The people say ‘basta’ to mafia extortion

In a remote part of Calabria, a group of small businessmen dared to stand up to the mafia and refused to pay protection money. Maria Teresa Morano's father was one of them.  In 1992, the businessmen and shopkeepers of a small rural town, Cittanova in Calabria, received a series of unwelcome visits. They were each …

Finally, an antimafia priest. Reader, they shot him

Padre Pino Puglisi, or 3P as he styled himself for his young followers, was murdered with a bullet to the back of his head, twenty years ago, at the door of his parish church. Confronted by his killer in the street, he didn’t try to run. He responded simply: ‘I was expecting you.’ Don Puglisi …

Faking it: madness and the mafia

The mafia uses madness both as a get out of jail card, and to discredit their enemies. Psychiatrist Corrado de Rosa has studied several cases for his book, Mafia da Legare (Mafia Fit To Be Tied), and notes that a smart boss can make capital from looking a fool. In March 2012, prison guards watched …

Palermo hangs out its sheets in protest

It’s exactly 21 years since the violent death of anti-mafia judge Paolo Borsellino, who was blown up, with his bodyguards, as he called on his elderly mother in Palermo. I was rooting through old files in the attic, trying to find a particular set of cuttings (trying not to bash my head on the rafters) …

The woman who testified against her husband

For years, Carmela Iuculano played the dutiful wife to a boss in one of Sicily’s crime families. But after they were both arrested, Iuculano did the unthinkable: she testified against him. Clare Longrigg met her at a secret location in Italy, where she agreed to be interviewed – but was afraid to have her picture …

The devil’s lawyer

Criminal defence superstar Rosalba Di Gregorio is a well-known figure in Sicily’s legal circles – and the subject of much salacious gossip. An attractive blue-eyed woman representing members of a staunchly male organisation inevitably exerts a peculiar fascination and she is not shy of drawing attention to herself. She’s nearly 60, though looks and dresses …

Berlusconi wore jeans to meet Cosa Nostra boss

Berlusconi maintains that his conviction for tax fraud is the result of 'accusations and trials that have nothing to do with reality'. Il Cavaliere has always had an interesting relationship with reality. For years, he denied any relationship with Cosa Nostra, but there is a record of his meeting the mafia boss Stefano Bontade, known …