Word: buscetta
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...existence of the Cupola, taken for the Italian word for dome, first came to light in the 1960s and was confirmed by the turncoat witness Tommaso Buscetta, whose testimony to legendary magistrate Giovanni Falcone in the 1980s unlocked many of the Mafia's secrets. Allowing each family to remain autonomous in its own geographic area, the Cupola was effectively tasked with preventing disputes that would threaten the whole system...
DIED. TOMMASO BUSCETTA, 71, Italian organized-crime turncoat; of cancer; at an undisclosed U.S. witness-protection location. He testified in the New York "pizza connection" heroin-smuggling trial of the 1980s and helped put away hundreds of mobsters on both sides of the Atlantic...
...first and most famous Mafia turncoat, Tommaso Buscetta, was brought back to Italy from the U.S.,where he has lived since his testimony in the 1986-87 "maxi-trial" helped convict 338 mafiosi. Buscetta told the national Anti- Mafia Commission what many Italians have long suspected: that the Cosa Nostra controls many of the country's politicians. He claimed that the current campaign of arrests had decimated the Mafia and persuaded many to break the code of silence known as omerta. National police chief Vincenzo Parisi promised that squealers will get a new home -- outside Italy...
...prosecution relied heavily on 14 Mafia members who broke the code of silence, known as omerta, to describe the organization's workings. The star witness was Tommaso Buscetta, 59, a mobster who once ran some Mafia operations in the U.S. and South America and who also testified in the "Pizza Connection" trial in New York City, which led to the conviction of 17 drug traffickers. Buscetta described to the jury the Mafia's pyramidal structure, capped by a twelve-member cupola, or commission, that ruled on all major gangland murders. There were plenty of those. The prosecution charged that between...
...When Buscetta began giving his testimony in April, a high school student in a balcony reserved for the public called out "Forza, Masino!" (be strong), demonstrating the support some Sicilians feel for curbing the continuing Mafia violence on their island...