Palermo Mafia Summit

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The so-called Palermo Mafia Summit is the four-day meeting of high-ranking mafiosi from the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the US American La Cosa Nostra , which took place between October 10 and 16, 1957 in the Grand Hotel Et Des Palmes and the Spano restaurant in Palermo ( Sicily ) should have taken place. The FBI believes that the meeting was organized by the head of the Bonanno family from New York City , Joseph Bonanno .

According to other sources, however, “Lucky” invited Luciano , Genco Russo , Tommaso Buscetta , the brothers La Barbera and Salvatore “Cichiteddu” Greco .

Attendees

US Mafia participant

Joseph Bonanno, Carmine Galante , Giovanni Bonventre , Francesco Garofalo , Lucky Luciano , Santo Sorge (possibly Steve Maggadino from Buffalo and Giovanni "Papa John" Priziola from Detroit )

Participant of the Sicilian Mafia

Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco , Salvatore "The Engineer" Greco , Giuseppe Genco Russo , Angelo La Barbera , Gaetano Badalamenti , Calcedonio Di Pisa , Tommaso Buscetta

Agreements

Agreements are said to have been made to start the largest drug trafficking in heroin that had ever taken place. Up until that time, although the Sicilian Mafia was always involved in the heroin business to some extent in the 1950s and 1960s, it had always played a secondary role in the world drug market. According to the so-called Valachi Hearings in 1963, Sicily was nothing more than a stopover from the heroin shipments produced in France and shipped to the USA. Until the 1970s, Sicilian mafiosi were largely avoided in the oligopoly on the heroin market, as they were not competitive compared to other European criminal groups such as Corsican groups from Marseille or the "French Connection".

As a result, in any case, the Sicilians were allowed to sell their drugs themselves in the USA against payment of a fee. The American mafiosi had been strictly forbidden from drug trafficking by their godparents in previous years in order to avoid too much attention from the criminal authorities. However, Vito Genovese , Carmine Galante, and others did not adhere to this agreement because the drug trade created huge profit margins. After the meeting in Palermo in 1957, the Sicilians began to build the infrastructure for the drug trafficking in heroin left to them. What resulted from this was later referred to as the so-called Pizza Connection . Sicily was increasingly becoming the central hub for heroin supplied from the Near and Middle East . Particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, the Pizza Connection grew into a highly profitable business, with the well-organized Sicilian Cosa Nostra making several hundred million dollars each year.

In addition, as in the USA, a " commission " was formed in Sicily, which consisted of twelve members and was known as the "cupola" (cupola). Their first chairmanship ( primus inter pares ) was taken over by Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco and not by one of the brothers Angelo or Salvatore La Barbera favored by Luciano .

No concrete evidence

To date, however, there is no concrete first-hand evidence for these meetings, but rather counter-statements by, for example, the Pentito Tommaso Buscetta, who denies that this summit as such should ever have taken place. According to Buscetta, Joe Bonanno had spent several days at the Grand Hotel Et Des Palmes and received several guests the whole time. Bonanno himself mentioned this trip to Palermo in his memoirs, but said nothing about a summit meeting.

Buscetta also claimed that although there was a meeting on the evening of October 12, 1957 in a private room in the Spano restaurant , in which Bonanno, the guest of honor, was only given a celebration by his old friend Lucky Luciano. Among the guests were Joe Bonanno, his underboss Carmine Galante, Angelo and Salvatore La Barbera, Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, Gaetano Badalamenti, Gioacchino Pennino , Cesare Manzella , Rosario Mancino , Filippo and Vincenzo Rimi and Tommaso Buscetta himself. That evening Bonanno is said to have only successfully proposed to found a Sicilian Mafia Commission based on the model of the Commission of the American Mafia, which was established there in 1931. Buscetta also described the commission as an instrument to “block the disputes between the members of the different families and their respective Capi; only later was their function expanded to regulate the activities of all families in a province ”.

The Italian police, on the other hand, would have observed Luciano's participation in various meetings. However, the reports were buried in Palermo's filing cabinets. A copy is said to have been sent to the FBI in Washington, but it was not until eight years later that the report was used to indict the participants and some of their partners in Palermo.

Trial against the participants

In August 1965, the Palermo's public prosecutor charged 17 members and associated the Sicilian and American mafia. Among other things, the formation of a criminal association was accused, which is said to have been brought into being at the so-called Palermo Mafia summit.

Those charged included Bonanno, Bonventre, Galante, Sorge, Magaddino, John Priziola (Detroit), Raffaele Quasarano (Detroit), Frank Paulo Coppola and Joe Adonis . However, the Court of Palermo dismissed the case in June 1968 for lack of evidence.

Adaptations

  • The 1973 film Lucky Luciano filmed how mafiosi from the Sicilian and American Cosa Nostra met at the Grand Hotel Et Des Palmes to make arrangements about drug trafficking from Europe to America.

literature

  • Pino Alarchy: Addio Cosa Nostra. La vita di Tommaso Buscetta , Rizzoli, Milan 1994. ISBN 978-88-17-84299-0
  • Joseph Bonanno: A Man of Honor . Buccaneer Books, 1998, ISBN 1-56849-722-9 . (or Shawcross & Young, 1983)
  • John Dickie : Cosa Nostra. The history of the mafia. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-10-013906-2 .
  • John Dickie: Omertà. The whole story of the mafia. Camorra, Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-013910-8
  • Diego Gambetta: The Godfather's Company: The Sicilian Mafia and its Business Practices. dtv, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-423-30417-0
  • Gaia Servadio: Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day , Secker & Warburg, 1976, ISBN 0-8128-2101-7
  • Claire Sterling: Octopus. How the long reach of the Sicilian Mafia controls the global narcotics trade , Simon & Schuster, New York 1990, ISBN 0-671-73402-4

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Joseph Bonanno: A Man of Honor Shawcross & Young , 1983, pp. 44-45
  2. see John Dickie 2006, p. 357
  3. a b “Mafia, secret services and politics of the USA. Part 4 (1956 to 1960) " on www.us-politik.ch (English)
  4. Gaia Servadio: Mafioso , p. 189
  5. ^ Claire Sterling: Octopus , p. 83
  6. ^ Pino Arlacchi , Mafia Business , p. 203, quoting: US Senate, Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics , Report of the Committee on Government Operations, Washington DC, 1965
  7. a b Diego Gambetta: pp. 110-112, 158f.
  8. Pino Arlacchi, Addio Cosa nostra , pp. 60-63
  9. ^ "Mafia, Secret Services, and US Politics. Part 4 (1956 to 1960) ” on us-politik.ch
  10. ^ Police in Sicily Say US Mafia Attended '57 Parley , The New York Times, January 2, 1968
  11. Italy Seizes 10 in the Mafia Linked With transition in US , The New York Times, August 3, 1965
  12. Cosa Nostra Men Cleared In Sicily; 7 From US Are Among 17 Acquitted in Rackets Case , The New York Times, June 26, 1968