™

A sophisticated secret murderous organization
with an international reach, functioning as a shadow state.
God instructs us – "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them."
Ephesians 5:11
Some analytical historians suspect that the unusual level of self-discipline, ruthlessness, and sense of honour of the Sicilian Mafia
was genetically contributed by the Viking settlers in Sicily, after the Viking conquest of Sicily in 860AD. 
Common Terms Used:

cagnolazzi –
'wild dogs' – young toughs/thugs working for, but not yet initiated into, the Cosa Nostra society.

consigliere – advisor to the capo of a cosca, his immediate deputy.
capo –
'head' of a cosca.
capodecina –
'head of ten': leader of lowest level group of the society (under consigliere and capo).
capo dei capi –
boss of bosses.
Commission –
the mafia parliament, composed of the heads of each mandamento.
Cosa Nostra –
'Our Thing': post World War II internal name for the society; previously known as 'Men of Honour', the 'Brotherhood', and the 'Great Sect'.
cosca –
a mafia 'family' (plural – cosche, American 'borgate'), of varying numerical strength.
mafioso –
a member of the society (plural – mafiusi; Italian mafiosi).
mandamento –
mafia district, composed of three adjoining families/cosche. (plural – mandamenti).
omertà –
the code of silence (from Sicilian umirtà, 'submission')
padrino –
godfather, the super-boss.
pentito –
defector (plural- pentiti), supplying information to the police.
pizzu –
the 'tax' (extortion money) which retailers and robbers alike pay to the society.
sfregio –
'disfiguring wound' – by extension, an affront, an act of provocative insult requiring retaliation.
Evolution and Spread of this Noxious Weed...
1864
Mafia associate, Baron Turrisi Colonna's report of the 'great sect' is published.
onorata società
1865-70
In Uditore, near Palermo, Sicily – the first traceable group of the La Cosa Nostra forms as a religious charity, the 'Tertiaries of Saint Francis', under Antonino Giammona (born 1819), with the assistance of Father Rosario (chaplain of Vicaria Prison, Palermo's 'crime school'), running protection rackets among the commercial lemon groves, with the complicity of police and judiciary.
1875
August: Dr Gaspare Galati (owner of Fondo Riella citrus estate) flees Palermo with his family, after refusing to submit to intimidation, and reports to the Italian Minister of the Interior that more than 23 people had been murdered in Uditore in 1874 alone, without any police investigation (a village of some 800 persons).
1877
Sydney Sonnino and Leopold Franchetti publish their research on the 'violence industry' in Sicily.
1890
In America – New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy is assassinated and the Sicilian suspects are lynched.
1893
February 1: Marquis Emanuele Notarbartolo di san Giovanni (ex mayor of Palermo and ex governor of the Bank of Sicily) is assassinated by two well dressed assailants on the train from Sciara to Palermo. These are later identified as mafiosi Guiseppa Fontana and Matteo Filipello (Villabate cosca) on the instruction of Don Raffaele Palizzolo, member of parliament and a director of the Bank of Sicily, in revenge for exposing the NGI share swindle using the bank's money. (See November, 1899).
The ineptitude of the police inquiry leads Notarbartolo's son Leopoldo to begin his own investigation.
1895
Leopoldo Notarbartolo visits Tunis to investigate Fontana's alibi in spite of its local cosca.
1896
Notarbartolo's son Leopoldo approaches Italian Prime Minister Antonio di Rudini concerning the instigation of his father's murder by the member of parliament Palizzolo, and is told by him –
'If you really believe he did it, why don't you just hire some good mafioso to kill him for you?'
(See November 1899).
1897
January: A summit of the eight cosche of the Palermo region convenes, chaired by Francesca Siino, to counter their loss of income from a police raid on their counterfeit currency factory. The lack of consensus leads to friction between the Malaspina (capo Siino) and Uditore (capo Giammona) cosche, resulting in tit for tat sfregio and executions until 1900.

 1898
August: Ermanno Sangiorgi becomes chief of police in Palermo.
November: Sangiorgi begins to submit a series of reports on the activities of the Cosa Nostra until January 1900 to the Palermo public prosecutor Vincenzo Consenza, (a copy of each report is also forwarded to the Italian Prime Minister, General Luigi Pelloux, via the Prefect of Palermo).
December: Francesca Siino, out manoeuvred and outnumbered, negotiates a truce with the other cosche.
Sangiorgi reports that –
'regrettably, the mafia's bosses act under safeguard of Senators, MPs, and other influential figures who protect them and defend them and who are, in their turn, protected and defended by the mafiosi.'



