Biography of Tommaso Buscetta

The ransom of Don Masino

July 13, 1928
April 4, 2000
Tommaso Buscetta was born on July 13, 1928 in Agrigento, in a popular neighbourhood, from a modest family. The mother is a simple housewife and her father makes the glassmaker. Cute boy and ready intelligence, burn the stages of an intense life marrying very early, just sixteen, although in Sicily back then marriages between very young were not so uncommon. However the marriage Attorney of precise responsibilities to Thomas, all to ensure the bread to his young bride.
Please submit that in Sicily marked the years ' 30 it was not conceivable that a woman plays a any work ... Buscetta, then, for a living takes on black market activities; in particular, imports clandestinely tiles to the rationing of flour: it's 1944, the war is wearing out civilians and devastates cities, including Palermo, suffocated under a pile of rubble, those of the bombing the year before Despite this seemingly happy little picture, year after Buscetta give birth to a daughter, Felicia, while two years later Daniel Benedict. With two sons, also the economic needs. In Palermo, however, regular job just won't find; comes forward then the spectrum of the only possible solution, even if painful: immigration.
What who regularly, as many Italians degli anni ' 40, occurs. Know that in Argentina there is good accommodation options for Italians, don Masino embarks to Naples and then landed in Buenos Aires, where you invent an original work on the footprint of the old paternal profession: opens a glass factory in the capital. The task is certainly no business. Disappointed in ' 57 he returns in "his" Palermo, decided to try again the road to wealth and success with ... other means. In fact, Palermo at that time was changing greatly, for she, too, albeit in limited ways, the Economic Boom that was benefiting the Italy, thanks to the efforts of millions of intelligent and capable workers. A fever of rebirth seems to have gripped the city wholesomely: wherever we build new works, demolish old buildings to make them rise of new and I mean everywhere there is a great desire for redemption, reconstruction and welfare. Unfortunately, the mob had already stretched out his long tentacles over most of the activities then under way, particularly on reinforced concrete buildings, the new material for construction of mass and popular, sticking up like weeds here and there. Don Masino see easy money in that market and fits into the activities controlled by La Barbera, boss of Palermo centro.
Initially Don Masino is entrusted to "Division Tabacs", with smuggling and similar functions but then going places with important assignments. Regarding the hierarchies, The Barbera controlled the town while at the top of the Sicilian Mafia Commission Salvatore Ciaschiteddu Greco said there was, the boss of all bosses. In 1961 the first mafia war, which sees heavily involved families who share the territory of Palermo. The situation, amid various killings, is risky even for Don Masino which, wisely, decided to lay low for a while. The inaction of Buscetta, on balance, will run for ten years, from 1962 until 2 November 1972. In the long span of time you move continuously until, in the early ' 70 precisely in Rio De Janeiro. In this precarious situation and hell, even family life could only be revolutionized. In fact change twice wife up to construct two other families. With his second wife, Vera Girotti, shares a dissolute and dangerous existence, always on the edge of the ambush and arrest. With her, at the end of 1964 fled to Mexico before moving to New York, importing illegal ways his children to bed first. Two years later, in the District of New York, under the name of Manuel Lopez Cadena bride civilly.
In 1968, always in an attempt to escape justice, wearing new shoes of Paulo Roberto happy. With this new identity bride Brazil's Cristina de Almeida Guimares. The age difference is remarkable. Buscetta is a 40-year-old mobster while she is only a girl of 21 years old, but the differences do not frighten Don Masino. The fugitive, among many difficulties, continues. Finally, on 2 November 1972, the Brazilian police manages to put in handcuffs to the elusive mobster, accusing him of international traffic in narcotics. The Brazil not processes but the forwards at Fiumicino where await other cuffs. In December 1972 he opens the door of a prison cell on the third arm dell'ucciardone.
In prison remains until February 13, 1980, must serve out the sentence of 14 years reduced to 5 Catanzaro process on appeal. Imprisoned Don Masino tries to keep inner calm and physical fitness. In short, try not to get carried away by the events. His living arrangements is exemplary: she wakes up very early and spend an hour or more, to exercise. The fact is that, while still in prison, the mob helped him to maintain a life more than dignified. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided directly from the kitchens of one of the most famous restaurants of Palermo ... In any case, the years that Buscetta spends at the Ucciardone are crucial for the mafia.
Are killed judges, investigators, reporters, innocent citizens. On a personal level, instead, married for the second time, Christina and gets the work release, making the glass maker at a craftsman. But in the streets of Palermo is back to shooting. The murder of Stefano Bontade tells Buscetta clearly what his position is precarious. He's afraid. Back then in hiding. Is the 8 June 1980. Fall in Brazil via Paraguay, carriage free for adventurers from around the world. Three years later, on the morning of 24 October 1983 forty men surround her home in Sao Paulo and take still handcuffed. Conducted at the nearest police station don Masino offers: "I'm rich, I can give you all the money you want, as long as you let me go." In June 1984, two magistrates in Palermo goes to see him in the prisons of São Paulo. Are the examining magistrate Giovanni Falcone and the Deputy Prosecutor Vincent Galea.
Buscetta during the historic interview doesn't allow anything but, just when the magistrates were drifting apart, launches a signal: "I hope we can meet again soon". On 3 July, the Brazilian Supreme Court grants extradition. On the way into the Italy half a milligram of strychnine Buscetta ingests. You save. Four days in the hospital, then finally is ready for flight to Rome. When the Dc 10 Alitalia touches the track of Fiumicino, on July 15, 1984, the airport is surrounded by special teams. Three days later, the mafioso Tommaso Buscetta is opposite the Falcone. With judge take a profound understanding, a sense of confidence that will lead to a very special relationship. It is no exaggeration to say that between there was mutual respect (certainly by Buscetta).
It is the fundamental basis for the first revelations of Don Masino, who soon will become like a raging river. It is, in fact, the first "repented" of history, a role he takes on with great courage and a choice that will pay dearly (virtually, through the years, the family Buscetta was exterminated in retaliation by the mob). In intense sessions with Falcone Buscetta reveals the organigrams of opposing clans, then those of his allies. He gives the judges the debt collectors Nino and Ignazio Salvo, then Vito Ciancimino. In 1992, when it assassinated the Christian Democrat Salvo Lima MEP will say that "he was a man of honour". Afterwards, his statements have aimed higher and higher, until in Giulio Andreotti the most important, at the institutional level, of What our politics. Buscetta has been for the last fourteen years of his life an American citizen almost free. Extradited to the u.s. after having testified in Italy, has the Government obtained, in Exchange for his cooperation against mafia presence in the United States, citizenship, new undercover identity, protection for himself and his family. From 1993 benefited from an agreement with the Italian Government, thanks to a law passed by a Government led by Giulio Andreotti, where he also received a substantial pension. On 4 April 2000, at the age of 72 years and unrecognizable because of numerous facial plastic faced in order to escape the mafia Don Masino killer died in New York City for an incurable disease.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.