MAFIA
The old boss Ciccio Rappa, the protection money in New York and the stolen drugs: "They gave the mandate to him"
The interceptions of the blitz on the links between the Sicilian clans and those of the USA, where the son of the elderly Borgetto mafioso, Vito, lives. Between threats and authorizations for construction work, disagreements and stories of the Cosa Nostra that once was, it emerges however that the suspects were reduced to raiding a marijuana plantation to obtain just 900 grams of grass

Sandra Figliuolo
Journalist Palermo
09 November 2023 18:11
They call themselves "vossia", speak an ancient Sicilian mixed with some American terms and often remember the "glories" of the Cosa Nostra that once was: in some passages of the interceptions, due to their tenor, one could easily put the (overused) in the background soundtrack of "The Godfather", Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece. They seem out of time - and in any case they belong to a criminal world that is hard to believe still exists and is powerful in Palermo - but from Sicily they would provide the instructions to impose extortion on commercial activities in New York. An emblematic figure - according to the SCO police and FBI investigators - would be a name well known in the judicial news and arrested yesterday : Francesco "Ciccio" Rappa, of whom another of the suspects, Giovan Battista Badalamenti , was mentioned in an interception on 20 July, spoke in these terms: "Do you know Ciccio Rappa, have you seen him? I understand that perhaps the mandate was either given to him or they want to give it to him".

The raid by the police and the FBI: the names of the 17 arrested
"Uncle Fat" from heroin sales to businesses in the Big Apple
According to the deputy prosecutor Marzia Sabella and the deputy Giovanni Antoci, who coordinate the Italian part of the investigations, Rappa, born in 1942, convicted three times for mafia association and who finished serving his last sentence on 13 November 2014, already since the following December he would resume the regency of the Borgetto clan. And he would have managed the overseas affairs while also being able to count on the presence in the Big Apple of his son Vito, who was also stopped yesterday in the USA. As early as the Seventies, Rappa had been involved in the colossal drug trafficking of Cosa Nostra between the two sides of the Atlantic and in fact he was arrested for the first time as soon as he landed in New York with 81 kilos of heroin in the car. He received an 18-year sentence, which was followed by another 12-year sentence, when his business relationships with the Madonia family of Resuttana emerged in the 1990s. Rappa has historically been very loyal to the brothers Vito and Leonardo Vitale, leaders of the Partinico district.

The raid by police and FBI in a farmhouse in Torretta | Video
The protection money in New York: "He came with education, I gave him security"
It would have been "Uncle Ciccio" who intervened on an American businessman to make him pay 6 thousand dollars a month in protection money to his son Vito and to another suspect arrested in the USA, Francesco Vicari: "Get your act together, do the right thing" the old boss would have suggested. And "your father's word was right", commented Vicari. "Six a month, 1,500 dollars a week - Vicari communicated to Vito Rappa in December 2020 - but I gave him the security, because I had to give it to him and he shook my hand and it remained like this... We owe the people give security, my brother", that is, protection. And Rappa replied: "You sow, why do you sow? To then be there..." and the other: "Because then the ear grows... He wanted security and I gave him security and that's it... I always talk to him about work." On December 23rd there was further confirmation that the entrepreneur would have agreed to submit: "He called me, Vito, it's not that I called him - said Vicari - with a lot of politeness, you see, he came with a lot of politeness, I went to find it with such politeness, 'thank you, thank you' and that's it, I won't tell you anything anymore... In this period a superchiu candy, a candy that was lost".

The ambassador, confidential news and summits
Giacomo Palazzolo would have been very faithful to Rappa, who in fact - according to the Prosecutor's Office - would have been his "ambassador", also informing him of important judicial news, such as "he says that there is a repentant person who is saying a few things, one from Trapani", for example. And he himself admitted his role in some interceptions: "You know how many people sometimes send greetings, things, call me... He (Francesco Rappa, ed.) certain things... He said to me: ' You when there is that you think one thing is right, you tell him what you want to say, I trust you, you don't need pen and paper... To shorten things with people, according to what you think"... He's delicate, he thinks about these things because he's too burned out." It would have been through Palazzolo that the appointments with the old boss would have been made. "You tell Ciccio - a man explained - that they came to Totò's son, but since he's not familiar with him, he told me the name and surname of these people here, they wanted to talk to you... But Totò, being delicate, first wants to hear from Ciccio whether he wants to talk to him or not, when he's available".

