Giuseppe Di Cristina (April 22, 1923 – May 30, 1978) was a powerful mafioso from

Riesi Riesi is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Caltanissetta in the Italian region Sicily, located about southeast of Palermo and about south of Caltanissetta. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 11,678 and an area of .All de ...

in the

province of Caltanissetta The Province of Caltanissetta ( it, provincia di Caltanissetta; scn, pruvincia di Nissa or ; officially ''Libero consorzio comunale di Caltanissetta'') is a province in the southern part of Sicily, Italy. Following the suppression of the Sicilia ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, southern

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 re ...

. Di Cristina, nicknamed “la tigre’’ (the tiger), was born into a traditional

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

family, his father Francesco Di Cristina and his grandfather were ''men of honour'' as well. In 1975 he became the head of Cosa Nostra in the Caltanissetta province and a member of the

Interprovincial Commission The Interprovincial Commission (Italian: ''Commissione interprovinciale''), also known as "''Regione''", "''commissione regionale''" or "''cupola regionale''") is a governing body of Cosa Nostra. It gathered only to deliberate important decisions ...

of the Mafia. Three years later he was killed by a rival Mafia faction, the

Corleonesi The Corleonesi Mafia clan was a faction within the Corleone family of the Sicilian Mafia, formed in the 1970s. Notable leaders included Luciano Leggio, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, and Leoluca Bagarella. Corleonesi affiliates were n ...

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 ...

and

Bernardo Provenzano Bernardo Provenzano (; 31 January 1933 – 13 July 2016) was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia clan known as the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone, and ''de facto'' the boss of bosses (''il c ...

. His death was a prelude to the

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 ...

, which would start in 1981 after the Corleonesi killed

Stefano Bontade Stefano Bontade (23 April 1939 – 23 April 1981) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. His actual surname was Bontate. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the ''Principe di Villagrazia'' (Prin ...

Mafia heritage

Di Cristina's grandfather Giuseppe Di Cristina was a giant strong man and a ''

gabelloto In Sicily, a ''gabellotto'' or ''arbitriante'' was a person who rented farmland for short-term use. They were rural entrepreneurs who leased the lands from aristocrats more attracted to the comforts of the city.Gambetta, ''The Sicilian Mafia'', pp. ...

'' – a leaseholder of an estate subletting land. When it was time to show who would succeed him, he chose the day of the procession of the saint

San Giuseppe San Giuseppe is the Italian name of Saint Joseph. It may refer to: Places of Italy Municipalities *San Giuseppe Jato, in the Province of Palermo, Sicily *San Giuseppe Vesuviano, in the Province of Naples, Campania *Rima San Giuseppe, in the Provinc ...

. When the procession made a stop under Don Giuseppe's balcony he kissed his son Francesco in front of the whole procession, which was looking up waiting for the sign to proceed. Francesco ‘Don Ciccu’ Di Cristina then gave the procession the signal to continue. It was now clear to the village that Don Ciccu was the new boss.Servadio, ''Mafioso'', pp. 165-66 Don Ciccu was a clever boss and developed good relationships with the Palermo Mafia families and political groups. Francesco ‘Don Ciccu’ Di Cristina died on September 13, 1961. A holy image was distributed among the population. It read: “A enemy of all injustices he showed with word and deed that his Mafia was not delinquency but respect for the law of honour”. His eldest son Giuseppe Di Cristina replaced him.

Political connections

Di Cristina was known as the ‘elector’ of Calogero Volpe, an MP for

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 ...

party (DC –

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 ...

). Giuseppe's brother Antonio Di Cristina would become the mayor of Riesi and the under-secretary of the Christian Democrat party of the Caltanissetta province. According to the

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 ...

Antonino Calderone Antonino Calderone (October 24, 1935January 10, 2013) was a Sicilian Mafioso who turned state witness (''pentito'') in 1987 after his arrest in 1986. Antonino was born in Catania, the brother of Giuseppe Calderone, the boss of the local Mafia. ...

: “''They were the bosses of the Riesi Mafia for three generations … the supported the Democrazia Cristiana, they were all DC.''”Stille, Excellent Cadavers, p. 233-34. Di Cristina's best men at his marriage were

Giuseppe Calderone Giuseppe “Pippo” Calderone (Catania, November 1, 1925 – Catania, September 8, 1978) was an influential Sicilian mafioso from Catania, eventually becoming the capo of the Catania Mafia family. He became the ‘secretary’ of the Interprovi ...

– the Mafia boss of

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 ...

