Continue the Mafia saga with the seventeenth episode today.
The "pie-selling network" built by Luciano, the great Sicilian drug lord and godfather of drugs in the United States, was accidentally destroyed by the intervention of an honest man.
Things smell a bit of inadvertent willows.
In 1981, an FBI agent named Frank Stowe met a man named Manny on Roosevelt Avenue. This man runs a serious Italian pie shop in Queens. One day, Stowe and another anti-drug agent went to Manny's shop to eat pies. In the relaxed atmosphere of old friends chatting, out of professional habits, Stowe casually asked Manny, someone in the family is sick and wants to buy some heroin for treatment, do you know where to buy?
To Stowe's surprise, a habitual temptation that did not hold out any hope turned out to have an unexpected effect.
Manny, an honest man with a hot sausage, told FBI agents that it might not be difficult to get that thing, and I could ask you.
Hearing the kind Italians say this, Stowe could hardly believe his ears, could it be that the breakthrough through the fortress of evil was found so easily?
And the name that Manny whispered out next almost made Stowe's heart scream. Honestly tell the drug hunter that I know a pie shop owner named Gaetano Badalamenti, and there's a good chance this guy has what you need in his hands.
Stowe screamed inwardly only because the police had always suspected the owner of the pie shop named Gaitano Badalamenti, but the long secret investigation had never found strong evidence.
After quietly eating the pie and saying goodbye to the honest man, Stowe immediately used technical means to monitor the phone at Manny's pie shop.
It wasn't long before Manny dialed one person's phone. Because he is an honest outsider, Manny does not and will not use code words on the phone, he is very honest to tell the other party that he wants to help his friends get some heroin, is there any? The drug dealer, Gaitano Badalamenti, apparently did not expect a ghost on the phone of the honest man, he just thought that Manny's colleague in the pie shop might have the intention of going into the water, so he cheerfully agreed and asked him to come and get the goods that night.
This was the first time the police had overheard drug dealer Gaetano Badalamenti's unspoken call, and this one call alone meant that the fish that had never been caught had fallen into the net.
Honest people invisibly help smart people.
The next day, Stowe came to Manny's pie shop to eat the pie. Without any accident, the honest man did sneak a small bag of heroin into Stowe's hand, and when stuffing something, Manny carefully told him not to leak it, otherwise he would be threatened.
Storen nodded and paid the price on time.
After taking the small packet of heroin back to the anti-drug team for testing, the results surprised Stowe again. What does it mean that this bag of heroin that honest people get is the highest, with a purity of 82%? Drug dealer Gaetano Badalamenti can only get such goods from the Sicilian drug laboratory, he is not only not a second-rate dealer, but most likely the starting point of Sicilian drugs in New York, or the first agent of Sicilian drugs in New York.
To prove this conclusion, Stowe decided to borrow manny again. This time, Stowe revealed his identity and made up a seamless set of statements for Manny to ask for the goods again.
After meeting with drug dealer Gaetano Badalamente, Manny still behaved as an honest man, saying that the old patron was very happy with the bag of heroin, because he trusted him as an honest man, so he asked him to be the handler, this time the old patron asked for a kilogram of goods, but it must be the best quality goods in the Sicilian Luciano laboratory.
With that said, Manny pulled open his money bag and showed the drug dealer Gaetano Badalamenti the strength of his old patron.
In the face of bundles of dollars, drug dealer Gaetano Badalamenti completely let his guard down, telling Manny that the fine goods in his hands were all original goods from Luciano's laboratory, and that he was an honest man who never lied in the face of big business, and had no habit of adulteration.
Unbeknownst to them, after making this big deal with honest people, the candor of drug dealer Gaetano Badalamenti was recorded verbatim into the tape recorder where Manny was hiding.
After the stolen goods were seized, the US police moved.
On May 19, 1981, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the General Administration of Narcotics Control, the United States Customs Service, and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, in conjunction with various police forces and international drug enforcement organizations, jointly operated to destroy the "pie drug trafficking network" that the Luciano and Bernano families had painstakingly operated for many years.
