The World's Most Evil Gangs
Page 29
While his siblings remained in their rural fiefdom, Saro became known as the ‘Playboy of Castellace’, dressing smartly and enjoying La Dolce Vita in Reggio Calabria and then Rome, driving around in his Jaguar sports car in the company of beautiful women. In 1972 he escaped from jail, where he had been sent because of his long-running feud with the rivals who killed his father, and lived openly without fear of recapture for the next 20 years. While officially on the ‘most wanted’ list, he wed a 15-year-old local girl at Castellace’s parish church next to the local police station. Mammoliti was a fugitive when charged with kidnapping John Paul Getty III in 1973. He and fellow accused Girolamo Piromalli, an even more senior ’Ndrina member, were acquitted for lack of evidence, although Mammoliti picked up a secondary conviction for drug dealing.
The gangster, a long-time trafficker, had been caught in a sting operation by the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics whose agents approached him to supply heroin and cocaine. Mammoliti told them that, although he had supplies available in Tangiers and Amsterdam, he could only enter the American market with the permission of fellow ’Ndrine, including his accomplice Piromalli and others as far afield as Holland and Canada.
However, Mammoliti had enough influence to get away with soft sentences – or none at all. In one raid, telephone numbers for the Prime Minister’s office and various Rome ministries were found in his possession. In a 1982 ‘maxi trial’ against the ’Ndrangheta he was sentenced to 33 years but had it quashed by the Italian Supreme Court. In 1984, when charged with murder, he had his property seized and then handed back. He and his wife were arrested for corruption in 1992 but freed due to lack of proof. Within months he was back in court charged with a litany of crimes – the murder of a local landowner, six bomb attacks, 19 arson attacks, six major larcenies and the destruction of rival farmers’ property.
At last, the charges began to stick. Mamolitti was jailed for 22 years for extortion and other Mob-related offences. In 1995 he received a life sentence for similar charges, with another 20 years subsequently added on as anti-corruption prosecutors assembled fresh evidence. In 2003, Saro Mammoliti finally decided to collaborate with the Antimafia Commision and became a pentito. It was only then that the former playboy revealed the full extent of corruption in his Calabrian homeland and told investigators how money was syphoned off from criminal enterprises into an array of business ventures. He also finally confessed that he had been one of the kidnappers of John Paul Getty Jr way back in 1972 – and would indeed have cut off a great deal more than the boy’s ear had a ransom not been paid.
Mafia financial whiz Meyer Lansky.
Chicago mobster Al ‘Scarface’ Capone at a football game in 1931.
George ‘Bugs’ Moran.
Jack ‘Legs’ Diamond arriving at a New York courthouse in 1931.
© PA Photos
Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, the handsome playboy mobster (left) and his glamorous one-time girlfriend Virginia Hall (right).
Rudolph Giuliani (left), nemesis of the late twentieth century Mafia, and one of the men he helped to put behind bars, Tony ‘Ducks’ Corallo, head of the Lucchese family (right).
© PA Photos
The birth of all Mexican drug cartels is traced to former Mexican Judicial Federal Police agent Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, known as ‘the Godfather’.
Maria Jimenez, nicknamed ‘La Tosca’, leader of a cell of the Zetas drug cartel.
The Mexican Authorities frequently parade suspected members of Los Zetas in front of the media: the Army stand with ‘El Loco’ (left) and the ‘Piracy Czar’ (right) in 2012.
© PA Photos
The Richardsons’ sinister scrapyard, where Charlie and Eddie brought people whom they suspected of crossing them in the 1960s.
Billy Hill, self-styled boss of the 1950s London underworld.
Ronnie and Reggie Kray, child boxers before they became London’s most notorious gangland bosses of the Swinging Sixties.
© PA Photos
Members of the Bandidos bikie gang take the coffin of a colleague to a cemetery in Sydney.
Bandidos arrive in Ruegen, northern Germany, for the burial of one of their leaders.
Members of Hells Angels, Nomads, Rebels, Bandidos and Comanchero Motorcycle Clubs in a rare moment of solidarity at the funeral of a bikie.
© PA Photos
Charismatic gang leader Charles Manson at his 1969 trial.
The bodies of Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo (inset), ringleader of a violent drug-trafficking cult, and cult member Martin Quintana.
Children play next to graffiti with the initials of drug trafficking gang Comando Vermelho daubed on a favela wall in Rio de Janeiro.
© PA Photos
Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Daniel ‘El Loco’ Barrera, the last of the great capos, being extradited from Colombia to the US.
A police officer stands guard next to Luis ‘Don Lucho’ Caicedo, associate of Barrera with whom he ran the El Dorado Cartel.
Vyacheslav Ivankov, accused of being a godfather of Russian organized crime that included narcotics, money laundering and prostitution and had made ties with the American Mafia and Colombian drug cartels.
© PA Photos
The National Police Agency holds a meeting on countermeasures against Japan’s largest crime Syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi.
Tetsuya Shiroo, the former Yakuza member convicted of assassinating the mayor of Nagasaki.
Former member of Japan’s Bosozoku biker gang showing off the team name and motto embroidered on his robe.
Sicilian Mafia leader Salvatore Riina in 1993.
© PA Photos
About the Author
Nigel Blundell is a journalist who has worked in Australia, the United States and Great Britain. He spent 30 years in Fleet Street before becoming an author and contributor to national newspapers. He has written more than 40 books, including several bestsellers on crime.
Also by Nigel Blundell
Serial Killers: The World’s Most Evil
Serial Killers: Murder Without Mercy
Serial Killers: Butchers and Cannibals
Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
World’s Most Horrific Serial Killers
Visual Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
The Sting: True Stories of the World’s Greatest Conmen
Crafty Crooks and Conmen
Great Hoaxers, Artful Fakers and Cheating Charlatans
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Mystery, Intrigue and Suspense
Mistakes and Disasters
The World’s Greatest Crooks and Conmen
The World’s Most Daring Vagabonds and Villains
The World’s Greatest Mistakes
The World’s Greatest Mysteries
The World’s Most Evil Men
The World’s Most Sensational Scandals
The World’s Most Chilling True Tales from Beyond the Grave
The World’s Most Horrific Disasters
The World’s Most Sensational Sex Lives
The World’s Most Baffling Unsolved Crimes
The World’s Most Amazing UFO Visits
The World’s Greatest Ghost Stories
The World’s Greatest Spies and Spymasters
Marvels and Mysteries of the Unexplained
Strange But True
Incredible Destiny
True Tales of the Macabre
Fall of the House of Windsor
Windsor v. Windsor
The Boy Who Would be King
Winston Churchill: Images of War
Pictorial History of Winston Churchill
Pictorial History of Adolf Hitler
Pictorial History of Josef Stalin
Pictorial History of FD Roosevelt
Ancient England
Ancient Scotland
Guide to the Olympic Games: London 2012
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