvatore Riina, Leggio went to Bitonto in Puglia, then on June 18th he admitted himself into the Hospital of Santissima Annunziato in Taranto and at the end of September he was on his travels again, this time heading for Rome, checking into the Villa Margherita nursing home where he had treatment for his continuing bladder infection. And then, when he was ready, he headed off back to Sicily.<br /> <br /> He became part of the reformed commission or ‘cupola’ which had been disbanded in 1964, along with Gaetano Badalamanti and Stefano Bontate, two bosses of Palermo clans. (The Mafia in Sicily in fact never referred to the commission as ‘cupola’ this was a media word. They talked about ‘The Region.’) One of the first things on his agenda was to arrange the elimination of another judiciary figure, the first in a long and sorry list that would stretch over the next twenty years.<br /> <br /> The victim this time was the chief public prosecutor of Palermo, Judge Pietro Scaglione, a man with a long and controversial connection into organized crime. <br /> <br /> He had been the examining magistrate who had investigated the mysterious death of the infamous Sicilian bandit, Salvatore Giuliano, shot dead in July 1950, perhaps by Leggio, although the killer has never been identified for certain. <br /> <br /> Gianfranco Milillo, the carabinieri officer who hunted Leggio in the 1960s, in one of his reports, confirmed that in his opinion, the killer of Giuliano was indeed Leggio.<br /> <br /> He had been commissioned to do the hit by Dr. Navarra who had been himself instructed into the conspiracy by the prefect of Palermo, Angelo Vicari, who had been appointed to his high public post at the age of only 40 in August 1948, and was a close friend of the Barone Valenti of Palermo, who had significant estates around Corleone. One of his top managers was Antonino Streva, a lieutenant of Leggio’s. The complex linking of these people in connection with the death of the bandit was referred to in pages 1009-1012 of the parliamentary anti-Mafia Commission of 1963.<br /> <br /> Hunted for months by another carabinieri police officer, Colonel Ugo Luca, who it is reported did everything possible to capture the bandit alive, he was shot dead in mysterious circumstances. Many people in high places wanted the bandit erased so that he could not reveal his involvement with highly-placed political figures and compromise state security, especially in connection with the massacre at Portella delle Ginestre on May 1st 1947, when 8 peasants were killed and 33 wounded by Giuliano’s gang.<br /> <br /> Giuliano had been protected throughout his career by the Mafia families of Monreale under Ignazio and Nino Miceli, Carlo and Vincenzo Rimi of Alcamo, Libero Manna head of the family in Castellammare, and Salvatore Celeste of San Cipirello.<br /> <br /> Sergeant Giovanni Lo Bianco of the carabinieri had closely tracked the structure of Giuliano’s protection shield, and reported on this in September 1947.<br /> <br /> In Jan 1950, Santo Fleres the powerful boss of Partinico was murdered, possibly by Giuliano’s gang, and Frank Coppola took over the leadership of the family. It was the transplanted American mobster who probably masterminded the downfall of Giuliano<br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237002880,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237002880,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237002880?profile=original" width="176" /></a>Scaglione (right) had also been reprimanded for ‘sitting’ on a file from the carabinieri in the 1960s that implicated the same Frank Coppola, a well-known Mafioso and major drug dealer, who had been banished from America back to Italy, and three repatriated members of the New York Bonanno family who had been involved in drug trafficking and eventually acquitted after indictment and trial.<br /> <br /> Diminutive Francesco Paolo “Frank’ Coppola (he stood a mere 5’2”) was deported from the United States as an illegal alien, in September 1948. He had fled Sicily during the Mori cleansing, claiming he had been tipped off by Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, the Sicilian born former prime minister of Italy, who in 1925 he had stated in the Italian senate that he was proud of being Mafioso, because that word meant honourable, noble and generous. <br /> <br /> Coppola in his travels across America, had linked into a number of different mob families in New York, Detroit, Kansas City and Los Angeles.<br /> <br /> At one time, calling himself Frank Lomonde, along with Anthony ‘Tony the Pip’ Lopiparo, he had, according to some sources, managed the mob in St Louis. He numbered Charles Luciano, Carlos Marcello and ‘Dandy’ Phil Kastel amongst his many criminal associates. The FBN considered him a major narcotic trafficker, and he was also believed to be involved in prostitution rackets, gambling and hijacking. He was known in the American mob as Tre Dita ‘Three Fingers,’ having lost the ring and little fingers of his left hand in an accident when he was eighteen. He fought his deportation from America on the grounds that he was innocent of all charges, but Senator John McClellan disagreed, commenting:<br /> <br /> ‘<em>Even though he has only three fingers, they are involved in everything</em>.’ <br /> <br /> The day before his death, judge Scaglione had confided to a respected journalist, Mario Francese, that he had papers of a very compromising nature. He told the reporter, ‘You have no idea how difficult a judge’s job is in this city.’ It was never disclosed just what was in these documents and correspondence. Francese was himself murdered by the Mafia in 1979.<br /> <br /> On May 5th 1971, Scaglione made his daily visit to his wife’s graveside in the Capuchin, a Palermo cemetery, on the Via Cipressi, located in the west of the city in the Calatafimi District. <br /> <br /> Concettina Abatae had died in 1965, and the judge tried to maintain a daily vigil at her graveside. This morning as he left, he and his driver, Antonino Lo Russo, were gunned down and killed. Suffering from the effect of Pott’s disease, Leggio was unable to walk, but some sources claim, had his faithful bulldog, Toto Riina, drive him to the graveyard area, shooting the judge and his chauffeur, from his seat in the car. He was good like that Leggio, when it came to murder, up close and personal.<br /> <br /> The authorities tried for twenty years to pin the murder on someone. Scaglione was the first judge to be murdered in post war Italy. The first of the cadaveri eccellenti <br /> ‘excellent cadavers’ or ‘illustrious corpses’ a term coined by famous Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia, and who the press came to call the police, judges, parliamentarians, journalists and members of the state assassinated in the years to come as the Corleonesi enforced their will on the Mafia and the country. <br /> <br /> The pentito Leonardo Messina, described how they organised their rise to power: <br /> <br /> ‘<em>They took power by slowly, slowly killing everyone. We were kind of infatuated with them because we thought that getting rid of the old bosses we would become the new bosses. Some people killed their brother, others their cousin and so on because they thought they would take their places. Instead, slowly, they gained control of the whole system. First they used us to get rid of the old bosses, then they got rid of all those who raised their heads, like Giuseppe Greco 'the Shoe', Mario Prestifilippo and Vincenzo Puccio. All that’s left are men without character, who are their puppets.</em>’<br /> <br /> By January 1991, the courts in Palermo agreed to close the book on the murder of Judge Scaglione. There were many suspects: Gaetano Findanatzi, the boss of the Resuttana clan, Pietro D’Accardio, Geraldo Alberti, the Mafia’s major drug dealer, Francesco Russo, Salvatore Riina, Giuseppe Calo and of course Luciano Leggio.<br /> <br /> There are indications that the killing went down at approximately 10:45 am, as the judged was reported to have left the cemetery after 10:30 am and the first call into the police, reporting the shooting, was logged on at 10:55am. This version states that a white car cut off Lo Russo in the narrow road. Just past the Via Alcamo, the bodyguard pulled his car over to the right, to avoid a collision, into the gated entrance of a building at number 242. <br /> <br /> The driver of the other car may have been in fact Pino Greco, (with Riina as a back-up in the rear seat,) who along with Leolucca Bagarella, was almost certainly the most deadly and prolific killer employed by the Mafia in Sicily. Next to him, was a soldier in the Porta Nuova clan along for the ride, as the shooting was going down in their domain. Pippo Calo, the boss of the family, was a close friend of Leggio’s who was allegedly in the back seat. The two dead men were found to have been killed by 9mm and .38 calibre bullets, indicating perhaps two shooters. The 65 year old prosecutor and his 41 year old driver, who was a sergeant in the prison police, had no chance, jammed into their small car and suddenly surrounded by professional killers. <br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237003255,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237003255,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237003255?profile=original" width="331" /></a>Eugenio and Francesca Tripoli sitting in their apartment, heard the shots, but thought the noise was children playing in the street. There was only one witness to the carnage, an eleven year old boy. When first interviewed, he claimed the car with the killers in it was a white Fiat 850, but then later said it was black. Investigators found the windows of the judge’s car blown out, and nine shell casings on the ground.<br /> <br /> There is a plaque, weathered by age, on the rough, brick wall of the cemetery, opposite the site of the assassination, placed by the Councillors of Palermo in honour of the judge and his bodyguard. It was to be the first of many such dedications that would start appearing all over the city in the years to come, creating an unfinished jigsaw commemorating the honoured dead slain by the Mafia: a pedagogical directory of the condemned and executed, linking up the streets of the city to the victims, so that in years to come, spectators and tourists could track their way around Palermo, body by body, in a city that would soon be oozing corpses, following a route marked by the victims whose blood had soaked into the asphalt and cobbles in such volume, it sometimes stained the roadways for days afterwards.<br /> <br /> Antonino Lo Russo (below) was the first member of the penal police to have been murdered by the Mafia.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237003656,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237003656,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237003656?profile=original" width="305" /></a><br /> Tommaso Buscetta and Salvatore Contoro, two of the more infamous, and certainly in terms of disclosures, the most enlightening pentiti, stated categorically that Leggio killed the judge. If there is little doubt who actually killed him, the reason or reasons why, are a little more vague.<br /> <br /> Scaglione had a long career in the judiciary and was involved with many cases involving the mob. These included investigating:<br /> <br /> The killing of notorious bandit Salvatore Guiliano in July 1950.<br /> The mysterious death by poison four years later in Ucciardone Prison of Gaspare Pisciotta, the cousin and main lieutenant of Guiliano.<br /> The murder of trade unionist Salvatore Carnevale.<br /> The Portella della Ginestra, Ciaculli and Viale Lazio Massacres.<br /> Corruption charges against Salvo Lima and Vito Ciancimino, and many more cases.<br /> <br /> His close connection to so many people in and around the Mafia made him particularly vulnerable, due to the secrets he had acquired over the years. One in particular involved the caribinieri officer-Mario Malausa- who had been in charge of the squad sent to investigate the bomb-loaded Alfa-Romeo in Ciaculli, in 1963. <br /> <br /> Malausa had produced a long and damming report on the involvement of the Mafia and politics in Sicily, a document which would cause massive embarrassment if it were to be publicized. He had named important people, including the mayor of Palermo, Salvo Lima, his public works assessor Vito Ciancimino, and even Judge Scaglione himself. The public prosecutor had conveniently filed it away into some dusty corner along with other important reports, including one from the American US Narcotic Bureau detailing the activities taking place between Sicilian and American Mafia families in their booming trans-Atlantic drug trafficking business.