Rosario Riccobono
Rosario Riccobono (born February 10, 1929 in Palermo ; † November 30, 1982 ibid), called "Saro" , was head of the Partanna Mondello mafia clans and, as a member of the so-called Cupola, a leading member of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra .
Life
Rosario Riccobono, originally from Mondello , was a well-known mafia heroin dealer . He built the business in the 1970s and had to flee towards the end of the decade on suspicion of smuggling large-scale heroin from Turkey into Sicily. These deliveries were organized by his right-hand man, later Pentito Gaspare Mutolo . In the early 1980s, the business was expanded to Thailand together with Nitto Santapaola from Catania . They were large deliveries of up to 500 kilograms.
As Capo Mandamento of Partanna Mondello, he became a member of the Cupola, the highest body of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, in 1974. Initially, he was close to other major heroin traffickers such as Stefano Bontade , Salvatore Inzerillo and Gaetano Badalamenti , who fought against the rising power of Salvatore Riina and the Corleonesi . Riccobono tried for a while to take a neutral position, but realized that he was isolating himself more and more in the Cupola. Riccobono turned to Michele Greco , the "Capo di tutti Capi", who was already secretly working for the Corleonesi. During the Second Mafia War, which broke out in early 1981 with the murder of Bontade and Inzerillo, Riccobono conveniently sided with the Corleonesi. On behalf of Riina, he lured a number of Stefano Bontade's friends to their deaths. Among them was Emanuele D'Agostino , Soldato of the Cosca Santa Maria di Gesù , who disappeared and was never seen again. Salvatore Contorno was also supposed to be lured into a trap to murder him. However, he became suspicious and fled to hiding. He then became a Pentito and worked with the government.
However, turning against his former allies made Riccobono an untrustworthy man, and Riina decided to get rid of him after further decimating the Bontade and Inzerillo families. Unlike other mafia families, Riina never succeeded in infiltrating the Partanna Mondello family with its people, or in smuggling mafiosi loyal to the Corleonesi there. Riina was unable to control Riccobono and planned to get the charismatic boss out of the way, not least because he had promised parts of Riccobono's territory to his other allies in Palermo. Riccobono and eight of his soldiers disappeared without a trace at the end of November 1982. It was said that the nine men were separated from each other during a dinner at Michele Greco's Fondo La Favarella estate in Ciaculli and then individually strangled with a garrot by their table companions . Among the murdered were Salvatore Scaglione , godfather of the Mandamento della Noce, Giuseppe Lauricella, his son Salvatore, Francesco Cosenza, Carlo Savoca, Vincenzo Cannella, Francesco Gambino and Salvatore Micalizzi. Giovanni Brusca and Baldassare Di Maggio are also said to have been directly involved as murderers in this “massacre” . Riccobono was strangled while taking a nap after dinner. It was said that the naked corpses were then dissolved in acid so as not to leave any traces and then disposed of. According to another account, the remains of the bodies were fed to pigs . Yet another version assumes that Riccobono and his Picciotti were killed on November 30, 1982 on Bernardo Brusca's estate in Dammusi, near San Giuseppe Jato .
Three of Riccobono's men were shot dead a few days later, and his brother Vito was found beheaded in his car. Within a few days, Riccobono's family was systematically persecuted and exterminated. One of the few survivors was Riccobono's former driver Salvatore Lo Piccolo , who came to power of the family twenty years later.
For a while, the Italian media accused Tommaso Buscetta, an enemy of Riina, of being responsible for the eradication of the Riccobono Cosca. The motive could be revenge for the recent murders of Buscetta's two sons. In fact, however, Buscetta had nothing to do with the murder of Riccobono and his men, as he was hiding in Brazil at the time . A number of Pentiti testified that it was Pino Greco who garretted Riccobono with his own hands and then organized the murders of a dozen of Riccobono's men and relatives. Rosario Riccobono was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia at the Maxi Trial , even though he was already dead by that point. Rumors of his death surfaced in the mid-1980s, but were not confirmed until the end of that decade by informant Francesco Marino Mannoia. Riccobono's body was never found.
Trivia
It was believed that Caravaggio's famous work of art, Natività con i santi Lorenzo e Francesco d'Assisi , was in his possession.
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Notes and individual references
- ↑ La Mafia dei perdenti: Riccobono. Il terrorista from la corda al collo. Live Sicilia. (it.)
- ↑ L'Uono che tradi Riina. La Repubblica. January 24, 1993. (it.)
- ↑ Blackhous. Psychopedia: The Wikipedia Serial Killer Files . Blackhouse Applications. 2014.
- ^ Peter Robb: Midnight in Sicily. Vintage Classics, 2015, ISBN 978-0-09-959580-9 , pp. 83 ff.
- ^ Gioacchino Nania: San Giuseppe e la Mafia: nascita e sviluppo del Fenomeno nell'area dello Jato . L'eliminazione di Rosario Riccobono e Salvatore Scaglione. Gioacchino Nania, 2000, ISBN 978-88-87630-02-2 , p. 23.
- ^ Sicilian "boys", Mafia expression for soldati
literature
- John Dickie: Cosa Nostra. A story of the Sicilian Mafia . London. 2004. Coronet. ISBN 0-340-82435-2 .
- Anna Vinci: Gaspare Mutolo: La mafia non lascia tempo. Chiarelettere Publishing House. 2019.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Riccobono, Rosario |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian mafioso |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 10, 1929 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Palermo |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 30, 1982 |
| Place of death | Palermo |