The Sicilian Mafia: The Armed Wing of Politics 3658393092, 9783658393090

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Abbreviations
1 Introduction
2 From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi
2.1 How Low-level Criminals became Mafiosi
2.2 The Mafia Becomes the “Election Helper”
2.3 Suppression Under Fascism?
2.4 American “Reconstruction Aid”
2.5 From the Rural to the Urban Mafia
2.6 Violent “Intermezzo” by the Corleonesi
2.7 The Mafia Goes “Underground”
3 Inside the Mafia
3.1 From the “Uomo d’Onore” to the “Capo dei Capi”
3.2 From Have-Nots to “Men of Honor”
3.3 The Way into the Cosa Nostra
3.4 The “Codice d’Onore”—The Honor Code
3.5 “The Business of Crime”
3.6 Murder Only in Case of Emergency
4 Italy—A Mafia Democracy?
4.1 “The Fish stinks from the Head”—Why Politicians get away with everything
4.2 Whether White, Red or Blue1, What Counts is the “Smell of Power”
4.3 Protection and Favoritism in Exchange for Support
4.4 Judiciary and Police: Henchman of Politics?
4.5 “Meeting Places”: Elite Clubs and Secret Lodges
4.6 The Mafia as a “Lightning Rod” for Dark Powers
Notes
Glossary
References

Citation preview

Anita Bestler

The Sicilian Mafia The Armed Wing of Politics

The Sicilian Mafia

Anita Bestler

The Sicilian Mafia The Armed Wing of Politics

Anita Bestler Palermo, Italy

ISBN 978-3-658-39309-0 ISBN 978-3-658-39310-6  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39310-6 This book is a translation of the original German „Die sizilianische Mafia“ by Bestler, Anita, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH in 2021. The translation was done with the help of an artificial intelligence machine translation tool. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Responsible Editor: Jan Treibel This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Dedicated to Lenin Mancuso (1922–1979)

Preface

I would like to thank the numerous people who played a role in the creation of this book. First and foremost, my husband Franco Mancuso, who helped me find the key to understanding the topic of “Mafia and Politics”. Without his help, many Sicilian and Italian “oddities” would have remained a mystery to me. With his profound knowledge, he not only tirelessly discussed the various chapters of this work with me, but also made available to me the material he had collected over the years. Without him, this book would never have come about in its present form. His father, police sergeant Lenin Mancuso, lost his life to Mafia violence on September 25, 1979. Even as he lay dying, he tried to protect with his body the judge and friend Cesare Terranova (1921–1979) who was murdered with him. “Heroes of everyday life” like him are often relegated to the background, if not forgotten. It is precisely for this reason that the present book is dedicated to Lenin Mancuso, on behalf of all the forgotten victims of the Mafia who lost their lives in fulfillment of their civic duties. I would also like to thank Professor Dr. Dr. Robert Hettlage, former Ordinarius for Sociology at the University of Regensburg (Germany), who suggested and supported the book. In addition, my sincere thanks go to my many Sicilian conversation partners for making time to speak with me and for sharing their knowledge with me. Further, I thank my friends in Germany Dr. Peter Gischke, Dott. Mario Parisi, Anja Schliebitz, Dr. Georg Wiest and, in particular, Dr. Götz Ahrendt, for the careful review of the manuscript as well as Michaela Henkys from Meurer Art for the technical implementation of my infographics. For her competent assistance with the translation into English, I am vii

viii      Preface

grateful to Dr. Astrid Weigert from Georgetown University in Washington DC. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Veronika and Georg Bestler, my aunt Hanni and my brother Georg with Anouk and Amelie for their understanding of my Mediterranean passion, which has left too little time for us to spend together. And for all my friends worried about my safety: Let me assure you that it is not dangerous to write an academic book about the Mafia! Authors have written about the Mafia for at least 150 years and the Mafia has never minded. The only problem would be to reveal unknown facts about their powerful accomplices. This has cost the lives of several investigative journalists … Palermo

Anita Bestler

Contents

1 Introduction 1 2 From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi 9 2.1 How Low-level Criminals became Mafiosi 10 2.2 The Mafia Becomes the “Election Helper” 19 2.3 Suppression Under Fascism? 30 2.4 American “Reconstruction Aid” 39 2.5 From the Rural to the Urban Mafia 47 2.6 Violent “Intermezzo” by the Corleonesi 63 2.7 The Mafia Goes “Underground” 85 3

Inside the Mafia 101 3.1 From the “Uomo d’Onore” to the “Capo dei Capi” 102 3.2 From Have-Nots to “Men of Honor” 119 3.3 The Way into the Cosa Nostra 127 3.4 The “Codice d’Onore”—The Honor Code 136 3.5 “The Business of Crime” 150 3.6 Murder Only in Case of Emergency 160

4 Italy—A Mafia Democracy? 173 4.1 “The Fish stinks from the Head”—Why Politicians get away with everything 174 4.2 Whether White, Red or Blue, What Counts is the “Smell of Power” 181 ix

x      Contents

4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6

Protection and Favoritism in Exchange for Support Judiciary and Police: Henchman of Politics? “Meeting Places”: Elite Clubs and Secret Lodges The Mafia as a “Lightning Rod” for Dark Powers

194 208 215 223

Notes 233 Glossary 411 References 417

Abbreviations

ACIO Associazione Commercianti ed Imprenditori Orlandini (Orlandine Merchants and Businessmen’s Association), first anti-racket organisation ADM Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (Customs and Monopolies Agency) AG Province of Agrigento AGEA Agenzia per le Erogazioni in Agricoltura (Agency for Agricultural Expenditures) AISE Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna (External Information and Security Agency), 2007 to present, successor organization of SISMI AISI Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (Internal Information and Security Agency), 2007 to present, successor organization of SISDE AMGOT Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories AN Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) founded in 1994 as the successor party of MSI, since 2012 Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) ANAC Autorità nazionale anticorruzione (National AntiCorruption Authority), founded in 2014 ANBSC Agenzia nazionale per l’amministrazione e la destinazione dei beni sequestrati e confiscati alla criminalità organizzata (National Agency for the Administration and Destination of Seized and Confiscated Assets of Organized Crime) AQ Province of Aquila ARS Assemblea Regionale Siciliana (Regional Assembly of Sicily, Sicilian parliament) xi

xii      Abbreviations

BR Red Brigades BS Province of Brescia CAMEA Centro Attività Massoniche Esoteriche Accettate (Center for Accepted Esoteric Masonic Activities) CCA Centro Commerciale Agricolo (Trade Center for Agriculture) CIA Central Intelligence Agency (Foreign Intelligence Service of the United States), 1947 to present CISL Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori (Italian Workers’ Trade Union Federation), founded in 1950 as a Christian Democratic trade union confederation. CL Province of Caltanissetta CLN Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (Committee of National Liberation) CNEL Consiglio Nazionale dell’Economia e del Lavoro (National Economic and Labour Council) CO Province of Como COLDIRETTI Confederazione Nazionale dei Coltivatori Diretti (National Federation of Farmers), Christian Democratic Farmers’ Union CONFESERCENTI Confederazione Italiana Esercenti Attività Commerciali, Turistiche e dei Servizi (Italian Confederation of Trade, Tourism and Services), traders’ association CONFINDUSTRIA Confederazione Generale dell’Industria Italiana (Confederation of Italian Industry), industrialists’ association CONSCOOP Consorzio fra Cooperative di Produzione e Lavoro (Consortium of Production and Work Cooperatives) CSM Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura (Supreme Council of the Judiciary), self-governing body of judges and prosecutors DC Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy) DDA Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia (District Anti-Mafia Directorate) DEA Drug Enforcement Administration DIA Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate) DIS Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza (Information and Security Department), 2007 to present; subordinate to the Prime Minister, the department coordinates and supervises the foreign intelligence service AISE as well as the domestic intelligence service AISI

Abbreviations     xiii

DS Democratici di Sinistra (Left Democrats), founded in 1998 as the successor party to the PDS EMS Ente Minerario Siciliano (Sicilian Mining Authority), transformed in 1967 into the Società Chimica Mineraria Siciliana (SO.CHI.MI.SI.) EN Province of Enna ENI Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (National Hydrocarbons Body) ERAS Ente per la Riforma Agraria in Sicilia (Body for Agrarian Reform in Sicily) EVIS Esercito Volontario per l’Indipendenza Siciliana (Volunteer Army for Sicilian Independence) FDI Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), founded in 2012 as the successor party to the AN FE Province of Ferrara FEDERTERRA Federazione Nazionale fra i Lavoratori della Terra (National Federation of Land Workers) FN Fronte Nazionale (National Front), 1968 right-wing terrorist organization founded by Junio Valerio Borghese FR Province of Frosinone GE Province or, since 2015, Metropolitan City of Genoa GESAP Gestione Aeroporto Palermo (Palermo Airport Management) GIP Giudice per le Indagini Preliminari (Preliminary Investigations Judge) GOI Grande Oriente d’Italia (Grand Orient of Italy), Italian umbrella organisation of Masonic Lodges IACP Istituto Autonomo per le Case Popolari (Autonomous Institute for Social Housing) IM Province of Imperia INAM Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contro le Malattie (National Institute of Health), founded in 1943 as the national health authority; replaced in 1997 by the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (National Health Service) IOR Istituto delle Opere Religiose (Vatican Bank) IRCAC Istituto Regionale per il Credito alla Cooperazione (Regional credit institution for cooperatives) ISTAT Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (Italian Statistical Office) LN Lega Nord (North Federation) ME Province of Messina M5S Movimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement) MIS Movimento per l’Indipendenza Siciliana (Sicilian Independence Movement)

xiv      Abbreviations

MN Province of Mantua MPA Movimento per l’Autonomia (Autonomy Movement) MSI Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement) NA Province or, since 2015, Metropolitan City of Naples OP Osservatorio Politico (Roman weekly newspaper) OSS Office of Strategic Service, precursor to  the CIA between 1942 and 1945 P2 Propanda Due, Masonic Lodge PA Province or, since 2015, metropolitan city of Palermo PCDI Partito Comunista d’Italia (Communist Party of Italy), founded 1921 PCI Partito Comunista Italiano (Communist Party of Italy), founded in 1943 as the successor party to the PCDI; dissolved in 1991 and re-founded as the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS) PD Partito Democratico (Democratic Party), founded in 2007 as a merger of the DS with the left wing of the former DC PDA Partito d’Azione (Party of Action) PDLI Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani (Italian Workers’ Party) PDS Partito Democratico della Sinistra (Left Democratic Party), founded in 1991 as the successor party to the PCI; merged with the DS in 1998 PLD Partito Liberale Democratico (Liberal Democratic Party) PLI Partito Liberale Italiano (Italian Liberal Party), since 2004 only Partito Liberale (PL) PNF Partito Nazionale Fascista PPI Partito Popolare Italiano (Italian People’s Party) PR Partito Radicale (Radical Party) PR Province of Parma PRI Italian Republican Party (Italian Republican Party) PSI Italian Socialist Party (Italian Socialist Party) PV Province of Pavia RC Province of Reggio Calabria RG Province of Ragusa RM Metropolitan City of Rome ROS Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale (Operational Special Grouping), Special unit founded in 1990 as a Carabinieri special unit to fight organized crime and terrorism; successor organization to the Carabinieri Terrorism Special Unit Nucleo Speciale Antiterrorismo SID Servizio Informazioni Difesa (Defense Information Service), existed between 1966 and 1977

Abbreviations     xv

SIFAR Servizio Informazioni Forze Armate (Armed Forces Information Service), existed between 1949–1965 SIM Servizio Informazione Militare (Military Information Service), existed between 1925 and 1945 SISDE Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica (Service for Information and Democratic Security), existed between 1978 and 2007 SISMI Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare (Military Intelligence and Security Service), existed between 1978 and 2007 SR Province of Syracuse  TAR Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale (Regional Administrative Court) TP Province of  Trapani TR Province of Terni UDC Unione di Centro (Union of the Centre), founded in 2002 as a merger between the Christian Democratic splinter parties Centro Cristiano Democrato (CCD), Cristiani Democratici Uniti (CDU) and Democrazia Europea (DE) USL Unità Sanitaria Locale (Local Health Board), today: Azienda Sanitaria Locale (ASL) VALTUR Valorizzazione Turistica (Tourist development), Italian hotel chain VT Province of  Viterbo XaMAS Decima Flottiglia MAS (Tenth MAS Flotilla), special naval unit in World War II ZEN Zona Expansione Nord, Social housing district on the north-western outskirts of Palermo, built in the late 1960s

1 Introduction

In everyday parlance, the phrase “politics as a dirty business” is often used — and particularly applicable to the situation in Italy. The majority of Italians traditionally hold politicians to be corrupt and therefore not only have no trust in state institutions, but actively reject them. Numerous studies and opinion polls confirm this, for example the results of a representative survey by the Demos opinion research institute, according to which 71% of the Italian population hold a very low opinionof state institutions.1 The government and the political parties come off particularly badly: 81% of Italians are dissatisfied with the government and an even higher 92% with the parties. Still today, one tells the story of a voter who attached a slice of mortadella to his ballot with the comment: “Now you can eat that, too.”2 The Italian population’s reasons for its attitude are quite understandable when one considers the numerous politicians who have been involved in scandals or caught up in the wheels of justice since the founding of Italy and yet mostly got away scot-free. This applies by no means only to an almost incalculable number of lower-level politicians, but also to many high-ranking persons: They include the former Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928), who was given the nickname of “Minister of the Underworld”,3 as well as Bettino Craxi (1934–1999), who was convicted of bribery in the Tangentopoli scandal and fled to Tunisia’s Hammamet in 1994 to avoid arrest. Not to be forgotten are also the former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti (1919–2013), who was accused of Mafia connections and instigating the murder of a journalist in two trials, and the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (1936–2023), who is said to have committed © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Bestler, The Sicilian Mafia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39310-6_1

1

2     A. Bestler

a whole range of crimes, from tax evasion and false accounting to bribing judges and having sex with minors.4 Yet not only the Italians themselves have a low opinion of their political representatives, but also the international anti-corruption organization Transparency International, which has existed since 1993. Today it is the world’s most important non-governmental organization in the fight against corruption and is striving to draw attention above all to corruption in governments and public administrations. Since 1995, Transparency has been publishing a Corruption Perceptions Index, which presents the situation in all those countries for which sufficient data are available. Currently, these are 180 countries, i.e. almost all of the approximately 200 states in the world. In Transparency’s Corruption Perceptions Index, points are awarded from zero to 100, with virtually corruption-free countries receiving 100 points. Within the largely positively assessed countries of the European Union, only Italy, Malta, Greece and some of the newer EU countries stand out. In 2020, Italy came in 52nd place with only 53 points (together with Grenada, Malta, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia) and is behind countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Chile, Bahamas, Botswana or Costa Rica.5 The subject of this book, however, is not all the dirty practices of Italian politicians, but only a very specific aspect thereof: it will be about those politicians who make use of the Mafia’s special services to achieve their own goals. The Mafia—and this is the main thesis of this book—is the “armed wing” of politics. This study will show that in Italy the use of criminal groups by the politically powerful has made the emergence of the Mafia possible in the first place and continues to ensure its existence. Even if in the last three decades mafiosi were actually sentenced to long prison terms for the first time, this does not represent a real problem for the organization, as the gaps are immediately filled. Perhaps for this reason, according to a survey by Demopolis, 80% of Sicilians believe that nothing has changed since the violent attacks of 1992 and that the Mafia is still strong.6 Moreover, a majority of young people seem to believe that the state does nothing against the Mafia and even maintains close relations with it. At least 85% of a total of 2,362 Sicilian high school students between the ages of 16 and 19 said so in an online survey.7 Although the Mafia is undoubtedly an important instrument of corrupt politicians, it is more than just a politician’s henchman: the Cosa Nostra is also an ordinary criminal group in that it pursues its own goals, which are completely independent of politics. It is an organization with specific entry requirements, a clear organizational structure, and a sophisticated set of rules. It is neither a product of a special Sicilian mentality nor an

1 Introduction     3

anachronistic relic of medieval feudalism or a kind of “criminal industry” that can be found in rural central Sicily. The view that the Mafia is a positive force, a legitimate way to take matters into one’s own hands in the face of a dysfunctional state, was often espoused by Sicilian “patriots” who were concerned about the island’s reputation and downplayed the importance of the Mafia as a special form of criminal activity.8 They argued that those who are called criminals in Milan or Rome are called mafiosi in Sicily, only to defame the island. Some anthropologists locate the Mafia only in the villages of the island’s interior, which was dominated by the latifundium economy, where so-called gabellotti, or exploitative large tenants, commanded the Mafia clans.9 However, Mafia groups were also found in the “green belt” along the coast between Bagheria (PA) and Partinico (PA), where there were neither latifundia nor gabellotti, and in the city of Palermo, whose economy was dominated by the service sector and manufacturing. And today there are Mafia clans in many wealthy countries of the world. Of course, the Mafia can be seen as a “criminal business enterprise”10, but this is true for many other delinquent groups as well. What sets the Mafia apart from other criminal organizations is its Janus-faced nature: on the one hand, it is indeed a criminal enterprise with its own goals, mainly enrichment, on the other hand, it is also a criminal auxiliary of politicians. And it is precisely this second aspect that sets the Mafia apart from “ordinary” criminal organizations. Stories that the Mafia developed as early as the Middle Ages belong in the realm of fairy tales.11 One of these legends dates the origin of the Mafia to the rule of the Arabs in Sicily, when there was an association of Berbers called “Maafir”, which is said to have provided security for its members. According to another myth, the Mafia emerged during the Sicilian Vespers, the famous popular uprising in 1282 against the French Anjou. At that time, the motto of a group of freedom-loving men was “Morte alla Francia, Italia anela” (France death, Italy gasps), from which the abbreviation “M.a.f.i.a.” as the name of their organization is supposed to derive. According to another version, a mother, whose daughter had been attacked by a French soldier, cried: “Ma fia, ma fia” (Sic. My daughter, my daughter), from which the battle cry of the people against the French is said to have arisen. Other legends date the origin of the Mafia to the rule of the Spaniards. An especially adventurous story claims that three noble brothers from Castile—Osso, Mastrosso and Scarcagnosso—had to leave Madrid because they were not able to avenge the honor of their sister, who had been seduced by a powerful aristocrat. On the run they came to the island of Favignana off the coast of Trapani. There, their ways parted: Mastrosso went to Naples and founded the Camorra, Scarcagnosso became the progenitor of the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria, and

4     A. Bestler

Osso built the Mafia in Palermo. According to another version, there was a criminal organization called “Cardunas” or “Society of Gentlemen” in Toledo in 1412, which found its way to Sicily with the Spaniards. Again, other legends consider certain Freemasonry groups of the eighteenth century to be the founders of the Mafia. For example, it is claimed that in 1799 five men founded a Freemasonry lodge in Mazara del Vallo (TP), from which the Mafia is said to have emerged. The most popular myth, to which some scholars also adhere, regards the legendary brotherhood of a Calabrian saint, namely Francis of Paola, the so-called Beati Paoli, as the origin of the Mafia.12 It is said to have arisen in the Norman period in the twelfth century and the Beati Paoli are said to have disguised themselves as monks during the day, when they pretended to pray the rosary, but actually spied on what was happening in the city. At night they are said to have met in secret and actually held court proceedings with subsequent conviction. Their actions were primarily directed against attacks by members of the nobility on the helpless. With the two Palermitans Giuseppe Amatore and Girolamo Ammirato, executed in 1704 and 1723 respectively, some even claim to have identified the last two leaders of the Beati Paoli by name. However, the historical existence of the Beati Paoli has not yet been proven beyond a doubt. Nevertheless, even the Mafia prefers this version, as has been expressed in a number of confessions by repentant crown witnesses. The secret society became famous through Luigi Natoli’s (1857–1941) popular historical novel “I Beati Paoli”, first published between 1909 and 1910 and later in new editions.13 This novel is still one of the most widely read books in Italy and was especially popular with the lower classes, to the extent that public readings were held in poor neighborhoods. In reality, the Mafia emerged in a very specific political situation in the early nineteenth century, in which the social elite used the violent services of criminals to achieve their political goals, thus becoming accomplices and in turn reciprocating with favors. For example, the state’s control and repression apparatus ensured that Mafia “businesses” could run smoothly, that is, also without punishment. Once society’s powerful made use of the services of ordinary criminals and protected them in return, the criminals mutated into the Mafia. Since Italian unification, the importance of the Mafia has increased—mainly due to the extension of the right to vote. Gradually, it became a permanent part of the country’s political system—which it has remained to this day. The special relationship between politics and Cosa Nostra provides the key to understanding the Mafia as a special form of organized crime. Without political protection, the Mafia would not have arisen at all and could not continue to exist.

1 Introduction     5

It makes sense then that the term “Mafia” appears in the meaning we know today, namely as a designation for a very special form of criminal activity, exactly at the time when the organization actually emerged.14 Originally, a mafiusu simply meant a superior, masculine man or, in the case of a mafiusa, a pretty girl. Even today, the Sicilian dictionary by Giorgio Piccitto (1916–1972) translates “Mafia” with “beauty” or “impudence”, as the Sicilian doctor and folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè (1841–1916) had already defined it at the beginning of the twentieth century—going hand in hand with “beauty”, “greatness”, “perfection” and “perfection in a very specific area”.15 The word “Maffia”—originally written with two “f ”—was first used in an official 1838 document by the prosecutor of Trapani, Pietro Calà Ulloa (1801–1879), to designate criminal groups. However, the change in meaning from the originally not negatively connoted term did not really begin until the 1860s. A key factor was the popular play “I mafiusi di la Vicaria di Palermu” (Sic. The Mafiosi of the Vicaria), written by the Sicilian teacher Gaspare Mosca in 1862 and staged by his countryman, the comedian Giuseppe Rizzotto, a year later.16 Allegedly, Mosca was inspired by a personal experience to write the play: he is said to have been an eyewitness to a quarrel between two youths on a July day in 1862, in which one drew a knife and shouted at the other: “E tu vulissi fare ‘u mafiusu cu mia?” (Sic. And you wanted to make the mafioso with me?). Mosca was allegedly so impressed by the boy’s expression that he included the term—in the sense of “arrogant” or “strong”—in his play. Mosca’s comedy is set in 1854 and takes place in the Vicaria, the old city prison of Palermo. The plot centers around a group of prisoners—synonymously referred to by the author as camorristi or mafiusi—who are characterized by an infinite love for Sicily, especially for Palermo, a strong religiosity, a sense of justice and contempt for the sbirri (snitches) and all representatives of the state. The mafiosi, although from the artisan class, have a clearly privileged position over the other prisoners because they belong to a secret association characterized by special initiation rites and internal rules, behind which a powerful political person stands. The author probably referred to the Risorgimento leader and “Garibaldian” Francesco Crispi (1818–1901). The group not only enjoys special respect in prison, but it also succeeds in forcing its will on other people—both inside and outside the prison walls. The piece premiered with great success in Palermo’s Teatro Sant’ Anna in 1863. It struck a nerve with the audience who could identify with the protagonists’ viewpoints. Encouraged by the positive public response, Rizzotto wrote two additional similar plays, titled “La taverna di lu zu Minicu Chiantedda” and “I mafiusi in progresso”. With these three folk comedies, which ran under the heading “Trilogia

6     A. Bestler

dei mafiusi” or “I mafiusi all’osteria”, the acting troupe toured various Italian theaters for several years, even going on tour in the USA and South America. By then, the word “Mafia” had found its way into the Italian language as a synonym for a certain form of criminal gang. The word “Mafia” was again mentioned in police records on April 25, 1865, when the then Prefect of Palermo, Filippo Antonio Gualterio (1819–1874) from Umbria, referred to “robber bands” in a confidential report on public security as “Mafia”. It is plausible to assume that the term “Mafia” came into circulation after the successful theater piece by Rizzotto in its new meaning and was simply adopted by Gualterio. From this point on, the term flourished in police circles and became established as a designation for a certain form of criminal organization. After 1875, the term was then adopted in other languages, such as German, French and English, with the new meaning. It is now used to designate criminal organizations in large parts of the world— and has become internationally as well-known as spaghetti for a certain type of pasta. Even though former Mafia members occasionally use the word “Mafia” in their stories today, the organization itself rejects the term and considers it nothing more than a literary invention. Originally members called themselves fratuzzi (Siz. little brothers) or fratellanze (brotherhoods), terms that were increasingly replaced by the terms “Onorata Società” (Honorable Society) or “Cosa Nostra” (Our Thing) in the second half of the nineteenth century. The term “honorable society” is derived from the internal code of conduct, the “code of honor”, which applies within the organization, while the origin of the other very common term “Cosa Nostra” is unknown. It is likely to have arisen from the internal initiation ritual: Mafiosi are often introduced to each other with the words “Questo è cosa nostra” (This is our thing). Some suggest that the term was invented or brought to the USA by Sicilian mafiosi who emigrated from their homeland. The American Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno explained that Cosa Nostra is a metaphor for the world of the Sicilians, their traditions and values.17 However that may be, both terms—“Onorata Società” and “Cosa Nostra”—are accepted within the Mafia. In current Sicilian usage, members of the Mafia are not only respectfully referred to as uomini d’onore (men of honor) or uomini di rispetto (men of respect), but are also referred to with other terms: in western Sicily, they are often simply called picciotti (Sic. boys), while in eastern Sicily the term soldati  (soldiers) is more common. The term punciuti (Sic. pricked ones) is very common throughout Sicily and derives from the initiation ritual of the Cosa Nostra, in which the initiate is pricked in a finger. The term spaduzza

1 Introduction     7

(Sic. raised shoulder) is occasionally used and accompanied by the gesture of raising one’s shoulder: the raised, stiff shoulder stands for the typical proud bearing of mafiosi. Another variant is the term ’ntisi (Sic. those who are listened to), which refers to the special prestige of the Mafia. However, when one speaks of the amici di l’amici (Sic. friends of friends), one does not mean the actual members of the organization, but the wider circle of people collaborating with and protecting the Mafia—those from the upper classes of society, including politicians, upper-level officials, businessmen and entrepreneurs. Individual Mafia gangs are—both in internal and in general usage—referred to as famiglia (family) or cosca. (In Sicilian, cosche are actually artichokes.18) The leader of a Mafia group was called cacocciula (Sic. artichoke), thus he symbolizes the trunk in the Mafia cosca, while the members are the leaves; but there is also the interpretation that the Mafia gangs called themselves cosche because they saw themselves as a kind of skeleton of society and thus as part of the whole.—In the following, the three terms “Mafia”, “Honorable Society” and “Cosa Nostra” will be used synonymously. In Italian politics, the Mafia is an important instrument of power. This form of Mafia rule is by no means limited to Italy, where various Mafia organizations—from the Sicilian Mafia to the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta19, the Campanian Camorra20 to the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita21—have entered into close relationships with politicians, as in many other parts of the world. Think of numerous Latin American countries, the countries of the former Eastern bloc or even China and Japan. Even democracies in Central and Northern Europe do not seem to be completely immune to Mafia rule, as increasing cases of collusion, i.e. alliances between representatives of politics and criminals, suggest. For this reason, it seems appropriate to take a closer look at the phenomenon of “Mafia democracy”, using the example of Italy, because the material available from there is particularly rich and the stated thesis can be documented particularly well. The chosen focus on the Sicilian Cosa Nostra among the various Italian criminal organizations is due on the one hand to the fact that it was long the most important such organization, and on the other hand, that it represents a kind of prototype, to which the other groups mentioned above—especially the ‘Ndrangheta—correspond in many ways. Methodologically, the study is based on numerous expert interviews with politicians, scientists, priests, social workers, entrepreneurs, judges, prosecutors, police officers, journalists, officials, teachers, etc.; furthermore, it is based on my own participant observations of everyday life over the last 20 years, i.e., since I have been living in Palermo. It was important to me to gradually “understand” the Sicilian society in the Weberian sense22—an

8     A. Bestler

approach that the Sicilian writer Gesualdo Bufalino (1920–1996) also recommends to foreigners, since the “fragmented, rich and contradictory plurality” of Sicily cannot be “compressed into a simple formula”: Perhaps it is enough that the visitor arm himself with patience and modesty; that he come here without haste (…); that he be content not to understand us immediately, in order to really understand us later. (…) Only such a long-term initiation makes it possible to approach the local sentiments and ways of living and also that which is unspoken underneath them in the right spirit.23

These methods were flanked by intensive literary studies and extensive newspaper research—a very time-consuming undertaking, since there is an almost unmanageable flood of material on the Mafia: police reports, court records, documents of parliamentary investigative committees, descriptions by contemporary witnesses or biographies of Mafia defectors. In addition, numerous scholars have dealt with individual aspects of the topic from a historical, sociological, ethnological, economic or political science perspective. The book is structured as follows: The first part presents the historical development of the Mafia, from its origins to the present. The second part is dedicated to the internal aspects of the Cosa Nostra: the organizational structure (Sect. 3.1), the social structure of the members (Sect. 3.2), the recruitment (Sect. 3.3), the code of conduct (Sect. 3.4), business activities (Sect. 3.5) and the ways and means used by the Mafia (Sect. 3.6). The third part of the book begins with some considerations on the “Mafia democracy” (Sect. 4.1). It will be shown that so far in Sicily there has been no party that could claim of complete immunity from the Cosa Nostra (Sect. 4.2). Sect. 4.3 addresses the specific “exchange of transactions” between politics and the Mafia. The focus of Sect. 4.4 is the decisive role of the state prosecution apparatus as the “accomplice”, which makes the collaboration between politics and the Mafia possible in the first place. And, since all the participants have to “find” each other first and need a forum for cooperation, Sect. 4.5 presents the central “meeting places” such as the Freemasons and various other elite associations. The final chapter (Sect. 4.6) deals with the so-called “third level”—an occult power within the state, which is supposed to be responsible for numerous crimes that remain unsolved. Many of these “Italian mysteries” are incorrectly attributed solely to the Mafia which is why the last great Mafia boss, Totò Riina was not wrong when he declared that he was tired of the Mafia having to be the “lightning rod for Italy”.

2 From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi

During its two hundred year history, the Mafia has had its ups and downs, which is mainly due to the respective broader political conditions, but partly also due to internal power struggles. The Mafia originated in the early nineteenth century, when members of the social elite resorted to the use of violent gangs made up of lower-class people in order to gain political power. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the number of Mafia clans exploded, mainly because of the emergence of politicians as a class and the expansion of the right to vote, which made the Mafia an important factor in securing elections. Only during the Fascist dictatorship did a break occur between the Mafia and politics, because Mussolini did not want to tolerate a “state within the state”, which is why massive action was taken against the Mafia for the first time. But immediately after the Allied liberation, the Mafia succeeded in reorganizing, not least because the Americans provided “reconstruction aid”. While the clans originally earned their money mainly through the control of agriculture—once the most important sector of the Sicilian economy—new business options opened up in the field of construction industry, the control of public contracts, cigarette and above all drug trafficking after the Second World War, all of which resulted in enormous business profits for the Mafia. Many Mafia bosses became millionaires—but only those in the city, the rural Mafia lost importance. At that time, fierce internal distribution battles also broke out, which led to “Mafia wars”. In the last confrontation, the Corleonesi clan succeeded in taking over power within the Cosa Nostra, and under their leader Totò Riina, a “Mafia dictatorship” began. Due to the ever-increasing Mafia violence © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Bestler, The Sicilian Mafia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39310-6_2

9

10     A. Bestler

under the Corleonesi, which for the first time also claimed the lives of many policemen and prosecutors, politicians were forced to act due to pressure from the population: the laws were tightened and there were trials in which life imprisonment was imposed for the first time. After that, the Mafia went “into hiding”—it tried to become invisible. Even if it has hardly been involved in spectacular acts of violence for 25 years now, it is still powerful and ever-present.

2.1 How Low-level Criminals became Mafiosi The emergence of the Mafia is associated with the end of feudalism (1812) and the Restoration that followed the Congress of Vienna (1815). It can— as the “Parliamentary Commission on the social and economic conditions in Sicily” of 1875 stated—be dated back to the reign of Ferdinand III. of Bourbon (1751–1825)1 which was a time of political upheaval, in which the old order began to dissolve without being replaced by a new one.2 Soon after the proclamation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1816), the local Sicilian aristocracy, which previously held virtually all political power on the island, realized that not only had their situation deteriorated, but they had actually been disenfranchised: Before, they had practically governed the island alone through their majority in the Sicilian local parliament and had only formally accepted the King in Naples, but the situation changed when, in 1816, the Bourbons established an “administrative monarchy” and deprived the Sicilian aristocracy of all the rights they had previously enjoyed. In addition, the nobility had to pay a land tax for the first time. The Bourbons downgraded Sicily to a province—centrally governed from Naples and administered by seven intendants. The dissatisfied aristocrats, especially from the area around Palermo, which had lost its supremacy and was no longer the center of courtly life, then staged several uprisings against the Bourbons. Therefore, many nobles were involved in the Italian unification movement, the Risorgimento, however not due to patriotic sentiment, but rather to regain their former importance and the old status quo. They were organized in the extremely strong secret Masonic society Carbonaria, which pursued the goal of expelling the Bourbons. The nobility found an important ally in the local middle class, which had been able to purchase land for the first time in 1812, thus gradually developing a urban bourgeoisie with the notabili (honorables) and a rural bourgeoisie with the cappeddi (Sic. caps).3 The Sicilian bourgeoisie, in which lawyers were particularly well

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     11

represented, expected from a united Italy for the first time an opportunity for political participation—regardless of whether this Italy would now take the form of a republic or a constitutional monarchy. The bourgeoisie drew its motivation less from the ideas of the Enlightenment, but rather hoped for a societal ascent. The eastern Sicilian elite, while inclined to support the Risorgimento, behaved differently not only due to its traditional antagonism to the “Palermitans”, but also because the new situation was a boon to them: their cities advanced, thanks to the “disempowerment” of Palermo, to provincial capitals, in which new opportunities opened up for the local aristocrats. Many of them successfully applied for the newly created intendant or sub-intendant positions and were able to increase their personal power. While the eastern Sicilian elite thus arranged itself with the new situation, its counterparts in the west pondered a remedy. For this purpose, an uprising was first set in motion in 1820, which was organized and led by Giuseppe Alliata, the Prince of Villafranca (1784–1844) by means of the Carboneria. This rebellion was only temporarily successful, the Bourbons crushed the uprising and re-established their rule, but only until 1848, when—under the leadership of the nobleman Rosolino Pilo (1820–1860)—a new revolt was carried out. This was successful in that the Bourbons were declared deposed and a revolutionary government was able to take over. But after only one year, the Bourbons restored their rule by means of a military invasion, yet again only for a short time. The reason for this was that the efforts for a united Italy were further advanced, with the leading role being played by the most important advisor to the Piedmontese King Victor Emanuel II. of Savoy (1820–1878), Camillo Benso, the Count of Cavour (1810–1861). In the spring of 1860, the military Risorgimento leader Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) landed with only two ships and his famous “mille ”, that is, about 1000 irregular fighters, in Marsala (TP) and finally drove out the Bourbons for good—supported by many Sicilians and the lawyer Francesco Crispi at the head. Without the famous landing of the “mille ” in Sicily, Italy would probably not have come into being, which is why Garibaldi was later glorified as a national hero.4 The leaders of the aforementioned uprisings did not have an army and had to look for their fighters in the population.5 The revolutionaries clearly used violent gangs—led by so-called capi squadra (group leaders)—which were particularly numerous in western Sicily. For example, the above mentioned Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry of 1875 reported on aristocrats who had been helped by “dubious men” in their revolts.6 The aforementioned Giuseppe Coppola, Santo Mele and Salvatore (Turi) Miceli, easily incited poor farmers and peasants, for whom every uprising was a

12     A. Bestler

welcome opportunity to plunder and destroy tax and land registries in the municipal offices. This would probably have been less successful in eastern Sicily, because many of the peasants there enjoyed better lease conditions and would have had more to lose.7 The gang leaders also ensured that their members in prison were released and could join the common cause. But the help of the squads was not only sought for revolts: The revolutionary government of 1848 went one step further by using criminals to maintain order and incorporating them into the ranks its security forces. If they then continued to commit crimes “on their own account”, their superiors turned a blind eye and the criminals were not sanctioned. In this way, a politically protected crime—different from the brigandage8—emerged from the squadrismo: the Mafia. The capi squadra made up of ordinary people were thus the first “Mafia persons”.9 The first written reports on Mafialike clans, such as that of 1828 by the Public Prosecutor of Agrigento or that of 1838 by the Public Prosecutor of Trapani, therefore fall into this period.10 But not only the insurgents used the services of criminals, the Bourbons did as well after they had restored their power in 1849: Instead of taking action against the violent gangs, the new police chief Salvatore Maniscalco (1813–1864) accepted some of their leaders like the notorious Turi Miceli from Monreale as “policemen” into the “Compagnie d’armi” (the Bourbon militia), which he had set up. If these men then committed crimes, they were protected by the police chief, which further strengthened the Mafia. When Garibaldi prepared for the final expulsion of the Bourbons in 1860, he also resorted to using Mafia groups for lack of sufficient military personnel. The criminologist Napoleone Colajanni (1847–1921) stated as follows: The most famous mafiosi were among the best fighters of the so-called squads of 1848; the same mafiosi then fought with Garibaldi’s picciotti in front of the gates of Palermo and in the city.11

The bandits, who had partly been paid for their “involvement” in the revolts, had no political conviction at all, but regarded participation in uprisings as a good opportunity to enrich themselves. For example, the bandit leader Turi Miceli, who had participated in both uprisings of 1848 and 1860, explained: I would never sell my gun, that means bread for me; if there is another revolution, I can earn four tari a day, as was the case in 1848 and 1860.12

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     13

For their services, the Mafia was rewarded by their “friends” from the social elite in many ways: it was commonplace for nobility, large landowners and church dignitaries to give the Mafia shelter or, if they actually got into trouble, to speak on their behalf in court. Thanks to these relationships, it was, as the Parliamentary Investigating Commission of 1875 noted, extraordinarily easy for the Mafia to secure impunity.13 The situation was summed up in 1841 by the sub-intendant of Termini Imerese (PA) when he wrote: The gangs are known, their members, too, what they do is also not unclear, since the things happen in front of a large number of people. They hide in bad hiding places, share their vices with their protectors and would bring damage to those who dare to talk about it.14

In addition, members of the elite who were occasionally imprisoned as political revolutionaries  by the Bourbons  and organized through the Carboneria, in all likelihood must have come into contact with ordinary criminals there. Thus, a group of liberal revolutionaries arrested in Mazara del Vallo (TP) in 1849 was surprisingly visited in prison by a welldressed capo squadra named Catalanotta, who presented them with a basket of prickly pears as a gift.15 Catalanotta promised the distinguished prisoners that he would make sure that they lacked nothing. Enzo Ciconte (born 1947) describes this as follows: In the beginning there was probably the contact between the criminals, who had no name and no clear identity yet, and the political prisoners in the Bourbon prisons. (…) Nothing is easier to imagine than that it were these men who conveyed to the ordinary criminals a sense of secret societies; the importance of speaking in a certain jargon that could not be understood by enemies, and the sense of binding rules for everyone. It is very likely that the typical organizational model of secret societies was passed from prison to prison and then spread to the outside world. (…).16

In this manner, the first mafiosi acquired the organizational customs of the Carboneria and took them over for their own associations. The fact that later Mafia clans—of which we know much more than of the early ones— resemble the Carbonari in many respects also suggests that the Mafia and the Carbonari were in close contact with each other. Another indication is provided by the organizational names of the first Mafia groups: they called themselves fratellanza (brotherhood), fratuzzi (Sic. little brothers) or—as in

14     A. Bestler

the province of Agrigento—cudi chiatti (Sic. flat tails)17, a designation that clearly comes from Freemasonry. Even though the Mafia had already taken root as an independent form of criminal activity in western Sicily in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was not yet clearly recognizable, which is why the term “incubation period”18 is often used. The situation changed dramatically after Italian unification, when a Mafia “big bang” occurred with a veritable explosion of Mafia gangs which meant that the number of mafiosi began climb into the thousands. After a few years, there was hardly any place in western Sicily that was not affected by such gangs. The centers of the Mafia were located in the provinces of Palermo, Trapani, Agrigento and Caltanissetta—exactly where the first clans had arisen before Italian unification—and their members were often known by name.19 (In eastern Sicily, however, only a few Mafia gangs developed in the twentieth century.) The gangs had no “business preferences”, but were active in all areas where there was money to be made: They controlled the areas of central Sicily, where grain was grown in latifundia and livestock was kept. There, the “Mafia of the gabellotti”20 arose, the exploitative large tenants, as well as the “Mafia of cattle rustling”. In the citrus and orange groves of the Conca d’oro plain of Palermo, on the other hand, the “Mafia of the guards” dominated. In addition, the “Mafia of the sulfur mines” controlled the area around Agrigento and Caltanissetta. In the large cities, finally, there was the “Mafia of the carriers” and many others. Up until the takeover by the dictator Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), the main reason for the explosion of the Mafia clans lay in the fact that even after the constitution of the Italian kingdom was in effect, practically all governments made use of the services of criminals. These were specifically the governments of the Destra storica (Historical right), then the Sinistra storica (Historical left) and finally the Liberals. After the Sicilian elite had massively supported Garibaldi in the liberation from the Bourbons, they considered themselves—not quite unjustifiably—as the natural heirs of the revolution. Garibaldi, who was to lead the island’s political destiny as dictator in the name of the Piedmontese king Victor Emanuel II. for a short time, nurtured this hope and promised the Sicilians far-reaching autonomy in the new Italian state, which corresponded exactly to their political aspirations. Not least because of these promises, the Sicilians, i.e. the small part of the voting elite, voted in favour of the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Savoyard king in 1860. This constitutional monarchy was then indeed established in March 1861, however, not as the Sicilian elite had imagined it: The Statuto Albertino,

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     15

the constitution of the Savoyard kingdom, was adopted as the constitution of the new Italian kingdom.21 Accordingly, political power was to be exercised centrally by a government formally appointed by the king and a two-chamber parliament—consisting of a House of Representatives whose members are elected and a Senate appointed by the king. The state territory was divided into provinces—seven of them in Sicily—which were centrally administered by prefects appointed directly by the government. This meant that the hoped-for autonomy for Sicily had not materialized. In the elections to the first Italian House of Representatives in the spring of 1861, the party faction22 of the Historical right, consisting of moderate monarchists and moderate liberals led by the Piedmontese Count of Cavour, prevailed to the detriment of the Sicilians. However, the majority of Sicilians belonged to the party faction of the Historical left led by the lawyer Francesco Crispi from Ribera (AG), in which radical liberals, Mazzinians and Garibaldians had united. This grouping was also supported by the old elite and the members of the newly risen bourgeoisie. This heterogeneous alliance aimed to settle Sicilian affairs as far as possible without external interference from the central state. The central government began to withdraw the considerable financial resources not only from Sicily, but from the entire Mezzogiorno to the north, in order to finance the development of the north. The budget surplus left by the Bourbon state in the amount of 443 million lire in gold came in handy. Similarly, when in 1866, as part of the secularization Sicilian church property was confiscated by the government and then sold, the financial resources flowed into the state treasury and were used primarily for the development of northern Italy. The south was flooded with taxes at unprecedented levels, while it remained excluded from investments. As expected, Cavour, who was based in Torino, did not keep the promises made by Garibaldi to the Sicilians, but governed the island, which he more or less considered an extension of the Savoy possessions, to the advantage of Piedmont. The centralization of the administrative system was implemented immediately. Consequently, Sicilians now had to follow officials from the north, who had the task of integrating the island into the new state system and were therefore perceived as arrogant colonial masters. The exclusion of the local aristocracy from power was undoubtedly a major cause of the failure to implement Piedmontese laws in Sicily. In addition, the opposition, consisting of supporters of the Bourbons, the clergy, republican and autonomist groups as well as revolutionary followers of Mazzini, was still extremely strong. The opposition leaders could easily incite the population, which, after unification, was worse off than ever before due to various government

16     A. Bestler

measures. Therefore, the first priority of the government, which could only rely on its officials led by prefects and a few truly patriotic Sicilians on the island, was to secure its very fragile political power in the south and bring the opposition under control. In order to achieve its goal, the ruling Historical right did not shy away from violence from the beginning of its rule. It did not only use the legal means at its disposal, but also criminals. In this context, the so-called “Pugnalatori” (knife attackers)23 of 1862 are always referred to, in connection with an event which provided the pretext for the suppression of the opposition: An obscure knife attack, which took place in Palermo on the night of October 4, 1862, and in which twelve innocent people lost their lives, was staged by the Palermo police on behalf of the government in order to eliminate the opposition. Consequently, the leaders of the opposition groups were immediately arrested and constitutional rights, such as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, were restricted. In addition, the government issued a decree prohibiting the carrying of weapons. Moreover, on August 3, 1863, an important opponent, the Garibaldian General Giovanni Corrao (1822–1863), was killed by men disguised as carbinieri.24 Corrao, originally a Palermo shipyard worker from humble backgrounds, had already been active in the Risorgimento movement in the 1840s and later rose to the rank of general because of his military merits in the Garibaldi revolt. Corrao would have been able to organize a coup d’état in which the House of Savoy would have lost its rule in Sicily due to his extraordinary popularity among the population and his outstanding contacts with Mafia leaders such as Turi Miceli, Giuseppe Badia, Lorenzo Minneci, Giuseppe Scordato and Domenico Abbadessa.—Corrao’s killer or killers were never apprehended. When Senator Edoardo Pantano (1842–1932) tried to initiate an investigation about 10 years after the killing, he discovered that the relevant police investigation reports and court files had been destroyed. The friends and followers of Corrao—above all the Mafia boss Giuseppe Badia—were so outraged about the crime that they called a “party of the picciotti ” from Mafia leaders involved in the Garibaldi Revolution of 1860 in order to revolt. The uprising, which was mainly carried out in the city of Palermo as well as in a dozen municipalities in the provinces of Palermo, Trapani and Catania, broke out on September 16, 1866, and lasted seven and a half days. The “Sette e mezzo” (seven and a half ) uprising could only be suppressed by military force. Sicily, due to the massive rejection of the new state apparatus by almost the entire population, could not be governed like other parts of the new Italy. Perhaps the biggest problem was the maintenance of public order,

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     17

which was at risk due to the increasingly rampant activities by the brigandage and Mafia. Since law enforcement forces remained completely isolated and were hated as strangers on the island, they were unable to fight crime with the usual legal means. Although there were paid informants, there were never people who would have been willing to testify as witnesses in trials against violent offenders of their own accord. Not least for this reason, the government at that point decided to take a hard line against criminals: Thus, as early as 1863, an emergency law, the so-called Pica law25, was passed, which granted the military great powers—including the holding of military tribunals and summary executions. However, this did not lead to a breakthrough, as the most important criminals were under the protection of powerful people with whom the government did not want to get involved. Perhaps for this reason, some representatives of state institutions, such as the police chief of Palermo, Giuseppe Albanese, from a respected liberal and patriotic Sicilian family, or the prefect Giacomo Medici, Marquis of Vascello (1817–1882) from Milan, decided to cooperate directly with criminals.26 This strategy was illegal, but had already proven itself during the Bourbon period under police chief Maniscalco. Medici recruited well-known delinquents into the “Compagnie d’armi”—an institution inherited from the Bourbon period—which was now called the “Militi a cavallo” and formed a kind of rural police. The “Militi a cavallo” did indeed take action against criminals in their area of responsibility, but committed crimes in areas for which they were not responsible as policemen. Albanese, who was police chief in Palermo between 1868 and 1873 and knew the local conditions better than many northern Italian officials, had come to the conviction that the Italian laws could not be applied in Sicily anyway, which is why he also paid selected criminals as informants or even took them into the police force. Albanese also tried to “win over” a Mafia shepherd under threat of house arrest who had been convicted of extortion. However, the shepherd resisted and tried to stab Albanese. The incident triggered a rather embarrassing trial for Albanese in 1868, but it remained without consequences. Albanese not only took delinquents into the police force, but also founded his own Mafia clan: in 1872, at the instigation of Giuseppe Palermi, the brother of a police officer subordinate to him, he founded the “Stuppagghieri” in Monreale (PA). With this group, disguised as a craftsmen’s self-help organization, he hoped to create a counterweight to the local Mafia, the clan of the “Giardinieri” of Monreale, in order to maintain a certain order. At first, the Stuppagghieri only carried out tasks for the police chief, but soon became autonomous and—always protected by Albanese— committed crimes on their own behalf. This state of affairs was sharply

18     A. Bestler

criticized by the Calabrian state prosecutor Diego Tajani (1827–1921), who took up his duties in Palermo in 1868. Tajani complained that Palermo was under the control of “criminals more or less in uniform”.27 When he finally had obtained detailed evidence that the police chief had instigated the Mafia to murder a fugitive blackmailer, he issued an arrest warrant in 1871. Albanese evaded his arrest and was now wanted. Thanks to his good relations with the government—he secretly met with Minister of Interior Giovanni Lanza (1810–1882) during his flight—the former police chief was able to be acquitted of the charges against him at the preliminary hearing. Tajani resigned in 1871. Later he went into politics and, as a member of parliament, came to the conclusion that the Mafia was by no means dangerous or invincible—rather, what was special about the organization was that it was an instrument of the local government.28 25 years after the founding of the Italian kingdom, the political landscape was set on a new course: in 1876, the last Prime Minister of the Historical right, Marco Minghetti (1818–1886), had to resign because part of the elected representatives of his party had defected to the Historical left. This marks the beginning of the time of “transformism”29, in which the Historical left held power for two decades with the support of the opposition. The “parliamentary revolution” of 1876 was only possible because the Historical left, traditionally strong in Sicily, had won 43 of the 48 seats available on the island in the 1874 elections. King Victor Emanuel II was now forced to appoint the leader of the Historical left, the Lombard Antonio Depretis (1813–1887), as Prime Minister. In Depretis’ cabinet, a Sicilian, Baron Salvatore Majorana Calatabiano (1825–1897) was given the important position of Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Trade, which meant that Sicilians were no longer excluded from government power. Since the old elite had now gained a considerable share of the political power, they no longer obstructed the government.30 The Depretis government also faced the problem of maintaining public order—in the short period from 1863 to 1870 alone, the number of crimes had increased by 87%, from 83,527 to 132,221—and, as discontent was gradually spreading among the population, Depretis had to act: the new Minister of the Interior, Giovanni Nicotera (1828–1894), therefore sent the Piedmontese Antonio Malusardi (1818–1891) to Palermo as prefect in 1877, with special powers. As a result of large-scale military operations, Malusardi succeeded in dissolving almost all brigand bands within nine months: the Leone band, the band of the notorious Passafiume, the band of Maurina led by the brigands Rocca and Rinaldi from San Mauro Castelverde (PA), the large Giulianesi band led by Gaudenzio Plaja

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     19

and finally the band of Saveja operating in the province of Agrigento. Subsequently, trials took place in which hundreds of brigands were sentenced to forced labor and life imprisonment or even executed. However, Malusardi’s attempts to take action against Mafia clans and their powerful backers were immediately thwarted by the highest level. For example, when the prefect charged the lawyer and MP Giuseppe Torina (1841–1922) from Caccamo (PA), his superiors ordered him to drop the matter. Malusardi was also forbidden to continue his investigations against the corrupt Marquis Tommaso Spinola, who managed the Norman Palace and Favorita Park in Palermo on behalf of the government. Spinola only employed criminals there—some with considerable criminal records—with whom he organized gambling and fraud at his place of work. The Ministry of the Interior criticized Spinola, but left him in office. The irreproachable prefect Malusardi, who had also been publicly insulted by Spinola, therefore—like his predecessor Tajani—felt forced to resign. The Depretis government was well aware of the risks it would have run, if it had combined the fight against the brigands with the fight against the Mafia: it would have turned against its own clientele, that is, the local elite behind the Mafia bands, and thus reduced its future election chances. The otherwise irreproachable Minister of the Interior Nicotera therefore rightly declared that the government would have “decapitated itself ” if it had taken action against the Mafia.31 For this reason, one can rightly state that in 1876 the “Mafia came to power”32, which does not mean the criminal clans, but their powerful backers. Only when the situation had become completely untenable and the population had to be calmed down, was the government forced to carry out some Mafia show trials—the first trials against organized crime: in 1878 against the Stuppaghieri from Monreale (PA), in 1879 against the Fratuzzi from Bagheria (PA), in 1883 against the Palermitan Amoroso clan and in 1885 against the Fratellanza from Favara (AG). And indeed, these trials ended with a number of convictions.33

2.2 The Mafia Becomes the “Election Helper” Until the expansion of the right to vote1 the Mafia was protected by the numerically small old political elite, consisting mainly of aristocrats and a few members of the middle class. This meant that the “political” services provided by the Mafia for the old elite were limited. In the following decades, the Mafia became more important for politics than ever before, thanks to the gradual expansion of the right to vote.

20     A. Bestler

In 1861, due to the then applicable census voting rights, the number of those entitled to vote for the national parliament was restricted to only about 420,000 male persons in all of Italy, which corresponded to just under 2% of the population; after the first electoral reform in 1882, the percentage climbed to almost 7%.2 Until the reform, only a few members of the social elite—usually noble landowners, wealthy industrialists and merchants, as well as part of the middle class—had the right to vote; now, due to the reduction of the tax census, less well-off and, for the first time, the entire literate part of the male population over the age of 30 could go to the polls. The second reform in 1912 finally gave illiterates the opportunity to participate in elections, provided they had completed military service. In this way, the de facto general male suffrage was introduced: In 1861, only 49,020 people (1.5%) were entitled to vote for the House of Representatives in Sicily; in 1882, the numbers of those entitled to vote rose to 166,513 and 1912 to 888,728.3 The electoral reforms affected not only the national parliament, but to the same extent the provincial parliaments, which were created for the first time in 1888, as well as the city and municipal councils.4 The reforms led to the change of the political class: While before the reforms the posts of representatives in the national parliament had been mainly restricted to nobles and notables, now the time of the aristocratic monopoly was definitely over, because people were needed who “represented the voice of the people.” As a result, more and more members of the middle class, especially lawyers, doctors and civil servants, streamed into the national parliament. In this way, not only the social structure of the national parliament changed, but for the first time a class of professional career politicians emerged. As far as the lower class is concerned, although it gained significantly more political weight after the extension of the franchise in 1912, its parliamentary representatives were mainly recruited from the middle class. The members of the new class of politicians sought the support of the masses with the promise to campaign for certain issues, representing various political groups that gradually formed into political parties at the end of the nineteenth century.5 Most of these groups originated during the Risorgimento, such as the moderate liberals, the progressive radicals and the republicans. By far the most important political current were the liberals, who emerged from the moderate part of the Historical left and the progressive wing of the Historical right, when the two factions united in 1876 within the context of the aforementioned transformism to cooperate in government. Therefore, one often speaks only of the “liberals”, even though they were officially called the “Historical right” or “Historical left”

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     21

until 1896. However, the liberals were not yet a party, but rather a kind of movement, consisting of a a large spectrum of rival ideological groups, election platforms and followers of individual politicians. The liberals did not have a common platform until 1922, when their various groups finally merged into the Partito Liberale Democratico (PLD). Since for decades the prime minister came from the ranks of the liberals, they were in a way simply the “party in power”. Among the key leaders of this rather heterogeneous movement were, on the national level, first the Lombard Agostino Depretis, then the “tamed” former Garibaldian Francesco Crispi and finally the Piedmontese Giovanni Giolitti. The spokesman for the liberals in Sicily was initially Crispi, who was later succeeded by Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (1860–1952). Then there were the radicals, who emerged from the progressive wing of the Risorgimento and consisted mainly of former Garibaldians, republicans and socialists. The group was one of the first to form a real party, namely in 1878 with the founding of the Partito Radicale (PR). This party occasionally worked with the liberals in a minority government. The republicans, who were founded in 1895 as the Italian Republican Party (PRI) in the tradition of Mazzini’s anti-monarchist Partito d’Azione (PDA), were more radical than the radicals in that they always refused to participate in government because of their rejection of the monarchy. They enjoyed considerable support in Emilia-Romagna and Sicily. One of their founders, the charismatic Napoleone Colajanni from Castrogiovanni (since 1927 Enna), was one of the most important republican politicians at the national level and was also the spokesman for the party in Sicily. At the end of the nineteenth century, with the socialists, a new player entered the political stage and began to compete with the old Risorgimento parties. At first, the socialists were split into various small groups, which in 1892 merged in Genoa into the Partito dei Lavoratori Italiani (PDLI), renamed in 1895 into Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI). The initial party leaders of the PSI were Filippo Turati (1857–1932) and Antonio Labriola (1843–1904). The socialists had their strongholds in the north of the country, where an industrial proletariat was gradually forming. In contrast to all other political groups, the PSI was the first “modern” party, as it had a clear program, a party apparatus and a large following. In Sicily, the PSI played at first no role, but a powerful counterpart was created around 1888 with the Fasci dei Lavoratori (Workers Leagues’)—often simply called Fasci Siciliani6: The Fasci were a socialist peasant and farmworker movement, but also included numerous sulfur mines and factory workers as well as craftsmen. This mass movement, which is said to have had 300,000 people and

22     A. Bestler

was present in almost all municipalities of Sicily, tried to improve working conditions and the standard of living for lower social classes by means of social reform—its most important tool was the strike. The movement was led, as was the PSI in the north, mostly by middle-class people, such as Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida from Catania, Rosario Garibaldi Bosco (1866–1936) from Palermo, Nicola Barbato (1856–1923) from Piana dei Greci (since 1947 Piana degli Albanesi), Nicola Petrina (1881–1908) from Messina and Bernardino Verro (1866–1915) from Corleone (PA). The Fasci might have developed into a party at some point, had they exist for longer. However, they were dissolved by military force as early as January 1894. Prime Minister Francesco Crispi had bowed to the wishes of the Sicilian landowners with this step, but was not criticized even by his own party comrades of the PSI, who were not prepared for any cooperation with the Fasci as a “non-proletarian” organization. Christian democratic parties did not yet play any role throughout the country, since the Vatican did not recognize the new Italian state after the violent takeover of Rome in the year 1870 and consequently called on Catholics to boycott the national elections at first, which was later aggravated by “Non expedit”7. Inspired by the Pope Leo XIII’s social encyclical “Rerum Novarum” of 1891, Catholics founded a party called Democrazia Italiana in 1901, but this party could not yet become effective due to the papal ban. There were certainly individual politicians who tried to implement the political programs of their parties—but this does not hold true for the majority of them. In this context, the historian Giuseppe Barone (born 1947) explains that the majority of the Sicilian candidates—and this is certainly true not only for the Sicilians—only used the party labels and presented themselves as “conservatives or democrats, monarchists or republicans, without caring in the slightest about the implementation of the respective platform !”8 Instead, they were only interested in their personal advancement by means of a political career. For this reason, more and more—often rather dubious—gentlemen entered various parliaments.9 The anti-Mafia politician Napoleone Colajanni, who had wished for at least one “party of the honest”10, regretted that the parties would become less and less selective in the choice of their candidates and included more and more dishonest people on their election lists: Every scoundrel, every idiot, every ambitious person who has some followers, money or any other basis (…) presents himself as a candidate (…) and begs and receives support (…).11

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     23

For the first time, due to the expansion of the franchise, candidates were forced to campaign. This resulted in events in town and village squares becoming important campaign tools, where candidates could introduce themselves and present their political programs. Numerous contemporary reports attest to the fact that politicians made use of Mafia violence during election campaigns: Mafia-affiliated parliamentary candidates sent their violent “election helpers”—usually widely known criminals—to the election events of their political rivals, in order to prevent them from speaking or hanging up posters, and to suppress applause. Not infrequently, political opponents were slapped, beaten with clubs, threatened with weapons and injured with knives.12 There were often serious injuries, and verbal threats, such as that someone’s house would be set on fire, were commonplace. To protect themselves from physical danger, Mafia politicians were accompanied by thugs at their own election rallies. To make sure that nothing went wrong in the end, Mafia mazzieri (club-wielders) prevented access to the polling station on election day or visited the homes of supporters of the opposing side and threatened their wives. It was also a widespread practice for mafiosi to “control” ballots before they were cast. A police officer described the behaviour of the Mafia boss of Prizzi (PA), Pietro D’Angelo, who was also mayor of the town between 1898 and 1914, as follows: During the elections, more precisely at the time of voting, he positioned himself near the entrance door of the polling station. He now called every voter who entered to him and handed him the completed ballot, which the voter then had to deposit in the ballot box. The voters did not have the courage to oppose this behaviour and obeyed.13

However, the violence used was not limited to brawls, property damage, voter intimidation, and other harassment. It often went as far as death threats. There are numerous documents that show that in some cases there were actual murders committed. One such example comes from Partinico (PA), where during the national elections of 1874, the notary Sebastiano Cannizzo (1820–1899) and a certain Scalia fought each other for the parliamentary seat with all means available. In the brutal dispute, Cannizzo’s son tried to have a member of the Scalia killed, but failed. The counterstrike consisted in Scalia then murdering Cannizzo’s son.14 The events in the Bivona (AG) election district were even more dramatic, when the large landowner Domenico De Michele Ferrantelli (1853–1927) from Burgio (AG) and Antonino Parlapiano Vella (1881–1961) from Ribera (AG) competed for the parliamentary seat. The police inspector Tringali, who was

24     A. Bestler

responsible for public order in the area, submitted a detailed report in 1914 in which he described the Mafia gangs of the two politicians. He thereby established that De Michele Ferrantelli’s gang—with the powerful Mafia boss Vito Cascio Ferro (1862–1943) at the head—was larger and more influential than Parlapiano Vella’s had been. The latter, however, had not lagged behind the former in terms of danger and violence. In his report, the police inspector described the numerous murders that the gangs had committed on behalf of their respective “bosses” during the election campaign and lamented that in the months leading up to the report, there had been so many murders that he could no longer remember the exact number.15 The consequence of Mafia violence was that many opposition politicians withdrew their candidacy out of fear and many voters did not go to the polls. When asked by a journalist why he had not voted, a farmer explained: Our leaders had to flee or lock themselves up at home. If the generals don’t go to war, we retreat, too. They would beat us with clubs if they saw us in town.16

Mafiosi supported “their” politicians in the election campaign not only through the use of violence, but also by doing favors. For example, the Mafia boss Antonino Giammona from Uditore (PA) occupied such a socially influential position that he could personally control large blocks of votes by doing favors for petitioners, who then reciprocated by voting in his favor— without him having to use any violence at all. Mafiosi like Giammona were thus called grandi elettori, and all “big voters” were “courted” by politicians.17 However, the distribution of piaciri or favuri (Sic. favors), as it is still called today, was not only a typical Mafia campaign tool, but was used by all candidates who were able to do so. Mafiosi did not just help “their” politicians during election campaigns, but whenever it seemed necessary. The most famous, indeed paradigmatic example in this context is the case of Notarbartolo18, where the Cosa Nostra intervened to save the career of a Mafia politician: The Termini Imerese (PA) native Emanuele Notarbartolo (1834–1893), Marquis of San Giovanni, was a member of the Sicilian nobility. As a supporter of the conservative wing of the Risorgimento, he became involved in the Historical right after Italian unification. He held numerous local positions—for example, he was mayor of Palermo between 1873 and 1876 and then director of the stateowned Banco di Sicilia. Notarbartolo was a morally upstanding politician who tried to put an end to corruption. As director, for example, he tried to stop corruption at the Banco di Sicilia, which was about to collapse and was used by the supervisory board, made up of Mafia politicians, as a

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     25

“self-service store”: The corrupt supervisory board had granted unsecured loans and insurance policies to their Mafia friends, which then allowed, for example, business newcomers, who were initially only poor intermediaries, to become major exporters of citrus fruits. Notarbartolo was particularly bothered by one member of the supervisory board: the Mafia politician Raffaele Palizzolo (1843–1918), who was very powerful at the local level. Palizzolo was a Palermo city councillor, provincial and national representative and belonged to the Historical left. He was one of the most loyal followers of the then most important leader of this group at the national level, the abovementioned Francesco Crispi. Notarbartolo denounced the deeply hated Palizzolo to the Ministry of the Interior, but his complaint landed unfortunately in the hands of a certain Muratori, a corrupt businessman and close friend of Crispi. The powerful Crispi, of course, “protected” his party friend Palizzolo and also had the inconvenient Notarbartolo removed from the office of bank director and replaced by one of his own supporters, Duke Giulio Benso della Verdura (1816–1904). This temporarily saved the situation for Palizzolo, as the Duke supported him in his illegal maneuvers. Giulio Benso della Verdura, however, could not hold on as director for long, less because he had played with the bank’s money on the stock exchange, but because Crispi’s great political rival Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928) removed him on the pretext of corrupt behavior for political reasons. Since Notarbartolo was to be appointed bank director again, it seemed opportune to eliminate him. In addition, Notarbartolo possessed compromising facts in connection with the scandal of the Banca Romana19, in which Crispi was also involved. This meant that Notarbartolo could not only harm Palizzolo, but also Crispi, who was about to regain power after involvement in a bigamy scandal. Even if Palizzolo later rejected all charges brought against him personally, it was his election helpers—Giuseppe Fontana, the Mafia boss of Villabate (PA), and his “colleague” Matteo Filipello—who killed the inconvenient Notarbartolo with 27 knife stabs during a train journey from Termini Imerese (PA) to Trabia (PA) in a railway carriage and threw him out of the window—exactly one week after Crispi’s election as Prime Minister! The murder of Notarbartolo was the first omicidio eccellente (excellent homicide), i.e., a murder of a person from the upper echelons of society. Since the relatives of Notarbartolo had important political contacts and did not want the crime to go unpunished, they ensured that the investigations were resumed. Although both the authorities and the public were aware that Palizzolo was behind the murder and his Mafia friends had committed the crime, the proceedings in Palermo had made no progress for years because Palizzolo had been able to delay the

26     A. Bestler

investigations by means of his excellent contacts with the government— above all with Crispi. The investigations only really got going after the fall of the Crispi government, when the Savoyard General Luigi Pelloux (1839–1924) became Italian Prime Minister in 1898. In order to make sure that everything was done properly this time, Pelloux appointed the Prefect Francesco De Seta (1843–1911) and the Police President Ermanno Sangiorgi as two irreprochable officials.20 In fact, Palizzolo’s involvement in the murder was now quickly proven. This resulted in Palizzolo being brought to court, however, not in Palermo, where it was feared that the Mafia would exert pressure on the judges, but in Milan. There Palizzolo initially achieved a discontinuance of the proceedings in 1899, but was convicted of the murder of Notarbartolo on appeal in Bologna in 1902 and sentenced to a thirty-year prison sentence. However, since the Court of Cassation later found procedural errors, Palizzolo was able to leave prison again after a relatively short time. In a new trial in Florence in 1903, he was acquitted for lack of evidence. During the entire time Palizzolo had been supported by his powerful friends with a pro-Palizzolo campaign: the already mentioned doctor and folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè initiated a Comitato pro Sicilia, which aimed to defend the “good name” of the island. This group soon developed into a movement, to which famous representatives from politics, culture and economy belonged and which started a press campaign for Palizzolo. The newspaper L’Ora of the entrepreneur Ignazio Florio junior (1869–1957) in particular stood out. When Palizzolo returned to Palermo after his short imprisonment, he was received there as a hero by the population—thanks to the efforts of the Palizzolo movement. The case caused headlines in the press for years and the Italian public began to be outraged not only about the Mafia’s ruthlessness, but also about its “special relationship” to politics. The situation was exacerbated when, in 1909, on the Palermo Piazza Marina, the Italian-American policeman Joe Petrosino (1860–1909) was killed.21 Petrosino had come from New York to Sicily to obtain information on mafiosi who had emigrated to the USA in Italian court records, the Mano Nera (Black Hand), as the American Cosa Nostra was then called. Although Petrosino was not as famous as Notarbartolo, he was very popular in the USA because of his successes against the Italian criminal world and in that sense almost a legend. Among other accomplishments, he had been able to help the famous Neapolitan opera singer Enrico Caruso (1873–1921), who had been blackmailed by the Mano Nera. The American press was now outraged that—so the accusation—the Italian authorities would let the investigation of the crime run into a dead end.

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     27

The criticism of the Americans was, of course, well known in Italy, which had long been sensitized to the issue of the Mafia and politics through the press. As a result, there were repeated appeals in the Italian parliament to finally take action against the Mafia and the politicians involved with it. Various MPs, such as above all the Republican (and later Socialist) Napoleone Colajanni, but also the Socialist Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida, held flaming speeches in the House of Representatives in which they denounced the untenable situation, above all the illegal campaign methods in various southern Italian constituencies. De Felice Giuffrida also did not shy away from accusing some of his political colleagues of responsibility for the murder of Emanuele Notarbartolo in a famous speech22 in parliament on November 23, 1899. However, neither the national and international press reports nor the scientific studies23 and parliamentary indictments resulted in any consequences for the Mafia. The state did nothing against the Mafia, even though the law enforcement apparatus was quite capable of functioning, as Malusardi’s successful fight against brigandage had shown. The few measures that were occasionally taken against mafiosi—such as the revocation of gun licenses, house arrest, warnings, forced stays away from home, or prison sentences— remained completely ineffective. Not even serving short prison sentences seems to have been too much of a problem for Mafiosi. The English writer Frances Elliot (1820–1898) observed this when she visited the largest prison in Sicily, the Ucciardone in Palermo, at the beginning of the 1880s. She stated that the most feared of the prisoners there—that is, the mafiosi—not only enjoyed the best food and hygiene conditions, but could also move around freely in prison and receive visitors. In addition, there were unlimited opportunities to escape for those interested. Elliot, who had not seen a “sad face” in prison, concluded that this must be “a kind of happy place”.24 Mafiosi usually did not have to spend much time in prison; rather, they could expect a pardon or amnesty within a very short time. In other words, thanks to the intervention of their powerful friends, these “honorable men” were able to reverse or circumvent measures imposed on them very quickly. The report of the police chief Francesco Farias from 1898 lists the names of several members of parliament who protected mafiosi from prosecution.25 Since crimes in which mafiosi were involved always turned out to be bad for the victims and good for the mafiosi, many victims refrained from reporting them from the outset. They knew that a report would do more harm than good. The few members of the law enforcement apparatus who seriously tried to fight the Mafia and its powerful backers eventually gave up, like the prosecutor Tajani and the prefect Malusardi.

28     A. Bestler

The reasons why the new political class also protected the Cosa Nostra were exactly the same as before: the support of the Mafia was decisive for the acquisition and maintenance of political power. A government could only be formed and maintained by politicians who were able to gather a majority of representatives over the long term. How these representatives secured their election—whether through political work, distribution of favors in a patron-client manner or use of Mafia violence—was ultimately not that important to many government politicians. This is especially true for the Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti from Piedmont: Numbering approximately 150, the overwhelming majority of the 250 Giolitti representatives came from Southern Italy, while the remaining 100 came mainly from Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy and Veneto.26 Without the representatives from Southern Italy, Giolitti could not rule. The “Giolitti politicians” of the south had a very bad reputation, not only because of the extensive use of Mafia gangs in their election campaigns, but also because of their corrupt behavior: Many had previous convictions or had already been on trials although they were often acquitted due to their political relationships. Giolitti was well aware of the illegal activities of his representatives from Southern Italy, but he still supported and “protected” them, since after all he needed their support in parliament. In addition, he used the entire state apparatus to promote “his” representatives and candidates in every possible way and to give them advantages over the political competition at the local level.27 He only appointed prefects who were loyal to him and who worked on the periphery in the interest of the government: thus, government-friendly politicians were given preferential access to state-controlled resources in order to serve their clientele through the granting of favori (favors). For example, anyone who needed a job in the public administration, a transfer, a promotion, a concession, a public contract or a favorable loan from a state bank could turn to a government-friendly politician. Political rivals and their supporters, on the other hand, were discriminated against, hindered and damaged by the state apparatus and the Mafia using various means. The most popular methods included the denial of protection by the security forces in the event of Mafia violence, arbitrary searches and arrests, the withdrawal of business and trade licenses, the manipulation of electoral lists, the embezzlement of votes, the prevention of participation in elections, etc. Frequently, political assemblies of opponents were prohibited by decree of the prefects on the pretext of endangering public order. If they were approved, the police often prevented access to them for opposition politicians on flimsy grounds. When armed Mafia men then appeared at the election events and began to beat people up,

2  From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi     29

the police only intervened when the victims defended themselves. The Mafia aggressors were left alone while their victims were disarmed and taken into police custody. Sometimes the Mafia also organized assassinations in order to give the police a pretext for the arrest of political enemies. Arbitrary arrests— usually on the pretext of causing a public nuisance—were one of the most popular methods of dealing with government opponents, especially on the eve of elections. Political opponents were denied gun permits while mafiosi received them without any problems. While the opposition’s life was made difficult, any criminal act by the government’s parliamentary candidates and their Mafia helpers was tolerated. The illegal activities described focused primarily on southern Italy and Sicily, not only because of the presence of the Mafia, but because the government in Rome was aware that in the south—much easier than in the north—elections could be won with criminal means. One of the reasons was that there were significantly fewer voters in southern Italy than in the north, because many southern Italian farmers and laborers were excluded from the right to vote as illiterates. In the north, however, where many factory workers and farmers could read and write, there was a much larger number of voters, which made any attempt to control the votes almost hopeless from the outset. In the south, on the other hand, the majority ratios could be estimated quite well, after all, it was usually known on a local level who belonged to which political camp. The historian Gaetano Salvemini (1873– 1957) remarked in this context: It is enough to buy a few hundred of the uncertain voters and to beat a few hundred opponents: and the election is done.28

How brilliantly Giolitti mastered the “game of power” by using illegal methods is reflected not only in the nickname “Ministro della Malavita” (Minister of the Criminal World) which his opponents gave him, but also by the fact that he was able to stay in power longer than any other politician in Italy before the outbreak of Fascism and that he served as Prime Minister of the country for a total of five times. Some of Giolitti’s ministers may have had moral issues with influence of criminals on the state apparatus, but they did not want to risk their own position or endanger the government’s parliamentary majority. It goes without saying that justice and police did not take on these Mafia “election helpers”, but on the contrary, collaborated with them. The British historian Bolton King (1860–1937) explained this as follows:

30     A. Bestler

(…) the gangs can act with complete impunity; they are allowed to carry weapons, while this is denied to the most honest citizens; they know that their blackmail attempts will not be prevented as long as they threaten the voters of the opposition during the elections.29

The number of Mafia-affiliated “election helpers” was even increased by the state when necessary, by releasing mafiosi from prison when it was certain that they would campaign for the government candidates. For example, it is said that before the 1890 elections, about 1,000 mafiosi were first arrested and then immediately released when they promised to campaign for the government candidates.30 Furthermore, there were also requests from the prosecutor’s office to temporarily release offenders whose services were particularly needed during the election campaign, which is why the anti-Mafia campaigner Napoleone Colajanni polemicized that it would be useful after all if the police knew the identity of criminals.31 In summary, it can be said that the state ultimately gave up enforcing its rules and laws in the south, except when it came to the persecution of government opponents or when it was necessary to temporarily deceive the public with pacification measures that gave the impression that the government was taking action to address the problem of rampant crime. In exchange for political support, Giolitti and his cabinet colleagues allowed their southern Italian representatives to do whatever they wanted locally. In this way, the south became a free zone for a corrupt class of politicians whose power was based on their proximity to the government and their cooperation with criminals. The representative and Mafia opponent from Catania, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida, summed up the situation very accurately in a parliamentary speech on November 23, 1899, in which he stated, roughly paraphrased, that the disgrace was not the Mafia, but the government that maintained it.32

2.3 Suppression Under Fascism? After a hundred years, the Cosa Nostra had become a permanent part of Sicilian society. Only after the Fascists came to power did the organization’s situation deteriorate significantly, even if it was not completely eradicated. The 1919 national elections led to a drastic change in the existing power relationships, after the new left-Catholic Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI) and the Socialist PSI together won more than 50% of the vote.1 But since they could not reach an agreement to work together, the Liberals continued to

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rule. Lacking a parliamentary majority, the new government was almost unable to act and could not even begin to solve the country’s serious economic problems after the First World War, especially the high unemployment. Faced with this misery, the supporters of the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) founded by Benito Mussolini marched on Rome on October 28, 1922, to seize power by means of a coup.2 When the “blackshirts” stood in front of the capital, King Victor Emanuel III of Savoy (1869–1946) would have had to declare a state of emergency. Yet the king did not fulfill his constitutional duty because he was much more afraid of the “red danger”—in 1921 the Partito Comunista d’Italia (PCDI, since 1943 PCI), a Communist Party, had been founded—than of the Fascists. Encouraged by the Liberals, he declared Mussolini to be Prime Minister instead, who then ruled with the support of the Liberals. In the 1924 national elections, many important Liberals then campaigned together with Fascists on the Listone (Great List), a government list that won 65% of the vote. With this broad parliamentary majority behind him, Mussolini could now drop the democratic mask: There were now open acts of violence against opponents, culminating in the murder of the moderate socialist representative and opponent of Fascism Giacomo Matteotti (1885–1924) in June 1924. This murder led to a political crisis, and not a few of the representatives who had previously supported Mussolini now turned against him. The opposition boycotted the parliament in the so-called “Aventin seccession”.3 A short time later, in January 1925, Mussolini established his Fascist dictatorship: constitutionally guaranteed freedoms were abolished and in 1926 the opposition parties were banned, including the Liberals. In its early phase, the Fascists found no support within the Sicilian elite. The only ones who were enthusiastic about the “blackshirts” in Sicily were a few idealistic young men mainly from the provinces of Ragusa and Syracuse as well as intellectuals who were fed up with the corrupt liberal politicians and the inefficient parliamentary system.4 The majority of the socially powerful were completely indifferent to Fascism. The agricultural elite was only interested in averting the dangers posed to them by the strengthened political left.5 Their biggest fear was that land reform would be carried out and their feudi (fiefs), as their large estates were still called, would be distributed among the peasants. This would certainly have happened if the socialists and the Partito Popolare had come to power. After all, they had been fighting for a distribution of the land for a long time and had also received support from the war veterans, to whom land had been promised during the war in order to increase morale. In the “two red years” between 1919 and 1920, a wave of land occupations occured in Sicily, similar to the factory occupations by

32     A. Bestler

workers in the north, which had to be legalized by the national government coalition post-facto. If this had not been done, the “left” coalition ministers would have left the government. As a result, the ownership of numerous of the occupied estates was transferred to cooperatives and small farmers by means of the “Visocchi” (September 1919) and “Falcioni” (April 1920) decrees. But it was not only the large landowners who were afraid of losing their privileges, most businessmen also feared that the “red danger” from the north would spread to the south. For example, the sulfur mine operators were afraid of demands for shorter working hours, wage increases and the nationalization of their businesses. Their concerns were justified given that the eight-hour day had already been introduced in 1919. For the aforementioned reasons, the Sicilian elite was interested in a strategic alliance with the Fascists of the North, which would otherwise certainly not have been the case. They generally shared the assessment of the Liberals that they needed to help the Fascists ensure a electoral success because only in this way could the socialist danger be contained. Furthermore, the Sicilian establishment, even if it was certainly not inclined towards the Fascists, had nothing fundamentally against the “blackshirts”, because their political program offered the guarantee that in the event of a victory by Mussolini in Sicily, nothing would fundamentally change. Mussolini had already proven this: One of his first official acts as Prime Minister was the abolition of the existing agrarian reform law and the suspension of subsidies for the cooperatives. The Fascists were also interested in an alliance, because they were only very weakly organized on the island and their own functionaries—the young Fascist idealists—were not taken seriously by the population. This led to the fact that mainly persons from the old political establishment and not so much “true” fascists were found on the liberal-fascist government list in Sicily. First and foremost, persons were chosen for the government list who were able to bring in large blocks of votes. Not a few of these candidates were known to be closely associated with the Mafia, such as Giovanni Lo Monte from Mezzojuso (PA), or they were themselves well-known Mafia bosses. This strategy turned out to be successful: In fact, the government list won the elections in Sicily by a wide margin—and was particularly successful in those electoral districts in which the Mafia was strongest. Fascists and mafiosi therefore initially had no problems with each other.6 This should change soon, with the occasion being an insignificant event during the visit of the newly elected Prime Minister Mussolini in May 1924 in Sicily: When the Duce (Leader) arrived with a large police force in the small town of Piana dei Greci in the hinterland of Palermo, he is said to have felt

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insulted by the local Mafia mayor Francesco (Ciccio) Cuccia (1876–1957), because Don Ciccio had proudly told Mussolini: Voscenza (Sic. Your excellence), Captain, your are with me and under my protection. You do not need all these minions. You do not have to be afraid as long as you are in my company, because I command the entire area.7

The small-time Mafia boss, who had risen from coachman to property owner and mayor and for whom it was an honor to be seen in public with his “high visit”, certainly did not realize that his statement was arrogant in the eyes of Mussolini. Only two days later, the Duce declared in a public speech in Agrigento that he would not tolerate the Mafia. Whether or not the episode in Piana dei Greci indeed triggered the introduction of anti-Mafia measures, Fascists actually needed to fight the Mafia in Sicily if they wanted to ensure their power on the island in the future. Politically, however, the Liberals were still in charge. Their power was essentially based on the Mafia, which had traditionally supported them in elections and also provided them other “favors”. Yet, after the establishment of the dictatorship, the Fascists no longer needed their old allies.—On the contrary, the powerful political competition was now in the way and had to be eliminated unless it converted to Fascism. This meant that eliminating the Mafia was tantamount to a blow against rebellious Liberals, who thus lost their “election helpers”. The Fascists themselves had—at least after the abolition of free elections—no need for Mafia election support or other services of criminals, since after all, the state apparatus and, if necessary, their own gangs were available to them. In addition, the Fascists now wanted to win the support of the population on their own, and no longer rely on the Mafia: The elite needed Mafia protection services in the absence of an efficient state order, while ordinary peasants remained dependent on the patronage of Mafia bosses. In order to become the sole point of contact for the population, it was essential for the Fascist regime to establish a functioning state. Therefore, on the one hand, rampant crime had to be eliminated and, on the other hand, the need for Mafia protection or Mafia support had to be made superfluous. To this end, the Fascist regime began to eliminate the “state within the state”. Specifically, the task was assigned to Cesare Mori (1872–1942)8, who was appointed prefect of Palermo in October 1925. The Lombard and former prefect of Bologna was not chosen because he was a Fascist, but because he was well known for his previous work as prefect of Trapani in western Sicily and was also said to be a particularly capable police officer.

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In addition, Mori was granted extraordinary, even dictatorial powers by the regime. When the new super-prefect went to work in Sicily, he had an 800-person strong provincial police force at his disposal. In the prefectures, lists of mafiosi in various municipalities in western Sicily which had already been drawn up, could now be used. These lists were constantly updated, with denunciations sufficient to be sought as a mafioso. It goes without saying that in this way many “old debts” were also settled. First, Mori set out to control the most important economic sector in rural Sicily: agriculture. For this purpose, the “Ordinanza per ristabilire la sicurezza pubblica nelle campagne” (Ordinance for the Restoration of Public Order in the Countryside) was issued in January 1925. According to this law, landowners had to dismiss those workers who had come into conflict with the law. New staff could only be hired with police approval. Furthermore, protection money payments were prohibited and landowners had to report any threats received to the state authorities. In this way, numerous Mafia guards, field guards and administrators not only lost their jobs, but also the opportunity to enrich themselves further in a parasitic way from the landowners. In addition, raids were carried out above all in 1926, mainly in areas with a particularly high density of mafiosi—that is, mainly in the provinces of Palermo, Agrigento, Caltanissetta and Enna. These raids often took the form of sieges of entire villages in which suspects were thought to be found. In this context, the military siege of Gangi (PA) in January 1926, which was directed against almost mythical mafia brigands such as Gaetano Ferrarello and Giuseppe Andaloro (1904–1968), became particularly famous. In order to force fugitive mafiosi to surrender, Mori was not squeamish: their property was confiscated and sold; their livestock was slaughtered publicly; their families were deported; and there were also reports of violence against women from Mafia families. In this way, the prefect Mori and his people succeeded in arresting thousands of mafiosi. By 1928 there were around 11,000 arrests. In view of this situation, the ground became too hot for many “honorable men” in Sicily and about 500 fled from the island—mainly to the USA, where the Mafia had already established itself at the end of the nineteenth century.9 Mori tried to extract confessions from the arrested mafiosi with extremely brutal methods, including torture with salt water and electric shocks. Due to his actions and his drastic methods, Mori acquired the reputation of an “iron prefect”. After the arrest, some of the suspects were banished or placed under house arrest by simple administrative decisions. Others had to face court proceedings. A new feature of these extensive Mafia trials—between 1926 and 1932 more than 105 took place—was that the judges applied the legal provisions

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for the first time in such a way that convictions could be achieved to a large extent. Since witnesses were still reluctant to give incriminating statements, the judges only needed the testimony of a state official—policeman, carabinieri or judge—to convict an accused of membership in a criminal organization as evidence. While this approach may seem arbitrary, it was to a certain degree justified, as it was generally known who belonged to the Mafia. As a result, numerous mafiosi could at least be temporarily removed from public life. However, “real” evidence was necessary to achieve lengthy prison sentences—and such evidence was hard to come by which is why many crimes remained unpunished even during Fascism. If the authorities really wanted to achieve a conviction, evidence was occasionally also falsified. The case of Vito Cascio Ferro became famous in this context. This once most powerful Mafia boss of Sicily commented on the sentence of 50 years in prison imposed on him in 1930 in the courtroom as follows: Gentlemen, you have not been able to procure the evidence for my numerous crimes, you have therefore stooped to convict me for a crime I have not committed.10

Cascio Ferro, who ended his life in 1943 in solitary confinement during Allied bombardment, probably received such a heavy prison sentence because he no longer played a major role in the Mafia. His biggest mistake may have been that he did not recognize the signs of the times early enough and instead remained loyal to his political allies from the ranks of the Liberals. Even though the methods were questionable, it must be noted that Fascism did indeed succeed in eliminating a large number of the Mafia gangs and significantly reduce the crime rate: in the province of Palermo alone, the number of serious crimes such as murder fell from 223 to 25 between 1922 and 1928; extortion decreased from 53 to 6, and cattle theft from 51 to 6. These successes were undoubtedly due to the fact that, for the first time in Italian history, there existed the political will at the highest level to eliminate the Mafia—something that was never really the case again afterwards. The Fascist approach resulted in effective cooperation between the police and the judiciary. Consequently, the scassapagghiara11, that is, the entire Mafia foot soldiers, were eliminated and, in addition, a few of the big bosses were imprisoned after show trials. This was the case in Agrigento, where the above mentioned Vito Cascio Ferro stood trial, and in Termini Imerese (PA), where Antonio Ortoleva, the powerful boss of the Mistretta (ME) Mafia, was tried. The Fascist regime needed exemplary convictions

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of even the biggest mafiosi in order to demonstrate its willingness to crack down on the Mafia. Ortoleva and Cascio Ferro could be sacrificed quite easily, as both were, so to speak, “men of the past” and no longer had any political protection. In addition, numerous mid-level mafiosi, such as gabellotti, and former Mafia mayors as well as local Mafia bosses (such as the Ciccio Cuccia from Piana dei Greci mentioned earlier) were convicted. However, other important Mafia bosses got off relatively unscathed, such as Calogero Vizzini (1877–1954) from Villalba (CL), who had already replaced Vito Cascio Ferro as the Sicilian Mafia boss during the First World War. “Don Calò”, as he was generally known, was acquitted of all charges during his trial and only sentenced to 5 years in exile as a “dangerous subject”. As early as 1937, however, he was able to return to his home village. The Mafia backers from the upper classes fared even better.12 They were rarely investigated, and if so, the investigations were quickly dropped. One such example is the case of the two barons from the Madonie, Antonio Li Destri Ventimiglia and Giuseppe Sgadari, who for years worked together with mafiosi and brigands. They were not indicted because the potential witnesses for their machinations—the convicted mafioso Ortoleva and the brigand leader Ferrarello—had passed away just in time under suspicious circumstances in their prison cells. The most powerful “Mafia friend”, who remained unscathed, was General Antonino Di Giorgio (1867–1932) from San Fratello Acquedolci (ME), a man of the old establishment. Di Giorgio had earned the title of general in World War I and, as the husband of Norina Whitaker, the daughter of the wealthy Marsala producer Joseph Isaac Whitaker (1850–1936), was excellently networked in the highest circles of Palermo society. Politically, he was active with the Liberals, for whom he was first elected to the parliament in 1913 and again in 1919. In the 1924 elections, Di Giorgio successfully ran for the Fascist-liberal government list and subsequently even became Minister of War in Mussolini’s cabinet. Like many Liberals, Di Giorgio had excellent relations with the Mafia. For example, the mafioso of Mistretta (ME), Antonio Ortoleva, had been his most important “election helper” in the time before Fascism, and his brother Domenico, after marrying the daughter of a Mafia boss, rose to become the Mafia boss of the small town of Castel di Lucio (ME). Di Giorgio therefore had good reasons to downplay the importance of the Mafia. He tried to convince Mussolini to dismiss Prefect Mori because of his many arrests, claiming that he had lost all sense of proportion and was harassing innocent people simply because they had had contact with the Mafia. Mori struck back and accused Di Giorgio of being in cahoots with Ortoleva. It was only for this reason, Mori claimed, that his men had not been able to completely

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uncover the network of Mafia bosses in Mistretta. Mussolini, who did not want to alienate either Di Giorgio or Mori, offered Di Giorgio a command outside of Sicily, which insulted him and which he refused to accept, withdrawing into private life. As complaints against the “iron prefect” increased, Mussolini was no longer sure whether he was doing more harm than good. And so, in June 1929, the Duce recalled Mori from Sicily by telegram and sent him into retirement with high honors. The official justification was that his task was fulfilled and the Mafia defeated. Mori himself saw this differently and, as expressed in his autobiography “Con la mafia ai ferri corti” (At Crossroads with the Mafia), saw himself as a victim of a conspiracy by high-ranking Mafia backers. He was probably right—it was definitely not desired by the regime to dig too deep. Even though the Mafia took some serious blows during Fascism, it cannot be said that it was completely defeated. Mori’s repressive measures only got rid of the henchmen and some of the less important Mafia bosses, by no means all of them, and certainly not the masterminds. The fact that the Mafia continued to exist during Fascism and never seems to have completely ceased its activities is supported by the fact that Mafia groups were still being uncovered in the 1930s: In the middle of the decade, the Public Prosecutor of Palermo, Pericle Copelli, complained that 35 important cosche had been uncovered in the province of Palermo. Gangs were not only uncovered in Palermo, but also in other “Mafia provinces” like Agrigento. For example, in 1935, a cosca was uncovered in Cattolica Eraclea (AG) and 2 years later another one in the area between Favara (AG) and Palma di Montechiaro (AG). In view of this situation, an attorney from Termini Imerese (PA) complained to the now retired Prefect Mori in 1931 as follows: Dear Senator (…) Fascism? A case of false labeling. (…) Today, people in Sicily rob and murder just as cheerfully as before. Almost all Mafia bosses have been released from prison or their enforced residence and have returned home. Only the small fry remain imprisoned. Where will this end?13

The Mafia was able to continue to exist, because the old balance of power on the island was not truly challenged during Fascism. As the Fascists increasingly began to intervene in the island’s internal affairs and to fill all important positions—from local administration to private associations and even cooperatives—only with Fascism-compliant people, the elite had to take a stand for or against the Fascists. The vast majority of the old elite joined the party. Another part turned more or less openly against the regime. The pro-Fascist group included people who were convinced that Fascism had a long-term

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perspective and that one had to “make one’s peace” with it. Some may indeed have benefited from the regime over time, especially when they saw that it successfully maintained order and kept rebellious peasants in check. The fact that their earnings had increased and their property was safe may also have contributed to the view that the Fascists were not so bad after all. That may have been the reason why people like the nobleman Ciancina thanks to whose help Mori had been able to convict numerous criminals in the province of Agrigento, began to cooperate with the prefect’s men. However, most of those who converted to Fascism had no interest whatsoever in its political ideology, let alone that they would have gone along with it. They simply tried to continue to “stir their own pot” without disruptions. This was the case, for example, for the above mentioned General Di Giorgio, as well as for the Barons Sgadari and Li Destra in Gangi and for hundreds of other cases. The few “true” Fascists, such as the radical young idealists from the early phase or even the so-called Ducino (Little Leader) Alfredo Cucco (1893–1968), a strong voice for the Fascists, soon ceased to play any role in the Fascist party. The group of opponents to Fascism included the old class of politicians who had been in charge in Sicily before the Fascist dictatorship and who, during the time of the Giolittismo, had risen to high positions in politics as Liberals. In order to be elected, they had generally resorted to clientelist methods and the help of the Mafia. For these people it was by no means sufficient that under Fascism the economic privileges of the agrarian elite were not being touched. They were not at all willing to accept defeat and be content with subordinate political “posts”, without really having a say. Even though they had initially supported Mussolini, they were never supporters of Fascism. Their only concern was to secure the power of the Liberals and, with it, their own positions. The moment of turning away from Fascism had to come inevitably when, after 1924, Mussolini began to undermine the pre-Fascist political class—at least those representatives who were not willing to completely subordinate themselves to him. Now important representatives of the Sicilian Liberals such as Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and Andrea Finocchiaro Aprile (1878–1964) turned away from Mussolini. Orlando, a lawyer who, before the rise of Fascism, had been Minister of State several times and even Prime Minister of Italy (1917–1919), was undoubtedly the most important former politician in all of Sicily. He represented the conservative wing of the Sicilian Liberals. Finocchiaro Aprile, who led the progressive Liberals in Sicily, had also made it quite far in his political career, for example in 1919 in the cabinet of Prime Minister Francesco Saverio Nitti (1868–1953) as State Secretary for War and Budgetary Affairs. After the Matteotti crisis, Orlando resigned from his parliamentary mandate, and

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Finocchiaro Aprile also joined the Aventine group. It is difficult to assess to what extent the two politicians rejected the ideology of the Fascists. Finocchiaro Aprile seems to have been a rather dubious figure and always looked out for his own interests only. He also did not shy away from paying lip service to Mussolini if he expected personal benefits from it. After they turned away from Fascism in 1924, the two politicians initially pursued different strategies: Finocchiaro Aprile largely withdrew into private life and worked as a lawyer in Rome, without being politically active. Orlando, at least as long as the parties were not yet banned, became the spokesman of the anti-Fascist opposition. He tried to regain political ground and organized the list Unione per la Libertà against the Fascists for the municipal elections in Palermo in 1925, with himself at the top of the list. At an election rally in August 1925 he gave a famous provocative speech in which he declared that he was proud to be a mafioso: Now I tell you (…), if one means by Mafia that the sense of honor is driven to the extreme; if one means by it the intolerance towards any form of arrogance and violent assaults (…); the generosity that resists the strong and is indulgent towards the weak; if one means by Mafia all these feelings and attitudes, even to the point of exaggeration, then this is an invisible characteristic of the Sicilian soul, and I not only declare myself to be a mafioso, but am also proud of it.14

Orlando had powerful allies, especially among the ranks of the powerful Società degli Agricoltori Siciliani (Society of Sicilian Farmers) of the Sicilian barons which was led by the most important large landowner in Sicily of all, Count Lucio Tasca Bordonaro (1880–1957). Many other important large landowners were also part of this organization, such as Antonino Bartoli, Giacomo Hopps Carraci, Pucci di Benisichi and Giulio D’Ali Staiti. When Mussolini tried to launch a land reform in 1940 due to the supply shortages in the country, the “Fascists” within the Sicilian elite and the liberal opponents of Fascism started to find common cause. Now, in addition to the Mafia, all the powerful people of Sicily turned away from Mussolini and began to think about how to free themselves from the Fascist regime.

2.4 American “Reconstruction Aid” The difficult situation for the Mafia would not improve again until 1943, as a result of the liberation of Sicily from Fascism. The Mafia received “start-up” assistance from the Americans, who initially let the Mafia assist

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them with the liberation and then with the maintenance of order on the occupied island. After American President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) had declared the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan as a war goal at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, they decided to take the first step in this direction by occupying Sicily. “Operation Husky” started on July 10, 1943 with the landing of an American army led by General George S. Patton (1885– 1945) in western Sicily and a British army led by General Bernard Law Montgomery (1887–1976) in eastern Sicily.1 A total of 181,000 soldiers arrived within three days to defeat the German and Italian soldiers stationed on the island. While the Americans made good progress in the occupation of the western part of the island, the British had to fight considerable resistance in the east and also had to accept more losses. Nevertheless, the Allies were able to occupy Sicily within just over a month. On August 17, 1943, the island was freed from Mussolini’s dictatorship, after which the Fascist organizations dissolved in a hurry. The fact that the Americans—in contrast to the British—made faster progress and sometimes not only found immediate support from the population, but were even celebrated, does not seem to have been a coincidence. For some observers, such as the American journalist Jack Belden (1910– 1989) from “Life” magazine, who witnessed the entry of American troops into places like San Giuseppe Jato (PA) and Giacalone (PA), these celebrations seemed to be staged and the population instructed on how to act.2 The example of the small municipality of Villalba in the province of Caltanissetta allows us a glimpse into who could have helped the liberators: After the first three American tanks arrived there on July 20, the crowd cheered: “Viva l’America, viva la Mafia, viva Don Calò!” when the local Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini appeared!3 “Operation Husky” was preceded by intensive work on the part of the American and British intelligence services.4 They not only collected a wealth of information about Sicily, but also tried to establish contacts with locals and Sicilian immigrants in the USA. In this context, the name of the New York Mafia boss Lucky Luciano (1897–1962) keeps coming up. Luciano, whose real name was Salvatore Lucania, was at that time the leader of the American Cosa Nostra. The American intelligence service had already had a good experience with Luciano several years before the landing in Sicily, namely as part of “Operation Underworld”5, in order to safeguard the port of New York. The port had seen numerous German attacks on American submarines

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between December 1941 and February 1942. Allegedly, the Cosa Nostra had enabled the sabotage acts by the Nazis and the organization would have been quite capable of doing so thanks to its influence on the mainly Italian dock workers. The most spectacular attack—namely the one on the French luxury liner “Normandie” on February 11, 1942, which was being converted into a warship at the time—was allegedly carried out by the Cosa Nostra itself. Allegedly, Albert Anastasia (1902–1957) laid the bomb on behalf of Luciano’s childhood friend Meyer Lansky (1902–1983). The attacks were allegedly supposed to force the American authorities to negotiate with the Cosa Nostra and to achieve the release of Luciano, who had been in prison since 1936. The strategy of the Cosa Nostra seems to have been successful: After the attack on the “Normandie”, the intelligence service launched “Operation Underworld” in order to make the port of New York safer with the help of criminals. This led to talks between members of the intelligence service, such as the deputy New York state prosecutor Murray Irwin Gurfein (1907–1979), various Mafia bosses, Luciano’s lawyer Moses Polakoff (1896–1993) and probably Luciano himself. After these talks, the attacks suddenly stopped. This meant that the operation had paid off for the American authorities—and also for the Mafia, because Luciano was transferred to a prison more to his liking with a comfortable cell and many Mafia bosses were granted amnesty. Interestingly, during “Operation Underworld” in 1942, the state of New York had only a provisional governor for the 29 critical days, the Italian-born Charles Poletti (1903–2002), who is rumored to have been an intelligence service agent, assigned to do the “dirty work” and sign the amnesties for the criminals. Since the cooperation with the Mafia had worked so well, Luciano’s services were again in demand at the end of 1942, when the Pentagon and the newly founded Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—began to develop strategies for the landing in Sicily.6 In this process a “Section Italy” led by James Jesus Angleton (1917–1987) and Earl Brennan was set up within the OSS, which developed the “Corvo” plan, named after the young Sicilian agent Max Biagio Corvo (1920–1994). This plan assumed that there was discontent with the Fascists in Sicily. Furthermore, it was believed that there were people who could channel this discontent. The most important group of people was the Mafia, which had by no means been destroyed by Fascism, as the intelligence service was well aware. The Mafia’s most powerful man in Sicily, Calogero Vizzini, was just waiting to take action against the “blackshirts”. The intelligence service was also aware that one could never do business with Vizzini without a guarantor who would put in a good word

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with him. Who would be better suited for this than the New York Mafia boss Luciano, who was also well known to the Sicilian Mafia? In any case, there were talks between Luciano and prosecutor Murray Gurfein, who already was acquainted with Luciano from “Operation Underworld”. There are numerous indications that Luciano actually helped the Americans when they landed in Sicily, for example, the oft-cited yellow handkerchiefs with the large black “L” (for “Lucky” or “Luciano”), a kind of identification that was used by both Sicilian mafiosi as well as by American intelligence agents. Allegedly, these handkerchiefs identified agents who had parachuted into Sicily before the Allied landing. The Americans are said to have resorted to the little handkerchiefs to announce their immediate arrival or their desire to speak to a high-ranking mafioso. The Mafia, on the other hand, is said to have used the handkerchiefs to signal to the American troops an “all clear” so that they could march into a given village. An eyewitness, Michele Pantaleone (1911–2002) reported that the American soldiers who arrived to liberate his hometown Villalba were carrying said handkerchiefs. Another indication that the Americans used Luciano’s help in the liberation of Italy is the fact that in the early 1940s numerous of Luciano’s American mafiosi were temporarily in Italy, including such well-known figures as Joe Adonis (1902–1971), Albert Anastasia (1902–1957), Nick Gentile (1885– 1976), Vito Genovese (1897–1969), Vincent Mangano (1888–1951) and Joe Profaci (1897–1962). It is quite unlikely that they all just happened to take a short “vacation” in their home country at that critical time. After the end of the World War II, however, the American state showed its gratitude to “its” mafiosi, even though it also expelled them from the country as “undesirable persons”: a whole number of Italian criminals—about 65 people—had their prison sentences commuted for “patriotic merits”. Of course, Lucky Luciano was among them and was pardoned in 1946, which meant that he did not have to serve about two thirds of his sentence. After liberation, Sicily was ruled by a military government from July 1943 to February 1944, the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT).7 The highest responsibility lay with the military governor, the British General Harold R.L.G. Alexander (1891–1969). The chief administrator was the British Major General Lord Francis Rennell Rodd (1895– 1978), supported by two officials responsible for civil affairs. For the American-controlled western half of Sicily this person was the American Colonel Charles Poletti, and for the British-monitored eastern part of Sicily Captain C.E. Benson. Poletti played a key role in AMGOT, and was, of course, exactly the same man who had already played such an important role in the New York “Operation Underworld”. Poletti is therefore often referred

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to as the American “Governor of Sicily”. Many mafiosi knew Poletti quite well. One of them, Lucky Luciano’s “right-hand man” Vito Genovese, served Poletti—although under a false name—as an “interpreter”, although Poletti himself spoke good Italian and did not need a translator. AMGOT pursued the goal of keeping the situation in the occupied territory calm, with as little effort as possible. After all, the main concern of the Allies was the liberation of the rest of Europe from Fascism. The main tasks included maintaining order, securing the food supply and preventing epidemics. Public order was somewhat at risk, since, after all, hundreds of mafiosi had returned from exile or been released from prison in the summer of 1943 and had immediately resumed their old activities. In addition, numerous brigand gangs, including the one of famous Salvatore Giuliano (1922–1950), had formed, making the island unsafe with kidnappings and robberies. Even though the Americans would have preferred to rule Sicily directly, AMGOT decided—once the Fascist mayors and prefects had been removed from their offices—on the principle of “indirect rule” as preferred by the British and with which they had already gained experience in the colonies. That approach was also less costly—because in the case of direct rule, at least 2,000 people would have had to be employed. Instead, part of the administrative tasks were entrusted to natives—even if always under the supervision of AMGOT. When it came to filling administrative positions, people with societal influence were consulted, such as aristocrats and clergymen. Of course, AMGOT also sought out the opinion of its own experts, such as the former American vice-consul in Palermo, Captain William E. Scotten (1904–1958). AMGOT wanted to know from him how to deal with the Mafia. Scotten layed out three possible courses of action in his report: first, fighting the Mafia and thus the creating a completely new situation; second, negotiating with the Mafia bosses so that they would at least not disturb the Americans in the administration of the island; or third, the abandoning of any attempt to reign in the Mafia. Scotten recommended the third solution, as it would be the least costly. Scotten’s assessment which many other experts must have shared, was followed in the end. However, the official contact of the military government was not the Mafia, but the separatist organization Movimento per l’Indipendenza Siciliana (MIS), which in practical terms amounted to the same thing.8 The origins of the separatist movement are probably to be found in the above mentioned rejection of the Fascist land reform law of 1940 by the large landowners. From this point onward, at the latest, the agrarian elite was putting serious thought into ways to free themselves from the Duce and to prevent the feared threat to their hegemony—frequently at meetings

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on the estate Regaliali of the above mentioned Count Tasca. Willing allies were found among their “old friends”, the Mafia bosses in waiting and the Liberal politicians who had been deprived of power during Fascism. When the liberation of Sicily became apparent, the agrarian elite finally had the opportunity to act: While the Allies and the Italian-German troops fought each other, the first separatist action committee was founded on July 25, 1943 by the former Liberal politician Andrea Finocchiaro Aprile, the large landowner Lucio Tasca Bordonaro and the Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini. Their motivation to chose the separatist option and strive for a Sicily independent from the Italian national state stemmed from their fear of the “wind from the north”: They feared that after the withdrawal of the Allies, the leftwing parties, which had been very strong in northern Italy as early as the 1920s and could claim moral superiority because of their commitment to the anti-Fascist resistance, would gain further support and govern the new Italian state. If that were indeed the case, the landowners could assume that a land reform in favor of the peasants would definitely be on the agenda. The mafiosi, many of whom had in the meantime become landowners themselves, would not have agreed with such a reform either. The fact that the landowners were primarily interested in maintaining the old land rights is reflected in the behavior of their leader, Count Tasca: In October 1943 he not only wrote a bombastic treatise on the advantages of the Sicilian latifundium with his “Elogio del Latifondo” (In Praise of the Latifundium),9 but also submitted a petition signed by all landowners to AMGOT, asking for the repeal of the still valid land reform law of 1940. The Liberal politicians could of course not be pleased with a victory of the Left, since after the impending end of Fascism, power was finally within reach for them. It was therefore an opportune moment for the alliance between the agrarian elite, the Mafia and Liberals to fight for an autonomous Sicily. For this reason, separatist propaganda began to be distributed as soon as the Allies landed. On June 12, 1943, the “Appello al Popolo di Sicilia” (Appeal to the Sicilian People) was distributed in Palermo and later a manifesto on the “National Rebirth of Sicily”. The separatists did not limit themselves to distributing propaganda, but also held numerous events throughout the island. They had the advantage that their “figurehead”, Andrea Finocchiaro Aprile, was a very gifted orator. The ambitious Finocchiaro Aprile, who could now finally make a name for himself and soon became known in public as the leader of the separatist movement, held riveting speeches on the squares. He railed against the centuries-long exploitation of Sicily and claimed that Fascism was the last expression of the colonial oppression by the North and that the Sicilian population should finally

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be allowed to take their fate into their own hands. This seems to have hit a nerve with many Sicilians—especially university students—because more and more people of different political orientations—from the extreme left to the extreme right—began to engage in the MIS. Even if the agrarian elite— flanked by the Mafia—was ultimately behind the movement, the latter kept a low profile for tactical reasons. Yet all of the important mafiosi openly joined the separatist organization, including Calogero Vizzini, Michele Navarra (1905–1958) from Corleone (PA), Giuseppe Genco Russo (1893– 1976) from Mussomeli (CL), Paolino Bontate (“Don Paolino Bontà”, 1914– 1974), Giuseppe (Pippo) Calò (born 1931) and Gaetano (Tanu) Filippone from Palermo as well as the still very young Tommaso Buscetta (1928–2000) who belonged to Filippone’s cosca from Porta Nuova. The mafiosi belonged to the pro-American wing within the movement—after all, the Americans had just taken power and one wanted to get along well with them. The Mafia separatists demanded an independent Sicily under an American protectorate and—under the leadership of Vizzini—founded a “Movimento per la Quarantanovesima Stella” (Movement for the 49th Star). The group even had its own symbol, an American flag with the Sicilian Trinakria in the center. Since the separatists appeared as the first political force in public after the liberation from Fascism, claiming to speak for the Sicilian people, they were a natural partner for talks with the AMGOT government. This was probably not entirely unwelcome to AMGOT, since they had already made acquaintance with some of the people who now appeared as separatists during the occupation. Cooperation with the separatists could also be an easy sell to the outside, since, after all, they claimed to represent the democratic forces and to have been persecuted under Fascism. Considering how many mafiosi had been in exile or in prison, the argument was not entirely wrong. The true anti-Fascist parties were extremely weak in Sicily, which is why they did not have to be taken into account as the mouthpiece of the people, in contrast to northern Italy. In addition, AMGOT had issued a ban on parties: on the one hand, because they wanted to keep administration and politics strictly separated, on the other hand, because some of the parties active underground, such as the socialists and communists, were already suspect to them. In any case, on the recommendation of the separatists, AMGOT now promoted extremely problematic figures to the most important administrative positions and appointed them as prefects and mayors. In most cases— in about 80% of all municipalities in western Sicily—well-known mafiosi or upper-class persons close to them were installed as mayors. They included the leader of the large landowners, Count Lucio Tasca Bordonaro—even

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though he had had opportunistic contacts with the Fascist regime during Fascism and could hardly be considered an anti-Fascist. Tasca became mayor of Palermo in September 1944, the largest and most important city on the island. The most powerful Mafia boss in Sicily, Calogero Vizzini, was also rewarded with a mayoral office and appointed head of the village of Villalba (CL). Other mafiosi in mayoral positions were Giuseppe Genco Russo from Mussomeli, who was ranked just below Vizzini in the Mafia hierarchy, Antonio Affronti (Misilmeri, PA), Serafino Di Peri (Bolognetta, PA), Giuseppe Giudice and Vincenzo Landolina (Misilmeri, CL) as well as Peppino Scarlata (Lercara, PA). However, separatist mafiosi not only received mayoral offices and positions in the administration, but also very lucrative tasks such as the distribution of relief goods and food to the population, the organization of transport services or the organization of the grain collection points, where farmers had to sell their wheat at low prices. AMGOT was well aware that these tasks could only be efficiently carried out by the Mafia. In any case, AMGOT handed over the logistics of the seizure of wheat and transportation to Vizzini and to the Mafia boss of Corleone (PA), Michele Navarra, who was allowed to use military vehicles that had been left behind. Clearly, this created enormous opportunities for enrichment. In particular, the now flourishing black market offered the Mafia an excellent source of income, often in collusion with American military personnel. Consequently, the former Vice-Consul Scotten also observed that the population believed that the American officers were “in cahoots” with the Mafia. A report by Carabinieri General Amadeo Branca from 1946 shows that the Mafia had succeeded in restoring the old ways just 3 years after the Allied landing. The Mafia families in the provinces of Palermo, Trapani, Caltanissetta, Enna and Agrigento had quickly and perfectly reorganized themselves. The Allies deliberately closed their eyes to this situation. Although some law-enforcement measures were taken, the judiciary did not really intervene. The situation was as it had been before Fascism—with the Americans contributing considerably to the renewed power of the Mafia, which had been weakened during Fascism. On February 11, 1944, the Allies handed over the administration of Sicily to an Italian transitional government, which initially consisted of five parties that had joined forces in the “Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale” (Committee for National Liberation, CLN): the Communist PCI, the Socialist PSI, the Liberal Socialist PDA, the Liberal PLI, and the Christian Democratic Party (DC) that had emerged from the PPI.10 The separatists were anything but happy about this, because their goal had been an

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independent Republic of Sicily. But none of the parties11 in the transitional government had any interest in an independent Sicily. The High Commissioner12 appointed by the transitional government, Salvatore Aldisio (1890–1964)—who was also the head of the Sicilian Christian Democrats—immediately  took  the necessary measures: he had separatist leaders like Finocchiaro Aprile arrested and instructed the prefects to remove mayors who did not belong to one of the CLN parties from office. As a result, many mayors appointed by AMGOT lost their positions, such as Count Tasca in Palermo or Calogero Vizzini in Villalba. In addition, it was agreed to grant Sicily limited regional autonomy—with the aim of taking the wind out of the sails of the separatists.13 To this end, the transitional government appointed a “Consulta”, a Council, which immediately formulated the corresponding statute. This statute was passed on April 4, 1946 and came into force on May 15, 1946. With this, Sicily became an autonomous region, which possessed separate legislative powers—such as in agricultural policy. The separatist “hardliners”—Count Lucio Tasca, Baron Stefano La Motta and the Dukes Paternò Castello di Caraci—had desperately fought against this development until the end. In February 1945, they had even founded the “Esercito Volontario per l’Indipendenza Siciliana” (Volunteer Army for Sicilian Independence, EVIS), a paramilitary army, into which they recruited brigands such as Salvatore Giuliano from Montelepre (PA) and Salvatore Avila from Niscemi (CL), who carried out attacks on police and carabinieri headquarters with their men. These efforts were in vain, however, and after the adoption of the new statute, the separatist movement gradually dissolved. For the Mafia, this development was not a surprise, because it had already informed its American “friends” that the hopes for independence would be dashed.

