Bernardo Provenzano 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. His nickname was Binnu u tratturi because, in the words of one informant, "he mows people down". Another nickname was il ragioniere, 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.
Marcello Dell'Utri is a former Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Formerly a senator in the Italian Senate, Dell'Utri has been found guilty of tax fraud, false accounting, and complicity in conspiracy with the Sicilian Mafia; the conviction for the last charge has been upheld on 9 May 2014 by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation which sentenced Dell'Utri to seven years in prison. The conviction is final and cannot be further appealed. The third criminal section of Palermo's Appellate Court declared Dell'Utri a fugitive in May 2014, when it was discovered he had fled the country ahead of the final court decision. After being detained in Lebanon, on 13 June 2014 Dell'Utri was extradited to Italy, where he served 4 years of imprisonment and 1 year of house arrest. He has been further sentenced in April 2018 to 12 years due to the State-Mafia Pact.
Leoluca Bagarella 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.
Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò is an Italian mobster and member of the Sicilian Mafia in Porta Nuova. He was referred to as the cassiere di Cosa Nostra because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering. He was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment as part of the 1986/87 Maxi Trial. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989 for organising the 1984 Train 904 bombing and was given several further life sentences between 1995 and 2002. He was also charged with ordering the murder of Roberto Calvi – nicknamed il banchiere di Dio – of the Banco Ambrosiano in 1982, but was acquitted in 2007 due to "insufficient evidence" in a surprise verdict.
Salvatore Lo Piccolo, also known as "the Baron", is a Sicilian mafioso and one of the most powerful bosses of Palermo, Sicily. Lo Piccolo rose through the ranks of the Palermo mafia throughout the 1980s and he became the capomandamento of the San Lorenzo district in 1993, replacing Salvatore Biondino, who was sent to prison. Lo Piccolo was a fugitive since 1983 and had been running his Mafia affairs in hiding. With the capture of Bernardo Provenzano on 11 April 2006, Lo Piccolo had been cementing his power and rise to the top of the Palermo Mafia until his own arrest on 5 November 2007. It is believed that his family spread across Europe due to rising tensions, settling in England, Portugal, and southern Spain.
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002.
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Sicilian Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra. It is composed of representatives of a mandamento that are called capo mandamento or rappresentante. The Commission is not a central government of the Mafia, but a representative mechanism for consultation of independent Mafia families who decide by consensus. Its primary role is to keep the use of violence among families within limits tolerable to the public and political authorities.
Michele Cavataio, also known as Il cobra was an Italian mobster and powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Acquasanta mandamento in Palermo and was a member of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission. Some sources spell his surname as Cavatajo.
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.
Domenico "Mimmo" Raccuglia, nicknamed 'u vitirinariu, is a member of the Mafia in Sicily. He was a fugitive and included on Italy's most wanted list since 1996, until his capture on November 15, 2009, near Trapani.
Antonino Geraci, better known as Nenè or il vecchio, was the historical boss of the Mafia in Partinico, in the Metropolitan City of Palermo. Geraci sat on the Sicilian Mafia Commission since the mid-1970s and belonged to the hard line faction allied with the Corleonesi of Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. According to the pentito Tommaso Buscetta, Geraci took care of the fugitive Riina while he stayed in Partinico.
The Italian parliamentary Antimafia Commission is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The first commission, formed in 1963, was established as a body of inquiry tasked with investigating the "phenomenon of the [Sicilian] Mafia". Subsequent commissions expanded their scope to investigate all "organized crime of the Mafia type", which included other major criminal organizations in Italy such as the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta and the Sacra Corona Unita.
Giuseppe Graviano is an Italian mafioso from the Brancaccio quarter in Palermo. He also was one the men of the death squad that murdered Salvatore Contorno's relatives. He is currently serving several life sentences. He and his three siblings became members of the Sicilian Mafia Commission for the Brancaccio-Ciaculli mandamento, substituting Giuseppe Lucchese who was in prison.
Antonino "Nino" Rotolo 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 pentiti he was the de facto leader representing the mandamento on the Sicilian Mafia Commission. In 2006, the police deduced that Rotolo — Number 25 in the numbered code of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano — had become a key figure in Cosa Nostra's hierarchy.
Vincenzo Virga is the boss of the Trapani Mafia family and mandamento since 1982, when the previous boss, Salvatore Minore, was murdered. Virga is currently in prison, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the Pizzolungo bombing among other crimes.
Giuseppe Guttadauro is an Italian Mafia boss and a high-profile surgeon from the Rocella neighbourhood in Palermo. Born in Bagheria, he became the regent of the Brancaccio mandamento after the arrest and subsequent incarceration of the Mafia boss Gaspare Spatuzza in 1998.
Giuseppe Falsone, sometimes spelled as Falzone, is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was on the "Most wanted list" of the Italian ministry of the Interior since January 1999, until his arrest in France in June 2010. He is considered to be one of the bosses of Cosa Nostra in the province of Agrigento, jointly with Gerlandino Messina from Porto Empedocle.
The Viale Lazio massacre on 10 December 1969 was a settling of accounts in the Sicilian Mafia. Mafia boss Michele Cavataio and three men were killed in the Viale Lazio in Palermo, Sicily, by a Mafia hit squad. The bloodbath marked the end of a pax mafiosa that had reigned since the Ciaculli massacre until the end of the Trial of the 114 against Cosa Nostra.
Salvatore Riina, called Totò 'u Curtu, was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia. Nicknamed la belva and il capo dei capi, Riina is 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. Whereas his predecessors had kept a low profile, Riina distinguished himself and ordered the murders of judges, policemen and prosecutors in an attempt to terrify the authorities.
The term State-Mafia Pact describes an alleged series of negotiations between important Italian government officials and Cosa Nostra members that began after the period of the 1992 and 1993 terror attacks by the Sicilian Mafia with the aim to reach a deal to stop the attacks; according to other sources and hypotheses, it began even earlier. In summary, the supposed cornerstone of the deal was an end to "the Massacre Season" in return for a reduction in the detention measures provided for Italy's Article 41-bis prison regime. 41-bis was the law by which the Antimafia pool led by Giovanni Falcone had condemned hundreds of mafia members to the "hard prison regime". The negotiation hypothesis has been the subject of long investigations, both by the courts and in the media. In 2021, the Court of Appeal of Palermo acquitted a close associate of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, while upholding the sentences of the mafia bosses. This ruling was confirmed by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation in 2023.