<br /> <br /> As previously stated, it has been hypothesized by some crime historians that the Ciaculli massacre was a double-edged weapon, not only to create chaos within the Mafia and the state, but quietly on the side, to get rid of the bothersome police officer. <br /> <br /> Another presumption for the judge’s killing postulates that he was about to give a favourable decision in a case he was hearing involving Vincenzo Rimmi, the Mafia boss of Trapani who was a sworn and bitter enemy of Leggio.<br /> <br /> The assassination of the Chief Magistrate may well have been the first in a long series of intimidatory measures against the government of Italy by the Mafia. He was the very first member of the state to be murdered by the Mafia since the unification of Italy in 1871. However, while there have been many theories on why Scaglione was killed, as is often the case in these matters, the simplest might well be the one nearest the mark. <br /> <br /> Leggio hated Scaglione on a personal level because the judge had sentenced one of his unmarried sisters, the eldest, Maria Antonina, into ‘internal banishment’ to the mainland. The dreaded <em>obbligo di soggiorno</em>. This, for a spinster woman who had never left Corleone throughout her entire life, was a decision of catastrophic dimensions. Leggio, as always, never forgot, and never forgave. <br /> <br /> In addition, he may have been as Rene Seindal observed, simply adopting the logic that the Mafia’s most important reason for killing a state representative was that killing one taught a hundred a lesson. <br /> <br /> A recent disclosure (October 2010) of a three page document created by Vito Ciancimino, and handed over to the authorities by his son, Massimo, suggests that the judge was murdered to prevent him from investigating the murder of <em>L’Ora</em> reporter, Mauro de Mauro, who had been abducted outside him home in Palermo in September 1970 and presumably murdered. His body has never been recovered. <br /> <br /> Mauro had been about to publish a story that would have literally rocked Italy and the establishment, involving the Mafia and a plot to overthrow the government. <br /> <br /> He had stumbled on an amazing scoop. He learned that one of his childhood friends, a blue-blooded ex-Fascist called Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, aka ‘The Black Prince,‘ was planning a coup d'etat with like-minded army officers determined to halt what they saw as Italy's drift to the left.<br /> <br /> And De Mauro had also learned that in Sicily, where he worked for the evening paper as well as for Reuters and the national daily <em>Il Giorno</em>, the ‘Black Prince‘ had enlisted the support of the Cosa Nostra. When the army officers seized key institutions in Rome, he discovered, the Mafia would follow suit in Palermo, occupying state broadcaster RAI and the prefectural headquarters.</p>
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Cosa Nostra Families and Reputed Current Bosses of the Palermo Province
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-families-and
2010-12-29T15:30:00.000Z
2010-12-29T15:30:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-families-and"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237005496,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237005496?profile=original" width="420" /></a></p>
<p>By Angelo Carmelo Gallitto<br /> Posted on December 29, 2011<br /> <br /> <strong>The Mandamento within the Sicilian Cosa Nostra</strong><br /> <br /> Sicilian <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sicilian-cosa-nostra-overview">Cosa Nostra</a> is organized crime at its most organized. The mafia families on the island all work together through so-called 'mandamento'. A 'mandamento' is formed by three or more neighboring crime families and it's led by a 'capomandamento', who is a member of the Provincial Commission. The 'capomandamento' is the boss of a crime family and he is usually elected by the other bosses of the area who are represented by him on the Provincial Commission. But in time the rules changed. According to turncoat Tommaso Buscetta, in the past even a simple soldier could be elected as 'capomandamento', in order to not create rivalry between the family bosses. When Totò Riina became the boss of bosses, the 'capimandamento' were chosen directly by him. Some 'mandamenti' were deleted or put under the supervision of others. <br /> <br /> After the 'capomandamento' gets a seat on the Commission, he designates a 'sottocapo mandamento', who is the underboss of the 'mandamento' and one or more 'consigliere mandamentale', who is the consigliere of the 'mandamento'. In the fact the 'mandamento' acts as one crime family.<br /> <br /> The members of the Provincial Commission elect the 'capoprovincia' or provincial boss, who is a member of the Regional Commission, the supreme leadership body of Cosa Nostra. The Regional Commission is formed by the provincial bosses of Palermo, Trapani, Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Enna and Catania/Eastern Sicily. <br /> <br /> The provincial boss of Palermo is always the 'capo dei capi' or boss of bosses of Cosa Nostra, since almost half of the members are located in the Palermo province, which is historically the most powerful. <br /> <br /> In Sicily there are about 35 'mandamenti', 15 of them located in the Palermo province. Every 'mandamento' has about 150-200 'made members' and several thousands of 'associates'.<br /> <br /> According to Tommaso Buscetta, the 'mandamento' and the first Provincial Commission of Palermo were formed in 1957 when the bosses of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in">American Cosa Nostra</a> advised the Sicilians to form a Commission in order to decide the strategies of the organization as a whole. The Sicilian bosses would form the 'capomandamento' because there were too many crime families in Sicily.<br /> <br /> But according to some police reports of the late 1800s, the structure of the Commission was present even at that time. However, in certain periods the Provincial Commission was dismantled, like in 1963 after the first mafia war and reformed at the beginning of the 1970s. The same could have happened in the past periods. <br /> <br /> <em><strong> The following is a detailed description of these ‘mandamento’, past and present.</strong></em><br /> <br /> <strong>Mandamento San Lorenzo</strong><br /> <br /> The San Lorenzo mandamento, located in the western part of Palermo city, is formed by the San Lorenzo, Tommaso <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237006091,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237006091,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237006091?profile=original" width="174" /></a>Natale, Partanna Mondello, Capaci and Carini crime families. It has been always an important and strategic stronghold for Sicilian Cosa Nostra. Within the area there are ghettos like the Zen neighborhood where the mafia recruits much of its manpower and it is the place where the Falcone massacre was planned. It was led in the 1950s and 1960s by Mariano Troia, boss of San Lorenzo family and after him by Rosario Riccobono, former boss of the Partanna Mondello family, killed in 1982 during the mafia war. The same year the boss of bosses Totò Riina put Giacomo Giuseppe 'Baldy' Gambino in as the official boss and member of the Provincial Commission. When Gambino was arrested and later deceased he was replaced by Salvatore Biondino (right) as boss of San Lorenzo family; he was among the most loyal ally of the 'Corleonese' faction. However Biondino was caught in 1993 together with Totò Riina while he was driving his car and he was sentenced to life. After the arrest of Biondino, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/another-boss-of-bosses-falls">Salvatore 'The Baron' Lo Piccolo</a>, boss of the Tommaso Natale family, took over as head of the mandamento. But he was arrested in 2007 after 25 years on the run together with his son Sandro, the reputed underboss. Before being caught Lo Piccolo was going to become the head of the Provincial Commission and the new boss of bosses because of the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano in 2006. After the arrest of Lo Piccolo, according to the latest police wiretaps, the sons of Salvatore Biondino are the new members of the Provincial Commission as head of the San Lorenzo mandamento.<br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> San Lorenzo<br /> Former Boss and Capomandamento: Salvatore Biondino<br /> Acting boss: Girolamo Biondino<br /> <br /> Tommaso Natale<br /> Former Boss: Salvatore Lo Piccolo<br /> Acting boss: Calogero Lo Piccolo<br /> <br /> Partanna Mondello <br /> Boss: Salvatore Davì<br /> <br /> Capaci<br /> Boss: Giovanni Battaglia<br /> <br /> Carini<br /> Boss: Salvatore Gallina<br /> <br /> <strong>Mandamento Resuttana</strong> <br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237006853,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237006853,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237006853?profile=original" width="206" /></a>The Resuttana mandamento, located in the south-western part of Palermo city, is formed by the Resuttana, Acquasanta and Arenella crime families. Once led by the historical boss Nino Matranga, head of the Resuttana family and member of the Provincial Commission from the 1950s to 1962, the year of the Ciaculli massacre when seven policemen were bombed and Cosa Nostra was dismantled because of the huge crackdown by the government. When a new Commission was going to be formed, the Acquasanta boss Michele Cavataio, who had waged war on the Galatolos in order to take over as head of the mandamento and take over the business of the new-born fruit and vegetables market, was killed in 1969 during the so-called Viale Lazio slaughter because he was held responsible by the other bosses for being the main instigator of the mafia war in the 1962-63 period.<br /> His escalation started in 1955 when he killed Gaetano 'Tanu Alatu' Galatolo, an important member of the Acquasanta family. In 1970 Nino Matranga was also murdered. Since then the Madonia Family runs the area, before through Francesco 'Don Ciccio' Madonia (right), recently deceased, and after him through his sons Antonino, Giuseppe and Salvatore. With all the Madonias currently imprisoned, the acting boss of the mandamento is, according to the latest inquiries, Salvatore Lo Cicero.<br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237007075,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237007075,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237007075?profile=original" width="81" /></a>Resuttana<br /> Former Boss and Capomandamento: Antonino Madonia<br /> Acting boss: Salvatore Lo Cicero (left)<br /> <br /> Acquasanta<br /> Former Boss: Vincenzo Galatolo<br /> Acting boss: Angelo Galatolo<br /> <br /> Arenella<br /> Former Boss: Gaetano Fidanzati<br /> Acting boss: Gaetano Vegna<br /> <br /> <strong> Mandamento Passo di Rigano</strong><br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237007269,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237007269,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237007269?profile=original" width="187" /></a>The Passo di Rigano mandamento, located in the south part of Palermo city, is formed by the Passo di Rigano, Uditore and Torretta families. This historical stronghold of Cosa Nostra was noted in the police reports as early as the late 1800s because of several important bosses of that period came from this region, including Antonio Giammona, the boss of Uditore family. Several other important members of Cosa Nostra like the Gambino brothers, member of the Gambino crime family of New York, one of them John Gambino is the reputed member of the current ruling panel and the Inzerillo-Mannino-Manno's, all involved in the 'Pizza Connection', came from this area. In the Provincial Commission formed in 1957, the boss of the mandamento was Salvatore Manno, head of the Passo di Rigano family. In 1965, according to the judge Terranova's report, the head was Rosario Di Maggio, former boss of the Torretta family. When the Provincial Commission was reformed at the beginning of the 1970s, Salvatore Inzerillo became the boss until he was murdered in 1982 by the “Corleonesi” faction headed by Totò Riina, who changed the hierarchy and he put two of his best allies at the head of this strategic area: Salvatore Buscemi (right) was named boss of Passo di Rigano family and mandamento, Francesco Bonura was named boss of the Uditore family. In the past few years several members of the Inzerillo's came back to Italy from the United States where they had fled to in the 1980s after the 'Corleonesi' waged war on them. The fact caused quite a stir within Cosa Nostra since some bosses wanted to let them return and others disagreed for fear of a new war. An anti-mafia operation in conjunction of both Italian and American police in 2008 showed like Cosa Nostra wanted to rebuild the criminal connections of the 1980s between Italy and the United States.