Boss of Bosses

by Clare Longrigg

  Investigators turned up other interesting links. Gariffo’s daughter Mariangela was married to Giuseppe Lo Bue, an ambitious young mafioso living in Corleone and working with Provenzano’s older son, Angelo, in the domestic appliance firm. Angelo in general kept himself to himself and spent his time with his mother or his fiancée, but over the winter of 2005 he was seeing a lot of Lo Bue. The cousins were the same age and had a fair amount in common; they spoke on the phone a lot, and Lo Bue dropped by the house most days. In fact, as the police intensified their surveillance on Palazzolo’s house, they noticed that he dropped in on ‘Aunt Saveria’ with surprising regularity, not always staying long enough for a meal or a chat. Sometimes he dropped by even when he had called ahead and had been told Angelo was not there. This pushiness was odd, and aroused agents’ suspicion; could he have had an ulterior motive for his visits?

  Police observers began to notice a pattern: the same people coming and going, the same habits repeated. Gariffo, although active in the family business and in contact with Provenzano, never visited his aunt, although she occasionally went to see him, usually with Angelo in tow.

  Numerous phone conversations between Angelo and Giuseppe, monitored around the clock by agents in the darkened operations room, revealed nothing of interest to the investigation until they started talking about ‘stuff’ that needed to be delivered.

  Whenever Lo Bue called by, he would leave with a blue or white plastic bag. It looked, to the agents studying the images, as though he was taking out the rubbish, but he walked right past the street bins outside the house and took the bags with him in his car.

  ‘We see him go in to the house with bags, or packages, and when he comes out he’s almost always got a bag with him’, recalled Giuseppe Gualtieri, head of the flying squad. ‘It looks like he’s got clothing in those bags, but it’s puzzling, because why should he take his washing for Angelo’s mother to do . . . Another thing we notice is that, whenever Giuseppe Lo Bue leaves Saveria Palazzolo’s house, he always, without exception, goes to see his father, on the outskirts of Corleone. When he leaves his father’s house, he hasn’t got the packages any more, or else he’s carrying something small. He is leaving those bags at his father’s.

  ‘It’s an unbelievable job, trying to carry out surveillance in a town like Corleone. It’s a perfectly normal town, but it’s in the mountains, which means you’re always overlooked, and any novelty, anything that looks out of the ordinary, is immediately noticed and instantly reaches the ears of those few criminal members of the community. So the micro-cameras we use have to be extremely well placed. We can’t have them all over the town, as someone will inevitably spot one, and then they’ll go looking for the rest. We have to operate in and around Corleone without being spotted, which is no mean feat. People talk about Provenzano as the Phantom of Corleone, but it’s our boys who were the real phantoms.

  ‘We posted look-outs all around the area, using high-powered binoculars, to cover whoever was putting the cameras in place: that way we could warn them that someone was coming, that an old guy seemed to have noticed them, that the cattle herdsman was on his way through.’

  The police logged constant trips by Lo Bue to pick up packages or drop something off. During this time officers listening in on the couple’s phone line late one February night heard his wife complaining that she barely saw him any more. Mariangela had an immaculate Mafia pedigree, but just recently Giuseppe had got far more involved than she expected. She was at home with the baby, and he was never around.

  Mariangela: This isn’t like being a family, I’m sick of only ever seeing you when you’ve got a gap in your schedule.

  Giuseppe: For the moment, there are more important things, like making sure the children lack for nothing. Of course it’s better when we can spend time together, but you know there are times when there are other demands on us, and we’ve got to put up with it.

  M: But we’ve been living like this for eight months now . . .

  G: Yeah, I’ve been doing this for eight months, but at least, when you want to sit down and have a rest for five minutes, you can. I can’t even do that.

  M: OK, go ahead, you carry on and let’s see where it gets you . . . as far as I can see, you do things because you’ve made commitments to other people and you don’t want to look bad.

  G: Well then, you should be proud of your husband if he doesn’t look bad . . . you know you should be proud to say, if my husband makes a commitment he sticks to it.

  M: I don’t need you to tell me why I should be proud of my husband, thanks. But I do know I’ve got a virtual husband – he only ever talks to me on the phone.

  G: But I’ve taken this on for everyone’s sake.

  M: We’ll see, one day, when you’re on your own . . . [in prison]

  G: Mariangela, listen: I could be on my own for three or four years, then I’d be back with you . . . and I would do the same thing again, to make sure, like I said, the children don’t miss out. Maybe you haven’t understood that.

  To the police this tragic little late-night conversation provided a strong clue that Lo Bue was involved in something important within the organization, and had been for several months. If their instinct was right, that those bags were on their way to Provenzano, the Boss could not be far away.

  Police surveillance later revealed there were other pressures on Mariangela. Her husband talked on the phone with his mistress and made arrangements to go and see her in Trapani, over an hour’s drive away. One late afternoon there was a frenzied volley of calls as he tried to drop off a package before heading out to see his mistress, and found no one home in Corleone.

  By the end of January it was clear that Giuseppe Lo Bue was collecting packages from Angelo and Saveria and taking them to his father. But where did they go next?

