Pizzino

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Pizzino (plural: Pizzini ; Sicilian pizzinu , German  slips of paper ) is the Italian one name for a weiterzugebende written note . This can be a work instruction between colleagues, but also a shopping list.

In addition to the usual use of this word, it has now acquired a negative connotation , especially for coded or uncoded strips of paper that circulate within the Sicilian Mafia , the Cosa Nostra . It went from the harmless "permission to marry, to encapsulated death sentences, to the simple determination of who supports whom". Electronic communication was taboo because it was not secure against eavesdropping. Multiple attacks, escapes from prisons and other crimes have been shown to have taken place with the help of Pizzini. The decryption of these secret messages in the early 2000s resulted in numerous arrests by police. A key figure here was the godfather Bernardo Provenzano , who had been on the run for decades and was arrested by investigators on April 11, 2006 near Corleone . Provenzano used the symmetrical Caesar encryption , in which the meaning of the individual letters is shifted by a certain number of places.

Handwritten key by Bernardo Provenzano with an alphabet shifted by five letters for coding secret texts

One of the most senior mafiosi who could be arrested by using the pizzini was Vito Gondola . He was seen placing pieces of paper under stones that were picked up by others with telephone instructions such as “The sheep can be sheared” or “The ricotta is ready”.

A year and a half later, the authorities also found Salvatore Lo Piccolo in the network through the use of these little papers . The last remaining Mafia boss is Matteo Messina Denaro , who spent half of his life in hiding. It was also he who improved the communication system. Obviously, he saw the noose of investigation tighten as he ordered improvements to the pizzini's handling. The pieces of paper should be destroyed immediately after reading and an answer had to be given within two weeks. The pieces of paper were written on by hand with the smallest possible font, folded tightly and pressed together with adhesive tape so that they looked like short cigarettes when they were sent.

For a long time, the Cosa Nostra knew how to exchange ideas unnoticed with the help of pizzini, especially in places where it was or could be bugged. The pizzini's path deliberately passed through many hands in order to conceal the path from the sender to the addressee and to shake off the investigative authorities. The large number of intercepted pizzini, which were always encrypted using the same code, ultimately led to the success of the police: after they had collected a sufficient number of pizzini, they were able to quickly decode the code and identify the people involved in a court-proof manner.

Because of the sometimes idiosyncratic orthography , there were also arguments within the clan. Provenzano wrote at primary school level and, for example, mixed up the letters “t” and “d” as well as “g” and “c” - just as he spoke his Sicilian dialect . Occasionally this inevitably led to misunderstandings, but it did not detract from his claim to the leadership role within the clan, but rather contributed to camouflage for the internationally active businessman. Provenzano's long-time assistant Pino Lipari, who was arrested early on, complained during a visit to his son Arturo that he was not transferring all of his instructions to the pizzini. Arturo replied that his father had used too many Ave Marias in the text, that some grammatical errors had to be corrected, and that some expressions were out of date. The journalist and proven British mafia expert Clare Longrigg (* 1963) suspects that Lipari either wanted to ingratiate himself with his boss with this deliberate misspelling or to lead the police on the wrong track, since she was obviously dealing with an illiterate person.

Since the first spectacular arrest, the word pizzino found its way into Italian public reporting . This is how the term for short messages between the members of parliament - apparently joking - came to the Roman parliament. A set of small white notes with the brand name Pizzini has been on the market since 2010 . The Fabriano papermaker is also said to be controlled by the Mafia.

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrea Camilleri : The boss's note. In: Deutschlandfunk , July 20, 2009.
  2. ^ A b Rossella Lorenzi: Mafia Boss's Encrypted Messages Deciphered. In: Discovery News , April 23, 2006.
  3. ^ Arrestato Bernardo Provenzano. Pisanu: "Mafia decapitata". Chronicle of events. In: La Repubblica , January 4, 2010.
  4. ↑ a b Stefan Ulrich : The Godfather and the Pizzini. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 19, 2010.
  5. ↑ Il pizzino. In: pagano.wordpress.com , June 10, 2009.
  6. ↑ Clare Longrigg: Boss of Bosses: A Journey into the Heart of the Sicilian Mafia. Macmillan, New York City 2009, ISBN 978-1-4299-5348-1 , 152.
  7. ^ E Cossiga gioca con i pizzini. In: La Repubblica , May 19, 2006.