Successor of the Corleonesi clan

[aleksandrored]

Fellas, I am confused whenever I see about the leader of the clan corleonesi, many places speak of Matteo Messina Denaro as the boss, but I have heard of Rosario Lo Bue who has been arrested since 2015 that he is the boss, besides this confusion, confuse me also in that of "Capo di tutti capi", I read in a book that in 1983 Riina changed the hierarchy of Cosa Nostra, and this leaves me even more confused because if Matteo Messina Denaro is the successor of Provenzano, he is also the boss of the Corleonesi and the Cosa Nostra?

[Wiseguy]

Fellas, I am confused whenever I see about the leader of the clan corleonesi, many places speak of Matteo Messina Denaro as the boss, but I have heard of Rosario Lo Bue who has been arrested since 2015 that he is the boss, besides this confusion, confuse me also in that of "Capo di tutti capi", I read in a book that in 1983 Riina changed the hierarchy of Cosa Nostra, and this leaves me even more confused because if Matteo Messina Denaro is the successor of Provenzano, he is also the boss of the Corleonesi and the Cosa Nostra?

Messina Denaro is from Castelvetrano in Trapani (not Palermo) province. While he could be called a Corleonesi in the sense of him being among those across several clans who were allied with Riina and Provenzano, he was never a member of the Corleone clan.

Some have labeled him the successor to Provenzano as "Capo do tutti Capi" but I don't know how accurate that is. He's a big name, and probably the most internationally recognizable of the Sicilian bosses, but I'm not sure he has the level of influence that the Corleone bosses did.

[SonnyBlackstein]

How would one rate the power of the Sicilian mafia now compared to the past successive decades? Ie now vs 2000’s? Now vs 90’s? Now vs 80’s etc etc?

Are they rebuilding, all encompassing, on the fringes, in retreat, ignored? Etc etc.

[aleksandrored]

I understand, thanks for the explanation, it's really hard to know how influential Messina denaro is today, but he ends up being the but known for being the sixth-most-wanted fugitive in the world, but compared to what was known of him in the 90's and beginning of 2000, today he is a ghost.

[aleksandrored]

How would one rate the power of the Sicilian mafia now compared to the past successive decades? Ie now vs 2000’s? Now vs 90’s? Now vs 80’s etc etc?

Are they rebuilding, all encompassing, on the fringes, in retreat, ignored? Etc etc.

Nowdays the Sicilian mafia is a mystery, it is known that it still has power in the extortion and construction / contract (I do not know for sure, I'm sorry), and I may be wrong, but it is superior to Camorra in relation to the traffic of drugs.

[Wiseguy]

How would one rate the power of the Sicilian mafia now compared to the past successive decades? Ie now vs 2000’s? Now vs 90’s? Now vs 80’s etc etc?

Are they rebuilding, all encompassing, on the fringes, in retreat, ignored? Etc etc.

I think most would agree the Sicilian Mafia is weaker than it was in the 1980s and into the 1990s. At that time it was definitely the most influential crime group in Italy, had considerable political influence, and had a leading position in the international drug trade.

Their direct confrontation with the government, killing of high profile officials, as well as all the internal bloodletting, led to a lot of crackdowns and defections. Over time the Sicilians became marginalized in the drug trade by the mainland syndicates and now reportedly get much of their income from extortion of local businesses and public contracts. They are still involved in narcotics but don't have the position they did. They also haven't been successful at reestablishing a working commission.

[Angelo Santino]

There's two meanings to Corleonesi that, without paying close attention to the context, can be mistook. There's the Family in Corleone, they are Corleonesi.. And then there was the Riina-lead coalition of groups called Corleonesi because they were at the center of it. It's similar to placing Phila. Boss Salvatore Sabella under "Maranzano faction" or Pinzolo under "Masseria faction" despite both being parts of entirely separate families.