<br /> <br /> Families: <br /> <br /> Passo di Rigano<br /> Former Boss and Capomandamento: Salvatore Buscemi<br /> Acting boss: Giovanni Marcianò<br /> <br /> Uditore<br /> Former Boss: Francesco Bonura<br /> Acting boss: Rosario Inzerillo<br /> <br /> Torretta<br /> Boss: Vincenzo Brusca<br /> <br /> <strong>Mandamento Noce</strong><br /> <br /> The Noce mandamento, located in the center of Palermo city, is formed by the Noce, Malaspina and Altarello di Baida families. According to the Sangiorgi's report which was written in 1898, the head of Malaspina family Francesco Siino <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237007465,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237007465,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237007465?profile=original" width="164" /></a>was the reputed boss of bosses at that time. In this area is present the Zisa neighborhood, the stage of the feud of boss Tommaso Spadaro and his sons. In 1962, Calcedonio 'Doruccio' Di Pisa, boss of the Noce family and member of the Commission, was murdered in that bloody mafia war among most of Palermo's crime families. The attack came from the La Barbera brothers, bosses of the Palermo centro family and rising stars of Cosa Nostra. Salvatore 'The Boxer' Scaglione had been the boss of the mandamento since the beginning of the 1970s to 1982 when he was murdered and replaced by Raffaele Ganci (right), who was eventually demoted in the 1990s. According to the recent wiretaps, Luigi Caravello, present at the more recent meetings of the new-born Provincial Commission, is the reputed current boss of the Noce mandamento.<br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237007472,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237007472,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237007472?profile=original" width="80" /></a>Noce<br /> Boss and Capomandamento: Luigi Caravello (left)<br /> <br /> Malaspina<br /> Boss: Pierino Di Napoli<br /> <br /> Altarello di Baida<br /> Boss: Vincenzo Tumminia<br /> <br /> <strong>Porta Nuova mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> The Porta Nuova mandamento, located in the center of Palermo city, is formed by Porta Nuova, Palermo Centro and Borgo Vecchio families, as famous turncoat Tommaso 'Masino' Buscetta testified. Salvatore La Barbera, boss of the Palermo Centro family, was a member of the Provincial Commission which was formed in 1957. He disappeared in 1963 during the mafia war after he had a conflict with the Grecos from Ciaculli. He was probably killed during a meeting of bosses, his body was never found. Angelo La Barbera, brother of Salvatore and among the most active subject in the mafia war of that time, took over the crime family until he was killed in 1975. Since then Pippo 'The Cashier' Calò, boss of the Porta Nuova family, became member of the Provincial Commission and boss of the mandamento. He was arrested in Rome in 1985 and replaced by a plethora of acting bosses, included Salvatore Cangemi, arrested in 1993, Vittorio Mangano (famous for being a friend of senator Marcello Dell'Utri and the 'stableman' of Silvio Berlusconi in the 1970s) died in 2000, Nicola Ingarao, murdered in 2007, Gaetano Lo Presti, died in 2008 and Giovanni Lipari. Behind the old bosses there are young up-and-comers like the fugitives Francesco Bonomolo, reputed acting boss of the Palermo Centro family and Antonino 'The Sparkling' Lauricella, reputed underboss of the Porta Nuova family.<br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Porta Nuova<br /> Boss and Capomandamento: Giovanni Lipari<br /> <br /> Palermo Centro<br /> Former Boss: Salvatore Pispicia<br /> Acting Boss: Francesco Bonomolo<br /> <br /> Borgo Vecchio<br /> Boss: Angelo Monti<br /> <br /> <strong>Pagliarelli mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> The Pagliarelli mandamento, located in the south-east part of Palermo city, is formed by the Pagliarelli, Mezzomonreale and Corso Calatafimi families. The Motisis had been the historical bosses of the area. The Motisis were mentioned in police reports since 1800s and labeled as members of the mafia. Lorenzo Motisi was the boss and member of the <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237008255,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237008255,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237008255?profile=original" width="165" /></a>Provincial Commission in 1957, replaced later by his son Matteo Motisi, who had been the former boss of the mandamento until he died in 1998. For a couple of years Antonino Rotolo and his young right hand <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-gianni-nicchi">Gianni 'Little Boy' Nicchi</a> run the family; Rotolo was arrested again in 2007 and he faced 20 years, Nicchi was nabbed in 2009 and he faced 12 years. But recently Giovanni Motisi, nephew of Matteo Motisi, described as the boss of the Pagliarelli family and mandamento since the 1990s but believed dead by the police, seems to be still in control of the family since a turncoat declared he's alive and hiding around Agrigento province. Giovanni Motisi (right), on the run since 1993, is among the list of 30 most wanted in Italy.<br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Pagliarelli<br /> Boss and Capomandamento: Giovanni Motisi<br /> <br /> Mezzomonreale<br /> Boss: Pietro Badagliacca<br /> <br /> Corso Calatafimi<br /> Boss: Filippo Annatelli<br /> <br /> <strong>Santa Maria di Gesu' mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237008460,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237008460,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237008460?profile=original" width="145" /></a>The Santa Maria di Gesu' mandamento, located in the east part of Palermo city, is formed by the Santa Maria di Gesu' and Villagrazia families. Boss Andrea Messina was a member of the Provincial Commission in the 1950s and 1960s, replaced later by Paolo 'Don Paolino' Bontade and after that by his son <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-stefano">Stefano 'The Prince' Bontade</a>, who was part of a triumvirate that controlled Cosa Nostra together with Tano Badalamenti and Luciano Leggio, before the Commission was formed again at the beginning of 1970s. He was murdered in 1982 by the 'Corleonesi'. After the death of Stefano Bontade, considered the most important boss in Palermo, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-salvatore">Totò Riina</a> put Pietro Aglieri (right) at the head of Santa Maria di Gesu' family and mandamento, he was arrested in 1997. The current boss is Benedetto Capizzi, head of Villagrazia family. He was going to be promoted boss of bosses before the 'Perseo' anti-mafia operation in 2009, which showed that a new Provincial Commission was going to be formed. His son Sandro Capizzi was present at the latest meetings of the Commission while he was under house arrest. <br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Villagrazia<br /> Boss and Capomandamento: Benedetto Capizzi<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237008667,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237008667,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237008667?profile=original" width="76" /></a><br /> Santa Maria di Gesu'<br /> Boss: Giovanni Adelfio (photo right)<br /> <br /> <strong>Brancaccio mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> The Brancaccio mandamento, located in the east part of Palermo city, is formed by the Brancaccio, Roccella, Ciaculli and Corso dei Mille families. In 1939 a violent mafia war started between the Greco's from Ciaculli and the Greco's from Croceverde Giardini, both mafia's dynasties since the 1800s. Croceverde Giardini was a crime family apart before being usurped later within the Ciaculli family. The war of the two homonymous groups ended in 1946 after a meeting of bosses included Nino Cottone from Villabate and Joseph Profaci, who was the boss of a crime family in New York. Salvatore 'Little Bird' Greco, was the boss of Ciaculli family <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237008692,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237008692,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237008692?profile=original" width="198" /></a>and member of Provincial Commission since the late 1950s to 1963 when he went to Venezuela in order to escape Italian police being accused of the Ciaculli's massacre and where he died in 1978. Michele 'The Pope' Greco replaced him as boss of the Ciaculli family and mandamento. He was one of the most important ally of Totò Riina and the 'Corleonesi' faction. He was finally arrested in 1984 and sentenced for murders and other crimes in the maxi-trial; he recently died. Giuseppe Greco, famous member of the command of shooters known as the 'Death Team', was going to take over the Ciaculli family but he disappeared in 1985; his body was never found. Totò Riina put at the head of the mandamento the Graviano brothers, Filippo and Giuseppe (left), bosses of the Brancaccio family. Since then the head of the mandamento passed to the Brancaccio family. The Graviano brothers were caught in 1994 and sentenced to life. Despite one of the brothers, Benedetto Graviano, is living in freedom and he is considered an important member of the family, the current boss is according to the recent wiretaps Ludovico 'Uncle Ludovico' Sansone.<br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Brancaccio<br /> Boss and Capomandamento: Ludovico Sansone<br /> <br /> Roccella<br /> Former Boss: Giuseppe Guttadauro<br /> Acting Boss: Lorenzo Di Fede<br /> <br /> Ciaculli<br /> Former Boss: Filippo La Rosa<br /> Acting Boss: Angelo La Rosa<br /> <br /> Corso dei Mille<br /> Boss: Lorenzo Tinnirello<br /> <br /> <strong>Corleone mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> The Corleone mandamento, located in the south of Palermo province, is formed by the Corleone, Prizzi, Roccamena, Bisacquino and Campofiorito families. This area is famous for the bloody escalation of the so-called 'Corleonesi' at the beginning of 1980s. However the 'Corleonesi' faction within Cosa Nostra was not formed solely by members of the Corleone crime family, it was an alliance between several bosses from both Palermo city and province and among them the most powerful were the bosses of Corleone. According to the turncoat Buscetta, before the 1980s the Corleone family was an ordinary crime group of Cosa Nostra among several others present in the Palermo province. In 1958 when Michele 'Our Father' Navarra, the old boss of the Corleone family, was gunned down, Luciano Leggio, who planned the murder, took over the family and became the new boss after a mafia war which left about 150 dead and finished in 1963.</p>
