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Corleonesi
The Corleonesi Mafia clan was a faction within the Corleone family of the Sicilian Mafia, formed in the 1970s. Notable leaders included Luciano Leggio, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, and Leoluca Bagarella. Corleonesi affiliates were not restricted to mafiosi of Corleone. During the Second Mafia War in the early 1980s, the Corleonesi clan opposed the faction of the Palermitans represented, among others, by Gaetano Badalamenti, Stefano Bontate and Salvatore Inzerillo. The victory of the Corleonesi, and in particular the rise of Totò Riina, marked a new era in the history of the Sicilian Mafia. Between 1992 and 1993, the Corleonesi initiated a season of attacks against the state, followed by the State-Mafia Pact. History Beginnings In February 1971, the Corleonesi clan's first boss, Luciano Leggio, ordered the kidnapping for extortion of Antonino Caruso, son of the industrialist Giacomo Caruso, and also that of the son of the builder Francesco Vassallo in Palermo. Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a period of conflict involving the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place from the late 1970s to the early 1990s and involved thousands of homicides. Sometimes referred to as The Great Mafia War or the ''Mattanza'' (Italian for 'Slaughter'), it involved the entire Mafia and radically altered the power balance within the organization. In addition to the violence within the Mafia itself, there was violence against the state, including a campaign of deliberate assassinations of judges, prosecutors, detectives, politicians, activists and other ideological enemies. In turn, the war resulted in a major crackdown against the Mafia, helped by the '' pentiti'', Mafiosi who collaborated with the authorities after losing so many friends and relatives to the fighting. In effect, the conflict helped end the secrecy of the Mafia. Preceding events The instigators of the Second Mafia War were the Corleonesi, the Mafia Family from the town of Corleone, although they were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Totò Riina
Salvatore Riina (; 16 November 1930 – 17 November 2017), called (, Totò being the diminutive of Salvatore), was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s with the assassinations of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, resulting in widespread public outcry and a major crackdown by the authorities. He was also known by the nicknames ''la belva'' ("the beast") and ''il capo dei capi'' (Sicilian: '''u capu di 'i capi'', "the boss of bosses"). Riina succeeded Luciano Leggio as head of the Corleonesi criminal organisation in the mid 1970s and achieved dominance through a campaign of violence, which caused police to target his rivals. Riina had been a fugitive since the late 1960s after he was indicted on a murder charge. He was less vulnerable to law enforcement's reaction to his methods, as the policing removed many of the established chiefs who had trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina (; 16 November 1930 – 17 November 2017), called (, Totò being the diminutive of Salvatore), was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s with the assassinations of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, resulting in widespread public outcry and a major crackdown by the authorities. He was also known by the nicknames ''la belva'' ("the beast") and ''il capo dei capi'' (Sicilian: '''u capu di 'i capi'', "the boss of bosses"). Riina succeeded Luciano Leggio as head of the Corleonesi criminal organisation in the mid 1970s and achieved dominance through a campaign of violence, which caused police to target his rivals. Riina had been a fugitive since the late 1960s after he was indicted on a murder charge. He was less vulnerable to law enforcement's reaction to his methods, as the policing removed many of the established chiefs who had trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano (; 31 January 1933 – 13 July 2016) was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia clan known as the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone, and ''de facto'' the boss of bosses (''il capo dei capi''). His nickname was ''Binnu u tratturi'' (Sicilian language, Sicilian for "Bernie the tractor") because, in the words of one informant, "he mows people down."Profile: Bernardo Provenzano , BBC News, 11 April 2006. Another nickname was ''il ragioniere'' ("the accountant") due to his apparently subtle and low-key approach to running his crime empire, at least in contrast to some of his more violent predecessors. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Calderone
Giuseppe “Pippo” Calderone ( Catania, November 1, 1925 – Catania, September 8, 1978) was an influential Sicilian mafioso from Catania, eventually becoming the capo of the Catania Mafia family. He became the ‘secretary’ of the Interprovincial Commission, formed around 1975 on his instigation. Its purpose was to coordinate the provincial Mafia commissions and avoid conflicts over public contracts that crossed provincial borders. Calderone was killed in 1978, on the orders of Totò Riina. Early years Originally, Catania was not a traditional Mafia area. The Mafia was much more entrenched in the western part of Sicily. According to Pippo’s brother Antonino Calderone (who became a pentito in 1987) the first Mafia family in Catania was started by Antonio Saitta. He had been prosecuted by Mussolini’s ''Iron Prefect'', Cesare Mori. One of his daughters was the mother of Giuseppe and Antonino Calderone. Another uncle had helped the Mafia get back on its feet after World ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade (23 April 1939 – 23 April 1981) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. His actual surname was Bontate. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the ''Principe di Villagrazia'' (Prince of Villagrazia) − the area of Palermo he controlled − and ''Il Falco'' (the Falcon).Trent'anni fa l'assassinio di Bontade La Repubblica, April 23, 2011 He had links with several powerful in Sicily, and with prime minister . In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicilian Mafia
