Timeline: Gangsters, Mafia, Organized Crime

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1282        Mar 30, Furious inhabitants of Palermo attacked French occupation force in the "Sicilian Vespers." The Mafia appeared in Sicily to revolt against French rule after a drunken soldier attacked a young woman on her wedding day.
    (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(MC, 3/30/02)

1891        Mar 14, A mob in New Orleans broke open a jail after a court dismissed charges against 19 Italian men indicted for the murder of police chief David C. Hemmessey. 11 of 19 defendants were hanged. The book "Vendetta" by Richard Gambino, and the movie of the same name, covered the event.
    (SSFC, 2/1/04, p.M3)

1902        Jul 4, Meyer Lansky (d.1983), mobster (Started numbers), was born.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky)

1905        Jan 18, Joseph Bonanno (d.2002), later NYC mafia boss, was born in Castellmmare del Golfo, Sicily.
    (SSFC, 5/12/02, p.A23)

1921        Mar 21, "Big Jim" Colisimo, US gangster, was murdered by Al Capone.
    (MC, 3/21/02)

1925-1933    Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, was used by Al Capone-led mobsters to store liquor for smuggling to the US on the Soo Line. Underground tunnels, built for steam heating the city, were converted mob quarters. In 2000 “The Tunnels of Moose Jaw” opened as a tourist attraction.
    (WSJ, 8/19/02, p.B1)

1928        Nov 4, Arnold Rothstein (46), US mobster, was shot to death at the Grand Hotel in NYC. In 2005 Nick Tosches authored “King of the Jews,” a biography of Rothstein.
    (SSFC, 6/12/05, p.B6)

1929        Apr 6, "Crazy" Joe Gallo, mobster, was born.
    (MC, 4/6/02)

1929        May 7, Albert Anselmi, John Scalise and Joseph "Top Toad" Giunta, US gangsters, were murdered by Al Capone.
    (MC, 5/7/02)

1930        Mar 17, Mob boss Al Capone was released from jail.
    (HN, 3/17/98)

1931        Oct 17, Mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was released in 1939.
    (AP, 10/17/97)

1932        Feb 2, Al Capone was sent to prison at Atlanta, Georgia, for "tax evasion."
    (MC, 2/2/02)

1932        Feb 8, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, mobster, was killed by Dutch Schultz gang.
    (MC, 2/8/02)

1932        Apr 7, Erv A. Kelley, US policeman, was shot to death by Pretty Boy Floyd.
    (MC, 4/7/02)

1932        May 4,    Mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
    (AP, 5/4/97)

1932        May 18, Luigi Malvese, bootleg gangster, was ambushed and shot to death in front of the Del Monte Barbershop at 720 Columbus Ave, SF, Ca. A police dragnet rounded up some 1,000 “usual suspect” in an attempt to pressure the underworld to rein in its wild men. Louis Dinato, Al Capone’s tailor, was among those rounded up.
    (SSFC, 6/2/02, p.D3)

1933        Jun 17, In the Kansas City Massacre 1 FBI agent, 4 cops and 1 gangster were killed by the mob.
    (MC, 6/17/02)

1933        Jul 10, 1st police radio system began operations at Eastchester Township, NY.
    (MC, 7/10/02)

1934        Mar, In SF Michael R. Catalano, underworld figure, was murdered.
    (SSFC, 3/15/09, DB p.50)

1935        Feb 2, A lie detector was 1st used in court at Portage, Wisc.
    (MC, 2/2/02)

1935        Oct 23, Abe Landau, US gangster, was murdered.
    (MC, 10/23/01)
1935        Oct 23, Dutch Schultz (33), born as Arthur Flegenheimer, was shot in the men’s room of the Palace Chop House and Tavern in Newark, New Jersey. He lingered for nearly a day before dying after being the target of a mob hit. Schultz wanted to have Thomas E. Dewey murdered because the special prosecutor had set his sights on the numbers racket operated by Schultz. A syndicate of New York’s top mobsters decided to murder Schultz because it feared the wrath of the authorities and decided against the assassination.
    (MC, 10/23/01)(HNQ, 9/27/02)

1936        Jun 18, In NYC mobster Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano (1897-1962) was found guilty on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution. On July 18 Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in state prison. He was released and deported to Italy in 1946.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luciano)

1942        Mar 12, Salvatore "the Bull" Gravano, mobster (testified against John Gotti), was born.
    (MC, 3/12/02)

1944        Mar 4, Louis Buchalter, aka Lepke, was executed at Sing Sing along with Mendy Weiss. Lepke and fellow gangsters had dispatched Weiss in 1935 to kill Dutch Schultz, who had planned to kill NYC prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey.
    (AH, 12/02, p.4)

1947        Jan 25, American gangster Al Capone died of syphilis in Miami Beach, Fla., at age 48.
    (AP, 1/25/98)(MC, 1/25/02)

1947        May 7, Nick DeJohn, former capodecina in the Chicago Family, was strangled and his body stuffed into the trunk of a car parked on a San Francisco street. DeJohn had reportedly fled Chicago after murdering several other gang members and was living in Santa Rosa, California, under an alias at the time of his death.
    (SFC, 2/8/06, p.B5)(http://tinyurl.com/8fjm7)

1947        Jun 20, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (b.1906) was shot dead at the Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill, at the order of mob associates angered over the soaring costs of Siegel’s pet project, the Flamingo resort in Las Vegas, Nev. Siegel was known as one of the most "infamous and feared gangsters of his day". Described as handsome and charismatic, he became one of the first front-page celebrity gangsters. He was also a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel was not only influential within the Jewish mob but, like his friend and fellow gangster Meyer Lansky, he also held significant influence within the American Mafia and the largely Italian-Jewish National Crime Syndicate.
    (AP, 6/20/97)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugsy_Siegel)

1950        Jul 5, Salvatore Giuliano (b.1922), Sicilian bandit, was shot by police in Castelvetrano.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Giuliano)

1957        Oct 25, Mob boss Albert Anastasia, the "Lord High Executioner" of "Murder Inc.," was shot to death in a barber shop inside the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York.
    (AP, 10/25/07)

1957        Carlo Gambino (d.1976) became head of the Gambino crime family and was later the model for Don Corleone in the film “The Godfather.”
    (SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.4)

1957        In Cuba the Capri Hotel was built in Havana. It became one of the flashiest mob joints of the time. Charles Tourine managed the nightclub and Nicholas di Costanzo ran the casino. Both were associated with Meyer Lansky and Santo Trafficante.
    (SSFC, 2/16/14, p.A10)

1959        Jan 1, Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic. American mafia scrambled to secure their cash and close casinos ahead of crowds that took to the streets and trashed their businesses. In 2008 T.J. English Morrow authored “Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba …and Then Lost It to the Revolution.”
    (SFC,10/15/97, p.C2)(AP, 1/1/98)(SFC, 1/28/00, p.A14)(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A9)

1962        Jan 26, Charles "Lucky" Luciano (65), NYC Mafia gangster, died.
    (MC, 1/26/02)

1962        May, A memo from the CIA briefing for Attorney Gen’l. Robert Kennedy revealed that $150,000 was offered to the US mob for the assassination of Fidel Castro. The mob insisted on doing the job at no charge.
    (SFC, 7/2/97, p.A5)

1964        Joseph Valachi was the first La Cosa Nostra member to publicly confirm that organized crime existed. He talked under a new Witness Security Program before a congressional committee. “The Valachi Papers” by Peter Maas was written in 1972.
    (SFC, 6/9/96, p.A-10)(SFEC, 4/20/97, Par p.7)

1964-1987    FBI agents in Boston used hit men and mob leaders as informants and shielded them from prosecution in exchange for information on the Mafia. This allowed the Winter Hill Gang to rise in power as the prosecutors brought down the Patriarcha crime family.
    (SSFC, 7/28/02, p.A5)

1965        Mar 12, Edward “Teddy” Deegan was found dead in an alley in Chelsea, Mass. A week later an FBI memo named 6 men, including Vincent J. Flemmi and Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, as the killers. Barboza became a star witness and provided false testimony to convict 4 innocent men. The New England Mafia shotgunned Barboza in SF in 1976.
    (SSFC, 7/28/02, p.A5)

1966        Fred J. Cook (1911-2003) authored "The Secret Rulers," a look at organized crime
    (SFC, 5/5/03, p.B4)

1967        Apr, Henry Hill (d.2012) completed his first major robbery when he and Thomas DeSimone, who was portrayed in an Oscar-winning performance by Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas" (1990), famously robbed Air France of a shipment of $420,000. Hill became an FBI informant following a 1980 arrest on a narcotics-trafficking charge, and testimony he delivered led to 50 arrests. Hill’s life story was documented in the book "Wiseguy" (1986) by Nicholas Pileggi.
    (ABCNews, 6/12/12)

1970        Mar 23, Mafia "Boss" Carlo Gambino was arrested for plotting to steal $3 million.
    (HN, 3/23/98)

1971        Apr 3, Joseph Valachi (b.1903), US gangster, died at La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution in Texas. A biography heavily influenced by Valachi’s memoirs and by interviews with Valachi was written by journalist Peter Maas and published in 1968 as The Valachi Papers.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Valachi)