2.5 From the Rural to the Urban Mafia The Mafia has always been present wherever it had found good conditions: in central Sicily, where absentee landlords left their land to Mafia gabellotti; in the area between Agrigento, Enna and Piazza Armerina, where small mine owners fought each other with the help of Mafia gangs; and finally in the green belt around Palermo, where Mafia clans controlled the citrus industry.1 Since the control of the agricultural industry provided the highest earning potentials, these clans were the most powerful. Gangs also existed in the big cities—first in Palermo and from the 1920s also in Catania—, but they played a subordinate role compared to the powerful cosche in the countryside. This situation

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changed beginning with the 1950s mainly due to economic changes: in the cities, new business opportunities opened up with the “construction business” as well as the cigarette and drug trade, where the earning potentials were significantly higher than in agriculture. In addition, the large landowners disappeared, depriving the Mafia gabellotti of their livelihood. However, this did not dissolve the agriculturally-based Mafia by any means; rather, the rural Mafia had to give up its hegemonic position to the urban Mafia. Within the urban clans, distribution battles as well as generational conflicts between traditionally conciliatory old mafiosi and young gangster mafiosi caused the “First Mafia War”. This confrontation led to the first significant Mafia trials since Fascism and almost led to the dissolution of the Cosa Nostra. The Minister of Agriculture of the transitional government, Fausto Gullo (1887–1974), faced two problems in already liberated southern Italy and Sicily: on the one hand, the food supply for the population, and on the other hand the catastrophic situation of farmers and agricultural workers, which had further deteriorated after the return of thousands of war returnees.2 Gullo, a Communist, issued various decrees between July and October 1944 to provide relief. The most important was the one of October 19, 1944, according to which land that was not or only poorly cultivated was to be given to the farmers and could be cultivated by them. As a result, a farmers’ movement emerged that demanded the implementation of the Gullo decrees. The farmers were supported by the Socialists and Communists, whose functionaries not only set up union-like “Camere di Lavoro” (literally “chambers of labor”) on a local level, but also founded a left-wing peasant cooperative confederation called “Federazione Nazionale fra i Lavoratori della Terra” (National Federation of Agricultural Workers, FEDERTERRA). Because the left-wing parties had taken the lead in the farmers’ movement, they gained a lot of ground in the south, where they had been relatively weak before. Many farmers were now also willing to listen to these parties on issues that did not directly concern them. For example, many voted— as desired by the left-wing parties—in the referendum of May 1946, in which the question of the future form of government in Italy was at stake, for the Republic, which narrowly won with 54%.3 The new strength of the Left became even more apparent in the first regional elections in Sicily on April 20, 1947, in which the parties of the Left, united in the “Blocco del Popolo” (People’s Block), won the relative majority of votes with 30.4%. The Christian Democrats, on the other hand, only achieved 20.5%, while the Liberals (together with the right-wing “Fronte dell’Uomo Qualunque”, which was only successful for a short time) only received 14.8%, the Monarchists 9.5% and the Separatists 8.8%.4

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The Sicilian regional elections, which were considered a test election for the national elections to be held the following year, led to a severe shock in various districts: The Christian Democrats were aware that the votes of the South would decide which party would govern. In the North with its traditional communist and socialist strongholds, their chances were bad, especially given that the communists and socialists had gained in popularity because of their steadfast anti-Fascist resistance against the hated Germans. Even the Sicilian agrarian elite and the associated Mafia gabellotti—who had immediately regained control of large estates of the owners of the latifundia, still called feudi (fiefs) after the landing of the Allies—were horrified at the prospect of a takeover by the Left, which had already been initiated with the Gullo decrees. And the Americans were alarmed as well: after all, at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, when the victorious powers divided Europe into a Western and an Eastern sphere of influence, Italy had fallen to them. For them it was clear that the “left” in Italy must not take power under any circumstances. Everyone was interested in bringing the Sicilian peasants to their senses. This task naturally fell to the Mafia, which had been taking action against left-wing peasant leaders from the beginning and had carried out attacks against them5, for example on September 16, 1944 in Villalba (CL) on Girolamo Li Causi (1898–1977), the Communist regional secretary. They had even killed some communists active at the local level like Santi Milisenna († 27.05.1944) and Andrea Raina († 06.08.1944) or the union leader Nunzio Passafiume († 07.06.1945). In the decisive period between 1947 and 1948—that is, after the Sicilian regional elections and before the national elections—the Mafia was not content with numerous attacks on the offices of communists and union leaders, for example in the province of Palermo in Partinico, Cinisi, San Giuseppe Jato, Borgetto and Monreale; they also carried out a bloody mattanza (Sic. massacre) in which almost 50 politicians and unionists were killed! The murder of peasant leaders like Placido Rizzotto († 10.03.1948), Epifanio Li Puma († 02.03.1948) or Calogero Cangelosi († 01.01.1948) not only deprived the Left of its most important leaders, but also weakened it as a whole. One incident in the dramatic year of 1947 deserves to be mentioned in more detail because of its special quality, namely the massacre at the Portella della Ginestra6, a valley between the towns of Piana degli Albanesi and San Giuseppe Jato in the hinterland of Palermo: there were about 2,000 people from families of peasants and agricultural workers who had gathered there to peacefully celebrate the victory of the left-wing Action Alliance in the regional elections on May 1. When the first speaker started out, shots

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were suddenly fired into the crowd, killing eleven people—including women and children—and wounding a total of 56. Others died from the long-term effects of their injuries or became invalids. The massacre was immediately “attributed” to the brigand band of Salvatore Giuliano. After all, the “King of Montelepre”, who had carried out attacks on numerous offices of the left-wing parties with his band, was an avowed anti-communist. However, eyewitness accounts made it immediately clear that the massacre could not have been carried out by Giuliano’s band alone: Shots were fired not only from the spot where Giuliano and his men were clearly visible, but also from two other hidden points. In addition it was also suspicious that the attackers used a particular type of weapon that had been employed by Xa Mas, a special unit of the Fascist navy, and which the brigand band did not have access to. Soon the rumor spread that Giuliano had not acted on his own initiative, but on behalf of others. During the trial in Viterbo (1952) against Giuliano’s gang, his cousin Gaspare Pisciotta (1924–1954) explained that the attack had been initiated by the Christian Democratic Minister of the Interior Mario Scelba (1901–1991), his party friend Bernardo Mattarella (1905–1971) as well as the monarchists Tommaso Leone Marchesano (1893–1968), Giacomo Cusumano Geloso (1921–1953) and Giovanni Alliata, Prince of Montereale (1921–1994). The truth never came out, partly because many of those who knew the truth died in very mysterious ways.7 Proper investigations never took place and documents that could have provided information about the events disappeared—even from state archives!8 No wonder then that many believe that the massacre at the Portella della Ginestra was a state-sponsored attack designed to provoke a civil war that would justify the establishment of an authoritarian government or at least a ban on the Communist Party.9 There would be many more similar incidents in the Italian Republic later on, always involving the CIA-controlled paramilitary secret army Gladio10—as was probably also the case with the incident at Portella della Ginestra. In any case, it seems that American secret agents, neo-Fascists like the “Fronte Antibolscevico”” (Anti-Bolshevik Front) group and the Mafia were all involved in the massacre at Portella della Ginestra; some of the people who were named as the instigators turned up again later in connection with other state-sponsored attacks or coup attempts, such as Prince Alliata Di Montereale.11 But not only the massacre at Portella della Ginestra remained unsolved—so did the investigation into the murders of the peasant leaders. In the few cases where a trial actually took place, it always ended in acquittals for the perpetrators, since witnesses were simply killed if necessary, as in the case of 13-year-old shepherd Giuseppe Letizia (1935–1948):

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On March 10, 1948, the boy had witnessed the murder of peasant leader Placido Rizzotto from Corleone and ran back to his village in a state of shock, where he told what he had seen. The shocked teenager was then “treated” with a syringe by Doctor Michele Navarra at Corleone Hospital— Navarra was not only a doctor, but also the local Mafia boss. Giuseppe did not survive the “treatment”. The fact that the crimes against the Left remained unsolved was anything but a coincidence: By May 1947 at the latest, the political winds had turned when Christian Democratic Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi (1881–1954) threw the Leftist parties out of government at the urging of the Americans and then governed only together with right-wing parties. In this period, under his Minister of the Interior Mario Scelba, a witch-hunt for former partisans, communists and socialists began not only in Sicily but throughout Italy, for which Scelba unashamedly made use of the security forces.12 For the Sicilian farmers, who had already lost many of their leaders due to a wave of murders carried out by the Mafia, this meant that they were constantly prevented from occupying land by the carabinieri, but were also arrested and sentenced to sometimes considerable prison sentences by the courts on flimsy pretexts.13 In the end, the fear campaigns and repression were successful in Sicily and the Leftist parties suffered enormous losses in the national elections in April 1948, while the Christian Democrats were able to record enormous growth: The latter achieved 47.9% of the votes on the island, which was more than double the results from previous Sicilian regional elections. The left-wing parties that ran in the “Fronte Democratico Popolare” (Democratic People’s Front) on the other hand, lost 10% and only received 20.9% of the votes.14 This enabled the Christian Democrats, who achieved the greatest electoral success in their history in these elections and narrowly missed an absolute majority in all of Italy with 48%, to become the governing party. They remained significantly involved in the country’s government until the collapse of the old party system in 1994. Even though they were weakened, the Leftist parties did not give up and the peasant unrest in the south continued. On October 29, 1949, it reached a peak when police officers killed three people in a confrontation with peasants in the Calabrian village of Melissa in the province of Crotone, causing a country-wide outcry.15 At this point many northerners in Italy, to whom left-wing intellectuals—such as the film directors Vittorio De Sica (1901–1974), Luchino Visconti (1906–1976) and Pier Paolo Pasolini (1902–1975) as well as writers such as Salvatore Quasimodo (1901–1968), Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) and Carlo Levi (1902–1975)—had shown

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the misery of the south, demanded that something had to be done at last. Because of the social pressure, but perhaps even more because of the realization that they somehow had to win the farmers over to their side, the government decided on an agrarian reform16 and passed two agricultural laws in 1950: the “Sila Law” concerning only Calabria and the “Stralcio Law” implemented the same year by the Region of Sicily. This law provided for the expropriation of property over 300 hectares, with compensation, and the distribution of small parcels of land to farmers. The authority responsible for implementing the law was the “Ente per la Riforma Agraria in Sicilia” (Agrarian Reform Agency for Sicily, ERAS), which was also supposed to support farmers with technical and financial assistance. In order not to anger the agrarian elite, the Agrarian Reform Agency did not start its work until 1955, thus giving the large landowners enough time to sell their land. The Mafia also did not go away empty-handed: bosses such as Genco Russo or Vanni Sacco were appointed as “agricultural experts”, i.e., official advisers to ERAS, and were able to “feather their own nests”. In addition, numerous Mafia field guards were given lucrative posts in the huge Agrarian Reform Agency which had around 2,000 employees. Even if the agrarian reform was not carried out as originally provided by law, but “corrected” to favor the interests of the large landowners and the Mafia, the dream of owning one’s own land still came true for many farmers. However, many farmers did not manage to survive because they had received too small a plot or land with poor-quality soil and were therefore forced to leave their village to look for employment in the metropolitan areas of southern Italy, the industrial cities of northern Italy or the countries of Central and Northern Europe. Although the agrarian reform was ultimately a failure, it was nevertheless a success for the government: it had stopped the peasant unrest and won over many farmers, as the Agrarian Reform Agency had allocated land preferentially to those farmers who were members of the Christian Democratic Farmers’ Association “Confederazione Nazionale dei Coltivatori Diretti” (COLDIRETTI). For the Mafia, the agrarian reform also had far-reaching consequences: the dissolution of the latifundia reduced their sources of income and the figure of the parasitic gabellotto disappeared. As a result of political decisions, new opportunities for employment opened up, from which the urban Mafia benefited above all: The government had decided to modernize the underdeveloped South to help close the gap to the wealthier North, and on August 10, 1950, with the “Cassa per il Mezzogiorno” (Fund for the South)17 a body of public law was created to finance infrastructure projects in the South and promote industrialization. As a result, enormous financial resources flowed into the South—over 150

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trillion lire—with the help of which numerous roads, schools, social housing complexes, hospitals, dams, etc. were built and also a number of industrial areas were realized. The Mafia immediately recognized that the future lay in the construction business, which is why it became their “favorite business sector”.18 However, the construction industry not only flourished thanks to the Southern Fund, but there was also a private construction boom at the same time. Many people who could no longer make a living in the countryside moved to the cities, where they hoped to find employment in the rapidly expanding public sector. This wave of urbanization affected above all the capital Palermo, where the population increased by a third in a few decades. In addition, in 1966 in Agrigento, where part of the old town was buried in a landslide, and even more in 1968 in an earthquake in the Belice Valley, many people became homeless and the need for housing was huge. In construction, there were many lucrative opportunities for the Mafia, such as in the area of real estate speculation. Thanks to their good relationships with politicians, the Mafia knew in advance which agricultural land would be designated as building land. This allowed them to buy it at ridiculously low price and to resell it, often for three times its actual value. They also acquired historically significant buildings in prestigious Via Libertà in Palermo, for example, and replaced them with more lucrative high-rises; or they destroyed the natural habitat in the surroundings of Palermo—for example, the Conca d’Oro—which went down in history as the “Sacco di Palermo” (looting of Palermo). Because of their proximity to organized crime, many “building tycoons” earned the reputation of Mafia entrepreneurs, such as the Count Arturo Cassina or the brothers Girolamo and Salvatore Moncada or the Cavalieri del Lavoro (Knights of Labor) Carmelo Costanzo (1923–1990), Gaetano Graci (1927–1996), Francesco Finocchiaro (1930–1995) and Mario Renda in Catania. But the Mafia not only worked for the large construction companies, they also entered the construction business themselves: Practically every clan set up a small construction company in the 1950s, which was managed as a family business—usually by relatives. Mostly these were subcontractors, for example in the field of earthmoving or the production of building materials. Thanks to their obvious “market advantages”, the Mafia companies quickly knocked their competition out of the field. At that time, increasing numbers of arson attacks were carried out on non-Mafia construction companies, which lasted until the Mafia companies were the only ones left in business. The start-up capital was provided by the Mafia mainly through kidnappings on the mainland or unsecured loans from state-controlled banks, which were procured for them by their political friends. All Mafia

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construction entrepreneurs did well at the time, some actually made it from “dishwasher to millionaire”, such as Francesco (Ciccio) Vassallo, who was originally just a poor truck driver, but landed one of the most lucrative businesses of all with the maintance contract for the sewage system in Palermo. Just as successful was the mafioso Rosario Spatola (born 1938), a former itinerant milkman, whose construction company ended up employing 600 people. Mafia politicians such as the Palermo mayor Salvo Lima (1928–1992) and his assessore19 for public works, Vito Ciancimino (1924–2002), entered the construction business as well, but not openly—that would not have looked good for them. They used three impoverished pensioners named Salvatore Milazzo, Michele Caggegi and Lorenzo Ferrante, who between 1959 and 1964 were granted the lion’s share of the 4,000 building permits issued in Palermo! During this period, the relations between Mafia and politics intensified.20 After all, the politicians now not only remained in control of the state prosecution apparatus, but also controlled a variety of relevant resources—from classifying land as building land, the granting of approvals and licenses, the allocation of public contracts or the granting of loans to the control of jobs in the public sector. Particularly lucrative was the license for tax collection, which had long been privatized in Italy. With such a private “tax collection business” the cousins Antonino (Nino) Salvo (1929–1986) and Ignazio Salvo (1931–1992), both “men of honor” from the town of Salemi (TP), made a lot of money: their company Sartris was allowed a commission which, at 10%, was far above the national average (3.3%).21 Thanks to their friendship with Christian Democratic politicians, whose campaigns and congresses (traditionally held in the family-owned Hotel Zagarella in Santa Flavia, PA) they subsidized, it was generously “overlooked” that the Mafia cousins delivered the collected taxes regularly later than contractually agreed. Because of the enormous increase in the importance of politics, the Mafia at that point increasingly sought to find not only good “friends” at all political levels—from the municipal and city councils to the regional and national parliament—but also to place its own personnel in these bodies. In addition, it began to massively infiltrate the administrations—above all the gigantic regional administration—in order to have contacts there and to provide relatives with well-paid civil service posts. While the Mafia had flirted with different parties in the immediate post-war period, such as the Liberals or the Monarchists, very soon the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) became its preferred partner and remained so until the early 1990s. Important bosses such as Vincenzo Di Carlo (1911–?) from Raffadali (AG), Calogero Vizzini

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from Villalba (CL), Giuseppe Genco Russo from Mussomeli (CL), Michele Navarra from Corleone (PA) and Vincenzo Rimi (TP) (1902–1975) from Trapani not only joined the DC, but also took over party offices at the local level. When the “young Turks”—that is, the party wing led by party secretary Giovanni Gioia (1925–1981), with the Mafia politicians Lima and Ciancimino as members—took over in the Sicilian DC in 1954, a wave of mafiosi joined the party. Some Christian Democrats were not pleased with this development, some even vehemently opposed it; in this context the local DC party secretary Pasquale Almerico (1914–1957) from Camporeale (PA) needs to be mentioned, who refused to accept the local Mafia boss Vanni Sacco and his clan into his local group—Almerico had to pay for his resistance with his life. The politicians, for their part, were interested in the Mafia, because votes still had to be organized. The Mafia was happy to take on this task, yet still resorted to violence, albeit now preferring “more peaceful” methods such as vote-buying. During this period, mafiosi and politicians could still appear together in public without any problems. Politicians were accompanied by “men of honor” in their election campaigns, met them at social events and generally had a friendly relationship with them. Being a friend of a mafioso was not something that caused a scandal, but rather a sign of power. Historian Francesco Renda (1922–2013) summed up the situation in the 1950s as follows: Everyone in Sicily knows the capimafia in the village and can point them out: the ordinary citizen, the carabiniere, the policeman, the quaestor, the prefect, the judge, the priest, the member of parliament, the minister all the way up to the diplomatic representatives and consuls on the island. The mafioso is not considered a lawbreaker, even though everyone knows that he skirts the law and does not always comply with it. The mafioso is a free citizen, just like everyone else. He enjoys civil rights, has a gun license, walks with the galantuomini of the village and often with the commander of the carabinieri, to whom he does not fail to give advice. He often sits on the town council or is assessor or mayor. He frequents the sacristies, travels by car with politicians, visits the anterooms of the national parliament and the Sicilian regional parliament and is respectfully received in the cabinets of the ministers and the assessors of the regional government.22

Mafia boss Michele Greco, officially a wealthy landowner, invited the city’s powerful to his estate in Ciaculli in the east of Palermo famous for his hunting parties and everyone came: princes and counts, politicians, judges and prosecutors, even police chiefs and carabinieri.23 The Mafia was no longer a

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topic and the word “Mafia” disappeared from newspapers and police reports. After all, crime had decreased significantly after the break-up of Salvatore Giuliano’s brigand band, and violence against peasant leaders had all but ceased. An exception was the bomb attack on the small left-wing daily newspaper L’Ora at the Palermitan Piazzetta Francesco Napoli in October 1958, which destroyed the printing presses of the paper. The newspaper had dared to report on the rise of the Mafia boss Luciano Leggio from Corleone and to print a photo of him.24 But almost no one was bothered by the Cosa Nostra, not even the judiciary and police. A good number of people even believed that “men of honor” would help maintain order, and for the Christian Democrats the Cosa Nostra remained an important pillar for maintaining the party’s power. People failed to recognize that a new type of Mafia had developed in the cities, since, after all, crime had receded and was restricted to small theft, fraud and black market trade. Even robberies were rare and were carried out in a completely amateurish way with carriages in the postwar period!25 The “construction business”, however, was not the only source of income for the new urban Mafia: some clans succeeded in the area of cigarette smuggling.26 In this context, it is important to mention Tommaso Spadaro (1937– 2019) who rose from an ordinary smuggler to the capo of the Mafia family of the Kalsa district in Palermo. Because the “King of the Kalsa” gave hundreds of poor people work in smuggling and black market trade there, Spadaro even boasted of being the “Agnelli of Palermo”. Cigarette smuggling did not develop on a large scale until after the closure of the port of Tangier (1960), when, as a result, Naples developed into the most important smuggling hub in the Mediterranean. To better organize the “cigarette business”, some Sicilian mafiosi such as the brothers Tommaso and Vincenzo Spadaro, Stefano Bontate (1939–1981) and Antonino Imperiale set up significant operational bases there and drove out the bands from Marseille that had been dominant until then. They were able to accomplish this with the support of the local Camorra, with whom the mafiosi established friendly relations; some even married into it. Bontate, for example, allied himself with the Maisto from Giugliano (NA) and the Spadaro with the Doria from Naples. This was a new development in so far as the relationship with the criminals in Campania had never been particularly good up until then, because the Sicilians had always despised the extroverted camorristi. At this point, however, cooperation made good sense, since, after all, the mafiosi needed the local know-how of the camorristi. The latter, on the other hand, were dependent on the investment capital of their Sicilian “colleagues”, because, unlike the wealthy mafiosi, they had no significant financial resources. This meant that the Sicilian mafiosi had

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the say, while the Neapolitans played the role of the paid henchman. This was to change only when, at the beginning of the 1970s, Raffaele Cutolo’s (1941– 2021) Nuova Camorra Organizzata came on the scene and put an end to the supremacy of the Sicilians. By then, however, the mafiosi had already switched to the drug business, which was to develop into the most lucrative business of all thanks to the enormous increase in international demand—especially in the time of the Vietnam War and the hippie movement.27 The Sicilian-American Mafia, which had already begun experimenting with cocaine trafficking in the 1930s, became involved in this business immediately after the World War II. A pioneer in this business was Lucky Luciano, who devoted himself to the new “business sector” from his new home in Naples after his expulsion from the USA in 1946. As early as 1946, he called a conference at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana, in which not only representatives of the American Mafia, but also of the Jewish Kosher Mafia—including Luciano’s bosom friend Meyer Lansky—took part. At this meeting—with entertainment provided by the singer Frank Sinatra (1915–1998)—it was agreed to import raw opium from the Orient to Europe, refine it in Marseille, given the existing expertise of Corsican clans there, then package the heroin in Sicily and smuggle it disguised as food to the American market via Cuba. The plan was immediately put into practice, with the imports from the Orient initially causing problems, so that the raw material was initially obtained from some north Italian pharmaceutical companies. At that time, various mafiosi founded food factories in Sicily: Lucky Luciano together with Calogero Vizzini, for example, established the confectionery factory “Fabbrica Siciliana Confetti”, Frank Coppola (“Tre Dita”, 1899–1982) a factory for vegetable broth, Carlo Marcello and Gaetano (Tano) Badalamenti (1923–2004) each a canned fish factory—all of them were nothing but business fronts for illegal enterprises. The Sicilian “food” was imported into the USA by the Siculo-American mafioso Joe Profaci, who had founded the import company “Mamma Mia” in New York. Despite all of Luciano’s efforts, drug trafficking remained rather amateurish for the time being. The turning point was the summit meeting of American and Sicilian mafiosi in October 1957 in Palermo.28 In the luxurious Hotel Delle Palme as well as in the then famous top-level restaurant of the city, the Spanò, in the district Romangnolo, the foundation was laid for the professional, largescale drug trade. This step was also necessitated by the political changes taking place on Cuba and Fidel Castro’s (1926–2016) power grab. The drug business, however, started to really take off only after Luciano’s death in 1962: At that point, the Sicilians ended collaborating with their American

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“colleagues” and took over the command themselves. Their great strategist was Tano Badalamenti, the capomafia of Cinisi (PA). Badalamenti had already gained experience as a drug dealer during Luciano’s lifetime. In addition, he also knew the USA quite well because he had lived there for some years with his brother who had emigrated there. Badalamenti’s idea was to found an independent Sicilian cell in the USA, the main market for heroin, which was supposed to bring the drugs imported from Sicily onto the American market. The “American cousins” were considered to be only marginally suitable as reliable business partners, because they had strayed too far from the Sicilians’ traditional values. In order to found this new Mafia branch in the USA, there were people available who would be accepted by the Americans due to family ties. At that time Carlo (Charles) Gambino (1902–1976)—who, by the way, was the model for the “Godfather” of the eponymous film—“ruled” the five leading American Cosa Nostra Mafia families in New York. It made sense, then, that the first ones to emigrate to the USA were those closely related to the important New York “Godfather”: in 1962 the brothers Giovanni (John) (1940–2017), Rosario (Sal) (born 1942) and Giuseppe Gambino moved to the USA. Soon they were followed by various Spatolas, Di Maggios and Inzerillos as well as other Gambinos. They all came from the Mafia district Passo di Rigano in western Palermo, which, in addition to the Passo di Rigano family, also included the families of Boccadifalco, Uditore and finally Torretta. The group of SicilianAmerican immigrants led by John Gambino settled in the small town of Cherry Hill near Philadelphia, NJ, and was therefore called the “Cherry Hill Mafia”. This virtually autonomous Mafia cell was protected by New York boss Carlo Gambino and their Siculo-American “colleagues” shared in the profits for the logistical support they provided. The Cherry Hill group built a chain of restaurants and grocery stores in the USA from the mid1960s onward, mainly in Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and New York, which served as a cover for their drug distribution network. At the same time as the super clan of the Cherry Hill Mafia, Salvatore (Sal) Catalano (born 1941) emigrated and settled in New York, where he officially ran a kiosk on Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn. Catalano joined the New York Bonanno family, within which he led a group of Sicilian immigrants called the “zips”. The most important “zips” were Cesare Bonventre (1951–1984), Baldassare (Baldo) Amato (born 1952) and Gerlando Sciascia (1934–1999); as members of the Bonanno family, they mostly came from Castellammare del Golfo (TP). The “zips” specialized in the heroin business, procuring the drugs through Badalamenti from Sicily and then distributing them in the USA through Italian pizzerias and grocery stores. The Sicilian mafiosi in the

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homeland, who were responsible for the production of heroin, finally succeeded in the 1970s thanks to the smugglers Nunzio La Mattina († 1983) and Tommaso Spadaro (1937–2019), who were admitted to the Cosa Nostra, to procure huge loads of raw opium from Koh Bak Kin in Singapore and Turkish intermediaries such as Abuzer Ugurlu (born 1943) and Yasar Avni Musullulu (born 1942). The heroin arrived by ship in Sicily via several intermediate stops from the “Golden Triangle”—that is, the border region of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar—but also from Iran, Pakistan  and Afghanistan. The Sicilian Mafia families were able to acquire quotas of the raw material to be imported and accordingly shared in the profits. Specialized mafiosi took care of paying the drug suppliers. One of these “specialists” was Alfonso Caruana (born 1946), originally from Siculiana (AG) who led the Mafia clan of the Cuntrera-Caruana that was spread over Canada and Venezuela and also worked as a banker for Colombian, Calabrian, Turkish or Russian drug dealers. In addition to this “Rothschild” of the Mafia, another Mafia banker was Vito Roberto Palazzolo (born 1947), originally from Terrasini (PA) and today living in South Africa. At the beginning, the Sicilian mafiosi did not yet have the know-how to turn opium into heroin, which is why they—as mentioned above—were dependent on experts from Marseille. Francesco Marino Mannoia (“Mozzarella”, born 1951) from the Mafia family Santa Maria di Gesù in Palermo, who is said to have produced more than 1,000 kg of heroin by himself, made his name as one of the top “refiners”. In those days, numerous “drug kitchens” were created in the outskirts of Palermo—for example in Villagrazia, Piraineto and on the coastal road Via Messina Marina, but also in the towns of Trabia (PA), Carini (PA) and Alcamo (TP). It is rumored that between the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s, four to five tons of heroin were produced there annually, which satisfied about 30% of the American demand. The finished product then reached JFK Airport in New York via direct flights from Palermo’s Punta Raisa Airport. At first, the Cosa Nostra used mafiosi as couriers. Later, for security reasons, they switched to ordinary citizens without a police record, among them the much-cited “housewives of Torretta”, who thus improved their housekeeping allowance.29 Considering that back then the market value for 3 to 5 tons of heroin— based on the exchange rate of the time in the USA—amounted to approximately 2.5 billion US dollars, the enormity of the Mafia’s profits becomes evident. However, before they could use this money, it had to be “laundered”.30 There were experts for that, too, of course, at first Michele Sindona from Patti (ME) in Sicily, who operated in Northern Italy. With the Mafia’s drug money, Sindona was able to build up a banking empire, which was also

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aided by his good relationships with Giulio Andreotti and the Vatican. After the collapse of his enterprise in 1974, Roberto Calvi (1920–1982) became Sindona’s successor. He was the president of the Banco Ambrosiano in Milan, which, for the most part, belonged to the Vatican Bank and in turn earned Calvi the nickname “Banker of God”. After the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982, the Cosa Nostra had to fall back on shell companies or “sympathetic” banks. It is no coincidence that a banking boom occurred in Sicily at exactly that time, which ran counter to the national trend. The “clean” drug money was then funneled into the most promising sectors of the legal economy, by no means only in Sicily, but also in Northern Italy and abroad. In Sicily, the construction sector was favored as late as the 1980s, where excellent business was done with the help of straw men— including, for example, the large construction companies of Vincenzo Piazza, Gianni Ienna, Gaetano Sansone, Francesco Paolo Sbeglia, Francesco Pecora, and Francesco Maniglia in Palermo. In the time of transition, in which the old rural Mafia experienced its decline and the urban Mafia began to rise, power and distribution conflicts could not be avoided. The fault line ran less between rural and urban mafiosi than between the traditional “Dons” and the newcomers: The old mafiosi maintained the lifestyle of their ancestors and tried to achieve their goals with as little violence as possible, while the new mafiosi loved elegant clothing, drove Alfa Romeo Giuliettas, and quickly reached for their weapons—not like the old ones with shotguns, but with Colts and machine guns. In general, the “newcomers” liked to copy the methods of their American colleagues. Typical examples of this new generation were Angelo (1924–1975) and Salvatore La Barbera (1922–1963) and Michele Cavataio (1929–1969) from Palermo, and Luciano Leggio (1925–1993) from Corleone31. The newcomers did everything they could to push out the old “Dons”, which Leggio was able to do, but not the La Barberas in Palermo. Leggio, who came from a poor farmer’s family, was initially only a picciotto, that is, a simple member of the Corleone family. Envious, he hated his capo, Michele Navarra, because Navarra, as a doctor, hospital director and entrepreneur, not only enjoyed great respect in his city, but also moved in the best circles all over Sicily, while Leggio was nothing but a simple guard. Leggio, who surrounded himself with his peers—first and foremost Salvatore (Totò) Riina (1930–2017) and Bernardo (Binnu) Provenzano (1933– 2016)—did not hesitate and simply killed Navarra on August 2, 1958, took over the leadership of the Corleone clan himself and thus achieved his goal quite quickly. A life like the one Navarra had led was never allowed to the

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primula rossa32 (red primrose), as Leggio was called, rather, he spent most of his time on the run or in prison. The La Barbera brothers, from a poor family from the village of Partanna (PA) in the west of Palermo, did not even come from a Mafia family like Leggio, but were originally nothing but small criminals. But they managed to be accepted into the Palermo-Centro Mafia family because of their special criminal skills, and quickly advanced: Antonio became the capofamiglia there in 1955, while Salvatore became the capo of the PalermoCentro district. Thanks to the construction business, they quickly became rich, mainly because they were able to get numerous building permits for the builder Girolamo Moncada thanks to their excellent relationship with Salvo Lima. But that was not enough for them, they wanted to take over the command in the city, or even better in the whole province. For this reason, they repeatedly caused unrest in the provincial commission of Palermo (or cupola ), founded in 1958, a kind of Mafia supervisory board, and, insisted, for example, on the old rule that district capi may not be family capi at the same time. This made them unpopular with many of their colleagues, but above all with the powerful Palermo commission capo Salvatore Greco (“Ciaschiteddu” = small bird)33, (1923–1978). Greco, in contrast to the La Barberas, was not a parvenu, but rather came from an old Mafia dynasty, which had appropriated the orange groves of Ciaculli, a hamlet in eastern Palermo, as early as the nineteenth century, and presented himself as a wealthy landowner. Both the La Barberas and Greco were only waiting to be able to go openly fight each other. The event that finally caused the socalled “First Mafia War”34 (1962–1963) was a failed drug deal: Some Mafia families, including the La Barberas, had invested in a cargo of heroin according to the old quota system established by Lucky Luciano. The capofamiglia of the Palermo district Noce, Calcedonio Di Pisa (1931–1962), had been sent as a courier to receive the heroin on the open sea off Porto Empedocle (AG). After returning to Palermo, he handed over the drug package to a member of the crew of the ocean liner Saturnia, who took it to New York and delivered it to a nephew of Joe Profaci. Since less heroin had arrived in New York than ordered, the Americans did not pay the originally agreed-upon amount, which understandably caused annoyance in Palermo. The provincial commission investigated the matter, with suspicion falling quite quickly on Di Pisa, who was accused of having embezzled part of the consignment—a charge that was probably true. At the intercession of “Ciaschiteddu”, who wanted to take revenge on the La Barberas, Di Pisa was, however, acquitted by the commission. This should have settled the matter, but on December 26, 1962, Di Pisa was shot on Piazza Principe di

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Camporeale in the Palermo district Noce. Since the provincial commission assumed that the La Barberas had ordered the murder, they were not only excluded from the Mafia, but a manhunt was launched against them. Thet following months saw a veritable bloodbath in which those allied with the La Barberas—including a young Tommaso Buscetta from the Porta Nuova family—and those allied with of Greco fought each other to death. The situation was so dramatic that people decried that Palermo was wilder than Chicago was during its worst times. In order to calm the public, the parliament decided in December 1962 to set up a parliamentary anti-Mafia commission,35 which was to investigate the situation with judicial powers. Since most of the traditional “Dons”, such as the capomafia of Cinisi, Cesare Manzella (1898–1963), but also the increasingly important Corleonesi of Leggio, were on the side of the Grecos, the La Barberas lost the war: Salvatore La Barbera fell victim to the so-called lupara bianca (white shotgun) in January 1963: He disappeared without a trace. His brother Angelo fled to the mainland after his friends had either died or turned away from him like Buscetta. He was arrested by the police in a Milan hospital in May 1963 after having been shot. Nevertheless, the war went on for a while because some mafiosi—mainly the capomafia of the Palermo district Acquasanta Michele Cavataio—believed they could profit from the confusing situation: “Il Cobra”, as Cavataio was called because of his preference for revolvers of the brand Colt Cobra, belonged to those who climbed the social ladder, as had the La Barberas. He also used gangster methods to expand his influence in the city. A number of murders during the First Mafia War were attributable to him. Yet he left traces in such a way that the suspicion fell on his rivals, the La Barberas. The war reached its climax when an Alfa Romeo Giulietta parked in front of a villa belonging to the Greco in Ciaculli exploded on June 30, 1963. An anonymous caller had previously advised the police. When they found a bomb in the suspicious vehicle, it exploded while they were trying to defuse it. Seven policemen and carabinieri were killed. The “massacre of Ciaculli” caused outrage throughout Italy. The population demanded that something had to be done. As a result, there was a wave of arrests, with more than 250 mafiosi being arrested. In addition, the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission finally began its work, so that in 1967, in the court of Catanzaro, the first major Mafia trial of the twentieth century, the “trial against the 114 defendants”, finally took place. This was followed in March 1969 in Bari by the “trial against the 64 defendants”, in which members of Leggio’s Corleonese clan stood trial. The two trials were held outside Sicily, in order to counteract the possible bias of the Sicilian

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judges. However, with Cesare Terranova (1921–1979), who was also a member of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, a investigating judge from Palermo had done the preparatory work for these trials. Unusual for crimes committed by the Mafia, Terranova did indeed carry out an investigation and thus isolated himself from his colleagues. Although Terranova was able to present specific evidence at the trials in Catanzaro and Bari, most mafiosi were acquitted or received only minor penalties.36 For the Cosa Nostra, however, the trials represented a heavy blow, as a number of their members had to sit in detention or hide until the verdict was announced. A good number of them fled abroad. Salvatore Greco, the capo of the provincial commission, permanently emigrated to Venezuela. Tommaso Buscetta temporarily went to Mexico and Tano Badalamenti to the USA. At that time, the provincial commission was dissolved, and many of the Mafia families ceased to exist. Even after the trials were over, the situation remained difficult for the Mafia—not least because some mafiosi, such as Stefano Bontate, were forced to stay outside Sicily. Sicily itself, however, became quiet again after the trials. The only exception was the “massacre in Viale Lazio” in Palermo on December 10, 1969: On that day, a Mafia killer commando disguised as policemen entered the premises of the builder Girolamo Moncada, where the capomafia of Acquasanta, Michele Cavataio, was staying. There was a shootout in which not only Cavataio, but also one of the attackers, Calogero Bagarella (1935–1969), as well as three employees of Moncada were killed. In the meantime, the double dealing of Cavataio had been discovered within the Cosa Nostra, which had probably ordered the murder of Di Pisa. For this reason, an alliance of the old Mafia families of Greco, Bontate and Badalamenti and also Leggio’s Corleonesi decided to settle accounts with Cavataio and eliminate him. Only with the massacre in Viale Lazio did the First Mafia War come to an end. At this point, then, one could turn to the reorganization of the Cosa Nostra after the severe crisis of the 1960s.

2.6 Violent “Intermezzo” by the Corleonesi The peace that was restored after the end of the Mafia War turned out to be dangerously fragile. Soon, tensions arose because the cosca from Corleone was preparing to wrest power from the urban clans of Palermo. The conflicts led to the Second Mafia War (1978–1984), the most violent confrontation that the Cosa Nostra had experienced since its inception.1 The Corleonesi, whose capo Totò Riina2 became the undisputed leader of the Cosa Nostra

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in Sicily, won the war. Riina completely transformed the organization and ruled it with an iron fist, so that one spoke of a “dictatorship” by Riina. This period saw a horrific wave of violent acts committed against politicians, journalists and representatives of the judiciary and police. Due to the pressure from popular protests, politicians were forced to act: In 1982, a law was passed that for the first time made membership in the Cosa Nostra punishable. Subsequently, hundreds of mafiosi were arrested and sentenced to lengthly sentences at the so-called Maxi Trial, which resulted in a wave of Mafia defectors. Disappointed by their Christian Democratic “friends” who had not been able to influence the tough sentences, the Mafia turned away from them. Other reasons for the rift were the collapse of the old party system as a result of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tangentopoli bribery scandal. It was precisely in this period of upheaval that another wave of Mafia violence occurred, this time not only in Sicily, but also on the mainland. The question of whether the Mafia wanted to force the state to the negotiating table by violence or pave the way for new political forces is still being discussed today. The Mafia’s terror only ended in 1993 with the arrest of Totò Riina. This mattanza (Sic. massacre) came about as follows: After the end of the First Mafia War (1962–1963), the Cosa Nostra was initially led by a triumvirate consisting of Tano Badalamenti, Stefano Bontate and Totò Riina. Officially, however, Riina was only the representative of his capo Luciano Leggio, since the latter was not arrested until 1974.3 He mostly stayed on the Italian mainland. Only after Leggio’s arrest did Riina become the boss of the Corleonesi. The triumvirate’s reign ended with the restoration of the provincial commission in 1975, which elected Badalamenti, also known as Don Tano, as secretary and thus head of the Palermo Cosa Nostra. From the beginning, there were tensions in the commission between the allied capimafia Badalamenti, Bontate and Salvatore (Totuccio) Inzerillo (1944– 1981) on the one hand and Riina’s ambitious Corleonesi on the other. The first three were representatives of the old traditional Mafia, well situated and socially well integrated: Badalamenti, the capomafia of the Cinisi family (PA), a small agricultural town and seat of the Palermo airport, presented himself as a wealthy livestock breeder. Bontate, the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù family from the then still rural suburb of Villagrazia in the east of Palermo, was officially a rich landowner. The “Prince of Villagrazia” had attended Palermo’s prestigious Jesuit Gonzaga High School and frequented the city’s most fashionable clubs. Inzerillo finally, the capomafia of the Passo di Rigano family, a then still rural hamlet in the west of Palermo, presented himself as a successful construction entrepreneur. The three

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Palermitans had excellent relationships with the then most powerful DC politicians, but above all they had monopolized the highly lucrative drug trade. In addition, the three-way alliance was allied with the capimafia of the island’s most important families, including Giuseppe (Pippo) Calderone (1925–1978) from Catania and Giuseppe Di Cristina (“La Tigre”, 1923– 1978) from Riesi (CL). The latter assumed the legacy of Calogero Vizzini and Genco Russo and controlled the clans of the once powerful agrarian Mafia in the area around Caltanissetta. The Corleonesi, on the other hand, i.e., the leader Totò Riina and his closest confidants Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca Bagarella (born 1942), were exactly the opposite: they were all poor field workers and farmers and could hardly read and write. Consequently, they hated the sophisticated traditional bosses from Palermo, not only because of their economic and political power, but also because of their arrogant behavior. In turn, the traditional “Dons” made it clear to the Corleonesi that they considered them nothing but vulgar viddani“ (Sic. villains). The Corleonsi enforced their interests in contrast to their rivals not by diplomacy, but by sheer violence and paid little attention to the traditional rules of the Mafia. What the population thought of them, was irrelevant to the Corleonesi. The fact that many other mafiosi were jealous of the three Palermo bosses was used by the Corleonesi to look for allies. They immediately found support with other viddani, such as the capomafia Bernardo Brusca (1929–2000) from San Giuseppe Jato (PA), Giuseppe (Peppino) Farinella (1925–2017) from San Mauro Castelverde (PA) and Francesco (Ciccio) Madonia († 1978) from Vallelunga Pratameno (CL). In the province of Trapani they allied themselves with Francesco Messina Denaro (1928– 1998) from Castelvetrano, with Mariano Agate (1939–2013) from Mazara del Vallo and with Vincenzo Virga (born 1936) from Trapani against the Rimi from Alcamo, the Buccellato from Castellammare del Golfo and the Minore from Trapani who were in charge in the province and allied with the “Palermitans”. In the province of Agrigento, on the other hand, they joined forces with Carmelo Colletti (1920–1983), the capomafia of Ribera. In addition, the Corleonesi tried to secretly win over “family members” of their rivals and their friends with promises, such as Raffaele Ganci (1932–2022) from the Palermo family Noce, Pietro Aglieri (born 1959) from Bontate’s family Santa Maria di Gesù and Benedetto (Nitto) Santapaola (born 1938) from the family of Catania. They pretended to show their old bosses loyalty, but in reality they passed on internal information to the Corleonesi. They also won over Michele Greco (“Il Papa” = The Pope, 1924–2008), the powerful head of the family from Ciaculli. The wealthy landowner Greco

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certainly belonged to the Palermo Mafia aristocracy, but was a rival of Bontate, whose territory bordered on his. This targeted policy of infiltration and alliances resulted in a true inter-family alliance. Therefore, when the term “Corleonesi” is mentioned in the following, it includes, not only the family from the peasant town of Corleone, but also the sum total of their allies. The first open attacks by the Corleonesi against the old Mafia aristocracy began as early as the first years of the 1970s, in the form of kidnappings.4 This represented a provocation in two respects: On the one hand, Badalamenti, the secretary of the provincial commission strictly forbade kidnappings to be carried out on Sicilian soil in order to avoid attracting attention during the delicate time period after the end of the Mafia War. On the other hand, the Corleonesi also kidnapped “untouchables”, that is, family members of people closely associated with the Mafia. The first to be affected was Antonino Caruso in January 1971, the son of the wealthy marble producer Giacomo Caruso, a distant relative of the capomafia of Uditore, Pietro Torretta (1912–1975). Then, in June 1971, Giuseppe Vassallo the son of the Mafia construction entrepreneur Ciccio Vassallo, was kidnapped. And finally, in August 1972, Luciano Cassina was abducted, the son of Count Arturo Cassina, a construction entrepreneur who, thanks to his relationships with Mafia politicians, was able to monopolize the maintenance of roads and sewage systems for decades. The Corleonesi did indeed showed it to those from Palermo when they kidnapped the wealthy 75-year-old tax collector Luigi Corleo in July 1975. Corleo was the father-in-law of the aforementioned Mafia tax collector Nino Salvo from Salemi. In all these kidnappings, the Corleonesi were not primarily interested in money, but in “exposing” the old bosses and showing that they were not even able to protect their “friends”.5 Despite these attacks, the “troika” of Badalamenti, Bontate and Inzerillo still felt very confident in their position of power at this time. One of the few who saw through the Corleonesi game from the beginning was Giuseppe Di Cristina. He openly opposed the Corleonesi in the provincial commission and unsuccessfully tried to convince Badalamenti, Bontate and Inzerillo, as well as his friend Pippo Calderone from Catania, of the necessity to eliminate the Corleonesi. Thereupon, events took their course: after an assassination attempt on him, in April 1978 Di Cristina killed his Corleonesi-allied rival in the province of Caltanissetta, Ciccio Madonia, the capomafia of Vallelunga Pratameno (CL). Since this murder had not been authorized, it caused an uproar in the provincial commission, where the Corleonesi were becoming increasingly important: Di Cristina and Calderone were sentenced to death and Badalamenti, whom Riina

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accused of complicity, not only lost his position as secretary, but was also expelled from the Mafia. Badalamenti then fled to Brazil, from where he successfully continued his drug business by himself. Pippo Calderone met a less fortunate fate than Badalamenti: a few months later he was lured into a trap and fatally wounded by one of his own men, Nitto Santapaola, in the Ognina neighborhood of Catania. Di Cristina, on the other hand, faced with his hopeless situation, turned to the captain of the carabinieri of Riesi, Alfio Pettinato, and told him everything he knew about the Corleonesi. A short time later, in May 1978, Di Cristina was shot dead in Via Leonardo da Vinci in Palermo—on Inzerillo’s territory. The fact that Inzerillo had not been informed about the planned murder on his territory was a serious affront. By now, Inzerillo and Bontate had become aware of their difficult situation, but it was too late for a counterattack. The Corleonesi had meanwhile become so strong that they could risk an open war: Bontate was the first to be shot—with an AK-47—in April 1981 as he returned home from his birthday party in his armored car. Only 3 weeks later, in May 1981, Inzerillo was hit while leaving an amorous rendezvous. After that, the Corleonesi began to kill everyone who had not been on their side from the beginning. Those who were on the death list had long been systematically spied on by the men who had worked for the Corleonesi. Most of the murders were carried out by a special death squad consisting of mafiosi from different families: These were Giuseppe (Pino) Greco (“Scarpuzzedda” = small shoe, 1952–1985), Mario Prestifilippo (1958–1987), Vincenzo Puccio (1945–1989), Giuseppe (Pino) Marchese (born 1963) and Antonio (Nino) Madonia (born 1952). These super killers shot so many people in broad daylight in Palermo that it seemed a civil war had broken out. But sometimes the victims were also lured into an ambush and strangled, preferably on Michele Greco’s Favarella estate in Ciaculli. The skillful intriguer Michele Greco was elected secretary of the provincial commission in 1978 and thus became Badalamenti’s successor. Numerous victims also died at the hand of the lupara bianca. Some ended up in the so-called camera della morte (chamber of death), a storage room in the (now no longer existing) Piazzetta Sant’ Erasmo in Palermo, where Filippo Marchese (1938–1983) from the Corso dei Mille family specialized in dissolving bodies in acid. Yet it was not only that mafiosi were killed, but also their relatives. Riina had declared that not even the seed of his enemies should remain on earth. The murder of Inzerillo’s son Giuseppe (1964– 1981) was particularly brutal: the 17-year-old had his arm cut off before he was killed, the one with which he wanted to shoot Riina.

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During the hot phase of the Mafia War, a true mattanza took place, in which more than 1,000 people were killed. The Corleonesi spared only those members of the losing families who could be useful to them. This included Francesco Marino Mannoia from Bontate’s family, the best heroin refiner in the entire Cosa Nostra. Among the few enemies who repeatedly escaped the Corleonesi was Salvatore (Totuccio) Contorno (born 1946), also one of Bontate’s men. Many members of Inzerillo fled to relatives in the USA, where they were also mercilessly pursued and killed. At some point the “Americans” intervened, as a result of which an agreement was reached that the scappati (fugitives) would be left alone if they never returned to Sicily. The mafioso Rosario (Saro) Naimo (born 1945) from the family Tommaso Natale-Cardillo of Palermo functioned as guarantor for this pact. When the Corleonesi had won the war at the end of 1983, the highest decision-making bodies of the Cosa Nostra were restored: not only the powerful provincial commission of Palermo, but also the regional commission, which had been founded in 1975 on the initiative of Pippo Calderone. In both commissions, Totò Riina was elected capo, which made him officially the undisputed “boss of bosses” on the island. Riina immediately set about reforming the organization and reshaping the Mafia according to his personal ideas—this included largely abolishing the originally quite democratic organizational rules of the Cosa Nostra and appointing only allies who were loyal to him personally to leadership positions.6 Both the regional and the provincial commission of Palermo were now made up exclusively of Riina vassals—“men of honor” who were rewarded for their commitment during the Mafia War. However, the commissions were no longer as powerful as they used to be: plenary sessions took place only on important occasions and important decisions were not discussed, but simply approved. Riinaloyalists were in charge everywhere. Riina changed the boundaries of the districts at will, even interfered in the internal affairs of the families and ended their 150-year-old autonomy. For example, Riina’s brother-in-law, Leoluca Bagarella, took on the head of the Catania-based Cursoti-band Santo Mazzei (“U’ Carcagnusu”, born 1953) against the express will of the Catania family. Officially, Mazzei thus belonged to the Catania family, but in fact he was only accountable to the Corleonesi. Even the rule that new “men of honor” had to be introduced to the organization, at least to the capi, was abandoned. Only Riina and his immediate circle knew who belonged to the organization. The former mafioso Vincenzo Sinacori (born 1955) from Mazara del Vallo (TP) summed up the situation as follows:

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Totò Riina was responsible for all tasks (…). Totò Riina did not command in Palermo, he commanded all over the world.7

The leadership of the Corleonesi was well aware that their authoritarian behavior was not without problems. They prepared themselves for potential “rebels” by having Bagarella create a killing squad that was personally loyal to him, some of whose members were not even “men of honor”. The fear was unfounded, because Riina immediately eliminated people who began to become powerful within the organization—even if they had not at all stood in his way. This was the case, for example, with Pino Greco, who was highly respected by his colleagues as the leader of the killing squad. In order to make sure that Greco could not become dangerous to him, Riina had him killed in October 1985 as a precaution. Two years later, in December 1987, Mario Prestifilippo, a close friend of Greco’s, another member of the death squad, met the same fate. Only one attempt was made to overthrow Riina as the “boss of bosses”. This attempt came from the ambitious Vincenzo Puccio, the capo of the Ciaculli district of Palermo, who himself wanted to take power. Yet this did not happen because, when Puccio was in detention in the Ucciardone prison in Palermo, he was killed in his sleep by two mafiosi on Riina’s orders with an iron frying pan on May 11, 1989. Riina never failed to provide a plausible excuse for such murders to justify himself within the organization. After the Corleonesi’s ascent to power, the relationship between the Cosa Nostra, the state institutions and the press changed because, after the Ciaculli massacre, at least some representatives of the police and judicial apparatus were no longer prepared to turn a blind eye to the Mafia’s criminal activities. Even within parts of the Christian Democratic Party, which was permeated by the Mafia, voices were raised calling for moral renewal. In addition, journalists began to deal critically with the Mafia and to uncover scandals.8 While the old Mafia had refrained from so-called omicidi eccellenti (excellent homicides), i.e., violence against high-ranking members of society, the Corleonesi—with the exception of the capo Nitto Santapaola from Catania—had no such inhibitions. From the end of the 1970s onwards, an unprecedented wave of violence against representatives of the law enforcement apparatus began that also included politicians and journalists. This wave started with the kidnapping and murder of the journalist Mauro De Mauro (1921–1970) in September 1970, whose body has not been found to this day.9 De Mauro seems to have come too close to the background of the fatal attack on the ENI president Enrico Mattei

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(1901–1962) during his research. In May 1971, the prosecutor Pietro Scaglione (1906–1971) and his bodyguard Antonio Lorusso (1929–1971) were killed in Via dei Cipressi in Palermo.10 This was the first murder of a judge on the island. Scaglione was not an anti-Mafia prosecutor, rather a typical representative of the old judicial establishment, but after more than 40 years of service in Palermo he knew many secrets. The next victim was the Carabinieri Colonel Giuseppe (Ninni) Russo (1928–1977), who was shot dead, together with the teacher Filippo Costa, while walking in front of the Bourbon Palace in Ficuzza (PA).11 Similar to Scaglione, Russo, who had many Mafia informants, knew about numerous unresolved incidents. In May 1978, it was Giuseppe (Peppino) Impastato (1948–1978), an activist of the leftist 1968 movement, whose father Luigi (1905–1977) was a member of the cosca from Cinisi (PA), who was killed.12 The young man not only wanted to have nothing to do with his father’s friends, but also publicly ridiculed the boss of Cinisi, Tano Badalamenti, as “Tano seduto” (sitting Tano) on his local radio station Radio Aut. For this, he was beaten to death at night just outside Cinisi after his father’s death. Another victim was the journalist Mario Francese (1925–1979), who was shot dead on his way home near the Palermo’s Statue of Liberty in January 1979, probably because he was researching dirty business deals in connection with awarding the contract to build the Garcia dam in San Giuseppe Jato (PA).13 Two months later, mafiosi in Palermo killed the DC provincial secretary Michele Reina (1932–1979).14 Reina belonged to the Andreotti faction led by Lima and may have come into conflict with the Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino, who was no longer on speaking terms with Lima. Yet that was far from enough! In July 1979, the head of the Mobile Squad, the criminal police, Boris Giuliano (1930–1979), was shot in the Bar Lux in Via di Blasi in Palermo.15 Giuliano, who was considered an extraordinary policeman and was the first Italian to attend an FBI course in Quantico, was not only on the trail of drug and money laundering, but was also investigating the two Mafia tax collectors Salvo who had remained untouchable until then and the murder of De Mauro. Only two months later, on September 25, the designated Palermo chief prosecutor Cesare Terranova was lured into a trap and shot in Via De Amicis in Palermo, together with his longtime collaborator and friend, police sergeant Lenin Mancuso.16 Terranova, who had distinguished himself as the first anti-Mafia investigating judge in the trials of Catanzaro and Bari, had been a member of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission for many years. His knowledge of Mafia backers, acquired as chief prosecutor and in the Anti-Mafia Commission, could have been put to good use. Furthermore, Terranova and Mancuso seem

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to have been following a dangerous trail that may have had something to do with the faked escape of the Mafia banker Sindona to Sicily. The next victim was the Christian Democratic Sicilian regional president Piersanti Mattarella (1935–1980), who was shot in Via della Libertà in Palermo in front of his family when he was just about to go to mass.17 The son of Bernardo Mattarella, who was said to be close to the Mafia, belonged to the DC reformers and was about to initiate a purge in the regional administration. Only a few months later, in May 1980, the commander of the carabinieri station in Monreale (PA), Emanuele Basile (1949–1980), was shot dead during the feastday of the local saint, next to his wife—his 4-year-old daughter in his arms.18 Basile not only continued Giuliano’s investigations, but also investigated clans and clerics in Monreale. The murder of Basile was followed in August by the murder of Gaetano Costa (1916–1980), the “red prosecutor” and uncompromising Mafia investigator, at a newsstand in Via Cavour in Palermo.19 Left in the lurch by the prosecutors subordinate to him, Costa was forced to sign arrest warrants against 55 mafiosi on his own. In September 1981, Carabinieri Sergeant Vito Ievolella (1929–1981) of a special investigation unit was shot to death in his car in front of his wife on Palermo’s Piazza Principe di Camporeale, because the skilled drug investigator had focused his attention on boss Tommaso Spadaro from the Kalsa district.20 The next victim was Pio La Torre (1927–1982), the Sicilian regional secretary of the PCI, in April 1982: he was shot to death along with his driver and friend Rosario Di Salvo (1946–1982) on his way to the party office in today’s Via Li Muli.21 The Communist leader, who had been active at the height of the peasant movement, not only presented the first draft of an anti-Mafia law in parliament in March 1980, but also led the peace movement against the stationing of Cruise missiles in the Sicilian town of Comiso (RG). A few months later, in August, court expert Paolo Giaccone (1929–1982) was shot to death on his way to work on the premises of the Palermo Policlinic, because he had refused to forge a fingerprint expert opinion for a mafioso.22 Finally, in September, the new prefect of Palermo, Carabinieri General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa (1920–1982), was shot to death on his way home in Via Carini.23 Dalla Chiesa’s young wife Emanuela Setti Carraro (1950–1982) and his bodyguard Domenico Russo also lost their lives. Dalla Chiesa is called the “prefect of the 100 days” because he only held his office for a short time, during which he was unable to achieve much due to lack of appropriate powers. Even though it was mafiosi who committed or were involved in these murders, in a majority of cases, the orders came from the ranks of politicians. Dirty politicians—and their friends from the “better society”—would

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have had much more to lose than the Cosa Nostra if they had not gotten rid of their enemies. The murder of Dalla Chiesa in particular caused an outcry throughout the country, as many people had placed great hope in the General, known throughout the country as the “hunter” of the Red Brigades. The population’s attitude can be gathered from a poster at the scene of the crime, which reads: “Qui è morta la speranza dei Palermitani onesti” (Here the hope of the honest Palermitans died). Within the middle class, a true anti-Mafia movement emerged from citizen groups, victim initiatives and social centers, the first groups having appeared as early as 1980.24 After the murder of Dalla Chiesa, they increased in number and even merged into a umbrella organization called Coordinamento Antimafia. The anti-Mafia activists showed enormous energy and fervor and loudly polemicized in public not only against the Mafia, but also against its friends in politics. Everyone knew that the murders were not solely the work of the Cosa Nostra. The public anger came to the fore above all at the funerals of Mafia victims, where politicians were booed, spat at, and pelted with objects. At the funeral of Dalla Chiesa, even the Cardinal-Archbishop of Palermo, Salvatore Pappalardo (1918–2006), criticized politicians in his eulogy, which was unprecedented.25 In the face of such citizen protests, politicians were forced to take action. And so, on September 13, 1982, the first anti-Mafia law in the history of the country was passed with Law No. 646.26 It was based on the bill once drafted by La Torre and contained a whole package of measures against organized crime. These included, for the first time, the provision that membership in the Mafia was a separate criminal offense in the penal code with Article 416bis. Furthermore, the new law made possible the confiscation of property of unclear provenance which effectively assisted in combating money laundering. In addition, the office of an anti-Mafia high commissioner was created. Yet the killings continued: In November 1982, in the Palermo’s Via Notarbartolo, Calogero Zucchetto (1955–1982) was shot—another policeman who was actively investigating the Mafia.27 Only two months later, in January, the Trapani investigating judge Gianciacomo Ciaccio Montalto (1941–1983) was shot on his way home at night in Valderice (TP).28 The judge become isolated in the Justice Palace of Trapani due to his investigations of the Mafia. In June, Mario D’Aleo (1954–1983)—together with the Carabinieri sergeants Pietro Morici (1956–1983) and Giuseppe Bommarito (1944–1983)—was murdered. D’Aleo had taken over the command of the Carabinieri station in Monreale (PA) as successor to Emanuele Basile and continued Basile’s investigations into the cosche of Monreale and Altofonte

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(PA).29 The next victim, in July of 1983, was the Palermo investigating judge Rocco Chinnici (1925–1983), who had taken over the post originally intended for Terranova.30 Chinnici fell victim to a highly sophisticated car bomb, a kind that the Mafia had never used before. In addition to the judge, his doorman Stefano Li Sacchi (1923–1983) and the Carabinieri sergeant Mario Trapassi (1950–1983) were killed in the attack on Chinnici’s apartment in Palermo’s Via Pipitone Federico. Chinnici was the first judge who was active in public relations against the Mafia and visited schools and participated in conferences for this purpose. He also initiated a specialized pool of anti-Mafia judges and specifically ordered some of his employees, including Giovanni Falcone (1939–1992), Paolo Borsellino (1940–1992) and Giuseppe Di Lello (born 1940)—Leonardo Guarnotta (born 1940) was to join this pool later—to investigate the Cosa Nostra. Chinnici had worked closely with the prosecutor Costa until his murder. It is rumored that the two rode up and down the elevator of the Justice Palace when they had to discuss sensitive matters. Given all these murders, the new anti-Mafia law would not have been enough to calm the angry population; the state had to show that it truly intended to fight the Mafia. Surprisingly, a pentito (penitent) stepped into the spotlight at this critical moment: a few months after Chinnici’s death in October 1983, the mafioso Tommaso Buscetta31 from Palermo was arrested in Brazil. Accompanied by Giovanni (Gianni) De Gennaro (born 1948)32, the future Italian police and intelligence chief, Buscetta was flown to Italy. There, in July 1984, he officially began to “unpack” in front of the investigating judge Giovanni Falcone and to make his sensational statement. Although this confession earned him the reputation of being the first great pentito, he was by no means the first. For previously, such pentiti were either ignored or simply committed to a mental institution, as was the case with Leonardo Vitale (1941–1984).33 Buscetta provided Falcone with the names of numerous mafiosi and described the organizational structure and rules of the Cosa Nostra. But Buscetta refused to comment on the connections between the Mafia and politics, on the grounds that the time was not yet right. (It was only after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the time was right.) On the basis of Buscetta’s testimony, hundreds of arrest warrants were issued against mafiosi, many of whom were arrested during the “Blitz of San Michele” in the night of September 29, 1984. After Buscetta had given the okay, Totuccio Contorno, having been imprisoned since 1982, decided in October of 1984 to also cooperate with the authorities. In November, three Mafia friends from the “better society” were also arrested: the Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino and the Mafia tax collectors Nino and Ignazio Salvo.

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However, by this time both Ciancimino and the Salvo cousins had lost most of their political power and had also been able to “feather their nest”.34 Between 1985 and 1986, the Aula bunker (bunker courtroom), a modern new court building with cages for the defendants, was erected within just a few months behind the Palermo Ucciardone prison, because there was no court room in the city that could accommodate such a large number of defendants. The so-called Maxiprocesso (Maxi Trial, literally Great trial)—the largest Mafia trial of the twentieth century, in which a total of 475 Mafiosi were accused—began on February 10, 1986. It prominently remained in the public eye and caused a great deal of media attention.35 The renowned anti-Mafia writer Leonardo Sciasca (1921–1989) voiced his opinion in his article “I Professionisti dell’Antimafia” (The Antimafia Professionals), published in the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera on January 10, 1987. Sciascia warned in the article of the danger that some “anti-Mafia professionals”36 would exploit the fight against the Mafia to advance their careers and explicitly named judge Paolo Borsellino and Palermo’s mayor Leoluca Orlando (born 1947) in this context. Sciascia was applauded —though certainly not intended by him—by the Mafia’s friends among the politicians as well as the defenders of the mafiosi. Moreover, the Coordinamento Antimafia insulted Sciascaas a quaquaraquà37, as a useless chatterbox. Meanwhile, numerous mafiosi—including Luciano Leggio and Michele Greco—appeared in the Palermo court and followed the proceedings from their defendents’ cages. However, the most important bosses—the entire leadership of the Corleonesi, that is Riina, Provenzano and Bagarella—were on the run and continued the hunt for their remaining enemies: In January 1984, the journalist Giuseppe (Pippo) Fava (1925–1984) was murdered in Catania, who had courageously denounced the connection between the Cosa Nostra and construction companies in Catania in his monthly magazine “I Siciliani”.38 In April 1985, an attempted bomb attack took place in Pizzolungo (TP) on the Trapani investigating judge Carlo Palermo (born 1947), the successor to his murdered colleague Ciaccio Montalto.39 Palermo himself narrowly escaped the attack, but the innocent bystander Barbara Rizzo and her 6-year-old twins lost their lives. In July 1985, Giuseppe (Beppe) Montana was shot in Porticello (PA); he was the head of the catturandi section, the department for manhunts of the Palermo criminal police.40 And only one month later, in August 1985, the deputy head of the Palermo criminal police, Antonino (Ninni) Cassarà (1947–1985), was shot in front of his wife, when returning home.41 Cassarà was considered a similar extraordinary policeman as Giuliano had been, and the young police officer Roberto Antiochia (1962–1985) lost his life together with him. Antiochia

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had interrupted his vacation to support his superior and friend.42 With the murder of Cassarà, the Cosa Nostra had managed to eliminate almost all of the policemen who were dangerous to them. After just under 2 years, the Maxi Trial came to an end. On November 11, 1987, the majority of the defendants were sentenced to lenghty prison sentences, including 19 life sentences. This was only possible because the so-called “Buscetta Theorem” was used in the proceedings, according to which the cupola (literally dome), that is the members of the Palermo provincial commission of the Mafia, were made collectively responsible for murders. After the trial, the people entertained the hope that the Cosa Nostra could be defeated. A number of mafiosi seemed to share this believe and consequently followed the example of Buscetta, Contorno and Antonino Calderone (1935–2013)43, who had also left the Cosa Nostra after his arrest in 1986, and became pentiti (penitents). There was a significant wave of pentiti—a phenomenon never seen before—which initially consisted exclusively of members of the families who had lost the Mafia War and who turned their back on the Cosa Nostra. Many mafiosi were motivated to exit the organization at this point because of the benefits available to key witnesses, but also out of revenge against the Corleonesi. The latter reacted to the “traitors” with a merciless vendetta trasversale, i.e., with the murder of family members.44 However, the harsh sentences did not worry most of the bosses too much. They assumed that those would be “corrected” in the appeal. However, as a precaution, the Corleonesi reminded their Christian Democratic friends of their organization’s continued strength in the national elections in June 1987, because the DC politicians had not been able to ensure light sentences in the Maxi Trial: In 1987 Totò Riina announced that he would no longer vote “Christian”, but instead support the socialists. After all, the Socialist politician Claudio Martelli (born 1943)—by the way the Partito Radicale (PR)  too—had taken on the mantle of “guarantors”45, i.e., as someone who is committed to the constitutional rights of the accused. As a thank you, Martelli and his party comrades received an unusually high number of votes in the national elections in districts with a high Mafia density, while the DC had to suffer an electoral setback.46 Despite the convictions in the Maxi Trial, business continued, even if the Cosa Nostra had to suffer heavy blows in the drug trade: With Rudolph Giuliani (born 1944), the future mayor of New York, heading the city’s Attorney General’s office, operations “Pizza Connection” (1984) and “Iron Tower” (1988) were carried out by US authorities—and resulted in the break-up of the two most important drug rings of the time.47 In the course

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of operation “Pizza Connection”, the heads of one of the two most important drug rings were arrested with Sal Catalano from the New York Bonnano family and Tano Badalamenti operating from Brazil and subsequently sentenced to long prison terms. The “Iron Tower” operation, on the other hand, led to the imprisonment of numerous Cherry Hill mafiosi and thus largely to the destruction of the heroin business of the Gambino-Inzerillo-TorrettaSpatola-Di Maggio clan. After that, the Cosa Nostra had lost its leading role in the international heroin trade and was never able to regain it. To some extent, the Cosa Nostra was able to compensate for the business losses from the heroin trade with the cocaine trade, which had gained in importance in the meantime and was carried out in cooperation with Colombian drug cartels.48 The construction business, based on receiving public works contracts, did exceedingly well in the 1980s when the system of the tavulinu (Sic. small table) was created, which meant that mafiosi, entrepreneurs, politicians and bureaucrats secretly and jointly negotiated construction contracts. An increasing number of large companies from the mainland such as Raul Gardini’s (1933–1993) Ferruzzi group or the company Rizzani di Echer from Udine took their seat at this “little table”, as did representatives of the northern Italian “red cooperatives”.49 When the carabinieri presented the results of their investigation “Mafia & Appalti” (Mafia & Public Contracts)50, which was precisely about this “little table”, to the Palermo’s prosecutor’s office in 1991, the Cosa Nostra was forced to modify the system—but of course it continued its work. It continuted, not least because, as a result of the discontinuation of the investigation, only a few of the lowlevel participants of the tavulinu—such as the Mafia friend Angelo Siino (“Bronson”, 1944-1921), the construction entrepreneur Filippo Salamone (1942–2012) and the land surveyor Giuseppe Li Pera (born 1949)—were sentenced, while large-scale entrepreneurs as well as the politicians who remained unidentified due to the discontinuation of the investigation went scot-free. The enormous sums that the Cosa Nostra had earned in the drug trade were invested in large construction companies run by straw men and consisted of high-rises above all in Palermo. Yet in the early 1990s, some of these construction entrepreneurs were exposed and their property was confiscated.51 Mafia violence continued after the Maxi Trial: In January 1988, in Palermo’s Via Cesareo, the former mayor of the city Giuseppe Insalaco (1941–1988) was murdered in his car.52 He had originally belonged to the corrupt DC establishment, but after his election as mayor he had meant to take a “clean course” and, in front of the Parliamentary Antimafia Commission, testified about the practices of his former party friends. Only

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two days after the murder of Insalaco, in the Arenella district of Palermo, police officer Natale Mondo (1952–1988), who had survived the attack on Cassarà and Antiochia, was killed in front of his wife’s toy store.53 On September 25, 1988, the Mafia killed Judge Antonino Saetta (1922–1988) together with his son Stefano at night on the highway near Canicatti (AG).54 Saetta was the first sentencing judge to be killed, in contrast to judges who were investigating judges. Saetta had never made any public appearances as an anti-Mafia judge, but his views towards the Cosa Nostra were well known—Saetta had sentenced the murderers of Carabinieri Captain Emanuele Basile to life imprisonment. Saetta was supposed to preside over the appeal of the Maxi Trial, which would have been a disaster for the Cosa Nostra. Only one day after the murder of Saetta, in the vicinity of Trapani, journalist Mauro Rostagno (1942–1988), who also ran a drug detoxification center, was shot in his car.55 Rostagno had denounced the machinations of the Trapani Mafia and their friends in politics and business on his local television station Radio Tele Cine, and he also seems to have known about the Gladio camp “Scorpione”56 in Trapani. In June 1989, an explosive attack took place at Judge Falcone’s summer villa in an area called Addaura below Monte Pellegrino in Palermo, which, however, failed.57 Two months later, newly married police officer Antonino Agostino (1961–1989) was shot together with his pregnant wife Ida in Villagrazia di Carini (PA), maybe because he had investigated the Addaura attack.58 In connection with this attack, police officer Emanuele Piazza (1960–1990), who also worked for the intelligence service, was killed a just over half year later, but his body was never found.59 In September 1990, Judge Rosario Livatino (1952–1990) was shot dead on a highway while on his way from his hometown of Canicatti (AG) to the Agrigento Palace of Justice.60 The judge, who was later called giudice ragazzino (youngster judge) because of his young age, had investigated the Mafia-like Stidda clans alone. A year later, in August 1991, prosecutor Antonino Scopelliti (1935–1991) who was to represent the prosecution in the cassation proceedings of the Maxi Trial, was murdered in Calabria61: The Mafia had unsuccessfully tried to bribe Scopelliti. A few weeks later, businessman Libero Grassi (1924– 1991) was killed in Palermo. Grassi had not only refused to pay protection money, he had even publicly attacked the Cosa Nostra in letters to the editor and sensational television appearances.62 In April 1992, carabiniere Giuliano Guazzelli (1934–1992) was shot dead by a car overtaking him on the road between Agrigento and Porto Empedocle.63 Guazzelli, who had already escaped an attack, not only knew the clans of Agrigento very well, but had also conducted investigations into DC politician Lillo Mannino,

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who was accused of having Mafia connections. In July 1992, the popular policeman Giovanni Lizzio (1945–1992)64 was murdered in Catania: The Corleonesi had pressured the Catania capofamiglia Santapaola, who had not participated in the violence against state representatives so far in order not to damage his local business, to commit the murder. In January 1993, the Mafia murdered journalist Giuseppe (Beppe) Alfano65 from Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME), who was on the trail of the cosca of his hometown. On September 15, 1993, the Mafia killed the Palermo priest Giuseppe (Pino) Puglisi (1937–1993)66, on his 56th birthday, because he had founded a community center in the poor Brancaccio district to help the poor as well as to rescue children and adolescents from the clutches of the Mafia. He had also explained in his sermons that one could not be both a Catholic and a mafioso at the same time. Despite these crimes, the public did calm down to some extent due to the convictions reached in the Maxi Trial—people returned to their normal lives and the judiciary and police actions against the Cosa Nostra were reduced. Consequently, in January 1988, after the retirement of the chief investigating judge Antonino Caponetto (1920–2002), who had perfected Chinnici’s anti-Mafia pool, the Supreme Council of the Magistracy (CSM) did not appoint Giovanni Falcone as his successor.67 Although Falcone had become famous as an anti-Mafia judge through the Maxi Trial, the CSM decided, officially because of the principle of seniority, on the aged and inexperienced Antonino Meli (1920–2014) for conduction Mafia investigations. Meli used his powers as head of the investigation68 to dissolve the pool immediately and parcelled the Mafia investigations out to different court districts. This re-created the situation as it had existed before Chinnici and Caponetto, and the Mafia investigations came to a standstill. In frustration, some of the judges of the old pool, like Giuseppe Di Lello, asked to be transferred and were granted their requests. The situation was similar within the Palermo criminal police: the few experienced investigators who were still left after the murder of Cassarà—above all Saverio Montalbano and Francesco Accordino—were transferred and replaced by inexperienced newcomers, some of them fresh from the police academy.69 In addition, the conflicts within the Palermo Palace of Justice intensified when, in July 1989, anonymous letters by a person with the pseudonym “corvo”70—probably an insider—appeared. This “corvo” accused Falcone and De Gennaro, in particular, of using the former mafioso Totuccio Contorno as a “killer hired by the government” because Contorno— although he was in a witness protection program—had secretly returned to Sicily at that time in order to commit murders. The situation in the Palace

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of Justice became even more dramatic when, in 1990, Pietro Giammanco (1931–2018) became the Palermo Public Prosecutor. Giammanco wanted to have nothing to do with investigations into the Mafia—and certainly not into Mafia-associated politicians. And so, in May 1990, the Public Prosecutor’s Office came under fire when Palermo’s mayor Leoluca Orlando said on the television show Sammarcanda that the drawers of the Public Prosecutor’s Office—he meant Falcone—contained highly sensitive cases that would not be pursued.71 The high point of this renewed neglectful attitude towards the Mafia occurred in December 1990 when the verdict in the appeal proceedings of the Maxi Trial was read: The number of life sentences was reduced from originally 19 to 12; in addition, many other sentences were significantly lowered—and there were 86 acquittals.72 The lenient sentences had been foreseeable, as in early December 1988, the Court of Cassation had ruled against the “Buscetta Theorem”—and thus against the legal argument at the core of the Maxi Trial. Moreover, in December 1990, the Court of Cassation had ordered the release of Mafia killers, because the detention periods had expired, so that bosses as high up as Leoluca Bagarella were released and, of course, immediately went into hiding. For the Cosa Nostra, everything seemed to be slowly getting back to order. And certainly, the Court of Cassation would have confirmed the verdicts of the appeal court, if the old political contacts of the Cosa Nostra had not been made irrelevant due to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989—a huge shift which did not remain without consequences for the political system of Italy.73 Before the end of the Cold War, many Italians chose the Christian Democrats despite their corrupt behavior, because they were allegedly the lesser evil compared to the Communists. This attitude is expressed in the oft-quoted phrase of well-known journalist Indro Montanelli (1909–2001), who said in 1976: “Let’s hold our nose and vote for DC.”74 After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was no longer any reason for many voters to support the DC. Moreover, the Americans, who had always held their protective hand over the Christian Democrats since the foundation of the Italian Republic—especially when, as in the immediate post-war period or in the 1970s, the Communists threatened to become too strong—saw no reason to continue their protection after the dissolution of the two major political blocks. American diplomats are said to have repeatedly emphasized—especially after the election of Bill Clinton (born 1946) in November 1992—that anyone party could now govern in Italy.75 And so it came to the founding of new parties, such as the right-wing populist Leagues in Northern Italy or the anti-Mafia party La Rete (The

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Network)76 in Sicily. In addition, the Christian Democrat Mariotto (Mario) Segni (born 1939) initiated a movement for electoral reform as early as 1988 in order to abolish the old system of proportional representation with its four preferential votes, which had made it possible for dubious politicians and the Mafia to buy votes in Southern Italy. Despite the massive resistance of the DC and the PSI, Segni’s efforts were successful: In the referendum of June 1991, 98% of the voters voted for the abolition of the preferential votes, even though the Socialist leader Bettino Craxi had called on them not to participate in the election, but to visit the seashore instead. In another referendum, proportional representation was finally replaced by a majority vote in April 1993. There is no doubt that the new electoral system weakened the influence of the old parties, which, due to the severe economic crisis of the country and the gradual privatization of numerous state-owned and semistate-owned companies under European pressure, found it increasingly difficult to keep their voters happy with gifts. Nevertheless, Andreotti’s DC and Craxi’s PSI were able to win a joint absolute majority in the national elections in April 1992, although they had to accept significant losses in votes— especially in favor of Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord (LN). In these elections, the anti-Mafia party La Rete, which had become strong in Sicily, achieved a respectable success with just under 2%. What finally led to the collapse of the First Italian Republic—as the period from 1948 to 1994 is called—was the Tangentopoli scandal77, which caused a political earthquake: The trigger was the arrest of socialist Mario Chiesa (born 1944), head of the large home Pio Albergo Trivulizio in Milan, by the prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro (born 1950). Chiesa was caught taking a bribe from a large cleaning company. Since his party leader Craxi distanced himself from him as a “rotten apple”, Chiesa took revenge and confessed in detention. As a result, the investigation “Mani pulite” (clean hands), led by the prosecutor Francesco Saverio Borrelli (1930–2019) and carried out by his pool of judges, quickly spread to the whole of Lombardy and later to other regions—with the result that in 1992 and 1993 numerous politicians, officials and businessmen were arrested throughout the country, all of whom had accepted or paid kickbacks. In Sicily, between 1992 and 1995, investigations were carried out against more than half of all regional and 17 national representatives. As a result of the scandal, which led to large demonstrations throughout the country, both the DC and the PSI were forced to dissolve in 1994. During this critical situation for the government parties, Giovanni Falcone was called to Rome in March 1991 by the socialist Justice Minister Claudio Martelli, a member of Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti’s cabinet,

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where he accepted the position of Direttore Generale degli Affari penali, that is, General Director of Criminal Affairs. Some blamed Falcone for this step and accused him of selling out to Martelli and Andreotti, both of whom were not exactly known as anti-Mafia politicians and therefore were eager to improve their image. This was especially true for Andreotti, who was aiming for the office of President of the Republic. During Falcone’s time in Rome, far-reaching laws against the Mafia were enacted: For example, Law No. 410/91 created the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA), an anti-Mafia investigative agency; with Law No. 221/91 the dissolution of city and town councils infiltrated by the Mafia became possible; Law No. 8/92 established a national anti-Mafia prosecutor’s office, to which a total of 26 Direzioni Distrettuali Antimafia (DDA), specialized pools of judges, are assigned at the regional level; Law No. 172/92 established a fund to support victims of the Mafia; and Law No. 16/92 finally prohibited persons convicted or accused of Mafia offenses from holding public office.78 In addition, Martelli, together with his Christian Democratic colleague, Minister of the Interior Vincenzo Scotti (born 1933), overruled by decree a decision by the Court of Cassation that had authorized the release of Mafia bosses in March 1991. When the review of the verdicts of the Maxi Trial was due at the Court of Cassation79 in Rome in December 1991, the Mafia put all their hopes in Judge Corrado Carnevale (born 1930), the president of the Senate of the Court of Cassation responsible for Mafia crimes. After all, the ammazzasentenze (verdict slayer), as the press called Carnevale, had always succeeded in annulling verdicts against mafiosi by means of legal subtleties—by 1991, they numbered around 500! If he had attempted to repeat this with the verdicts of the Maxi Trial, there would certainly have been a huge uproar from the populace who was already under considerable strain. Carnevale therefore had to be “removed”, which is why Martelli ordered a review of the verdicts issued by Carnevale’s court. While this investigation was being carried out, the chief president of the Court of Cassation decided on a rotation of the Senate presidents. The result was that the review of the Maxi Trial verdicts was now presided over not by Carnevale, but by Arnaldo Valente (†2021). The process lasted just under two months, and on January 30, 1992, the harsh verdicts of the first and not the mild ones of the second court were confirmed. The Cosa Nostra regarded the decision of the Court of Cassation as a death blow and reacted with the utmost severity: Only two months after the verdict was pronounced, Mafia killers shot the powerful head of the Sicilian DC Salvo Lima in front of his villa in Mondello, Palermo’s seaside resort, on March 12, 1992. Lima had been Andreotti’s “man” in Sicily. In September

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of the same year, another one of Andreotti’s friends, the DC patron Ignazio Salvo, who had already been sentenced during the Maxi Trial, was killed. Salvo’s cousin Nino who had also been sentenced escaped this fate because he had already succumbed to cancer in a Swiss clinic in 1986. The murders of Lima and Salvo were a “slap in the face” for Andreotti, the “supreme godfather” of the Cosa Nostra, who had not ensured that a Mafia-friendly verdict was pronounced at the Court of Cassation. But neither Andreotti nor any other political friends of the Cosa Nostra had been able to achieve this in the early 1990s. The murder of Lima contributed to the fact that the already discredited Andreotti was not elected Italian President as he had hoped. After the ruling of the Court of Cassation, not only Lima and Salvo were killed, but an incredible wave of Mafia violence ensued: On the highway between Punta Raisi airport and Palermo, on May 23, 1992, Giovanni Falcone80 was blown up together with his wife Francesca Morvillo and the three bodyguards Antonio Montinari, Rocco Dicillo and Vito Schifani. Only two months later, on July 19, Falcone’s long-time friend, prosecutor Paolo Borsellino81, was killed together with his five bodyguards Agostino Catalano, Walter Eddie Cosina, Vincenzo Li Muli, Emanuela Loi and Claudio Traina in Via d’Amelio in Palermo. The prosecutor had gone to visit his mother who lived in a high-rise there when he was killed by a Fiat loaded with explosives. The two attacks on the magistrates who had become famous as anti-Mafia judges caused nationwide horror: Thousands of people took part in rallies and marches to mourn the victims, white sheets were hung out of the windows and the magnolia tree in front of Falcone’s house in Via Notarbartolo was decorated with flowers, letters and wreaths. Again, politicians were forced to react: The government sent 7,000 soldiers to the island as part of Operation “Vespri Siciliani” to relieve the police forces and provide more security.82 In addition, the anti-Mafia laws were further tightened. For example, with Legislative Decree No. 306, Article 41 of the Prison Regulations was supplemented with a new paragraph (Article 41bis), introducing the so-called carcere duro (strict prison conditions). In addition, the high-security units of two special prisons—one on the island of Pianosa (Tuscany), the other on the island of Asinara (Sardinia)—were reopened. In just one night, almost a hundred mafiosi were transferred to these prisons. Despite numerous trials, the murders of Falcone and Borsellino remain unsolved to this day. The perpetrators came from the ranks of the Mafia, but the mandanti occulti (those who gave the secret orders) are still unknown. Many mafiosi had disagreed with these attacks from the

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beginning. The defector Salvatore Cancemi (1942–2011), for example, reported on a heated argument between Riina and Raffaele Ganci when the attack on Via D’Amelio was discussed. Riina, who basically forced the organization to carry out these attacks, explained to the rebellious Ganci: “Faluzzu, I am the one who is in charge here.”83 When Riina had left, Ganci whispered to his colleagues: “He wants to ruin us all.”84 Ganci knew that the attacks would trigger massive reactions from the state. According to his son Massimo, the Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino was also convinced that Riina had gone crazy. He said to Massimo: “That’s not Mafia anymore, that’s terrorism.”85 Many ex-mafiosi such as Giovanni Brusca (born 1957) or Tullio Cannella were sure that the murders of the two judges were carried out as a favor: Riina had insisted on these murders because he had been promised that the problems of the Cosa Nostra would be resolved afterwards.86 What also speaks for contract killings is that in the subsequent investigations not only numerous pieces of evidence such as the data on Falcone’s computers or Borsellino’s red notebook disappeared in mysterious ways, but also that false tracks were deliberately laid.87 Everything points to the involvement of the intelligence services and the fact that important witnesses of the “dirty” political machinations of the First Republic should be eliminated. Just one short year after the assassinations of the two judges, Mafia violence continued on the Italian mainland with a wave of mysterious attacks:88 On May 14, 1993, a bomb attack was carried out on television journalist Maurizio Costanzo in Via Ruggero Fauro in Rome, but it failed. Just over two weeks later, on May 27, a bomb was detonated in Via dei Georgofili in the historic center of Florence, killing five people and damaging the Uffizi Gallery. On July 27 of the same year, more bombs exploded in Rome, one near the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the other near the church of San Giorgio di Velabro. On the same day, a bomb went off in the gardens of the town hall in Via Palestro in Milan. These attacks resulted in six deaths and many injuries. A bomb planned for October 13, 1993 at the exit of the Olympic Stadium in Rome at Viale dei Gladiatori failed. Why these attacks were carried out is still unclear. Some believe that the Cosa Nostra intended to force the state to the negotiating table. Riina is reported to have said that war must be waged first in order to secure peace later. In this context, there is talk of a trattativa89, a negotiation between the Cosa Nostra and representatives of the state. In fact, at some point between June and August 1992, the Mafia politician Ciancimino, the Carabinieri General Mario Mori (born 1939), the Carabinieri Captain Giuseppe De Donno and other unidentified persons met in Ciancimino’s

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apartment in Rome. At these meetings, Ciancimino is said to have presented the carabinieri with a papello (list)90 written by the mafia doctor Antonino Cinà (born 1945) with Riina’s demands. This was a catalog with 12 points, the most important of which were a revision of the Maxi Trial, the abolition of the hard prison conditions for mafiosi, and the closure of the high-security prisons in Asinara and Linosa. As a result of this meeting, Moro and De Donno had to answer to court later, but were acquitted of the charge of cooperating with the Mafia. Others suspect that the attacks in 1993 were a strategy intended to ratchet up the tension—comparable to the attack on Portella della Ginestra or the right-wing terrorist attacks of the “leaden time” of the 1960s to 1980s. There is talk of a “great architect” who wanted to clear the way for a new political order and a new strong man with his bombs.91 In fact, various ex-mafiosi reported that meetings with media mogul Silvio Berlusconi had taken place in Milan. The former mafioso Salvatore Cancemi reported that Riina was convinced that Berlusconi would take care of the Cosa Nostra’s concerns. Riina told him, “I have Dell’Utri and Berlusconi eating out of my hands.”92 In addition, ex-mafioso Maurizio Avola (born 1961) reported a Mafia summit in Palermo in 1992, at which Riina presented the “men of honor” with the plan to create a climate of tension in Italy through terrorist attacks, which would damage the old political forces and so make room for a new political grouping. Former mafioso Gaspare Spatuzza (born 1964) also reported that he knew from his boss Giuseppe Graviano (born 1963) that Berlusconi had made promises to the Mafia. In general, the mafiosi seem to have been convinced that Riina’s strategy was being pushed by others who were putting pressure on him and “holding his hand.”93 Again, not all mafiosi were in agreement with the terrorist attacks. After the attacks on Falcone and Borsellino, Ciancimino had Provenzano call on him to finally take the situation into his own hands. Riina would certainly have continued his strategy of violence, if he had not been stopped. This happened on January 15, 1993, when Riina, who had been on the run since 1970, was arrested along with his driver Salvatore Biondino (born 1953) on Via Regione Siciliana by Carabinieri Captain Sergio De Caprio (alias “Capitano Ultimo”, born 1961). Allegedly, the carabinieri had been helped in their search for Riina by the mafioso Baldassare (Balduccio) Di Maggio (born 1954) from San Giuseppe Jato (PA)—a version of events that was so full of contradictions that soon no one believed it anymore.94 Maybe the meeting in Rome between Ciancimino and the carabinieri was also about Riina’s arrest? Within the Mafia it was quickly concluded that Riina had been betrayed, with suspicion falling on Ciancimino and Provenzano.95

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That not everything was above board during Riina’s arrest96 can also be deduced from the fact that the surveillance of the villa on Via Bernini, where Riina lived with his family, was discontinued immediately after Riina’s arrest—allegedly due to a misunderstanding between the prosecutor’s office and the carabinieri! This gave the mafiosi enough time to completely empty and even repaint the villa, so that not even fingerprints were to be found. Many are convinced that Riina’s famous archive disappeared at that time— that is, documents that would have allowed to blackmail many people.

2.7 The Mafia Goes “Underground” After Riina’s arrest, the Cosa Nostra went “underground” and took measures to become invisible and reorganize itself. Under the leadership of Bernardo Provenzano, it ended the strategy of terror, largely renounced violence and reintroduced “democracy” within the organization. Despite all its difficulties, it managed to continue its old business and open up new areas of activity. Politically, however, it had to reorient itself due to the radical change in the party landscape, yet it soon found a new “favorite party” in Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI). The fact that high-ranking state officials such as Giulio Andreotti were tried for their Mafia ties forced politicians to deal more cautiously with the Mafia. Since the arrest of Provenzano, who has since died in prison, just like Riina, the Cosa Nostra no longer has a central leadership. But this does not prevent the clans from continuing their work. However, the “men of honor” of today are not made of the same “heavy cloth” as before, but rather are considered “lightweights”. After Riina’s arrest, initially a chaotic situation arose in the organization: at the base, people no longer knew who to turn to in case of disputes, and as a result, the capi made their decisions themselves again. In addition, lingering conflicts about strategy now came to the fore: on the one hand, there were the “hawks” around Riina’s brother-in-law Bagarella, on the other hand the “doves” around Provenzano.1 The first group, which wanted to continue the strategy of violence and as a first step planned the murder of one carabiniere per headquarters in Sicily, consisted of Giovanni Brusca from San Giuseppe Jato (PA), Domenico Raccuglia (“‘U Vitirinariu” = The veterinarian, born 1964) from Altofonte (PA), Matteo Messina Denaro (“‘U Siccu” = The thin one, born 1962) from Castelvetrano (TP), Giuseppe Graviano (born 1963) from the Brancaccio, Peppino Farinella from San Mauro Castelverde (PA) and Vito Vitale (“Fardazza”, born 1959) from Partinico (PA). The second group, which had disagreed with

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Riina’s strategy of terror from the beginning, but had not dared to oppose it openly, consisted of Pietro Aglieri from the Palermo family Santa Maria del Gesù, Raffaele Ganci, from the Palermo Noce family, the district head of Belmonte Mezzagno (PA), Benedetto Spera (born 1934), Antonino (Nino) Giuffrè (“Manuzza” = little hand, born 1945) from Caccamo (PA), Giuseppe (Piddu) Madonia (born 1946) from Vallelunga Pratamento (CL) and Nitto Santapaola from Catania. Although Bagarella, the brother-inlaw of the “dictator”, took over the leadership, the supporters of the “hard course” could not prevail. Bagarella was not even recognized as leader by his own camp. The disagreement within the Mafia was intensified because the hardliners suspected that Provenzano had betrayed Riina, and this disagreement could have led to violence. However, this did not happen because soon the most important “hawks” were arrested: first Bagarella (1995), then Brusca (1996) and finally Vitale (1998). After Bagarella’s arrest, Provenzano took over the command, without, however, ever being “crowned” capo dei capi. This position still belonged to Riina according to the Mafia rulebook. Provenzano may not have been eager for the leadership role, but someone had to take the reins during the crisis situation. Since Provenzano was Riina’s official deputy, he had better cards than anyone else. Provenzano, who came from a poor Corleonese peasant family like Riina, had long ago changed from the uncouth tratturi (Sic. tractor), as he had been called, to the ragioniere (accountant).2 He was called “accountant” because he was more interested in business than in power. His leadership style was completely different from Riina’s, because he did not interfere in the affairs of the families, which led to a return to the original “democratic model”. Provenzano limited himself to finding solutions to fundamental strategic questions. These included the use of violence, the increase in security and the future relationship with politicians. Provenzano first discussed these points with the “heads” of the Cosa Nostra, i.e., with the doctor Antonino Cinà, the entrepreneur Tommaso (Masino) Cannella (born 1940) and the land surveyor Giuseppe (Pino) Lipari (born 1935), who was knowledgeable in financial matters, before presenting his ideas to the organization. For these purposes, meetings in small groups with top mafiosi were held mostly in a remote farm near Mezzojuso (PA). Provenzano suggested to his colleagues that the Cosa Nostra should “go into hiding” and that no more violence should be committed. When the defector Nino Giuffrè saw Provenzano again after a long prison sentence, he was surprised to see that he had suddenly shown “signs of holiness”.3

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With his position, Provenzano ran into open doors with the other “men of honor”: In the intervening years, most of them had come to the conclusion that Riina’s excesses of violence had caused enormous damage. They remembered the saying “Calati junco, ca passa la china”4 (Sic. Bend bulrush, until the flood is over) and agreed to lie low for a period of 5 to 7 years—in the hope that the time would heal the wounds. It was therefore agreed unanimously to refrain from conspicuous acts of violence such as bomb attacks or murders of state representatives. Furthermore, the maxime was issued that internal conflicts should be resolved peacefully, if possible. And, the old rule applied again that murders could only be carried out with the permission of the leadership. Most mafiosi adhered to these points, even if some occasionally grumbled: Look, I would strangle him, (…) but for the time being I can’t, because we have to stay calm. We can’t do anything except with the approval of the big boss.5

As Provenzano strove for balance, he was able to keep a smoldering conflict under control between the most important capi in Palermo at that time,6 namely between Salvatore (Totuccio) Lo Piccolo (born 1942), the district head of San Lorenzo, and Antonino (Nino) Rotolo (born 1946), the district head of Pagliarelli. Lo Piccolo had started his career as a driver for the district head of San Lorenzo, Rosario (Saro) Riccobono (1929–1982), who was on the losing side during the Mafia war and fell victim to the lupara bianca. Lo Piccolo had indeed switched sides in time, but never really got rid of the stigma of the traitor. Rotolo, on the other hand, had been one of the most loyal Corleonesi from the very beginning and was also friends with two of the most important men in Palermo at that time, i.e., Francesco Bonura (born 1942), the vice-capo of the Uditore family, and with the doctor and Provenzano confidant Antonino Cinà. The ambitious Lo Piccolo aimed to become number one in Palermo, which he tried to achieve in various ways: He concluded alliances with numerous rulers, so that at some point he controlled two thirds of Palermo. In addition, he forged alliances with the capi of the families of Capaci (PA) and Carini (PA) as well as with the powerful provincial representative of Trapani, Matteo Messina Denaro. What finally was too much for his equally ambitious opponent Rotolo was that Lo Piccolo invited the relatives of the losers of the Second Mafia War, who had fled to the USA, to return. In fact, more and more scappati settled down in the district Passo di Rigano, which had once been controlled by Totuccio Inzerillo. They included his brothers Francesco (Franco) and Rosario, his son

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Giovanni, his nephew Giuseppe and various of his cousins. Rotolo did not agree with this, because according to the old provincial commission’s decision, the “Americans” were not allowed to return to Sicily, and he was afraid of their revenge. Rotolo explained to a colleague: We can’t sleep peacefully anymore (…). Picciotti, look, it’s not over yet. They have these dead people in front of them all the time. When the anniversaries come up and they’re sitting at the table, this one and that one is missing.7

Both Lo Piccolo and Rotolo sought the support of Provenzano. Provenzano is likely to have been more on Lo Piccolo’s side, as Piccolo’s ideas corresponded to his policy of mending old fences. Under his rule, the son of Stefano Bontate, Francesco Paolo junior, was even allowed to engage in drug trafficking on his father’s former territory. However, Provenzano diplomatically refrained from taking sides in the dispute between Lo Piccolo and Rotolo and let the problem play itself out. The treatment of the pentiti also changed: Instead of killing them as before, the goal was to bring the “lost sheep” back into the fold: Not only were those who withdrew their testimony forgiven, they were even given financial support. Consequently, many former pentiti, such as Fedele Battaglia from the Brancaccio family, retracted their confession. Battaglia told the prosecutors: What I have told so far are pure figments of my imagination that I have given in a moment of confusion.8

In addition, mafiosi, especially if they were in prison for the first time, immediately received support and solidarity so that they would not even entertain the idea of testifying. In order to be able to help the “colleagues” who were in prison, the families reintroduced joint funds, which not everyone was happy about because of the high expenses for the prisoners. The strategy proved to be successful and pentitismo, that is, the defections, decreased dramatically. The Pax Mafiosa even extended to businessmen who refused to pay protection money. Over the course of the years, the first anti-racketeering organizations had developed within the business community. The Associazione Commercianti ed Imprenditori Orlandini (ACIO) from Capo d’Orlando (ME) was the first, a town in which there had originally been no Mafia extortion.9 When mafiosi from a neighboring town began making extortion demands, the businessmen of Capo d’Orlando, led by Gaetano

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(Tano) Grasso (born 1958), joined forces in December of that year and took action against the pizzo (extortion money): They set up a security service and accompanied victims to the police. The example of Capo d’Orlando set a precedent, and in eastern Sicily, businessmen in various communities began to resist paying protection money. In western Sicily, there were no such initiatives, but on the morning of June 29, 2004, the windows of many businesses in the center of Palermo were suddenly plastered with small stickers that read, “Un intero popolo che paga il pizzo è un popolo senza dignità” (An entire people who pays the pizzo is a people without dignity).10 The action was started by a group of young people who then went on to found the “Addiopizzo” (Farewell Extortion) organization for smart consumers, but above all a successful travel agency that offers anti-Mafia tours. Even the top leadership of the CONFINDUSTRIA business association and the CONFESERCENTI trade association, which had previously denied the existence of protection money, changed their policy and declared that in the future members who paid protection money would be excluded.11 In fact, some of the victims now began to file complaints. The owner of the traditional Palermo eatery Focacceria San Francesco, Vincenzo Conticello, became famous throughout the country when, in September 2007, he pointed his finger at his blackmailer, Francesco (Francolino) Spadaro—the son of the “Cigarette King” from the Kalsa—in the courtroom.12 The Mafia continued to threaten the uncooperative businessmen, but they no longer killed them. In addition, the Mafia made greater efforts to convince businessmen of the advantages of working with the Cosa Nostra. On the other hand, those businessmen who continued to pay their tribute to the Mafia— and that was the overwhelming majority—were advised, for the sake of appearances, to register with Addiopizzo.13 In any case, after the introduction of the Pax Mafiosa, the number of Mafia-related crimes decreased significantly: From the 1960s until the end of the 1990s, there were an average of about 113 murders per year, but the number dropped to 30 in 1997.14 Although there were still occasional violent crimes, they were rare under Provenzano’s rule.15 Although the Cosa Nostra actually became less noticeable, it was clear to the law enforcement apparatus that the mafiosi had not ceased their activities. Now that its work was no longer hindered by high-level officials as before, the apparatus began to seriously fight organized crime. For example, the way the police dealt with fugitive mafiosi had changed, as is evident in the case of the boss Daniele Emmanuello (1963–2007) from Gela (CL), who was shot during an attempt to flee.16 This was a novelty, as policemen had previously often treated mafiosi with kid gloves out of fear of revenge.

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Today, however, policemen are often not even masked during arrests and even give interviews afterwards! Given the increased police attention, the Cosa Nostra had to strengthen its security measures. It was important that there were no arrests at all—and if so, that potential defectors could reveal as little as possible. However, the Mafia had only been partially able to cover its increased personnel requirements with reliable persons. These included “men of honor” who had already retired for age or health reasons and were now being forced to actively participate again. Also, because of smaller offenses, “men of honor” who had been discharged were reactivated and businessmen with some association to the Mafia or the sons of “men of honor” who had led a life outside the Mafia were now forced to “truly” join the organization. The same applied to female relatives who were now given tasks that had previously been reserved for men. Giuseppa (Giusy) Vitale (born 1972) from Partinico made a name for herself in this respect, as she ran an entire Mafia district for her arrested brothers.17 However, these were not enough people to fill the personnel needs. Since there was no time to carefully check newcomers and slowly introduce them to the organization, it now happened that people who were completely unsuitable were made “men of honor”. Above all, Lo Piccolo recruited numerous drug dealers and thieves from the ZEN slum area and made them official “men of honor”. One such example is Francesco Franzese (born 1964), whose curriculum vitae—he was addicted to drugs and his grandfather had been a carbiniere—actually prevented him from joining.18 No wonder he “ratted out” his capofamiglia on the day of his arrest in August 2007. Most of the capifamiglia knew that one could not simply admit people to the Cosa Nostra at random. Yet they, too, were forced to use small-time criminals for tasks that were reserved for “men of honor”. At least, they refrained from automatically declaring these unreliable helpers “true” “men of honor” and thus prevented them from gaining any significant insider knowledge. Often, these men did not even know for whom they were actually working and could therefore not cause much damage in the event of an arrest. In addition, they were not a burden on the Cosa Nostra when they were arrested, as they had no claim to financial assistance. Those few who were actually admitted to the Cosa Nostra were no longer introduced to the members of other families as before. As a result, fewer and fewer people knew who really belonged to the Cosa Nostra. Even the top Mafia bosses stopped meeting. Only one person from each family communicated with the leadership, which, in addition to Provenzano, included a board of directors responsible for Palermo, appointed by Provenzano, as well as provincial representatives.

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Communication with Provenzano did not take place in person or by telephone, but by means of pizzini (slips of paper).19 These little notes were delivered by a number of inconspicuous “mailmen”: in elevators, at gas stations, at a driving school, or out in nature. They were not signed with names, but with numbers. Provenzano, for example, was 1, Nino Rotolo 25, Giuseppe Falsone (born 1970) 28, Totuccio Lo Piccolo 30, Sandro Lo Piccolo (born 1975) 31, and, finally, Antonino Cinà 164. The only one who signed with “Alessio” was the powerful provincial representative from Trapani, Matteo Messina Denaro. Because of the strategy of renouncing violence and because of improved security measures, the giocattolo (toy), as Provenzano used to call his organization, was actually up and running again after a few years. Therefore, the district bosses from Agrigento even dared to hold a meeting in July 2002 in a country house near Santa Margherita del Belice (AG) in order to elect a new provincial representative. However, this attempt was thwarted by the police through “Operation Cupola”.20 During this period of reorganization, the Mafia’s “businesses” continued as usual. However, now each family was again “doing its own thing”. The centrally controlled tavulinu was no longer urgently needed because the time of public contracts in the construction industry had come to an end, since the successor organization to the Fund for the South, the Agenzia per la Promozione e lo Sviluppo del Mezzogiorno (Agency for the Promotion and Development of the Mezzogiorno), had been abolished in 1993.21 Yet the subsidies provided by the European Community now became of interest to the Mafia—by the way, the last public large-scale construction project, the laying of gas pipelines in about 70 municipalities, was co-financed by the EU.22 The Cosa Nostra made a lot of money from methanization, especially the Gasdotti Azienda Siciliana, in which the Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino was secretly involved as a major shareholder. After that, the Cosa Nostra entered the business of renewable energy, which was also promoted by the European Union, with wind and solar power plants.23 Faccendieri (wheeler-dealers) like Vito Nicastri from Alcamo (TP) made millions from “green energy”. However, the most important business in the field of public contracts was waste disposal, which was awarded to private companies by public bodies.24 A mafioso had forecast this 30 years earlier: “Trasi munnizza e n’iesco oro” (You bring in garbage and you get gold out).25 In addition, Mafia-linked waste companies have also taken over the lucrative disposal of special and hazardous waste, which is usually dumped in the wild. And finally, since the reform of the national health care system in 1992, the Cosa Nostra has increasingly invested in the private

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health care sector, which has since exploded.26 In Sicily there are now almost 2,000 private clinics—more than in any other region of Italy. However, the private health care sector is not really private because most laboratories and private clinics are state accredited and thus financed by the public purse. Expenditures for the health care sector consume more than half of the entire budget of the region—in 2014, for example, they amounted to 54%. The Mafia quickly realized that there was a real fortune to be made in this business sector via overpriced invoices. One such example is the case of the private cancer clinic Santa Teresa in Bagheria (PA), where, for example, prostate cancer treatment was billed at around € 130,000, while it was only € 9,000 in Piedmont. The owner of the clinic, the Mafia entrepreneur Michele Aiello (born 1953), was exposed in 2003—and with him various politicians, bureaucrats and even policemen. Even the former Sicilian Prime Minister Salvatore (Totò) Cuffaro (born 1958) was caught up in the whirlwind and had to resign. The Aiello case is the most famous example, but there are a whole series of other private clinics “in odor di Cosa Nostra” (in the smell of Cosa Nostra).27 In addition, the Cosa Nostra invested in many other profitable business sectors in which not only good money can be made, but also laundered, e.g. in the tourism sector, where they invested in hotels, holiday resorts, restaurants and sightseeing buses.28 The most famous example of this is probably that of the former electrician Carmelo Patti (1934–2016)29 from Castelvetrano (TP), a straw man for Matteo Messina Denaro. Patti was not only involved with the Palermo airport company GESAP, but in 1997 he even bought VALTUR, one of the most important Italian hotel chains. Another lucrative investment area is gambling. After the Italian state began to liberalize the gambling market in 1992, the Mafia entered big time. For example, Francesco Corallo (born 1960), whose father Gaetano once ran a small gambling den with Mafia boss Nitto Santapaola in Catania, controlled up to 30% of all slot machines in Italy with an offshore company until his arrest in 2016.30 The Mafia pushes these machines on the owners and tenants of game arcades and bars and profits enormously from them. Large supermarkets and shopping centers31 are also a favored investment vehicle. These have shot up in Sicily like mushrooms in the last 25 years—by the end of 2008 alone, 100 new shopping centers had been approved. Giuseppe Grigoli (born 1949), who until the 1970s had to live on the income generated by his s small grocery shop in Castelvetrano (TP), became known as the Mafia’s “supermarket king” when he was arrested in 2007. Between 1999 and 2002, the straw man of Messina Denaro built up an empire of Despar supermarkets in western Sicily. The former small-scale retailer Sebastiano Scuto (born 1941) from San Giovanni La Punta (CT), who worked for the

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Catania clan Laudani, did the same in eastern Sicily. His company ScutoAligrup had 50 branches in eastern Sicily and in addition he also owned some Despar supermarkets in the province of Catania! Moreover the extortions of protection payments that have been widespread since the 1950s have increased, because the pizzo money supports  the  imprisoned “colleagues”—and their number has increased significantly. Due to the ensuing staff shortage, top Mafia bosses have recently been reduced to picking up the phone themselves.32 The money-lending business has also increased dramatically since 1992, mainly because many Sicilian banks have run into financial difficulties and have been lending less.33 For example, in 2006 a large usury ring was uncovered in Sant’Agata Militello (ME), to which not only mafiosi belonged, but also bank employees. In addition, drug trafficking has remained an important business because there is simply no other place where such high profits can be made. However, since the end of the 1980s, the Mafia has only been the “junior partner” of the South American, Turkish, Kurdish, and Albanian clans as well as the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta.34 Since drug trafficking is dangerous—numerous drug deals have gone wrong in recent times—many Mafia bosses, led by the boss Provenzano himself, prefer to own shares of companies in the legal economy.35 However, Provenzano was unable to solve the Cosa Nostra’s biggest problem: getting the “colleagues” imprisoned under harsh conditions out of jail. Since the old political relationships no longer existed, new political patrons had to be found urgently.36 Riina’s brother-in-law Bagarella even had the idea of setting up his own Mafia party, because the politicians had proven to be unreliable in recent years: If I set up my own party, I can choose the candidates I want. Otherwise, what they did to my brother-in-law will repeat: they took him for a ride, made promises to him and then didn’t keep them.37

The project was initiated and finally also realized by Tullio Cannella: In October 1993, “Sicilia Libera” Bagarella’s party was indeed founded in Catania and Palermo in the presence of some “men of honor”. However, since the separatist-oriented Sicilia Libera was only supported by a few local politicians, it soon dissolved again. Provenzano had always considered Bagarella’s idea to be quite adventurous, since he was well aware that such a party would immediately attract the attention of the law enforcement apparatus. But a solution had to be found urgently, as can be seen from a letter from Messina Denaro to Provenzano:

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We need political help to move faster. But you know, they don’t do anything for free and at the moment we don’t have much negotiating power.38

In any case, it was agreed to send as many of their own members and friends into the parties as possible. In addition, the Mafia no longer wanted to issue blank checks, but only support politicians if they approached the Mafia of their own accord and secondly paid and guaranteed that they would work for the Mafia’s interests. However, the political situation was comparable to that in the 1940s, when it was difficult to assess how the political power relationships would develop. It is not the place here to trace in detail the convoluted rearrangement of the Italian party landscape since 199439—but it is worth providing some details of a completely new player that arose on the political stage: Forza Italia. It was founded in 1993 by the Milanese media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, mainly because his old political ally, the Socialist leader Bettino Craxi, had fled to the Tunisian city of Hammamet after the Tangentopoli scandal in 1994, which caused the PSI to collapse. Since Craxi could no longer help his friend Berlusconi, whose media group Fininvest was on the verge of financial collapse, he turned to politics—advised by his longtime companion, the Mafia friend from Palermo Marcello Dell’Utri (born 1941). With the help of opinion researchers, a political program was cobbled together and the party was launched under the name “Forza Italia”— the battle cry of Italian fans at international football matches—via a media campaign on Berlusconi’s own television channel Canale 5. Between 1994 and 2018, the right-liberal Forza Italia and the social-democratic Partito Democratico (PD, including its predecessor parties) were to become the leading parties in the country. Together with the smaller parties of their respective electoral alliances, they alternated in government until 2018.40 According to the statements of various Mafia defectors, the Cosa Nostra already set its sights on Forza Italia relatively early and a relationship with Berlusconi has existed since the early 1970s. The decision seems to have been preceded by talks in which the Cosa Nostra received the guarantees it wanted. Nino Giuffrè explained this as follows: Provenzano told us to support them (the FI, note by author). The directive was to vote for this new party. According to what he told me, this had to do with negotiations about our current problems, from the harsh prison conditions to the confiscation of property.41

When the Forza Italia clubs were set up in Sicily—following the model of the fan clubs of the AC Milan football club—mafiosi were involved from

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the very beginning.42 And so it happened that the Forza Italia, which had one of its voter strongholds in Sicily, soon developed into the most important political interlocutor of the Cosa Nostra. But, as in the past, the Cosa Nostra did not limit itself to one party, but rather worked with politicians from other parties, especially on the local level. Soon, however, the Cosa Nostra was disappointed by its new “friends”. As it turned out, after the collapse of the First Italian Republic (1994), it had become much more difficult for politicians to blatantly favor the Mafia.43 Andreotti and a whole host of other high-ranking politicians got away unscathed, but the former Prime Minister of Sicily Totò Cuffaro was sentenced to 7 years in prison in 2011, of which he actually served a few years. Silvio Berlusconi’s “right-hand man”, the FI politician Marcello Dell’Utri, also ended up in prison for a while in 2014. In addition, numerous Mafiaaffiliated municipal politicians were held accountable for their actions. And that city and municipal councils are dissolved and managed by commissioners because of Mafia infiltration has become almost commonplace.44 For this reason, no politician dares to openly take the side of the Cosa Nostra today, quite the contrary: incriminated politicians now present themselves as anti-Mafia activists.45 For example, in 2005, when he was still Prime Minister, Cuffaro had posters with the slogan “La mafia fa schifo” (The Mafia is disgusting) hung all over the island and gave away T-shirts with this slogan at football games. Today, Mafia politicians take part in anti-Mafia demonstrations, lay wreaths on days of remembrance, initiate anti-Mafia days or give speeches against the Cosa Nostra.46 Although openly supporting the Mafia has become impossible, its situation has improved in the meantime.47 Both during the Berlusconi government and under the center-left government, measures were taken that helped the Mafia—some even exactly matched the demands of Riina’s papello: For example, the high-security prisons Pianosa and Asinara were closed in 1997/1998. With Law No. 479, the life sentence was effectively abolished in December 1999. The decree in January 2000 for the giusto processo (fair trial) strengthened the rights of the accused, so that even the verdicts of the Maxi Trial would have been overturned. A corresponding bill, according to which the rules of the giusto processo were to be applied retrospectively, was presented by the Justice Commission of the House of Representatives in January 2002. The FI MP Antonino (Nino) Mormino (born 1938), one of the best-known Palermo Mafia defense lawyers, was the driving force behind this. The new law on informants, Law No. 45 from February 2001, considerably reduces the incentives for potential Mafia defectors, thus reducing pentitismo considerably. Since then, for example,

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those wishing to leave the Mafia have to disclose their entire assets, which are then immediately confiscated, even if parts have been acquired legally. A judge reported the answer of a mafioso when he was asked to give information about his assets as follows: I thought I hadn’t landed at the tax office; excuse me, I entered the wrong room.48

In addition, Article 41bis of the Detention Act, the carcere duro, was further softened49: The number of visitors, originally restricted to once a month, was increased. In addition, the prisoners are no longer isolated, but now have four hours of outdoor time, during which they can talk to up to five people. Judge Ilda Boccassini (born 1949) remarked ironically that it had only been better during the “Grand Hotel Ucciardone”—that is the nickname of the Palermo remand prison—because the mafiosi had once been able to have lobsters and champagne brought in.50 But apart from the relaxation of the strict rules of imprisonment, many mafiosi have achieved via administrative processes that Article 41bis is not applied to them; for the imprisoned Mafia leadership, however, it continues to apply. When parliament debated extending Article 41bis from one to 3 years, numerous prisoners protested in four different prisons with hunger strikes in early July 2002.51 And Leoluca Bagarella, who was connected to the jury of Trapani by video conference from the Aquila (AQ) prison, read a statement—an absolute novelty—on behalf of the Mafia prisoners on July 12, 2002 in which he said that the promises had not been kept and the prisoners were tired, to be instrumentalized, injured, suppressed and exploited by the political forces.52

Five days later, another signal came from the prison in Novara: 31 mafiosi, including Giuseppe Graviano and Salvatore Mario Madonia (born 1956), handed over an open letter addressed to the avvocati parlamentari (parliamentary lawyers) to the secretary of the Partito Radicale, complaining about perceived inaction. They referred, above all, to their own defense lawyers, including Nino Mormino and Enzo Fragalà (1948–2010), who had been elected to parliament for Forza Italia. The mafiosi explained that this was their last appeal, and if it was not heard, they would be forced to move from civil protest to “more drastic” measures.53 On December 22, 2002, finally, a sign hung by the son of a mafioso in the Palermo football stadium, read: “United against the 41bis. Berlusconi forgets Sicily.”54 Even Totò Riina

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made threats when he spoke in front of the Florentine Jury Court, which was investigating the bombings of 1993, about the visits of intelligence service agents to his “colleague” Francesco Di Carlo, who was in prison in Great Britain. This was a pretty blatant hint that he could reveal much about the background of those attacks.55 “Iddu pensa solo a iddu” (Sic. He only thinks of himself ),56 the mafiosi complained about Berlusconi, who himself had to fight various court proceedings. But most of them knew that the verdicts of the Maxi Trial would not be reversed. For this reason, the moderate wing of the Mafia prisoners tried at least to get better conditions during their prison terms. For example, in 2000 Pietro Aglieri submitted the proposal of a disassociation, that is, a break with the Cosa Nostra.57 Mafia prisoners wanted to admit personal guilt, but without incriminating others. For this, the mafiosi expected—in addition to Aglieri Peppino Farinella, Piddu Madonia, Pippo Calò and Nitto Santapaola—to be treated better in prison. The FI politician Carlo Taormina (born 1940) received the proposal positively, but immediate outrage ensued among the population and the press talked of an agreement between the Mafia and the state. Since the state could not show any willingness to compromise, the disassociation proposal came to nothing. Despite all precautions, more and more mafiosi fell into the hands of justice, including the whole circle of persons protecting Provenzano. Finally, on April 11, 2006, Provenzano himself was hit: After 43 years on the run, the sick old man was arrested in a unassuming hut in Montagna dei Cavalli near Corleone. He spent the last 10 years of his life in prison until he died in a Milanese prison in July 2016. His long-time companion Totò Riina survived him by a good year. He died in November 2017 in a prison in Parma (PR). With the death of the two great bosses from Corleone, who had dominated the fate of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra for almost 30 years, the era of the Corleonesi came to an end. Immediately after Provenzano’s arrest, the Pax Mafiosa was over:58 In particular, in the areas controlled by Lo Piccolo, attacks on unwilling businessmen increased again. And internally, the tensions between Lo Piccolo and Rotolo, which Provenzano had been able to keep in check with great effort, now broke out openly: When the Triad—as Rotolo and his two allies Bonura and Cinà were called—was about to remove Lo Piccolo from the way, they were arrested together with numerous other mafiosi in the course of the “Gotha” operation in June 2006. But the conflict was not over yet: Lo Piccolo had the reggente (literally “regent”, appointed family head) of the Porta Nuova district, Nicolò Ingarao, killed in June 2007. The mutual murder would probably have continued, if Lo Piccolo himself—together with

98     A. Bestler

his son Sandro and two other mafiosi—had not been arrested in November 2007 in a villa in Giardinello (PA) near the Palermo airport. After that it was quiet in the Cosa Nostra, and the various families took care of their own affairs exclusively. However, they soon felt the need for a central authority again in the province of Palermo with its high density of families. And so there were a total of three attempts at reconstituting the provincial commission in the following years:59 The first took place only a few months after Provenzano’s arrest and can be described as a “revolt of the Palermitans” directed against the Corleonesi: a group led by Benedetto Capizzi (born 1944), the capo of the family from Villagrazia, planned to elect Capizzi as the new capo dei capi (boss of the bosses) and to remove some of the reggenti from their offices who had been appointed by the Corleonesi. But Gaetano Lo Presti (1958–2008), the district head of Porta Nuova appointed by Lo Piccolo after Ingarao’s murder, was not in agreement. He rightly criticized that Capizzi’s action was not authorized, as the old provincial commission with Riina at the head would still be in office. Pino Scaduto, the head of the family from Bagheria, tried to mediate between the two sides to prevent the outbreak of a new war. The war was then prevented—but by the carabinieri, who arrested the quarreling parties in the operation “Perseo” in December 2008. This operation was one of the most important raids of recent years: almost a hundred bosses throughout the province of Palermo were arrested and since the current organizational chart of the Cosa Nostra was known for the first time after almost 20 years, many of the new “men of honor” men could be identified. The next attempt took place in 2011. A preparatory meeting took place in February of this year at the restaurant Villa Pensabene in the Palermitan ZEN district. The fact that for the first time also two of the “Americans” took part in this meeting with Francesco (Franco) and Matteo Inzerillo shows that the old wounds had healed and peace had been made with the losers of the last Mafia war. (By the way, Franco Inzerillo is not just any of the scappati, but the brother of the powerful boss Totuccio, who was murdered in May 1981.) However, the mafiosi also failed this time to revive the provincial commission, the socalled cupola: as early as November 2011, the protagonists, a total of 36 people from different Palermitan families, were arrested as part of the police “Operation Araba Fenice”. It is assumed that many mafiosi were not in agreement with this revitalization attempt, as it was just as unauthorized as the one from 2008. This was not the case with the most recent attempt: when Riina died in prison in November 2017, the cards could be shuffled anew: for this

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purpose, the “official” members of the old provincial commission or their representatives met for the first time since 1993 at the end of May 2018 and elected, with the 80-year-old district head of Pagliarelli, Settimo Mineo (born 1938), a successor. This owner of a small jewelry store on the Palermo Corso Tukory, who had been arrested in the 2006 “Operation Gotha” but was allowed to leave prison prematurely in 2013, was an experienced old mafioso who had always tried to get along with everyone. For this reason, his election was quite unanimous. However, this cupola only lasted a few months, as its members—including Mineo—were already arrested in December 2018 in the “Operation Cupola 2.0”. All important Mafia bosses are now in prison. This situation will not change in the post-Berlusconi era either, because in 2018 the political situation changed again—so dramatically that there is now even the talk of the beginning of the Third Italian Republic: From 2013 onwards, the centre-left and centre-right blocs had fallen behind two populist protest parties: the Movimento 5 Stelle (5-Star Movement, M5S) and the Lega. As early as at the 2013 national elections, the Movimento 5 Stelle, founded by the Genoese comedian Beppe Grillo (born 1948), had developed into the strongest party in Italy. Similarly, the right-wing populist Lega, which now operates nationwide under its new chairman Matteo Salvini (born 1973), made enormous gains, even in Sicily. Between 2018 and 2021, these two parties not only formed Italy’s government, but they proved also extremely successful in Sicily. In 2022 the post-fascist party Fratelli d’Italia (FDI) won the national elections and its leader Giorgia Meloni (born 1977), now Prime Minister, formed a new coalition government together with the Lega and the Forza Italia. Even if representatives of these new parties do not shy away from talking to the Mafia at the local level, their leadership will be careful not to do anything for the imprisoned mafiosi. For example, Salvini was outraged when, for humanitarian reasons, some old and sick Mafia bosses— including Francesco Bonura—were released from prison and returned home during the Covid crisis in 2020.60 Nevertheless, individual mafiosi still seem to have a certain political influence. For example, many are convinced that the powerful boss Matteo Messina Denaro remained free for 30 years thanks to the “archive” that he inherited from Riina. If that is the case, Messina Denaro has a lot of incriminating material on many active politicians, but so do people from the law enforcement and intelligence agencies, who know exactly who is responsible for the excellent homicides of the 1980s and 1990s.61 For this reason Messina Denaro’s arrest on the January 16th, 2023 does not mean the end of Cosa Nostra—some even believe the last “super boss” wanted to be arrested because he is severly ill...62

100     A. Bestler

Today, the Cosa Nostra is undoubtedly in crisis, mainly due to the numerous arrests. It usually recruits only poorly qualified personnel and the capi are becoming younger and more inexperienced. For example, Giovanni (Gianni) Nicchi (born 1981), who has since been arrested, became district head of Pagliarelli in June 2006 at the age of just 25. Nevertheless, the Cosa Nostra cannot be written off, because so far only a fraction of its assets have been confiscated, so that some mafiosi are still “disgracefully rich”.63 They invested their fortune with the help of dubious tax consultants, lawyers and notaries in the legal economy or stashed it in foreign numbered accounts. Some of these helpers, such as the tax consultant Giuseppe (Pino) Mandalari (born 1933), then the tax law expert Giovanni (Gianni) Lapis († 2020) and the tax consultant Giuseppe Provenzano (born 1946) or the lawyer specializing in international law Giorgio Ghiron († 2012), were meanwhile blown up, but only represent the “tip of the iceberg”.64 In addition, some people from Mafia families have university degrees and are increasingly able to take the administration of their wealth into their own hands with specialist knowledge and/or foreign language skills.65 However, they no longer belong to any Mafia cosche, but move in the highest economic and political circles. For example, Massimo Ciancimino (born 1963), the son of the Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino, was able to hold gas import negotiations with the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev (born 1940) and representatives of the Russian Gazprom.66 Another example would be Francesco Corallo: The son of the mafioso Gaetano Corallo from Catania had excellent relations with the Prime Minister of Curacao, Gerrit Schotte (born 1974), because of his casino and hotel business in the Caribbean. However, not only Schotte got into trouble because of Corallo: Corallo’s gambling business put the FI MP Amedeo Laboccetta (born 1948) under pressure and the former AN leader Gianfranco Fini (born 1952) in difficulties because of a villa in Monte Carlo financed by Corallo.67 In addition to the “Mafia of high finance”, the traditional Mafia still exists at the local level. The fact that the families currently have no vertical leadership does not prevent them from continuing as usual.

