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1960s Sicilian Mafia Trials
The 1960s Sicilian Mafia trials took place at the end of that decade in response to a rise in organized crime violence around the late 1950s and early 1960s. There were three major trials, each featuring multiple defendants, that saw hundreds of alleged Mafiosi on trial for dozens of crimes. From the authority's point of view, they were a failure; very few defendants were convicted, although later trials as well as information from ''pentiti'' confirmed most of those acquitted were Mafiosi members, and were guilty of many crimes including some of those they were acquitted of. Emanuele Notarbartolo was stabbed to death on a train in 1893. A number of suspected Mafiosi were rounded up and tried in 1900 of the murder, and though convicted they were acquitted on appeal due to a minor technicality. In the 1920s, Cesare Mori was sent to Sicily by Benito Mussolini to combat the Mafia, although Mori's crude method of imprisoning thousands of men – many of them innocent – without trial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organized Crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime simply exist to cater towards demand of illegal goods in a state or to facilitate trade of goods and services that may have been banned by a state (such as illegal drugs or firearms). Sometimes, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts money from shopkeepers for "protection". Street gangs may ofte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Hotel Des Palmes Mafia Meeting 1957
A series of meetings between Sicilian Mafia and American Mafia members were allegedly held at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes in Palermo, Sicily, between October 12–16, 1957. Also called the 1957 Palermo Mafia summit, the summit discussed the international illegal heroin trade in the French Connection. The FBI believed it was this meeting that established the Bonanno crime family in the heroin trade.Shawcross & Young, ''Men Of Honour'', p. 44-45 Origins of reputed purpose This "heroin summit" was described by journalist Claire Sterling: "Although there is no firsthand evidence of what went on at the four-day summit itself, what followed over the next thirty years has made the substance clear. Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic are persuaded by now that the American delegation asked the Sicilians to take over the import and distribution of heroin in the United States, and the Sicilians agreed."Sterling, ''Octopus'', p. 85 However, she fails to back this claim with solid eviden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy is also considered part of Western Europe, and shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione. Italy covers an area of , with a population of over 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome. Italy was the native place of many civilizations such as the Italic peoples and the Etruscans, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the country has also historically been home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catanzaro
Catanzaro (, or ; scn, label= Catanzarese, Catanzaru ; , or , ''Katastaríoi Lokrói''; ; la, Catacium), also known as the "City of the two Seas", is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its province and the second most populated comune of the region, behind Reggio Calabria. The archbishop's seat was the capital of the province of Calabria Ultra for over 200 years. It houses the University "Magna Græcia", the second-largest university in Calabria. Catanzaro is an urban centre, with much activity, including some coastal towns, such as Sellia Marina and Soverato, and the municipalities of Silas, with a total of 156,196 inhabitants. Catanzaro is being consolidated to form a greater metropolitan area, by the Region of Calabria, and in connection with the town of Lamezia Terme, comprising 10 municipalities. This will lead to the creation of an integrated area involving over 200,000 inhabitants. During the summer months, the Ion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Valachi
Joseph Michael Valachi (September 22, 1904 – April 3, 1971) was an American mobster in the Genovese crime family who is notable as the first member of the Italian-American Mafia to acknowledge its existence publicly in 1963. He is credited with the popularization of the term ''cosa nostra''. Valachi was convicted of drug trafficking in 1959, and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. In 1962 while he and Genovese family boss Vito Genovese were in prison together, he murdered an inmate he thought was a hitman sent by Genovese, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Valachi subsequently became a government witness, and the next year testified before a U.S. Senate committee in what became known as the Valachi hearings. He disclosed previously unknown information about the Italian-American Mafia, including its structure, operations, rituals, and membership. His testimony was the first major violation of omertà, the Mafia's code of silence, and the first concrete evidence that the I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucky Luciano