– and Christian Democrat senator Graziano Verzotto. Verzotto was the president of the state-owned Ente Minerario Siciliano (EAS - the Sicilian Mines Authority), which was created after World War II to try to stem the crisis in the

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...

mining industry. After he returned from an internal banishment in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

due to the Mafia crackdown by the Italian authorities after the

Ciaculli massacre The Ciaculli massacre on 30 June 1963 was caused by a car bomb that exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvator ...

in 1963, Di Cristina was made treasurer of the EAS-owned company So. Chi. Mi. Si. (Società Chimica Mineraria Siciliana), presided over by Verzotto, although he was known to the police as a mafioso and had been subject to special police measures.Servadio, ''Mafioso'', pp. 211-12 Di Cristina changed sides in his political preferences because he got no support from the Christian Democrats when he was in trouble over a restraining order. Instead he turned to

Aristide Gunnella Aristide Gunnella (born 1931) is an Italian politician from the Italian Republican Party, Republican Party of which he was a member until July 1991. He was the Italian Minister of Regional Affairs, minister of regional affairs in the period 1987� ...

from the small

Italian Republican Party The Italian Republican Party ( it, Partito Repubblicano Italiano, PRI) is a liberal and social-liberal political party in Italy. Founded in 1895, the PRI is the oldest political party still active in Italy. The PRI has old roots and a long histo ...

(PRI). In the next elections Gunnella suddenly received an avalanche of votes in comparison to what they used to get. Despite the upheaval about Gunnella's relationship with Di Cristina, he was defended by Republican Party leader

Ugo La Malfa Ugo La Malfa (16 May 1903 – 26 March 1979) was an Italian politician and an important leader of the Italian Republican Party (''Partito Repubblicano Italiano''; PRI). Early years and anti-fascist resistance La Malfa was born in Palermo, Sic ...

. The party could not do without one of his top vote-getters. La Malfa made Gunnella a minister of government. The case was first exposed by the journalist

Mauro De Mauro Mauro De Mauro (; 6 September 1921 – disappeared 16 September 1970) was an Italian investigative journalist. Originally a supporter of Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, De Mauro eventually became a journalist with the left-leaning newspaper ...

of ''

L'Ora ''L'Ora'' (English: ''The Hour'') was a Sicilian daily newspaper published in Palermo. The paper was founded in 1900 and stopped being published in 1992. In the 1950s-1980s the paper was known for its investigative reporting about the Sicilian Maf ...

'', who would disappear on September 17, 1970.

Involvement in murders

According to the

Tommaso Buscetta Tommaso Buscetta (; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was an Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization. Buscetta participated i ...

, Di Cristina was involved in the killing of

Enrico Mattei Enrico Mattei (; 29 April 1906 – 27 October 1962) was an Italian public administrator. After World War II he was given the task of dismantling the Italian petroleum agency Agip, a state enterprise established by the Fascist regime. I ...

, the controversial president of the state oil company Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi ( ENI) who died in a mysterious plane crash on October 27, 1962. Di Cristina's men allegedly sabotaged Mattei's plane, according to the pentito

Francesco Di Carlo Francesco Di Carlo (February 18, 1941 – April 16, 2020) was a member of the Sicilian Mafia who turned state witness (pentito — a mafioso turned informer) in 1996. He was accused of being the killer of Roberto Calvi, nicknamed "God's ...

. In 1970 the

Sicilian Mafia Commission The Sicilian Mafia Commission (Italian: ''Commissione provinciale''), known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Sicilian Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicili ...

was reconstituted. One of the first issue that had to be confronted was an offer of prince

Junio Valerio Borghese Junio Valerio Scipione Ghezzo Marcantonio Maria Borghese (6 June 1906 – 26 August 1974), nicknamed The Black Prince, was an Regia Marina, Italian Navy commander during the regime of Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party and a prominent har ...

who asked for support for his plans for a neofascist coup in return for a pardon of convicted mobsters like Vincenzo Rimi and

Luciano Leggio Luciano Leggio (; 6 January 1925 – 15 November 1993) was an Italian criminal and leading figure of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the head of the Corleonesi, the Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone. He is universally known with th ...

and Di Cristina went to visit Borghese in Rome.

Gaetano Badalamenti Gaetano Badalamenti (; 14 September 1923 – 29 April 2004) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. ''Don Tano'' Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s. In 198 ...

opposed the plan. However, the

Golpe Borghese The ''Golpe Borghese'' (English: Borghese Coup) was a failed Italian ''coup d'état'' allegedly planned for the night of 7 or 8 December 1970. It was named after Junio Valerio Borghese, wartime commander of the Decima Flottiglia MAS and a her ...

fizzled out in the night of December 8, 1970."De Mauro venne ucciso perché sapeva del golpe"
La Repubblica, January 26, 2001 One of Di Cristina's most trusted men, Damiano Caruso, was allegedly one of the killers of a Mafia hit-squad dressed in a police uniforms that executed

Michele Cavataio Michele Cavataio (18 March 1929 – 10 December 1969), also known as ''Il cobra'' (The cobra) was an Italian mobster and powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Acquasanta mandamento in Palermo and was a member of the first S ...

on December 10, 1969, in the Viale Lazio in Palermo as retaliation for the events during the

First Mafia War The Ciaculli massacre on 30 June 1963 was caused by a car bomb that exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvato ...

in 1963. Cavataio had been fuelling the Mafia war by killing members of both the warring factions.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', p. 103-04 Caruso would be killed years later in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. Di Cristina was arrested but acquitted for lack of evidence in the second

Trial of the 114 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 al ...

in July 1974. In yet another trial in Agrigento over a vendetta between Mafia clans in Riesi and

Ravanusa Ravanusa ( Sicilian: ''Rivinusa'') is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Agrigento in the Italian region Sicily, located about southeast of Palermo and about east of Agrigento. Ravanusa is near the Monte Saraceno archaeological sit ...

over a refusal to stash a load of smuggled cigarettes belonging to Di Cristina. Again all defendants, including Di Cristina, were acquitted for lack of proof in March 1974.