 1899
October 25: Attempted execution of former superboss and capo of the Malaspina cosca, Francesca Siino, fails. Under Sangiorgi's manipulation, Siino becomes a pentito.
November 11: In Milan, Court of Assizes – the trial for complicity in the murder of Notarbartolo (See 1893) begins, of two train staff only, the ticket inspector and the guardsvan brakeman.
November 16: Notarbartolo' son Leopoldo takes the stand in the above trial as a civil complainant, publicly exposes mafioso Fontana (of the Villabate cosca), and M.P. Palizzolo as instigator, and discredits Fontana's Tunisian alibi. (See 1905).
Prime Minister Luigi Pelloux arranges a quick Chamber of Deputies vote to remove Palizzolo's immunity, even suspending telegraphic communications between Sicily and the mainland.
(See July, 1902).
1900
Night April 27-8: Sangiorgi arrests thirty-three suspects, and many more in the following months almost paralysing Cosa Nostra operations.
Sangiorgi comments –
'It was never going to turn out any other way, as long as people who denounced the mafia in the evening then went along and defended it the following morning.'
1901
April: Palermo public prosecutor, Vincenzo Consenza, writes to Italy's new Minister of the Interior –
'During the course of performing my duties I have never noticed the mafia.'
May: After months of continuous hair-splitting procrastination by this same public prosecutor, the most significant mafiosi are released and only eighty-nine of the hundreds are charged with belonging to a criminal association. Siino denies the evidence that he supplied to Sangiorgi. All mafia victims deny mafia guilt, except two widows and the mother of a murdered girl.
June: Only thirty-two mafosi are convicted of forming a criminal association. Most of these are released immediately.
1902
July 30, 11.30 pm: In Bologna – Raffaele Palizzolo and Guiseppa Fontana are found guilty of the murder of Marquis Emanuele Notarbartolo di san Giovanni. Six months later the trial is declared invalid on a minor technicality by the Court of Cassation in Rome. (See September, 1903).
In
Corleone, Sicily – the Catholic Fund, the Cassa Agricola San Leoluca, forms an association with the mafia against socialist influences among the peasants. (See 1910). A canon pleads by letter to the bishop to stop Corleone priests carrying guns 'both day and night'.
Catholic Church
compromise
1903
September 5: In Florence – the trial for the murder of Notarbartolo recommences. (See July, 1904).
1904
July 23: In Florence – the accused in the Notarbartolo murder trial are found not guilty by an 8-4 majority jury. (See July, 1902).
1905
January: Joseph (Giuseppe) Petrosino is appointed head of the New York Police Department's Italian Branch. (See 1909).
Recently acquitted assassin, Guiseppa Fontana, joins the cosca of American Cosa Nostra superboss, or padrino, Piddu Morello in New York. (See 1893).
1909
February: Lt. Joseph Petrosino becomes head of the new secret service arm of the New York Police Department.
March 12: In Palermo, Sicily – Lt. Petrosino is assassinated. (Probably by Don Vito Cascio-Ferro, at the request of Morello in New York).
In New York – Padrino Morello is imprisoned for currency counterfeiting and looses his leadership of in the American Mafia. (See August 1930).
1910
In Corleone, Sicily – Leader of the socialist peasant co-operative, Bernadino Verro, denounces the –
'mafia affiliated with the Catholics'.
November 6: Attempted shotgun assassination of Verro. Verro declares that the bullets fired at him stank of 'mafia and incense'. (See 1915).
Catholic Church
compromise
1915
November 3: In Corleone – Bernadino Verro is assassinated by five bullets to his body and then five to his head, leaving the state of the body as a warning to others. (See 1910).
1919
January: In America – The Eighteenth Amendment of the US Constitution is passed (Prohibition), opening the whole liquor industry to the mafia corruption.
1925
October 23: Palermo – Under Mussolini, Cesare Mori becomes prefect with full authority to attack the mafia and the political enemies of Italy's fascist regime.
1926
Night January 1: Mussolini's troops, at Mori's request, surround and attack Gangi, Sicily.
In the following days they arrest 130 fugitives and some 300 accomplices, beginning a devastating crackdown on the mafia resulting in the break up of most of their cosche. Within three years 11,000 people are arrested, 5 000 in the province of Palermo.
1929
2122 North Clark St, Chicago, USA – Al 'Scarface' Capone massacres seven men associated with a rival gang, on St Valentine's Day.
1930
August: In East Harlem, New York – Piddu Morello is shot dead in his office. (See 1905).
In Boston, America – a mafia general assembly deposes Joe 'the Boss' Masseria (who had previously admitted non-Sicilian Al Capone to the mafia), appoints an interim leader, and Cola Gentile to lead a deputation to Salvatore Marazano to stop the internal conflict.
1931
April 15: Scarpato's restaurant, Coney Island, New York – Charles 'Lucky' Luciano (Salvatore Luciana) master-minds the after-lunch team assassination his own capo Joe 'the Boss' Masseria. Luciano (with the support of Al 'Scarface' Capone in Chicago) seeks peace terms with capo Salvatore Marazano thus opening the way for Marazano to become capo dei capi of the American Cosa Nostra.
September 10: Marazano is assassinated in his Park Avenue office by Luciano's men.
Luciano establishes a governing Commission for the American mafia, comprised of the heads of the five New York cosche plus one outsider. (See June 1936).
1936
June: 'Lucky' Luciano begins a thirty to fifty year sentence in Dannemora maximum-security prison, New York State, for 'compulsory prostitution' (sex-slavery). (See February 1942).
1939
October 1: In Ciaculli, Palermo – Piddu the lieutenant's son Guiseppe is shot dead
1940s
As the head of the powerful Genovese family, Charles "Lucky" Luciano is the undisputed boss of organized crime on the U.S. East Coast. However, he is sentenced for 50 years for promoting prostitution. Luciano offers to work as a conduit in the search for information about saboteurs who sank a French liner at the New York City dock in exchange for a commuted sentence. The association proves to be a success, and the mobster's services are sought again ahead of the Allied invasion of Sicily. Luciano is subsequently released after serving just 10 years of his sentence and deported to Italy.
1942
February: Luxury liner SS Normandie catches fire and rolls over at her moorings on the Hudson river, leading to co-operation between American naval intelligence and the mafia to trace German secret agents. Joseph 'Socks' Lanza, capo of the Fulton fish market cosca recommends to naval intelligence that prisoner 'Lucky' Luciano be consulted.
So Luciano is transferred to a closer and more comfortable prison. (See 1936).
The
Vatican Bank, offically called the "Institute for Works of Religion", is founded. By 2012 its total deposits are about €6 billion ($7.6 billion US) in about 33,000 acounts. Its business model depends on keeping things as shrouded as possible from all financial authorities. Capital gains are untaxed, financial statements are not disclosed and anonymity is guaranteed, so it is able to function as a money-launderer useful to the mafia, such as account 001-3-14772-C owned by the nonexistent "Cardinal Spellman Foundation".
Vatican Bank
money laudering
1943
Physician Michele Navarra, capo of the Corleone cosca, initiates petty thief Luciano Leggio. (See 1948).

Murray Gurfein, assistant district attorney of New York, negotiates an agreement with 'Lucky' Luciano (then in prison) for the Sicilian Mafia to provide surveillance information to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) to assist with the planned Allied invasion of German-occupied Sicily (Operation Husky) set for July 10, and also to help police the New York waterfront against Nazi spies and saboteurs.
Mafia espionage
for the Allies
1946 'Lucky' Luciano is freed and expelled from the US to Italy. (See 1942 and 1943). for his cooperation with ONI
1947
In Portella della Ginestra, Palermo – Mafioso Salvatore Guiliano and associates machine-gun a socialist rally of peasant families. Cardinal Archbishop Ernesto Ruffini writes to the Pope concerning the massacre that –
'...resistance and rebellion were inevitable in the face of the Communists and their bullying, lies and deceitful scheming, their anti-Italian and anti-Christian theories'.
His attitude brings the Catholic church to a new depth of culpable blindness. (See 1964).
1948
Evening, March 10: In Corleone, Sicily – In the light of Italy's coming first parliamentary elections, mafioso Luciano Leggio marches trade unionist and Resistance veteran, Placido Rizzotto, out of town at gunpoint, forces him to kneel, and shoots him at point-blank range three times in the head, and dumps his body in a cave.
1951
In the USA – The Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce' of Estes Kefauver begins, putting great pressure on mafia heroin trafficking operations. (See 1956).
1953
In Palermo – Cardinal Archbishop Ernesto Ruffini announces that it is a 'grave obligation' for believers to vote for the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) party in the coming election. (See 1954).
1954
The DC elects Amintore Fanfani as Italian prime minister. He begins a process of change which results in the mafia gaining increased political influence in Sicily and large parts of southern Italy.*
1956
In the USA – The Narcotics Control Act is passed, resulting in a severe crack down on mafia operations.




