HISTORICAL FACTS: Giovanni falcone | History Defined

This Week in History: From a Mafia murder to touchdown on Mars

Explore how major events between 25 and 31 May were captured on The Independent’s front pages

The Independent UK · May 25

Paolo Borsellino: the murder of an anti-mafia prosecutor and the enduring mystery of his missing red notebook

It has been 33 years since anti-mafia prosecutor Paolo Borsellino was blown up by Cosa Nostra in front of his mother’s home in Palermo, Sicily. His death on July 19 1992 came 57 days after the murder of his colleague, Giovanni Falcone. This was the peak of Cosa Nostra’s attack…

The Conversation · Jul 16, 2025

Hollywood and the mafia myth: how Italian organised crime went global

The Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Camorra in Naples and the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria – by far the most powerful, but also the least known – are Italy’s three main mafia groups. In an interview with RFI, French criminologist, economist and mafia specialist Clotilde Champeyrache paints a picture of misunderstood…

Radio France Internationale · May 17, 2025

Milan’s main airport is renamed after Silvio Berlusconi – but his family isn’t happy

There was widespread anger when the plan was first announced

The Independent UK · Jul 17, 2024

How a Brazilian prison gang became an international criminal leviathan

The PCC – First Capital Command – arose in the country’s notoriously brutal penitentiaries 30 years ago but now controls a billion-dollar drug trade supplying much of Europe’s cocaine

The Guardian - US · Nov 11, 2023

Seventeen men arrested in Sicily and US in joint anti-mafia operation

Arrests come after two-year investigation targeting members of New York’s Gambino family and some Sicilian associates

The Guardian - US · Nov 8, 2023

A Mafia boss on the run for decades dies in hospital months after his capture

Matteo Messina Denaro died on Monday in a hospital prison ward several months after being captured following decades on the run, Italian state radio said.

WEKU · Sep 25, 2023

On the run for decades, convicted Mafia boss Messina Denaro dies in hospital months after capture

Italian state radio says that Matteo Messina Denaro, a convicted mastermind of some of the Sicilian Mafia’s most heinous slayings, has died in a hospital prison ward, months after being captured

The Independent UK · Sep 25, 2023

Thousands applaud Berlusconi at send-off as day of mourning divides Italy

Supporters wave flags outside Milan Cathedral but critics says ex-prime minister should not be ‘beatified’

The Guardian - UK · Jun 14, 2023

Corleone: the Sicilian town trying to break free of its mobster past

Mood is changing in town that spent half a century terrorised into silence under mafia bosses

The Guardian - UK · May 19, 2023