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Angelo La Barbera
Angelo La Barbera (; July 3, 1924 – October 28, 1975) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Together with his brother Salvatore La Barbera he ruled the Mafia family of Palermo Centro. Salvatore La Barbera sat on the first Sicilian Mafia Commission that was set up in 1958 as the capo mandamento for Mafia families of Borgo Vecchio, Porta Nuova and Palermo Centro. Gaia Servadio, an English/Italian journalist who wrote a biography on Angelo La Barbera, described him as the symbol of the quick, clever gangster. The new post-war mafioso who in the end became the victim of the many politicians he himself had built. He represented the proletariat who tried to become mafioso, middle class, and ultimately did not succeed.Servadio, ''Mafioso'', p. 182-84 Mafia career Angelo and Salvatore La Barbera were born in the slums of the neighbourhood of Partanna-Mondello in Palermo. Their father was an itinerant charcoal burner and vendor. They started with petty larceny and murder and rais ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old. Palermo is in the northwest of the island of Sicily, by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The city was founded in 734 BC by the Phoenicians as ("flower"). Palermo then became a possession of Carthage. Two ancient Greeks, Greek ancient Greek colonization, colonies were established, known collectively as ; the Carthaginians used this name on their coins after the 5th centuryBC. As , the town became part of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, Empire for over a thousand years. From 831 to 1072 the city was under History of Islam in southern Italy, Arab ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentito
''Pentito'' (; lit. "repentant"; plural: ''pentiti'') is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public prosecutor. The judicial category of ''pentiti'' was originally created in 1970s to combat violence and terrorism during the period of left- and right-wing terrorism known as the Years of Lead. During the 1986–87 Maxi Trial, and after the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, the term was increasingly applied to former members of organized crime who had abandoned their organization and started helping investigators. Role and benefits In exchange for the information they deliver, ''pentiti'' receive shorter sentences for their crimes, in some cases even freedom. In the Italian judicial system, ''pentiti'' can obtain personal protection, a new name, and some money to start a new life in another place, possibly abroad. This practice is common ... [...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] |
Francesco Vassallo
Francesco Vassallo a.k.a. don Ciccolo, don Frankie or King Concrete (born c. 1910) was an Italian entrepreneur that associated with Mafia in the 1950s. His son Giuseppe "Pino" Vassallo was kidnapped in 1971. References Further reading * * Italian businesspeople 1910s births Year of death missing {{Italy-business-bio-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sack Of Palermo
The Sack of Palermo is the popular term for the construction boom from the 1950s through the mid-1980s in Palermo, Italy, that led to the destruction of the city's green belt and historic villas to make way for characterless and shoddily-constructed apartment blocks. In the meantime, Palermo's historic centre, severely damaged by Allied bombing raids in 1943, was allowed to decay. The bombing condemned nearly 150,000 people to live in crowded slums, shantytowns, and even caves.Schneider & Schneider (2003). ''Reversible Destiny'', p. 14-19 Background Between 1951 and 1961, the population of Palermo had risen by 100,000, caused by a rapid urbanization of Sicily after World War II as land reform and mechanization of agriculture created a massive peasant exodus and rural landlords moved their investment into urban real estate. This led to an unregulated and undercapitalised construction boom from the 1950s through the mid-1980s that was characterised by the aggressive involvement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Gioia
Giovanni Gioia (16 January 1925 – 27 November 1981) was an Italian politician. Biography Giovanni Gioia was grandson of the industrialist Filippo Pecoraino and had kinship relationships with Tagliavia shipowners. Gioia was one of the most influential members of Amintore Fanfani's political faction within Christian Democracy (Italy), Christian Democracy in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954 Gioia was appointed provincial secretary of the Christian Democracy of Palermo and also head of the Party Organization Office, which supervised the membership cards: Gioia inaugurated the so-called "card strategy", which consisted in the distribution of membership cards to relatives, friends and even to the dead, arriving to open 59 Christian Democratic sections only in Palermo. Around the years 1954-1957 the breakdown of the agrarian bloc allowed Gioia to transfer liberal and monarchist exponents (often compromised with the mafia) to the Christian Democrats. The two main lieutenants of Gioia, Salv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salvo Lima