3  Inside the Mafia

The Cosa Nostra is a hierarchically structured organization with around 5,000 “men of honor” at lowest level of its pyramid structure. These mafiosi, in turn, are organized in just 170 families. Ranking above the family, which is the most important organizational unit of all, are the districts, the provincial commissions and at the top of the organization sits the so-called “cupola”. Its boss is the highest-ranking mafioso on the island as capo dei capi, that is, as “boss of the bosses”. The Cosa Nostra, which has now dominated Western Sicily for almost 200 years, is not the only criminal organization on Sicily. It has always had to make arrangements with other criminals, a process that sometimes took place peacefully and sometimes violently. The Mafia recruits its members primarily from the “have-nots” of Sicilian society, that is, from the lower social classes. In the recruitment process, preference is given to persons who stem from Mafia families. New members are carefully selected by the Cosa Nostra, trained over the course of a lengthy learning period and finally accepted into the organization after passing a test of courage via an archaic-seeming initiation ritual. After this “baptism”, the lives of the new “men of honor” change radically: They have to align their behavior with the clearly formulated rules of the organization, otherwise they have to expect severe sanctions. Even if some “honorable men” may be interested in personal prestige and power, the main goal of the organization is financial enrichment. The “business areas” of the Cosa Nostra are extremely diverse and vary depending on the economic development and the conditions of the territory of the family. Basically, the Cosa Nostra takes advantage of (almost) every opportunity for enrichment and is active anywhere where there is money to be made. Even if violence is the characteristic means of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Bestler, The Sicilian Mafia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39310-6_3

101

102     A. Bestler

the Cosa Nostra to achieve its goals, it prefers “more peaceful” methods, primarily either the consent of the population or corruption; murders are the ultima ratio within its repertoire of action. Even if the Cosa Nostra is primarily a lower class phenomenon, numerous persons from the “better circles” are closely connected supporters. This gray zone of “friends of friends” is essential for the functioning of the organization.

3.1 From the “Uomo d’Onore” to the “Capo dei Capi” The first accurate reports on Mafia cosche were presented as early as the end of the nineteenth century by police officials Antonino Cutrera (1858–1959) and Giuseppe Alongi (1858–1939) as well as Ermanno Sangiorgi, the police president of Palermo.1 If one compares the descriptions of the clans of that time with those of today, an amazing continuity becomes apparent—only that there are now more clans.2 Today, the Cosa Nostra has a total of 168 families3, which are concentrated in the western part of the island (see Fig. 3.1): Most cosche are located in the province of Palermo (81), followed by the provinces of Agrigento (42), Caltanissetta (18), Trapani (17) and Enna (5). In the eastern Sicilian provinces, which are referred to as province babbe4 (Sic. naive, innocent provinces), there are only five families: two each in the provinces of Catania and Messina and one in the province of Ragusa. In the province of Syracuse, there is no “true” Mafia family at all. The reason for the small presence of the Cosa Nostra in the East lies in its late development in that area. The only “historical” group is the one from Mistretta (ME), whose territory borders directly on the province of Palermo; this geographical closeness is why this village in the Nebrodi mountains was “contaminated” by the Mafia early on. The second group was founded in the 1920s in Catania, followed by the now defunct family from Ramacca (CT) in the 1950s and the family from Caltagirone (CT) in the early 1980s. The latest families are those from Vittoria (RG) and Barcellona di Gotto (ME), which were founded at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, respectively. With the exception of the family from Barcellona di Gotto, all eastern Sicilian cosche are “imports” from the west.5 But even if the eastern Sicilian clans are “latecomers”, that does not mean that the Cosa Nostra was not interested in the east. On the contrary, eastern Sicily has always served as a retreat6 for fugitive mafiosi and offered investment opportunities in the legal economy7 for the Western clans. For this reason, they established “representatives” in various eastern Sicilian municipalities as early as the 1960s, including Giuseppe Cirasa († 1983)8 in Ragusa or Giovanni Tamburello and later Michelangelo Alfano (1940–2005) in Messina.9

3  Inside the Mafia     103 Province of Palermo City of Palermo

Agrigento

Agrigento

Fig. 3.1  Mafia Density: Provinces, Districts, Families

104     A. Bestler

Agrigento 42 Syracuse 0

TOTAL 168 Families

Syracuse

No independent districts/families

Niscemi Family Emanuello Family Rinzivillo Family

Province

Mafia district Mafia family

Fig. 3.1  (continued)

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In general, each family is responsible for a geographically defined area, the so-called territorio (territory). This can be a village, a small town or a city district. The clans are usually named after the area they control, for example “famiglia di Corso dei Mille”, “famiglia di Porta Nuova” or “famiglia di Villabate”. Occasionally, they are also named after a long-standing head of the family as “famiglia Santapaola” after Nitto Santapaola or “famiglia La Rocca” after Francesco La Rocca (1938-2020); another option is to be named after the family’s nickname as in the case of the “clan Fardazza” (the name “Fardazza” is used in Partinico (PA) for the Vitale family). The families control their territory in every respect—economically, politically and socially. They enjoy complete autonomy: neither other families nor higher units are allowed to interfere in their internal affairs. For example, if a family wants to commit a murder on the territory of another family, it must first obtain the consent of the latter. It is even common for “men of honor” who intend to buy a property or a piece of land on the territory of another family to ask the local family for permission. Usually, families recruit new members within their territory, where they then remain—even if they are wanted by the police— because due to either the consent or fear of the local population they are safest there. For example, the super boss Matteo Messina Denaro wrote in a pizzino: I will never leave voluntarily (…). If I had wanted to leave, I could have done so a long time ago. I had the opportunity. But I never considered this as an option (…). I will stay in my region as long as fate allows it.10

Even though staying within the territory is the rule, an increasing number of mafiosi are forced to or choose to live elsewhere, for example when sentenced to involuntary exile11 outside of Sicily. Almost 400 Sicilian mafiosi were sent to the Lombardy region in northern Italy alone between 1961 and 1972. Other mafiosi fled their territory because staying there during the Second Mafia War had become too dangerous for them. The only ones who left their district for prestige reasons were bosses Calderone and Santapaola. They did not want to continue to live in the disadvantaged and neglected district of San Cristoforo once their economic situation had improved and moved to a “better” district of Catania. Some bosses move away from their territory for business reasons, such as the Corleonesi Leggio, Riina and Provenzano, who, due to arrest warrants, would have had difficulty carrying out their activities undisturbed in the small, isolated town of Corleone.12 Globalization is causing more and more mafiosi to settle permanently outside of Sicily13, mainly because they have specialized in certain businesses

106     A. Bestler

like international drug trafficking14 or money laundering15. Therefore, organized crime is no longer a Sicilian or Southern Italian phenomenon alone: Mafia cells now exist not only on the Italian mainland16, but also almost everywhere in Europe—especially in Belgium and Germany17—as well as in the USA, Canada, and South and Central America.18 All families have the same pyramidal structure (cf. Fig. 3.2): At the top sits the Council. Large families have a kind of “middle management” which consists of capidecina (leaders of a ten-person group), and at the bottom is the army of ordinary members. The leadership group includes the “three, four or five most respected men” in the group, who are superior to the others in terms of “age, intelligence, social position, proven courage, prison sentences” and above all experience in terms of the “difficult art of killing without punishment.”19 An unwritten Mafia rule used to be that “men of honor” had to be over the age of forty to become capofamiglia.20 The capo is responsible for leading the family: He decides which business ventures to carry out, gives orders to subordinates, monitors compliance with organizational rules, settles internal conflicts, manages the joint fund, decides on sanctions and represents the family to the outside world. He pulls the strings in the background while the ordinary members act as operational criminals and commit crimes. Only in rare cases do capi still commit crimes

Council Consiglio

Family Head Capofamiglia

Leader of a tenperson group Capodecina

“Men of honor” Fig. 3.2 Family

Vice Representa ve Vice-rappresentante

Leader of a tenperson group Capodecina

Advisor/s Consigliere/i

3  Inside the Mafia     107

themselves, mostly in cases that require special “skills and exceptionally cold blood.”21 The head of the family is supported by the vice-rappresentante22 (deputy representative) and one or more consiglieri (advisors). Together they form the consiglio (council). There are three ways in which a mafioso can become head of the family: first by election, second by appointment, and third by violence. Up until the early 1980s, election was the most common method. Depending on the size of the respective Mafia family, two options were available: For families with up to approximately 40 members, a members’ assembly took place, at which a meeting chairman presented the names of candidates who were discussed before a secret ballot was taken. Every member had one vote—a democratic process. The members’ assemblies ran smoothly because it was usually known beforehand who had the majority of votes within the group. For families with more than 40 members, the leaders of the ten-person groups consulted the picciotti subordinate to them. In both cases, the election usually fell on one of the old incumbents’ sons. In fact, the sons of bosses are usually the most suitable candidates; after all, they “inherit” their father’s criminal know-how, social contacts and “secrets” from him—all of which helps to potentially blackmail high-ranking persons. In addition, members are of the conviction that “the command position within the cosche should be filled on the basis of inherited blood ties”.23 Most mafiosi transfer their loyalty to one of the old boss’s relatives out of respect for the elder one—at least if his successor possesses the necessary qualities and a more qualified candidate does not exist. One mafioso told how he had immediately assured the son of the old boss of his loyalty after his father’s death: I waited all day for the right moment to approach his son Giuseppe. When the moment came, I expressed my condolences and asked if he remembered me. He had a good memory, like the deceased. ‘I’m in Palermo. If you need anything, you’ll find me there,’ I said. That’s a rule of honor: If one had respect for the father, he must show the same respect to the son, at least as long as he deserves it.24

Accordingly, family dynasties emerged that can be traced back three or more generations.25 If no blood relative is available as a “natural” successor to the old family head, the latter often dropped a hint with his picciotti on who would be particularly suitable. For example, it is said that Calogero Lo Bue (1887–1953), the old capofamiglia from Corleone, called out on his deathbed in 1943: “When my eyes close, I see through the eyes of Michele Navarra.”26 This approach to chosing a successor, however, receded into the background in the 1980s in favor of an appointment process. Since then, fewer and fewer families have been ruled by a capo, but

108     A. Bestler

instead by a temporary reggente (regent). During the Riina dictatorship, Riina determined who was to lead the families orphaned by the Mafia war. Further, family heads have appointed regents when they and their deputies are imprisoned. According to the Mafia rulebook, a capo remains in office even if arrested and that means he needs a person on the outside to continue to perform certain tasks. Such regents are not autonomous, but lead the family according to the instructions of their capo, whose orders reach them even from high-security prisons without any problems. Due to the numerous arrests of high-ranking bosses in recent decades, most families are now led by regents. The succession question is resolved by conflict only in exceptional cases, when ambitious people fight for the leadership position with violence, as was the case with Luciano Leggio. Although Leggio would probably have become the successor of the old Corleone family capo Navarra anyway, he simply killed his predecessor—and then, for good measure, also Navarra’s followers. The capofamiglia from Catania, Nitto Santapaola, also had his predecessor, Pippo Calderone, murdered in order to take over the leadership position. Although the capofamiglia is the central figure of every Mafia family, the other members of the council also play an important role: The deputy-representative who is to represent the capo in his absence, is basically a confidant and appointed by the capo himself. However, the more important office is that of the advisor. If a capo makes decisions that are contrary to the interests of the family as a whole, the advisor must dissuade him from his plans and thus act as a kind of “checks and balances”. For this reason, he is not appointed by the capofamiglia, but elected by the members of the family. As a rule, only experienced “honorable men”, usually people at a seasoned age hold this position. Some families are very large, such as the family of Brancaccio, which counted more than 200 members in the year 200027, and Stefano Bontates family is said to be even larger with 300 members. Such clans usually have capidecina (leader of ten-person groups), who are directly in charge of the so-called decine  (groups of ten). Sometimes, however, decine can be as small as only five members or as large as thirty members. The capidecina are usually “men of honor” with special leadership qualities to pass on the orders received from the capo to the lower levels, since in large families the capo hardly ever comes into contact with the ordinary picciotti. In smaller families, which only have one or two leaders of ten-person groups, the capidecina also take part in the meetings of the council. As a rule, the ten-person group leaders are responsible for the “men of honor” who are their subordinates:

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If a problem arises in a decina, the ten-person group leaders have to answer to the council. If an ordinary “man of honor” has a concern, he may not address the capofamiglia directly, but must present his concern to the ten-person group leader, who then forwards it to his superiors. An exception to this rule applies to the two large families from Catania and Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, whose subgroup leaders act to a large extent autonomously. They control their territory like true capi. At the base of the family pyramids, we find a variable number of “men of honor”, on average there are just under 25.28 The number of “true” Mafia members never seems to have been very large.29 According to the latest numbers available, the Cosa Nostra had only 5,192 members on the whole island in the year 2000, by far the most of whom were in western Sicily—3,201 alone in the province of Palermo!30 Even if these figures are more than 20 years old, they are nevertheless an important approximation given that the number of members of the Cosa Nostra seems to have remained relatively stable in recent decades.31 Among the members, one can distinguish between different kinds: “ordinary men of honor” (uomini d’onore ), “secret men of honor” (uomini d’onore riservati ) and “men of honor no longer in service” (uomini d’onore posati ). The majority of members belong to the “ordinary men of honor”, who have the task of blindly carrying out the orders given to them by their capofamiglia or ten-person group leaders. For example, a mafioso reported that the ordinary picciotti often just “hang out ” in bars during the day and wait for orders.32 The ex-mafioso Vincenzo (Enzo) Sinagra (born 1956) from the Palermo clan of Corso dei Mille confirmed this: I had to wait for orders in the Sant’Erasmo district and then, if necessary, commit murders, plant bombs, beat people up or carry out any other task that was ordered.33

Depending on their personality, picciotti are used for difficult tasks or for “dirty work”. The decisive factor is the personality of the individual mafioso .34 Less intelligent “men of honor” are entrusted with tasks that, in addition to unscrupulousness, steady nerves and the ability to handle weapons, do not require any special skills, for example robberies, thefts, arson and murder. The more intelligent ones, on the other hand, are assigned the task of collecting the pizzo (protection money), given that this job requires a considerable amount of psychological finesse; after all, the victim is to be enticed to engage in the desired behavior without the use of direct violence. This means that a collector of protection money has to prepare his

110     A. Bestler

“performance” perfectly by using the “carrot and stick” approach. The more intelligent picciotti  are allowed to commit minor crimes within the territory of the family for their own benefit. The “secret men of honor” form a minority. They are usually sons or other relatives of high-ranking mafiosi who have received a good education and work in a respected profession, such as a doctor, lawyer, civil servant or politician. These “honorable men” are considered “secret”, because their membership is only known to the leadership, so that they are not bothered by the Mafia’s “foot soldiers” with requests for personal favors; this prevents them from becoming known or bruciati (burned), i.e., known as mafiosi and thus less useful. The defector Gaspare Mutolo (born 1940) explained this as follows: In the case of the cousins Salvo (owners of the tax collection office Sartris, note by the author), membership was kept secret because they undertook specific economic activities and had offices in Palermo. If they had been known as ‘honorable men’, (…) people could have approached them and asked for favors. Yet by remaining unkown to the other ‘men of honor’, they could remain apart (…). Not everyone should be able to talk to them, let’s call them important people.35

Secret “men of honor” perform more demanding tasks—usually tasks for which they are predestined by their profession: They provide medical care for injured or sick mafiosi as doctors, “rectify” lawsuits as lawyers, represent the interests of the organization in parliament as politicians, “facilitate” bureaucratic matters as civil servants or marry fugitive mafiosi and baptize their children as priests. They are often irreplaceable. The uomini d’onore posati (men of honor no longer in sercice) are mafiosi who have been expelled from their family because they have violated the Mafia’s code of conduct. Most of the time, the person concerned already suspects that he has to leave because the others are distancing themselves from him. Someone who is messo fuori confidenza, that is, “no longer trusted”, is no longer allowed to participate in the activities of his family. This automatically leads to the loss of financial benefits. However, he remains a “man of honor”, which means that he remains bound by his oath of loyalty and subject to the rules of the Cosa Nostra. Gaspare Mutolo explained: Even if the mafioso is excluded from the organization, he still has to adhere to its rules. But he is no longer allowed to have contact with other Mafia members, who are also not allowed to speak to him anymore.36

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Exclusion does not necessarily mean the end of a criminal career: Some mafiosi excluded from their family such as Tano Badalamenti, Tommaso Buscetta or Francesco Di Carlo (1941–2020) successfully continued their illegal activities—even if they did so abroad: Badalamenti and Buscetta moved to Sao Paolo in Brazil, where they worked as international drug dealers; Di Carlo, on the other hand, ran a “drug office” in London and was involved in money laundering.37 All families have a joint fund into which the proceeds of their joint activities flow. Some of this money is paid out to the members with the so-called mesata (monthly salary).38 Most of them also receive a thirteenth monthly salary, an extra dividend on religious holidays like Christmas and a larger amount of money or a valuable gift on such personal occasions like weddings. Besides this income stream, mafiosi have additional sources of income, for example, they might own a legal business or commit crimes for their own benefit. Not every “man of honor” receives the same share from the joint fund: mafiosi in higher positions and married men receive more money, however the allowances also depend on the wealth of their families. A rough estimate can be gleaned from the “business books” found during a raid in 1989 of the Madonia family from the Palermo district Resuttana: In this family, a married “man of honor” received monthly payments of about € 900, while a single man had to be content with only about € 250.39 Bosses receive significantly more money, as the business books of Totuccio Lo Piccolo, found in 2007, show: The district boss of San Lorenzo approved a monthly salary of € 40,000 for himself and € 25,000 for his son Sandro.40 Furthermore, the joint fund covers general expenditures. The biggest cost factor in the last 30 years have been the expenses for colleagues in need. The Santa Maria di Gesù family alone estimated a monthly amount of € 25,500 for such support in 2004.41 However, other costs may arise, such as the procurement of weapons, mobile phones and the financing of “business trips”. In addition, the henchmen carrying out petty crime have to be paid and—which is much more expensive—defense lawyers, tax advisors and notaries. Since these freelancers often provide their clients with illegal services, such as smuggling items into prison or money laundering activities, in addition to their legitimate professional services, they are paid extraordinarily well. Another cost factor are the bribes for politicians, officials, prison guards, police officers, prosecutors and judges—all taken out of the joint funds as well. The capo is often responsible for the accounting of the Cosa Nostra, although sometimes it may also be a particularly trustworthy “man of honor”. These members do not have to provide any accounting for their income and expenses. Gaspare Spatuzza, for instance, was

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bitterly disappointed when he realized —after he had become reggente of the Brancaccio family and had acquired an overview of the finances—how much his capi, the Graviano brothers, had enriched themselves from the joint fund, while the ordinary members lived in poverty.42 Occasionally, there are disputes over the joint funds, especially when it comes to the embezzlement of said funds. The relationships among families range from cooperation and peaceful coexistence to outright conflict: Some families work together temporarily, when the business environment requires it. In the times of the agrarian Mafia, for example, the theft of livestock required the cooperation of several clans: one gang in the interior stole the livestock, another brought it to the urban markets or exported it abroad, mostly to Tunisia. Mafia groups do not only join together for economic reasons, but also for political considerations, mainly to have allies available in case of conflict. Some alliances are extremely stable, especially when the clan chiefs are related to each other. The marriage of relatives is a popular method of securing long-term alliances. While there are alliances among families, there are often violent confrontations as well, mostly for economic reasons, such as when an existing or newly formed group invades the territory of a family and commits raids or extorts protection money. Sometimes, it is mere insults that trigger a dispute, such as attacks on a protected person or unauthorized murders on the territory of another family. If such a sgarro (Sic. incorrectness) occurs, as it is called in the jargon, and the conflict continues over a number of years, it is called a faida (feud). Some of these confrontations became known for their brutality. Among them, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was the bloody feud between the clan of the Giardinieri that dominated Monreale and the newly formed Stuppagghieri.43 There was also a fierce confrontation between the two Greco clans of the neighboring Palermo city districts Ciaculli and Croceverde Giardini between 1939 and 1947, all because of a simple act of rudeness.44 Similarly, the six murders committed in August 2007 in front of the restaurant Da Bruno in Duisburg (Germany) happened in the context of a feud, even though the participants were not mafiosi, but ‘ndranghetisti of the rival clans of Nirta-Strangio and Pelle-VottariRomeo from the Calabrian village of San Luca (RC).45 Usually, such feuds end when the families involved have largely eliminated each other, or made peace—often by means of a marriage. For example, Antonino Calderone reported that the family of Catania, which had split in the 1950s, had come back together after his brother Pippo had married the niece of the capo of the other group.46

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The next higher level, above the family, is the mandamento (district). The Cosa Nostra adopted the term “mandamento” from the Italian administrative language of the nineteenth century, when large cities were divided into districts. A Mafia district is defined as the association of several adjacent families which requires a certain density of families. Currently, there are 30 Mafia districts: eight in the city of Palermo47, seven in the province of Agrigento48, seven in the province of Palermo49, four in the province of Caltanissetta50 and four as well in the province of Trapani51. In the province of Enna, where there are only four families52, there are no districts. The same applies to the provinces of Catania53 and Messina54, where there are only two families each, and for the province of Ragusa55, which has only one family. The districts are headed by district councils, whose members are made up by the respective capifamiglia of the districts, all with equal voting rights, and from their ranks they determine a capomandamento, a district chairman. The task of the district councils is firstly to coordinate the affairs of the families and potential joint actions, secondly as a arbitration court in disputes between the families in the district and thirdly as representatives of their districts in the provincial commissions. In this hierarchy, the provinces rank above the districts. Similar to the districts, province structures only exist in western Sicily, where there is a particularly high number of Mafia families. Yet variations exist: Only in the provinces of Palermo and Agrigento, in which the majority of districts are concentrated, do so-called commissioni provinciali (provincial commissions) exist. They include the district chairmen of the respective province, who in turn choose a secretary from their ranks. (The provinces of Trapani, Caltanissetta and Enna, on the other hand, have no commissions, but only provincial representatives.) The two provincial commissions coordinate the activities of their districts and are the highest sanctioning body: If, for example, a family is too tolerant towards one of its picciotti who has made a serious mistake or, let’s say, the capofamiglia himself has behaved inappropriately, the provincial commissions impose the necessary penalties. They also act as arbitrators in conflicts between districts and in serious disputes between families. Regardless of whether it is a commission or a representative, the provincial level represents the interests of its families towards the other Mafia provinces. The only really important family in the eastern Sicilian provinces of Catania, Syracuse, Messina and Ragusa is the family from Catania, which is anyway a special case: It controls a large part of the city and province of Catania in a kind of franchising system with relatively independent subgroups; additionally, with the help of vassal groups also large parts of the

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province of Syracuse and—via a cell in Messina—also the entire Ionian coast of the province of Messina. At least theoretically, the commissione interprovinciale, the regional commission, is the highest level of the Cosa Nostra. But neither at its foundation at the end of the 1950s nor after its short-term reactivation in 1975 did it play an important role in practice. That is the case, because the highest organizational unit of the Cosa Nostra is indeed the so-called cupola (literally “dome”), which is the provincial commission of Palermo (cf. Fig. 3.3). It was founded in 1958—allegedly at the suggestion of the American colleagues Lucky Luciano and Joseph (Joe) Bonanno (“Joe Bananas”, 1905– 2002).56 All capimandamento of the province of Palermo belong to it. In the heyday of cigarette smuggling, even some Campanian camorristi like the Zaza, Nuvoletta and Bardellino had a permanent seat in the cupola.57 If there are particularly important questions, the capifamiglia and representatives of other provinces also take part in the meetings of the cupola. Its influence was not only felt in Palermo, but also throughout Sicily. It therefore makes sense that the former Mafia boss Leonardo Messina (born 1955) from the San Cataldo (CL) family made the following statement:

Dome Cupola Provinces Province Districts Mandamenti Families Famiglie Men of honor Uomini d'onore Fig. 3.3  Organizational structure of Cosa Nostra

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Palermo was always seen as occupying the top position, even if the ‘men of honor’ here and there belong to the same organization. Since I was a little boy, it was said: ‘We give money because Palermo does the cigarette trade, Palermo does this and that.’ It was never the province of Caltanissetta that said: ‘Let’s collect money to set up a business for Cosa Nostra.’ (…). They (the Palermitans, note by the author) have the leading role.58

Even outsiders have turned to the cupola in important matters. For example, during the Second Mafia War, New York Mafia boss Paul Castellano (1915–1985) asked the cupola how he should behave towards Mafia members who had fled to the USA. The cupola, as the central body, oversees coordination efforts and agreements and the cupola formulates the guidelines for the entire Cosa Nostra. For example, the decision to stop kidnappings in Sicily in the 1970s was made by the cupola. In addition, the group coordinates large “businesses” that affect several provinces at the same time and determines which political party to support. Under its first three secretaries, as the chairmen are called—Salvatore Greco, Tano Badalamenti and Michele Greco—the provincial commission was not yet a tightly run central management body, because individual capifamiglia simply ignored the commission’s decisions if they were inconvenient for them. Only under Riina were the decisions of the cupola respected by all, even more so because Riina’s rule expanded into the other Mafia provinces, and that made the cupola the central leadership body of the Cosa Nostra during his time as secretary (1982– 1993). Perhaps for this reason, the press pithily dubbed Riina the capo dei capi (boss of bosses), that is, the first man of the Cosa Nostra. Later, under Provenzano, Riinas successor, the activities of the cupola came to a standstill. All attempts to reactivate it have so far failed. The Cosa Nostra does not have a monopoly on crime in Sicily, but has to make arrangements with other criminals: in the past, those were the brigands and today they are the groups of the Stidda, the ‘Ndrangheta, “ordinary” gangs of criminals, the Nigerian clans and petty criminals. Brigands were still widespread in all rural areas of Sicily until the 1950s.59 They consisted of people whose offenses were by no means considered reprehensible in the eyes of the population, since these offenses were about “justified murders” within the framework of a vendetta (blood revenge), about minor offenses committed out of necessity or about avoiding military service. The criminal acts of the brigands were limited to members of the upper class, but never affected the poor, let alone those from the areas they came from. Occasionally, brigands even gave “their people” a share of the loot, which is why they were highly respected as “Robin Hoods” in the population.

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Brigands no longer exist today, but in eastern Sicily “ordinary” gangs of criminals have developed into a true mass phenomenon.60 No wonder, since they were able to develop there undisturbed by Mafia competition. Among the first of these gangs were the Cursoti in Catania, initially led by Luigi (Jimmy) Miano (1950–2005), later by Giuseppe Garozzo (“Pippu u’ maritatu”, born 1944).61 With over 1,000 members, they could easily outmaneuver the local Cosa Nostra family, which had only about 30 members. The Cursoti not only controlled a large part of Catania and its hinterland, but even founded a group as far north as in Milan. From the Cursoti, the Carcagnusi led by Santo Mazzei soon split off after leadership disputes. In addition to the Cursoti and the Carcagnusi, however, a number of other gangs also emerged, such as the Mussi di Ficurinia led by Sebastiano Laudani62, the Puntina founded by Giuseppe Di Mauro, the Carateddi initiated by Ignazio (‘U Carateddu) Bonaccorsi and the Ceusi founded by the Piacenti.63 In the small town of Belpasso (CT), Giuseppe Pulvirenti († 2009) founded another clan, the Malpassoti, which also committed criminal offenses in the city of Catania. The most important criminal gang in Catania today is the Cappello clan64, but the Laudani, Ceusi, Carateddi and some Cursoti are also still active there.65 In the capital of the province of Syracuse, Agostino Urso66 founded the first criminal gang in the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, more gangs followed, not only in the city of Syracuse, but also in the province overall.67 There are also some “ordinary” gangs of criminals active in the provinces of Messina68 and Ragusa69. The city of Messina occupies a special place, given that it is there that the influence of the ‘Ndrangheta70, the most powerful of the four Italian Mafia organizations, is palpable  due to the city’s geographical proximity to Calabria. Above all, the ‘ndrine—as the ‘Ndrangheta clans are called— which are based in the neighboring province of Reggio Calabria and led by the powerful Giuseppe Morabito (born 1934)— have always been interested in Messina.71 The first ‘ndrina was founded in Messina at the end of the 1970s by Messina-born Gaetano Costa (born 1951), who had become a member of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta as early as 1972. The group quickly expanded and relatively autonomous subgroups emerged in various city districts. Soon, these clans no longer recognized Costa’s authority and had become independent by the latest in 1987.72 In the “home territory” of the Cosa Nostra, that is, in western Sicily, only one non-Mafia criminal gang was formed, namely the Stidda (Sic. star).73 It was founded at the beginning of the 1980s by two men from Palma di Montechiaro (AG) who were not even 20 years old—Giuseppe Croce Benvenuto and Salvatore Calatafano—and who were fed up with the old

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“Dons” of the Cosa Nostra and wanted to make their own deals. Soon, likeminded people joined them and the Stidda developed into a serious competitor for the Cosa Nostra, due in large part to former mafiosi who joined the Stidda and stamped it with a “Mafia seal”.74 Initially, the Stidda was limited to the province of Agrigento, but soon expanded into the province of Caltanissetta and even took root in the eastern Sicilian province of Ragusa.75 The only foreign criminal organizations that have established themselves firmly in Sicily are the Nigerian clans of Black Axe (or Aye), Supreme Eiye Confraternity (or Eiye), and Vikings, which compete with each other.76 They established themselves in the early 1990s as a result of the immigration of Nigerians that had started 10 years earlier. Today, there are officially about 5,000 Nigerians registered in Sicily, most of them living in Catania (approximately 950) and Palermo (approximately 900).77 The two Sicilian metropolises thus became strongholds of these “cults”78, which also operate in refugee camps such as the C.A.R.A. of Mineo (CT), which had to be closed down for that reason. In addition to the organized crime gangs, Stidda, the ‘Ndrangheta of Messina, and the Nigerian clans, there are numerous unaffiliated common criminals, especially in large cities. These include independent purse snatchers, drug dealers, fences, loan sharks, pimps, and illegal parking attendants. The Cosa Nostra’s dealings with the “ordinary” criminal world range from vassalage to cooperation and tolerance to war. Most of the criminal groups in the provinces of Catania and Syracuse are vassals of the Catania family Santapaola.79 Not a few of these groups were founded in agreement with Nitto Santapaola, and the boss of the Lentini clan, Sebastiano (Nello) Nardo (born 1948), who even seems to have been admitted to the Cosa Nostra. The vassal clans form a cartel—under the leadership of Nardo— that pays a so-called quota di rispetto (fee of respect) to the Santapaola family.80 Santapaola is consulted on important issues such as the founding of new clans and the filling of top positions.81 The difference between the Syracusan vassal clans and the relatively autonomous subgroups of the Santapaola family in Catania and the surrounding area lies in the greater internal autonomy of the vassals, which are run by the gang leaders like personal “family businesses”. Other criminal gangs work for the Cosa Nostra, which is happy to “outsource” particularly dangerous tasks. This held especially true in the past for the brigands, who were particularly useful to the Cosa Nostra in kidnappings. Since the brigands lived in inaccessible hiding places in the mountains, it was easy for them to take on the task of providing “accommodation” for kidnapping victims. If the brigands became too powerful, they were simply betrayed to the carabinieri. This is exactly

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what happened to the brigand band of Salvatore Giuliano: During the separatist period, they were given dangerous tasks such as political attacks on carabinieri stations and socialist party offices. After the attack on the Portella della Ginestra, this particular act of violence could then easily be blamed on the band alone. The Cosa Nostra makes good use of even petty criminals to surveil a territory, to sell drugs on the city squares or, for a fee, to commit acts of violence. The Messina ‘Ndrangheta groups are tolerated because the Cosa Nostra and its sister organization ‘Ndrangheta have always maintained friendly relations with each other. This is more true than ever today, since, after all, the Cosa Nostra is dependent on the ‘Ndrangheta, which dominates the drug business. Therefore, the Cosa Nostra leaves the territory of the city of Messina almost completely to the local ‘Ndrangheta groups— with exception of the Romeo clan, a cell of the Catania family Santapaola, which controls the southern periphery of Messina as far south as the border with the province of Catania. Petty criminals who engage in activities in which the Cosa Nostra is not interested, such small-time thefts, prostitution or the illegal extortion of parking fees, have nothing to fear from the Cosa Nostra. However, these low-level criminals must recognize the supremacy of the respective Mafia family—and not infrequently pay protection money or share part of their income.82 If the thieves are permitted to fence items, the rule requires them not to sell stolen items for at least 24 hours so that the Cosa Nostra has the opportunity to return the stolen goods, should the victim turn to a “man of honor” to retrieve them.83 The exact nature of the relationship between the Cosa Nostra and the Nigerian gangs, whose activities are centered in the Mafia strongholds of Palermo and Catania, is unknown. As wiretaps show, the Nigerians are autonomous, but certainly have to show respect to the Mafia. The fact that there have been no clashes so far suggests that the Nigerian Mafia accepts the supremacy of the Cosa Nostra and both sides have come to an arrangement.84 In the area of drug trafficking, cooperation seems to be the modus operandi, since after all, the Nigerians have their own sources of supply, which should make them interesting for the Mafia as business partners. If cani sciolti (stray dogs), as small criminals are called, commit crimes without authorization or rival gangs threaten the hegemony of the Cosa Nostra, the organization reacts with the utmost severity: Innumerable young men from the slums of the big cities, who committed thefts and smaller robberies out of necessity, were killed by the Cosa Nostra.85 Most of them disappeared without a trace—possibly strangled in Palermo and dissolved in acid in Filippo Marchese’s notorious death chamber on Piazza Sant’Erasmo. While the Cosa Nostra easily deals with the pesky “stray dogs” who commit petty crimes, that is not the case

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for large organized gangs like the Stidda or the Cursoti from Catania. Real wars took place between the new competitors and the affected Mafia families. Between 1987 and 1992, fighting between the Stidda and the Mafia in the area around Agrigento, Riesi (CL), Mazzarino (CL), Gela (CL), Niscemi (CL) and Vittoria (RG) led to almost 500 deaths. Since neither side could prevail, there was a kind of peace treaty in 1992 and the territory was divided up. Violent conflicts occurred between the criminal gangs from Catania and the Cosa Nostra, which were resolved in the late 1970s, when some leading Cursoti, such as Alfio Ferlito (1946–1982) and Salvatore (Turi) Pillera (“Turi cachiti”, born 1954), were accepted into the Mafia of Catania. The Cosa Nostra came to an agreement with the Malpassoti and the Laudani, by ceding them a part of the territory or certain business areas; the Malpassoti and Laudani “thanked” the Cosa Nostra by acting as its “military arm” and carrying out contract killings. In 1991 and 1992, another violent confrontation took place in Catania, this time between the Mafia family Santapaola and the newly formed Clan Cappello. This war, which claimed the lives of around 200 people and also involved respective allied groups, ended with a compromise: The Cosa Nostra had to give up a part of its territory to its rival Salvatore (Turi) Cappello (born 1959), not only in the city of Catania and its hinterland, but also in the province of Syracuse, where the Bottaro-Attanasio band has been allied with the Cappello group.

3.2 From Have-Nots to “Men of Honor” The Mafia has always recruited its personnel mainly from the lower classes of society, whose members benefit more than others from active participation in a Mafia group. However, members of the middle class also join, mainly out of family tradition; members of the upper class, on the other hand, almost never stoop to become members. The economic situation of the majority of the population in Sicily was catastrophic at the time after the World War II: The majority of people— itinerant farm workers, smallholders, sulfur miners and factory workers— lived crammed together with livestock under miserable hygienic conditions in a confined space. People had hardly enough to eat, could neither read nor write and diseases such as malaria and cholera were part of everyday life. In the last 70 years, the living conditions of the lower social classes have improved considerably thanks to various state-sponsored intervention programs, but even today around a quarter of the population lives in poverty.1 In the poor neighborhoods of the metropolises the situation is particularly

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dramatic: The living conditions are inadequate and an estimated 20% of children do not go to school, but instead go to a casual job or “work” at criminal activities, which leads to many of them ending up in juvenile detention in their early years. Given that youth unemployment is currently at just under 54%2 it is for all intents and purposes a hopeless undertaking for previously convicted juveniles to strive for a non-criminal existence. In view of the persistent poverty, the Cosa Nostra has offered one of the few opportunities to secure one’s sheer survival and to rise socially beyond that. Those who are willing to throw overboard moral scruples and engage in violent acts can not only gain great respect in their environment, but also interact on an equal footing with members of the middle or upper class. Gaetano Mosca remarked more than a hundred years ago on the young men from the lower class who joined the Mafia: They go down the path of crime in the hope of making a career. They are driven by an admiration for the old criminals, which is not entirely free of envy. They see these men surrounded by prestige and in a social position which they would not have reached if they had followed honest paths.3

This motivation has not changed to this day. The ex-Mafioso Gaspare Mutolo, who had worked as a mechanic in an automobile shop frequented by mafiosi at the beginning of his career, described the “men of honor” with admiration: You can recognize them immediately: They dress elegantly, have a proud and distant look and only talk to each other. They never argue and are treated with the utmost respect by everyone. (…) I dreamed of the day when I could be one of them.4

Mutolo was not primarily interested in becoming a mafioso in order to secure his livelihood, which he could have managed with some difficulty as a mechanic; for him it was more important to gain social prestige—in other words “honor.” His colleague Francesco Mannino Mannoia also explained that he did not join the Mafia for the money, but because he wanted to be respected. Before becoming a mafioso, he had been a nuddo ammiscatu cu niente (Sic. nobody mixed with nothing), but once he joined, everyone bowed their heads to him.5 Gaspare Sugamiele († 2018) reported similar reasons for his membership in the Mafia clan from Paceco (TP): “You are a nobody (…). But then everyone greets you when you walk by and you are satisfied.”6 As a study by the Abele group on the social structure

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of members of Italian Mafia organizations shows, mafiosi come predominantly from the lower social class, but they are not from the sub-proletariat.7 Most small-time criminals have no chance of being accepted into the Cosa Nostra, rather, they only occasionally run errands for it. Since mafiosi do not want to be perceived as criminals, it is of utmost importance to them to wear a “bourgeois mask” in public. For this reason, they officially pursue a respectable occupation that serves to conceal their illegal activities. For example, Giuseppe Fontana, accused of being the murderer of Emanuele Notarbartolo, appeared to be a citrus fruit dealer, which allowed him to claim that he had been in Tunisia during the time of the crime, where he had taken care of the harvesting and shipping of a large order of lemons.8 The alibi, which was confirmed by many witnesses, was false, but thanks to Fontana’s “bourgeois mask” it was credible. During the era of the rural Mafia, that is, until the 1950s, mafiosi were engaged in very specific professions, namely in those that could be effectively carried out only by the use of violence in the face of widespread lawlessness. The most typical Mafia profession was that of the guard (guardiano ), often involving mounted field guards (campieri ) on grain latifundia, guards (giardinieri ) in citrus groves, water guards (fontanieri ) or guards in one of the factories or villas of the wealthy. The profession of guard was attractive to mafiosi in that it did not require them to do actual work, as their violent reputation was enough to deter potential thieves. In addition, being employed as a guard offered good opportunities for illegal enrichment, as part of the harvest or water could be diverted. Guards who did not belong to the Cosa Nostra were quickly displaced. The more intelligent mafiosi eventually rose from guard to administrator or gabellotto (large tenant), which offered even better opportunities for enrichment. Since the job of gabellotto was almost exclusively carried out by mafiosi, they are practically considered prototypes of early mafia bosses.9 A counterpart to the gabellotto was the foreman (caporale )10, a figure who was mainly active in the countryside, but could also be found in the city. The rural foremen were charged with the selection of agricultural workers—usually on the informal markets in the villages—for a day, a season or a whole year.11 The foremen negotiated lump sum payments with the clients. They kept the lion’s share for themselves, while the agricultural workers only received a small fee. In the cities, the foremen were responsible for the recruitment and supervision of the staff in the numerous factories.12 Mostly, these foremen were extremely brutal people, who considered the workers as “slaves”. Another typical Mafia profession was that of the sensale (middleman) 13, who could be considered the counterpart in the area of trade to the gabellotti and foremen. Middlemen

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were active in the livestock, citrus and wheat trade.14 They mediated between the producer and the buyer, for which they demanded a fee from both sides, appropriately called a camorra.15,16 Some mafiosi even worked as millers and, with the Associazione dei Mugnai (Association of Millers), founded a Mafia organization that, through violence, established a sales cartel and artificially inflated flour prices.17 A report submitted in 1898 by the then Chief of Police of Palermo, Ermanno Sangiorgi, shows the distribution of occupations among the capi and vicecapi of various Mafia clans in Palermo, as shown in Fig. 3.4. A number of Mafia gabellotti managed to make the jump to the class of landowners. The most famous examples are Antonino Giammona, Giuseppe Greco (“Piddu u’ tinenti”), Calogero Vizzini, Giuseppe Genco Russo and Paolino Bontate. For the majority of mafiosi, however, the situation was less favorable: they remained ordinary guards or—according to the Sangiorgi report, the testimony of Mafia turncoat Melchiorre Allegra (1881–1951), and a list of 1,400 mafiosi in the province of Agrigento from 1890—they became farmers, sulfur miners, shoemakers, masons, butchers, fishmongers, carriage drivers, shopkeepers, waiters, florists, or nursing assistants, and remained nullatenenti (have-nots) for their entire lives.18 But even if they did not become rich, they were highly respected—or at least feared—by the population because of their membership in the Cosa Nostra. As the roles of guard and gabellotto disappeared after the agrarian reform in the 1950s, “honorable men” began to pursue other occupations. Since the most money could be earned in the construction industry due to the emerging construction boom, numerous mafiosi, such as Totuccio Inzerillo, Salvatore La Barbera and Angelo La Barbera, Antonino Buscemi, Francesco Bonura and Rosario Spatola in Palermo, founded small construction companies as well as cement factories, earthmoving companies or transport

Fig. 3.4  Occupations of the capi and vicecapi of various Mafia clans in Palermo

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companies all over the island. With the exception of Spatola, most of these “entrepreneurs” did not become rich. The majority of the mafiosi of today are, like their predecessors, “officially” self-employed: The Palermo mafiosi Raffaele Spina (1923–?), Totuccio Contorno and—early in his career—also the later construction entrepreneur Rosario Spatola were itinerant milkmen. The Palermobased “men of honor” Giacomo Sciarratta (1901–?) and Francesco Sutera each owned a bakery, their colleague Raffaele Ganci had a butcher’s shop. Tommaso Buscetta worked in his father’s glassmaking workshop in Palermo. His colleague Salvatore Cancemi from the Porta Nuova family, on the other hand, was active in the livestock trade and in his father’s butcher shops. Salvatore and Giovanni Lo Cicero managed, with a license from the city of Palermo, to become funeral directors as did Giuseppe (Pinuzzo) Trinca. Salvatore Buscemi (born 1938), the brother of the construction entrepreneur Antonino, owned a grocer’s shop in the hamlet of Passo di Rigano (PA). Stefano Leale († 1960) had a coffee roastery in the Palermo Capo market. Pino Greco owned the Valtras, a freight company. The officially elected successor to Totò Riina in 2018, Settimo Mineo, is the owner of a jewelry store on Palermo’s Corso Tukory. Carmelo Colletti from Ribera (AG) owned a car dealership and an olive oil mill. The Catania boss Nitto Santapaola went from being an itinerant shoe salesman to general representative of the Renault company in Catania and owned two large car dealerships. His brother Salvatore owned a grilling company, his cousins, the Ferrera brothers, had a mineral water business and his brother-in-law Pippo Ercolano († 2012) had a transportation business. Francesco (Ciccio) Pastoia (1943–2005) from Belmonte Mezzagno (PA) was also a transportation entrepreneur. The “honorable man” from Catania, Antonino Calderone operated two gas stations and his brother Pippo owned a heating materials store. Nino Gioè from Altofonte (PA) also had a gas station. Giovanni Brusca from San Giuseppe Jato (PA) traded in agricultural products such as cheese, almonds and olive oil. Francesco Di Carlo from Altofonte (PA) owned a dairy. Vito Vitale from Partinico (PA) worked as a farmer on his father’s property and Vito Atria (1939–1985) from Partanna (TP) was a sheep breeder. Natale Bonafede (born 1969) from Marsala was a shepherd. There is not one “typical” profession for mafiosi that has developed over the past 70 years. Some of them were “officially” employees or laborers: Boss Giuseppe Di Cristina from Riesi first worked as a cashier at a bank and later as an employee at the sulfur mining company Società Chimica Mineraria Siciliana (SO.CHI.MI.SI.). Andrea Adamo (born 1962) of Palermo sold used motorcycles, his colleague Francesco Franzese was a construction

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foreman, Nicola Mandalà (born 1968) from Villabate (PA) was an employee in a betting office and Giuseppe Monticciolo (born 1969) from the family of San Giuseppe Jato (PA) was a mason. Balduccio Di Maggio from San Giuseppe Jato and Gaspare Mutolo were car mechanics. The boss from Trapani, Matteo Messina Denaro, never officially advanced beyond farm laborer. Some mafiosi had only occasional jobs like Enzo Sinagra of Palmero, who worked as a carpenter, mason or factory worker in a sardine factory, Gaspare Spatuzza, who was officially a painter, or Gianni Nicchi, who sometimes worked as a bartender. In contrast to the bosses who rose into the upper middle class during the era of the rural Mafia, such advancement up the social ladder has not been possible for any “honorable man” since then. Thanks to drug trafficking, the bosses—and partly also some picciotti—have become extraordinarily rich, but in contrast to the old “Dons” they can no longer enjoy their wealth in freedom. Instead, many of them have found a violent death during the Mafia wars, had to flee abroad, hide or ended up in prison. Although life as a mafioso has undoubtedly lost some of its attractiveness in recent decades, many who belong to the lower class still take the risks of membership and join a cosca. Some members of the middle class join the Cosa Nostra in the hope of improving their social status.19 For example, the physician Melchiorre Allegra openly admitted that he had joined the Cosa Nostra because it had been advantageous for him.20 However, most middle-class mafiosi join the Cosa Nostra out of a sense of familial obligation: their fathers, uncles, or grandfathers, who usually came from the lower class, had provided them with a good education, but expected them to remain loyal to the Mafia. Numerous official documents, such as the Rasponi Report of 1874, show that members of the middle class have always been present in the ranks of the Mafia. The medical profession seems to be particularly well represented:21 among them is Allegra mentioned above, who worked as a military doctor in Palermo for a long time before opening his own clinic in Castelvetrano (TP). The boss Michele Navarra was not only a doctor, but even rose to the position of director of the Corleone hospital. His colleague Francesco Barbaccia (1922–2010) worked as a prison doctor in the Ucciardone prison in Palermo, while Antonino Rizzuto was director of the vaccination center of the Palermo USL 58 health authority. Gioacchino Pennino (born 1938) was also a doctor, although his passion was politics. Other Mafia doctors include the neurologist Antonino Cinà and the surgeon Giuseppe Guttadauro (born 1948), both of whom were employed at the Civico hospital in Palermo. Finally, the capomafia Ignazio Melodia (’U

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Dutturi, † 2019) from Alcamo (TP) should be mentioned, who was responsible for hygiene at the Trapani Provincial Health Authority, as well as the heart specialist Salvatore Emanuele Di Maggio (born 1949) from Torretta (PA). Some of the most famous Mafia lawyers include Antonio Ortoleva, the boss of Mistretta (ME), who was sentenced during Fascism. In recent years, Salvatore Chiaracane (born 1946), one of the most famous criminal defense lawyers in Palermo, made headlines when he was sentenced as a member of the Corso dei Mille family in the Maxi Trial.22 His colleague Gaetano Zarcone, a Mafia lawyer from the Santa Maria di Gesù family, also ended up in prison as a member of the Cosa Nostra.23 Another well-known Mafia lawyer is Raffaele Bevilacqua (born 1949) from Barrafranca (EN). The first cleric to be known as a Mafia member was the Capuchin monk Antonio Russo, who was involved with the Uditore Mafia clan at the end of the nineteenth century.24 However, the most famous Mafia priest by far was Agostino Coppola (1936–1995) from the Partinico family.25 Stefano Castronovo, also known as Fra’ Giacinto (1919–1980), a Franciscan friar from Favara (AG) who caused trouble in the Santa Maria di Gesù convent in Palermo, was probably also a “man of honor”.26 All these mafiosi provided important services to the Cosa Nostra, either thanks to their special professional skills or simply because of their higher level of education: For example, the monk Russo stood out at a time when illiteracy was widespread, by writing blackmail letters. Writing skills are still in demand today, in view of the low education level of many bosses: Riina’s famous papello, with which the boss blackmailed the Italian state, is said to have been written by the doctor Cinà. Mafia lawyers, like Ortoleva, used their legal skills and sometime illegal maneuvers to put the trials of fellow mafiosi who had gotten into trouble “in order”. And yes, Zarcone even smuggled a bottle of poison into the Ucciardone prison in 1983, with which inmates there wanted to kill their Mafia colleague Gerlando Alberti (1927–2012). The Mafia doctors were also useful to the overall organization: Allegra not only treated mafiosi for free, but also served as a military doctor and could declare mafiosi unfit for military service. Cinà, on the other hand, treated mafiosi who were injured in firefights and acted as a trusted doctor of the fugitive bosses Riina, Bagarella and Provenzano.27 Antonino Rizzuto not only ensured that Riina’s children who were born on the run were vaccinated, but also procured the necessary health certificates for Raffaele Ganci’s butcher shop. Barbaccia, on the other hand, made sure as prison doctor that the Mafia prisoners in Ucciardone lacked nothing. The priest Agostino Coppola administered the sacraments to his fugitive colleagues. For

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example, he married Totò Riina with Antonietta (Ninetta) Bagarella (born 1944). In addition, in the 1970s, when the Mafia was actively involved in kidnappings, Coppola made himself useful as a mediator between the victims’ families and the Mafia. Upper class members rarely find themselves willing to join a Mafia cosca due to their sense of superiority, since they would have to associate with uneducated peasants, workers, and craftsmen. Given that they already occupy the upper end of the social ladder, they would not gain much from a formal membership in the Cosa Nostra. Some of the few known upper class Mafia members included Marquis Airoldi, Baron Pancamo, Baron Giuseppe Sgadari, and Count Lucio Tasca Bordonaro, if we are to believe Mafia defector Melchiorre Allegra.28 Prince Giovanni Alliata Di Montereale was also said to be a “man of honor”.29 In recent times, only one aristocrat has made headlines as a Mafia member: Prince Alessandro Vanni Calvello Mantegna, Prince of San Vincenzo (1939–2016). The prince not only seems to have been involved in drug deals, but he also ran an exclusive night club in his castle in San Nicolò l’Arena (PA) that was often used as a Mafia meeting place.30 Even though few middle and upper class members are “true” Mafia members, many people of higher social standing have always been closely associated with the Cosa Nostra. The Prefect of Palermo Gioacchino Rasponi (1829–1877) made the following observation 150 years ago: The rich make use of it (the Mafia, note by the author) to protect their person or their property from the ineradicable plague of crime, or to maintain their unlawful influence, which now threatens to be diminished due to the development and progress of liberal institutions; the middle class either throws itself into its arms with joy or, out of fear of retaliation, is willing to cooperate, or because the Mafia is an effective means to achieve wealth and status and thus to fulfill their own desires and ambitions.31

In the past, these people who, in the eyes of the law, were usually upstanding citizens from the “better class” who voluntarily got involved with the Mafia in order to realize their own interests, were referred to as the “alta Mafia” (upper Mafia), “borghesia mafiosa” (Mafia bourgeoisie) or “Mafia in guanti gialli” (Mafia in yellow gloves). In recent times, they have been referred to as the “colletti bianchi” (white collars).32 According to a secret list kept by the Palermo prosecutor’s office, in 2000 a total of 486 such “upper class Mafia friends” were listed, including numerous doctors, defense lawyers, tax consultants, notaries, businessmen, and even a judge.33 It is likely that this

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number represents only the “tip of the iceberg.” These backers and helpers of the Mafia are of the utmost importance for the organization: without their support, the Cosa Nostra could not exist at all and would quickly degenerate into an “ordinary” crime syndicate.

3.3 The Way into the Cosa Nostra The Cosa Nostra considers itself an elite organization and only accepts people who meet certain requirements. The candidates are carefully vetted and slowly introduced to the organization. At the end of a probationary period, they have to pass a test of courage and, if they pass, they are “made” into “men of honor” by means of an initiation ritual. After that, everything changes for them, nothing remains as it was before they joined: they have to subordinate all aspects of their lives to the requirements of the Cosa Nostra. There are six requirements for membership in the Mafia: The first is that the candidates of the Cosa Nostra are Sicilians, although occasionally Campanians and Calabrians are allowed to join. Many mafiosi such as Tommaso Buscetta considered these exceptions a horror because they considered non-Sicilians to be unreliable.1 New York Mafia boss Joe Bonanno, who himself grew up in Sicily, explained that other southern Italians, with whom the Sicilians otherwise had much in common, could never really understand the tradition of the Cosa Nostra, because one had to grow up with it.2 Even Lucky Luciano, who grew up in New York, was not a true “man of honor” in Bonanno’s eyes, but rather quite degenerate in terms of Mafia culture.3 Perhaps because the American Cosa Nostra is aware of its shortcomings, in recent years it has sent its young members back to the old country to take “private lessons” from the Sicilian “Dons”.4 The second condition for membership is linked to gender: Only men are accepted into the organization, and only heterosexual men. Homosexuality is not only frowned upon in the Cosa Nostra, but also in Sicilian society as a whole. There is hardly a worse insult than arrusu (Sic. gay). Even though today women are taking on important roles in the organization due to the increased need for personnel, they are not accepted as members. According to Sicilian values, women are supposed to take care of the family, the household and the children and have no business in public and certainly not within the Cosa Nostra. The third requirement for membership also derives from this set of traditional values: future members must come from a “decent” family: they must be born in wedlock and their parents may not be divorced or living apart,

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nor may their female relatives have worked as prostitutes. (According to the culture of honor and shame, which is valid not only in Sicily, but throughout the Mediterranean, married women are expected to be faithful and unmarried girls are to preserve their virginity until marriage. Men, on the other hand, are responsible for protecting the honor of the women in their families.5 Anyone who comes from a family that has violated these norms is an undesirable subject in an “honorable” society.) The fourth condition for membership is that candidates may not have any “inappropriate relatives”, which refers to any uniformed personnel such as police, carabinieri, even firefighters and postmen.6 This is understandable in the case of police and carabinieri, as they are the “natural” enemies of criminals. In addition, neither the future members nor their relatives may ever have behaved “dishonorably”.7 This means that they have not turned to the police for help in case of injustice—because the Cosa Nostra expects a “real” man to be able to assert his own rights. The fifth requirement for membership is that future members may not have any personal weaknesses. They may not be addicted to alcohol or gambling, nor drug-dependent, because a lack of self-discipline would impair their ability to act. Mafia informant Leonardo Messina explained: None of us can afford the luxury of drug addiction. A man of honor is a man of honor 24 hours a day. It is not acceptable, for example, that he receives an order to commit murder at three in the morning and cannot think clearly.8

The sixth and final membership requirement is that future Mafia members possess nerves of steel and courage without fear, which includes the ability to commit murder. Some “honorable men” such as Leonardo Vitale who later became a pentito, had problems fulfilling this requirement. This meant that it took a long time until his uncle Giovan Battista (Titta) (1925–1974) had taught him to commit such a violent act. Others, like Antonino (Nino) Santapaola, the brother of Nitto Santapaola, had no problems with murder. Antonino Calderone said the following about his colleague: Nino Santapaola (…) is the most cruel person I have ever met. Hitler committed fewer murders than he did. Nino needed to kill. If someone had to be killed, he was the first to offer, and then he had to set out immediately. Some said Nino was insane. (…) Every Saturday night this crazy guy went hunting. He actually enjoyed massacring people, and took the first one he could catch. Often, Alfio Amato, who suffered from the same illness, accompanied him.9

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Such excesses are indeed disapproved of in the Mafia—Santapaola was not called “Ninu, ‘u Pazzu” (Sic. Nino, the Madman) for nothing—but they are tolerated. When a family needs new staff, the old “men of honor” first look for promising candidates in their immediate environment. Young men from Mafia families have the best chances to be chosen. After all, they were born into and come from a “good family” in the definition of the Mafia. Many defectors said that their path had been predetermined. For example, Leonardo Vitale reported: My guilt is that I was born into a Mafia family. That I grew up in a family with a Mafia tradition, lived in a society where only mafiosi are respected, while those who are not, are despised.10

Sons from Mafia families are prepared for their role as future “men of honor” from a very young age. Mothers play a key role in their upbringing, given that they themselves, like their husbands, usually come from Mafia-associated families. They pass on the typical Mafia values to their sons; values which do not differ much from those of the Sicilian lower class: an exaggerated sense of family, a deep connection to Catholicism, a pronounced hostility towards the state and a general mistrust of strangers. Yet mothers not only pass on these convictions to their offspring, they also ensure that they are adhered to—even when their children have already reached adulthood. If, for example, a family member has been killed, it is mainly the women11 who call for revenge and incite their male family members to a vendetta (blood revenge), as in the case of Serafina Battaglia (1919–2004): After her husband Stefano Leale was killed in 1960, she pressured her son Salvatore until he was reluctantly willing to carry out the vendetta. However, the revenge did not materialize because Salvatore was killed beforehand. The specific criminal skills that a mafioso must possess are taught to the boy by a male relative, usually the uncle.12 The reason why fathers do not take care of the criminal education of their sons themselves is that Mafia fathers usually behave as “Padre padrone”13 (literally” father and lord”) at home and communicate little with their sons. As patriarchs, they expect obedience and subordination. The boys often hear words like “Go to your uncle and talk to him a little” as early as 9 or 10 years old, and are then prepared for life in the Cosa Nostra by this uncle, including in criminal techniques such as shooting.14 Pino Marchese from the Corso dei Mille family confirmed this:

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After the arrest of my brother Nino, my uncle, who was a significant mafioso, always tried to keep me very close to him. I kept in touch with my brother who was in prison while my father was hiding on a farm in Terrasini, where many other mafiosi were. (…) At this point, my uncle, Filippo Marchese, approached me to be my guide in this world.15

Giovan Battista Ferrante (1958) from the San Lorenzo family reported similarly: Since I had no desire to learn, I dropped out of school early and started working: I worked as a truck driver for my father. Immediately after military service, the first signals came. It was my uncle who insisted that I join the Mafia. He was a ‘soldier’ of the ‘family’ of San Lorenzo. Maybe he wanted to pass the family’s scepter on to me because he himself had no sons.16

Young men from Mafia families have hardly any chance of taking a different path than the Mafia. Psychologist Girolamo Lo Verso, who has worked with Mafia defectors and their relatives, came to the following conclusion: You are born as a mafioso and you are made into a mafioso. The future mafioso is ‘watched’ from childhood on and ‘educated’ accordingly. He is psychologically and pedagogically accompanied by a respected mafioso. He is made into a perfect and cold killer.17

In the course of his education, the future “man of honor” develops the typical Mafia identity, which is characterized by completely turning off one’s individual subjectivity. Individual needs and feelings are not allowed, rather, the thoughts, actions and feelings of the mafioso are determined by the organization, just like in fundamentalist cults.18 However, not all offspring of Mafia fathers become killers. Not a few “honorable men” wish nothing more for their sons than a less dangerous life and send them to good schools. Yet even if those then take up a respected bourgeois profession—medicine seems to be the most popular—they do not abandon the mentality instilled in them from youth and remain connected to the Cosa Nostra—often as secret “honorable men”. If “manpower” is needed— as in the years after the Maxi Trial—they also take on high level positions in the Cosa Nostra such as that of the capofamiglia. It seems that only a few had a problem with this approach, for example the medical doctor Vincenzo Ferro, who was supposed to take over the position of his imprisoned father Giuseppe as head of the family from Alcamo (TP).19 Cases like

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that of Peppino Impastato, who was murdered by the Mafia in 1978, are an absolute exception: He not only refused to follow in his father’s footsteps, but also loudly polemized against the Cosa Nostra in public. Although insiders estimate that probably between 70% and 80% of all “men of honor” stem from Mafia families, those from non-Mafia environments can also be accepted into the Cosa Nostra. Back when mafiosi could still show themselves in public without any problems, young men who wanted to join, were drawn to the older “honorable men” “like moths to the light”, and tried to catch their attention. They sought out the places which mafiosi usually frequented and hoped for an opportunity to prove themselves. Thus, Tommaso Buscetta, whose father had nothing to do with the Cosa Nostra, but was a respectable glassmaker20, always dreamed of joining the Cosa Nostra, until chance came to his aid: One day, the old boss of the Porta Nuova family, Tanu Filippone, took a walk in the company of a somewhat chubby young mafioso. Suddenly, a pickpocket from another district, who did not know the Mafia boss, snatched the shopping bag from him. The young mafioso pursued the thief, but because he was overweight, he did not succeed. Buscetta, who had observed the incident, ran after the robber and without further ado cut his throat with a piece of glass—and that meant that he now held the “entrance ticket” to the Cosa Nostra in his hand. Don Tanu summoned Buscetta and praised him, saying he had behaved like a real “men of honor”. A short time later, Buscetta was accepted into Filippone’s family.— Most of the time, however, such invitations to join do not happen that fast. As a rule, a potential member is only slowly introduced to the organization by an experienced “man of honor”. If an older mafioso has set his sights on a young man, he first obtains the permission of the family to “have the young man around”, vouches for him in this phase of the avvicinamento (approach) and observes how the candidate behaves; in addition, he obtains information about the candidate and his family of origin.21 An anonymous mafioso recounted the process as follows: Don Peppe sometimes talked to me in front of the others, and it was clear that he paid special attention to me. And I tried to earn this preferential treatment by also making an effort to behave like a man in small matters: I walked with calm steps, never ran, never shouted, never laughed out loud. If there was something to do, I was particularly careful not to give any reason for complaint, and in addition I always did more than was required.22

The length of the “approach” phase varies depending on the personality of the future member. The defector Leonardo Messina reported:

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You enter the Cosa Nostra as an avvicinato. This phase can last 20 years, or 5 years, or only 1 year; it depends on the individual person. Eventually, someone tells you when it’s time. Yet when you receive the call, you already know it’s the Cosa Nostra, because you’ve been serving their men for 10 years.23

During the “approach” phase, no serious acts of violence are carried out. Stefano Calzetta (1939–1992) from the Corso dei Mille family remembers: You’re not a killer right away. First you have to prove that you deserve the trust of the family you work for. In addition, you have to show that you are a man. Specifically, you start with smaller crimes of various kinds that a ‘soldier’ must be able to commit for his Mafia family. (…) Only after a long probationary period does the one who possesses the required talents become a ‘someone’. Only then will he be given the tasks of a killer.24

At the end of the probationary period, the novice is asked to take a test of courage. All too often this is a serious crime such as murder. After having committed the murder, he is compromised and can’t leave the organization, something that would have been possible at any time before, without any negative consequences. Giovanni Brusca described how the test of courage took place in the case of Giovanni (Gianni) Riina (born 1976), one of the sons of Totò Riina: His uncle (Leoluca Bagarella, note by the author) wanted Giovanni to assist in the murder (…), but Riina wanted to do more. He did everything. He positioned the rope. Then he pulled on the rope. (…) He was 19 years old then and had not yet been formally made an “men of honor “. (…) Before you are admitted (…), you have to pass a test of character. Giovanni Riina underwent such a test to see if the boy showed feelings and turned away. The result of the test was promising. Antonio Di Caro was strangled and the body then dissolved in acid. (…) After that, Giovanni boasted of his criminal deed.25

If the test of courage had been successful as in the case of Gianni Riina, the novice is combinato, i.e. “made” a “man of honor” via an initiation ritual26. The ceremony is usually carried out in the presence of all members of the family in a remote building. In an emergency, it can even be held in the presence of only three “men of honor” from different families in prison. When the family has gathered, the initiate is first told that the Cosa Nostra is the successor organization of the Beati Paoli. Like the old avenger’s guild, so it is said, the Cosa Nostra also fights against the unjust state, for higher justice and for the poor and the weak. Those who join can always count on

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the support of their brothers. The “men of honor” are expected to align their lives from now on according with the rules of the Cosa Nostra and to put the Mafia family above everything: one joins the Cosa Nostra with blood and only with blood, that is with death, can one leave it. Afterwards, the aspiring member is asked whether he really wants to belong to this circle, which, of course, he does after having come this far. Then the initiation ritual is carried out, which—as countless reports of defectors prove—has remained largely the same for almost 200 years: First, a person who performs the ritual and who takes over the godfathership for the novice is named. In the early days of the Cosa Nostra, this padrino (godfather) was drawn by lot, later the initiate was allowed to choose his godfather himself, with the choice usually falling on the “man of honor” who accompanied the young man during his probationary period. The godfather asks the initiate with which hand he shoots. Then he stabs him with a knife, an orange tree thorn or a needle in one of the fingers of that hand. The blood from the wound drips onto a holy image, which is then set on fire and burned to ashes. While he throws the ashes into the air, the initiate recites the oath by which he agrees to be destroyed just like the holy image, if he ever breaks his oath to the Cosa Nostra. After the ceremony, the novice is kissed brotherly on the mouth by those present. Then, he receives gifts and a big party is held with a schitichiata (Sic. banquet) similar to a baptism—with the exception that only men are present at the celebration. Leo Pellegrino from the Oblonica Cosca, a nineteenth century Mafia clan in Agrigento, described his initiation as follows: We sat in a circle. Vita asked Marsala if he had informed me about everything and if he was responsible for me, which he confirmed. Then Marsala was drawn by lot with the help of the tocco27. He tied the index finger of my right hand with a string. Then he drilled a hole into my finger with a safety pin, wiped the blood with a holy image and then burned that image. The burned paper was divided into two halves, one of which he gave to me. Then Marsala and I ground the ashes in our hands and threw them into the air. After the ceremony, which represents the act of the oath, was over, they declared that I was accepted into the society.28

A full hundred years later, Pino Marchese described the ritual in much the same way:

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I was made an “man of honor” of the Corso dei Mille family in the villa of Maniscalco Salvatore, who was a “man of honor” of the Corso dei Mille family. My uncle Filippo, Pino Greco Scarpuzzedda, Giovanni Lo Iacono and Vincenzo Spataro were present. Filippo Alcamo was my godfather (…). He pricked me in the finger of the hand I shoot with, according to the traditional ritual. When the blood comes out, you say: If I betray the rules of the Cosa Nostra, I will end up like the holy image.29

One can only speculate on the meaning of the symbols at the center of the initiation rite, such as blood, holy image, and fire .30 The blood stands for the initiate himself, who, with his blood, ritualistically binds himself to his new family. The sacred provides justification for the future criminal acts, which supposedly serve a higher, even divine purpose. Almost all mafiosi are religious and consider themselves practicing Catholics.31 According to their understanding, only God can administer justice—and the Cosa Nostra is the interpreter of the divine will! Mafiosi, therefore, actually believe that they are acting in the name of a higher justice when they commit murders.32 The former insider Salvatore Grigoli (born 1963) said: “One of my co-defendants always said when we committed a murder: ‘In the name of God.’”33 Fire could connect both elements—similar to many archaic rites, such as ancient sacrificial fires. With a high degree of certainty, one can state that the Mafia adopted its initiation ritual—as well as the signs and passwords used for identification purposes, even if later abandoned34—from the Masonic Carboneria, with which it was in close contact at the outset.35 The mysterious ritual ultimately serves to bind the individual irrevocably to the Cosa Nostra.36 The initiation is not dissimilar to the rite of Christian baptism, which is why the ‘Ndrangheta actually calls the initiation ritual battesimo (baptism).37 The novice swears off his old life forever and becomes part of a new community, a kind of “sacral superimposed superfamily”.38 As Leoluca Bagarella explained to his friend Antonio (Tony) Calvaruso before his initiation: “You are then no longer part of this world.”39 Mafiosi show their solidarity by kissing each other on the mouth during greetings40 and addressing older colleagues with zu (Sic. uncle), while they are connected to peers by the cumparatu (Sic. coparenthood, godfatherhood), a form of ritualized kinship widespread in the Mediterranean region. As early as more than one hundred years ago, the police officer Antonino Cutrera observed: The cumparatu in Sicily (…) is an indissoluble bond between two non-bloodrelated persons. (…) For this reason, Sicilian perpetrators enter into this bond,

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which is stronger than the one to relatives. The cumparatu is a safe way to have trustworthy accomplices. No betrayal is expected from the cumpare, trusting the cumpare is like trusting oneself.41

In particular, the cumparatu eliminates previously existing social differences, since after all, the mafiosi are la stessa cosa (the same thing) to each other. Their solidarity is reinforced by the fact that “honorable men” spend all their free time together. Mangiate (large meals) are regularly held among mafiosi—formerly in simple taverns and today in restaurants or agricultaral estates. In addition, one often meets up with relatives, for example on special occasions such as Easter or Ferragosto; wives and children are, of course, in the know and share in the growing prestige and wealth of their relatives.42 Since wives and children know how to behave properly, mafiosi also feel safe with the relatives of their colleagues. No private contact is maintained with strangers, that is, people outside the Mafia environment. The relationship of the picciotti to the capofamiglia, their mammasantissima (most holy mother), is a very special one and veers between veneration and fear. Gratitude is expressed towards the “family father” because he has chosen his “boys” from a large number of potential candidates. Due to many personal favors that the capi show to the “honorable men” subordinate to them, the emotional bond becomes stronger over time. Yet “men of honor” not only venerate their capi, they also feel a submissive fear of them. Gaetano Mosca made the following observation in this regard: The fear of these murderers is so great and so deeply rooted that even when they are in prison, they very rarely reveal the names of those who ordered the crimes they committed.43

Entering the Cosa Nostra, therefore, means that the individual’s identity is extinguished and replaced by a Mafia “we-identity”.44 If the new member was previously a nudo ammiscatu cu niente (Sic. nobody mixed with nothing), he is now part of a powerful whole and only speaks in the plural.45 The elimination of individual identity is also the main reason why no feelings of guilt towards the victims arise in cases of violence.46 In one’s private life, the loss of one’s individual identity leads to an inability to maintain relationships. The sociologist Renate Siebert (born 1942) states that the Mafia is able to “freeze the inner, affective life of their members, turn it off, destroy it.”47 As a result, the mafioso may “not love, only fuck.”48 A mafioso once phrased it as follows:

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I could hardly wait for it to be over and I would return home, stand under the shower (…), to wash off all the disgusting stuff and then relax during sex. If I have difficulties and am under stress, sex always helps me to find my mental balance again.49

The psychologist Girolamo Lo Verso made a similar observation when he said that mafiosi were unable to relate and lived privately according to the saying: “cummanari è megghiu ri futtiri” (Sic. To command is better than to fuck).50 Sexuality is despised because lust leads to a loss of vigilance, which in turn could be dangerous for “men of honor”.51

3.4 The “Codice d’Onore”—The Honor Code The behavior of the “men of honor” is ruled by the “code of honor”.1 Based on rules handed down by tradition, the organization puts “reins”2 on its members, which are to help ensure the smooth operation and continued existence of the Cosa Nostra. In contrast to their sister organizations ‘Ndrangheta and Camorra, Cosa Nostra rejects written records of its “laws” for security reasons. However, some former mafiosi claimed that there did exist written records in the past—however, these were never found.3 For some time now, the statutes of the Cosa Nostra have been passed on orally from generation to generation.4 Gaspare Mutolo explained that it is one of the great strengths of the Cosa Nostra never to leave anything in writing.5 There exists a real aversion to any form of written records, which is why the outrage was great when Michele Cavataio once presented a city map of Palermo at a Mafia meeting, on which he had marked all Mafia families.6 An even greater sensation was the discovery of a written version of the Mafia’s code of conduct during the arrest of Totuccio Lo Piccolo in November 2007.7 Even the press made fun of the fact that a boss like Lo Piccolo needed a written reminder to remember the rules.8 One of the most important Mafia rules is the duty of loyalty. However, this duty does not apply to the entire organization, but only to one’s own family. In the event of a feud with another family, it may well happen that a mafioso is ordered to kill another “men of honor”. An mafioso cannot change his family of his own accord. In the few cases where this has happened, numerous approvals had to be obtained, not only from the families concerned, but also from the higher authorities. In principle, “men of honor” are not allowed to accept work assignments from other

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cosche—especially if their own family does not know anything about it. That is why it is understandable that many people were outraged at the Corleonesi who secretly recruited “men of honor” from other families at the beginning of the Second Mafia War and incited them to betray their own families. However, it is common practice for picciotti to be “borrowed” by other families, especially when it comes to committing murders. After all, the probability of discovery is all the lower if a mafioso kills a person who comes from a completely different area and does not know him at all. Another important rule is the unconditional obedience to the capo or the capodecina. If a mafioso is called upon to carry out an order, he has to put everything else aside. Totuccio Contorno described this as follows: If the capo calls him (the “man of honor”, note by the author), he (the “man of honor”) has to be available, even in the case that his wife is giving birth.9

An “man of honor” must not refuse an order, even if it is the murder of his best friend. The Mafia often uses kinship and friendship ties to “hit harder”10, after all, when using a close friend or brother, the victim is least likely to suspect anything. More often, however, “men of honor” are only “tasked” with luring the friend or brother into an ambush. This was clear to the cautious Totuccio Contorno, who therefore avoided his friends during the Second Mafia War, which is how he, as one of the few members of the Santa Maria del Gesù family, survived. An “honorable man” must not ask questions: A defector said that not asking questions had become… (…) part of his flesh and blood. Zu’ Vàrtulu always said that you ask the other person a question to find out something that the other person had not said. ‘But if he didn’t tell you, that means he didn’t want to say it, so what’s the point of questioning?’ (…) rather say one word too few than one too many.11

Overall, communication within the Cosa Nostra is reduced to a minimum. Communication takes place via proverbs, half-sentences, gestures and looks that are incomprehensible to outsiders. The reason for this type of communication lies in the need for secrecy, but also in the contempt for “gossips” that can be found in society. In the past, there was even a secret language, the baccàgghiu12, that was only understood within the criminal subculture. For the Cosa Nostra it is of utmost importance that picciotti know as little as possible of what is going on. Buscetta confirms this:

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The fragmentation of information is one of the most important rules. The Cosa Nostra is not only secret towards the outside world (…), but also from within: It ensures that not everyone knows everything and creates obstacles in the flow of information.13

The duty of obedience does not only extend to matters of the Cosa Nostra, but also extends to private life: If a mafioso wants to marry, he must first obtain permission from his family.14 The family then decides whether the chosen one has a facci di mugghieri (Sic. wife’s face)15 and is indeed marriageable. This is usually the case if the girl is from a “respectable” family, from which the husband can expect submissive behavior. A Mafia wife is expected to remain a silent figure in the background and take care of the household and raise the children. Therefore, girls from families with Mafia backgrounds who have been prepared for the role of Mafia wife from childhood on, are preferred marriage material. Antonino Calderone confirms this: Many wives of uomini d’onore—in fact, almost all of those I have met—come from Mafia families, have breathed the air of Cosa Nostra from birth and therefore know the mentality and the actions of a mafioso in detail.16

Yet, in turn, the fear of revenge could prevent marriage plans, as the quote from Giuseppe Dragos, a superkiller of the Corleonesi hit squad illustrates: I was told that I could not be with the girl because I had killed one of her relatives, so I had no future with her.17

The Cosa Nostra could not afford to lose one of its most efficient killers. Pino Marchese was also not allowed to marry his great love. In his case, this was because the young woman’s parents lived apart, which meant that she came from an unacceptable family. In a grotesque turn of events, Marchese’s brother offered to kill the girl’s father, because then she would have been an orphan and therefore eligible for marriage, but Pino Marchese declined the offer and instead married a woman who had no faults. Other mafiosi were forced to get married to particular wives; this happens especially when alliances need to be forged. For example, Balduccio Di Maggio—who gained some fame for his claim that Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and Totò Riina kissed in 1987—was betrothed by his father without his knowledge and actually had to marry the woman chosen for him.18 Francesco Marino Mannoia experienced something similar: He loved Rita, with whom he also had a child, but had to marry Rosa, the daughter of his capofamiglia,

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Pietro Vernengo (born 1943).19 However, some Mafia applicants were not willing to give up the women of their choice. This resulted in them not being accepted into the Cosa Nostra. Francesco (Franco) Briguglio, who was not willing to give up his relationship with the woman he loved and with whom he had a child, recounts: I had a relationship with a married woman (…). Lo Piccolo told me I couldn’t have this relationship if I wanted to be a true man of honor.20

Briguglio was not accepted as a “true” mafioso because of his refusal, but at least he was allowed to manage the finances of the Cinisi family. The same happened to Gaspare Di Maggio (born 1961), whose girlfriend came from a family that the boss Lo Piccolo did not like. He was also allowed to work for the Cosa Nostra, but he was never made a punciutu (Sic. pricked one) .21 One of the most important rules of the Cosa Nostra is also the duty of secrecy. It requires members not to speak to any outsiders about the affairs of their respective family. Usually, this rule is referred to as the “rule of omertà”.22 The term “omertà“, which circulated in the press as early as the nineteenth century, developed linguistically from the Sicilian “omiltà”23 (male behavior): In the nineteenth century, when torture was still used by law enforcement authorities, the ability to remain silent despite the threat of physical pain was considered a virtue and was considered to be “fare la parte dell’uomo” (proving oneself to be a man). In the jargon of criminals, the term then changed to “omertà”.24 If a “man of honor” is arrested, he must deny all charges against him, as Vincenzo Scarantino (born 1965) told the police: My last income came from the secret lottery game (…). I am convinced that the lottery has nothing to do with crime. (…) What I take in from the lottery, I give to a boy who always comes by motorcycle, whose name I do not know.25

At the time of his arrest in October 2000, even the boss Salvatore Genovese († 2020) from San Giuseppe Jato (PA) claimed: “The Mafia? I don’t even know if it exists. I can say nothing about it for certain.”26 During the Maxi Trial, the long-time head of the cupola, Michele Greco, went so far as to create a new verb, namely “mafiare”: He said with dripping irony that he did not know “in che cosa avrei mafiato”, that is, in what way he would have “acted like a mafioso”.27 With this phrase, he distorted the common term and made it the object of ridicule. Giovanni Bontate (1946–1988), lawyer and brother of the famous boss Stefano Bontate, was heavily criticized

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by his colleagues because he had implicitly admitted the existence of the Cosa Nostra during the Maxi Trial: After the 11-year-old Claudio Domino (1975–1986) was shot in the Palermo district San Lorenzo in October 1986 and the population suspected the Mafia, Bontate said in court that the prisoners were mourning with the family and that the murder was “not the work of the Cosa Nostra”.28 Being friends with a policeman is considered an unforgivable violation of the rules,29 and so in 2017 Pino Scaduto—the capomafia  of Bagheria (PA), who had wanted to succeed Totò Riina—ordered the death of his daughter Maria Caterina,30 because in her father’s eyes she had become an infamous sbirra  (snitch) through her relationship with a carabiniere. In the end, however, nothing happened to the young woman, because her brother Paolo refused to carry out the order.—The ex-mafioso Calderone confirmed how strict the rules are: Whatever happens, one must never turn to the police, never file a report. Whoever does it anyway, must be killed.31

This rule led to some grotesque situations: For example, the clothing that the wife of Michele Greco usually had sent by rail from a French boutique in Saint Vincent to Sicily was stolen during transport.32 The boutique owner repeatedly asked Mrs. Greco to file a police report so that the insurance would cover the damage. However, Mrs. Greco preferred to cover the loss herself. The rule never to file a report was later modified: Today, if an “honorable man’s” car is stolen, he is not only allowed to file a report, he is even obliged to do so, because if the car were used by others in a crime, the owner could be suspected. The secrecy rule applies not only to dealings with the outside world, but also internally. Mafiosi are not allowed to pass on information to mafiosi of other families, they are not even allowed to recognize each other as “men of honor”, if they belong to different families.33 Nevertheless, mafiosi are often easily recognizable to the population due to their arrogant behavior, as they are to other “honorable men”,34 even if the “uniform” of the traditional mafioso—the coppola (flat cap) and the lupara (shotgun with shortened barrels)—has disappeared. However, there is a danger that a person is only a guappo di cartone, that is, a “paper mafioso”, who only behaves like a mafioso and so a third person is needed who introduces the two “men of honor” with the words “chistu è a stissa cosa” (Sic. he is the same thing).35 The unreliability of women is cast in extreme terms, as Calderone’s statement shows:

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It must be assumed that women think in a certain way: all women, even those who have married mafiosi or come from Mafia families. If a woman is touched in her innermost feelings, she no longer can employ her reason. If that is the case, there is no more secrecy and no more Cosa Nostra, there are no arguments and rules that could hold her back. Women get completely crazy when their sons are affected, because there is no greater affection in the world than that for their sons. (…) If they kill her husband, she may come to terms with it, even though one cannot simply assume that. But if they kill her son, the woman loses her mind and knows no rule anymore. (…) If the women know something, they will also talk about it. Sooner or later they talk.36

In fact, it has happened again and again that Mafia women have betrayed the Cosa Nostra. The first one to do so, was Serafina Battaglia, who turned to the judiciary as early as 1962 after her husband and son had been killed during a Mafia feud, which led to a series of sensational trials between 1964 and 1979. A more recent example is that of Piera Aiello (born 1967), who began to testify against the cosca from Partanna (TP) after the murder of her husband Nicola Atria in 1991. Her sister-in-law Rita Atria (1974–1992), who had testified in the same case because of her murdered father Vito († 1985) and brother, made headlines when she committed suicide by jumping from a high-rise building after the murder of prosecutor Borsellino. He had become a new father figure for her.37 But even if mobsters do not talk to their relatives about mob business, these relatives nevertheless know many secrets. They benefit from the status of their Mafia relative, which is why Mafia wives behave almost like little “queens” in their respective neighborhoods. The children of the mafiosi, who grew up with an awareness that the father’s powers allowed them to behave as they wished, often fall into a “delirium of omnipotence”.38 Another important rule is that “men of honor” must tell the truth to each other. Mobsters do not have to talk—but if they do, they have to tell the truth. Therefore, what a “man of honor” said in the presence of two other “colleagues” is considered true. Whoever lies in such a situation is considered a traitor.39 The duty of honesty is therefore of enormous importance, because the Cosa Nostra is dependent on correct information in order to avoid wrong decisions. Antonino Calderone explained: Precise information is important. Accurate and exact information must circulate within the Mafia. Otherwise noone understands what’s going on anymore and confusion will reign (…). If you don’t know who killed someone, or if you get false information, then you can’t be sure of anything anymore. Even life itself is not safe anymore.40

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An ex-mafioso makes explicit what those inside the Mafia think of a man who does not keep his word: If you don’t keep your word, it doesn’t matter to us: everyone is free to be a man or a traitor. But if you can’t keep your word, you’re not allowed to give it. Beware, if you fool us.41

Consequently, the word of a “man of honor” is considered equivalent to a written contract.42 However, in crisis situations the obligation to speak the truth is suspended: During the Second Mafia War, the Corleonesi consciously used lies to gain advantage over their opponents. The obligation to be honest with each other also includes keeping one’s word. In addition, the code of conduct requires behaving with decency towards other “men of honor” and show respect for the possessions of others— Calderone briefly and concisely explains this: “Stealing is forbidden.”43 However, the term “possessions” does not only include material goods but also female relatives.44 A Mafia defector explained: Fucking a man’s wife is like shooting at him, and you only shoot at enemies or strangers, never at someone who is ‘of the same thing’ as us.45

Another commandment is that of solidarity, i.e., the duty to avoid disputes and to strive for a good relationship. In emergency situations, “men of honor” are obliged to help each other.46 For example, if a mafioso is arrested, he is entitled to the support of his family. The family pays for his lawyer, clothing, the support of his relatives, etc. Before the introduction of tougher detention conditions, imprisoned mafiosi even received money for food, as they basically refused to consume the “food of the state”, that is, the prison food.47 If a mafioso loses his life in the line of duty, the Cosa Nostra finances his funeral, which is not a cheap affair, as Mafia funerals almost resembled state funerals in the past. The survivors of the deceased also have a right to be financially supported. If there is not enough money in the joint fund to cover the expenses, collections are taken up. This may pose a big problem for some families, as the boss Giuseppe Graviano explained to a fellow mafioso: We have 20 prisoners who have been driven into financial ruin through their trials and who have no money to deal with the situation; our goal is to provide them three or four apartments, so that they and their families have a future.48

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As the following words of Antonino Calderone make clear, it is not only the colleagues from the same family of a mafioso wanted by the police who help him escape, but also those of other families: Wherever a fugitive uomo d’onore is, he must remember that every other uomo d’onore has the duty to take him in and, if necessary, to keep him in his house.49

Thanks to this rule, numerous escape options are available to mafiosi, which of course makes it more difficult for law enforcement to track them down. The solidarity rule also extends to the legitimate economic activities of the Mafia: If an “honorable man” has, for example, a cement factory or a coffee roasting house, his colleagues help him market his products. Solidarity is also expected with regard to collective honor: If a “man of honor” is insulted by someone, this is considered an affront to the entire organization. All “honorable men” feel called upon to restore the honor of the insulted colleague. For example, at the end of the 1960s, Tano Badalamenti had a person murdered by a Neapolitan Camorrista merely because 10 years earlier this person had slapped Lucky Luciano in the face on the horse racing track in Agnano (NA).50 Another rule is discretion.51 A “man of honor” is expected to not stand out in public, to live modestly and not to show off his wealth: He does not drive an expensive car, does not wear designer clothes or exclusive accessories, does not frequent high-end restaurants and does not live in a luxury villa. Given the non dare nell’occhio (not to stand out), a mafioso should avoid to draw the attention of the authorities to the “honorable men”, because a mafioso, who is “officially” a craftsman, but drives around with a “luxury car” would immediately raise suspicion. Therefore, the boss Tanu Filippone, who between the 1940s and 1960s controlled the fate of the Porta Nuova family in Palermo, generally went on foot or used the public bus. The Mafia entrepreneur Michele Aiello from Bagheria (PA), one of the biggest taxpayers of Sicily, drove a car52 which was hardly roadworthy and Bernardo Provenzano lived disguised as a poor peasant in a primitive hut near Corleone with only one bed, a space heater, an electric typewriter and a small television.53 Sicilian “men of honor” even reject small extravagances like piercings or tattoos for their members. The fact that Francesco Franzese had a tattoo made him suspect in the eyes of boss Totuccio Lo Piccolo.54 The only luxury that many “men of honor” can afford are heavy gold chains and expensive watches, but wearing those does not make them stand out because such jewelry is widespread in the entire lower class.

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In contrast, their colleagues from the American Cosa Nostra and the Campanian Camorra do not share the understatement of the Sicilians: The Chicago boss Alphonse Gabriel (Al) Capone (1899–1947) lived in an expensive luxury villa in the 1920s and 1930s. The head of the Camorra, Raffaele Cutolo, followed his example and even bought the Castello Mediceo in Ottaviano (NA), a real castle. Lucky Luciano also did not care much about modesty: He conducted his business from a suite of the luxurious Waldorf Astoria in New York. The last great New York boss, John Gotti (1940–2002), was even called “Glitter John” because of his lavish lifestyle: Gotti wore flashy diamond rings, 1800-dollar suits and expensive hand-painted ties. Because of this tendency to show off their wealth, the Sicilians have a very low opinion of both the camorristi and their American colleagues. In the past, the guappi55 from Naples were so despised that the Sicilian “men of honor” refused to talk to them at all. When, in 1909, a Camorra boss wanted to warn his Sicilian colleague Vito Cascio Ferro of the American policeman Joe Petrosino (because he had heard from his cumparielli  in New York that Petrosino wanted to conduct investigations in Palermo), he was not even received.56 “Honorable men” also avoid any form of self-promotion. When the boss Calò Vizzini, famous in his lifetime, was asked by a journalist for a photo and an interview, he replied: A photo of me! Why? I am a nobody. I am a very normal man (…). That’s funny! People believe that I say little out of caution. I say little because I know little. I live in a village, I rarely go to Palermo, I only know a few people.

John Gotti, on the other hand, had no problem being in the public eye. On the contrary, he enjoyed being a media darling and was delighted when Andy Warhol (1929–1987) painted a portrait of him in 1986, which then adorned the cover of Time magazine. In addition to a modest appearance, Sicilian “men of honor” are also expected to control their emotions: They must never lose control and not even get angry in case of an insult. Most Mafia bosses act very polite, sometimes even almost submissive. Not a few even apologize when they are in the right. They act according to the saying “mieli in mucca e vileno intra cuori” (Sic. honey on the mouth and poison in the heart). With self-control, they pursue the purpose of lulling the opponent into a false sense of security, because he who is friendly to his opponent in public, will be less likely considered a suspect in the end. The last important rule is the rule of honorability. An “man of honor” is expected to lead a morally impeccable life. Drugs, excessive alcohol

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consumption or gambling addiction as well as frequenting taverns, clubs and discos are prohibited. Furthermore, mafiosi must live in orderly family relationships. An “man of honor” may not live in “unsanctioned marriage” with a woman, because a wife is more strongly bound to her husband than a mistress, who under certain circumstances could be willing to betray the mafioso to law enforcement authorities. One should not forget that these “honorable men” when under great emotional pressure might rather entrust secrets to their lovers than to their wives, which they have to protect and keep out of the danger.58 With a wife, however, a betrayal is less probable, because she would have much to lose economically given her status of wife. This means that an “honorable man” has to be a good husband and father, as Leoluca Bagarella explained: The family is holy, on Saturday and Sunday one does not go out (…) one does not go to discos (…).59

If the jealous wife went to the police, the entire organization could “blow up”. If a marriage turned out to be a mistake, a “man of honor” could not leave his wife or get divorced.60 Mafiosi also have to make sure that their family members lead a morally impeccable life and that they do not cause any gossip. An “honorable man” who cannot control his relatives has “lost” in the eyes of his colleagues. Specifically, mafiosi must ensure that their female relatives behave “honorably”, that is, wives remain faithful to their husbands and unmarried girls preserve their virginity. The rule of honorability also includes, as Calderone said, that Sicilian “men of honor” do not participate in the organization of prostitution:61 The Mafia does not organize prostitution because it is a dirty business. Can you imagine an uomo d’onore who lives off pimping, exploiting women? (…) Francesco Rinella, for example, brother of two uomini d’onore, son and nephew of uomini d’onore, was never admitted to the Cosa Nostra because there were rumors that he was a ‘loddel’.62

In the past, the Cosa Nostra does not seem to have taken this prohibition against prostitution quite so serious, as many mafiosi at the beginning of their careers were ricottari  (pimps) in the organization's early days.63 The American colleagues, however, never had a problem with the business of prostitution. Lucky Luciano controlled a ring of 5,000 prostitutes in twelve American states.64 For the Cosa Nostra, prostitution contradicts the image that it has of itself, i.e., claiming to protect women. However, it is

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to be seen how much this principle is just a lip service, as the Cosa Nostra also demands protection money from pimps. Moreover, mafiosi have never shied away from treating women brutally or even killing them.65—Out of fear of endangering the social consensus, some mafiosi initially also rejected drug trafficking.66 For example, Vito Atria from Partanna (TP), the father of the above mentioned Rita, is said to have been killed mainly because of his resistance to the drug business in November 1985. Yet the critical voices soon fell silent, as the heroin trade was simply too lucrative. Violations of the Mafia’s rulebook are not uncommon, and offenders are punished according to the severity of the offense. The sanctions range from mere criticism to exclusion and death. In principle, high-ranking or particularly important mafiosi are treated with greater leniency. For example, Tano Badalementi, who was involved in the unauthorized murder of Ciccio Madonia, was not killed, but only excluded. Badalementi knew that the Cosa Nostra could not do without him, and is said to have shouted on the phone to a colleague in relation to drug trafficking that he was the only one with a license for it.67—The most common violations include violations of the duty of discretion, an example are the two bosses Calogero Vizzini and Giuseppe Genco Russo, who had become real stars within the Mafia, and who were repeatedly lured into conversations with journalists. This did not result in serious penalties, but they were publicly ridiculed for example, when Salvatore (Totò) Minore (1923–1982) commented on an article about the unattractive Giuseppe Genco Russo: “Have you seen our Gina Lollobrigida in the newspaper today?”68 While most mafiosi largely adhered to the rule of discretion in the past, this is increasingly not the case with younger generations: Matteo Messina Denaro is known for his preference for fast rides in his Porsche, clothes by Armani and Versace, Ray-Ban sunglasses and Rolex Daytona watches. Similarly, Totuccio Lo Piccolo and his son Sandro saw no reason to forego exclusive designer fashion when they were still free. Nicola Mandalà, also imprisoned, was a real jet-set mafioso: He went on vacation to the Seychelles, Miami and Monte Carlo, flew exclusively business class and always stayed in luxury hotels.69 In addition, he consumed cocaine regularly, as did his colleague Gianni Nicchi, thus violating the drug ban. Another rule that is often broken is that of morally impeccable behavior. A whole series of mafiosi, such as Matteo Messina Denaro and Sandro Lo Piccolo, are known as fimminari (Sic. womanizers) because of their many affairs.70 Messina Denaro’s father Francesco was so upset about his son’s escapades that he even had one of Matteo’s friends killed who, in his opinion, had led his son astray.71 Many mafiosi also do not take their marriage

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vows seriously. Some joke that Totò Riina might be the only one who has remained faithful to his Ninetta. Scapatelle (sexual escapades) are usually tolerated if the adulterer behaves discreetly and the external appearance is maintained. If, however, the wife is left for another woman, serious sanctions loom: Tommaso Buscetta was excluded from the Cosa Nostra because he left his wife and married another.72 Nicola Mandalà, who even had a child with his mistress, was not sanctioned because he remained with his wife. Francesco Marino Mannoia73, on the other hand, who had not only violated his marriage vows, but also lived with his mistress and their joint child, is one of the few who were not punished because he was a particularly competent, indispensable heroin refiner.—However, if a “man of honor” approaches the wife, daughter or sister of a colleague, the situation is completely different: The injured party then has the duty to kill the perpetrator and does not even have to ask his family for permission. Calderone reported: Woe to him who dares to pursue the daughter or wife of another. If he does, he is a dead man. As soon as it becomes known that an uomo d’onore is harassing the wife of another, he must die.74

New York boss Joe Bonanno recounted: If a Family member discovered that his wife had gone to bed with another Family member, he was justified in killing him. No one had to tell the cuckolded Family member what to do and he didn’t have to tell anyone else. He simply did what was necessary.75

Even the female members are harshly punished. The few mafiosi who do not punish their dishonorable wives lose their status in the Cosa Nostra. For example, Luigi Saitta from Catania was ridiculed as a cornuto (cuckold)— one of the worst insults for a Sicilian—because he had not killed his wife, who had cuckolded him, but had only left her.76 In order not to fall into disgrace, “men of honor” often order the killing of relatives if they behaved morally incorrrectly. The boss Giuseppe Lucchese (born 1959), a member of Riina’s death squad, ordered several “honor killings”.77 In March 1983, his sister Giuseppina had to die because of an extramarital relationship: she was on the road with her husband and her 4-year-old daughter when killers first shot her husband, who knew of his wife’s infidelity but had done nothing about it; then, Giuseppina herself was killed by bullets. A year earlier, Giuseppina’s lover, Pino Marchese († 26 July 1982), had already been murdered. The killing caused a stir because Marchese had been a

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well-known street singer in Palermo. A few years later, Lucchiseddu, as Lucchese was called, also had his sister-in-law, Luisa Provvidenza Grippi78 murdered, allegedly because she had pursued extramarital relations during her husband’s imprisonment. When Grippi went shopping one day at the end of August 1987 in the Palermo pastry shop Alba, her masked brotherin-law stormed into the restaurant together with an accomplice, and shot the woman dead in front of her 12-year-old daughter. Similarly, Lia Pipitone (1958–1983), the daughter of Antonino Pipitone, had to die at only 25 years of age because she allegedly had an extramarital affair.79 The day after her murder, her boyfriend jumped from the balcony of his apartment to his death—supposedly not by his own free will. Within the Cosa Nostra, the death penalty applies to the violation of the duty of obedience. Only in rare cases do disobedient “men of honor” get away with being excluded instead of killed. One such lucky one was Francesco Di Carlo, who refused to participate in the murder of some of his friends: The reasons they gave me were as follows: You don’t do what you’re told. You’re in a phase right now where you’re not following the rules. (…) Of course, they talked to me because I was very close friends with Totuccio Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, even more so with Riina. Otherwise, I would have ended up like many others have. (…) I had refused to bring three of my friends to where they would have been drowned or strangled. You can’t do that in the Cosa Nostra.80

The reason why Di Carlo was not killed, however, had probably less to do with his friendship with Riina, and more with his excellent contacts in the international drug trade, which the Cosa Nostra did not want to cut off. Gaspare Mutolo was also treated leniently:81 He and some of his colleagues had been ordered to kill the old “man of honor” Vincenzo Nicoletti (1912–?). However, when the victim survived and announced that he would accept his “death sentence” if his relatives were spared, Mutolo and his colleagues were not able to kill the old man because they admired his courage. Mutolo’s boss, Saro Riccobono, understood the behavior of his young picciotti and did not punish them. Even Nicoletti’s own life was spared.—Another rule that is repeatedly violated is the duty of solidarity, usually involving the joint funds. Giuseppe Trinca from the Palermo family Villaggio Santa Rosalia, who embezzled funds from his family in 2003, could count himself lucky that he was only expelled as punishment.82 Many “honorable men” have difficulty with the the duty of secrecy: again

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and again, mafiosi entrust secrets to their relatives, loved ones, or—during imprisonment—fellow prisoners. While the organization does not condone this, it seems to be tolerated to a large extent. However, if a mafioso becomes a tragiriaturi (Sic. one who evokes tragedies) and makes statements to law enforcement authorities, he has forfeited his life; if he himself cannot be touched, the punishment is carried out as a vendetta trasversale (transversal revenge)—a revenge based on kinship—on one of his relatives. Such acts of revenge were an almost daily occurrence during the pentiti wave in the 1980s and 1990s and it was usually male relatives who were killed. However, these types of revenge killings did not spare women and children: in the case of the defector Francesco Marino Mannoia, his mother, sister and aunt were killed at the same time in 1989. The 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo (1981–1996)83, son of the Mafia defector Mario Santo (Santino) Di Matteo (“Mezzanasca”, born 1954), represents a particularly sad example in this context: the child was kidnapped in November 1993, hidden in dark dungeons for several years and mistreated. When it was clear that the father would not withdraw his confession, the child was strangled in January 1996 and his body dissolved in acid.—What is more, the relatives of the “traitors” usually turn away from them. An example is the statement by Leonardo Vitale (“Fardazza”, born 1955) from Partinico (PA), who was serving a prison sentence, when his sister Giusy (born 1972) began to testify against the Cosa Nostra: I heard that a former blood relative of mine was a collaborator. We disown her alive as well as dead and hope that she will no longer be of this world very soon (…). She is a poisonous insect!84

The rule not to talk to policemen was never respected by the bosses, but this was never directly communicated  to the picciotti. Numerous bosses have worked as informants for the police or the carabinieri, of course always with their own interests in mind. For example, Tano Badalamenti had excellent contacts with Carabinieri Colonel Ninni Russo and Saro Riccobono was so well acquainted with policeman Bruno Contrada (born 1931) that he almost had the reputation of a sbirro (snitch). Not a few of the “supermafiosi” owed their power to their special relationships with the police, the judiciary, or the intelligence services—such a relationship was attributed, for example, to Bernardo Provenzano, Francesco Di Carlo and is probably also true of Matteo Messina Denaro. There is no other explanation for the years of relatively free movement available to some of the great bosses: Provenzano was on the run for 43 years, Riina for 25 years, Totuccio Lo Piccolo for 24

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years and Matteo Messina Denaro for 30 years. The cooperation with the security forces remains unpunished because it is generally kept secret from the organization’s foot soldiers and the other bosses.

