Corleone Mafioso nabbed

irishgrl · #1 04-15-2006, 09:37 AM

ABC News
Mafia 'Boss of Bosses' Nabbed in Sicily
Bernardo Provenzano, the Most Powerful Boss in Italy, Captured After 43 Years on the Run
By DAVID WRIGHT

CORLEONE, Italy, April 14, 2006 — - Deep in the hills outside Palermo, Italy, is a medieval farm town with a history written in blood.

The town's name -- Corleone -- literally means "Lionheart." But to most of the world, Corleone means just one thing -- La Costa Nostra. The mafia. And more than that, the mafia myth as portrayed in "The Godfather" movie trilogy.

In Corleone, the real-life Godfather's face was revealed this week for the first time in 43 years.

Bernardo Provenzano, the most powerful boss in the history of the Italian mafia, was arrested at a farmhouse near Corleone on Wednesday. As Italian authorities escorted Provenzano to jail, young people jeered.

"Assassin," they shouted. "Murderer!"

Provenzano has already been sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the 1992 murder of two anti-mafia judges.

In Sicily, this is a real-life blockbuster.

"Bernardo Provenzano is the boss of bosses (capo di tutti capi) of Sicilian organized crime. He is probably, in the history of Sicilian organized crime, the most powerful mafia boss that has ever operated in Italy," said FBI agent Chris Swecker.

Started a Hit Man, Became the Boss

In the early days, he was nicknamed "Bernie the Tractor" for his propensity to "mow people down. As a top hit man for the legendary gangster Lucky Luciano, Provenzano quickly rose through the ranks.

Luciano once said of him: "He shoots like an angel. Too bad he has the brains of a chicken."

But Luciano seriously underestimated him. Provenzano had been on the run since 1963, and the only picture ever taken of him had to be digitally aged for the "Wanted" posters.

"I hear people saying, 'why haven't we caught bin Laden?' It's been three years! Here's a guy on an island, a tiny island, in 43 years they couldn't catch him!" said former mobster Sonny Girard.

It's possible he had plenty of help from the people of Corleone. They residents who spoke to ABC News said they knew nothing about the so-called "boss of bosses."

"I knew him when we were kids," was all one of them would say. "He was a normal guy." In Corleone the mafia code of silence -- omerta -- still means something.
American Mafia Past Its Prime

For the American mafia, which traces its roots back to Sicily, the glory days are long gone. The days when Carlo Gambino and Paul Castellano hobnobbed back stage with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack are ancient history.

"Law enforcement knows how to attack organized crime, and they've used all these tools -- electronic surveillance, RICO and cooperators to basically knock down the shield of omerta and expose the American mafia for what it is, which is a bunch of gangsters," said George Anastasia, author of "The Last Gangster."

In the United States, the last of the big bosses was John Gotti -- "The Dapper Don." But Gotti came of age when the mob was already in decline.

"If he had been boss in the '30s, '40s, he would be one of those historically great bosses," said Girard. "But he was an old-time gangster in a new-time world. And he was just out of place."

Gotti flaunted his status as an untouchable, almost daring the FBI to arrest him.

"Every time he walked out of his house it was a slap in the government's face," Girard said. "How many times are you going to slap them before they say, 'We're gonna getcha.'"

And eventually, they did. Gotti died in federal prison in 2002 while serving a life sentence for murder and racketeering.

Provenzano's Arrest the End of Italian Mafia?

Many in Italy hope the capture of Provenzano will mark a similar milestone. He is arguably a more important figure than Gotti.

In some ways, Provenzano was the Michael Corleone of the Sicilian mafia. In his latter days, he put a lid on the violence and sought to steer the organization toward more legitimate businesses. Bernie the Tractor became Bernie the accountant.

"There's a whole history of the Sicilian mafia that culminated in Provenzano basically taking over and forming a dictatorship, a mafia dictatorship, where he runs all the families in Italy," said the FBI's Swecker.

Some estimates put his net worth at three-quarters of a $1 billion. But his family lives in a modest apartment above a car dealership.

Provenzano taunted Italian law enforcement through his silence. All investigators had to go on were coded messages written on little scraps of paper to convey his orders.

"Some are to the wife saying, 'please don't give me more pasta. I need more cheese maybe.' But the other ones are 'Mr. 34 asked to meet Mr. 65 and they have to do work on this road or that project,'" said Italian journalist Alfredo Macchi.

It was a criminal empire that could be run from an old farmhouse -- like the one where he was captured Wednesday morning.

The police said they had no idea how long he had been hiding in the farmhouse. What finally betrayed Provenzano was a bundle of clean laundry sent by his wife. A package reportedly passed off 10 times, it took three days to arrive.