 1957
In the USA – The leadership of the American Cosa Nostra introduce a ban on drug-dealing, but this is routinely transgressed.
In Cuba – American Cosa Nostra use of the island as a drug-smuggling base is imperilled by Fidel Castro's growing revolution.
October: In Rome – Joe Bananas, capo of the Brooklyn cosca (on his way 'on-holiday' to franchise the US mafia's heroin-trafficking operations to their Sicilian counterparts), is given a VIP welcome by the Italian Foreign Trade Minister. Bananas remarks –
'Wouldn't my friends in the FBI have been astonished at this princely welcome'.
In Palermo – Bananas initiates the creation of a Sicilian Commission on the lines of the New York mafia Commission to better manage business rivalries. He is accompanied by his advisor Camillio (Carmine) Galante, his deputy Frank Garofalo, and other leading members of his Brooklyn-based cosca, and the Buffalo-based Magaddino cosca (including Lucky Luciano, in exile in Naples). He chairs their meeting at the Hotel des Palmes with a cross-section of Sicilian mafia leadership. The outcome is that the most Sicilian of the American mafia cosche reforge a link with the most American of the Sicilian cosche.
Each province of Sicily is to have its own Commission. The large number of cosche in the Palermo Commission necessitates a mandamento level, enhancing an existing practice. However, the capo of a cosca may not be a Commission representative, to prevent a concentration of power and balance the authority of local cosca bosses. Critically, the mafia Commission of each province will rule concerning the murders of 'men of honour'.
See: FBI
1958
October: In Italy – The offices of the newspaper L'Ora are bombed by the mafia for publishing the names, interests, and political contacts of leading mafia bosses. L'Ora runs a full page exposé of Luciano Leggio's activities. Three days later the newspaper's offices are bombed. (See 1948).
1959
In New York – The FBI's lack of understanding of Cosa Nostra is reflected in the imbalance of 400 agents investigating American Communism with only four working on organized crime. (See 1963).
December 8: In Worcester, Massachusetts, USA – About 150 Mafia assemble at a downtown hotel and hold an all-night meeting to set policy and solve disputes.
See: FBI
The 1st
Mafia War: 1962
December 26: In Piazza Principe di Camporeale, Palermo – Di Pisa of 'Little Bird' Greco's cosca is shot dead for fiddling the February heroin shipment of the liner Saturnia to New York by Angelo La Barbera's cosca, thus beginning Sicily's first mafia war. (See 1968).
1963
January: In Palermo – Salvatore La Barbera is eliminated by 'Little Bird' Greco's cosca.
February 12: In Palermo – A huge car-bomb destroys 'Little Bird' Greco's house in Ciaculli.
April 19 10.25 am: In Palermo – A Greco assassination squad attacks a La Barbera fishmongers, killing two and wounding two. A few days later, the capo of Cinisi, a Greco ally, is killed by a car-bomb.
May 25: In Milan – Angelo La Barbera is publicly shot dead by the Greco cosca in viale Regina Giovanni.
June 30: In Ciaculli, Palermo – The first mafia war ends accidentally when an abandoned TNT-loaded car with a flat tire explodes, killing seven officers (four carabinieri, two military engineers and a policeman). (Tommaso Buscetta is the probable culprit). The reaction brings a crack down on mafia activities across the region that brings their activity to temporary halt.
In Cinisi, Sicily – Mafia capo, Cesare Manzella (uncle of Giuseppe 'Peppino' Impastato, see 1966), is assassinated by a car bomb.
Summer: In Palermo – The mafia Commission meets and decides to dissolve itself defensively. Its members travel abroad.
September 10: Bernado 'Tractor' Provenzano takes part in an attack on Michele 'Our Father' Navarra's mafia faction. (See 2006).
September
–October: In America – Joe Valachi, a low rung mafioso, gives evidence to the FBI, leading to a significant change in their strategy.
Joseph Valachi testifies before Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations that the Mafia does exist in America.
Mob boss Vito Genovese places a $100,000 bounty on Valachi, but he dies of a heart attack in 1971 before it is collected.
1964
Palm Sunday, in Palermo – Cardinal Ruffini issues a pastoral epistle entitled 'The True Face of Sicily' in which he accuses the media of exaggerating the mafia in a conspiracy against Sicily. (See 1947).
In Corleone, Sicily – Luciano Leggio, capo of the Corleone cosca, is arrested. (See 1958).
1966
In Cinisi, Sicily – Giuseppe 'Peppino' Impastato, of a mafia family, writes an a article entitled – 'Mafia: a mountain of shit', resulting in banning from his parental home. (See 1978).
1968 In Cantanzaro, Calabria – 117 mafia combatants in the 1962-63 war are sent for trial. (See 1962).
1969
The sixty-four mafia combatants, including Luciano Leggio (see 1964), arrested in the 1962-63 war are all acquitted, with assistance from certain police officers and intimidated witnesses.
The mafia's Commission is reconstituted, provisionally consisting of Gaetano 'Tano' Badalamenti, Stefano Bontate (capo of the largest cosca, and most important hinge between the mafia and the Masonic secret societies), and Luciano Leggio; thus abandoning the old rule that prohibited heads of cosche from holding the position (see October 1957 and 1974).
December 10: In viale Lazio, Palermo – Michele 'the Cobra' Cavataio is executed by a team (including Calogero Bagarella, Bernardo 'the Tractor' Provenzano, and Guiseppe Di Cristina) representing the whole of Cosa Nostra for his part in starting the mafia war of 1962-63.
US President Nixon's 'war on drugs' program drives heroin refining from Corsican labs in Marseilles to Cosa Nostra labs in Sicily.
1970
Badalamenti, Bontate and Leggio, become a triumvirate mafia Commission.
Investigative reporter Mauro De Mauro, of L'Ora newspaper, is murdered on instruction of the mafia Commission.
In America – The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law (RICO) is passed.
1972
In Italy – Two Palermo men, identified as having links to the mafia by the government's Antimafia Commission, are given ministerial office: Salvo Lima, as under-secretary of the Ministry of Finance; and Giovanni Gioia, as Minister of the Mail and Telecommunications. This brings the Antimafia Commission's work to a stop.
1973
c.11 pm March 29: In Palermo – Capodecina Leonardo Vitale, of the Altarello di Baida cosca, with deep remorse, confesses unreservedly and voluntarily to the police concerning his own crimes and the structure and organization of the mafia, including its Commission.
When state psychiatrists find him 'mentally semi-infirm' but fit to stand trial, he writes –
"• Mental semi-infirmity = psychic sickness.
• Mafia = social sickness. Political mafia = social sickness. Prostitution = social sickness, syphilis, condyloma, etc. = physical sickness that influences the ailing psyche right from childhood.
• Religious crises = psychic sickness that derives from these other sicknesses.
These are the evils to which I, Leonardo Vitale, resurrected in the faith of the true God, have fallen victim."
See 1977.
In Rome:
Seventeen-year-old Eugene Paul Getty III is kidnapped by Luciano Leggio's cosca which extorts $2.5 million after his ear and lock of hair is sent to a newspaper.
Prime Minister Giulio Andeotti attempts to help Vatican banker Michele Sindona avoid criminal (money-laundering) charges in Italy and the United States. (See 1986).
In
Somerville, Boston, U.S. – The Marshall Motors auto repair shop, owned by Howie Winter, serves as a front for the Somerville crime gang competing (in activities including fixing horse races up and down the East Coast) with the local mafia controlled by Gennaro J. Angiulo and his four brothers.
The Region
(the mafia governing body for the whole of Sicily) is set up by Pippo Calderone of Catania. (See 1977).
Toto 'Shorty' Riina (a Corleonese) kidnaps and kills the father-in-law of mafioso Nino Salvo.
1974 In Palermo – The full Mafia Commission becomes operative, with Don Tano Badalamenti in the chair. (See 1977).