3.5 “The Business of Crime” One of the few truly repentant ex-members of the Mafia, Leonardo Vitale, put the key goal of the Cosa Nostra, as he saw it, it in a letter to his mother and sister: Mummy, Maria, do you understand what the Mafia does? You have no idea what crimes it commits just to achieve its goal of making money, just dirty money.1

The goal of the Cosa Nostra is primarily economic enrichment. Since the Mafia shares this goal with legitimate businesses, it is often referred to as “Mafia Ltd.”. What distinguishes the Cosa Nostra from legitimate businesses is the systematic use of illegal means. Over the course of its 200-year history, the Mafia clans have adapted to the economic development and opportunities of their respective territories. The specific “businesses” are so diverse that they cannot be reduced to a common denominator. The only commonality of the Mafia’s “business” is this: where there is money to be made, the Mafia will be present. Nevertheless, four historical phases with different emphases on Mafia economic activities can be distinguished: In the rural phase (1820–1950), theft and extortion in the agricultural sector, but also kidnappings were the main activities of the Cosa Nostra. In the urban phase (1950–1975), the focus shifted to illegal enrichment from state-funded construction projects, as well as cigarette smuggling, protection money extortion and kidnappings. In the international phase (1975–1988), drug trafficking was dominant. Since then, no particular focus can be named, which is why the last phase can be referred to as the diversified phase (1988today). In this period, the Mafia has been engaging in drug trafficking and protection money extortion, enriches itself from public funds and is heavily involved in legal gambling. While some families are still living off the enormous capital they generated during the drug trafficking period, other families are having financial problems, mainly because of the need to support their incarcerated colleagues. Theft and fencing have been the traditional businesses of the Cosa Nostra, with a change only in the types of stolen objects over time. In the rural phase, the focus was on livestock and water theft: Cattle rustling was

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concentrated in areas where grain cultivation and livestock farming predominated, such as in the Nebrodi, Madonie and Sicani mountain regions,2 where the animals—mainly cattle, but also horses, mules and donkeys— were stolen at night, transported to a far away location and usually hidden in the herd of a gabellotto. The victims then turned to the accomplices of the Mafia, mostly field guards, who explained to the victims after a few days that the picciotti would bring back the animals in return for a a mangiata di pasta (pasta meal), i.e., the payment of a small sum. This type of kidnapping animals, which is still widespread today, is called cavallo di ritorno  (returning horse).3 Animals that were not returned were sold by a Mafia livestock dealer, illegaly slaughtered or smuggled abroad—mostly to Tunisia.— Water theft was widespread in the area of Palermo’s Conca d’oro valley.4 The water was typically owned by the municipality or belonged to the church of Monreale, where most of the water sources were located. Fontanieri (water guards) distributed the water according to a rotational system via canals to plantation owners, but only if they paid extra money for it. In addition, they illegally diverted water to sell it for their own profit. In the urban phase, livestock and water theft became less important; instead the Cosa Nostra began to rob banks and post offices, more frequently in the big cities.5 In addition, the Mafia’s “arts and antiquities thefts”6 have caused looting of archaeological excavations in Sicily by tombaroli (tomb robbers) for at least 80 years. In this context, the Trapani Mafia, which had an “expert” for art smuggling in Giovanni Franco Becchina7 (born 1939) from Castelvetrano (TP), made a name for itself: Becchina, who ascended from hotel porter to the owner of the Basel (Switzerland) Art Gallery “Antike Kunst Palladion”, smuggled enormous amounts of art objects out of the country and sold them, with forged documents, to auction houses, galleries and art museums. Since the urban phase, the theft of trucks, cars, motorcycles, tractors and other agricultural machinery has also been widespread; the Cosa Nostra leaves the stolen goods to petty criminals, but shares in the sales proceeds.8 For example, in 2015 a gang that was “kidnapping” cars on a large scale was discovered in Catania.9 The return of stolen vehicles takes place according to the method of the cavallo di ritorno“, i.e., there are fixed rates to be paid: a truck requires a payment of € 2,500 ; cars, depending on the condition of the vehicle, are between € 500 and € 2,000.10 Kidnappings represent another important line of business.11 In the rural phase, it was mainly local travelers who were attacked and mostly at inconspicuous places such as the hamlet of Purtedda between Palermo and Misilmeri (PA)—which is why mafiosi coined the term “going to Purtedda”. The fact that the police reported between 107 and 193 kidnappings per

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year in the Palermo area alone between 1893 and 1899 shows how lucrative this business was.12 In the urban phase, the Cosa Nostra then focused on the kidnapping of mainland industrialists—a criminal activity in which the long-time resident of Milan, Luciano Leggio, specialized. The ransom money was used as start-up capital for construction companies. About 40 years ago, the Mafia ceased its kidnapping business because it caused too much notoriety.  Extortions have always been one of the most important Mafia activities.13 In the rural phase, the rich received lettere di scrocco (letters from freeloaders) which instructed them on which sum was required and where the money should be deposited, if the wealthy recipients valued their lives.14 Extorting the pizzo15, protection money, from businessmen did not occur until the urban phase. Clans in small communities, where there is not much to be extorted, waive the pizzo. For example, the boss of San Mauro Castelverde (PA), Peppino Farinella, explicitly forbade his picciotti to extort protection money as he would have considered that the equivalent of begging.16 In contrast, protection money is collected across the board in large cities. Since the 1950s, all businesses in Palermo have had to pay the pizzo, while in Catania the Cosa Nostra concentrated only on the “big fish” up to the 1970s. Since protection money is not only about money, but also about the recognition of the Cosa Nostra’s control over a given territory, it is not only entrepreneurs and business people who have to pay protection money, but also market stall owners and street vendors, even pimps, fences and illegal parking attendants.17 The exception are businesses of relatives of policemen, because in their case the risk of a report being filed is too great. Foreign companies are also left alone, simply because in those cases the Cosa Nostra cannot get to the owners.18 The extorted money flows into the joint fund and is used to pay the picciotti and to support inmates. There are various approaches to the extortion of protection money: often, the blackmailers call their victims or introduce themselves in person and claim that they are collecting money for prisoners, for the feast day in the district, or for the local soccer club.19 Alternatively, the victim receives indirect warnings such as glued door locks or experiences an increase in thefts or robberies. In the case of such avvertimenti (warnings), the victim knows that the time has come to find a “good friend”.20 Occasionally, this “friend” introduces himself and offers to talk to someone who can provide protection. The demanded sum is initially exorbitantly high, but then the “friend”, who is usually not a mafioso himself, provides a discount, so that some victims actually believe that they have made a good deal and are grateful to the pseudo-friend.21 Mafia blackmailers usually act politely, since after all they want to present

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themselves as benefactors. The Mafia boss of the Palermo district ZEN was therefore annoyed by the behavior of Domenico Ciaramitaro (born 1974), justly nicknamed “pitbull”, who would use slaps and pistol threats when extorting money.22 For owners of construction companies there was even an “Office for pizzo affairs” in Palermo, namely in the premises of the construction company Sicil Concrete of the Mafia boss Masino Cannella in the Settecannoli district,23 and not a few entrepreneurs went there of their own accord to agree on protection money, which is referred to as mettersi a posto (“to be in agreement”). According to a study by the trade association CONFESERCENTI, small businesses in Palermo paid between € 200 and € 500 per month in 2005; businessmen with a good location in the city centre were asked for between € 750 and € 1,000.24 With around € 60, street vendors paid the least, while 3% of the contract volume was usually demanded from construction companies, which could amount up to € 17,000. In the case of construction companies, the protection money was traditionally collected on a weekly basis, but as a rule the blackmailers only came on certain holidays, namely Easter, Ferragosto or Christmas.25 In large cities such as Palermo and Catania, the overwhelming majority of businessmen—the estimates range between 80% and 90%—paid the pizzo without resistance,26 because most entrepreneurs regard the protection money as a kind of insurance not only against theft, but also against potentially troublesome employees and even against the tax police: The entrepreneur can say to the Mafia, look, here’s this guy, take care of him, he’s giving me trouble. (…) This also happens in the case of civil servants who conduct audits.27

For the Cosa Nostra, the extortion business is highly lucrative: in Palermo alone, it generates around € 175 million in protection money each year.28 In some cases, the Mafia is also content with payments in-kind: for example, a baker in the Messina district of Giostra had to provide the Mafia with bread or focaccia (flat bread) for free every day; restaurants are forced to host free weddings or baptisms for mafiosi; they make purchases in pharmacies, clothing stores, and supermarkets without paying; and they receive free service at gas stations.29 Yet the Cosa Nostra does not just demand the pizzo; it also forces businesses to hire the personnel it wants. First, the Mafia takes care of itself and its relatives, then unemployed people who are willing to work for them in order to gain their favor. Businessmen are also forced to buy goods and services from the Cosa Nostra:30 Antonino Calderone reported that the bars of Catania were forced to buy their ice from an ice factory owned by a

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mafioso as early as the 1920s.31 And the police inspector Giovanni Lizzio, who was murdered by the Mafia in 1992, wondered why traditional coffee brands suddenly disappeared from the bars of Catania and were replaced by an unknown brand;32 the same thing happened in Palermo in 2019, where the Porta Nuova family forced the bars to buy coffee from three Mafiaowned coffee roasting houses.33 The Cosa Nostra’s range of “promoted” products is diverse and even imposed on foreign supermarkets. This “promotion” also applies to services such as cleaning or transportation.34 The Mafia also forces businessmen to sell their products below market price, especially agricultural companies that have to sell their oranges, tomatoes, olives, artichokes, etc. cheaply to Mafia wholesalers.35 Like extortion, gambling is also one of the traditional businesses of the Cosa Nostra. One of the oldest variants is the riffa (Sic. sale of lottery tickets), which can still be found in city markets today: A lottery ticket seller sells numbered tickets, not without previously parading the prize—for example, a cart full of fish—through the market. The clans leave the riffa today to the popolino (literally “little people”), that is, members of the lower class. The lotto clandestino (illegal lottery), which was widespread in the 1960s and 1970s, where bets were placed on the numbers drawn in the state lottery, is now only found in the poor neighborhoods.36 Illegal sports betting, where bets are placed on horses or dogs, continues to be so popular37 that illegal horse racing can be observed on ordinary roads—even in Palermo in the spring of 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown. (Dog fights, on the other hand, take place behind closed doors.) Jockeys, trainers and racehorse owners are bribed or threatened at horse racing tracks, which allows for making money both on prize money and on bets. Since the Palermo horse racing track was under the control of the clan from San Lorenzo-Resuttana, it even had to be closed temporarily.38—Casino business is strictly regulated in Italy, which is why there are only a handful of official casinos. The Cosa Nostra closed the gap with the establishment of illegal gambling dens, including a now defunct exclusive establishment in the Palermo Opera House Teatro Massimo.39 In Catania, Nitto Santapaola and Gaetano Corallo not only managed an illegal gambling den, but they also offered wealthy players trips by private jet to the posh northern Italian casinos and to those in the Caribbean.40 The Catania Mafia made so much money from the gambling business that they were even able to buy into the casinos in Sanremo (IM) and Campione (CO), and Corallo founded his own casino on St. Martin in the Caribbean. But the Cosa Nostra did not truly hit it big in the gambling business until the 1990s, when the Italian state began to liberalize gambling.41 Since then, the gambling sector has

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exploded: In 2017 alone, Italians spent € 101.8 billion on gambling.42 The Cosa Nostra immediately tapped into the legal gambling sector, with its particular interest in the mangiasoldi (money eaters), the slot machines also found in bars.43 If these machines are not connected to the state monopoly company, the revenue goes directly into the pockets of the Cosa Nostra.44 This demonstrates just one of the many possible manipulations in the gambling sector. In addition, fake tickets are sold for instant lotteries.45 Another source of income are public funds intended for infrastructure services, economic development or health care. However, this type of “business” requires that the Mafia share it with others: on the one hand with the politicians who control these resources, on the other hand with the businessmen who benefit from receiving public contracts. This reaching into the public pots of money has been documented for as early as the time after Italian unification.46 While these possibilities of enrichment through public funds were initially limited, they grew enormously in the urban phase when the state made huge sums of money available for public construction projects. At first, politicians and businessmen “negotiated” the awarding of contracts among themselves, thereby filling their own pockets. The Cosa Nostra only collected protection money and got subcontracts for their own small construction companies.47 Starting in the mid-1980s, the so-called tavulino (Sic. small table) was established: Angelo Siino48 helped reach agreements between businessmen and politicians for contracts worth over one hundred million lire. At first Siino only “worked” in the province of Palermo, later all over Sicily: certain companies were to receive contracts in pre-arranged intervals and the Mafia took over the responsibility that the agreements were kept by all. Consequently, the press nicknamed Siino “Minister of Public contracts” of the Cosa Nostra. An employee of a northern Italian company explained that the system of illegally awarding public contracts is the same everywhere in Italy, but that in Sicily there is more discipline because murders are committed from time to time.49 The bribe to be paid by the construction companies was distributed as follows, based on the volume of the contract: 2% (were) for the Mafia, 2% for the Andreotti group, 0.5% for the supervisory bodies.50

The 2% for the Mafia went to the family on whose territory the contract was carried out. The 0.5% bribe flowed to the TAR, that is, the regional administrative courts, as well as the Court of Auditors, and thus to the supervisory bodies that checked the legality of the contract award.51 Later,

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with the “Riina tax”, another 0.8% was added, which had to be paid directly to the Mafia leadership. When companies from northern Italy began to apply for public contracts in Sicily, the Mafia realized that a more high-profile figure than Siino was needed for the negotiations. They entrusted the task to Filippo Salamone, a respected construction company owner from Agrigento,52 who from then on negotiated large contracts—worth five billion lire—with the “northern Italians”, while Siino was only allowed to negotiate small contracts with local entrepreneurs. Over time, other Mafia negotiators were added, such as the land surveyor Pino Lipari and the builder Antonino Buscemi, both of whom, unlike Siino and Salamone, were “true” “men of honor”. The tavulino system worked extremely successfully and Siino boasted: All tenders between 100 million and 100 billion were fixed, all of them, without exception.53

The tavulino system fell into a crisis only after the carabinieri presented their investigation titled “Mafia & Appalti” (Mafia & Public Contracts) to the prosecutor’s office in 1991 and some people like Siino and the local representative of the company Rizzani de Eccher from Udine, Giuseppe Li Pera, began to “sing”. Yet by that time, the era of big business with the public construction contracts was already over, because the state made significantly less money available for large construction projects from the early 1990s on. The last major state-funded projects included the laying of methane pipelines in numerous Sicilian municipalities. In order to get hold of this money, the Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino even founded the company Gasdotti Azienda Siciliana together with white-collar criminals.54— Since there is always something to build or repair, the construction projects financed by the public sector were not completely discontinued. DIA reports and countless press releases show that corrupt entrepreneurs, politicians, officials and the Cosa Nostra are still making good money from manipulating public construction contracts.55 However, the fraud is no longer carried out according to the agreements reached via the tavulino system, but rather via a decentralized process. Since the 1990s, the Mafia has been doing particularly well in the waste disposal business. Contracts for this work are usually awarded by municipalities or by public bodies jointly formed by several municipalities to private waste companies or waste removal consortia.56 In recent decades, many clans have founded their own waste removal companies or brought non-Mafia private companies and the few municipal waste removal companies under their

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control. Even if they do not meet the formal requirements, the Mafia waste removal companies have been winning public tenders. The trick is to create artificial waste removal crises, because if there is an emergency, contracts can be awarded outside the official legal parameters. The same applies to the mostly privately operated landfill sites, composting and sewage treatment plants, street and beach cleaning, pest control and the rehabilitation of landfill sites that are filled up. In recent decades, countless waste removal companies57 have come under the scrutiny of the law enforcement authorities because of their Mafia-like behavior. The mayor of Adrano (CT), Giuseppe Ferrante, summed up the situation as follows: The waste disposal system in Sicily is totally or almost totally in the hands of criminal organisations. I am talking about the landfill sites that are clearly in the hands of Mafia straw men. I am talking about a large part of the companies. They are controlled by the Mafia or have to do what the Mafia demands. I know this because we regularly make tenders in which only one or two companies participate, which means that there are cartel agreements. (…) the costs have tripled.58

However, the environmental Mafia is not only active in the field of waste disposal, but also operates companies that focus on the disposal of special and hazardous waste. Callous entrepreneurs prefer Mafia waste removal companies that dispose of waste improperly, such as in woods or fields, regular landfill sites or in the sea.59 The Mafia also operates on a large scale in EU subsidy fraud.60 Back when farmers were still supported by compensation payments for unsold products by the EU, Mafia companies submitted invoices for oranges, lemons, etc., that were never even grown, thus earning millions.61 In recent years, as the EU began to increasingly promote the development of rural areas, Mafia groups obtained subsidies amounting to around ten million euros for alleged improvement projects, as the carabinieri operation “Nebrodi” showed in 2020.62 During the Covid pandemic, the Cosa Nostra was setting its sights on European Covid aid.63 The Mafia not only defrauds the European Union, but also the Italian state. The founding of Mafia front companies that on paper employ seasonal farm workers, whose unemployment benefits are then pocketed by the cosche, is particularly popular.64 Another fraud scheme are inflated invoices from the state-accredited private clinics that have sprung up like mushrooms since the early 1990s, led by the cancer clinic of Mafia entrepreneur Michele Aiello.65 Similarly, with regard to the renewable energies promoted by both the European Union and the

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Italian state, fraudulent applications are being processed:66 These facilities, which have been mainly created in southern Italy since the 1990s, are built by large Italian and international giants, but they are not willing to deal with corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and the Mafia. They leave this work to local faccendieri  (wheeler-dealers) who are also called—more euphemistically— sviluppatori (developers). The most important wheeler-dealer in the field of wind farms in Sicily was the “king of the wind” from Alcamo, Vito Nicastri. The former electrician and plumber founded a multitude of mini-companies to bribe politicians and officials and to obtain the necessary administrative approvals. He bought the land required for the construction of the facilities from Mafia speculators and made arrangements with Mafia-affiliated local construction companies for the construction and maintenance of the facilities. Nicastri, in his role as “accelerator for doing business with the state”, then sold the turnkey “package” to the energy companies—and, of course, the Cosa Nostra received a share of the profits. Some wind farms, such as the one in Mazara del Vallo (TP), were not initiated by wheeler-dealers like Nicastri, but directly by the Cosa Nostra, which resulted in a higher profit margin for the organization. Until 2008, the Cosa Nostra was mainly interested in wind farms, then in large solar farms and since 2016 in biogas plants. One of the major business areas of the urban phase was the illegal cigarette trade, which was carried out via the port of Naples after the closure of the port of Tangier (1960). The organization was in the hands of Sicilian mafiosi, who were able to wrest the business from French criminals, also with the help of Neapolitan camorristi (see Sect. 2.5). This business was replaced in the international phase by the drug trade (see Sect. 2.5): At that time, opium was refined into heroin in the Cosa Nostra’s own refineries in Sicily and exported mainly to the USA, the most important market. The Cosa Nostra was able to accumulate enormous capital during this period, which it still lives off today. After the break-up of the large Sicilian drug rings, the Mafia had to give up its leading role in the international drug trade to foreign criminal groups and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta. Nevertheless, as the DIA reports of the last 30 years show, it is still doing well from the drug business, even if today each family is doing its “own thing”: The Rinzivillo clan works mainly with Turkish drug dealers in its cell in the German cities of Cologne and Karlsruhe; the eastern Sicilian clans get their “product” from Albanian and Moroccan criminals; the Trapani and Palermo families get their cocaine directly from South America or from the Calabrians.67 While there are no more heroin laboratories, more and more cannabis is being grown on plantations throughout Sicily.

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The Cosa Nostra left almost all of the usury business to the strozzini (throat cutters) or cravattari (stranglers).68 Similar to prostitution, the Cosa Nostra long considered usury to be dishonorable. For example, Giovanni Brusca warned his colleague Santo Sottile, who was engaged in usury: Leave it or I’ll kill you. (…) I’ll break your bones. (…) I don’t want any usurers around me.69

The Mafia did not get involved in the usury business until the early 1990s, when it began to pay off, as many banks had fallen into financial distress due to the economic crisis and were lending less than before. Many small businesses ran into financial difficulties and turned to moneylenders. At that time, some mafiosi began lending money privately, later they founded legitimate credit companies. In addition, they helped “regular” usurers to collect money from defaulting debtors in return for a share. While the financial situation of small business owners was already difficult before the Covid crisis, in 2020 it had become hopeless for many.70 This development will continue without sufficient government assistance. As a consequence, more and more businesses, above all in the tourism sector, will become the property of the Cosa Nostra.71 During the urban period, a qualitative jump in Mafia economic activities took place, which increased enormously during the ensuing international phase: Instead of investing their laundered money72 mainly in real estate or land as before and living on the accumulated capital, the Cosa Nostra now began to engage in entrepreneurial activities in many areas of the legitimate economy.73 This development is not limited to Sicily and Italy, but is also taking place throughout Europe and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, even in the young democracies of the East.74 Various bosses have founded their own small companies in sectors that require little capital and know-how and have low market barriers, mainly in the construction supply industry, transport, funeral services, waste management and agriculture. The Cosa Nostra now controls the entire chain from food production, packaging, transport, and wholesale markets to retail sales in supermarkets.75 The Mafia even exerts control over fish markets and fishing fleets, which have divided the sea into fishing zones.76 The Mafia is also involved in large shopping centres and weekly markets.77 Practically 100% of waste management, from the disposal of household waste “to special and even hazardous waste”78, is controlled by the Cosa Nostra. In addition, many funeral companies79 and petrol stations80 are in the hands of the Mafia, as are large parts of the tourism sector, in which the Mafia owns hotels, holiday resorts, nightclubs, beach

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clubs, restaurants and bars. The Cosa Nostra is also doing well in the sanitary products and cleaning industry.81 Since the adoption of the anti-Mafia law in 1982, these companies are officially no longer owned by the bosses themselves, but by their relatives, in order to avoid being confiscated or expropriated by the state. To avoid “attention” from the police in the case of large companies, however, mafiosi do not use relatives but rather prestanomi (straw men), who then suddenly rise from “dishwasher to millionaire”. In recent decades, however, the Mafia has preferred to invest in already existing, unblemished companies, resulting in more and more legitimate companies with Mafia involvement. In most cases, the old owners who possess the appropriate know-how remain in charge of management. Quite often, the Cosa Nostra does not even have to use force to convince entrepreneurs of a joint venture, because cooperation with the Mafia is also advantageous for the entrepreneur. In this way, the Cosa Nostra was able to take almost total control of certain market segments—not least because the competition is displaced by violence. The Mafia-controlled economic sectors include the construction supply industry, transport, and agriculture. Estimates of the sales and profits of the Cosa Nostra are extremely hard to come by. According to a study by the CONFESERCENTI trade association from 2008, the four Italian Mafia organizations—Cosa Nostra, Camorra, ‘Ndrangetha and Sacra Corona Unita—together generate sales of approximately € 130 billion. The main source of income is drug trafficking (€ 59 billion), followed by legitimate economic activities (€ 24.7 billion), extortion, usury and robberies (€ 21.6 billion), environmental criminal activity (€ 16 billion), agricultural criminal activity (€ 7.5 billion), public contracts (€ 6.5 billion) and gambling (€ 2.2 billion).

3.6 Murder Only in Case of Emergency Mafiosi mainly use consensus-creating “measures” to bring people in their territory to the desired behavior, but do not shy away from corruption and violence. The Cosa Nostra ensures the goodwill of the population by presenting itself as an advocate of traditional societal values, maintaining order and procuring valuable resources. Corruption is mainly used with representatives of the state apparatus. With regard to violence, the Mafia has a whole arsenal of terror at its disposal, ranging from threats to property damage to murder—if there is no other way.

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To gain the consensus of the population, the Cosa Nostra presents itself as the guardian of traditional Sicilian values such as family and Catholicism. Many people believe that—in the sense of Banfield’s “amoral familism”1—almost anything is allowed in order to protect and defend one’s own family. This is especially true for women and children, who are considered the weakest members of society. Rapists and pedophiles must therefore be held accountable with the utmost severity in the eyes of the population, and if the law enforcement agencies fail to apprehend the perpetrators, the Cosa Nostra intervenes and eliminates the criminals, which earns it the applause of the population. Mafiosi demonstrate their connection to the Catholic Church in various ways, for example by taking the lead in organizing religious festivals,2 which is not to the liking of all clergy, so that, for example, the Palermo-based priest Pino Puglisi, who was murdered by the Mafia in 1993, prohibited holding religious festivals in his parish Brancaccio, thereby depriving the Cosa Nostra of its legitimacy. Mafiosi are not only involved in religious festivals, they also provide for the erection of religious figures. For example, the clan from the Palermo district Kalsa ensured that the Piazza Magione was decorated with a Padre Pio sculpture, while the memorial for Judge Falcone, who came from this district, has repeatedly been destroyed. The Mafia boss from Cerda (PA), Giuseppe (Pino) Rizzo, also had a Padre Pio statue erected in his private garden. In addition, mafiosi support the Church and church institutions such as hospitals or orphanages financially.3 In order to win the goodwill of the population, the Mafia also acts as a judicial authority.4 The judiciary is not able to effectively provide for law and order, which is partly due to its “sluggishness”: for example, civil proceedings take an average of 7 years and three months5 and it is of little use to win a case against a delinquent debtor if he does not pay in the end. Furthermore, a number of corruption cases have become public, not only in the judiciary, but also in the police apparatus: for example, in January 2005, a Carabinieri sergeant was caught taking money or valuables from businessmen in Palermo.6 Until a few years ago, it was also common practice for policemen to advise businessmen who were blackmailed by the Mafia not to file a complaint. The fact that minor crimes are taking place in front of the police every day—such as the trade in contraband cigarettes on the streets or the extortion of protection money by illegal parking attendants—does not contribute to strengthening the reputation of law enforcement agencies. According to current opinion polls, 55% of Italians have no confidence in the judiciary,7 34.5% have no confidence in the Carabinieri (military police), 31% have no confidence in the Polizia di stato (state police) and

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29.6% have no confidence in the Guardia di Finanza (tax police).8 In contrast to the state, the Cosa Nostra is able to quickly and efficiently help victims to their rights9 or to punish offenders, both in the case of the recovery of stolen goods and in the case of debt collection, revenge for insults or the settlement of disputes.10 Numerous bosses were known as paceri (Sic. peacemakers), i.e., someone to whom people could turn to settle a conflict. The Mafia not only secures the goodwill of the population by taking on the job of maintaining order, but also acts as an intermediary in procuring valuable resources, primarily jobs, housing or hospital treatment. Given an unemployment rate of 21.5%11 (twice as high as the national average), the Mafia’s help is certainly welcome, as it controls numerous jobs both in the private sector and in the bloated public sector.12 Although Article 97 of the Constitution stipulates that jobs with the state must be filled through concorsi pubblici (public competitions), this constitutional provision has been severely eroded by national and regional special laws, so that chiamate dirette (direct appointments) are also allowed.13 Countless scandals have shown that often the most suitable candidates do not receive the coveted positions, but rather raccomandati (favorites), both in the uncontrollable direct appointments and in the often manipulated state concorsi.14 Police wiretaps showed, for example, that the doctor and Mafia boss Giuseppe Guttadauro ran a “placement agency for positions in the public health care system” from his apartment.15 The boss forwarded the requests made to him to the municipal health care politician Domenico (Mimmo) Miceli (born 1964), with whom he was closely connected. If mafiosi have to turn to their “political friends” to find positions with the state, they do not have this problem in the private sector. They simply force employers to hire the personnel recommended by them. Mafiosi also provide jobs themselves, mostly to petty criminals who do odd jobs for them. Many members of the lower classes cannot afford to rent an apartment on the open housing market. The available number of subsidized housing unit does not suffice to meet the demand. For example, according to a study by the University of Palermo, in 2011 there was a shortage of around 18,000 subsidized housing units in the city of Palermo.16 Nevertheless, the municipality has hardly built any new subsidized housing since then. The Mafia intervenes in this context by renting or even selling unfinished subsidized units to people looking for housing, for example in the new Palermo district ZEN!17 In fact, these apartments are occupied by people looking for housing—often by petty criminals—with the permission of the Mafia. If those who are officially allocated the apartments by the Istituto Autonomo per le Case Popolari (Autonomous Institute for Social Housing, IACP) then show

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up, they are driven away by the Mafia with words like “Sunnu i nuostre, un su ri case popolari, su nuostre” (Sic. These are ours, they are not subsidized housing, they are ours).18 Of course, the Mafia also takes care of the supply of electricity and water by illegally “tapping” into the state-run networks. This service is not free of charge, the squatters have to pay the clans an average of € 10 per month.—The Agenzia Nazionale per l’Amministrazione e la Destinazione dei Beni Sequestrati e Consfiscati alla Criminalità Organizzata (ANBSC) is responsible for confiscated properties, but it often “forgets” about them,19 since after all, the court-appointed administrators are paid, whether they take care of the confiscated apartments or not. This allows for the confiscated apartments to be occupied, as was the case with the eight apartments belonging to the mafioso Pino Greco in Bagheria (PA)20 or with various villas in a side street of Via Scalea in Palermo.21 Sometimes even private property “forgotten” by its rightful owners is occupied, which then becomes the property of the occupiers after a certain amount of time according to the right of eviction regulated in Article 1158 of the Codice Civile (Civil Code). The state does not take action against the squatters, especially if they are families with minor children, pregnant women or disabled persons—and that really means that the Mafia won! Mafiosi are also able to arrange for faster doctor or surgery appointments in hospitals which is an attractive feature given that one of the biggest problems of the health care system are the lengthy waiting lists: for a mammogram, you have to wait an average of 88 days, for an echocardiogram 57.2 days and for a colonoscopy 50 days, while the wait time for surgery is between 67 and 105 days.22 Those who can afford it, bypass the waiting lists and seek out a private practitioner on a self-pay arrangement. This option is not available to members of the lower class and so they turn to a “strong man” in the neighborhood, because the Mafia has good contacts with many hospital doctors, since after all, many owe their positions to the organization. Accordingly, the former Attorney General of Palermo, Pietro Grasso (born 1945), stated in 2003: The chief physicians who are able to procure a hospital bed immediately are part of a protected circle of the Cosa Nostra. The bosses owe them a considerable share of their power.23

During the Covid-related lockdown from March to May 2020, the Mafia came up with a new idea to win the goodwill of the population: They distributed food packages24 to the needy population, because people who had been engaged in activities in the informal economy before the outbreak of

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the epidemic were not even entitled to the meager benefits of the unemployment insurance fund (Cassa integrazione), and therefore experienced episodes of food insecurity and hunger. However, the Mafia also incited the population to loot (foreign) supermarkets25 via a Facebook group, so that some families in a Palermo branch of the Lidl supermarket chain filled their shopping carts to the brim and walked past the cash register without paying. The Cosa Nostra is aware of how important it is to have the goodwill of the population. Therefore, the Palermo boss Nino Rotolo explained to his picciotti that people had to like the Cosa Nostra because only in that case “nobody would stick a dagger in them”.26 His colleague Giuseppe Ferro from Alcamo saw the situation in the same way: The Cosa Nostra has (…) always tried to win approval. Certainly not by exploiting or brutalizing the population, but rather by trying to help and satisfy specific needs. (…) This has secured the solidarity and support of the population for the Cosa Nostra.27

Until about the mid-1980s, Mafia bosses were publicly accessible to petitioners. For example, Don Tanu Filippone regularly turned up in a bar on Palermo’s Piazza Indipendenza, where anyone could approach him. Today, the population turns to intermediaries, whom they know to be in contact with “men of honor”. Furthermore, mafiosi can even be contacted via social media today; they even express themselves quite openly on these platforms: Giuseppe Cusimano attacked the journalist Salvo Palazzolo (born 1970) on his Facebook page because he had reported on his food distribution project in the ZEN district during the Covid lockdown.28 A mafioso from Catania went so far as to put up huge posters announcing the baptism of his son—pictured with a white coppola (flat cap).29 Even the fugitive Mafia boss Provenzano was contacted by numerous requests for favors, as numerous pizzini (slips of paper) show.30 Many of the requested favors are granted without charge. However, the person who received help from the Mafia has a moral obligation to reciprocate, perhaps not immediately, but at some point. These “reciprocal favors” can consist of simply obtaining information, but sometimes the Cosa Nostra also demands the commission of crimes, such as providing false alibis or hiding weapons, drugs, or fugitive mafiosi, etc. Since the Cosa Nostra is extremely successful in securing the goodwill of the population, its reputation among the population, especially the lower classes, is very high. For example, children in the poor neighborhoods of Palermo insulted each other as “Buscetta”, i.e., the name of the allegedly first pentito, during the Maxi Trial. While the Mafia could still count on

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the tacit consent of the majority of the population a few decades ago, it has now lost its status with part of society because of the wave of murders by the Corleonesi. Many middle-class people even began to become activists against the Cosa Nostra.31 When white sheets—as a sign of protest—were hung out of the windows in the Palermo district Brancaccio, a traditional Mafia stronghold where mainly families of the lower classes live, Mafia boss Giuseppe Graviano was speechless and said to his picciotto Gaspare Spatuzza: “But how can that be, even in our district?”32 Although the Cosa Nostra is less popular than before, it is still paid numerous honors. Bosses are not only addressed as “Don”, but also, just like other non-Mafia persons of respect with “Vossia” (Sic. Your Lordship, abbreviation of Vostra Signoria) or “Voscenza” (Sic. Your Excellency, abbreviation of Vostra eccellenza). They are greeted with a kiss on the hand, accompanied by the Sicilian phrase “vasamo i mani” (Sic. I kiss your hands). On holidays like Christmas, “honorable men” are showered with gifts. During holy processions, bosses are honored with inchini (bows), which means that the statue of the saint is set down in front of the house of a mafioso.33 This happened, for example, in 2004 during the feast of Saint Agatha in Catania, where the procession stopped under the balcony of the freshly released mafioso Giuseppe (Enzo) Mangion (born 1959).34 During the procession in honor of Saint Barbara in December 2015 in Paternò (CT), the procession not only stopped in front of the house of the imprisoned boss Salvatore Assinnata, but participants also played the main theme of “The Godfather”!35 In March 2016, during the Good Friday procession in San Michele di Ganzaria (CT), a bow was performed in front of the house of the family of the imprisoned boss Francesco La Rocca. A few months later, in June 2016, the statue of Saint John took a bow under the balcony of the “First Lady” of the Cosa Nostra, Ninetta Bagarella, Riinas wife. Until a few years ago, funerals of Mafia bosses were truly spectacular events, in which the entire population took part.36 The first such Mafia funeral was that of Calogero Vizzini on July 13, 1954 in Villalba (CL). Similarly, at the funeral of Giuseppe Di Cristina on June 1, 1978 in Riesi (CL) several thousand people joined the funeral procession, and shops and even public institutions were temporarily closed to mark the occasion. However, this type of public ceremonies is no longer taking place, because neither the police nor the church allow such events anymore. Consequently, the funerals of Riina and Provenzano took place in the smallest of family circles. In the 1980s, as a result of the closure of Mafia construction companies, pro-Mafia rallies took place in Palermo. Workers marched through the city chanting: “viva la Mafia.”37 When asked by journalists about their

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opinion of the Mafia, many still express a positive attitude towards the organization. After the arrest of Provenzano, for example, numerous stallholders in Palermo’s Capo market explained that the boss was “a decent person” and chants of “viva Provenzano” could be heard. A similar statement came from a neighbour of boss Francesco Bonura, who was released from prison for humanitarian reasons during the Covid lockdown in spring 2020: “He never caused any trouble here, he’s a decent person.”38 When mafiosi are released from prison into house arrest, small celebratory bonfires are not uncommon in their neighborhoods. There is no shortage of expressions of solidarity or positive comments about Mafia bosses on social media.39 Another important means of exerting influence is corruption. This is an invisible method that does not alarm the public. Bribes are mainly paid to holders of public office who receive mazzette (bribes), gifts or other valuable services. As a rule, it is not the “men of honor” themselves who initiate the bribery process, but their friends with a “clean face”. First, information is gathered about the people to be corrupted and then attempts are made, through small favours, to make them vulnerable and dependent. Antonino Calderone recounted how he won over a judge of the Catania Court of Appeals: I asked him for a favor for one of our guys, which he did for me. In return, I had his marble floor cleaned (…). It was an exchange of favors. (…) No one said: ‘I want money.’40

The Mafia construction entrepreneur Carmelo Costanzo brought a part of the Catania judiciary under his control in one fell swoop by constructing an apartment building on Piazza Santa Maria del Gesù where only judges and prosecutors lived—of course for free.41 A whole series of judges and prosecutors had to answer for the so-called “adjusting”, or the “putting in order”, of trials in favor of the Mafia, although few were convicted.42 One of them, the prosecutor Domenico Signorino (1943–1992), of whom the defector Gaspare Mutolo claimed that he had accepted an apartment from the boss Saro Riccobono in 1982, could not withstand the pressure and shot himself in the head.43 Similarly, various policemen, carabinieri and prison guards were already on the payroll of the Cosa Nostra. For example, the police officer Vincenzo Di Blasi44, who worked at the police station near the Buccheri La Ferla hospital in Palermo until 2009, was accused by the prosecutor of supplying information about upcoming police raids to the Brancaccio and Porta Nuova clans for € 750 monthly. The “policeman with the cigar”, as the Mafia called him, reportedly also supplied the mafiosi with

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police vests, truncheons and blue lights. A few years later, not only mafiosi, but also the Palermo criminal police officer Matteo Rovetto were arrested in “Operation Pedro”—Rovetto, is said to have supplied the Mafia with information about ongoing investigations.45 The capomafia of Villabate, Salvatore (Totò) Montalto (1936–2012), was famous for his skill in bribing prison guards – it was said that he could even “bribe the eternal father in heaven”.46 Administrative officials are also bribed, mainly to manipulate public contracts or to “arrange for” permits; a particularly popular approach is to not process applications. A whistleblower from the Dipartimento Energia (Department of Energy) of the Sicily region explained in 2013: The companies’ approval requests were never recorded: They were stacked in the rooms up to the toilets. The chaos was intentional: There were 15,000 to 16,000 applications, some of which had been waiting to be reviewed since 2006. But friends and favorites had a fast lane.47

The possibilities influencing administrative actions are numerous: Necessary documents can be “lost” in the offices or nonexistent irregularities can be found so that a company does not receive an order or a license. On the other hand, approval procedures can be accelerated, even if a company does not include the necessary and required documents,48 such as the anti-Mafia certificate or the entry in the White List, introduced in 2012, a list of “clean companies”. Furthermore, officials can pass on information about cost estimates of competitors in tenders. In summer 2002, the personnel department of the region of Sicily carried out an investigation to determine how many of its officials were involved in criminal proceedings.49 This showed that corruption proceedings were pending against 32 top officials, often involving the Mafia. Yet mafiosi do not only bribe state officials, they also give money to lawyers, notaries, tax advisers and journalists to violate their professional code of conduct in order to receive favorable treatment.50 Thus, in summer 1983, the Mafia tax collector from Salemi (TP), Nino Salvo, told journalist Attilio Bolzoni (born 1955) laughingly: You know what newspapers are for me? They are like jukeboxes. They play the music I want to play. I throw the coins in and choose the song I want to hear.51

The former President of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, Luciano Violante (born 1941), explained that corruption is one of the Mafia’s main instruments:

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Organized crime could not ship tons of cocaine and heroin, colossal amounts of weapons and explosives around the world, launder billions upon billions of money, without bribing customs officers, members of the police, employees or owners of banks, officials of various public administrations in many parts of the world.52

Yet, the Cosa Nostra does not only use peaceful means to bring people to the desired behavior, but also violence. For this purpose, it has at its disposal a whole arsenal of “criminal techniques”, ranging from subtle to brutal violence.53 Often, the mere presence of the Mafia is sufficient for people to “behave properly”, as they fear violence. Sicilians know that it is not opportune for witnesses of a crime to file a report with the police. For this reason, they behave according to the saying: “Cu è orbu, surdu e taci, campa cent’ anni in paci” (Sic. Who is deaf, blind and silent, lives a hundred years in peace). And so the Mafia can commit murders in broad daylight without having to fear any witness statements. When, for example, in August 2017 in the Palermo Capo market a fruit and vegetable dealer with several previous convictions was shot dead by a relative of the Mafia boss Tommaso Lo Presti (born 1975), not a single witness was found.54 People like trade representative Pietro Nava (born 1949) of Lombardy, who in September 1990 observed the murder of Judge Rosario Livatino on the Canicatti-Agrigento motorway and then immediately reported the crime to the police, are the absolute exception.55 Nava, however, paid a high price: today he lives under a new identity somewhere outside Italy—always in fear of revenge.—If the Mafia needs to be more explicit, it does so in a friendly way at first, for example by explaining to businessmen politely who they should hire or with whom they should do business. Judges and jurors are also first asked very politely for leniency for certain prisoners. If the Mafia’s friendly requests are not granted, the Mafia moves on to implicit threats. Usually, the victim receives a letter, a phone call, or, these days, a message via Whatsapp or Facebook. He is told that they know which school his children attend and where his wife goes shopping. If that is not enough, the tone gets harsher. One businessman recounts: They told me that if I didn’t pay this half billion, they would kidnap and kill my son. They would cut off his head and stick it on my door. They also said that if I called the carabinieri, they would blow us up.56

A car dealer who did not want to hand over cars to the Mafia for free was told:

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I shoot you in the head (…) I strangle you with a wire with my own hands (…) You insist on not wanting to understand that you have to give me the cars. I pay when and what I want, otherwise you can close down (…). I told you who I am and that I am in command.57

If such threats are not enough, the Cosa Nostra uses symbolic violence in a third step:58 For example, businessmen find projectiles in front of their store shutters or a full gasoline can in front of their store entrance, later the gasoline is then introduced into the store—first still unignited. Letters with shot pellets, photos of coffins, the tarot card of death, small metal hearts with bullet holes, candles for the grave or funeral wreaths are also popular. Occasionally, the victim also receives a photo of himself with a target around his face. The “classics” of Mafia psychological terror include dead animals such as birds or mice, sheep or goat heads, which the victim finds in his car or at his apartment door. The Mafia not only threatens its victims, but often resorts to the method of mascariamento (Sic. making something dirty), which means defamation,59 and thus social isolation. For example, journalist Paolo Borrometi (born 1983) reported that rumors were spread about his father. Similarly, it was rumored that anti-Mafia fighter Michele Pantaleone was only fighting against the boss of Villalba (CL), Calogero Vizzini, because he was his illegitimate son. The Mafia spread the rumor that DC municipal politician Pasquale Almerico was mentally ill because of a syphilis infection.60 Anti-Mafia priest Baldassare Meli († 2020)—who ran an aid station for the poor in the Palermo district Albergheria and fought against the fact that poor parents sold their children to pedophiles—was accused of sexually abusing small children himself.61 Another strategy is to ensure that people who have reported the Mafia to the police are no longer acknowledged by anyone in their neighborhood.62 If they are businessmen, potential customers are prevented from frequenting their stores. For example, bar owner Michela Buscemi (born 1939) from Palermo, who cooperated with the judiciary after the murder of her two brothers, said that no customers had dared to enter her bar anymore: A customer told me that a Mafia follower had approached him and asked him if he wasn’t afraid to go to the Bar Del Sole, it could be that the owners would be killed and he too.63

The pastry shop Scimeca in Caccamo (PA), which refused to pay protection money, also lost its customers because the Mafia had let it be known in the town that nobody was allowed to shop there anymore.64 In addition to

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isolation, the Mafia drives people who resist into bankruptcy: A company in Scordia (CT), which carried out earthmoving work and refused to provide mafiosi with material free of charge, no longer received any orders.65 A construction entrepreneur who no longer wanted to purchase the overpriced cement from a Mafia cement factory was told: “If you don’t buy the cement here anymore, that means you won’t be able to buy cement anywhere else.”66 It is, however, not only businessmen who are isolated, but also state officials such as the Palermo chief prosecutor Gaetano Costa, who, contrary to usual practice, was even abandoned by the prosecutor’s subordinates when it came to signing an arrest warrant against Rosario Spatola and other mafiosi before Costa’s murder. In a fourth step, the Cosa Nostra makes use of vandalism: For example, for the “non-cooperative” businesses, thefts and robberies suddenly increase, machines and equipment are destroyed, fruit trees, olive trees or vineyards are chopped down, hay barns are set on fire and grain fields are destroyed;67 entrepreneurs often have to endure fire attacks on their businesses. Cars of politicians, journalists and unyielding citizens who are critical of the Mafia are set on fire. The next step is physical violence, which increases over time. Some bodily injury is caused by beating, as in the case of the Palermo teacher and anti-Mafia activist Paolo Angilleri, who was beaten up by a commando of youths in March 1982: I was just grabbing my apartment keys when I suddenly found myself on the ground. There were four of them, armed with brass knuckles and sticks. They wore stocking masks over their faces. They were ragazzi from the neighborhood, whom I would have recognized with certainty. They held me down, I couldn’t move anymore. I thought: Now I’m dead. Instead, a voice whispered: Slowly, slowly, don’t keep hitting him on the head, or you’ll kill him. I suffered a broken arm and three wounds that needed stitches from this incident.68

Some victims are also branded with a knife wound on their face.69 For unyielding businessmen, gambizzare, that is, shooting in the legs, is also popular. If all these violent measures do not lead to the desired result, only the ultima ratio remains, that is, killing.70 This method is only used in case of high-ranking individuals when there is no other choice. However, when it comes to their own staff and petty criminals, the Mafia is less scrupulous in this respect. Until the 1950s, the preferred method of murder was shooting, using a lupara, or shotgun. This was then replaced by pistols and Kalashnikovs. Since gunpowder residue is left on the hands after using a

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weapon, the so-called lupara bianca, that is for example strangling and then disposing of the body—by dissolving it in acid, feeding it to pigs, burial in concrete or sinking it in crevices or at sea—is preferred. A particularly brutal method which the Cosa Nostra often uses on its own members is incapramento, or self-strangulation. In this method, the victim is tied up on hands and feet with a rope. At the very moment that the leg muscles give way, he strangles himself.71 The Cosa Nostra has become quite skilled at deflecting suspicion from the perpetrators72 by commissioning murders from members of other families which have no connection to the victims. Murders are often disguised as suicides73 or accidents74, or false trails are laid so that the authorities do not follow the “Mafia trail”. Sometimes, however, the Cosa Nostra wants to explain why someone had to die. In such cases, it leaves symbols at the scene of the crime which indicate the Mafia’s responsibility and make the motive clear.75 For example, a stone in the mouth of a murdered person means that the person talked or lied too much. If the body is found in a sack in a well, then he has divulged secrets. If money is left with the murdered person, it means that he was corrupt.76 Adulterers—like the Palermo singer Pino Marchese—have their genitals cut off and placed in their mouths. It is also said that the first wreath to arrive at a funeral is from the murderer. For this reason, Rita Dalla Chiesa (born 1947), the daughter of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa who was murdered by the Mafia, had the first wreath at her father’s funeral removed—it was, by the way, from the Sicilian Regional President Mario D’Acquisto (born 1931).77

4 Italy—A Mafia Democracy?

Formally, Italy is a democratic state, but in practice, politicians repeatedly violate its rules so severely that Panfilo Gentile, a philosopher of law in the tradition of Italian realists1, speaks of a “Mafia democracy” in his 1969 polemical essay “Democrazie mafiose.”2 By a mafia democracy, Gentile does not mean the instrumentalization of criminal gangs by politics, but rather the corrupt and clientelist manner in which the partitocrazia (party rule) operates. However, this term can also be used more narrowly: as an interwoven relationship between the Cosa Nostra and politicians of different levels, from town councillors to parliamentarians and government members, tolerated by the population. The reason that large parts of the population tolerate the numerous violations of the law by politicians is likely to lie in long historical processes that led to a lack of expectations of public moral values in said population. Politicians are not expected to work for the common good, which means that their illegal behavior is accepted by many as inevitable. For this reason, it is not surprising that numerous politicians also make use of the Cosa Nostra. Since the Mafia would not be able to survive at all without political protection, it is interested in collaborating with politicians and preferably with those who are already in important political offices or at least have a chance of obtaining them.3 Since the Cosa Nostra is apolitical, it has worked with politicians from the government parties—first the Liberals, then the Christian Democrats and finally Forza Italia—as well as with politicians from other parties when it was beneficial to it. Since there is no party that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Bestler, The Sicilian Mafia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39310-6_4

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would be completely immune to the Mafia, one can rightly assume the existence of a transversal “Mafia party”—at all political levels. The most important service of the Mafia is the support for politicians in obtaining and maintaining power. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, this has meant a focus on procuring votes in elections. It goes without saying that politicians could not have free rein if the democratic state with all of its institutions—first and foremost the judicial system— would enforce compliance with existing laws. The fact that this has been done insufficiently thus far is due, in particular, to the political dependence of the prosecution apparatus. In order for the Cosa Nostra to be able to run its own “businesses”, however, they need not only politicians, but numerous other colletti bianchi, i.e. white-collar criminals such as entrepreneurs, bureaucrats or freelancers, with whom they preferably communicate in secret. The most important “meeting places” are logge coperte, special Freemason lodges, which have little to do with the “real” lodges. There is no doubt that the Mafia clans have been guilty of countless crimes, but a whole range of crimes are not solely attributable to them. The responsibility for many of these—still unsolved—“Italian mysteries” lies with the “third level”, certain dark powers within the state, for which the Cosa Nostra commits crimes—making it easy to blame the Mafia.

4.1 “The Fish stinks from the Head”—Why Politicians get away with everything When in 2004 British Home Secretary David Blunkett (born 1947)—one of the most respected ministers in Tony Blair’s (born 1953) government— had to resign because he had helped the Philippine babysitter of his mistress bypass the regulations so that she more quickly could obtain a residence permit,1 this sparked television debates in Italy, in which people wondered why the British were so outraged about such a trifle.2 In Italy, at any rate, hardly any “public anger”3 arises when politicians pursue their personal interests; on the contrary, this is often admired as furbizia (cleverness). The culto di furbizia (cult of cleverness) even developed into a kind of “national virtue”.4 Even if many Italians wish that politicians and other representatives of state institutions should serve the common good, they ultimately do not believe that this is possible. Violations of the common good principle postulated in Western democratic thought are therefore not only tolerated, they are regarded as intrinsic features of politics. Political behavior which elsewhere

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leads to scandal5 is tolerated because it allows many citizens to flaunt the law themselves. Sociologist Luciano Pellicani (1939–2020) states that there is a “phenomenon of diffuse illegality, in which millions of citizens participate in various ways”.6 This diagnosis of a “weak legality” is shared not only by many of his colleagues7, but also by lawyers8 and the ordinary man or woman on the street. Alberto Rosati also concludes that: (…) the best laws are of no use if they do not correspond to the culture and the collective consciousness. If that is the case, then the reality of social life operates, while the legal system remains empty and without effect.9

In Italy, a corresponding legal practice has developed and prevailed. Former investigating judge and prosecutor Bruno Tinti (born 1942) describes in his book “Toghe rotte” (rotten robes)—a reckoning with the Italian justice system—how numerous provisions and legal norms make it possible for lawyers to use legal tricks to allow countless civil and criminal offenses to go unpunished.10 Even a husband who kills his wife can—with the use of all legal tricks—get away with only 5 years in prison.11 It is therefore not surprising that in Italy 95% of all offenses remain unpunished, including: (…) all offenses in the field of occupational safety, ecology, environmental pollution (…), corruption, balance sheet manipulation, tax fraud (…); further false testimony, all fraud offenses, whether against the state, public institutions or the European Union.12

Since the judiciary only pursues the “weak”—80% of prisoners13 in Italy are non-EU foreigners and drug addicts—all others get away unscathed.14 In view of this situation, it is not surprising that—according to a recent study by the market research institute Ipsos—55% of Italians have no confidence in the judiciary.15 How little effect the laws actually have, especially in the case of white-collar crime, is shown not only by the widespread tax evasion—according to the figures of ISTAT, 37% of employees were irregularly employed in 201816—and the enormous corruption in the public sector17, but also by the practice of tax fraud—Italy is one of the leaders in this respect within the EU18—as well as by the numerous illegal construction sites19 that mar the coastline. The fact that these tax frauds and illegal construction sites are subsequently regularly legalized by condoni (remissions of sentence)20 or sanatorie (certificates of validation), accompanied by fines certainly does not contribute to the promotion of lawfulness. Since the

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judiciary does not ensure the enforcement of the laws, offenses are almost considered normal. As a result of this “deficit of a culture of rules”21, lawbreakers usually have no sense of wrongdoing and even believe that they are acting correctly, while those who insist on compliance with the law are not only considered naive, but even branded as dissenters. The fact that ignoring laws is considered rational behavior is especially true in the south, where, in addition to a lack of orientation towards the common good, there is also the problem of organized crime. A dysfunctional state strengthens the Cosa Nostra, which however—as numerous Mafia groups throughout Europe and beyond show—can also exist elsewhere. However, the lack of a strong state in the south creates the conditions for resignation towards Mafia violence, and entrepreneurs pay resigned protection money to the Mafia with words like “Ma tu chi boi fare, tutto il mondo è cosi”22 (Sic. But what do you want to do, the world works like that) because they have to witness that their blackmailers are often released after a very short time. For example, a businessman confirmed: At first it seems wonderful to you: ‘They were arrested, perfect!’ You feel good and say: ‘Finally I freed myself, justice always prevails’—at 50 you feel young again! And then, after a week, the judge does not apply Article 7! It is not a Mafia association. ‘But how is that? There are wiretaps! I heard them myself, I have copies of them, why?’ And you think: ‘Okay, then we’ll prosecute!’ We go to court and after 23 days there is house arrest: for multiple offenders who have been previously convicted of robbery, extortion, drug trafficking, threats, and assault. What should one do? They get house arrest and you get a bitter taste in your mouth. And then the trial starts, before the trial they wish you luck, they sent us an envelope with two bullet shells.23

Since “the world works this way”, entrepreneurs who allow themselves to be the target of arson attacks are simply considered “incompetent” by many. An affected businessman reported how another businessman had said to him: Don’t you know that there’s extortion going on? Aren’t you able to get a contact? After all, such things can be avoided.24

Nevertheless, there have always been attempts by members of the civilian population to protest against such disregard for the law—even in the south, despite all the dangers posed by the Mafia. At first these efforts were rather isolated—one thinks, for example, of the social reformer Danilo Dolci (1924–1997)25 who worked in Sicily—but from the 1980s onwards there was

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certainly a wider awareness by citizens and even the will to take action against the Mafia, especially after “shocking deeds”26 such as spectacular Mafia murders. And so today there are numerous social centres in the quartieri a rischio (at-risk districts) or initiatives in schools that try to “reconquer” Mafia territory and create a culture of lawfulness in general.27 However, these often come up against limitations, as the Mafia boss Pietro Aglieri explained to the prosecutor Alfonso Sabella (born 1962) during an interrogation in 1997: Look, dottore, if you go into our schools to talk about legality, justice, respect for rules, civil behavior towards each other, our ragazzi listen to you and follow you. But when these ragazzi grow up and look for work, a flat, economic help and healthcare, who do they find to help them? You or us? Dottore, they find us. And only us.28

And that is precisely why all those who follow the rules in society remain outsiders in the end. One example is a female doctor in a large hospital in Catania who was bullied at her workplace because she refused to contribute to a collection of money for a male nurse on trial for membership in the Mafia.29 She simply held the opinion that the criminal should not be supported any further… Given that in a society such as this rules of public order seems to apply only to a limited extent and in addition the enforcement of the laws is not necessarily to be expected, it is understandable that nobody makes particularly high moral demands in the area of politics. After all, as the sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) pointed out, governments are nothing more than the “symbol and the living expression” of the common consciousness present in a society.30 In other words, governments behave in accordance with the feelings deeply embedded in the general public. In his fragment of a general party theory31 Max Weber (1864–1920) stated that it was in the nature of political parties, for whatever reason—the reasons can range from idealistic motives to the acquisition of personal advantages for the party leaders and members—to strive for power by resorting to all means available to them and permitted by society. This would apply to the Roman circus parties of antiquity as well as to modern mass parties. Of course, these means to attain and maintain power could include murder and manslaughter, fraud and bribery, or the use of criminal groups. Neither in the times of the monarchy nor in those of the republic has the Italian state officially granted such means to its politicians, but this has not prevented them from using them—sometimes only poorly disguised. Examples include not only the incident of the Pugnalatori (see Sect. 2.1) from Palermo, the murder

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of the Garibaldian General Corrao (see Sect. 2.1) or the attack on the Portella della Ginestra (see Sect. 2.5), but also numerous political crimes of more recent times. Given all of the above, the following fundamental question arises: Why has a public morality—characterized by compliance with official rules of order for the benefit of all—developed in some democracies, while in others a particularistic morality prevails?32 There seems to be general agreement that Italy falls into the latter category. Thus, in 1883, Pasquale Villari (1827–1917) observed a particularly strong individual-orientation (in contrast to a we-orientation): In Italy and in the Mezzogiorno, there is a stronger individuality than elsewhere and little willingness to work with others for a common cause. The I  predominates, the We [the Italians, note by the author] is rather weak. We are good when private initiative and individual energy are required; but much worse, where the combined strength of many is required for a non individual, but common purpose.33

The applicability of the above statement, now almost 150-year old, is confirmed by the sociologist Fernando (Nando) Dalla Chiesa (born 1949), who also diagnoses the dominance of a spirito di parte34 in Italian society today, i.e., the opposite of a community spirit. However, there are indeed regional differences, as Robert D. Putnam (born 1941) concludes in his classic study of civic traditions in modern Italy.35 According to the Harvard sociologist, the presence of a certain civic culture—measured by the number and participation of citizens in associations—can be observed in northern and central Italy, while it is completely lacking in the south. Over the centuries, horizontal solidarity and trust relationships between non-relatives have developed in northern and central Italian society as a result of these associations, while in the south the family, which is often artificially extended by the comparaggio (coparenthood), has remained the only horizontal solidarity structure. Solidarity and trust therefore only exist within the family, whose well-being stands at the center and is defended by all means. Finally, it is assumed—in the sense of Banfield’s “amoral familism”36—that everyone else behaves in the same way. The basic problem of southern Italy therefore lies in the lack of social trust, which— according to Putnam—is only gradually built up and internalized through participation in associations. In his comparative study37, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama (born 1952) also emphasizes the enormous importance of

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trust—understood as a form of “social capital” in the sense of James S. Coleman (1926–1995)38—for the development of societies. Fukuyama classifies Italy, just like China, France and South Korea, as a “family country”, in which—in contrast to the USA, Germany and Japan—no social trust has developed outside close family circles. These “family countries”—to speak with Durkheim—are not much more than aggregates of more or less equal elements that are mainly connected to each other by kinship.39 However, the bond between the individual elements and society is extremely weak, as each element can also exist for itself. However, in societies, which according to Durkheim are not integrated by the “mechanical” but by an “organic solidarity”, the situation is quite different: The mutual dependence of the individual elements—which are all different due to their different functions for the whole—is extremely strong, and therefore the individual elements have a much stronger bond to society. The elements are well aware that they could not exist without cooperation, which is why they contribute their specific share to the well-being of the community. Only in societies with division of labor, integrated by “organic solidarity”, can the idea of the “social contract” arise, according to which each person gives up a piece of personal power for the benefit of the community. By the way, the Rousseauian idea of the Social Contract can only arise in societies that are integrated in the Durkheimian sense by means of organic solidarity. In one way or another, all of the authors mentioned above make historical processes responsible for the formation of trust and solidarity—that is: a public morality—between non-blood relatives. With regard to Italy, the lack of a civic culture for some is based on long-term historical processes, while for others it is based on developments of the nineteenth century. The ethnologist Christian Giordano (1945–2018) reaches furthest back into history and identifies, not only in Italy, but in the entire Mediterranean area, a “history of superimposition by foreign powers” that has lasted for many centuries:40 Foreign rulers are said to have subsequently sought to exploit the societies they had conquered economically, politically and culturally, while these had not only rebelled, but also had used personal social relationships to undermine the rules imposed from the outside, such as familism, nepotism, amicism or clientelism.41 These patterns of behavior are said to have solidified over time and still exist today. Putnam, on the other hand, sees the roots of a civic culture in the medieval republics of northern Italy, where in the twelfth century in Florence, Venice, Bologna, Genoa and Milan craft guilds and an urban patriciate had developed, while in the south the feudal structures had continued to exist:42

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In the North, feudal bonds of personal dependence were weakened; in the South, they were strengthened. In the North, the people were citizens; in the South, they were subjects.43

Carlo Tullio-Altan (1916–2005) and Alberto Rosati, on the other hand, emphasize the role of the emergence of the Italian state, whose regions did not gradually grow together culturally and economically, but were hastily put together by military force at the behest of political elites. According to them, the new elites simply took over the function of the old feudal lords or rulers, which led to the continuation of the old patron-client structures and prevented the development of horizontal structures of trust and solidarity.44 Both authors attribute great importance to the elites for the non-formation of a public-spirited civic consciousness. Tullio-Altan also points to the “genius of Calvinism”45, which in Central and Northern Europe as early as the sixteenth century led to a “spirit of social cohesion, based on the strict adherence to the same principles”46 as well as to an entrepreneurial elite insisting on these principles. In the Catholic south, this did not happen, so that the old “ideas, convictions, prejudices, life norms” survived.47 Durkheim, too, ultimately makes historical processes responsible for the formation of a social morality, that is, “solidarity”. In contrast to the aforementioned authors, he starts from a positivist point of view, namely that the division of labor almost automatically leads to the formation of organic solidarity, even though he concedes that “pathologies” could occur.48 In summary, it can be said that politicians in Italy—as is the case in many other countries of the world—are allowed to not have to adhere to the legal order because this order has never really been able to assert itself despite all the changes in society. Since trust in non-relatives has not been built up over the course of history and no behavior of solidarity towards the collective has been established, there is also no public morality oriented towards the common good.49 In Sicily, this situation is exacerbated by the presence of the Cosa Nostra. Although a certain change in awareness can be observed in parts of the population since the 1980s, it seems that the key sentence from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s (1896–1957) novel “Il Gattopardo” still applies: “If we want everything to stay as it is, then everything must change.”50 For this reason, all members of society—and thus also politicians—are allowed to pursue their own interests in disregard of the public societal order that only exists in the law books but not in the practices of daily life. Since politicians use Mafia clans for this purpose, one can—albeit perhaps somewhat exaggeratedly—speak of the existence of a “Mafia democracy” in Italy.

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4.2 Whether White, Red or Blue1, What Counts is the “Smell of Power” The Mafia is very aware that its power is based on its close connection to politics. In a telling quote, the former insider Salvatore Cancemi reports that the Mafia boss Totò Riina once said to him that without relationships to the political powers the Mafia would be nothing more than a “pack of jackals”.2 Therefore the Mafia always tried to bring politics under their control. They never had political party preferences, but always tried to get in touch with politicians of all parties who were in power or were about to win it. Even if high-ranking mafiosi discuss which political strategy to favor and occasionally make suggestions, in the end it is the local clans who decide which politicians they want to favor. The most important selection criterion is their trustworthiness, which is of course highest in members of the Mafia and their relatives. In addition, the Mafia also tries to get in touch with politicians who are not part of the organization, because they do not have enough qualified personnel—especially for top political positions. The clans are best able to bring politics under their control where they are particularly strongly anchored, namely in western Sicily. Their political relationships range from the local level, which they control to a large extent, to the parliament and the government. Since politicians of all parties are “involved” with the Mafia on all political levels for various reasons, the result is the image of a transversal “Mafia party”, or a “party of Mafia friends”. Even if the Mafia does not have a political orientation, it still prefers the ruling parties, because they can be of the greatest benefit to the organization. The former insider Nino Giuffrè therefore rightly remarked: “We have always been smart enough to be with the winners”.3 When the Liberals had established themselves as the strongest party after the formation of the Italian kingdom, the clans found themselves on their side for the most part. This is especially true after the five-time Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti took over the government in 1892, whose power was mainly based on Mafia clans and the politicians associated with them.4 Since Giolitti used the entire state apparatus for the benefit of “his” politicians, at the end of the nineteenth century more and more Mafia politicians5 were elected to parliament in western Sicily, and the city and municipal councils of many municipalities in the provinces of Palermo6, Agrigento and Trapani were so dominated by the clans that they can almost be considered “Mafia cosche ”7. In eastern and parts of central Sicily, where there were no Mafia clans yet, the situation was completely different, which is

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why—despite all the harassment of the state apparatus—even pronounced anti-Mafia politicians such as Napoleone Colajanni from Castrogiovanni (EN) or Giuseppe De Felice Giuffridda8 from Catania were able to make it into the national parliament. When after the “March on Rome” (1922) it became apparent that Mussolini would come into power, mafiosi tried as early as 1923 to join the fascist party.9 After the liberals and fascists had run on a joint ballot in the elections in 1924, this joint list immediately received Mafia support.10 Mafiosi would have become allies of Mussolini for sure, if he had not consciously avoided their “embrace” and sent his “iron prefect” Mori to Sicily to fight the Mafia. Despite all difficulties, it seems that some mafiosi have nevertheless managed to come to an arrangement with the fascists and even join their party.11 Assuming that Sicily could become an independent country, the Mafia initially supported the separatists in the transitional period up to the founding of the Republic, for which their leader Andrea Finocchiaro Aprile gratefully declared in 1944: If it were not for the Mafia, one would have to invent it. I am a friend of the mafiosi, even though I am personally against crime and violence.12

When it became clear that there would be no independent Sicily and that the development could not be predicted, the Mafia distributed its favors among several parties: mainly among the Liberals and the newly constituted Christian Democrats, as well as to a lesser extent among the Monarchists.13 However, it did not take long for the DC to win over many important Mafia bosses to its side, which was mainly due to Bernardo Mattarella14 from Castellammare del Golfo (TP), one of the DC pioneers of the post-war period. More and more bosses became members of the Christian Democrats and soon whole DC local groups were in the hands of the Cosa Nostra: For example, the then most powerful Mafia boss in Sicily, Calogero Vizzini, controlled the local DC group from Villalba (CL) and the similarly important capofamiglia Giuseppe Genco Russo controlled the one from Mussomeli (CL).—It is rumored that the Christian Democrats Calogero Volpe15 (1910–1976) from Montedoro (CL), Franco Restivo16 (1911–1976) from Palermo and Salvatore Aldisio17 from Terranova di Sicilia (since 1927 Gela) (CL) had a close relationship to the Mafia. These DC post-war politicians became less important within the party after Amintore Fanfani (1908–1999), founder of the party wing Iniziativa Democratica, was elected national party secretary at the party congress in

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1954 with the support of the Sicilian delegates. Fanfani wanted to make the DC independent of the Church and win new voter groups in order to turn it into a mass party and thus be able to better compete with the excellently organised Communist PCI. In order to achieve this goal, he considered it essential to replace the old DC dignitaries, still from the predecessor party Partito Popolare Italiano, with a young, modern class of functionaries. The man who implemented Fanfani’s policy in Sicily was the Palermoborn Giovanni Gioia18 . Under his aegis, the “young Turks”—often parvenus from humble societal and Mafia backgrounds like Salvo Lima19 and Vito Ciancimino20—took over the command of the Sicilian DC. They were very successful in attracting even the last Mafia bosses from the Liberals and Monarchists to the DC. For example, the Mafia boss Vanni Sacco from Camporeale (PA), who had previously supported the Liberals, joined the DC with his 400 mafiosi; likewise, Gioacchino Pennino senior, the capomafia of the Palermitan clan from the Brancaccio district, switched from the Liberals to the Christian Democrats. Even Don Paolino Bontate, the powerful capo of the Palermitan family from Ciaculli, left the Monarchists in favour of the DC. The later DC secretary Giuseppe Campione (born 1935) describes that at this time the connection of the DC with the Cosa Nostra became almost organic: The generation of dignitaries had connections to the Mafia, but one made sure that the mafiosi would sit on the other side of the table. When the Fanfaniani appeared—new men without charisma—everything changed: Intimacy with the mafiosi became the norm.21

However, the “Fanfaniani” fell behind in Sicily starting in 1968, because the powerful Salvo Lima now joined Giulio Andreotti’s (1919–2013)22 party wing Primavera—and thus took the majority of the Sicilian Christian Democrats with him. In this way, Andreotti rose from the leader of a relatively unimportant wing limited to the region of Latium to one of the most powerful politicians within the DC and in the following decades pushed through the nomination of many of his candidates for important government offices at DC congresses.23 Andreotti himself made it to the top and was elected seven times as Prime Minister in the following years. Additionally, in Sicily, the “Andreottiani” brought many of their candidates not only into the municipal councils, provincial parliaments and the regional and national parliament, but also occupied mayors’, assessors’ and ministerial offices. Further, key positions in administration as well as in state-controlled companies and enterprises were filled with

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“Andreottiani”—as before with “Fanfaniani”.24 Since the proximity of most “Andreottiani” to the Mafia was generally known due to a number of scandals, the Carabinieri General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, who was murdered by the Mafia, rightly spoke of this party wing as “the dirtiest political family on the island”.25 The most important of the incriminated “Andreottiani” were Salvo Lima, his political protégé Mario D’Acquisto26 and Francesco Paolo (Franz) Gorgone ( 1930–2022)27 from Palermo, Antonino (Nino) Drago (1924–1998)28 from Catania, Raffaele Bevilacqua29 from Barrafranca (EN) and Raimondo Luigi Bruno (Rudy) Maira (born 1946)30 from San Cataldo (CL) as well as Giuseppe (Pino) Giammarinaro (born 1946)31 from Salemi (TP). Yet many “non-Andreottiani”, too, are said to have Mafia connections; first and foremost, the Palermo municipal politician Vito Ciancimino from Corleone, who is considered the political representative of the Corleone Mafia and in the 1970s founded his own small group32 after his separation from the “Fanfaniani”, as well as the former defense minister Attilio Ruffini (1924–2011)33 from the right wing of the party. When, at the national level, the new DC Secretary Ciriaco De Mita (1928–2022) tried to initiate a moral renewal of his party in 1982, this also had repercussions on the Sicilian DC: For the first time, at the DC Regional Congress in Agrigento in 198334, the Mafia was critically discussed and none of the “Cianciminiani” made it into the leadership, which means that the controversial “Don Vito” was at least officially “ditched”. In addition, two years later, “Mister Clean” Calogero (Lillo) Mannino (born 1939)35 from Sciacca (AG), from the left-wing party wing Forze Nuove, took over as the new secretary of the Sicilian DC. Soon, however, negative headlines appeared about Mannino because of alleged Mafia ties; similar reports appeared about Senator Vincenzo Inzerillo (born 1947)36 from Palermo, whom Mannino had promoted. Others who attempted to “renew” the party and against whom prosecution was brought because of alleged Mafia connections, were the left-wing Moro faction Vincenzino (Enzo) Culicchia (1932– 2016)37 from Partanna (TP) and the former CISL trade union secretary and regional deputy Francesco Canino (1937–2014)38 from Trapani. After the collapse of the First Republic (1948–1994) and the subsequent dissolution of the DC—which the Mafia was no longer inclined to support after the sentences of the Maxi Trial had become final in 1992— there was again a phase of uncertainty for the Cosa Nostra. After Leoluca Bagarella’s project of founding a Mafia party, Sicilia Libera, had quickly been abandoned, the clans supported the emerging Forza Italia (FI) for the most part. At least one of “theirs”, Marcello Dell’Utri from Palermo, was behind the project and the Mafia had been in “business relations” with the Milanese

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party leader Silvio Berlusconi since the 1970s.39 The Mafia’s plans succeeded when FI won the national elections in 1994 and also did very well in the Sicilian regional and local elections. Since many FI candidates were political newcomers and most of the others came from the ranks of the Socialist ex-Craxians, the support for the FI represented a complete political reorientation of the Mafia. Since the organizers of FI had paid attention to “clean” faces when choosing their candidates, most FI politicians hade not yet acquired the reputation of being close to the Mafia. Soon enough, however, not only low-level, but also prominent FI politicians got into the headlines because of Mafia relations.40 This is not surprising, because many of the FI politicians had been connected to the Cosa Nostra for a long time, for example as defense lawyers or financial experts. Among the best-known FI politicians who started to have problems with the judiciary were the party leader Berlusconi and his right-hand man Dell’Utri. For a number of years, people have been talking about the “Third Republic” (2018 to the present). This term refers to the fact that the former right-wing and left-wing party blocs have lost power in favor of, on the one hand, the protest movement Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), founded by the Genoese comedian Beppe Grillo and then transformed into a party, and on the other hand, the Lega, which has been operating nationwide under its new chairman Matteo Salvini, the successor to the former northern Italian regional party Lega Nord. Since then, the Cosa Nostra has again been grappling with uncertainty as to which party will prevail in the long run. Consequently the clans are again spreading their favor among politicians from all parties. In recent years, however, the Cosa Nostra seems to have been having difficulty finding “trustworthy” political partners at the national level—with the exception of the Genoese energy politician Paolo Arata (born 1950)41 from the Lega—which may explain why the Mafia has remained somewhat more in the background during national elections. This does not apply to the municipal level, where, in the meantime, it has been noticed that politicians from the new parties have Mafia contacts, such as Giacomo Li Destri42 of the M5S from Caltavuturo (PA) or Antonio Mazzeo43 (born 1989) of the Lega from Maletto (CT). No party has ever been able to govern alone since the founding of the Italian Republic. As a consequence, the dependance on coalition partners or the support of a minority government has provided even politicians of smaller parties with the opportunity to grab a little bit of power— and thus become interesting for the Cosa Nostra. In the time of the First Republic (1948–1994), this included mainly the Republicans, Liberals, Social Democrats, but also the Socialists, who became attractive after their

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programmatic turn to the right in the early 1960s (which led to their joining the government in 1963) and especially in the 1980s under their party leader Bettino Craxi, who was Prime Minister between 1983 and 1987. All these parties had Mafia contacts, which meant that a number of politicians, for example, Aristide Gunnella (born 1931)44 from Mazara del Vallo (TP) and Ignazio Mineo (1924–1984)45 from Bagheria (PA) acquired a negative reputation among the Republicans, Casimiro Vizzini (1920–2003)46 from Palermo and Gianfranco Occhipinti (1948–2011)47 from Gela (CL) among the Social Democratic PSDI, and Salvatore (Salvo) Andò48 (born 1945) from Giarre (CT), Pietro Pizzo (born 1940)49 from Marsala and Vincenzo (Enzo) Leone (born 1940)50 from Castelvetrano (TP) among the Socialist PSI. In the Second Republic (1994–2017) it was above all the splinter parties of the Christian Democrats that enjoyed the support of the Cosa Nostra. This is primarily true for the UDC, which was able to become the second strongest party in the regional parliament after FI in Sicily for a while.51 Its main exponent Salvatore (Totò) Cuffaro52 from Raffadali (AG) made the headlines not only because he had to resign as the incumbent Sicilian Prime Minister in 2008, but also because he had to serve a prison sentence. Additionally, numerous members of Cuffaro’s entourage got into trouble with the justice system.53 Cuffaro was succeeded as Prime Minister by his party colleague Raffaele Lombardo (born 1950)54 from Catania, who politically separated himself from his party with his regional party Movimento per l’Autonomia (MPA), founded in 2005. Just like Cuffaro, Lombardo quickly made headlines because of alleged Mafia connections. A small regional party, whose politicians were particularly notable for their proximity to the Mafia, was Nuova Sicilia, founded in 2001 by the former Socialist Bartolo Pellegrino (1934–2019)55; its leadership consisted of Pellegrino and the former Christian Democrat Nicolò Nicolosi (born 1942)56 from Corleone as well as the mayor of Pantelleria (TP) Alberto Di Marzo (born 1951)57. Although it was forbidden for mafiosi to support parties fighting the Cosa Nostra such as the communist PCI, the socialist PSI or the Fascist MSI58, this did not prevent them from infiltrating or working with these parties on a case-by-case basis. For example, in the 1880s, “men of honor” were members of the left-wing Fasci Siciliani, whose statutes expressly prohibited the admission of mafiosi.59 In places with a strong Mafia presence like Corleone, 20 to 25% of Fasci members were “men of honor”.60 The Mafia clan Fratuzzi from Corleone, also managed to make the leader of the local Fascio, Bernardino Verro, a “man of honor”.61 Some left-wing

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politicians like the Socialist Rosario Garibaldi Bosco seem to have been “bought” by the Mafia—in Bosco’s case with a position as assessor in the Palermo city government.62 In the post-war period, the Cosa Nostra then infiltrated some local groups of the communist PCI in provinces like Caltanissetta and Agrigento—but probably not only there.63 It kept up this practice when the PCI moved towards the political center after the fall of the Berlin Wall—first called Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS), then Democratici di Sinistra (DS) and finally Partito Democratico (PD). The most prominent former Communist with Mafia contacts is Vladimiro (Mirello) Crisafulli (born 1950)64: The former PCI provincial chairman of Enna was filmed by the police on December 19, 2001, while negotiating public contracts with the boss from Enna Raffaele Bevilacqua in the Hotel Garden in Pergusa (EN). Not only left-wing politicians65 were convicted of their Mafia ties, but also a number of officials of “red cooperatives”66 or entrepreneurs: By 1959 at the latest, mainland “red” building cooperatives like the Consorzio Ravennate Construzioni, later also the Consorzio delle Cooperative (CONSCOOP) are said to have made “arrangements” with Mafia clans or Mafia construction companies like the one of Arturo Cassina in order to be able to work in Sicily. The level of cooperation seems to have become very close in the 1980s, the time of the tavulinu (Sic. small table), when the Mafia, politicians and entrepreneurs jointly manipulated the allocation of public contracts. DC boss Salvo Lima, who believed that “A pignata av’a bugghiri pi tutti” (Sic. The pot must boil for everyone), is said to have ensured, according to the defector Angelo Siino, that “red” cooperatives and left-wing construction companies—including the two PCI financiers Stefano and Ignazio Potestio67 from Polizzi Generosa (PA)—were involved in the system of illegal contract agreements. This made sense, because it cut off criticism from the outset. The “left” construction entrepreneur Giuseppe Montalbano junior (born 1935)68 also attracted attention because he accommodated bosses of the caliber of Totò Riina and helped mafiosi avoid confiscations. Since all parties rejected a cooperation with the neo-Fascist MSI after the founding of the republic, it was excluded from power—and was therefore of no interest to the Mafia. For this reason, there are no MSI politicians known as being “connected” with the Mafia. Only the successor party of the MSI, the Alleanza Nazionale (AN, since 2012 Fratelli d’Italia), which under its chairman Gianfranco Fini broke away from the Fascist ideology in the mid1990s, achieved government participation. As a result, AN politicians were also courted by the Mafia and—like the lawyer Filiberto Scalone (1929– 2018)69 from Vittoria (RG) or his professional colleague Antonio Battaglia

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(born 1951)70 from Termini Imerese—got into trouble with the judiciary. Even a local politician of the anti-Mafia party La Rete, Salvatore (Totò) Petrotto71 (born 1962) from Racalmuto (AG), made headlines: Petrotto is said to not only have accepted money from the Mafia, but also staged attacks on himself in order to receive votes from Mafia opponents as a Mafia victim. There have always been politicians in all parties who were against collaboration with the Cosa Nostra, even among the particularly affected Christian Democrats. For example, the DC secretary from Camporeale (PA), Pasquale Almerico72, tried to prevent the takeover of his local group by the Mafia boss Vanni Sacco. Consequently, he was threatened, defamed and finally murdered in 1957; the same fate befell the Sicilian Prime Minister Piersanti Mattarella (DC)73, who belonged to the left wing of the “Morotei”. The next Christian Democrat who tried to pursue an anti-Mafia course was Giuseppe Insalaco74, who became mayor of Palermo in 1984. After his removal from office within a short time, Insalaco began to cooperate with the Anti-Mafia Commission and to incriminate his former party friends, just as Almerico and Mattarella did, which cost them their lives. The Palermo Christian Democrat Leoluca Orlando75, a contemporary of Piersanti Mattarella, was also no friend of the Mafia, but remained in the DC until 1990, probably because he still believed in its reformability. Convinced grass-root Catholics, on the other hand, did not join the corrupt DC at all, but became involved in citizen groups such as Città per l’Uomo, which was initiated in Palermo in 1980 by the Jesuits Ennio Pintacuda (1933– 2005) and Bartolomeo Sorge (1929–2020) in order to split the DC.76 In addition, there were always attempts by the Christian Democratic base to prevent the candidacy of incriminated politicians, such as the Mafia boss Raffaele Bevilacqua in Enna or Giuseppe Giammarinaro in Trapani during the regional elections in 1991. The protests against the Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino in Palermo were particularly fierce, to the point that some of his party colleagues even filed a complaint with the party leadership in 1970. Among the Communists, too, there was resistance from the beginning against Mafia infiltration. One of the first to draw attention to the problem and also to demand a new investigation into the attack on the Portella della Ginestra was Giuseppe Montalbano senior (1895–1989)77 from Santa Margherita del Belice (AG)—ironically, the father of the aforementioned “left” entrepreneur Giuseppe Montalbano junior. Since Montalbano senior met with deaf ears in his party, he left the PCI and retired from public life. Similarly, the Sicilian PCI secretary Pio La Torre78 tried to clean his party of Mafia elements: he initiated investigations against party members

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in the local groups of the Palermo municipalities of Ficarazzi, Villabate and Bagheria, who were also involved in large-scale EU fraud through the agricultural cooperatives led by them. However, since La Torre was murdered in 1982, the “dirty” party members got away unscathed. The fact that La Torre had enemies in his own party even led to the suspicion of a pista interna79, that is, the suspicion that the instigators of his murder could come from within the party. The lukewarm approach of the party leadership to their own problematic members led to frustration at the grass-root level of the party and the resignation of many activists, who then preferred to engage in the anti-Mafia movement—first with the Coordinamento Antimafia and later with the party La Rete. Even among the Republicans there were people who did not want to tolerate Mafia-friendly politicians in their ranks. For example, party leader Ugo La Malfa (1909–1973) prevented the candidacy of Ignazio Mineo from Bagheria (PA) for years; it was only after the death of La Malfa that Mineo succeeded in being nominated and elected as a senator.80 The political behavior of the Mafia was based on strategies and fundamental decisions that were discussed or made by the Mafia leadership and then transmitted to the clans: For example, during the last phase of the Fascist dictatorship, the Mafia leadership decided to support the separatists; a week before the first national elections, after the founding of the Republic (1948), a summit meeting was held in Boccadifalco (PA)81 at which it was decided to vote only for candidates of the DC; before the national elections of 1987, the cupola issued the call to vote (exceptionally) for the socialists; and at various summit meetings between 1993 and 1994, the leadership agreed to support Forza Italia. Apart from these general strategy agreements, which also included the instruction not to choose normally Socialists, Communists and Fascists, the Mafia leadership did not interfere in the candidate decisions of the clans. (The only exception was the time of the Riina “dictatorship”.) The central criterion of the cosche in the selection of candidates was their trustworthiness, which was naturally highest in “men of honor”. Thus, the “favorite candidates” of the clans were sons, nephews, grandsons or cousins of mafiosi, who had taken up a respected profession—for example as doctors or lawyers—and who could be expected, thanks to their clientele, to gather many votes. Not infrequently they were promoted to important positions, say in a hospital or health authority, just before they declared their candidacy. Due to their level of education—some had even attended elite schools—these “Mafia politicians” knew how to move in the upper echelons of society and keep their “distance” from the criminal day-to-day business of

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the Mafia. Generally, they were not involved, they had no criminal record and presented themselves well in public. As a consequece, the boss Calogero Vizzini, who was mayor of Villalba (CL) in the post-war period and was aware that mafiosi like him offered political opponents an opportunity to attack them, gave up his mandate in 1946 in favor of his nephew Beniamino Farina. The Mafia had always been forced to at least send “clean” candidates into the race, because no party could afford to suggest widely known criminals for political offices. This is all the more true for the period after the introduction of the anti-Mafia law in 1982. There are numerous politicians from the Sicilian Christian Democrats in western Sicily that can be cited as examples of “men of honor”, such as the doctor Calogero Volpe82 from Montedoro (CL), the criminal defense lawyer Raffaele Bevilacqua from Barrafranca (EN);83 or Salvo Lima84, from Palermo who was Andreotti’s inofficial “Governor” in Sicily, to name just a few.85  Yet there were also politicians from other parties that were allegedly mafiosi, for example the Socialist regional deputy Enzo Leone86 from Castelvetrano (TP), the Social Democrat Casimiro Vizzini87 from Palermo, the Republican Aristide Gunnella88 from Mazara del Vallo (TP) or the FI politician Giuseppe Nobile89 from Favara (AG). Other Mafia politicians are not reputed to be “men of honor” themselves, but it is said that some of their relatives are. In terms of trustworthiness, relatives of mafiosi immediately follow after the punciuti (Sic. pricked). Politicians with more or less well-known Mafia relatives include the former Sicilian regional president and economic consultant Giuseppe Provenzano90 from the FI, as well as his party colleagues, the Palermitan doctor and representative Francesco Mercadante91  and the mayor of Palermo, Roberto Lagalla 92, newly elected in June 2022. Lagalla, a physician from Bari (Apulia), was the Rector of the University of Palermo for a number of years. The left-wing mayor Cirò Caravà (1959–2017) from Campobello is also said to have Mafia relatives.93 Once the Cosa Nostra had selected their candidates, they tried to place them well within a party. This worked out particularly well for them with the Christian Democrats in Western Sicily.94 The former mafioso turned informant, Gioacchino Pennino junior, who was often referred to as the “Buscetta of politics”, and who was the former DC secretary of the Settecanoli local branch in Palermo as well as a city councillor, described in his memoirs95 how “tricks” were used to achieve the desired majorities at nomination conferences: Numerous times, people—often without their knowledge—were enrolled as members in local branches, while the membership cards of anti-Mafia Christian Democrats were not renewed. The Mafia then paid the membership fees for the fictitious members. Many DC local

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branches, especially those of the “Cianciminiani”, of which Pennino junior was a member, existed only on paper. These practices led some Palermo Christian Democrats to complain to the DC leadership in a libro bianco (white book) on November 17, 1970 and to demand the restoration of democratic principles within the party: In Palermo, (...) the membership cards are false, there is no democracy, there are only commissioners, the handling of membership cards is fraudulent.96

By the 1980s at the latest, Salvo Lima had achieved such a powerful position as head of the Sicilian “Andreottiani” that he sometimes managed to push through candidacies against the will of the party base even without manipulation.97 There were, however, conflicts not only between Mafia opponents and Mafia associates, but also between rival Mafia politicians: For example, before the Second Mafia War, the bosses Bontate, Inzerzillo and Badalamenti in Palermo supported the politician Salvo Lima, while the Corleonesi preferred Vito Ciancimino. The political fights within the Cosa Nostra were such a big problem that the cupola even considered not taking in any more politicians.98 Given that the Mafia does not have enough of its own personnel to occupy all the offices beyond the local level in which it is interested, it also supports politicians who are not part of the organization. It is well known that a number of Mafia politicians did not even have basic political skills such as the ability to give speeches. For example, both Salvo Lima99—probably also because of his lisp—and Francesco Barbaccia100 are said never to have given a public speech in their lives. Similarly, it is said of Calogero Volpe101 that his colleagues in the House of Representatives made fun of him because he was not proficient in standard Italian, but only spoke Sicilian. And the “Cianciminiani” in the City Council of Palermo were said to have not even known when to raise their hands during votes and were therefore dependent on the help of Giacomo Murana102, a Social Democrat who was friends with Vito Cianciminiano. All of these politicians are connected to the Cosa Nostra to varying degrees, with the “men of honor” being the most strongly connected, followed by the politicians who are external to the organization but with whom the Mafia maintains direct relationships, which is especially true for municipal politicians. The enormous presence of Mafia-affiliated and “Mafia politicians” at the municipal level led, above all in western Sicily, to the dissolution of numerous city and town councils due to Mafia infiltration, since the Law 221/1991 provides the corresponding legal basis.

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The Mafia was also well represented in the former provincial parliaments, in the Sicilian regional parliament—with the respective consequences: more than 50% of the Sicilian regional representatives were investigated between 1991 and 1996 not only for corruption and abuse of office, but also for relationships with organized crime. 41 of the then 90 (today 70) regional representatives were investigated and 16 were remanded in custody,103 including an ex-regional president, two vice presidents, ten ex-assessors and the leader of the Christian Democrats. In total, the Christian Democrats and Socialists were most affected, with 22 of their 40 representatives having problems with the judiciary. In addition, 34 Sicilian senators and representatives of the national parliament were accused of corruption or cooperation with the Mafia in the same period.104 But not only Sicilian, but also mainland politicians maintain relationships with the Cosa Nostra, directly or indirectly with the help of politicians acting as “brokers”. Some of them, such as the Piedmontese Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928), may never have met a Mafioso in person. But they can certainly be referred to as “Mafia politicians” in so far as their power depended on politicians who, in turn, owed their political office to Mafia support. In order to secure their power, for example, Giolitti or Andreotti deliberately rendered services to “their” Mafia politicians from the Cosa Nostra, against the wishes of some of their party colleagues. The Sicilian priest and politician Luigi Sturzo (1871–1959) summed up the situation as follows: The Mafia is rooted in Sicily, but also extends its tentacles to Rome. It penetrates the ministerial cabinets and lurks in the corridors of Montecitorio105. It violates state secrets, withholds documents and forces men who are considered models of honesty to act dishonestly and violently.106

Under pressure from the Americans, high-ranking, anti-Communist politicians of the post-war period such as Alcide De Gasperi or Mario Scelba, without being friends of the Mafia themselves, agreed to “compromises” with the Mafia, which was thus able to murder left-wing politicians with impunity. The Sicilian Christian Democrat Giuseppe Alessi (1905– 2009) formulated the attitude of many of his party colleagues from that time as follows: We have to stop communism, no matter what. Communism is bad, the one you haven’t experienced yet. Immediately after the war it was better to govern together with mafiosi than to leave the country to the communists.107

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Although Giovanni Gioia himself was not a member of the Mafia, he made it possible for the Mafia to assert itself in Sicilian DC and bears the moral responsibility for the murder of the DC secretary of Camporeale, Pasquale Almerico. Almerico had turned to Gioia in vain to try to prevent the takeover of his local association by the Mafia.108 In particular, most Socialist and Communist politicians were particularly hostile towards the Cosa Nostra, but they were well aware that, without making a “pact with the devil”109, they would be personally endangered and unable to award public contracts to the “red cooperatives”. This is the only way to explain statements such as that of PCI functionary Michelangelo Russo (1931–2006)—by the way, the successor of Pio La Torre!—that one could not carry out a “blood group analysis” with regard to the Mafia status of companies and that cooperatives should also be allowed to open up new markets.110 It is safe to assume that not even Silvio Berlusconi himself may be a friend of the Mafia personally. However when he was forced to pay protection money at the beginning of the 1970s, he did not turn to the police but rather to the “friends of friends”; later, he also accepted Mafia money for his company, which delivered him into the hands of the Cosa Nostra. In conclusion, it can be said that since the second half of the nineteenth century, there has been a transverse, i.e. cross-party “Mafia party” to which politicians of different parties and political levels belong, either directly or indirectly. This Mafia-supporting transverse party springs into action when the interests of its members are affected, for example when it comes to Mafia-friendly laws or the lifting of the immunity of Mafia politicians, which is often rejected on a cross-party basis. Of course, the members of the transverse party express solidarity when one of their members is being investigated; without further ado, they put incriminated colleagues back on the ballot and generally play down the problem of the Mafia. As good patriots, they refuse, as they did more than a hundred years ago, to associate Sicily with the Mafia. Gianfranco Miccichè (born 1954), who was said to have had cocaine delivered to his ministry111, refused to name the Palermo airport after the murdered judges Falcone and Borsellino, because he feared harm for the reputation of the island.112 On the other hand, the Sicilian UDC Prime Minister Totò Cuffaro, supported by the then FI Senate President and since September 2022 Sicilian Prime Minister Renato Schifani (born 1950), was outraged by a broadcast entitled “La mafia che non spara” (The Mafia that doesn’t shoot) aired by RAI3 on January 15, 2005, which included a segment on protection money.113 Cuffaro declared that he could understand if the Sicilians, in view of such broadcasts, which gave the

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island a bad image, would no longer pay television fees, and demanded a “corrective broadcast” which was indeed aired later by RAI2. The highlight was: Cuffaro was later sentenced to imprisonment because he had favored the Mafia! In view of such hypocrisy, the demand of the former FI Minister Pietro Lunardi (born 1939) from Parma that one should learn to live with the Mafia114 appears more sincere. The other extreme was the excessively “honest”, Vincenzo Lo Giudice, who during his election campaigns let a luxury car drive through the streets and blared the title melody of the film “The Godfather” over the loudspeaker in addition to always introducing himself with: “Pleased to meet you, I am Don Vito Corleone”.115 Typically, however, members of the transversal Mafia party communicate only with each other or with mafiosi. In the communications, they often use Mafia jargon and— like Bartolo Pellegrini— derogatively call police officers sbirri ” (snitches).116 Only if politicians are convicted—which is rare enough—they pretend not to have known the members of the transversal “Mafia party”.

4.3 Protection and Favoritism in Exchange for Support Mafioso Nino Giuffrè brought the relationship between the Mafia clans and politicians to the point when he said: So I give you, politician, something and you give me, mafioso, something. I give you power and take you to Rome and you guarantee me impunity, do me favors and provide me with opportunities to make money.1

From the outset, influential people have protected “men of honor” from prosecution. As early as 1838, the intendant (a kind of predecessor of the prefect) of Caltanissetta reported on a criminal organization based in Mazzarino (CL) called Sacra Unione. Its leader, a gamekeeper and notorious criminal working for the judge of the village, would be protected by all influential people in the village.2 At that time it was common for the powerful—noblemen, large landowners and church dignitaries—to give shelter to mafiosi or to speak on their behalf in court.3 The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry of 1875 found that it was “extraordinarily easy” for mafiosi to secure impunity, indeed they did not even have to hide.4 This situation has not changed much to this day, as countless examples show, including President Giulio Andreotti and various regional

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representatives; the “assistance” ranges from intervening in court proceedings to instructions on how to simulate illnesses.5 Politicians have also always promoted Mafia businesses. When, after the founding of Italy, collective tasks were assigned to the municipalities6 such as the provision of infrastructure services (water, lighting, transport, waste or refuse disposal) or public facilities (hospitals, orphanages, old people’s homes, slaughterhouses, schools or welfare facilities for the destitute), politicians ensured that the funds intended for these purposes flowed to dubious persons with whom they were in cahoots. If criminals acted against the interests of the general public—for example by usurping public property such as state-owned land or by not paying property or business taxes—this was not only tolerated, but often even legalized retrospectively. Of course, criminals received preferential treatment in the form of permits, licenses and concessions as well as jobs in state institutions7 from the “Mafia of town halls”8. City council meetings were often a farce because the decisions had already been agreed upon between politicians and mafiosi beforehand.9 As a result, the municipal coffers were almost always empty and the tasks assigned to the municipalities by the central government were either not carried out at all or only poorly carried out.10 This is still the case today, only that the state tasks and public funds— and thus the politicians’ power to allocate them—have grown considerably in the meantime. The number of politicians who are accused of benefiting from Mafia “dealings” has become almost unimaginable. The manipulation of public tenders11 in favor of Mafia entrepreneurs is most often blamed on politicians, as are the preferential allocation of subsidies12—often to dubious associations. Of course, politicians still ensure that mafiosi get around all rules and regulations and receive approvals13, licenses14 and concessions15. They also grant mafiosi unsecured loans16 as members of the board of directors of banks. The fact that politicians want to make money from all this and demand hefty kickbacks has been proven by numerous corruption investigations17. Other favors include procuring false identity papers18, helping to regain firearms or driver’s licenses19, securing jobs with the state20 or in family businesses21. Sometimes politicians even pay the travel expenses22 of Mafia relatives for prison visits! In return, politicians get help from the Mafia in obtaining and maintaining power. As laid out in the second chapter, the part of the social elite interested in politics asked criminals for support in quelling uprisings in the first half of the nineteenth century, thus creating the Mafia in the first place.

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Attempts to overthrow a regime by force or to destabilize politics took place in the twentieth century in the form of coups d’état23 or political destabilization attempts. The Mafia participated in at least one of these attempted coups d’état, the Borghese coup24, which took place on the night of December 7–8, 1970. The contact between the Mafia and the coup plotters led by the right-wing Junio Valerio Borghese (1906–1974) was established by the Freemasons Giovanni Alliata Di Montereale and Carlo Morana.25 Alliata Di Montereale is said to have belonged to the secret Mafia members of the Palermo-based Brancaccio family and Morana was the brother of a mafioso from Palermo. After the then top Mafia bosses Pippo Calderone, Giuseppe Di Cristina and Luciano Leggio had only half-heartedly agreed to support the coup26, they met with the principe nero (black prince) Borghese, who provided details of his plan to them: After the arrest of the President of State and the occupation of the ministries by his men in Rome, the Cosa Nostra was to bring the prefectures under control with a contingent of 1,000 to 2,000 mafiosi—recognizable by a green bracelet. They were to arrest those who stood in their way. In return, although no general amnesty was offered to the Cosa Nostra, a “correction” of the criminal proceedings against imprisoned members was offered.27 Even if they agreed in the end, Calderone remained adamant in his refusal to have the Cosa Nostra make arrests: We mafiosi arrest people? Look, we don’t do these sbirri things! If we have to kill someone, we kill him. But putting people in jail, never.28

And so it happened that the picciotti were at the ready in Sicily, as was a small group that had traveled to Rome. In the end, however, nothing came of the project because Borghese suddenly aborted the coup that was already underway—the Ministry of the Interior had already been occupied—after a mysterious phone call. The support of the Cosa Nostra was not only requested for rebellions and coup attempts, but also in the context of “strategies of tension”29 in terrorist attacks so as to prepare for authoritarian measures or regime change. The first such attack was the aforementioned incident of the Pugnalatori of Palermo, where on October 4, 1862, twelve people were arbitrarily murdered in Palermo, so that the government had a pretext to abolish freedom of speech and the press. The attack on the Portella della Ginestra on May 1, 1947, also needs to be mentioned here. It aimed at the provocation of a civil war, which would have justified the ban on the Communist Party. The

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Cosa Nostra was also involved in the attack on December 23, 1984, on the high-speed train 906 in the Appenin base tunnel between Naples and Milan, in which 27 people died and 180 were injured.30 The goal of this and other attacks, mainly carried out by right-wing radicals, was not only to defame the political left. The social destabilization was also to prepare the ground for authoritarian governments or right-wing government coups.31 The last wave of terror took place at the beginning of the 1990s and included the bomb attacks on the judges Falcone (May 23, 1992) and Borsellino (July 19, 1993) in Palermo as well as the failed attempt on the television journalist Maurizio Costanzo (May 14, 1993) in Rome. The attack on the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (May 27, 1993) and the attacks on July 27, 1993, on the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the Church of San Giorgio al Velabro in Rome and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Via Palestro in Milan also belonged to this wave of terror. The last attack on October 31, 1993, on a carabinieri unit stationed in Viale dei Gladiatori near the Olympic Stadium in Rome failed. All these attacks are attributed to the Cosa Nostra, although numerous indications suggest that they acted on behalf of third parties who wanted to initiate another regime change.32 Most often, however,  politicians request support  from the Cosa Nostra during regularly held democratic elections. The importance of the Mafia as an “election helper” has increased greatly over the past 150 years, not only because of the expansion of suffrage (completed in 1946 with the introduction of women’s suffrage), but also because of the increase in political bodies: Since 1948, Sicilians have not only been represented in the national Parliament, but also in the Sicilian regional Parliament (Assemblea Regionale Siciliana, ARS). Until their abolition in 2008, they also elected representatives to the nine Sicilian provincial parliaments. In the approximately 400 municipalities, Sicilians are also called to the polls to elect municipal councilors and, in cities with more than 250,000 inhabitants, district councilors. In 1979, the representatives for the European Parliament were added. These deals based on mutual benefits are negotiated either at the highest level or at the local level.33 For particularly important issues, top Mafia bosses negotiate with high-ranking politicians such as Salvo Lima, who for a long time was the personal point of contact34 of the Cosa Nostra. If it is a question of local matters, the clans themselves negotiate with the politicians who are active in their “territory”. Some cosche have assigned “specialists” to this task, as was the case with the Palermo family Croceverde-Ciaculli, specifically a certain Salvatore Greco (1927–1999), who was not called senatore (senator)35 for nothing. If simple mafiosi need a favor from a high-ranking

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politician, for example the “correction” of a trial, they must never approach the politician directly, but must ask a high-ranking Mafia boss appointed by the cupola to mediate. The former insider Maurizio Di Gati (born 1966), who was the former provincial representative of the Cosa Nostra in Agrigento, told of the support rendered by the Mafia during an election campaign: All party leaders turn to the Mafia during election campaigns and want support. All of them. From former mayor Sodano to senator of the Partito Democratico Angelo Capodicasa.36

After they have made contact, the politicians—as the Mafia defector Leonardo Messina reported on the procedure of the Mafia in the province of Caltanissetta—are invited by the Mafia district chairmen to introduce themselves.37 They submit proposals of what they intend to do for the Cosa Nostra in case of their election. In the past, the clans were satisfied with such promises, but due to bad experiences with politicians, the Mafia is increasingly demanding money for their support of election campaigns: For example, in the Palermo district of Brancaccio, € 15,000 were to be paid for 300 votes.38 The cosche usually support several candidates39—sometimes even from different parties. The Mafia defector Nino Giuffrè explained this as follows: You must not cling to an idea, to only one man, let alone to a party. On the contrary, you must have a whole stable of winning horses, in Palermo as in Rome.40

This practice sometimes leads to conflicts not only between rival candidates, but also between different clans. When, for example, the former UDC mayor Armando Savarino († 2019) from Ravanusa (AG) sent his daughter Giusy (born 1974) into the race during the regional elections of 2001, this led to a confrontation with Vincenzo Lo Giudice, who was running in the same constituency and was afraid that the rival could take votes away from him. The conflict had to be settled by Calogero Di Caro (born 1946), the boss of Canicatti.41 In Catania, on the other hand, two clans that had supported the same candidate argued about whose “property” the politician now was, that is, whom he had to prefer when doing favors.42 The way in which the Cosa Nostra interferes in elections has changed over time due to the conditions under which it operates: During the government period of the Liberals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,

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the Mafia primarily resorted to open violence, a tactic that even increased after the World War II, when leaders of the left-wing parties were killed in succession. After the Christian Democrats had consolidated their power in the second half of the 1950s, mafiosi began to turn to more peaceful campaign methods, whereby they did not even have to procure a part of the voter turnout, since each clan was able to mobilize a considerable number of voters from the outset: The defector Antonino Calderone made the following calculation on the basis of the Santa Maria di Gesù family in Palermo43: The family consists of approximately 200 members, and since each member is able to organize 40 to 50 votes through relatives and friends, the family automatically turns out 10,000 voters.44 Consequently, the head of the Palermo clan Brancaccio, Giuseppe Guttadauro, boasted: Without leaving my home, I collected 5,000 votes. (…) My brother Carlo (…) can do that too—he alone had ensured the election of five of the seven Forza Italia city councilors. He ensured the election of seven in Bagheria (…) I won’t say any more. He is able to have an onorevole (representative) elected. For sure, Carlo didn’t do it alone.45

In addition to securing votes from “its own”, the Mafia has always organized external votes as well. A popular method of election campaigning since the 1950s have been strolls, during which the bosses walked arm in arm with the politicians they preferred in their city districts or villages.46 Buscetta recounts as follows: It was important that they were seen together: There was no need to hold election meetings, make promises or make commitments. The simple presence in the company of an ‘man of honora’ was for the voters (…) a clear indication that they (…) had to give their vote to the friend of the ‘man of honor.’47

These “public strolls” were not only about making it clear to the population which politicians enjoyed the confidence of the Cosa Nostra, but also about showing them who would take care of their concerns in the future, as the former mafioso Tullio Cannella explained: It was as if the people of the Cosa Nostra in the district would make a gift to all the pensioners, workers (…) and say: ‘So you saw that we bring exactly the person to you on the square who will take care of your problems, all problems.’ It was a kind of gift.48

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After the candidates were introduced, so-called “door-to-door visits” took place in the second step. For this purpose, well-known mafiosi, the so-called “Zu’ Totòs” (Sic. Uncle Totòs), went to the families in their district and handed them santini (literally “small saints”)49, that is, advertising leaflets of the candidates to be elected. Needy families additionally received a gift, such as pasta, gasoline vouchers or the settlement of their electricity, insurance or telephone bills.50 Of course, the candidates had to finance these “gifts”. In addition to the “election gifts”, voters were promised things like the allocation of a social housing apartment or a job in the public sector. Until the abolition of the preference votes in 1993, voters also often received certain number combinations corresponding to the candidates’ positions on the list,51 because the former voting system allowed voters to tick several candidates on a list at the same time. For example, if the candidate to be elected had position 50 on the list, all the number combinations that had been distributed contained the number 50, so that this candidate would be elected. Since each voter was assigned an individual number sequence, the Mafia “election helpers” present during the count (as representatives of the parties) could determine exactly whether an individual voter had voted “correctly”.52 In addition, large campaign banquets were held for vote multipliers, financed by Mafia entrepreneurs such as the cousins Ignazio and Nino Salvo or the construction entrepreneur Rosario Spatola. However, such expensive events were not organized for “ordinary politicians”, but only for top politicians. The election campaign feasts of the Salvos in their Hotel Zagarella in Santa Flavia (PA) for Salvo Lima were famous. Similarly, the banquet organised by Spatola for the Minister of Defense Attilio Ruffini53 in an estate of the capofamiglia of Roccella, at which hundreds of people took part, was legendary. In addition to collecting votes, mafiosi provide their candidates with numerous other services: They accompany politicians to their election rallies, guard their campaign stands and offices, or organize the hanging of campaign posters, notably on the businesses of fugitive Mafia bosses.54 Occasionally, mafiosi also use symbols: For example, during the 1987 national elections, when the Socialist party was to be elected, they put carnations on balconies, the party symbol of the Socialists. Furthermore, the clans take care of voter transport on election day. In the past, they also posted mafiosi in front of the polling station, not only to remind the populace how to vote, but also to possibly win over people who had previously “fallen through the cracks” as voters. When these then respectfully greeted the “men of honor”, the latter replied: “Ci pozzu rari un consighiu” (Sic. Can I give you an advice) and recommended their candidates.

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Since its inception, the Cosa Nostra has tried to bring the polling stations under its control. An important prerequisite for this is the control of the election commission, with the election managers playing a decisive role. Again and again, election managers are arrested on the grounds of having falsified votes.55 It suffices though, if the election managers just close their eyes: For example, they did not intervene in Corleone when hundreds of “blind” people were suddenly accompanied by mafiosi into the voting booths.56 Some election managers also do not notice when immigrants without voting rights or long-deceased people “vote” or some voters vote multiple times. Another common method in recent years has been to smuggle out empty ballots from the polling station, fill them out and then hand them over to voters who then submit those ballots in the polling station instead of the new one. For the new, blank ballot, voters later receive money, with the current rate apparently amounting to between € 50 and € 60. Since the early 1990s, the era of joint strolls by Mafia bosses and politicians and the open campaigning for votes is over. The reasons are, on the one hand, the sentences of the Maxi Trial (1992), according to which mafiosi can no longer move around as freely as before, and on the other hand— and this is probably even more important—the new Article 416ter, which declares the scambio elettorale politico-mafioso (exchange of votes between politicians and Mafia)57 to be a criminal offense, making it difficult for politicians to get election help from the Mafia. The sociologist Antonio La Spina observes quite correctly: “For politicians, it is extremely risky to have anything to do with the Mafia: they risk the end of their careers.”58 However, the exchange of votes between politicians and Mafia has not been eradicated completely, but both mafiosi and politicians have become more cautious, as shown by a conversation between two mafiosi from Trabia (PA) who were committed to support the politician Nino Mormino: “So then we move. But with restraint, as he deserves it, with a lot of calm, understand? Otherwise we harm him.”59—Today, widely known mafiosi no longer campaign for votes themselves, but instead use people whose proximity to the Mafia is not yet generally known.60 Politicians also no longer address “men of honor” directly, but ask for their support through intermediaries. Since the preferential vote was largely abolished, the system of vote checking has also changed. Technological progress and digitization has been helpful to the Cosa Nostra especially in the form of the mobile phones, which have been increasingly widespread since 2000. Mafiosi demand from the voters to photograph the completed ballot in the voting booth, and if they can thus prove that they have voted “correctly”, they receive money.61 Fuel

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vouchers or the payment of invoices are now less common in vote-buying. The practice of “voting by taking photos” has become so widespread that the Law 49/2008 had to prohibit the carrying of mobile phones into voting booths,62 but voters are still caught taking photos.63 Even though the Mafia’s campaign methods have become more peaceful over the last 60 years, that does not mean that the Cosa Nostra does not use violence anymore. They still try to prevent promising rivals of Mafia candidates from running in elections with threatening letters, animal heads placed on front doors, or setting cars on fire.64 While some candidates try to protect themselves with bulletproof vests65, others—like Salvatore Ciaccio, the former DS mayor of Roccamena (PA)—give up: After the summer house of his family was destroyed by an excavator, Ciaccio withdrew from the race in 2003, clearing the way for his rival Giuseppe Salvatore Gambino from the UDC, who was later arrested.66—If a candidate cannot be dissuaded from running for office, successful rivals are sometimes forced not to take office. This is what happened in the case of Christian Democrat Stefano Nastasi, who received significantly more votes than his party colleague Enzo Culicchia in the 1983 municipal elections in Partanna (TP), whereupon he would have been entitled to the mayor’s office. However, Nastasi did not take up his office after the Mafia allegedly “talked” to him.67 The unpleasant consequences of these still common campaign hindrances have been described by the DC politician Giuseppe Abbate (born 1953) from Villarosa (EN) who was running for office in the same constituency as the Mafia boss Raffaele Bevilacqua in the regional elections of 2001: During the election campaign, there was an atmosphere of fear. My election posters and those of the parliamentary representative Plumari were immediately torn down after we had hung them up. The distribution of our campaign leaflets was hindered. The young people I had engaged told me they were intimidated (…) The tension was particularly high in the final phase of the election campaign: On Friday before the elections, a DC rally took place on the square of Pietraperzia, at which I was the main speaker. When I stepped onto the stage, I saw Bevilacqua and Liborio Miccicchè (the capofamiglia of Pietraperzia, note by the author) on the left side of the square with a group of people, on the right side the doctor Sammarco with his followers. Bevilacqua and Sammarco came onto the stage and prevented me from using my speaker’s slot as planned. Instead, Sammarco and the lawyer Bevilacqua spoke and took up almost the entire time alloted to me. I, who was supposed to speak for three quarters of an hour, was forced to ask the representatives of the Socialist or the Social Democratic Party, I do not remember exactly, who then held their election event, to grant me five minutes of speaking time.68

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Importantly, not only the candidates themselves are harassed, but also their supporters. For example, after the campaign event described above, Abbate reported that some of his supporters had been physically attacked and their cars damaged that evening.69 Those voters who would vote for rival candidates are also often prevented from voting. For example, in Caccamo (PA) only Christian Democrats were allowed to board the bus to the polling station, while Communists such as Antonio Faso were prevented from doing so.70 Furthermore, political rivals of Mafia candidates are still being murdered: In 1983, for example, Stefano Nastasi, the DC municipal politician from Partanna (TP), mentioned above, was in the end killed by the Mafia. Enzo Culicchia, his intra-party rival, was investigated as having given the order.71 Bevilacqua’s opponent, the DC politician Giuseppe Abbate from Villarosa (EN), was also supposed to be killed, but this had been forbidden by the highest Mafia authority at the last moment.72 Up until about 10 years ago, the Cosa Nostra was successful in controlling numerous ballots, primarily in Western Sicily. According to a study conducted by the research institute Eurispes73, this amounted to approximately 450,000 votes, or one tenth of all votes. Former mafioso Giovanni Brusca also considers this number a realistic one.74 Recently, however, the Cosa Nostra seems to have become less involved in elections, as evidenced, for example, by the fact that today Mafia prisoners hardly ever cast their votes.75 The reasons for this development are probably, on the one hand, the dwindling territorial control of the clans, and on the other hand, their difficulty in finding sufficiently trustworthy contacts, especially at the national level. Since the Mafia can hand out fewer “election gifts” as a result, voters who previously sold their votes according to the motto “Soccu c’è ppi mmia” (Sic. “What do I get for it?”)76 today no longer make the effort to vote. It is noteworthy that the number of non-voters, which has increased throughout Italy in recent years, is approximately twice as high in the South as the national average.77 In Sicily, in turn, the percentage of non-voters is significantly higher in the west, where the Mafia is strongest, than in the east.78 Yet the Mafia does not only campaign for its political “friends”, but becomes active whenever those “friends” are in danger. As a result, there have been numerous omicidi eccellenti (excellent homicides), i.e., murders of high-ranking individuals, especially in the period between 1979 and 1992. Although most of these murders were carried out by the Mafia, many—if one believes the pentiti—were ordered by politicians. For example, the pentito Francesco Di Carlo claimed that the murders of the Christian Democratic politicians Michele Reina († 1979) and Piersanti Mattarella († 1980) were ordered by their intra-party opponent Vito Ciancimino

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because the two politicians had interfered with Ciancimino’s shady business.79 According to Di Carlo, the murder of the investigating judge Rocco Chinnici († 1983) was ordered by Nino and Ignazio Salvo because Chinnici had wanted to take action against these two tax collectors and DC sponsors.80 And the pentito Buscetta reported that the prefect of Palermo, Carlo Dalla Chiesa († 1982), and the journalist Mino Pecorelli († 1979) were killed as a favor for Andreotti.81 The relationship between the Cosa Nostra and the politicians allied with them ranges from loyalty to contempt. Some mafiosi, especially if they had been granted personal favors, had a good relationship with “their” politicians.82 For example, Antonino Mineo, the capomafia of Bagheria (PA), is said to have been closely linked to Franco Restivo because Restivo spared him the soggiorno obbligato (forced residence)—the legally imposed obligation to live in a place outside of Sicily.83 Yes, the powerful Minister Restivo was even considered Mineo’s cumpare (Sic. best man)—which caused envy. Giuseppe Di Cristina, the capomafia from Riesi (CL), also had a close relationship with a politician, namely the Republican Aristide Gunnella.84 Gunella is said to have procured a well-paid position for Di Cristina at the state sulfur company Ente Minerario Siciliano (EMS) when Di Cristina was previously working as a small employee at a bank in Gela (CL). No wonder then that the Republicans fared much better in Di Cristina’s sphere of influence than in the rest of Sicily. In the time period when mafiosi could still maintain open relationships with politicians, they often invited them to family celebrations such as weddings or baptisms, not so much because they liked them, but rather to show the public their good relationships with the powerful.85 Perhaps because of the long “cooperation” with the Christian Democrats, some Mafia bosses like Stefano Bontate considered themselves strong DC supporters. Bontate had therefore immediately agreed when he was asked by the two DC politicians Rosario Nicoletti (1931–1984) and Salvo Lima to work for the rescue of the DC politician Aldo Moro, who was kidnapped by the Red Brigades in 1978.86 Immediately, Bontate ordered his capodecina Angelo Cosentino, who commanded a group in Rome, to take care of the liberation of Moro together with Pippo Calò, who was responsible for the contacts with politicians in Rome. At the same time, Tommaso Buscetta was given the task of negotiating with the Red Brigades in prison. When nothing happened, the agitated Bontate called a meeting of the cupola in Palermo and demanded an explanation from Calò. Calò, who had excellent political insider knowledge, justified himself with the words: “Stefano, have you still not understood that the most important men of his party do not want to free him.”87 With that, the matter was settled for the Cosa Nostra and

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Moro’s fate was decided.—Another mafioso with firm political convictions was Totò Riina: He could not stand communists! When a “man of honor” named Zu Sariddu suggested that the young Riina join the PCI, he rejected this indignantly: “Leave me in peace (…) Why don’t you go and pretend to be a Communist.”88 In conflicts with politicians—also those external to the organization—the Cosa Nostra often relies on threats or even violence. This is especially true for mafiosi who, like Gioacchino Pennino junior, were sent by the Mafia into politics to only carry out its orders. When Pennino no longer wanted to support Vito Ciancimino, who was isolated within the DC, he was summoned to a meeting in Bagheria (PA) with Bernardo Provenzano. Pennino reports: He (Provenzano, note by the author) told me that I had to stay in my position. Things were good as they were. (…) At the end of the meeting, which was humiliating for me, Provenzano threatened me and said that I should keep my mouth shut and not incite rebellion against Ciancimino.89

Most often, Mafia bosses threaten to withdraw support from politicians. When the FI politicians from his electoral district Villabate/Bagheria (PA) turned away from Antonino (Nino) Mandalà (born 1939) after the arrest of his son in 1995, he told a Mafia colleague: “My dear, I will no longer give recommendations (…). Here, there are no votes for anyone anymore.”90 Even the powerful Giulio Andreotti was allegedly shown limits. The defector Marino Mannoia reported on two meetings between boss Stefano Bontate and Andreotti—one in September 1979 in Rome, the other in April 1980 in Palermo—which concerned the Sicilian DC Prime Minister Piersanti Mattarella.91 At the first meeting, the boss is said to have clearly demanded that Andreotti intervene with the anti-Mafia Mattarella: In Sicily we are in charge. If you don’t want the DC to disappear completely, you have to do what we say. Otherwise we will withdraw our votes from Sicily, Calabria and all of southern Italy. Then you can only count on the ones in the north, where everyone votes for the Communists.92

When, at the second meeting, Andreotti is said to have demanded an explanation for the murder of Mattarella, there was allegedly a loud argument. Bontate is said to have shouted at Andreotti that he should not dare to make special laws against the Mafia, because this would have serious consequences.93

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If the threats do not bring the desired result, the Cosa Nostra does indeed withdraw support from politicians from time to time, as was the case — according to Leonardo Messina—with the DC regional deputy Antonino (Nino) Cicero (born 1938), for whom the Cosa Nostra had procured 600 preference votes in the regional elections of 1986. Cicero, who was considered no longer trustworthy, was quickly replaced by Rudy Maira, who from then on was the political point-of-contact of the cosche in the province of Caltanissetta.94 Interestingly, the Mafia occasionally threatens to publicize the Mafia relationships of politicians. For example, the above-mentioned Mafia boss Nino Mandalà put FI Senator Enrico La Loggia (born 1947)95 under pressure when he said: Enrico, you know who I am and what my relationship to your father (…) was. I am, just like your father, a mafioso. Together with your father, I organized voter turnout in the Villabate area with the help of Turiddu Malta, who was then the capomafia of Vallelunga. (…) He is no longer alive, but I can still say that your father was a member of the Mafia.96

La Loggia is said to have broken down in tears with the words “You want to ruin me.”97, 98 Sometimes, bosses send messages to politicians, such as Giuseppe Graviano, who during a trial in 2020 repeatedly referred to personal meetings with Silvio Berlusconi in Milan and investments by his relatives in Berlusconi’s companies and hinted that he could provide more details.99 However, such public statements are unnecessary inasmuch as all parties involved know the extortion potential of the Cosa Nostra quite well. For this reason, boss Raffaele Bevilacqua simply assured his family that he had a score to settle with various politicians who might welcome his silence.100 It is believed that Matteo Messina Denaro, who is allegedly in possession of the “archive” that includes the secrets of the boss Totò Riina, who was arrested in 1993101, was invulnerable and not arrested for 30 years. Rarely do mafiosi resort to murder threats. For example, Salvo Lima is said to have been warned with the words, “Either you stick to the pact or we’ll kill you and your family,”102 before he was actually murdered in March 1992.103 Ten years after Lima’s death, politicians from Alleanza Nazionale and Forza Italia, who were mainly Mafia defense lawyers, were the recipients of such threats. The Mafia accused them of not having advocated for the “men of honor” sitting in prison under harsh conditions while they were in office. The SISDE secret service considered the politicians104 to be seriously endangered and offered them protection.

