Stefano Bontade (23 April 1939 – 23 April 1981), born Stefano Bontate, was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the Principe di Villagrazia (Prince of Villagrazia) − the area of Palermo he controlled − and Il Falco (the Falcon). Trent'anni fa l'assassinio di Bontade, La Repubblica, 23 April 2011 He had links with several powerful politicians in Sicily and prime minister Giulio Andreotti. In 1981, he was killed by the rival faction within Cosa Nostra, the Corleonesi. His death sparked a brutal Mafia War that left several hundred mafiosi dead.
Early life and Mafia career Bontade was born Stefano Bontate on 23 April 1939 in Palermo, Sicily, into a family of Mafiosi. His father and grandfather were both powerful Mafia bosses in the area Villagrazia, Santa Maria di Gesù and Guadagna, which were rural districts before they were absorbed into the city of Palermo in the 1960s. Stefano's father, Francesco Paolo Bontade, was one of the most powerful mafiosi on the island and a pallbearer at the funeral of Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini – one of the most influential Mafia bosses of Sicily after World War II until his death in 1954.Dickie, Cosa Nostra, pp. 337-38Stille, Excellent Cadavers, pp. 52-54
Stefano Bontade and his brother Giovanni Bontade, who would become a lawyer, studied at a Jesuit college. In 1964, at the age of 25, Stefano Bontade became the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Mafia Family when his father, Don Paolino Bontade, stepped down because of ill-health (he suffered from diabetes).Paoli, Mafia Brotherhoods, p. 43 The Mafia went through difficult times at that moment. A bloody internal struggle (known as the First Mafia War) culminated in the Ciaculli Massacre in June 1963 that killed seven police and military officers sent to defuse a bomb in an abandoned Alfa Romeo Giulietta after an anonymous phone call.Stille, Excellent Cadavers, p. 103
The Ciaculli Massacre changed the Mafia war into a war against the Mafia. It prompted the first concerted anti-mafia efforts by the state in post-war Italy. Within a period of ten weeks 1,200 mafiosi were arrested, many of whom would be kept out of circulation for five or six years. The Sicilian Mafia Commission was dissolved and those mafiosi who had escaped arrest went into exile abroad or had to hide out in Italy. In 1968, 114 went on trial, though only ten minor figures would be convicted of anything. Bontade nonetheless managed to remain a highly important figure within Cosa Nostra, and he was also one of those responsible for ordering the death of Michele Cavataio by sending two of his soldiers, Gaetano Grado and Emanuele D'Agostino, to kill him in the Viale Lazio massacre. La strage di viale Lazio spiegata dal pentito chiave, LiveSicilia, 28 April 2009
After the killing of Pietro Scaglione – Chief Prosecutor of Palermo – on 6 May 1971, the police rounded up the known Mafia bosses. Bontade was arrested in 1972 and he was sentenced to three years in the second Trial of the 114 in July 1974, but the sentence was annulled on appeal. Nevertheless, Bontade was sent in banishment to Qualiano (in the province of Naples). The policy of banishing mafiosi to other areas in Italy backfired, because they were able to establish contacts outside the island as well. Bontade, for instance, linked up with Giuseppe Sciorio of the Maisto clan of the Camorra, who would be initiated in Cosa Nostra.
Cigarette smuggling and heroin trafficking Bontade and other banished mafiosi managed to get into the market of international cigarette smuggling by imposing first their protection, and later their involvement, upon the smugglers in Naples (who were connected with the Camorra) and Palermo who had been running this activity since the 1950s. For instance, a thriving smuggler such as Nunzio La Mattina, was initiated into the Santa Maria di Gesù Family.Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia, p. 231 It was only through cigarette smuggling and subsequently heroin trafficking that many mafiosi were able to survive the difficult period after the Ciaculli Massacre. But then they started to accumulate large amounts of money rapidly. According to pentito Antonio Calderone, Bontade used to say that fortunately Tommaso Spadaro did a little bit of cigarette smuggling and gave him part of the profits, "because they were starving to death."Paoli, Mafia Brotherhoods, p. 148-49 Spadaro was related to Bontade, being a godfather to one of his children.Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia, p. 312
Bontade was closely linked to the Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino network. This network and other Sicilian suppliers dominated heroin trafficking from the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s when US and Italian law enforcement were able to significantly reduce the heroin supply of the Sicilian Mafia (the so-called Pizza Connection). The Bontade-Spatola-Inzerillo traffickers supplied the Gambino Family – through John Gambino – in New York with heroin that was refined in laboratories on the island from Turkish morphine base.Sterling, Octopus, p. 199-201 According to Giovanni Falcone, the investigating magistrate, the group had made about US$600 million. The proceeds were re-invested in real estate. Rosario Spatola, who in his youth peddled watered milk in the streets of Palermo, became Palermo's largest building contractor and biggest taxpayer of Sicily.Stille, Excellent Cadavers, p. 37
Francesco Marino Mannoia, who belonged to the Santa Maria di Gesù Family and who was highly sought after by all Mafia families for his skills in chemistry, after becoming a pentito recalled having refined at least 1,000 kilograms of heroin for Bontade. Marino Mannoia, who had been close to Bontade, decided to cooperate with the Italian state in October 1989, after his brother was killed by the Corleonesi (and subsequently saw his mother, his sister and his aunt killed as well). According to Marino Mannoia, Sicilian-born banker Michele Sindona laundered the proceeds of heroin trafficking for the Bontade-Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino network.