  Bloodhound was one of the most senior members of the Gruppo Duomo. He described the intense period leading up to the arrest. ‘We start watching Giuseppe Lo Bue’s father. After his son’s visits he takes boxes or containers out to his car. We set up look-outs along the roads to see if we can spot where he’s taking them. This is a slow process: he seems very wary and spends a lot of time watching out of the door of his workshop. We can’t tell if he’s seen something, if he’s looking for us, or something else. To avoid being spotted we have to follow him just a short way on one trip, then another short distance the next. Finally we get a break: the father is seen meeting a man, and we manage to get down the number plate.

  ‘This car turns out to be registered to the wife of Bernardo Riina [no relation to the former Boss], who has a criminal record for Mafia association. He lives just by the junction above Corleone.

  ‘At this point it feels like we’re getting somewhere. We decide to focus our investigation on Riina.’

  Throughout those early months of 2006 Bloodhound and the other special agents were working night and day, tracking their suspects around Corleone without being seen. ‘Following these guys with bags was incredibly difficult’, he recalls. ‘We had just one agent in a car – two agents and you’d attract attention instantly. They’d drive around, sometimes right into a garage, so you wouldn’t see them taking the bag out of the car. Lo Bue drives incredibly fast and takes evasive action, so it was extremely hard for us to follow him and find out where he goes. There were times we thought we’d never get to the end of the trail, or that we’d made a mistake and were following the wrong man.’

  It was an increasingly difficult and demanding job the unit was doing: progress was excruciatingly slow, but they could not take their eyes off the monitors for a second in case they missed something that might be important. There was also the strain on family life: they couldn’t tell anyone – including their families – they were doing this job, because they were all from this area.

  ‘It was about the end of January when we started following these blessed plastic bags,’ Bloodhound takes up the tale, ‘and we were still following them at the end of March, trying to figure out wher
e they led. Fortunately for us, they got into a routine. Their movements started to look too regular. Once they got into a routine, they were in trouble – as we would have been. Once your movements become predictable, you’ve had it.’

  One early morning towards the end of March the surveillance operation managed to keep track of the packages going from Saveria’s house to Lo Bue’s father and other bags coming back via the same route within an hour. Provenzano must be very near.

  ‘One time one of our guys managed to follow Lo Bue’s father in his car through the narrow streets of Corleone. He got out of his son’s car and into Riina’s silver Golf, then headed towards the edge of town. Our guy overtook him, and as he carried on the main road, he could see Riina’s car behind him, turning off towards the old main road. We closed off two of the upper roads to see which way he came back, but he came back by another route – that’s when we discovered he was coming back from Montagna dei Cavalli.’

  The valley above Corleone, overlooked by the massive Rocca Busambra, is approached along a winding mountain road. As you enter the valley, it opens up like a secret garden. Following a gentle slope, there are fruit trees and palms, villas and farm cottages. Horses graze in small paddocks. Its exposed sloping sides and beguiling open landscape made surveillance extremely difficult without being seen.

  ‘As we stepped up the surveillance on Bernardo Riina,’ Bloodhound went on, ‘we had to dress to fit in with the surroundings; we all have our own wardrobe at home for different surveillance jobs, I’ve got a hat that looks pretty rustic: it did fine for this job.

  ‘We discover Riina’s going up to this place every few days, even though he hasn’t got any property up there. We set up a watch from the mountain behind Corleone, 8 km away, to see if he’s visiting relatives who live on the other side of the valley, but he doesn’t appear. We’re mystified. Where is he going?’

  To find out, the group had to change their surveillance position, to a much riskier spot just 1.5 km away. This would give them an open view of the other side of the valley. On 3 April they watched Riina’s Land Cruiser turn off the main road through the valley on to a track leading to a sheep farmer’s yard. Riina left again shortly afterwards.

  The group had, perhaps, found the packages’ ultimate destination. The farm was visited by several people in the mornings, who stopped to get fresh water from the spring and buy the farmer’s ricotta cheese. It seemed an unlikely place for the Boss of Bosses to remain undiscovered, but they had taken so long to get this far, it had to be worth the effort to keep it under surveillance.

  ‘He seemed to have chosen a place that was so obvious it was completely overlooked’, said Gualtieri. ‘No one believed it possible that he could be there. Certainly, if he was there, he never went out.’

  Bloodhound and his colleague Lynx set up watch on the higher slope of Montagna dei Cavalli. ‘We went up there before dawn, dressed in black, climbing rocks in the dark, watching constantly for anyone who might have seen us. We had to stay so still, lizards were crawling over us. After a few days we requisitioned a hut from maintenance staff working on radio masts on top of the mountain, keeping the farm cottage under surveillance through our long-range camera and watching the monitor, for eighteen hours a day. Instead of filming the cottage, we relayed the images directly to Palermo. We didn’t leave the hide during daylight hours, unless absolutely necessary, and we’d go down after dark. I’d get home for two hours, for a quick rest. I didn’t see my wife for the whole time. We took a bottle of water and some biscuits or panini with us, but we had to be absolutely sure not to leave any trace behind: not a wrapper or a tissue or a plastic cup, not even a cigarette butt, or the game would be up. The same pair of us did the trip every day; we got to know the terrain, what time the shepherd would go past, what movements were usual and what was unexpected. If anyone came near while we were walking up, we crouched down and covered ourselves with a camouflage net.’