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Even slaps in the face105 seem to be a popular means for mafiosi to bring “their” politicians to their senses. For example, at the end of the 1950s, Don Paolino Bontate, the head of the Villagrazia family from Palermo, publicly slapped the monarchist politician Ernesto Pivetti (1888–1970)106 in the Norman palace in Palermo, the seat of the regional parliament, because he had refused to continue supporting the government of Regional President Silvio Milazzo (1903–1982). Overall, mafiosi have a very low opinion of politicians, which has intensified since the 1990s.107 They believe it is unfair that only mafiosi are charged with crimes while politicians usually get away with it. One former member explained: In my opinion, the politician is worse than the mafioso. The mafioso risks something, he has to go to prison and runs the risk of being shot. (…) That never happens to the politician (…), which is why I can’t stand him. I have never been able to stand politicians, even though I myself did politics when I was young. I was a city councilor.108

During an intercepted conversation, Mafia boss Simone Castello characterized politicians as follows: (…) Wretched, wretched, and wretched again (…) As soon as they take on the position of a member of parliament or senator, they think they’re supermen.109

The Mafia is aware that politicians are in a better position.110 For this reason, Tano Badalamenti drew the conclusion: “We cannot wage war with the state.”111 Mafia boss Carmelo Amato expressed himself similarly to another mafioso: Remember, since the world began, you don’t touch the state. (…) You don’t touch it because, if it wants to, it can screw you over. (…). Unfortunately, you have to leave the state alone, screw it. What the state wants to do, it does.112

His friend, Giuseppe Vaglica, saw it the same way and answered: “They have the power.”113 In fact, the politicians have the upper hand: after all they can not only pass strict anti-Mafia laws, but also have the power over the judiciary and the police as well as the secret services. This gives them the opportunity to betray, kill or make Mafia bosses who are willing to testify “commit suicide”. The Mafia boss Luigi (Gino) Ilardo (1951–1996),114 who knew numerous “secrets”—for example about the attacks on Falcone

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and Borsellino—was betrayed—allegedly by representatives of the state— and promptly killed by the Cosa Nostra. Dangerous witnesses like the bandits Salvatore Giuliano or Gaspare Pisciotta, who knew the background of the attack on Portella della Ginestra (1947), died in a mysterious way: Giuliano, who was officially killed in a firefight with carabinieri, was already dead when the carabinieri shot at him. Pisciotta was poisoned in the Palermo Ucciardone prison, precisely one day after he had made a (not recorded) statement to the investigating judge Pietro Scaglione. The Mafia banker Michele Sindona115, who knew about many “dirty” financial dealings of politicians, died on March 22, 1986, just two days after entering prison from an espresso coffee laced with cyanide. Officially, his death was ruled a suicide, but Sindona, shortly before his death, shouted that he had been poisoned. For a long time it was said that the second great Mafia banker, Roberto Calvi116, who was found dead under the London Black Friars Bridge on June 17, 1982, had committed suicide, but in the meantime it has been shown that he was murdered. When Antonino (Nino) Gioè (1948–1993)117, who was involved in the attack on Judge Falcone, showed that he wanted to talk, he was found hanged in his prison cell with his shoelaces. It is assumed that it was not a suicide. This claim is now made in the appeal proceedings of the Trattativa Mafia-Stato (Mafia-State negotiations) by Pietro Riggio118, a former prison guard and mafioso from Caltanissetta. This pentito, who seems to know many explosive secrets, could be the next candidate for a “suicide” in prison …

4.4 Judiciary and Police: Henchman of Politics? Although the state’s law enforcement apparatus has been aware of the criminal activities of Cosa Nostra from the very beginning, it has only rarely taken serious action against the mafiosi and the political backers who collaborate with them. There are a number of reasons for this. The most important is probably the political dependence of justice and police. The fact that broad swaths of politics have no great interest in the fight against the Mafia is self-evident in view of their involvement with organized crime. The law enforcement apparatus has proved several times in the last hundred years that, if it has sufficient political backing, it can inflict severe blows on the Mafia. Yet most of the time, officials were and are “influenced” to protect mafiosi—and even much more their backers. Officials, on the other hand, who act against the Mafia in accordance with their duty, may even have to expect harassment.

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The sociologist Gaetano Mosca already stated in 1900 that the police and judiciary know much about the Mafia due to spies and the public—in case they had gained the trust of the public through discretion.1 According to Mosca, even a newly arrived and inexperienced police officer, judge or prefect in Sicily can quickly get an overview by looking at the criminal records: Suspects are particularly those with long criminal records who time and time again have been acquitted for lack of evidence. Occasionally, one may even find willing witnesses, especially when the population has the impression that an official really wants to take action. Today, thanks to technological progress, police and judiciary have much better investigative methods at their disposal than in the past, when they had to rely on Mafia informants as well as observations from Mafia trials, funerals and weddings. The numerous statements of former mafiosi from the 1980s also contributed to the improved level of information of the law enforcement agencies. Since the authorities were never in the dark, they were quite capable to take action against the Mafia—but this only happened when it was politically desired. When, for example, the Italian government was forced to take action against rampant crime at the end of the 1870s, arrests and first successful Mafia trials took place. Above all, the “iron prefect” Mori—who had been explicitly sent to Sicily by Mussolini with the aim of “breaking the back” of the Mafia—succeeded in putting the Mafia’s “foot soldiers” out of action within a few years. A similar situation arose in the 1980s, when the government was under pressure from increasing Mafia violence and had to prove to the population that it was able to take action: Within a very short time, hundreds of mafiosi were arrested, some of whom were also sentenced to long prison sentences. Without a doubt, up to a certain degree, the Mafia is able to exert influence over the justice system without the help of it’s political friends through threats, bribery or “friendships”. For example, it took a long time to find a judge to preside over the Maxi Trial in the mid-1980s, as there was great fear of Mafia violence.2 And when the first high-ranking police officer in Palermo, Boris Giuliano († 1979), was murdered, a number of his colleagues asked to be transferred.3 When, within a few months, the Palermo Chief of Police Ninni Cassarà († 1985), his collaborator Roberto Antiochia († 1985) and the Police Commissioner Beppe Montana († 1985) were also murdered, a veritable “flight” set in among the Palermo police. Another reason for granting favors to the Mafia is that some officials are on its “payroll.” By now, some of the corrupt policemen have been sentenced to prison. The best known is Bruno Contrada4, who was sentenced

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to 10 years in prison in 2007. He was not only the head of the Palermo criminal police, but also one of the highest officials of the SISDE secret service. Less well known is the case of Ignazio D’Antone († 2021)5, who was accused of protecting fugitive mafiosi, sabotaging raids and hindering the work of his colleagues. Some judges were also accused of favoring the Mafia. The best known case is that of Corrado Carnevale6, nicknamed ammazzasentenze (sentence killer) by the press: The president of the first criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation in Rome, from Licata (AG) in Sicily, overturned almost 500 verdicts mostly because of irrelevant formalities. Carnevale was sentenced to 6 years in prison on appeal, but was acquitted by the Court of Cassation in October 2002.7 Another reason for the lax approach of the law enforcement apparatus to Mafia criminals lies in friendships or relationships with mafiosi.8 Some prosecutors and judges used to have friendly relationships with Mafia bosses.9 For example, the above mentioned head of the criminal police, Bruno Contrada, had close relationships with Mafia bosses such as Stefano Bontate and Saro Riccobono.10 Of special note in this context is the name of General Prosecutor of Palermo, Emanuele Pili, who in the 1950s often accepted hunting invitations from the Palermo boss Michele Greco to his estate Favarella.11 The General Prosecutor Pietro Giammanco12 was, however, not only friends with Mafia-associated politicians like Mario D’Acquisto, but also related to mafiosi: Among the Mafia, the relative Enzo Giammanco, whom they called the “nephew of the General Prosecutor”, was considered an important channel to find an open ear with the General Prosecutor.13 The main reason for the restraint of the police and judiciary is probably the influence “from above”. After all, the police and judiciary are not free in their actions14, because the various police forces are directly subordinate to the government in Rome15 and the prefects—who represent the “extended arm of Rome” in the provinces or metropolitan cities—are subject to the instructions of the Minister of the Interior. Even the judiciary, which was subordinate to the Ministry of Justice until 1948, but since then is theoretically independent, is not free from political influence. One third of the members of its self-governing body responsible for appointments, promotions, transfers and disciplinary measures, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, CSM), created in 195816 is appointed by parliament. In addition, the remaining two thirds of the members elected by the judiciary belong to “political” judicial associations, such as the right-wing Magistratura Indipendente, the moderate Unicost or the left-wing Magistratura Democratica.

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The main factor in appointing top officials is the “loyalty” to certain ministers—with the corresponding consequences, as Mosca notes: They (ministers and state secretaries, note by the author) did not fail to give them (the prefects, police presidents, judges, note by the author) orders, to issue ordinances and to give recommendations on the basis of which the laws were applied (…), the perpetrators were kept under supervision, public order was maintained, the representatives approved by the government were supported and those hostile to it should be hindered in their election efforts.17

Not to meet the “wishes” of one’s political superiors, even if they should be illegal, is not helpful to one’s career.18 That this is still the case is evidenced by the numerous stalled, closed or failed investigations19 or the number of trials that are declared failed or nullified despite overwhelming prosecutorial evidence. Some examples may illustrate this: The most famous failure to conduct a property search was the one of Totò Riina’s villa in Via Bernini in Palermo.20 On the day of Riina’s arrest on January 15, 1993, the carabinieri, without informing the prosecutor, stopped the surveillance and left the villa unattended for 18 days, which gave the Mafia the opportunity not only to empty the building completely and make possible evidence disappear, but also to repaint the walls!—It is also common for evidence to disappear from the homes of victims or crime scenes in a very mysterious ways21, which of course hampers the investigation: After the murder of Carabinieri General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, important documents had been removed from his safe, which might have provided the motive for his violent death;22 and after Judge Giovanni Falcone had been murdered, an electronic notebook and some computers were manipulated in his office and apartment.23 Even at the crime scene of the bomb attack on Via d’Amelio in Palermo on July 19, 1992, in which the prosecutor Paolo Borsellino and his five bodyguards were killed, the red notebook in which he had recorded his findings was stolen from the undamaged bag of the killed judge.24 And the most famous botched arrest was that of Bernardo Provenzano:25 Thanks to a Mafia informant, Carabinieri Colonel Michele Riccio had learned that a Mafia summit meeting with Provenzano would take place on October 31, 1995, in a country house near Mezzojuso (PA). Riccio informed his superior Mario Mori, who explained to him that he should stay out of it, as special forces would be taking care of the matter. Mori’s “specialists” then took some photos, but refrained from making arrests. A similar incident had already occurred on April 6, 1993, when the boss of Eastern Sicily, Nitto Santapaola, could have been arrested in Terme Vigliatore (ME), had the arrest not been “messed up” again by Mori’s men.26

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Yet even if police investigations are successfully completed despite all obstacles, the pursuit of criminals often fails because the responsible judges do not issue arrest warrants or initiate proceedings. As one police officer explained: There were investigating judges who simply got rid of reports that had been worked on for many weeks and months. Honest, hard and difficult work. It is dangerous to conduct investigations. It is clear that one exposes oneself to danger. You question a (suspect, note by the author), perhaps turn him a little through the meat grinder by getting loud. Write a report and bring it to the judge and he gives it back to you without taking any action. If the suspect then sees that nothing happens to him, he feels encouraged to laugh in your face the next time you question him (…) in the best of cases.27

Often, investigations are deliberately misdirected in order to distract from the true perpetrators or instigators. The term depistaggio (misdirection) has become a common phrase for such behavior. Such misdirections occurred in practically all terrorist attacks and political murders, starting with the attack on Portella della Ginestra, continuing with the terrorist attacks between 1969 and the mid-1980s, and occuring again at the beginning of the 1990s regarding most of the murders of judges, prosecutors, politicians, policemen and journalists. It is noteworthy that depistaggi were more often carried out by carabinieri than by policemen, which is probably due to their closer proximity to the intelligence services. Yet not only the police forces are involved in misguided investigations, but also the judiciary. One of the most blatant misdirections in recent times is the one in connection with the bomb attack on Judge Borsellino mentioned above.28 Shortly after the attack, Vincenzo Scarantino (born 1965), a small-time criminal, was identified and sentenced as one of the perpetrators. It later turned out, however, that he had had nothing to do with the crime, but that the respective authorities— mainly the head of the criminal police Arnaldo La Barbera (1942–2002)29 probably with the knowledge of the prosecutor’s office—had made him provide false statements. The most remarkable reason for the thwarting of judicial successes is probably the manipulation “from above”. The carabinieri had investigated the murder of the journalist Mauro Di Mauro, who fell victim to a lupara bianca on September 16, 1970 in Palermo, in such a strange way that even the respective investigating judges were surprised. However, the police had also carried out investigations and was about to make a decisive breakthrough. When the press reported about it, the head of the intelligence service Vito

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Miceli (1916–1990) immediately travelled to Palermo, summoned the police chief, the investigating policemen and the carabinieri commanders to the Villa Boscogrande for an unofficial meeting and gave them the instruction to “slow down”—whereupon the investigations came to a standstill.30 Another form of manipulation is the aggiustamento (adjustment): this term implies that “influence” is exerted on judges and jurors, so that they acquit mafiosi or only give them a minor sentence. A particularly frequently used method is the expiration of deadlines. For example, the “snail judge” Edi Pinatti needed 8 years to explain why two Mafia bosses had been sentenced to 24 years in prison.31 Without the justification of the sentence, the sentence was not legally binding and the two bosses had to be released due to the expiration of the deadline. Sometimes judges also get rid of unavoidable convictions by delaying proceedings unnecessarily. This happened, for example, in the case of the Basile process32, in which the three murderers of the Carabinieri Captain Emanuele Basile (1949–1980) should have been sentenced in the first trial due to the overwhelming evidence. Instead, judge Carlo Aiello, who had come under pressure from the Mafia, ordered a completely nonsensical geological expert opinion because a white mud spot had been discovered on the boots of one of the perpetrators during the proceedings, which had not yet been taken into account. After 15 months of extensive geological investigations, which could not bring any new insights, a new trial took place, in which the judge Salvatore Curti Giardina surprisingly acquitted the perpetrators. The cause of Curti Giardina’s “grotesque justification of the sentence”33 was his decision not to believe the eyewitness of the murder. But even if mafiosi like the murderers of Basile are sentenced to life imprisonment in the appeal process, the sentences can be “overturned” at the end by the Court of Cassation, which has the task of checking procedural errors. The ammazzasentenze (sentence killer) Corrado Carnevale, of course, also found the “fly in the soup” in this case: the defenders were not informed about the date of the draw of the jurors for the appeal proceedings! Because of this completely irrelevant formality, Carnevale ordered that the trial had to be re-opened. But despite all the difficulties, when mafiosi finally do end up in prison, their lives there have not been unduly hard. These inmates were able to enjoy numerous privileges up until the introduction of strict prison conditions. Even today, prison staff often “turn a blind eye”, so that mafiosi can continue their business in prison—and even, as in 1996, impregnate their wives!34 In any case, mafiosi often receive favorable treatment or house arrest due to dubious expert opinions35: For example, Michele Aiello, sentenced to 15 years and 6 months, was allowed to serve his sentence at home because

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of a bean allergy,36 and Pietro Marchese was released from custody after only 2 months without medical examination because of alleged stomach cramps.37 Nevertheless, there have always been officials at all levels of the judiciary and police apparatus38 who, out of ignorance, compassion for Mafia victims or moral-ethical convictions, have taken action against the Mafia. They often did so despite resistance from their superiors and harassment by colleagues. Among them is the head of the criminal police in Trapani, Giuseppe Peri († 1982)39, who, despite massive pressure, investigated a criminal network— consisting of right-wing terrorists, mafiosi and Freemasons—which is said to be responsible, among other things, for the mysterious crash of the Alitalia plane on May 5, 1973 in Palermo. Another brave policeman was Ninni Cassarà, who, together with like-minded colleagues, always waited for the absence of his corrupt superior Ignazio D’Antone before carrying out delicate police operations.40 Another honest policeman was Saverio Montalbano who had no problem investigating even the powerful, neither in his time as head of the Trapani criminal police, when in April 1986 he searched the Centro Scontrino, the seat of several banned Freemason lodges, nor in Palermo, when he prepared a sensitive report on the background of the murder of the politician Giuseppe Insalaco, who was killed in 1988. He carried out these investigations although his superior, the police chief Alessandro Milioni, had ordered him to delete the names of the politicians as well as the name of a judge.41 Just as brave was Carabinieri Colonel Michele Riccio, who, against regulations, made reports and recordings of the statements of his Mafia informant Ilardo and finally even took his superiors to court, who had obstructed the arrest of Provenzano.42 Of course, there were also judges and prosecutors within the justice system, such as Rocco Chinnici or Gaetano Costa, who, despite all resistance, engaged in the fight against the Mafia. For example, investigating judge Chinnici was pressured by his colleague Giovanni Pizzillo, the later president of the Court of Appeals of Palermo, to stop his public anti-Mafia lectures and to “bury” his subordinate investigating judge Falcone in ordinary investigations so that he would no longer have time to send the financial police to businessmen’s houses and ruin the Sicilian economy.43 On the other hand, the public prosecutor Costa was left alone by all the prosecutors subordinate to him when it came to signing the arrest warrant for highly dangerous mafiosi—including Rosario Spatola.44 Not only did they leave their boss alone, they even informed the Mafia defense lawyers that Costa was solely responsible for the arrest warrants.

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Honest officials did not receive any recognition or appropriate thanks from the state; on the contrary, they had to endure considerable harassment from their superiors which ranged from being withdrawn from investigations45, to transfers46 and absurdly justified disciplinary proceedings. If their Mafia-friendly opponents are successful, the officials will eventually become weary or resign—as Saverio Montalbano did, who concluded: “The dirt I saw in the (state, note by the author) institutions, did not even exist in the Cosa Nostra.”47

4.5 “Meeting Places”: Elite Clubs and Secret Lodges In order to achieve its goals, the Cosa Nostra is dependent on contacts with people from the “better society”—and thus on “places of encounter”. Until the early 1980s, when mafiosi could still show themselves openly in society, these were the salons of the “upper ten thousand” or private clubs where innocuous leisure activities or social gatherings took place. These elite clubs and salons offered Mafia bosses the opportunity not only to make important contacts, but also provided them with a respectable appearance. Yet when it came to planning illegal projects, the elitist associations and salons were not sufficient; secret meeting places were needed. Freemason lodges were perfectly suited for these purposes—not the “ordinary” lodges, but the so-called logge coperte (literally “covered lodges”), special secret lodges. From the very beginning of their existence, the Mafia had worked with Freemasons on a point-by-point basis, but only “from the outside”. The cooperation became organic only when the Cosa Nostra became rich through its drug business and when mafiosi and Freemasons could be more useful to each other than ever before.This led to a wave of high-ranking Mafia bosses joining secret lodges in the second half of the 1970s. Some of the most popular meeting places for mafiosi and higher-ranking members of society in the post-war period were certain circoli (clubs) such as the Circolo della Stampa (press club) or the Circolo di Tiro a Volo (skeet shooting club) in Palermo. These clubs charged high membership fees and provided their members with a pleasant environment for socializing, with elegant bars and restaurants. The now defunct Circolo della Stampa, which was once housed in the Teatro Massimo opera house, was not only frequented by journalists, but also by many members of the upper class: “businessmen, wealthy professionals, bureaucrats, politicians,”1 and it was

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also very popular with “men of honor” such as Tommaso Buscetta, Stefano Bontate, Gioacchino Pennino senior, Michele Greco and Giuseppe Cerami (1924–1989).2 Gioacchino Pennino junior, a former mafioso, said this about his uncle, the powerful capofamiglia of the Palermo Brancaccio family in the 1950s and 1960s: (He) frequented the most important salons in Palermo at the time (…), the circoli, which were very much in fashion then. Everyone respectfully called him the Commendatore (knight, note by the author), probably because he was a recipient of the Republic’s commander’s cross. In fact, this was his nickname.3

Pennino often accompanied his uncle and later became a member of the press club himself, where, as he said, he made valuable contacts. In the Circolo di Tiro a Volo in Addaura near Mondello (PA), on the other hand, mafiosi such as Giuseppe Castellana, Tommaso Buscetta, and Giacchino Pennino senior and Michele Greco4 socialized, the latter of whom said: This club had many members, including numerous nobles and well-known professionals from the city. I was 22 years old at the time when I started making acquaintances there and forming friendships for life. I frequented the circle for about 30 years, but everything comes to an end. (…) I always cultivated these friendships (…) They only came to an end when an arrest warrant was issued against me in 1982.5

In Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME), the exclusive Corda Fratres6 circle, which officially organizes cultural events, was for a long time headed by the Messina state prosecutor Antonio Franco Cassata7, who had been negatively associated with Mafia contacts. Important mafiosi such as the local boss Giuseppe Gullotti (born 1960)8 and the mysterious Rosario Pio Cattafi (born 1952)9 socialized in this “cultural association.” In addition to the clubs, the private salons of the upper class also offered mafiosi a good opportunity to make friends. The salotti buoni are such an important social institution in Italy that one even speaks of the the phenomenon of salottismo.10 Usually, members of the upper class open their houses on certain days for selected guests and offer entertainment such as musical performances, poetry readings or art exhibitions in addition to food and drink. The term “salotto buono” is also a metaphor for any kind of domestic gathering among members of the upper class. In the

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past, it was quite common that high-ranking Mafia bosses such as Stefano Bontate attended such salons and were shown great respect there.11 Some Mafia bosses, such as Michele Greco, who liked to give hunting parties on his estate Favarella, even hosted such salons themselves. The Mafia boss boasted: The nobility began to frequent the estate Favarella. We went hunting there (…) and the wives went for walks and tried mandarins (…) His Excellency Pili (the prosecutor Emanuele Pili, note by the author) came (…). His and my wife were good friends (…). The officials came to go hunting, and the higher-ups had the keys to the estate.12

The Palermo Mafia boss and chief physician Giuseppe Guttadauro hosted until recently people from the “better society” at his home, mainly doctors and politicians. To this day, many salon hosts have no problem receiving people who are said to be close to the Mafia. Thanks to these contacts, the relationships between the Mafia and members of the bourgeois society have solidified and corresponding marriages enable the Mafia to move up the social ladder.13 This is especially true for the city of Palermo with its high Mafia density, less so for Catania14 nor for more rural towns in the countryside. Massimo Ciancimino (born 1963), the son of Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino, who went to school with the sons of the “better society” of Palermo at the prestigious Jesuit Gonzaga Institute, was until recently a welcome guest at these salons. In 2005, during a conference on the role of the “good salons”, the Redemptorist priest and founder of the Catholic anti-Mafia magazine Segno, Nino Fasullo, explained that of course not all salons were to be considered Mafia-affiliated; those salons affiliated with the Mafia could be recognized, so Fasullo, by the fact that the utterance of the word “Mafia” produces an almost allergic reaction and the subject of conversation is changed immediately.15 The judges Antonino Saetta, Giangiacomo Ciaccio Montalto and Rosario Livatino, who were later murdered by the Mafia, were aware that they would inevitably meet persons close to the Mafia in clubs or “good salons” who would then feel entitled to ask for favors. For this reason, they avoided such establishments and led a secluded life. For example, when Livatino was asked to join the Rotary Club, he refused on the grounds that a judge must be independent.16 While the goal of the Mafia and their backers in clubs and salons is to make contacts and integrate into “respectable society”, the activities of the

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Freemasons are often illegal and conducted in the shadows, away from public scrutiny. Like clubs and salons, Masonic lodges are elite organizations, requiring vetting and oaths of initiation, and admit only well-connected individuals from business, politics, the judiciary, the military, intelligence agencies, the police, and the media.17 Of course, the Cosa Nostra was never interested in “regular” Freemasonry.18 Freemasonry was established on June 24, 1717 in London, when the four lodges there joined together under the leadership of a grand master. It spread quickly around the world; its members are mostly interested in personal development through esoteric work.19 The Mafia is attracted by the “secret lodges”20, which, like regular Freemasonry, share the characteristics of secrecy21 and brotherly solidarity22, but not the predilection for esotericism, moral principles, and enlightenment-humanitarian goals. The secret lodges are “profane” lodges, whose members are only interested in personal career advancement, shady business dealings, and illegal political maneuvering. What sets the secret lodges apart from the regular lodges is their pronounced secrecy, which is understandable given that they are, unlike official Freemasons, banned by Article 18 of the Italian Constitution as secret societies.23 The members of the secret lodges are sometimes not even known to their fellow brothers, but only to the grand master, who personally admits them and “initiates them with the sword”24. Consequently, often only the grand master knows who belongs to his lodge, and he keeps his members “in his ear”25, as Freemasonry jargon has it. Another characteristic of the secret lodges is that they often do no Masonic work at all, that is, no symbolic ritual actions with apron and gloves. The secret lodges are, however, connected with the official Freemasonry26 in that they usually belong to one of the two most important grand lodges in which the majority of the approximately 30,00027 Italian lodge brothers are organized. These are the Grande Oriente d’Italia (GOI) with its seat in the Roman Palazzo Giustiniani and the Gran Loggia Nazionale d’Italia (also called: Gran Loggia d’Italia degli Alam), which also has its seat in Rome, previously at Piazza del Gesù and currently at Palazzo Vitelleschi. According to the rules formulated in their first constitutional book in 1723 and called “landmarks”, Freemasons respect the existing laws of their respective country and do not interfere in political affairs; indeed, they are even forbidden to discuss current political issues in the lodges.28 In reality, however, this restriction is often not observed, as many lodges are explicitly politically oriented—from progressive-enlightened to conservative-reactionary.29 Italian Freemasonry in particular, has always interfered in politics and was significantly involved in important political decisions.

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For example, the Risorgimento, the Italian unification movement, was mainly organized by Freemasons; all important protagonists—from Giuseppe Mazzini, Francesco Crispi, Giuseppe Garibaldi to Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour—were lodge brothers.30 After the lodges were banned during Fascism, the Freemasons began to resume their activities even before the end of the Second World War. They were supported by their American “brothers”, with the American pastor Frank Bruno Gigliotti (1896–1975)31, originally from Calabria, playing a decisive role. Because of lodge brothers like Gigliotti, who was to interfere in Italian politics for decades through Freemasonry channels, a strong pro-American and soon also anti-Communist current developed within Italian Freemasonry. In any case, in 1943 Freemasonry contacts facilitated the landing of the Americans in Sicily, since all the OSS agents involved were Freemasons and could count on the help of “brothers” such as Prince Gianfranco Alliata di Montereale.32 Freemasons were also involved with the signing of the armistice with the Allies on September 3, 1943 in the small town of Cassibile (SI), led by the Tuscan General Giuseppe Castellano (1893–1977) and his “right-hand man” Vito Guarrasi (1914–1999)33—even though Guarrasi was only a low-level army captain and lawyer without much experience.34 There are those who claim that a secret additional protocol was drawn up in Cassibile at that time, which allowed the Americans to interfere in Italian politics.35 When it came to the administration of Sicily after the liberation, Freemasons were again in the lead. With the help of a lodge located in Via Roma 391 in Palermo, they promoted the organization of the separatist movement.36 After the outbreak of the Cold War, right-wing terrorist attacks and coup attempts were organized via Freemasonry channels, after which lodge brothers took care of the cover-up of the persons who ordered the crimes and the protection of the perpetrators. For a long time, the conservative Prince Alliata Di Montereale, who was supported by Frank Gigliotti, played an important role in this context. He was not only named as one of those who ordered the attack of the Portella della Ginestra (1947), but also took part in the Borghese coup (1970). His star began to decline in the 1970s when the lodge Propaganda Due (P2)37 led by the Tuscan mattress manufacturer Licio Gelli (1919–2015)38 became dominant. This powerful lodge, by the way, belonged to the Masonic umbrella organization GOI, and included the top echelons of politics, the military, the intelligence services, and the business, finance and media world.39 Under the leadership of the P2, the anti-Communist political Freemasonry changed its strategy in the second half of the 1970s: it largely renounced open violence and coup attempts and began to systematically subvert state institutions, parties,

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media and the economy, with the goal formulated in its “Piano di Rinascita Democratica” (Plan for a democratic renewal)40 to initiate an “authoritarian turn in politics”41. The specific implementation42 of their plan, i.e. the establishment of a presidential republic as well as the control of the parties, media, unions and judiciary, was decided upon by P2 at the latest after 1976, when the communists had done spectacularly well in the elections (they gained 34.4% of the votes43). Much suggests that the Piano di Rinascita Democratica has been largely implemented by P2 member and later Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.44 However, the secret lodges do not only pursue political goals, but also serve the personal advancement of their brothers, for example in the acquisition of professional positions or political power, in acquiring or starting illegal businesses or in covering up of crimes by influencing investigations and proceedings. Due to the international orientation of Freemasonry, lodge brothers often operate across national borders and engage in illegal financial transactions or arms, oil or drug trafficking.45 For example, the spectacular rise of the two bankers Michele Sindona46 and Roberto Calvi47 in the international financial world was mainly due to the support of lodge brothers, in particular the financial strategist of the P2, Umberto Ortolani (1913–2002)48. From the beginning of the Cosa Nostra’s existence, Freemasons and mafiosi have cooperated, with the “men of honor” largely restricting themselves to a case-by-case cooperation “from the outside” (with the exception of the nineteenth century, when many criminals were also members of the Carbonari49): Mafiosi supported the Freemasons in political projects50 and took part as their “armed wing”51 in uprisings, attacks and coup attempts, for which they were rewarded with impunity52 and other favors. The situation only changed when the Cosa Nostra became rich thanks to drug trafficking and was now also interesting as a “business partner” for the Freemasons— after all, their enormous funds could be used for all kinds of businesses.53 This also applies vice versa: For the Cosa Nostra, the lodges became more important than ever, because now they needed experts to launder their money, manage it and invest it profitably in the legitimate economy. One of the first to call for a closer rapprochement between the Cosa Nostra and Freemasonry was the Palermo boss Stefano Bontate, whose brother-in-law Giacomo Vitale (1942–1989?)54 was an active lodge brother. The educated and socially well-connected Bontate was a “visionary” who gradually wanted to transform his organization from a criminal gang into a seemingly legaitimate and even more powerful economic organization, for which he considered the lodges to be an appropriate means.55 As Bontate

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explained to the ex-mafioso Francesco Di Carlo: “We hold the world of politics in our hands, now we are trying to get our hands on the financial world of Milan.”56 As early as the end of the 1960s, Bontate therefore founded his own secret lodge, the mysterious “Lodge of the 300”, of which he was Grand Master. The relationship between lodge brothers and the Cosa Nostra became especially close starting in the second half of the 1970s, with the initiative coming from the Freemasons.57 Mafia informant Antonino Calderone said that a covert lodge58 explicitly asked the initially hesitant Cosa Nostra leadership to send two “men of honor” per province as members, making their offer more attractive by saying that, for example, they could do a lot for the Mafia thanks to the judges in their ranks.59 The offer was discussed in the cupola, the Mafia’s highest decision-making body, and the old rule that mafiosi should not be both “men of honor” and Freemasons at the same time in order to avoid conflicts of loyalty, was repealed.60 As a result, between 1977 and 1980, there was a boom in Mafia bosses joining the lodges.61 Practically all high-ranking mafiosi now became, if they were not already—like Vitale or Bontate—, lodge brothers, including Michele Greco, Pippo Calderone, Totò Minore, Ciccio Madonia, Agostino Coppola or Mariano Agate.62 The close connection between the Mafia and Freemasonry did not change after the Second Mafia War under the command of the Corleonesi. Mafia informant Leonardo Messina explained that even later, all the heads of the Cosa Nostra were Freemasons.63 The most important lodges in which mafiosi were members were first of all Bontate’s “Lodge of the 300”—later dissolved under the Corleonesi—, the Armando Diaz64, the Normanni di Sicilia and later the Centro Attività Massoniche Esoteriche Accettate (CAMEA)65, which was soon to become one of the most powerful “Mafia lodges”. Just as the relationship between Freemasons and the Mafia became organic, criminal tax consultants—such as Pino Mandalari66 on a local level in Sicily, and internationally, the bankers Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi—took on more important roles.68 At that point, the Cosa Nostra began to invest its money beyond Sicily and also on the Italian mainland—probably mainly in Rome68 and Milan69—but also abroad via Freemason channels. Some of the secret lodges to which mafiosi belonged have been uncovered in the last 40 years: The beginning was made in October 1981 in Palermo with the CAMEA, led by the gynecologist Gaetano Barresi, a branch of the Ligurian CAMEA, which had distinguished itself in the protection of the bankrupt banker Michele Sindona, who had fled to Sicily in 1979. In March 1986, the Centro Sociologico Italiano70 was then discovered in Palermo’s Via Roma number 391, a front organization for no less than six

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banned lodges, including the Armando Diaz and again the CAMEA, whose activities have never been clarified for lack of appropriate investigations. The police came across the “sociology center” because they were observing Giovanni Lo Cascio, a mafioso and heroin dealer who was a member of one of the lodges there. In April 1986, the Centro Studi Scontrino71 in Via Carreca number 2 in Trapani was uncovered, the seat of no less than six banned lodges—Iside, Iside 2, Osiride, Ciullo d’Alcamo, Miriam Cafiero, Hiram—as well as a mysterious seventh lodge C. The police discovered the “cultural center” led by the philosophy teacher Giovanni (Gianni) Grimaudi († 2012)72 after receiving an anonymous letter about a manipulated concorso (public competition). Some “brothers” of the Centro Scontrino were involved in various crimes, such as vote-buying, illegal arms and drug deals, the attempted murder of Judge Carlo Palermo in Pizzolungo (TP) or the corrupt awarding of public contracts in Trapani. At the beginning of the 1990s, the lodge F. Ferrer 90873 was discovered in the town of Castelvetrano (TP), where at that time no less than six of the 19 known lodges in the province of Trapani had their seat74 and whose members were active in drug trafficking and probably also ordered murders. In 1992, the investigation “Mafia e Massoneria” (Mafia and Freemasonry) led to “Operation Ghibli”75 in Mazara del Vallo (TP), in the course of which lodge brothers were arrested who had tried to manipulate court proceedings. As part of the “Operation Hiram”76 a lodge that was active in the provinces of Trapani and Agrigento, but also on the Italian mainland, was uncovered in June 2008, the main aim of which was also to “set things right” in court proceedings. And in October 2009, the cultural center Ausonia founded in 2004 in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME)77 was searched, and turned out to be the seat of three forbidden lodges. This association, led by the AN Senator Domenico Nania (born 1950), was mainly active in the field of illegal awarding of public contracts and had connections to organized crime in Barcelona. Even if the secret lodges represent the most important place of encounter between the Cosa Nostra and dubious persons from society, there are still other exclusive “cliquish clubs”, for example the pseudo-freemason association Ordine del Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme (Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre)78, which has repeatedly attracted negative attention in Sicily in the past. The fact that secret lodges, in which mafiosi cooperate with members of the “better society”, were discovered even very recently79, shows that secret lodges are still highly attractive to the Mafia. One of the reasons may be that

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in the event of the discovery of such lodges, the investigations are often discontinued or that the lodge brothers are frequently either not punished at all or only receive a light sentence.80

4.6 The Mafia as a “Lightning Rod” for Dark Powers I know all the names and all the facts (…), of which they are guilty. I know. But I have no evidence. (Pasolini)1

The Cosa Nostra is held solely responsible for many unsolved murders of socially significant people in Sicily and on the mainland. It was indeed involved in these crimes, even if it had no or only a small interest in them. This obvious lack of motives, but also the circumstances, evidence or statements of witnesses and former mafiosi suggest that “third parties” could have made use of the Mafia. Many attribute the orders for crimes to what is often referred to as a “third level”, a dark power in the state, which is so powerful that it does not have to fear being held accountable—after all, there is only “Pasolini evidence”2 for its existence. Given the fact that the responsibility for numerous political crimes is exclusively laid at the feet of the Cosa Nostra, it is understandable that at some point the Mafia boss Totò Riina burst out in anger and complained that he did not want to be the “lightning rod” for all crimes committed in Italy. Omicidi eccellenti (excellent homicides) are usually interpreted as a preventive strike or revenge of the Cosa Nostra against its enemies. While this may be true in some cases, often even experts express doubts about the official pronouncements. For example, the lawyer Giovanni Di Cagno (born 1951) and the investigating judge Gioacchino Natoli (born 1947) commented on the murder of the Carabinieri General and prefect of Palermo Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, that this might have been “per altro”3, that is, for other reasons than the alleged, namely that he would have been dangerous to the Mafia in the long term. Similarly, the writer Sciascia did not believe that the investigating judge Cesare Terranova had been killed by the Corleonesi because he had harmed them through his work and would continue to do so: I neither believe in the cold-blooded ‘vendetta’ because of things from the past nor in the fear because of the upcoming resumption of judicial activity.4

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But above all it is the relatives of the victims who do not content themselves with the official versions, but demand the punishment of those actually responsible. For example, the son of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, Nando Dalla Chiesa, explained: What do I think about the murder of my father? I think it was a political crime, decided and carried out in Palermo. Neither I nor my family are interested in who the killers were, whether they came from Catania or Bagheria or New York. We are interested that those who gave the order are found and punished, and these, in my opinion, are to be sought within the Democrazia Cristiana.5

Since many questions have remained open in relation to all “excellent homicides” as well as political assassinations, they are among the “Italian mysteries” that will probably remain forever unresolved.6 The murders of Enrico Mattei, Mauro De Mauro, Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa and Mino Pecorelli are described in detail below as case studies, because they demonstrate very well that the Mafia had no interest in their deaths—but the organization’s powerful “friends” did so all the more. Enrico Mattei (1906–1962)7 was the managing director of the stateowned Italian oil company ENI. His goal was to make Italy independent in the energy sector and break the energy monopoly of the “seven sisters”, that is, the major international oil companies (Esso, Shell, BP, Exxon, Chevron, Gulf Oil, Texaco). To this end, Mattei did not shy away from cooperation with the USSR and China and announced that Italy must take a neutral position between the USA and the USSR and go its own way. Consistently, Mattei negotiated with the oil-producing countries, to which he offered better conditions than the “seven sisters”. Mattei’s activities—in the midst of the Cold War— were a thorn in the side for both the American government and the large oil companies.—Two days before his murder, Mattei was called by Graziano Verzotto (1923–2010) to the ENI production sites in Gagliano Castelferrato (EN) and Gela (CL) in Sicily—a trap, as Mattei’s brother Italo suspected. Verzotto, orginially from Venice, had been living in Sicily since 1947, where he was politically involved in the DC and was also responsible for ENI’s public relations. Verzotto not only had the best intelligence service contacts, but was also closely connected to the Mafia, such as to the powerful boss Giuseppe Di Cristina from Riesi (CL), for whom he also served as best man during Di Cristina’s wedding. Shortly before Mattei’s return flight to Lombardy, Mattei’s private plane was manipulated at the Catania airport Fontanarossa in such a professional manner that it crashed

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on October 27, 1962 during the landing approach over the Lombard village of Bascapè near Pavia (PV). Mattei, his pilot and a journalist died. The crash was officially referred to as an accident. Although doubts about the official version existed from the beginning, the investigations were not resumed until 1994, after former mafiosi such as Tommaso Buscetta had declared that the Mafia had participated in the murder of Mattei: They had wanted to do a favor to the American Mafia, which in turn had been asked by the oil companies to eliminate Mattei. Specifically, it was the boss of the family from Philadelphia Angelo Bruno (1910–1980) who, on behalf of the “commission”, the highest Mafia body in the USA, asked the Sicilian “colleagues” for help and explained to them that the death of Mattei should look like an accident. Before his return flight to Milan, Mattei was invited by Verzotto to go on a hunting trip with some mafiosi near Catania, which was to ensure him of the Cosa Nostra’s protection. When the bomb was attached to Mattei’s plane at Catania airport, no mafioso actually seems to have been involved, because no single pentito knew the relevant details. Additionally, the technical skills required for the manipulation of the plane would have been a stretch for the Mafia. Nevertheless, traces of this “operation” exist: During the night of January 26 to 27, 1962, three persons who could not be identified later were seen at Mattei’s plane, one in the uniform of a carabiniere and the other two in mechanic’s overalls. Furthermore, it became known that Mattei’s pilot was called to the telephone of the airport bar, which would have given the mysterious group the opportunity to tamper with the plane.—After the death of Mattei, a radical strategic change of course took place at ENI under its new director Eugenio Cefis (1921– 2004), with which both the American government and the “seven sisters” agreed. Mauro De Mauro (1921–1970)8, one of the most capable journalists of the Palermo daily newspaper L’Ora, had been commissioned by the film director Francesco Rosi (1922–2015) to reconstruct the last two days in the life of Enrico Mattei for his 1972 film “Il caso Mattei”. At the end of his research, De Mauro spoke to confidants about a bombshell discovery that would shake Italy.—On the evening of September 16, 1970, De Mauro was kidnapped in front of his apartment on Via delle Magnolie in Palermo and then never seen again. Shortly after the kidnapping, the De Mauro family was visited several times by Antonino Buttafuoco (1923–2005), a tax consultant and MSI politician, who claimed that De Mauro was still alive. In reality, however, Buttafuoco spied on the family, which earned him a few months in detention for involvement in a kidnapping. Soon the press was talking about a mysterious “Mr. X”, who was behind Buttafuoco and had

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been given the order for the crime. “Mr. X” was eventually identified as the Palermo lawyer Vito Guarrasi (1914–1999), with whom De Mauro had met a month before his disappearance and who was in contact with Buttafuoco. Guarrasi, who incidentally belonged to one of the lodges in Via Roma in Palermo, was an important “grey eminence” whose name has appeared in connection with almost all sensitive political and economic events in Sicily since 1943—and who had already been mentioned in the context of the Mattei case. Soon, however, further investigations were discontinued on the orders of the head of the intelligence service and P2 member Vito Miceli (1916–1990).—Only years later did pentiti make statements about the disappearance of the journalist: In 1994, Buscetta revealed how De Mauro had been killed by the men of the then boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù family, Bontade, because he had come too close to the truth about Mattei. In October 1999, Gaetano Grado (born 1943) confirmed that De Mauro had been kidnapped, tortured and strangled on Bontate’s orders by three murderers: his brother Antonino Grado, Girolamo (Mimmo) Teresi and Emanuele D’Agostino. Francesco Marino Mannoia eventually added that the body of the journalist had been exhumed—together with other victims of the lupara bianca—on Guarrasi’s orders in the mid-1970s and dissolved in acid. The murders of Mino Pecorelli and Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa are linked to one of the biggest Italian mysteries, the Aldo Moro case9: in the 1970s, Moro was the DC’s most important supporter of the “historic compromise” proposed by the PCI secretary Enrico Berlinguer (1922–1984), which meant that the Communists would govern in coalition  with the Christian Democrats. During the Cold War, the Americans, led by their national security advisor and later Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (born 1923), were not in favor of including Communists in the government. Consequently, during a state visit to the USA in September 1974, Moro was threatened so severely that he flew back to Italy early and withdrew from politics for a while. Moro’s wife reported that her husband had been threatened with a “bad end” in the USA if he did not give up his plan for the Communists to participate in the government. Withstanding the pressure, Moro continued to push ahead with his political project, which was close to realization when he was kidnapped by the Brigate Rosse (BR, Red Brigades) on March 16, 1978 while driving down Via Fani in Rome. During his 55-day captivity, he was put on trial by a “people’s court” and forced to answer questions; his answers, together with Moro’s letters, make up the Memoriale Moro (Moro’s Memoirs), a dossier. Moro’s body was found in the trunk of a car on Via Caetani in Rome on May 9, thus bringing the debate about the “historic

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compromise” to an end.—A few months later, on October 1, 1978, the carabinieri, under the leadership of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, managed to arrest several left-wing terrorists and found part of the Moro dossier10 in a BR hideout on Via Montenevoso in Milan. The more explosive part of the documents was (allegedly) found by chance only in 1990 by a bricklayer during renovation work on the same property. Numerous pieces of evidence suggest that both the journalist Pecorelli and General Dalla Chiesa had knowledge of the contents of the complete dossier. This dossier contained explosive details on numerous “dirty” business practices of politicians, from illegal party financing to bribery to the paramilitary secret organization Gladio. In addition, Pecorelli and Dalla Chiesa seem to have known that the government crisis teams dominated by P2 members had no interest whatsoever in Moro’s release—a fact of which Moro’s wife was also convinced and which led her to refuse a state funeral for her husband. Carmine (Mino) Pecorelli (1928–1979)11 was the editor of the tabloid newspaper Osservatorio Politico (OP), which repeatedly published spectacular revelations about political scandals. Pecorelli had also provided informed hints about the Moro case in various articles and announced further revelations. The journalist, who was incidentally a member of the powerful secret lodge P2, owed his insider knowledge not only to his excellent intelligence service contacts, but probably also to Dalla Chiesa, with whom he had met several times before his death. Pecorelli also seems to have negotiated with some Andreotti followers about the publication of sensitive information on the Italcasse scandal, in which the then Prime Minister Andreotti was involved.—The “inconvenient” journalist was shot dead in the evening of March 20, 1979 in the Via Orazio in Rome near his editorial office. After the investigations were initially discontinued, they were resumed in 1993 on the basis of Buscetta’s statements: Buscetta knew from his “colleagues” Stefano Bontate and Tano Badalamenti that Andreotti had asked, with the help of his “right-hand man”, the Roman judge and DC politician Claudio Vitalone (1936-2008), the two “men of honor” and DC patrons Nino and Ignazio Salvo to eliminate the journalist Pecorelli in order to prevent the disclosure of Moro’s “secrets”. As a result, the representative of the Cosa Nostra in Rome, Pippo Calò, organized the kidnapping and had it carried out by the Palermo Mafia boss Michelangelo La Barbera (born 1943) and by Massimo Carminati (born 1958), a neo-Fascist and leading member of the Roman Magliana gang. Andreotti, Vitalone, Badalamenti, Calò, La Barbera and Carminati were then brought to court: in the first trial, the defendants were acquitted in September 1999; in November 2002, only

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Andreotti and Badalamenti were sentenced to 24 years in prison each; but in October 2003, the Court of Cassation acquitted all the defendants. The Carabiniere General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa (1920–1982), who was known nationwide as the “terrorist hunter”,12 was nominated Prefect of Palermo in April 1982. He “survived” his first 100 days, during which he—lacking the full powers he had demanded—could not cause any damage to the Mafia. From the beginning, Dalla Chiesa had announced that he intended to proceed against the masterminds of the Mafia, which he mainly localized in the DC faction of Andreotti.—On the evening of September 3, 1982, Dalla Chiesa was shot on his way home in Via Carini in Palermo together with his wife Emanuela Setti Carraro (1950–1982) and his bodyguard Domenico Russo (1950–1982). That same night, documents disappeared from the safe of his villa, which are said to have included the more “explosive” parts of the Moro dossier. Only a few men accompanied by an employee of the prefecture had access to the building, where they allegedly fetched clothes after the crime to cover the bodies. It was also unusual that, contrary to Mafia customs, the murder was announced and Dalla Chiesa’s wife was also killed. Given that even in the murder cases of Piersanti Mattarella and Emanuele Basile the wives, who were witnesses, were spared, one can safely assume that those who gave the orders for the killing knew that Dalla Chiesa’s wife had knowledge of her husband’s “secrets”. Again, it was Buscetta who explained at the beginning of the 1990s that he had already been told in 1983 by Tano Badalamenti that Dalla Chiesa had been sent to Palermo so that one could “get rid of him.”13 Those giving the orders had been interested in shifting the suspicion to the Red Brigades, which is why Buscetta had been given the task by the Mafia to inquire in prison with the left-wing terrorists whether they would take responsibility for the crime, which, however, they had rejected. The Mafia defector and Freemason Gioacchino Pennino junior confirmed Buscetta’s statement and added that he knew from his Freemason brothers that Francesco Consentino (1922– 1985), a DC representative in the House of Parliament and leading member of P2, had ordered the murder of Dalla Chiesa.14 Various mafiosi wondered why Dalla Chiesa had to be killed. For example, Giuseppe Guttadauro was indignant in a tapped telephone conversation with his colleague Salvatore Aragona: Salvatore, did you participate in ‘82? Who the hell cared about eliminating Dalla Chiesa (…) Let’s talk plainly (…) Here comes the one without any power (…) Why do we always have to pay the price. (…) Why did we have to

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do this favor for them? (…) To then be ground up in a meat grinder and continue as before?15

In 2002, only the perpetrators were convicted, namely the head of the Acquasanta family, Vincenzo (Enzo) Galatolo (born 1944), Antonino (Nino) Madonia (born 1952) from the Resuttana family, Calogero Ganci (born 1960) from the Noce family, and his brother-in-law Francesco Paolo Anzelmo (born 1957). Others involved in the assassination, such as Pino Greco († 1985) from the Ciaculli family, were no longer alive. The question of who ordered the murder is still unresolved. In the three cases outlined above, it is obvious that third parties—as in all political crimes—had a far greater interest in the victims’ deaths than the Cosa Nostra. In addition, in these criminal acts it often appears that the Cosa Nostra was given a “helping hand” by non-mafiosi: For example, the question arises as to why, after 27 years, surveillance of La Torre was discontinued by the intelligence services exactly one week before his murder16; how the Mafia came to possess the sophisticated special bomb used for the first time in the assassination of Rocco Chinnici, and what role the mysterious Lebanese arms, explosives and drug dealer Bou Chebel Ghassan, who was connected to the intelligence service, played17; why a note with the telephone number of intelligence service agent Lorenzo Narracci18 was found at the scene of the attack on Judge Falcone in Capaci; what role the intelligence service played which, at the time of the attack on prosecutor Paolo Borsellino, maintained an office in Castello Utveccio19 from where the scene of the crime could be perfectly controlled and from where mysterious telephone calls were made. The list of oddities could be continued at length. With regard to these “others”, talk of a “third level” is continues to resurface.20 The word was first used during a judges’ meeting in June 1982 in Castelgandolfo (RM) by judges Giovanni Falcone and Giuliano Turone (born 1940) in a report entitled “Tecniche di indagini in materia di mafia” 21 (Investigative techniques on the Mafia), which dealt with various types of Mafia crimes. Put simply, the judges referred to a first level of criminal activities that serves to enrich (e.g., extortion), a second level of violence committed by mafiosi against each other (e.g., the settlement of internal accounts), and a third level of criminal acts committed against outsiders such as representatives of the state. The press picked up the terms but gave them a new meaning: In the media, the three levels were turned into a multi-story house in which the first floor is the simple mafiosi, the second floor the capimafia and finally, the third floor, the high-ranking individuals behind the scenes. Therefore, the “third level” is commonly understood to be a dark power that

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is above the Mafia and gives orders to it. Falcone always vehemently denied that there is such a “super cupola ”. Thus, he explained at an international conference on drug crime in June 1988 in Palermo: “Above the top committees (of the Mafia, note of the author) there is no ‘third level’ (…).”22 And in an interview with French journalist Marcelle Padovani (born 1947) he even commented in 1991 that belief in this “third level” is “the biggest stupidity that was ever disseminated”.23 This position as well as the fact that he had taken no action against persons such as the powerful Freemason and money launderer of Riina, Pino Mandalari, not only earned him doubts from his head prosecutor Rocco Chinnici24, who was murdered in 1983, but also earned him severe criticism from representatives of the anti-Mafia movement.25 The criticism intensified when Falcone accepted a nomination as Director of Justice in Rom by the controversial Justice Minister Claudio Martelli26—a cabinet member of the equally controversial Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti’. There is no doubt that Falcone was right when he said that there is no super cupola controlling the Cosa Nostra. Similarly, the former mafioso Francesco Di Carlo explained how the Mafia usually cooperates with the powerful: When a politician or other person close to the Cosa Nostra goes to the capi and says (…), there is someone who is hindering common interests, he does not just tell them that, he does not just entrust them with a difficulty. He asks for help and what kind of help the Cosa Nostra can render, one can imagine. That’s what I mean when I say that political crimes have politicians who give orders. Nobody tells the Cosa Nostra what to do, the Cosa Nostra does not take orders, but a goal to be achieved can be named.27

Of course, Falcone saw that crimes exclusively attributed to the Mafia were also committed by other forces, for example when he spoke of the “very sophisticated minds”28 at work in the attempted assassination on him in Addaura (PA) in June 1989—a more or less veiled reference to intelligence officers. His former colleague and former General Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal of Palermo Roberto Scarpinato (born 1952) explained that at that time it was, however, quite impossible to say openly that: (…) the Mafia sometimes operates as the executive arm of a national criminal system of which the topmost echelons of other power systems are a part. They would have declared you crazy. Many would have immediately demanded that you name names; first and last names of which Falcone knew that he could not name them…29

4  Italy—A Mafia Democracy?     231

The discussion about the third level—taking into account international connections some even talk about a fourth level30—still continues up to the present. Since this mysterious third or fourth level is located in the arcane area of power, its existence can only be grasped with difficulty. It can best be described as a network of powerful people from politics, the economy, high finance, military, judiciary, press and even the Vatican, whose elements occasionally come together to realize specific political and/or economic interests. This network uses illegal means and makes use of the Cosa Nostra, but also of other Mafia groups (like the ’Ndrangheta or Camorra), of criminal organizations like the Roman Magliana-gang31 as well as right-wing terrorists. Communication seems to take place mainly through Freemasonry channels, while “directing the crime” is left to special intelligence organizations. In this context, the paramilitay secret organization Gladio32 and the “deviant intelligence services” are often mentioned. This includes a special power circle within the Italian intelligence services—often referred to by the press as the “Super-SID”33— as well as secret structures outside the official intelligence services, such as the now “uncovered” Noto Servizio (literally “known intelligence service”) or Anello (ring)34. Since, according to statements by the former prosecutor Carlo Palermo, who dealt with these crimes, transverse state interests were behind this dark power, nobody would ever be able to discover it.35 The Mafia defector and Freemason Gioacchino Pennino junior, who also points out that parts of the state were involved in some crimes, argues that certain attacks were ordered for reasons of an “imaginary state reason”.36 The participants would remain silent out of fear and the truth could never come to light. The general prosecutor Roberto Scarpinato added that Mafia defectors had occasionally let slip serious hints when they had started talking about political crimes after the fall of the Berlin Wall. If the prosecutors had then wanted to know more, the defectors had replied that the judges … could not even imagine (emphasis in original) of the things and it would be better for everyone to forget certain things and act as if they had just had a bad dream.37

In the context of the Mafia, it can be noted with Antonino (Nino) Di Matteo (born 1961), one of the prosecutors in the Borsellino trials: Behind each of the excellent homicides is a convergence of interests of mafiosi with other powers, sometimes with political-institutional powers, sometimes with entrepreneurs or financiers.38

232     A. Bestler

Occasionally, mafiosi make suggestions about the (co-)perpetrators of third parties for criminal acts, for which only “men of honor” were indicted. For example, Luciano Leggio explained with regard to the murders of Judge Cesare Terranova and policeman Lenin Mancuso that the state should look “into its own pockets”39 here. The boss Nitto Santapaola from Catania commented on a television news report about the murder of Dalla Chiesa as follows: “As if they did not know that it was not only the Mafia that gave the orders, they came from above.”40 And the Mafia boss Totò Riina pointed out that it was not his men who had stolen the documents from Dalla Chiesa’s safe41 or Borsellino’s red notebook42. Yet it is only Mafia bosses who are held accountable and who, when they are no longer needed, are left to their own fate and in addition always have to serve as an excuse to “close the books” and not to look for those truly responsible for the crimes.43 It is therefore quite understandable that the Mafia boss Totò Riina, after he had been silent for 11 years, spontaneously declared in front of the jury in Florence in March 2004: The truth is good for everyone, Mr. Court President. It can also be good for me. But why do I have to be convicted of things of which I don’t know anything, which I haven’t done? I, Mr. Court President, I thank the court for having heard me, but I feel like the person who is pointed at and told: ‘You are the lightning rod of Italy’. You have to pay the bill for everyone!44

To summarize, we can use the words of former state attorney Roberto Scarpinato: Many important moments in the history of the Mafia are destined to remain secrets. If the Mafia consisted only of people like Provenzano or Riina, everything could come to light. But the Mafia is one of the many parts of the complex machinery that together form the real national power machine; a machine that writes the course of collective history and that sometimes acts openly, but mostly hidden. Nobody can afford to reveal some of the secrets of this obscene part of history which he may surmise, without risking being destroyed by the combined and transversal reaction of the entire system.45

Meanwhile, not only journalists, but also historians, prosecutors and judges seem to be convinced of the existence of a third or fourth level—the closer examination of which would be another topic for examination.

Notes

1 Introduction 1 Demos (2018). 2 Il Giorno (February 21, 2013, transl. by the author). 3 Salvemini (2000). 4 Countless other politicians could be mentioned here, against whom investigations were carried out for criminal offenses and who were indicted or convicted, cf. Gomez/Travaglio (2001). 5 Transparency International (2021). 6 La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (July 19, 2007). 7 La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (April 22, 2009). 8 The position that the Mafia is an attitude was first held by Pitrè (1841– 1916), later also by Hess (1970). Pitrè lays out his argument in the now separately published book “La Mafia e l’omertà” (Pitrè, 2007), a volume that first appeared in 1889 as part of Pitrè’s twenty-five-volume “Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolare”. Avellone, who in a book published in 1911 praised the benevolent nature of the Mafia as well as the positive Mafia attitude of the Sicilians, followed in the same vein as Pitrè. In addition, there were a © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Bestler, The Sicilian Mafia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39310-6

233

234     Notes

number of “interested” persons who tried to downplay the importance of the Mafia and to deny that it was a special form of criminal organization, including Starabba Di Rudini (1839–1908), the mayor of Palermo, state minister and later even Italian Prime Minister. When the first major debate on the phenomenon of the Mafia began in the 1870s, Starabba Di Rudini held the view that there was a positive Mafia mentality in the Sicilian population, which only occasionally slipped into crime, see Catanzaro (1991: 6 ff.), City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.), Marino (2002a: 97). 9 The Dutchman Blok, who in the 1960s carried out anthropological field studies in central Sicily, specifically in the village of Contessa Entellina (PA) which he called Genuardo, is the best-known representative of this view, see Blok (1974). 10 Gambetta presented his study “La mafia siciliana. Un’industria della protezione privata” in 1992, in which he interprets the Sicilian organized crime as a criminal enterprise. Subsequently, his “Mafia bestseller” was translated into various languages, see Gambetta (1994). Pino Arlacchi holds the view that the traditional Mafia has transformed into a business Mafia in the postWorld War II period, see Arlacchi (2007). 11 See the various Mafia legends in Correnti (1987: 31), Ciconte (2017b: 11 ff.), Messina (1990: 20 ff.), Renda (1998: 24 f.). 12 See Castiglione (2010), Ciconte (2008b: 65 f.), Giordano (1992: 405) and especially Renda (1999). 13 Natoli (2010). 14 See Catania (2006: 20), Catanzaro (1991: 5), Ciconte (2008b: 7 f.; 2017b: 9 f.), Correnti (1987: 13, 21, 31), Cutrera (1984: 39 ff.), Falzone (1987: 109), Messina (1990: 18 f., 25 f.), Pitrè (2007: 9 f., 12), Renda (1998: 24 f., 45). 15 Pitrè (2007: 9 f., transl. by the author). 16 Rizzotto (1994). 17 Bonanno/Lalli (2003).

Notes    235

18 The word “cosca” seems to be derived from the vulgar Latin term “coscla” or the late Latin term “costula”; for the etymology of the word “cosca” in the context of the Mafia, see Alongi (1977: 50), Catanzaro (1991: 58 f.), Cuntrera (1984: 63), Messina (1990: 38 f.). 19 For the ‘Ndrangheta, see Ciconte (1992, 2008a), Gratteri/Nicaso (2008), Forgione (2009). 20 For the Camorra, see Sales (1988), Barbagallo (2010), Paliotti (2002), Saviano (2006). 21 There are few studies on the Sacra Corona Unita, the youngest Italian Mafia organization, so far, see Massari (1998). 22 Weber (1980: 3 ff.). 23 Bufalino (1990: 14 f., transl. by the author). 2 From the Revolutionary Squadre to the Corleonesi

2.1 How low-level Criminals became Mafiosi 1 Bonfadini Report from 1876, quoted in City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.). 2 For the political and social development and the political institutions of Italy and Sicily in the nineteenth century, see Alongi (1977: 27 ff.), Barone (1987), Cavazza (2000), Correnti (1987; 2004), Chiellino/Marchio/Rongoni (1989), Cutrera (1984: 185 ff.), Finley et al. (1989), Franchetti (2000), Hamel (2011), Mack Smith (1969), Procacci (1989), Salvadori (2000); for the emergence of the Mafia, see Brancato (1986), Catania (2006), Catanzaro (1991), Ciconte (2008b), City of Palermo et al. (2000), Falzone (1987), Lupo (1996, 2011) Marino (2002a), Mazzola (2004), Mosca (2002), Paternà (2000), Pezzino (1994, 1999), Pantaleone (2013), Renda (1998), Salvemini (2000), Siragusa (2004). 3 Up until 1812, land was almost exclusively in the hands of the aristocracy and the church, although a part was used as public land by the municipalities. After the adoption of the constitution of 1812, these land holdings began to be broken up, namely through the sale of feudal leases, the auctioning of church property and the sale or usurpation of public land.

236     Notes

In this way, the number of landowners increased from only 2,000 to 20,000 between 1820 and 1860. Not a few of the now “newly rich” acquired patents of nobility or married into the old, highly indebted nobility. For the change in ownership relations, see Gambetta (1994: 115), Lupo (1990: 74), Mack Smith (1969: 65), Pezzino (1994: 11 ff.). 4 Garibaldi would hardly have been able to defeat the numerically and technologically superior Bourbons if they had fought seriously. There are persistent rumors that Bourbon General Francesco Landi (1792–1861) was “persuaded” in advance not to try too hard. Officially, the Piedmontese did not support Garibaldi in his landing in Sicily, as the military action could have failed. But there are indications that the Piedmontese did exert influence “behind the scenes”; for the background of Garibaldi’s landing in Sicily, see Hausmann (2005), Riall (2007), Trevelayn (2001). 5 For the use of criminal gangs in the popular uprisings of 1820, 1848 and 1860 by the social elite, see Alongi (1977: 27 ff.), Brancato (1986: 55), Ciconte (2008b: 241 ff.), Colajanni (1984: 41), Cutrera (1984: 165 ff.), Falzone (1987: 70 ff.), Finley et al. (1989: 219 ff.), Mack Smith (1969: 69), Marino (2002a: 34 f.), Mazzola (2004: 15), Pezzino (1994: 15 f.), Renda (1998: 46). 6 Bonfadini Report of 1876, quoted in City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.). 7 In Eastern Sicily, “a migliora” (for improvement) leases predominated, which had relatively long terms of around 29 years, as well as hereditary leases, which were almost equivalent to ownership of land. In Western and Central Sicily, on the other hand, the peasants usually had only “mezzadria” (half-lease) leases with mostly short terms, which often meant that they were not allowed to keep even a quarter of their harvest. For tenancy and land relations, see Bascietto (2005: 110 f.), Brancato (1986: 62), Lupo (1990: 88 f.). De Felice Giuffrida also points to the connection between the poorer economic conditions in Western and Central Sicily and the emergence of the Mafia. He explains that the “geography of the economy” corresponds to the “geography of the Mafia” and that the Mafia is strong where the peasants are doing worst (2014: 32 f.). 8 After Italian unification, it was not only the phenomenon of the Mafia that exploded but also brigandage and “ordinary” crime. Brigands and

Notes    237

criminals are “outlaws”, i.e. criminals in the eyes of the law. This does not apply to mafiosi, who usually hide behind a “bourgeois mask”. For brigandage in general, see Hobsbawm (1979). 9 Marino (2002a: 35, transl. by the author). 10 Marino (1997: 10), Pantaleone (2013: 13), Renda (1998: 47). 11 Colajanni (1984: 41, transl. by the author). 12 Cutrera (1984: 174, transl. by the author). 13 Bonfadini Report of 1876, quoted in City of Palermo et al. (2000: o.S.). 14 Renda (1998: 48, transl. by the author). 15 Falzone (1984: 72). 16 Ciconte (2008b: 56, transl. by the author). 17 Renda (1998: 11). 18 Renda (1998: 41). 19 Among the most important Mafia groups in the second half of the nineteenth century were the Società degli Stuppagghieri from Monreale (PA), the Società dei Terziari di S. Francesco di Assisi from Uditore (PA), the Associazione dei Mugnai e della Posa in Palermo, the Amoroso clan from the Orto Botanico district in Palermo, the Oblonica Cosca from Girgenti (since 1927 Agrigento), the Scattiolosa from Sciacca (AG), the Scagghiuna from Enna, the Scaglione from Castrogiovanni, the Fontana Nuova group from Misilmeri (PA), the Fratuzzi from Bagheria (PA), the Fratellanza from Favara (PA), the Zubbio from Villabate (PA) and the Portella from Castelbuono (PA). For the various Mafia clans, see Ciconte (2008b: 114), City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.). At the end of the nineteenth century, the police officer Antonio Cutrera wrote a study on the Sicilian Mafia and produced a map on which he marked the various clans. It shows clearly that the Mafia was concentrated in western and central Sicily (1984: 113 f.).

238     Notes

20 The “in gabella” (for a fee) form of leasehold means that a large landowner leases his entire land to a large tenant who pays him the rent in advance. The large tenant does not work the land himself, but sublets it to many small individual tenants, usually with sharecropping contracts. Since most of the large landowners were absentee landlords living far from their property in the cities from the seventeenth century onwards, they could not take care of their property themselves. For this reason, the contract form of the gabella became increasingly common, especially in areas of large-scale durum wheat cultivation, where the aristocracy would have had to deal with an extraordinary number of small tenants. In these areas, the gabella was the preferred form of leasehold from the eighteenth century onwards, with the result that a class of gabellotti emerged in the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the gabellotti practically controlled the entire land, which was organized in latifundia. In the province of Caltanissetta, this included 42% of the arable land, in the province of Palermo 35%, in the province of Agrigento 31% and in the province of Trapani as much as 20%. In individual municipalities, the percentages were even higher: for example, 55% of the land in the municipality of Corleone consisted of latifundia, in Santo Stefano Quisquina 72% and in Villalba even 75% (Renda 1998: 191 f.). The form of the gabella lease in pratice never existed where small areas could be profitably cultivated, which was the case where citrus fruits could be grown. Citrus fruit gardens were cultivated throughout Sicily by means of administrators or direct leases. The only exception seems to have been the so-called giardini—small garden plots— of the Conca d’Oro of Palermo, where the form of the gabella lease occasionally occurred. The main work of the gabellotti consisted in collecting the lease from the subtenants and ensuring order in the area under their control, for which they used armed campieri (field guards). Since the gabellotti exploited the peasants on the one hand and the large landowners on the other, they usually managed to become landowners themselves after a certain time. For the form of the gabella and the gabellotti, see Brancato (1986: 62), Finley et al. (1989: 162 f.), Marino (2002a: 86), Lupo (1990: 116). 21 For the situation in Sicily after the takeover of power by the “Piedmontese”, see Hamel (2011: 87 ff.), Ciconti (2008b: 242 ff.), Mack Smith (1969: 744), Mazzola (2004: 16). 22 A party faction is understood, in contrast to the modern mass parties, as circle of dignitaries. After the establishment of the Italian monarchy, as was

Notes    239

customary throughout Europe at that time, there were only party factions around dignitaries which then formed alliances. 23 For the incident of the Pugnalatori, see Ciconte (2017b: 31), Correnti (1987: 37), Falzone (1987: 114 f.), Marino (2002a: 39 f.), Santino (2017: 56 ff.), Sciascia (2003), Siragusa (2004: 195). 24 Ciconte (2017b: 32), Correnti (1987: 37; 2004: 338), Falzone (1987: 119 ff.), Hamel (2011: 101 ff.), Marino (2002a: 47 ff.), Paternà (2000: 29 f.), Santino (2017: 65 ff.). 25 Finley et al. (1989: 239). 26 Catanzaro (1991: 98 f.), Ciconte (2008b: 248 ff.; 2017b: 33 ff.), Correnti (2004: 341), Falzone (1987: 71), Franchetti (2000: 41 ff., 46 ff.), Marino (2002a: 55), Lupo (1996: 71), Mosca (2002: 41, 45 f.), Pezzino (1999: 19 ff.), Renda (1998: 87 f.), Ruta (2011: 18). 27 City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p., transl. by the author). 28 Catanzaro (1991: 109). 29 The term “transformism” carries a negative connotation in that this cooperation was often associated with personal favors, corruption, and clientelism. For transformism, see Salvadori (2000: 443, 1613). 30 For the policy of the government of the Historical left after its takeover of power, see Marino (2002a: 53, 58, 65 ff.), Mosca (2002: 50 f.), Mazzola (2004: 17), Paternà (2000: 31), Renda (1998: 94, 109 ff., 116, 119). 31 Siragusa (2004: 92, transl. by the author). 32 Marino (2002a: 59, transl. by the author). 33 Ciconte (2017b: 38 ff.), Cutrera (1984: 132 ff.), Santino (2017: 237 ff.).

2.2 The Mafia Becomes the “Election Helper” 1 For the development of the right to vote, see Barone (1987: 27, 279, 284) Cavazza (2000: 76 ff.).

240     Notes

2 In the electoral reform of 1882, the voting age was lowered from 25 to 21 years, the tax that had to be paid to be eligible to vote was reduced from 40 to 19,80 lire, and a writing sample had to be submitted to verify the ability to read and write, see Barone (1987: 279). 3 The following table shows the development of the electorate in Sicily in the period from 1882 to 1912: Province

Voters 1882

Voters 1912

Agrigento Caltanissettaa Catania Messina Palermo Syracuseb Trapani Total

17,402 13,186 34,976 25,054 39,043 18,186 18,666 166,513

97,467 79,079 178,513 134,145 196,604 106,305 90,607 888,720

Source: Barone (1987: 284) a Including the today’s province of Enna, which was only founded in 1926 b Including the today’s province of Ragusa, which was only founded in 1927

4 Originally, the provincial level was only a state administrative unit, which was led by a prefect appointed centrally and subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. Starting in 1888, in addition to the existing provincial prefecture, the province was created as a political unit elected by the population, with the responsibility for—more or less—the same public tasks that had to be carried out by the municipalities; these included, for example, health care or the establishment of schools. The provinces were primarily to take over tasks that individual municipalities could hardly fulfill alone, or tasks that affected several municipalities. For the political level of the “provinces” see Urbani (1997: 629 f.).—The extension of the right to vote to these two lower levels of state structure was delayed because the Municipal Election Act of 1865 was still in force. According to this Act, only those who either had a certain title—such as state officials, members of the military, teachers, bookkeepers, geometers or members of the liberal professions—or who paid a certain amount of taxes were entitled to vote. For this reason, only 130,628 Sicilians were able to participate in the municipal elections in 1887, which corresponded to about half of the voters in the national elections. The situation changed with a law of 1889, which newly regulated the provincial and municipal election law. At that point, then, everyone who could read and write and who paid at least 5 lire in taxes was allowed to vote, which corresponded to a reduction of the tax census, see Barone (1987: 280).

Notes    241

5 For the political parties at that time, see Salvadori (2000). 6 For the Fasci Siciliani, see Ciconte (2017b: 61 ff.), De Felice Giuffrida (2014: 29), Hamel (2011: 112 ff.), Lupo (1990: 169), Marino (2002a: 71 f.), Renda (1977), Santino (2000: 23–86; 2017: 278 ff.). 7 With “Non expedit” (Lat. It is not advisable) Pope Pius IX. (1846–1878) called on Italian Catholics not to participate in political life. Catholics were not allowed—with the exception of local elections—to stand as candidates nor vote. In view of the “socialist danger”, however, a voting alliance between Catholic voters and politically moderate candidates was already allowed in 1913. For this very reason, “Non expedit” was lifted before the national elections in 1919, see Hampel (1997: 533) and Mack Smith (1969: 151). 8 Barone (1987: 281). 9 Barone (1987: 281). 10 Meloni (1984: 739). 11 Colajanni (1984: 82, transl. by the author). 12 For the use of Mafia clans by parliamentary candidates in the election campaign, see the study “Il Ministro della Malavita” (The Minister of the Criminal World) (2000) by the Southern Italian historian and later Harvard professor Gaetano Salvemini (1873–1957), who was able to include his own experiences as a candidate of the Socialist Party.— The phrase “Minister of the Criminal World” referred to Giovanni Giolitti. 13 Marino (2002a: 99, transl. of the author). 14 Marino (2002a: 58). 15 City of Palermo et al. (2000: n. p.). 16 Salvemini (2000: 30, transl. by the author). 17 Mosca (2002: 45 ff.).

242     Notes

18 For the case of Notarbartolo, see Barone (1987: 307 ff.), Butera (1993: 36 ff.), Catania (2006: 20 ff.), Catanzaro (1991: 130), Ceruso (2008: 15–27), Ciconte (2008a: 91; 2017b: 55 f.; 2019), De Felice Giuffrida (2014: 37, 42 ff.), Lupo (1990: 129; 1996a: 103 ff.; 2011), Marino (2002a: 68, 81 f., 130 ff.), Mosca (2002: 57 ff.), Notarbartolo (1994), Paternà (2000: 36 ff.). 19 The scandal surrounding the Banca Romana in 1893 was one of the biggest banking scandals in Italian history: The Banca Romana was supposed to act as an emission bank and produce banknotes. The bank’s director, a semi-illiterate man from the Latium region named Tanlongo, had the banknotes printed twice at the printing press he had commissioned in London, meaning he produced counterfeit money. He then distributed this money to his political friends, including Giovanni Giolitti, but also to Giolitti’s rival Francesco Crispi. When one of the bank’s employees noticed that some of the banknotes had the same serial numbers, the fraud was uncovered. An investigation against Tanlongo revealed that several politicians were involved. Once the press had made the case public, Giolitti had to resign as Prime Minister and was even sentenced to prison, from which he temporarily fled the country. As a result of the scandal, the Italian central bank Banca d’Italia was founded in August 1893, appropriating the enormous gold reserves of the southern Italian banks Banco di Sicilia and Banco di Napoli, which had also been emission banks. For the scandal surrounding the Banca Romana, see Butera (1993: 51 f.), Mack Smith (1969: 245 ff.), Mosca (2002: 60), Procacci (1989: 312), Scarpinato (2009: 90), Salvadori (2000: 691). 20 The Roman Sangiorgi was the first police president to submit a detailed description of the Mafia clans of Palermo in an almost 500 page report, see Lupo (2011). 21 For the Petrosino case, see Catania (2006: 36 ff., 61), Ceruso (2008: 28–36), Ciconte (2017b: 62), Mosca (2002: 52), Pezzino (1999: 94). More than one hundred years after the murder of Petrosino, the identity of his murderer was finally revealed by chance during a police interception: The mafioso Domenico Palazzotto boasted in a telephone conversation with the fact that his great-uncle Paolo Palazzotto had killed the policeman. The killing had been ordered by the famous Mafia boss Vito Cascio Ferro, see Polizia Penitenziaria (2014). 22 Correnti (2004: 338).

Notes    243

23 The starting point was the 1876 work “Condizioni politiche e amminstrative della Sicilia” by the Tuscan scholar Franchetti (1847–1917) on the political conditions in Sicily. In 1886, the first work dealing explicitly with the phenomenon of the Mafia was published under the title “La maffia nei suoi fattori e nelle sue manifestazioni: studio sulle classi pericolose della Sicilia” by the Sicilian police officer and later police chief of Rome and Bologna Alongi (1858–1939). In 1900, three studies on the topic “Mafia and Politics” were published: the essay “Che cosa è la Mafia” by the Sicilian sociologist Mosca (1858–1921); “Nel regno della mafia dai Borboni ai Sabaudi” by the Sicilian doctor, criminologist and politician Colajanni (1847–1921); and also “La mala vita di Palermo. La mafia e i mafiosi” by Cutrera, a policeman who had infiltrated the Mafia as a secret agent and presented a highly detailed report on the clans of Palermo. In 1909, the Apulian historian Salvemini (1873–1957) published “Il ministro della malavita. Notizie e documenti sulle elezioni giolittiane nell’Italia meridoniale”, not only an indictment of Prime Minister Giolitti, but above all a description of the different types of election interference by the Mafia and the state apparatus. Finally, in 1913, the Sicilian sociologist Bruccoleri published the book “La Sicilia d’oggi”, which also deals with the practices of Mafia politicians. 24 Elliot (2001: 15 ff., transl. by the author). 25 City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.). 26 Salvemini (2000: 126, 129). 27 For the use of the state apparatus by Giolitti on behalf of his Mafia politicians, see Catanzaro (1991: 118, 121 ff.), Colajanni (1984: 87, 89), Marino (2002a: 95), Salvemini (2000: 84, 147). 28 Salvemini (2000: 130 ff., transl. by the author). 29 Bolton King quoted by Catanzaro (1991: 128, transl. by the author). 30 Colajanni (1984: 88). 31 Colajanni (1984: 80). 32 Correnti (2004: 338).

244     Notes

2.3 Suppression Under Fascism? 1 For a more detailed account of the political situation after 1919, see Correnti (2004: 607 f.), Mack Smith (1969: 483 ff.). 2 For the Fascists’ seizure of power, see Correnti (2004: 607 f.), Mack Smith (1969: 480 f., 541 ff., 551, 555 ff.). 3 The term “Aventin secession” was a reference to an episode that is said to have taken place in Rome in the fifth century BC: the plebeians protested against the patricians by withdrawing to the Aventine Hill. 4 The first Fascio di Combattimento (combat league) in Sicily, founded in November 1919 in Ragusa Ibla, was set up by a sixteen-year-old. The Fascio of Catania, founded in April 1920, also had a very young founder, a university student. Among the most important pro-fascist intellectuals were the writers Giovanni Verga (1840–1922) and Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936), the historian and archaeologist Biagio Pace (1889–1955), the legal philosopher Orazio Condorelli (1897–1969) and the educator Giovanni Gentile (1875– 1944). For support for the Fascists in Sicily, see Correnti (2004: 608 f.), Duggan (1986: 13), Finley et al. (1989: 264). 5 On the attitude of the agrarian elite, see Finley et al. (1989: 263 f.), Mack Smith (1969: 482 ff., 501, 559), Marino (2002a: 126). 6 On the situation of the Mafia under Fascism, see Basile (2010), Ciconte (2008b: 108 ff.; 2017b: 70 ff.), Duggan (1986: 24 f.), Pantaleone (2013: 35 ff.). 7 Arrigo Petacco, quoted in Marino (2002b: 108, transl. by the author). On the incident see, Catania (2006: 116 ff.), Pantaleone (2013: 41 f.). 8 On Mori’s activities in Sicily and the Mafia show trials, see Basile (2010: 5 f.), Catanzaro (1991: 47), Duggan (1986), Lupo (1996: 178 ff.), Marino (2002a: 108, 129 ff.), Olla (2003: 97 ff.), Pantaleone (2013: 40 ff.), Pezzino (1999: 43 f.), Renda (1998: 208 ff.), Siragusa (2004: 46, 49 ff.). 9 The first Mafia groups in the USA emerged as early as in the 1870s, namely first in New Orleans. However, the American Cosa Nostra did not really develop until the end of the nineteenth century when, as a result of a severe economic crisis, thousands of southern Italians emigrated to the USA and

Notes    245

ghettos known as “Little Italies” emerged in cities with a high Italian immigrant population. In these “Little Italies”, one or two Mafia clans quickly developed. New York was an exception with its particularly large Italian community where, by the 1920s, five Mafia families had already developed, making New York the American Mafia metropolis—and it remained so. At first, the Cosa Nostra had problems asserting itself—especially against the Irish criminal clans—but after the end of Prohibition (1933), the Mafia had managed to gain a prominent place in the American underworld. For the development of the Cosa Nostra in the USA, see Bonanno/Lalli (2003: 84 f.), Catania (2006: 31 ff., 145 ff.), Ciconte (2017b: 66 ff.), Lupo (1990: 125 ff.; 2008), Marino (2002b: 92 ff.; 100 ff.; 153 ff.), Raab (2009). 10 Marino (2002a: 132, transl. by the author). 11 The term scassapagghiaru (Sic. Sheaf of grain-thieves) is derived from the fact that sheaves of grain or haystacks are very easy to break open. A scassapagghiaru is therefore understood to be a burglar who does not have any special criminal skills. 12 For the social elite in Fascism and their behavior, see Brancato (1986: 237 f.), Duggan (1986), Finley et al. (1989: 271), Marino (2002a: 127 f., 142 ff.), Salvadori (2000: 1156). 13 Correnti (1987: 46, transl. by the author). 14 Marino (2002a: 128, transl. by the author).

2.4 American “Reconstruction Aid” 1 For “Operation Husky”, see Caselli/Lo Forte (2020: XX), Costanzo (2006: 18 ff.), Correnti (2004: 612). 2 Costanzo (2006: 19 f., 163). 3 Costanzo (2006: 152). 4 Many historians like Marino or Correnti, but also journalists like Li Vigni or contemporary witnesses like Pantaleone are convinced that the Americans were helped by the Mafia during the landing and the subsequent military occupation of Sicily. Others like Pezzino, on the other hand, doubt that a real “pact” between American authorities and the Cosa Nostra existed, even

246     Notes

if they do not deny that there were respective contacts. The argument for a “pact” is supported by intelligence service documents made available to the public, which the historians Casarubbea and Tranfaglia have reviewed. Casarubbea founded the intelligence service document archive “Non solo Portella” in Partinico, see Casarubbea (2005), Correnti (1987: 46), Li Vigni (2014: 29 ff.), Marino (2002a: 146; 2002b: 177 ff.), Pantaleone (2013: 48–63), Pezzino (1999: 49), Pinotti (2007: 115), Tranfaglia (2004; 2011). Many documents prove the cooperation of American intelligence services— specifically the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the CIA predecessor Office of Strategic Services (OSS) founded in 1942—and the Mafia, see Costanzo (2006) and Tranfaglia (2004). In addition, there exists film archive material by an American military cameraman, which also points in this direction. The respective excerpt can be found in the documentary “I Padrini” by Roberto Olla, produced with the expert advice of the historian Marino in February 2002 by RAI 3. 5 For “Operation Underworld”, see Bonanno/Lalli (2003: 165), Costanzo (2006: 61 ff., 181), Marino (2002b: 146, 177 ff.). 6 For the Mafia’s help in liberating Sicily, see Ciconte (2008b: 285 ff.), City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.), Lupo (1996a: 192 f.), Marino (2002a: 146), Santino (1997: 11). 7 For the Allied Military Government in Sicily and the situation after the liberation from Fascism, see Amendola (2022: 34), City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.), Costanzo (2006: 155, 159, 165 ff., 179 f.), Li Vigni (2014: 11 ff.), Lupo (1996: 198), Mangiameli (1987: 486, 501, 510 ff., 550), Marino (2002b: 148 ff., 158, 182 ff., 195 ff., 253 f., 282 ff.), Renda (1998: 234 ff.; 241 ff.), Stille (2000: 27). 8 For the separatist movement, see Ciconte (2008b: 289 ff., 2017b: 79 f.), Mangiameli (1987: 520), Marino (1979; 2002a: 145 ff., 152 ff.), Li Vigni (2014: 13 ff.), Lupo (1996: 193), Pantaleone (2013: 64 ff.). 9 In this encomium it says: »The Sicilian latifundium is (…) the myth of Ceres and Proserpina. It has its roots in the history of mankind and a thousand years of aristocracy (…). Glory to the Sicilian latifundium! (…) The latifundium is a great source of wealth, which the Sicilians will tap on the day they can use the economic resources of the country for the island itself.« Marino (2002a: 145, transl. by the author).

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10 For the transitional governments and parties, see Hausmann (2002: 22 ff.), Mack Smith (1969: 645, 717 ff., 731), Salvadori (2005: 434 ff., 1024 f., 1201 ff., 1217 ff.), Tranfaglia (2004: XII ff.; 2008: 31 ff.). 11 As soon as the end of Fascism became apparent, the democratic parties had begun to reconstitute themselves—even though there was still a party ban in the liberated areas of Italy until 1943—such as the Communist PCI, the Socialist PSI, the Liberal Socialist Partito d’Azione (PDA), the Liberal PLI and—as the successor party of Don Luigi Sturzo’s PPI—the Christian Democratic Party (DC). The PCI had meanwhile turned into an organization obedient to the Soviet Union, primarily because on the one hand the Soviet Union had provided financial aid and many PCI leaders had been granted exile during Fascism, and on the other hand, the party leadership had changed from Antonio Gramsci (1981–1937) to Palmiro Togliatti (1893– 1964). When the liberation of Italy began to take shape, Togliatti developed a party strategy together with his Russian friends: instead of a revolution, they planned to fight against the class enemy from within, which was to avoid a potential ban of the PCI. Although the PCI still held on to radical rhetoric, in practice it acted moderately and was willing to compromise even going as far as the tactical abandonment of basic positions.—The Socialist PSI, which was re-established in 1942, had also changed compared to the pre-Fascist period: the number of its followers had increased, especially because many “comrades” from the PCI were not in agreement with Stalin’s policy and had therefore left the PCI or been excluded. This influx then led to the radicalization of the PSI’s program. The PSI, led by Pietro Nenni (1891–1980) since 1943, saw itself—like the PCI—as a workers’ and class party, but was much more radical than the PCI and hardly willing to abandon basic positions for strategic reasons. Despite all the distance from the PCI, the PSI still held on to the pact of alliance from 1934 with the Communists which was originally directed against the Mussolini dictatorship.—The Partito d’Azione (PDA), which was not founded until 1942, had emerged from the anti-Fascist resistance, was not a workers’ party, but a bourgeois intellectuals’ party, and was led by Ferrucio Parri, one of the most important partisan leaders. The PDA was programmatically located between radical left-liberalism and socialism. Parri vehemently rejected the monarchy and demanded a republic. Quite similar to the PSI, the PDA held on to its political positions extremely rigidly in political practice and was not willing to make any compromises. However, it did not achieve its goal of establishing itself as a third force between the Christian Democrats and the left-wing parties, but rather remained limited to a small circle of intellectuals.—The Liberal PLI was re-established in 1942 and began

248     Notes

to act as an anti-Fascist party, even though it had actually helped Mussolini take power. In 1942, the PLI succeeded in electing the renowned philosopher Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) as party chairman. Programmatically, the party remained as laicist-liberal and conservative as its pre-Fascist predecessor and developed over time into an extreme right-wing party, since it was interested in the monarchy as a future form of government after the end of Fascism. Its party organization, which was already very weak in pre-Fascist times, did not change, so that the PLI remained a small party of notables.—The Christian Democratic Party (DC) was founded in 1942 as the successor party of the Partito Popolare Italiano. Its chairman was Alcide De Gasperi (1881–1954), who had had succeeded Don Luigi Sturzo in 1924 as leader of the PPI. The DC, which was anti-communist and pro-American, wanted to become a people’s party, in which all social classes should find a place. The DC succeeded in this effort, even though the social component was less developed in program and practice than in the PPI. Of course, the DC remained a Catholic party, and much more so than the PPI, so that it always gave in to the Vatican’s view in case of differences of opinion, since it was dependent on the Vatican’s support to win votes.—For the post-war parties, see Salvadori (2005). 12 The first High Commissioner was the former Prefect of Palermo and Liberal Democrat Francesco Musotto (1889–1961), who only held this office for five months and was replaced by Christian Democrat Aldisio. Mussotto’s tasks were rather limited and extended only to the coordination of the activities of the various prefectures in the provinces. See the various high commissioners and their tasks in Mangiameli (1987: 533). 13 For the acquisition of Sicilian regional autonomy and the radicalization of the separatist movement, see Casarrubea (2001: 131), Lupo (1996: 193), Mangiameli (1987: 521 ff., 533 ff., 551 ff., 569 ff.), Marino (2002a: 151 ff.), Renda (1998: 339).

2.5 From the Rural to the Urban Mafia 1 For the Mafia of the large landowners, see Blok (1974), for the sulfur mine Mafia: Dickie (2005: 69 ff.) and for the Mafia of the citrus gardens: Lupo (1990). 2 For the Gullo Decrees and the emergence of the peasant movement, see Bevilacqua (2005: 133), Casarrubea (2002: 76), Ciconte (2017b: 81 f.), Giordano (1992: 95 f.), La Torre (2002: 31 ff., 76 ff.), Mangiameli (1987:

Notes    249

564 f.), Marino (2002a: 164 f.), Montalbano (2012), Pantaleone (2013: 114 ff.), Renda (1998: 295 ff.), Santino (2000: 139 ff.). 3 On June 2/3, 1946, a referendum on the future form of government and elections to a constitutional assembly took place simultaneously. King Umberto II (1904–1983), whose father Victor Emanuel III had become unpopular because of his behavior during Fascism and had resigned, traveled through Italy and campaigned for the monarchy. He was supported in this by the PLI and the monarchists, that is, exactly the groups in which the radical part of the separatist movement began to gather. As a precaution, their leader, Count Tasca, also offered King Umberto to become King of an independent Sicily if the Republic were to win the referendum. The King, however, refused. All other parties with the exception of the DC were in favor of the founding of the Republic. The DC refrained from this issue and did not give any voting recommendations because it did not want to anger its conservative supporters. In the end, the election results were relatively close, with 13 million votes for the Republic and 11 million against it. The fact that the monarchy performed better in the south than in the north shows that the agrarian bourgeoisie of the Mezzogiorno still had a significant influence. In Sicily, however, it seems to have lost this influence to a large extent, because only 705,949 voters there voted for the monarchy, while a majority of 1,292,100 voted for the Republic. For the referendum and the elections to the constitutional assembly, see Mack Smith (1969: 573 f., 730), Marino (2002a: 162 f.). 4 Casarrubea (2002: 78), Romano (2002: 140). 5 About the violence against left-wing politicians and farmer leaders, see Caruso (2005: 621 ff.), Casarrubea (2002: 88 ff.; 2005: 94 f., 195 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 50–66), Ciconte (2017b: 82), La Torre (2002: 55), Li Causi (2008: 53 ff.), Mangiameli (1987: 579), Marino (2002a: 165 ff.; 2015b: 465 ff.), Paternostro (1992), Renda (1998: 309 ff.), Vaiana (2015: 194 ff.). 6 In particular, Giuseppe Casarubbeas’ (1946–2015) minute reconstruction of the attack on Portella della Ginestra suggests that the violence originated from the American intelligence services and the Italian government: the political situation in Sicily was said to have exceeded the limits of the Treaty of Yalta, thus the further progress of the left-wing people’s bloc had to be prevented. Subversive neo-fascist and monarchist groups as well as the Mafia, with whom Giuliano had regular contact, were involved in the implementation. Similarly, Giuliano had contact with agents of the intelligence services, American spies,

250     Notes

or “informed” policemen. An important role seems to have been played by the neofascist, CIA-funded Fronte Antibolscevio with its headquarters in Via dell’Orologio in Palermo. A key role in the incident was played by the “Fra Diavolo” (Brother Devil) named Salvatore Ferreri (1923–1947) from Alcamo (TP), who had infiltrated Giuliano’s gang. Unlike Giuliano, Ferreri probably knew from the beginning what the attack on Portella della Ginestra was actually about—namely a terrorist state attack directed against the political left. Giuliano, on the other hand, seems to have believed that he was only supposed to kidnap the communist leader Li Causi, who was scheduled to be the main speaker at the rally, for which he would then be rewarded with an amnesty or emigration to the USA or Brazil. For the attack on Portella della Ginestra, see Amato (2017: 41 ff.), Casarrubea (2001; 2002; 2005; 2009), Ciconte (2008b: 295 ff.; 2017b: 82 ff.), Imposimato (2012: 21 ff.), Li Causi (2007), Lucarelli (2002: 3–24), Lupo (1996: 195 f.), Mangiameli (1987: 578), Marino (2002a: 180; 2015b: 253 ff.), Messina (2014: 111 ff.), Nicastro (2006: 57), Pantaleone (2013: 141 ff.), Renda (2002), Ruta (2013), Tranfaglia (2004: 114; 2008: 42 ff.). In this context, Paolo Benvenuti’s film “Segreti di Stato” from 2003 is worth seeing. 7 The first to die on June 27, 1947, with Salvatore Ferreri and his immediate circle—his father Vito, Antonio Coraci, the brothers Salvatore and Fedele Pianelli—were some members of Giuliano’s gang, who were most likely police informants. Interestingly, they died in Alcamo (TP), where they had been in police custody. Thereafter, Salvatore Giuliano himself was killed, officially in a shootout with carabinieri in the courtyard of Casa De Maria in Via Mannone 54 in Castelvetrano (TP). Yet this official version was immediately revealed as false by journalists, especially by Tommaso Besozzi from L’Europeo in his famous article “Di sicuro c’è solo che è morto” (The only thing that is certain is that he is dead). The Carabiniere Captain Antonio Perenze, who was serving under Carabiniere Colonel Ugo Luca and who was involved in the shooting, had to admit that the alleged shootout had never taken place. In fact, Giuliano, who had found refuge in the house of the lawyer Gregorio De Maria, who in turn was working for Giuseppe Marotta, the capomafia of Castelvetrano, seems to have been drugged with a sleeping pill on the evening of July 4, 1950, and then killed. (It is unclear who killed him; there are various names mentioned, such as Giuliano’s cousin Pisciotta, the bandit Nunzio Badalamenti and the mafioso Luciano Leggio.) Thereafter, Antonio Perenze and two other carabinieri quickly moved the dead man—who was not even fully dressed—into the courtyard of De Maria’s house, where they shot at the corpse in the night of July 5 at 3 o’clock, to simulate a shootout. Four years after the murder

Notes    251

of Giuliano, his cousin Pisciotta was next: He seemed to have hoped that he would be amnestied if he remained silent or only revealed what he had been told. But when he was sentenced to a lengthy prison term in Viterbo (VT) on May 3, 1952, he angrily exclaimed in the courtroom that Mafia, bandits and carabinieri were like the Holy Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that he would now reveal everything he knew. Shortly before his appeal hearing, Pisciotta, imprisoned in the Ucciardone prison in Palermo, demanded a state attorney on February 6, 1954, in order to make a statement. Pietro Scaglione, on duty at that time, arrived, but he had not brought along an official note-taker. Scaglione talked at length with Pisciotta and promised that he would come back with a such an official note-taker to take down Pisciotta’s statement in writing. This delay prevented any written record to ever be taken, because Pisciotta was poisoned with strychnine in prison on the morning of February 9, 1954. For the murders of Ferreri, Giuliano and Pisciotta, see Amato (2017: 54 ff.), Casarrubea (2001: 140 ff.; 2002: 69, 218, 223, 237 ff., 241 ff., 252; 2005: 145 f., 177 ff.), Ceruso (2018: 77), Giornale di Sicilia (May 1, 2001), Lucarelli (2002: 3 ff.), Mangiameli (1987: 578), Tranfaglia (2008: 57 f.). 8 The following documents disappeared: first, the third memorandum—in which Giuliano had written down everything he knew about the incident at Portella—disappeared from the house of the lawyer Gregorio De Maria, where Giuliano had been murdered; second, the 14 notebooks of Pisciotta, in which Pisciotta had recorded the background of the assassination; and third, the entire contents of the voluminous files 29/CS from 1950. Only the cover of one file remained, namely the one titled “Dichiarazine di Pisciotta Gaspare sulla morte di Giuliano” (Declaration of Pisciotta Gaspare on the death of Giuliano). Incidentally, these files had once been kept in the vault of the State Archive. This volume should have been accessible to the public after the lifting of the state secret designation with regard to some of the documents concerning Portella della Ginestra in 1998, cf. Casarrubea (2002: 222 f., 226 ff., 237), La Repubblica (November 7, 2000). 9 Giuseppe Casarrubea (1946–2015) was not the only one who was convinced that the goal of the attack on Portella della Ginestra was to provoke a civil war; others include Marino (2002a: 124, 180), Sanfilippo (2008: 55) and Tranfaglia (2004: 114). Perhaps for the same reason, a year later, on July 14, 1948, the Sicilian fanatic Antonio Pallante attempted to assassinate the leader of the Communist Party Palmiro Togliatti in Rome, who was seriously injured. In fact, riots broke out all over the country, but Togliatti, as soon as he could act again, immediately brought them to

252     Notes

a standstill. It seems that Togliatti also believed in a deliberate provocation with the aim of banning his party, cf. Hausmann (2002: 47). 10 Even before the actual beginning of the Cold War, which officially started with the announcement of the Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947, the Americans set up a secret anti-communist Stay-behind network, first in Italy—later also in other Western European countries. The purpose of this network was to be able to fight the Soviets “behind the lines” in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe. Those admitted to this network were declared anti-communists, very often former fascists, some of whom received assistance by the Vatican to flee to Argentina after the war via the so-called via dei conventi. In Italy, for example, the notorious Prince Junio Valerio Borghese belonged to this right-wing network. He had been the leader of the military elite unit XaMAS during the time of the fascist “Republic of Salò” (1943–1945). Numerous former members of XaMAS were not prosecuted for their crimes, but were deliberately integrated into the network. For example, James Jesus Angleton, the head of the American intelligence services, declared in 1945: “It is necessary to save Borghese” (Messina 2014: 94). In Italy, the network was known as “Gladio.” In 1956, Gladio was elevated to an official NATO organization under an agreement between the CIA and SIFAR, without informing the Italian Parliament. Although the Soviets never invaded anywhere in Western Europe, the paramilitary secret armies remained in existence and intervened in the internal affairs of various European countries whenever there was a threat of a takeover by a left-wing party. Its main base was near the village of Alghero on Sardinia, but there were training camps elsewhere in the country, such as the Centro Scorpione in Trapani, Sicily. Gladio—in collaboration with the military intelligence service and right-wing extremist organizations such as Ordine Nuova— carried out a series of terrorist attacks under “Operation Demagnetize” in order to create unrest among the population and attribute the violence to the left-wing terrorist Red Brigades, indeed to discredit the political Left in general. Attacks that have been associated with Gladio include the massacre at Piazza Fontana in Milan (1969), the Peteano bombing (1972), the attack at Piazza della Loggia in Brescia (1974), the bombing of the Italicus Express train from Rome to Munich (1974) and finally the attack at the Bologna train station (1980). There is, however, also evidence that Gladio was involved in right-wing coup attempts, the “Piano Solo” coup (1964) by General Giovanni De Lorenzo (1907–1973) and the “Tora Tora” coup (1970) by Junio Valerio Borghese. These coup attempts always took place when the Left was in danger of becoming too strong in parliament. There is

Notes    253

also evidence that Gladio was involved in the assassination of the Christian Democrat politician Aldo Moro (1916–1978), who had advocated for the Communists to join the government. The existence of the paramilitary army, ultimately controlled by the American intelligence services, was known to only a few people, such as the Prime Minister, the President, the Minister of Defense and the Minister of the Interior. A politician who is often mentioned as a Gladio activist is Francesco Cossiga (1928–2010). Thanks to the investigations of Venice judge Felice Casson (born 1953), who investigated the Peteano bombing, Gladio was exposed in 1984. A few years later (1988), the “Commissione Parlamentare d’Inchiesta sul Terrorismo in Italia e sulle Cause della Mancata Individuazione dei Responsabili delle Stragi” (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Terrorism in Italy and the Reasons why the Perpetrators of the Attacks could not be Identified) was constituted, which investigated the aforementioned cases. Questioned by this commission, Prime Minister Andreotti had to admit the existence of Gladio on August 3, 1990, and the European Parliament condemned the creation of such structures that same year. In February 1992, the investigation into the Gladio case was discontinued, see Amato (2017: 97 ff.), Cipriani (1993: 5), Dickie (2020: 440 ff.), Ganser (2008: 21–74, 111–169), Imposimato (2012: 9–254), Nicastro (2006: 56 f.), Palermo (1996: 83), Pinotti (2007: 87 f., 127). 11 Amendola (2022), Casarrubea (2001: 132 f., 164 ff.; 2002: 103 f.; 2005: 154, 239), Tamburino (2022). 12 Casarrubea (2002: 90, 102; 2005: 300), La Russa (2002: 89 ff.). 13 The communist leader Pio La Torre, who himself spent 18 months in prison, gives voice to numerous contemporary witnesses in his memoirs, who describe the harassment they experienced, cf. La Torre (2002: 49 f., 111–190). 14 Hausmann (2002: 46), Mack Smith (1969: 732 f.), Paternostro (2015: 311). 15 For the attack of Melissa and its consequences, see Bevilacqua (2005: 135), La Torre (2002: 32), Mack Smith (1969: 736 f.). 16 For the agrarian reform, see Bevilacqua (2005: 133 ff.), Ciconte (2017b: 95), Giordano (1992: 96 ff., 110), Lupo (1996: 198), Marino (2002a: 202 ff.).

254     Notes

17 For the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno and the infrastructure and industrialization efforts, see Bevilacqua (2005: 140 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 306 f.), Giordano (1992: 159 ff.), Mack Smith (1969: 745). 18 For the Mafia and the construction business, see Angelini et al. (1987: 61 ff.), Arlacchi (2007: 89, 95, 99, 112 f., 119, 122, 130), Ciconte (2008b: 304 ff.; 2017b: 95 f.), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 16), Fantò (1999: 41 ff., 132), Tranfaglia (2001: 127 f.). 19 An assessore is a member of the municipal, provincial or regional government, i.e., a kind of “minister” of a local government. 20 For the relationship between the Mafia and politics from the 1950s, see Casarrubea (2005: 151), Fantò (1999: 51), Forgione (2004: 123), Lupo (1996: 198 f.), Paternà (2000: 71), Renda (1998: 343 f., 349 f., 355 f.), Turone (1985: 28). 21 For the Mafia’s tax collectors Ignazio and Nino Salvo, see Caruso (2017: 513 ff.), Deaglio (1993: 150 ff.), Galluzzo/La Licata/Lodato (1986: 134 ff.), La Repubblica (11.04.1993), Stajano (1986: 313 ff.), Stille (2000: 40, 72 f., 76 f.). 22 Renda (1998: 354, transl. by the author). 23 Billitteri (2008: 91 f.), Bolzoni (2012: 28). 24 Nicastro (2006: 24). 25 Billitteri (2008: 82). 26 For illegal cigarette trade, see Ciconte (2008b: 178–179; 2017b: 97–98), Lodato (1999: 70), Sales (1988: 130–132; 2015: 388–389, 344). 27 For drug trafficking, see Arlacchi (2007: 185–187), Ciconte (2008b: 174– 175; 2017b: 97–98), Caruso (2005: 163–165, 195, 377, 462–464), City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.), Di Cagno/Natoli (1994: 25), Galluzzo/La Licata/ Lodato (1986: 301–303), La Repubblica (March 3, 2004), Morosini (2009: 74–76), Nicastro (2005: 50, 54), Sales (2015: 327–329), Santino/La Fiura (1993: 140–142, 179–181, 219–221, 223).

Notes    255

28 Among the Americans present at the meeting were Lucky Luciano and Joe Bonanno, while the Sicilian delegation was led by Giuseppe Genco Russo, who had replaced the late Calogero Vizzini in the role of the most important Mafia boss, see La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (March 2, 2004), Nicastro (2005: 49–50). 29 Longrigg (1998: pp. 173–174). 30 To launder drug money, see Angelini et al. (1987: 77–83), Butera (1993: 111–113), Centorrino (1995: 60), Correnti (1987: 51), Fantò (1999: 19), Tranfaglia (2008: 133–135). 31 The boss is often referred to as “Liggio” in the literature, which is due to a spelling mistake. 32 “Red Pimpernel” is an expression used for hard-to-find people in Italy. It goes back to the protagonist of the popular fictional historical novel “The Scarlet Pimpernel” by British-Hungarian Baroness Emma Orczy (1865– 1947). In the novel, “Scarlet Pimpernel” is the secret alias of the Roman hero Percy Blakeney, who leads a double life.—For Leggio, see Beccaria/ Turone (2018). 33 In order to be able to distinguish between the different Grecos, many of them were given nicknames. Salvatore seems to have owed his nickname “Ciaschiteddu” to his somewhat bird-like face. 34 For the First Mafia War, see Arlacchi (2019: 123–129), Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 156), Caruso (2005: 146–196), Ciconte (2017b: 100–106), City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.), Di Cagno/Natoli (1998: 17), Stajano (1986: 96), Caruso (2005: 148–159), Marino (2002a: 244–246), Dino (2008: 294– 296), Renda (1998: 372–374). 35 The first parliamentary anti-Mafia commission, which had been demanded by the left-wing parties for a long time, was established by Law No. 1720 on December 20, 1962. In the commission, representatives of all political parties were represented according to their parliamentary strength. The commission began its work in July 1963 on the occasion of the Ciaculli massacre. The commission’s investigations lasted from 1963 to 1976, with the most important result being that the Mafia was now officially acknowledged to exist. Since the commission could not agree on a report, three final

256     Notes

reports were submitted at the end: the majority report signed by Carraro and two minority reports: one by the communists, signed by La Torre, and one by the political right, signed by Angelo Nicosia. For the first parliamentary anti-Mafia commission, see Ciconte (2017b: 101), Renda (1998: 361 ff.) For the work of this and also of the later anti-Mafia commissions, see Migliore (2014: 324 ff.), Trafaglia (2008: 75 ff.). 36 For the Catanzaro and Bari trials, see Ciconte (2017b: 102 ff.), Paternà (2000: 78 ff.).

2.6 Violent “Intermezzo” by the Corleonesi 1 For the Second Mafia War, see Caruso (2005: 209 ff., 231 ff., 340 ff.), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 31 ff.), Dino (2008: 296 ff.; 2011: 140 ff.), Galluzzo/La Licata/Lodato (1986: 194 ff.), Marino (2002a: 252 f.), Morosini (2009: 47), Lodato (1999: 48 ff.), Paoli (2003: 94 ff., 141 ff.), Paternò (2000: 82 ff.), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 23 ff., 101). 2 For Riina’s biography, see Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2007), Martorana/Nigrelli (2009). 3 Some journalists suspect that Leggio was betrayed to the judiciary by Riina, see Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 13). 4 For the kidnappings, see Caruso (2005: 220, 226 f., 256, 633 f.), Ceruso (2008: 84 ff.), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 25). 5 For example, the money received for the release of Giuseppe Vasallo was not kept by the Corleonesi themselves, but distributed to “needy” Mafia families, see Caruso (2005: 227). 6 For the “Riina dictatorship”, see Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 31 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 120), Dino (2002: 176 ff.; 2011: 53 ff.), Paoli (2003: 136 ff.), Vitale/ Costanzo (2009: 101 f., 116). 7 Dino (2002: 180, transl. by the author). 8 In terms of anti-Mafia research, the newspaper L’Ora was particularly noteworthy. In 1960, it even had to endure the murder of one of its employees, Cosimo Cristina (1935–1960). The young journalist had made the machinations of the families of Caccamo (PA) and Termini Imerese (PA)

Notes    257

public and was about to also report on their powerful backers, see Mirone (1999: 11–34). 9 For De Mauro, see Antimafia Duemila (September 9, 2019), Billitteri (2008: 104 ff.), Bolzoni (2012: 76 f.), Caruso (2005: 214 f.), Ceruso (2008: 144 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 96 ff.), Lucarelli (2002: 83 ff.), Mirrone (1999: 35 ff.), Nicastro (2006), Palazzolo (2010: 281 f.), Viviano (2009). 10 For Scaglione, see Billitteri (2008: 111 ff.), Caruso (2005: 36, 185 ff., 207 f., 221 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 68), Di Lello (1994: 155 f.), Guida Sicilia (October 22, 2010), La Torre (2002: 64 f., 73), Li Vigni (1995: 96 ff.), Nicastro (2006: 80 ff.), Sanfilippo (2008: 210 ff.), Viviano (2009: 38 f., 113, 119). 11 For Russo, see Billitteri (2008: 177 ff.), Caruso (2005: 271 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 83 ff.), Nicastro (2006: 12, 84 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 216 ff.), Vitale/ Costanzo (2009: 51 f.), Viviano (2009: 108 f.). 12 For Impastato, see Ceruso (2008: 123 ff.), Caruso (2005: 284 f.), De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 51 ff.), Mirone (1999: 120 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 3 ff.), Russo Spena (2001), Tranfaglia (2008: 127 f.) and the film by Marco Tullio Giordana »I cento passi« (2000). 13 For Francese, see Billitteri (2008: 192 f.), Caruso (2005: 290 f.), Ceruso (2008: 97 ff.), Mirone (1999: 151 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 16 ff.). 14 For Reina, see Billitteri (2008: 194), Ceruso (2008: 159 ff.), Caruso (2005: 292 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 29 ff.). 15 For Giuliano, see Billitteri (2008), Ceruso (2008: 87 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 158 ff.), Viviano (2008: 118). 16 For Terranova, see Caruso (2005: 301 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 69 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 185 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 47 ff.). 17 For Mattarella, see Bellavia (2010: 240 ff.), Bolzoni (2012: 50, 159 ff.), Caruso (2005: 310 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 163, 166), Di Gioacchino (2015: 327 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 208 ff.), Lo Bianco/Rizza (2018), Paoli (2003: 201), Palazzolo (2010: 54 ff.).

