Salvatore Lo Piccolo

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Mug shot of Salvatore Lo Piccolo

Salvatore Lo Piccolo (Palermo, July 20, 1942) is a Sicilian mafioso and one of the most powerful bosses of Palermo, Sicily. He has been the boss of the Mafia family of Cardillo–Tommaso Natale since the 1970s and the San Lorenzo mandamento since the beginning of 1990s, replacing Salvatore Biondino who was sent to jail. Lo Piccolo has been a fugitive since 1983.

His influence in Palermo extends to Capaci, Isola delle Femmine, Carini, Villagrazia di Carini, Sferracavallo and Partanna-Mondello. According to Italian DIA (Direzione Investigativa Antimafia), Salvatore Lo Piccolo and his son, Sandro Lo Piccolo, are in charge of most of the urban territory of Palermo. Their area of influence encompasses the "mandamenti" of San Lorenzo, Passo di Rigano and Gangi, including the coastal area up to Cefalù, and part of the territory of Messina, including the towns of Mistretta and Tortorici.

Lo Piccolo allegedly made his fortune with drug trafficking and skimming off public contracts. He forced the residents of the low-income housing projects in the ZEN area of Palermo to pay him to keep the building corridors lit. He allegedly has strong links with the American Cosa Nostra.

In March of 2005, the Lo Piccolo clan was subject of a police operation known as the "Notte di San Lorenzo". Eighty-four arrest warrants were issued. Nonetheless, Salvatore and his son Sandro Lo Piccolo remained at large.

[edit] Successor of Provenzano ?

After the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on April 11, 2006, Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Matteo Messina Denaro were thought to be the new leaders of Cosa Nostra. However, the pizzini (small slips of paper used to communicate with other mafiosi to avoid phone conversations) found at Provenzano's hide-out indicated that Provenzano’s joint deputies in Palermo were Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Antonio Rotolo, capo mandamento of Pagliarelli, a Corleonesi loyalist in the days of Totò Riina. In a message referring to an important decision for Cosa Nostra, Provenzano told Rotolo: "It's up to you, me and Lo Piccolo to decide this thing."

On June 20, 2006, two months after Provenzano's arrest, authorities issued 52 arrest warrants against the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in the city of Palermo (Operation Gotha). Among the arrestees were Antonio Rotolo and his right-hand men Antonino Cinà (who had been the personal physician of Salvatore Riina and Provenzano) and the builder Francesco Bonura, as well as Gerlando Alberti, the now 79-years old pioneer of heroin refineries. The investigations showed that Rotolo had built a kind of federation within the Mafia, comprising 13 families grouped in four clans. The city of Palermo was ruled by this triumvirate replacing the Palermo’s Mafia Commission whose members are all in jail.

The investigation also indicated that the position of Salvatore Lo Piccolo was not undisputed. A clash between Lo Piccolo and Rotolo had been developing over a request from the Inzerillo family to be allowed to return to Palermo. The Inzerillo family had been one of the clans whose leaders – among them Salvatore Inzerillo – were killed by the Corleonesi during the second Mafia War in the 1980s and which had been in exile in the United States. Rotolo had been part of the Mafia clans that had attacked the Inzerillo clan. He was opposed to Lo Piccolo’s permission for the return of the Inzerillo’s, fearing revenge.

With the arrest of Rotolo and others, authorities claim they avoided the outbreak of a genuine war inside Cosa Nostra. Rotolo had passed a death sentence on Lo Piccolo and his son, Sandro, even before Provenzano's arrest – and had procured the barrels of acid that are used to dissolve the bodies of slain rivals. Father and son Lo Piccolo are still at large.