Changing their Mafioso men

Appalled by the bloody crimes of their men, wives of mafia men persuade them to change

For years, Filippa Inzerillo, whose sur name commanded immense respect within the international mafia crime network based in Sicily, lived the privileged life of the wife of a high-ranking crime boss. Then, during the gangland wars of the '80s, which claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, her husband Totuccio, her 16-year-old son Giuseppe and two brothers-in-law were killed.

These days, Donna Filippa dedicates her energies to encouraging other women caught up in the criminal syndicate to see the error of their ways and to persuade their husbands to turn over a new leaf too. "I say to all women connected with the mafia - rebel against our destiny. Break your chains and begin to live again," said the former mafia wife, who has turned over her luxury villa in Sicily to be used as a centre for prayer. "Let your children grow up with healthy moral values and learn how to appreciate what is beautiful in life."

Isabella Ganci, whose husband Calogero was one of the killer squad which murdered anti-mafia crusader Judge Giovanni Falcone in May 1992, played the role of the submissive mafia wife for most of her married life. She never asked questions about her husband's sinister activities or about the blood stained clothes he brought home for her to wash. Then, as the wall of silence began to crumble, and other mobsters began talking to police, she persuaded her husband that he too should cut his losses and leave the crime network involved in drug trafficking and many other rackets.

In an emotional appeal, broadcast onto a giant screen from a videotape at a recent Palermo conference, Isabella Ganci spoke from her hiding place about her past life and urged other women still in the mafia to follow her example. "The women of the mafia must open their eyes and start reacting," she said. "They must ask questions of their husbands and not pretend they don't understand. Because, when the worst happens, they'll be left without anything."

According to Lucia Falzone, who is defence attorney for Calogero Ganci as well as several other former mafia mobsters, more and more women are encouraging their men to abandon the underworld organisation "because they don't want to become widows." "Signora Ganci is a new type of woman who wants to be involved in the decision-making along with her man, she added. "She has realised that the mafia has cheated her out of part of her life."

Emblematic of the new mood among some mafia wives and mothers is the case Vincenzo and Rosalia Scarantino. He was the mobster who organised the car bomb which killed anti-Mafia Judge Paolo Borsellino and five bodyguards in July 1992. Whey the carnage was shown on television, Scarantino and fellow criminals cheered and celebrated. But his wife, who had always quietly hated the mafia, wept silently in her bedroom for the victims of the massacre, afraid lest her husband should see her.

Now, largely thanks to the urging of his wife, Vincenzo Scarantino has left the organisation and turned state's evidence. His testimony has so far landed three former blood brothers in jail, including his brother-in-law Salvatore Profeta. It has also earned him and Rosalia a death sentence from the network they betrayed.

But both Scarantino and his 30-year-old wife say they are convinced they have made the right decision - so much so that the couple recently went on Italian television, claiming their marriage is much better now it is on an even footing. "We were all domineering husbands who laid down the law in our marriages, "said Vincenzo Scarantino. "But now I've understood that my wife and I are equals, and that she has the same rights that I do."

Said his wife: "Inside the mafia I felt as if I was suffocating. Now that I'm no longer in it, I feel as if I'm living once again. Outside the mafia we've found we are equals, and we have discovered love...I want to say to girls in my old neighbourhood, and to women who are still living in mafia families, that they should find the courage to change their lives and persuade their husbands and fathers to change too," she added. "But if their menfolk won't change, they should leave them. How can you live with a man who dissolves bodies in acid?"

In recent times, Italian crime fighters have seen a wave of former mobsters coming forward to tell what they know in exchange for protection for themselves and their families.

Investigators who have talked to more than 1,200 mafia turn-coats say that in many cases, the wives' influence has been fundamental in pushing them to take the once unthinkable step of breaking the code of silence.

"Today, the process of women's emancipation has had its effect on the internal working of the mafia," said anti-mafia magistrate Teresa Principato. "There are more women active in the organisation, but there are also more women who have found the courage to rebel against it."

Giuseppina Di Filippo was born and raised in a mafia family, headed by her father, Palermo drug baron Don Masino Spadaro, and, like many girls of her background, she married another mobster, Pasquale Di Filippo. But now, both husband and wife have agreed to turn their back on crime.

Women break gender barrier within crime circles

It was women who made themselves heard most loudly in mafia-ridden Sicily, the island off the southern Italian coast, when two well-known anti-mafia judges were killed with members of their family and entourage in two different bloody attacks in 1992.

Now analysts say women are playing a role in enticing family members to leave the mafia crime network. But the rise of women's influence also has nasty side to it. It seems that some women have been eager to fill empty slots within the hierarchy of Italy's powerful criminal networks that once were men-only preserves.

When mafia boss Antonio Cinturrino was jailed, his wife Maria Filippa coolly took charge of all his criminal activities and earned herself the post of clan chief.

Police finally caught up with Cinturrino in December 1996, and a court sentenced her to a tough prison regime of the kind usually reserved for the most dangerous male mafia mobsters.

Dora Vendola, 38 rose to the position of clan chief in the Sacra Corona Unita, the organised crime syndicate based in the south eastern region of Apulia, before she was murdered by gang rivals.The female gangster, whose speciality was drug trafficking, died a brutal death of the type usually meted out only to men. She was strangled with the belt of her raincoat and her body was left in the trunk of a car in a crowded street market.

Giuseppina Tagliaeva, 43, took over her husband Francesco's drug and extortion rackets after the mafia gunman was jailed. She received instructions and advice from her husband in the form of coded phrases and gestures during visits to his top security jail.

In Catania, 29-year-old Maria Filippa Messina was recently jailed for 13 years on charges of belonging to the mafia.

All three women are part of what investigators say is a new generation of female operators in the historically male dominated bastions of the Italian crime network that is now associated with the most powerful crime syndicates in the world.

Traditionally, women were barred from these strictly men-only networks and relegated to a supportive role. But all that may be changing, say crime watchers. According to a recent report published by the Italian government, "women now play a real and effective role in the affairs of the mafia".

As organised crime has become more sophisticated, women have been able to find activities more suited to their skills, say investigators. Money laundering is one field in which women have shown themselves to have a particular flair.

Drug smuggling is another. The number of women caught drug trafficking, was up tenfold on the previous year.

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