<p>Among the most loyal allies and the best shooters of Leggio's faction there were Totò 'Shorty' Riina and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-bernardo">Bernardo 'The Tractor' Provenzano</a>. Luciano Leggio was a member of the triumvirate that ran Cosa Nostra before the Commission was formed again at the beginning of the 1970s. After the arrest of Leggio in 1974, the command passed to Totò Riina, who started the most violent war ever seen inside Cosa Nostra. From 1978 to 1993 he planned the murders of thousands mobsters and dozens members of the Institutions, including judges, policemen, politicians, journalists, businessmen and bankers. He was formally the boss of bosses from 1982 to 1993 when he was finally arrested. In 1992 He planned the murders of the judges Falcone and Borsellino, both bombed together with the policemen who protected them. These murders shocked Italy and the Italian government sent the national army in Sicily in order to stop this bloody strategy. After the arrest of Riina, Bernardo Provenzano became the boss until he was arrested in 2006 after 43 years on the run. The strategy of Provenzano was much less violent and he always kept a low profile. The other bosses and <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237009288,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237009288,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237009288?profile=original" width="86" /></a>members of the Commission kept a low profile too, in order to avoid a strong reaction from the government. Nowadays the Corleone mandamento is run by Rosario Lo Bue (right). According to police wiretaps, Lo Bue told Riina's sons to stay away because he was named the boss of the family and member of the Provincial Commission.<br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Corleone<br /> Former Boss: Bernardo Provenzano<br /> Acting Boss: Rosario Lo Bue<br /> <br /> Prizzi<br /> Boss: Tommaso Cannella<br /> <br /> Roccamena<br /> Boss: Bartolomeo Cascio<br /> <br /> <strong>San Giuseppe Jato mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> The San Giuseppe Jato mandamento, located in the south-western part of Palermo province, is formed by the San Giuseppe Jato, Altofonte, San Cipirello, Monreale and Camporeale families. <br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237009483,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237009483,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237009483?profile=original" width="174" /></a>The old godfather Antonino Salomone, patriarch of the San Giuseppe Jato family, was the most important boss of this area in the 1950s and 1960s, and member of the Provincial Commission. Being wanted by the police he left Italy after the first mafia war and he escaped to Brazil where he would die. He was replaced by Bernardo Brusca, who later would become part of the 'Corleonese' faction. When the former boss of the San Giuseppe Jato family, Bernardo Brusca (right), was arrested in the 1980s, Totò Riina put his son Giovanni Brusca as acting boss. The years in which the younger Brusca was also imprisoned, the family was run by Baldassare 'Balduccio' Di Maggio, who turned at the beginning of the 1990s and he cooperated with the police in order to catch boss of bosses Riina. When in 1996 Giovanni Brusca was arrested and sentenced to life, the boss became Domenico 'The Veterinarian' Raccuglia, who was the head of the Altofonte family while he was on the run. However after Raccuglia was recently caught, Gregorio Agrigento, the old boss of the San Cipirello family, was promoted capomandamento and member of the new-born Commission. <br /> <br /> Families: <br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237010070,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237010070,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237010070?profile=original" width="84" /></a>San Cipirello<br /> Boss and Capomandamento: Gregorio Agrigento (left)<br /> <br /> Altofonte<br /> Former Boss: Domenico Raccuglia<br /> Acting Boss: unknown<br /> <br /> San Giuseppe Jato<br /> Former Boss: Salvatore Genovese<br /> Acting Boss: Giovanni Genovese<br /> <br /> Monreale<br /> Boss: Antonino Badagliacca<br /> <br /> Camporeale<br /> Boss: Antonino Sciortino <br /> <br /> <strong>Belmonte Mezzagno Mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237010096,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237010096,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237010096?profile=original" width="167" /></a>The Belmonte Mezzagno mandamento, located in the center of the Palermo province, is formed by the Belmonte Mezzagno, Misilmeri, Bolognetta, Baucina, Ciminna and Villafrati families. In the 1980s members of this territory, like the brothers Alfredo and Giuseppe Bono from Bolognetta village, were very active in international drug trafficking and involved in several operations including the famous 'Pizza Connection'. After the murder of Pietro Ocello, boss of Misilmeri family and an old member of the Commission, gunned down in 1991, Benedetto Spera (left) was promoted to boss of the mandamento. He was on the run since the 1970s and close to Bernardo Provenzano, who had a sort of supervision on that territory, but before he could consolidate his supremacy he had to fight a war against Pietro Lo Bianco, leader of a faction supported by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-leoluca">Leoluca Bagarella</a>, who had a conflict with Provenzano at that time. <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237010274,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237010274,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237010274?profile=original" width="85" /></a>When in 1995 Pietro Lo Bianco and his right hand Salvatore Vitrano were murdered he became the undisputed boss until he was finally arrested in 2001. His nephew Antonino Spera (right) is the current boss of the mandamento, as latest police wiretaps showed.<br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Belmonte Mezzagno<br /> Former Boss and Capomandamento: Benedetto Spera<br /> Acting Boss: Antonino Spera<br /> <br /> Misilmeri<br /> Boss: Pietro Calvo<br /> <br /> Bolognetta<br /> Boss: Giuseppe Bono<br /> <br /> Baucina<br /> Boss: Giuseppe Pinello<br /> <br /> Ciminna<br /> Boss: Antonino Episcopo<br /> <br /> Villafrati<br /> Boss: Pasquale Bedami<br /> <br /> <strong> Partinico mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> The Partinico mandamento, located in the western part of Palermo province, is formed by the Partinico, Borgetto and <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237010295,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237010295,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237010295?profile=original" width="146" /></a>Montelepre families. Salvatore 'Turiddu' Giuliano, the famous bandit and according to Buscetta also a member of Cosa Nostra, was born in Montelepre and he was involved in an obscure plot between the mafia, the government, the secret services and the separatist party. He was involved in the Portella della Ginestra slaughter and he personally killed the boss of Partinico family Santo Fleres in 1949. He was finally killed in 1950 when he was abandoned by both the mafia and the politicians and his secrets passed away with him. Antonino 'Nenè' Geraci was the boss of Partinico family and member of the Provincial Commission from 1957 to 1992 when he was arrested. The old boss was released from prison some years ago due to health problems but he's considered retired. Since then the boss is Vito Vitale (right), although Partinico was expelled by the Commission because of the internal wars of the last few years and the territory is currently under the supervision of San Giuseppe Jato mandamento. The latest inquiries showed that Giovanni and Leonardo Vitale, young sons of the imprisoned boss Vito, are running the local family. <br /> <br /> Families: <br /> <br /> Partinico<br /> Former Boss: Vito Vitale<br /> Acting Boss: Giovanni Vitale<br /> <br /> Borgetto <br /> Boss: Nicolò Salto<br /> <br /> Montelepre <br /> Boss: Salvatore Lombardo <br /> <br /> <strong> Bagheria mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237011057,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237011057,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237011057?profile=original" width="227" /></a>The Bagheria mandamento, located in the north-eastern part of Palermo province, is formed by the Bagheria, Villabate, Ficarazzi. Altavilla and Casteldaccia families. In the past Villabate was a divided mandamento but the two areas joined to become one. Giuseppe Fontana, boss of Villabate family and friend of the senator Raffaele Palizzolo, was involved in the famous murder of the banker Emanuele Notarbartolo in 1893. In the 1950s the bosses were Antonino Mineo from Bagheria and Giuseppe Panno from Casteldaccia, both members of the Commission. In the 1980s the 'Corleonesi' changed the hierarchy supporting Salvatore Montalto in the war against the Di Peri's, in order to take over Villabate family. On Christmas day of 1981 a brigade of shooters killed Giovanni Di Peri, the boss of the family, Antonio Pitarresi, the underboss, and his son Biagio Pitarresi. The same year the Casteldaccia boss Giuseppe Panno was also gunned down. In 1989 the old boss of Bagheria family Antonino Mineo was killed and replaced by Leonardo Greco, who is also very involved in international drug trafficking and in the 'Pizza Connection'. Leonardo Greco (right) and his brother Nicolò Greco, the reputed underboss of the family, are currently living out of Palermo province because of a police restriction. According to the latest wiretaps of the operation 'Perseo' in 2009, the acting boss of Bagheria family and mandamento is Giuseppe Scaduto. <br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Bagheria<br /> Former Boss: Leonardo Greco<br /> Acting Boss: Giuseppe Scaduto<br /> <br /> Villabate<br /> Boss: Antonino Mandalà<br /> <br /> Ficarazzi<br /> Boss: Giovanni Trapani<br /> <br /> <strong>Cinisi mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237011095,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237011095,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237011095?profile=original" width="238" /></a>The Cinisi mandamento, located in the north-western part of Palermo province, is formed by the Cinisi, Terrasini and Villagrazia di Carini families. Cesare Manzella was the boss of Cinisi family and member of the Commission until he was assassinated in a car-bomb attack in 1963. He was replaced by Gaetano 'Don Tano' Badalamenti, who was also a member of the triumvirate that ran Cosa Nostra at the beginning of the 1970s. At the beginning of the 1980s he left Italy after the 'Corleonesi' waged war on him. He fled to Brazil first and after that to Spain where he was nabbed in 1984; he was wanted by the American authorities because of his involvement in the '<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-the-sicilian-mafia-flooded">Pizza Connection</a>' and he faced 40 years for international drug trafficking. He died inside an American prison in 2002. Since the 1980s Cinisi is not a mandamento anymore because Totò Riina expelled it by the Commission in order to punish Badalamenti. Today the area is under the supervision of San Lorenzo mandamento but after years behind the scenes, the Badalamentis have made a powerful come back. Vito Badalamenti (right), son of Gaetano, on the run since 1995 and in the list of the 30 most wanted in Italy, is an important member and probably head of the Cinisi family. <br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Cinisi<br /> Boss: Vito Badalamenti<br /> <br /> Terrasini<br /> Boss: Salvatore D'Anna<br /> <br /> Villagrazia di Carini<br /> Boss: Gianbattista Pipitone<br /> <br /> <strong>Caccamo mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237011692,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237011692,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237011692?profile=original" width="200" /></a>The Caccamo mandamento, located in the north-eastern part of Palermo province, is formed by the Caccamo, Trabia, Termini Imerese, Cerda, Vicari, Lercara Friddi and Castronuovo di Sicilia families, as turncoat Giuffrè testified. He also told authorities that in the past Vicari, Lercara Friddi and Castronuovo di Sicilia each were a separate mandamento but the 'Corleonesi' merged them in the 1980s. In the 1950s Giuseppe 'Don Peppino' Panzeca, historical boss of Caccamo family and Mariano Marsala, boss of Vicari family, were both members of the Provincial Commission. When Panzeca, friend of several local politicians, passed away, he was replaced by Lorenzo Di Gesu' and after him by Nino 'Little Hand' Giuffrè (right), who became a turncoat after he was arrested in 2002. He was the first former capomandamento who cooperated. Since then the boss of the mandamento is Salvatore 'Totuccio' Rinella, head of the Trabia family. <br /> <br /> Families:<br /> <br /> Trabia<br /> Former Boss: Salvatore Rinella<br /> Acting Boss: Domenico Rancadore<br /> <br /> Caccamo<br /> Boss: Giorgio Liberto <br /> <br /> Termini Imerese<br /> Boss: Santo Balsamo<br /> <br /> Cerda<br /> Boss: Rosolino Rizzo<br /> <br /> Vicari<br /> Boss: Salvatore Umina<br /> <br /> Castronuovo di Sicilia<br /> Boss: Salvatore Gentile<br /> <br /> <strong> San Mauro Castelverde