The two men in the photo were friends from their hometown.
Their hometown is Palermo, the capital of Sicily.
It is a place full of romance of the southern country, but it was also the home of the Sicilian mafia.
Many of my friends grew up to become mafia.
they went the other way.
Became a prosecutor to catch the mafia.
In a neighborhood entangled with blood ties and personal connections, these two fought against the mafia by trapping friends, relatives, and acquaintances.
They led the 'Maxi' trial from 1986 to 1992.
'Maxi' is the antonym of mini.
Hundreds of members of the Sicilian mafia (Cosa Nostra) and their asylum seekers were sent to prison.
A bunker tribunal was set up that could withstand even bomb attacks by Cosa Nostra fighters.
One of the main targets that Falcone and Borsellino condemned through the Maxi trial was the Corleone family among Cosa Nostra.
The boss of the Corleone family, which was also the subject of the movie 'The Godfather', was Salvatore Riina, nicknamed 'Toto' Riina.
Born in Corleone in 1930, he broke Mafia tradition and ruthlessly killed women, children and innocent citizens.
That's why it was nicknamed the beast.
Riina, who reigned as the king of Sicily, decided to 'fight' head-on with the state's public power.
It was not a problem that the gang members were convicted and sent to prison due to the investigation of the two prosecutors, Falcone and Borsellino.
The two mobilized new investigative techniques to uncover the link between the mafia's money transactions and political-relationship repayments, and launched a witness protection program so that members of the mafia could report their internal affairs and receive a commutation of their sentences.
The iron-clad unwritten rule that 'betrayal is death' has cracked.
The credibility of the Sicilian Mafia in the world of crime has come into question.
There was also a problem with the deal with the new giant market, the United States.
Assassinate the prosecutor... The Sicilian Mafia's Overreaching Decision
Riina's Corleone family decided to get rid of Prosecutor Falcone, a thorn in the eye.
They meticulously planned a car bombing that would appear in the movie 'The Godfather'.
Falcone was appointed as the head of the mafia problem committee established in the capital, Rome, and had to fly in and out of Rome.
He set Falcone off at Palermo Airport in Sicily and made the coastal highway entering the city center the place of the crime.
Riina's men planted a 500kg bomb in the drainage tunnel under the highway.
There was also an old refrigerator on the side of the road.
It was to catch the exact moment to detonate the bomb with the remote control.
On May 23, 1992, as a caravan of Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three bodyguards passed in front of the refrigerator in question, 500 kg of explosives buried under the road exploded at once.
The leading escort vehicle was crumpled beyond recognition.
The vehicle in which Prosecutor Falcone and his wife were riding was parked on the side of the road, and the two were taken to the hospital, but died.
Falcone's colleague and friend, Borsellino, was asked by the central government to replace Falcone as head of the Anti-Mafia in Rome.
But he refused.
He wanted to remain in Palermo, the battlefield, to continue investigating the Mafia and the Falcone murder.
Giving the eulogy at Falcone's funeral, Borsellino said:
Falcone had a premonition of approaching death, but he was not afraid.
He doesn't even know how much life he has left.
However, he said he would not back down from fighting the mafia.
At that time, in an interview with a TV reporter, he mentioned the suspicion of collusion between the Cosa Nostra Mafia and businessmen such as Silvio Berlusconi.
The task of uncovering who was behind Falcone's murder was not easy.
Sicily was a haven for Cosa Nostra.
On July 19, 1992, more than two months after Falcone's death, Borsellino obtained permission to personally interrogate two Mafia informants in connection with the case.
After his day job, he decided to stop for a while at his mother's house in downtown Palermo.
At 4:58 pm, Borsellino and his convoy of vehicles entered via D'Amelio.
Originally, the route Borsellino took was security protocol to control vehicles in advance and clear vehicles parked on the roadside.
But at this time, there was a white Fiat vehicle parked on the side of the road.
The bodyguard in the lead car said, 'Uh, that's strange...?'
