Benedetto Capizzi (28 June 1944 – 12 September 2023) was an Italian

mobster A gangster (informally gangsta) is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level ...

and a boss of the

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra (, ; "our thing"), also referred to as simply Mafia, is a secret society, criminal society and criminal organization originating on the island of Sicily and dates back to the mid-19th century. Emerging as a form of ...

, from the Villagrazia area of

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

. He was nominated to be the head of the new

Sicilian Mafia Commission The Sicilian Mafia Commission (Italian: ''Commissione provinciale''), known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Sicilian Mafia members who decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicili ...

. On 16 December 2008, Capizzi was among 94 Mafiosi arrested in "Operation Perseus" (Perseo in Italian; after the Greek mythological hero

Perseus In Greek mythology, Perseus (, ; Greek language, Greek: Περσεύς, Romanization of Greek, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus and Bellerophon, the greatest Greek hero and slayer of ...

who beheaded

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; ), also called Gorgo () or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her wa ...

). The operation foiled an attempt to reconstitute a new Mafia Commission after the arrests of Mafia bosses

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 ...

Antonio Rotolo Antonino "Nino" Rotolo (born 3 January 1946) is a Sicilian Mafia boss from the Pagliarelli area in Palermo that traditionally was under the control of the Motisi Mafia family. Rotolo was the underboss of Matteo Motisi, but according to some pen ...

, and

Salvatore Lo Piccolo Salvatore Lo Piccolo (; born 20 July 1942), also known as "the Baron" (), is an Italian mafioso and one of the most powerful bosses of Palermo, Sicily, italy Lo Piccolo rose through the ranks of the Palermo mafia throughout the 1980s and became ...

in 2006 and 2007. The object, as one tapped Mafioso put it, was to "re-establish Cosa Nostra" in the old style, with a single all-powerful boss, a "capo di capi". Capizzi had been nominated as the possible head of the Commission. Among the other members were other historical Cosa Nostra bosses, such as Gerlando Alberti, Gregorio Agrigento from

San Giuseppe Jato San Giuseppe Jato ( Sicilian: ''San Giuseppi''; Latin: ''Iaetia'') is a village in the Metropolitan City of Palermo in Sicily, southern Italy. The village sits in a hilly region of Palermo's hinterland, from the Sicilian capital. History The f ...

Giovanni Lipari Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...

Gaetano Fidanzati Gaetano Fidanzati (; 6 September 1935 – 5 October 2013) was a Sicilian Mafia boss of the Resuttana '' mandamento'' in Palermo and heavily involved in drug trafficking. He was among the first Mafia bosses to establish a presence in Northern Ital ...

Giuseppe Scaduto Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph, from Latin Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף. The feminine form of the name is Giuseppa or Giuseppina. People with the given name include: :''Note ...

from

Bagheria Bagheria (; ) is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Palermo in Sicily, located approximately 10km to the east of the city centre. Etymology According to some sources, the name ''Bagheria'' (by way of old Sicilian ''Baarìa'') or ...

, and

Salvatore Lombardo Salvatore may refer to: * Salvatore (name), a given name and surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * "Salvatore", a song by Lana Del Rey, on her 2015 album ''Honeymoon'' * Salvatore (band), a Norwegian instrume ...

, the 87-year-old boss from

Montelepre Montelepre (; ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Palermo, Sicily, Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Pen ...

. Many of those arrested had recently been released from prison on health grounds, and were serving out their sentences under house arrest.Mafia chiefs seized as they select godfather
The Independent, 17 December 2009
La Repubblica, 16 December 2008 When told of the decision to appoint Capizzi, another boss, Gaetano Lo Presti, appointed boss of Porta Nuova area of Palermo in 2007 by Lo Piccolo, challenged the decision, demanding: "Who authorised this?" The implication was that he believed Lo Presti had more claim to the top job than Capizzi. There was also the suggestion of a new round of "Mafia wars" on the streets of Sicily. It was this fear that led police to bring their assault forward and launch an operation that resulted in 94 arrests. Lo Presti, whose indiscretions on the telephone prompted Italian police to launch the operation, hanged himself in his prison cell, hours after being arrested.
The Independent, 18 December 2009 In 2010, after

Gaspare Spatuzza Gaspare Spatuzza (born 8 April 1964) is a Sicilian mafioso from the Brancaccio quarter in Palermo. He was an assassin for the brothers Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano who headed the Mafia family of Brancaccio. After the arrest of the Gravianos i ...

became a

pentito ''Pentito'' (; lit. "repentant"; plural: ''pentiti'') is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public ...

, Capizzi was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his roles in the murder of

Giuseppe Di Matteo Santino Di Matteo (born 7 December 1954), also known as ''Mezzanasca'', is an Italian former member of the Sicilian Mafia from the town of Altofonte in the province of Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Di Matteo took part in the killing of anti-Mafia j ...

. Capizzi died on 12 September 2023, at the age of 79.Morto in ospedale il boss di mafia Benedetto Capizzi. Aveva tentato di riorganizzare Cosa Nostra

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Capizzi, Benedetto 1944 births 2023 deaths Gangsters from Palermo Sicilian mafiosi