Boss of Bosses (41 page)

Provenzano’s careful stalling and sustained negotiation had avoided a war between the Palermo clans led by Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Nino Rotolo, but after his arrest there was a very real danger that the conflict could be re-ignited in a contest for the leadership of Cosa Nostra. But in June 2006, in an operation code-named Gotha (Ruling Class), Rotolo and several of his closest supporters were arrested.

Once Rotolo was behind bars, the American
scappati
- members of the Inzerillo family driven into exile in the 1980s - met no further opposition to their return. At the point Salvatore Lo Piccolo was considered to be the boss, and still faithful to Bernardo Provenzano. Investigators believed he and his son were rebuilding the transatlantic partnership that created a massive international heroin trade. There are those who believe the Inzerillos are planning to take revenge on the Corleonesi.

‘There was a battle for power in which one side was cut out, almost eliminated, and now the heirs of those people are coming back’, says Lupo. ‘It’s possible that the power struggle will start again.

‘This conflict was not resolved in the usual way. In most circumstances, if there is a conflict, it explodes in violence, then the two sides come to terms. But this was different: it involved the annihilation of one side. We haven’t figured out why, and we have yet to see how the whole story turns out. There’s a group of mafiosi today who are very worried about the return of the Inzerillos, that they might take their revenge – which is unusual, because the Mafia in general is nothing if not pragmatic, and long violent feuds are disadvantageous in every way. There has to be a reason why this violent conflict is impossible to resolve.’

Another insider says: ‘If they don’t stop the
scappati
coming back, there’s going to be another war. We live in very dangerous times. One side could be planning another massive crime against the state, to prove their strength.’ But before any massive crime could be carried out, police raided a farmhouse near Palermo and arrested Salvatore Lo Piccolo and his son. ‘I love you Dad!’ called out Sandro as they were bundled into squad cars.

In Lo Piccolo’s hideout police found a letter saying, ‘Uncle [Provenzano] agreed we should let them [the
scappati
] come back because that way we’d be in a much better position to see what they were up to.’

The capture of a Mafia boss does not mean the Mafia is defeated – or even that
he
is defeated. Lirio Abbate, reporter for the ANSA news agency in Palermo and author of a book on Bernardo Provenzano’s accomplices, was recently given police protection and left Palermo in a hurry. Police investigating the Brancaccio clan had listening devices planted in a mafioso’s house. While monitoring their conversations, they heard detailed discussions of Abbate’s movements and habits that could only mean Cosa Nostra was planning to kill him.

One of the first public figures to express support for the journalist was the president of the region, Salvatore Cuffaro, who at the time was on trial. After he was sentenced to five years for revealing official secrets, Cuffaro refused to step down until public protests and political pressure forced him to reisign.

Although Provenzano is in solitary confinement, with limited access to a very few individuals, others are still working on his behalf. In September 2007 Giuseppe Lipari, Provenzano’s consigliere and front man for many of his investments, was arrested, accused of Mafia association, after arranging the sale of property worth €3 million belonging to Provenzano. The magistrates claimed that Lipari’s work as business manager for Cosa Nostra had gone on uninterrupted for over twenty years.

Lipari had been released just two days after Provenzano’s arrest and had set to work straight away, trying to convert some of the Boss’s extensive property holdings into hard cash. On the day of his arrest officials confiscated papers, letters and notes from Provenzano’s cell in the Novara maximum-security prison, hoping to find documents relating to the sale. The former Boss, always an assiduous note-taker, would have accumulated a mass of paperwork to while away the hours in solitary confinement and will be quite bereft without it.

While there has been unprecedented international interest in Bernardo Provenzano’s arrest, it remains to be seen if anything has really changed. Grasso says that the culture in Sicily, even in Corleone, is changing. He claims that with Provenzano a figure of fear and oppression has been removed, and points to the fact that many young people from the Corleone area have been applying to work in farming co-operatives on land confiscated from the Mafia. ‘This means that Provenzano, while he was outside prison, inspired fear – not direct intimidation but an underlying fear that prevented them setting foot on Mafia property.’

On a hot July day in 2007 a bus load of Tuscan youths from a church group arrived in Corleone, full of excitement about spending time in the capital of organized crime. They had come to work for a fortnight in the fields and vineyards confiscated from the Mafia and to meet young people from the legendary Italian crime capital. They were full of missionary zeal, hoping to befriend young people from this benighted land and make a difference by offering solidarity.

They were staying in what used to be the Provenzano family home, a simple three-storey house where Provenzano’s mother lived until her death a few years ago. The house had been confiscated and turned
over to a church group. While the students unpacked and talked excitedly about their expectations, Provenzano’s brother Salvatore drove up in his Fiat Panda and demanded that the Tuscan driver move his minibus. ‘I park here, it’s my right’, the old man muttered, and walked past the chattering students, heading for his house at the corner.