1976
The Italian government's Antimafia Commission completes its work in 40 thick volumes.
Salvatore Toto 'Shorty' Riina initiates Giovanni 'lo scannacristiani' Brusca. (See May, 1992).
1977
In Palermo – The trial of twenty-eight mafiosi arising from Leonardo Vitale's confession are tried, but only himself and his uncle are convicted. (See 1973).
September: In Cinisi – Giuseppe 'Peppino' Impastato's father (a mafioso) is killed 'accidentally' by a passing car. (See 1978).
The Corleonesi (Leggio) use the Commission to expel Don Tano Badalamenti (resident in the US) from Cosa Nostra on a charge of unauthorized self-enrichment. He is replaced as chair by Michele 'the Pope' Greco (son of Piddu 'the lieutenant').
The Corleonesi kill Pippo Calderone and his cosca is given to their ally Nitto 'the Hunter' Santapaola.
1978
April: Guiseppe Di Cristina (capo of the Riesi cosca in central-southern Sicily) gives information and warns the Palermo carabinieri of an impending Corleonesi mafia war of Luciano Leggio's (from his prison cell, see December 1987) cosche against Don Tano Badalamenti aligned cosche, to which he belongs.
In Passo di Rigano, Palermo – Guiseppe Di Cristina is shot dead in the territory of Salvatore 'Totuccio' Inzerillo without his permission (a blatant sfregio).
The carabinieri report on Di Cristina reads –
'The information provided by Di Cristina reveals ... that parallel to the authority of the state, there is a more incisive and efficient power that acts, moves, makes money, kills, and even makes judgements – all behind the back of the authorities.'
No judicial action is taken.
In Cinisi – Socialist activist, Giuseppe 'Peppino' Impastato's radio station broadcasts mockery of the mafia and Peppino helps set up a photographic exhibition demonstrating the road-building damage to western Sicily by mafia corruption.
Night, May 8-9: Giuseppe 'Peppino' Impastato is tortured, wrapped in explosives, and blown to pieces on the railway track by the mafia, to make it appear as a Leftist sabotage gone-wrong. (See 1966, April 2002). Police are notoriously negligent in their investigation (according to Italian parliamentary inquiry published 6 December, 2000).
American DEA undercover agent reports: 'Brooklyn meant the Sicilian mafia, as distinguished from the Italian-American La Cosa Nostra in the United States. There was a distinct difference ... Brooklyn controlled all heroin in the United States ... The Sicilians used Italo-Americans to distribute heroin.'
1979 Italian Prime Minister Giuolio Andreotti orders a mafia killing of a journalist for trying to blackmail him. (See 2003).
1980
January: Democrazia Cristiana party president of the Sicilian region, Piersanti Mattarella is assassinated, with the prior knowledge of Prime Minister Giuolio Andreotti.
In Palermo – Tommaso Buscetta is released from prison and receives a $500,000 farewell gift from drug-lords Bontate (see April '81) and Inzerillo (see May '81).
The 2nd
Mafia War: 1981
January: Tommaso Buscetta flies to join his wife in South America, intending never to return.
April 23: Stefano Bontate is machine-gunned to death in his car on his birthday (by mafiosi including Pino 'the Shoe' Greco).
May: Salvatore Inzerillo is machine-gunned to death in his car (by mafiosi including Pino 'the Shoe' Greco, see 1985).
In the following months 200 mafiosi of the Bontate-Inzerillo faction are killed by the Corleonesi.
The cosche and mandamenti of the murdered are handed to Corleonese allies.
1982
John Gambino arrives from New York to investigate and is instructed to kill all Sicilian mafiosi of the losers who flee to America. Shortly after, Inzerillo's brother is executed in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, USA.
Relatives, friends or business associates who may offer shelter to the defeated are to be executed. Accordingly, thirty-five of Salvatore Contorno's relatives are killed after he escapes an ambush in Brancaccio, Sicily.
April: Active member of the Antimafia Commission and Sicilian MP, Pio La Torre is shot dead in a busy Palermo street.
Summer: In London – Roberto Calvi (member of Masonic lodge P2), Italian banker, Vatican-connected money-launderer for the Mafia, is hanged by the Corleone cosca under Blackfriars Bridge. British police regard it as suicide. (See April 2002).
The corleonesi have now established their control of Cosa Nostra be a rolling programme of executions.
Judge Falcone dares to subject Nino Salvo and Ignazio Salvo (both of the Salemi cosca, Trapani province), corrupt Sicilian tax-collectors with large subsidies from the European Union and Italian government for their agribusiness concerns, to an audit. (See 1992).
Legislation is passed in Italy allowing the confiscation of assets illegally gained. (See December 1995).
Sicilian mafiosi now control about 80% of the refining, shipping, and distribution of heroin consumed in the north-eastern United States.
1983
In Palermo – General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa (the new anti mafia prefect of Palermo), his young wife and their escort, are machine-gunned to death in via Carini.
July 29: Chief investigating magistrate in Palermo, Rocco Chinnici, is assassinated with his bodyguards, and the concierge of the apartment block where he resides.
Magistrate Antonino Caponnetto of Florence volunteers to take Chinnici's place. He forms a team of magistrates in Palermo to share information in combating Cosa Nostra, comprising -
Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino,
Guiseppe Di Lello, and Leonardo Guarnotta.
Joe Bananas now publishes his ghosted autobiography 'A Man of Honour', giving more insight into Mafia thinking. (See 1957).
General Chiesa's son comments: 'During the fight against terrorism my father was used to having his back covered, to having all constitutional political parties behind him – first among them the DC. This time, as soon as he arrived in Palermo, he understood that a part of the DC was not prepared to cover him. More than that it was actively hostile.'
1984
June: Ex-mafioso Leonardo Vitale is released from prison.
Summer:
Tommaso Buscetta becomes a pentito. Salvatore Contorno becomes a pentito. (See 1981).

September 29: Magistrate Caponnetto announces that Tommaso Buscetta, so-called 'boss of two worlds', is co-operating with justice. 366 arrest warrants are later issued as a result.
December 2: Leonardo Vitale is assassinated. (See 1973).
December 23: The mafia assist Italian right-wing terrorists to plant a bomb on the Milan–Naples train, killing sixteen, with the promise that their possible new government would revise mafia trial verdicts.
An officer at the Cassarà funeral remarks: 'We are sick of this. ... With us dickheads getting ourselves killed because we're hit by the mafia and by our leaders.'
1985
Pino 'the Shoe' Greco, under-boss of the Ciaculli cosca, is shot dead by 'Shorty' Riina for independant thinking.
July: Flying squad officer, Beppe Montana, in charge of the hunt for mafia fugitives, is publicly shot dead with dum-dum bullets.
Flying squad officer, Ninni Cassarà, is shot to death in front of his wife before their home with more than 200 bullets by a group of between 12 to 15 mafiosi.
At Cassarà's funeral the Italian Minister of the Interior and President of the Republic are insulted and spat at by the deceased's colleagues.
1986
Michele Sindona, American banker (member of Masonic lodge P2), controller of Vatican foreign investments, funder of Italian Christian Democrat politicians, and money launderer for the Inzerillo-Gambino-Spatola-Bontate mafia, dies in prison from a cup of cyanide-laced coffee.
Antonino Calderone of Catania turns pentito.