1971        Jun 28, In NYC mobster Joseph Colombo (1924-1978) was gunned down at a Unity Day rally in Columbus Circle in Manhattan. He never regained consciousness and died seven years later.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Colombo)(SFC, 1/27/17, p.D2)

1972        Apr 7, "Crazy" Joe Gallo, flamboyant mobster, was gunned down at his 43rd birthday party in Manhattan’s Umberto's Clam House.
    (SFC, 12/30/04, p.A2)

1973        Feb 18, Frank Costello (b.1891), Italian-born US gangster, died in NYC.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Costello)

1975        Jun 19, Sam Giancana (b.1908), Italian-American mob boss, was murdered at his home in Oak Park, Ill. He had a romance with Phillis McGuire, of the McGuire Sisters vocal group, and was credited with assisting John F. Kennedy in efforts to win the presidential election. A movie was made in 1995 that depicts the Giancana-McGuire romance.
    (WSJ, 11/16/95, p.A-18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Giancana)

1975        Jul 30, Former Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the Machus Red fox Restaurant in suburban Detroit. Although presumed dead, his remains have never been found. He was scheduled to meet with Mafia captain Tony Jack Giacalone (d.2001 at 82) and New Jersey Teamster boss Anthony Provenzano. In 2004 Charles Brandt authored “I Heard You Paint Houses,” in which he says Teamster official Frank Sheeran (d.2003) claimed to have shot Hoffa. Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982.
    (HFA, '96, p.34)(AP, 7/30/97)(SFC, 2/26/01, p.A24)(SFC, 5/29/04, p.A2)

1976        Oct 15, Carlo Gambino (b.1902), US gangster, died at his summer home in Long Island.
    (www.gambino.com/bio/carlogambino.htm)

1976        Joseph “The Animal” Barboza was shotgunned in SF by the New England Mafia.
    (SSFC, 7/28/02, p.A5)

1976-1981    Joe Pistone, FBI agent, infiltrated the Bonanno family. His testimony later helped jail more than 120 mobsters.
    (SFC, 5/10/04, p.A4)

1977        Dec 6, SF FBI agents arrested James “Jimmy the Weasel” Fratianno (64), a reportedly leading West Coast Mafia figure.
    (SFC, 12/6/02, p.E16)

1979        Mar 20, In Rome, Italy, the Mafia killed Mino Pecorelli, a magazine editor. In 1996 Premier Giulio Andreotti went on trial for allegedly turning to the Mafia to kill the troublesome journalist. Andreotti was acquitted by a jury in 1999. 5 others were also acquitted. In 2002 an appeal court in Perugia sentenced Giulio Andreotti to 24 years imprisonment for ordering the murder of Pecorelli.
    (http://foi.missouri.edu/jouratrisk/italysexpm.html)(SFC, 4/12/96, p.A-12)(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A14)

1980        Mar 18, John Favara struck a killed Frank Gotti (12), the son of mobster John Gotti, as the boy darted in front of his car on a minibike in Brooklyn. Favara disappeared on July 28. In 2009 it was reported that mobster Charles Carneglia (62) had killed Favara and dissolved his body in acid.
    (SFC, 1/9/09, p.A2)

1981        There was a bloody war for control of the Bonanno family.
    (SFC, 5/10/04, p.A4)

1982        Jun 18, The body of Roberto Calvi (1920–1982), an Italian banker, was found hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge in the financial district of London. Calvi, director of Banco Ambrosiano, allegedly hanged himself following the fraudulent bankruptcy of the bank. Calvi's clothing was stuffed with building bricks, and he was carrying around $15,000 of cash in three different currencies. Calvi, dubbed by the press as "God's Banker" due to his close association with the Vatican, had gone missing on June 10. The Holy See was the main shareholder in the bank, which had been accused of laundering money for the Sicilian mafia. In 1992 Carlo De Benedetti, the chairman of Olivetti SpA, was convicted for contributing to the bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano. In 1996 courts upheld his conviction and that of 30 others. In 2003 RAI state television said prosecutors believed the Mafia killed Roberto Calvi because he lost their money and knew too much about their operations. In 2005 a trial began for 5 people in the murder of Calvi. In 2007 a jury acquitted all 5 defendants charged with the murder of Calvi.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calvi)(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A10)(AP, 7/24/03)(AP, 10/6/05)(AP, 6/6/07)(AP, 11/2/18)

1982        Jul 31, Jai Alai executive John B. Callahan (45) was fatally shot in Miami by mob hit man John Martorano. Callahan’s body was found Aug 2 in the trunk of his Cadillac. In 2008 former FBI agent John Connolly was convicted of 2nd degree murder for leaking information to mobsters that led to the shooting death of Callahan. In Jan, 2009, Connolly was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
    (SFC, 11/6/08, p.A9)(http://mafiatoday.com/?p=442)(SFC, 1/16/09, p.A2)

1982        Tony Mirra, mobster friend of Donnie Brasco (aka FBI agent Joe Pistone), was shot to death.
    (SFC, 5/10/04, p.A4)

1983        Jan 15, Meyer Lansky (born Majer Suchowlinski, July 4, 1902), American gangster, died. He and Charles "Lucky" Luciano were instrumental in the development of the so-called "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States. He was the intellectual impetus behind the Commission and the so-called "Mogul of the Mob." In 2004 Enrique Cirules authored "The Secret Life of Meyer Lansky in Havana." The book was only available in Cuba in Spanish.
    (AP, 5/28/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky)

1984        In Japan a split in the yakuza, the country’s biggest organized crime group, left some two dozen gang members dead in territorial battles.
    (Econ, 9/12/15, p.38)

1985        Dec 16, Reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant on orders from John Gotti (d.2002). Gotti seized power in the Mafia after he had Paul Castellano killed.
    (AP 12/16/97)(SFC, 6/11/02, p.A2)(SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.5)

1985-1991    In Italy a mafia war during this period claimed the lives of almost 600 people. Giovanni Tegano, a senior gangster in Reggio Calabria, was a key participant.
    (Econ, 5/8/10, p.54)

1986        Feb 10, The largest Mafia trial in history, with 474 defendants, opened in Palermo, Italy.
    (HN, 2/10/97)

1986        Dec 17, Richard Kuklinsky, a Mafia hitman known as the Iceman, was arrested in New Jersey. He was found guilty of all charges May 25, 1988. Anthony Bruno later authored “The Iceman.”
    (www.crimelibrary.com)

1986        The bodies of Tony (48) and Michael (41) Spilotro were found buried in an Indiana cornfield. Tony “The Ant” Spilotro was a top mob figure in Las Vegas. In 2005 prosecutors indicted 11 Chicago mob figures for at least 18 murders, including the Spilotros.
    (SFC, 4/26/05, p.A5)

1987        Mar 13, John Gotti was acquitted of racketeering.
    (HN, 3/13/98)

1989        Oct 29, Angelo Mercurio (1936-2006), an FBI informant, attended a Mafia induction ceremony at a suburban Boston home. His evidence helped bring down the crime family led by Raymond “Junior” Patriarca.
    (SFC, 2/13/07, p.B4)(http://tinyurl.com/36ccng)

1990        Feb 9, John Gotti (1940-2002) was acquitted of charges that he commissioned the Westies gang to shoot a union official in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. This earned him the nickname “The Teflon Don.”
    (SFC, 6/11/02, p.A2)

1990        Sep 21, Italian judge Rosario Livatino (b.1952) was killed by the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. His story inspired a novel, Il giudice ragazzino ("The Boy Judge"), written by Nando Dalla Chiesa in 1992, and this was made into a film with the same title in 1994 by director Alessandro di Robilant. In 1993 Pope John Paul II hailed him a “martyr of justice and, indirectly, of the Christian faith.”  In 2020 Pope Francis said he was a martyr for the faith and could be beatified, or declared "Blessed."  In 2021 he was beatified by the Roman Catholic church in the last formal step before possible sainthood.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosario_Livatino)(Reuters, 12/22/20)(AP, 5/9/21)

1991        Joe Massino took over as head of the Bonanno family in NYC. In 2004 he faced trial on racketeering charges and 7 murders.
    (SFC, 5/10/04, p.A4)
1991        Tano Grasso was placed under police protection after he founded Italy’s first anti-racket association. In 2011 Grasso and Lirio Abate held the Trame literary festival in Lamezia Terme focusing on books about the Mafia.
    (Econ, 7/9/11, p.84)

1992        Apr 2, John Gotti (d.2002), Mafia boss, was convicted in New York City of 5 murders and racketeering. Underboss Sammy “the Bull” Gravano provided testimony. The murders included the 1985 hit on Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino family. He was sentenced to life in prison on June 23.
    (AP, 4/2/98)(USAT, 9/24/98, p.11A)(SFC, 6/11/02, p.A2)(SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.4)

