U.S. mob families looking to Sicily for new recruits

By Tom Rachman
The Associated Press

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

ROME — Ratted on by fellow wiseguys and hounded by police, struggling American Mafiosi are recruiting Sicilian mobsters, believing the island's hardheaded gangsters are more likely to keep their mouths shut, U.S. and Italian organized-crime officials say.

Authorities worry that the Sicilian Mafia — known in the past for gunning down police and blowing up judges — might also send this approach to the United States.

A top Sicilian Mafia turncoat recently told Italian police that U.S.-based mob families were looking to Sicily to recruit members, Italy's anti-Mafia commission chief Sen. Roberto Centaro said after meeting with FBI officials in Washington, D.C. The claims were confirmed in U.S. and Italian wiretaps, Centaro said.

"This type of phenomenon was born when the American authorities' actions became much stronger and more effective, which in recent years reached a crescendo in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York," Centaro said. U.S. mobsters have begun facing serious setbacks as the federal government has applied new racketeering laws and the number of turncoats has increased.

Matthew Heron, assistant special agent in charge of the organized-crime branch in the FBI's New York office, said the combination of convictions and turncoats had led to "a leadership vacuum" in some crime gangs, such as the Bonannos.

In January, FBI agents and U.S. police officers arrested dozens of suspected mobsters linked to the Bonannos after a high-ranking member of the New York City crime family wore a wire.

"(U.S. mobsters) have reached out toward Sicily to bring some people over to fill some gaps, with part of that rationale being the thought that the Sicilians are much more inclined to maintain the sacred vow of silence," Heron said. "It would not be accurate to say they have assumed leadership roles within the family," he said. "But by virtue of the fact that they are here, they are establishing themselves. In the foreseeable future, it's safe to say we expect to see them assuming leadership."

Heron said the Mafia in America has always avoided going after U.S. law enforcement to keep out of the public eye, but "that's not necessarily the case with the Sicilians."

He said officials are not aware of any plans to launch attacks on American authorities, but "it's not outside the realm of possibility, and it's something we want to keep a close eye on."
 
The Sicilian Mafia of the 1980s and early '90s launched what is known here as "the massacre strategy," murdering anyone brave enough to oppose it.

This culminated in the 1992 slayings of two nationally admired Sicilian prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, both of whom were killed in huge bomb blasts. Italians were outraged and a major crackdown followed.

In a further U.S.-Sicilian tie, a top Sicilian turncoat told police that American mobsters are sending their members to the island for lessons in thuggery.

"They send them here to Sicily to make them become men of honor, to make them do training, because in America there's this attack on the values — there's no respect anymore," mobster Antonino Giuffre told investigators, according to Italy's ANSA news agency. "The American Mafia is different and it needs some of our qualities."

Some here question how reliable Giuffre's information is, but anti-Mafia investigators broadly confirm it.

Sicilian gangsters infiltrated the United States among the waves of immigrants who arrived at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. After World War II, some were deported back to Sicily, where they are believed to have helped strengthen the local clans, which had been devastated during Mussolini's Fascist regime.

"The Sicilian and American groups have affected each other reciprocally according to circumstances," said Professor Salvatore Lupo, a Mafia expert at the University of Palermo. "They have a common heritage. But from what we know, they're not the same thing."

U.S. and Italian prosecutors discovered in the 1980s during a case dubbed "The Pizza Connection" that the Sicilian Mafia was involved in a massive drug ring in America in cooperation with the U.S. mob.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company