258     Notes

18 For Basile, see Billitteri (2008: 209) Bolzoni (2012: 163 ff.), Bolzoni/ D’Avanzo (2018: 27 ff.), Caruso (2005: 319 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 89 ff.). 19 For Costa, see Ceruso (2008: 72 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 228 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 67 ff.). 20 For Ievoella, see Ceruso (2008: 92). 21 For La Torre, see Bolzoni (2012: 11 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 169 ff.), Caruso (2005: 360 f.), Li Vigni (1995: 256 ff.), Rizzo (2003), Palazzolo (2010: 91 ff.). 22 For Giaccone, see Ceruso (2008: 120 ff.), Caruso (2005: 357), Palazzolo (2010: 99 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 271 f.). 23 For Dalla Chiesa, see Bolzoni (2012: 59 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 37–49), Caruso (2005: 361 ff.), Dalla Chiesa (1984), Galluzzo/La Licata/Lodato (1986: 210 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 282 ff.), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 290), Palazzolo (2010: 105 ff.), Stajano (1986: 221 ff.), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 101). 24 For the anti-Mafia movement, see Bestler (2001), Santino (2000: 251 ff.), Schneider/Schneider (2009: 137 ff.). 25 The noteworthy speech by Pappalardo became famous for the quote of the Roman historian Titus Livius: “Dum Romae consulitur, Saguntum expugnatur” (Lat. While they are discussing in Rome, Sagunt is being conquered). With this reference, Pappalardo wanted to express that the current Roman politicians were no different than the ones in ancient Rome when, during the Second Punic War, Hannibal conquered Sagunt. For his clear words, Pappalardo was punished by the prisoners in the Ucciardone prison by no one attending his traditional Christmas mass in the prison, see Ceruso (2007: 154 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 223 ff.), Sales (2010: 304 ff.), Sanfilippo (2008: 374, 378). 26 Already during the time of Fascism, the penal code contained Article 416, which prohibited membership in criminal organizations. In 1982, this article—the current Article 416bis—was supplemented so that since then membership in the Mafia has been explicitly prohibited: “Whoever is a member of a Mafia organization of three or more persons shall be punished

Notes    259

with three to six years’ imprisonment.” Quoted from Billitteri (2008: 117 f., transl. by the author). For the content of the Rognoni-La-Torre law and especially for the new possibilities of confiscating Mafia assets, see La Spina (2005: 59 f.). 27 For Zucchetto, see Ceruso (2008: 92), Caruso (2005: 366 ff.). 28 For Ciaccio Montalto, see Ceruso (2008: 190), Caruso (2005: 374 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 316 ff.). 29 For D’Aleo, see Caruso (2005: 380), Ceruso (2007: 91), Bolzoni (2012: 169 f.). 30 For Chinnici, see Billitteri (2008: 176), Ceruso (2008: 75 ff.), Caruso (2005: 380 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 310 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 115 ff.), Zingales (2006a). 31 For Buscetta, see Arlacchi (2019), Biagi (1986), Bolzoni (2012: 127 ff.), Caruso (2005: 236 f., 390 ff.). 32 In relation to De Gennaro, the suspicion was occasionally raised that he was a powerful “puppeteer”: In June 1989, the anonymous letter writer Corvo claimed that De Gennaro had used the Mafia defector Totuccio Contorno as a state killer. Massimo, the son of the Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino, declared in an interview in August 2010 and later in court that he knew from his father that the latter was supposed to have been in contact with De Gennaro via a mysterious intelligence officer known as Signor Gross alias Signor Franco or Carlo. Corvo’s claims were not followed up and Massimo Ciancimino was convicted of defamation. Even the former Prime Minister and President Francesco Cossiga (1928–2010) seems to have had some doubts about De Gennaro, whom he called an accomplice of the Americans, even though he later apologized for it, see Torrealta (2011: 222 ff.). 33 The first person to leave his clan in the twentieth century was Melchiorre Allegra (1881–1951) from Gibellina (TP). Allegra left his clan in 1937 due to a lack of support when he was accused of murder. Allegra went to the police in Alcamo (TP), but his detailed statement was ignored. For Allegra, see Ceruso (2008: 113–260), Viviano (2009: 15, 128).—The second person to leave was Leonardo (Leuccio) Vitale (1941-1984) from Altarella di

260     Notes

Baida (PA), who at the age of 17 was forced by his uncle Titta, the head of the Altarella clan, to join and had moral scruples from the beginning. Due to a religious crisis of conscience, he reported to the police headquarters in Palermo in 1973. He confessed his own crimes, accused more than 40 mafiosi—including the Buscemi from Passo di Rigano, the Marcianò from Boccadifalco, the Motisi and Rotolo from Pagliarelli, the Sansone from Uditore, Prince Vanni Calvello di San Vincenzo—and described the organization of the Cosa Nostra, its economic activities and the rise of the Corleonesi. Vitale also provided the names of Mafia political backers, such as Vito Ciancimino, Giuseppe Trapani and Francesco Barbaccia. A long police report went to the then head of the prosecutor’s office, Giovanni Pizzillo, who passed the case on to the investigating judge Aldo Rizzo. In detention, Vitale’s already critical condition deteriorated even further due to electroshock treatment. In the end, he was declared mentally ill and admitted to the psychiatric clinic of the prison in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME). The judges sentenced Vitale for his own crimes, but saw no reason to investigate the named mafiosi or politicians. Only after Buscetta’s confession was Vitale—one of the few “real” pentiti—released from the prison clinic in 1984—and killed by the Mafia a week later. For Vitale, see Billitteri (2008: 131), Caruso (2005: 233–238), Ceruso (2008: 128), De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 48), Dino (2002: 97), Galluzzo/La Licata/Lodato (1986: 53), Lo Verso (2017: 36). 34 Ciancimino had already lost his political offices at a DC congress in 1982. The Salvos gave up their tax collection agency in 1982 due to drastically reduced commissions as a result of a tax reform, cf. Deaglio (1993: 150 ff.), Di Lello (1994: 194 ff.). 35 For the Maxi Trial, see Angelini et al. (1987), Caruso (2005: 416 ff., 448), Cassarà (2020: 162), Ciconte (2008b: 331 f.; 2017b: 145 ff.), Di Lello (1994: 208), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 90). 36 In 1985, Borsellino, the youngest of the three, competed with Giuseppe Alcamo and Giuseppe Prinzivalli for the position of prosecutor general in Marsala. Against the usual principle of seniority, the CSM decided in December 1986 in favor of Borsellino, cf. Bolzoni (2012: 179), Ceruso (2008: 201), Caruso (2005: 443 f.), Monti (1996: 12 ff.). 37 The name quaquaraquà“ comes from Sciascia’s novel “Il Giorno della Civetta”, in which the Mafia boss Don Mariano Arena divides people into

Notes    261

five categories: men, half men, men, “faggots” and—as the most despicable group—the quaquaraquàs, i.e. the chatterboxes cf. Sciascia (1993: 93). 38 For Fava, see Ceruso (2008: 146 ff.), Caruso (2005: 401 ff.), De Riccardis (2017: 21 ff.), Mirone (1999: 169 ff.). 39 For Palermo, see Caruso (2005: 407 f.). 40 For Montana, see Ceruso (2008: 92 f.), Caruso (2005: 409 f.). 41 For Cassarà, see Ceruso (2008: 93 ff.), Caruso (2005: 411 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 123 ff.). 42 For Antiochia, see Ceruso (2008: 93, 95). 43 For Calderone, see Arlacchi (1995). 44 According to figures from the Italian Ministry of the Interior, 1,273 people were under witness protection on December 31, 1996, of which 35% were Sicilian mafiosi, see Paoli (2003: 99).—Not only the Cosa Nostra turned against the pentiti, but even their own relatives: For example, the grave of Salvatore Giuffrè was destroyed or Giovanna Cannova, the mother of the “traitor” Rita Atria, smashed the photo of her daughter on her grave with a hammer, see Dino (2011: 275). Many wives, sisters and daughters of mafiosi broke away from relatives who had turned their backs on the Mafia. For example, Giuseppina Mandarano, the wife of the defector Marco Favaloro, publicly declared: “My husband is dead,” quoted from Madeo (1994: 140, transl. by the author).—For the pentiti wave and the vendetta trasversale, see Dino (2002: 220 ff.; 2006), Gruppo Abele (2005), Morosini (2009: 177 ff.), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 105 f.). 45 The term garantismo refers to a legal opinion according to which the constitutional rights of the accused are foregrounded in order to avoid the risk of convicting the innocent. It is often argued that there is an ipergarantismo, which means that the guilty are acquitted due to such minor issues as comma errors in the court documents or the verdict. 46 In Palermo, the PSI received 16.44% in the elections for the House of Representatives (in the 1983 elections only 9.8%) and for the Senate 15.2% (1983 only 9.29%). The strongest shift in votes was in the traditionally

262     Notes

Mafia-controlled neighborhoods of Palermo and in Mafia strongholds such as the town of San Giuseppe Jato (PA); for the first time, socialists were also elected in the Palermo’s Ucciardone prison, see Dino (2011: 71 ff.), Caruso (2005: 444 f.), Ciconte (2008b: 332 f.), Li Vigni (1995: 380), Morosini (2009: 58), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1994: 847 ff.). 47 Billitteri (2008: 203), Caruso (2005: 386 ff., 412, 462 ff.). 48 Although the Corleonesi were not successful in dominating the heroin trade, they were successful in the cocaine business, sourcing their drugs from the Colombian cartels that produce 70% of the cocaine destined for export worldwide. The Galatolo and Madonia families from the Acquasanta and Resuttana districts of Palermo were able to negotiate an “exclusive contract” with the Medellin clan in 1987. The Medellin clan was the most important Colombian cartel until the death of Pablo Escobar († 1993). After the international operations “Sea Port” (1990) and “Green Ice” (1992), however, the cocaine business began to stagnate, see Caruso (2005: 466 f.), La Repubblica (February 2, 1990), Paoli (2003: 210, 215 f.), The Independent (September 29, 1992), Santino/La Fiura (1993: 183, 222). 49 Amato (2017: 415 ff.), Caruso (2005: 445, 456 ff.), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 84 ff.). 50 The 900-page report “Mafia & Appalti” was presented in February 1991 by the carabinieri under the direction of Mario Mori and Giuseppe De Donno, to the Palermo Public Prosecutor’s Office, specifically to Giovanni Falcone. After Falcone’s move to Rome, the report landed on the desk of Public Prosecutor Pietro Giammanco and his colleagues Guido Lo Forte, Giuseppe Pignatone and Roberto Scarpinato, who closed the investigation against the businessmen and politicians. The convicted land surveyor Li Pera turned to the Catania Public Prosecutor Felice Lima with serious accusations against the Palermo judges, which ended with Lima being withdrawn from the case due to a formal error, see Amato (2017: 415 ff.), Caruso (2005: 490 ff., 655), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 84 ff.), Di Gioacchino (2015: 238 ff.), La Repubblica (October 30, 1992), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 17 f.). 51 For example, builders Gianni Ienna, Vincenzo Piazza, Gaetano Sansone, Francesco Pecora and Francesco Paolo Sbeglia were affected by asset seizures. Some of them had made a true career “from dishwasher to millionaire”, for example Ienna, who had worked as a carpenter in the 1960s, or Piazza, who had been an unskilled laborer in a car repair shop, see Caruso (2005: 582), Santino (2001).

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52 For Insalaco, see Caruso (2005: 451 f.), Cassarà (2020: 228 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 151 ff.), Sanfilippo (2008: 391), Santino (1997: 59 f., 90 f.), Stancanelli (2016). 53 For Mondo, see Caruso (2005: 453 f.). 54 For Saetta, see Bolzoni (1992: 190), Ceruso (2008: 187), Caruso (2005: 428 f.), Ceruso (2008: 187), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 90). 55 For Rostagno, see Di Gioacchino (2015: 42 ff., 304 ff.), Mirone (1999: 254 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 145 ff.). 56 The Centro Scorpione was the last Gladio center to be established in Italy. It was active between 1987 and 1990, when a number of mysterious crimes, such as the Addaura assassination, took place in Sicily. To this day, it is unclear what the center’s tasks were, but some pentiti claim that the airstrip belonging to the Centro Scorpione in Casteluzzo (TP)—the Centro Scorpione had an airplane that could not be detected by radar—was used for arms and drug trafficking. The head of the Centro Scorpione, intelligence officer Vincenzo Li Causi (1952–1993), died in November 1993 under mysterious circumstances during a UN military operation. For the Centro Scorpione, see Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 101 ff., 123 ff.), De Lutiis (2010: 371 ff.), Di Girolamo (2011: 496 ff.), Genchi (2009: 129), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 123). 57 For the Addaura assassination, see Bolzoni (2012: 145), Caruso (2005: 380, 471 ff.), Di Gioacchino (2015: 48 ff.), Imposimato (2012: 257 ff.). 58 For Agostino, see Caruso (2005: 474), Di Gioacchino (2015: 52 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 166 ff.). In his efforts to find the killers of his son, Vincenzo Agostino will not have his long white hair and beard cut until the responsible parties have been held accountable. 59 For Piazza, see Caruso (2005: 474), Di Gioacchino (2015: 52 f.), Palazzolo (2010: 174 ff.). 60 See, Caruso (2005: 486), Ceruso (2008: 185 ff.), Dalla Chiesa (1992), Di Lorenzo (2000).

264     Notes

61 See, Caruso (2005: 493 f.), Di Gioacchino (2015: 23 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 205 ff.). 62 See, Caruso (2005: 494), Capri/Maisano Grassi (2011), Ceruso (2008: 238 ff., 253 f.), Bellavia/De Lucia (2009: 49), Ravveduto (2012). 63 See, Caruso (2005: 498 f.), Ruscica (2015: 15 f.), Torrealta/Mottola (2012: 151 ff.). 64 See, Ardita (2015: 128 ff.), Caruso (2005: 526 f.). 65 See, Ceruso (2008: 137), Mirone (1999: 220 ff.). 66 See, Anfossi (1994), Ceruso (2007: 180 ff., 2008: 211 ff.), Deliziosi (2001), De Riccardis (2017: 176 ff., 193 f.), Lodato (1994: 131 ff.). 67 For the work of the judges pool under the direction of Antonino Caponetto, who led it for just over four years, see Bolzoni (2012: 126 ff.), Caponnetto (1992), Ceruso (2008: 67 ff.); for the dismantling of the judges pool under Meli, see Ceruso (2008: 202), Bolzoni (2012: 144, 188), Caruso (2005: 454). 68 In 1988, the Code of Criminal Procedure, which until then had been based on the Code Rocco from 1930, was fundamentally reformed, so that the originally inquisitorial principle was replaced by the accusatory principle of procedure. As part of the reform, the office of the investigating judge (Giudice Istruttore) was abolished and replaced by that of the GIP (Giudice per le Indagini Preliminari = Preliminary Investigation Judge). The “Giudice Istruttore” had very far-reaching competences—for example, he could investigate in secret and have arrests ordered–, while those of the GIP are limited to the examination of whether the investigation was carried out in accordance with the statutory provisions. Before the reform, investigating judges had similar far-reaching investigative powers as prosecutors. For the Code of Criminal Procedure, see Maiwald (2009: 169 ff.). 69 For the reduced work of the Palermo criminal police, see Caruso (2005: 591), Bolzoni (2012: 190), La Repubblica (August 2, 1988; October 18, 1988). 70 The name corvo (raven) refers to Georges Clouzot’s film “Le Corbeau” (1943), in which anonymous letters signed with “the raven” cause a small

Notes    265

French town to be in uproar. For the “Corvo Case” in Palermo, see Caruso (2005: 472–509), Di Gioacchino (2015: 49–50), Hausmann (2002: 152), Lodato (1999: 63, 178), Monti (1996: 118–140), Palazzolo (2010: 158– 160), Viviano (2008: 82–84). 71 For Orlando’s accusations against the Palermo prosecutor’s office on May 24, 1990 in the television programme Sammarcanda, see Caruso (2005: 488), Monti (1996: 140–142). 72 For the appeals process of the Maxi Trial and the subsequent releases from prison, see Caruso (2005: 655). 73 For the consequences of the fall of the Berlin Wall for the Italian political system, see Caruso (2005: 530), Hausmann (2002: 147–149), Seisselberg (1993: 512–514), Stille (2006: 30), Wollner (2010: 364–366). 74 Stille (2006: 30, transl. by the author). 75 Dalla Chiesa (2010: 100). 76 The Rete emerged from the anti-Mafia movement in January 1991. The leadership included Palermo’s mayor Leoluca Orlando, who had meanwhile left the DC, as well as sons of prominent Mafia victims such as Carmine Mancuso, Nando Dalla Chiesa and Claudio Fava, as well as Alfredo Galasso and Diego Novelli. A few months after its founding, the Rete achieved 7.3% in the regional elections and even 26% in Palermo, making it the second strongest party in the capital after the DC. Its success continued in the national elections in February 1992, so that it was able to send twelve of its members to the House of Representatives and three to the Senate. (In the 1992/93 municipal elections, anti-Mafia candidates were elected as mayors, even in Mafia strongholds such as Corleone (PA) and San Giuseppe Jato (PA). The winning streak only came to an end in the 1994 national elections. By then, at the latest, conflicts arose in the leadership, so that in the end only Orlando and his followers remained. At the end of the 1990s, the party dissolved, cf. Bestler (2001). 77 For Tangentopoli, see Amato (2017: 119 ff.), Caruso (2005: 501), Paoli (2003: 205), Tranfaglia (2008: 102 ff.), Wollner (2010: 377 ff.).

266     Notes

78 For the tightening of the anti-Mafia-laws in the years 1991 and 1992, see Dalla Chiesa (2010: 68), Maiwald (2009: 177), Tescaroli (2001: 124 ff.). 79 For the background to the Cassation Court ruling, the ruling itself and its consequences, see Amato (2017: 198 ff.), Bolzoni (2012: 155), Caruso (2005: 497, 499 f.), Di Gioacchino (2015: 85 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 331 ff.). 80 For Falcone, see Amato (2017: 305 ff.), Bolzoni (2012: 107 ff.), Caruso (2005: 501 ff.), Ciconte/Torre (2019), Di Gioacchino (2015: 93 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 361 ff.), Lodato (1999), Tescaroli (2001, 2011), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 104 f.). 81 For Borsellino, see Amato (2017: 322 ff.), Bolzoni (2012: 159 ff.), Caruso (2005: 506 ff.), Di Gioacchino (2015: 111 ff.), Galluzzo/La Licata/Lodato (1986: 21–40), Li Vigni (1995: 401 ff.), Lo Bianco/Rizza (2007). 82 For the state’s repressive measures after the attacks on Falcone and Borsellino, see Ceruso (2008: 204), Ciconte (2017b: 149), La Spina (2005: 69, 72 ff.), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 116). 83 Dino (2011: 58, transl. by the author). 84 Dino (2002: 181, transl. by the author). 85 Dino (2011: 78, transl. by the author). 86 Dino (2011: 91 ff.). 87 For the disappearance of evidence and the planting of false clues, see Amato (2017: 334 ff.), Bellavia/Palazzolo (2002), Bolzoni (2012: 207), Caruso (2005: 510 ff.), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 88 f.), Di Gioacchino (2015: 33, 257 ff.), Genchi (2009: 118 ff.), Palazzolo (2010: 186 ff., 193 ff.), Torrealta/ Mottola (2012: 212 ff.), Viviano/Ziniti (2010). 88 For the attacks on the Italian mainland and their background, see Caruso (2005: 552 ff.), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 94), Di Gioacchino (2015: 42 ff.), Paoli (2003: 207).

Notes    267

89 On the trattativa, the negotiations between the state and the Mafia, see Adnkronos (February 2, 2020), Amato (2017: 380 ff.), Biondo/Ranucci (2009), Bolzoni (2012: 205), Corriere della Sera (September 23, 2021), Caruso (2005: 532 ff.), Ciancimino/La Licata (2010), Ciconte (2008b: 342 ff.), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 88), Di Gioacchino (2015: 153 ff.), Dino (2002: 264 ff.; 2011: 80, 93 ff.), Dino (2011: 101 f.), Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 288 ff.), Macaluso (1999: 117 f.), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 17 f.), Paoli (2003: 207), Ruscica (2015), Torrealta (2002), Torrealta/Mottola (2012), Veltri/Travaglio (2001: 54 ff., 66 ff.). 90 In Riina’s list of demands, the papello, the following twelve demands were listed: 1. Revision of the Maxi Trial. 2. Repeal of Article 41bis of the Prison Regulations. 3. Revision of the Rognoni-La Torre anti-Mafia Law. 4. Reform of the Crown Witnesses Protection Act.  5. Benefits for Mafia prisoners who renounce the Cosa Nostra, similar to those for terrorists. 6. House arrest for Mafia prisoners over the age of 70. 7. Closure of high security prisons. 8. Transfer of Mafia prisoners to locations near their relatives’ homes. 9. No censorship of the mail of relatives of Mafia prisoners. 10. Improvement of the possibilities of contact with the relatives of Mafia prisoners. 11. Arrest only for crimes in which the perpetrator is caught in flagranti. 12. More favorable gasoline tax in Sicily, similar to those in the Aosta Valley. (This demand is probably due to the fact that many mafiosi were gas station operators.) For the papello, see Amato (2017: 380), Caruso (2005: 531), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 91 f.), Dino (2011: 98). 91 Dino (2011: 91 ff.). 92 Torrealta (2002: 193, transl. by the author). 93 Dino (2011: 94 f.).

268     Notes

94 For the mysterious arrest of Riina, see Abbate (2020: 92 ff.), Caruso (2005: 537 ff.), Di Gioacchino (2015: 243 ff.), Dino (2011: 78 ff., 101 f.), Torrealta (2009: 232 f.), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 120 f.). 95 Many mafiosi—including Riina’s inner circle and probably the boss himself—were convinced that Riina was betrayed by Provenzano and Ciancimino, see Dino (2011: 84 ff.), Lo Bianco/Rizza (2006: 61 ff.), Vitale/ Costanzo (2009: 120, 122, 124). 96 Torrealta (2009: 232 ff.)

2.7 The Mafia Goes “Underground” 1 For the situation in the Cosa Nostra after Riina’s arrest, see Bellavia/ Palazzolo (2004: 24 ff., 65, 73, 145 ff.), Ceruso (2013: 77 ff.), Caruso (2005: 607), Ciconte (2008b: 357 ff.; 2017b: 151), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 52 ff., 65 ff., 97 f., 117), Dino (2002: 183 ff.; 2011: 114), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia. Relazioni Semestrali (1992–2019), Morosini (2009: 35, 61 f., 69 f.), La Spina (2005: 86), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 17, 22), Vitale/ Costanzo (2009: 123, 133, 144), Zingales (2006b). 2 For Provenzano, see Lo Bianco/Rizza (2007), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 117, 120), Diario (November 20, 2003: 16 ff.), Dino (2002: 187 ff.; 2011: 74, 117), Forgione (2004: 68), Longrigg (2008), Morosini (2009: 35), Oliva/ Palazzolo (2001; 2006), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 47, 74 ff.). 3 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 75, transl. by the author). 4 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 53, transl. by the author). The Mafia resorted to this strategy that is expressed in the well-known Sicilian saying, during the time of the “iron prefect” Mori during Fascism. 5 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 64, transl. by the author). 6 For the conflict between Lo Piccolo and Rotolo, see Dino (2011: 127, 147 ff.), Giornale di Sicilia (November 11, 2007), Marannano (2008), Morosini (2009: 37, 44 ff., 69). 7 Ceruso (2013: 77, transl. by the author). 8 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 103, transl. by the author).

Notes    269

9 Grasso (1997: 23), La Spina (2005: 124 ff., 134 f.). After the one of Capo d’Orlando, anti-racketeering organizations also arose in other cities, namely in Catania, Scordia and Giarre (CT), Leonforte (EN), S. Agata di Militello, Patti, Brolo, Torregrotta, Terme Vigliatore and Messina (ME), Modica and Pozzallo (RG), Syracuse, Augusta, Avola, Carlentini, Francoforte, Pachino, Palazzolo Acreide, Sortino, Floridia (SI). 10 Ceruso (2008: 235 ff., 255 f.), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 28 ff.). 11 La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (November 8, 2007). In the context of anti-Mafia activities of entrepreneurs, the then president of the Chamber of Commerce of Palermo, Roberto Helg, set up a special unit for legality in his organization and made a name for himself with speeches in schools that the payment of protection money should be reported. The fact that Helg was arrested shortly afterwards is quite ironic: Helg was also vice-president of the Palermo airport company GESAP and had demanded 100,000 € in kickbacks from the confectioner Santi Palizzolo, who had a shop in the airport building, for the extension of Palizzolo’s concession, cf. De Riccardis (2017: 38 ff.). 12 The Conticello family had been paying protection money for years. When the blackmailers demanded an amount of € 50,000 in 2005, Vincenzo Conticello reported it. The mafiosi from the clan of the Kalsa, a district in Palermo, were then arrested and sentenced. The Conticello family was given police protection for a while, but in the end they gave up: In 2013 they sold their restaurant to the Feltrinelli bookshop chain. For the Conticello case, see Bellavia/De Lucia (2009: 146 ff.), La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (September 19, 2007), Savatteri (2018: 18 ff.), Uccello/ Amadore (2009: 40 ff.). 13 Ceruso (2008: 238). Today, the Mafia is not only in agreement with anti-Mafia rhetoric, it even makes a profit from it, as was revealed in an incident in 2011 in Palermo: When a team from the private television channel Canale 5 filmed an episode of the show “Squadre Antimafia 3” in Palermo, the Porta Nuova family not only helped to find extras, but also sold food to the film crew. The boss Calogero Lo Presti even boasted that everyone had made a good profit from the filming, cf. De Riccardis (2017: 17 ff.). 14 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 63).

270     Notes

15 Among these acts of violence was the murder in October 1998 in Caccamo (PA) of Domenico Geraci (1954–1998), a local politician who had denounced the Mafia’s infiltration of the city administration and was running for mayor. Also to be mentioned are local Mafia feuds such as the “Massacre of St. Basil” in January 1999 in Vittoria (RG), in which mafiosi killed five members of the rival Stidda. The same is true of the murder spree in the small town of Belmonte Mezzagno (PA) between local clans. The same is applies for murder of Carmelo Milioti, a Mafia entrepreneur, who was shot to death in August 2003 in a hair salon in Favara (AG). In addition, there were various Mafia “threats” such as the firebombing of the city theatre in Favara (AG) in the spring of 1999, which was intended to prevent a public debate on the Mafia, see Caruso (2005: 383). 16 La Repubblica (December 3, 2007). 17 Giusy Vitale was the most famous mafiosa. But a number of other women also began to play an active role in the Cosa Nostra: for example, Maria Teresa Cammarata, who ran the Mafia family of Riesi (CL) so well for her imprisoned brother that she was even mistaken for its boss. Similarly, Nunzia Graviano (born 1968), managed the finances of the Brancaccio family for her imprisoned brothers. Carmela Iuculano (born 1973) from Cerda not only served as a “postman”, but also passed on the orders of her husband Pino Rizzo, who was in prison. Maria Concetta Bevilacqua from Barrafranca (EN) used her position as a lawyer to pass on the orders of her father, the Mafia boss Raffaele Bevilacqua, to the outside world. Rosalia Messina (born 1955) Denaro helped her brother Matteo to hide, managed the finances of his Mafia family and administered his pizzini with which he gave orders. Other Mafia women, such as Grazia Santapaola, a cousin of Nitto Santapaola, or Rosalia Di Trapani, the wife of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, or Leonarda (Nella) Furnari, the daughter of a boss from Castelvetrano, were involved in the day-to-day business and supervised the process of the collection of protection money, see Ansa (March 5, 2023), Cerati (2009), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 70 f.), Dino (2011: 236), MeridioNews (June 22, 2020; July 3, 2020), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 176 ff.), Schwabeneder (2014: 14 ff., 36 ff., 52 ff.), Siebert (1997: 137–218), Vitale/Costanzo (2009). 18 For Franzese, see Giornale di Sicilia (December 1, 2007), Marannano (2008: 14). 19 For communication using pizzini, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 19), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 63 f.), Morosini (2009: 36), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007).

Notes    271

20 For the operation “Cupola”, see Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 98). 21 For the abolition of the state economic development agency, see Paoli (2003: 210). 22 For the methanisation, see Macaluso (2009: 391 ff.). 23 For the topic of Mafia and renewable energies, see Cardella (2009), Di Girolamo (2012: 110 ff.), Macaluso (2016: 97 ff.). 24 For the topic of Mafia and garbage, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019, 1° Semestre: 580–660), Centorrino (1998: 15 f.), Legambiente (2010: 57 ff., 84 ff., 149 ff., 154 ff., 166 ff.) 25 Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019, 1° Semestre: 580, transl. by the author). 26 For the Mafia’s infiltration of the health care system, see Bianchi/ Nerazzini (2005), Dino (2016: 39 ff.), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 105), Gomez/ Travaglio (2006: 525), Morosoni (2009: 163 ff.). 27 Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 525, transl. by the author). 28 In the spring of 2019, during the operation “Atena”, it turned out that various members of the Porta Nuova clan had invested in the sightseeing bus company ProntoBus Sicilia, see MeridioNews (March 14, 2019). 29 For the Mafia tourism entrepreneur Carmelo Patti, see Di Girolamo (2012: 47 ff.), TG 24 Sky (November 24, 2018). 30 For the Mafia infiltration of legal gambling and the role of Gaetano and Francesco Corallo, see Arlacchi (2019: 82 f.), Il Sicilia (December 13, 2016), La Sicilia (December 13, 2016). 31 For the Mafia’s activities in the field of shopping centers and supermarkets and the Mafia’s “supermarket kings” Grigoli and Scuto, see Abbate (2020: 152 ff.), Arcidiacono (2015: 52 f.), Avola (2015: 98 f.), Di Girolamo (2011: 303 ff., 310 ff.), Legambiente (2010: 34, 316 ff., 321 f.), Il Fatto Quotidiano (September 24, 2013), Uccello/Amandore (2009: 184 f.). 32 For the increase in protection money, see Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 88).

272     Notes

33 For the increase in usury, see Arcidiacono (2015: 64 f.), Centorrino (1995: 47 ff.), Giornale di Sicilia (April 25, 2006). 34 By 2003 at the latest, some Mafia families wanted to take the drug business back into their own hands. For this reason, various mafiosi—above all from the Passo di Rigano and Villabate families—flew to the USA to establish contacts with Frank Cali (1965–2019), an important member of the New York Gambino clan. The negotiations came to nothing because the protagonists were arrested in the police operation “Old Bridge” in February 2008 and again in the operation “New Connection” in July 2019, see Ceruso (2013: 89), Dino (2001: 147), Morosini (2009: 79), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 17). 35 Dino (2011: 62), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 132 ff.). 36 For the search for new political contacts after the collapse of the First Republic, see Amato (2017: 206 ff.), Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 75), Caruso (2005: 557, 563 ff.), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 101 f.), Dino (2011: 106 ff.), Morosini (2009: 152), Paoli (2003: 207), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 273), Veltri/Travaglio (2001: 53 f.). 37 Dino (2011: 106, transl. by the author). The idea of Sicilia Libera was advocated by Bagarella within the Mafia, but it originated with the Freemasons. At that time, separatist ideas were mainly discussed in Freemasonry circles throughout southern Italy and similar projects to those of Sicilia Libera were attempted to be realized, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 215), Ciconte (2008b: 349 ff.), Messina (2014: 320 ff.), Paoli (2003: 207). 38 Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 273, transl. by the author). 39 For the development of parties in the Second Republic, see Di Gioacchino (2015: 280 ff.), Grosse/Trautmann (1997: 30 ff.), Trautmann (1995: 234–269), Veltri/Travaglio (2001: 70–99), Ullrich (2009: 669 ff.), Wollner (2010: 387 ff.). 40 For the governments of the Second Republic, see Wollner (2010: 387 ff.). 41 Dino (2011: 113, transl. by the author).

Notes    273

42 Adnkronos (February 7, 2020), La Repubblica (February 7, 2020), Lodato (2017: 832), Santino (1997: 230 f.), Turone (1985: 91 f.), Veltri/Travaglio (2001: 11, 25 f., 30 ff., 39 ff., 54 ff., 66 ff., 91–181). 43 The former Sicilian PCI functionary Emanuele Macaluso (1924–1921) noted that the politicians who were tried in the 1990s for their Mafia connections behaved just like many others before them who had borne government responsibility. With the same justification, one could have prosecuted De Gasperi, Scelba, Fanfani, Moro, Rumor and even Piersanti Mattarella. But now the political signs had changed after the fall of the Berlin Wall, cf. Macaluso (1999: 92 ff.). 44 Between 1991 and 2008, 23 city and town councils were dissolved in the province of Palermo alone because of Mafia infiltration, nine in the province of Catania, five in the provinces of Caltanissetta, Agrigento and Trapani, two in Messina and one in Enna. By 2019, there were almost 70 municipalities that had been dissolved and placed under provisional administration, cf. Direzione Investigativa Antimafia. Relazioni Semestrali (1992–2019), Trocchia (2009: 130). 45 Di Matteo (2015: 45). 46 For example, in Villabate (PA), the Mafia politician Francesco Campanella campaigned strongly for an anti-Mafia day. As part of this event, in May 2003, the actor Raul Bova, who played the “Capitano Ultimo” in a TV series, that is, the carabiniere who arrested Riina, was awarded the honorary citizenship of the city, cf. De Riccardis (2017: 15 ff.), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 104).—In Campobello di Mazara (TP) on the other hand, the PD mayor Ciro Caravà, arrested in December 2011 for cooperating with the Mafia, made a name for himself with his anti-Mafia speeches—and the Mafia had fun: “Minchia, the other night he spoke on television (…) Minchia, who doesn’t know him, doesn’t know anything and hears him talk (…). Son of a bitch.” (Di Girolamo 2012: 135, transl. by the author). Of course, Caravà apologized to the Mafia for his speeches. For Caravà’s “anti-Mafia activities” cf. Di Girolamo (2012: 128 ff.), I Siciliani (January 2012). 47 According to the new law on witnesses 45/2001, for example, mafiosi now have to serve one quarter of their sentence. In addition, they must have made all their statements within 180 days. Later statements may no longer

274     Notes

be used as evidence. If they forget something and add it later, they will be punished. This happened on June 15, 2010 in the case of Gaspare Spatuzza, who was removed from the protection program in June 2010 because he had made further statements after the 180 days. At the time, the chief prosecutor of Palermo, Pietro Grasso, commented on the new law with the words: “If I were a mafioso, I would not testify under this law” (Dalla Chiesa, 2010: 120, transl. by the author). As a result, the number of informants decreased significantly. Another problem is that the Servizio Centrale Protezione (Central Protection Service), which is responsible for witness protection, suffers from chronic staff shortages, which makes it difficult to effectively monitor informants. As a result, some former mafiosi became criminals again. For the laws and regulations that improved the situation of the Cosa Nostra, see Dalla Chiesa (2010: 120, 124, 157 ff.), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 99 ff.), Dino (2002: 273), Maiwald (2009: 172), La Spina (2005: 62 ff., 95), Paoli (2003: 209), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 66). 48 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 103, transl. by the author). 49 To mitigate the harsh conditions of detention, see Dalla Chiesa (2010: 158 ff.). 50 La Repubblica (May 21, 2002), quoted in Dalla Chiesa (2010: 158 f.). Before the introduction of strict detention conditions, Mafia bosses held banquets in the Palermitan Ucciardone prison, where they drank Dom Perignon and threw around freshly delivered lobster from the Cuccagna restaurant, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 95). 51 For protests against Article 41bis, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 119–121, 132–137), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 160), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 117–119), Di Gioacchino (2015: 59–60), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 27). 52 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 120, transl. by the author). 53 La Repubblica (July 18, 2002). 54 Bellavia/Palazzaolo (2004: 137, transl. by the author). 55 Bellavia/Palazzaolo (2004: 137).

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56 Dalla Chiesa (2010: 161, transl. by the author). 57 For the proposal of the break with the Cosa Nostra, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 123–125), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 113), Dino (2002: 271–272), La Spina (2005: 87), Messina (2005: 43). 58 For the situation in the Cosa Nostra after the arrest of Provenzano, see Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 265), Ciconte (2008b: 361 ff.), Dino (2011: 151 f.). 59 For attempts to re-establish the provincial commission, that is the cupola, in the post-Provenano period, see Antimafia Duemila (August 16, 2008), Antimafia Duemila (December 4, 2018), Ceruso (2013: 82), TP 24 (November 29, 2011), TP 24 (November 29, 2018). 60 Giornale di Sicilia (April 20, 2020). 61 Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 284 ff.). 62 Matteo Messina Denaro (born 1962) was the powerful provincial boss of the Cosa Nostra in the province of Trapani. This last of the Corleonesi had been a fugitive since 1993. On January 16, 2023, he was arrested by the special unit ROS of the carabinieri at a private clinic in Palermo where he was to undergo chemotherapy treatment. That his arrest was imminent had been announced by Mafia-insider Salvator Baiardo as early as November 5, 2022, during the episode titled “Fantasmi di Mafia” of the private channel (La7) TV show “Non è l’Arena” in an interview with the journalist Massimo Giletti (born 1962). Baiardo himself is a convicted Mafia friend who had supported the powerful brothers Giuseppe und Filippo Graviano, the bosses of the Brancaccio family of Palermo, during their flight. As the confidant and “spokesperson” for the Graviano brothers, Baiardo had made the following specific statement: “I hope that they will rescind the l’ergastolo ostativo. [...] Who knows, maybe the new government will receive a small gift. Let’s assume, a Matteo Messino Denaro is critically ill and in negotiations about letting himself be arrested in a spectacular manner. And if he is arrested, then someone else will be freed from prison”. In the face of such pronouncements, it is no wonder that the brother of the murdered judge Paolo Borsellino, Salvatore Borsellino, worries that Messina Denaro’s arrest could represent another one of the trattativa between the Italian government and

276     Notes

the Mafia. Such a trattativa could very well have concerned the rescinding of the ergastolo ostativo (literally: unconditional imprisonment for life, i.e., a life sentence without the possibility for early release) for mafosi who had never broken their silence. And it is exactly this question that is being debated by politicians, not least because both the European Court for Human Rights and the Italian Supreme Court view the ergastolo ostativo as a violation of human rights. If the ergastolo ostativo were to be rescinded, the Graviano brothers who have been imprisoned since 1994 would be released. On the arrest of Messina Denaro, see Avvenire (January 17, 2023), La7 (November 5, 2022), Deaglio (2022: 26, 186ff.), Rainews (January 16, 2023). 63 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 55, transl. by the author). 64 Amadore (2007: 14 f., 71), Caruso (2005: 251), Macaluso (2009: 393 f.), Oliva/Palazzolo (2006: 56 ff.). 65 Dino (2009: 249), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 116). 66 Macaluso (2009: 401 ff., 413). 67 For Schotte, Labocetta and Fini, see NL Times (March 11, 2016), Il Fatto Quotidiano (December 13, 2016). 3 Inside the Mafia

3.1 From the “Uomo d’onore” to the “Capo dei Capi” 1 Alongi (1977), Cutrera (1984), Lupo (2011). 2 For the organizational set-up of the Cosa Nostra see, Arlacchi (2019: 86 ff.), Bilitteri (2008: 94 f., 113, 159 f.), Catino (2019: 153 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 114 ff.), Dino (2002: 65 ff., 196; 2011: 117 ff.), Galluzzo/La Licata/ Lodato (1986: 45 ff.), La Spina (2005: 36 ff.), Marannano (2008: 28), Maresa/Pepino (2018, 2013), Morosini (2009: 27 ff., 58 f.), Mosca (2002: 23, 26 ff., 44, 54), Paoli (2003: 53 ff.), Stajano (1986: 40 ff.). 3 Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 124, 126, 140, 149, 158, 169, 174, 176, 191, 197, 203, 205). The figures of the DIA include, in addition to the clans of the Cosa Nostra, several other criminal groups, such as,  for example, the Stidda; autonomous gangs like the clan Capello;

Notes    277

vasal groups of the Catania Santapaola-Mafia family and several groups in Messina, which are close to the ’Ndrangheta. If one deducts these other groups, 168 “real” Mafia cosche remain. The number of the real Mafia clans seem to have remained relatively stable during the last decades: It is believed that in the middle of the 1980s, there were 150 Mafia clans (Stajano 1986: 41); in the early 1990s, there were 142 (Messina 2004: 37), in 1995, there were 181 (Renda 1998: 411 f.; Santino 1998: 106) and finally, in 1999 179 clans (Dino 2002: 67 f.). 4 To distinguish between province babbe and province sperte, that is, “stupid” and “smart” provinces, see Bufalino (1990: 18), Borrometi (2018: 25 ff.). 5 In the town of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME) there were “ordinary” gangs of criminals before the founding of the first Mafia family. The family from Catania was founded by a mafioso from Palermo named Tagliavia, who settled in Catania in the 1920s. One of its first capi was Antonio Saitta— by the way, the uncle of the brothers Giuseppe and Antonino Calderone— both from Catania. Saitta, who was hiding from an arrest warrant in the Madonie mountains, had been “made” a “man of honor” by the family from Gangi (PA). When he returned to Catania, Saitta was given command of the family, which at that time consisted of about ten people.—The cosca from Ramacca (CT) was founded by mafiosi from Palma di Montechiaro (AG). Its historical capofamiglia was Calogero Conti, see Arcidiaconi (2016: 29), Arlacchi (1993: 15, 24). The family from Caltagirone (CT) was founded by Francesco (Ciccio) La Rocca (1938–2020), who had already been accepted into the Cosa Nostra by the capofamiglia from Ramacca (CT) in the 1960s, see Arcidiacono (2015: 29), Ardita (2015: 19), Arlacchi (1993: 236), Parlamente (October 31, 2018).—The family from Vittoria (RG) was founded by Francesco Piscopo (born 1944) from Gela and is still closely connected to the Mafia from Gela, see Borrometi (2018: 34 ff., 43 ff.), Caccamo (2010), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (1° Semestre 2019: 129). 6 Among the many mafiosi who were staying in the province of Ragusa during their flight, Gaspare Gambino, the grandson of the New York Mafia boss Joseph Gambino, is one of the best known, see Caccamo (2010: 7), Liberainformazione (July 14, 2010). 7 For example, the Mafia tax collectors from Salemi (TP), Nino and Ignazio Salvo bought huge tracts of land in the province of Ragusa between Acate,

278     Notes

Vittoria and Gela, which they used for citrus and wine cultivation as well as greenhouse cultivation. Tano Badalamenti from Cinisi (PA), on the other hand, acquired two metal processing companies in Pozzallo and Ragusa, cf. Caccamo (2010: 6). 8 The “man of honor” Cirasa from Vittoria was an important contact person for the Mafia in the field of cigarette and antiquities smuggling, cf. Caccamo (2010: 4), Liberainformazione (July 14, 2010). 9 First, Giovanni Tamburello, the long-time capomafia from Mistretta, took care of the Mafia’s affairs in the province of Messina on behalf of the Cosa Nostra. Later, Michelangelo Alfano, a mafioso from the Bagheria family, was sent as a Mafia representative to Messina. Alfano appeared in Messina as an entrepreneur and “sports friend”, as he was president of the Messina football club for a while, cf. Anselmo/Antoci (2019: 105). 10 Giornale di Sicilia (June 17, 2009). 11 With Law No. 575, the soggiorno obbligato (obligatory residence) of persons considered a danger to society far away from their home towns was introduced in 1965. This measure was abolished in 1988 because it often triggered protests in the affected communities. In addition, it turned out that compulsory stays had led to the spread of the Mafia in areas that had not been affected by the phenomenon before, cf. Ciconte (2008b: 186 ff.; 2017b: 106 ff.), Dalla Chiesa (2010: 218), La Spina (2005: 59). 12 Leggio had lived in Milan, Provenzano in Bagheria (PA) and Riina in Mazara del Vallo (TP) and Palermo for a long time before their arrests. 13 The “deprovincialization” of the Cosa Nostra goes back not only to the compulsory stays, but above all to emigration. As early as the end of the nineteenth century, mafiosi had emigrated overseas—above all to the USA and to Argentina; from the 1950s onwards, many mafiosi settled in Northern Italy and in numerous countries of Europe. When the Cosa Nostra’s business began to internationalize, it was easy for those who had been living in their new homelands for a long time to set up new clans there, cf. Ciconte (2008b: 171 ff.). 14 The best example are the mafiosi in Cherry Hill, New Jersey who stemmed from Palermo’s Passo di Rigano district or Sal Catalano and his

Notes    279

“zips”, who were originally mainly from Castellammare del Golfo (TP) and who had emigrated to the USA because of the drug business. 15 For the purpose of money laundering, members of the Cuntrera-Caruana clan from the family from Siculiana (AG) had already settled in Canada and Venezuela at the end of the 1950s; and Vito Roberto Palazzolo (born 1947) from the family from Partinico (PA) had settled in South Africa in the 1980s. Pippo Calò, called the “cashier” of the Cosa Nostra from the Palermo family Porta Nuova, settled permanently in Rome. In the Italian capital, Calò engaged in money laundering and served as a contact person for the intelligence services and politics. In addition, he worked closely with the notorious Roman Magliana Band. 16 For the Mafia clans on the Italian mainland, see Ciconte (2008b: 184 ff., 189 ff.), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (1° Semestre 2019: 278–450). 17 Centers of the Cosa Nostra in Germany are Mannheim (family Emmanuello from Gela), Cologne (families Licata and Favara), SpiesenElversberg (family Siculiana), Nuremberg (clan Nardo-Aparo-Trigila), Wuppertal (family Niscemi) and Hamburg. Further, recently a cell of the Mafia family from Gela (CL) was discovered in Karlsruhe. In addition, Sicilian entrepreneurs who work in Germany are affected by the Mafia: For example a building constructor from Licata (AG) who had worked in Germany was forced by the Mafia clan of his hometown to pay € 5,000 as protection money, see Direzione investigativa antimafia (1° Semestre 2019: 98, 106), Forgione (2009b: 126 ff.). 18 About the Mafia groups outside of Europe, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (1° Semestre 2019: 473–506), Forgione (2009b: 126 ff.). 19 Mosca (2001: 26, transl. by the author). 20 Schenirer (1998: 52). 21 Mosca (2002: 28, transl. by the author). 22 Synonyms for vice rappresentante are vice capo (deputy head) or sottocapo (subhead). 23 Gruppo Abele (2005: 184, transl. by the author).

280     Notes

24 Anonymus (1989: 105). 25 Among the most famous Mafia dynasties in Palermo are the Greco and the Bontate, in San Giuseppe Jato the Brusca and in Catania the SaittaCalderone. The historian Vittorio Coco has unearthed genealogies of seven Mafia families for the Piana dei Colli area in Palermo, which correspond to the present-day city districts of San Lorenzo and Resuttana, finding family trees that go back five generations, see Coco (2013: 162 ff.). 26 Hess (1993: 66). 27 La Repubblica (December 10, 2000). 28 Paoli (2003: 2). 29 In the nineteenth century, most families seem to have had only ten to fifteen members, but there were also some giant cosche like that of Favara (AG) at that time, see Mosca (2002: 13). 30 In the province of Trapani there were 982 mafiosi, in the province of Agrigent 461 and in the province of Caltanissetta 272. The Cosa Nostra was represented in Eastern Sicily with significantly fewer “men of honor”: In the province of Catania there were 135, in the province of Enna only 40 and at the bottom of the list were the provinces of Messina with 19 and Syracuse with only three “men of honor”. In the province of Ragusa, there were no mafiosi known at that time, see La Repubblica (December 10, 2000). 31 Based on the testimony of informants and information from wiretaps, the prosecution has a fairly good idea of the ​​ membership of the Cosa Nostra, although the numbers can only be an estimate. According to the journalist Attilio Bolzoni, there is a secret list of “personnel files” of policeknown “men of honor” kept in the secure room of the Palermo prosecutor’s office (La Repubblica, December 10, 2000). Refering to this secret list, Bolzoni declared that in the year 2000 in Sicily there existed 5,192 mafiosi. In a more recent book publication, Bolzoni provides the number 5,113 Mafia members, that is almost the same number, see Bolzoni (2010: 15). According to the DIA and the Direzione Centrale della Polizia Criminale the Cosa Nostra had more than about 5,400 members on December 31, 1995, and more than 5,500 members on December 31, 1997, see

Notes    281

Violante (1998b: 267). In other words, the Cosa Nostra lost members in the last decades, but not more than 300 persons. According to an estimate of the DIA at the end of 1996, all four Italian Mafia organizations taken together had more than 20,857 members, see La Spina (2005: 82). 32 Anonymus (1989: 125). 33 Salemi (1993: 106, transl. by the author). 34 Mosca (2002: 27). 35 Dino (2002: 197, transl. by the author). 36 Calvi, quoted in Schenirer (1998: 61, transl. by the author). 37 Morosini (2009: 78). 38 SOS Impresa (2011: 36, 39). 39 Dino (2002: 111). 40 Gli speciali di I LOVE Sicilia (December 2007a: 58). 41 La Repubblica—Cronaca di Palermo (February 15, 2004). 42 Dino (2016: 69 f.). 43 The reason for the conflict was that the head gardener from Monreale, Felice Marchese, who had initially belonged to the Giardinieri, one day defected to the newly founded clan of the Stuppaghieri. As a result, he no longer supplied the Giardinieri with the water he controlled, but instead gave it to their rivals. The Giardinieri could not tolerate this insult, which is why they killed Marchese in 1874. This murder led to a series of further murders on both sides and was one of the bloodiest feuds of the nineteenth century. The situation only calmed down after the Stuppagghieri had eliminated a large part of the Giardinieri, which enabled them to gain undisputed hegemony over the area of Monreale and its surrounding communities, see City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.), Crisantino (2000: 67 ff.), Lupo (1990: 56).

282     Notes

44 Billetteri (2008: 94 f.). 45 Ceruso (2008: 212), Ciconte (2008b: 368 ff.), Forgione (2009: 126 ff.), Gratteri/Nicaso (2008: 123 ff.). 46 Arlacchi (1995: 48 ff.). 47 The eight districts in the city of Palermo are: Porta Nuova with four families (Porta Nuova, Borgo Vecchio, Kalsa, Palermo-Centro); Passo di Rigano-Bocca di Falco with three families (Passo di Rigano-Bocca di Falco, Uditore, Torretta); San Lorenzo-Tommaso Natale with eight families (Pallavicino-ZEN, Partanna-Mondello, San Lorenzo, Tommaso NataleMarinella, Capaci-Isola delle Femmine, Carini, Cinisi, Terrasini); Resuttana with three families (Acquasanta, Arenella, Resuttana); Noce with three families (Noce, Malaspina-Cruillas, Altarello Di Baida), Pagliarelli with five families (Pagliarelli, Borgo Molara, Corso Calatafimi, Rocca-Mezzomonreale, Villaggio Santa Rosalia), Ciaculli with four families (Ciaculli, Brancaccio, Corso dei Mille, Roccella) and finally Villagrazia-Santa Maria di Gesù with two families (Villagrazia, Santa Maria di Gesù), see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 126). 48 The eight districts in the province of Agrigento are: the Belice district with five families (Santa Margherita Belice, Menfi, Montevago, Sambuca di Sicilia, Sciacca), the Santa Elisabetta district with six families (Santa Elisabetta, Aragona-Comitini, Casteltermini, Raffadali, San Biagio Platani, Sant’Angelo Muxaro), the Cianciana district with six families (Cianciana, Alessandria della Rocca, Bivona, Cammarata, San Giovanni Gemini, Santo Stefano Quisquina), the Canicatti district with six families (Canicatti, Campobello di Licata, Castrofilippo, Grotte, Racalmuto, Ravanusa), the Agrigento district with seven families (Agrigento, Favara, LampedusaLinosa, Joppolo Giancaxio, Porto Empedocle, Realmonte, Siculiana), the Burgio district with eight families (Burgio, Calamonaci, Caltabellotta, Cattolica Eraclea, Lucca Sicula, Montallegro, Ribera, Villafranca Sicula) and finally the Palma di Montechiaro district with four families (Palma di Montechiaro, Camastra, Licata, Naro), see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 149). 49 The seven districts in the province of Palermo are: Partinico with five families (Partinico, Balestrate-Trappeto, Borgetto, Giardinello, Montelepre); Bagheria with five families (Bagheria, Altavilla Milicia, Casteldaccia,

Notes    283

Ficarazzi, Villabate); Misilmeri-Belmonte Mezzagno with four families (Misilmeri, Belmonte Mezzagno, Bolognetta, Villafrati-Cefalà Diana); San Mauro Castelverde with six families (San Mauro Castelverde, Gangi, Lascari, Isnello, Polizzi Generosa; this district also includes the family of Mistretta, even though the municipality is in the province of Messina); Trabia with 14 families (Trabia, Aliminusa, Baucina, Caccamo, Castronovo di Sicilia, Cerda, Cimina, Montemaggiore Belsito, Roccapalumba, Sciara, Termini Imerese, Valledolmo, Ventimiglia di Sicilia, Vicari); San Giuseppe Jato with seven families (San Giuseppe Jato, Altofonte, Camporeale, Monreale, Piana degli Albanesi, San Cipirello, Santa Cristina Gela) and finally Corleone with nine families (Corleone, Chiusa Sclafani, Godrano, Lercara Friddi, Marineo, Mezzojuso, Palazzo Adriano, Prizzi, Roccamena), see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 124). 50 The four districts in the province of Caltanissetta, also known as “Vallone”, are: the district of Mussomeli with four families (CampofrancoSutera, Montedoro-Milena-Bompensiere, Serradifalco, Mussomeli), the district of Vallelunga Pratameno with five families (Caltanissetta, San Cataldo, Vallelunga Pratameno, Marianopoli, Resuttano), the district of Riesi with three families (Riesi-Butera, Mazzarino, Sommatino-Delia) and the district of Gela with three families (Niscemi, Emmanuello, Rinzivillo), see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 158). 51 The four districts in the province of Trapani are: the district of Trapani with four families (Trapani, Custonaci, Paceco, Valderice; the family of Trapani also includes the newly founded cosca on the island of Favignana), the district of Castelvetrano with six families (Castelvetrano, Campobello di Mazara, Gibellina, Partanna, Salaparuta-Poggioreale, Santa Ninfa), the district of Mazara del Vallo with four families (Mazara del Vallo, Marsala, Salemi, Vita) and the district of Alcamo with three families (Alcamo, Calatafimi, Castellammare del Golfo), see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 140). 52 In the province of Enna there are the four families Villarosa-Calascibetta, Enna, Pietraperzia and Barrafranca, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 169). 53 In the province of Catania, there is the family of Catania and the family of Caltagirone. The giant family of Catania led by Nitto Santapaola controls not only a large part of the city of Catania, but also wide parts of the

284     Notes

province. Furthermore, it controls most of the province of Syracuse through vassal groups. In the city of Messina it has a cell that is subordinate to it, but largely autonomous—after all, the clan boss Francesco Romeo, who is married to Concetta Santapaola, is the brother-in-law of Nitto Santapaola.— The family of Caltagirone controls not only the city of Caltagirone, but also its neighboring communities. Its boss, Francesco La Rocca, for example, did not live in Caltagirone, but in the neighboring town of San Michele di Ganzaria, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 174, 176, 191). 54 The two families in the province of Messina are the family of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto and the family of Mistretta. Similar to the case of the family of Catania, the large family of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto consists of relatively autonomous subgroups, specifically four groups, namely the “Barcellonesi” responsible for the city of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, the “Mazzaroti” dominating Mazzarà Sant’ Andrea, the group of Terme Vigliatore and the group of Milazzo. Due to its geographical proximity to San Mauro Castelverde, the family of Mistretta is affiliated with the Palermo district of San Mauro Castelverde, although Mistretta is located in the province of Messina. The only Mafia clan in the city of Messina, the clan Romeo, is—as already mentioned—a cell of the Catania clan Santapaola, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 203, 205). 55 The only Mafia family in the province of Ragusa is the Piscopo family. It operates in the cities of Vittoria, Comiso and Acate, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2° Semestre 2019: 197). 56 The American bosses Lucky Luciano and Joe Bonanno are said to have convinced their Sicilian colleagues at the summit meeting in October 1957 in Palermo’s Hotel Delle Palme of the benefits of such a central consultation and coordination body, which had already been introduced in the American Cosa Nostra in 1931. The “Americans” had founded their “commission”—a term they used in English—after the bloody clashes between the New York families as part of the so-called Castellammarese War (1929–1931) in order to resolve future disputes peacefully at the negotiating table, cf. Marino (2002b: 166 ff.). Even if the suggestion to establish the present cupola came from the “Americans”, it seems that because of the large number of families in the province of Palermo, there was already a certain predecessor of this body in the nineteenth century: The chairman was a certain Francesco Siino, but he resigned in 1897 because of conflicts with some particularly

Notes    285

ambitious capifamiglia like Antonino Giammona and Giuseppe Bonura with the words “Well, if you don’t respect me as you should, each group can do what it wants again”. After that, there seems to have been no such body until the re-establishment of the cupola in 1958, cf. Lupo (2011: 63, transl. by the author). 57 Sales (1988: 133). 58 Dino (2002: 66 ff., transl. by the author). 59 For brigandage in Sicily, see Alongi (1977: 62 ff.), Catanzaro (1991: 33 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 76 ff.), Hamel (2011: 93 ff.), Hobsbawm (1979: 28 ff.), Mangiameli (1974: 37), Marino (2002a: 39 ff., 52, 65 ff.), Mazzola (2004: 17, 66), Mosca (2002: 39). 60 For the criminal gangs from Catania, see Arlacchi (1993: 67), Arcidiacono (30 ff.), Ardita (22 ff.), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (1o Semestre 2019: 114 ff.). In addition, my remarks on this subject are based on numerous conversations with Carmelo Garozzo, for which I owe him many thanks. 61 The name “Cursoti” comes from the Catania area in which the group originated, namely the Antico Corso in Catania. This district includes Piazza Dante with the former Benedictine monastery, as well as the area around the Vittorio Emanuele and Garibaldi hospitals and the Spedalieri high school. In addition to Miano and Garozzo, the leaders of the Cursoti included Antonino Puglisi (“Nino’a savasta”), Santo Mazzei (“’U Carcagnusu”), Alfio Ferlito and Salvatore Pillera (“Turi Cachiti”). 62 The nickname “I mussi di ficurinia” (Sic. prickly pear snout) is said to derive from the “stubbly beard” of one of Laudani’s aunts. 63 The nickname “Ceusi” (Sic. mulberries) is said to come from the fact that members of the Piacenti family originally worked as itinerant mulberry sellers. 64 The Cappello clan emerged from the Pillera clan. The former Cursoto Salvatore Pillera was accepted into the Mafia, together with his friend Alfio Ferlito, also from the Cursoti, by Pippo Calderone, the then head of the Catania Cosa Nostra family. After Calderone was murdered on orders of Nitto Santapaola in 1982, there were tensions between the new boss

286     Notes

Santapaola and the former Cursoti. To make a long story short: Santapaola had Ferlito killed in 1982, whereupon Pillera left the Cosa Nostra and founded his own gang. This new gang was led by the ambitious Turi Cappello, who soon betrayed his boss Pillera and took over the leadership himself. Although Cappello is now serving a life sentence in prison, he has no problem leading his clan, which today mainly controls the new town districts of Monte Po and Nesima in the west of Catania. Cappello is allied with the Carateddi, led by the brothers Ignazio and Concetto Bonaccorsi, who operate as the military wing of the Cappello group. In addition, the Carateddi control “their” district of Fortino, that is, the area around Porta Garibaldi. 65 Many of Catania’s historical gangs no longer exist or have become insignificant: the Malpassoti dissolved in the early 1990s after their leader Pulvirenti was arrested and became a pentito. The Puntina clan was effectively wiped out after the sons of its founder Giuseppe (Pippo) Di Mauro were killed: Claudio in 1990 in Rome and his brother Salvatore in 1993 in his law office in Catania. Only a few drug dealers are left of the once powerful Cursoti, who mainly operate in the newly constructed housing developments of Nesima, Librino and San Giorgio. The Laudani, originally from the San Cristoforo district, still exist today. They have their operational base in the Canalicchio district on the northeastern periphery of Catania, which they control, like the Catania hinterland—including the small Etna towns San Giovanni la Punta, Tremestieri, Viagrande and Zafferana Etnea. The Laudani have always been active in the meat business, as their founder Sebastiano Laudano was once a goat herder. They therefore opened two butcher shops in Canalicchio and are said to have controlled the Catania meat market for some time. The Ceusi clan, led by the Piacenti family, also still exists, although it no longer plays an important role. The Ceusi, who emerged from a group of loan sharks, have their operational base in the Picanello district in the northeast of Catania. Today their main activities include illegal horse racing and gambling. The Mazzei group, whose boss Santo Mazzei was inducted into the Catania Mafia family at the behest of the Corleonesi in 1991, is completely autonomous, even though its leader is a “man of honor”. With the help of subgroups, the gang controls parts of Catania, as well as the small Etna towns Bronte, Maletto and Maniace and even the Mormina clan in Scicli (RG). The Mazzei are also responsible for the Tuppi, who operate in Motta S. Anastasia and Misterbianco. The Lineri group—Lineri is a district of Misterbianco—specializes in drug dealing. Other gangs in the province of Catania are the Sciuto-Tigna clan, active

Notes    287

in the Scordia area, and the Toscano-Mazzaglia-Tomasello group, which operates in Adrano and Paternò, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (1° Semestre 2019: 114 ff.). 66 Allegedly, the founding of the Syracusan clan goes back to Urso’s reading addiction: ‘U Prufissuri (Sic. The Professor), as Agostino Urso was called, is said to have read a book about the American “Mano nera” during his imprisonment in the Augusta (SR) prison, which is said to have inspired him to found his clan, cf. Siracusa Live (November 9, 2020). Urso († 1992) was the son of the small-time criminal Gaetano Urso (‘U Zu Tanu’), who ran an illegal gambling den in the Circolo Pro Patria (located in the Palazzo Beneventano on Piazza Duomo in Ortigia). Urso’s gang operated similar to a Mafia group, but did not have the usual Mafia “values”. For example, extorting protection money from prostitutes was one of the main sources of income for this gang. Soon, two more gangs joined the Urso clan, namely the group led by Salvatore (Totuccio) Belfiore († 1992) and the group Santa Panagia led by Salvatore Schiavone. The Belfiore group was allied with the Santapaola clan from Catania and competed with the Urso clan, which led to bloody confrontations. These only came to a standstill when Nitto Santapaola forced the warring parties to sign a peace treaty. The Santa Panagia group is partly a breakaway group from the Urso clan in that Salvatore Schiavone originally belonged to Urso’s men. The “legacy” of the Schiavone clan was later partly taken over by the Nardo-Aparo-Trigila group, as they took over many of Schiavone’s men, cf. Migliore (2014: 24 f., 34 f., 58 ff., 78, 84, 140 f., 170, 175, 217 f., 220 f., 256, 295). 67 The most important clan today is the Nardo clan, which dominates the northern cities of Lentini, Augusta, Carlentini and Francofonte. The city of Syracuse is divided between the Bottaro-Attanasio clan, which emerged from Ursos’ gang and controls the old town island of Ortigia, while the Santa Panagia group roams the Syracuse mainland. The towns of Solarino and Floridia are controlled by Nunzio Salafia’s Aparo clan. The city of Noto, on the other hand, is controlled by the Trigilia band, which receives support from some members of the Caminanti. The Caminanti are a Sicilian nomadic group of about 2,500 people, distinct from the Sinti and Roma, who have been based in Noto since the 1950s. Originally, the Caminanti worked as traveling knife sharpeners, plumbers, shoemakers, junk dealers or umbrella and ball sellers. Since their skills are no longer in demand, some Caminanti have turned to smaller crimes such as theft and fraud, and work for the Trigilia clan. The latest Mafia gangs to form in the province

288     Notes

of Syracuse include the Linguanti from Cassibile, the Crapula from Avola and the Giuliano from Pachino. For information on criminal groups in the province of Syracuse, see Borrometi (2018: 111 ff.), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019, 2° Semestre: 190 ff.), Siracusa Live (November 9, 2020). For information on the Caminanti, see Borrometi (2018: 155), La Repubblica (June 30, 2018), Migliore (2014), Rizza (October 2018). 68 In the town of Tortorici (ME) in the Nebrodi mountains, there are three clans: the first clan was initiated by Vincenzo Bontempo Scavo, which was followed by the clan led by Orlando Galati Giordano, from which a third group, the Batanesi, split off. Because of the “official” professions of many of its members, the clans of Tortorici are often referred to as the “shepherd mafia”, see Anselmo/Antoci (2019: 91, 108). 69 In the town Scicli (RG), a criminal clan led by Franco Mormina (“Franco u’ Trinchiti”) emerged, which is often referred to as the “waste Mafia of Scicli” because of its main activity—the gang controls the disposal of garbage, see Borrometi (2018: 59 ff.). 70 There are numerous similarities between the ‘Ndrangheta and the Cosa Nostra: the two organizations share the rulebook, the type of business, the close involvement with politics, but there are also differences: for example, blood ties play a significantly greater role among the ‘ndrine than among the Mafia cosche. The close kinship relations among the members themselves are the main reason why the Calabrian Mafia has had few defectors. This makes them a particularly trustworthy “business partner” in the international criminal world, which is why the ‘Ndrangheta was able to take the lead in the drug trade. The organizational structure of the ‘Ndrangheta also differs from that of the Mafia: originally it was organized purely horizontally with its ’ndrine as basic units that joined together to form the locali, comparable to the mandamenti, the Mafia districts. Only in 1991 did the ‘Ndrangheta groups in the province of Reggio Calabria form a kind of central command structure in conjunction with the provincia (province)—not unlike the cupola of the Cosa Nostra. However, only the groups in the province of Reggio Calabria have such a structure, where there are particularly many ’ndrine and locali. In addition, within the ‘Ndrangheta the highly secretive santa unit developed in the 1970s, which is closely linked to the banned Freemasonry—no such unit exists within the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. Further differences to the Mafia are the more sophisticated rituals and the complex ranking system of the ‘Ndrangheta: a ‘ndranghetista starts as a

Notes    289

picciotto and over time becomes a camorrista, sgarrista, santista, vangelo etc. In addition, the ‘Ndrangheta has significantly more members than the Cosa Nostra: in the province of Reggio Calabria alone, the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta stronghold, the organization counted almost 7,400 members in 2000. Because the ’ndranghetisti have simply become too many for Calabria, the organization has been consciously founding ’ndrine outside its region of origin since the 1970s. Today, the ‘Ndrangheta has a stronger presence abroad than any other Italian Mafia organization—especially in Germany, where it is said to operate 300 pizzerias and—especially in East Germany—to have invested in the legitimate economy, cf. Gratteri/Nicaso (2008: 8, 11, 24, 65 ff., 89, 233 ff.), Ciconte (1992, 2008a: 15, 19, 47 ff., 62 ff., 90 f., 97 ff., 108 f., 112, 123 ff., 2017b: 121 ff., 159 ff.), Forgione (2009), La Rosa (2013: 24 ff.). 71 For the clans in the province of Messina, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019, 2° Semestre: 205, 208 ff.), La Rosa (2013: 24 ff., 76 ff., 256 f., 296 f.), Mazzeo (2002). 72 The most important of these ‘ndrangheta-like groups are today the clans Ventura-Ferrante (Camaro district), Lo Duca (Provinciale district), Spartà-Pellegrino (Santa Lucia sopra Contesse district), Galli-Tibia (Giostra district), Mancuso (Gravitelli district) and the Aspri-Trovato (Mangialupi district), see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019, 2° Semestre: 205, 208 ff.). 73 For the Stidda, see Bascietto (2005), Borrometi (2018: 51 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 188 f.), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019, 2° Semestre: 149, 158, 197), Kliez (1998), Martorana/Nigrelli (1993: 71 ff.), Paoli (2003: 231), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007:17). 74 Since many former mafiosi are organized in the Stidda, its organizational structure resembles that of the Mafia. However, the Stidda is less selective in its members: Not a few stiddari were originally purse snatchers, many are also drug addicts, which is frowned upon by the Cosa Nostra. The young age of many stiddari is also striking, many are only between eleven and fifteen years old. The Stidda likes to recruit children and adolescents, after all, “ killers of baby age” cannot be punished as severely as adults in the event of a conviction. Due to the poorer “quality” of its members, there are more dropouts in the Stidda than in the Cosa Nostra. Another difference is that the Stidda organizes prostitution, which the Mafia rejects for moral reasons.

290     Notes

And finally, the Stidda clans are significantly larger than those of the Cosa Nostra—the clan of the Dominante-Carbonaro, for example, has around 500 members. 75 The Stidda is strongest today in the provinces of Caltanissetta and Ragusa: the area around Gela (CL) is controlled by three gangs—the Cavallo, Fiorisi and Sanfilippo di Mazzarino; however, the powerful clan of the Dominante-Carbonaro “rules” over the towns of Vittoria, Comiso and Acate in Ragusa. But there are also many Stidda groups in the province of Agrigento, such as in Bivona, Canicatti, Campobello di Licata, Camastra, Favara, Naro, Palma di Montechiaro, Porto Empedocle and Racalmuto. 76 For the Nigerian Mafia, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019 1° Semestre: 91, 451 ff.), further the focus chapter “Focus. Nigerian Organized Crime in Italy” of the second half-year report of the DIA from 2018 (2018, 2° Semestre: 506–542), also Ciconte (2017b: 131 f., 139) as well as the insider report published under the pseudonym I.M.D. by a Palermo police officer (I.M.D. 2019). 77 Istat (December 31, 2019). 78 The clans originated in their homeland Nigeria, where in the early 1950s organizations that initially provided student aid soon degenerated into Mafia groups operating outside the universities and exploded in numbers. Organizationally, the Nigerian clans resemble the Sicilian Mafia: They have a hierarchical organizational structure, initiation rituals, a strict rulebook, a common fund and “earn” their income through criminal activities. Their preferred weapons are machetes and glass bottles. What distinguishes them from the Cosa Nostra is the strong ritual component, especially voodoo practices. The clans control their respective territory by demanding protection money from the Nigerian population—owners of small grocery stores or “connection houses”, i.e. taverns often with attached brothel, further hairdressers, parking attendants etc. Their main businesses include the organization of the illegal immigration of young women for the purpose of forced prostitution, which are recruited by so-called mamans in Nigeria. A maman is usually an older former prostitute who mostly selects underage girls from the area around Benin City, and lures them to Europe with the promise of a job in Italian bars or hairdressing salons. Still in the home, the girls are put under psychological pressure by a JuJu ritual, which is celebrated by a priest called Baba-Loa, to repay the travel expenses advanced by the maman— between € 50,000 and 100,000. Due to the magical ritual, the girls are

Notes    291

convinced that the Baba-Loa would release ghosts like the terrible “Hogou” in case of their perjury, which would not only cause their own death, but also that of their relatives. In several stages, the girls then reach Libya with the help of mostly Arab “connection men”, where they land in internment camps, but are soon “bought out” by Libyan helpers and put on refugee boats. Saved by international rescue boats, they first come to an Italian refugee camp for a short time. From there, with the assistance of other helpers, they continue to a new maman assigned to them in their home country, who forces them into prostitution and to whom they have to pay their money. Nigerian women have the lowest rates among Italian prostitutes and rarely earn more than € 20 per “service”. The money earned in this way then flows, if the maman belongs to the female branch of a cult called “Black Bra”, directly into the pockets of the clan, alternatively she pays protection money. The girls often have no more than € 40 a month left for their personal expenses. In addition, Nigerian clans engage in drug trafficking and, to a lesser extent, internet fraud, as well as counterfeiting documents, check cards and money. The majority of the money earned in this way flows back to the mother organizations of the clans in Nigeria via an informal money transfer system called “Hawala”, cf. Becucci/Garosi (2008: 37, 70 ff.), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019, 2° Semestre: 618), I.D.M. (2019: 49 ff., 96, 121 ff.). 79 Vassal groups of the Cosa Nostra family from Catania in the province of Catania are the Toscano-Mazzaglia-Tomasello clan operating in Adrano, Biancavilla and Paternò; the Oliveri clan controlling the cities of Giarre, Fiumefreddo and Castiglione di Sicilia; and the Pruiti clan in the town of Bronte. The vassal clans of the Santapaola family in the province of Syracuse are the Nardo clan, which controls the towns Lentini, Augusta, Carlentini and Francofonte; also the Aparo group operating in Solarino and Floridio, the Santa Panagia group controlling the north of the city of Syracusa; the Trigilia band from Noto; the Crapulo group from Avola; and the Linguante clan from Cassibile. 80 Borrometi (2018: 151). 81 For example, when the question arose as to who would lead the newly founded clan from Noto, Santapaola and the Syracuse cartel boss Nardo consulted with each other. In the end, Giuseppe Trigilia, proposed by Nardo, was chosen, cf. Borrometi (2018: 151).

292     Notes

82 Thus, the youth gang of Agostino Trombetta and Giovanni Ciaramitari, which had specialized in truck robberies in eastern Palermo at the end of the 1980s, had to hand over the entire stolen cargo to the respective Mafia clan on whose territory they had just been active. For this, the young people received half of the sales proceeds, cf. Dino (2002: 93 f.). 83 Paoli (2003: 160). 84 I.D.M. (2019: 129). 85 For the Mafia’s dealings with thieves and petty criminals, see Lodato (1999: 72 f.). Examples of murders of young petty criminals can be found at: Dino (2002: 93 f.), Salemi (1993: 112 ff., 137 ff.), Siebert (1997: 257 f., 262). The case of four teenage purse-snatchers was particularly dramatic. In the summer of 1976, they snatched the purse of the mother of boss Nitto Santapaola in the San Cristoforo district of Catania, causing the old lady to fall and break her arm. Santapaola had the boys kidnapped, locked them up in a barn in Mazzarino (CL) for two days and nights, then strangled them and threw them into a well, one of the boys still alive, cf. Arlacchi (1973: 247 ff.), Scalia (2006).

3.2 From “Have-Nots” to “Men of Honor” 1 In 2019, 24.3% of the population of Sicily lived in relative poverty, cf. Istat (2020). 2 Eurostat (2019). 3 Mosca (2002: 27, transl. by the author). 4 Scafetta (2003: 39, transl. by the author). 5 Scarpinato (1998: 80, transl. by the author). 6 Dino (2002: 75, transl. by the author). 7 Gruppo Abele (2005: 179 ff.) The investigation of the Gruppo Abele is based on a survey of former members of various southern Italian Mafia organizations. It represents one of the few attempts at an analysis of social structure, but the data base is too small to allow for generalizations. The numerous autobiographies of former members that have appeared in the

Notes    293

meantime, however, suggest that the majority of the mafiosi today, as in the past, come from the lower classes, cf. Arlacchi (2019: 41 ff.). However, members of other social classes have always been organized in the Cosa Nostra, which is why some researchers speak of an interclass phenomenon, cf. Ciconte (2008b: 39). Sales adds that the early Mafia, of which there is more material—he refers to a directory of 1,400 mafiosi in the province of Agrigento from 1890—almost exclusively came from the lower class. The Mafia would only have assumed an interclass character later, with the upwardly mobile from the lower class remaining loyal to their social class in their behavior and appearance, cf. Sales (2015: 160 ff.). 8 Lupo (1990: 106). 9 Catanzaro (1991: 16 ff., 49 ff.), Mosca (2002: 13), Hess (1970: 50), Mangiameli (1984: 76 ff.), Marino (2002a: 35; 2002b: 23 f.). 10 Gabrielli (1989: 694). 11 The importance of the caporalato decreased towards the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, mainly due to mass emigration and the involvement of socialist organizations. Today, this form of “job placement” is prohibited, but is still practiced, mainly during the harvest seasons. People who are exploited are mainly those who are staying in the country without a work permit, that is illegal immigrants, and therefore do not enjoy any legal protection, see Lupo (1990: 94 ff., 202), Palmisano (2017). 12 Lupo (1990: 102). 13 The word sensale is still used today to refer to brokers or intermediaries, although the term often refers to “not quite clean business”, see Gabrielli (1989: 3457). 14 Alongi (1977: 106), Lupo (1990: 10, 105 ff.). 15 The term “Camorra” probably derives from a popular game of the eighteenth century called morra, which was played on the street and in local bars. Operators of local bars where morra was practised had to pay a protection fee to the leader of the game—the capo of the morra. He then ensured the avoidance of disputes. It was in this meaning, namely as a fee for protection,

294     Notes

that the term Camorra first appeared in an official document of the Kingdom of Naples in 1735. “Prendersi la camorra” meant extorting an illegal income by threatening violence. In this way, the term Camorra became a term used throughout Southern Italy to refer to extortion of protection money, see Pitrè (2007: 11), Sales (1988: 10, 29 ff.), Savio (2006: 74). 16 Lupo (1990: 107, 177). 17 Crisantino (2000: 139 ff.), Franchetti (2000: 8 ff.), Nania (2000: 49 f.). 18 Paoli (2003: 149), Sales (2015: 162), Viviano (2009: 132). 19 Catanzaro (1991: 17). 20 Viviano (2009: 127). 21 For Mafia doctors, see Ceruso (2008: 107 ff.), De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 183, 189 f.), La Repubblica (January 31, 2001). 22 Bolzoni (2012: 176), La Repubblica (March 15, 1986). 23 La Repubblica (December 13, 1991). 24 For priests and clerics close to the Mafia, see Ceruso (2007: 64 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 205 ff.), Sales (2010: 79 ff., 108 f., 159 ff.), Santino (2017: 132 ff.). 25 Ceruso (2007: 76 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 208 f.), Dino (2002: 90), Messina (2005: 130 f.). 26 Ceruso (2007: 96 ff.). 27 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 62). 28 Marino (2002b: 31 ff.), Viviano (2009: 132 f., 145, 147). 29 Pennino (2006: 124). 30 Bellavia (2010: 183 ff., 233, 260 ff.; 2016: 40), Deaglio (2022: 86, 129ff.), La Repubblica (April 17, 1996).

Notes    295

31 Renda (1999: 75 f., transl. by the author). 32 Borrometi (2018: 145 ff.) Dino (2002: 194 f.). 33 La Repubblica (December 10, 2000).

3.3 The Way into the Cosa Nostra 1 Arlacchi (2019: 59). 2 Bonanno/Lalli (2003: 163). 3 Bonanno/Lalli (2003: 161 ff.). 4 Abbate (2020: 38 ff.). 5 For the Mediterranean code of honor and shame, see Giordano (1992: 344–373, 1994). 6 Anonymus (1989: 110), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 22). 7 Mosca (2002: 5 ff., 25). 8 Bascietto (2005: 29, transl. by the author). 9 Arlacchi (1995: 237). 10 Dino (2002: 130). 11 The writer Leonardo Sciascia points out that the women of the south are by no means weak and oppressed beings. Many tragedies in the Mezzogiorno were due to women who incited the men of their families to violence, cf. Sciascia (1979: 14). 12 Gruppo Abele (2005: 187). 13 The term “Padre padrone” has become almost a byword for patriarchal, authoritarian father figures since the publication of the eponymous autobiographical novel by the Sardinian Gavino Ledda (born 1938) in 1975, cf. Ledda (2002).

296     Notes

14 Conversation of the author with Girolamo Lo Verso, professor for Psychology, on February 2, 2008 at the University of Palermo as part of a social science study trip of the University of Regensburg, cf. Trum (2008). 15 Gruppo Abele (2005: 186 f., transl. by the author). 16 Gruppo Abele (2005: 187, transl. by the author). 17 Lo Verso (2003: 21). 18 Lo Verso (2003: 19 ff.). 19 Dino (2002: 240), La Repubblica (June 8, 1996). 20 Arlacchi (2019: 35), Pennino (2006: 144 f.). 21 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 22). 22 Anonymous (1989: 48). 23 Siebert (1997: 26). 24 Salemi (1993: 106, transl. by the author). 25 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 42 f., transl. by the author). 26 For the initiation ritual, see Arlacchi (1995: 66 ff.), Biagi (1986: 94), Calvi (1986: 83 ff.), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 24), Cancemi/Bonsignore (2002: 26), Catino (2019: 65 ff.), Ciconte (2008c: 53 ff.), Dino (2002: 83 ff.), Lodato (1999: 33 ff.), Scafetta (2003: 49 f.), Schenirer (1998: 25), Vitale/ Costanzo (2009: 56 f.). 27 Tocco is a game that was popular mainly in nineteenth-century taverns in Sicily and southern Italy: The participants extend their fists to the center at the same time, where the fist can remain closed or one or several fingers can be extended. The fist stands for 0, one finger for one point, two fingers for two points, etc. After the sum is determined, the people in the circle are counted off until the number calculated falls on one person, see Pitrè (2007: 30 ff.).

Notes    297

28 City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p., transl. by the author). 29 Dino (2002: 85, transl. by the author). 30 Cagno/Natoli (1994: 23), Dino (2002: 85 ff.), Siebert (1997: 28, 41). 31 About the religiosity of mafiosi, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 125, 146, 186 f.), Ceruso (2007: 35 ff.), Dino (2002: 122, 124 ff., 170; 2008c), Sales (2010: 25 ff.). 32 Ciconte (2008b: 233), Dino (2002: 126). 33 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 187, transl. by the author). 34 In the early days of the Cosa Nostra, Mafia clans that had subgroups still used identification marks. For example, the Stuppagghieri had a wool cap with a white stripe. Since such identification marks quickly proved to be too dangerous, they were replaced by question-and-answer mottos, for example: Question: Vi ruole u scagghiuni? (= Do your incisors hurt?). Answer: Mi ruole. (= They hurt me). Question: Come vi maritarunu? (= How were you married?). Answer: Cu stuppagghiu. (= With the cork). (City of Palermo et al. 2000: n.p., transl. by the author). The fact that the question typically includes the incisors, the teeth with which predators tear apart their prey, is not coincidental. In criminal jargon, »avi scagghiuni« (having incisors) means belonging to a criminal organization. But even non-criminals use the term. When Sicilians say that someone has incisors, they mean that he is a crafty person, cf. City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p., transl.by the author), Crisantino (2000: 84 ff.). 35 For the initiation ritual in Freemasonry, see Dickie (2020: 25 ff.), Rainieri (1996: 27, 150, 152, 160), Reinalter (2000: 34 f., 41, 126). 36 For secret societies and the function of their rituals, see the essay “The Secret and Secret Societies” in Simmel’s “Forms of Association” (1908: 337–402). 37 The initiation ritual of the Neapolitan Nuova Camorra Organizzata founded by Raffaele Cutolo was also called “baptism”, which is related to

298     Notes

the fact that Cutolo took the ‘Ndrangheta as his model. The initiation ritual of the Apulian Sacra Corona Unità is also called “baptism”, see Sciarrone (2006: 132 f.). 38 Lo Verso (2003: 21, transl. by the author). 39 Dino (2002: 87, transl. by the author). 40 La Sicilia (June 23, 2020). 41 Cutrera (1984: 58, transl. by the author). 42 Dino (2002: 79 f.). 43 Mosca (2002: 28, transl. by the author). 44 Lo Verso (1998b: 28 f.; 2003: 23 f.). 45 Dino (2002: 77). 46 Dino (2002: 77). 47 Siebert (1997: 45). 48 Filippo Di Forti (1982: 50), quoted after Siebert (1997: 71). 49 Antonio Zagari (1992: 49), quoted after Siebert (1997: 71). 50 Conversation of the author with Girolamo Lo Verso, professor for Psychology, on February 21, 2008 at the University of Palermo as part of a social science study trip of the University of Regensburg, see Trum (2008). 51 Siebert (1997: 72 f.)

3.4 The “Codice d’Onore”—The Honor Code 1 For the Mafia code of conduct, see Arlacchi (2019: 91 ff.), Calvi (1986: 101 ff.), Catanzaro (1991: 61 ff.), Catino (2019: 234 ff.), Dino (2002: 131 ff.), Lodato (1999: 33, 67 f.), Marannaro (2008: 25 f.), Stajano (1986: 45 ff.), Vitale/Costanzo (2009:55 f.).

Notes    299

2 The code of conduct of the Bella Società Riformata, the first Camorra organization founded in 1820 in Naples, was called frieno for a reason (Neapol. reins, brake), see Ciconte (2008b: 66), Sales (1988: 45, 71). 3 For the period after Italian unification, documents demonstrated such clear and unambiguous rules of conduct for the Mafia clans that a police prefect wrote in 1865 that the Mafia even had “statutes”, cf. Pezzino (1999: 18, transl. by the author). This observation was fully confirmed by the Tuscan scholar Leopoldo Franchetti during the course of his private investigation in Sicily in 1876, cf. Franchetti (2000: 8). Yet such statutes not only emerged after Italian unification, but had already come into existence with the first Mafia groups. And Salvatore Facella recounted that in the time of Fascism a Mafia lawyer had produced a written statute of the Mafia. Leonardo Messina had also heard of a “Mafia Bible” that the boss Giuseppe Di Cristina is said to have passed on to his friend Calogero Giambarresi in the 1970s, who then passed it on to a certain Totò Rizza from Caltanissetta. But these statutes were never found, cf. Messina (2005: 36 f.). 4 Paliotti (2002: 230), Sales (1988: 45, 71), Sciarrone (2006: 132). 5 Dino (2002: 133). 6 Arlacchi (1995: 88). 7 The following rules were listed in Lo Piccolo’s rulebook: 1. You may not introduce yourself to one of our friends, this must be done by a third person. 2. You do not look at the wives of our friends. 3. You don’t make friends (comparati) with the police (sbirri). 4. You don’t frequent taverns or circoli (clubs). 5. You must be available to the Cosa Nostra at all times, even if your wife is about to give birth. 6. You categorically respect appointments. 7. You show respect to your wive. 8. When asked, you must tell the truth. 9. One must not appropriate the funds of others (“men of honor”) and other (mafia) families. 10. The Cosa Nostra may not be joined by anyone who has a relative in the security forces; further, by anyone who has family members who have betrayed the values; furthermore, by anyone who behaves badly and does not respect the moral values.

300     Notes

Cf. La Repubblica (November 8, 2007, transl. by the author). 8 La Repubblica (November 8, 2007). 9 Dino (2002: 87 f., transl. by the author). 10 Siebert (1997: 42). 11 Anonymus (1989: 48). 12 The baccàgghiu was widespread throughout the entire criminal world of southern Italy since the Bourbon era and was also used by thieves, pimps, prostitutes, etc. Even today, the verb baccàgghiari or “parrari a baccàgghiu” means “to speak in riddles”, cf. Correnti (1987: 77 ff.), Messina (1990: 18, 37), Paternò (2000), Sales (1988: 84). 13 Arlacchi (2019: 91 ff.). 14 Dino (2002: 202). 15 Anonymus (1988: 141). 16 Arlacchi (1995: 177). 17 Dino (2002: 202, transl. by the author). 18 Dino (2002: 229 f.). 19 Lo Coco (1999: 45), Siebert (1997: 106). 20 Giornale di Sicilia (March 21, 2009). 21 Giornale di Sicilia (March 21, 2009). 22 For the omertà, see vgl. Ciconte (2008b: 47 ff.), Sales (2015: 233 ff.), Bestler (2003), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 21), Migliore (2014: 166). 23 The word omiltà most probably derives from omu (Sic. man) or from omineità (Sic. being a man, see Pitrè (2007: 14). 24 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 21).

Notes    301

25 Salemi (1993: 121, transl. by the author). Scarantino was only a petty criminal with Mafia relatives, but he behaved towards the police exactly like it is expected from mafiosi. 26 Giornale di Sicilia (October 17, 2000, transl. by the author). 27 Viviano (2008: 10, transl. by the author). 28 Caruso (2005: 422), Lodato (1999: 64). 29 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 21). 30 Corriere della Sera (October 30, 2017). 31 Arlacchi (1995: 69). 32 Farrell (1997: 74). 33 Arlacchi (1995: 175). 34 Mosca (2002: 55 f.). 35 Gambetta (2009: 189 f.). 36 Arlacchi (1995: 175, transl. by the author). 37 For Piera Aiello and Rita Atria, see. Aiello/Lucentinti (2012), Madeo (1994: 207 ff.), Rizza (1994). 38 Saviano (2006: 69). 39 Anonymus (1989: 111). 40 Arlacchi (1995: 36). 41 Anonymus (1989: 110 f.). 42 Gambetta (1994: 175). 43 Arlacchi (1995: 69).

302     Notes

44 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 21). 45 Anonymus (1989: 110, transl. by the author). 46 Arlacchi (1995: 69, 98), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 21), Gambetta (1994: 102). 47 Paoli (2003: 126). 48 SOS Impresa (2011: 38, transl. by the author). 49 Arlacchi (1995: 69). 50 Arlacchi (1995: 39). 51 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 21). 52 Abbate/Gomez (2007: 21). 53 Lo Bianco/Rizza (2006: 39 f.). 54 S. Gli speciali di I LOVE Sicilia (December 2007b). 55 A guappo is understood to be a “gentleman criminal”. Since it was especially the Neapolitan camorristi who loved to exhibit themselves in public with loud zumpate (Neapol. knife duels), elegant clothing, thick gold chains and expensive fountain pens, they are often referred to disparagingly as guappi, cf. Sales (1988: 30 ff.). 56 Sales (1988: 130). 57 Paoli (2003: 111, transl. by the author). 58 Dino (2002: 203). 59 Dino (2002: 218, transl. by the author). 60 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 21). 61 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 21).

Notes    303

62 Arlacchi (1995: 17). 63 Cutrera (1984: 9 ff.). 64 La Repubblica (November 8, 2007). 65 Luciano Leggio, probably due to his sadistic disposition, used rapes deliberately as a means of humiliating his opponents. In 1973, not only did he have the girlfriend of his rival Damiano Caruso killed, but he also raped the couple’s joint daughter before killing her, cf. Longrigg (1998: 13). Ciconte also emphasizes that the Mafia never shrank from violence against women and children, cf. Ciconte (2008b: 20). 66 Even the Camorra knew such a fundamental discussion. For example, the head of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, which was powerful in the 1970s, Raffaele Cutolo, vehemently opposed the organization of the heroin trade. 67 Messina (2005: 47). 68 Arlacchi (1995: 42). 69 Abbate/Gomez (2007: 16). 70 Abbate (2020: 119 ff.), Marannano (2008: 81 ff.). 71 Abbate (2020: 25 ff.). 72 Madeo (1997: 44). 73 Dino (2002: 203). 74 Arlacchi (1995: 69). 75 Bonanno/Lalli (2003: 154). 76 Arlacchi (1995: 30 f.). 77 Cordaro/Palazzolo (2012: 116 f.). 78 Cordaro/Palazzolo (2012: 114 ff.).

304     Notes

79 La Repubblica (June 23, 2016). 80 Dino (2002: 100, transl. by the author.). 81 Vinci (2013: 58 ff.). 82 La Repubblica (May 31, 2007). 83 Abbate (2020: 84 ff.), Dino (2002: 220 ff.), Monticciolo/Vasile (2007), Lodato (1999: 144 ff.), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 115, 139). 84 Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 17, transl. by the author).

3.5 “The Business of Crime” 1 Ceruso (2008: 130 f.). 2 For cattle rustling, see Alongi (1977: 82 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 45 ff.), Cutrera (1984: 97 ff.), Lupo (2011: 120 f.), Mosca (2002: 38 f.), Siragusa (2004: 36 ff., 51). 3 For the cavallo di ritorno method, see Arcidiacono (2015: 50), De Riccardis (2017: 46 ff.), Lodato (1999: 72 f.), SOS Impresa (2011: 61 f.). 4 For the Mafia of the waterkeepers, see Barone (1987: 338 f.), Alongi (1977: 106), Corso (2005), Crisantino (2000: 51 ff.), Cutrera (1984: 134 ff.), Lupo (1990: 178). Even today, the Mafia is able to control the valuable resource of water, see Antimafia Duemila (February 22, 2009). 5 Ardita (2015: 128). 6 Ceschi (2019), Legambiente (2010: 37, 335 ff.). 7 For Becchina, see Abbate (2020: 32 ff.), Il Sole 24 Ore (November 15, 2017). 8 Avola (2016. 93 f.), SOS Impresa (2011: 61 f.). 9 Palidda (2016: 148).

Notes    305

10 SOS Impresa (2011: 61). 11 For kidnappings, see Arlacchi (1983: 107), Cutrera (1984: 74 ff., 104 f.), Fantò (1999: 43 f.), Lupo (2011: 121), Siragusa (2004: 52), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 50 f.). 12 Cutrera (1984: 75). 13 For extortion, see Arcidiacono/Avola/Palidda (2015), Ardita (2015: 129), Arlacchi (1995: 25), Ciconte (2008b: 163 ff.), Dino (2002: 90, 106 ff.), Lodato (1999: 76 ff.), Morosini (2009: 93 ff.), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 218 ff.), SOS Impresa (2011: 54 ff., 80). 14 Between 1893 and 1899, the police reported 19 to 42 such letters to them every year in Palermo alone. For the letters of extortion, see Cutrera (1984: 65 ff.), Lupo (2011: 74, 79 f.), Siragusa (2004: 52). 15 The Sicilian word pizzu—in Italian pizzo—originally meant “goatee” or “chin beard”. The new meaning of “protection money” is derived from the expression fatici vaganti u pizzu (Sic. Let’s wet our beaks). This expresses that a drink must be offered in return for favors received. The expression messa a posto (agreeing) is often used as a synonym, see Avola (2016: 75), Correnti (1987: 48), Dino (2002: 104), Mancino (2008: 88 f.). 16 Paoli (2003: 169). 17 La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (February 15, 2004). 18 Del Bene (2009: 305). 19 Regarding the procedure for extortion, see Avola (2016: 72 ff.), Grasso/ Varano (2002), Migliore (2014: 42 ff.), SOS Impresa (2011: 55, 60, 75). 20 Sicilian businessmen at least know what these warning signs mean. The Chinese shopkeepers in Palermo did not initially know what the sealed door locks meant. When they knew, they also paid the pizzo, see Bellavia/De Lucia (2009: 49), Morosini (2009: 93 ff.). 21 Avola (2016: 73 f.), Migliore (2014: 42 f.).

306     Notes

22 S. Gli speciali di I LOVE Sicilia (December 2007c: 48). 23 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 55). 24 La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (December 17, 2005). The accounting ledgers, seized in 2007, of the Resuttana-San Lorenzo clan show different numbers: According to these books, the boutiques in the city center of Palermo paid between € 750 and € 1,000 monthly, the supermarkets € 1,000 and the construction companies € 10,000, see S. Gli speciali di I LOVE Sicilia (December 2007a). 25 For the payment modalities of the pizzo, see Avola (2016: 106). 26 La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (December 17, 2005). According to the trade association CONFESERCENTI, 70% of businesses in Sicily pay protection money, which amounts to around 50,000 people. In the cities of Palermo, Trapani, Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Catania and Messina, the figure is even higher, i.e., between 80 and 90%, see SOS Impresa (2011: 65). 27 Ceruso (2008: 233 f., transl. by the author). 28 This was the result of a study commissioned by the Fondazione Rocco Chinnici, see Milano Finanza (June 23, 2007). 29 For payments of the pizzo in the form of goods or services, see Arcidiacono (2015: 49), Avola (2016: 107 ff.), Palidda (2006: 168), SOS Impresa (2011: 60). 30 For the forced purchase of goods or services, see Avola (2016: 111 ff.). 31 Arlacchi (1995: 25). 32 Ardita (2015: 129 ff.). 33 Palermo Today (March 12, 2019). 34 Pizzerias and bakeries have to buy their flour from certain mills, shopkeepers their paper bags from a certain packaging company, construction companies their cement from a certain factory, etc. Even foreign

Notes    307

supermarkets have to obtain their fresh goods from suppliers prescribed to them by the cosche. The local area managers could not justify protection money payments to their superiors, but they do have to get their fresh goods from somewhere. What applies to goods also applies to services such as cleaning or transport, see Arcidiacono (2015: 51, 53), Ardita (2015: 174), Avola (2016: 111 f.), Borrometi (2018: 130), L’Espresso (November 20, 2014), Live Sicilia Catania (May 30, 2020), TP 24 (May 15, 2020), Uccello/ Amadore (2009: 186 f.). 35 Avola (2016: 80 f.), SOS Impresa (2011: 275). 36 MeridioNews (July 21, 2019). 37 Giornale di Sicilia (December 21, 2016; May 1, 2020), Legambiente (2010: 243 ff.), La Repubblica (June 6, 1998), SOS Impresa (2011: 340 ff.). 38 Giornale di Sicilia (December 12, 2018), SOS Impresa (2011: 342 f.). 39 MeridioNews (February 15, 2020), Pennino (2006: 141). 40 Ardita (2020: 13), L’Espresso (October 2, 2017). 41 For the liberalization of gambling see Il Fatto Quotidiano (March 5, 2017), SOS Impresa (2011: 62, 319 ff.). 42 The most popular form of legal gambling is slot machines (48.5%), followed by card games (16.3%), sports betting (10.1%), special draws (9.1%) and lotteries (7.1%). The remaining 9.1% is divided between bingo and online sports betting, see Lenius (January 1, 2019). 43 In recent years, Mafia clans have been repeatedly exposed for illegal gambling operations. The most recent case came to light in June 2020 as part of the police operation »All-in«. A certain Salvatore Rubino from Palermo had procured licenses for 82 betting shops from the major concessionaire SNAITECH for the Porta Nuova family from Palermo. Various Palermo Mafia families invested in these shops, with which they legally and illegally generated enormous sums of money, see Di Girolamo (2012: 89 ff.), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia. Relazioni Semestrali (1992–2019), MeridioNews (May 8, 2020).

308     Notes

44 The Mafia proceeds in such a way that straw men of the ten major concessionaires of the state monopoly company AAMS (later ADM) procure sublicenses and the clans locally organize the installation of slot and video lottery machines.—The most important major concessionaire for slot machines was, by the way, Francesco Corallo, son of the Catania mafioso Gaetano, who continued the business of his father on a large scale. In 2004, Francesco Corallo won one of the ten licenses issued by the state monopoly company with his mysterious offshore company Atlantis-Bplus. With this license, the “king of slot machines”, arrested in December 2016 for various offenses—including tax fraud in the millions—controlled around a third of the machines, see La Sicilia (December 13, 2016). 45 Avola (2016: 95 f.), SOS Impresa (2011: 319 ff., 324 f., 344). 46 Barone (1987: 250 ff.), Marino (2002a: 93 ff.; 2002b: 41), Siragusa (2004: 161). 47 For the award practice in the field of public building contracts, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 64 ff.), Centorrino (1995: 84), Della Porta/ Vannucci (2007: 182 ff.), Dino (2002: 59 ff.), Morosini (2009: 129 ff., 165 ff.), Sales (2015: 361 ff.), Vannucci (2012: 220 ff.), SOS Impresa (2011: 62 ff.), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 109). 48 Siino, who was from San Giuseppe Jato (PA), was himself not a member of the Mafia, but he came (on his mothers side) from a family where some members had been mafiosi. He never needed to work, because, on one hand, his own family was wealthy and, on the other hand, he had married Carmela Bertolino, one of the heirs of the distillery. As a result he could dedicate himself to his hobby, namely car races. Further, he made himself available as a driver to the boss Stefano Bontade, when he had to go on “business trips”, see Galasso/Siino (2017), Avola (2016: 85 ff.). 49 Vannucci (2012: 222). 50 Vannucci (2012: 224, transl. by the author). 51 At first, no kickbacks were paid to the courts responsible for awarding contracts. Siino reported on the courts, that later, however, “at some point (…) they woke up and thought, are we joking here? Everyone is eating and what about us? The control commissions, the TAR, also the Court of

Notes    309

Auditors. Everyone. No one excluded. They all participated in the big meal.” (Vannucci 2012: 226, transl. by the author).—The bribed officials always “invented” a reason why a company that was not involved in the illegal agreements had not been able to get a contract, if a case went to court. 52 Filippo Salamone, owner of the construction company Impresem, had initially been a victim of the Stidda. He turned to the Mafia for help, which led to a mutually beneficial cooperation. Salamone, whose brother Fabio had worked as an investigating judge in Agrigento, was not a member of the Mafia, but only an “external employee”, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 66 ff.). 53 Prosecutor’s Office of Palermo, quoted after Vannucci (2012: 225, transl. by the author). 54 For the methods of fraud in the methanisation of Sicily, see Macaluso (2009: 391 ff.). 55 Direzione Investigativa Antimafia. Relazioni Semestrali (1992–2019). 56 For the garbage Mafia, see Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica. Commissione Parlamentare di Inchiesta sulle Attività Illecite Connesse al Ciclo dei Rifiuti e su Illeciti Ambientali ad esse Correlati (July 19, 2016), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, Special Chapter “Mafia & Waste” (1o Semestre 2019: 580–660), Legambiente (2010: 57 ff., 84 ff., 149 ff.). 57 These garbage companies include, among others, the Coinres consortium, the companies Aimeri Ambiente, Altecon, Messinaambiente, Ofelia Ambiente, Sicilia Ambiente, Terre dei Fenici, the Lex and Alkantara cooperatives. 58 Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica. Commissione Parlamentare di Inchiesta sulle Attività Illecite Connesse al Ciclo dei Rifiuti e su Illeciti Ambientali ad esse Correlati (2016: 249 f., transl. by the author). 59 Numerous examples show the illegal disposal of hazardous and toxic waste: in the area of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME), for example, 8,000 tons of hazardous waste from the fruit juice company Candifrucht were buried in the wild; in the Alcamo (TP) area, radioactive and toxic waste was disposed of in mines which have not yet been found or dumped at sea;

310     Notes

hazardous waste generated during the construction of a gas pipeline between Sicily and Libya was disposed of as household waste at the Alcamo landfill, thanks to forged accompanying documents; hazardous marble waste from the quarries of Custonaci (TP) was disposed of untreated in the salt pans of Trapani; toxic waste was disposed of at the Passo Martino composting plant (CT); in the area of Acate (RG) and Vittoria (RG), toxic and hazardous waste was disposed of in the open countryside; the plastic waste from greenhouses in the province of Ragusa was also buried in the wild and covered with asphalt and cement; toxic waste imported from the Italian mainland was declared as municipal waste at a landfill near Camastra (AG) and disposed of; throughout the island, despite the existence of sewage treatment plants, waste water is often discharged untreated into rivers or the sea or, as in the case of the non-functioning sewage treatment plant of Siculiana (AG), into the public sewer system. The most important operations against the eco-mafia include the operations »Trash« in Palermo and Trapani (1996), »Pecunia non olet« in Modica (2004), »Munda Mundis« in Gela (2007), »Bonifica Pasquasia« in Enna (2014), »Ermes II« (2016) and »Scrigno« (2019) in Trapani, »Le Piramidi« in Melilli (2017), »Piazza Pulita« in Noto (2017), »Ghost Trash« in Vittoria (2017), »Garbage Affair« in Catania (2018), »Eclipse« in Rosolini (2019) and »Plastic Free« in Ragusa as well as Catania (2019), cf. Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, Special Chapter »Mafia & Rifiuto«  (1o Semestre 2019: 580–660), Legambiente (2010: 57 ff., 84 ff., 149 ff.). 60 SOS Impresa (2011: 369). 61 For fraud in EU agricultural subsidies, see Angelini et al. (1987: 57), Centorrino (1995: 121), Fantò (1999: 17). 62 The carabinieri operation “Nebrodi”, carried out in February 2020, in which nearly 200 people were investigated for fraud against the European Union and 94 people were arrested, caused a huge media echo: The two clans Batanesi and Bontempo Scavo from the 6,000-person mountain village Tortorici (ME), which had been in conflict with each other for years, forgot their dispute and joined forces to access European aid together. They were supported by officials from the Centri Commerciali Agricoli (CCA), including Emanuele Galati Sardo, the mayor of Tortorici. The officials had access to databases containing information on which properties had not yet applied for aid at the state Agenzia per le Erogazioni in Agricoltura (AGEA). The owners of these properties were forced by threats to give their land to

Notes    311

straw men of the Mafia. The latter then applied for subsidies for projects that often only existed on paper, with the legitimacy of the applications having been confirmed by the CCA. The matter came to light because one of the victims, farmer Ignazio Di Vincenzo, filed a report in 2017—all the other victims had remained silent out of fear. For the operation “Nebrodi” see Anselmo/Antoci (2019), De Riccardis (2017: 167 ff.), Il Fatto Quotidiano (January 16, 2020). 63 This fear was expressed by both the DIA in its latest report on the impact of the Covid crisis on organized crime, and the anti-Mafia umbrella organization Libera, see Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (2019, 2° Semestre: 15, 113 ff.), Libera (November 2020). 64 SOS Impresa (2011: 282). 65 SOS Impresa (2011: 369). 66 The most important investigations in connection with the Mafia’s infiltration of renewable energy industries are the operations “Broken Wings” (2009), “Eolo” (2009), “Mandamento” (2012) and “Hermes 2” (2016), see Abbate (2020: 101, 215 ff.), Cardella (2009), Checchi/Polo (July 23, 2019 23.07.2019), Il Sole 24 Ore (March 12, 2011; January 11, 2013), I Siciliani (March 2013 März 2013), Legambiente (2010: 260 ff.), L’Espresso (April 10, 2008; September 9, 2013), MeridioNews (April 26, 2019), SOS Impresa (2011: 79 f.). 67 Direzione Investigativa Antimafia. Relazioni Semestrali (1992–2019). 68 For the usury business, see Arcidiacono (2015: 43), Avola (2016: 126 ff.), Centorrino (1995: 47 ff.), Grasso (1996), Grasso/Varano (2002: 89 ff.), Palidda (2016: 159 f.), SOS Impresa (2011: 203 ff.). 69 Lodato (1999: 69, transl. by the author). 70 Quotidiano di Sicilia (June 6, 2020). 71 Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, Speciale Covid (2019, 2° Semestre: 12–27).

312     Notes

72 The Cosa Nostra always used “experts” for money laundering, such as the bankers Sindona and Calvi at first, later tax experts like Ghiron and Provenzano, and many others. For money laundering techniques, such as through shell companies or international offshore companies, see Bernasconi (1998: 45 ff.), Di Girolamo (2012: 97 ff.), Pansa (1999: 90 ff.). 73 SOS Impresa (2011: 21, 268 ff.). 74 Bellavia/Pazzolo (2004: 172 f.). 75 SOS Impresa (2011: 291 ff.). 76 SOS Impresa (2011: 305 ff.), Gambetta (1994: 279 ff.), Legambiente (2010: 360 f.). 77 SOS Impresa (2011: 296 ff.), Legambiente (2010: 34, 315 ff.). 78 Borrometi (2018: 96 ff.), Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica. Commissione Parlamentare di Inchiesta sulle Attività Illecite Connesse al Ciclo dei Rifiuti e su Illeciti Ambientali ad esse Correlati (July 19, 2016), Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, special chapter »Mafia & Rifiuto« (1o Semestre 2019: 580–660), Centorrino (1998: 15 f.), Legambiente (2010: 57 ff., 84 ff., 149 ff., 154 ff., 166 ff.). 79 For the Mafia funeral companies, see Avola (2016: 97, 99, 105), Billitteri (2008: 125), Borrometi (2018: 121), Live Sicilia February 15, (2016), Pantaleone (1978: 123 ff.). 80 For the gas stations, see Macaluso (2016: 99), SOS Impresa (2011: 367). 81 SOS Impresa (2011: 275). 82 Angelini et al. (1987: 71), Fantò (1999: 61). 83 Arcidiacono (2016: 53), Fantò (1999: 66 ff.), Morosini (2009: 121 ff.). 84 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 53), Fantò (1999: 111 ff.), SOS Impresa (2011: 268). 85 Fantò (1999: 67 f.).

Notes    313

86 Avola (2016: 90 f.). 87 Arlacchi (1983: 144, 122, 130), Angelini et al. (1987: 61, 64 ff., 69), Fantò (1999: 45 ff.). Legambiente (2010: 224 ff., 280 ff.). 88 Avola (2016: 95), Borrometi (2018: 94 ff.), SOS Impresa (2011: 274). 89 Assemblea Regionale Siciliana. Commissione Parlamentare d’Inchiesta e Vigilanza sul Fenomeno della Mafia e della Corruzione in Sicilia (2019), Borrometi (2018: 17 ff., 79 ff., 89 ff., 105), Bascietto (2005: 116 ff.), Legambiente (2010: 356 ff., 359 f.), SOS Impresa (2011: 274, 288, 291 ff.). 90 Centorrino (1998: 7 ff.), Fantò (1999: 14 f.). 91 Corriere della Sera (November 11, 2008).

3.6 Murder Only in Case of Emergency 1 Edward C. Banfield developed the concept of “amoral familism” after a field study in 1954 in the village of Chiaramonte in Basilicata—called Montegrano by Banfield—meaning that any behavior that helps one’s own family is justified in that all others would behave in the same way. The American political scientist explained the emergence of this amoral familism with a special ethos that would shape the people of Montegrano, see Banfield (1967: 103–152). For “amoral familism” see also the criticism of La Spina (2005: 187), Sales (2015: 214 ff.). 2 Barcellona, Rossana/Sardella, Teresa (n. y.), La Repubblica (February 1, 2008). 3 For example, Giuseppe Genco Russo from Mussomeli (CL) donated money to his parish, brotherhoods, Catholic convents, orphanages, and hospitals, and paid for poor people’s banquets during religious festivals. Frank Coppola supported the church orphanage in his hometown of Partinico (PA) and Jimmy Quarasano donated money for the reconstruction of a church in Partinico. Cesare Manzella was committed to the church orphanage in Cinisi (PA), see Dino (2002: 15, 24). 4 Di Cagno/Natoli (1994: 21).

314     Notes

5 Vannucci (2012: 224). 6 Giornale di Sicilia ( January 12, 2005), La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (January 12, 2005). 7 Sondaggi BiDiMedia (June 27, 2019). 8 InfoDifesa (January 30, 2020). 9 However, an authority is indispensable, as even Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini recognized: “In every society there must be a category of people who put things back in order.” (Arlacchi 1983: 51, transl. by the author). 10 Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 148 ff.). 11 Quotidiano di Sicilia (May 16, 2019). 12 With around 270,000 employees (as of 2019), 20% of all Sicilian employees are employed by the state, while this is only 14% in Italy. In Sicily alone, 14,921 people (as of 2017) work in the huge regional bureaucracy, which has five times as many employees as Lombardy, although the latter has twice as many inhabitants. The remaining civil servants are employed in the municipalities (44,000 employees, as of 2019), the numerous public corporations, private companies with state participation, the universities and schools, the public hospitals and health offices, the judiciary and the police apparatus, etc. In addition to the permanent staff, there are thousands of so-called precari, employees with a limited term of office in the public service, such as a large number of forestry workers, as well as personnel in the field of so-called “Lavori Socialmente Utili” (social activities, mostly in the social or environmental sector). Indirectly, many cooperatives also belong to the public sector, namely those that were only founded in order to tap into public funds and have nothing to do with “real” cooperatives, cf. Ansa Sicilia (August 19, 2019), Arlacchi (1983: 90 ff.), La Spina (2005: 173 f.), Quotidiano di Sicilia (September 13, 2019), TP 24 (August 24, 2019). 13 Despite Article 97 of the Constitution, numerous positions within the state have not been filled through selection procedures in the past, and this has not changed to this day: In recent years, thousands of employees who had previously been employed on a temporary basis and had “organized”

Notes    315

their state-funded positions through clientelist practices, were directly transferred to regional and local administrations. In addition, since the beginning of the year, 2,000, positions for medical doctors have been filled directly. The lucrative consultant positions are also awarded at the discretion of politicians. With the Legge Regionale 8/2018, such direct appointments will be made even easier in the future. This type of appointment within the state often results in public employees being poorly qualified, see Ansa Sicilia (August 18, 2019), Associazione G.B. Vighenzi (March 15, 2019), I Nuovi Vespri (September 3, 2019), Il Sole 24 Ore (October 26, 2017), La Spina (2005: 174) Live Sicilia (August 20, 2019). 14 One of the most recent examples was provided by the University of Catania in 2019. During the investigation “Università bandita” it turned out that university employees had manipulated numerous concorsi, through which professor and lecturer positions as well as jobs in the administration were to be filled, see La Repubblica (June 28, 2019). What applies to the universities also applies to positions of doctors in hospitals. For example, Antonello Giarratano, Professor of Anesthesia and Reanimation in Palermo, wrote in an open letter to the Health Commissioner of Sicily that doctor positions would be filled not on the basis of suitability, but on the basis of relationships, see Insanitas (July 21, 2020). 15 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2014: 181). 16 Centro Impastato (2015). 17 Corriere della Sera (February 13, 2013), SOS Impresa (2011: 74). 18 Giornale di Sicilia (February 14, 2013). 19 Corriere della Sera (January 14, 2020), Dagospia (October 23, 2015), De Riccardis (2017: 152 ff.), La Spina (2005: 76, 94), Live Sicilia (March 29, 2018). 20 De Riccardis (2017: 165 ff.), Giornale di Sicilia (December 3, 2018), La Spina (2005: 94), La Voce di Bagheria (November 28, 2018). 21 La Repubblica (July 20, 2020).

316     Notes

22 For the long waiting times for medical examinations and surgeries in hospitals, see Giornale di Sicilia (May 6, 2019), Il Fatto Quotidiano (April 6, 2016). 23 Giornale di Sicilia (June 27, 2003: 3, transl. by the author). 24 When then mafiosi in neighbourhoods in Palermo like the ZEN, the CEP (Centro Edilizia Popolare = Centre of Social housing) or the Kalsa distributed food, the gratitude was enormous, see Il Fatto Quotidiano (April 8, 2020). 25 Il Sicilia (March 30, 2020), Palermo Today (March 28, 2020). 26 Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 117, transl. by the author). 27 Dino (2002: 90, transl. by the author). 28 Il Fatto Quotidiano (April 8, 2020). 29 Ciconte (2017a: 171). 30 Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 148 ff.). 31 Ramella/Trigilia (1997: 35 f.). 32 Dino (2016: 215, transl. by the author). 33 Bolognari (2017: 68 ff.), De Riccardis (2017: 198 ff.), Palumbo (2020: 48). 34 Dino (2002: 27 ff.). 35 Bolognari (2017: 70), Corriere della Sera (December 3, 2015). 36 La Spina (2005: 205), Palidda (2016: 165), Sanfilippo (2008: 145). 37 Bolzoni (2012: 134), Messina (2005: 129). 38 La Repubblica (May 7, 2020, transl. by the author).