1992        May 23, In Sicily anti-Mafia investigator Giovannii Falcone was murdered on a highway outside Palermo. Falcone’s wife and 3 bodyguards were also killed. Sicilian politician Salvo Lima was also murdered. Anti-Mafia investigator Paolo Borsellino was killed in another blast some months later. In 1997 Pietro Aglieri, aka "U Signurinu" (The Little Gentleman), was arrested for involvement in all three murders. 24 mobsters were convicted in the murder in 1997, including Leoluca Bagarella.  Salvatore Riina was later credited with ordering Falcone’s murder.
    (http://giovanni-falcone.foosquare.com/)(SFC, 9/27/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.A23)(Econ 6/10/17, p.53)

1992        May 27, Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo (86), mobster (heir to the late Al Capone), died.
    (MC, 5/27/02)

1992        Jun 23, John Gotti (d.2002), Mafia boss nicknamed the "Teflon Don" after escaping unscathed from several trials during the 1980s, was convicted on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering and sentenced in New York to life in prison. His son John Gotti Jr. succeeded him as head of the Gambino crime family and was arrested in 1998.
    {Mafia, USA, New York}
    (AP, 6/23/97)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A8)

1992        Jul 19, Paolo Borsellino, Italian anti-mafia judge, was murdered by mafia. In 2014 An Italian newspaper reported that the remote control to detonate the bomb that killed anti-Mafia prosecutor Paolo Borsellino was hidden inside the intercom at his mother's Palermo residence. Salvatore Riina was later credited with ordering the murder.
    (http://paolo-borsellino.biography.ms/)(AP, 3/12/14)(Econ 6/10/17, p.53)

1992        The Italian Mafia demanded that sentences passed against some 400 Mafiosi at a mass trial in 1987 be softened and that a law that imposed a harsh prison regime for Mafiosi be repealed. A list of 12 demands was written by written by the son of Salvatore "The Beast" Riina on a scrap of paper while his father was still at large during alleged secret negotiations between the state and the Mafia. The note was only made public in 2009.
    (Reuters, 10/19/09)

1993        Jan 8, Sicilian journalist Beppe Alfano (b.1945) was killed by the Mafia.
    (SSFC, 12/19/10, p.D3)(http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beppe_Alfano)

1993        May 18, Italian police arrested Mafia boss Benedetto "Nitto" Santapaola.
    (SC, 5/18/02)

1993        May 20, Giovanni Brusca was believed to have led teams that damaged the Uffizi museum in Florence with car bombs. He is believed by many to be the leader of the Italian Mafia teams. In 1996 he was arrested in Sicily and charged with masterminding the murder of Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three bodyguards in 1992. In 1998 Mafia boss Lelluca Bagarella and 13 others were sentenced to life in prison for the May and July bombings.
    (SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-11)(SFC, 8/24/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.A23)

1993        Sep 15, In Sicily Rev. Giuseppe Puglisi (56), a spokesman against organized crime, was shot in the back of the neck while on the doorstep of his home. Courts later ruled the gunman was carrying out orders by Mafia bosses irritated by the priest's efforts to encourage young people to turn their backs on the mob. In 1999 Giuseppe Graviano, a Mafia boss, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for ordering the murder. Puglisi was declared a martyr by the Vatican and beatified in 2013, the last formal step before possible sainthood.
    (SFC, 10/6/99, p.C16)(AFP, 9/15/18)

1994        Mar 19, Giuseppe Diana, Italian anti-mafia priest, was murdered.
    (http://tinyurl.com/7plc8)

1994        Jun 4, Gregory Scarpa, nicknamed The Grim Reaper, died in a Minnesota prison. He was a soldier for the Colombo crime family and an informant for the FBI.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Scarpa_Sr.)

1994        Nov 30, Loanshark Sabato Lombardi was murdered during a card game in Brooklyn. Mario Fortunato of the famed Fortunato Brothers Bakery in Greenpoint was later convicted in federal and in state court for planning the murder. Both verdicts were overturned by appeals courts. In 2014 Fortunato won a $300,000 settlement in the NY state Court of Claims.
    (SFC, 12/31/14, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/n9hou6p)

1994        Roberto Pannunzi, Italian mobster, was arrested in Colombia. He had forged links with Colombian cartels for transatlantic trade in cocaine. He was extradited to Italy and released when his detention expired. He was rearrested in 2004 but disappeared in 2009 when sent to a private clinic near Rome following a heart attack.
    (Econ, 5/8/10, p.54)

1996        Apr 13, James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke (64), criminal, died.
    (MC, 4/13/02)

1997        The Mike Newell film Donnie Brasco with Al Pucino and Johnny Depp opened. It was based on a true story of an FBI agent, Joseph D. Pistone, who infiltrated the mob in 1976 and wrote Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia in 1988.
    (SFC, 1/24/97, p.D4)(SFC, 2/24/97, p.E2)(SFEC, 3/2/97, DB p.48)

1998        Mar 19, In Italy suspected mafia member Giuseppe Magaddino was shot and killed. Sicilian Mafia member Claudio Adriano Giusto was later charged with killing Magaddino using a 7.65 mm firearm and then taking his wallet. Giusto was arrested in Spain in 2011 after 13 years on the run.
    (AFP, 4/20/11)(http://tinyurl.com/3za9prm)

1998        Felix Sater, a Russian-American businessman, began cooperating with the US government after pleading guilty to participating in a $40 million stock-fraud case involving New York mafia figures. After entering his plea, Sater spent years working hand-in-hand with the CIA and the FBI to target New York organized crime families and Al Qaeda.
    (The Daily Beast, 8/23/19)

1999        Chris Paciello was indicted for the home-invasion murder of a Staten Island housewife. He confessed to Mafia financing for his nightclubs and vanished into the witness Protection Program.
    (SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.5)

1999        John A. Gotti Jr. pleaded guilty to racketeering and extortion and accepted a 6-year prison sentence.
    (SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.5)

2000        Jan 14, In Boston investigators found the bodies of 2 men and a woman believed to be the victims of mobsters Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi and James "Whitey" Bulger. One of the bodies was said to be Arthur "Bucky" Barrett, one of 6 men who stole $1.5 million in a 1980 bank robbery.
    (SFC, 1/15/00, p.A8)

2000        Feb 24, In Arizona Salvatore Gravano, "Sammy the Bull," was arrested for financing a drug ring led by Michael Papa, the founding member of a white supremacist gang.
    (SFC, 2/25/00, p.A2)

2001        Feb 23, Anthony Giacalone, Detroit mobster, died at age 82.
    (SFC, 5/3/01, p.B7)

2001        Aug 23, Peter Maas, novelist and non-fiction writer, died at age 72. His work included “The Valachi Papers” (1969), “Serpico,” “The King of Gypsies,” and “Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano’s Story of Life in the Mafia.”
    (SFC, 8/24/01, p.D7)

2002        May 11, Joseph Bonanno (97), former Mafia boss, died in Tucson. His autobiography was titled “A Man of Honor.”
    (SSFC, 5/12/02, p.A23)

2002        Sep 6, Salvatore Gravano, mob turncoat aka Sammy the Bull, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 1998 Gravano, took over his son’s failing Arizona drug-dealing operation, an ecstasy drug ring. Gravano pleaded guilty in 2001.
    (SFC, 5/26/01, p.A6)(SFC, 9/7/02, p.A4)

2002        Dec, Two thieves broke in through the roof of the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and stole two paintings by van Gogh valued at $30 million. The men were convicted a year later. In 2016 the two paintings were recovered by Italian police investigating suspected Italian mobsters for cocaine trafficking. On March 21, 2017, they were put back on display.
    (AP, 2/11/08)(AP, 3/21/17)

2002        In Italy Francesco Sbano co-produced a new malavita (mafia folk music) CD: “La Musica della Mafia.”
    (NW, 8/26/02, p.54)

2003          Mar 6, Italian police raided a house in Palermo and captured  Salvatore Rinella (49), a top Mafia boss.
    (AP, 3/7/03)

2003        Nov 23, Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno (57), a regional Mafia boss, was killed in Springfield, Mass. In 2008 Frankie Roche (35), a low level Mafia member, admitted to the murder.
    (SFC, 4/18/08, p.A4)

2004        May 27, Vito Bigione (52), one of Italy's most-wanted Mafia suspects, was captured in Venezuela. He was accused of a key role in international drug trafficking and flown back to Italy. Bigione had spent years living in Namibia and only recently moved to Venezuela.
    (AP, 5/29/04)

2004        Jul 30, In NYC Joseph Massino, a Bonanno crime boss, was convicted of orchestrating murder, racketeering, arson and extortion over the last 25 years.
    (SFC, 7/31/04, p.A2)

2004        Dec 17, Italy's interior ministry said 181 people had been arrested in the past three months in a crackdown on the Camorra in Naples whose turf warfare now overshadows that of the Sicilian mafia.
    (AP, 12/18/04)

2004        Dec 18, Naples police said they have broken up a mob protection racket focused on local bakeries and flour makers.
    (AP, 12/18/04)

2005        Jan 22, In Italy a war within the Camorra, the regional mafia of Naples, was reported to have claimed 35 lives over the last 4 months.
    (Econ, 1/22/05, p.46)