mandamento</strong><br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237011492,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237011492,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237011492?profile=original" width="194" /></a>The San Mauro Castelverde mandamento, known also as the Madonie's mountains mandamento, located in the eastern part of Palermo province next to the border of Messina province, is formed by the San Mauro Castelverde, Gangi, Polizzi Generosa, Petralia Sottana, Lascari and Mistretta families. Although Mistretta village is located in Messina province and is historically part of this territory. The Farinella's have been the leaders of this area since the 1800s. During the Fascism period and the crackdown against the mafia ordered by Mussolini, the village of Gangi was surrounded by the fascist army in order to catch a dangerous fugitive and mafia member of that time named Luigi Ferrarello. Mario Farinella, boss of San Mauro Castelverde family, was a member of the Commission in 1957. When he later died he was replaced by his son Giuseppe 'The Big Father' Farinella, who recently died. Giuseppe Farinella (right) was an ally of the 'Corleonesi' and he was close to Totò Riina and Leoluca Bagarella, who stayed in this territory for a couple of years while he was on the run and he was planning a war against Provenzano's faction before being caught in 1995. The current boss of the mandamento is Francesco Bonomo, son-in-law of Giuseppe Farinella. The underboss is Domenico 'Mico' Farinella, son of Giuseppe, currently imprisoned he will be released in 2012. <br /> <br /> Families: <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237012268,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237012268,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237012268?profile=original" width="78" /></a><br /> San Mauro Castelverde<br /> Boss and Capomandamento: Francesco Bonomo (left)<br /> <br /> Gangi <br /> Boss: Domenico Virga<br /> <br /> Polizzi Generosa<br /> Boss: Antonio Maranto<br /> <br /> Petralia Sottana<br /> Boss: Carmelo Fazio<br /> <br /> Lascari<br /> Boss: Samuele Schittino<br /> <br /> Mistretta<br /> Boss: Sebastiano Rampulla<br /> </p>
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Genovese Family Soldier Arrested in Italy
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/genovese-family-soldier
2010-11-21T19:14:11.000Z
2010-11-21T19:14:11.000Z
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<div><p>By David Amoruso<br /> Posted on July 30, 2010<br /><br /> A Genovese Crime Family soldier was arrested yesterday in Sorrento, Italy. Mobster Emilio Fusco (42) is wanted in the United States where he is charged with extortion and two gang land murders in Springfield, Massachusetts. While his associates were being arraigned in the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Fusco was nowhere to be found.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236987492,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Federal authorities already suspected Fusco, who is an Italian citizen, might be hiding in Italy. In their man hunt, the FBI asked for the help and assistance of Interpol and the Italian police. After staking out several possible hide outs and shadowing friends and relatives of the fugitive, Italian police managed to locate him in Sorrento, a small coastal city in the Campania region approximately 30 miles from Naples. Fusco (right) is originally from this area and had no trouble blending in. When police arrested Fusco they found he had 10,000 dollars and 10,000 euros in cash on him.<br /> <br /> According to the indictment, Fusco is a made member of the Genovese Crime Family in New York and participated in extortion, loansharking, operation of illegal gambling businesses, and narcotics trafficking. Furthermore, authorities say he was involved in the gang land executions of Genovese capo, and Springfield mob boss, Adolfo Bruno and mob associate Gary Westerman.<br /> <br /> Adolfo Bruno (57) was shot seven times in a parking lot outside the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Society in Springfield’s South End on November 23, 2003. Authorities claim Bruno’s murder was the result of a power play. The hit was plotted by members of his own crew, chief among them Anthony Arillotta, who was labeled as Bruno’s successor. Genovese Acting Boss Arthur Nigro had allegedly given permission for the hit.<br /> <br /> The government has two major witnesses against Nigro – and Fusco, who was part of the murder conspiracy. The first is triggerman Frank Roche. Roche faced the death penalty if he was convicted of murder and decided to become a government witness instead. He told investigators that he was paid 10,000 dollars to assassinate Bruno. Roche was told the Springfield mob boss had to be killed because he was a weak leader and a suspected government informant and that the leaders of the Genovese Family in New York had given permission for the hit.<br /> <br /> The other witness is Anthony Arillotta, who quickly turned state’s evidence after his arrest in February. Arillotta was the man who set the whole plan in motion by seeking permission for the hit from the bosses in New York. Apparently he did not want to spend the rest of his life behind bars. After becoming a witness, he gave the FBI information about a lengthy list of mob crimes, including the location of the remains of mob associate and drug dealer Gary Westerman. Arillotta fingered Fusco as being a part of the group which plotted Westerman’s murder. With Fusco’s arrest all the main players are now in custody. A trial date has been set for November 1. </p>
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New death threat against author Roberto Saviano
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/new-death-threat-against
2010-11-18T21:15:54.000Z
2010-11-18T21:15:54.000Z
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10954542701?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By David Amoruso<br /> Posted on October 15, 2008<br /> <br /> Monday, October 13, 2008 must've been a very weird day for Italian author Roberto Saviano. The 29 year old 'celebrated' his second year in hiding since the Camorra had put him on a death list because of his groundbreaking crime book Gomorra.<br /> <br /> In Gomorra Saviano takes the reader to Naples and its surrounding cities and shows how the Camorra is damaging the life of millions of citizens through a variety of illegal activities. And he shows this in a deadly way. Instead of giving one example of corruption, he gives entire lists of regional governments that have been infiltrated by the Camorra. And he gives us the number of Camorra related murders since his own birth in 1979: a staggering 3600 murders.<br /> <br /> Besides hitting us with those numbers, he hits us with the personal stories behind them. Who are the murdered people, what did they do to end up killed in the streets? By who? For what? He takes us into the sweatshops where fake designer clothing is made. Out into the deserted countryside where the Camorra illegaly dumps its waste. Waste like ink cartridges. Saviano describes walking over such a dump ground and smelling the penetrating sour stench that rose up from it when it rained. If inhaled that air can cause ulcers, breathing difficulties, even lung cancer.<br /> <br /> When talking about the end result of these crimes it is impossible not to discuss those at the top, making the decisions that wreck havoc on Italy: the bosses. Saviano takes them on. He ridicules them. He analyses their criminal society, its code and culture, and rips it apart. This must have made the Camorra bosses very angry. But it made them furious when the book became an enormous success. Now Saviano had an audience.<br /> <br /> Tommaso Buscetta a member of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra once said: "The Mafiosi are not romantic figures like you see in the movies. They are men of violence, men who let gross amounts of money rule their actions. Until the public really understands this true nature of Cosa Nostra, its power and its violence will continue. I think there is only one way to overcome Cosa Nostra, and that is to educate people, to let them see what these men really are, and how dangerous they are to a civilized society. Then, and only then, will law enforcement truly win its fight against organized crime."<br /> <br /> Robert Saviano showed the true face of the Camorra to millions around the world. To make matters worse for the Camorra, the book has been made into a movie. It is being released world wide and has gotten very positive reviews. It is even being tipped as a candidate to win an Acadamy Award.<br /> <br /> It is no surprise then that a Camorra turncoat, someone related to the jailed Camorra boss Francesco "Sandokan" Schiavone, told police that the Casalesi Clan of the Camorra planned to kill Saviano before Christmas by blowing up his car. Authorities are still trying to verify the truth of the claim. Camorra bosses allegedly had said Gomorra was "creating too much noise, it has become a phenomenon''. The Camorra is under pressure from authorities due to the recent killing of six Africans, the movie will not ease that pressure. Saviano has shown the world the power of the pen. Let us hope the sword will not get a chance to swing.</p>
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Profile of Camorra Boss Maria Licciardi
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/camorra-boss-maria-licciardi
2010-11-18T21:10:53.000Z
2010-11-18T21:10:53.000Z
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10178035271?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By David Amoruso<br /> Posted in 2001<br /> <br /> When people are asked what they think of Maria Licciardi they answer several things. They will say she was charismatic, calm, highly intelligent, ruthless and more importantly they will say she was the Capo dei capi of the <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-overview" target="_blank">Camorra</a>, the boss of bosses in the Mafia organization based in Naples.<br /> <br /> Maria Licciardi was born 24th of March, 1951 in Napoli, Italy. Napoli or Naples is the third largest city in Italy and is home to the Camorra. The Camorra is the Napolitan answer to the Sicilian Mafia. The Camorra, as we know it today, started it's hold on the city in the years after the Second World War when they took control of the weapon and cigarette smuggling operations. Over the years they expanded into real estate and the drugtrade. Maria Licciardi knew from early on what the Camorra was and who ran it. She grew up in a family of killers and Camorra members. All her brothers were active Camorra members. One of them, her brother Gennaro "the monkey" Licciardi had become boss and ruled supreme. Her husband Antonio Teghemié was also a member. All in all you could say every man in Maria Licciardi's life was a Camorra member.<br /> <br /> Growing up Maria Licciardi's role was still that of a wife. And in the mob world the role of the wife was to be loyal, tight lipped, cook, clean and raise the kids. And that role has been there since.....wel since the beginning of humanity. But with the crackdown by the Italian government on organized crime that put countless of members and bosses behind bars and the bloody wars that decimated the clans and Families the role of the woman began to change. With most qualified men in prison, dead or too young, women slowly moved themselves into the seats of power of the Camorra. One of the first women to do so was Rosetta "Ice Eyes" Cutolo. Cutolo followed in the footsteps of her brother Raffaele who was imprisoned. Rosetta became known for her ruthlesness and great leadership qualities, under her leadership income from extortion and the drugtrade increased to record heights. When she eventually was arrested she was only convicted for associating/contacts with the Mafia. She was acquitted 9 times of murder.<img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236998879,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /><br /> <br /> Was one man gone enough to put Rosetta in the seat of power things didn't go that easily for Maria. The first sign that her time might have come was when in 1993 her brother Gennaro Licciardi was murdered in prison. But Maria had to wait, in line before her were her two brothers Pietro and Vincenzo, as well as her husband Antonio Teghemié. But as time went by they all were unable to take control getting whacked or arrested and so Maria's time had come.