Notes    317

39 Il Fatto Quotidiano (April 8, 2020). 40 Caldarola, quoted in Schenirer (1998: 49, transl. by the author). 41 Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 21). 42 For the corruption in the Sicilian judiciary, see Ardita (2015: 72 ff.), Billitteri (2008: 151, 212 f.), Bolzoni (2012: 180 f.), Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 111 ff., 126 ff., 162 ff., 179 f.), Borrometi (2018: 137 ff., 146), La Repubblica (October 18, 1993; September 22, 1994), Morosini (2009: 174), Nicastro (2006: 49, 106 ff.), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 20 ff., 207, 278 ff., 297 f.). 43 Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 21 f.). 44 Antimafia Duemila (June 22, 2020), Giornale di Sicilia (May 23, 2009; October 31, 2009). 45 De Riccardis (2017: 19), Il Fatto Quotidiano (December 14, 2011). 46 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 95, transl. by the author). 47 Il Sole 24 Ore (January 11, 2013, transl. by the author). 48 Centorrino (1995: 44), La Spina (2005: 67 f.). 49 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 109). 50 Examples of freelancers working for the Mafia who broke their professional code of conduct in order to help the Mafia can be found in: Amadore (2007), Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 23, 102 ff.). 51 Bolzoni (2012: 34, transl. by the author). 52 Violante (1998a: X, transl. by the author). 53 Mosca (2002: 31). 54 Palermo Today (August 27, 2017).

318     Notes

55 Pinotti/Tescaroli (2008: 26 f.), La Repubblica (April 8, 1992). 56 Arcidiacono (2015: 54, transl. by the author). 57 Avola (2016: 108, transl. by the author). 58 For the Mafia’s threatening gestures, see Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 97), Legambiente (2010: 353), Schenirer (1998: 38), SOS Impresa (2011: 78). 59 Borrometi (2018: 165 ff., 223), Dino (2002: 154). 60 Ceruso (2008: 159). 61 Lodato (1994: 99 ff.), TP 24 (June 30, 2020). 62 Palidda (2016: 192). 63 La Repubblica, quoted in Siebert (1997: 260). 64 Ceruso (2008: 238). 65 Palidda (2016: 194). 66 Avola (2016: 114, transl. by the author). 67 Mosca (2002: 34 f., 37 f.), Siragusa (2004: 44). 68 Salemi (1993: 116, transl. by the author). 69 Schenirer (1998: 58). 70 In the rural phase, some clans seem to have murdered for payment: A murder cost between 50 and 500 lire cf. Alongi (1977: 108).—In the USA, in the 1930s, there was even a murder company founded by the New York Mafia boss Albert Anastasia and his colleague Lepke Buchalter from the Jewish Kosher Mafia, which charged between US$ 1,000 and 5,000 per murder. The company, called “Murder Incorporated” by the press, even became famous through the film “Murder Inc.” (1960), cf. Turkus/Feder (1951). 71 Bolzoni (2012: 68), Correnti (1987: 53), Messina (1990: 16).

Notes    319

72 Alongi (1977: 108 ff.). 73 Borrometi (2018: 165 f.). 74 Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 53). 75 Ciconte (2017b: 101), Correnti (1987: 53), Rizza (1994: 60). 76 This has happened in the case of the irreproachable policeman Giovanni Lizzio in 1992, see Dino (2002: 154). 77 Bolzoni (2012: 99), Schenirer (1998: 43).

4 Italy—A Mafia Democracy? 1 Among the most important Italian Realists are Vilfredo Pareto (1848– 1923), Gaetano Mosca (1858–1941), and also the German Robert Michels (1876–1936), who taught in Italy. 2 Gentile (2005). 3 Marino (2002a: 58).

4.1 “The Fish Stinks from the Head”: Why Politicians get away with Everything 1 The Guardian (December 15, 2004). 2 This happened in an episode of the television series »L’Infedele« by Giuliano Ferrera. 3 Durkheim (1992: 153). 4 Leccese (2018: 36, transl. by the author). 5 Käsler refers to the fact that in case of political scandals »the validity claims of norms are being defined as ‘violated’ by the scandal.« (1991: 13). 6 Pellicani (1995: 43).

320     Notes

7 Arcidiacono (2015: 60), Avola (2016: 92), La Spina (2005: 158 ff., 172 ff., 180 ff., 201 ff.). 8 Colombo (2008: 11 ff., 126 ff.). 9 Rosati (2014: 61). 10 Tinti (2007). 11 Tinti (2007: 97 ff.). 12 Tinti (2007: 114, transl. by the author). 13 Tinti (2007: 167). 14 The phenomenon that members of the lower class are pursued more strongly by the judiciary than members of the middle and upper class, has widely been known—at the least since Sutherland’s classic study on white-collar criminality—to also be true for many other countries, see Sutherland (1940). 15 Gazzetta di Parma (June 1, 2020). 16 La Repubblica (October 14, 2020), La Spina (2005: 163 ff.). 17 A study by the Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione (ANAC) confirms the widespread nature of corruption in the public sector. This primarily concerns the awarding of public contracts, especially in the construction and waste management industries and in the healthcare sector (74%); this is followed by appointments in the public sector through direct awards or manipulated state competitions; and finally, administrative and judicial proceedings as well as building approvals (26%). The responsibility for this lies with politicians and civil servants whose ”preferred” candidates are placed into jobs. These politicians and civil servants are then compensated mainly with money (48%), jobs (13%) and consultant contracts (13%), but also with free meals, hotel stays, construction work, repairs, cleaning services, carpentry, gardening and painting services and even sexual services. Corruption is most widespread in southern Italy, with Sicily in the lead, primarily at the municipal level, see ANAC (October 17, 2019), Brioschi (2004: 149 ff.), Fondazione Res (2017), Vannucci (2012). International

Notes    321

organizations such as Transparency International or the World Bank also point to the alarming extent of corruption in Italy, see Transparency International (2021), World Bank (2020). The cases of Giovanni Bonsignore (1931–1990) and Filippo Basile (1961– 1999), two officials of the Sicilian Assessorato all’Agricoltura (Ministry of Agriculture), show how dangerous it can be for officials to do their work honestly: Bonsignore had carried out an internal investigation into the illegal awarding of subsidies to an agricultural consortium in Catania and the Mafia-like association “Il Gattopardo” in Palma di Montechiaro (AG) by his colleague Nino Sprio († 2016). Sprio, who was not only well connected to the Mafia in his hometown of Raffadali (AG), but also Vice President of the Il Gattopardo association, simply hired the Mafia killer Ignazio Giliberti and had Bonsignore killed. A few years later, the personnel manager of the Ministry of Agriculture, Filippo Basile, carried out an investigation on behalf of the regional anti-Mafia commission into tainted officials, in which the name of Sprio appeared, and, when Sprio was convicted of fraud in 1998, initiated his dismissal. Sprio took revenge by having Giliberti kill Basile—just as he had done with Bonsignore before—, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 112 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 181 f.), Forgione (2004: 134 ff.). 18 Il Sole 24 Ore (September 5, 2017). 19 On the phenomenon of illegal construction in Italy see, La Spina (2005: 173, 176 ff.), Legambiente (2010: 32 ff., 189 ff., 280 ff.). The difficulty of combating illegal construction, especially in Sicily, can be seen in the case of Angelo Cambiano, the mayor of Licata (AG): He ordered the responsible technical director of the municipality, the engineer Vincenzo Ortega, to arrange for the demolition of 190 of the approximately 350 illegal buildings in Licata. As a result, both Cambiano and Ortega had to endure threats and vandalism: Cambiano’s two houses were set on fire and he was beaten up; Ortega’s dogs were poisoned and his car was blown up. Finally, in mid2017, the city council passed a vote of no confidence against Cambiano and forced him to resign; Ortega, on the other hand, was suspended, both were given personal protection, see Il Fatto Quotidiano (September 16, 2019). 20 On the practice of condoni see, La Spina (2005: 173, 208). 21 Rosati (2014: 55, transl. by the author). 22 Palidda (2016: 148, transl. by the author).

322     Notes

23 Palidda (2016: 197, transl. by the author). 24 Palidda (2016: 148, transl. by the author). 25 Giordano (1992: 206 ff.). 26 La Spina (2005: 121). 27 In the 1980s, not only did a strong anti-Mafia movement arise in the population, but an anti-Mafia attitude developed as well. Since then, for example, there have been efforts in schools to teach children and young people civic virtues. For many Sicilians today, famous Mafia victims such as Falcone or Borsellino are almost heroes. However, it is noticeable that the anti-Mafia activities are subject to cycles, they increase after major attacks, but then decrease again or are completely discontinued. Today, the most important anti-Mafia organization by far is the anti-Mafia umbrella organization Libera.  It was co-founded in 1995 by the Roman teacher Saveria Antiochia, the mother of police officer Roberto Antiochia who was murdered in Palermo in 1985, together with the Turin priest Don Luigi Ciotti (born 1947), see Bestler (2001), La Spina (2005: 117 ff., 139 ff., 145 ff., 151, 206, 212). 28 Abbate (2020: 184, transl. by the author). 29 Palidda (2016: 153). 30 Durkheim (1992: 133). 31 Weber (1980: 167 ff.). 32 On the topic of “Particularism versus Common Good”, cf. Giordano (1992: 369 ff.). 33 Villari quoted in Tullio-Altan (2000: 9, transl. by the author). 34 Dalla Chiesa (2019: 260). 35 Putnam (1993). 36 Banfield (1967).

Notes    323

37 Fukuyama defines trust as an expectation of behavior that can only emerge when society members act cooperatively and share the same moral norms. He states: “The group, moreover, has to adopt common norms as a whole before trust can become generalised among its members.” (Fukuyama 1996: 27). In this respect, then, societies would differ, with the levels of trust having enormous consequences at the macro level. 38 With his theoretical construct of “social capital”, Coleman succeeds in including the “society” in the individualistic Rational-Choice-Theory: Individuals are not only rational cost-benefit maximizers, but also embedded in groups in which social capital is built, which is an important resource for the individual. Social capital therefore arises—in contrast to physical capital (e.g. machines, tools) and human capital (individual skills and abilities, e.g. education)—only in interaction with other individuals, with Coleman distinguishing between different forms of social capital; these include obligations and expectations that depend on the trustworthiness of the social environment, the available information channels within the group, and norms accompanied by sanctions, see Coleman (1988). 39 Durkheim (1992: 118–184). 40 Giordano (1992: 15–22, 472–512). 41 Giordano (1992: 368–456). 42 Putnam (1993: 121 ff.). 43 Putnam (1993: 130). 44 Rosati (77 ff., 85 ff., 97 ff.), Tullio-Altan (2000: 26 ff., 35 ff.). 45 Tullio-Altan (2000: 14, transl. by the author). 46 Tullio-Altan (2000: 14, transl. by the author). 47 Tullio-Altan (2000: 10). 48 Durkheim (1992: 421–465). 47 Putnam (1993: 121 ff.).

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49 It would require more intensive historical research to identify more specific causes for the non-development of a public morality oriented towards the common good. 50 Tomasi di Lampedusa (1994: 35).

4.2 Whether White, Red or Blue, What Counts is the “Smell of Power” 1 White was the party color of the Christian Democrats, red that of the Communists and blue that of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. 2 Di Matteo (2015: 20, transl. by the author). 3 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 77 f., transl. by the author). 4 Pezzino (1999: 36). 5 Renda (1998: 131, 134). 6 Marino (2002a: 97 ff.). 7 Marino (2002a: 97, transl. by the author). 8 De Felice Giuffrida, who was not only a member of parliament but also mayor of Catania, even managed to carry out a socialist experiment in his city with the establishment of a municipal bakery. The aim was to keep bread prices low. In Palermo, where a Mafia milling gang artificially kept bread prices high, this would have been completely unthinkable, see MichelsLindner (1909: 77 ff.). 9 Duggan (1986: 9, 12). 10 Viviano (2009: 138). 11 Duggan (1986: 14). 12 Catanzaro (1991: 11, transl. by the author).

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13 Lupo (1996: 198 f.), Turone (1985: 28), Tranfaglia (2001: 203 f.). 14 Mattarella, who came from a modest sailor’s family from the fishing town of Castellammare del Golfo (TP), was active in his youth in the Catholic lay organization Azione Cattolica and the Christian Democratic Partito Popolare. In the early 1940s, he was one of the main initiators of the Democrazia Cristiana in Sicily. After Mattarella had been a member of the transitional government as State Secretary in 1944 and 1945, he was repeatedly elected to the national parliament and belonged to several governments as cabinet minister. Several former members of the Mafia described Mattarella as the key contact person between the Cosa Nostra and the DC and claimed that Mattarella had won over numerous Mafia bosses for his party in the early 1940s and had done them various favors in return. Mattarella was named as one of the alleged instigators of the attack on the Portella della Ginestra in the trial in Viterbo against the gang of Salvatore Giuliano. From this moment on, Mattarella was constantly exposed to attacks due to his closeness to the Mafia, for example by the newspaper L’Ora, the English writer Gavin Maxwell and the anti-Mafia activists Michele Pantaleone and Danilo Dolci. Although Mattarella always successfully took legal action against his opponents, he could not rid himself of the Mafia image attached to him, see Bellavia (2010: 241 ff.), Bonanno/Lalli (2003: 196), Caruso (2005: 103), Casarrubea (2002: 258), Messina (2014: 116 f.), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 104, 734), Nicastro (2004: 68 ff.). 15 Volpe came from a poor family from the village of Montedoro (CL), who nevertheless was able to finance his medical studies. After joining the DC in 1946, Volpe gave up his career as a doctor and devoted himself to his political career: For 30 years he was a member of parliament, mayor of Montedoro and belonged to various governments as state secretary. The press repeatedly reported on Volpe’s closeness to the Mafia—especially to the bosses Genco Russo and Luciano Leggio—, see Caruso (2005: 103 ff.), Bellavia (2010: 62, 242), Nicastro (2004: 83 ff.), Pumilia (1998: 263 ff.), Sanfilippo (2008: 231), Tranfaglia (2001: 203, 243). 16 Restivo, the son of a respected professor of law and politician, was himself a professor of law for a long time. As a member of the DC, he held the office of Prime Minister of Sicily between 1949 and 1955. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he belonged to various national governments as a minister. After the Fanfaniani had taken over power within the party, Restivo was given a ministerial post in Rome. Various former members of the Mafia

326     Notes

claimed that Restivo had maintained close relationships with the capofamiglia from Bagheria, Antonino Mineo, but also with the Palermo mafioso Salvatore Greco (Il Senatore), see Arlacchi (2019: 99), Caruso (2005: 105), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 120, 822), Stancanelli (2016: 32), Torrealta (2011: 32 ff.). 17 The lawyer Aldisio came from a wealthy family of large landowners, was elected to the Parliament for the first time in 1921 for the Partito Popolare, held the office of Prefect after the defeat of the Fascists in the province of Caltanissetta, was High Commissioner for Sicily and later held various ministerial positions during the transitional governments. In the post-war period, Aldisio was elected several times to the House of Representatives and the Senate. Aldisio is said to have protected the boss Genco Russo and maintained friendships with mafiosi, see Caruso (2005: 105), Ceruso (2007: 105 f.), Finley et al. (1989: 286), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 800), Sanfilippo (2008: 132 ff.), Turone (1985: 93). 18 The lawyer Gioia was related to the industrialist Filippo Pecoraino and the shipowners and aristocratic landowners Tagliavia. His rise within the party began in the early 1950s when he was elected to the office of Palermo DC provincial secretary. Without being a friend of the Mafia himself, Gioia not only promoted the massive entry of “mafiosi” into his party, but also supported the careers of Mafia politicians such as Lima and Ciancimino. Gioia’s political star began to decline in 1968 when one of his followers, Lima, left him in favor of Andreotti, see Bolzoni (2012: 79), Ceruso (2007: 90, 158 f.), Lupo (1998: 198), Nicastro (2004: 88 ff.), Pumilia (1989: 240 ff.), Tranfaglia (2001: 216), Turone (1985: 54). 19 Lima, the son of an archivist, studied law and worked for a while as an employee of the Banco di Sicilia. First, he led DC sports groups, before he was promoted by Gioia in 1958 to become mayor of Palermo and later elected to the House of Representatives. Under Mayor Lima, the “Sacco di Palermo” (looting of Palermo), a corrupt construction scheme occurred in which the Mafia and Lima made tremendous amounts of money. In 1968, he switched to the Andreotti faction of the party, and on a national level he held the position of State Secretary from 1974 onwards. Numerous former mafiosi reported that Lima was the Cosa Nostra’s key political contact and liaison to Giulio Andreotti. Lima’s closest political confidants were all “men of honor”, like the Mafia tax collectors Nino and Ignazio Salvo. He also kept company with bosses like Salvatore La Barbera, Tommaso Buscetta

Notes    327

and Stefano Bontate. Although Lima had been close to the old Mafia aristocracy, after the Second Mafia War he also made peace with the Corleonesi. Since more and more was being said in public about Lima’s Mafia ties, he gradually became a problem for his party and was therefore “exiled” to the European Parliament in 1979. When he failed to “correct” the results of the Maxi Trial, he was shot dead in front of his villa in Mondello (PA) on March 12, 1992, cf. Bolzoni (2012: 77 ff., 137), Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 67 ff.), Caruso (1995: 106), Cassarà (2020), Ceruso (2007: 103), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 55, 103, 797, 829 ff.), Nicastro (2006: 39 ff.), Paoli (2003: 242), Tranfaglia (2001: 217 ff.), Veltri/Travaglio (2001: 29), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 207). 20 After unsuccessful studies in engineering and law, Ciancimino, the son of a poor barber from Corleone, worked in the office of Bernardo Mattarella, then State Secretary for Transport. Thanks to his relationship with Mattarella, Ciancimino was able to obtain a license for the transport of railway wagons in Palermo despite lacking the necessary qualifications and began his entrepreneurial career. In 1956, he was elected to the Palermo City Council for the first time and joined the Fanfaniani. Under Mayor Lima, Ciancimino was appointed assessor for Public Works in 1959, an office which he ruthlessly exploited for personal enrichment and favoritism towards his Mafia friends. Ciancimino had close contacts with the Mafia from his youth, specifically the Corleone clan. When the corrupt Ciancimino became mayor of Palermo in the fall of 1970, outrage broke out and he had to resign, but he retained his political influence. After he became untenable for the Fanfaniani, Ciancimino founded his own small DC wing in 1976, which, if necessary, moved closer to other wings like Lima’s Andreottiani. At the DC regional party conference in 1983, Ciancimino was officially deposed within the party, but he was still able to participate politically through his confidants until he was charged at the Maxi Trial and had to give up his party membership in 1985. Ciancimino was sentenced to a multi-year prison sentence at the Maxi Trial, yet he did not have to serve it, and was only placed under house arrest for health reasons. At the beginning of the 1990s, Ciancimino made headlines again, this time in connection with the trattativa, the negotiations between the state and the Mafia. Ciancimino is said to have represented the Corleonesi, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 201 ff., 213), Billitteri (2008: 75), Bolzoni (2012: 28), Caruso (2017: 267 ff.), Cassarà (2020: 17), Ciancimino/Licata (2010), Ciconte (2008b: 161), Dino (2011: 19 ff.), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 797, 809, 820 ff., 833 ff., 900), Nicastro (2004: 40, 91 f.), Pennino (2006: 155 ff.), Pumilia

328     Notes

(1998: 88), Sanfilippo (2008: 226 ff.), Sisti (2007), Tranfaglia (2001: 104, 116 ff.), Turone (1985: 73 ff.). 21 Stancanelli (2016: 21, transl. by the author). 22 The political career of the Roman Andreotti, who had already committed himself during his law studies in a Catholic student organization as well as in the DC youth organization, began as State Secretary under Alcide De Gasperi. From 1948 onwards, Andreotti was a member of the House of Representatives without interruption, holding various ministerial posts from 1954 onwards—above all as Minister of Defense and Foreign Minister. In 1954, he founded his own party wing with “Primavera”, which, however, remained limited to the region of Latium for a long time and was insignificant at DC congresses. This changed in 1968 when the Sicilian DC leader Lima joined Andreotti’s right-wing wing, so that Andreotti was able to become Prime Minister seven times from 1972 onwards. From then on, Andreotti not only had to promote Mafia politicians, but even had to meet with bosses personally and do them favors. As a result, Andreotti’s DC wing in Sicily developed into a kind of Mafia cosca. In 1993, the Palermo prosecutor’s office, headed by Gian Carlo Caselli (born 1939), began investigating Andreotti for Concorso Esterno in Associazione Mafiosa (cooperation with the Mafia). The Andreotti trial was opened on September 26, 1995 which ended in October 1999 with an acquittal. In the appeal proceedings, however, the cooperation of Andreotti with the Mafia from the 1970s to 1980 was established in May 2003, but remained without legal consequences due to the statute of limitations. The court considered two episodes to be particularly relevant: two meetings between Andreotti and the Mafia boss Stefano Bontate, who was angry with the Sicilian DC Prime Minister Piersanti Mattarella, in the summer of 1979; and in April 1980, with Andreotti demanding clarification from Bontate about the murder of Mattarella at the second meeting. It is said that a loud argument broke out at this meeting, during which Bontate is said to have told Andreotti that the Mafia was in charge in Sicily and that he should not even think about passing special anti-Mafia-laws after the death of Mattarella. In addition to the meetings with Bontate, the court considered it as proven that Andreotti had ensured the “correction” of a verdict in the case of the Mafia bosses Filippo and Vincenzo Rimi from Alcamo (TP) and also maintained relations with the Mafia tax collectors, the cousins Salvo and—after the second Mafia War—with the Corleonesi.

Notes    329

In the end, however, the Court of Appeals came to the conclusion that for the period after 1980, cooperation between Andreotti and the Mafia could not be conclusively proven, which is why Andreotti was acquitted for lack of evidence. The Court of Cassation confirmed the verdict of the appeal proceedings in October 2004, thus allowing the honorary senator who had been appointed in 1991, to go unpunished. The trial in Palermo was not the only one in which Andreotti had to answer for Mafia connections: as early as 1993, the Roman prosecutor’s office initiated an investigation against Andreotti after the Mafia defector Buscetta had declared that Andreotti had commissioned the Mafia to murder the journalist Mino Pecorelli († 1979), who had access to sensitive information about Andreotti. The trial, which opened in Perugia in April 1996, ended in September 1999 with an acquittal, but in the appeal proceedings Andreotti was sentenced to 24 years in prison and in the end the Court of Cassation acquitted Andreotti in 2003 for lack of evidence, see Cassarà (2020: 153 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 152 ff.), Maestri (2014), Minna (2002), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 106 f., 123, 152 ff., 758 ff., 832, 883 ff.), Stancanelli (2016: 60). 23 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 831). 24 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 808, 842). 25 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 78 f., transl. by the author). 26 D’Acquisto, a lawyer and loyal follower of Lima, the most powerful Andreottiano in Western Sicily, began his career as mayor of Mezzojuso (PA), held the office of the Sicilian regional president between 1980 and 1982, was then elected to the House of Representatives and belonged to several governments as state secretary. D’Acquisto’s closeness to the Mafia was well known, which is why he was regularly booed at funerals of Mafia victims. According to Mafia defectors, D’Acquisto often received mafiosi at his home and did them countless favors, see La Repubblica (September 2, 1988), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 826, 900). 27 The Palermo doctor Gorgone was first a regional representative in 1981, and from 1987 onwards he was an assessor for the regional government several times. He got into the clutches of the judiciary in the mid-1990s because of his Mafia connections, having had the Mafia families Altofonte (PA) and Cerda (PA) organize his election campaign and returning this favor with the allocation of public contracts. Gorgone was the first Sicilian

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politician to be convicted on all judicial levels and had to go to prison in 2002 to serve a seven-year prison sentence. This remained incomprehensible to Gorgone, as he had behaved no differently than many of his party colleagues, see Cassarà (2020: 32), La Repubblica (November 15, 2002), Live Sicilia (February 2, 2014), Lodato/Travaglio (2005: 295), Pinotti/Tescaroli (2008: 235 f.) 28 Drago, an engineer from Catania, was elected to the Sicilian Regional Parliament in the 1950s, to the presidency of Catania in 1958, to the mayoralty of Catania in 1964, and repeatedly to the House of Representatives or the Senate between 1972 and 1983. He held several government positions as State Secretary. First Fanfaniano, later leader of the Andreottiani in Eastern Sicily, Drago was not only closely connected to the Cavalieri di Catania, i.e., the local Mafia-related construction companies, but also to the Mafia clan of Nitto Santapaola. In 1993, in connection with the conversion of the former sulphur refinery in Catania’s Viale Africa into a cultural center, Drago was placed under investigation. After Drago had initially been sentenced to four years in prison, he was ultimately acquitted. After his political confidant Paolo Arena, the DC secretary of Misterbianco (CT), had been murdered by the Tuppi clan in 1991, Drago withdrew from politics, cf. Ardita (2015: 84), Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 112 ff.), Montanaro/ Ruotolo (1995: 896 ff.). 29 Elected to the DC provincial board of Enna at the end of the 1980s and to the provincial parliament of Enna in 1990, the defense lawyer Bevilacqua—supported by Lima and the national party leadership— imposed his candidacy for the Regional Parliament against the express will of the party base in 1991. Parts of the party base turned against Bevilacqua because he was widely known as the Mafia boss of Barrafranca (EN). What was not known was that Bevilacqua was also the highest Mafia boss in the entire province of Enna as district representative. In November 1992, Bevilacqua was sentenced to eleven and a half years in prison for membership in the Mafia, cartel agreements and extortion, but was acquitted on a technicality on appeal. In July 2003, Bevilacqua was arrested again and sentenced to 13 years and seven months, and finally to life imprisonment in 2009 because he had had the businessman Domencio Calcagano from Valguarnera (EN) murdered in 2003. Yet as early as May 2018, the boss was allowed to leave prison for medical reasons and placed under house arrest, cf. Amadore (2007: 18 f.), Giornale di Sicilia (July 1, 2020), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 886 ff.).

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30 The lawyer Maira came from a family of politicians, was a member of the city council in the 1980s, mayor of Caltanissetta and was elected to the Sicilian regional parliament in 1981 and the House of Representatives in 1992. As early as November 1992, the prosecutor’s office applied for the lifting of his immunity. He was accused of influencing city council decisions in favor of the Cosa Nostra in Caltanissetta, trying to transfer the police chief of Caltanissetta, Carmelo Casabona, who was annoying the Mafia, and buying votes from the Mafia. The court considered the electoral fraud to be probable, but the statute of limitations had already run out on this offense. Maira also made headlines in connection with the fatal attack on Judge Falcone: He was suspected of being the “mole” who spied on Falcone in Rome and informed the death squad about his arrival in Palermo. Nevertheless, after the dissolution of the DC, Maira continued his political career, first with the PPI and later with various Christian Democratic splinter parties such as the UDC, cf. Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 12 ff.), Martorana/Nigrelli (1993: 87 ff.), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 897 ff.), La Repubblica (February 4, 1993), Tranfaglia (2001: 310). 31 The carpenter Giammarinaro was employed in Germany for a while as a guest worker, returned to his hometown of Salemi in 1969 and, founded a construction company together with the engineer Ignazio Lo Presti, the brother-in-law of the mafia tax collector and DC patron Nino Salvo who was also from Salemi. Further Giammarinaro joined the DC. Thanks to his political connections, Giammarinaro became president of the Vittorio Emanuele II Hospital in Salemi in 1976 and later a member of the board of directors of the USL 4 health authority in Mazara del Vallo, so that he was able to control large parts of the health care system in the province of Trapani and, with illegally acquired public funds and straw men, build an economic empire consisting of medical laboratories, construction and service companies. From the very beginning, Giammarinaro had an open relationship with the Mafia. It was not until 1988 that his internal party opponents were able to remove Giammarinaro from the DC provincial board of Trapani. The police also considered Giammarinaro to be dangerous, but limited themselves to revoking his gun license in 1990. In 1990, Giammarinaro, together with the cousins Salvo and Lima, founded the Andreotti wing in the province of Trapani and ran for the Sicilian regional parliament in 1991. Prime Minister Andreotti supported “his” candidate at his spectacular election campaign finale in the Palagranata sports hall in Trapani. Giammarinaro was elected to the regional parliament with

332     Notes

109,261 preference votes (46% of all votes)—a record vote. (Montanaro/ Ruotolo 1995: 891). In 1994, he was served two arrest warrants and his political mandate was revoked. Giammarinaro then fled first to Tunisia and then to Slovenia. After negotiating a lenient sentence, he returned to Sicily in 1996 and turned himself in. He repaid part of the embezzled funds and was acquitted for lack of evidence, but placed under police supervision. Nevertheless, he remained politically active, running for the regional parliament again in 2001 (for the Christian Democrat list Biancofiore) and, since he was no longer publicly presentable himself, exerting his influence: for example, in 2008 in Salemi he launched the controversial art historian Vittorio Sgarbi (born 1952) from Ferrara (FE) as a mayoral candidate, who followed Giammarinaro’s advice, as a result of which the municipality was dissolved in 2012 due to Mafia infiltration. But before that, Sgarbi, who caused a stir with his eccentric ideas and declared that Giammarinaro was being persecuted unjustly, that the Mafia no longer existed anyway, resigned in a huff, see Di Girolamo (2012: 121 ff.), Gomez/Travaglio (2001: 485 ff.), Il Fatto Quotidiano (March 23, 2012), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 175 ff., 891 ff.). 32 The Cianciminiani included numerous “men of honor”, including city councillors, senators and national representatives such as the lawyer Giuseppe Cerami (1924–1989) from the Brancaccio-Conte Federico family, the doctor Francesco Barbaccia (1922–2010) from the Cinisi family (PA) or doctor Gioacchino Pennino from the Brancaccio family, see Montanaro/ Ruotolo (1995: 800 ff.). 33 Ruffini, a native of Mantua (MN), was the nephew of the Archbishop of Palermo Ernesto Ruffini (1888–1967) and a member of the DC since 1945. He worked as a lawyer in Palermo (where the Mafia tax collectors, the Salvo cousins, were among his main clients) and ran for parliament for the first time in 1963. He was subsequently elected several times, served as State Secretary, Minister of Transport and Minister of Defense in various governments, but had no qualms about appearing in public with mafiosi or being supported by them. Like his uncle Ernesto (who considered the Mafia an invention of the Communists and even defended the Mafia clan of the Capuchin brothers from Mazzarino (CL), he always played down the problem of the Mafia as a defamation of Sicily, see Ceruso (2007: 64–144),

Notes    333

Deaglio (1993: 152), Romano (2002: 443–443), Sales (2010: 96–96), Stancanelli (2016: 65). 34 For the DC regional congress in Agrigento in 1983, see Pennino (2006: 153), Stancanelli (2016: 67). 35 The lawyer Mannino was elected to the city council of Sciacca in 1961, to the regional assembly in 1971 and to the national House of Representatives several times from 1976 onwards. Although the former mafioso Rosario Spatola (1949–2008) from Campobello di Mazara (TP) had incriminated Mannino, the dormant investigations were only resumed when, in 1994, the Palermo Mafia politician Gioacchino Pennino began to testify against Mannino. In the trial that began in November 1995, he was accused of working with the Stidda and the Mafia bosses from Agrigento since the 1970s: In return for support during the election campaign, he is said to have reciprocated with public contracts or jobs. As the Sicilian financial assessor, he helped the Mafia tax collectors Salvo. In 2001, Mannino was acquitted because, in the eyes of the judges, the evidence that Mannino had rendered services to the Cosa Nostra was insufficient. Although Mannino was sentenced to five years and four months in prison upon appeal in 2004, this sentence was overturned by the Court of Cassation in 2005 due to errors in the justification for the sentence and the acquittal in the second appeal was confirmed by the Court of Cassation in 2010. The long-running proceedings had not harmed Mannino’s political career in any way: as early as 2006, he returned to politics and was elected to the Senate for the Christian Democratic UDC, see Cassarà (2020: 232 ff.), Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 554 ff.), Forgione (2004: 81), Giornale di Sicilia (May 12, 2004), La Repubblica—Cronaca di Palermo (April 28, 2009), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 843 ff.), Santino (1997: 159 ff.). 36 Inzerillo, a former land surveyor employed by the railway, was the political protégé of DC Senator Giuseppe Cerami. He was first elected to the Palermo city council in 1980 and served as an assessor on various city governments from 1983; in 1990, he even became deputy mayor for a short time. His switch to the left-wing parties in 1990 helped him to the office of senator in 1992, but his problems began shortly afterwards, when various pentiti pointed to the considerable influence of Michele Graviano, the head of the Brancaccio clan, on Inzerillo. Inzerillo is said to have accepted bribes from various construction companies and tried to bribe judges with the help of the notary and Freemason Pietro Ferrao. His name was mentioned

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in connection with the attacks on the judges Falcone and Borsellino. However, the investigations against Inzerillo were always discontinued. In 2004, an appeals court overturned the eight-year prison sentence imposed in 2000 for cooperation with the Mafia, but in January 2011 Inzerillo was finally sentenced to five years and four months in prison by the Court of Cassation. However, he was released from prison in 2012 due to good behavior, see Giornale di Sicilia (November 17, 2009), Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 636), La Repubblica (November 22, 2000; January 22, 2000; January 14, 2011 2011), La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (December 4, 2004), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 844, 846), Palermo Today (August 1, 2012), Paoli (2003: 194), 19 Luglio 1992 (January 13, 2011). 37 Culicchia, an educator by training, was mayor of his hometown Partanna (TP) for thirty years from 1962 and in addition led the DC in Trapani as provincial secretary between 1965 and 1973. In 1976, Culicchia was elected to the Sicilian Regional Parliament for the first time, in 1992 also to the House of Representatives, and, in addition, he was assessor of the Sicilian Regional Government. After Piera Aiello, Rita Atria and the former mafioso Rosario Spatola from Campobello di Mazara had testified against him, his immunity had to be lifted for a trial: Culicchia is said to have helped the cosca Accardo from Partanna and companies and cooperatives close to the Mafia to enrich themselves with public money after the Belice earthquake (1968); he is also said to have accepted drug money from the clan from Castelvetrano and promoted money laundering at the Vatican bank. But above all, Culicchia was accused of having instigated the murder of his intra-party rival, the Partanna city councillor Stefano Nastasi († 1983). The proceedings for the murder charge were discontinued in February 1996, he was acquitted of the remaining charges on the first judicial level in 1997, a verdict that was confirmed on appeal in 2000. As a result, Culicchia ran for the Regional Assembly as a member of the Margherita in 2001 and was elected mayor of Partanna again in 2003; between 2008 and 2012, he also managed to be elected provincial president of Trapani on the MPA list of the former Christian Democrat Raffaele Lombardo, see Antimafia Duemila (July 26, 2014), Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 13 ff., 33 f.), Corriere della Sera (June 25, 1992), La Repubblica (May 9, 1992), Pinotti (2007: 577 ff.), Rizza (1994: 26 ff.), Tranfaglia (2001: 311).

Notes    335

38 Canino was repeatedly a member of the Sicilian regional assembly and held assessor positions in the regional government several times since 1981. After the dissolution of the DC, he belonged to the leading figures of the party “Sicilia Libera” promoted by Freemasonry circles and the Mafia boss Leoluca Bagarella. He was further an alleged member of the forbidden lodge Iside 2. After various former mafiosi had testified that Canino was “in the hands” of the boss of Trapani, Vincenzo Virga, he was excluded from the regional parliament, arrested in 1998 and, among other things, accused of cooperation with the Mafia, manipulation of public contracts and bribery of officials. Canino died shortly before the end of the trial, but would have been sentenced to imprisonment, cf. Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 61), La Repubblica (March 3, 2014), Pinotti (2007: 560, 564). 39 Berlusconi and Dell’Utri knew each other from their law studies in Milan. When the Mafia demanded protection money from the young Milan builder Berlusconi in the 1970s, he brought his friend Dell’Utri from Palermo to Milan as his secretary in 1974. After his studies, Dell’Utri had first worked in Rome for the Elis Sports Centre, a facility of the Catholic Opus Dei, and in 1967 he had founded the Athletic Club Bacigalupo football club in Palermo and worked for the Sicilcassa bank from 1970. In the soccer club, Dell’Utri became friends above all with Gaetano (Tanino) Cinà from the Malaspina family, who remained his most important contact in the Cosa Nostra. In Milan, in 1974, Dell’Utri arranged a meeting between Berlusconi and the Mafia bosses Stefano Bontate, Tanino Cinà, Mimmo Teresi and Francesco Di Carlo at the headquarters of Berlusconi’s construction company Edilnord, which marked the beginning of Berlusconi’s cooperation with the Mafia. At Bontate’s instigation, Vittorio Mangano (1940–2000) from the Palermo Porta Nuova family became Berlusconi’s bodyguard in July 1974, but officially he worked as the administrator of Berlusconi’s Villa Arcore. Berlusconi repaid him with regular payments to the Cosa Nostra and alleged money laundering. Between 1975 and 1979, it seems that numerous Palermo Mafia bosses such as Stefano Bontate, Michele Graviano and Giovanni Pullarà invested in Berlusconi’s construction companies, as the Mafia member Giuseppe Graviano, the Mafia defector Francesco Di Carlo and Filippo Alberto Rapisarda, a financier who had himself laundered Mafia drug money, claimed. Berlusconi never managed to convincingly explain the origin of his entrepreneurial start-up capital. When the bodyguard Mangano was temporarily arrested in 1974, he had to

336     Notes

leave Villa Arcore and Berlusconi broke off contact with Dell’Utri, although the payments to the Cosa Nostra continued to flow. Looking for new “protectors”, Berlusconi found them in Licio Gelli’s secret lodge P2, which he joined in 1978. With Gelli’s help, Berlusconi received enormous, unsecured bank loans.—Marcello Dell’Utri and his twin brother Alberto, on the other hand, took up a position with the Sicilian financier and drug money launderer Filippo Alberto Rapisarda († 2011), who lived in Milan. The hiring of the two twin brothers was arranged by the mafioso Tanino Cinà. Dell’Utri’s bond with the Cosa Nostra strengthened. In the early 1980s, at the request of the Cosa Nostra, Dell’Utri returned to Milan and to Berlusconi. In those years, Berlusconi, sponsored by his friend and best man Bettino Craxi, created his media conglomerate Fininvest, not without violating existing laws. Dell’Ultri, at that point, became head of Fininvest’s advertising agency Publitalia. Totò Riina, who was looking for new political partners after the Maxi Trial, welcomed the pressure on Berlusconi, which increased the attacks on Berlusconi’s Standa warehouses in Catania from 1990. When Berlusconi had gotten into serious trouble after the Tangentopoli scandal— his protector Craxi had been sentenced and fled to Tunisia and his company Fininvest was on the verge of bankruptcy—his closest collaborators— Dell’Utri, Cesare Previti (born 1934) and Giuliano Ferrara (born 1952)— proposed to him to go on the offensive and enter politics himself. Berlusconi consulted, among others, with the media expert Fedele Confalonieri (born 1937), the former director of the Roman daily newspaper “Tempo” Gianni Letta (born 1935), and the political scientist Giuliano Urbani (born 1937); and in 1993, Berlusconi decided to indeed found a new party: Forza Italia. In the March 1994 elections this new party did so well that Berlusconi became Italian Prime Minister. The Cosa Nostra had campaigned massively for the FI candidates and founded so many FI clubs that some of the clubs had to close in order not to give the FI the reputation of a Mafia party from the outset. Nevertheless, the FI whose candidates included a number of Mafia defense lawyers, very quickly acquired a Mafia image. Both Dell’Utri and Berlusconi were tried for cooperation with the Mafia, with the proceedings against Berlusconi being discontinued in March 1997, while Dell’Utri was sentenced by the Court of Cassation to seven years in prison in May 2014. Just before the announcement of the verdict, Dell’Utri fled, but was soon arrested in Beirut and extradited to Italy. However, for health reasons, he was able to leave prison early in July 2018 and was placed under house arrest. However, not all Mafia-related proceedings against Berlusconi and Dell’Utri have been completed: one, for example revolves around the

Notes    337

two men’s responsibility for the attack on Via dei Georgofili in Florence (1993), another one is about their involvement in the so-called Trattativa Stato-Mafia (State-Mafia negotiations) in Palermo. In the Palermo trial, Dell’Utri was sentenced to 12 years in prison on the first judicial level, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 180 ff., 214 ff., 224 ff.), Bellavia (2010: 206–217, 364), Caruso (2017: 518 ff.), Forgione (2004: 50 ff.), Gomez/Travaglio (2001: 19 ff., 84 ff.; 2005; 2006: 125 ff., 248 ff.), Il Fatto Quotidiano (February 2, 2020; February 14, 2020), Kaos (2005: 5–10, 850–857), Pinotti (2007: 569 ff.), Santino (2007: 227 ff.), Stille (2006), Tranfaglia (2008: 101, 116 ff.), Ursetta (2013: 55 ff.), Veltri/Travaglio (2001). 40 The financial expert Giuseppe Provenzano (born 1946) from Corleone, who was the Sicilian regional president between 1996 and 1998, was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement of public funds by the Court of Cassation in May 2009. In 1984, he was arrested on suspicion of managing money for Saveria Benedetta Palazzolo, the wife of boss Bernardo Provenzano, but he was acquitted in the preliminary investigation in 1989 because, he supposedly did not know where the millions of the penniless shirtmaker came from, cf. Abbate / Gomez (2007: 154 ff.), Bellavia (2010: 49 ff.), Forgione (2004: 53 ff.), Il Fatto Quotidiano (February 7, 2013).— D’Ali (born 1951), who comes from a wealthy Trapani business dynasty and was a senator and provincial president of Trapani and belonged to various Berlusconi governments as state secretary, was accused of cooperating with the Mafia. However, in 2013 and in the appeal in 2016, the statute of limitations or lack of evidence was established. As a “danger to society”, he was temporarily placed under house arrest. However, the Court of Cassation finally overturned the acquittal and ordered a new appeal, in which D’Ali was sentenced to six years in prison in July 2021. This sentence became final in December 2022 and D’Ali had to go to prison, cf. Abbate (2020: 149 f.), ANSA (July 22, 2021), Il Fatto Quotidiano (December 14, 2022), L’Espresso (March 20, 2008), Forgione (2004: 61 ff.), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 108).— Former director of the Sicilcassa from Termini Imerese Gaspare Giudice, who hails from Canicatti (AG) and was elected several times to the House of Representatives starting in 1996, also ran into problems with the judiciary due to his involvement in mobilization of votes through the Mafia, fraudulent bankruptcy, money laundering, and extortion. However, in a cross-party vote, the House of Representatives rejected a motion that Giudice be placed in pre-trial detention. Giudice was acquitted on the first level in April 2007, but an appeal never took place due to Giudice’s premature death, see Abbate/

338     Notes

Gomez (2007: 47 ff.), Caminita Altervista (January 23, 2021), Gomez/ Travaglio (2001: 357 f.), L’Espresso (March 20, 2008).—Defense lawyer Mormino from Palermo, who was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 2001, was also accused of having votes mobilized by the Mafia and of working in the House of Representatives on behalf of the Cosa Nostra’s interests. The boss Provenzano had high hopes that Mormino, as a representative, could solve the Mafia’s legal problems. It was also said that Mormino had taken money from mafiosi to »set things right« in court proceedings. All investigations against Mormino were discontinued early on, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 258 ff.), Caminita Altervista (January 23, 2021), Trocchia (2009: 154).—Giuseppe Nobile from Favara (AG), a doctor and owner of numerous medical laboratories, member of the provincial executive of FI in Agrigento and representative of the provincial parliament of Agrigento, was arrested in 2002 when he took part in a Mafia summit meeting. Nobile was sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison in 2013 for various offenses, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 175), Agrigento TV (February 23, 2013), La Repubblica (July 15, 2002; July 16, 2002).—Carlo Vizzini (born 1947), a lawyer from Palermo and son and political heir of PSDI politician Casimiro Vizzini, switched to FI in 1998. He had been a member of the House of Representatives since 1976 and had served as State Secretary and Minister in various governments. As PSDI party secretary, he was involved in the Tangentopoli scandal, was sentenced on the first level for taking bribes, but was acquitted on appeal because the statute of limitations had expired. Based on statements by the son of Mafia politician Vito Ciancimino, Massimo, an investigation was launched against Vizzini in 2009 for corruption and favoritism towards the Mafia. However, since Parliament had not allowed the use of tapped telephone conversations between Vizzini and Lapis, the manager of the gas company, the investigation was discontinued in July 2014, see Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 636). Il Fatto Quotidiano (October 20, 2011), La Repubblica (June 11, 2009).— Defense lawyer Francesco Musotto (born 1947) came from a family of politicians and large landowners and switched from PSI to FI in 1994. Musotto was a city councilor in Cefalù (PA), regional representative, president of the province of Palermo, and member of the European Parliament. After he was arrested in November 1995 with his brother Cesare on suspicion of hiding fugitive mafiosi, he resigned as provincial president and was acquitted on the first level, in the appeal and by the Court of Cassation. His brother Cesare, on the other hand, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in 1998 (reduced to five years on appeal in 1999), see Caselli/Lo Forte (2020: 9), La

Notes    339

Repubblica (April 5, 1998; April 7, 2001), Lodato/Travaglio (2005: 295), Santino (1997: 232).—Giovanni Mercadante (born 1947) from Prizzi (PA), senior physician at the Maurizio Ascoli cancer clinic in Palermo and university lecturer in radiology, was for the FI a member of the city council in Palermo in the 1990s and a member of the Sicilian regional parliament in 2001 and again in 2006. Mercadante was repeatedly investigated but the investigations were discontinued. In 2006, however, he was accused, among other things, of having abused his professional position to treat fugitive mafiosi, of having been a political contact for various “men of honor” and of having accepted campaign help from the Cosa Nostra in return for favors such as the manipulation of hospital appointments. Some mafiosi even claimed that Mercadante had asked his Mafia cousin Cannella to have the lover of his wife Agnese murdered, the businessman Enzo D’Amico. But this was forbidden by the top Mafia boss Provenzano—after all, D’Amico was the nephew of his financial advisor and confidant Pino Lipari. The original sentence of ten years and eight months in 2009 was finally confirmed by the Court of Cassation after repeated appeals, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 271 ff.), Adnkronos (July 10, 2006 10.07.2006), Bellavia (2010: 53), La Repubblica (May 3, 2009; April 8, 2015). —Giuseppe (Pino) Firrarello (born 1939) was a DC city councilor and mayor in Bronte (CT) and starting in 1986 a representative of the Sicilian Regional Parliament. In the Regional Government, he held several times the position of assessor, and in 1996 he made the jump to the Senate for the CDU. In 1999, Firrarello switched to FI, for which he has since held various political offices. In 1999, investigations were initiated against Firrarello on suspicion of cooperation with the Mafia as well as bid rigging and bribery in connection with the construction of the Garibaldi Hospital in Catania. Since the Senate refused to lift his immunity, Firrarello was spared detention. The verdict of two years’ imprisonment from 2007, issued on the first level, was overturned in 2012 because the offense had expired in the meantime. Firrarello is still mayor of Bronte today, see Forgione (2004: 91), Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 701 f.), L’Espresso (March 20, 2008).—Firrarello’s son-in-law, Giuseppe Castiglione (born 1963), was a DC city councilor between 1989 and 1992, a CDU member of the Regional Assembly in 1996, an assessor in the Regional Government, and switched to FI in 2000, for which he was later elected to the European Parliament. In 2008, he became the president of the Catania province and was elected to the House of Representatives in 2013. As state secretary, he belonged to several governments. On the first judicial level, Castiglione was sentenced to ten months in prison in 1999 for bid rigging—but without the

340     Notes

aggravating factor of favoring the Mafia—then acquitted on appeal in 2004. The acquittal was confirmed by the Court of Cassation in 2005. In 2015, he was accused of awarding the contract for the administration of the C.A.R.A. refugee camp in Mineo (CT) to cooperative societies founded for this purpose and receiving votes for it, see Bellavia (2004: 110 f.), Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 701 f.), La Repubblica (November 13, 2004), L’Espresso (March 20, 2008), Sicilia Network (May 16, 2016). 41 The entrepreneur, former FI representative and later Lega environmental expert Arata from Genoa was placed under investigation in 2019. He was accused of making dirty deals with the Mafia’s “Wind Park King” Vito Nicastri and bribing officials of the Sicilian regional administration. Arata is also said to have exerted influence on his party friend Armando Siri (born 1971), the State Secretary for Infrastructure, in order to place an officer in a key position for Arata’s business, see Il Foglio (June 12, 2019), Il Post (June 14, 2019), La Repubblica (June 12, 2019). 42 The building contractor Li Destri, who had unsuccessfully stood for the M5S in the 2017 regional parliamentary elections, was accused of carrying out building work free of charge for a Mafia boss and paying protection money. Li Destri, the cousin of the similarly named Giacomo Li Destri (born 1966), who is accused of being a member of the Mafia, was put forward by his party as a model entrepreneur, having built the “Road of Honesty” financed by M5S deputies, a bypass of the Palermo-Catania motorway which was impassable in places due to a landslide, see La Repubblica (October 31, 2017). 43 The Lega city councillor Mazzeo, who had stood for the European Parliament in 2014 and for mayor in Maletta in 2018, made headlines because he allowed himself to be accompanied during his election campaign by the Mafia boss Salvatore Gulino, who is a distant relative of his, see Corriere Etneo (July 18, 2019). 44 The lawyer Gunnella was a member of the supervisory board and president of the Sicilian sulfur mining company as well as a long-standing member in the House of Representatives and, as state secretary and minister, several times a member of the government. Although there were many rumors about the leader of the Sicilian Republican Party for many

Notes    341

years because of his closeness to the Mafia, the investigations into the suspicion of cooperation with or membership in the Mafia were discontinued in 1996. Because of the accusation of voter bribery by the Mafia, Gunnella was sentenced to two years in prison in 1993, which he did not have to serve due to an amnesty. Finally, Gunnella was detained for a few months in 1993 on suspicion of taking bribes in connection with the construction of the Ancipa dam. He was acquitted on the first level, but sentenced to two years in prison in the appeal proceedings in 2005, which was confirmed by the Court of Cassation. However, this conviction did not go into effect due to the statute of limitations of the offense, see Bellavia (2010: 58), Caruso (2005: 272), Help Consumatori (December 7, 2006), La Repubblica (October 20, 1991; July 7, 1993; February 25, 2004; August 12, 2006), Progetto San Francesco (December 6, 2020), Tranfaglia (2001: 235). 45 Ignazio Mineo, PRI-local secretary of Bagheria, was elected to the Senate in 1979 despite his Mafia family ties—his brother Francesco belonged to the local Mafia clan. Ignazio Mineo was investigated for dubious real estate and construction deals. However, there was no trial because Mineo was shot in 1984, the circumstances suggest a Mafia crime, see La Repubblica (September 20, 1984), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 831, 900). 46 Casimiro Vizzini, Carlo’s father, was one of the founders of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Italy, founded in 1947 as a right-wing split from the PSI. Vizzini was a municipal politician, including assessor in Palermo, before being elected to the House of Representatives in 1958, to which he belonged until 1968. Vizzini had no problems with the justice system, but in the 1990s the pentito Francesco Di Carlo claimed that Vizzini had been a “man of honor”, see Bellavia (2010: 246). 47 The economist Occhipinti from a family of politicians from Gela (CL) was first a city councilor in Caltanissetta, in the early 1980s a member of the Provincial Parliament of Caltanissetta for the Social Democrats (in the local government he held the position of assessor from 1982) and 1992 a member of the House of Representatives. Occhipinti was accused of manipulating the awarding of public contracts in exchange for votes. He was sentenced to eight years in prison both the first and the appeal level in 1998. After the ruling of the Court of Cassation, the judgment became effective in April 2005. In fact, Occhipinti was sentenced to only four years in prison for cooperating with the Mafia, because the corruption charge had expired

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in the meantime, see Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 12 ff.), Martorana/Nigrelli (1993: 87, 91 f.), Pinotti/Tescaroli (2008: 231 ff.), Tranfaglia (2001: 310 f.). 48 The lawyer Andò, close to his party leader Craxi, was in the 1970s city councillor in Giarre (CT), from 1979 then, like his father, also mayor as well as several times member of the House of Representatives and 1992 Minister of Defense. During the Mani pulite investigations Andò was arrested and placed under house arrest. Andò was acquitted on the charge of vote-buying in June 2000 for lack of evidence. While he was initially sentenced for bribery, the conviction was withdrawn in September 1999 because of the statute of limitations. In 2004, the Court of Cassation confirmed this decision. In 2005, Andò was nevertheless rector of the University of Enna, see ANSA (January 15, 2010), La Repubblica (October 16, 2011), Trocchia (2009: 33 f.). 49 The lawyer Pietro Pizzo, son of a former PSI mayor of Marsala, was from 1979 repeatedly member of the regional assembly, assessor of the regional government and 1987 senator. In addition, he held the office of mayor of Marsala for a short time. In 1993, the Senate withheld the permission for proceedings against Pizzo for abuse of office and antiquities trafficking. In April 2004, Pizzo was arrested for voter bribery and sentenced on the first level to four years in prison. On appeal, he was acquitted in April 2009, not of the clearly committed vote-buying, but of the charge of collusion with the Mafia. The Court of Cassation ordered a retrial in November 2011, because Pizzo had not been tried for the correct offense. In the second appeal, Pizzo was then acquitted in 2012 due to the statute of limitations of the offense, see La Repubblica (January 23, 2002), Liberainformazione (August 2, 2010), TP 24 (March 30, 2012). 50 Leone, a teacher, was repeatedly elected to the regional assembly from 1986, and between 1989 and 1991; he was an assessor of the regional government. Already in the early 1990s, he was investigated for various crimes, including collusion with the Mafia, vote-buying, corruption and the illegal allocation of public funds to fictitious youth cooperatives. Leone was arrested and in February 1994 even removed from office by Prime Minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1920–2016)—a hitherto unprecedented event in Italy! Afterwards, however, Leone almost always managed to escape imprisonment.—In December 2018, the now almost 80-year-old Leone made

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headlines again: It was suspected that he belonged to the protective circle of the then fugitive boss Matteo Messina Denaro, cf. Giornale di Sicilia (December 12, 2018b), Il Circolaccio (September 18, 2018), La Repubblica (October 2, 1994; October 19, 2000). 51 While the UDC only received 3–5% of the vote in Italy, in 2003 it achieved almost 20% in its first attempt in provincial elections in Sicily. And in the regional elections it managed to become the second strongest party after FI: FI had 23 of the 90 deputies, UDC was almost equal with 20 deputies, cf. Forgione (2004: 86 f.). 52 The political godson of Calogero Mannino, the radiologist Cuffaro, was already a member of the DC city council of his hometown Raffadali (AG) in 1980 and a member of the regional assembly starting in 1991. After the dissolution of the DC, Cuffaro was a member of various DC splinter parties and assessor of the regional government several times before being elected regional president for the first time in 2001—and again in 2006. Cuffaro, who the press called vasa vasa (Sic. kisses, kisses), mastered the politics of patron-client relationships so masterfully that his political style was called Cuffarismo. Despite numerous allegations of alleged Mafia proximity, bribery or influence on tenders and appointments, investigations against Cuffaro were not carried out until 2003, as part of the investigations “Ghiacco 2” (Ice 2) and “Talpe in Procura” (Moles in the Public Prosecutor’s Office): Cuffaro was accused of passing on confidential information to the Mafia in two cases. In January 2008, Cuffaro was sentenced to five years of imprisonment for disclosing state secrets and favoritism. In addition, he was forbidden to hold future political offices. Nevertheless, Cuffaro celebrated the verdict by distributing cannoli (a typical Sicilian pastry, note by the author), because the judges had dropped the aggravating circumstance of favoring the Mafia. Due to protests, Cuffaro resigned from his office, although the regional assembly had expressed confidence in him. On appeal, Cuffaro was then sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in January 2010, this time with the addition of having favored the Mafia. This verdict was confirmed by the Court of Cassation in January 2011, whereupon Cuffaro had to begin his prison sentence, but was allowed to leave prison again in December 2015, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 163 ff.), Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 87 ff.), Caruso (2017: 540 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 339), Foresta (2006), Forgione (2004: 87, 169 ff.), Giornale di Sicilia (June 27, 2003b, November

344     Notes

6, 2003), Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 524 ff.), La Repubblica (November 25, 2005; December 13, 2005), Ursetta (2013: 89 ff.). 53 Francesco Saverio Romano (born 1964), the UDC politician and political protégé of Cuffaro, was a member of the Palermo Provincial Parliament in 1990, as an assessor member of the Provincial Government, president of IRCAC, a regional credit institution, for several years, and since 2001, a member of the House of Representatives several times. As State Secretary and Minister, he was involved in various governments. He was investigated on charges of cooperation with the Mafia, corruption, receipt of kickbacks and fraud (recently also in connection with Covid masks and protective clothing). The investigations were always discontinued, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 57 ff.), Forgione (2004: 174), Giornale di Sicilia (December 13, 2005b), Palermo Today (March 4, 2021), Rizzo (2011: 26 f.).—The former Social Democrat and later UDC politician as well as former accountant Vincenzo Lo Giudice (born 1936) from Canicatti (AG) was mayor of Canicatti (AG), from 1991 onwards several times a member of the Regional Assembly and as assessor a member of the Regional Government. The politician, who was arrested in March 2004, was investigated for the improper allocation of licenses, public funds and contracts to Mafia entrepreneurs, receiving kickbacks, electoral fraud, threatening political opponents and influencing a juror. Furthermore, when the Euro was introduced, Lo Giudice is said to have asked a Mafia entrepreneur to exchange his hoarded kickbacks amounting to 500 million lire. Intriguingly, he used Mafia jargon in intercepted conversations: He called policemen sbirri who had to be “taken apart and dismantled piece by piece” (Forgione 2004: 155, transl. by the author). Mafiosi, on the other hand, were for him “our friends with the club” (Trocchia 2009: 238, transl. by the author). In February 2008, Lo Giudice was sentenced to 16 years in prison for cooperating with the Mafia. The sentence was reduced to eleven years and four months in the appeal in 2009 and then to ten years by the Court of Cassation. He was released from prison early in 2013, but as a “danger to society” was placed under house arrest, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 166 f.), Amadore (2007: 18 ff.), Forgione (2004: 155), La Repubblica (November 25, 2005), Trocchia (2009: 237 ff., 345).—The doctor Domenico (Mimmo) Miceli (born 1964) from Sambuca di Sicilia (AG) and employed at the Policlinico hospital in Palermo was a municipal politician and close confidant of Cuffaro. Miceli was first elected to the city council of Palermo in 1993 and later held the position of health assessor in the Palermo city government. He was the contact person of the Mafia boss Guttadauro to politicians, above all to the Sicilian Prime

Notes    345

Minister Totò Cuffaro: In the boss’s apartment, Miceli received instructions on which doctors to appoint to the Palermo hospitals and which candidates to elect to political offices. Confidential information that Miceli received from Cuffaro about investigations was immediately forwarded to the Mafia boss. Miceli was arrested in June 2003 and sentenced to eight years in December 2005 for cooperating with the Mafia. In 2012, the sentence took effect, but was reduced to six years and six months. After only two years, he was released from prison, even though he had never contributed to clarifying the crimes he was accused of, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 250 ff.), Antimafia Duemila (November 3, 2011b), Live Sicilia (July 28, 2004), La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (March 12, 2004).—The doctor Antonino (Nino) Dina (born 1957) from Vicari (PA) was a city councillor in Vicari in the 1980s and has been a member of the Regional Assembly several times since 2001. He was investigated in May 2009, as part of the carabinieri operation “EOS” against the Resuttana clan from Palermo and in connection with the investigation “Talpe in Procura”, which led to Cuffaro’s resignation. In October 2017, Dino was placed under supervision as a “danger to society” for allegedly being involved with the Mafia. In March 2019, he was finally sentenced to eight months in prison for electoral fraud, see La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (May 15, 2009; May 17, 2009), La Repubblica (October 17, 2017; March 26, 2019).—The cultural entrepreneur David Costa (born 1966) from a family of politicians in Marsala was a member of the Regional Assembly several times from 1996 and also involved in the Regional Government as an assessor from 2001. He had problems with the judiciary as part of the operation “Peronospera” carried out in 2001, which investigated connections between the Mafia and politics in the province of Trapani, and in November 2005 the prosecutor’s office accused Costa of receiving campaign contributions, favoring Mafia associations and obtaining credit for a mafioso. Costa was acquitted of the charge of cooperating with the Mafia on the first level and on appeal, but the Court of Cassation ordered a retrial in 2012, in which Costa was then sentenced to three years and eight months in prison—later confirmed by the Court of Cassation—see Adnkronos (February 12, 2014), La Repubblica (November 15, 2005; March 3, 2006; December 20, 2006), La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (December 22, 2005).—Costa’s colleague from Alcamo (TP), Norino Fratello (born 1963), who was elected to the Regional Assembly for the first time in 2001 and again in 2006, also came into the sights of the judiciary as part of the operation “Peronospera”: The MP with a degree in economics was accused of having had votes organized by the Mafia in exchange for favors. As in the case of Costa, the boss Bonafede waived money payments in Fratello’s case.

346     Notes

Fratello was accused of ensuring the award of public contracts to Mafia companies, above all to fictitious cooperatives. The “king of cooperatives”, as the press called Fratello, was one of the few politicians who confessed his crimes. Next, Fratello was sentenced for cooperation with the Mafia, but was able to negotiate a mild sentence of one and a half years in prison, which was also suspended. A few years later, Fratello discovered the “business with refugees”: through straw men, he once again founded fictitious cooperatives, which were officially supposed to take care of the accommodation and care of especially unaccompanied young refugees, while he and his friends pocketed the public funds provided for this purpose. For these frauds, Fratello was arrested again in 2018, see Amadore (2007: 94 f.), La Repubblica (November 25, 2005; March 11, 2006; November 24, 2006; July 5, 2018).—Giuseppe (Pippo) Gianni (born 1947) from Solarino (SR) was a DC municipal politician in the 1980s, first mayor of Priolo Gargallo (SR) in 1984, repeatedly a member of the regional assembly from 1991 and finally a member of the House of Representatives in 2001. As assessor, he was also involved in the regional government. Gianni, for example, was arrested in 1980 together with members of the Mafia clan from Raffadali (AG) on suspicion of drug trafficking, but this did not lead to any legal consequences. In the 1990s, the former mafioso Marino Mannoia testified that Gianni had been one of the doctors who had helped the Mafia: “It was precisely this doctor who taught us how to simulate diseases. For example, if you eat bananas and take iron pills at the same time, the stool is like that of someone with a ruptured ulcer. An intravenous injection of chamomile causes high fever, vomiting and cramps. Weight loss pills cause changes in heartbeat” (De Rosa/Galesi 2013: 188 f., transl. by the author). In addition, Gianni was also investigated for corruption. In 1994, he was arrested for abuse of office and sentenced to three years in prison on the first level, but ultimately acquitted. Despite all this, Gianni is today the mayor of Priolo, cf. Corriere della Sera (April 4, 2014), De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 188 f.), La Sicilia (July 24, 2014).—The Palermo doctor Antonio (Antonello) Antinoro (born 1960) has held numerous offices since 2001: He was a regional, national and European parliamentarian and as assessor a member of the Sicilian regional government. In 2010, he was sentenced to two years in prison on the first level for vote-buying, which was enhanced in the appeal in 2013 by the additional charge of cooperation with the Mafia, so that Antinoro was sentenced to six years in prison. The Court of Cassation ordered a retrial and in April 2016 and he was acquitted, which was confirmed by the court of cassation in 2017, cf. La Repubblica. Cronaca di

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Palermo (May 15, 2009; May 16, 2009; May 17, 2009), La Repubblica (March 28, 2017).—Salvatore Cintola (1941–2010), a linguist, was a municipal politician in Partinico (PA) in the 1980s, later a provincial and regional parliamentarian and assessor of the regional government and senator. He was a member of the Republicans, Sicilia Libera, the Social Democrats and the Socialists before he landed at the UDC. He was investigated several times for various offenses, such as cooperation with the clan of Partinico, electoral fraud, manipulation of public contracts, bribery, drug trafficking, embezzlement. All investigations were discontinued, cf. L’Espresso (March 20, 2008), La Repubblica (November 25, 2005).—Francesco Campanella (born 1972) from Villabate (PA) was a member of the city council of Villabate in 1994, later chairman of the city council and in 2000 national secretary of the youth organization of the UDEUR, the predecessor party of the UDC. Campanella, who has distant Mafia family connections, is said to have diverted approximately one million euros from customer accounts as an employee of the Credito Siciliano branch in Villabate and to have forged an ID for the fugitive boss Bernardo Provenzano (with which Provenzano traveled to France in June and October 2003, where he had surgery on his prostate as “Signor Troia” near Marseille at the expense of the Italian health insurance). In 2006, Campanella, who had always presented himself as an anti-Mafia politician, was arrested and began cooperating with the justice system, implicating numerous politicians. In 2007, he was given a light sentence on the first level of one and a half years in prison. In the 2010 appeal, he was then given a sentence of seven years, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 9–93), Adnkronos (November 6, 2007), Bellavia (2010: 247), De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 20), Di Girolamo (2012: 148), La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (December 22, 2005b), Messina (2014: 358), Morosini (2009: 25), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 103–245).—Antonio Borzacchelli (born 1961), from the area around Naples, was a former Carabinieri Sergeant and, in 2001, elected on the Biancofiore list of Totò Cuffaros, a member of the Regional Assembly. As part of the “Talpe in Procura” investigation, Borzacchelli was arrested in February 2004 for extortion. Witnesses said that Borzachelli had used his knowledge and contacts gained as a carabiniere in the justice system to demand not only money, but also a villa and shares in the cancer clinic of the healthcare entrepreneur Michele Aiello. Borzachelli, who remained silent on the charges, was sentenced to ten years in prison on the first level in 2008, but was later acquitted, see Abbate/Gomez (67), Giornale di Sicilia (March 29, 2008), La Repubblica (November 25, 2005), Palermo Today (July 3, 2013).

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54 The doctor Lombardo from Catania was a member of the DC city council in Catania and of the regional assembly in 1986. After the dissolution of the DC, he was active in various Christian Democratic splinter parties until he founded his regional party MPA in 2005. He held numerous political offices: provincial president in Catania, member of the European Parliament and finally Sicilian Prime Minister from 2008 to 2012. Lombardo has been involved in numerous investigations since the 1990s for manipulation in personnel selection and promotion in the public service, for a bribery scandal and for voter turnout. In 2012, he was finally charged with cooperation with the Mafia and had to resign as Minister President, just like his predecessor Cuffaro. The indictment came as part of the “Iblis” operation, which focused on the illegal awarding of public contracts and the approval of shopping centers. In February 2014, Lombardo was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for aiding and abetting the Mafia and vote-buying. In the appeal, Lombardo was acquitted of the charge of cooperating with the Mafia, but sentenced to two years in prison for vote-buying. The Court of Cassation ordered a new appeal, which ended in 2023 with an acquittal, see Caruso (2017: 531 ff.), Di Girolamo (2012: 142 ff.), Il Fatto Quotidiano (March 17, 2023), La Sicilia (March 16, 2021). 55 The political career of the Trapani-born land surveyor Bartolo Pellegrino began in the PSI, for which he was elected to the Trapani City Council and, from 1971 onwards, several times to the Regional Assembly. After the collapse of the First Republic, he repeatedly changed his party affiliation until he founded his own party, Nuova Sicilia. Pellegrino was also involved in the regional government as environmental assessor and deputy prime minister. Due to the numerous illegal buildings that Pellegrino subsequently approved, he was considered by many to be the “leader” of the illegal builders. In 2003, Pellegrino was forced to resign as assessor after a tapped telephone conversation with a mafioso from Monreale became public, in which the politician had referred to Mafia defectors as infami (infamous) and policemen as sbirri (snitches). He is also said to have given tips to mafiosi whom he allegedly received in the Regional Parliament on how they could regain their confiscated property. Pellegrino was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of collusion with the Mafia. He was initially placed under house arrest, but was later acquitted on all levels, see Forgione (2004: 92 ff.), Bellavia/ Palazzolo (2004: 102 ff.), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 119 ff.). 56 The second leader of Nuova Sicilia was the former regional official Nicolò (Ciccio) Nicolosi from Bisacquino (PA). He had originally been active in the

Notes    349

DC, for which he was elected to the Regional Assembly in 1986. He had been involved in the regional government as assessor. After being elected to the House of Representatives in 2001, he won the mayor’s office of Corleone in 2002—and again in 2018. Nicolosi, who had been arrested only once in 1992 and subsequently acquitted, made headlines when his first act as the new mayor of Corleone was to appoint the Riina family’s defense lawyer, Nino Di Lorenzo, as assessor for culture and tourism. The ensuing outrage was so great that Di Lorenzo had to resign after only one day. In addition, during his election campaign, Nicolosi had repeatedly emphasized that the children of Mafia bosses should have the same rights as everyone else. After it became known that Nicolosi and some assessors had been vaccinated against Covid even though given their age it was not yet their turn, he resigned as mayor in March 2021, see Forgione (2004: 104 ff.), Palermo Today (March 8, 2021). 57 Alberto Di Marzo, a former bank employee, began his political activity in the neo-fascist MSI before moving to the PSI and later to Nuova Sicilia. From 1994 onwards, he repeatedly won the mayoral election in Pantelleria. Di Marzo’s difficulties with the judiciary began in 2002 when he was arrested on the suspicion of extorting protection money from businessmen together with mafiosi. Di Marzo was also accused of illegally possessing firearms. He was sentenced on the first level to three and a half years in prison, but was acquitted on appeal because the judges ruled that he had only collaborated with the Mafia out of fear. The Court of Cassation confirmed the acquittal. In 2010, he was re-elected mayor with over 63% of the vote, but in 2012 he was arrested again on corruption charges. He is said to have demanded money from a businessman in exchange for appointing the latter’s son as technical director of the municipality. Di Marzo was initially placed under house arrest. He confessed to his crime and negotiated a sentence of only one and a half years, which he did not even have to serve, cf. Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 100 ff.), Di Girolamo (2012: 153 f.), Forgione (2004: 110 ff.), TP 24 (October 8, 2015). 58 For example, the former mafioso Buscetta declared that they had been allowed to vote for politicians from all moderate parties (Christian Democrats, Monarchists, Liberals, Republicans), but not Communists, Socialists and Fascists, cf. Dino (2002: 121). 59 Blok (1974: 124 f.), Catanzaro (1991: 134 f.), Lupo (1990: 161).

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60 Marino (2002a: 76). 61 Verro, who was to become one of the most important socialist peasant leaders later, recognized his mistake soon and left the Mafia again. When he then ran for the office of mayor in Corleone, he was murdered by the Mafia, cf. Dickie (2005: 155 ff.), Marino (2002a: 77), Renda (1990: 187 ff.). 62 For Bosco, see Lupo (1990: 170 f.). 63 Sanfilippo (2008: 39). 64 Crisafulli, who only had a primary school education, worked his way up within the PCI: He had started his political career by distributing leaflets at the traditional Unità festivals of the PCI, before he became a functionary of the left-wing peasant association Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori and the president of CONFCOLTIVATORI. After he was first elected to the provincial assembly in Enna, Crisafulli was repeatedly elected to the regional assembly from 1991 onwards. As assessor, he was also involved in the regional government. Under the leadership of Crisafulli, the PCI (and its successor organizations) managed to become an extraordinarily powerful party in the province of Enna, where it celebrated similar electoral successes as in the “red” Emilia-Romagna. Crisafulli and the Mafia boss Bevilacqua had known each other since the 1980s from their time in the provincial parliament of Enna, to which Bevilacqua had been elected for the DC. The police stumbled across Crisafulli by chance because they were monitoring the Hotel Garden in Pergusa for protection money extortion with the help of listening devices and video cameras. In this way, they were able to record a 24-min conversation between Crisafulli and Bevilacqua, in which the two discussed the distribution of public contracts, kickbacks and the hiring of staff. The two dealt with each other in an extraordinarily confidential manner—they greeted and said goodbye with kisses on the cheek— with Bevilacqua being the one who made requests, while Crisafulli explained how things would be done. The politician brushed off criticism from the boss with “Fatti i cazzi tuoi” (Mind your own business, Forgione 2004: 181, transl. by the author). Crisafulli knew who he was dealing with, given that Bevilacqua was under house arrest at the time of the meeting. Although there were investigations initiated against Crisafulli, who had often called Bevilacqua and had also received representatives of the boss in his office, they were discontinued in 2004. The overwhelming majority of his party friends and voters showed solidarity towards the “red baron” as Crisafulli was

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called when the incident became public in 2003. There were even solidarity events that took place. Crisafulli’s career also did not suffer any damage: in 2006 he was elected to the House of Representatives and in 2008 to the Senate, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 141 ff.), Arnone (2009: 181 ff.), Bascietto (2005: 56 ff.), Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 111 f.), L’Espresso (March 20, 200820.03.2008), Forgione (2004: 180 ff.), Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 411 ff.), La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (July 26, 2003). 65 It was above all municipal politicians of the PCI and its successor parties who got into trouble with the judiciary because of their Mafia connections: They include the DS mayor of Campobello di Licata (AG), Calogero Gueli (1938–2011), who had turned his city into a real Mafia stronghold: Gueli allowed himself to be supported by mafiosi in the election campaign, for which he reciprocated with the allocation of public contracts to Mafia companies. In addition, he enriched himself by favoring the family-owned company Anaconda. Gueli was arrested in June 2006 and sentenced to three years and four months in prison in December 2007 for cooperating with the Mafia, but was acquitted on appeal. The Court of Cassation convicted him, but at that point Gueli was already deceased. During his confrontation with the judiciary, Gueli was shown solidarity by important party functionaries such as Angelo Capodicasa (born 1949). However, he rejected one of his toughest inner-party critics, Giuseppe Arnone (born 1960), with hate poems. On the occasion of Gueli’s funeral, which was attended by numerous PD functionaries and where the city’s brass band played, even the traditional Mother of God procession was moved so as not to coincide with the funeral ceremony, see Arnone (2009: 221 ff.), Di Girolamo (2012: 138 ff.), La Repubblica (November 7, 2012), Trocchia (2009: 233 ff.).—The leftwing mayor of Campobello di Mazara (TP), Cirò Caravà (1959–2017) also made a name for himself because of his Mafia connections. Caravà, who had a criminal record for minor offenses, was elected to the city council of Campobello in the 1990s and has been for many years mayor of the city since 2006. Caravà presented himself to the public as an anti-Mafia politician. Not only did he have photos of the murdered judges Falcone and Borsellino hanging in his mayor’s office, but he was above all known for his passionate anti-Mafia rhetoric, for which he later apologized to the mafiosi. Caravà allowed himself to be supported by mafiosi in the election campaign and not only ensured that municipal contracts went to Mafia companies, but also did numerous favors for the Mafia. Mafiosi also turned to Caravà for trifles, once, for example, a criminal who had received a fine for parking illegally demanded that Caravà ensure the transfer of the female police

352     Notes

officer. In December 2012, Caravà was arrested for cooperating with the Mafia. At first he was acquitted, but on appeal he was then sentenced to nine years in prison. Yet in 2016, the Court of Cassation acquitted him, see Di Girolamo (2012: 128 ff.)—Antonino (Nino) Fontana and Simone Castello from Villabate (PA) were two left-wing friends of the Mafia: The two sons of farm workers come from families with a Communist tradition and became involved in the trade union movement and the PCI at an early stage. Both became members of the boards of agricultural cooperatives closely associated with the PCI. The inseparable friends also became shareholders of the real estate company SALPA, which was also successful abroad. While Fontana made a political career on a local level and became mayor of Villabate, Castello seems to have joined the Cosa Nostra after his marriage to a Mineo from Bagheria (PA). Castello took part in Mafia summits and was one of Giuseppe Provenzano’s most trusted confidants, acting as his “mailman” and forwarding his pizzini. The self-styled anti-Mafia politician Fontana was arrested on suspicion of cooperating with the Cosa Nostra, but was eventually released due to an amnesty. Castello had to submit to numerous arrests and trials, which sometimes ended in acquittals and sometimes in convictions, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 97 ff., 111 ff.), La Repubblica (September 1, 2014), TP 24 (February 5, 2021).—One of the most recent cases of a left-wing politician who was accused of Mafia ties is that of former city councilor of Erice (TP) and PD politician Paolo Ruggirello (born 1966) from Trapani. Ruggirello, one of the most important PD politicians in the province of Trapani, came into the sights of the judiciary in March 2019 as part of operation “Scrigno” conducted jointly by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Palermo and the carabinieri. The operation was about, among other things, a Mafia vote-rigging organization. Ruggirello was arrested because he is said to have allowed the Mafia family from Trapani to organize his votes in the regional elections of 2017 and to have accelerated bureaucratic processes for mafiosi. Since Ruggirello had contracted Covid in detention, he was placed under house arrest in July 2020, see Antimafia Duemila (October 18, 2019), La Repubblica (February 17, 2020), Trapani Oggi (February 2, 2021). 66 It had been talked about for a long time that the “red” cooperatives were involved with the Mafia. The scandal broke out when the “Minister of Public Works”, Angelo Siino, began to talk. It seems that Riina had always spoken out against and Provenzano had spoken in favor of the involvement of the red cooperatives in the tavolino system with the Mafia. In the end, Provenzano prevailed and Riina could only prevent orders from going to

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the “reds” in “his” town Corleone. After the involvement of red cooperatives in illegal contract awarding became known—it is said that the “left” politicians had argued with each other about the kickbacks—investigations were initiated against numerous left-wing cooperative functionaries and politicians, including the regional representative, assessor and vice president of the Region of Sicily Giovanni (Gianni) Parisi (1935–2019) or the mayor of Caltavuturo and regional representative Domenico Giannopolo (born 1956). For the red cooperatives and their collaboration with the Mafia, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 103 ff.), Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 69 ff.), Il Manifesto (September 23, 2000; September 23, 2000b), Isola Pulita (September 21, 2000), Sales (2015: 361, 367), Sanfilippo (2008: 438), Santino (September 21, 2000), Stancanelli (2016: 94, 204 ff., 221 ff.). 67 The first “left-wing” entrepreneurs that Lima involved in the tavolino system were the Potestio brothers from the Madonie mountains, who did not even have to pay kickbacks to the Mafia, which outraged the capomafia of Polizzi Generosa (PA), Vincenzo Maranto. For the Potestio, see Abbate/ Gomez (2007: 125 ff., 136 ff.), Alkemia (no year), Isola Pulita (September 21, 2000). 68 The engineer and real estate entrepreneur Giuseppe Montalbano junior from Santa Margherita di Belice (AG) (born 1935) was arrested in 2001 for cooperating with the Mafia. He was accused of sheltering fugitive mafiosi like Totò Riina, making his holiday resort Torre Macauda in Sciacca (AG) available for Mafia meetings, laundering Mafia money, and helping to prevent the confiscation of Mafia property. After Riina was arrested, Montalbano went to the police and said that he had not known Riina’s true identity when renting a villa to him. Montalbano was sentenced to seven years in prison for cooperating with the Mafia and money laundering in 2014. Interestingly, he is the son of the lawyer and PCI functionary Giuseppe Montalbano senior (1898–1989), who had fought against the Mafia all his life. See Abbate/Gomez (2007: 146 ff.), Dagospia (October 10, 2015) for Montalbano junior. 69 Scalone, one of the historical leaders of the MSI in Sicily, held various political offices in Sicily before being elected to the Senate for the Alleanza Nazionale in 1994. Scalone was accused by the prosecutor’s office, which relied on statements by Mafia defectors and wiretaps, of working as a financial advisor to the Brancaccio clan in Palermo, exerting influence on judicial proceedings and accepting Mafia support during the election campaign.

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For example, Scalone was wiretapped in 1994 when he was thanking the Mafia tax advisor Pino Mandalari for his support in the election campaign. Scalone spent a short time in detention, but was then placed under house arrest. On the first judicial level, he was sentenced to nine years in prison, but was acquitted on appeal, which was confirmed by the Court of Cassation in 2004, see Giornale di Sicilia (March 6, 2004), Il Giornale (November 27, 2018), Paoli (2003: 213). 70 Battaglia had been elected to the Senate several times for the AN since 1993. The defector Nino Giuffrè had testified that Battaglia—who incidentally had represented Leoluca Bagarella for a short time—had been supported by the Mafia in the election campaign because the organization expected that he would use his position as a senator to solve the legal problems of the Cosa Nostra. However, the investigation against Battaglia was discontinued, see Caminita Altervista (January 23, 2020). 71 The teacher and journalist Petrotto first became involved in the Rete in the 1990s. When attacks on the local politician occurred at that time, the Mafia boss of Racalmuto, Maurizio Di Gati, was surprised and asked within the Mafia and Stidda who knew anything about them. When no one could give him any information, the boss asked Petrotto, who allegedly confessed to him that he had staged the attacks to promote his election success among the anti-Mafia sympathizers. However, Petrotto made no such statements to the judiciary and the investigations were discontinued. Petrotto, who was elected mayor of Racalmuto for the first time in 1993, held this office until 2002 and again between 2007 and 2011. In 2011, the municipality was dissolved due to Mafia infiltration. Petrotto had already been arrested in 2009 and had to answer for various offenses, including drug trafficking, abuse of office, bribery and cooperation with the Mafia. He was initially sentenced to four years in prison, but was ultimately acquitted by the Court of Cassation, see Di Girolamo (2012: 140 f.), Giornale di Sicilia (June 21, 2011). 72 When Almerico suddenly received around 400 membership applications, he immediately realized that it was an attempt by the local Mafia boss, Giovanni (Vanni) Sacco, to infiltrate the DC local group and he refused to issue party membership cards. In addition, he turned to the Sicilian party secretary Giovanni Gioia for help. In a dossier, Almerico argued that mafiosi did not fit into a party that was guided by Christian principles. Gioia replied that the party needed partners, which is why compromises had to be made. Since Almerico defied the “orders from above,” Gioia relieved him of his

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duties, appointed a provisional secretary, and issued membership cards for the mafiosi himself. The unruly Almerico was then shot on the evening of April 26, 1957, on the Piazza of Camporeale. The Mafia boss Sacco had to answer for this murder in court, but was acquitted. In 1958, the newspapers L’Ora and Paese Sera published the dossier that Almerico had sent to Gioia, which led to harsh criticism of Gioia. The Communist leader Girolamo Li Causi and the anti-Mafia writer Michele Pantaleone accused Gioia of bearing the moral responsibility for Almerico’s death. Pantaleone and his publisher Einaudi were then sued by Gioia for defamation. After more than thirty sessions, a Turin court acquitted Pantaleone in 1977, whereupon the Repubblica headline read: “Gioia is a mafioso. Stating this publicly is not a crime.” (Turone 1985: 55, transl. by the author). For Almerico, see Cassarà (2020: 61 ff.), Ceruso (2008: 158 f.), Lupo (1996: 198), Nicastro (2004: 93 ff.), Pantaleone (2013: 129 ff.), Sanfilippo (2008: 103), Turone (1985: 54 f.), Tranfaglia (2001: 205). 73 Piersanti Mattarella was a son of the DC politician Bernardo Mattarella, who was accused of Mafia connections. Like his father, Piersanti was also active in the DC. In the 1960s, he first belonged to the city council of Palermo and from 1967 onward he was elected several times to the Regional Parliament. After having been regional assessor, Mattarella was elected president of Sicily in 1978. Although he originally came from the DC establishment and was said to have good contacts not only with the Salvo cousins, but even with Stefano Bontate, he soon turned against the Mafia friends in his party. The Mafia defector Francesco Di Carlo suspected that he wanted to dispel the suspicion that he might have something to do with the Mafia. He tried to pursue a clean course, especially as president of the Sicilian Regional government, and initiated investigations into illegal awarding of contracts and corrupt officials. In addition, he signaled—according to the policy of his wing leader Aldo Moro—readiness for talks with the communists. For many of his party colleagues—above all Lima and Ciancimino— Mattarella became more and more of a problem. As the pressure on him increased, Mattarella sought support from the party leadership for his course of “cleaning up”. For this purpose, he met at the end of October 1979 in Rome with the Minister of the Interior Virginio Rognoni (1924– 2022). He returned to Palermo disillusioned and concerned and confided to his cabinet chief Maria Grazia Trizzino: “If something bad should happen to me, remember this meeting with Minister Rognoni” (Li Vigni 1995: 223, transl. by the author). Just over two months later, Mattarella was shot,

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see Bellavia (2010: 240 ff.), Li Vigni (1995: 208 ff.), Stancanelli (2016: 63), Turone (2019: 138). 74 Insalaco, the son of a carabiniere from San Giuseppe Jato (PA), began his political career as a portaborse (literally, bag-carrier, gofer) for Franco Restivo. As such, he belonged to the DC-establishment that was burdened with many dirty secrets. After Insalaco was elected mayor of Palermo in April 1984, he reversed course and suddenly began to act as an anti-Mafia mayor. He was therefore only able to stay in office for a few months and was ousted in July of the same year. He stuck to his anti-Mafia course afterwards, worked with the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission and denounced the dirty machinations of his colleagues. In addition, he denounced the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, led by Count Arturo Cassina, as a network that protected the corrupt powerful. Before he was murdered, Insalaco wrote a dossier entitled “Confidential. Only to be opened under extraordinary circumstances.” In this memorable document, the politician delivered a description of a completely corrupt city, in which politicians, judges and policemen did each other favors. Insalaco also left a list of the “good ones” and the “bad ones”, with the latter including those for whom his death was undoubtedly desirable, cf. Stancanelli (2016: 138, 145, 174, 214, 238 f.). 75 Like Piersanti Mattarella, the lawyer Orlando also came from the establishment: his father, the lawyer Salvatore Orlando Cascio, had been one of Bernardo Mattarella’s confidants, which is why he is mentioned by name in the minority report of the Anti-Mafia Commission in connection with the failure of the agrarian reform. Like Piersanti Mattarella, Leoluca Orlando belonged to the circle of DC-renewers. Orlando wrote about himself: “I became a Christian Democrat (…) because of Piersanti. Maybe I chose the DC because of my habit of breaking with the world I come from in one way or another from the inside.” Because of their fathers, the socialist politician Claudio Martelli never tired of attacking Mattarella and Orlando as “Mafia heirs”. (Li Vigni 1995: 210, transl. by the author ). For Orlando and his family background, see Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1976: 576), Caruso (2017: 525 ff.), Cassarà (2020: 25 f.), Nicastro (2004: 73), Sanfilippo (2008: 412, 419). 76 For the Città per l’Uomo, see Cassarà (2020: 240), Stancanelli (2016: 75 f.).

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77 The lawyer Montalbano was initially active in the PSI, which he left in the early 1920s in favor of the newly founded PCI. After he had held the office of PCI secretary in the province of Agrigento from 1925 onward, the anti-fascist Montalbano had to “scale back” his political activities. After the end of fascism, however, he immediately became involved again in the PCI and belonged not only to the national party leadership, but also to the transitional government in the position of state secretary; later, he was also a regional representative and mayor of Santa Margherita del Belice. Montalbano—together with Li Causi—was one of the communists who, unlike many other “comrades”, were concerned with the fight against the Mafia, although both pursued different strategies: Li Causi was of the opinion that young mafiosi in particular could still be re-educated, a view not shared by Montalbano. Montalbano, who was also a member of the PCI’s Control Commission between 1945 and 1956, was also aware that mafiosi were trying to infiltrate his party. He denounced the anti-Mafia involvement of the political left—including the PCI—as purely rhetorical, which is why he resigned from his party in 1959 in disappointment. He remained true to his political views, but now limited himself to writing books against the Mafia, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 146 ff.), Nicastro (2004: 123 ff.). 78 La Torre, who had been a representative since the early 1960s and had belonged to the House of Representatives, the parliamentary anti-Mafia commission and the national PCI leadership for many years, returned to Sicily in 1981 to lead his party there as regional secretary. A number of comrades, such as Paolo Serra or Vincenzo Ceruso, denounced persons such as the Palermo city councillor Antonino Mortillaro (who later turned out to be a “man of honor” of the clan Palermo-Centro), but above all the conditions in local organizations such as Bagheria, Ficarazzi and Villabate, where left-wing cooperative leaders and PCI municipal politicians were in cahoots with the Mafia. La Torre was concerned about the state of his party and told friends that he had found “an atmosphere of negligence, sloppiness and neglect” in the Sicilian PCI (Abbate/Gomez 2007: 103, transl. by the author). He immediately initiated an internal party investigation which, had La Torre not been killed, would certainly have led to disciplinary measures or the exclusion of the incriminated comrades. This investigation was continued after La Torre’s death: it was not the Mafia-affiliated comrades who were excluded from the party, but those party members who had complained about them, including Paolo Serra—because the latter had exhibited “politically and morally unworthy behaviour” (Abbate/Gomez 2007: 103, transl. by the author cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 103 ff.).

358     Notes

79 For the pista interna, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 105 f.), Bolzoni (2012: 49 f.), Li Vigni (1995: 262 ff.). 80 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 831, 900). 81  After the meeting in Boccadifalco, 42 cars full of mafiosi drove from Palermo to the villages of Western Sicily to collect all ballots with the symbols of the Separatists and Liberals from Mafia election helpers and give them DC campaign material instead. This operation, known as the “Villa Marasà” operation, bore fruit: the leader of the Liberals, Finocchiaro Aprile, and the leader of the Liberals, Romano Battaglia, were not elected, but the DC’s share of the vote increased by 156% compared to the previous regional elections. For example, in Montelepre, a former stronghold of the Separatists, the Christian Democrats won by a wide margin, see Pantaleone (2013: 221). 82 The anti-Mafia activist Danilo Dolci (1924–1997) claimed that not only had Calogero Volpe, one of the most important DC politicians in the province of Caltanissetta in the post-war period, had been a mafioso since 1944, but also his father (since 1911) and uncle Santo. According to Dolci, Calogero Volpe took part in the Mafia meetings of the then most important boss in Sicily, Calogero Vizzini, as the representative of the clan from Montedoro, see Nicastro (2004: 87). 83 Bevilacqua, was not only the capofamiglia of the family from Barrafranca (EN), but even the provincial leader whom Provenzano had expressly wanted for Enna. In the case of Bevilacqua, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering a murder, there is no doubt that he is a mafioso. 84 Numerous pentiti, including Buscetta and Marino Mannoia, claimed that Lima had been—just like his father Vincenzo—a “man of honor”. They agree that Vincenzo Lima is said to have belonged to the PalermoCentro family. Salvo Lima’s alleged membership in the Malaspina family was claimed by some, while others claimed he was a member of the Viale Lazio family. In any case, he is said to have been a secret “honorable man”, see Caruso (2005: 106), La Repubblica (April 11, 1993), Montanaro/ Ruotolo (1995: 103), Veltri/Travaglio (2001: 29), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 107). A large part of Lima’s entourage, including his confidants such as the Palermo municipal assessor Ferdinando Brandaleone (Pennino 2006: 117 f.),

Notes    359

a member of the DC Provincial Board Francesco Mineo from Bagheria (Montanaro/Rutotolo 1995: 831, 900) or the Palermo city councillor Giuseppe Trapani are said to have belonged to the Cosa Nostra. The latter is said to have even held the position of advisor in the Porta Nuova family (La Repubblica April 11, 1993, Montanaro/Ruotolo 1995: 122, Sanfilippo 2008: 139). 85 Numerous Christian Democrats are said to have been mafiosi: One of them is said to be Bernardo Mattarella. The former mafioso Francesco Di Carlo explained that Mattarella had been introduced to him officially as a “man of honor”: “Bernardo Mattarella, the father of Piersanti, has been a member of the Castellammare del Golfo family since the 1950s. In his youth he was a friend of one of the Magaddino and, as Nicola Buccellato told me, it was this Magaddino who introduced him to the Cosa Nostra.” (Bellavia 2010: 241, transl. by the author) The clan from Castellammare, led by the Magaddino, was also closely linked to the New York boss Joe Bonanno, who boasted that he had been welcomed by the then Minister Mattarella during a stay in Italy (Bonanno/Lalli 2003: 196).—It is known that the cousins Ignazio and Nino Salvo, i.e., the DC patrons from Salemi, came from Mafia families of origin and were “men of honor”, see Cassarà (2020: 221), La Repubblica (April 11, 1993), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 899 f.).—Vito Ciancimino is known to have been closely linked to the Corleonesi clan from an early age. Accordingly, it is not surprising that practically his entire entourage consisted of mafiosi. Giuseppe Cerami (1924– 1989), a Palermo lawyer who was first a city councillor in Palermo and later a senator, was a mafioso, as well. Cerami is said to have belonged to the Santa Maria di Gesù family (La Repubblica April 11, 1993; Montanaro/ Ruotolo 1995: 119, 800, 844 f.); Furthermore, the doctor Francesco Barbaccia from Godrano (PA) (1922–2010), who was a city councilman in Palermo and later a member of the House of Representatives several times. Barbaccia, who did many favors for the Cosa Nostra as a prison doctor in the Ucciardone, belonged to the clan from Cinisi (PA) (Montanaro/Ruotolo 1995: 120 f., 800; Pennino 2006: 142; Santino 1997: 22). Additionally, the Cianciminiano Gioacchino Pennino, a doctor, was a “man of honor” and came from a Mafia family background. Pennino belonged for a long time to the city council of Palermo. Already his grandfather had been a mafioso as was his uncle, who was also called Gioacchino Pennino, and who was one of the most influential bosses of Palermo as capofamiglia of the family of Brancaccio (Abbate/Gomez 2007: 204 f., 213; Pennino 2006; Pinotti 2007: 545 ff.; Stancanelli 2016: 79 ff.).—The former mafioso Rosario

360     Notes

Spatola from Campobello di Mazara (TP) claimed that the member of the House of Representatives and DC mayor of Partannas, Enzo Culicchia, had been an “man of honor” of the Partanna clan (Antimafia Duemila July 26, 2014).—It was also said of Giuseppe Giammarinaro, the protégé of the cousins Salvo, that he had been a mafioso. The former mafioso Rosario Spatola explained: “According to what I know from Rocco Curatolo, capodecina of the Marsala family, about Giuseppe Giammarinaro, he is a “man of honor” (Montanaro/Ruotolo 1995: 894; transl. by the author).—A whole series of former mafiosi—including Gioacchino Pennino, Giovanni Drago, Salvatore Cancemi and Vincenzo Sinacori—said that the Palermo DC city councillor and senator Vincenzo Inzerillo had been a member of the Mafia family of Brancaccio-Ciaculli. For example, Gioacchino Pennino explained: “I myself know that Inzerillo was an ‘honorable man’ of the Ciaculli family.” (Montanaro/Ruotolo 1995: 844, transl. by the author), see Bellavia (2010: 245), La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (December 4, 2004; 22.11.2005), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 844, 846). 86 The former Mafia boss Vincenzo Calcara (born 1956) explained that Leone was a member of his own Mafia family, namely the one from Castelvetrano, see Antimafia Duemila (December 17, 2007). 87 The ex-mafioso Francesco Di Carlo said about Casimiro Vizzini: “As far as I know, he was an honorable man of the Porta Nuova family”, see Bellavia (2010, 246, transl. by the author). 88 The Republican Aristide Gunnella, according to the former boss Rosario Spatola, was allegedly also a “honorable man”, see La Repubblica (October 20, 1991). 89 In the case of Nobile it is certain that he is a “man of honor”. As the son-in-law of the old capofamiglia of Favara, Gioacchino Capodici, who was murdered by stiddari, Nobile succeeded him. He was also caught redhanded at a Mafia summit in Santa Margherita di Belice in July 2002, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 175), La Repubblica (July 15, 2002; July 16, 2002).—Similarly, his party colleague Gaspare Giudice was allegedly an “man of honor”, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 47).—Whether Berlusconi’s right-hand man, Marcello Dell’Utri, also belonged to the Mafia is unclear. The former boss Francesco Di Carlo explained that Stefano Bontate had intended to accept Dell’Utri into his family. He did not know whether

Notes    361

this had actually happened, but he thought so, see Bellavia (2010: 213, 215). 90 The former Mafia informant Di Carlo recounted that Giuseppe Provenzanos father, Sebastiano Provenzano, a wealthy landowner, had been a secret “man of honor”. Already in the 1960s and 1970s he had done cattle business together with Mariuccio Brusca, the brother of the capofamiglia of San Giuseppe Jato (PA), Bernardo Brusca. Sebastiano Provenzano was also said to be acquainted with the boss Bernardo Provenzano, even though they were not related despite the identical surname. In any case, it was Sebastiano Provenzano who brought his son together with Saveria Benedetta Palazzolo, the wife of Bernardo Provenzano, to take care of the boss’s money, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 154 ff.), Bellavia (2010: 49 f.). 91 Mercadante was from a Mafia family background on his mothers side, the Cannella. This family had controlled the town of Prizzi for generations. Mercadantes cousin, Masino Cannella, was the local capofamiglia there, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 271). 92 Lagallas wife, Maria Paola, is the niece of Antonio Ferro, who was the capofamiglia of the Mafia clan of Canicatti (AG). Further, Lagalla was supported openly during his election campaign by Salvatore Cuffaro and Marcello Dell’ Utri, two politicians who had ended up in jail as Mafia politicians, cf. Domani (May 21, 2022), Il Fatto Quotidiano (May 21, 2022). 93 Caravàs father, who, incidentially, was murdered, is said to have been a mafioso, cf. Di Girolamo (2012: 129). 94 For the influence on intra-party decision-making processes, see Bellavia (2005: 75), Cassarà (2020: 13, 68 ff.), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 791 ff.), Sanfilippo (2008: 226 ff.). 95 Pennino (2006). 96 Stancanelli (2016: 43, transl. by the author); for the “Libro bianco”, see Cassarà (2020: 162). 97 This happened in the regional elections of 1991 in the case of the candidacy of Raffaele Bevilacqua in the province of Enna and that of Giuseppe Giammarinaro in the province of Trapani, see Amadore (2007: 18 f.), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 175 f., 886 ff.).

362     Notes

98 Bellavia (2010: 245). 99 Ceruso (2007: 103). 100 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 120). 101 Pumilia (1998: 263). 102 La Repubblica (July 21, 1990). 103 Forgione (2004: 48 ff.). 104 Forgione (2004: 49). 105 The seat of the House of Representatives is located on the Montecitorio hill in Rome; one often refers only “Montecitorio”. 106 Luigi Sturzo, quoted in Renda (2002: 167). 107 Stancanelli (2016: 21, transl. by the author). 108 Nicastro (2004: 89 ff.). 109 Marino (2002a: 80, transl. by the author). 110 Sanfilippo (2008: 438), Santino (1997: 91). 111 L’Espresso (May 9, 2013). 112 Il Fatto Quotidiano (September 18, 2012). 113 Guida Sicilia (January 17, 2005), La Repubblica (January 18, 2005). 114 La Repubblica (August 24, 2001). 115 La Repubblica (November 25, 2005, transl. by the author). 116 Forgione (2004: 101).

Notes    363

4.3 Protection and Favoritism in Exchange for Support 1 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 77, transl. by the author). 2 Renda (1998: 47 f.). 3 City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.). 4 Bonfadini Report of 1876, quoted in City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.) Nothing had changed even a few decades later which meant that the report of police chief Farias from 1898 mentioned a number of names of representatives who protected mafiosi, cf. City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.) (2000). 5 Giulio Andreotti and Salvo Andò are said to have tried to “put right” legal proceedings in the interests of the Mafia; Franco Restivo is said to have saved mafiosi from enforced stays at prescribed locations; Totò Cuffaro was convicted of having the results of an investigation passed on to a Mafia boss; Rudy Maira and Antonino D’Ali were accused of allegedly trying to transfer “inconvenient” officials; Pippo Gianni is said to have taught imprisoned mafiosi to successfully simulate diseases; Bartolo Pellegrino is said to have explained to mafiosi how to get their confiscated property back; Francesco Musotto was accused of hiding fugitive mafiosi. The list could go on. (References can be found in the notes on the individual politicians). 6 Barone (1987: 250 ff.), Marino (2002a: 95), Siragusa (2004: 161). 7 Marino (2002a: 93 ff., transl. by the author). 8 Marino (2002a: 95, 2002b: 41). 9 Marino (2002a: 94). 10 For example, when the aqueduct in Ravanusa (AG) was finally completed after many delays due to recurring technical errors, a landslide occurred at the inauguration, whereupon the angry residents pursued the city councillors, who had no choice but to flee to the fields, see Barone (1987: 255). For municipal mismanagement, see Barone (1987: 251 ff.), Marino (2002a: 93 ff.).

364     Notes

11 A large number of politicians are said to have favored mafiosi in tenders, not only for large contracts, but also for the smallest municipal contracts, as in the case of the municipality of Cerda (PA), where the contract to provide food for conscientious objectors went to the restaurant of the boss’s daughter, see Trocchia (2009: 251). Politicians who were accused of manipulating contracts for the Mafia include Franco Restivo, Franz Gorgone, Bartolo Pellegrino, Nino Drago, Raffaele Lombardo, Francesco Canino, Giuseppe Castiglione, Giuseppe Firrarello, Gianfranco Occhipinti, Vladimiro Crisafulli, David Costa, Onofrio Fratello, Calogero Gueli, etc. (References can be found in the notes on the individual politicians). 12 Financial resources are frequently made available for cooperatives, given that they qualify for support in particular ways under Article 45 of the Constitution. Whenever a new program is launched, politicians and mafiosi (or other questionable individuals) often set up cooperatives ad hoc to siphon off and distribute funds. The sham cooperatives cease operations once the public funds are exhausted. Politicians who have been associated with Mafia-affiliated cooperatives include Onofrio Fratello, but also Enzo Culicchia and Salvatore Cintola. 13 Politicians often grant building permits to Mafia-affiliated companies, more recently for shopping centers. Conflicts arise when several Mafia families compete for a permit in the same area at the same time, as in the case of the Brancaccio and Villabate families (Abbate/Gomez 2007: 88 ff.). In such cases, having the better political contacts is a decisive factor. A number of politicians came under fire for granting building permits for shopping centers, such as Totò Cuffaro (Giornale di Sicilia December 13, 2005), Vincenzo Lo Giudice (Trocchia 2009: 239) or Raffaele Lombardo (Di Girolamo 2012: 144). 14 Examples include the license for the transport of railway wagons, which Vito Ciancimino received thanks to Bernardo Mattarella, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 201 ff., 213), Billitteri (2008: 75), Bolzoni (2012: 28), Cassarà (2020: 17), Ciancimino/Licata (2010), Dino (2011: 19 ff.), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 797, 809, 820 ff., 833 ff., 900), Nicastro (2004: 40, 91 f.), Pennino (2006: 155 ff.), Pumilia (1998: 88), Sanfilippo (2008: 226 ff.), Stancanelli (2016: 41), Tranfaglia (2001: 104, 116 ff.), Turone (1985: 73 ff.) or the butter import license, which Tommaso Buscetta owed to the MP Margherita Bontade (1900–1992), cf. Arlacchi (2019: 101).

Notes    365

15 The most lucrative concession by far, that of tax collection, was secured by the Mafia cousins Salvo from the 1950s to the 1980s thanks to their political friends, cf. Deaglio (1993: 151 ff.). 16 For example, it is said that David Costa helped his childhood friend and alleged mafioso, Davide Mannirà, to obtain a € 300,000 loan from Banco di Sicilia, see La Repubblica (December 20, 2006). 17 Numerous politicians were suspected of taking bribes, including Carlo Vizzini, Totò Cuffaro, Salvatore Cintola and Francesco Saverio Romano, see Il Fatto Quotidiano (October 20, 2011), La Repubblica (June 11, 2009); Raffaele Lombardo, see Di Girolamo (2012: 145) or Bartolo Pellegrino, see Forgione (2004: 120), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 119 ff.), Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 102 ff.). 18 The most famous case is undoubtedly that of Francesco Campanella, who procured false ID papers for boss Bernardo Provenzano so that he could travel to France twice under a false name and have surgery there—at the expense of the Italian health care system, see Abbate/Gomez (2007, 9 ff., 93 f.), Di Girolamo (2012: 148 f.). 19 Numerous pentiti, including Leonardo Messina, reported that politicians helped convicted mafiosi to have their gun and driver’s licenses reinstated, see Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993b: 554). 20 For example, Calogero Mannino was accused of helping the mafioso Nino Mortillaro get a job in the Ministry of Agriculture bypassing the rules, see Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 560). 21 For example, the family of Senator Antonino D’Ali employed the capomafia Francesco Messina Denaro as administrator of some of their properties, his son Salvatore, in addition, at the family-owned Banca Sicula and finally his other son Matteo as a day laborer in agriculture, cf. Abbate (2020: 149 ff.), Forgione (2004: 61 ff.). 22 The mayor of Campobello di Mazara, Ciro Caravà, reimbursed the capomafia’s wife Biagia for the travel expenses to Naples, where her husband was in prison, cf. Di Girolamo (2012: 134).

366     Notes

23 These were Mussolini’s “March on Rome” (1922) and in the post-war period the right-wing coup attempts “Piano Solo” (1964), “Tora Tora”, also called “Notte dell’Immacolata” or “Golpe Borghese” (1970), “Rosa dei Venti” (1973) and the “Golpe bianco”, cf. Ceruso (2018: 10 ff.), Cipriani (1993: 38, 94), Giannuli (2018: 472 ff., 559 ff.), Imposimato (2012: 16 ff.). 24 The Borghese coup, like the other coup attempts of the post-war period, aimed to prevent the Communists from a being part of the government. The coup plotters had specifically planned for the arrest of President Saragat, the head of police Vicari, the occupation of ministries and the RAI television station as well as the deportation of leading left-wing politicians. In addition to Borghese, activists of right-wing organizations such as the Fronte Nazionale and the Avanguardia Nazionale, the Freemason lodge P2, toplevel military and intelligence officials, but also criminal secret organizations such as the Noto Servizio were involved in the the planning. The putschists also recruited mafiosi and ’ndranghetisti as well as numerous forest workers—a total of about 20,000 people are said to have been involved. When the coup attempt was already relatively far advanced—the men of the neo-fascist Stefano Delle Chiaie had already occupied the Ministry of the Interior with 50 people—Borghese suddenly received a mysterious call— some believe from Licio Gelli, others believe from the CIA agent Edward Fendwich—whereupon the coup was aborted. For the Borghese coup, see Arlacchi (1995: 107 ff.), Arcuri (2004: 8 f., 34 ff., 50 ff.), Bellavia (2010: 61 f.), Ceruso (2018: 22, 134 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 318 ff.; 2017b: 116), Cipriani (1993: 9, 94 f.), Giannuli (2018: 346 ff., 354), Guarino/Raugei (2006: 65), Leccese (2018: 36), Messina (2014: 132 ff.), Pinotti (2007: 89). 25 Pinotti (2007: 89, 545), Pennino (2006: 125). 26 The consultations, to which mafiosi living abroad like Tommaso Buscetta and Salvatore (Cicchiteddu) Greco had also been invited, took place in Ramacca (CT) as well as in the apartment of Calderone in Catania’s Via Etnea. Luciano Leggio later claimed that he had been against participating in the coup because he had rejected the establishment of a dictatorship in Italy. Afterwards, the top Mafia bosses went to a personal meeting with Borghese in Rome, see Arcuri (2004: 50 f.). 27 The Mafia was mainly interested in the release of the capofamiglia of Alcamo, Vincenzo Rimi (1902–1975), who was highly respected in their circles, and his son Filippo. The two had been sentenced to life imprisonment based on the statements of Serafina Battaglia (1919–2004), the first Mafia

Notes    367

widow to have cooperated with the justice system, see Arcuri (2004: 53), De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 53 f.) 28 Arcuri (2004: 54 f., transl. by the author). 29 The term “strategy of tension” first appeared on 7 December 1969 in an article by Leslie Finer in The Guardian about a coup d’état being planned in Italy, similar to that of the generals in Greece, see Dickie (2020: 440 f.), Giannuli (2018: 11), Imposimato (2012: 21), Pennino (2006: 134 ff.), Turone (2019: 257 ff.). 30 Because of this “Christmas attack” Pippo Calò, the Mafia’s representative in Rome, was sentenced, among others, to life imprisonment, see Ceruso (2018: 22, 59). 31 Between 1960 and 1974 there were ten large-scale and 1,500 further attacks in which over 4,000 people were killed and over 35,000 injured. The most famous attacks were the bombing of the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan (December 12, 1969 ), in which 13 people died and 84 were injured; the bombing in Peteano di Sagrado in the province of Gorizia near Trieste (May 31, 1973 ), in which a car bomb killed three carabinieri; the bombing of participants in an anti-fascist demonstration in Piazza della Loggia in Brescia (May 28, 1974), which killed nine people and injured 90; the bombing of the Italicus express train in the Appenin Base Tunnel near San Benedetto Val di Sambro near Bologna on 4 August 1974, in which twelve people died and 84 were injured; the bombing at Bologna station (February 2, 1980), which killed 85 people and injured 200; and finally the attack on Train 904 (December 23, 1994 ) in the Appenin Base Tunnel in which 27 people died and 180 were injured, see Ceruso (2018: 22, 159 ff.), Cipriani (1993: 150 ff.), Dickie (2020: 413 ff.), Giannuli (2018: 7, 319 ff., 374 ff.), Imposimato (2012: 53 ff., 183 ff.), Turone (2019: 231 ff., 282 ff.). 32 It is noteworthy that for each attack the investigations were impeded or misdirected. To this day, neither those who ordered the attacks nor—with a few exceptions—the perpetrators have been convicted, see Ceruso (2018: 16 ff.), Giannuli (2018: 559). 33 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 78), Trocchia (2009: 154).

368     Notes

34 La Spina (2016: 13). 35 Salvatore Greco was the brother of Michele Greco. The two had divided up the internal tasks: Michele, the boss of the Mafia cupola, took care of the affairs of the Cosa Nostra; Salvatore, who, by the way, was DC secretary in the Palermo district of Ciaculli, kept in contact with politicians. Many of his political meetings were held in the family-owned Favarella estate, see Stancanelli (2016: 78 f.). 36 Di Girolamo (2012: 138, transl. by the author). 37 Martorana/Nigrelli (1993: 86). 38 La Repubblica (February 17, 2013). 39 In the 2001 regional elections, the family of Marsala, led by Natale Bonafede, allegedly supported Francesco Pizzo (1940) from the Nuovo PSI at the same time as it supported David Costa and Onofrio Fratello from the UDC. In the 2008 regional elections, the Palermo Resuttana clan is said to have supported Antonio Antinoro and Nino Dina, both from the UDC, at the same time, see Giornale di Sicilia (May 20, 2009, August 5, 2010), La Repubblica (February 17, 2013), TP 24 (August 5, 2010). 40 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 81, transl. by the author). 41 Agrigento Oggi (October 6, 2017), L’Espresso (March 20, 2008). 42 Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 66). 43 Dino (2002: 121). 44 The former Mafia boss Enzo Brusca recounted that in his 8,000-inhabitant village San Giuseppe Jato (PA) the Mafia controlled 1,000 voter votes, cf. La Repubblica (February 17, 2013). 45 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 93, transl. by the author). 46 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 74), Borrometi (2018: 193). 47 Dino (2002: 120, transl. by the author).

Notes    369

48 Dino (2002: 120 f., transl. by the author). 49 Santini usually refers to small printed cards with images of saints. Since the santini elettorali (holy election cards) resemble them, the same word is used for them. There is a reason why people use the following phrase for politicians: “Senza santi non si va in paradiso” (Without saints, you will not go to heaven). For the practice of  fare girare la santina (circulating the saint), cf. Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 74). 50 Such election gifts are common throughout Southern Italy and even non-Mafia galoppini (errand boys) use this method. The former Neapolitan mayor Achille Lauro (1887–1982) became famous for giving away single shoes to his voters during his election campaigns—the second shoe was only provided after the election, if they had voted correctly, cf. Il Sole 24 Ore (February 4, 2013).—Numerous cabaret artists make fun of this type of election campaign: for example, the sentence of the “Sindaco Isidoro” (Mayor Isidoro), invented by the comedian Raffaele Sabato in the 1980s, “Case popolari per tutti” (social housing for all) is still a saying in Palermo today. Even more famous is the “onorevole” (member of parliament) “Cetto Laqualunque” created by the cabaret artist Antonio Albanese, who is no less than the Mayor Isidoro, cf. for example the sketch “Comizio” (Ital. Election campaign) on YouTube. 51 In some elections (Senate, European Parliament) there were single-member constituencies and in others (House of Representatives, Regional and Provincial Parliaments, City and Municipal Councils, District Councils) multi-member constituencies. In the case of single-member constituencies, one candidate from each party stood for election, in the case of multi-member constituencies there were several candidates on different lists. In the elections to the House of Representatives, the Regional Parliament, and in municipalities with more than 15,000 inhabitants, the voter could “pre-select” candidates within the lists by means of multiple preference votes. Only in small municipalities, there were no preference votes, and the lists were “blocked”. The number of preference votes differed, though. For example, voters had four votes in the elections to the House of Representatives, but in the municipalities, the number depended on the size of the municipality. The preference votes that the voter could use or not—he or she could also simply choose the list—meant that the position of the candidates on the list was unimportant, because even the last candidate on the list, if he or she received enough preference votes, could be “pre-selected” without any

370     Notes

problems. After a referendum in 1991, preference votes were abolished or reduced to one vote. As a result, this once widespread form of controlling the vote was rendered impossible. Preference votes were abolished in the 1993 election reform forced by a referendum, with the consequence that this form of controlling the vote, which was once very widespread, was made impossible. For the Italian electoral system, see Chiellino/Marchio/Rongoni (1989: 145 ff.), Ullrich (2009: 660 ff.). 52 Sometimes, though, as in the 1987 elections, some mafiosi limited themselves to hanging the preference numbers to be voted for, in a bar owned by a mafioso, see Sanfilippo (2008: 417). 53 Monanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 824), Stancanelli (2016: 65), Stille (2000: 51). 54 L’Espresso (March 20, 2008). 55 For example, in Palermo two election officials were arrested because they allegedly falsified several hundred votes in favor of three candidates from Forza Italia in the May 2007 municipal elections, see La Repubblica (March 28, 2008). 56 Michele Pantaleone, for example, describes the case of a woman who— equipped with a certificate from the local Mafia boss and doctor Michele Navarra—was accompanied by a mafioso to the polling station. The representative of the Communists present at the polling station, who knew the woman, said to her: “You’re not blind at all (…), yesterday we picked peas together.” He complained to the election official about the presence of the “assistant” of the allegedly blind woman who had accompanied her when she cast her vote, see Pantaleone (2013: 126). 57 With the enactment of Law 356 in 1992, Article 416ter was introduced into the Criminal Code, which prohibits purchasing votes. Since it soon became clear that it is difficult to prove the flow of money, Article 416ter was modified in 2014 by Law 62 such that, since then, other favors such as the unlawful allocation of public contracts or the procurement of jobs have also been punishable. Politicians who violate the law can now be sentenced to between four and ten years in prison, see Amarelli (2014), Bellavia/ Palazzolo (2004: 74), La Spina (2016: 35 f.), Trocchia (2009: 155). 58 La Spina (2016: 32, transl. by the author).

