Gaetano "Don Tano" Badalamenti (14 September 1923–29 April 2004) was the Mafia boss of Cinisi from 1963 to 1978, succeeding Cesare Manzella and preceding Antonino Badalamenti. He was the mastermind behind the "Pizza Connection" heroin network as well as the head of the Commission. He was imprisoned in the United States for narcotics trafficking in 1987.
Biography[]
Badalamenti was born on 14 September 1923 to an Italian family in Cinisi, Sicily. The son of dairy farmers, he attended school for only four years before going to work on the fields at age 10 and being drafted into the Army in 1941; he deserted during the invasion of Sicily in 1943, and afterwards returned to his hometown to get involved in criminal activity; by 1947, Badalamenti was wanted for conspiracy, kidnapping and murder, and he went on the run as a result, fleeing to Michigan, United States where his brother owned a supermarket. Three years later, he was detained and deported back to Sicily, but the charges against him were all dismissed due to a lack of evidence. In the following years, he grew to have more influence in the Cinisi Mafia under Cesare Manzella, even providing the rocks and gravel used in the construction of the Punta Raisi Airport and bribing officials into having the airport built in his hometown despite geographical inconveniences. After Manzella's car bomb murder during the First Mafia War in 1963, Badalamenti assumed control of the family, and maintained a stable relationship with Italian Police due to his calm and quiet disposition. During his time as boss, Badalamenti became immensely involved in heroin and cigarette trafficking, moving thousands of kilograms of heroin to the United States from 1975 to 1984 as part of the "Pizza Connection". He became a massively influential figure on the Commission, and became part of a triumvirate with fellow bosses Stefano Bontade and Luciano Leggio. However, Badalamenti took notice of the growing power of Leggio and his Corleonesi clan, so he tried to kill him before he killed all of them in 1978, but was stopped by the Commission, which exiled him to Brazil never to return again. By then, American and Italian authorities were already on to him as the head of the Pizza Connection network, so he was arrested in Madrid, Spain in 1984 and extradited to the U.S. In 1987, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison, and in 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison in Italy for the murder of anti-Mafia activist Giuseppe Impastato. He died in an Ayer, Massachusetts prison on 29 April 2004, aged 80.