<br /> <br /> It didn't go easy, not only losing her brothers and husband, she also had to prove her qualities to the other bosses and more importantly her soldiers, and as soon as Maria Licciardi was in place she proved it. She set up meetings with rival Camorra clans and told them that the fighting over territory and power had to stop. The wars meant that they lost money and didn't make the money they could make without war. Licciardi advised that the clans should carve up the city and work together to expand the cigarette smuggling, drugtrade and racketeering. The other bosses saw she was right and decided to work together and make peace. Maria Licciardi's first victory was behind her and now fully in control she decided to give out some orders and handle business.<br /> <br /> One of the things Licciardi did was get her Family into the prostitution trade. Until then the Family had always stayed out of that business because of a code of honor but under Licciardi that code was broken. They bought the girls from the Albanian Mafia, put them on the street and money was flowing in. Girls were put on drugs so they wouldn't become an informant or run away. When the girls had become too old they were killed. Another big moneymaker, one that expanded under Maria, was the drugtrade. The Napolitan suburbs are ruled by the Camorra. Young drugdealers are used to sell heroine and cocaine. One police officer says: "It's one big web, they constantly change people and locations" The police have a lot of trouble breaking down the Camorra Organization. A lot of the people who live in these suburbs support the Camorra. Unemployment is high and one of the main employers is the Camorra, they also provide money for the comunity. And if all this isn't enough to keep omerta in place than fear is. "A big portion of the people protects them and works together with them against the police". Italian prosecutor Luigi Bobbio who went after Licciardi and investigated her says: "As soon as a woman takes charge we can see that emotion plays a lesser part and that the organization reaches greater heights." Under Maria Licciardi the Camorra indeed reached new heights. They became more violent and more secretive.<br /> <br /> Licciardi's reign had been relatively quiet, everything ran without problems. Untill a Camorra clan unhappy with Licciardi decided to deny an order. The disagreement was over a shipment of pure unrefinded heroine. The heroine Licciardi said would kill all the customers and bring heat from public and law enforcement. She ordered it not to be sold. Without her knowing and behind her back a Camorra clan named Lo Russo decided otherwise and made the shipment ready for being sold on streetlevel. After a few days it happened, drug addicts lay across the street dead from the heroine from the forbidden shipment. Heat from the public and law enforcement came down on the Camorra clans. The alliance that Licciardi realised early on in her career fell apart instantly. Wars among clans erupted and again each other business was taken over or destroyed. When other clans attacked Licciardi's men, Licciardi went to war. During this war over a hundred mobsters were killed. The war put in place a hunt by law enforcement for the leaders.<br /> <br /> Now Licciardi had run into the kind of trouble normally reserved for men, she was under pressure from both rivals as well as law enforcement and had managed to get on the "30 most wanted Italians" list and so she went into hiding. While in hiding she continued to run the Camorra and fight her wars both with rival clans as well as law enforcement. When Maria felt prosecutor Luigi Bobbio and his team were getting a bit too close to her Family soldiers and herself she decided to take action. On January 2001 she bombed Bobbio's office building, as a warning. It didn't help her. Bobbio continued his fight and under massive protection he started breaking down the wall surrounding Licciardi. 70 of her men were arrested but all maintained a code of silence and took their prisonterm instead. Licciardi seemed untouchable. Italian authorities only had one photograph of her and distributed it. Authorities thought that while on the run Licciardi would have had plastic surgery or changed her hair color or model, they didn't know what to look for. But they kept up pressure and Licciardi's hide out became known. A team was set in place to arrest her. Licciardi was hiding out in a Neapolitan suburb, she felt safe knowing the people living there would not give her up to the police. But the cops were on to her and found her hideout. On June 14, 2001 the Mobile Squad of Naples and special operations team from the police raided Licciardi's hideout and arrested her. She didn't resist arrest and was taken into custody. At her arrest police noticed she looked just like the photo that was released years earlier. At age 50 Maria Licciardi's reign as boss was over. Her would be place taken over by someone else, probably a man.<br /> <br /> Although still uncommon in Sicily and unheard of in the United States female Mafia bosses in Italy are on the rise. Statistics show that in 1990 one woman was indicted for Mafia connections in 1995 there were 89 such indictements. The emergence of women as bosses is far more noticeable in Naples than Sicily. The police say it is partly a cultural thing. "Family ties are very tight here, and women have always had a far more dominant role in the family here than in Sicily," said Giuseppe Donno, a spokesman for the police department of the province of Naples. "They say that behind every great man there is a strong woman, and that is true in crime families as well." It has to be said though that this shift in power is more a lack of manpower than a sudden boost in ruthlessness or power under women. Most of them become boss when close Family needs to be replaced and no others are available, they are used as temporary powers. So women are taking control but would never do it by taking out male competition, they wouldn't win that fight. But when they are in the position of boss women have proven to be just as ferocious and ruthless as their male counterparts if not even more.</p>
<p><strong>UPDATE 7 AUGUST, 2021: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/camorra-godmother-maria-licciardi-arrested-at-rome-airport" target="_blank"><strong>Camorra Godmother Maria Licciardi arrested at Rome airport</strong></a></p>
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Camorra Boss: Augusto La Torre
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/camorra-boss-augusto-la-torre
2010-11-18T21:00:00.000Z
2010-11-18T21:00:00.000Z
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<div><p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236998484,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> By David Amoruso<br /> Published: May 1, 2007<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236998658,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Augusto La Torre took the place of his father and became boss of the clan which ruled in the north of the province Caserta, in the south of Lazio and along the coast of Domizio. The empire of the La Torres stretched out into The Netherlands. Augusto's brother <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-boss-antonio-la-torre-charged-with-plotting-murder-of-ant" target="_blank">Antonio</a> (picture right) had set up legit businesses in Aberdeen, Scotland. (Antonio also ran some illegal businesses there.) In March 2005 <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-boss-antonio-la-torre-charged-with-plotting-murder-of-ant" target="_blank">Antonio was arrested</a> in Aberdeen because of an Italian arrest warrant. He had been sentenced to 13 years in prison in Italy for racketeering. The La Torres mainly invested their ill gotten money in the United Kingdom. Because of their businesses in the UK it is alleged the La Torre clan even made a non Italian a member. Brandon Queen is the first British (Scottish) member of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-overview">Camorra</a>. He is in prison in England and receives a monthly salary, something only members of the Clans receive.<br /> <br /> Mondragone was the first Italian community that was disbanded because of infiltration by the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/camorra-overview">Camorra</a>. The La Torre clan had their base in Mondragone, and ruled it with an iron fist. They had a certain way of disposing of bodies which was dubbed alla mondragonese. They dump the bodies in a well, then they throw in a handgrenade. The body is blown in tiny pieces and covered in dirt, hidden forever.<br /> <br /> Eventhough the clan was heavily involved in trafficking narcotics Augusto didn't want to see any drugs in his territory. He prohibited the sale or use of drugs. Anyone who broke those rules was killed. A junkie who, to support his habit, started dealing drugs in Mondragone was taken for a ride, killed, and injection needles were injected all over his body. When Paolo Montano, a soldier in the Clan, got addicted to cocaine one of his best friends invited him to a farmhouse. There Augusto shot him. Augusto demanded total loyalty from his men, and he got it. When Augusto became a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gangsters-inc-s-mafia-speak">pentito</a> (government witness) in January 2003 all his men did the same. Augusto confessed that he committed and ordered 40 murders. The La Torre Clan's empire was worth hundreds of millions of euros.</p>
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Special Report: Mob-murders Cools Off in Italy
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/special-report-mobmurders
2010-11-10T19:11:15.000Z
2010-11-10T19:11:15.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Special Report: Mob-murders Cools Off in Italy</span><br style="font-weight:bold;" /><br style="font-weight:bold;" /><span style="font-weight:bold;">And other Historical Stories about the Sicilian Mafia.</span></div>
<p><br /> By Clarence Walker, Investigative Journalist, Houston Texas.<br /> Posted on October 8, 2007<br /> <br /> Is it a myth or reality that mob-related murders are at its lowest decline in Italy's history of organized crime? Italian authorities and prominent research teams has found that mob-related murders throughout Italy declined in recent years due to less internal disputes and rival conflicts between Costa Nostra families and other organized crime groups. Recent statistics showed that Italy’s homicide rate involving organized crime decreased to 121 murders in 2006. Experts point out the fact since the 1990s mob-related murders has steadily cooled off. Example: Authorities say when a comparison is made between the 121 murders in 2006; 143 in 2005, 212 in 2004---with the 340 mob connected murders in 1992, the year Sicily’s Costa Nostra executed a reign of terror by killing political officials and if the numbers are correct the murder rate shows a considerable decline. Italy’s Interior Minister Guliano Amato attributed the lower numbers of body counts to a “Pax Mafioso” whereby the players in the mob game try to score tons of money without getting their hands bloody. “Without a doubt (there is) a “Pax Mafioso,” a change in direction of the Mafia”, Amato says. “The decline of homicides by Costa Nostra was part of a precise strategy”, says anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso who is based in Rome. “Fewer homicides don’t mean the mob is weaker. It means there are fewer internal disputes.” But a vicious and long-running mob war between two interrelated crime families may well jinx the numbers.<br /> <br /> On August 15th, six members of the Strangio-Nirta family were executed outside a popular restaurant in Duisberg Germany by suspected members of the Pelle-Romeo family. Both clans are members of the notorious “Ndrangheta Calabria Mafia. based in San Luca. The murders marked the first time that a mafia syndicate carried out a revenge attack on foreign soil. Police say the men were gunned down outside a popular restaurant called Da Bruno. They were celebrating the 18th birthday of Tommaso Venturi who died enroute to the hospital. Among those shot to death were: (1) restaurant owner Sebastino Strangio, 39, (2) Francesco Giorgi who is the nephew of Strangio. Two brothers: (3)Francesco, 22, and Marco Pergola, 20. (4) Marco Marmo, 25. Police investigation indicated the assassins fired more than 70 shots at the scene---striking the victims also armed with weapons multiple times. Last week investigators arrested several suspects but none has been charged in the slayings.