1. Rosario Riccobono was a member of the Sicilian Mafia.
11 Facts About Rosario Riccobono
1. 2.
Rosario Riccobono was the boss of Partanna Mondello, a suburb of Palermo, his native city.
3.
Rosario Riccobono was involved in heroin trafficking throughout the 1970s and went on the run at the end of that decade after he came under suspicion of running an operation to smuggle heroin from Turkey through Sicily and on to the United States.
4.
Rosario Riccobono was initially close to other important heroin traffickers such as Stefano Bontade, Salvatore Inzerillo and Gaetano Badalamenti who opposed the rising power of Salvatore Riina and his Corleonesi.
5.
Rosario Riccobono tried to keep a neutral position, but became more and more isolated, trusting his alliance with the head of the Commission Michele Greco, who secretly sided with the Corleonesi.
6.
Rosario Riccobono lured a number of friends of Stefano Bontade and Salvatore Inzerillo to their deaths on behalf of Riina.
7.
Rosario Riccobono subsequently went on to become a pentito, cooperating with the government.
8.
Riina was not able to control Rosario Riccobono and needed the charismatic boss out of the way, not in the least to reward his other allies in Palermo with parts of Rosario Riccobono's territory.
9.
Three of his associates were gunned down a few days later and his brother, Vito Rosario Riccobono, was found decapitated in his car.
10.
Rosario Riccobono was given an in absentia life sentence at the Maxi Trial in 1987 even though he was dead by then.
11.
At one point, Rosario Riccobono was believed to have been in the possession of Caravaggio's Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence, one of the most famous stolen pieces of artwork.