Word: mafia
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...fear of being whacked themselves by figures who they believe contracted Gonzalez to organize the break-in and shooting. Making the investigation more baroque is the $20,000 that Tice, hoping to save his struggling car business, recently borrowed from people he says turned out to be "Mexican mafia" and wanted their money back more quickly, and at higher interest, than he could handle. The shadow of organized crime retribution, real or imagined, is another oft-mentioned anxiety in police interviews. Gonzalez even told investigators that he's in "very deep" and fears for his and his family's safety...
...Borsellino has kept his own poignant vow of silence. But the Milan-based engineer has now spoken out in a July 17 video interview on the website of Corriere della Sera, a Milan-based daily. Displaying a striking resemblance to his martyred kin, Borsellino says he is convinced the Mafia did not act alone. "My brother knew about the negotiations between the Mafia and the state, and this is why he was killed," Borsellino says. "There were government authorities who worked to prepare and carry out [the assassination]." The final history of this brutal chapter in Italy's past...
...Riina, who'd led the 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...
...late 1980s and early 1990s were a tumultuous period in Italy. Bribery scandals eventually brought down much of the postwar political class. In Sicily, political corruption mixed with murder, as the Falcone and Borsellino assassinations were followed by Cosa Nostra's deadly bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan. Some Mafia experts believe the Mob's decision to take its battle to the mainland was a response to the breakdown in longstanding attempts by certain government authorities to negotiate a truce with mob leaders. Indeed, after Riina's years on the lam, his arrest, in broad daylight in central Palermo...
...speaking out was the son of the former mayor of Palermo, Vito Ciancimino, who was the local political link for the Corleonese clan. Massimo Ciancimino has reportedly revealed a portion of the contents of his late father's secret archives, which investigators hope can help solve a series of Mafia mysteries, including the state's alleged role in the Borsellino killing. (Read "Meet the Modern...