Salvatore Achille Ettore Lima (; 23 January 1928 – 12 March 1992) was an Italian politician from Sicily who was associated with, and murdered by, the Sicilian Mafia. He is often just referred to as Salvo Lima. According to the ''pentito'' (Mafia defector) Tommaso Buscetta, Lima’s father, Vincenzo Lima, was a member of the Mafia, but it is not known whether Lima himself was a "made member" of Cosa Nostra.Jamieson, ''The Antimafia'', p. 221Dickie, ''Cosa Nostra'', p. 285 In the final report of the first Italian Antimafia Commission (1963–1976) Lima was described as one of the pillars of Mafia power in Palermo. During his long career with the Christian Democracy (DC) that began in the 1950s, Lima was first allied with the faction of Amintore Fanfani and after 1964 with the one of Giulio Andreotti, seven times prime minister and a member of almost every post-war Italian government. That shift earned him a seat in the national parliament in 1968. Lima was often referred to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democrazia Cristiana
Christian Democracy ( it, Democrazia Cristiana, DC) was a Christian democratic political party in Italy. The DC was founded on 15 December 1943 in the Italian Social Republic (Nazi-occupied Italy) as the ideal successor of the Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crusader shield (''scudo crociato''). As a Catholic-inspired, centrist, catch-all party comprising both centre-right and centre-left political factions, the DC played a dominant role in the politics of Italy The politics of Italy are conducted through a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. Italy has been a democratic republic since 2 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished by popular referendum and a constituent assembly was electe ... for fifty years, and had been part of the government from soon after its inception until its final demise on 16 January 1994 amid the ''Tangentopoli'' scandals. Christian Democrats led the Italian government continuously from 1946 until 1981. The party ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Democrat
Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ideas and traditional Christian values, incorporating social justice and the social teachings espoused by the Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Pentecostal, and other denominational traditions of Christianity in various parts of the world. After World War II, Catholic and Protestant movements of neo-scholasticism and the Social Gospel shaped Christian democracy. On the traditional left-right political spectrum Christian Democracy has been difficult to pinpoint as Christian democrats rejected liberal economics and individualism and advocated state intervention, but simultaneously defended private property rights against excessive state intervention. This has meant that Christian Democracy has historically been considered centre left on ec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerlando Alberti
Gerlando Alberti (; September 18, 1927 – February 1, 2012), nicknamed ("the imperturbable one"), Lodato, ''Quindici anni di mafia'', pp. 47-50 was a member of the Sicilian Mafia.Morto Gerlando Alberti detto 'U paccaré' ADN Kronos, February 1, 2012 He belonged to the Porta Nuova family in Palermo headed by . Alberti was involved in numerous notorious Mafia events, such as the |
Tommy-gun
The Thompson submachine gun (also known as the "Tommy Gun", "Chicago Typewriter", "Chicago Piano", “Trench Sweeper” or "Trench Broom") is a blowback-operated, air-cooled, Magazine-fed rifle, magazine-fed Selective fire, selective-fire submachine gun, invented by United States Army Brigadier general (United States), Brigadier general John T. Thompson in 1918. It was originally designed to break the stalemate of trench warfare of World War I, but was not finished until after the war ended. The Thompson saw early use by the United States Marine Corps during the Banana Wars, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Irish Republican Army, the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI (following the Kansas City massacre, Kansas City Massacre). The weapon was also sold to the general public. Because it could be obtained so easily, the Thompson became notorious during the Prohibition in the United States, Prohibition e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosca
A ''cosca'' (; pl. ''cosche'' in Italian and ''coschi'' in Sicilian), in Sicily, is a clan or Sicilian Mafia crime family led by a capo. The equivalent in the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria is the '''ndrina''. Etymology A ''cosca'' is the crown of spiny, closely folded leaves on plants such as the artichoke or the thistle Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaves with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles can also occur all over the planton the stem and on the flat parts of the leaves. ..., which symbolizes the tightness of relationships between mafiosi. References * Blok, Anton (1974/1988). ''The Mafia of a Sicilian village 1860-1960. A study of violent peasant entrepreneurs'', Long Grove (IL): Waveland Press, * Dickie, John (2004). Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia', London: Coronet, * Servadio, Gaia (1976). ''Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day'', London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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