The real Don Corleone gets arrested

The Don from Corleone was arrested April 11th, 2006. Bernardo Provenzano, born January 31, 1933, is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of being the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia Family from the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi (Boss of Bosses) of the entire Sicilian Mafia.

He was captured by police in a farmhouse near the village of Corleone on April 11, 2006 after 43 years of evasion. He did not resist arrest.

His nickname is Binnu u tratturi (Sicilian for "Bennie the tractor") because, in the words of one informant, 'he mows people down'. This was due to his sweeping assassinations in the 1960's as he rose to power. Another nickname is The Accountant due to his apparently subtle and low-key approach to running his crime empire, at least in contrast to some of his more violent predecessors.

On January 25, 2005, police raided various homes in Sicily and arrested forty-six Mafia suspects believed to be helping Provenzano elude the authorities. Although they did not catch the elusive Mafia boss himself, investigators nonetheless unearthed evidence that 72-year-old Provenzano was still very much alive and in control of the Mafia, in the form of his cryptic handwritten notes, his preferred method of giving orders to his men. Two months later another raid, which netted over eighty Mafiosi took place, although yet again Provenzano was not amongst those captured.

However, Mafia informers said Provenzano moved between farmhouses in the region every two or three nights to evade capture. Tracing him was difficult because the authorities did not have an up-to-date photograph with which to identify him. The nearest likeness in their possesssion was a computer-generated image that attempted to predicted the effects of ageing on a photograph of Provenzano as a younger man. However, they were able to pinpoint Provezano's exact location by the simplest of connections, to a delivery of clean laundry at a farmhouse.

Provenzano was finally captured today, April 11, 2006 by the Italian police near his home town, Corleone. A spokesman for the Palermo police, Agent Daniele Macaluso, said Provenzano had been arrested during the morning near Coreleone, 37 miles south of Palermo and was being driven back to the Sicilian capital.