I thought, but it was already too late.
100 kg of TNT hidden in the vehicle in question exploded all at once.
Borsellino always carried a red notebook with him, in which he recorded his investigations and ideas.
The first police officer to arrive at the scene of the bombing retrieved the red notebook from the vehicle and presented it to Prosecutor Giuseppe Ayala, who was the first to rush over.
Since then, this notebook has been missing.
Ayala later came under heavy public criticism for arguing that the protection given to mafia prosecutors and judges should be reduced.
It seemed to put a brake on the subsequent mafia investigation.
People's reaction... Mafia bosses chased
Cosa Nostra was elated.
He thought that since he had eliminated the two protagonists of 'The Trial of Maxi', everyone would be more afraid of the Mafia.
It wasn't.
Sicily's public sentiment, or rather, the whole of Italy, was inflamed by the tyranny of criminal forces that had gone too far.
Borsellino's funeral became a catalyst for anti-mafia sentiment.
People honored the courage and sacrifice of the two prosecutors by naming Palermo Airport 'Falcone-Borsellino Airport'.
The photo of Falcone and Borsellino, introduced at the beginning of the article, was a snapshot taken at a press conference a few weeks before the two died, and this photo was painted as a mural throughout Palermo.
The murals were periodically damaged by Cosa Nostra members and restored by anti-mafia activists and citizens.
In 1993, Salvatore Riina, the head of Cosa Nostra, who was responsible for the murder plot, was arrested.
He had already been sentenced to 26 life sentences in absentia.
The two attacks, which killed two prosecutors and nearly 10 bodyguards, were a joint operation by several families that make up Cosa Nostra.
When Riina, the leader of them, was arrested, the other bosses involved stopped public activities and began to lead their subordinate organizations in hiding.
They continued their attacks to instill fear in the authorities trying to catch the mafia.
One such boss was Matteo Messina Denaro, who was arrested a few days ago and reported worldwide.
Another evil force filling the power vacuum
Denaro was not only involved in the 1992 assassination of Falcone and Borsellino, but was also known to have taken over Cosa Nostra's "secret ledger" after Riina was captured.
In 1993, Cosa Nostra caused more than 10 bombings in Milan, Rome, and Florence, and Denaro was also accused of being deeply involved.
The most infamous case was the kidnapping and murder of his 12-year-old son, Giuseppe Di Mateo, to prevent a mobster from testifying in court.
The Cosa Nostra imprisoned Josépe for over two years before strangling him and dissolving his body in acid.
Riina, born in 1930, gradually lost her strength in prison.
(He died in prison in 2017 at the age of 87.) Born in 1962, Denaro occupied that power void and became the ruler of Cosa Nostra.
After that, he was tried in absentia on May 6, 2002 for killing or ordering the killing of dozens of people and was sentenced to life imprisonment in advance.
He had been 10 years since the murders of Falcone and Borsellino.
However, arresting Denaro was not easy.
Denaro enjoyed pleasure and ordered crimes across neighboring countries such as Greece.
The 'families' that spread like capillaries in the community provided various help, such as providing shelter, and there were not a few influential people who were bought by the mafia and informed the movements of the investigative agency.
Moreover, Denaro has never shown his face since he was last photographed in the early '90s.
In the early 1990s, the military police unit Carabinieri, which carried out operations to arrest the mafia, produced and distributed montages using digital technology based on photographs, which itself became like a symbol of impossibility of arrest with Denaro, and Denaro was a crime. has become a legend of
He expanded the industries Cosa Nostra was involved in, such as construction and wind energy, and expanded the organization's coffers by dabbling in government-subsidized businesses.
people fighting ghosts
But there were people who didn't give up.
There were courageous people who, far from frightened and running away, rather jumped into the pit of death.
Seeing the deaths of two prosecutors, Falcone and Borsellino, a new generation of prosecutors and judges volunteered to fight the Mafia.