<br /> <br /> The murders shocked this west German city but there is another sinister picture. Authorities say the homicides shows the strong presence of the 'Ndrangheta Mafia in Germany. "It is disturbing---first because of the sheer number of the dead", the acting director of Italy's National Anti-Mafia bureau, Carmelo Petralia, told the BBC news media. "We knew that the 'Ndrangheta had deep links to Germany to launder the proceeds of its criminal activities from the prying eyes of Italy's Mafia investigators,” Petralia said. Italian and German newspaper stories has reported that hundreds of the ‘Ndrangheta syndicate from San Luca has emigrated over the years to Germany and Europe where they operate drug trafficking and other lucrative organized crime activities. Luigi de Sena, deputy director of the police in the Calabria region told the Italian news agency ANSA the murders were “an unprecendented settling of scores, particularly because the murders took place in a foreign country for the first time”. Sena added the fact that “the presence of the Calabrian mafia in Germany is very strong, but until now they always kept a low profile, trying not to attract attention”. Police has refused to comment publicly if the restaurant where the victims were murdered has been identified as a secret location for meetings between mob players and a money laundering operation.<br /> <br /> San Luca village located in southern Italy was described in 2005 by Italy’s domestic intelligence agency as “the cradle of the ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate. Above the town is the shrine of “Our Lady of Polsi” which is a symbolism of religion. Anti-mafia authorities has secretly documented the presence of ‘Ndrangheta crime bosses who travel from all over the world every September to pay respect to the shrine. Enzo Ciconte, the author of several books on the ‘Ndrangheta mob and a consultant to Italy’s anti-mafia commission is considered an expert on Italy’s organized crime. Referring to the Strangio-Nirta and the Pelle-Romeo family, Ciconte told reporters: “It is the families of San Luca who decides if other families are a part of the ‘Ndrangheta.” Ciconte explains this point: “Let’s say, you wanted to set up a new locale in Britain, Holland or Germany and you don’t get the approval of the ‘Ndrangheta in San Luca, then your gang is not part of the ‘Ndrangheta”.<br /> <br /> Blood War<br /> <br /> When the six men of the Strangio-Nirta crime family were murdered on August 15th by suspected members of the Pello-Romeo clan---both from the ‘Ndranghetha mob---authorities knew immediately the motive was a spillover feud between the families. According to Mafia investigators the deadly fireworks started in 1991 when the Strangio-Nirta and Pelle-Romeo families had a fight at a carnival in San Luca after both sides hurled eggs and insults at each other. The brutal fight left two men dead and others injured which triggered retaliation acts known throughout Italy as the “vendetta of San Luca”. This vendetta brought on many murders between the warring factions. Over the years since the carnival affair authorities contributed 15 or more murders among the families. After the carnival brawl a string of ‘hit-versus-hit’ murders went down until 2000 when investigators believed the dispute had been resolved. But the tranquility was shattered last year on Christmas eve when Maria Strangio, 33, the wife of boss Giovanni Nirta, was shot to death at her mother’s home in San Luca. Strangio’s father, Antonio, is also among the victims murdered in this bloody drama of vendetta killings. Renato Cortese, chief of Calabria’s flying squad investigated the feuds and said the attacks had been carefully timed. “They like to pick dates with meaning and this happened on the eve of Ascension day, as a follow-up to the Christmas killing of Maria Strangio,” Cortese said.<br /> <br /> ‘Ndrangheta Rap Sheet<br /> <br /> Unlike other powerful Mafia syndicates in Italy---the Costa Nostra of Sicily, the Camorra of Naples, and the United Holy Crown of Puglia---the Ndrangheta operate a loose clan system with unified command. This organization differs from other Italian Mafia syndicates that are organized into families, the ‘Ndrangheta arrange marriages among relatives to bring members into their circle. The name ‘Ndrangheta is steeped in legend. Historians say the tracing of the name derives from the greek word ‘andragathos’ meaning ‘brave man’. Calabrian was an area of Byzantine greek settlement which suggests the organization or its social culture is older than the original Costa Nostra. Depending which numbers are accurate authorities say the circle has up to 100 families who specialize in cocaine and heroin trafficking, money laundering and contract killing. Foreign authorities describe the ‘Ndrangheta mob as the most wealthiest and deadly crime syndicate in organized crime and more powerful than Sicilian Mafia. Recent investigation reports pointed out the fact more than 70 per cent of Calabrian businessmen pay the ‘Ndrangheta mob protection money. The remaining 30 per cent of all businesses and shops are controlled by the mob.<br /> <br /> Drug Business<br /> <br /> Pietro Grasso, Italy’s anti-Mafia commission said the killings in Duisberg is evidence that the ‘Ndrangheta mob is operating globally. Grasso said it is clear the group has “taken control of the economic power from other crime syndicates involving international drug dealing”. Drug investigators have uncovered evidence to show the ‘Ndrangheta clan controls most of Colombia’s cocaine exports to Europe which flows through the port town of Gioia Tauro in Calabria, southern Italy. “This organization is all over Europe and even has a hand in politics,” Grasso said. He added that “no country in the world” can stop them, until the international banking system becomes less opaque.”. “We can find the drugs and the people, but we cannot track the money. There is no doubt that money is moving to Colombia, so why we can’t see it?” Grasso added: “We have increased the number of our raids and checks enormously, but the strategy is useless. The people who traffic drugs make sure they do not violate the banking laws over the transfer of capital, and they act openly with the help of major financial experts.” Anthony Nicaso, the author of ‘Blood Brothers’, a book about the ‘Ndrangheta, said the group is the only true global Italian crime syndicate. “The ‘Ndrangheta has been very adept at modernizing itself. They use the internet to recycle money from its activities and keeps a monopoly on Colombian cocaine into Europe”. “They have direct links with the Colombians and terrorist organizations. They are also in the UK as well, Nicaso said. A 2004 Italian government report estimated the group earned over $22 billion dollars from the drug trade. “Pressure by law enforcers on Costa Nostra has helped the ‘Ndrangheta expand drug operation and thanks to their tight family structure, there are few turncoats to help police,” said Franceso Forgione, head of Italy’s parliamentary anti-mafia commission. Mafia bosses, including those from San Luca clans, have reinvested drug earnings in hotels, restaurants and construction in Germany. Investigator Cortese also told reporters that both the Strangio-Nirta and the Pelle-Romeo families were powerful forces in the ‘Ndrangheta’s drug business which elevated the Calabria mafia to become Europe’s top-level narcotics supplier with the aid of the Colombian drug cartel.<br /> <br /> Authorities suspect the ‘Ndrangheta group murdered Francesco Fortugno, vice president of Calabria’s regional government. Fortugno was murdered last year by two masked gunmen in the small town of Locri shortly after he voted in a national primary ballot to choose a leader for the center-left opposition. No arrest has been made.<br /> <br /> Sicilian Mafia History<br /> <br /> According to historical accounts the so-called mob, "Man Of Honor" or Sicilian Mafia developed either from the 1700s or 1800s eras'. Controversy stems from the creation of Italy's criminal underworld because research by experts have pointed out truth and half-truths mixed with inaccurate and confusing details about the beginning of the Sicilian mob. Overall, one fact stands out. A Rome research group reported years ago that from (1860-1876) the beginning of the real Sicilian mob began after Sicily became part of the nation of Italy after decades of unfettered rule by the country of Naples. Naples was part of the Bourbon Kingdom. Bourbon ruled most of Southern Italy that Sicily was a part of. During turbulent periods between the (two) the Sicilians who lived on islands formed a small group of men who resisted and set out to exact vigilante justice against the oppression imposed by the Kingdom. Sicily's history further show that it wasn't until the Red shirt army led by Giuseppe Garibaldi fought a 'bloody' war with Neapolitano warriors that Sicily won its liberation from Naples and subsequently integrated the country of Italy that gave birth to the Sicilian mob. Despite other questionable versions of the creation of the Italian mob many historians discovered evidence the group did not become a well-structured organization until the late 1800s. The phrase Costa Nostra---"our way"---was used to describe the lifestyle of a Mafioso in Sicily. Secrecy that surrounded Mafia activities in Sicily became known as the "Omerta"---the silence code. The practice of recruiting men into the Mafia by administering the oath and a test of one's ability to carry out mob-related duties also originated from the Sicilian mafia.<br /> <br /> Following Garibaldi's legendary defeat over the Bourbon Kingdom group that once ruled the Sicilian island---over 2.4 million Sicilians migrated into Italy's mainland. To win liberation from their conquerors, the Sicilians' epic victory over the Kingdom duplicate stories we often hear today about poverty-stricken people who challenged insurmountable odds to achieve the "American Dream". Unfortunately, what seemed as a dream come true for the Sicilians, the victory over the Bourbon Kingdom soon turned into a nightmare. Relationships between the Sicilians and the Italian government soured. Sicilians who invested profits into the revolutionary battle to claim independence from the Kingdom accused the government of denying access into the political mainstream to have government assist the Sicilians to earn sufficient capital to redevelop the deplorable conditions of the islands where they once lived. Members and close associates of the Italian government fired back. They accused the Sicilian islanders of thievery, dishonesty, including their associations with predatory criminals that threaten to undermine and possibly overthrow the government. Fed up with unfairness and discrimination a group of Sicilians formed their own government called "our way". From the beginning, during the 1800s, the Italian Mafia infiltrated and exploited every business, political groups, and the social and the economic fabric inside of Italy's infrastructure that spreaded across the globe and its power impacted the world. It’s no secret. They are known as the most notorious and widespread of all underworld criminal enterprise. The Italian Mafia, like other organized crime groups, are into traditional crimes such as extortion, running protection rackets, gambling enterprises and takeover of territories where money flow from various activities. In recent years, Italy's Mafia groups has become more sophisticated by diversifying their activities into other areas such as drug trafficking, cigarette smuggling, human trafficking, prostitution, and the bribery of political leaders and judges. Investigators and prominent members of trade associations reported that between 2000-2005--- the Italian Mafia controls one in five businesses in Italy. Members of the association in Milan said the Mafia owned 20% of all businesses with an annual turnover of $133 billions, the equivalent of 15% of GNP. Reports further showed the money made by the Mafia was "enough to pay off public debt with the ball and chain around Europe's ankle". Sergio Billie, the president of Italy's business association, indicated not enough was being done internationally to combat organized crime. A police official said that countries allowing offshore banking is responsible for the growth in OC criminal activities. Milan chief prosecutor Gerardo d'Ambrosion weighed in on the issues. "In order to beat the Mafia, we need the cooperation of businessmen, and they don't always give us concrete facts to act upon".