Crocefisso "Croce" Malo (1880-) was the Capo di tutti capi of the Sicilian Mafia during the 1940s and 1950s.
Biography[]
Crocefisso Malo was born in Villalba, Sicily, Italy in 1880. Groomed for Catholic priesthood by his family, he impregnated a young girl as a young adult and refused to marry her, causing her family to force him to flee to the mountains. Malo engaged in banditry for a year before joining the Mafia, becoming a respected gangster within five years. He was able to return to Villalba, becoming the town's Don and being acknowledged as the foremost mobster in Sicily by 1920. He was entrusted with settling the most savage vendettas and became known as the "Don of Peace"; he also became a wealthy man. Benito Mussolini dispatched Cesare Mori to suppress the Sicilian Mafia during the 1930s, forcing Croce to pose as a Franciscan monk at Abbot Manfredi's monastery. During World War II, he befriended the families of imprisoned Mafia bosses, made contact with underground partisan groups, and ordered his men to aid downed Allied pilots. After Operation Husky, he persuaded thousands of Italian soldiers to desert, and he led Mafia partisans into Palermo, where they kidnapped the German commander and enabled the US Army to enter the city without resistance.
After the liberation of Sicily, Don Croce became the chief advisor to the US-appointed military governor Alfonso La Ponto, recommending that freed Mafia leaders be appointed the new mayors of Sicily's liberated small towns. Most of western Sicily came to be dominated by Mafia politicians, and the Mafia would prevent sabotage from occurring behind the Allied lines during the Italian campaign. He also utilized US Army trucks to transport food to the starving cities of Palermo, Monreale, Trapani, Syracuse, Catania, and Naples, and he was awarded written commendations for his services to the US military. He also profited from the creation of a black market, monopolizing the moving of foodstuffs.
Croce Malo established himself as Sicily's most powerful political boss, taking Prince Sandro Borsa under his wing and providing protection to Borsa and other nobles' agricultural estates. After the bandit Salvatore Giuliano kidnapped Borsa in 1946, Malo ransomed the prince and assembed a coalition of other dons to take out the upstart. Giuliano avoided all the dons and turned Malo's assassin Stefan Andolini into a bandit and an emissary between himself and Don Croce. In 1947, Croce - a supporter of the Christian Democracy party - persuaded Giuliano to help swing the upcoming regional election for the Christian Democrats in exchange for a pardon from Justice Minister Franco Trezza. Malo secretly double-crossed Giuliano by bribing Passatempo and Antonio Terranova to actually shoot PCI protesters rather than shoot above their heads, resulting in the Portella della Ginestra massacre on 1 May 1947. Giuliano's image was devastated, but he went on to execute Malo's allied dons at Prince Borsa's estate.
Trezza responded by assembling a military-police task force to take down Giuliano. In 1950, Don Croce arranged for Giuliano's associate Gaspare Pisciotta to betray and murder Giuliano before he could flee the country. Don Croce later helped Giuliano's godfather Hector Adonis poison Pisciotta in prison, feeling remorse that Giuliano had not come into his service. Don Croce would take advantage of the dissolution of Giuliano's Sicilian separatist movement to enrich himself and the Mafia more than ever.