Grasso’s optimism may have been premature: one of the organizers of the youth group revealed that some of the vineyards confiscated from mafiosi had been expertly vandalized by an unknown hand. But Grasso is determined to stay positive: ‘We must continue to hope, to give the impression that we believe in what we’re doing’, he says. ‘We must show that we believe in this fight, which is the fight not just against organized crime, but for freedom, for the democratic future of a people that has been oppressed by the Mafia. We have got Provenzano, but when you cut off the lizard’s tail, it grows another one.’

In December 2007 Provenzano’s security status was increased after the authorities discovered that he had been communicating with other mafiosi inside the prison. Conditions in the maximum-security were already harsh, but the governor is taking no chances. Provenzano was banned for six months from further communication with the outside world and deprived of his television and radio. Signs that he was managing to get messages to Mafia associates were described as ‘exceedingly alarming’: they indicated that, with all the deprivations inflicted by several life sentences, Bernardo Provenzano is still the Boss of Bosses.

For each chapter the reader will find here the main sources, and also endnotes where relevant or possibly of interest.

My main sources on the last stages of the investigation leading up to the arrest of Provenzano were interviews with police chief Giuseppe Gualtieri, now based in Trapani but formerly head of the Palermo flying squad, and with one of his agents, code-named Bloodhound.

Much of my information for this chapter came from interviews with the following: assistant prosecutor Michele Prestipino, the driving force behind several investigations into Provenzano and his supporters, who was interviewed in Palermo; chief anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso, now based in Rome but formerly chief prosecutor in Palermo; Alfonso Sabella, formerly assistant anti-Mafia prosecutor in Palermo; Marzia Sabella, currently assistant prosecutor in Palermo; General Angiolo Pellegrini, a long-serving officer with the carabinieri, now retired; and historian Salvatore Lupo, who teaches at Palermo University, author of the definitive
History of the Mafia
.

The testimony of Nino Giuffré, Provenzano’s associate and former friend, provided the basis of this book. The witness statements reproduced in this chapter are from: the trial of Provenzano’s alleged moles, known as ‘Talpe’ (Michele Aiello and others), delivered on 8 March 2005; the trial of Provenzano’s supporters, Grande Mandamento, delivered on 9 February 2007; and the trial of Giuseppe Biondolillo and others, dated 16 October 2002.

I have also drawn on the following books:
Il gioco grande
, by Giuseppe Lo Bianco and Sandra Rizza, an account of the conspiracy theories behind Provenzano’s career and his arrest; and
Il codice Provenzano
, by Michele
Prestipino and Salvo Palazzolo, based on the letters between Provenzano and his men.
Bernardo Provenzano, il ragioniere di Cosa Nostra
, by Salvo Palazzolo and Ernesto Oliva, contains a prologue by Umberto Santino, director of the Centro Siciliano di Documentazione Giuseppe Impastato, which lays bare the myths surrounding Provenzano’s status.

The most useful historical document of this period is
Michele Navarra e la Mafia del Corleonese
, by Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, a report on the criminal activities of Liggio and his clan, detailing the violent feud between Navarra and Liggio.

Legal documents

Tribunale di Palermo, sentence in the trial of Marcello dell’Utri and Gaetano Cinà, 11 December 2004.

Corte d’appello di Bari, sentence against Luciano Liggio and others, 24 September 1970.

I also draw on the following books:
Nel segno della Mafia
, by Marco Nese, a colourful biography of Luciano Liggio;
Excellent Cadavers
, by journalist Alessandro Stille, which gives a vivid account of the Corleonesi’s rise to power;
Bernardo Provenzano: il ragioniere di Cosa Nostra
, by Salvo Palazzolo and Ernesto Oliva, which uncovers some extraordinary documentation of Provenzano’s early career;
Il codice Provenzano
, by Michele Prestipino and Salvo Palazzolo; and
Gli uomini del disonore
, by Nino Calderone with Pino Arlacchi, which gives a vivid account of Provenzano and Riina’s early careers.

The greatest documents of the historic ‘maxi-trial’ of 1986—7 are:
L’atto d’accusa dei giudici di Palermo
, edited by Corrado Stajano, a synthesis of the case against the more than 400 mafiosi; and
Excellent Cadavers
, by Alessandro Stille, which gives the inside story of the investigations leading up to the trial.
Mafia Business
, by Pino Arlacchi, builds up a picture of how Cosa Nostra constructed its financial empire.

This chapter draws on author interviews with the historian Salvatore Lupo, assistant prosecutor Alfonso Sabella and chief anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso.

I also draw on the following: John Dickie,
Cosa Nostra;
Saverio Lodato,
Trent’ anni di Mafia;
Salvatore Lupo,
Storia delia Mafia;
Michele Prestipino and Salvo Palazzolo,
Il codice Provenzano;
Lirio Abbate and Peter Gomez,
I complici;
Giovanni Brusca, interviewed by Saverio Lodato,
Ho ucciso Giovanni Falcone;
and Salvo Palazzolo and Ernesto Oliva,
Bernardo Provenzano: il ragioniere di Cosa Nostra
.