Giovanni Falcone was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian Mafia. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the Maxi Trial in 1986–1987, on 23 May 1992, Falcone was assassinated by the Corleonesi Mafia in the Capaci bombing, on the A29 motorway near the town of Capaci.
Pentito 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 prosecutor. The judicial category of pentiti was originally created in 1970s to combat violence and terrorism during the period of left-wing and right-wing terrorism known as the Years of Lead. During the 1986–87 Maxi Trial and after the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, the term was increasingly applied to former members of organized crime in Italy who had abandoned their organization and started helping investigators.
Tommaso Buscetta was a high ranking Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization.
Salvatore Achille Ettore Lima, often referred to as Salvo Lima, was an Italian politician from Sicily who was associated with, and murdered by, the Sicilian Mafia. According to the pentito Tommaso Buscetta, Lima's father, Vincenzo Lima, was a member of the Mafia but is not known whether Lima himself was a made member of Cosa Nostra. In the final report of the first Antimafia Commission (1963–1976), Lima was described as one of the pillars of Mafia power in Palermo.
Stefano Bontade, born Stefano Bontate, was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the Principe di Villagrazia − the area of Palermo he controlled − and Il Falco. He had links with several powerful politicians in Sicily, and with prime minister Giulio Andreotti. In 1981 he was killed by the rival faction within Cosa Nostra, the Corleonesi. His death sparked a brutal Mafia War that left several hundred mafiosi dead.
Salvatore Inzerillo was an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio. He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family. A prolific heroin trafficker, he was killed in May 1981 by a firing squad of the Corleonesi family led by Totò Riina during the Second Mafia War who opposed the established Palermo Mafia families of which Inzerillo was one of the main proponents.
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial against the Sicilian Mafia that took place in Palermo, Sicily. The trial lasted from 10 February 1986 to 30 January 1992, and was held in a bunker-style courthouse specially constructed for this purpose inside the walls of the Ucciardone prison.
Michele Greco was a member of the Sicilian Mafia and a convicted murderer. Greco died in prison while serving multiple life sentences. His nickname was Il Papa due to his ability to mediate between different Mafia families. Greco was the head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission.
Rosario Riccobono was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of Partanna Mondello, a suburb of Palermo, his native city. In 1974 he became a member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission. During the 1970s Riccobono was one of the most influential members of the Commission, and the Cosa Nostra's king of the drug trafficking.
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, 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 Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra. It is composed of representatives of a mandamento who 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.
Ignazio Salvo and his cousin Nino Salvo were two wealthy businessmen from the town of Salemi in the Italian province of Trapani. They had strong political connections with the Christian Democracy party, in particular with the former mayor of Palermo, Salvo Lima, and Giulio Andreotti. At the Maxi Trial against the Sicilian Mafia in the mid-1980s, they were convicted of association with Mafia members.
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.
Antonino Calderone was a Sicilian Mafioso who turned state witness (pentito) in 1987 after his arrest in 1986.
The Second Mafia War was a period of conflict involving the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place from 1981 to 1984 and involved thousands of homicides. Sometimes referred to as The Great Mafia War or the Mattanza, it involved the entire Mafia and radically altered the power balance within the organization. In addition to the violence within the Mafia itself, there was violence against the state, including a campaign of deliberate assassinations of judges, prosecutors, detectives, politicians, activists and other ideological enemies. In turn, the war resulted in a major crackdown against the Mafia, helped by the pentiti, Mafiosi who collaborated with the authorities after losing so many friends and relatives to the fighting. In effect, the conflict helped end the secrecy of the Mafia.
Il Capo dei Capi is an Italian biographical crime drama miniseries which debuted on Canale 5 in October and November 2007. It tells the story of Salvatore Riina, alias Totò u Curtu, a mafioso boss from Corleone, Sicily. Riina is played by Palermo-born actor, Claudio Gioè, and the series was directed by Alexis Sweet and Enzo Monteleone. The series is inspired from the eponymous book-inquiry of Giuseppe D'Avanzo and Attilio Bolzoni. It was broadcast in the UK in the spring of 2013 on the Sky Arts channel, retitled Corleone and split into 12 one-hour episodes.
Giovanni Inzerillo, is a construction entrepreneur and son of Salvatore Inzerillo, a notorious Sicilian Mafia boss who was killed in May 1981 on the orders of Mafia boss Salvatore "Totò" Riina during the Second Mafia War.
Salvatore Riina, called Totò, was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, 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, legal change and a major crackdown by the authorities. He was also known by the nicknames la belva and il capo dei capi.
Excellent Cadavers is a 1999 television film directed by Ricky Tognazzi.
Giovanni Falcone is a 1993 Italian biographical drama film written and directed by Giuseppe Ferrara. It is based on real life events of the prosecuting magistrate Giovanni Falcone who was killed by mafia in 1992.
Settimo Mineo is an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia Pagliarelli mandamento from Palermo.
