Antonino Calderone

Antonino Calderone (24 October 1935 – 10 January 2013) was a Sicilian Mafioso who turned state witness (pentito) in 1987 after his arrest in 1986.

Antonino was born in Catania, the brother of Giuseppe Calderone, the boss of the local Mafia.

Antonino Calderone, narrating his initiation ritual in Catania in 1962, recalls that he was surprised to see at the gathering people he knew and he never suspected were in the Mafia, and not to see people he thought were in the organization.

Calderone owned a gas station and entered profitable business ventures thanks to his Mafia connections, and rose through the ranks of the Calderone family until he became underboss of the Catania Mafia.

According to Calderone the late 1970s were a turning point in the relationship between the Mafia and politics.

The Mafia started to feel superior and politicians could not refuse requests for favours.

Calderone was different from previous pentiti such as Tommaso Buscetta and Salvatore Contorno.

While they expressed no regret for their crimes, Calderone seemed to suffer from genuine remorse.

As the brother of a Commission member, Calderone knew a lot about the workings of Cosa Nostra and confirmed the essential role of the Commission in the major assassinations of the 1970s and 1980s.

On 8 September 1978, his brother and boss of the Catania Mafia, Giuseppe Calderone, was killed by his former close friend and protégé Nitto Santapaola.

Santapaola had forged an alliance with the Corleonesi and took over the command of the Catania Mafia Family.

This was the beginning of a campaign of violence targeting the established Sicilian Mafia families which culminated in the 1981 killing of Stefano Bontade, a close ally and personal friend of the Calderone brothers, which led to the Second Mafia War.

Calderone became more and more marginalized and decided to leave Catania in 1983 fearing for his life.

With his wife and three children he moved to Nice in France, where he ran a Laundromat.

On May 9, 1986, he was arrested in Nice.

While he was in the Nice prison, Calderone became convinced that he was about to be killed by other Sicilian inmates.

Suddenly, he began screaming for a prison guard and demanded to see the head of the prison.

He said he wanted to talk to judge Giovanni Falcone.

Calderone was moved to an insane asylum for his own protection.

On 9 April 1987, Falcone – together with French prosecutor Michel Debaq sat face to face with Calderone in a Marseille prison.

After an initial refusal to talk, Calderone suddenly said, "I know a lot about the Mafia, because I am a member of it." Once he started, Calderone talked for almost a year.

Falcone flew once a week to Marseille, taking some 1,000 pages of deposition from Calderone.

Calderone proved to be a remarkably accurate witness.

More than 800 details were checked.

On March 19, 1988, Falcone issued 160 arrest warrants on the basis of the testimony of Antonino Calderone.

While previous pentiti had all been from Palermo, Calderone described the grip of Cosa Nostra in Catania, the main city and industrial centre on Sicily's east coast.

He testified about the relationship between the Mafia and the four Cavalieri del Lavoro (Knights of Labour) of Catania: the construction entrepreneurs Carmelo Costanzo, Francesco Finocchiaro, Mario Rendo and Gaetano Graci – who needed the mafiosi for protection.

Construction sites of rival companies were bombed and at least one rival of Costanzo was assassinated.

Calderone also talked about the links of Cosa Nostra with law enforcement, freemasonry, judges and politicians in Catania and the Italian government.

"We in Catania, when we had a problem with the judiciary, we would turn to the local Masonic head. We knew that many magistrates were lodge members and that, thanks to the local chief, we could even interfere with ongoing criminal proceedings," Calderone said.

The Catanese Mafia was generally able to learn about arrest warrants before they were issued and sometimes have names crossed off the list.

When they needed a false passport they turned to ‘their’ member of parliament in Rome, Giuseppe Lupis of the small Democratic Socialist Party.

Lupis was one of the top vote-getters in Catania.

Antonino's memoirs, Men of Dishonor: Inside the Sicilian Mafia, were published in 1992 with Antimafia sociologist Pino Arlacchi and are considered a handbook for understanding Cosa Nostra and the life of a mafioso.

It was translated into many languages.

Originally, Catania was not a traditional Mafia area such as the western part of Sicily.

According to Antonino Calderone, the first Mafia family in Catania was started by Antonio Saitta.

He had been prosecuted by Mussolini’s Iron Prefect, Cesare Mori.

One of his daughters was the mother of Giuseppe and Antonino Calderone.

Another uncle had helped the Mafia get back on its feet after World War II, organizing the black market in contraband cigarettes.