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Nitto Santapaola
Benedetto Santapaola (; born 4 June 1938), better known as Nitto, is a prominent mafioso from Catania, the main city and industrial centre on Sicily's east coast. His nickname is ''il cacciatore'' (the hunter), because of his passion for shooting game. He is currently in jail serving several life sentences. Early years Nitto Santapaola was born in the degraded neighbourhood of San Cristoforo, in Catania, into a poor family together with his brothers Salvatore, Antonino, Natale and numerous cousins, such as the Ferrera clan, the Ercolano clan and the Romeo clan, all members or associates of Cosa Nostra, and the future nucleus of the Santapaola-Ercolano Mafia family. At the beginning of the 1960s, Santapaola was introduced by his cousin Francesco Ferrera into the largest Mafia family of Catania, at the time under the command of Giuseppe Calderone. Santapaola's first denunciation was in 1962 for theft and criminal conspiracy. In 1970 he was sent into internal exile and in 1975 he ...
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Catania
Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by the presence of important road and rail transport infrastructures as well as by the main airport in Sicily, fifth in Italy. It is located on Sicily's east coast, at the base of the active volcano, Mount Etna, and it faces the Ionian Sea. It is the capital of the 58-municipality region known as the Metropolitan City of Catania, which is the seventh-largest metropolitan city in Italy. The population of the city proper is 311,584, while the population of the Metropolitan City of Catania is 1,107,702. Catania was founded in the 8th century BC by Chalcidian Greeks. The city has weathered multiple geologic catastrophes: it was almost completely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 1169. A major eruption and lava flow from nearby Mount ...
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Totò Riina
Salvatore Riina (; 16 November 1930 – 17 November 2017), called (, Totò being the diminutive of Salvatore), was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s with the assassinations of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, resulting in widespread public outcry and a major crackdown by the authorities. He was also known by the nicknames ''la belva'' ("the beast") and ''il capo dei capi'' (Sicilian: '''u capu di 'i capi'', "the boss of bosses"). Riina succeeded Luciano Leggio as head of the Corleonesi criminal organisation in the mid 1970s and achieved dominance through a campaign of violence, which caused police to target his rivals. Riina had been a fugitive since the late 1960s after he was indicted on a murder charge. He was less vulnerable to law enforcement's reaction to his methods, as the policing removed many of the established chiefs who had traditional ...
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Prefect
Prefect (from the Latin ''praefectus'', substantive adjectival form of ''praeficere'': "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area. A prefect's office, department, or area of control is called a prefecture, but in various post-Roman empire cases there is a prefect without a prefecture or ''vice versa''. The words "prefect" and "prefecture" are also used, more or less conventionally, to render analogous words in other languages, especially Romance languages. Ancient Rome ''Praefectus'' was the formal title of many, fairly low to high-ranking officials in ancient Rome, whose authority was not embodied in their person (as it was with elected Magistrates) but conferred by delegation from a higher authority. They did have some authority in their prefecture such as controlling prisons and in civil administration. Feudal times Especially in Medieval Latin, ''præfectus'' was used to r ...
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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 ...
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Emanuela Setti Carraro
Emanuela Setti Carraro (; 9 October 1950 in Borgosesia – 3 September 1982 in Palermo) was an Italian nurse, and wife of General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa. Less than two months after the marriage, she was the victim of a Sicilian Mafia AK-47 attack that also killed her husband and the escorting officer, Domenico Russo. Life She was born in Borgosesia, in the province of Vercelli, Piedmont, in 1950 by a family of the Milanese "good bourgeoisie". Emanuela followed her maternal engagement and graduated as a volunteer nurse of the Italian Red Cross. She paid special service at the Military Hospital in Milan and the operating rooms of the Institute of Surgical Pathology of the University of Milan. She had two brothers, the physician Paolo Giuseppe and the art dealer Giovanni Maria. She became the wife of the general of carabinieri and Prefect of Palermo Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa (who was widower since 1978) on July 10, 1982, after many hesitancies of dalla Chiesa due to the ...
