Gaetano Fidanzati

Gaetano Fidanzati (September 6, 1935- 5 October 2013) was a historical boss of the Sicilian Mafia. He is the boss of the Resuttana mandamento in Palermo. He was on the "most wanted list" of the Italian Ministry of the Interior since 2008, until his arrest on December 5, 2009.

Drug trafficker

He and his four brothers hailed from the Arenella neighbourhood in Palermo and head one of the Mafia clans said to be among the most involved in international drug trafficking.

He is said to have masterminded an innovation in drug trafficking, exchanging heroin against cocaine, to avoid money trails that could be traced by the police. The exchange rate with the American Mafia – in particular with the Gambinos – was one kgs of heroin against three kgs of cocaine.

In Milan

In the 1960s they moved to Milan in the north of Italy and were part of the gang of Mafia boss Gerlando Alberti. In 1968, he was acquitted at Trial of the 114 against the top echelon of the Mafia. He was sent into internal banishment and managed to be moved toNaples, where he met Michele Zaza of the Camorra – which would result in an alliance to smuggle cigarettes and, later, heroin.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for drug trafficking at the Maxi Trial against the Mafia in Palermo in 1987, but was freed soon afterwards on a procedural technicality and fled.

The pentito (turncoat) Gaspare Mutolo recalled that Fidanzati approached him during the Maxi Trial in 1986. Fidanzati asked if he could find some more Thai heroin. If so, Fidanzati said, "we'll send it to Canada, to Cuntrera and Caruana, everything you want, either a 100 or 200 kilos, every amount you can send them in Canada, because they control everything over there."

Arrest and extradition

On February 22, 1990, he was arrested in Buenos Aires and extradited to Italy in April 1993. In the following years he was in and out of prison on drug trafficking charges.

In December 2008, after a nine-month investigation dubbed "Operation Perseus" (after the Greek mythological hero who beheaded Medusa), police indicted 94 Mafiosi to prevent them to reconstitute a new governing board for the Mafia, known as the Commission. Fidanzati was among indicted while released from prison on health grounds and serving out their sentences under house arrest. As head of the Resuttana mandamento he would have been a member of the Commission.

On December 5, 2009, Italian police arrested him in Milan.