February 10: The mafia maxi-trial begins in Palermo. (See December 1987).
Mafiosi subsequently state: 'We were sure that the maxi-trial would turn out to be a bluff.'
1987
Antonino Calderone confesses to Judge Giovanni Falcone. (See March, 1988).
December 16: In Palermo – The verdict of the mafia maxi-trial is announced. Of 474 accused – 114 are acquitted (including Luciano Leggio) on lack of evidence.
1988
March: 160 are arrested arising from evidence of pentito Antonino Calderone.
September: In Palermo – Appeal Court judge Antonio Saetta and son are shot dead.
1989
June: In Italy – Judge Giovanni Falcone escapes assassination when an Adidas bag packed with explosives is discovered next to a beach house he had rented with his wife.
October
29: In Medford, Massachusets, USA – For the first time, the FBI secretly records a Mafia induction ceremony, in which Vinnie Ferrara, J.R. Russo, Bobby Carrozza, Raymond J. Patriarca (boss of New England Mafia territory, and son of deceased Raymond L.S. Patriarca), and 13 other Mafia members are present, in the dining room of a member's home, to induct four new members.
1991
February: Judge Giovanni Falcone becomes Director of Penal Affairs in the Italian Ministry of Justice.
August: Court of Cassation prosecutor Antonio Scopelliti is murdered by Calabrian mafia (the 'Ndrangheta) on behalf of Cosa Nostra. (See 2004, side-bar).
September: In Palermo – Libero Grassi, a business man leading a public campaign against extortion rackets, is shot dead.
Legislation is passed in Italy to combat money-laundering.
In southern and eastern Sicily – Bernardo 'Tractor' Provenzano leads a campaign against independent mafia gangs, killing 300 within three years in the province of Agrigento alone. (See 2004).
 1992
January 31: The Court of Cassation overturns the Appeal Court verdict against the mafia maxi-trial, confirming the existence of Cosa Nostra as a single unified organization, and that the members of its Commission are all jointly responsible for murders carried out by the organization.
March 12: In Mondello, near Palermo – Salvo Lima (European Member of Parliament for 12 years, mafia associate and prime supporter of Prime Minister Giulio Andriotti) is shot dead near his home, for having failed on promises to reverse the maxi-trial verdict.


6 pm, May 23: near Capaci, Sicily – Giovanni Brusca detonates a large bomb under Judge Falcone's convoy; capomandamento Salvatore Cancemi acting as look-out.
Police leave Totò Riina's Palermo villa unguarded long enough for a team of mafiosi to remove all evidence. When investigating magistrates arrive they find it has already been redecorated.


July 19: Judge Falcone's successor in Palermo, Paolo Borsellino, is assassinated with five members of his escort. Salvatore "Totò" Riina, the brutal and undisputed leader of Cosa Nostra, later confessed he was aware of the exact day and time Borsellino was to pay a visit to his mother because he had been listening to their phone calls.
In Rome – Judge Giovanni Falcone sets up two national bodies:
1. the 'Directione Investigativa Antimafia' (DIA), uniting all law enforcement agencies in fighting mafia-style organizations; and
2. the Direzione Nazionale Antimafia (DNA), a national anti-mafia prosecutor's office co-ordinating district anti-mafia prosecutors' offices across the country.
Salvatore Totò Riina states: 'The problem is these pentiti, because if it wasn't for them not even the whole world united could touch us. That's why we've got to kill them, and their relatives to the twentieth remove, starting with children of six and over.'
July
24: In Palermo, Sicily – more than 1,500 soldiers armed with automatic weapons take up positions on every corner of its streets in a show of military force unknown to Italy since the end of the second world war.


September: Ignazio Salvo is shot dead, on Riina's instructions, for failing to protect Cosa Nostra from Judge Falcone.
October: Pentito Gaspare Mutolo explains to magistrates that Cosa Nostra had underestimated the damage that Judge Falcone could do from his new position.

In
Prague – A high level meeting between Cosa Nostra and the Russian mafia discusses co-operation in narcotics and arms smuggling. (A second meeting, in Switzerland, involved representatives from the US arm of Cosa Nostra).

1993
January: Salvatore Totò 'Shorty' Riina (the Beast) is captured in a villa in Uditore with help from imprisoned mafioso Balduccio Di Maggio. The next day Toto Riina's godfather, Leggio, dies of a heart attack in prison.
Leadership of Cosa Nostra passes to Leoluca Bagarella (Riina's brother-in-law and long term associate). (See June 1995). Bernardo 'Tractor' Provenzano plans a bombing campaign on the Italian mainland. (See 2004).
May 14: Attempted assassination of TV presenter Maurizio Constanzo in a bomb blast.
May 27: In Florence – Car bomb explodes in via dei Georgofili, killing five and wounding 40 passers-by.
July 27: In Milan – A bomb explodes in via Palestro, killing five.
July 27: In Rome – Bombs explode at the churches of San Giovanni in Laterano and San Gorgio, with no casualties.
'Tractor' Provenzano states at a Commission meeting: 'Everything that Uncle Totò [Riina] did goes ahead; we're not stopping [the war on the state].'

September 15: In Palermo – Father Pino Puglisi is shot dead at his front door.
October 31: A large bomb planted in via dei Gladiatori, near the Rome Olympic Stadium, timed to explode at the end of the Lazio versus Udinese football match, fails to detonate.
December: One third of all members of the Italian parliament are under investigation for corruption.
Santino Di Matteo becomes a pentito and gives details of Judge Falcone's assassination.
His son is kidnapped and held in a cellar. (See January 1996).
1994
Cosa Nostra begins instructing its members to support the Forza Italia party of Silvio Berlusconi. (See 2003 side-bar).
 1995
June: Leoluca Bagarella is captured, and Bernardo 'Tractor' Provenzano takes his place as mafia boss-of-bosses.
Provenzano changes Cosa Nostra strategy to low profile, to avoid media attention, and internally to a policy of 'mangia e fai mangiare' (eat and let eat) with greater concentration on protection rackets. He also resumes payment of 'salaries' to imprisoned mafiosi, suspends killing of pentiti to encourage retraction of their evidence, raises the standard of initiates, and compartmentalizes communication to increase security.
September: In Palermo – Giulio Andreotti, seven times Prime Minister of Italy, stands trial for working systematically and deliberately for Cosa Nostra. (See October 1999).
December: Totò 'Shorty' Riina's assets confiscated by the authorities now amount to about £125 million.
Magistrate Scarpinato describes Cosa Nostra as a 'collective brain, able to learn from its mistakes, to adapt and counter the different measures used to fight it.'
Libera – Italian for "free"
is founded by priest Don Luigi Ciotti, following a wave of popular anger after Judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three policemen acting as bodyguards are blown up in 1992 by a bomb planted by the Sicilian mafia on the highway connecting Palermo, Sicily's capital, to the airport. In less than a year it is able to establish itself as one of the most effective anti-Mafia civil society organisations on Italian soil. (See 1996).
1996
January: Fourteen-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo is strangled and his body dissolved in acid on instruction of family friend Giovanni 'lo scannacristiani' Brusca.
9 pm, May 20: Giovanni 'lo scannacristiani' Brusca is captured near Agrigento.
The number of pentiti since the 1992 Court of Cassation verdict reaches 424.
Libera's
first big success is when it is able to collect more than one million signatures to pressure the Italian parliament into signing a law enabling non-profit organisations to use properties seized from the Mafia, for free. Don Luigi Ciotti becomes one of the Mafia's most-wanted targets.
1999
October: Giulio Andreotti is acquitted. (See September 1995, and 2003).