2005        Mar 9, The acting boss of the NYC Gambino family and at least 30 other mob figures were arrested following an undercover FBI operation.
    (SFC, 3/10/05, p.A3)
2005        Mar 9, In Las Vegas 2 retired NYC police detectives, Louis Eppolito (56) and Stephen Caracappa (63), were arrested on federal charges of taking part in 8 murders on behalf of the Mafia. In 2009 both men were sentenced to life in prison.
    (SFC, 3/11/05, p.A3)(SFC, 3/7/09, p.A5)

2005        Apr 25, In Chicago 11 reputed mob figures were indicted on charges of plotting at least 18 murders including the 1986 hit on Tony Spilotro.
    (SFC, 4/26/05, p.A5)

2005        Jun 23, Joseph Massino, who went from the New York Mafia's last old-school don to its highest-ranking turncoat in a betrayal that rocked organized crime, was sentenced to life in prison after admitting his involvement in eight mob murders.
    (AP, 6/23/05)

2005        Jul 11, A judge ordered the arrest and isolation of 3 senior officers of the Banco di Credito Cooperativo Sofige Gela, a small bank on Sicily’s southern coast. They had been under investigation for aiding and abetting the Mafia.
    (Econ, 7/16/05, p.72)

2006        Roberto Saviano (b.1979), Italian journalist, authored “Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System.” In 2014 it was turned into a television series in Italy. It premiered in the US in 2016.
    (Econ, 1/12/08, p.76)(Econ, 8/27/16, p.50)

2007        Aug 15, In Germany 6 Italian men were fatally shot in the head in the western city of Duisburg, an execution-style killing that Italy's interior minister said appeared to be a feud between two Italian organized crime clans. On March 12, 2009, Dutch police arrested Giovanni Strangio (30), an Italian man wanted for the killings in Duisburg.
    (AP, 8/15/07)(AP, 3/13/09)

2007        Oct 22, An Italian lobby group for small businesses said revenue from organized crime amounts to an estimated $127 billion annually, making it the largest segment of the economy.
    (AP, 10/22/07)

2007        Oct 23,     Police broke up an Italian-Canadian mafia clan that ran drug trafficking and money laundering operations, arresting 12 people and seizing millions of dollars in assets. The clan was led from Canada by Nick and Vito Rizzuto, a father and son, who were jailed for previous crimes respectively in 2006 and 2005.
    (AP, 10/23/07)

2007        Dec 3, Daniele Emmanuello (43), the Mafia godfather of Gela, Sicily, was killed while trying to escape police. He was considered one of Italy's 30 most dangerous Mafia fugitives.
    (AP, 12/3/07)(Econ, 12/8/07, p.62)

2007        Dec 4, In Italy Vincenzo Santapaola, a suspected Mafia boss, and scores of alleged mobsters were arrested during raids in Catania, Sicily. Police also seized weapons and drugs, and found a book that listed extortion fees and salaries of the people working for the family.
    (AP, 12/4/07)

2007        Dec 15, Italian authorities said they have captured, Edoardo Contini (52), a fugitive Naples crime boss who built one of the most dangerous cartels.
    (AP, 12/15/07)

2007        Joseph Dominick Pistone (b.1939), alias Donnie Brasco, authored “Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business.” Pistone, a former FBI agent, worked undercover for six years (1976-1981) infiltrating the Bonanno family and to a lesser extent the Colombo Family, branches of the Mafia in NYC.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Brasco)

2007        Roberto Saviano authored “Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System.”
    (Econ, 1/12/08, p.76)

2008        Jan 16, Italian police arrested scores of suspected mobsters in Palermo in the latest raid on suspected Sicilian Mafia hideouts.
    (AP, 1/16/08)

2008        Jan 18, A court in Palermo convicted Sicily's Gov. Salvatore Cuffaro of helping a Mafia boss and sentenced him to five years in prison.
    (AP, 1/18/08)

2008        Feb 7, Authorities in Italy and the US conducted raids targeting dozens of alleged members of Mafia clans who controlled drug trafficking between the two sides of the Atlantic. A 169-page indictment in the US went back 3 decades and included at least 7 murders. The main targets in NY included 3 of the “five families” controlling organized crime in America: the Genovese, Bonanno and Gambino families.
    (AP, 2/7/08)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.41)

2008        Feb 13, In Italy police raided sites in Calabria and issued arrest warrants for 57 people, including politicians, bankers and businessmen, in the latest mafia sweep targeting drug trafficking and extortion rackets.
    (AP, 2/13/08)

2008        Feb 18, Italian police captured Pasquale Condello (57), the top boss of a powerful organized crime syndicate. The Condello crime clan was one of the most ferocious 'ndrangheta families and Condello had received several life prison terms for four murders and other crimes.
    (AP, 2/18/08)

2008        Mar 4, Italian police said they have seized 150 million euros of property and goods from feuding Calabrian mafia clans who are under investigation for the murder of six Italians outside a pizzeria in Germany last year.
    (Reuters, 3/4/08)

2008        Mar 15, Thousands of Italians marched in an anti-mafia protest and called on all citizens to take a public stand against Italy's powerful crime syndicates.
    (Reuters, 3/15/08)

2008        Apr 7, Italian police arrested 38 suspects in a sweep against a clan of the 'ndrangheta organized crime syndicate accused of murder, extortion and arms and drug trafficking.
    (AP, 4/7/08)

2008        Jul 30, Nicholas Corozzo (68), New York City mob captain, pleaded guilty to racketeering and 2 murders in 1996. In 2009 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
    (http://tinyurl.com/cz7tj8)(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A10)

2008        Jul, In Italy Carmelo “Nuzzo” Novella (58), a suspected mobster, was shot dead in a bar in San Vittore Olona after airing the view that the “Ndrangheta in northern Italy should be autonomous.
    (Econ, 7/17/10, p.58)

2008        Aug 5, John A. "Junior" Gotti (44) was arrested at his Long Island home on charges linking him to three New York murders. In 1999 Junior Gotti pleaded guilty to racketeering crimes including bribery, extortion, gambling and fraud. He was sentenced to 77 months in prison and was released in 2005.
    (AP, 8/5/08)

2008        Sep 30, Italian police arrested scores of suspected mobsters, including three top fugitives believed linked to the gangland-style slaying of six African immigrants near Naples.
    (AP, 9/30/08)

2008        Oct 11, Italian security forces including army paratroops arrested seven members of the Camorra mafia believed linked to the killing of African immigrants near Naples last month.
    (AFP, 10/11/08)

2008        Oct 13, Italian police arrested five people in the Calabria region, including the mayor of Rosarno, for suspected ties to the local mob.
    (AP, 10/13/08)

2008        Oct 16, Italian police arrested Antonio Pelle (46), an alleged fugitive mobster, believed to be the head of an organized crime clan involved in the slaying of six people in Germany last year. His family was involved in a feud that led to the Aug. 15, 2007 killing of six Italians outside a restaurant in Duisburg, Germany.
    (AP, 10/16/08)

2008        Nov 4, Italian police arrested 47 people including the wife of a jailed mafia boss in raids on a Naples-based organized crime syndicate. They also seized bank accounts and assets worth about 80 million euros ($102 million) in the raids.
    (AP, 11/4/08)

2008        Nov 6, In Italy Domenico Magnoli (27), an alleged mobster, woke up in a private Italian clinic following liposuction surgery, and was arrested for trafficking in cocaine. Police alleged that Magnoli, born in Cannes, France, has links to the Piromalli crime clan in the 'ndrangheta syndicate.
    (AP, 11/7/08)

2008        Nov 17, A car carrying one of Israel's top mafia kingpins exploded as it traveled in central Tel Aviv, killing him and threatening to unleash an all-out war in Israel's increasingly violent underworld.
    (AP, 11/17/08)

2008        Nov 18, Italian authorities in Sicily seized assets worth euro700 million ($885 million) from Giuseppe Grigoli, a supermarket chain owner, suspected of letting the Mafia use his businesses to launder money.
    (AP, 11/18/08)

2008        Dec 16, Italian police backed by helicopters arrested almost 90 suspected mobsters and thwarted a plan by the hobbled Sicilian Mafia to reconstitute itself and form a new ruling commission to set strategy. Gaetano Lo Presti (52), the alleged Mafia boss of a Palermo neighborhood, hanged himself in jail, hours after he was arrested in a blitz against Cosa Nostra.
    (AP, 12/16/08)(AP, 12/17/08)

2009        Jan 14, Italian police arrested Giovanni Setola, a top Mafia fugitive, who had eluded capture earlier this week by climbing through a trap door and into a sewer below his hideout.
    (AP, 1/14/09)

2009        Mar 6, Former NYC police detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were sentenced to life in prison for their conviction in 8 gangland murders. They had moonlighted as hit men for the Luchese crime family while on the police force during the 1980s.
    (SFC, 3/7/09, p.A5)

2009        Mar 21, Tens of thousand of people marched in Naples to commemorate the victims of the mafia and demand an end to the stranglehold of organized crime on southern Italy.
    (AP, 3/21/09)

2009        May 15, In Spain police arrested of Raffaele Amato, an alleged Camorra boss who investigators say was one of Italy's top cocaine importers.
    (AP, 5/19/09)

2009        May 19, Italian police arrested Franco Letizia (31), one of the country's "most-dangerous" fugitives, in raids that netted at least 70 suspected members of the Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate. The search for dozens more was still under way.
    (AP, 5/19/09)