The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia- terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily and dating to at least the 19th century. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organisational structure and code of conduct and honor and present themselves to the public under a common brand. The basic group is known as a "family", "clan", or '' cosca''. Each family claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (''borgata'') of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets. Its members call themselves " men of honour", although the public often refers to them as ''mafiosi''. By the 20th century, following wide-scale emigration from Sicily, mafiosi established gangs in North and South America which replicate the traditions and methods of their Sicilian ancestors. The Maf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stefano Bontate
Stefano Bontade (23 April 1939 – 23 April 1981) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. His actual surname was Bontate. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the ''Principe di Villagrazia'' (Prince of Villagrazia) − the area of Palermo he controlled − and ''Il Falco'' (the Falcon).Trent'anni fa l'assassinio di Bontade La Repubblica, April 23, 2011 He had links with several powerful in Sicily, and with prime minister . In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leoluca Bagarella
Leoluca Bagarella (; born 3 February 1942) is an Italian criminal and member of the Sicilian Mafia. He is from the town of Corleone. Following Salvatore Riina's arrest in early 1993, Bagarella became the head of the stragist strategy faction, opposing another faction commanded by the successor designate Bernardo Provenzano, creating a real rift in Cosa Nostra. Bagarella was captured in 1995, having been a fugitive for four years, and sentenced to life imprisonment for Mafia association and multiple murders. Early life Bagarella was born in Corleone on 3 February 1942. Bagarella sided with Luciano Leggio of the Corleonesi in the late 1950s. Bagarella became the brother-in-law of Salvatore Riina in 1974 when he married Bagarella's sister, Antonia. Two of Bagarella's brothers were also Mafiosi; his elder brother, Calogero Bagarella, was shot dead on December 10, 1969, in the Viale Lazio in Palermo, during a shootout with rival mafioso Michele Cavataio and his men, known as the Vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Greco
Giuseppe Greco (; 4 January 1952 – September 1985) was a hitman and high-ranking member of the Sicilian Mafia. A number of sources refer to him exclusively as Pino Greco, although Giuseppe was his Christian name; "Pino" is a frequent abbreviation of the name Giuseppe. One of the most prolific killers in criminal history, he was affiliated to the Ciaculli mafia family, but despite his surname he was not related to the boss of Ciaculli Salvatore "Cicchiteddu" Greco nor to the boss of Croceverde-Giardini Michele Greco. His father was also a Mafioso nicknamed ''Scarpa'' (Italian for "shoe"), hence Giuseppe's nickname of Scarpuzzedda, or "little shoe". Early life He was born in 1952 in Ciaculli, an outlying town in the province of Palermo, administrative center of Sicily. At school he reportedly excelled in Latin and Greek. It is not known precisely when he joined the Mafia but according to pentito Gaspare Mutolo, he started off as a driver for Kalsa boss Tommaso Spadaro, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rosario Riccobono
Rosario Riccobono (February 10, 1929 in Palermo – November 30, 1982 in Palermo) was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of Partanna Mondello, a suburb of Palermo, his native city. In 1974 he became a member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission. During the 1970s Riccobono was one of the most influential members of the Commission, and the Cosa Nostra's king of the drug trafficking. Heroin trafficker He was involved in heroin trafficking throughout the 1970s and went on the run at the end of that decade after he came under suspicion of running an operation to smuggle heroin from Turkey through Sicily and on to the United States. His right-hand man was the future pentito Gaspare Mutolo, who organized massive shipments of heroin.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', p. 79 At one point, in the early 1980s, he was negotiating 500 kilogramme shipments of heroin from Thailand together with Nitto Santapaola from Catania. Second Mafia war As capo mandamento he became a member ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Filippo Marchese
Filippo Marchese (11 September 1938 in Palermo – September 1982 in Palermo) was a leading figure in the Sicilian Mafia and a hitman suspected of dozens of homicides. Marchese was one of the most feared killers working for mafia boss Vincenzo Chiaracane, closely related to the Giuseppe Greco family which was in control of the Ciaculli neighbourhood of Palermo. He was the boss of the Mafia family in the Corso dei Mille neighbourhood in Palermo. Room of Death Marchese ran what became known as the ''Room of Death'', a small apartment along the Piazza Sant Erasmo.Corso dei Mille, il più feroce dei clan La Repubblica, October 20, 1984 Victims who stood in the way of the |