November 16: In Cape Town, South Africa – Jewish diamond merchant Bernard Sher is robbed in Picbel Arcade in Strand Street of diamonds worth R2-million, a firearm, a Tagheuer watch, R51 000 in cash and a Samsonite suitcase with its contents, which included a Hebrew prayer book and some credit cards, arranged by Roberto von Palace Kolbatschenko, also known as Don Vito Palazzolo (see 2011).
A few days before, the Von Palace Cutting Works CC, which is owned by his brother Pietro Von Palace Kolbatschenko (44, of Fresnaye), in Regis House in Cape Town, had received a R100 000 transfer from the Von Palace Kolbatschenko Trust for payment of the four robbers (Mogamat Sedick Henning, 43, of Heideveld; Ismail Mosaval, 41, of Lentegeur; Mogamat Ezshaan Henning, 41 of Maitland; and Magamat Salie Mosaval, 43, of Woodstock) all hired by jeweller Abdulla Azies Samaai.
Cape Town
South Africa
2000
The European Union 'Agenda 2000' envisages spending 7,586 billion euros over six years in Sicily – a chosen target of Cosa Nostra.
The bugging of a mafioso phone recorded the following comment –
'They're advising everyone not to make a noise and attract attention
because we've got to get our hands on all of this Agenda 2000.'
2001
Silvio Berlusconi becomes Italian Prime Minister, with his party holding all of the 61 parliamentary seats of Sicily. (See June 2002).
August: Italian Minister of the Infrastructure, Pietro Lunardi, remarks that Italy has to –
'learn to live with the mafia; everyone should deal with the crime problem in their own way.'
This causes a storm of protest.
2002
March: Capo Pietro Aglieri writes from prison to the antimafia prosecutors asking for negotiations in which to propose that mafiosi receive less harsh penalties in return for recognizing both the existence of Cosa Nostra and the authority of the Italian state.
April: Don Tano Badalamenti is given a life sentence for ordering the murder of Giuseppe 'Peppino' Impastato. (See May, 1978).
April: Italian authorities conclude that banker Roberto Calvi was executed in London by the mafia. (See Summer, 1982).
April 16: Antonino Giuffrè (acting head of the Caccamo mandamento) is captured. (See June).
June: Antonino Giuffrè turns pentito. Giuffrè claims that top level discussions were held in 1993 with Marcello Dell'Utri prior to Silvio Berlusconi's launch of his 'Forza Italia' political party.*
July: Italian police claim to have arrested the whole of the mafia Commission for Agrigento province (15 men: including one medical doctor, a nobleman, and a member of the provincial council).
July: Italy's national regulatory authority for public works publishes evidence that the safeguards against corruption are systematically subverted in Sicily.
In Palermo – The chief prosecutor estimates that in Sicily 96% of government contracts are rigged in advance.
October: The head of Italy's secret service reports that there is a 'a concrete risk' that Cosa Nostra's disappointment with a lack of political co-operation could lead to a new season of murders. (See December).
November: In Italy – Life Senator (and seven times prime minister of Italy) Giulio Andreotti is sentenced to twenty-four years in prison for ordering the murder of a journalist. (See 1979). He appeals against his conviction to the Court of Cassation (see October 2003).
December: In Rome – The annualy renewed decree of 41 bis, rigorously preventing mafiosi from operating from inside prison, is converted into a permanent decree.
Peppino's story is made into a film 'I cento passi' (One hundred steps) and wins the Leone d'oro at the Venice Film Festival.
2003
In Rome – Prime Minister Berlusconi passes a law giving immunity from prosecution while in office to the five most senior persons in Italy's institutions, including the Prime Minister. (See January 2004).
June: Prime Minister Berlusconi's trial on corruption charges is suspended. (Prime Minister Berlusconi is accused of paying massive bribes to judges for a favourable decision in a privatization dispute). (See side-bar).
In Rome – The Italian Minister of Justice Roberto Castelli intends to –
'bring responsibility for judicial policy, especially in the area of criminal law, back within the orbit of democratic sovereignty' [meaning political interference].
That is, bring the judiciary under political control!
In Marseilles – Sicilian Mafia head, Bernardo 'Tractor' Provenzano spends 19 days in the city for surgery.
November: Cesare Previti, Prime Minister Berlusconi's former personal lawyer and co-defendant, is found guilty of corrupting a judge in the 1980s on behalf of Finvest, the prime minister's family holding company.
October
30: In Rome – Giulio Andreotti is acquited of the murder conviction by the court in Perugia in November 2002.
November
10: In Abottsford, Johannesburg, South Africa – Hazel Crane is assassinated in her car on the way to testify for the prosecution in the trail of Israeli Mafia member Lior Saadt. She was the third state witness in the Saadt murder trial to be murdered.
Israeli Mafia



The British government plans a
Serious Organized Crime Agency
(SOCA) to begin operation in 2006.
[at last!]
2004
January: Italy's highest court reject the legislation granting Prime Minister Berlusconi immunity from prosecution on corruption charges. (See 2003).
Bernardo Provenzano (aka: 'the accountant' or 'zu Binnu' – 'Uncle Bernie') remains at large, probably in Western Sicily. (See September 1963, 1993, June 1995, 2003, 2006).
The value of eco-mafia activities (waste disposal, etc.) increases by 30% to €24bn (£16bn, $29.5bn).
Of Italy's four main mafia crime groups –
Sicilian Cosa Nostra;
Calabrian 'Ndrangheta; the worst
Puglian Sacra Corona Unita; and
Neapolitan Camorra.
– the 'Ndrangheta are by now probably the most powerful, with a cocaine smuggling network with sindicates in – Colombia, Venezuela, Australia, France, and Spain.


February 18: Italian paramilitary arrest 70-year-old Giuseppe Morabito, leader of 'Ndrangheta, Calabrian mafia, in the Aspromonte mountains.
March 27: In Naples – the local mafia, the Camorra, accidentally kill a 14-year-old girl, Annalisa, in a hit on Salvatore Giuliano.



March: Carmen "Buddy" Cicalese of New York's Genovese crime family (named after Vito Genovese, who was boss from 1957–1969) sets up a secret company in the Cook Islands named 'RAC Corporation' with the help of Portcullis TrustNet, an offshore services provider headquartered in Singapore, and then shuffles more than US$1 million around the world through accounts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Australia’s ANZ Bank. (Wanted in the US on illegal gambling and money-laundering charges, Cicalese adopts Costa Rican citizenship by naturalization in 2012, and lives in Barreal de Heredia).

