All Blog Posts Tagged 'Riina' (34)

By David Amoruso

He was the boss of bosses of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia. As leader of the infamous Corleonesi, Salvatore "Toto" Riina ordered the death of hundreds, including the high-profile assassinations of anti-mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Now he is dead himself, at age 87, of natural causes.

Riina had turned 87 on…

By Thom L. Jones

The media called them raggazzi di una stagione ‘straordinaria: “The boys of an extraordinary season.”

Beppe Montana and Calogero Zucchetto and Pippo Giordano and Roberto Antiochia and Natale Mondo and Ninni Cassarà and the rest of the Squadra Mobile, the Flying Squad. They knew what they had to do and lived their lives doing…

By Thom L. Jones

Sometimes, history makes us remember and then, at times, helps us to forget.

It’s easy to recall the first iPhone that was launched in 2007 and would come to change everything we have ever known about personal communication. Mention a judge who was blown up by the Mafia in 1983, and eyes glaze and heads shake and no one…

By Thom L. Jones

If you Google ‘Mafia’ you will get 163,000,000 hits.

If you Google ‘Cosa Nostra’ you will get 5,280,000 hits.

In 1950 the Mafia did not exist, publicly that is. Sicily knew about it, but even then, to the…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Cosa Nostra boss of bosses Bernardo Provenzano was laid to rest today in a cemetery in Corleone, Italy, his…

By David Amoruso

Sicilian Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano passed away at age 83, sources told Italian news agency ANSA today. Considered Cosa Nostra’s boss of bosses, Provenzano spent 43 years on the run before finally being caught in 2006. He was…

By Carl Russo - Opinion

Here's the latest proof that old traditions, no matter how disgusting, die hard in Italy. On May 29, a religious procession wending its way through the city of Corleone, Sicily, allegedly stopped to pay respect to the first lady of…

By David Amoruso

Tommaso Buscetta was the first boss of the Sicilian Mafia to break omerta and tell authorities (almost) all he knew about the secretive criminal brotherhood. Now, Italian filmmakers will produce a big-budget film to tell the story of his life and how he became The Traitor.

That, by the way, is also the movie’s…

By David Amoruso

Giuseppe Salvatore Riina, the son of Salvatore “Toto” Riina, the former boss of bosses of the Sicilian Mafia, is causing outrage in Italy this week with the release and promotion of his book Riina Family Life. While calling his father a “hero,” he refuses to discuss Cosa Nostra or his father’s murderous acts, which caused…

By David Amoruso

Vincenzo Bontà, the son-in-law of Sicilian Mafioso Giovanni Bontade, was shot dead in Palermo yesterday. Bontà (45) was killed along with 53-year-old Giuseppe Vella. The pair was murdered in a very narrow part of the Via Falsomiele in Palermo, leaving them no chance to escape. Two suspects have been arrested by…

AMERICA’S BOSS OF BOSSES MURDERED AT HIS OFFICE

By David Amoruso

Salvatore Maranzano had made it. After eliminating his arch rival, Joe Masseria, in April of 1931, he had become capo di tutti capi, boss of bosses, of …

“FREEZE!” SO I CAN SHOOT YOUR HEAD OFF!

By David Amoruso

Before he became Cosa Nostra’s boss of bosses and his leadership style earned him the nickname The Accountant, Bernardo Provenzano was known as The Tractor. Long explanation short: He was a mean SOB and stone cold…

AL CAPONE WISHES RIVAL GANGSTERS A HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

By David Amoruso

On Valentine’s Day most people are thinking about their loved ones. Husbands browse the stores in search for that one gift to tell the wife how much they love her, while…

MOB COPS: LICENSE TO KILL

By David Amoruso

As you have read in our three other stories, a gangster in police uniform is one deadly motherfucker. Still, he has nothing on an actual police detective who has no qualms about pulling the trigger on whoever and who has the ability and power to operate above the law.…

By Thom L. Jones

Italians know Corleone as a small, inland town of about 12000 inhabitants, situated in the highlands of Western Sicily, approximately mid-way between Palermo and Agrigento.

We mostly know Corleone as the name of a fictitious Mafia boss-Don Corleone- the central character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather. Although…

By Thom L. Jones

Omertà: Good is he who sees and is silent.

                                             Old Mafia saying.

Sicily is an intricate web of favors done in exchange for other favors owing among people of all class, from the humblest to the highest. The trick is to never over-estimate…

By Angelo Carmelo Gallitto



Italian organized crime, divided in Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita, is a rich and powerful criminal enterprise…

By David Amuroso

Cops and mobsters will never be the best of friends. But every wiseguy trusts that if he surrenders to the law he will not be murdered. Ironically, it’s that belief that got a bunch of gangsters killed. Not by the cops, but by their underworld rivals who abused the trust all members of society, including criminals, place in the badge and the uniform…