  A short track led past a little house and into the yard, where the people who came to buy ricotta parked their cars. Two large concrete sheds, where Marino made his cheese, opened on to the yard. The little house had a rough concrete porch with a straggling vine growing up it, a small window and door covered with plastic strips to keep flies out. At seven in the morning Marino arrived and opened the door, but no one ever came out.

  Officers on surveillance followed the journey of packages from Palazzolo’s house to the cheesemaker’s yard on 3 April, then again the following day and the next. By the fourth trip the group could see the postmen had got into a routine: they had got lazy. On 9 April the same Spar carrier bag was used for the whole trip. The operations room was at fever pitch.

  ‘On 10 April we were pinned to the monitor the whole day’, recalls Bloodhound. ‘But no one came. We were pretty discouraged: it had been a year since we started this new phase, and we felt that probably no one would put any money on our investigation. We had no certainty that we were on the right track. We’d been staring at the monitor for the whole day without seeing any movement.’

  The group’s moment of dismay didn’t last long. Meticulous police work had led them to this place. All that was missing was a positive sighting that someone, in all probability Provenzano, was hiding in that farm cottage. The following morning they got it.

  ‘On the morning of 11 April we saw Marino take a container of ricotta into the house and come out again. Then, suddenly, we got our break: just for a moment we caught sight of an arm reaching out through the door.’

  The two agents had been watching the hut for ten days. Riina and Marino had gone into the cottage for brief moments, but no one had come out. That arm, passing out a container, showed there was indeed someone inside. It appeared just for an instant, on their screen.

  ‘I do manage to stay pretty calm on the outside, but it was an incredibly exciting moment’, said Bloodhound. ‘I called Cortese back at the base. We didn’t know it was definitely him, but whoever it was, we were going to go in. As soon as I let them know there was someone in the hut, the whole group mobilized. Lynx and I stayed up there, to watch what was happening and give the signal. I told them it would be best to wait for two hours, till Marino closed up shop and all the people had left. It was crucial for Renato’s men to get there when everyone had gone but before Marino left. He would be closing up the cottage, and we didn’t know if it had a metal door; it might have a security bar behind it as well. If we were forced to use acetylene torches to break in, it could take fifteen minutes, in which time he could escape down a tunnel or destroy any documents. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  ‘As the last car was leaving, I called Renato, and shouted: Go!’

  The units had sped over from Palermo and were close by at this point; the first car drove up the little track moments later. When he heard the car, Marino ran towards the door, then relaxed when he saw what he thought was Riina’s white jeep.

  As Renato Cortese flew out of the car, the old shepherd tried to reach the cottage, but Cortese caught up with him, threw him to the ground and dashed for the door. Bloodhound and Lynx watched intently as their commander disappeared inside, followed by two others. Within moments they had a call.

  ‘It’s him!’

  ‘The first call I made was to my wife’, says Bloodhound. ‘I told her, “Everything’s gone according to plan, it’s good news. I probably won’t be seeing you for a few days.”’

  ‘“That’ll make a change, then.” She laughed.

  ‘By the time we got down to the farmyard, it was crazy. Everyone was hugging each other and crying, slapping each other on the back. I went inside, to take a look at Provenzano, and introduced myself. He shook my hand and congratulated me. He asked us if we’d had any help in finding him, from informers. We told him no one had helped us, we’d just followed the packages. What made me realize he was really intelligent was the way he never answered a question. He waited till you had answered your own question, then he would give the merest sign of assent or else s
ay nothing.

  ‘I asked him what he’d have done if he’d seen us up there.

  ‘“I would have exercised my right to escape”, he said.’

  Caldarozzi and Bloodhound put Provenzano in an unmarked car and drove him down to Boccadifalco, an airport near Palermo. They drove without sirens or escorts so as not to attract attention. Marino, the old shepherd, was arrested.

  From Boccadifalco, Provenzano was taken to police headquarters in Palermo, where an angry crowd had gathered in the spring rain. As he was bundled from the car into the building, he was jostled and pushed, as the crowd surged forward shouting ‘Bastard! Murderer!’ as he was ushered through the gateway and escorted inside. News of the Boss’s capture had been released almost instantaneously on the wires, and TV trucks were already pulling up outside police HQ.

  Provenzano was dwarfed in the jostling, baying crowd of police officers in balaclavas and bulletproof vests. With his spectacles on a string and an enigmatic smile, he looked like a simple, harmless old man.

  Prosecutors Marzia Sabella, Michele Prestipino and Pietro Grasso left their offices in the court-house and roared straight round to police HQ to meet their prisoner and make sure everything was in order before he was transferred to the maximum-security unit at Terni, in Umbria. After trailing him for so long, it was an emotional moment.

  ‘As the investigation intensified, I had started thinking I saw him everywhere’, Sabella recalls. ‘But when it came to it, I would never have recognized him. He didn’t look like the Boss.