Bernardo Provenzano

Bernardo Provenzano (31 January 1933 – 13 July 2016) was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia clan known as the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone, and de facto the boss of bosses ("il capo dei capi").

His nickname was Binnu u tratturi (Sicilian for "Bernie the tractor") because, in the words of one informant, "he mows people down".

Another nickname was il ragioniere ("the accountant"), due to his apparently subtle and low-key approach to running his crime empire, at least in contrast to some of his more violent predecessors.

Provenzano was born the third of seven children on 31 January 1933, in Corleone, Sicily, to farmers Angelo Provenzano and Giovanna Rigoglioso.

It was during this period that a series of illegal activities began, especially cattle raiding and the theft of foodstuffs.

Provenzano was part of the Corleonesi Mafia clan who backed mob boss Luciano Leggio in the ambush and murder of Michele Navarra in the late 1950s.

In August 1958, Provenzano was one of the 14 gunmen who backed mob boss Luciano Leggio in the ambush and murder of Michele Navarra.

Leggio subsequently became the head of the Family.

Over the next five years, Provenzano helped Leggio hunt down and kill many of Navarra's surviving supporters.

Provenzano also participated in the Viale Lazio massacre in the late 1960s.

In 1963, Provenzano became a fugitive after a failed hit.

In September 1963, Provenzano became a fugitive after the failed killing of one of Navarra's men – at this point, he was not running from the police but from a Mafia vendetta.

Leggio said of Provenzano: "He shoots like an angel but has the brains of a chicken".

On 10 September 1963, an arrest warrant was issued against Provenzano for the murder of one of Navarra's men.

Provenzano participated in the Viale Lazio massacre on 10 December 1969: the killing of Michele Cavataio for his role in the First Mafia War.

The attack nearly went wrong, as Cavataio was able to shoot to death Calogero Bagarella, before Provenzano killed him with a Beretta 38/A submachine gun and earned himself a reputation as a Mafia killer with the attack.

However, according to Gaetano Grado, one of the participants who turned government witness later, it was Provenzano who botched the attack, shooting too early.

Salvatore Riina succeeded Leggio in the mid-1970s, and Provenzano became the second-in-command of the Corleonesi.

Leggio was captured by police in 1974, and Salvatore Riina was effectively left in charge.

Provenzano became the second-in-command of the Corleonesi, Riina's right-hand man.

Provenzano took the reins after Riina and Bagarella's arrests, but the three had already been sentenced to life in absentia in the late 1980s as part of the Maxi Trial and in the 1990s for the two high-profile bombings (the Capaci massacre and Via D'Amelio massacre) that killed prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

In 1981, Provenzano and Riina unleashed the so-called Second Mafia War, with which they eliminated rival bosses and established a new "Commission", composed only of capomandamenti; during the meetings of the "Commission", Provenzano participated in the decisions and the organization of numerous murders as an influential exponent of the district of Corleone and repeatedly protected, with intimidation, the political career of Vito Ciancimino, the main political referent of the Corleonesi.

According to mob godmother-turned-informant Giuseppina Vitale, Provenzano had appeared at a 1992 Cosa Nostra summit meeting dressed in the purple robes of a Catholic bishop.

Religious behaviour and language progressively became the prominent features of Provenzano's figure.

For example, Provenzano systematically underlined verses from the Bible and took notes of relevant passages to be threaded in his pizzini through otherwise routine instructions regarding daily business matters.

He also recurrently thanked 'Our Lord Jesus Christ', and referred to 'The Divine Providence' and 'Our beloved Lord', expressing the hope that 'He might help us to do the right things'.

In particular, the expression Con il volere di Dio (With God's will), to date has been counted 43 times, and it often appears more than once in the same piece of communication.

Provenzano used a version of the Caesar cipher, used by Julius Caesar in wartime communications.

The Caesar code involves shifting each letter of the alphabet forward three places; Provenzano's pizzini code did the same, then replaced letters with numbers indicating their position in the alphabet.

For example, one reported note by Provenzano read "I met 512151522 191212154 and we agreed that we will see each other after the holidays...".

This name was decoded as "Binnu Riina".

In 1993 after Riina's arrest, in a meeting at Villabate it was decided that both Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca Bagarella would take charge of holding Corleone's mandate together.

But after Bagarella's arrest in 1995, Provenzano took the reins of the Corleonesi and all of Cosa Nostra; however, he had already been sentenced to life in absentia in 1987 at the Maxi Trial.

In 1997 and 1999 respectively, Provenzano was given life sentences for the 1992 murders of anti-mafia magistrates Falcone and Borsellino.

Provenzano frowned upon the use of telephones, and issued orders and communications (even to his family) through small, hand-delivered notes called pizzini.

Many of the notes from Provenzano that police have intercepted sign off with religious blessings, such as one that concluded "May the Lord bless and protect you".

In October 2003, Provenzano was driven to France, allegedly by Villabate mobster Salvatore Troia, to undergo prostate surgery at a private clinic near Marseille.

Provenzano was also provided with fake travel and medical records, under the name of Salvatore Troia's father, Gaspare Troia, a Sicilian baker.

Mario Cusimano, another Villabate mobster who was later arrested, began to collaborate with police in 2005, and revealed to the investigators that the identity card used by Provenzano to go to Marseille had been stamped by Francesco Campanella, former president of the municipal council of Villabate, and in September 2005, Campanella also began to collaborate with police who confirmed that he was the one who had stamped the document.

After 43 years living as a fugitive, he was captured in 2006, and subjected to the stringent Article 41-bis prison regime until his death on 13 July 2016.