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Luciano's Legacy

Judge Giovanni Falcone challenged the Mafia in Sicily

CHARLES 'LUCKY' LUCIANO was originally Salvatore Luciana, born in Lercara Friddi, Sicily, on 24 November 1897. By the age of 36, he had put together one of the greatest organized crime syndicates in history. Luciano was so powerful that he was even able to aid the allied invasion of Sicily in 1942 from his prison cell in New York City. This worst kept secret in modern history is still denied by official sources, especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but it is certainly true.

Luciano was imprisoned in 1936 for running a prostitution racket, but still kept an iron grip on his business affairs. He made an offer to the authorities - forbidding theft from war supplies passing through mob-controlled New York waterfronts, and any delay in vital shipments of material. There were no thefts or delays, and after thus showing his power, Luciano was able to propose a deal: his parole in return for Mafia help in the allied invasion of Sicily. To use a phrase from Mario Puzo's classic novel 'The Godfather', it was an offer that America could not refuse.

Regular messages went from Luciano's cell, instructing Sicilan immigrants in New York to co-operate fully with naval and military intelligence. Maps were marked, identifying the best landing places around the Sicilian coastline, plus good or treacherous ground beyond, over which invading troops and machinery would move. Safe paths and routes were identified and drawn up. Orders also went out to Sicily itself. Among the allied flags carried by those who first went ashore on the beaches were ones of a white background against a large 'L' (for Luciano) picked out in black. "It was the sign", says crime historian Andreas Scrosati, "the routes were prepared, the passes opened. To the allied invaders, Luciano was an invaluable asset. To the Cosa Nostra, he was the midwife."

The Sicilian invasion boasted one of the lowest casualty rates in any allied landing in Europe. The British medical service prepared for 10,000 battle wounded in the first week, but only 1,517 were killed or wounded in the initial week's fighting. In the first 58 hours, the allies advanced an amazing 60 miles.

The authorities kept their side of the deal, and Luciano was extradited to Sicily in 1946, where he soon gained complete control. His men had prepared lists of every Mussolini fascist and German collaborator in Sicily, precluding them from any position of local power under the military-supervised government installed after the successful invasion. Those who had guided allied forced ashore also had suggestions as to who the occupying forces should install to maintain local government in smooth running order. The American administrators gratefully accepted the suggestions and those chosen eagerly took up their positions. Every municipal office on the island of Sicily was filled by a member of the Cosa Nostra. Luciano had achieved his coup. "Sicily had been served up on a platter, to be devoured by the Mafia", says Scrosati.

By the time Luciano died in Naples on 26 January 1962, Sicily was totally mob-controlled. Virtually every judge, lawyer, politician, police chief and priest was on the Mafia payroll. Luciano had become the head of the 'cupola', a Cosa Nostra ruling commission similar to the one he had run in the USA. He was The Godfather of Sicily.

One brave man who set out to confront and break the cupola in Sicily was Judge Giovanni Falcone. During the late 1980's he perfected a system of Maxi-trials that put over 2,000 Mafiosi in jail. The Mafia Don then running the cupola decided that Falcone was hurting business so much that he must die. This was Salvatore ('Wild Beast') Riina. A 'hit' on Falcone was ordered, a mistake that Luciano would never have made. Before his arrest in New York Luciano had removed (i.e. had killed) a gang leader who was planning to assassinate Mayor Tom Dewey (1902-1971) because of his crackdown on mob activity. Luciano knew that killing Dewey would cause too much of a public outcry. And he had been right. But Riina had no such powers of vision.

On 23 May 1992, Falcone flew into Palermo's Punta Raisi airport. He had come to spend the weekend at his home in the Sicilian city of his birth, and was accompanied by his second wife, Francesca (also a magistrate), and three bodyguards. For security, they arrived in a privately chartered Lear Jet. And waiting for them as they de-planed was a convoy of bulletproofed cars.

Riina's men had been tailing Falcone for days. That Saturday afternoon he was followed to Rome airport, where the flight plan to Palermo was filed. By the time (5.49pm) that Falcone's aircraft landed at Punta Raisi, a man named Giocchino La Barbera was already in place to watch the judge arrive. Using his mobile phone, La Barbera alerted two other men, Giovanni Brusca and Antonio Goie, who were waiting in the hills overlooking the airport. On a road culvert beneath them was a land mine containing 2,200 lbs. of primed explosive. La Barbera filtered in behind Falcone's motorcade in his sportscar, keeping up a running commentary on his cell phone as he drove, to pinpoint the precise position of the vehicle carrying the judge, their main target.