But Palazzolo would also have mediated in some issues. Last October 9th, a man turned to him explaining: "He doesn't give you any material, you thoroughbred cuckold!" and the suspect: "You piece of... It would be like making him shit on himself... I go there and say to him: 'Give me the money, u pizzu! Why? And why are you going to report me, cuckold that you are!'... Him Does he know Christians? He doesn't know that as soon as I go, as soon as I open half a word, he's consumed! As soon as I open my mouth he's consumed."

Turret farmhouse blitz
Turret farmhouse blitz

The permit for the works: "It's always better for him to know"
An in-law who had to start work to transform some premises into a betting room ("all betting agency, all gaming, 320 square meters of room I'm building, the most beautiful room there will be in all of Sicily", he said) would have wanted be sure not to have any problems and asked Palazzolo himself: "Giacomì when you're in Borgetto and you're with your friend (Rappa, ed. ), tell me and we'll make him come here, I'll show him the place I got, which is always better , who at least know that he is mine... with Ciccio" and Palazzolo: "And what do you need? Speak! Whatever you need... don't worry, should they worry him?". The entrepreneur continued: "Since Borgetto is not a square that I know, it is always better for him to know... A walk, the rest of us are doing work, this week we finish, go around and they already know that... and one is calmer" and Rappa's ambassador closed: "Now I'll tell Ciccio, you were right to tell me, nobody's coming, understand? As long as I come here once, I'll show up a couple of times".

"There isn't one that has any value..."
Giovan Battista Badalamenti, Martino's brother, very loyal to Vito Vitale and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Partinico boss Antonino Geraci, dating back to 23 November 1997, is another central figure in the investigation and was arrested together with his nephew Salvatore Prestigiacomo, with whom he allegedly had friction, who reported to his detained brother during a prison visit. Martino Badalamenti commented in very harsh tones: "You have to say: 'The uncle with 30 years, have you been in prison? You didn't even bother to see, and speak, Vastaso! Quoted! I'll stick it in my butt... to him and to all these quoted, but for real!" and the other replied: "But don't you see that they are all at his level, Martino, take one who has values, one! You don't know anyone" and the life prisoner: "Knock, I don't know that there isn't anyone ? Do you want to tell me?" and the brother laconically commented on the state of the organization: "Nuddu, quannu ti ricu nuddu, nuddu...".

When Matteo Messina Denaro "signed off"...
On another occasion Badalamenti commented to his nephew on his belonging to the Torretta clan and his closeness to Vito Vitale: "But in a certain sense we were always unlucky, Vito didn't last long. U 'ncignieri (the mafia boss of Altofonte Domenico Raccuglia , ed. ) if it lasted, he put everything in his hands, everything, Sicily, he put himself in his hands". But the judgment on Raccuglia was very bad, so much so that Prestigiacomo said: "It's a good thing that they arrested him because if Nino went out while he was out, bad things would happen here, uncle. He told me: 'Salvatore, he behaved badly. , he abandoned the puvirieddi to everyone, he told everyone that he was in the middle of the street and he screwed up all the things himself'". In one passage the two also spoke about Raccuglia's fugitive in the Trapani area in 2009, about which Matteo Messina Denaro (then also a fugitive) would have known nothing: "When he ended up in Trapani, the people of Trapani knew nothing, Messina Denaro yes, he says: 'But what was he doing with this documentary without me knowing anything about it?' and instead he went to tell him: 'It's okay, I can do it here'. Then when they caught him he says: 'But what was this guy doing without me knowing anything?', he says: 'How come you don't know anything? But did you say it?' he says: 'I don't know anything about this' and we had seen each other 4, 5 days before", Badalamenti said.

"Messina Denaro went into hiding, Vito Vitale was a total fool"
then spoke about Messina Denaro last February, immediately after his capture, again with Prestigiacomo but with another person: "He went into hiding - he said speaking of the now dead mafia boss of Castelvetrano - no one knew him there in Castelvetrano, he was walking, no one knew him! Four or 5 had contact with him and that was it. He wasn't like that crazy godfather of mine (Vito Vitale, ed. ) , total crazy... In all of this he arrived and had to command everything world, the whole world in his hands! You forgot the one from Reggio Calabria: 'In Italy they have to do what I say. The rest of us, the Neapolitans, the Romans, the Milanese or do what I say, you'll be astute to everyone !'".

The theft of the marijuana plantation
The Torretta gang may have had contacts with the United States, a "glorious" past to remember, but from a passage in the arrest order it is clear that they would not be swimming in gold given that the suspects would have been reduced to stealing the marijuana grown by "four savvy people from Borgo Nuovo" in Piano dell'Occhio, to obtain just under 900 grams of weed to resell...