Mattei affair In May 1994 Mafia turncoat Buscetta declared that Bontade had been involved in the murder of Enrico Mattei, the president of Italy's state-owned oil and gas conglomerate ENI. Mattei was killed in 1962 at the request of the American Cosa Nostra because his oil policies had damaged important American interests in the Middle East. Buscetta: 'Cosa nostra uccise Enrico Mattei', La Repubblica, 23 May 1994 The American Mafia in turn was possibly doing a favour to the large oil companies. Buscetta claimed that the killing was organized by Bontade, Salvatore Greco "Ciaschiteddu", and Giuseppe Di Cristina on the request of Angelo Bruno, a Sicilian-born Mafia boss from Philadelphia.
Buscetta also claimed that the journalist Mauro De Mauro was killed in September 1970 on the orders of Bontade because of his investigations into the death of Mattei. Quando Buscetta riapri' il caso, La Repubblica, 22 June 1995 Buscetta said that Bontade organized De Mauro's kidnapping, because the journalist's investigations into the death of Mattei came very close to the Mafia, and Bontade's own role in the affair. Other pentiti said that De Mauro was kidnapped by Emanuele D'Agostino, a mafioso from Bontade's Santa Maria di Gesù Family. Il debutto in aula dell'ex padrino, La Repubblica, 19 February 2011 De Mauro's body has never been found. Marino Mannoia testified that he had been ordered by Bontade in 1977 or 1978 to dig up several bodies, including De Mauro's, and dissolve them in acid. De Mauro, la verità di Mannoia; Sciolsi il suo corpo nell' acido', La Repubblica, 12 2006
Sindona's bogus kidnapping Michele Sindona was in charge of one of the biggest banks in the United States, the Franklin National Bank, which controlled the Vatican foreign investments, and was a major sponsor of the Christian Democracy party (DC – Democrazia Cristiana), according to a 1982 parliamentary inquiry. The inquiry also pointed out Sindona's relationship with Giulio Andreotti – who served as the prime minister of Italy seven times – and who once defined Sindona as the "rescuer of the lira".Sterling, Octopus, p. 190-202 After Sindona's banks went bankrupt in 1974, Sindona fled to the US. In July 1979, Sindona ordered the murder of Giorgio Ambrosoli, a lawyer appointed to liquidate his failed Banca Privata Italiana. At the same time, the Mafia killed police superintendent Boris Giuliano, who was investigating the Mafia's heroin trafficking and had contacted Ambrosoli two weeks before to compare investigations.
While under indictment in the US, Sindona staged a bogus kidnapping in August 1979 to conceal a mysterious 11-week trip to Sicily before his scheduled fraud trial. Bontade's brother-in-law Giacomo Vitale (a freemason, like Bontade) was one of those who organised Sindona's travel. The real purpose of the staged kidnapping was to issue lightly disguised blackmail notes to Sindona's past political allies – among them Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti – to engineer the rescue of his banks and recover Cosa Nostra's money. The plot failed and after his "release" Sindona surrendered to the FBI. The Sindona affair showed the close links between the Mafia and certain important businessmen, freemasons and politicians. In the aftermath of the investigations, it appeared that many of them were connected through the secret P2 lodge (Propaganda Due) of Licio Gelli.Stille, Excellent Cadavers, p. 37-42
Political connections Stefano Bontade had links with the Christian Democracy politician Salvo Lima and Antonio Salvo and Ignazio Salvo, two wealthy mafia-cousins from Salemi who acted as the tax collectors on the island (tax collection was contracted out by the government).Stille, Excellent Cadavers, p. 148/310/383-84 Through them Bontade had access to Giulio Andreotti. Italy's highest court, the Court of Cassation, ruled in October 2004 that Andreotti had "friendly and even direct ties" with top men in the so-called moderate wing of Cosa Nostra, Stefano Bontade and Gaetano Badalamenti, favoured by the connection between them and Lima. According to pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia, Andreotti contacted Bontade to try to prevent the Mafia from killing DC-politician Piersanti Mattarella. Mattarella became the President of the autonomous Sicilian Region in 1978 and wanted to clean up the government's public contracts racket that benefitted Cosa Nostra. Bontade and other mafiosi felt betrayed by Mattarella (his father Bernardo Mattarella was rumored to be associated with the Mafia, but no accusations against him were proven before any court of law).Dickie, Cosa Nostra, p. 423-24