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Circonvallazione Massacre
The Circonvallazione massacre, in Italian ''Strage della Circonvallazione'', is a Cosa Nostra attack that took place on 16 June 1982 on the Palermo ring road. The attack was directed against Catanese boss Alfio Ferlito, who was transferred from Enna to the Trapani jail, and died with the three escort carabinieri (Salvatore Raiti, Silvano Franzolin and Luigi Di Barca) and the 22-year-old Giuseppe Di Lavore, the driver of the private company that had the transportation of prisoners, who had replaced his father. The mandator of this massacre was Nitto Santapaola, who was in a years-long war with Ferlito for predominance on the Catania territory. Attack Around 10:00 on 16 June 1982 a Mercedes coming from Enna, driven by the civilian driver Giuseppe Di Lavore and with the carabinieri on board Silvano Franzolin, Salvatore Raiti and Luigi Di Barca as well as the inmate Alfio Ferlito, was walking along the Palermo ring road and was about to take the junction for the Palermo-Mazara de ...
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Carabinieri
The Carabinieri (, also , ; formally ''Arma dei Carabinieri'', "Arm of Carabineers"; previously ''Corpo dei Carabinieri Reali'', "Royal Carabineers Corps") are the national gendarmerie of Italy who primarily carry out domestic and foreign policing duties. It is one of Italy's main law enforcement agencies, alongside the Polizia di Stato and the Guardia di Finanza. As with the Guardia di Finanza but in contrast to the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri are a military force. As the fourth branch of the Italian Armed Forces, they come under the authority of the Ministry of Defence; for activities related to inland public order and security, they functionally depend on the Ministry of the Interior. In practice, there is a significant overlap between the jurisdiction of the Polizia di Stato and Carabinieri, although both of them are contactable through 112, the European Union's Single Emergency number. Unlike the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri have responsibility for policing the ...
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Alfio Ferlito
The Circonvallazione massacre, in Italian ''Strage della Circonvallazione'', is a Cosa Nostra attack that took place on 16 June 1982 on the Palermo ring road. The attack was directed against Catanese boss Alfio Ferlito, who was transferred from Enna to the Trapani jail, and died with the three escort carabinieri (Salvatore Raiti, Silvano Franzolin and Luigi Di Barca) and the 22-year-old Giuseppe Di Lavore, the driver of the private company that had the transportation of prisoners, who had replaced his father. The mandator of this massacre was Nitto Santapaola, who was in a years-long war with Ferlito for predominance on the Catania territory. Attack Around 10:00 on 16 June 1982 a Mercedes coming from Enna, driven by the civilian driver Giuseppe Di Lavore and with the carabinieri on board Silvano Franzolin, Salvatore Raiti and Luigi Di Barca as well as the inmate Alfio Ferlito, was walking along the Palermo ring road and was about to take the junction for the Palermo-Mazar ...
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Ferlito Murder
Ferlito is an Italian family name, and may refer to: * Carlotta Ferlito (born 1995), Italian gymnast *Giuseppe Ferlito (born 1954), Italian film director *Vanessa Ferlito Vanessa Ferlito is an American actress. She is known for playing Detective Aiden Burn in the first season of the CBS crime drama ''CSI: NY'', as well as for her recurring portrayal of Claudia Hernandez in FOX drama '' 24'', and for her starring ... (born 1980), American actress See also * Team Ferlito, an Italian auto racing team {{surname, Ferlito Italian-language surnames ...
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Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a period of conflict involving the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place from the late 1970s to the early 1990s and involved thousands of homicides. Sometimes referred to as The Great Mafia War or the ''Mattanza'' (Italian for 'Slaughter'), it involved the entire Mafia and radically altered the power balance within the organization. In addition to the violence within the Mafia itself, there was violence against the state, including a campaign of deliberate assassinations of judges, prosecutors, detectives, politicians, activists and other ideological enemies. In turn, the war resulted in a major crackdown against the Mafia, helped by the ''pentiti'', Mafiosi who collaborated with the authorities after losing so many friends and relatives to the fighting. In effect, the conflict helped end the secrecy of the Mafia. Preceding events The instigators of the Second Mafia War were the Corleonesi, the Mafia Family from the town of Corleone, although they were h ...
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