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By Christopher Dickey
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Since the days of Al Capone and the Chicago mob, government investigators have "followed the money" to nail the bosses of La Cosa Nostra. But in Sicily last week, near the legendary town of Corleone, Italian cops captured 73-year-old Bernardo (The Tractor) Provenzano, the boss of bosses, by tracking a parcel of freshly laundered socks and underwear.
The arrest, announced the day after hard-fought Italian elections that ended the prime ministry of billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, was hailed as a triumph of law and order. But fears were raised immediately that succession battles would bring on a new era of gangland warfare, and scandals that could plague Italy's political elite for years to come.
Provenzano had avoided capture for 43 years, hiding with the protection of local residents--and some local powers--in a region that makes no secret of its heritage as a mafia stronghold. Bars and hotels hang pictures of Marlon Brando as Don Corleone from the "Godfather" films of the 1970s. There's a mafia museum. And at the crumbling apartment block where Provenzano's wife lived above a dry cleaner, his name was left on the buzzer.
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Although the boss's personal fortune has been estimated by Italian authorities at $600 million, he spent recent years as if he'd taken vows of poverty. He ate simple meals, and once told an underling that even if there were worms in his food, it was a shame to throw it away. Self-sacrifice had become part of his mystique. In this stony landscape, says former anti-mafia prosecutor Giuseppe Ayala, "you don't make money to spend it, to use it or to enjoy a better life." The purpose of money, pure and simple, is power--and that's why you join the mob in the first place. "In Sicily," Ayala told NEWSWEEK, "there's a saying that 'to rule is better than making love'."
Provenzano took over the top job in 1993, a year after two famous anti-mafia investigators were blown up in Palermo, compelling Rome to crack down on the mob as never before. The new boss made it his job to calm things down. Francesco La Licata, mafia expert for the Italian daily La Stampa, says that under Provenzano, "there were no massacres, no big killings. He adopted the old ways."
All that could change now, investigators fear. Among the possible successors to Provenzano is Matteo Messina Denaro, who is 30 years younger and has managed to avoid capture himself for the past 13 years. Denaro's name literally means "money," and he's known for his expensive tastes, including the gold Rolex he wears on his wrist. "He's arrogant, violent, and he only cares about his own business interests," says La Licata. "He doesn't know how to sacrifice his high life for the sake of the organization." If he becomes the new boss of bosses, he will have to impose his will. "If you don't have charisma," says La Licata, "you have to kill."
Yet Provenzano's studied austerity, however much it contributed to his authority, also helped lead to his downfall. The little stucco farmhouse where he was hiding was supposed to be deserted, but police grew suspicious when they saw someone installing a television antenna. Then, through a remote-control camera, they watched a local shepherd deliver fresh ricotta cheese to the house, where a man's hand and arm were glimpsed reaching out to receive it. Meanwhile, the police had been watching a parcel of laundry that Provenzano's wife had given to a courier on Sunday. It was passed from one house to another, 10 times in the course of 48 hours. When it arrived at the suspect farmhouse, they decided to move. Provenzano tried for a moment to bar the door, then surrendered. "You don't know the mistake you are making" was all he said.
Perhaps. But as a modern Italian woman with family ties to La Cosa Nostra (and no wish to be named) points out, Provenzano made a big mistake, too: "Why didn't he do his own laundry?" More even than honor and omertà , Sicily's version of machismo is still part of the mafia code--and that's what betrayed the boss of bosses.
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