All Blog Posts Tagged 'Corleone' (26)

By Thom L. Jones

• Back to part 1

As the famous song goes, “The Party's’ Over it’s Time to Call it a…

By Thom L. Jones

The Texas Almanac claims the heart of the territory lies near a small town called Brady, in McCulloch County. In square miles, Texas is the largest mainland state in the Union. Only Alaska tops it in size. “Bigger than Texas” is a somewhat overused expression, but hits the spot. It’s bigger than France…

By Thom L. Jones

"By knowing the men of honor, I have learned ……..that Mafia logic is the logic of power, and it always works towards a purpose. Sometimes those Mafiosi strike me as the only rational beings in the world populated by madmen." - Giovanni Falcone to Marcello Padovani

"You’re the Maradona of the law:…

This is part 2 of Three good men and their fight to the death against the Sicilian Mafia: Giovanni Falcone. To read part 1 click here.

By Thom L.…

By David Amoruso

Drug lord Griselda Blanco ruled the streets by pure terror, killing hundreds and making millions with Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel. Now her son, Michael Corleone Blanco, aims to turn that notoriety into a career in show business with a new reality show on VH1 called Cartel Crew.

Yes, Michael…

By David Amoruso

It was an offer the Dartmouth Library just couldn’t refuse. Diana and Bruce Rauner donated their expansive collection of author Mario Puzo’s papers to Dartmouth. The collection includes draft manuscripts, correspondence, and other records from Puzo’s long career as a novelist and…

By David Amoruso

A secret pact between the Sicilian Mafia and the Italian State has resulted in the conviction of eight men, including Mafia bosses and police and government officials, among them a close political associate of Silvio Berlusconi. The pact was made in the 1990s to bring a halt to Cosa Nostra’s bloody war…

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

The gang is back together! The entire (surviving) cast of The Godfather will reunite for one special evening. Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire and the man behind the camera Francis Ford Coppola will come together on April 29 for the Tribeca Film Festival’s closing-night…

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…

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…

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 David Amoruso

The Sicilian Mafia emerged from the shadows as a criminal powerhouse that would rule the underworld not just in Sicily but in Italy and North America as well. Secrecy allowed them to grow. Now, author Carl Russo is pointing a photo camera at the places that played a role in Cosa Nostra’s shady history. His new book …