2009        Jun 16, Italian police said they had arrested 13 people suspected of helping a top Mafia fugitive hide, communicate with other mobsters and conduct his business. Investigators said they are closing in on Matteo Messina Denaro, a fugitive who is among a handful of mobsters vying to take over the Sicilian Mafia. Most of the arrests were carried out in Trapani, a city in Western Sicily that is the power base of Messina Denaro.
    (AP, 6/16/09)

2009        Jun 20, In Venezuela authorities arrested Salvatore Miceli, suspected of being a key intermediary in the drug trafficking trade and one of Italy's most dangerous Mafia fugitives, as he left his apartment in Caracas. Police also picked up two other Italian suspects.
    (AP, 6/21/09)

2009        Jul 22, Italian authorities seized some euro200 million ($284 million) in assets and businesses owned by the 'ndrangheta crime syndicate, including the Cafe de Paris of "La Dolce Vita" movie fame. 12 other restaurants, apartments and luxury cars were also impounded in the operation.
    (AP, 7/22/09)

2009        Oct 31, Italian police arrested one of the country's most wanted mafia fugitives after tearing down a wall in a dawn raid at a chicken farm near Naples where he had built a hideout. Salvatore Russo (51), the head of a Camorra clan carrying his name, had been sentenced to life in prison for homicide and links to organized crime and was on the run since 1995.
    (AFP, 10/31/09)

2009        Nov 15, Italian police captured convicted mobster Domenico Raccuglia, one of Sicily’s top mafia fugitives, in an apartment near Trapani.
    (SFC, 11/16/09, p.A2)

2009        Dec 1, Italian officials said police have broken up a major mafia clan, issuing 83 arrest warrants and seizing businesses, land, race horses and a London-based online betting company. Local politicians and businessmen in the southern city of Bari were among those implicated as part of a 3-year operation, called "Domino," for collaborating with the Parisi clan.
    (AP, 12/1/09)

2009        Dec 4, A jailed Mafia hitman linked Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi to the Cosa Nostra, telling a court that a godfather convicted for a 1993 bombing campaign had boasted of his links to the media mogul.
    (Reuters, 12/4/09)

2009        Dec 5, Italian police found convicted Mafioso Gianni Nicchi (28), alleged to be Cosa Nostra's No. 2 leader, hiding in an apartment in Palermo. Nicchi, a fugitive since 2006, was convicted last year of extortion and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Authorities in Milan arrested Gaetano Fidanzati (74) as he strolled down a street. Fidanzati is a reputed longtime Cosa Nostra boss of a Palermo crime clan and has been a fugitive for two years.
    (AP, 12/5/09)

2009        Mike Dash authored “The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia.”
    (SFC, 9/1/09, p.E5)

2010        Feb 2, The key witness in a Mafia trial in Sicily told a court that a close ally of PM Silvio Berlusconi had direct links with the former "Boss of Bosses" of the Cosa Nostra.
    (Reuters, 2/2/10)

2010        Mar 10, National police in Rome say 20 warrants have been issued so far in Palermo and six arrests have been made in the United States. Police say the crackdown targeted a Palermo-based Mafia crime family, and those named in the warrants are suspected of being mobsters and running extortion, money laundering and drug trafficking operations.
    (AP, 3/10/10)

2010        Mar 15, Italian police arrested the "postmen" of the Mafia's top boss, 19 close aides who delivered the notes Matteo Messina Denaro writes to impart orders from his hideout.
    (AP, 3/15/10)

2010        Apr 26, Italian police arrested Giovanni Tegano (70), a veteran mobster who was on the run for 17 years, in a house in Reggio Calabria. He was among the most wanted men of the 'ndrangheta organized crime group.
    (AP, 4/27/10)

2010        May 10, Italian anti-mafia police said they have broken up an unusual alliance of Italy's three main crime syndicates controlling wholesale produce markets, including price fixing.
    (AP, 5/10/10)

2010        May 14, In New Jersey 34 alleged members and associates of the Lucchese crime family were indicted in connection with an illegal gambling operation.
    (SFC, 5/15/10, p.A4)

2010        Jun 15, Italian police arrested Nicola Schiavone, a powerful mobster of the Camorra crime syndicate, in his villa in Casal di Principe, a small town north of Naples. He is the son of imprisoned mobster Francesco Schiavone, reputedly the longtime top boss  of the clan. Another of the elder Schiavone's sons was arrested last month.
    (AP, 6/15/10)

2010        Jun 25, In southern France Giuseppe Falsone, an Italian mobster and one of the country's top 30 most wanted fugitives, was arrested in Marseille.
    (AP, 6/25/10)

2010        Jun 27, It was reported that Vienna residents have become victims of burglary in recent weeks. The Austrian interior ministry suspected that many of the burglers were from the Republic of Georgia and were supported by the Georgian Mafia. The alleged local head, a restaurant owner in Vienna, has been arrested. Police suspected the burglaries were part of plan to finance a coup against Geeorgian Pres. Saakashvili.
    (SSFC, 6/27/10, p.A4)

2010        Jul 13, Italian police launched one of their biggest operations ever against the powerful 'ndrangheta crime syndicate, arresting 300 people including top bosses and seizing millions worth of property in pre-dawn raids.
    (AP, 7/13/10)

2010        Jul 22, In Italy police carried out six arrests and charged that members of the Camorra mafia won contracts to rebuild the quake-hit city of L'Aquila with the help of four bank employees.
    (AFP, 7/22/10)

2010        Aug 14, In Italy police in Sicily said they've hit at the heart of the financial empire of a convicted Mafia associate, seizing euro800 million (more than $1 billion) in property and businesses, including a clinic for cancer patients and a local soccer team. Local health mogul Michele Aiello (53) was convicted of Mafia association, corruption and fraud and sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison.
    (AP, 8/14/10)

2010        Sep 23, In Italy Carabinieri investigators in southern Calabria said that an euro8 million winning ticket in the national Superenalotto numbers game was sold in a smokeshop owned by the father-in-law of a suspect jailed in a drug probe. The winner avoided taxes on interest due had the windfall been deposited in a bank. The mobsters got an excuse to open a mega-account. Italian law requires those making big deposits to prove the funds aren't illegal. Police seized millions of euros worth of assets from the jailed mob suspect.
    (AP, 9/23/10)

2010        Oct 20, Italian police arrested Antonio Cortese. He is suspected of planting an unloaded bazooka and carrying out a bomb attack earlier this year that damaged the entrance of the Reggio Calabria courthouse in southern Italy. Turncoat Antonino Lo Giudice, a former top 'ndrangheta boss, accused Cortese of planting the explosives in an attempt to intimidate prosecutors.
    (AP, 10/20/10)

2010        Oct 23, In Italy mafia fugitive Gerlandino Messina (38) was nabbed by Carabinieri in Favara, near Agrigento, his power base in Sicily. He had been on the run for 11 years before being caught.
    (AP, 10/23/10)

2010        Nov 10, In Canada alleged Mafia patriarch Nicolo Rizzuto (b.1924) was gunned down at his home in Montreal.
    (SFC, 11/12/10, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolo_Rizzuto)

2010        Nov 17, Italian police captured Antonio Iovine (46), one of the country’s most wanted mobsters. He was considered the financial brains behind the Camorra crime syndicate clans.
    (SFC, 11/18/10, p.A2)

2010        Nov 23, Authorities in southern Italy arrested two women in an operation against suspected mobsters, a development that reflects the increasing role of women in running the mob's affairs. Those arrested included Carmelina Capria, wife of imprisoned clan boss Antonio Pesce, and Maria Grazia Pesce, wife of fugitive boss Roberto Matalone.
    (AP, 11/23/10)

2010        In Italy Operation Gaol led to the arrest of over 40 people associated with the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group.
    {Italy, Mafia}
    (Econ, 4/26/14, p.52)

2011        Jan 19, Luigi Manocchio, the reputed head of New England's Patriarca crime family, was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
    (AP, 1/20/11)

2011        Jan 20, US FBI agents dealt another major blow to New York's five Mafia crime families by arresting some 127 suspected mobsters throughout the Northeast on charges including murder, extortion and narcotics trafficking.
    (AP, 1/20/11)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.29)

2011        Feb 9, Enrico Ponzo, aka Jay Shaw, appeared in a Boise courtroom to face charges from a 1997 indictment for racketeering and attempted murder. The New England mobster vanished in 1994 after trying to kill his boss, Frank Salemme, former head of the Patriarca Family of La Cosa Nostra.
    (SFC, 2/10/11, p.A4)

2011        Mar 8, Italian police picked up 31 suspects in a major crackdown on the 'ndrangheta crime syndicate. 6 suspects, all Italian citizens, were apprehended in Germany on an Italian-issued European arrest warrant. 3 suspects in Canada and one in Australia were still being sought. Among those picked up in Italy was Francesco Maisano, a boss who tried to hide in an underground bunker when police raided his home.
    (AP, 3/8/11)