Charles "Lucky" Luciano (, ; born Salvatore Lucania ; November 24, 1897 – January 26, 1962) was an Italian-born gangster who operated mainly in the United States. Luciano started his criminal career in the Five Points gang and was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for the establishment of The Commission (mafia), The Commission in 1931, after he abolished the capo di tutti capi, boss of bosses title held by Salvatore Maranzano following the Castellammarese War. He was also the first official crime boss, boss of the modern Genovese crime family. In 1936, Luciano was tried and convicted for forced prostitution, compulsory prostitution and running a prostitution racket after years of investigation by District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, but during World War II an agreement was struck with the Department of the Navy through his J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extradition
Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdictions and depends on the arrangements made between them. In addition to legal aspects of the process, extradition also involves the physical transfer of custody of the person being extradited to the legal authority of the requesting jurisdiction. In an extradition process, one sovereign jurisdiction typically makes a formal request to another sovereign jurisdiction ("the requested state"). If the fugitive is found within the territory of the requested state, then the requested state may arrest the fugitive and subject him or her to its extradition process. The extradition procedures to which the fugitive will be subjected are dependent on the law and practice of the requested state. Between countries, extradition is normally regulated by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indicted
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an indictable offence, an offence that requires an indictment. Australia Section 80 of the Constitution of Australia provides that "the trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury". The High Court of Australia has consistently used a narrow interpretation of this clause, allowing the Parliament of Australia to define which offences proceed on indictment rather than conferring a universal right to a jury trial. Section 4G of the ''Crimes Act 1914'' provides that "offences against a law of the Commonwealth punishable by imprisonment for a period exceeding 12 months are indictable offences, unless the contrary intention appears". Canada A direct indictment is one in which the case is sent directly to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmine Galante
Carmine Galante (; February 21, 1910 – July 12, 1979) was an American mobster. Galante was rarely seen without a cigar hanging from is mouth, leading to the nickname "The Cigar" and "Lilo" (a Sicilian term for cigar). Galante had a long career in organized crime and rose to acting boss (unofficial) of the Bonanno crime family. He was assassinated in 1979 while dining in a restaurant. Biography Background Camillo Carmine Galante was born on February 21, 1910, in a tenement building in the East Harlem section of Manhattan. His parents, Vincenzo "James" Galante and Vincenza Russo, had emigrated from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, to New York City in 1906, where Vincenzo was a fisherman. Carmine Galante had two brothers, Samuel and Peter Galante, and two sisters, Josephine and Angelina Galante. On February 10, 1945, Galante married Helen Marulli, by whom he had three children; James Galante (not Jimmy Galante former owner of Danbury Thrashers), Camille Galante, and Angela G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Bonanno
Joseph Charles Bonanno (born Giuseppe Carlo Bonanno; ; January 18, 1905 – May 11, 2002), sometimes referred to as Joe Bananas, was an Italian-American crime boss of the Bonanno crime family, which he ran from 1931 to 1968. Bonanno was born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, where his father was also involved in organized crime. At the age of three, Bonanno immigrated to New York City with his family, for about 10 years before he moved back to Italy. He later slipped back into the United States in 1924, by stowing away on a Cuban fishing boat bound for Tampa, Florida. After the Castellammarese War, Salvatore Maranzano was murdered in 1931, and Bonanno took control of most of the crime family, and at age 26, Bonanno became one of the youngest-ever bosses of a crime family. In 1963, Bonanno made plans with Joseph Magliocco to assassinate several rivals on the Mafia Commission. When Magliocco gave the contract to one of his top hit men, Joseph Colombo, he revealed the plot to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Genco Russo
Giuseppe Genco Russo (26 January 1893 – 18 March 1976) was an Italian mafioso, the boss of Mussomeli in the Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily. Genco Russo, also known as "Zi Peppi Jencu", was an uncouth, sly, semi-literate thug with excellent political connections. A vulgar man – he used to spit on the floor no matter who was present – he was often photographed with bishops, bankers, civil servants and politicians.Sterling, ''Octopus'', p. 146 As such he was considered to be the arbiter of Mafia politics, and was regarded as the successor of Calogero Vizzini, who had died in 1954. Although by then a wealthy landowner and politician (as a member of DC, Democrazia Cristiana, Italian Christian Democrat) he still kept his mule in the house and the toilet outside, which was little more than a hole in the ground with a stone for a seat and no walls or door, according to Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta. Traditional mafiosi, like Genco Russo and Calogero Vizzini, Mafia bosses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
