User:Mafia Expert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As my WP-name Mafia Expert suggest I am interested in the Mafia and somewhat arrogantly consider myself an expert on the matter. I have at home an extensive library of books about Cosa Nostra in Italian, French and English, so I can actually check facts without having to rely on the often shaky legends and myths that float around on the Internet and unfortunately are repeated in Wikipedia too often.

Some of the articles on Sicilian mafiosi I initiated:

• Calogero Vizzini (1877 – 1954), the Mafia boss of Villalba who was considered to be one of the most influential Mafia bosses of Sicily after World War II until his death in 1954. In the media he was often depicted as the "boss of bosses" – although such a position does not exist in the loose structure of the Mafia.
• Giuseppe Genco Russo (1893 – 1976), Mafia boss of Mussomeli, considered to be the heir of Calogero Vizzini.
• Cesare Manzella (1897 – 1963), the head of the Mafia family in Cinisi who sat on the first Sicilian Mafia Commission and was killed by a car bomb during the First Mafia War.
• Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco (1923 – 1978), boss of the Mafia Family in Ciaculli. He was the first "secretary" of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission that was formed somewhere in 1958.
• Giuseppe Di Cristina (1923 – 1978), boss of the Mafia Family in Riesi who was killed by the Corleonesi.
• Angelo La Barbera (1924 – 1975), boss of the Mafia Family in Palermo Centro, who was one of the protagonists of the First Mafia War.
• Michele Cavataio' (died 1969), the boss of the Acquasanta mandamento in Palermo and a member of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission.
• Giuseppe Calderone (1925 – 1978) boss of the Mafia Family in Catania and the first ‘secretary’ of the interprovincial Sicilian Mafia Commission.
• Antonino Calderone (born 1935), the brother of Giuseppe Calderone who turned state witness (pentito) in 1987.
• Benedetto Santapaola (born 1938), Mafia boss of Catania.
• Gaspare Mutolo (born 1940), the first mafioso who spoke about the connections between Cosa Nostra and Italian politicians.
• Salvatore Cancemi (born 1942), a pentito who made controversial declarations on the links between former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Cosa Nostra.
• Antonino Giuffrè (born 1945), boss of the Mafia Family of Caccamo who became one of the most important Mafia turncoats (pentito) after his arrest in April 2002.
• Pietro Aglieri (born 1959), listed as the emerging man of the year 1995 in Italy by The Guardian.
• Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia family from Siculiana who held a key position in the illicit drug trade and money laundering for Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and 1990s. The Italian press baptized the clan as 'The Rothschild’s of the Mafia' or 'the bankers of Cosa Nostra'.

Some of the articles on Sicilian mafiosi I re-edited significantly:

• Nicola Gentile (1885 - ??), a Sicilian mafioso and an organized crime figure in New York City.
• Stefano Bontade (1939 – 1981), boss of the Mafia Family in Santa Maria di Gesù in Palermo who was killed by the Corleonesi in 1981 during the Second Mafia War.
• Salvatore Lo Piccolo (born 1942), considered to be one of the successors of Provenzano.
• Matteo Messina Denaro (born 1962), considered to be one of the successors of Provenzano.

I also initiated or significantly re-edited some articles on Mafia related people and events:

• Ciaculli massacre in June 1963 that changed a Mafia war into a war against the Mafia.
• Sicilian Mafia Commission.
• Grand Hotel des Palmes Mafia meeting 1957, the so-called Palermo Mafia summit in 1957 that has become a legendary landmark in the international heroin trade in popular Mafia non-fiction. The question is if it ever took place.
• Corleonesi, the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s.
• Origin of the term 'mafia'.
• Omertà, the code of silence.

And to give credit to the people who resisted the Mafia and sometimes lost their lives while doing it, I created the Category:Antimafia and Category:Pentiti, and initiated articles on:

• Danilo Dolci, (1924 – 1997) was a social activist best known for his opposition against poverty, social exclusion and the Mafia on Sicily and is considered to be one of the protagonists of the non-violence movement in Italy.
• Giuseppe Impastato, (1948 – 1978) was a political activist who opposed the Mafia that ordered his murder in 1978.
• Giuseppe Fava, (1925 - 1984) was a Sicilian investigative journalist who was killed by the Mafia.
• Michele Pantaleone, (1911 – 2002) was a journalist and expert on the Sicilian Mafia and one of the first to shed light on the links between organized crime and political power.

For comments and suggestions mail to mafia.expertatxs4all.nl

User:Mafia Expert/Mafia timeline