March 23 – Police arrested dozens of people in several regions of Italy, as well as Spain and Morocco, and seized more than 20 tonnes of cocaine and 17,000 tonnes of hashish in an international drug trafficking ring, involving the Calabrian Mafia ('Ndrangheta) and criminal groups in Latin America and Morocco[1]
March [day unknown/disputed(?)] - 10 members of at least two of New York's five families (some sources citing from the Bonanno and the Lucchese crime families; others suggesting the Gambino crime family) arrested for stock manipulation. {Conflicting sources:[2] & [3]}
March 27 – 4 persons found shot dead in Catanzaro, Calabria, Italy with no indications of motive for the murders.[4][5]
March 27 – The two sons of former mobster, Francesco "Frank" Frassetto, pleaded guilty to drugs charges in court; both claiming the involvement of their father.[7]
April 4 – Bernardo Provenzano mentioned Matteo Messina Denaro as a possible successor as boss of the Sicilian Mafia. However this fact was only realized after Provenzano's capture when police deciphered messages sent between Provenzano and other mobsters. This presupposes that Provenzano has the power to nominate a successor, which is not unanimously accepted among Mafia observers. "The Mafia today is more of a federation and less of an authoritarian state," according to anti-Mafia prosecutor Antonio Ingroia of the Direzione distrettuale antimafia (DDA) of Palermo, referring to the previous period of authoritarian rule under Salvatore Riina.[9]
April 11 – Sicilian mafia boss, Bernardo Provenzano, captured by police outside of Corleone after more than 40 years of hiding. Several mafiosi were mentioned as his successor. Among the rivals were Matteo Messina Denaro (from Castelvetrano and the province of Trapani), Salvatore Lo Piccolo (boss of Tommaso Natale area and the mandamento of San Lorenzo in Palermo), and Domenico Raccuglia from Altofonte. Provenzano allegedly nominated Messina Denaro in one of his pizzini – small slips of paper used to communicate with other mafiosi to avoid phone conversations, found at Provenzano's hide out.
May 14 – Anti-mafia magistrate Giuseppe Narducci called for all Italian football "elites" (players, managers, coaches etc.) to help investigations into corruption in the Serie A division. The leading Turin-based Juventus FC and Rome-based S.S. Lazio were both under investigation.[16]
June 12 – New Jersey mobster Stefano Vitabile sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the murder of one time boss John D'Amato. D'Amato was a homosexual, an offence punishable by death. In court the killer, Anthony Capo explained "Nobody's gonna respect us if we have a gay homosexual boss sitting down discussing La Cosa Nostra business,".[30]
June 16 – The French leader in organized crimeJacky Imbert, "Mad Jacky", was sentenced to four years for extorting from Paris businessmen in the early 1990s, in Marseille.[33]
June 20 – Italian authorities issued 52 arrest warrants against the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in the city of Palermo (Operation Gotha). Study of the pizzini showed that Provenzano's joint deputies in Palermo were Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Antonio Rotolo, capo mandamento of Pagliarelli. In a message referring to an important decision for Cosa Nostra, Provenzano told Rotolo: "It's up to you, me and Lo Piccolo to decide this thing."[36] The investigations showed that Rotolo had built a kind of federation within the mafia, comprising 13 families grouped in four clans. His right-hand men were Antonio Cinà—who used to be the personal physician of Salvatore Riina and Provenzano – and the builder Francesco Bonura. The city of Palermo was ruled by this triumvirate replacing the Commission whose members are all in jail.
August
August 10 – Several bones discovered by a farmer, in a property close to the hideout of Sicilian mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, in Corleone. The property was dubbed a "mafia graveyard" after two jawbones, vertebrae, a breast bone with bullets wounds and two skulls with shotgun wounds are found buried in the soil. "The area has been impounded and a search of the field is taking place and will continue for the next few days. The suspicion is that further bodies will be discovered." said Corleone prosecutorAlberto Di Pisa.[37]
October 30 – Giovanni Montani, a young footballer, was shot dead in Bari. Although a seemingly innocent victim, Montani's imprisoned uncle Andrea Montani was the allegedly the head of a dominant Sacra Corona Unita crime family in the Bari area of Apulia. Giovanni Montani's cousin Salvatore Montani was shot dead in September of this year.[42]
PalermoFinancial Police confiscated goods and real estate worth €104 million from Sicilian businessman Angelo Prisinzano for mafia related criminal association. Two others had assets confiscated; all three had been under investigation since February 2005.[45]
October 31 – 3 people were killed in Naples in what appeared to be a bloody turf war involving two Camorra groups for control of the drug trade.[49][50][51][52][53][54][55]
October 31 – All eleven of the prosecutors leading anti-mafia investigations in Catania, Sicily, resigned this week because of the severe lack of funding causing them to personally finance the operations.[56][57][58]
November
November 2 – A man was stabbed in Naples, leaving him in a serious condition in hospital.[52]
November 3 – The Italian government pledged to post 1000 extra police officers in Naples after the spate of violence that saw 12 people killed in 10 days.[59][60]
November 6 – Italian business man, Angelo Cottarelli, was found in his home, still alive but with his neck cut to near decapitation, his family dead. It seemed that Cottarelli was made to watch his family die before his throat was cut and he was left to die. The attacks was perpetrated, it seemed, by the 'Ndrangheta.[61]
Scheduled events
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(April 2014)
