datelined the day of the killing but printed earlier). It claimed that Aniello Dellacroce, the number two man in the Gambino family directly under Castellano, and who had died of lung cancer on December 2, had been an FBI informer.
Time
, it seems, may have been fed FBI disinformation. That Dellacroce, known as a very tough mafiosi, had talked seemed highly dubious to many observers. Many crime observers believe that the agency used Dellacroce as a scapegoat to protect other very real informers. It is also argued that the Mafia, nervous that a man like Dellacroce would defect, would think, how about Castellano, who was considered personally far weaker than Dellacroce?
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The true efficacy of the FBI efforts to nab bosses cannot yet be measured. Yet, the Mafia can counter the threat by returning to the ways of the Mafia during the early syndicate days. Then the leaders of most crime families were in their 30s or 40s. The benefits were obvious. If a boss of 75 were hit with a 20-or 30-year sentence, he could crack, knowing he was at the end of the line. A boss aged 40 could do such a term "standing on his head," getting out in as little as six or seven years, allowing for good behavior. The older boss might talk, the younger would not. And a shift to younger bosses might not weaken the Mafia at all, but rather strengthen it in the long run. One thing remains certain, bloodied or not, as one young mafioso told a reporter defiantly, "We ain't dead, that's for damned sure."
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The American Mafia is still a rather young creature, only in its 60s. Rather than learning from the Sicilian Mafia, today it is more aptly described as Sicily's tutor. The 1985 testimony of Tommaso Buscettathe highrank Sicilian mafioso, whose defection led to the arrests of hundreds of alleged mafiosi in Italydescribed the structures of the two Mafias on each side of the Atlantic as similar, but added that only the American version had an organization called "The Commission." Buscetta said the idea of a commission was pressed on the Sicilian Mafia by two members of the American MafiaLucky Luciano and "a gentleman named Bonanno coming from the United States in 1957." Buscetta said Luciano and Joe Bonanno had told their Italian counterparts that such a commission was valuable to resolve disputes between the crime families, 20 in Palermo alone, throughout the island.
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U.S. law enforcement agencies had no problem figuring why Luciano and Bonanno were so interested in having a commission established in Italy. By reducing the disputes, the arguments over spoils, they would guarantee that the heroin pipeline from Sicily to the United States functioned smoothly. It was the hallmark of the American Mafiaexporting good old American know-how.
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Mafia, Origin of
Historians disagree as to the age of the Mafia. Some trace its origin to 1812, others to 1860. Still others say it goes back to the 13th century to the society that was founded in Italy to fight the oppression of the French Angevins. Its slogan then was
Morte alla Francia Italia anela!
("Death to the French is Italy's cry!") The word mafia was taken from the first letters of each word of the slogan.
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In the 19th century, the Mafia emerged as a criminal culture, sometimes victimizing wealthy landowners but more commonly renting themselves out as hired guns to oppress the peasants.
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So much for the historical views. Ask the American mafiosithose who'll tell you "there ain't no Mafia"and they'll give a different version, one that crime family boss Joe Bonanno repeats in his recent autobiography,
A Man of Honor
. The term
mafia
was coined in the revolt that developed after a French soldier raped a Palermo maiden on her wedding day on Easter Monday 1282. A band of Sicilians angrily struck back by slaughtering a French troop, and as news of the retaliation spread, other Sicilians arose in town after town, killing the French. Thousands of French died, and the slogan of Mafia became their battle cry, arising from the hysterical cries of the raped girl's mother who ran through the streets shouting
ma fia, ma fia
, "my daughter, my daughter."
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Bonanno and other more romantically inclined mafiosi much prefer this version, which puts the Mafia on the side of the angels.
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Mafia Coffin: Corpse disposal method
When it comes to disposing of corpses, the Mafia is certainly creative. Indeed, only those victims the mob wants to be found are ever discovered.
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The Mafia Coffin is perhaps the most ingenious method of disposing of corpses. A body is delivered to a mob undertakereither a voluntary plotter or one being forced to cooperate, perhaps because of heavy loan-sharkingwho alters a coffin and adds a false bottom, the result sometimes called a Double-Decker Coffin. The victim is placed beneath the false bottom of the Mafia Coffin. Another soon-to-be-buried legit corpse goes on top. The mourning family of the deceased is not even aware that their beloved one is sharing his final burial place with a hit victim, and the pallbearers are simply impressed with the apparent weight of quality wood used for the coffin.
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The Mafia Coffin is not used much anymore. It would be too easy for the law to one day have the coffin opened and find the extra body. In theory of course the undertaker can simply deny having put in the extra
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