Word: buscetta
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Some of the pentiti brought before the bench in Palermo have been impressive. Tommaso (Don Masino) Buscetta was known as the "Boss of Two Worlds" because he used to control extensive operations in both Italy and Brazil. Buscetta, who testified in New York's "pizza connection" trial about heroin smuggling between U.S. and Sicilian mobsters, provided new evidence about the operations of the Mafia's ruling Commission. A second pentito, the mid-level Mob executive Salvatore (Toto) Contorno, made detailed accusations against defendants based on his firsthand knowledge of the Mafia's internecine warfare over the drug market...
...most important of the turncoats are Tommaso Buscetta and Salvatore ("Toto") Contorno. They testified in December in New York City at the so- called pizza-connection trial, where 22 defendants are charged with distributing Sicilian heroin through a chain of U.S. pizza outlets. Both are expected to make court appearances in Sicily in the spring, though Contorno gave prosecutors a scare last week by suddenly threatening not to. Officials see Contorno's move as a ploy to get better treatment and more security. Nonetheless, they are visibly concerned. Contorno's statements helped indict 160 defendants...
Speaking in Italian through a translator, Buscetta began his testimony by describing the Mafia's structure and bylaws. Both in Sicily, where it began, and in the U.S., the criminal organization at one time imposed a strict, almost old-fashioned, moral code. Starting as a low-ranking "soldier," Buscetta said, "I was to be silent, not to look at other men's wives or women, not to steal." All "men of honor," as members called themselves, pledged never to lie to one another. Buscetta was suspended from Mafia activities for six months in 1952 for breaking the code. "I betrayed...
Palermo's men of honor had long since abandoned their ideals by the late '70s, when savage gang wars broke out over control of the U.S. heroin trade. Two of Buscetta's sons, a brother and four other relatives were killed during the bloodletting in Sicily. Buscetta, by then a Mafia chieftain, fled to Brazil, where he was arrested in 1983 on a fugitive warrant from Italy. He was talking now, he explained, because he wanted "security for my family." Some undisclosed survivors in his family (which includes his Brazilian-born third wife) are under U.S. protection...
...Buscetta occasionally stood up in the cavernous courtroom to point at defendants he claimed to have known as Mafia members. He identified Gaetano Badalamenti as a onetime capo, or boss, of the ruling Mafia commission in Sicily. Badalamenti, the key defendant, stared back impassively. Gaetano Mazzara's bemused smile turned to a look of disgust when he was picked out at the crowded defense tables and identified as the American distributor for the imported heroin. More such fingering is expected as Buscetta continues to testify in a complex trial that could last as long as six months. Defense attorneys will...