Word: buscetta
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Even before the discovery of the pizza connection, Italian authorities had been seeking Buscetta, a native of Palermo and an ally of the Badalamenti organization, who had fled Italy in 1970 and gone to New York, where he acquired a second wife, a new daughter and new pizzerias. He also owned property in Brazil, where he was arrested in 1972 when police found 60 kilos (132 Ibs.) of heroin on his farm. Extradited to Italy, Buscetta spent eight years in various jails, living well and even giving away his daughter in a marriage held within the prison's walls...
...Italian authorities, Buscetta slipped back into Palermo with a false passport. The reason for his return: to help his gang and its allies regain the control that had been wrested from it by Luciano Liggio, a tough crime boss from Corleone, one of the traditional Mafia strongholds in western Sicily...
...even Buscetta's family was immune from the bloodletting. One day, gunmen burst into Buscetta's Palermo pizzeria and shot and killed his son-in-law. A day later, armed men cut down three of his lieutenants. Before long, Buscetta's brother and nephew were dead and Buscetta's two sons had disappeared. They are presumed dead...
Understandably shaken, Buscetta fled back to Brazil, though not to the obscurity he sought. In October 1983, Brazilian authorities picked him up on an Italian warrant and made plans to extradite him to Italy. Fearing what awaited him, the hunted boss of two worlds unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide by taking strychnine. Facing a probable prison sentence and Mafia vengeance, he decided to talk...
Italian officials were delighted by Buscetta's offer. But they were also skeptical, knowing that no high-level Mafioso was likely to violate omerta, the code of silence, and disclose secrets about the criminal organization. Palermo Deputy District Attorney Vincenzo Geraci was understandably surprised when he met Buscetta in Brazil last June and found him willing to tell what he knew. In their initial interview, Geraci recalled, Buscetta told the prosecutor, "I am not your adversary." A month later, after Buscetta had been extradited to Italy and assured that his family would be protected, he began to talk, said...