notorious contribution to Mafia power coincided with his term of office as mayor of the Sicilian capital, a period known as ‘the sack of Palermo’ due to the destruction of much of the city’s architectural heritage and its replacement with ugly blocks of flats. Lima was operating in a situation where there was a huge demand for houses, Sicilians were leaving an unproductive countryside and looking for better-paid public sector and service jobs in Palermo. People – including the Mafia – were following the money.
The trick was how to award huge building contracts to your friends, who obviously couldn’t actually appear to be in control of the contracts because of their criminal reputation. So, of the total of 4,205 building licences granted by Palermo council from 1959 to 1963, an incredible 80 per cent went to just five people. These individuals were later described in an official report as being: ‘retired persons, of modest means, none with any experience in the building trade, and who, evidently, simply lent their names to the real builders’. They were prestanomi , literally ‘name lenders’. Indeed one of these pensioners later got a job as the doorkeeper of one of the blocks of flats he was supposed to have built. It was relatively easy for the many brand-new building companies to obtain credit from banks, generally they found a friendly face at those newly created banks that were being founded by the most forward-looking Mafiosi .
Because of all the dirty tricks and creative accounting, costs and profits were inflated. Around this period the budget for street maintenance in Palermo was 4.4 billion lire, yet in a similar-sized city, Bologna, it was 500 million – Palermo cost nine times more. It was the same for sewer and drain maintenance: 6 billion in Palermo against 200 million in Bologna – 30 times higher. Not only were consumers paying way over the odds, but the centre of Palermo was ruined. One example was Villa Deliella, a building protected due to its ‘significant artistic value’. On 29 November 1959 Prince Lanza di Scalea applied to demolish it, permission was granted by the council immediately, and that night the bulldozers moved in and destroyed it.
Mafiopoli
But what had Gaetano Badalamenti been up to for the last six years? Even today, nobody knows for certain.
One thing that is sure is that he was developing his drugs trade with the US. In 1968 Italian police had charged two Italian Americans linked to Badalamenti with running a heroin distribution ring out of a pizzeria in Himroad Street, New York. Three years later an even bigger network was unearthed. The basic mechanism was Roma Foods, which distributed food to over 650 restaurants and pizzerias. Another was the Piancone Pizza Palaces chain, all owned by two of Badalamenti’s nephews. It was in a New Jersey Pizza Palace that the biggest heroin seizure so far ever discovered was made by police – 86 kilos sent by Badalamenti.
Wherever he was, Badalamenti definitely knew about the development of the new airport, as well as the nearby ‘sack of Palermo’. It is equally certain that somebody of his criminal stature would have been wheeling and dealing with important people. What’s also sure is that at some stage Badalamenti became friends with the Salvo cousins, Nino and Ignazio, often described as the ‘financial lungs’ of the Christian Democrat Party. One of the Mafia’s top supergrasses, Antonino Calderone, described the Salvos very differently: ‘The Salvo cousins were the richest men in Italy and they were both men of honour. They were in a position to dictate things to ministers . . . The Salvos were introduced to me by Gaetano Badalamenti, who was both proud and jealous of his friendship.’
Under Italian law Sicily is defined as a ‘special region’, and has many central powers devolved locally, one of them being tax collection. Whereas in the rest of Italy tax collectors like the Salvo cousins cost the state an
The trick was how to award huge building contracts to your friends, who obviously couldn’t actually appear to be in control of the contracts because of their criminal reputation. So, of the total of 4,205 building licences granted by Palermo council from 1959 to 1963, an incredible 80 per cent went to just five people. These individuals were later described in an official report as being: ‘retired persons, of modest means, none with any experience in the building trade, and who, evidently, simply lent their names to the real builders’. They were prestanomi , literally ‘name lenders’. Indeed one of these pensioners later got a job as the doorkeeper of one of the blocks of flats he was supposed to have built. It was relatively easy for the many brand-new building companies to obtain credit from banks, generally they found a friendly face at those newly created banks that were being founded by the most forward-looking Mafiosi .
Because of all the dirty tricks and creative accounting, costs and profits were inflated. Around this period the budget for street maintenance in Palermo was 4.4 billion lire, yet in a similar-sized city, Bologna, it was 500 million – Palermo cost nine times more. It was the same for sewer and drain maintenance: 6 billion in Palermo against 200 million in Bologna – 30 times higher. Not only were consumers paying way over the odds, but the centre of Palermo was ruined. One example was Villa Deliella, a building protected due to its ‘significant artistic value’. On 29 November 1959 Prince Lanza di Scalea applied to demolish it, permission was granted by the council immediately, and that night the bulldozers moved in and destroyed it.
Mafiopoli
But what had Gaetano Badalamenti been up to for the last six years? Even today, nobody knows for certain.
One thing that is sure is that he was developing his drugs trade with the US. In 1968 Italian police had charged two Italian Americans linked to Badalamenti with running a heroin distribution ring out of a pizzeria in Himroad Street, New York. Three years later an even bigger network was unearthed. The basic mechanism was Roma Foods, which distributed food to over 650 restaurants and pizzerias. Another was the Piancone Pizza Palaces chain, all owned by two of Badalamenti’s nephews. It was in a New Jersey Pizza Palace that the biggest heroin seizure so far ever discovered was made by police – 86 kilos sent by Badalamenti.
Wherever he was, Badalamenti definitely knew about the development of the new airport, as well as the nearby ‘sack of Palermo’. It is equally certain that somebody of his criminal stature would have been wheeling and dealing with important people. What’s also sure is that at some stage Badalamenti became friends with the Salvo cousins, Nino and Ignazio, often described as the ‘financial lungs’ of the Christian Democrat Party. One of the Mafia’s top supergrasses, Antonino Calderone, described the Salvos very differently: ‘The Salvo cousins were the richest men in Italy and they were both men of honour. They were in a position to dictate things to ministers . . . The Salvos were introduced to me by Gaetano Badalamenti, who was both proud and jealous of his friendship.’
Under Italian law Sicily is defined as a ‘special region’, and has many central powers devolved locally, one of them being tax collection. Whereas in the rest of Italy tax collectors like the Salvo cousins cost the state an
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