<br /> <br /> History of La Costa Nostra (LCN)<br /> <br /> As stated earlier, the Sicilian Mafia is the original mafia of all mafia' throughout the world. But it is commonly known as the roots of La Costa Nostra based in Italy is pivotal to Italian organized crime---though LCN has been separate organization for many years. Documented history by journalists and government archives reveals that Giuseppe Esposito was the first known Sicilian Mafia member to immigrate to America. Esposito and six other Sicilians fled to New York after they murdered the chancellor and a vice chancellor of a Sicilian province and 11 wealthy landowners. Esposito was arrested in New Orleans Louisiana in 1881, extradited to Italy and convicted. New Orleans was also the first city in America involving the murder of a police officer allegedly at the hands of the Mafia. The murder of New Orleans police chief David Hennessey sparked a riot when Sicilian Joseph P. Macheca and other Italian defendants were acquitted of Hennessey murder by a jury. A vigilante group broke into the jail where the Sicilians were being held and killed nine of the men. None of the killers who either hung or shot the Italians were prosecuted. To get the full story read the book Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia written by Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca.<br /> <br /> The Sicilian Mafia is notorious for brutal assaults on Italian law enforcement officials. In Sicily the word “Excellent Cadaver” is used to distinguish the assassination of prominent government officials from other criminals and ordinary citizens killed by the Mafia. High-ranking victims include police commissioners, mayors, judges, police colonels, generals, and parliament members. On May 23rd 1992, the Sicilian Mafia struck Italian law enforcement with vengeance. Approximately 6:p.m, Italian Magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three police bodyguards were killed by a massive bomb. Falcone was the director of criminal affairs in Rome. The bomb made a crater 30 feet in diameter in the road. Falcone’s murder became known as the Capaci Massacre. Two months later on July 19th the Sicilian mob killed Falcone’s replacement, Judge Paolo Borsellino in Palermo, Sicily. Borsellino and five bodyguards were killed outside the apartment of Borsellino’s mother when a car packed with explosives was detonated by remote control. Both murders of the officials ignited an all-out war between authorities and the Sicilian gangsters. Several mobsters and their associates were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms in Italy.<br /> <br /> Italian Mafia Groups<br /> <br /> (1) 'Ndrangheta: Calabrian Mafia Location: Southern Italy. Known as "The Honored Society", Fibbia or Calabrian Mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, for many years, toiled in the shadow of the more popular Sicilian Costa Nostra. But not now. The 'Ndrangheta, the word pronounced "en-drang- ay-ta", according to Italian government authorities, is the most richest and powerful organized crime syndicate in Italy and throughout the European country. Informant Calogero Marceno told authorities the 'Ndrangheta Mafia splits into two levels: (1) the "maggiore" which is the senior level and the "minore" is the junior level. These separate positions creates a barrier between low-level common-type crimes and higher-level political and white-collar crimes. Unlike the Sicilian Mafia, which is organized into families with a pyramid structure, the 'Ndrangheta clan is based on blood relationship, inter-marriages, or being a godfather. Each group is named after the village where they reside, or after the family leader. With an estimated 10,000 'made' members compared to three-to-four thousands in Costa Nostra, Italian police secret intelligence division concluded years ago there are at least 100 or more clans within the 'Ndrangheta mafia. Recent investigation reports has estimated that the annual income by the ‘Ndrangheta mob has an annual turnover of $35 billion Euro. "We are faced with the most powerful Italian criminal organization that extends its influence from Calabria to the rest of Italy, and into various European countries and across the oceans", says Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu.<br /> <br /> (2) Camorra: Neapolitan Mafia: LOCATION: NAPLES, ITALY. The Camorra mafia started as a prison gang in Naples during the mid-1800s. Once the group was released they started their own clan family and continued to grow in power. This group made a fortune in reconstruction after a devastating earthquake ravaged the Campania region in the 1980s. Considered the second largest International organized crime group with over 200 clans and estimated 7000 'made' members. They specialize in cigarette smuggling and take payoffs from other criminal syndicates for any cigarette trafficking through Italy. During the 1970s, the Sicilian mafia intervened with the Camorras' operation. The Sicilians had a plan with the dope game. They wanted the Camorra to convert the cigarette smuggling routes into drug smuggling routes with the assistance of the Sicilians but many of the Camorra leaders refused. This disagreement caused the two families to war against each other. The violence claimed the lives of 400 or more members from both sides. Many of the deaths were the Camorra group. But they rebounded from the losses and continued to control the cigarette trafficking. International organized crime investigators and the FBI in the united states has documented at least 200 Camorra affiliates in the united states. Many immigrated to the USA during the Camorra wars.<br /> <br /> (3) Sacra Corona Unita: Location: Apulia, Italy Like the Camorra, the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU) started as a prison gang and once the members were released they settled in the Puglia region and eventually linked their operations into other Mafia networks. According to intelligence units the Corona has approximately 50 clans with approximately 2000 members. SCU leader Giuseppe Rogoli instituted a pyramid structure for the organization: Soldiers were known as a "camorristi" which was at the bottom; and an "sgarristi" was known as an enforcer. Other levels of membership are: (1) Santisti (2) Evangelisti (3) Trequartino. Informant Cosimo Capodeci said the SCU used "the Crown (Corona) because it resembled a crown, which reflects the rosary typically used in church to carry out the work of Jesus Christ and the cross. Capodeci further indicated the word United (Unita), was used because of its necessity to be "connected to one another". (As quoted in The Global Mafia Report). Investigations by foreign government agencies reported the SCU had links to the Colombian drug cartels, other Italian crime syndicates, including the Russians and Asian organized crime organizations. Based on intelligence reports published in American and Foreign media outlets the SCU were the key players in the mass smuggling of thousands of Albanian women and young girls into Italy for prostitution. They are even referred to as "modern-day slave traders" due to their role in illegal human trafficking. Their activity involves cigarette smuggling, drugs, firearms, and human trafficking. Mixed into their operation is the payoffs from other criminal groups for landing rights on the southeast coast of Italy. This territory is a designated route for smuggling to and from post-Communist countries like Croatia, Yugoslavia, and Albania. Although the FBI haven't identified too many Sacro Corona mafiosos in USA but there are some links in Illinois, Florida and New York.<br /> <br /> (4) Stidda: The Star: Location: Sicily Italy Mafiosos Giuseppe Benvento and Salvatore Calafato, both from the province of Palmi di Montechiaro, gave the organization its name La Stidda (Sicilian star). Over the years, the Stidda has extended its influence into Italy's mainland provinces such as Milano, Genova and Torino. Members are called stiddari in the Caltanissetta province and stiddaroli in Agrigento province. sStidda members identify each other by a tattoo of five greenish marks arranged in a circle, forming a star called "I punti della malavita" or "the points of the criminal life". When the Costa Nostra waged war against other factions in the 1970s for control of the southern and eastern parts of Italy the feud brought the Corleonesi clan and it's ruthless leaders Luciano Leggio, Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano into power---which caused a severe disruption inside the traditional power base of Costa Nostra. The continuing chaos within the families left the Stidda clan to try to balance the main power base of Costa Nostra such as those loyal to slain Capo Giuseppe DiCristina who defected from the ranks due to the bloodthirsty reign of the Corleonesi clan. From 1978 to 1980, former Corleonesi leader Capo Toto Riina fought against the Stidda and other Cosa Nostra members that left over 500 men in Costa Nostra and at least 1000 La Stidda members dead, including Stidda Capos Calogero Lauria and and Vincenzo Spina. When authorities captured Toto Riina in 1993 and a few other gangsters loyal to Riina the Stidda has gained superior status, influence and credibility among other criminal organizations in Italy. The Stidda is sometimes called the "Fifth Mafia".<br /> <br /> New Generation<br /> <br /> Sicilian Mafioso Bernardo Provenzano was captured last year after 43 years on the run and lingering questions persisted: Who would replace him? And whether or not if more bloodshed from different mobs factions in Italy would take place to choose a suitable leader to control the Sicilian Mafia. "There are a generation of 50-somethings ready to carry on", says Antoino Ingroia, a leading anti-Mafia magistrate in Sicily, told reporters at a press conference where news of Provenzano arrest was announced. Investigators say there are two people qualified to replace Provenzano-----Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Matteo Messina Denaro. They, too, like their master Provenzano, have been fugitives for decades----Lo Piccolo since 1983, Messino Denaro since 1993. Lo Piccolo, a boss from the Mafia's Resuttana district in Palermo, is 64, and considered "old school". Authorities reported he'd been closest to Provenzano as an ally. Messina Denaro, from the grim western Sicilian province city of Castelvetrano, is now 47. He is known as the 'playboy boss' because he loves fast cars, pretty women, and gold watches. Whether a war breaks out or not depends on what investigators call "the internal equilibrium" of the Mafia. Asked if he feared a clan war, Piero Grasso, the national anti-Mafia prosecutor, told reporters: "I am Sicilian. I will do everything in my power to avoid it. But soon, the vacuum left by Provenzano arrest will be filled". Over the past 13 years that Provenzano controled the Mafia, investigators said he forged a "kinder, gentler style", to give the Mafia a lower profile to take the police spotlight off organized crime. Ingroid added, "In an organization like the Mafia, a boss has to be one step above the others---otherwise it all falls apart". As stated earlier, the last Mafia wars in Sicily took place in the 1980s when Toto "the beast" Riina, Provenzano, Leoluca Bagarella and Luciano Liggio destroyed hundreds of mob enemies. At the cemetery in San Luca, the grave of Maria Strangio, the victim killed by mafia ambush in December 2006, her tombstone shows the photograph of a beautiful woman with lush, dark hair wearing pendant earrings. The inscription reads: “Your beautiful youth was shattered when everyone was smiling at you. Death carried you far away. It separated you from loved ones who repeat your name silently every hour.” “God help us,” an unidentified man said during interview with a reporter. He makes his living watching over the cemetery where the dead sleep. “We hope for peace. But this is a land forgotten by God and man alike”. Only time will tell if the mob-related murders in Italy cools off or heats up again. Lets wait and see.<br /> <br /> Any comments: Contact Journalist Clarence Walker at Cwalker261@excite.com or Mafia101@myway.com<br /> <br /> References and sources used for this story: (1) Italy crime news (2) Mafia-news.com (3) FBI government records (4) Reuters wire service (5) Guardian newspaper (6) Global Mafia Reports. (Germany News media services)</p>
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