Giuseppe Calò

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Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò (born September 30, 1931 in Palermo , Sicily , Italy ) is an Italian mafioso.

Life

Giuseppe Calò was born in Palermo in 1931. He grew up in an environment that was strongly influenced by the Mafia culture. At the age of 23 he was accepted into the Cosa Nostra ; he became a member of the family of Porta Nuova , a district of Palermo. The relatively small family of Porta Nuova was - and is - one of the more important families of Palermo.

He rose quickly in the family hierarchy and became the boss of the family in 1969 after the end of the First Mafia War . From the beginning of the 1970s he stayed mainly in Rome , where he made contact with neo-fascist terrorists , local criminals such as the powerful Banda della Magliana and also with politicians and financial circles. In addition, Caló had also established close contacts with the Camorra . “Pippo” Calò was also seen as their “treasurer” within the Cosa Nostra, because he took care of illegally acquired funds for many families. Caló's family also included Nunzio La Mattina and Gerlando Alberti, some of the leading heroin traffickers . In the mid-1970s, there was a break within the Cosa Nostra between their traditional representatives around the alliance Gaetano Badalamenti - Stefano Bontade - Salvatore Inzerillo and the Corleonesi , which were led by Luciano Liggio , Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano and soon came to terms with the traditional and mighty Grecos allied to Michele Greco . Calò, initially an ally of Stefano Bontade and allied with him in the Commission , soon went over to the Corleonesi. Many other bosses followed suit. In the bloody Second Mafia War from April 1981 to autumn 1983, the Corleonesi gained supremacy.

On December 23, 1984, the express train 904 from Naples to Milan was blown up, 16 people died and 200 injured. The key witness Tommaso Buscetta explained that his boss Pippo Calò had planned this attack and had it carried out by his friends from the neo-fascist milieu. The sole purpose of this was to divert public attention from the Cosa Nostra. In 1985 Calò was arrested in Rome, where he was staying under the name Mario Agliarolo. In the Maxi Trial from 1986 to 1987, Calò was sentenced to life imprisonment. However , he was acquitted of the murder of banker Roberto Calvi .

In a trial in 2001, Calò publicly renounced the Cosa Nostra and acknowledged that he had previously been a member. However, he refused to become a pentito (key witness) because he only wanted to take responsibility for himself.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Calò, Giuseppe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Calò, Pippo (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian mafioso
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Palermo , Sicily , Italy