Heroin Trafficking
Gaetano Badalamenti would become one of the major heroin traffickers of the Sicilian Mafia. From 1975 to 1984, he was one of the main ringleaders of a US$1.65 billion dollar heroin trafficking operation, known as the Pizza Connection, that imported heroin from the Middle East and distributed the drugs through U.S. mid-western pizzeria store fronts.
Already in 1951, the American police identified a 50 kilogram shipment of heroin to Badalamenti who was then living in Detroit as an illegal immigrant. However, in the 1950s most money was made by smuggling foreign cigarettes into Italy. In 1953 Badalamenti was arrested for cigarette smuggling in Italy for the first time. In 1957 he was caught again with 3,000 kilograms of foreign-made cigarettes.
The repression caused by the Ciaculli Massacre disrupted the Sicilian heroin trade to the United States. Mafiosi were banned, arrested and incarcerated. Control of the trade fell into the hands of a few fugitives: the cousins Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco and Salvatore Greco, also known as "l'ingegnere" or "Totò il lungo", Pietro Davì, Tommaso Buscetta and Gaetano Badalamenti.
After 1975, Badalamenti joined forces with Salvatore Catalano of the Sicilian faction in the Bonanno family in New York and was involved with the "Pizza Connection" case, where the mafia smuggled millions worth of heroin and cocaine to USA using mafia-owned pizzerias as distribution points. When the FBI began to close in 1984, Badalamenti fled to Spain but was arrested in Madrid.
In 1985 Badalamenti and others involved with the case were charged with illegal narcotics trade, conspiracy against the RICO Act and for money laundering. Prosecutors also said that they were responsible for murders in USA and Sicily. The trial of Badalamenti and his allies took 17 months. During it Badalamentis and Catalanos testified against each other. On June 22, 1987 Badalamenti was convicted only of money laundering but sentenced to 45 years in prison and fines of $125,000. Only his son Vito Badalamenti was released.
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