2011        Apr 18, Spanish police arrested Sicilian mafia fugitive Claudio Adriano Giusto (43) after 13 years on the run for murder and robbery. Giusto was accused of shooting and killing Giuseppe Magaddino with a 7.65 mm firearm and then taking his wallet in Italy in March 1998.
    (AFP, 4/20/11)

2011        Apr 23, Italian police arrested Francesco Campana (38), the alleged No. 1 boss of the organized crime syndicate based in Puglia, the region that makes up Italy’s boot-shaped heel.
    (AP, 4/23/11)

2011        May 3, Italian anti-mafia prosecutors said that 80 Mafiosi from two prominent crime syndicates have been arrested in separate operations. 40 were arrested for association with the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate in Calabria. Another 40 people in Naples were accused of trafficking drugs between Italy and Spain.
    (AP, 5/3/11)

2011        May 23, Reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph Ligambi and 12 others were indicted with charges of racketeering and gambling.
    (SFC, 5/24/11, p.A4)

2011        Jun 22, Mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger (81) was captured near Los Angeles, along with longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig, after 16 years on the run that embarrassed the FBI and exposed the bureau's corrupt relationship with its underworld informants.
    (AP, 6/23/11)

2011        Sep 23, Federal agents in Rhode Island said they have put a major dent in the ranks of the New England mafia with the arrests of Edward Lato (64), Alfred Scivola (70), Raymond Jenkins (47) and Albino Folcarelli (53).
    (SFC, 9/24/11, p.A4)

2011        Nov 24, The body of alleged Mafia boss Salvatore Montagna, who US authorities said once led New York's notorious Bonanno crime family, was fished out from a river north of Montreal.
    (AP, 11/25/11)

2011        Nov 30, In Italy a judge, politician and police official were among 10 people detained in a crackdown on the 'ndrangheta crime syndicate in Milan and southern Reggio Calabria.
    (AP, 11/30/11)

2011        Dec 7, Italian police captured Michele Zagaria, one of the country’s most-wanted fugitive mobsters, arresting the last major boss of the Casalesi clan of the Neapolitan Camorra, one of Italy's bloodiest mafia clans.
    (AP, 12/7/11)

2011        Federico Varese authored “Mafias on the Move: How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories.”
    (Econ, 6/11/11, p.9)

2012        Jan 20, A US federal appeals court in Boston upheld multimillion-dollar judgments that found the federal government liable for the deaths of 3 people allegedly murdered by James “Whitey” Bulger. The FBI had used Bulger and associate Stephen Flemmi as informants and had shielded them from prosecution.
    (SSFC, 1/22/12, p.A7)

2012        Jun 12, A federal judge in Boston sentenced Catherine Grieg (61), girlfriend of mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, to 8 years in prison for helping Bulger stay on the run for 16 years.
    (SFC, 6/13/12, p.A8)

2012        Aug 23, In Italy a gunman shot and killed Gaetano Marino (48), a boss from the Neapolitan Camorra, clad in a swimsuit as he walked from a beach to join his family at a hotel in a resort town south of Rome. Marino had lost both hands in an explosion while planting a bomb in the 1990s.
    (AP, 8/24/12)

2012        Nov 4, In Canada Joseph di Maulo, an alleged Mafia kingpin, was shot dead in the driveway of his Quebec home.
    (Econ, 11/17/12, p.34)

2012        Nov 14, In Rhode Island Anthony L. DiNunzio, acting head of the New England Mafia, was sentenced to 6½ years in prison for shaking down local strip clubs for protection money.
    (SFC, 11/15/12, p.A8)

2012        Dec 20, A Thai court ordered the extradition of Vito Roberto Palazzolo (65), a fugitive Italian banker found guilty of laundering money for some of Italy's top mobsters through New York pizzerias from 1975-1984. Palazzolo has written about his legal woes and getting swept up in the Pizza Connection probe on his website, www.vrpalazzolo.com.
    (AP, 12/20/12)

2012        Dec 25, Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. (75) died at a federal prison in North Carolina. He was among 5 men convicted in September 2007 at the Family Secrets trial.
    (SFC, 12/27/12, p.A13)

2013        Apr 3, Italy's anti-Mafia investigators said they have seized a record €1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) in cash and property from  Vito Nicastri (57) for tax fraud. The Sicilian alternative energy entrepreneur was alleged to have close ties to the Mafia.
    (AP, 4/3/13)

2013        Jul 6, In Colombia Roberto Pannunzi, a suspected Italian mafia boss, was arrested and deported to Italy. He was described as Europe's most wanted drug trafficker and the world's biggest cocaine importer.
    (Reuters, 7/6/13)

2013        Jul 9, In NYC nine reputed members of the Bonanno crime family were charged in a 158-page indictment of mob activity.
    (SFC, 7/10/13, p.A4)

2013        Jul 26, Italian police said a mafia clan in Calabria staged hundreds of fake car crashes every year to get millions of euros in insurance payouts to buy drugs and weapons.
    (AP, 7/26/13)

2013        Aug 7, British police arrested Domenico Rancadore (64), a senior member of an Italian mafia clan. He had been sentenced to seven years in jail while on the run and was detained in west London under a European arrest warrant.
    (Reuters, 8/8/13)

2013        Sep 21, The Italian government announced that police in The Netherlands have arrested Francesco Nirta, a senior mafia boss and one of Italy's 10 most wanted men.
    (AP, 9/21/13)

2013        Nov 5, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported that a group of Italian computer boffins have launched a new website, Mafialeaks, aimed at encouraging victims of organised crime and former gangsters to spill the beans.
    (AFP, 11/5/13)

2013        Nov 28, England's High Court overturned a decision to grant bail to an Italian mafia boss who was arrested in London after two decades on the run. Domenico Rancadore was wanted in Italy to serve a seven-year jail term for his role in the Sicilian mafia and authorities are seeking his extradition.
    (AFP, 11/28/13)

2013        Dec 13, Italian police said they have arrested 30 people linked to Matteo Messina Denaro, the head of Cosa Nostra, including his sister and several cousins in western Sicily.
    (AFP, 12/13/13)

2014        Jan 22, Italian police seized 27 pizzerias, cafes and other eateries in the heart of Rome and elsewhere in a probe highlighting the seemingly legitimate business fronting for organized crime in places far from the mobsters' Naples base.
    (AP, 1/22/14)

2014        Jan 23, NYC police arrested Vincent Asaro (78) and charged him with helping direct the Dec 11, 1978, Kennedy Airport robbery that netted almost $6 million in cash and jewelry. Asaro was named along with his son, both captians in the Bonanno crime family, and three other defendants in a wide-ranging indictment.
    (SFC, 1/24/14, p.A22)

2014        Feb 19, An Italian court sentenced Rafaelle Lombardo, a former governor of Sicily, to six years and eight months in prison for links to the Mafia. He resigned in 2012 following an indictment.
    (SFC, 2/20/14, p.A2)

2014        Mar 17, A British judge ruled that Domenico Rancadore (65), a convicted Mafia boss, will be allowed to return to his comfortable home in west London rather than sent back to Italy and put in prison. The judge cited concerns about conditions in Italian prisons.
    (AP, 3/17/14)

2014        Apr 3, Italian police arrested Nicola Cosentino, a former member of Silvio Berlusconi's government, accusing him of colluding with the mafia to quash competition against his family's petrol distribution business near Naples. Twelve others were also arrested on suspicion of extortion and unfair competitive practices.
    (Reuters, 4/3/14)

2014        Apr 4, British police re-arrested Domenico Rancadore in London after they received a new arrest warrant request from Italy. The warrant alleges that the 65-year-old has an "outstanding sentence of seven years of imprisonment to serve for participation in Mafia association" from 1987 to 1995 in Sicily.
    (AP, 4/5/14)

2014        Apr 27, Dominican Rep. police arrested Nicola Pignatelli (43), an alleged high-ranking member of the Italian mafia. He had fled Italy in 2011 to avoid a prison sentence.
    (SFC, 4/29/14, p.A2)

2014        Jun 13, In Italy Marcello Dell'Utri, a longtime ally of former PM Silvio Berlusconi, was extradited to Italy under Interpol guard and transferred to a prison in the northern city of Parma. Authorities said he had fled to Lebanon to escape a prison sentence for Mafia association.
    (AP, 6/13/14)

2014        Jul 9, Spain’s Interior Ministry said police in Madrid have arrested 32 suspected members of Italy's Camorra crime group involved in drug trafficking, extortion, fraud and money laundering. Four arrests were also reported in Italy.
    (Reuters, 7/9/14)

2014        Dec 16, Italian police said they have arrested 59 suspects in a probe of ties between the 'ndrangheta organized crime syndicate and Milan businessmen, including alleged efforts to snare San Siro stadium's catering business.
    (AP, 12/16/14)

2014        Dec 19, Italian police seized construction companies, apartments, villas and a yacht belonging to Cristiano Guarnera, a businessman who authorities allege consorted with a Mafia-like gang in Rome with ties to local politicians.
    (AP, 12/19/14)

2015        Jan 28, Italian police conducted a huge dragnet against a Calabrian mafia clan operating in the north, arresting 110 people and seizing more than 100 million euros ($114 million).
    (Reuters, 1/28/15)

