Vito Ciancimino - Arrest and Conviction

Arrest and Conviction

Ciancimino was arrested in 1984 after the testimony of Mafia pentito (turncoat) Tommaso Buscetta. He was charged with improperly awarding $400m worth of public works contracts, mafia conspiracy, fraud and embezzlement. Magistrates discovered he had a vast fortune, held in bank deposit books under imaginary names or in Canadian banks.

Buscetta linked him with two of the most notorious mafiosi: Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, the leaders of the most powerful Mafia group, the Corleonesi, from Ciancimino's hometown. After lengthy judicial proceedings he was brought to trial and in 1992 was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment for Mafia associations and for laundering millions of dollars. It was the first time a politician had been found guilty of working with the Mafia. Thanks to protracted appeals, the sentence did not become effective until November 2001. Ciancimino was expelled from the Christian Democrat Party.

In 1992, following the Mafia murders of Salvo Lima and the Antimafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, Ciancimino offered to infiltrate Cosa Nostra and negotiate a solution to terrorist aggression against the Italian state. He may even have contributed to the 1993 arrest of the Mafia boss Salvatore Riina, whose removal cleared the ground for Bernardo Provenzano, a wilier and less bloodthirsty boss from Corleone, whose name has been linked to that of Ciancimino. Ciancimino's counterpart in the talks was the commander of Italy's domestic intelligence service.

In October 2009 Vito's son Massimo Ciancimino handed over to public authority a document showing his father's affiliation to Operation Gladio. In November 2009, Massimo Ciancimino further declared that Provenzano betrayed the whereabouts of Riina. Police sent Vito Ciancimino maps of Palermo. One of the maps was delivered to Provenzano, then a Mafia fugitive. The map was returned by Provenzano to Ciancimino who indicated the precise location of Riina's hiding place.