Feature: Mafia victims begin to speak out, even in mob's backyard

Anti-mafia campaigners are hailing the news that the wall of silence that has protected Cosa Nostra for decades is finally cracking even in its Sicilian heartland.

In Corleone, the birthplace of the Mafia's most infamous Godfathers, and the town that lent its name to the fictional crime family of Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather" films, a victim of extortion rackets has cooperated with law authorities for the very first time.

On Monday night Carabinieri officers arrested a local mob boss and three other suspects after the unnamed victim, who ran a car showroom, told police he was simply not able to pay the 500-euro-a-month "protection money."

Mobsters are thought to be demanding ever larger extortion payments to fund the families of the growing number of jailed colleagues. But local police commander Pierluigi Solazzo said that after the latest incident, and following a series of high-profile arrests in the past six months, the infamous code of silence or omerta was weakening. "It's an excellent sign," he said.

Umberto Di Maggio, the regional coordinator in Sicily of the anti-mafia organisation Libera, agreed that the rebellion by a Corleone business man was a "very positive sign."

"The end of the Mafia will come more quickly if people refuse to pay extortion money," he said. The development follows on from the success that the group Addiopizzo has had in fighting extortion rackets in the major Sicilian cities of Palermo and Catania, with almost 1,000 businesses joining its campaign.

Di Maggio noted that it wasn't only threats of violence that mobsters used against businessmen. "The thing that frightens shop owners and businessmen the most is the economic threat from Mafiosi; if people refuse to pay il pizzo (extortion money) they can deliberately set up rival businesses at knock down prices," he said.

However, with lingering economic crisis bearing down on him, the extortion victim in Corleone told police: "Every month I had to pay il pizzo - nearly 500 euros. Eventually I had to close my business because I wasn't able to pay it."

When he opened another business, he asked for his payments to be reduced. The local Mafia bosses refused. But the conversation was recorded by wiretaps, and the businessman agreed to cooperate with the police and magistrates.

"Businessmen already crushed by the crisis are not able to bear this additional Mafia pressure," said Commander Solazzo.

The latest arrests follow on from the seizure last September of six other senior mobsters in Corleone, the home town of Cosa Nostra's most notorious boss of bosses Salvatore "Toto" Riina.

The most important of those held was Antonino Di Marco, 58, who was said to have remained loyal to Riina after his arrest in 1993 and helped the jailed godfather continue to have a hand in procurement, extortion and election campaigns even from behind bars.

During his "day job" as the manager of a local sports ground, Di Marco organized high-level Cosa Nostra meetings. But when magistrates were able to bug his office, they received a mine of information about the Corleone mob's activity - and learned of the protection money being paid by the local businessman whose cooperation led to four more arrests on Monday.

Il Giornale di Sicilia today reported that several other cases of extortion were now being investigated. The newspaper hailed the action of the businessman that it said had "broken the wall of silence of the victims of extortion in Corleone, the symbol of Mafia power."

Corleone has a reputation as a Cosa Nostra stronghold in Italy and beyond. This small hill town of 12,000 inhabitants, just south of Palermo, acquired world-wide fame - or notoriety - thanks to the Oscar-winning "Godfather" films.

In January 2013, on the 20th anniversary of the arrest of "Toto" Riina, who ordered deadly bomb attacks against magistrates in 1992, Leoluchina Savona, Corleone's mayor, apologised "in the name of all the people of Corleone" for all the blood that had been spilt by local mobsters.

Everywhere in the town, however, there are references to its bloody history, from a local "Don Corleone Amaro" aperitif to the images of Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in their roles as Corleone family mobsters.

Di Maggio said, however, that Corleone had a proud history of fighting the Mafia, as well as producing its most feared bosses. "The first anti-mafia leader Bernardino Verro was from Corleone," he said. Verro was slain by the Mafia in 1915. Another Corleone figure, the peasant leader Placido Rizzotto, who led the fight against the mob, was killed in 1948. "So you see, Corleone has a proud history of resisting the Mafia, too," said Di Maggio.

Unfortunately, Cosa Nostra's most notorious Corleone leaders have endured longer than the people who opposed them.

Riina, aged 84, is in prison serving a life sentence, but is still making threats against magistrates. His successor as head of the Corleone clan - and de facto head of all Cosa Nostra - Bernardo Provenzano, was arrested in 2006. Since then the Sicilian Mafia has fractured, and an absolute "boss of bosses" is no longer thought to reign.

The most senior Cosa Nostra figure still on the run, Matteo Messina Denaro, a protege of Riina, is believed to be living in Western Sicily quite possibly in his hometown of Castelvetrano. But increasingly, many Mafia leaders are looking to the rich North of Italy and beyond to make their money, experts say. Endit