Word: paesano
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...with two decades gone by, the Runaways were in the process of quietly coming home to Italy - or so the authorities believed. The exiles had good reasons: Gotti was dead and buried in the States; and Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, his successor and lifelong Corleone paesano, are both serving life terms in Italy. They were allegedly about to rebuild their "Old Bridge" between America and Sicily, reestablishing the business and drug trafficking ties between the Sicilian and American mobs. For a while, that relationship had been paramount in the netherworld as the Gambinos reigned supreme in the 1970s and 1980s...
Provenzano grew up poor in Corleone. The real-life don began his rise after World War II, when he and his paesano Totò Riina did much of the whacking for rising boss Luciano Liggio. In 1958 Riina and Provenzano led a deadly ambush on the ruling boss Michele Navarra, leaving Liggio the undisputed godfather. Provenzano disappeared into the hills in 1963 after an internal Mafia feud erupted. When Liggio died in prison in 1993, Riina took over as top boss, with Provenzano as his No. 2. Riina was captured the same year and remains behind bars. Provenzano transformed the Mafia...