2015        Jan, Italian police raided and closed a chain of more than 20 pizzerias allegedly belonging to the Camorra, a mafia of the southern city of Naples and its surrounding area, Campania.
    (Econ, 9/5/15, p.58)

2015        Feb 20, A British court overturned a previous ruling that prison overcrowding in Italy could breach his human rights allowing convicted Sicilian mafioso Domenico Rancadore (65) to be extradited. He had spent two decades living incognito in Britain.
    (Reuters, 2/20/15)

2015        Mar 23, In Los Angeles Vianna Roman (39), the daughter of an imprisoned Mexican Mafia kingpin, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. She had pleaded guilty last year to racketeering, narcotics and weapons charges.
    (Reuters, 3/24/15)

2015        Jul 8, Italian authorities said they have seized assets worth more than 1.6 billion euros ($1.75 billion) from a family of five Sicilian pensioners believed to have links to a prominent mafia clan. The haul belonged to Carmelo Virga (66), his brothers Vincenzo (78), and Francesco (71), and their sisters Anna (76) and Rosa (68).
    (AFP, 7/8/15)

2015        Jul 22, Italian police seized assets worth 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) and issued 41 arrest warrants in raids on gambling companies in Italy and abroad run by the 'Ndrangheta mafia organization.
    (Reuters, 7/22/15)

2015        Aug 3, Italian police arrested 11 suspects linked to the fugitive head of the Sicilian Mafia, including a former boss who ran a secret message system for the mobster using a sheep-based code. Matteo Messina Denaro (53) had been on the run since 1993.
    (AFP, 8/3/15)

2015        Aug 20, In Italy the funeral of purported mobster Vittorio Casamonica featured a gilded, horse-drawn carriage carrying his casket and a band playing "The Godfather" theme outside the church. Police and Carabinieri patrols accompanied the funeral procession. A helicopter pilot flew low over Rome to drop flower petals.
    (AP, 8/20/15)

2015        Aug 27, Italy's government put Rome city hall under close supervision following allegations it had fallen under the sway of organized crime, but allowed beleaguered Mayor Ignazio Marino to stay in office.
    (Reuters, 8/27/15)(Econ, 9/5/15, p.58)

2015        Sep 17, In Florida Anthony Moscatielo was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the mob-connected 2001 slaying of Konstantinos Boulis during a dispute over gambling ships.
    (SFC, 9/18/15, p.A6)

2015        Nov 2, Police in Sicily arrested 22 suspected mobsters after businesses, tired of paying the Mafia "protection" money, rebelled and contacted authorities.
    (AP, 11/2/15)

2015        Nov 12, In NYC mobster Vincent Asaro (80) threw his hands into the air and shouted "Free," grinning as he walked out of a courthouse following his surprising acquittal on charges he helped plan the legendary 1978 Lufthansa heist retold in the hit Mafia film "Goodfellas."
    (AP, 11/13/15)

2015        Nov 20, Italian police arrested six members of Sicily's Cosa Nostra mafia as part of an inquiry that uncovered a threat of violence against Interior Minister Angelino Alfano.
    (Reuters, 11/20/15)

2015        Dec 23, German investigators in North Rhine-Westphalia state arrested a 40-year-old Italian man, who wasn't identified, in Gelsenkirchen as he left his hiding place. Investigators later said he was a member of the Sacra Corona Unita group, based in southeastern Italy, and will soon be extradited to Italy.
    (AP, 12/29/15)

2015        Dec 30, An Italian parliament-mandated health survey confirmed higher-than-normal incidents of death and cancer among residents in and around Naples, thanks to decades of toxic waste dumping by the local Camorra mob.
    (AP, 1/2/16)

2016        Jan 29, Italian anti-mafia police nabbed fugitive mobster bosses Giuseppe Ferraro (47) and Giuseppe Crea (37), after discovering them "living like animals" in a mountain hideout stocked with an arsenal of weapons.
    (AFP, 1/29/16)

2016        Jan 29, Former Mafia don Rocco Zito (87), with a long history as a leading figure in Canada's crime underworld was gunned down at his home in Toronto. Suspect Domenico Scopelliti (51), identified in the Canadian media as the dead man's son-in-law, soon turned himself in.
    (AFP, 1/31/16)

2016        Mar 8, Swiss authorities said they have arrested 15 people suspected of belonging to the powerful Italian 'Ndrangheta crime organization, and are holding them pending extradition.
    (AFP, 3/8/16)

2016        Jun 26, Ernesto Fazzalari, Italy's second most sought-after fugitive, was captured as he slept in his bed in a hideout in the Calabrian mountains. Prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho described Fazzalari (46) as "a merciless killer" and a protagonist of the 1991-1992 turf feud between 'ndrangheta clans that bloodied the Taurianova town area.
    (AP, 6/26/16)

2016        Jun 27, Italian police, in a crackdown on the Lo Russo crime clan, arrested 24 suspects in an alleged extortion scheme targeting bread sales in grocery stores, supermarkets and street vendors.
    (AP, 6/27/16)

2016        Jul 6, Italian police arrested 11 people accused of crimes linked to public events, including last year's Milan Expo, and channeling money they collected to the Sicilian mafia.
    (Reuters, 7/6/16)

2016        Jul 13, In Italy convicted Cosa Nostra "boss of bosses" Bernardo Provenzano (b.1933), who reputedly led the Mafia's powerful Corleone clan, died in Milan. He was captured in 2006 in Sicily following decades of hiding in the countryside.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_Provenzano)(AP, 7/13/16)

2016        Oct 5, Italian police arrested Antonio Pelle, a fugitive top mob boss who escaped from a hospital in 2011 — finding him at home in a bunker built between the bathroom and his son's bedroom.
    (AP, 10/5/16)

2017        Jan 23, Pope Francis blasted the "money stained with blood" and "evil power" wielded by Italian organized crime as he met the heads of the country's anti-mafia squad.
    (AFP, 1/23/17)

2017        Feb 11, Police in Sicily confiscated four olive companies, farmland, villas and other property that anti-Mafia prosecutors contend belong to the business empire of Italy's top Mafia boss, who has been on the run for more than 20 years.
    (AP, 2/11/17)

2017        Mar 10, Fugitive Italian mobster Giulio Perrone, who had been living in Mexico under a false identity, was jailed in Rome after being extradited from Mexico. He had been tracked down by Italian police on Facebook.
    (AFP, 3/11/17)

2017        Mar 21, In Italy Don Luigi Ciotti, an anti-mafia priest campaigner, kicked off a day of national protest against organized crime, urging Italians to resist the mob and denouncing recent threats against him as cowardly.
    (AP, 3/21/17)

2017        Mar 22, In southern Italy police in Calabria detained  Santo Vottari (45), a fugitive mobster, who authorities say is the boss of an 'ndrangheta crime clan involved in a feud that culminated in a 2007 gangland-style massacre in Germany.
    (AP, 3/22/17)

2017        May 15, Italian police arrested 68 people, including a priest and the head of a Catholic volunteer group called "Mercy," accusing them of being in cahoots with a major mafia clan that skimmed millions in public funds destined for one of Italy's biggest migrant welcome centers.
    (AP, 5/15/17)

2017        May 22, In Sicily killers gunned down Mafia boss Giuseppe Dainotti (67) in Palermo as the Cosa Nostra flexed its muscles on the eve of the 25th anniversary of one of its most notorious murders. In 1993 Dainotti turned himself in and became a police collaborator. He was released from prison in 2014 after serving time for murder.
    (AFP, 5/22/17)

2017        May 31, Federal authorities said 19 people have been indicted in a New York mob investigation in public building projects. Those named included Matthew Madonna, described as the street boss of the Luchese crime family. Most of the defendants were arrested.
    (SFC, 6/1/17, p.A6)

2017        Aug 9, In southern Italy four men were shot dead in an apparent gangland killing. Mario Luciano Romito, a well-known local crime boss, and his brother-in-law Matteo De Palma were traveling together when a car drew alongside and fired at them. Police said two other victims, believed to be farmers, were targeted because they had witnessed the attack in the Puglia region.
    (Reuters, 8/9/17)

2017        Aug 11, Police in southeastern Italy arrested four suspects late today and seized weapons to head off more gangland-style murders in a region popular with vacation-goers where four people were killed.
    (AP, 8/12/17)

2017        Sep 3, In Uruguay  Rocco Morabito (51), a top crime syndicate boss convicted of drug trafficking and on the run from Italy since 1994, was arrested in Montevideo. He was living in a luxury villa in a seaside resort town under an alias and using a false Brazilian passport.
    (AP, 9/4/17)

2017        Sep 26, Italian police arrested the mayor of a city near Milan on corruption charges as part of an investigation into the infiltration of the 'ndrangheta organized crime clan of southern Italy in the north's business and political establishment. Police issued 27 arrest warrants, many accused in the 'ndrangheta's cocaine trafficking operations and hailing from the mob's Calabrian hub in San Luca.
    (AP, 9/26/17)   

2017        Oct 4, Italian police said they have seized 11 million euros ($13 million) in assets and arrested 37 people, including two Carabinieri officers, accused in a Sicilian Mafia extortion racket involving fruit, fish and drugs.
    (AP, 10/4/17)