Notes    371

59 L’Espresso (March 20, 2008, transl. by the author). 60 For example, in Marsala during the 2001 regional elections, a police officer acted as a vote organizer for the local Mafia clan. During the 2008 regional elections, a blameless employee was working as a vote organizer for the Palermitan clan San Lorenzo-Resuttana, see Giornale di Sicilia (October 19, 2005), La Repubblica (May 14, 2009). 61 Il Fatto Nisseno (October 6, 2020), Il Sicilia (March 26, 2019), La Spina (2016: 31). 62 Di Girolamo (2012: 148). 63 La Sicilia (April 14, 2008). 64 Trocchia (2009: 12, 162). 65 Trocchia (2009: 162). 66 Trocchia (2009: 226 ff.). 67 For Nastasi, see Antimafia Duemila (July 26, 2014), Camera dei Deputati/ Senato della Repubblica (1993: 33 ff.), Corriere della Sera (June 25, 1992), La Repubblica (May 9, 1992), Pinotti (2007: 577 ff.), Rizza (1994: 26 ff.). 68 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 890, transl. by the author). 69 La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (July 27, 2003), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 890). 70 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 76 f.), Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 27). 71 La Repubblica (May 9, 1992). 72 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 890). 73 Messina (2005: 38). 74 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 74).

372     Notes

75 La Repubblica (February 2, 2013), La Spina (2016: 34). 76 Di Girolamo (2012: 148). 77 The number of non-voters has increased sharply in Italy in recent decades, especially in the south, where it is usually about twice as high as the national average. In Sicily, 47.75% of all eligible voters refused to vote in the 2012 regional elections. Not least for this reason, the protest party M5S became the strongest party on the island at that election, although it was little known up to this point. The trend towards abstaining from voting continues: In the 2017 regional elections, even fewer voters (46.8%) cast their votes. In the European elections of 2014, which are considered less important, the turnout in Sicily was only 42.9%, cf. Cerruto (2012), Emanuele (2017), La Spina (2016: 33 f.). 78 Since it is noticeable that voter turnout in Western Sicily is approximately 10% lower than in the East, it can be assumed that the non-involvement in vote-buying of the clans in the West could have contributed to the dramatic increase in voter abstention and, as a result, to the success of protest parties, cf. Emanuele (2017), La Spina (2016: 33 ff.). 79 Bellavia (2010: 240 ff.). 80 Bellavia (2010: 241). 81 La Repubblica (April 13, 1993). 82 For example, the capomafia of Trabia (PA), Salvatore Rinella, had good relations with the FI mayor of his city, Giuseppe Di Vittorio who was later arrested. In a conversation intercepted by the police, he explained to a fellow mafioso: “He [the mayor] is above all a friend,” Trocchia (2009: 152, transl. by the author). 83 Arlacchi (2019: 99), Caruso (2005: 105), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 120, 822), Stancanelli (2016: 32). 84 Bellavia (2010: 58), Caruso (2005: 272), Tranfaglia (2001: 235).

Notes    373

85 The most famous case is that of Calogero Mannino, who was an official witness at the wedding of the son of Leonardo Caruana, the Mafia boss of Siculiana (AG)—even if for the bride, cf. Gomez/Travaglio (2006: 554). 86 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 44 ff., 53). 87 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 45, transl. by the author). 88 Di Matteo (2015: 72, transl. by the author). 89 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 835, transl. by the author). For the incident, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 213), Forgione (2004: 36). 90 Antimafia Duemila (November 3, 2011, transl. by the author). 91 For the meetings of Andreotti with mafiosi in Palermo, see: Gomez/ Travaglio (2001: 19 ff.; 2006: 640 ff.), La Repubblica (April 13, 1993), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 106 f., 123), Tranfaglia (2008: 114), Ursetta (2013: 17 ff.). 92 Tranfaglia (2008: 114, transl. by the author). 93 Tranfaglia (2008: 114). 94 Martorana/Nigrelli (1993: 87). 95 Enrico La Loggia comes from a family of politicians from Agrigento: his grandfather Enrico La Loggia (1872–1960) had already been politically active among the moderate socialists and, since he co-authored the Sicilian autonomy statute, is considered one of the founding fathers of the region. Enrico’s father Giuseppe La Loggia (1911–1994), on the other hand, was a Christian Democrat and held the office of regional president between 1956 and 1958. He was also elected to the House of Representatives several times. Enrico La Loggia himself, who by the way, is the brother-in-law of Attilio Ruffini, started his political career in the 1980s as a DC city councillor in Palermo. In 1994, he joined Forza Italia, for which he was elected to the Senate several times. 96 Abbate/Gomez (2007: 69, transl. by the author).

374     Notes

97 Abbate/Gomez (2007: 73, transl. by the author). 98 For this particular incident, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 69 ff., 81 ff.). 99 Il Fatto Quotidiano (February 7, 2020; February 14, 2020). 100 Il Fatto Quotidiano (July 5, 2020). 101 Abbate (2020: 98 ff.), Di Matteo (2015: 15). 102 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 40, transl. by the author). 103 Lima was not the only one to receive threats during those years. Indeed, all politicians who did not advocate “righting” the sentences of the Maxi Trials, were considered traitors by the Mafia, such as Calogero Mannino, Carlo Vizzini and Giulio Andreotti, see La Repubblica (October 8, 2014). 104 The politicians at risk included Antonio Battaglia (AN), Giuseppe Bongiorno (AN), Enzo Fragalà (AN), Nino Mormino (FI), Cesare Previti (FI), Francesco Savero Romano (UDC) and Marcello Dell’Utri (FI), see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 266), Caminata Altervista (January 23, 2020). 105 The Catania DC leader Antonino Drago had to take a slap in the face from boss Agatino Francesco Ferlito in the middle of a DC election event, because he had distanced himself from the Cosa Nostra in public and doubted that it had organized 6,000 voter votes for his party. And the exmafioso Leonardo Messina recounted how he, too, had occasionally been forced to slap politicians, see Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 37), Arlacchi (1995: 220), Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993b: 553). 106 Pumilia (1998: 42), Sanfilippo (2008: 103). 107 Lo Verso/Lo Coco (2003: 140 f.). 108 Lo Verso/Lo Coco (2003: 141, transl. by the author). 109 Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 66, transl. by the author).

Notes    375

110 The former boss Giovanni Brusca (1957) pointed out what people like Riina could expect if they made statements considered dangerous for politicians: “If it goes well, they take him and throw him on the garbage heap. If it goes badly for him, they declare him crazy or kill him.” Lodato (1999: 122 f., transl. by the author). 111 Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 226, transl. by the author). 112 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 25, transl. by the author). 113 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 25, transl. by the author) 114 Ilardo, from Catania, was not a simple mafioso, but the deputy district representative of the province of Caltanissetta, as well as the cousin of Piddu Madonia, the local Mafia boss. Ilardo had background information on numerous political murders and terrorist attacks, and he also knew about dubious members of the law enforcement apparatus, such as the police officer Giovanni Aiello (1946–2017), known as faccia del mostro (Monster Face). Since Ilardo had decided to leave the Mafia, he worked secretly with the Carabinieri Colonel Michele Riccio between 1994 and 1996. Shortly before Ilardo was to be admitted to the witness protection program, a meeting took place in Rome on May 2, 1996, between Ilardo, Riccio, Carabinieri Commander Mario Mori, and prosecutors Giovanni Tinebra (1941–2017), Gian Carlo Caselli and Teresa Principato. At this unrecorded meeting, Ilardo explained that Mori knew very well that the state was responsible for many crimes that were attributed to the Mafia. Immediately after this meeting, a mole—many suspect from the Caltanissetta Justice Palace— informed the mafiosi from Catania of Ilardo’s “betrayal,” and Ilardo was shot dead a few days later, on May 10, 1996, in Catania, see Abbate (2021), Amendola (2022: 101f.), Antimafia Duemila (July 8, 2019; December 14, 2020), Biondo/Ranucci (2009: 9–73, 233, 251–258, 273–277, 287–325), Il Circolaccio (June 14, 2019), Vinci (2021). 115 La Repubblica (November 4, 1986). 116 The Milanese banker Calvi was found hanged under the London Black Friar Bridge on June 18, 1982. After unusually superficial investigations by the British authorities, his death was declared a suicide. Thanks to the efforts of Calvi’s family, however, the investigations were resumed in 1983. And in March 2007, a Roman court unequivocally determined that he had

376     Notes

been killed. The crime seems to have involved not only Mafia, Camorra and members of the Magliana Band, but also intelligence officers. As early as during his detention on charges of foreign exchange offenses, Calvi had threatened to tell more about bribes to the parties. If he had revealed his secrets, it would have been a disaster for his old friends from the secret lodge P2, the parties that had received bribes, the intelligence services and the Vatican, with which he had undertaken money laundering operations, see Il Fatto Quotidiano (November 10, 2016), Willan (2008). 117 Gioè, a mafioso from the family of Altofonte (PA), was the cousin of the “gentleman”-mafioso Francesco Di Carlo living in London. Di Carlo was sentenced to 25 years in prison in Great Britain for drug trafficking. In the period after the Addaura attack and before the murders of Falcone and Borsellino, Di Carlo received two or three visits from Italian and foreign intelligence officers in the northern English prison of Full Sutton. These visitors, according to Di Carlo, asked for the help of the Cosa Nostra to eliminate Judge Falcone, whereupon Di Carlo referred them to his cousin Nino Gioè. Di Carlo, who had himself had intelligence contacts in the past and, according to his own statements, had even been friends with the head of intelligence Giuseppe Santovito (1918–1984), warned his cousin: “The intelligence services, yes, they do you favors, but at the right moment they abandon you, that’s how it always was.” (Palazzolo 2010: 179, transl. by the author). According to Di Carlo, Gioè was contacted by the intelligence service, which then proudly told him: “They have half of Italy in their pocket, we can do many things there” (Di Gioacchino 2015: 62, transl. by the author)—In 1992, Gioè began to meet with the neo-fascist, antiquities thief and killer Paolo Bellini (born 1953), whom he had met in 1981 in the prison at Sciacca (AG). Bellini allegedly asked Gioiè for help in obtaining loans in Sicily and also offered to ask the carabinieri for relief for mafiosi if the Cosa Nostra would help him recover stolen works of art that he was looking for on behalf of the carabinieri. Bellini is also said to have given the Mafia the idea of bombing cultural assets on the Italian mainland, which happened in 1993. What exactly Bellini did in Sicily during the time when the assassinations of Judges Falcone and Borsellino took place is still unclear.—Gioè is known to have been one of the perpetrators of the fatal July 23, 1992 attack on Judge Falcone. After the assassination, Gioè and another of the perpetrators, Gioacchino La Barbera (born 1959), hid in an apartment in Via Ughetti 17 in Palermo, where they were intercepted as they were talking about the attentatuni (Sic. big attack). On March 19, 1993, Gioè was arrested and soon afterwards seems to have decided to come

Notes    377

clean. Yet such a confession did not take place, because Gioè died in his cell in the Roman Rebibbia prison during the night of July 28 to 27, 1993. He was found hanged with his shoelaces at the window of his cell and it was immediately determined to be a suicide. There were doubts about the suicide version from the beginning, which is why an investigation was initiated, but it remained without result. Meanwhile, the former prison guard and mafioso Pietro Riggio declared that Gioè had been killed by a special prison police unit. For a long time, there had been talk of the so-called “Protocollo Farfalla” (Butterfly Protocol), thanks to which intelligence officers can move freely in prisons without this being recorded, cf. Abbate (2020: 116 f.), Antimafia Duemila (October 26, 2020), Bellavia (2010: 323–346; 2016: 147–156), Biondo/Ranucci (2009: 143 ff.), Deaglio (2022: 81ff.), Di Giovacchino (2015: 56–77), Genchi (2009: 110, 114), Messina (2014: 351 f.), Palazzolo (2010: 178 ff.), Ruscica (2015: 178 ff.), Tescaroli (2001: 81 ff.), Torrealta (2002: 121–150), Vitale/Costanzo (2009: 105 f.). 118 Riggio was a prison guard since 1990. He joined the Mafia family of Caltanissetta in 2000. He was arrested for the first time in 1998 and again in 2004. Since July 2008 he turned state witness. Since then, he has testified in various proceedings, mainly about crimes in which representatives of the state were involved. Riggio explained that he was not afraid of the Mafia, but of representatives of the state who had threatened him, see Antimafia Duemila (October 26, 2020), Giornale di Sicilia (December 18, 2020), Progetto San Francesco (December 21, 2020), Word News (November 21, 2020).

4.4 The Judiciary and the Police: Henchman of Politics? 1 Mosca (2002: 40 f.). 2 Roughly ten judges who were asked to preside over the trial refused for various reasons—from illness to family issues. In the end, judge Alfonso Giordano (1928–2021) agreed, even though he was not even a criminal law expert, see Bolzoni (2012: 133), Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 97). 3 Billitteri (2008: 211). 4 Contrada, who came from Naples, joined the police force in 1958 and came to Palermo in 1962, where he became head of the Palermo criminal police in 1973 and the Criminalpol for western Sicily in 1976. In 1982, he joined the SISDE, where he was initially responsible for the intelligence

378     Notes

service centers of Sicily and Sardinia, before becoming head of the third SISDE department in Rome in 1986, thus becoming one of the top intelligence service officials in Italy. In 1982, he was also temporarily cabinet chief of the anti-Mafia high commissioner Emanuele De Francesco (1921–2011). In 1987, Contrada led a special group within the SISDE that was responsible for the search for fugitive terrorists and mafiosi. Contrada had long been “talked about”: a number of policemen had reservations about him and pentiti had repeatedly testified that Contrada and the Mafia seemed to get along very well. Only when the defector Gaspare Mutolo began to testify in proceedings led by Judge Borsellino in July 1992 did investigations begin and Contrada was arrested on December 24, 1992. Ironically, he had previously coordinated the investigations into the bomb attacks on Judges Falcone and Borsellino! In April 1994, Contrada was tried and accused of misdirecting investigations, warning mafiosi of impending arrests, granting them privileges such as the return of firearms and driver’s licenses, and threatening witnesses. In April 1996, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for the first time, acquitted on appeal in 2001. However, the Court of Cassation ordered a retrial of the appeal and Contrada was then sentenced to ten years in prison again in 2006, a verdict that was confirmed by the Court of Cassation in 2007. Already in 2008 he was released from prison and only placed under house arrest, cf. Billetteri (2008: 85), Genchi (2009: 105 ff.), Torrealta (2011: 299–361), Ursetta (2013: 39 ff.). 5 D’Antone, originally from Catania, had first been head of the criminal police in Palermo, then the Criminalpol of Western Sicily. In the 1990s, he was investigated because he had provided favors to mafiosi who were on the run and hindered the work of his colleagues in the 1980s. He sabotaged police raids, such as on Christmas night 1983 at the baptism of a grandson of boss Pietro Vernengo in the Magione church in Palermo or at a Mafia wedding on January 14, 1984 at the Costaverde hotel in Cefalù (PA). In police circles, long before D’Antone was actually arrested, it was said that he had financial problems due to his gambling addiction and was not trustworthy. D’Antone was convicted on all judicial levels. After the imposed prison sentence of eight years became effective in 2004, he was arrested again and had to go to prison, from which he was not released until 2012, see Di Matteo (2015: 95 ff.), Dino (2008c: 81 ff.), Genchi (2009: 105 f.), La Repubblica (June 8, 2012), Palazzolo (2010: 234 ff.), Ursetta (2013: 41). 6 For Carnevale, see Bolzoni (2012: 152 f.), Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 23, 126 ff., 127 ff., 179 ff.), Lodato/Travaglio (2005: 268 ff.).

Notes    379

7 Giuseppe Prinzivalli (1931–2011), a former judge and prosecutor, also had to answer to charges in court: Ex-mafioso Salvatore Cancemi testified that he had received “una burza chiena di piccioli” (Sic. a suitcase full of money) La Repubblica (October 10, 1995, transl. by the author) and real estate from mafiosi. Prinzivalli got off scot-free because the statute of limitation for his crimes had expired by the time his trial was over, see Bolzoni (2012: 180 f.), Di Matteo (2015: 83 ff.), Giornale di Sicilia (July 15, 2005), Zingales (2002: 210).—Numerous other judges and prosecutors like Carlo Aiello, Domenico Mollica, Salvatore Curti Giardina, Pasquale Barreca, Francesco D’Antoni and Carmelo Conti had to answer to charges of favoring the Mafia in court, but they were all acquitted, see Antimafia Duemila (April 21, 2013), Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018), Messina (2005: 134), La Repubblica (October 19, 1993; September 22, 1994), Zingales (2002: 210, 218).—Prosecutor Francesco Scozzari, whom the murdered judge Rocco Chinnici had called a “servant of the Mafia”, knew how to prevent getting charged himself: After the Supreme Council of Magistrates had ordered Scozzari’s transfer and initiated a disciplinary procedure, Scozzari submitted his resignation, which stopped the proceedings, see Chinnici (1981/83: Diary page 3 of December 15, 1981 ), L’Unita (September 11, 1983).—Prosecutor Domenico Signorino († 1992), who according to Mafia informant Gaspare Mutolo had been bribed, chose a more drastic way out by shooting himself, see L’Unita (December 4, 1992). 8 Mosca (2002: 43). 9 It is known that the prosecutor Olindo Canali had friendly relations with the alleged regente of the Mafia family of Barcellona, the doctor Salvatore Rugolo, see Gazzetta del Sud (October 2, 2018), La Repubblica (December 28, 2008), Schinella (July 27, 2019), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 137).— Giovanni Pizzillo, the president of the Palermo Court of Appeals, on the other hand, had excellent relations with the Mafia tax collector Nino Salvo. Moreover, he enjoyed the highest esteem in the criminal world of his hometown Collesano (PA) according to the local Carabiniere Sergeant Vincenzo Bucca, see La Licata (2002: 61 f.).—The Palermo Public Prosecutor Vincenzo Pajno is also said to have been friends with the Mafia tax collectors, the cousins Salvo, see: Cipriani (1993: 33), Chinnici (1981/83: Diary page of November 26, 1982.). 10 Antimafia (January 6, 2008), Billitteri (2008: 151).

380     Notes

11 La Repubblica (27.07.1988), Viviano (2008: 41). 12 Bellavia/Palazzolo (2002: 22), Bolzoni (2012: 144 f.), La Repubblica (May 29, 1993), La Repubblica—Blog (July 24, 2017), Live Sicilia (December 15, 2011), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 831, 860). 13 Public Prosecutor Francesco Messineo (1946) is also related to an alleged “man of honor”, but was never charged with favoritism toward the Mafia. Nevertheless, Messineo had to occasionally excuse himself from investigations—given that his brother-in-law Sergio Maria Sacco was a defendant in a Mafia trial. That way, he could avoid any suspicions of potential bias, cf. La Repubblica (March 15, 2009), La Stampa (March 16, 2009), 19 Luglio 1992 (June 14, 2002; December 14, 2015). 14 Catanzaro (1991: 117 f.). 15 The State Police (Polizia di Stato) is under the authority of the Minister of Interior; the carabinieri which also handle police tasks are under the authority of the Minister of Defense; the Prison Police (Polizia Penitenziaria) is under the Minister of Justice, and the Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza) under the Minister of Economics and Finance. 16 Bin/Pitruzella (2000: 281 ff.), Folliero (1997: 243 f.). 17 Mosca (2002: 51, transl. by the author). 18 Marino (2002a: 91), Mosca (2002: 52). 19 For example, the prosecutor of Gela, Angelo Ventura († 2007), prohibited the carabinieri from installing listening devices in the home and car of Giovanna Santoro, the wife of the Mafia boss Piddu Madonia, because this would be “immoral and perfidious” see Bascietto (2005: 101), La Repubblica (July 4, 1992), Corriere di Gela (September 22, 2017). 20 Riina lived under an assumed identity with his family in a villa on Via Bernini, 54 in Palermo before his arrest. On the afternoon of the day of Riina’s arrest, the Carabinieri Captain, Sergio De Caprio, ordered the vehicle that was monitoring the villa complex to be withdrawn. The prosecutor’s office was led to believe that it was still being monitored. 19 days later, a scandal broke out when the incident became public. De Caprio and his

Notes    381

superior Mario Mori were tried for failing to monitor and search Riina’s villa, defending themselves by claiming that there had simply been a misunderstanding between the carabinieri and the prosecutor’s office. De Caprio and Mori were acquitted, but not a few interpreted the incident as possibly involving the “national interest” in the failed search of the villa, see Abbate (2020: 92 ff.), Abbate/Gomez (2007: 201 ff.), Ciconte (2008b: 430 ff.), Pinotti (2007: 606). 21 Occasionally, evidence is also deliberately mislaid so that it either never appears or only when it is too late for investigations. Investigations often fail due to “moles” who pass information on to mafiosi or their defense lawyers, giving them the opportunity to take measures to protect themselves. For example, the report of the “Mafia & Appalti” investigation, which the carabiniere Giuseppe De Donno had handed over to the prosecutor’s office in Palermo, fell into the hands of the politicians and mafiosi named in the report, see Macaluso (1999: 93 ff.), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 278 ff., 287 f.). 22 Many people assume that the missing documents were the Moro dossier. Antonietta Setti Carraro, the mother of Dalla Chiesa’s wife, said on April 15, 1992, that her daughter Emanuela had told her about these documents which Dalla Chiesa had found in a hiding place of the Red Brigades: “She told me that the honorable Andreotti had asked him [Dalla Chiesa, note by the author] for these papers (…) only a part of them he gave to Andreotti (…). A part of these papers, or all of them, I do not remember exactly, the General kept for himself ” (Montanaro/Ruotolo 1995: 158, transl. by the author). For the disappearance of the documents from Dalla Chiesa’s safe in his residence Villa Pajno, see Di Matteo (2015: 10), La Repubblica (April 13, 1993), Lodato / Scarpinato (2008: 235 ff.), Montanaro / Ruotolo (1995: 158 f.), Pinotti (2007: 55, 590). 23 After Falcones death, his office and apartment in Rome and Palermo were sealed. Nevertheless, unknown persons gained access to the murdered judges electronic notebooks, laptops and computer and read, overwrote and deleted data. Two computer experts, the Palermo police commissioner Gioacchino Genchi (born 1960) and the electronic engineer Luciano Petrini, who worked for the software company Computer Micro Image which also did work for the intelligence service, examined the devices. After his testimony in Caltanissetta in January 1996, Petrini was found murdered in his apartment in Rome in May 1996. It was said that it was a

382     Notes

murder in homosexual circles and the investigations were soon discontinued. Genchi, who was able to restore most of the deleted or overwritten data, was advised to keep silent about his findings. Nevertheless, he transmitted his findings to the public prosecutor, whereupon he was transferred to Northern Italy and was subsequently responsible for security at football matches and demonstrations. Genchi meanwhile left the police service and made his findings public in the book “Il Caso Genchi”. According to Genchi, Falcones old electronic Casio notebook, in which the judge noted meetings, telephone numbers and findings, contained numerous interesting details that might provide clues to the background of his murder: for example, a secret meeting of Falcone on December 16, 1991 in the prison of Spoleto with the ex-mafioso Gaspare Mutolo and one at the end of April 1992 with Buscetta in the USA. Genchi also points out that Falcone was in close contact with numerous politicians who were later charged with Mafia connections and that he continued to deal with sensitive investigations such as “Mafia & Appalti” and the secret organization Gladio, cf. Bolzoni (2012: 157), Di Gioacchino (2015: 109 f.), Genchi (2009: 78 ff., 91 ff.), Italy Flash (May 12, 2020), Palazzolo (2010: 187 ff.), Pinotti (2007: 590, 607), Viviano/Ziniti (2010: 9). 24 Borsellino never parted with his red notebook. Borsellino’s wife Agnese had seen her husband put the notebook in his leather briefcase in the afternoon of July 19, 1992, the day of the bomb attack in Via d’Amelio in Palermo, which claimed the lives of Borsellino and his five bodyguards. This briefcase, which was in Borsellino’s car with bulletproof glass, remained intact after the attack. At 5:00 pm the bomb exploded, and at 5:30 pm the young Carabinieri Captain Giovanni Arcangioli was accidentally photographed by the photographer Franco Lannino with Borsellino’s leather briefcase in his hand. Lannino’s photo became the starting point for an investigation against Arcangioli: First, the carabiniere explained that he had given the briefcase unopened to the former prosecutor and PRI senator Giuseppe Ayala (born 1945). Later he said that he had opened the briefcase together with Ayala, but there had been no notebook inside. He had then passed the briefcase to a carabiniere, whose name he could not remember. Officially, Borsellino’s leather briefcase is then mentioned in a 6:30 p.m. report of the criminal police, in which its contents are listed—there is no mention of the red notebook. Many are convinced that the murder of Borsellino would have been pointless if the red notebook had not disappeared in the mayhem… The thieves of the notebook seem to have been informed about its explosive content. Many are convinced that intelligence

Notes    383

service agents had let the red notebook disappear, including the Mafia boss Riina. For the disappearance of the red notebook, see Di Gioacchino (2015: 142 ff.), Di Matteo 2015: 10), Lo Bianco/Rizza (2007: 8 ff.), Genchi (2009: 84 f.), Palazzolo (2010: 193 f.), Pinotti (2007: 583 f.), Viviano/Ziniti (2010: 45 ff.). 25 For the botched arrest of Provenzano in Mezzojuso, see Dino (2011: 261), Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 24 ff.), Biondo/Ranucci (2009: 60 ff.), Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 20 ff., 265 ff.). 26 Antimafia Duemila (May 3, 2011), Il Fatto Quotidiano (January 19, 2015), MeridioNews (July 20, 2018). 27 Billitteri (2008: 175, transl. by the author). 28 The officials responsible for investigating the Via d’Amelio bombing– SISDE functionary Bruno Contrada, and the head of the criminal police, Arnaldo La Barbera, who was also working undercover for the intelligence service—immediately began to investigate a gang of small-time criminals specializing in car theft, cigarette and drug dealing in the Palermo district of Guadagna. This gang was led by Vincenzo Scarantino, a mentally unstable illiterate whose only connection to the Mafia was his brother-in-law Salvatore Profeta (1945–2018), a member of the Santa Maria di Gesù family led by Pietro Aglieri. Scarantino was arrested in September 1992 and a year later forced to incriminate himself as the organizer of the attack, even though he had initially resisted providing this false testimony—crying, banging his head against the cell wall and bleeding, and attempting suicide. By 1994, prosecutor Ilda Boccassini, who had been transferred to Sicily to contribute to the investigation into the Borsellino attack, was already convinced that Scarantino could not have been behind the attack. She made her position clear to the chief prosecutor of Caltanissetta, Giovanni Tinebra (1941– 2017), who refused to be dissuaded from the chosen line of investigation, so Boccassini transferred back to Milan. In September 1997, Scarantino’s wife Rosaria Basile publicly declared that her husband had been tortured to make a false confession. Shortly before the end of the first trial in 1998, Scarantino withdrew his confession with the following words: “They tortured me, they said they would infect me with AIDS, they put worms in my soup. Everything I said was a lie. La Barbera said: you will be the new Buscetta, you will get a new identity and a lot of money” (Di Gioacchino 2015: 141, transl. by the author). His statements, he said, were “whispered” to him and

384     Notes

he had to memorize them before the court hearings. Scarantino explained that it was police officers Vincenzo Ricciardi, Mario Bo, Salvatore La Barbera, but also the prosecutors Giovanni Tinebra and Annamaria Palma who had made him lie or had repeatedly stopped him from telling the truth. The truth came out in 2008 when the former mafioso Gaspare Spatuzza began to testify: Spatuzza, a member of the Brancaccio family led by Giuseppe Graviano, was involved in the Borsellino assassination, for example, he stole the FIAT 126 in which the car bomb was hidden. Spatuzza recounted, among other things, that a person unknown to him, not a mafioso, but, in his opinion, an intelligence service agent, was present when the bomb was placed in the FIAT.—After Spatuzza’s statement, the fourth Borsellino trial, the “Borsellino quater” trial, was reopened. For 18 years, Scarantino’s lies had prevented the truth from coming to light and had resulted in innocent people being imprisoned. If the investigation had not been misdirected, the focus would probably have been much earlier on the probable involvement of the intelligence services and the Brancaccio clan with its close political connections, which was probably what was supposed to be prevented, cf. De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 73 ff.), Di Giovacchino (2015: 130 ff.), Genchi (2009: 86 ff., 116, 118–125), Montanaro (2013: 93 ff., 146 ff.). 29 For La Barbera, see Deaglio (2022: 146ff), Torrealta (2011: 169–181). 30 Billitteri (2009: 109), Nicastro (2006: 48 f.), Viviano (2009: 106 ff.). 31 Ceruso (2008: 180 f.). 32 For the Basile trials, which are a good example of the successful “adjustment” of judicial proceedings, see Bolzoni (2012: 168, 191), Bolzoni/ D’Avanzo (2018: 27 ff., 70), Di Matteo (2015: 78 ff.). 33 Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2018: 70, transl. by the author) 34 Abbate (2020: 118, 239, 244), Bellavia/De Lucia (2009: 174), Bellavia/ Palazzolo (2004: 146 f.). 35 Again and again, investigations are carried out against doctors who help mafiosi have their prison sentences commuted to hospital stays or house arrests because of false expert opinions. For example, during the Maxi Trial, 40 defendants were released from custody into house arrest “for health reasons”. The corrupt doctors receive money or—in the case of hospital

Notes    385

doctors—promotions for their expert opinions, see De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 10 ff., 185 ff., 212 ff., 243 ff.). 36 Corriere della Sera (September 5, 2012), De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 28). 37 Billitteri (2008: 24, 206 f.) 38 Mosca (2002: 52). 39 In the course of his investigations between 1976 and 1977, the police officer identified a powerful criminal network that he held responsible not only for numerous kidnappings and murders, but also for the mysterious plane crash on May 5, 1972 in Palermo. Officially, it was said that the plane had collided with the Montagna Longa due to a pilot error, whereupon it crashed and killed its 115 occupants. However, witnesses had seen the plane explode in midair before the impact. The accident occurred exactly two days before the 1972 national elections, at a time when Italy was shaken by numerous right-wing terrorist attacks.—Peri wrote a 34-page report, the “Rapporto Peri”, and sent it to seven prosecutors (Marsala, Trapani, Palermo, Agrigento, Taranto, Milan, Torino) in 1977—none of whom initiated investigations. Instead, the unyielding Peri, who had partially used his vacation time to pursue his investigations and who must have come too close to the “third level”, was attacked by his superiors as one who “was fantasizing”. Peri was relieved of his position, downgraded and transferred, see Caruso (2017: 555–565), Il Circolaccio (January 3, 2020), Peri (no year), Palermo Today (May 5, 2017). 40 Palazzolo (2010: 119, 235). 41 After Montalbano had the Centro Scontrino searched, he was suspended from duty by the Trapani police president Mario Gonzales on the pretext of using an armored service vehicle illegally. He was then transferred to Palermo to take over the dangerous position of his murdered colleague Ninni Cassarà, which no one wanted. After he had made himself unpopular in Palermo with his report on the murder of Insalaco, he was transferred again, this time to Ragusa, which is far from his hometown Palermo—and thus from his family. Montalbano was only given administrative tasks there. Montalbano knew that he was supposed to be punished and explained: “They have something against me because I refused to soften the report on

386     Notes

Insalaco.” (Stancanelli 2016: 239, transl.by the author). Frustrated, he gave up and left the police service voluntarily, see Amendola (2022: 84f.), La Repubblica (August 2, 1988; May 8, 1988), Palermo (1996: 94 f.), Pinotti (2007: 559 ff.), Stancanelli (2016: 238 f.), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 106 f.). 42 In March 1997, after Riccio had reported his superiors, an anonymous letter reached the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Genoa, accusing Riccio of various offenses. The carabiniere was arrested in June 1997. After numerous trials in which he was accused of not having correctly led a carabinieri commando in the 1980s, Riccio was sentenced to four years and ten months in prison in 2011, ending the career of the “inconvenient” official, see Antimafia Duemila (March 11, 2011). 43 Bolzoni (2012: 111, 124), Li Vigni (1995: 315). 44 Di Matteo (2015: 86), Li Vigni (1995: 252). 45 In 2006, Decree-Law No. 206 introduced the hierarchical principle within the public prosecutor’s office, according to which public prosecutors must follow the instructions of their superior chief public prosecutor, who can take away their cases at any time, cf. Maiwald (2009: 175 f.). 46 Not only are “inconvenient” policemen and prosecutors transferred when they get in the way of the Mafia and its friends, but also high-ranking administrative officials—as the case of Fulvio Sodano, who was prefect of Trapani between 2000 and 2003 demonstrates, cf. Uccello/Amadore (2009: 99 ff.). 47 Il Giornale (September 29, 2013 29.09.2013, transl. by the author),

4.5 “Meeting Places”: Elite Clubs and Secret Lodges 1 Dino (2002: 53, transl. by the author). 2 MeriodioNews (February 15, 2020), Pennino (2006: 141), Viviano (2009: 22, 25). 3 Dino (2002: 54, transl. by the author).

Notes    387

4 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 800), Pennino (2006: 142). 5 Dino (2002: 55; transl. by the author). 6 The association Corda Fratres (Heart of the Brothers) was a student association founded at the end of the nineteenth century in Turin. The Corda Fratres does not belong to a Masonic order, but the similarities are unmistakable, which is why it is often referred to as a “pseudo-Masonic organization”. In Sicily, the association played a role above all at the University of Messina, where many members of its Barcelona Pozzo di Gotto branch, founded in 1944, had studied, see Antimafia (May 3, 2011), Messina (2014: 355 ff.), La Repubblica (March 24, 2013), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 128 f.). 7 Cassata—like his protege, the state prosecutor Olindo Canali—is understood to be morally culpable for the suicide of Adolfo Parmaliana (1958– 2008). The chemistry professor at the University of Messina and local DS secretary of Terme Vigliatore (ME) had denounced the dirty business of the city council of Terme Vigliatore, led by mayor Bartolo Cipriani, but his charges remained without consequences. The relevant prosecutor’s office did not initiate any investigations, instead Parmigliana was prosecuted for defamation. Only after the carabinieri of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto presented the 200-page report “Tsunami”, was the municipality dissolved for Mafia infiltration in the same year. But the prosecutor’s office continued to hold its protective hand over the corrupt politicians. This was nor surprising because Cassata and Canali seem to have been not only connected with the incriminated politicians, but also with the local Mafia. For example, in September 1994, Cassata was observed by two carabinieri while he was talking to Venerina Rugolo, the wife of the local Mafia boss Pino Gullotta, on the street. Afterwards, he pressured the carabinieri to delete his conversation with Rugolo from their work report. Later, investigations were initiated against Canali, whose friendship with Venera Rugolo’s brother Salvatore was known, because the latter was said to have accepted money from the Mafia. Parmaliana increasingly fell into isolation—even within his own party. In the end, he was so desperate that he committed suicide by jumping from an overpass on October 2, 2008. In his farewell letter, Parmaliana made serious accusations against Cassata and Canali: “The judiciary of Barcellona and Messina want to expose me, want to humiliate me, delegitimize me, they persecute me because I dared to fulfill my duty as an honest citizen (…). I do not allow these subjects to insult my dignity (…)” (July 7, 2016, transl. by the author). For this letter, Cassata took revenge

388     Notes

by spreading an anonymous dossier in 2009, in which he further defamed Parmaliana. Because of this dossier, Cassata was sentenced in 2016, but only to a fine of € 800. Before the CSM could take measures against him, he left the judiciary voluntarily in 2013, see Antimafia Duemila (May 3, 2011; July 15, 2016), Gazzetta del Sud (October 2, 2018), Caruso (2017: 628 ff.), I Siciliani (July 7, 2016), Quotidiano L’Informazione (July 19, 2015), Uccello/ Amadore (2009: 137 ff.). 8 Gullotti (“L’avvocaticchio” = the little lawyer) was the capofamiglia of the cosca from Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto. In 1999, he was sentenced to life imprisonment as the instigator of the murder of journalist Beppe Alfano. Gullotti is said to have brought the remote control to Giovanni Brusca, with which the bomb was detonated on July 23, 1992 in Capaci; La Repubblica (March 24, 2013), Messina (214: 357), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 128 f.). 9 The lawyer Cattafi from Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto is not a typical mafioso: When he studied law at the University of Messina in the 1970s, he frequented right-wing circles; later, he was in contact with the intelligence service and Freemasonry lodges like the P2. He not only belonged to the cosca of Barcellona, but is also said to have been the right-hand man of Nitto Santapaola, the capofamiglia of the clan from Catania. Cattafi, against whom investigations had been carried out for numerous crimes such as membership in the Mafia, kidnappings, participation in the judge’s assassinations in 1992 and, above all, international arms trade, is considered the central link between Cosa Nostra, Freemasonry and intelligence services. In 2013, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison for membership in the Mafia. On appeal, the sentence was reduced to seven years in 2015. In 2017, the Court of Cassation ordered a retrial. In 2021, the Appeal Court of Reggio di Calabria sentenced Cattafi to six years in prison. This verdict was confirmed in May 2023 by the Court of Cassation. Cattafi is the only mafioso who was released after conviction on the first judicial level and the subsequent appeal. So far, the proceedings have repeatedly been postponed, so that Cattafi could be acquitted because of the expiration of the statute of limitations, see Gazzetta del Sud (March 3, 2023), Il Fatto Quotidiano (January 19, 2021), I Siciliani (March 2015), La Repubblica (March 24, 2013), Messina (2014: 338 ff.), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 128). 10 Groppi (2005).

Notes    389

11 Dino (2002: 56), Salemi (1993: 91). It seems that even Matteo Messina Denaro frequented  the see »good salons« of Palermo, see La Repubblica (March 19, 2023)  12 Dino (2002, 56, transl. by the author). 13 Uccello/Amadore (2009: 108). 14 The female entrepreneur and founder of the first anti-racketeering organization in Catania, Pia Giulia Nucci, stated: “In Palermo you almost inevitably come across mafiosi in the salons, because there are frequented by many politicians and businessmen there who are closely associated with the Mafia. This is much less the case in Catania. We Catanese always had to stand on our own two feet and could never rely on politicians who have less to distribute in Catania than in the capital.” Personal conversation with Pia Giulia Nuccio on September 23, 2005. 15 La Repubblica. Cronaca di Palermo (May 29, 2005). 16 Ceruso (2008: 185 f.). 17 The Masonic lodges have an elitist social structure, see Dickie (2020: 77 ff.), Pinotti (2007: 14 f.). 18 For the history of Freemasonry, see Dickie (2020: 62), Ranieri (1996), Reinalter (2000: 9 ff.). 19 This includes ritual actions involving symbols and images, in which the brothers wear the Masonic badges, an apron and white gloves, see Dickie (2020: 15 ff.), Rainieri (2000: 143 ff.), Reinalter (2000: 32 ff.). 20 For the secret lodges, see Dickie (2015: 426 ff.), Leccese (2018: 21 ff.). 21 Dickie (2020: 18, 25 f.), Ranieri (1996: 94). 22 Dickie (2020: 20), Reinalter (2000: 43). 23 Article 18 of the Italian Republic’s constitution does not explicitly forbid Freemasonry, but it does forbid secret societies. After the P2 scandal, a new legal norm was enacted with Law 17/1982, the Anselmi law, according to

390     Notes

which membership in secret societies is punishable by two years in prison, and the leadership of such an organization is punishable by one to five years in prison, see Dickie (2020: 412 f.), Leccese (2018: 27). 24 Dickie (2020: 426). 25 Dickie (2020: 427). 26 After the first Freemason lodge in Italy had been founded in Florence in 1732, others followed quickly. These lodges joined together in 1805 to form the first grand lodge, the Grande Oriente d’Italia (GOI, Grand Orient of Italy). It had its headquarters first in Florence, then, from 1870 on, in the Palazzo Giustiniani in Rome. In 1908, as a conservative breakaway from the GOI, the Gran Loggia d’Italia degli Alam was created as a second grand lodge. Its historical seat is in the Palazzo Vitalleschi on Piazza del Gesù in Rome. In 1951, the Serenissima Gran Loggia d’Italia was created as a third grand lodge, and in 1993, the Gran Loggia Regolare d’Italia (as a breakaway from the GOI) as a fourth grand lodge. However, the GOI and the Gran Loggia d’Italia degli Alam remained by far the most important grand lodges. The two grand lodges that were established later have significantly fewer members. With the exception of the Gran Loggia d’Italia degli Alam, which has been admitting women since 1956, the grand lodges are purely male associations. For the Italian grand lodges, see Dickie (2020: 413 ff.), Leccese (2018: 29 ff.), Messina (2014: 15, 19 f.), Pinotti (2007: 9 ff., 80, 185, 264 f.), Ranieri (2000: 30, 40, 78 f., 107 f.). 27 Pinotti (2007: 15). 28 Dickie (2020: 17, 68 ff.), Ranieri (2000: 28, 93 f.). 29 Ranieri (2000: 15 f.), Renda (1999: 79). 30 Marino (1998: 50), Ranieri (2000: 85, 107 f.). 31 Gigliotti emigrated to the USA in 1928, where he initially worked as a pastor, before working as an agent for the OSS and later the CIA. He also led the American Committee for Italian Democracy, which was supported by the right-wing Sons of Italy, who played an important role in preparing for the invasion of Italy. But above all, Gigliotti was a Freemason: He belonged to the dubious Garibaldi Lodge, in which many American mafiosi

Notes    391

were enrolled, as well as the Lodge from California. Gigliotti was the driving force behind the rebuilding of Italian Freemasonry—for example, he gave the GOI back its old seat in the Palazzo Giustiniani—and ensured its anti-communist orientation. As the central contact between the CIA and Italian politics, Gigliotti had confidants in all Italian lodges—including Giovanni Alliata Di Montereale—through which he interfered in Italian politics until the 1970s. By the way, Gigliotti is said to have been behind the breakaway of Saragat’s PRLI from the PSI, which weakened the socialists. Only after the rise of P2 did he begin to lose importance when his role was taken over by Licio Gelli, see Amendola (2022: 50ff.), Guarino/Raugei (2006: 46 f.), Messina (2014: 88, 126, 129), Palermo (1996: 27, 48, 83 ff.). 32 Alliata Di Montereale was born in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, where his family owned enormous estates. After the end of World War II, the duke first became involved in the separatist movement and then in the Monarchist party, for which he was first elected to the city council of Palermo in 1946, to the regional parliament in 1947 and to the House of Representatives repeatedly from 1948 onwards. But his real passion were the Freemasons, which he had already joined as a young man. He was promoted by his American friends, not only by Gigliotto, but also by Rear Admiral Ellery Stone, the head of the Allied Control Commission for Italy. In the 1950s, the duke became the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite—an elite top-level system that recruits its members from the ranks of the masters of other lodges. In addition, he was involved in various “regular” lodges and was a member of the P2 at the latest in the 1970s. He also maintained contact with numerous dubious lodges in Sicily. Adopted by Gioacchino Pennino senior as a secret “man of honor” into the family of Brancaccio, the duke is said to have been the central contact person of the Cosa Nostra for the Freemasons. The right-wing duke illegally interfered in politics using his Freemasonry channels: he is considered one of the instigators of the attack on Portella della Ginestra, was involved in the Borghese coup and his name also appears in the Moro dossier. After the Borghese coup attempt, Alliata Di Montereale evaded arrest by fleeing to Malta. The prosecutor’s office of Palmi (RC) led by Agostino Cordova, also investigated illegal Freemasonry activities against Allitata di Montereale. In 1994, it issued an arrest warrant and the duke was placed under house arrest and died shortly afterwards, see Amendola (2022), Caruso (2017: 499 ff.), Cipriani (1993: 38), Messina (2014: 116 f., 130 f.), Palermo (1996: 30, 87 f.), Pennino (2006: 124 f.), Pinotti (2007: 89, 98 f., 545 ff.), Tamburino (2022).

392     Notes

33 Guarrasi, who is considered by many to be the link between Freemasonry, politics, business and the Mafia, rose to become a powerful “eminence gris” in business and politics in Sicily in the post-war period in a very short time. He was supposedly involved in many politically charged incidents such as the Enrico Mattei case or the disappearance of the journalist Mauro De Mauro, which is why the Parliamentary AntiMafia Investigation Commission also dealt with him in 1976, cf. Bartoccelli/ D’Ayala (2012), Casarrubea (2001: 133), City of City of Palermo et al. (2000: n.p.), Costanzo (2006: 205), Marino (2002a: 156). 34 Marino (2002a: 156), Messina (2014: 92). 35 Cipriani (1993: 5 ff.). 36 Among others, the American Consul Alfred Tyrell Nester (1898–1966), General Giuseppe Castellano and Vito Guarrasi were already registered at this lodge at Via Roma 391, cf. Marino (2002a: 155 ff.), Messina (2014: 90 ff., 123). 37 Gelli came from a modest miller’s family from Pistoia (PT) in Tuscany. As a fascist of the first hour, he volunteered in World War II. Working for the fascist intelligence service, Gelli acted as liaison officer to Göring’s Waffen-SS. After his arrest in September 1945, he delivered information to the American intelligence service led by James Jesus Angleton in Italy, who set him free and he began working for the American intelligence service. After the war, Gelli first survived as a black market trader before opening a small shop in 1948. At the end of the 1950s, he founded a mattress factory. During this time, Gelli made political contacts thanks to his work as secretary for the Christian Democrat Romolo Diecedue (1900–1975) from 1958 onwards. The fact that Andreotti himself took part in the inauguration of Gelli’s mattress factory in Frosinone (FR) on March, 28 1965 shows how good his political connections were. By the early 1960s at the latest, Gelli also joined the Domenico Romagnosi lodge in Rome, which belonged to the GOI. As a protege of the then GOI Grand Master Giordano Gamberini (1915–2003), he switched to the P2 lodge in 1966. Gelli’s rise within the P2 followed shortly afterwards under the new GOI Grand Master, the socialist Lino Salvini (1925–1982), who first appointed him as the P2’s organizational secretary before Gelli finally became its grand master in 1974. In addition, he had close ties to South American military regimes, especially Juan Perón (1895–1974). From 1972 onward, he was Argentina’s economic

Notes    393

advisor for Italy-related matters and from 1973 honorary consul. After the P2 was banned in 1982, Gelli fled to Switzerland, where he was arrested a few months later in September when he was trying to withdraw millions of dollars from a bank under a false name. After only eleven months in detention, Gelli escaped from the Geneva prison Champ-Dollon in August 1983 and fled to South America. After returning to Switzerland in 1988, he was extradited to Italy and had to stand trial. Gelli was accused of numerous crimes in numerous trials, including political conspiracy, arms dealing, corruption, extortion, obstruction of justice, defamation, involvement in rightwing terrorist attacks, complicity in the murder of banker Roberto Calvi, fraudulent bankruptcy in connection with the Banco Ambrosiano, cooperation with the Mafia etc. In the various legal proceedings, Gelli, who had only been in Italian detention for a few days in 1988, was either acquitted or received only minor sentences. He never went to prison, but instead was given house arrest for health reasons, which he served in his villa Wanda in Castiglion Fibocchi near Arezzo, see Dickie (2020: 421–440), Guarino/ Raugei (2006), Messina (2014: 185–185), Palermo (1996: 87–87), Pinotti (2007: 25–129, 691), Tranfaglia (2008: 146–146). 38 The predecessor of P2 was the Propaganda Massonica lodge founded in 1875. The lodge, which belonged to the Grand Lodge GOI, was refounded after World War II with the addition “Due” (two), that is “Propaganda Due” (P2). At first it was largely inactive and only began to regain relevance from 1966 onwards, when a group of Gelli-P2 members emerged within the super-secret Hod lodge, which mainly recruited military and intelligence officers for P2. Gelli seems to have gained possession of the SIFAR archive at that time, which he not only used to exert influence on political events through blackmail, but also to win lodge brothers. The SIFAR archive consists of index cards with “juicy” information about 157,000 people in public life—mainly from the ranks of the political left—which were collected by the head of the SIFAR intelligence service General Giovanni De Lorenzo (1907–1973) in the 1950s. From the 1970s onwards, P2 became increasingly powerful, while there was certainly resistance to the atypical lodge within GOI: all P2 members were initiated by Gelli “on the sword”. They often did not know each other, as there were no meetings and no typical Freemason “work projects” were carried out. In addition, the usual territorial principle, according to which lodges are tied to certain places, did not apply; instead, P2 founded regional lodges starting at the latest in 1977 and spread throughout the country. It was involved in numerous shady dealings in the country, always managing to conceal those who gave the orders and

394     Notes

those who committed the crimes. P2 was discovered by the Milanese investigating judges Giuliano Turone (born 1940) and Gerardo Colombo (born 1946) as part of their investigations into Michele Sindona. In March 1981, the tax police searched Gelli’s property in Arezzo and found the (probably incomplete) list of members. In 1982, P2 was banned and a parliamentary investigation commission led by Tina Anselmi (1927–2016) was set up. The honest Christian Democrat Anselmi finally came to the conclusion that not all events could be fully uncovered. She developed the image of a reversed double pyramid, according to which Gelli’s P2 would be the lower pyramid, while the upper pyramid was never known. Accordingly, it is assumed that the true “puppeteer” was not Gelli, but Giulio Andreotti and Francesco Cosentino would have been at the head of the upper pyramid. In addition, many people believe that P2 never stopped existing. For P2, see Cipriani (1993: 126 f.), De Lutiis (2010: 61 ff.), Dickie (2020: 413, 417 ff., 443 f.), Guarino/Raugei (2006: 57, 104 ff., 269 ff.), Messina (2014: 181, 187 f.), Pinotti (2007: 87 f.), Turone (2019: 17 ff.). 39 According to the membership list found by the financial police, the P2 had 926 members at the time of its discovery, including many politicians— three sitting ministers, around 40 MPs and a party secretary—, more than 100 senior members of the military and various police forces, all intelligence chiefs, numerous high-ranking bureaucrats, industrialists, businessmen and bankers, judges, prosecutors and lawyers, several publishers, newspaper editors and nearly 30 journalists. In addition, members of the Vatican and the Mafia as well as right-wing terrorists were enrolled in the lodge. Some of the best known “Piduists” include Silvio Berlusconi, Duke Viktor Emanuel of Savoy (born 1937), the son of the last Italian king, journalist Maurizio Costanzo (born 1938), bankers Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi, politician and coup leader Edgardo Sogno (1915–2000) and Duke Alliata di Montereale was part of it, as well. However, since the P2 allegedly had 2,000 members in the 1970s, it seems that the known members are only the “tip of the iceberg”, cf. Cipriani (1993: 40), Dickie (2020: 419), Messina (2014: 177). 40 The plan formulated between 1974 and 1975 envisages a change of strategy within Freemasonry oriented towards anti-communism: Based on the hypothesis that it would be difficult to carry out a coup d’état in the Chilean style and establish a military regime in the event of communist participation in the government in Italy, it was decided in several meetings—for example in the American embassy in Rome and in Monte Carlo—to carry out a

Notes    395

“permanent coup” and to create a parallel state by infiltrating institutions. The “Plan for Democratic Renewal” was allegedly formulated by Francesco Cosentino (1922–1985), a little-known Christian Democrat, and the document was found in 1981 at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport—badly hidden in a suitcase belonging to Gelli’s daughter Maria Grazia, see Cipriani (1993: 58 f.), Dickie (2020: 436 ff.), Guarino/Raugei (2006: 59), Messina (2014: 179 f.), Palermo (1996: 87, 91), Pinotti (2007: 120), Turone (2019: 34, 40 ff.). 41 Dickie (2020: 436). 42 The P2 specifically tried to achieve this through corruption, for which it had set aside between 30 and 40 billion lire, but also blackmailed around 40 confidants in the political, economic, and social power structures. As a first step, at the end of the 1970s, it brought the Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera publishing group under its control; then, trustworthy people were selected in politics and large sums of money were funneled to the parties so that they would implement the P2’s programmatic goals. For example, the PSI, for which the P2 had developed a preference due to its reservations about parts of the DC (particularly Aldo Moro), received seven million dollars from the Banco Ambrosiano on a Swiss account, later known as the “Conto Protezione” (protection account). In addition, between 1978 and 1980, a parallel structure was set up within the intelligence services with the SuperSISMI, in which secret service agents, P2 members, and high-ranking mafiosi mingled, see Cipriani (1993: 58–65, 71, 78), Guarino/Raugei (2006: 59), Palermo (1996: 91–92), Pinotti (2007: 120). 43 Pinotti (2007: 120). 44 Cipriani (1993: 15), Guarino/Raugei (2006: 103), Pinotti (2007: 120). 45 Cipriani (1993: 147–148), Lecchese (2018: 22), Palermo (1996: 8, 16–28, 37, 82), Pinotti (2007: 592). 46 Michele Sindona, who grew up in Patti (ME), came from humble beginnings—his father was a florist specializing in funeral wreaths. As such, the young Sindona needed to earn money to support his studies at the Law School which he completed in 1942. The fact that the 23-year-old was at the key negotiations in Cassibile (SR) led by Freemasons suggests that Sindona probably moved in these circles early on. After the War, he moved to the

396     Notes

Italian financial metropolis of Milan, where he initially worked as a tax lawyer, before acquiring his first credit institution, the Banca Privata Finanziaria, in 1961. A short time later, Sindona began working with the Vatican Bank IOR, which was not subject to Italian banking supervision, thanks to his good relationship with Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (1867–1978), the Archbishop of Milan (and later Pope Paul VI.), who facilitated the illegal transfer of money abroad and money laundering. It is no coincidence that the later director of the bank, Bishop Paul Casimir Marcinkus (1922–2006) from the Chicago area, is said to have declared: “The Church does not run on Ave Maria’s alone” (Yallop 1984: 127). Soon Sindona was able to set up an internationally operating holding company. In those years, Duke Alliata Di Montereale, a Freemason and mafioso at the same time, introduced Sindona to the powerful Palermo boss Stefano Bontate, who, thanks to the very successful heroin business, was looking for a competent money launderer and found Sindona. But Sindona not only did business with Palermo drug lords like Bontate, but also with their American colleagues, especially the New York Gambino family. Perhaps for this reason, he acquired the majority stake in the New York Franklin National Bank. Since Sindona achieved his rise in the international financial world through illegal maneuvers—from illegal capital flight to money laundering for the Mafia to speculation with funds from saving accounts—he was dependent on political protection, which is why he joined the P2 in the 1970s and financed their projects. In addition, Sindona subsidized the Christian Democrats—the sum is said to be about two billion lire. These funds were eventually missing from his Banca Privata Finanziaria and even a generous loan from the Banco di Roma could not plug the hole. For this reason, the Banca d’Italia, the central bank, responsible for bank supervision, began to investigate Sindona. Sindona’s Freemason friends developed a rescue plan for Sindona’s bank, which the central bank, however, opposed. In 1974, the central bank charged Giorgio Ambrosoli (1933–1979) closing down Sindona’s bankrupt bank. Sindona meanwhile safely removed himself to the USA, where he was still praised by Andreotti as “savior of the lira”. The incorruptible Ambrosoli had to endure massive anonymous telephone threats when he dissolved the Banca Privata Finanziaria, but was not deterred. Interestingly with the phone calls were made by Giacomo Vitale, a mafioso and Freemason, and Bontate’s brother-in-law. Since Sindona held Ambrosoli primarily responsible for his troubles, he immediately hired the ItalianAmerican killer William Joseph Aricò, who shot Ambrosoli in front of his home in Milan on the evening of July 11, 1979. (Aricò later died under mysterious circumstances). In the meantime, the situation became too dangerous

Notes    397

for Sindona in the USA because the Franklin Bank was also heading for bankruptcy due to fraud. Therefore, simulating a kidnapping—he escaped to Sicily in August 1979, where he was protected by mafiosi and Freemasons for three months before returning to the USA. In 1980, Sindona was sentenced in the USA for various financial crimes. The extradition to Italy followed in 1984, where he was not only sentenced to life imprisonment for his frauds, but also, in 1986, for the murder of Ambrosoli. If Sindona, who knew many dirty secrets, had talked in prison, it would have been dangerous for his former friends—and so he died of a mysterious poisoning in the high-security prison of Voghera (PV). See, Cipriani (1993: 21–95), Dickie (2020: 416–422), Guarino/Raugei (2006: 111), Leccese (2018: 25), Lodato/ Scarpinato (2008: 242), Messina (2014: 136–144), Pinotti (2007: 122–547, 550), Stajano (1991), Tranfaglia (2008: 133). 47 The case of the Milanese banker Roberto Calvi resembles that of Sindona: Calvi was General Director of the Banco Ambrosiano in Milan starting in 1971 and President starting in 1975. The Banco Ambrosiano was majority-owned by the Vatican Bank. He secured a place for his bank in the international financial world through the same illegal maneuvers as Sindona. Initially, Calvi had worked closely with Sindona, who had taught him numerous “tricks”. The relationship between the two deteriorated only when Sindona had unsuccessfully asked Calvi for help with his ailing Banca Privata Finanziaria. With Sindona’s help, Calvi had also established contacts with the P2 lodge, to which he had belonged since 1975, as well as with politicians, in order to ensure the necessary political protection for his illegal financial transactions. In addition, Calvi also acted as a money launderer for the Mafia, but less so for the old Palermo drug lords than for the Corleonesi. The reason why the Banco Ambrosiano went bankrupt and was eventually missing US $ 300 million was that Calvi had to finance various costly “projects” of his protectors and also pay enormous kickbacks to the parties. The most important projects included the support of Solidarnosc in Poland, aid for various South American military dictatorships—including the support of Argentina in the Falkland War against Great Britain—as well as the purchase of the Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera publishing house. In May 1981, Calvi was accused of illegally exporting foreign currency abroad and was placed in pre-trial detention, which was later converted to house arrest. Calvi desperately tried to save the Banco Ambrosiano until the end, primarily relying on financial assistance from Opus Dei. He seems to have been lured to London, where he was murdered in 1982. For the Calvi case, see Cipriani (1993: 15, 78 ff.), Dickie

398     Notes

(2020: 420 ff.), Guarino/Raugei (2006: 111 ff.), Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 242), Messina (2014: 209 ff.), Pennino (2006: 127), Palermo (1996: 136 ff., 148 ff.), Pinotti (2005; 2007: 41 f., 123, 543 ff., 555 ff.), Tranfaglia (2008: 143 ff.), Willan (2008). 48 The Roman businessman Ortolani, who is closely linked to the Vatican Bank, is considered the second man after Gelli in the P2, but above all as their “financial brain”, cf. Turone (2019: 13, 146). 49 For the Carboneria and its cooperation with the Mafia, see Dickie (2020: 91, 137–167), Leccese (2018: 8 ff.). 50 The most important political Freemasonry projects in the twentieth century, in which the Cosa Nostra showed only a minor interest or none at all, but which it nevertheless supported, were the attack on the Portella della Ginestra and the Borghese coup, cf. Cipriani (1993: 9), Leccese (2018: 36), Pinotti (2007: 89). 51 Messina (2014: 30). 52 Numerous pentiti reported receiving help from Freemasons: For example, Buscetta said that the outcome of the first major Mafia trial of the twentieth century, the “Trial of the 114”, which took place in December 1968, was influenced by Freemasons. Furthermore, the director of the Ucciardone prison who was a Freemason offered him not only help with his escape, but also a hiding place at his home. Mutolo, on the other hand, described how Franco Ferracuti (1927–1992), a psychiatrist enrolled in the P2, wrote expert opinions that led to unjustified detention relief for mafiosi, cf. Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 63), De Rosa/Galesi (2013: 134), Zingales (2002: 62). 53 Leccese (2018: 21 ff.). 54 Vitale, an employee of the Sicilian sulfur mining company, first belonged to a lodge of the GOI and later to the CAMEA. At the same time, Vitale, married to Rosa Bontate, was a member of the cosca of Villagrazia led by his brother-in-law Stefano Bontate. It seems to have been Vitale who convinced Bontate of the benefits of Freemasonry. After Sindona’s escape from New York, it was Vitale who took care of him in Sicily in 1979. Vitale was also the one who threatened the “liquidator” of the Banco Ambrosiano, Giorgio

Notes    399

Ambrosoli, by telephone. When his involvement in the Sindona-Ambrosoli case became known, Vitale was arrested and sentenced in 1981, but was released after only four years. In 1989, he disappeared without a trace. It is assumed that he fell victim to the lupara bianca, cf. Beccaria (November 14, 2013), Messina (2014: 174), Pinotti (2007: 568). 55 Bontate did not see himself as a criminal, but as a business manager and dreamed of being able to communicate on a first-name basis with the men of the “better society”. For this reason, he became involved in Freemasonry long before most other top mafiosi. It is said that he founded a “lodge of 300” in Palermo, connected to a Genoese lodge—probably the CAMEA— of which he is said to have been the 33rd degree grand master. According to the former Mafia informant Siino, this mysterious lodge included not only mafiosi such as the cousins Salvo, Totò Greco (Il Senatore), and the construction entrepreneur Rosario Spatola, but also men from politics and state institutions. The lodge of 300 is said to have been dissolved later by Provenzano, cf. Amendola (2022: 102), Messina (2014: 238 ff.), Pennino (2006: 121), Pinotti (2007: 567 f.). 56 Pinotti (2007: 569, transl. by the author). 57 Amendola (2022: 98ff.), Cipriani (1993: 40), Messina (2014: 245), Pennino (2006: 123). 58 It is unknown to which lodge Calderone refers here, it could have been Armando Diaz or CAMEA. 59 Ceruso (2007: 107). 60 Pinotti (2007: 568). 61 Cipriani (1993: 40), Leccese (2018: 22), Palermo (1996: 32), Pinotti (2007: 576). 62 Cipriani (1993: 41). 63 Messina (2014: 30). 64 Cipriani (1993: 41), Pennino (2006: 122, 132).

400     Notes

65 The CAMEA, founded in 1958 by the Neapolitan doctor Aldo Vitale and led by him as Grand Master, had its headquarters in a profaned Anglican church in the Ligurian town of Santa Margherita Ligure (GE). In Sicily, where it was led by the gynecologist Michele Barresi, it is said to have had two branches. The CAMEA, which was closely linked to P2, seems to have been an explicit Mafia lodge: for example, the former Mafia informant Siino recounted that he had met the banker Roberto Calvi in Santa Margherita Ligure and Grand Master Aldo Vitale had explained to him that this was the man who “managed our money” (Pinotti 2007: 545). The CAMEA protected Michele Sindona after his escape from New York to Sicily, which is why Grand Master Barresi was also arrested in 1981 for aiding and abetting a fictitious kidnapping. Not only Barresi, but also numerous members of the CAMEA helped Sindona at the time, such as Bontate’s brother-in-law Vitale or the Siculo-American doctor Joseph Miceli Crimi, who even shot Sindona in the leg to make the kidnapping more believable, cf. Cipriani (1993: 41), Il Circolaccio (December 22, 2018), La Repubblica (April 15, 1993), Leccese (2018: 22 ff.), Messina (2014: 233), Pennino (2006: 121 ff.), Pinotti (2007: 569). 66 Mandalari, an accountant employed by the Sicilian Regional Administration in 1954, later worked as a self-employed tax consultant, his clients being mainly mafiosi, especially Corleonesi. In addition, Mandalari was politically active, first with the monarchists, then with the neofascist MSI and in the 1994 election campaign he mainly supported candidates from FI, but also from AN. However, his passion was more for the Freemasons which he is said to have joined as early as 1954 than for politics. Mandalari, one of the most important Freemasons in Sicily, seems to have belonged to at least six different lodges—partly as Grand Master. He used his lodges for numerous shady deals: For example, he founded many companies for money laundering, such as the alleged fish marketing company Stella d’Oriente in Mazara di Vallo (TP) in 1974. With the help of these companies, money was laundered from drug trafficking, but also from kidnappings. In terms of the money from kidnappings, Mandalari worked with the Mafia priest Agostino Coppola, who acted as a mediator between victims and blackmailers, and whom he is said to have initiated into a lodge in 1968. Mandalari also used his lodges to promote “brothers” to important judicial positions. For example in the 1970s, he lobbied for the appointment of Giovanni Pizzilli as Public Prosecutor General of Palermo with the then Minister of Justice Oronzo Reale (1902–1976). According to the former mafioso Salvatore Cancemi, he is also said to have spent 600 million

Notes    401

lire on bribing judges. Investigations against Mandalari have been going on since 1974. He was occasionally detained, but the investigations were always quickly discontinued. In 1991, he was sentenced to two years in prison for money laundering for the Mafia. He was arrested again in December 1994 and subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison in several trials, but was released from prison in early 2003 due to good behavior, cf. Abbate/Gomez (2007: 211 f., 288 ff.), Bellavia (2010: 51), Cipriani (1993: 39), Giornale di Sicilia (August 14, 1974), L’Unità (December 14, 1994), MeridioNews (December 23, 2017), Messina (2014: 250, 285 ff.), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 114). 67 Pinotti (2007: 547). 68 Pinotti (2007: 592). 69 Pinotti (2007: 569), Veltri/Travaglio (2001: 44, 79, 93 ff.). 70 When searching the “Sociology centre” in Via Roma, 391 in Palermo, the police discovered the secret lodges Palermo, Lux, Garibaldi, Armando Diaz, Concordia and CAMEA (in the Via La Lumia there was with the “Orion di CAMEA” a second CAMEA lodge) and seized their membership lists. It turned out that the 2,032 lodge brothers included respectable people from the “better” society, but also many whose names had been mentioned in connection with crimes, in addition to numerous top mafiosi. Lodge members included, among others, six judges, including Michele Mezzatesta, president of the bankruptcy court, lawyers like Vito Guarrasi and Mafia defense lawyer Alessandro Bonsignore, businessmen like the tax collectors Salvo, freelancers like tax consultant Pino Mandalari, Nino Buttafuoco or doctors Michele Barresi and Joseph Miceli Crimi, as well as the editor of the Giornale di Sicilia, Federico Ardizzone, and many journalists. Police officer Bruno Contrada was said to be enrolled in the Armando Diaz lodge, but he always denied it. Among the Mafia lodge brothers were Michele (Il Papa) and Salvatore (Il Senatore) Greco, Giacomo Vitale and Angelo Siino. The lodges in Via Roma could have been discovered much earlier, as they already existed in the post-war period. For example, newspaper editor Ardizzone justified his membership with the fact that at that time paper and printing ink could only be obtained from the Americans and British, many of whom—like American consul Nester—were Freemasons. In any case, the intelligence service, which had an office one floor above the “Sociology centre”, must have been aware of the existence of the Freemason

402     Notes

lodges long before their discovery. Interestingly, after the lodges became known, the intelligence service moved out, see Abbate/Gomez (2007: 211 f.), Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica (1993: 60), Cipriani (1993: 31), Il Circolaccio (December 22, 2018), La Repubblica (March 7, 1986; August 19, 1992; April 15, 1993), Messina (2014: 233 ff., 245, 251), Palazzolo (2005: 108), Pennino (2006: 123). 71 The criminal police of Trapani, led by Saverio Montalbano, discovered the membership lists of the lodges of the Centro Scontrino while searching the Centro Scontrino in the central Via Carrera, 2 in Trapani. Among the 200 brothers were politicians such as the Christian Democratic regional deputy Francesco Canino, high-ranking civil servants, representatives of banks, the deputy police chief Giuseppe Varchi, and numerous Mafia bosses, including the Mazara del Vallo district representative Mariano Agate, the Campobello di Mazara capofamiglia Natale L’Ala, the Alcamo capofamiglia Antonio Melodia, or the Castelammare del Golfo capofamiglia Mariano Asaro. The lodges, of which Iside 2 (reserved for non-locals) was of particular importance, controlled the entire political and economic life in Trapani—up to and including the Trapani-Birgi airport. For example, in 1980, lodge brothers Giovanni Bertoglio and Andrea Barraco ensured that Andreotti’s private plane could land there without registration so that he could meet with Mafia bosses in secret. The Trapani lodges were also closely linked to P2, which meant that Gelli’s lawyer Augusto Sinagra was a frequent guest. It is noteworthy that the mysterious Lodge C began its activities in May 1981, shortly after the discovery of P2. Palermo Freemasons such as Pino Mandalari and Duke Alliata Di Montereale also maintained close contact with their brothers in the province of Trapani. DC politician Lillo Mannino was also well disposed towards them, as he provided the Centro Scontrino with a considerable subsidy from the Regional government of Sicily. Numerous lodge brothers had excellent business contacts abroad, especially in Eastern Europe and Bulgaria, in particular. There also seem to have been relationships with Libya. For example, the Associazione Musulmani d’Italia, sponsored by Muammar al-Gaddafi (1942–2011) and led by the Catania lawyer Michele Papa as president, was also based in the same building as the Centro Scontrino, see Amendola (2022: 82ff.) Cipriani (1993: 35 ff.), La Repubblica (August 19, 1992; April 15, 1993), Palazzolo (2005: 108), Palermo (1996: 28 f., 81, 93 ff.), Pinotti (2007: 559 ff., 563 ff.), Messina (2014: 248), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 113). 72 La Repubblica (June 6, 2013), Palermo (1996: 93).

Notes    403

73 Abbate (2020: 145 ff.). 74 Among the members of the Lodge Ferrer is said to have been the teacher and ex-DC mayor of  Castelvetrano,  Antonio Vaccarino (born 1943), who was allegedly even its Grand Master. Vincenzo Calcara, a mafioso of the Castelvetrano family, accused Vaccarino of not only being a “man of honor” of his cosca, but also of having ordered murders, specifically of two criminals who had extorted his family—cinema owners—for protection money, and that of Vaccarino’s predecessor as mayor, Vito Lipari. Calcara testified that Masonic contacts had been used for drug trafficking and that Vaccarino had told him that Freemasonry was a big deal, “bigger than we are” (Pinotti 2007: 585, transl. by the author). The accusations remained without consequences, as Calcara was not believed. Vaccarino, who maintained close correspondence with the fugitive chief mafioso Matteo Messina Denaro, and also worked for the intelligence service under the code name »Svetonio«, was remanded into custody in April 2019 for revealing official secrets and favoring the Mafia, cf. 2007 Abbate (2020: 163 ff.), Antimafia Duemila (January 9, 2020), Cipriani (1993: 136), Pinotti (2007: 577 ff.), 75 “Operation Ghiblis”, in the course of which there were numerous arrests in 1993, had as its starting point the investigation “Mafia and Freemasonry” which was undertaken in the summer of 1992 by the head of the criminal police of Mazara del Vallo Rino Germanà (born 1950). Germanà, who narrowly escaped a Mafia murder attempt in September 1992 by mingling with the bathers on the Mazara del Vallo promenade, had discovered a Freemason network that was “concerned” with Mafia proceedings at the Court of Cassation in Rome, the Court of Appeal in Palermo and the Court of Assizes in Turin. The key figure of the investigation was the Castelvetranoborn notary and Freemason Pietro Ferrara, who was closely linked to the Corleonesi. In a wire-tapped conversation, for example, Ferrara said that Totò Riina was “like a father” to him. In addition to Ferrara, numerous other people were caught in the sights of the judiciary, such as the judge at the Roman Court of Cassation Paolino Dell’Anno, the Palermo DC Senator Vincenzo Inzerillo, the former DC mayor of Mazara Gaspare Bocina, the brother of the Mazara boss Giovanbattista Agate, the builder Paolo Lombardino, the lawyer Gaetano Buscemi as well as two policemen from the Mazara police station, the latter because they passed on information about Germanà’s investigations, cf. Abbate (2020: 74 ff.), Bolzoni/D’Avanzo (2007: 102 ff.), La Repubblica (December 21, 1993; December 29, 1993), Il Circolaccio (December 5, 2017), Ruscica (2015: 74 ff.).

404     Notes

76 The operation “Hiram” started in the province of Trapani, but quickly spread to the Italian mainland. At the center of the operation was a Freemasonry group led by Rodolfo Grancini, a businessman from Orvieto (TR) who was well connected in political and judicial circles. The group’s goal was to delay proceedings (in order to achieve a statute of limitations for their “clients”), to speed up the review of proceedings, or to convert prison sentences into house arrest. Freemason brothers, including many Sicilian businessmen with ties to the Mafia, turned to Grancini to “correct” Mafia proceedings in exchange for payment. Thanks to an employee of the Court of Cassation who manipulated the court’s computer system and caused the disappearance of trial notifications, and in some cases even entire court files, proceedings could not be initiated and the offenses eventually expired. If proceedings did take place, a Jesuit priest paid by Grancini tried to obtain favorable judgments for defendants whom he did not even know by means of recommendation letters to judges, cf. Antimafia Duemila (June 17, 2008), Giornale di Sicilia (June 18, 2008; June 20, 2008; July 5, 2008), Il Giornale (June 17, 2008), Uccello/Amadore (2009: 114 f.). 77 I Siciliani (March 2015), Messina (2014: 352 f.). 78 The origins of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem date back to the time of the Crusades, when pilgrims to the Holy Land were knighted. The modern order was founded in 1868 as a Catholic lay order recognized by the Pope. Its goal is to promote Christian institutions in the Holy Land and to strengthen Christian life, for which the knights and ladies (women are also allowed) regularly meet for retreats in their commanderies. New members are selected by the order and knighted or in case of women made a “dame” in a solemn ceremony. The order, led by a cardinal grand master, is based in Rome and present in many countries of the world. It is particularly strong in Italy and, in turn, in Sicily, where it experienced a great boom in the 1960s under the aegis of the conservative Palermo Archbishop Ernesto Ruffini and even more in the 1980s, especially in Palermo, under the Archbishop of Monreale Salvatore Cassisa (1921–2015), who was involved in several Mafia investigations. At that time, many public figures joined the order, including generals, prefects, police chiefs (including Bruno Contrada), judges and prosecutors, entrepreneurs, bank directors and politicians. Under its long-time local representative, Mafia businessman Arturo Cassina, who has been leading the order in Sicily since 1981, it has increasingly taken on the features of a

Notes    405

pseudo-freemasonry association. It fell into disrepute above all through the dossier left by the murdered Palermo ex-mayor Insalaco, in which Insalaco accused the Palermo knights of the Holy Sepulchre of unsavory machinations. After the publication of this dossier, Cassina had to give up his office as representative—probably on behalf of the grand master of the Holy Sepulchre Order, Maximilian de Fürstenberg (1904–1988). Yet it was not only Insalaco who spoke negatively about the Holy Sepulchre knights. For example, the former Mafia boss Vincenzo Calcara recounted how the Mafia clan from Castelvetrano had laundered Mafia drug money through Holy Sepulchre channels, see Ceruso (2008: 226), Cipriani (1993: 111 ff.), La Repubblica (March 1, 1988; December 30, 1992; November 14, 1993), Li Vigni (1995: 249), Stancanelli (2016: 142 ff.), Pinotti (2007: 577 ff., 587 f.). 79 For example, it was not until 2019 that the new lodge “Pensiero e Azione” (Thought and Action), led by the regional civil servant Lucio Lutri as grand master, was discovered in Palermo, which collaborated with the Mafia family from Licata (AG), cf. Agrigento Notizie (June 18, 2020), La Repubblica (July 31, 2019). 80 In Palermo, the investigations against CAMEA and the lodges in Via Roma both came to nothing. However, the president of the Trapani-based Centro Scontrino, Gianni Grimaudi, and his deputy, Natale Torregrossa, were convicted in June 1993 of violating the Anselmi law, which has been in force since 1982 and prohibits the founding and leadership of secret societies. They were only lightly punished: Grimaudi was sentenced to three years and Torregrossa to two years in prison. This court decision was significant in that it was the first time that Freemasons had been convicted in Italy, cf. Amendola (2022: 86), Cipriani (1993: 34 f.), La Repubblica (June 6, 2013), Pinotti (2017: 565).

4.6 The Mafia as a “Lightning Rod” for Occult Powers 1 This famous sentence by the director and publicist Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) comes from an article published in the Corriere della Sera, in which Pasolini held the political class responsible for many of the spectacular crimes during the “leaden time” of right-wing terrorist bombings and coups, cf. Corriere della Sera (November 14, 1974). 2 Cipriani (1993: 220).

406     Notes

3 Di Cagno/Natoli (2004: 34). 4 Sciascia (1989: 15, transl. by the author). 5 Dalla Chiesa (1984: 231, transl. by the author). 6 The journalist Carlo Lucarelli pursued some of these “Italian Mysteries” in a television series broadcast by Rai 2 and Rai 3 between 1998 and 2012— first under the title “Misteri in Blu”, then “Blu Notte”, then “Blu Notte— Misteri Italiani” and finally “Lucarelli Racconta”—,see Lucarelli (2002). 7 For the Mattei case, see Arlacchi (2019: 86 ff.), Amato (2017: 99 ff.), Lucarelli (2002: 103 ff.), Marino (2014), Migliore (2014: 193 ff.), Palermo (1996: 177), Pennino (2006: 137 ff.). 8 For the De Mauro case, see Antimafia Duemila (September 16, 2019), Bellavia (2010: 66), Billitteri (2008: 104 ff.), Bolzoni (2012: 76 f.), Caruso (2005: 214 f.), Ceruso (2008: 144 ff.), Mirrone (1999: 35 ff.), Nicastro (2006), Palazzolo (2010: 281 f.), Sanfilippo (2008: 206 ff.), Viviano (2009). 9 Many questions regarding Moro’s kidnapping remain unanswered to this day: For example, there is some evidence that the Red Brigades did not kidnap Moro on their own, but may have had help. The government’s crisis staff, all in the hands of piduisti, i.e., members of the secret lodge P2, seem to have known Moro’s hideout, but deliberately did not rescue him, instead limiting themselves to the implementing of meaningless, but publicly effective street blockades. The government also refused to negotiate with the Red Brigades for Moro’s release, as it had done in 1981 in the case of Christian Democrat Ciro Cirillo (1921–2017). It is also noteworthy that, with the exception of Mario Moretti (born 1946), hardly any Red Brigadists knew the contents of the Moro dossier or the circumstances of his imprisonment and murder. Many suspect that the Red Brigades were instrumentalized. After the arrest of the old leaders Renato Curcio (born 1941) and Alberto Franchesini (born 1947) in 1974, it seems that provocateurs infiltrated the Red Brigades, which radicalized them under Moretti’s leadership. Moro’s family and Moro himself were aware that he was supposed to die. Since they blamed his Christian Democrat party friends, above all Andreotti, for his death, the Moro family refused that Moro’s former party friends would attend his funeral. Moro himself had stipulated before his death: “I ask that neither state representatives nor people from my party participate in

Notes    407

my funeral” (Flamigni 2003: 321, transl. by the author). After Moro’s death, there was no longer any talk of the Communists being involved in the government, instead the era of the DC-PSI governments began. For the Moro case, see Ciconte (2008b: 327 f.), Cipriani (1993: 19), De Lutiis (2007: 5 ff., 67 ff., 125 ff.), Flamigni (2003), Ganser (2008: 135 ff.), Stancanelli (2016: 60 f.), Tranfaglia (2008: 90 ff.), Turone (2019: 51 ff.). 10 For the Moro dossier and its discovery, see Flamigni (2003: 363 ff.), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 468), Turone (2019: 53 ff.). 11 For the Pecorelli case, see Cipriani (1993: 20 f., 83), Dickie (2020: 441), Fagiolo (2019), Flamigni (2003: 81), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 469 ff., 482), Turone (2019: 103 ff.). 12 For the Dalla Chiesa case, see Dalla Chiesa (1984: 231), Di Matteo (2015: 10), La Repubblica (April 13, 1993), Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 235 ff.), Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 158 f.). 13 Montanaro/Ruotolo (1995: 116, transl. by the author). 14 Il Fatto Quotidiano (April 4, 2017). 15 Palazzolo/Prestipino (2007: 289, transl. by the author). 16 Bolzoni (2012: 58). 17 Li Vigni (1995: 326 ff.). 18 Bellavia (2016: 162), Di Giovacchino (2015: 107 f.), Genchi (2009: 139), Il Fatto Quotidiano (August 6, 2020), Biondo/Ranucci (2009: 272 f.). 19 Di Giovacchino (2015: 144 ff.), Genchi (2009: 136 ff.). 20 For the “third level”, see Bellavia/Palazzolo (2004: 73, 93 ff.), Cipriani (1993: 95 f.), Dino (2008b: 542 ff.), Forgione (2004: 45), Pepino (2009: 267 ff.), Santino (1994: 137 ff.). 21 Falcone/Turone (1982: 221 ff.). 22 Dino (2008b: 545, transl. by the author).

408     Notes

23 Falcone/Padovani (1992: 160). 24 The Freemason and tax advisor was taken into pre-trial detention on suspicion of laundering money for the Mafia on February 28, 1983. Chinnici was surprised that Judge Falcone released him in June due to a lack of evidence with the explanation that in a nation of laws, an arrest needed to be based on evidence. Chinnici wrote in his diary: »Yet earlier, he [Falcone, note by the author] had not treated dozens of other defendants like this. Does this have something to do with the intervention of the honorable Pastorino or other secret forces?« (Chinnici 1981/83: Diary entry of June 21, 1983, transl. by the author). Shortly before this, Falcone had met with Christian Democratic Senator and member of the Parliamentary AntiMafia Commission Carlo Pastorino (1925–2011), while the Commission was staying in Palermo. Before he went to this meeting, he had told Chinnici that he would report back to him. Chinnici noted in his diary: “I learned nothing” (Diary entry of 06.17.1983, transl. by the author). Pastorino, the Genoese stockbroker and former Tourism Minister, according to the minutes of the P2 investigation commission, was a member of the secret Genoese lodge Hod (Camera dei Deputati/Senato della Repubblica 1985: 429) which belonged to CAMEA. After Falcone’s meeting with the Freemason Pastorino, Chinnici seems to have no longer trusted Falcone as unconditionally as before, not only because of inexplicable releases from custody, but—as Chinnici noted in his diary—also because of Falcone’s strictly confidential meetings with judges and policemen and because the judge kept originals and copies of trial documents at his home. Chinnici concluded: “I have not made a diary entry for six months. Maybe I made a mistake, because things have developed and there have been some developments. They mainly concern G. Falcone” (Diary entry of June 6, 1983, transl. by the author). For Chinnici’s doubts about Falcone, see Cipriani (1993: 32). 25 On September 11, 1991, the members of the anti-Mafia party La Rete, Alfredo Galasso, Carmine Mancuso and Leoluca Orlando, accused Falcone in a letter to the CSM of not investigating the Mafia’s masterminds, see the text of the document in: Monti (1996: 154–173). 26 Martelli, Craxi’s right-hand man, had been in the news several times in the past, for example in connection with the 1987 elections, when Martelli was accused of having the Mafia organize his election campaign. Because of his involvement in the “Conto Protezione” (Protection Account), the numbered account of the PSI in Lugano to which the P2 transferred seven

Notes    409

million dollars, Martelli was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, which he did not have to serve because of the statute of limitations. And lastly, in 2002 he was also known as an agent of the intelligence service directly subordinate to P2 member and General Gian Adelio Maletti under the alias “Marte-Uranio”, see Cipriani (2002: 71 ff.), La Repubblica (February 4, 2002; February 27, 2003). 27 Bellavia (2010: 238, transl. by the author). 28 Palazzolo (2010: 165). 29 Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 180 f., transl. by the author). 30 For the “fourth level” see Palermo (1996), Torrealta (2011). 31 Abbate (2017: 48 ff.), Camuso (2012). 32 For Gladio, see footnote 10, Chapter 2.5. 33 Super-SID or Super-SISDI refer to an allegedly informal parallel structure within the official military intelligence service, which is said to have been created at the end of the 1970s under the leadership of the intelligence service and P2 member General Giuseppe Santovito (1918–1984). It is said that not only intelligence service agents, but also civilians—including members of P2 and various criminal organizations—were active in Super-SID, see La Repubblica (November 15, 2000), Palermo (1996: 92). 34 The “Noto Servizio” (Known Service)” or Anello (Ring) was discovered by chance in November 1996 by the historian Aldo Giannuli (born 1952), who was working as an expert witness for the Milanese investigating judge Guido Salvino (born 1953). Salvino was at that point dealing with right-wing terrorist attacks. Giannuli found an archive of the Ufficio Affari Riservati (Office for Confidential Affairs) belonging to the Ministry of the Interior in Via Appia, 132 in Rome, with files relating to the Anello. The secret organization was founded at the end of World War II on the initiative of the Fascist intelligence service chief General Mario Roatta (1887–1968), probably to do “dirty work”. The secret organization, whose members came from the right-wing radical scene, was involved in numerous shady dealings in the post-war period. At first, the “Known Service” was led by an agent of

410     Notes

Polish origin named Otimsky and later by Alberto Titta (1921–1981), see De Lutiis (2007: 136 ff.), Giannuli (2018: 340 ff.), Limiti (2019). 35 Palermo (1996: 183). 36 Pennino (2006: 136). 37 Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 183, transl. by the author). 38 Di Matteo (2015: 116, transl. by the author). 39 Li Vigni (1995: 206, transl. by the author). 40 Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 237, transl. by the author) 41 Riina explained the disappearance of the documents from Dalla Chiesa’s safe with the following words: “These carabinieri, these international carabinieri, these spies were the ones.” Di Matteo (2015: 10, transl. by the author). 42 With regard to the disappearance of Borsellino’s notebook, Riina said: “The intelligence services took the red notebook.” Di Matteo (2015: 10, transl. by the author). 43 Lodato /Scarpinato (2008: 14). 44 Travaglio (2004: 49, transl. by the author). For the Mafia as “lightning rod of Italy”, see Abbate (2020: 112), Bellavia (2016: 250), Giornale di Sicilia (June 8, 2017 08.06.2017), Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 14, 235). 45 Lodato/Scarpinato (2008: 179, transl. by the author).

Glossary

Aggiustamento   (It.)

trial results.

“Bringing in order”; influencing judges and jurors to influence

Amici di l’amici   (Sic.)

“Friends of friends”; people who work with the Mafia without being a member. Appalto   (It.) “Public contract”. Avvertimento   (It.) “Warning”. Avvicinamento   (It.) “Approach”; Probationary period before joining Cosa Nostra. Baccàgghiu    (Sic.) “Speaking in riddles”; secret language of the southern Italian criminal subculture. Camorra   (It.) Mafia organization in Campania. Cane sciolto   (It.) “Stray dog”; small-time criminal, in underworld jargon. Capodecina   (It.) “ Leader of a group of ten”; leader of a subgroup of a Mafia clan. Capo dei capi   (It.) “Boss of bosses”; highest-ranking mafioso of Sicily. Capofamiglia   (It.) “Head of the family”; chairman of a Mafia clan. Capomandamento   (It.) “District head”; chairman of a Mafia district consisting of several adjacent families. Capo Squadra   (It.) “Group leader”. Carcere duro   (It). “Hard prison”; severe prison conditions. Cassa per il Mezzogiorno   (It.) “Southern Fund”; state institution for development aid in southern Italy. Cavaliere del lavoro   (It.) “Knight of Work”; honorary title for people from the world of work. Cavallo di ritorno   (It.) “Returning Horse”; kidnapping of livestock or vehicle/scooter Colletti bianchi   (It.) “White Collars”; members of the upper class. Combinazione   (It.) “Combination”, Mafia jargon for the moment of admission to the Cosa Nostra as part of the initiation ritual.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Bestler, The Sicilian Mafia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39310-6

411

412     Glossary Comparaggio   (It.)

»Godfatherhood/Coparenthood«. “Public Competition”; posting of state jobs decided by public examination procedures. Condono   (It.) “Pardon”; remission of sentence, mainly belated approval of illegal construction or tax evasion against the payment of a fine. Consigliere   (It.) “Advisor”. Coppola   (It.) »Cap, hat«, traditional Sicilian men’s headgear. Cornuto   (It.). Literally »Horned«; cuckolded husband. Cosa Nostra   (It.) »Our thing«; name of the Sicilian and American Mafia. Cosca   (It.) Local Mafia group. Cravattaro   (It.) »Strangler«; slang for loan shark. Cumpari   (Sic.) »Godfather«; intimate way of adressing that is supposed to express familial solidarity. Cumparatu   (Sic.) »Godfatherhood/Coparenthood«. Cupola   (It.) Literally “dome”, Palermo Province Commission. Cursoti   (Sic.) Name for a criminal gang that derives from the street where this group was first active, namely the “Antico Corso” (Sic.’U Cursu) of Catania. Depistaggio   (It.) “Misleading”; deliberate misdirection of investigations. Disassociazione   (It.) “Dissociation”; legal concept to persuade terrorists to give up information in exchange for lighter sentences. Faccendiere   (It.) “Wheeler-dealers”. Faida   (It.) “Feud”; violent conflict between two Mafia groups. Famiglia   (It.) “Family”; name for a local Mafia clan. Favore   (It.) “Favor.” Favuri   (Sic.) “Favor(s).” Ferragosto   (It.) Feast Day of “Mary’s Assumption into Heaven” (August 15). Feudo   (It.) “Fief ”; a term used in Southern Italy to refer to large estates, even after the abolition of feudalism. Fimminaru   (Sic.) “Womanizer”. Fratellanza   (It.) “Brotherhood”. Fratuzzu   (Sic. Little brother). Furbizia   (It.) “Cleverness”. Gabellotto   (Sic.) “Large-scale tenant”. Galantuomo   (It.) “Gentleman”. Gambizzare   (It.) “Shoot in the legs”. Guappo   (It.) “Bandit”; often used for Neapolitan camorristi. Incapramento   (It.) “Self-strangulation”. Inchino   (It.) “Bow”; stopping a religious procession group in front of the home of “men of honor”. Lettera di scrocco   (It.) “Sponger’s letter”; extortion letter. Loggia coperta   (It.) “Covered lodge”; forbidden Freemason lodge. Lupara   (It.) “Sawed-off shotgun.” Concorso pubblico   (It.)

Glossary    413 Lupara bianca   (It.)

found.

“White shotgun”; murder in which the body of the victim is not

Mammasantissima   (It.)

“All-holy mother”; another name for capofamiglia (chairman of a Mafia clan). Mandanti occulti  (It.) “Hidden persons in charge of various orders to be carried out”. Mani pulite   (It.) “Clean hands”; state bribery investigations in the first half of the 1990s. Mano nera   (It.) “Black hand”; early New York Mafia. Mascariamento   (Sic.) Literally “dirtying”; defamation. Mattanza    (Sic.) “Massacre”; a term from tuna fishing used to describe bloody confrontations. Mazzetta   (It.) “Bribe”. Mazziere   (It.) “Club-wielder”. Mettersi a posto   (It.) “To be in agreement”; the agreement of businessmen to pay protection money to the Mafia. Mezzogiorno   (It.) “Noon”; also a term for Southern Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily (synonym: Meridione). ‘Ndrangheta   (It.) Mafia organization in Calabria. ‘Ndrina   (It.) Local clan of the ‘Ndrangheta. Notabile   (It.) “Member of the Elite”. ‘Ntisu   (Sic.) “The one who is listened to”; mafioso. Nuddo ammiscatu cu niente   (Sic.) “Nobody mixed with nothing”; designation for a penniless person. Nullatenente   (It.) “Have-not”. Omertà   (It.) “Silence”. The duty not to talk about the internal affairs of the Mafia to outsiders, but also the complicit silence of the population when witnessing crimes or having knowledge about the Mafia. Omicidio Eccellente  (It.) “Excellent homicide”; murder of a socially high-ranking person. Onorata Società   (It.) “Honorable Society”; self-designation of the Sicilian Mafia. Paceri   (Sic.) “Peacemaker”; prestigious person, usually a mafioso, who can reconcile two parties in conflict. Padrino   (It.) “Godfather”. Papello   (It.) “List”; Catalog of Mafia demands to the Italian state to end the violence of the early 1990s. Partitocrazia   (It.) “Party rule”. Pentito   (It.) “Penitent”; Mafia defector who cooperates with the justice system as informants. Piaciri   (Sic.) “Favor(s)”. Picciotto   (Sic.) “Boy”; a general term for young men, which is also often used for mafiosi. Pizzinu   (Sic.) “Slip of paper”.

414     Glossary Pizzo   (It.)

“Protection money”. “Protection money.” Prestanome   (It.) “Straw man.” Punciutu   (Sic.) “Pricked one”; nickname for mafiosi, which derives from the initiation ritual of pricking one’s finger. Raccomandato   (It.) “Favored one.” Reggente   (It.) “regent”; term used for a Mafia boss, who was not elected, but appointed. Ricottaro   (It.) “Ricotta maker”; in colloquial language, pimp. Riffa   (It.) “Lottery.” Risorgimento    (It.) “Rebirth/resurrection”; name for the Italian unification movement. Sacco di Palermo   (It.) “Sack of Palermo”; name for the destruction of the surroundings of Palermo during the construction boom of the 1960s and 1970s Sacra Corona Unita   (It.) Mafia organization in Apulia. Sanatoria   (It.) “Certificate of validation”; subsequent approval of illegal construction in exchange for the payment of a fine. Santino   (It.) “Little Saint”; holy pictures or campaign leaflets. Sbirro   (It.) literally “snitch/tracker”; often derogatory for policemen and carabinieri. Scappatella   (It.) “Sexual escapade”. Scappati   (It.) “Runaways / Refugees”; the losers of the Second Mafia War, who mostly emigrated to the USA. Scassapagghiara   (Sic.) “Sheaf of grain-thieves”; expression for Mafia foot soldiers. Sgarro   (Sic.) “Incorrectness”. Soggiorno obbligato   (It.) “Forced stay”; court-ordered obligation to live in a place outside Sicily Sottocapo   (It.) “Subhead”; deputy chairman of a Mafia clan (synonym of “ViceRappresentante”). Squadra   (It.) “Group”. Squadra mobile   (It.) “Criminal police”. Stidda   (Sic.) “Star”; mafia-like organization in the provinces of Agrigento, Caltanissetta and Ragusa. Strozzino   (It.) “Neck cutter”; usurer. Tangente   (It.) “Bribe”. Tangentopoli   (It.) “Bribery city”; bribe scandal in the first half of the 1990s. Tavulinu   (Sic.) “Small table”; illegal agreements between businessmen, civil servants, and Mafia in relation to public tenders (It. tavolino). Tragiriaturi   (Sic.) “One who evokes tragedies” (also: tragediaturi) Trattativa Stato-Mafia   (It.) “State-Mafia negotiations”; Negotiations between the Mafia and state representatives that are said to have taken place in the early 1990s. Uomo di rispetto   (It.) “Man of respect”; self-designation of a mafioso. Uomo d’onore   (It.) “Man of honor”; Self-designation of a mafioso. Pizzu   (Sic.)

Glossary    415 Vasiamo i mani   (Sic.)

“I kiss your hands”; outdated greeting for high-ranking people “Blood revenge”. Vendetta trasversale   (It.) “Transversal revenge”; killing of blood relatives of Mafia defectors for revenge. Viddanu   (Sic.) “Villain”. Voscenza   (Sic.) “Your Excellency”; abbreviation of the greeting formula “Vostra eccellenza” (YourExcellency). Vossia    (Sic.) “Your Lordship”; abbreviation of the greeting formula “Vostra Signoria” (YourLordship). Zu’   (Sic.) “Uncle”; this type of address is also used by non-relatives, to express familiarity and respect. Vendetta   (It.)

References

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© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Bestler, The Sicilian Mafia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39310-6

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Il Fatto Quotidiano (August 6, 2020): Strage di Capaci, parole dell’ex spia Narracci svelano certi atti ‘irrituali e illegitimi’ del Sisde. In: https://www.ilfattoquotidiano. it/2020/08/06/strage-di-capaci-le-parole-dellex-spia-narracci-svelano-certi-atti-irrituali-e-illegittimi-del-sisde/5888923/ Il Fatto Quotidiano (January 19, 2021): Rosario Cattafi, dopo quattro anni di attesa per un’ udienza il reato di mafia rischia la prescrizione. In: https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2021/01/19/rosario-cattafi-dopo-quattro-anni-di-attesa-per-unudienza-il-reato-di-mafia-rischia-la-prescrizione/6070013/ Il Fatto Quotidiano (March 17, 2023): Raffaele Lombardo è stato assolto in via definitiva dalla accuse di concorso esterno alla mafia e corruzione elettorale. In: https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2023/03/07/raffaele-lombardo-e-stato-assolto-in-via-definitiva-dalle-accuse-di-concorso-esterno-alla-mafia-e-corruzione-elettorale/7088734/ Il Fatto Quotidiano (May 21, 2022): Elezioni Palermo, il candidato di centrodestra e quel parente (acquisito) mafioso: “Nessuna frequentazione”. Bastava dirlo subito. In: https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2022/05/21/elezioni-palermo-il-candidato-di-centrodestra-e-quel-parente-acquisito-mafioso-nessuna-frequenza-morra-bastava-dirlo-subito/6600312/ Il Fatto Quotidiano (December 14, 2022): Concorso esterno, l’ex senatore di Forza Italia Antonio D’Ali si è costituito al carcere di Opera a Milano. Definitiva la condanna a 6 anni. In: https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2022/12/14/concorso-esterno-lex-senatore-di-forza-italia-antonio-dali-si-e-costituito-al-carcere-diopera-a-milano-definitiva-la-condanna-a-6-anni/6905492/ Il Foglio (June 12, 2019): Uno, cento, mille Arata. Ritratto del nuovo uomo nero della Lega. In: https://www.ilfoglio.it/politica/2019/06/12/news/ uno-cento-mille-arata-ritratto-del-nuovo-uomo-nero-della-lega-260088/ Il Giornale (June 17, 2008): Palermo, un accordo tra mafiosi e massoni per ritardare i processi. In: https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/palermo-accordo-mafiosi-e-massoni-ritardare-i-processi.html Il Giornale (September 29, 2013): Dalla fiction alla realtà: ‘Io, il vero Montalbano, sbirro odiato in Sicilia.’ In: https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/interni/fiction-realt-io-vero-montalbano-sbirro-odiato-sicilia-954223.html Il Giornale (November 27, 2018): Lutto nella Destra siciliana: è morto il senatore Scalone. In: https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/lutto-nella-destra-siciliana-morto-senatore-scalone-1608209.html Il Post (June 14, 2019): Come la Lega è finita in un’inchiesta antimafia. In: https:// www.ilpost.it/2019/06/14/lega-arata-antimafia-siri/paolo-arata/ Il Sicilia (December 13, 2016): Game over per Francesco Corallo, il re catanese delle slot machine arrestato ai Caraibi. In: https://www.ilsicilia.it/ game-over-per-francesco-corallo-il-re-delle-slot-machine/ Il Sicilia (March 26, 2019): ‘Corruzione elettorale’, condannati in 16: ci sono anche tre ex deputati regionali. In: https://www.ilsicilia.it/ corruzione-elettorale-condannati-in-16-ci-sono-anche-tre-ex-deputati-regionali/

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La Repubblica (October 30, 1992): Un pentito accusa due magistrati. ‘Summit segreti per salvare i boss’. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1992/10/30/un-pentito-accusa-due-magistrati-summit.html La Repubblica (December 30, 1992): Prefetti, politici, giudici uniti nel Santo Sepolcro. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1992/12/30/prefetti-politici-giudici-uniti-nel-santo-sepolcro.html La Repubblica (February 4, 1993): Quelle telefonate prima delle stragi. In: http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/02/04/ quelle-telefonate La Repubblica (April 11, 1993): Fu guerra di mafia poi qualcuno parlò… In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/04/11/fu-guerra-dimafia-poi-qualcuno-parlo.html La Repubblica (April 13, 1993): Gli incontri proibiti di Giulio Andreotti. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/04/13/gli-incontri-proibiti-di-giulio-andreotti.html La Repubblica (April 15, 1993): Le logge della piovra. In: https://ricerca.repubblica. it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/04/15/le-logge-della-piovra.html La Repubblica (May 29, 1993): Affari coi clan nei guai parente di Giammanco. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/05/29/affaricoi-clan-nei-guai-parente-di.html La Repubblica (July 30, 1993): Catania, l’Ex Pri Gunnella condannato a due anni. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/07/30/ catania-ex-pri-gunnella-condannato-due.html La Repubblica (October 19, 1993): Giudici a servizio di Cosa Nostra. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/10/19/giudici-servizio-di-cosa-nostra.html La Repubblica (November 14, 1993): Vescovo e boss. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/ repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/11/14/vescovo-boss.html La Repubblica (December 21, 1993): Il notaio Ferraro ‘Io mi muovo solo per Totò Riina.’ In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/12/29/il-notaio-ferraro-io-mi-muovo.html La Repubblica (December 29, 1993): La mafia alleata con massoni 007. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/12/29/la-mafia-alleata-con-massoni-007.html La Repubblica (September 22, 1994): ‘Processate per mafia quei giudici’. In: https://rierca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1994/09/22/processate-per-mafia-quei-giudici.html La Repubblica (October 2, 1994): ‘Cacciato’ da Ciampi il socialista Enzo Leone SOSPESO un EX ASSESSORE. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/ archivio/repubblica/1994/02/10/cacciato-da-ciampi-il-socialista-enzo.html La Repubblica (October 10, 1995): Alla sbarra il giudice ‘aggiusta–sentenze’. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1995/10/10/ alla-sbarra-il-giudice-aggiusta.html

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La Repubblica (April 17, 1996): Il principe in cella per mafia. In: https://ricerca. repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1996/04/17/il-principe-in-cella-per-mafia.html La Repubblica (May 10, 1996): Assassinato il perito che studiò i diari di Falcone. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1996/05/10/assassinato-il-perito-che-studio-diari-di.html La Repubblica (June 8, 1996): ‘Basta con la catena mafiosa.’ Si pente il medico figlio di boss. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1996/06/08/basta-con-la-catena-mafiosa-si.html La Repubblica (April 5, 1998): Mafia, assolto Musotto. Schiaffo ai pm di Palermo. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1998/04/05/ mafia-assolto-musotto-schiaffo-ai-pm-di.html La Repubblica (June 6, 1998): Il business criminale delle lotte tra i cani. In: https:// www.repubblica.it/online/fatti/cani/cani1/cani1.html La Repubblica (October 19, 2000): Dopo venti assoluzioni, quattro anni per corruzione all’ex assessore regionale. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/ repubblica/2000/10/19/dopo-venti-assoluzioni-quattro-anni-per-corruzione. html La Repubblica (November 7, 2000): Pisciotta non fu ucciso dal caffè. In:https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2000/11/07/pisciotta-no La Repubblica (November 15, 2000): Scoperto il Sid parallelo la rete occulta delle stragi. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2000/11/15/scoperto-il-sid-parallelo-la-rete-occulta.html La Repubblica (November 22, 2000): Mafia e politica, l’ex senatore democristiano era vicino alla cosca di Brancaccio. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/ repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2000/11/22/mafia-politica-ex-senatore-democristiano-era-vicino.html La Repubblica (December 10, 2000): Mafia, la nuova mappa. In: https://ricerca. repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2000/12/10/mafia-la-nuova-mappa. html La Repubblica (January 31, 2001): Bisturi e coppole, cosi la mafia sceglie i ‘medici di famiglia’: In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2001/01/31/bisturi-coppole-cosi-la-mafia-sceglie-medici.html La Repubblica (April 7, 2001): La Cassazione assolve Musotto. Infondato l’accusa di mafia. Il presidente: ‘Ringrazio Berlusconi e gli elettori’. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2001/04/07/la-cassazione-assolve-musotto-infondata-accusa.html La Repubblica (August 24, 2001): ‘Convivere con la mafia’. Lunardi nella bufera. In: https://www.repubblica.it/online/politica/lunardi/mafia/mafia.html La Repubblica (January 23, 2002): Voti di mafia comprati in carcere per la candidatura del figlio. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2002/01/23/voti-di-mafia-comprati-in-carcere-per.html

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La Repubblica (February 4, 2002): Spionaggio, l’ultima rivelazione. Anche Martelli era uno 007. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2002/02/04/spionaggio-ultima-rivelazione-anche-martelli-era-uno.html La Repubblica (July 15, 2002): Blitz al summit dei nuovi boss in manette quindici mafiosi. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2002/07/15/blitz-al-summit-dei-nuovi-boss-in.html La Repubblica (July 16, 2002): Forza Italia sospende il consigliere mafioso. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2002/07/16/forza-italiasospende-il-consigliere-mafioso.html La Repubblica (July 18, 2002): Mafia, l’avvertimento dei boss agli avvocati parlamentari. In: https://www.repubblica.it/online/cronaca/carcereduro/avvertimento/ avvertimento.html La Repubblica (November 15, 2002): Gorgone: ‘Finalmente un colpevole, io’. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2002/11/15/gorgone-finalmente-un-colpevole-io.html La Repubblica (February 27, 2003): Martelli, reato prescritto per il Conto Protezione. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2003/02/27/martelli-reato-prescritto-per-il-conto-protezione.html La Repubblica (July 11, 2003): Cinque anni per mafia a un notaio. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2003/07/11/cinque-anniper-mafia-un-notaio.html La Repubblica (July 27, 2003): Un colloquio con Andreotti per la campagna elettorale. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2003/07/27/ un-colloquio-con-andreotti-per-la-campagna.html La Repubblica (February 25, 2004): Diga Ancipa, condannato soltanto Aricò. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2004/02/25/diga-ancipa-condannato-soltanto-arico.html La Repubblica (November 13, 2004): Turbativa d’asta, assolto Castiglione. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2004/11/13/turbativa-asta-assolto-castiglione.html La Repubblica (January 18, 2005): Caso Sicilia, la Rai sconfessa Report. In: https:// www.repubblica.it/2004/j/sezioni/spettacoli_e_cultura/censuratv/casosicilia/ casosicilia.html La Repubblica (November 15, 2005): Mafia, arrestato in Sicilia deputato regionale dell’Udc. In: http://www.republica.it/2005/k/sezioni/cronaca/arreudc/arreudc. html La Repubblica (November 25, 2005): Udc e mafia, relazioni pericolose, in Sicilia mezzo parito indagato. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2005/11/25/udc-mafia-relazioni-pericolose-in-sicilia-mezzo.html La Repubblica (March 11, 2006) Coop, appalti e belle ragazze. In: http:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2006/03/11/ coop-appalti-belle-ragazze

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La Repubblica (August 12, 2006): Ancipa, stangata dopo la prescrizione. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2006/12/08/ancipa-stangata-dopo-la-prescrizione.html La Repubblica (November 24, 2006): Fratello amette tutto e ci riprova. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2006/11/24/fratello-ammette-tutto-ci-riprova.html La Repubblica (December 12, 2006): Mafia, assolto l’ex assessore Costa. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2006/12/20/mafia-assolto-ex-assessore-costa.html La Repubblica (May 31, 2007): Dal racconto dei pentiti la contabilità del clan. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2007/05/31/dal-racconto-dei-pentiti-la-contabilita-del.html La Repubblica (November 8, 2007): I dieci comandamenti del padrino. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2007/11/08/dieci-comandamenti-del-padrino.html La Repubblica (December 3, 2007): Sparatoria durante la cattura. Muore il boss mafioso Emmanuello. In: https://www.repubblica.it/2007/10/sezioni/cronaca/ mafia/morto-emmanuello/morto-emmanuello.html La Repubblica (February 1, 2008): La Piovra sulla festa di S. Agata. Il business gestito dalle cosche. In: https://www.repubblica.it/2008/02/sezioni/cronaca/mafia-santa-agata/mafia-santa-agata/mafia-santa-agata.html La Repubblica (March 1, 2008): Lo Giudice, politico e capocosca. In: https://ricerca. repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2008/03/01/lo-giudice-politico-capocosca.html La Repubblica (March 28, 2008): Palermo, arrestati presidenti di seggi. Brogli nelle amministrative 2007. In: https://www.repubblica.it/2008/03/sezioni/politica/verso-elezioni-13/arrestati-presidenti-di-seggi/arrestati-presidenti-di-seggi.html La Repubblica (December 28, 2008): ‘Mio fratello ucciso dai silenzi’. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2008/12/28/mio-fratello-ucciso-dai-silenzi.html La Repubblica (March 15, 2009): Nelle carte le accuse al cognato del procuratore. Si è messo a disposizione di Cosa nostra. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/ archivio/repubblica/2009/03/15/nelle-carte-le-accuse-al-cognato-del.html La Repubblica (May 3, 2009): Ciancimino jr: ‘I boss mediarono in una storia di corna’. In: https://palermo.repubblica.it/dettaglio/ ciancimino-jr:-i-boss-mediarono-in-una-storia-di-corna/1627246 La Repubblica (May 14, 2009): Politica e Mafia, indagati Antinoro e Nino Dina (Udc). In: https://palermo.repubblica.it/dettaglio/ politica-e-mafia-indagati-antinoro-e-nino-dina-(udc)/1633339 La Repubblica (June 11, 2009): Palermo, indagini su Ciancimino. Vizzini lascia l’Antimafia. In: https://www.repubblica.it/2009/03/sezioni/cronaca/mafia-7/vizzini-antimafia/vizzini-antimafia.html

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La Repubblica (January 14, 2011): ‘Sono Inzerillo, portatemi in cella’. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2011/01/14/sono-inzerillo-portatemi-in-cella.html La Repubblica (October 16, 2011): Salvatore Andò, ‘Salvo’ di nome e di fatto. In: http://inchieste.repubblica.it/it/repubblica/rep-it/2011/10/16/foto/ salvo_and_l_uomo_che_trad_cosa_nostra-23324492/ La Repubblica (June 8, 2012): D’Antone lascia la cella dopo otto anni. In: https:// ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2012/06/08/antone-lasciala-cella-dopo-otto-anni.html La Repubblica (November 7, 2012): La Cassazione condanna ex sindaco, ma è morto da più di un anno. In: https://palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2012/11/07/news/ la_cassazione_condanna_ex_sindaco_ma_morto_da_pi_di_un_anno-46140194/ La Repubblica (February 17, 2013): La mafia sposta 300 mila consensi. Ecco come voteranno i boss in Sicilia. In: https://palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2013/02/17/ news/la_mafia_sposta_300_mila_consensi_ecco_come_voteranno_i_boss_in_ sicilia-52824553/ La Repubblica (June 6, 2013): Processo ‘Iside’ prime condanne per loggia segreta. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1993/06/06/processo-iside-prime-condanne-per.html La Repubblica (March 3, 2014): Trapani, Canino e la mafia: arriva condanna ‘post mortem’. In: https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/topic/persone/f/ francesco+canino La Repubblica (September 1, 2014): L’ex sindaco di Villabate assolto, sarà risarcito per 60 mila euro. In: https://palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/09/01/news/l_ ex_sindaco_di_villabate_assolto_adesso_sar_risarcito_per_66_mila_euro94833611/ La Repubblica (October 8, 2014): Stato-mafia, la procura: ‘Mannino temeva di essere ucciso e avviò la trattativa‘. In: https://palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/10/08/news/stato-mafia_la_procura_mannino_ha_avviato_la_trattativa-97616679/ La Repubblica (October 31, 2014): Catania: corruzione e spaccio, arrestato agente penitenziario. In: http://palermo.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/10/31/news/ catania_corruzione_e_spaccio_arrestato_agente_penitenziario-99417072/ La Repubblica (August 4, 2015): Mafia, condanna confermata per Giovanni Mercadante: 10 anni e otto mesi. Si è presentanto a Pagliarelli. In: https://palermo. repubblica.it/cronaca/2015/04/08/news/mafia_condanna_confermata_per_giovanni_mercadante_10_anni_e_otto_mesi-111478087/ La Repubblica (June 23, 2016): L’omicidio di Lia Pipitone: ‘Il padre accettò la condanna del boss, era troppo moderna’. In: https://palermo.repubblica.it/ cronaca/2016/06/23/news/i_verbali_del_pentito_di_carlo_lia_pipitone_fatta_ uccidere_dal_padre_era_troppo_moderna_-142653712/ La Repubblica (October 1, 2016): Pizzo, appalto lavoro: l’allarme dei pm sul sistema rifiuti in Sicilia. In: https://palermo.repubblica.it/politica/2016/10/01/

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