Lia Sava is one of them.
Ria Saba began her legal career in 1991 as a judge in charge of civil trials in Rome.
However, as he experienced the 'Age of Genocide' (1992) by the mafia, he volunteered for a Sicilian assignment.
He even talked to Paolo Borsellino during his lifetime in Palermo, the capital of Sicily.
It was not long before Falcone was killed first and Borsellino died.
After Borsellino was murdered, I have a precious memory of hearing from his wife, Agnese Borsellino, 'Do your best to fight'.
According to the Italian media Anti-Mafia 2000, it was Ria Saba, who was working at the Caltanissetta Prosecutor's Office at the time, who obtained Denaro's life sentence in a trial by default in 2002.
Ria Saba, who has been living under the military police force's security program for 24 years, became Palermo's first female attorney general last year.
If these people are the brains leading the anti-mafia investigation, the actual arrest operation against the mafia members is carried out by the military police unit 'Carabinieri'.
They infiltrate the mafia organization undercover, collect information, and set up an operation to arrest key figures.
As dangerous as it is, it is said that there are many cases in which the families of mafia victims apply for revenge.
After 30 years of tracking Denaro, it was the Sicilian Carabinieri who found the hospital where he was treated for cancer.
The hospital was in Palermo.
It was dark under the lamp.
9:30 am on the 16th.
Carabinieri members arrested Denaro, who was leisurely enjoying his morning coffee at a cafe in front of the hospital.
There was no resistance.
Blocking the surroundings was also successful because the traffic line was perfectly identified.
This was possible because the informant/witness protection program established by Falcone and Borsellino earned the trust of members trying to escape the Mafia.
When the news of Denaro's arrest spread, the citizens of Palermo applauded and cheered Carabinieri and took to the streets with portraits of Falcone and Borsellino.
This photo was a symbol of hope and solidarity for those who dreamed of a country freed from the clutches of the mafia.
Sicily's merchants and citizens now openly act against the mafia.
In the movie 'Crime City 1', changes are taking place as seen by the market merchants who were moved by the detectives' efforts to arrest the thugs.
More than 30% of merchants now say they don't pay a 'protection fee' called a pizzo.
Extortion is one of the main sources of income for mafia like Cosa Nostra, but they have significantly reduced their violence to avoid public attention.
In order to win public opinion, during the corona 19 blockade, the mafia also gave subsidies to local small merchants.
So, does the Italian state's war against the mafia end in a national victory?
Not like that.
The rise of a criminal organization bigger than the Sicilian Mafia
So far, all we've been talking about is Cosa Nostra on the island of Sicily, which is part of the Italian mafia.
When the Italian peninsula is shaped like a boot, Calabria, the part of the shoe, has many mountainous areas and has been one of the poorest areas to live in since ancient times.
Here, the gang that has been called since the 19th century is 'Ndrangheta'.
('Ndrangetha. It is also written as 'Ndrangheta' in Korean.) While
the Sicilian-based Cosa Nostra has been gradually weakened by the prosecution's strong investigation since the 1990s, Ndrangetha has dominated the drug trade and become Italy's most powerful criminal organization. got up
Ndrangheta actively advanced into Milan, a large city in the north.
There, he developed economic power, carried out large-scale money laundering and drug trade, and extended his grip to central politics and entrepreneurs.
It crossed the borders of Italy and dominated the cocaine trade across Europe.
Container ports in Belgium and the Netherlands are the largest gateways for South American cocaine to Europe.
Last year (2022), 109.9 tons of cocaine were seized at the port of Antwerp and 70.5 tons of cocaine at the port of Rotterdam.
(75% increase over the previous year).
Considering that when drugs are seized in large quantities in our country, the unit is kg, it is an enormous amount.
Ndrangheta controls 80% of all cocaine trade in Europe and is estimated to generate $80 billion annually.
They are the most powerful and reliable partners of the South American drug cartels that produce cocaine.
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