April 11: Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano is arrested in a farmhouse near Corleone in Sicily by fifty Italian police. (See January 2004).
2006
In London, UK – Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko travels regularly to Spain, where he gives advice to Spanish intelligence on the activities of the Russian mafia.
UK's
National Crime Agency
Serious Organised Crime
November 1: In London, UK – Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko (Алекса́ндр Ва́льтерович Литвине́нко; IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ˈvaltərəvʲɪtɕ lʲɪtvʲɪˈnʲɛnkə] (an ex-KGB/FSB-agent who, from 2003, had worked as a British MI6 informant) is poisoned at the Millennium hotel in central London with radio-active polonium 210 (with its difficult to detect alpha radiation) in a cup of Green tea by two Russian agents (Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, to prevent him exposing the links between previous FSB-head Vladimir Putin (now Russian Federation president) and the Tambov-Malyshev Russian mafia clan (Тамбовская преступная группировка), the largest in Russia and one of the four largest organized crime organizations in the world (in heroin smuggling, among other). (See: Russian Mafia)
Litvinenko dies Thursday 23 in the University College hospital, survived by his courageous wife Marina and 12-year-old son Anatoly.
Mikhail Rabo (a senior member of the Jewish community) is Tambov-Malyshev’s deputy chief as well as its Berlin representative. (He is arrested 19 June 2008 in Germany’s capital under a European arrest warrant issued against him following a large-scale raid on 20 Russian mobsters in Spain commissioned by the Spanish police.

Salvatore Lo Piccolo
2007
January 30: US Department of Justice, New York, announces the arrest and charging of Francesco Nania and (brother-in-law) Vito Rappa of the Sicilian mafia, together with eleven Gambino mobsters, for racketeering, loan-sharking, extortion, bribery of a federal official, money laundering, attempted bank fraud, check forgery, interstate travel in aid of racketeering, and smuggling conspiracy.

November 5: In Sicily – Salvatore Lo Piccolo (65) who took leadership after Provenzano's arrest (2006) is arrested near Palermo (see photo right).
2008
July 23: Salvatore 'Toto' (Shorty) Riina's daughter Lucia Riina is married to Vincenco Bellomo in a Catholic church in Corleone with expressions of appreciation for her vicious father and his murderous associates, in public disregard of the victims of her family's vicious crimes.
Jewish
mafia-don
June 19: In Berlin – Senior member of the Jewish community Mikhail Rabo (55), the deputy-chief of Russia's largest mafia group, Tambov-Malyshev (with connections to Valdimir Putin), and its Berlin representative, is arrested in Germany’s capital under a European arrest warrant issued against him following a large-scale raid on 20 Russian mobsters in Spain commissioned by the Spanish police.
Russian mafia
in Spain
2009
February: A confidential cable is sent to Washington by the US Charge d'affaires in Rome in anticipation of the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's trip to Italy stating that organized crime remains a "serious and pervasive" problem throughout Italy, particularly in the Southern region, engaging in activities including the production and distribution of counterfeit products, extortion and the trafficking of drugs, arms and people:
"There are large swaths of territory in southern Italy where the state is nearly completely absent and the crime syndicates control most facets of society and the economy ... These groups create a huge drag on Italy's economic growth and its ability to apply the rule of law." (source: Wikileaks, emphasis mine).


United States
confidential
diplomatic cable

March 21: In Naples a huge crowd of nearly 150,000 people defiantly protest against Mafia oppression, corruption and crime,
reading aloud a list of about nine hundred names believed to have been executed by the Mafia in the last three decades.

2010
June: South Africa's Noseweek magazine reports Jewish rugby Springbok Wilf Rosenberg to be a significant diamond smuggler and long-time member of the Israeli mafia. Shelly Rosenberg, Wilf's second wife who reportedly later received divorce papers from him in October 2010, says in the article, "Wilfred was part of The Syndicate, the Israeli Mafia".
2011
January: Sicilian Corleonesi Mafia don Antonino Messicati Vitale leaves Zimbabwe with between $70-million to $450-million worth of illegal diamonds.
In
South Africa – Antonino Messicati Vitale (Corleonesi Mafia, and cousin of Salvatore Ferrante) smuggles in one million carats of uncut diamonds from Zimbabwe's Marrange diggings (bought with cash).
Don Vito Palazzolo
In 2006 in Palermo, he was sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison. The Palermo judgment describes him as one who –
"covered the role of drug trafficker and recycler of dirty money with great ability", a "'sweeper' between the world of international finance and 'Cosa Nostra’", and as a "valuable, if not almost irreplaceable, asset to the organisation".
April 14: In Cape Town, South Africa – Vito 'Roberto' Palazzolo (aka 'Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko'), whose wife apparently goes under the surname 'Christian', loses his application to the Western Cape High Court in seeking assurance of non-extradition to Italy under his conviction there of "Mafia-type" association (5 July 2006 under section 416bis of the Italian Criminal Code, and sentenced to nine years) as being unnecessary as this offence has no equivalent or counterpart in South African criminal law, and so the court rules –
"1. The application is dismissed;
2. Applicant is ordered to pay the costs of the first respondent [Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development] and third respondent [Director General: Justice and Constitutional Development], including the costs of two counsel."
The two officials concerned had believed that they were entitled to issue a warrant for his arrest.
Palazzolo (64; brother of Pietro Efesio of Von Palace diamond cutting) entered South Africa illegally on 26 December 1986 after absconding from a Swiss prison, while on 36-hour parole, where he had been jailed for laundering the proceeds of the Mafia's infamous "pizza ring" heroin network in the USA (allegedly Swiss banker for Giovanni Falcone Corleonesi). Palazzolo was granted South African citizenship in November 1994 by its post-apartheid government, is the registered owner of a number of companies, and purchased a R4m home in Windhoek in Namibia in 2007.
(30 March 2012, Palazzolo is arrested by Interpol in Thailand. He is extradited to Italy in February 2014, see below).
In June 2010, the High Court of South Africa had already blocked the extradition of Palazzolo due to lack of their double criminality requirement (here and there) as South Africa does not recognize the crime of Mafia association as conceived in Italy, which has requested his extradition six times.
April 23: In Italy – Francesco Campana (38) kingpin of 'Sacra Corona Unita' (one of Italy’s four powerful mafia organizations) is arrested in Oria, near Brindisi. He had been sentenced to nine years prison for mafia association.
June: In Palermo – Capo dei capi Totò Riina’s brother, Gaetano Riina (79), is arrested at his home in Mazara del Vallo. He is the “New Boss of Corleonesi” say police officers. Gaetano Riina is thought to be the cosca's cashier. Gaetano’s great-nephews Alessandro Correnti (39) and Giuseppe Grizzati (33) were also arrested, as well as Giovanni Durante (57) of Bagheria.

2012
In Italy – Organized crime now generates an annual turnover of about €140 billion ($178.89 billion) and profits of more than 100 billion euros, according to a report by SOS Impresa. It estimated about 200,000 businesses are tied to extortionate lenders and tens of thousands of jobs had been lost as a result.