The Corleonesi Family amounted to 35-40 members, they didn't take over Sicily without allies. If the boss of Palermo Centro defected to Riina, he'd be a Corleonesi. If someone from Piedmont, Italy gets chosen for membership by the Corleone family, he'd technically be Corleonesi because that's his representation. At least that's my interpretation of Calderone without pulling out the book and looking for passages to quote.

Counter arguments welcome.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Many thanks gents.

Appreciated.

I'm curious as to the standing of the Sicilian CN this century. Any additional info/posts, appreciated as well.

@CC Regards your last sentence 'if the boss of Palermo defected...' do you mean 'deferred to'? Or would he, in paying allegiance to Corleone, become one literally.

[Angelo Santino]

Many thanks gents.

Appreciated.

I'm curious as to the standing of the Sicilian CN this century. Any additional info/posts, appreciated as well.

@CC Regards your last sentence 'if the boss of Palermo defected...' do you mean 'deferred to'? Or would he, in paying allegiance to Corleone, become one literally.

To me it's Ta-may-toe, toe-mah-toe. If you, me and somebody else all have to vote on something and I always vote with the other guy, either out of loyalty or self interest, when I'm supposed to remain impartial, did I defect or defer?

The wikipedia entry isn't that bad, explains it pretty well and goes into Calderone's statements:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corleonesi_Mafia_clan

"The Corleone bosses were not educated at all, but they were cunning and diabolical," Calderone said about Riina and Provenzano. "They were both clever and ferocious, a rare combination in Cosa Nostra." Calderone described Totò Riina as "unbelievably ignorant, but he had intuition and intelligence and was difficult to fathom and very hard to predict." Riina was soft spoken, highly persuasive and often highly sentimental. He followed the simple codes of the brutal, ancient world of the Sicilian countryside, where force is the only law and there is no contradiction between personal kindness and extreme ferocity. "His philosophy was that if someone’s finger hurt, it was better to cut off his whole arm just to make sure," Calderone said.[2]

[aleksandrored]

This phrase describes the rise of the Corleonesi to power:
"They took power by slowly, slowly killing everyone. We were kind of infatuated with them because we thought that getting rid of the old bosses we would become the new bosses. Some people killed their brother, others their cousin and so on because they thought they would take their places. Instead, slowly, (the Corleonesi) gained control of the whole system. First they used us to get rid of the old bosses, then they got rid of all those who raised their heads, like Giuseppe Greco 'the Shoe', Mario Prestifilippo and Vincenzo Puccio. All that’s left are men without character, who are their puppets." By: Leonardo Messina

[CabriniGreen]

@aleksandrored

That's one of my personal favorites, great book on the Coleonesi. Luciano Leggio was a monster.....

@Sonny

I cant read Italian, so I cant keep up as well, but Hollander post regularly on Sicily, he had 3 recently that caught my eye.....

1. The DIA said there is an agreement between ndrangheta and Costa nostra to divide Abruzzo and Molise in central Italy for drug trafficking. Apparently this was a first, for the organizations as a WHOLE to agree to divide up a region for greater territorial control.

Any thoughts?

2. What does anyone know of an Antonio Sciortino?
Or an investigation code named New Madamento? Supposedly it was a plan to create a " Super Clan" uniting the families of Camporeale, Monreale, Partinico, San Guiseppe Jato, Altofonte, Borgetto, Montelepre, and Giardinello. Been trying to look into it...

3. Good article..
https://www.corriere.it/english/18_apri ... resh_ce-cp

[CabriniGreen]

Those video gaming machines are pretty lucrative....

[CabriniGreen]

Also, I found the techie angle pretty fascinating, with the software engineers reprogramming the machines....

[SonnyBlackstein]

@CC I think its a little more tomato v potato. You say the saying using one crop, I the other. Same point, but the details are different.
Defected and deferred, similar words, different complexities and different small print.

Simply put, does one retain autonomy or not?

[SonnyBlackstein]

My thanks Alex as well, and all contributions to the thread.