Brusca's bid for house arrest rejected
Maria Falcone welcomes supreme court's decision

(ANSA) - Rome, October 8 - The supreme Court of Cassation on Monday rejected a petition by Giovanni Brusca, the Sicilian mafia boss who set off the explosive that killed anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992, to be released from jail to house arrest. Falcone's sister Maria welcomed the decision, having argued Brusca did not deserve further benefits after "receiving over 80 permits" in exchange for supplying police with information on the Mob. She said he had never shown real evidence of having turned over a new leaf and repented for his crimes, which included strangling and dissolving in acid a 15-year-old boy, Giuseppe Di Matteo, who was the son of a mafia informant.
"You may accept the idea that criminals who cooperate with the State are granted benefits for a higher goal," said Maria Falcone.
"But it remains unacceptable to give further concessions to someone soiled by such heinous crimes". Former national anti-mafia prosecutor and former Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso said that, while he respected the ruling, he did not think the State should treat Brusca the same way as late Cosa Nostra bosses Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano.
"It is right that Riina and Provenzano remained in jail until their deaths, but someone like Brusca cannot be assessed in the same way," Grasso told Tuesday's Corriere della Sera. "He has spent over 23 years in prison and in two years' time his sentence will be served. "He gets permits that, in some ways, give him more freedom than house arrest.
"It shows that cooperating (with the State) pays".

They are never going to let him go to house arrest.

I asked this about the ndrangheta, but what family was the most powerful family that is now defunct in the Sicilian mafia? For the Camorra I think it’s the Giuliano Family.

In two years' time his sentence will be served so we will see what happens. But Brusca has already a lot of freedom he even did an interview in a TV documentary.

He admitted 200 to 300 murders lol..

I am sure he was involved with so many murders during the mafia war. He might not even be bragging by saying those numbers.

I agree he was cooperating, why would he lie? He could have minimize his role, but they must tell the truth.

As u know a lot of them exaggerates their role in the mafia and in the crimes. There are even fake turncoats who started cooperating on the orders of the mafia to mislead police or to protect someone very important.

Today, on the authority of the Catania Anti-Mafia District Directorate, a precautionary custody order issued by the GIP of the Court of Catania against 31 individuals was executed, of which 21 were in prison and 10 were under house arrest.

The provision was carried out by more than two hundred Carabinieri of the Provincial Command of Catania, supported by the specialized departments (Operational Intervention Company of the XIIth Regiment "Sicily", Dogs and Helicopters), all over the national territory and concerned apical and simple figures affiliates of the “Santapaola-Ercolano” mafia family active in the capital and with ramifications throughout the Etna province, responsible, in various ways, for mafia-type association crimes, extortion, fictitious heading of goods, drug trafficking, detention and illegal port of weapons and other crimes.

Yeah but if they were caught with lies, the lawyers will destroy them.

Was there any truth to the Cuntreras controlling most of Aruba or was that a gross exaggeration?

They didn't control Aruba the Dutch authorities would not let them run an Island which is part of the Kingdom. But they invested heavily in the tourist sector the idea was to create a safehaven for them near Venezuela. Here is an 1993 dutch article about them.

Italian mafia would make Aruba the first independent state of its own
From our foreign editors

March 5, 1993 , 0:00 am
Aruba is mentioned in the Italian press as a strategically located transit port for Colombian cocaine. The Mafia would have been in great need of a 'private' piece of land in the Caribbean to launder money, conduct negotiations with Colombian producers and trade cocaine. Between 1988 and 1992, the Cuntrera / Caruana Mafia family would have "bought everything that could be bought on Aruba." According to the Corriere della Sera, the family also financed election campaigns by local politicians, including Prime Minister Oduber. According to the newspaper, international organizations working on the mafia no longer doubt that the family uses Aruba to launder drug money. According to the Italian press, the intention was to create a special state for the mafia,

Much of the information about Aruba comes from Mafia members who were arrested in Venezuela and extradited to Italy. Repentant 'pentito' Joe Cuffaro said that in Aruba an agreement was made between the mafia and Colombian traders to bring six hundred kilos of cocaine with the cargo ship the Big John to Europe. The case started rolling in September when the police raided a number of apartments in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, where documents were found showing the influence of the Mafia family on Aruba. The houses belonged to three Contrera brothers, who have since been extradited to Italy. The Cuntrera / Caruana family has invested huge sums in the island. There are mainly hotels, casinos and restaurants built.