At the same time, the Italian Drug Enforcement Agency and the French police also jointly attacked, seizing a number of heroin-producing laboratories in Places such as Palermo and Marseille, arresting hundreds of laboratory chemists and pharmacists, and seizing more drugs.
The cracking of this drug trafficking network shocked the world!
The evil deeds of the Sicilian mafia have developed to such a shocking extent! In particular, luciano, the number one drug lord, is still at large!
In the face of strong condemnation from international public opinion, the Italian authorities could no longer sit still.
In April 1982, the Roman government decided that General Chiesa, known as the "Mafia Hunter", at the age of 62, would be made Governor of Palermo Province.
Upon hearing this news, Italian public opinion raised the question, will mafia hunters be more iron-fisted than Mussolini's Morrie? Will the Sicilian mafia be wiped out?
Public opinion raises such questions not because they doubt General Chiesa's determination and iron fist, but because they doubt the era itself.
Because General Chiesa is living in a bad era, an era that has been completely polluted by the Italian mafia. In such an age, justice is not only fragile, but lonely; while sin is more arrogant and dignified than at any other time.
For this reason, the righteous people of Italy at that time pointed out bitterly that the Italian mafia is no longer the original hermit organization, and they are diluting light and justice with clever crimes. Because they crossed boundaries that could not be crossed in the old days, they were decent. But it is this group of decent people who are mixed up in high society, behind the scenes, are real thugs, on the one hand, they use the black gold in their hands to buy the powerful with madness and cunning; on the other hand, they use modern automatic weapons, kill, sell drugs, maintain authority - in such a dark age, justice cannot go out, and the mob will not skimp on the bullets in the barrel of the gun.
For The veteran general Chiesa, who has spent his life wrestling with the mafia, it is impossible for him not to know what it means to take office. The old general had a habit of keeping a diary, and when he was about to take office, he wrote down the words that it was all irresistible, new, elusive, strange, and that almost instantaneously everything around him might disappear.
However, after arriving in Palermo, everything seemed worse and more sinister.
Because of the collapse of the "pie drug trafficking network", the big drug lord Luciano and Greco, the head of the five major families of the Sicilian mafia, are in a frenzied rage and hatred, for them, the arrival of Chiesa is not only a new provocation, but also a fuse of hatred.
In fact, a month before General Chiesa took office, Luciano and Greco had begun a frenzied clamor and revenge. During that month, on average, people died every day of bloody vendetta. After the arrival of General Chiesa, the wind of revenge and killing immediately became more ferocious, and the two godfathers ordered that one person died a day be changed to one person died in half a day.
The killer asked the two godfathers, when did they kill the old bastard of Chiesa?
The answer of the two godfathers is to give this old bastard a few months to be a lamb, and such a lamb can win back the damaged honor for "our cause."
After saying this, the two godfathers placed a photo in front of the killer. They said that the gentlemen of Sicily, Chiesa had been in Palermo for a month, and it was time to give a heavy gift.
In this way, Pio La torre, secretary of the Italian Republican Party in Sicily and a member of the National Assembly, was shot in broad daylight on the streets of Palermo.
After learning of this, In addition to shock and anger, Chiesa was more desperate and helpless.
Unlike Mussolini's time, When Moriss had the support of a strong fascist state apparatus, Chieza was almost an old man in isolation. The Roman authorities used him only as a political tool to calm public opinion, not as a weapon to severely punish the mafia, so that almost none of the power he wanted was fulfilled; and even more fatally, the pants worn by the leading Sicilian figures at that time were almost all gifts from the two godfathers.
Under the secret instructions of the two godfathers, their faces were not polite. The Chairman of the Sicily Civil Party said that I had not consulted with me on the appointment of Chiesa, so I need not be polite; the Mayor of Palermo said that there are many honest and reliable people in the city, and we do not need an outsider -
As everyone knows, this is the second trick of the two godfathers to deal with the mafia hunters, killing people.
