his relationships managed to leave an permanent mark in the history of Italian and American criminality. His involvement in dark and terrible episodes such as the murder of Giuseppe Impastato and the famous investigation on drug trafficking Pizza Connection, has contributed to make him known to the community. Specifically, the acclaimed feature films that recounted some of these events have made Badalamenti's name known to the general public; worth mentioning is the 2000 film "I cento passi" (The Hundred Steps) by Marco Tullio Giordana, where the title recalls the distance between the boss's house and that of Impastato.
But who was Gaetano Badalamenti? How did his life unfold and how did he manage to reach the heights of power in the criminal world?
Gaetano's origins are humble. His family is poor and large and when he was born in 1923, he already had many brothers and sisters. He spends his childhood in his hometown, Cinisi, a small Sicilian town now known for the international airport Falcone and Borsellino.
The child attends school for a short time and at the age of ten years is instead initiated to the job of cattle breeder. During his youth he begins to show the first signs of a rebellious spirit and attracted to crime, as evidenced by a complaint against him for stealing cattle.
In 1941 he was enlisted in the Royal Italian Army but shortly before the Allied Forces landed in Sicily in 1943, and he became a deserter. Just three years later he began to receive numerous charges related to murder and injury and in 1946 he was hit with a warrant for conspiracy. This series of events leads him to flee outside of Italy. He joined his elder brother Emanuele, who had settled down and started his own business in the USA, opening a supermarket and a gas station in Michigan.
Badalamenti's stay in America, however, is short because the U.S. authorities discover his status as an illegal immigrant and send him back to Italy.
Once in Italy, Badalamenti manages to escape getting sent to jail for insufficient evidence and, once free from any persecution of the law, he decides to approach the boss Cesare Manzella and the clan of Cinisi. In this group begins Badalamenti his criminal career and in a short time expands the economic and political interests of his clan associating with Luciano Liggio and creating a trucking service for the construction of the airport of Palermo. The location of the airport was most likely a choice influenced by Gaetano himself and by the other mafiosi of Cinisi.
Badalamenti in the same period was interested in the smuggling of foreign cigarettes but in 1953 he was discovered and arrested by police authorities of Palermo, after he resisted arrest. Thanks to his trafficking the mafioso comes into contact with the boss Angelo La Barbera, Salvatore Greco, Buscetta and several other known criminals.
The Cinisi gang Boss Manzella is involved in the first mafia war and his choice to support Greco immediately makes him a target of the rival clan. Manzella is killed while starting his Alfa Romeo Giulietta car and this event will trigger some reactions that will mark the lives of several characters. His death leads Badalamenti to become the new head of the Cinisi group in 1963 but not only; Manzella’s nephew is Giuseppe Impastato who, still a teenager, is traumatized by this brutal murder. Later he will engage in the fight against the Mafia and will be assassinated at the behest of the same Gaetano.