After six minutes drive from the airport, close to the spot where the bomb was hidden, La Barbera switched off his cellular telephone. In the overlooking hills, Brusca now had the convoy in sight, and pressed the remote control detonator in his right hand, sending an electronic signal to the planted bomb. The resulting massive explosion created a huge crater, as Falcone, his wife and their bodyguards were blown to pieces. American FBI agents later identified Goie's DNA from saliva on the cigarette butts he had chain-smoked whilst waiting for Falcone's car to reach the assassination spot. Goie later hanged himself whilst awaiting trial. Brusca and La Barbera were jailed for life.

Now Riina went after Falcone's successor, Judge Paola Borsellino. On 19 July, the latter made the fatal mistake of making a call on his cellular telephone to tell his mother that he was on the way to visit her in her home in Palermo. The call was bugged by a scanning device operated by the listening Cosa Nostra, who had just enough time to get into position. In Sicily, a mobile telephone is an open radio, listened to by everyone.

As Borsellino's car drew up outside his mother's house, the watching assassins triggered explosives in a vehicle parked nearby. The judge was killed instantly, and as his security detail stopped behind his blazing vehicle, the four bodyguards inside were hosed down in their car by two gunmen wielding AK-47 assault rifles. The killers sped up in a butcher's van, kicked open the back doors, and opened fire, putting 48 rounds into the vehicle.

This was too much. The general public was finally outraged and sickened by Riina's penchant for excess violence. On 22 July 1992, over 100,000 Italians demonstrated in Palermo against the all-pervading power of the Cosa Nostra. Riina contemptuously ignored the warning. And he paid the price.

At a secret meeting in August of Palermo's Mafia Dons, excluding Riina, it was decided that he should be 'retired'. Riina was not a man of honour. He ordered hits without approval of the council, and his public acts of violence endangered the entire organisation. Of course, his retirement would be Mafia-style.

On the afternoon of 12 September 1992, Riina was contentedly lunching on spaghetti washed down with Chianti in his favorite restaurant in Palermo. He did not notice that his bodyguards had suddenly melted away. His luncheon companion excused himself to go the toilet, which was the signal for two smartly dressed young men to walk into the caf? and up to Riina's table. They nodded at him in greeting, and then pulled automatic pistols from shoulder holsters. Other diners screamed and watched in horror as the two gunmen shot Riina at close range, both putting six rounds apiece into his head and chest. The Mafia Don, the most powerful gangster in Sicily, was dead before he slid to the floor. "My God!" shouted a patron; "the Mafiosi are killing their own! They have just shot 'Toto' Riina!" After throwing down their handguns, the two 'button men'* walked calmly outside to be whisked away from the assassination scene in a waiting vehicle.

Mayor Leoluca Orlando and Falcone's former assistant, Liliana Ferraro are carrying on the work initially started by Judge Giovanni Falcone (1939-1992), a courageous man who broke the power of the Red Brigade in the 1970's before daring to confront the Mafia in Sicily. It was Ms. Ferraro who devised the countrywide system of 26 special Mafia-prosecuting offices, ensuring each is staffed by dedicated judges, all working as a team. Teamwork is necessary. It means an organized crime investigation does not end if one magistrate is killed. Colleagues will know the case he (or she) was working on, which possibly caused his/her assassination, and continue the investigation.

The mayor and the judge cannot lead ordinary lives, as they are surrounded by heavily armed bodyguards wherever they go. But they are slowly making progress in using the courts to curb the power of the Cosa Nostra on a beautiful island where corruption has become a part of daily life.

Ms. Ferraro works fifteen-hour days at her desk in the Ministry of Justice, and when she is not there she is traveling Europe and the USA preaching a warning of organized crime's worldwide infiltration. Says Mayor Orlando, "For too long a time, people thought that the Mafia was an Italian problem; limited to Sicily even. But it is not. The organization is everywhere in Europe, particularly in the financial centers of Paris, Frankfurt and the City of London, where they launder billions of dollars each year. And they are now in Russia also. The Mafia preys on weakness and Eastern Europe is financially weak. So they are there, organizing, forming alliances, gaining power and influence. Other countries are slowly waking up to the threat; but perhaps too slowly."

So the tentacles of the Cosa Nostra are everywhere, and death is the punishment for breaking the sacred vows of 'Omerta' (silence) which the organization imposes on all its' members. Palermo is a quieter place since the rash of mob-slayings in the early 1990's, but organized crime still flourishes. Says Orlando, "There is an old saying locally: 'Sicily. is a land blessed by God. And cursed by Man.'"

(*:'Soldiers' trained to carry out hits approved by counsel of the Cosa Nostra. Leaving the murder weapon(s) at the crime scene is also consistent with mafia practice).

(Research: 'The Octopus' by Brian Freemantle, Orion Books; 'Excellent Cadavers' by Alexander Stille, and 'Falcone', HBC Pictures, 2001).

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