January 13, 21:45: The cruise ship Costa Concordia grounds on rocks off the Italian coast and capsizes, with a large consignment of drugs of the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, with the loss of 32 lives (revealed later by phone and tape recordings of gang members).
2013
January 15: In Corleone, Sicily, Italy – The city mayor, Lea Savona apologizes for its past Mafia involvement –
"I apologise on behalf of all of Corleone, I ask forgiveness for the blood that was paid...
To the mafia, I ask you to leave this land, and to abandon the struggle...
I ask them to admit defeat, to surrender in awareness that this earth, at last, one day, shall be liberated"
On the anniversary of the arrest of the town's brutal mafia boss (Toto Riina), Mayor Lea Savona, during a ceremony in which she unveiled a street renamed after a mafia prosecutor, listed mafia victims, including anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were killed in separate bomb blasts in 1992.
2014
February: In Italy – Vito Roberto Palazzolo (aka Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko, of Fransch Hoek, South Africa) is extradited from Thailand and incarcerated under the harsh Article 41-bis prison regime, usually reserved for dangerous criminals.
Of the Corleonesi Mafia
Just Some of Palazzolo's Mafia Connected Properties in Southern Africa
(He has an array of proxies securing all his assets from confiscation)

Vito Roberto Palazzolo In Cape Town: • an apartment in San Michele, Victoria Road, Clifton,
registered to his wife under the surname Christian;
• a house in Bellwood Road, Fresnaye;
• a house in Kloof Road on the Atlantic seaboard;
• an apartment in Portswood Lodge, Main Road, Greenpoint;
• an apartment in Helenslee, Victoria and Albert Waterfront;
• an apartment in Penrith, Victoria and Albert Waterfront;
• an apartment 12 Biscay at The Water Club, Granger Bay;
• an apartment in Calais, The Water Club, Granger Bay;
• another apartment in Calais, The Water Club, Granger Bay;
• Van Palace Diamond Cutting Works, Shortmarket Street;
• River Diamond Jewellers, Lowry Road;
• Doxa Africa Shop, Greenmarket Square;
• San Michele villa, Bantry Bay; In Paarl: • Barrydale Ostrich Company farm;
In Namibia: • a 4 million rand home in Windhoek.
• Omburu-Sud Farm, Oaruru District;
• Eausiro North N. 100, Erongo Region;
• Eausiro West N. 101, Erpngo Region;
• Portion of Molkenholf N. 102, Erongo Region;
• Southern Cross Farm, Wolwedans;
• Ensuru Farm.
on his way Franschhoek: • La Terra De Luc – guesthouse, residence, wine farm,
and mineral water spring.
to prison
in Italy Plettenberg Bay: • a farm in Libra Close;
• Knysna Farm;
• Roodfontein Stud Farm;
• Hemingway Club, Cape Town. (Sources: Mail & Guardian, and other)
S O M E

March
See:
Eastern Europe Project below
20: In Crimea – Russia's Putin appoints Sergei Aksyonov (aka 'Goblin') as Prime Minister. His companies include several real estate firms, a glass factory, a construction business, a newspaper and an Internet portal based in Simferopol, registered in the name of his wife; others are in his mother-in-law's name. Many of the addresses are letterbox entities that are located in other places – to confuse tax authorities.


MAP SUMMARY OF WORLD DRUG-SMUGGLING ROUTES

showing South Africa's position on the global Cocaine network
See:
Western Cape
Justice Portal
See:
Institute for
Security Studies
pdf report on
crime networks
in Cape Town

April
25, 07:15: In Strand, Western Cape, South Africa – Jürgen Rombouts (27) of Swiss Air ground staff at Cape Town International is assassinated (six bullets) as he leaves home for work with his fiancé. Dimitri Alexander Sarenok (who apparently boards a passing ship from stolen ski-boat 'Olly' of Gordon's Bay) is wanted for questioning. Rombouts had been renting Sarenok's house in Morgenster St, De Bos, Strand, and had reportedly discovered drugs in a sealed room. He had also sought a court order forbidding access to his home in his absence.
(Sarenok leaves use of his house, car, and larger boat, to Michael Oortman of his deceased wife's family,
probably intending to sneak back into South Africa in the forseeable future.)
Police case:
Strand 602/4/14
June
21: In Calabria, Italy – Pope Francis condemnes the mafia's "adoration of evil" at a mass, in the southern Italian base of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate. The 'ndrangheta, rooted in the southern Calabrian region, has spread north as it invested their illicit revenues. The 'Ndrangheta are also known to have distinctive initiation rites and an elite membership known as "Santa".

November
In the UK – A cocaine smuggling route is exposed after a border control officer met pilot Andrew ('Biggles') Wright on his arrival to the UK from Germany to Breighton Airfield in North Yorkshire, after an accomplice had collected the cocaine from Holland.
Mark Dowling concocted the drug smuggling scheme, assisted by his friend Jamie Williams.


18: In Calabria, Italy – A masonic-type initiation ceremony of new mafia affiliates of the 'Ndrangheta is captured on camera for the first time by Italian detectives investigating the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate. A would-be-mafioso is seen as he takes an oath in front of a gun and a suicide pill that he is instructed to swallow if he is ever coerced to betray his new clan. The oath is taken in the name of three Italian nationalist figures of the 19th century: unification hero Giuseppe Garibaldi; politician Giuseppe Mazzini; and army general Alfonso La Marmora in place of the names of the top mafiosi.

December:
In Trapani, Western Sicily – Italian police seize assets of an estimated €20 million which were funding Matteo Messina Denaro, capo of the Corleonesi Mafia, while he is in hiding.


See:
People of Interest
OCCRP Report
Search Facilities
America's CIA
World Fact Book describes South Africa as –
"transshipment center for heroin, hashish, and cocaine, as well as a major cultivator of marijuana [dagga/hashish] in its own right; cocaine and heroin consumption on the rise; world's largest market for illicit methaqualone [tik], usually imported illegally from India through various east African countries, but increasingly producing its own synthetic drugs for domestic consumption; attractive venue for money launderers given the increasing level of organized criminal and narcotics activity in the region and the size of the South African economy"
See:
Marijuana
Made Me
2015 May
25: In Recife, Brazil – Mafia boss Pasquale Scotti (56, of the Naples based Camorra) is arrested after 30 years on the run (since his 1984 escape from a hospital), using the pseudonym Francisco de Castro Visconti, while driving his two children (age 12 and 15) to school. He is now expected to be extradited to Italy in the near future.

Convicted of more
than 20 murders.
Russia 26:
In the USA – The Internal Revenue Service announces that a Russian organized crime syndicate (Mafia) used personal data of 104,000 people which they then used to file $50 million in fraudulent tax refunds.
In
Southern Spain – Known as Deco, Derek Ferguson is one of Britain's most wanted 'working as enforcer for Irish mafia boss in Spain'. it is believed Ferguson is on the payroll of drug trafficker Christy Kinahan and is being protected by former Glasgow heroin dealer Richard Hayes.

South Africa July
6: In Vereeniging, South Africa – ex-Police Colonel Christiaan Prinsloo is charged with participation in the illegal supply of weapons to drug gangs in the Western Cape, three murders and 12 attempted murders (in collaboration with Ralph Stanfield of the 28s gang, and Priscilla Mangyani, Billy April, and Mary Cartwright of the Central Firearm Registry in Pretoria).
South African
Police Colonel,
etc..

8: In Palermo, Sicily – Italian authorities seize the assets of 33 companies, 700 houses, 40 vehicles, and 40 bank accounts connected to the Marineo mafia family of the Corleone clan of the three Virga brothers Carmelo (66), Vincenzo (78) an