2017        Nov 17, In Italy Mafia boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina (87) died in a hospital in Milan while serving 26 life sentences as the mastermind of a bloody strategy to assassinate Italian prosecutors and law enforcement trying to bring down the Cosa Nostra.
    (AP, 11/17/17)

2017        Dec 5, Police in the Sicilian capital of Palermo scooped up 25 suspected mobsters on an array of charges, including Maria Angela Di Trapani (49) accused of filling in as boss for her imprisoned husband.
    (AP, 12/5/17)

2017        Dec 14, Italian police in Sicily searched the homes and businesses of known allies of mobster Matteo Messina Denaro (55), looking for hidden bunkers where the fugitive godfather may be hiding.
    (AFP, 12/14/17)

2018        Mar 1, Slovak police raided houses linked to the alleged members of the Italian 'ndrangheta syndicate in connection with the slaying of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend, Martina Kusnirova. Seven men were detained.
    (AP, 3/2/18)

2018        Mar 2, Police in western Germany arrested a leading member of the Italian mafia who is wanted in his home country since 2013.
    (AP, 3/2/18)

2018        Mar 3, Police in Slovakia released seven Italians who were detained as suspects in the slayings of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend.
    (AP, 3/3/18)

2018        Apr 19, Italian police claimed progress in closing in on Italy's most-wanted Mafia fugitive, Matteo Messina Denaro, arresting 21 suspected associates in western Sicily, including family members to whom he had given leadership roles in the clan.
    (AP, 4/19/18)

2018        Jun 22, In Boston former New England Mafia boss Francis Salemme (84) was found guilty in the 1993 killing of of nightclub owner Steven DiSarro. Salemme was not charged until DiSarro's remains were dug up in Rhode Island in 2016.
    (SFC, 6/23/18, p.A5)

2018        Aug 8, Italian police said gangsters dropped 25-kilo (55-pound) weights on the limbs of drug addicts, alcoholics and other indigents in an insurance fraud racket that faked car accidents to obtain hundreds of thousands of euros in claim payments. Police said 11 persons, including a nurse suspected of procuring anesthetics, were arrested in the crackdown on two Palermo-based criminal organizations.
    (AP, 8/8/18)

2018        Sep 15, Pope Francis appealed to Mafiosi to renounce their quests for power and money as he visited Sicily to honor a priest slain by mob henchmen for trying to protect youths from the evil clutches of organized crime.
    (AP, 9/15/18)

2018        Nov 5, In Italy a knife-wielding man held hostages in a northern post office, days after receiving a 19-year jail term for a Mafia conviction. Francesco Amato is one of 125 defendants convicted last week in nearby Reggio Emilia in a trial about infiltration by the 'ndrangheta, a southern Italy-based organized crime group, into businesses in the affluent Reggio Emilia region.
    (AP, 11/5/18)

2018        Nov 20, Rome city officials sent in 600 police officers to evict a purported crime family from eight villas that were allegedly built without authorization decades ago. Mayor Virginia Raggi accused the Casamonicas of replacing public authorities in the area and of "terrorizing" honest Romans.
    (AP, 11/20/18)

2018        Nov 30, Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor, Federico Cafiero de Raho, said police have arrested 30 suspected mobsters in a sweep against the Foggia mafiosi, the country's so-called "fourth Mafia".
    (AP, 11/30/18)

2018        Dec 4, Italian police arrested new Mafia boss Settimino Mineo and dozens of other suspects in a major swoop against a resurgent Cosa Nostra.
    (AFP, 12/4/18)

2018        Dec 5, Police arrested dozens of suspected mobsters in Europe and South America in dubbed "Operation Pollina," a huge international swoop targeting Italy's notorious 'Ndrangheta mafia clan. Police seized four tons of cocaine, 120 kilos of ecstasy and two million euros (dollars) in cash across Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Suriname.
    (AFP, 12/5/18)

2018        Dec 25, In Italy Marcello Bruzzese (51), the brother of a turncoat from an 'ndrangheta crime clan family, was gunned down by two masked attackers near his home in the Adriatic beach town of Pesaro.
    (AP, 12/26/18)

2019        Jan 22, In Italy anti-mafia police said they had dealt a fresh blow to the Cosa Nostra, arresting seven suspected rising-star mobsters after two of the organized crime group turned state witnesses.
    (AFP, 1/22/19)

2019        Feb 14, Italian police in Calabria nabbed fugitive kingpin cocaine dealer Francesco Strangio. He hails from a feuding crime clan involved in the 2007 trattoria massacre in Germany. Strangio had been on the run since a January 2018 conviction, carrying a 14-year prison term, for international drug trafficking.
    (AP, 2/15/19)

2019        Mar 13, In NYC Francesco "Frank" Cali (53), the reputed boss of New York's Gambino crime family, was shot dead outside his home on Staten Island. Suspect Anthony Comello (24) was arrested in New Jersey on March 16. His lawyer later said Comello apparently believed Cali was part of the “deep state” working to undermine Donald Trump.
    (AFP, 3/14/19)(SFC, 3/18/19, p.A5)(The Independent, 12/7/19)

2019        May 29, Dutch judges banned biker club Hells Angels and ordered all its chapters to close in the Netherlands as authorities pursue a clampdown on so-called outlaw motorcycle gangs.
    (AFP, 5/29/19)

2019        Jul 17, New York’s notorious Gambino family and alleged mafia dons in Sicily were targeted in a series of raids carried out by more than 200 officers from the FBI and the Italian police.
    (The Telegraph, 7/17/19)

2019        Oct 9, Italy reacted angrily to a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that it should relax conditions for prisoners serving life sentences, including mafia gangsters and terrorists.
    (The Telegraph, 10/9/19)

2020        Feb 20, In Italy bulldozers started work demolishing a crime-riddled, crumbling housing estate on the outskirts of Naples, notorious for its links to the local mafia. The housing project, known as the "Sails of Scampia", was built in the 1960s and 1970s and became synonymous with poverty and violence in Italy's underdeveloped south as clan warfare raged through its narrow corridors and bleak stairways.
    (Reuters, 2/20/20)

2020        Aug 18, US prosecutors alleged that New York attorney Jason Kurland (46), the self-dubbed “Lottery Lawyer,” was actually stealing tens of millions of dollars from his clients with the help of three other individuals—including a mafia member—to fund their extravagant lifestyles. The indictment charged Kurland with conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering.
    (https://tinyurl.com/y6bhxl7z)(SFC, 8/120/20, p.A4)

2020        Oct 13, A judge in Spain allowed an alleged leading member of the ’Ndrangheta mafia organization to walk free after failing to realize that the arrested man was a most-wanted suspect in his native Italy. Vittorio Raso was arrested in Barcelona earlier this month after a two-year police operation to track him down following a tip from the Italian authorities.
    (The Telegraph, 10/21/20)

2021        Jan 13, One of Italy's biggest ever mafia trials in history kicked off in southern Italy. Hundreds of defendants were accused of working for a heinous criminal enterprise with tentacles reaching so far around the world, it reportedly makes more money selling drugs than McDonald's does selling burgers.
    (CBS News, 1/13/20)

2021        Feb 28, Federal agents in Fort Lauderdale arrested Peter G. Gerace Jr. (53), a nephew of reputed Buffalo mob boss Joseph A. Todaro Jr., on drug-related conspiracy charges.
    (Miami Herald, 3/1/21)

2021        Mar 21, Pope Francis urged people to fight organized crime groups such as the mafia around the world, warning that the criminals were using the COVID-19 pandemic to further enrich themselves. Francis also denounced racism and urged more efforts to ensure all people have access to drinking water.
    (Reuters, 3/21/21)(AP, 3/21/21)

2021        Apr 4, In Sicily the irresistible call of a lavish Easter feast landed prominent mobster Giuseppe Calvaruso (44) behind bars after authorities arrested him as he was returning to the Mediterranean island from Brazil to celebrate with family.
    (The Telegraph, 4/5/21)

2021        Jun 1, It was reported that Sicilian mafia boss Giovanni Brusca (64), known as “the pig” and “the people-slayer,” has been released early from prison, prompting outrage from his victims’ relatives. He was notorious for having detonated the huge roadside bomb that blew up a crusading anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Falcone, in 1992, and had a child dissolved in acid as revenge against an informant.
    (The Telegraph, 6/1/21)

2021        Aug 5, Italian and Spanish police said Domenico Paviglianiti (60), the leader of the Calabria-based 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, has been arrested in Madrid.
    (SFC, 8/6/21, p.A4)

2021        Aug 7, In Italy Maria Licciardi (70), reputed top Naples crime syndicate boss, was arrested as she was about to board a flight to Spain. Investigators have alleged that Licciardi ran extortion rackets as head of the Licciardi Camorra crime syndicate clan.
    (AP, 8/7/21)

2021        Aug 24, In Japan a district court sentenced the head of Kudokai crime syndicate to death after its members killed one civilian and injured three others, although there was no direct evidence he ordered the attacks. Satoru Nomura (74) planned to appeal the ruling.
    (Reuters, 8/24/21)

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