Word: piccoloed
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Open ambition is a dangerous thing for a mafioso. For years, Salvatore Lo Piccolo managed to mask his highest aspirations as he rose from loyal foot soldier to the upper reaches of the Mafia hierarchy. The 65-year-old Palermo native always seemed to know how to wind up on the winning side of internal feuds, a gift that eventually made him supreme boss in the Sicilian capital. But Lo Piccolo wanted more: control over the entire island of Sicily, expanded cooperation with U.S. mobsters, even the title of capo dei capi - the boss of bosses...
That drive would spell his doom. Along with his son Sandro, 32, whom he'd been grooming for succession, Lo Piccolo was arrested on Nov. 5 after more than two decades as a fugitive. Convicted in absentia on multiple murder charges, Lo Piccolo was taken to an undisclosed prison on the Italian mainland, as was his son, also a convicted murderer. Their capture follows the April 2006 arrest of Bernardo Provenzano, the all-powerful Mafia boss, who evaded authorities for 43 years and is now also serving a life sentence for murder...
...fabric of Sicilian society that the Italian state is far from claiming final victory. "Cosa Nostra is built on a capacity to adapt to the time and situation, to camouflage itself and raise its head only when necessary," says a senior Palermo-based investigator who worked on the Lo Piccolo case. Lo Piccolo's takedown shuffles the deck in the organization, but hardly eradicates...
Italian authorities say Lo Piccolo was working hard to rebuild those transatlantic ties, largely disrupted in the 1980s by U.S. investigations and local Sicilian turf wars. He had allowed members of a historic Mafia family, the Inzerillos, to return to Palermo in recent months from more than two decades of forced exile in the U.S. after former top boss Totò Riina tried to exterminate the entire clan. Piero Angeloni, head of Palermo's police detective unit, says Lo Piccolo's arrest is likely to stall Sicilian efforts to deepen links with the "Americani." But the contacts are sure...
...whoever bet on Lo Piccolo is now sure to suffer. Pretenders to the throne will now see a power vacuum. Matteo Messina Denaro, who hails from the west coast Sicilian city of Trapani, may be in position now to take over supreme control of the organization. Messina Denaro, 45, is said to have a weakness for fast cars and Armani suits, but was nevertheless highly respected by the more traditional Provenzano. Investigators say they had an almost father-and-son rapport...