Confronting the Corleonesi

Di Cristina was one of the first who saw the danger of the strategy of the

of "Totò" Riina to dominate Cosa Nostra. Di Cristina clashed with the Corleonesi over the killing of Lieutenant-Colonel Giuseppe Russo of the Carabinieri on August 20, 1977. Russo, who according to the Corleonesi was a confidant of Di Cristina, was killed without the consent of the Commission, which had opposed a prior request by

and

. Di Cristina understood the strategy of the Corleonesi. While the more established Mafia families in

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 ...

refrained from openly killing authorities because that would attract too much police attention, the Corleonesi deliberately killed to intimidate the authorities in such a way that the suspicion would fell on their rivals in the Commission. Di Cristina became one of the main targets of the Corleonesi, just as

. The Corleonesi were attacking the allies of the Palermo families in the other provinces to isolate men like

Salvatore Inzerillo Salvatore Inzerillo (; 20 August 1944 – 11 May 1981) was an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio (a diminutive for Salvatore). He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family. A prolific heroin trafficke ...

and

. On November 21, 1977, Di Cristina survived a shooting, but his most loyal men Giuseppe Di Fede and Carlo Napolitano were murdered by the Corleonesi. In January 1978, the old and ailing former head of the

Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco (; 13 January 1923 – 7 March 1978) was a powerful mafioso and boss of the Sicilian Mafia Family in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo famous for its citrus fruit groves, where he was born. His nickname was "Ci ...

came all the way from Venezuela to try to refrain Di Cristina,

and

from retaliating against the growing power of the Corleonesi. Di Cristina and Badalamenti wanted to kill Francesco Madonia, the boss of

Vallelunga Vallelunga (Italian for ''long valley'') is a valley, or plateau,Tonino Floris, Marco Spada, ''Pedalando nel Lazio''p. 97 Edizioni Mediterranee, 1996 . near Campagnano di Roma, Italy. See also * Vallelunga Circuit The Autodromo Vallelunga P ...

Mafia family and an ally of the Corleonesi in the

. Greco tried to convince them not to go ahead and offered Di Cristina to emigrate to Venezuela. Nevertheless, Badalamenti and Di Cristina decided to go on and on April 8, 1978 Francesco Madonia was murdered.

Police informer

Di Cristina became more and more isolated. He decided to inform the

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 polic ...

about the danger of the Corleonesi. The first meeting took place on April 16, 1978. According to the Carabinieri officer who met him, Di Cristina looked like a hunted animal. Di Cristina gave a full picture of the internal division within Cosa Nostra between the Corleonesi led by

and the faction of

and

. The Corleonesi had a secret death squad of fourteen men and were infiltrating other mafia families, according to Di Cristina. He also explained the growing importance of

and

. ''"Their criminal strategy, while crazy, has its rewards,"'' Di Cristina told the Carabinieri. ''"It provokes police activity but primarily against the 'old mafiosi' who are easy to identify; it causes their terrifying prestige to grow and undermines the prestige of the 'traditional' mafia and the principles on which it depends. It attracts to them, either through fear or through the appeal of such daring undertakings, new recruits and new forces."''Stille, Excellent Cadavers, p. 107. Di Cristina was murdered on May 30, 1978 by the Corleonesi while waiting at a bus stop. His death was a prelude to the

, which would start off in 1981 when the Corleonesi killed

. The murder took place in the territory of

. That way the suspicion fell on Inzerillo and Bontade, just as Di Cristina already explained. Thousands of people attended the funeral of Di Cristina in his hometown Riesi. The mafioso Antonio ‘Nino’ Marchese received a life sentence for the murder of Di Cristina. Several relatives of Di Cristina were also attacked by the Corleonesi in the following months. Many of the followers of Di Cristina would move to another criminal organisation, the

Stidda The Stidda (; ) is a Sicilian & Maltese Mafia-type criminal organization and criminal society centered in the central-southern part of Sicily & Malta. Members are known as ''stiddari'' or ''stiddaroli''. It is most active in the rural parts o ...

.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', p. 365.

References

* Dickie, John (2004). ''Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia'', London: Coronet * Gambetta, Diego (1993). ''The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection'', London: Harvard University Press, * Servadio, Gaia (1976). ''Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day'', London: Secker & Warburg * Stille, Alexander (1995). ''Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic'', New York: Vintage

External links

Biography
1923 births 1978 deaths People from Riesi Sicilian Mafiosi Sicilian Mafia Commission Mafiosi murdered by the Corleonesi People murdered in Italy Gangsters from the Province of Caltanissetta {{Mafia