There will likely be more arrests, and the top two candidates to succeed Provenzano are not from Corleone. But the mayor of Corleone has big plans.

He said he wants to commission "Corleone: the Musical!" in which an honest guy, not a mobster, is the hero. It's all part of the post-mafia makeover.

But some here quietly point out that the mayor is in office for only one reason: Not long ago, he enjoyed the tacit support from the boss of bosses.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

Serrart · #2 04-15-2006, 03:58 PM

Yes, we are all very happy he's been finally caught, he seemed to be a ghost. By the way, who's the guy in the photo?

For those who are curious, this is Provenzano:

And this an image of the small house he was hiding in:

Romy

amber · #3 04-15-2006, 04:21 PM

Wow, what a great story!
I know the mob is evil, and incredibly corrupting to Italy...
but it still seems kind of glamorous when you read about it...

I'm very glad he was caught, though! But now who will run things?

He's rather handsome, isn't he? reminds me a bit of Walken.

Serrart · #4 04-15-2006, 05:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amber

Wow, what a great story!
I know the mob is evil, and incredibly corrupting to Italy...
but it still seems kind of glamorous when you read about it...

I'm very glad he was caught, though! But now who will run things?

He's rather handsome, isn't he? reminds me a bit of Walken.

I guess the photographer did a very good job there, he isn't very handsome:

And he's a butcher. He and Totò Riina started to kill the relatives of their enemies, Buscetta, the most famous informer for our Police and FBI, lost 21 of them, including two sons. Among their crimes there's the kidnapping of a twelve year old son of a former mafioso who started to collaborate with Police. They kept the child in basically a hole for two years and then ordered to strangle him and destroyed his body with acid.

But, as Judge Giovanni Falcone said (another Provenzano and Riina' s victim), Mafia is a human thing and as all human things it will have an end.

About who's running things now, there should be two "capi" (as with Riina and Provenzano) now: Matteo Messina Denaro:

46 years old, he organized the blasts in Florence at Uffizi Museum, and Rome, near Colosseo and another one just out of a soccer stadium, where luckily the bomb didn't explode. It was put there in the day of the most important match of the year for the city (Roma- Lazio derby), when the stadium is full of people. The other is Salvatore Lo Piccolo, 62 years old, he's more a mafia business man than a killer, so probably Dinaro (who luckily is ill) is the one with more powers.

By the way, after all these bad guys, here's a very good one, the man who organized the action to capture Provenzano, Nicola Cavaliere:

Romy

amber · #5 04-15-2006, 05:37 PM

^^^

yeah, same old mafia cruelty. I read a history of the mafia book once, it was interesting. It came out of the horrible conditions of people forced to work other people's land for just barely any food. You know, the whole serf thing. But I'm sure you know that.
I guess they just did it with more flair, captured our imaginations.

Serrart · #6 04-15-2006, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amber

^^^

yeah, same old mafia cruelty. I read a history of the mafia book once, it was interesting. It came out of the horrible conditions of people forced to work other people's land for just barely any food. You know, the whole serf thing. But I'm sure you know that.
I guess they just did it with more flair, captured our imaginations.

I think to give them a kind of appeal contributed the movies. But I'll always have the image of the highway Riina made explode to kill Giovanni Falcone (one of the men I admired the most), or the street where with another bomb he killed Judge Borsellino and four agents, just in front of his mother's house.

Romy

irishgrl · #7 04-15-2006, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serrart

Yes, we are all very happy he's been finally caught, he seemed to be a ghost. By the way, who's the guy in the photo?

For those who are curious, this is Provenzano:

And this an image of the small house he was hiding in:

Romy

Romy that was the pic that was posted with the article, if its not him, I'll take it out. I just thot it was from a different angle.

irishgrl · #8 04-15-2006, 06:47 PM

I remember in the 70's my dad talked about the Mafia, he was a Union member and there were some ties with Unions in those days (who knows, maybe still!)
but it was all so hush hush, no one really believed it existed because it was such a shadowy thing this "thing of ours" ....I remember the Unions really got all up in arms because of the Teamster Boss who went missing--Jimmy Hoffa.

And I have the book about Joe Valachi, the man widely credited with exposing the Mafia. After him, the Mafia lost its cloak of secrecy. I have another book by the same author about Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, who was a wiseguy for one of the big name American Mafia families.

There is (or used to be) a "Jewish Mafia" of which Bugsy Malone was a big name (he was one of the few who went between different organizations...)
and you hear stories about a "Mexican Mafia" too.....

I also heard that the biker gangs such as the Hells Angels etc eventually took a page from the Mafia's playbook and started running their gangs like a business. Sammy the Bull basically said as much, that the organization was changing and the old ways of doing business had given way to new methods.