But even in such a lonely and helpless situation, General Chiesa still showed his loyalty to justice, relying on the 500 gendarmes he brought, and the old general attacked everywhere, but the result was regrettable, because of the mafia's brass wall, he ended up catching only some small shrimp rice.
During this time, the old general often told his subordinates about a period of Sicily that was not ancient. He said that there was a very righteous official in Sicily, his name was de Montcallo, and that he had been warned and threatened because of his rivalry with the mafia. But it was at a time when it was both angry and frightening that he met me. Then I did something for this righteous man, and I took a team of gendarmes to his house and walked hand in hand with him through every street here.
Back then, the world feared justice, unlike now, when the world embraced sin. The reason for this is also very simple, we will rarely meet people who are willing to hold hands with justice.
When he was alone, the old general's state of mind was so bleak and pitiful that in Palermo he could hardly find anyone willing to shake his hand.
At this moment, however, the two great Sicilian fathers suddenly cast a sinister smile at the old general, claiming that Chiesa was a man of honor who deserved courtesy in Sicily.
Invitations from decent Sicilian figures were thus delivered to Chiesa's desk. Obviously, this is the third trick of the two godfathers, confusing black and white. They knew that it was almost impossible to buy off a mafia hunter, but it was quite possible to turn him into a stinking lamb, as long as he appeared at decent people's receptions and balls.
Although Chiesa desperately needed friends, the old hunter eventually refused all invitations.
Things got to this point, and the game seemed to have only one final inning left.
On the evening of 3 September 1982, General Chiesa finished his day and made two phone calls. One was to the owner of the tower hotel, and on the phone the old general told the hotel owner that he would be there for dinner tonight; the other was to the family, in which the old general had his young wife drive to pick him up now.
Years of fighting the mafia have made the old general very cautious, his life is never regular, the route to work changes every day, and the vehicle he rides is changing every day. In order to prevent the unexpected, his important documents were never archived, always carried with him - but by this time the sicilian mafia had long exceeded his imagination, and just when the two godfathers were determined to kill him, the eavesdropper had already been unknowingly hidden in his office.
On the surface, the following dusk was no different, and the young wife of the old general soon drove Fiat to the Governor's Office. After Chiesa got into his wife's car, russo, the personal guard, followed him and started another car and drove to the front.
After leaving the Governor's Office, the two cars headed for the Tower Hotel one after the other. But as the two cars drove past the Financial Police barracks, a situation that disturbed Russo appeared, and he found a Japanese Suzuki motorcycle trailing behind them at some point.
Realizing the danger, Russo slowed down. But at this moment, another Suzuki motorcycle suddenly emerged from the street and became on a par with Russo's car for the first time.
This was followed by a swift pull out of the gun and a frenzied strafing.
At the same time that Russo was encountering crazy strafing, two cars suddenly rushed up from behind, and they surrounded the old general's car with one left and one right, followed by another left and right bows, crazy strafing -
At 21:00 on 3 September 1982, the Palermo police arrived at the scene of the crime.
The scene was unbearable, Fiat was parked on the sidewalk, the old general and his wife in the car were covered with gun holes, blood and flesh blurred; the personal guard Russo fell on the steering wheel of another car, his brain was overflowing, and he did not even pull out the gun -
From officially becoming governor of Palermo to being dead on the streets, former mafia hunters survived for only five months.
The death of the old general touched the conscience of Italy, and on the street where he was killed, someone wrote a big line: The hopes of all the honest people in Sicily are shattered here!
Of course, the two great fathers of Sicily were indifferent to this, but they were wrong, and when justice is awakened, sin will be like a glass that falls to the ground!
And the man who sounded the death knell for them was none other than Tommaso Bassetta, the most terrible betrayer in the history of the Sicilian mafia, known as the "Godfather of Brazil" -