Rosario Naimo (born August 18, 1945 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 ...

) is a member of the

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily a ...

, also known as Saro or Saruzzo. He was seen as an important go-between for the Sicilian and American Mafia, closely related with the

Gambino crime family The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Ame ...

. He is a man of honour from the Tommaso Natale-Cardillo Mafia family that later became part of San Lorenzo family.Il latitante tradito da un malore in strada
La Repubblica, October 29, 2010

Mafia member

He became a member of the Mafia in Sicily in 1965 and immigrated to

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

in the United States in 1968.Mauro De Mauro, “Ecco dov’è il suo corpo”
Le Repubblica, January 14, 2011 According to a 2006 report of the

New Jersey State Commission of Investigation The New Jersey State Commission of Investigation (SCI) is an independent governmental fact-finding agency in the U.S. State of New Jersey whose mission is to identify and investigate organized crime, corruption and waste, fraud and abuse in governm ...

, Naimo was the head of the Sicilian Mafia in the United States at the time. He succeeded Francesco Gambino, convicted for his role in running the "Iron Tower" conspiracy – a drug trafficking and money laundering operation.Organized Crime in New Jersey
Commission of Investigation, State of New Jersey, 2006 He was a man so powerful that the Sicilian Mafia boss of bosses

Salvatore 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 ...

said of him that he was "more powerful than the President of the United States".Arrestato Rosario Naimo, l'uomo "piu' potente del presidente degli Stati Uniti"
AntiMafia Duemila, October 29, 2010

Guaranteeing Mafia peace

Naimo is related to the expulsion of the Inzerillo clan by 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 ...

after 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 ...

in the years 1981-1983. Riina had 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 ...

to adopt a ruling that allowed the surviving Inzerillos to take refuge in the U.S., with the agreement that none of them, or their offspring, could ever return to Sicily.Changes in Mafia Leadership Reveal New Links to US-Based La Cosa Nostra
DNI Open Source Center, November 19, 2007 Many went to the New York area and joined forces with their relatives in the

. They were dubbed "gli scappati" (the escapees).Top Sicilian Mafia Boss Arrested
Time Magazine, November 5, 2007 However, after the arrest of Totò Riina (1993) and other hard-line Corleonesi like

Leoluca Bagarella Leoluca Bagarella (; born 3 February 1942) is an Italian criminal and member of the Sicilian Mafia. He is from the town of Corleone. Following Salvatore Riina's arrest in early 1993, Bagarella became the head of the stragist strategy faction, opp ...

(1995), the Inzerillos started to come back to Sicily. At the time, Naimo had been appointed to guarantee the agreement.La riscoperta dell'America nuovo fronte di Cosa Nostra
La Repubblica, July 12, 2007

Cocaine trafficking

At the end of the 1980s he had been involved with cocaine trafficking. His name was mentioned in relation to the seizure 600 kilograms of cocaine on the vessel "Big John" of the coast

Castellamare del Golfo Castellammare del Golfo (; scn, Casteddammari; la, Emporium Segestanorum or ) is a town and municipality in the Trapani Province of Sicily. The name can be translated as "Sea Fortress on the Gulf", stemming from the medieval fortress in the ha ...

in Eastern Sicily in January 1988. A pact between Sicilian mafiosi and Colombian traffickers of the Medellin cartel stipulated that this should be the first of a series of even larger shipments, with Cosa Nostra aiming for the monopoly of cocaine distribution in Western Europe.
Cooperation Between Organized Crime Groups Around The World
', by Alison Jamieson, Jahrbuch für internationale Sicherheitspolitik 1999, December 1999 . At the time the cooperation between the two criminal organisations was seen as serious threat. In May 1992, just ten days before the Mafia murdered him, judge

Giovanni Falcone Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian ...

referred to this case during a conference on drug trafficking, warning of the consequences of “joint ventures in illicit activity at international level.” In his words, the Colombian-Sicilian deal provided “the proof of the beginning of direct contacts

hich are Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District (Ijrud County), Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 72 ...

extremely dangerous for the possible risk of operational fusion between criminal organizations of considerable economic power and great operational capacity.”

Fugitive and arrest

Naimo has been a fugitive since and was arrested in

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

on October 27, 2010. He was 65 years old at the time of capture.Mafia, arrestato il latitante Rosario Naimo
Giornale di Sicilia, October 29, 2010 After his arrest he started to collaborate with the Prosecutors Office in Palermo, Sicily. One of the many things he revealed was where and how 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 ...

was killed in September 1970. The killing of De Mauro is one of the unsolved mysteries in Italy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Naimo, Rosario 1945 births Living people Sicilian mafiosi Pentiti Italian exiles