Benedetto Santapaola

Santapaola allegedly continues to run his clan from inside prison with the help of a string of "regents". On 4 December 2007 his son Vincenzo Santapaola, who allegedly succeeded his father, was arrested. Vincenzo had been in and out of jail since 1992 on various charges including the murder of Antimafia journalist Giuseppe Fava. He now faces charges of trying to reorganise his father's business.

In 1998, Santapaola and Aldo Ercolano were convicted for ordering the killing of Giuseppe Fava. In 2001 the Court of Appeal in Catania confirmed the life sentences. He also received life sentences for the murder of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

In 1994, Maurizio Avola, a nephew of Santapaola, confessed the killing of Fava, and became a pentito. He also confessed some 70 other murders. Avola said that his uncle Nitto Santapaola had ordered the killing of the journalist.

On 18 May 1993, he was arrested in a farmhouse hideout outside Catania after being on the run for 11 years. His wife, Carmela Minniti, was killed on 1 September 1995, by a pentito for revenge of Santapaola posing as policeman. They called at her house, pushed past her daughter and shot her dead. "She ran his affairs," said Liliana Madeo, author of a book on the Mafia's new women. "If she was just a little woman, she wouldn't have been killed."

Pizzuto also discovered a massive tax fraud by the Knights through phoney receipts and a list of payoffs to politicians and magistrates. Rendo told inspectors that the false receipts were necessary to create a slush fund for government contracts. (A prelude to the scandal of political bribery known as Tangentopoli that would emerge ten years later in 1992.) Rendo discussed the investigations of Pizzuti with his boss, Treasury minister Rino Formica of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). Pizzuti was promoted and sent to Triest in North Italy – as far away as possible from Sicily.

Santapaola has been convicted for the murder of the journalist Giuseppe Fava on 5 January 1984. Fava, founder and editor in chief of the magazine I Siciliani, exposed the links between the Catania Mafia and the world of business and politics. In the first edition of I Siciliani Fava published an article I quattro cavalieri dell'apocalisse mafiosa (The four horsemen of the Mafia apocalypse), denouncing the links of the entrepreneurs with the Mafia.

Santapaola paid back the service by sending a hit team from Catania to Palermo to kill Carabinieri general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, his wife Emanuela Setti Carraro and the escort agent Domenico Russo on 3 September 1982, in the Via Carini in Palermo. Swapping hit teams proved to be a successful way to distract police investigations. Dalla Chiesa had just been appointed prefect of Palermo to end the violence that was the result of a war between rival Mafia families. In his last public interview it had become clear that Dalla Chiesa started to focus on the emerging role of the Catania Mafia.

On 6 June 1981 and on 26 April 1982, Santapaola was seriously wounded when ambushed by Ferlito and his men. When Ferlito was arrested Santapaola planned his revenge. On 16 June the same year, Ferlito was killed in an ambush when he was escorted by the Carabinieri during a transfer between two prisons, the Circonvallazione massacre. The killers were from Palermo and linked to the Corleonesi.

While Riina was a fugitive he frequently spent time in and around Catania and often went hunting with Santapaola around the local mountains. Riina decided to support Santapaola's faction in order to replace Calderone, an ally of Stefano Bontade from Palermo and Giuseppe Di Cristina from Caltanissetta. Giuseppe Calderone, was killed on 8 September 1978 by his former close friend, Santapaola. Santapaola took over the command of the Catania Mafia Family. These skirmishes were just a prelude to the Second Mafia War that really started after the murder of Stefano Bontade in 1981.

While Giuseppe Calderone was elevated to the Regional Commission of Cosa Nostra in 1975, his underboss Santapaola took over the illicit business in Catania for the Mafia family and became the capo famiglia of the clan. Santapaola managed the interests in heroin trafficking and acted as chief enforcer for the leading businessmen. Meanwhile, he carefully built a private faction within the family that was loyal to him – and strengthened relations with Totò Riina and the Corleonesi.

At the beginning of the 1960s, Santapaola was introduced by his cousin Francesco Ferrera into the largest Mafia family of Catania, at the time under the command of Giuseppe Calderone. Santapaola's first denunciation was in 1962 for theft and criminal conspiracy. In 1970 he was sent into internal exile and in 1975 he was denounced for cigarette smuggling.

Benedetto Santapaola (Italian pronunciation: [beneˈdetto santaˈpaːola]; born 4 June 1938), better known as Nitto, is a prominent mafioso from Catania, the main city and industrial centre on Sicily's east coast. His nickname is il cacciatore (the hunter), because of his passion for shooting game. He is currently in jail serving several life sentences.