Most islanders are not aware of the 'takeover' by the mafia and do not know exactly where the investments came from. According to the Italian press, 60% of Aruban property is now in the hands of the Mafia. On Aruba, the last remaining leader of the clan, Alfonso Caruana, as well as three cousins ​​Cuntrera would also hide. According to the Italian press there have been consultations in Rome between the Italian government, the Dutch police and the Attorney General of the Netherlands Antilles.

A spokesman for the Attorney General of Aruba stated yesterday that the Aruban justice department has started an investigation into the case. Members of the Antillean and Aruban Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives were not available for comment yesterday in connection with their trip to Curacao, where the conference on the future of the islands begins on Monday.

60% of the land controlled by the cuntreras? That’s an awful lot. Even as an estimation. Were they truly the Rothschilds or the mafia as the media says or were they more front men for families that had more money than them such as the Inzerillos or Bontades?

I read Pasquale Cuntrera passed away in 2013 can anyone confirm this?

He did, he was 83.

Anti drugs operation in Zen, Palermo's toughest area. 10 arrests.

Oh how different the landscape of the Sicilian mafia would have been had Riina never waged war on everybody.

Operation against the Stidda.

Italian police bust 'Mafia plastic recycling ring'
3 hours ago

Italian authorities say they have smashed a Mafia-run plastic recycling ring that sent toxic material from the southern island of Sicily to China.

The scam was uncovered during a four-year investigation, after shoes made in China with the contaminated plastic were found on sale in Italy.

Police say 15 people were held on a range of offences, including extortion and waste trafficking.

Among them was alleged ringleader Claudio Carbonaro.

He had been a police witness at one stage, but in 2013 returned to Sicily and took over a feared Mafia syndicate.

He then entered the highly lucrative trade in toxic plastics.

Claudio Carbonaro was "responsible for atrocious crimes in the 1980-90s, including over 60 murders", Italian police told news agency AFP.

Thursday's arrests were made in and around the Sicilian city of Ragusa.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50177280

Thirty years in prison for the bosses Salvatore and Sandro Lo Piccolo and for Andrea Adamo for the murder of Tommaso Natale's boss, Benedetto Spatola, killed using the lupara bianca method in 2006. The convictions are confirmed by the first section of the Court of Palermo appeals.

That of Spatola is a murder worth two, because before assassinating the boss, an innocent person was mistakenly killed, mistaken for the mafia boss. Thirteen years later the convictions for the two leaders of Tommaso Natale and the referent of Brancaccio arrive. The three principals of the execution of Spatola were arrested all together, on November 5, 2007, in Giardinello: and with them was also the repentant Gaspare Pulizzi, who set them up.

There is a series that was recently released on the Corleone Mafia. Very well done.

https://sales.arte.tv/fiche/CORLEONE__UNE_HISTOIRE_DE_LA_COSA_NOSTRA_

When these assets are seized from Denaro, how much of it do you think is actually his? $1.5 billion was seized from businessman Vito Nicastri. Does that mean that all of that really belonged to Denaro and he was using him to launder his money? Or only a fraction of that belonged to Denaro so they had to freeze all of Nicastri’s assets?

nicastri was a nobody, he became a billionaire in a little while thanks to messina denaro money, so i bet a large part of that money belongs to him, anyway police seized so far about 4 billions from various frontmen of messina denaro

What use does Denaro have for all of that money while he is on the run? He has so much money but how much money did he legitimize so that he and his family could actually spend it without fear of everything being taken from them?

If $4 billion has been taken from Denaro himself, then he might be worth $10 billion or more. That’s my estimate. And his organization as a whole based in Trapani is worth multiple times what he is worth individually.

Like most Denaro takes his money to Switzerland, italian police followed his tracks. Other money goes to for example South America.

Has his money in Switzerland been seized or is Switzerland still very much a safe haven?

Is it accurate to say that Denaro is by far the wealthiest mafiosi in the history of the Italian Mafia? It is impossible to know for sure unless you know these guys but I’ve never heard of another gangster having money like him. And it’s not just that, but we can confirm via his asset seizures that any stories of him being a billionaire are 100% true. There are many times when we hear myths and urban legends about gangsters like Meyer Lansky, Al Capone, Frank Matthews, Frank Lucas and many more being close to billionaires but the more research you do on them the harder it becomes to believe.

yeah, confiscated assets is the best way to know the level of richness, the rest is mostly speculations

Is there a gangster who has had as much in value of their assets seized as Denaro has had? I always hear about Bontade but not much was ever confiscated from him so we don’t know how much he really had. I don’t see any indication that he was ever in Denaro’s league financially.

You have to be a "professional" to have membership. How were you able to view?