Word: capo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...bloody takeover of the Mafia by the Corleone faction in the early 1980s, had never made more than a passing (and indecipherable) allusion about the crime to the authorities since his arrest in Palermo a year after the Borsellino killing. His longtime partner in crime and successor as capo dei capi, Bernardo Provenzano, has also stayed mum since his capture near Corleone in 2006. Known as Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mob has long maintained power on the island (and beyond) with the help of omertà, a vow of silence and absolute refusal to cooperate with authorities. Most had expected...
...Pablo Escobar to move cocaine. Félix Gallardo also began to grow marijuana and opium - the raw ingredient for heroin - on Mexican soil. There were 15 arrest warrants with his name on them in Mexico and others in the United States before Mexican federal agents finally nabbed the capo without firing a shot in 1989. "Félix Gallardo had become the most wanted drug trafficker both at national and international level," the federal attorney general's office wrote after the arrest. "This shows the willingness of [then President] Carlos Salinas to fight this social cancer to whatever...
...which asked him about the 1985 murder of its agent Enrique Camarena. The drug kingpin denied that he had any involvement in that slaying, which had created a furor in Washington and led to pressure to round up top traffickers. "I was taken to the DEA," recalled the capo. "I greeted them and they wanted to talk. I only answered that I had no involvement in the Camarena case and I said, 'You said a madman would do it and I am not mad. I am deeply sorry for the loss of your agent...
...variety of crimes, including torture, land-theft and massacre But Don Mario refused to go through with the demobilization agreement, became a fugitive and continued running his drug-trafficking operation. Now Medellin is bracing for the struggle to determine his successor. What follows will be business as usual. "One capo goes down, another takes his place," says an ex-intelligence official...
Experts expect Don Mario's arrest to lead to violence between gangs in the hillsides ringing Medellin. An ex-intelligence official also predicts deadly infighting in the capo's traditional bastions of power, such as the regions of Cordoba, Uraba and Choco. "We will see a war," says the former official. "There are more than 1,000 men guarding a whole lot of money." (Should a drug lord be one of the TIME 100? Vote for the most influential people in the world...