SUN-SOAKED Sicily has become a hotspot to the stars, with the island playing host to glamorous weddings such as Charli XCX and the upcoming ceremony for Dua Lipa and Callum Turner.
But behind the backdrop of the beautiful island sits a dark past, led by the who have ruled over Sicily with an iron fist through rampant drug trafficking and extortion for 150 years.
Singer Charli XCX and her husband, The 1975 drummer George Daniel, hosted a second wedding celebration in Italy Credit: BackGrid
James Suckling and Jaime Winstone tied the knot in a star-studded wedding ceremony in Sicily Credit: supplied
A photo taken in September 1990 in Agrigento, Sicily, of the car which Italian judge Rosario Livatino was murdered in Credit: AFP
The site where Italian Anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and three bodyguards were killed by a mafia-laid bomb in 1992 Credit: EPA
Professor John Dickey, author of The Twilight of the Godfathers: The Strange Death of the Sicilian Mafia, has spent 30 years researching the Italian world.
John told The Sun: “The word mafia is Sicilian, and the Mafia has been in Sicily since the 1860s.
“Not only have they been around a long time, but they’ve made the island notorious.
“And they were killing anybody in Sicily who got in the way – whether they were , judges, politicians or journalists.”
The bloodshed reached it’s peak 50 years ago with a raft of high-profile murders, including judge Rosario Livatino, shot by gunmen in 1992 and magistrate Giovanni Falcone, killed by a bomb with his wife Francesca and three police officers in 1992.
Anna Sergi, professor of the sociology of law and deviance who studied in Bologna for years, says: “The violence was staggering, the murder rate in Palermo during the early 1980s rivalled active war zones.
“They controlled not just criminal enterprises but social life itself – who could open businesses, who got jobs, who lived or died.”
The Cosa Nostra’s grip over the island has drastically weakened in recent years with Sicily opening up more to the world as a lavish European getaway destination.
Singer Dua Lipa and actor Callum Turner married at Old Marylebone Town Hall before flying to Italy for a second ceremony Credit: Ray Collins
But Anna warns: “The organisation hasn’t been eradicated – it has evolved.”
At their peak in the 70s and 80s, the Cosa Nostra were known to open fire on civilians on the streets and leave the bodies of their victims piled up by the side of roads.
Mafia members had no issue with murdering children and would often use acid to dissolve corpses if they wanted to get rid of a body.
John says at their worst, the Cosa Nostra were by far the most dangerous and cutthroat crime organisation in Italy.
He added: “Compared to Italy’s other major mafiosi, in Naples and Calabria, Sicily’s was much more powerful.
“It had that crucial transatlantic link and also was much more embedded in political power.”
The worst of the killings came during the Mafia wars which dragged on for most of the 1980s. Somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people were killed. This included the mafiosi but also innocent bystanders and anyone who stood up to the Mafia.
“The true estimates vary because so many people simply disappeared,” John says.
Police wear black masks to hide their identities during the arrest of top Mafia fugitive Giovanni Brusca in 1996 Credit: Reuters
Vito Vitale, a leading mobster, is escorted by Italian police to the jail in Palermo, Sicily Credit: Reuters
In 2023, actress Jaime Winstone, the daughter of famous hardman actor Ray, tied the knot with partner James Suckling in Scopello.
She told she was drawn to the location because of its “Mafia chic” vibe.
John laughed at this description.
“Nobody thinks the Mafia is chic in Sicily. They kill children and dissolve them in acid. That’s not chic,” he said.
“I think it’s a sort of a projection, everybody loves Al Pacino and the Godfather and all of that kind of stuff.
Inside one of Sicily's most notorious mafiosos
GIOVANNI Brusca is known as one of Sicily's most dangerous and cutthroat mafiosos after a bombshell trial saw him sentenced to life for more than 100 murders.
He was a notorious high-ranking member of the Cosa Nostra across the 90s with nicknames such as “the pig” and “the people-slayer”.
Evil Brusca is best known for executing Italy’s top anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992.
The Capaci Bombing saw Brusca personally detonat half a ton of explosives buried under a motorway near Capaci, Sicily.
The blast killed the legendary anti-mafia magistrate, his wife and three bodyguards.
Brusca was also the mastermind behind the murder of 11-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo.
The boy’s dad was Santino – a mafioso turned police informant – who became the Mafia’s most wanted man after betraying his “family”.
Brusca ordered the kidnapping of the 11-year-old and held him hostage for 779 days where Giuseppe was tortured constantly.
The child’s final days saw Brusca order him be strangled until he died and had his body dissolved in a barrel of acid to destroy the evidence.
Brusca was arrested in May 1996 after an intense manhunt in the island before he turned informant himself.
His work helped the Italian authorities catch and convict dozens of top-level mafiosos and essentially ended their reign over Sicily for good.
Despite his work, Brusca was still jailed for 25 years but was let out in 2021.
He remains a free man to this day under a state protection program.
“The Mafia are shrewd and scary – definitely not chic.”
Anna agreed saying: “This Mafia chic framing is deeply problematic and reveals a troubling disconnect from reality.
“The term aestheticises violence, suffering and systemic oppression.
“For Sicilians who lived through the 1990s, who lost family members to mafia violence, who fought against the Cosa Nostra by resisting extortion or still do today, this romanticisation is insulting.”
She added: “When privileged outsiders treat Mafia imagery as stylish or edgy, they’re engaging with a sanitised fiction rather than the reality of a criminal organisation that murdered judges, children and anyone who opposed it.”
In recent years, Sicily has become known as the go-to wedding location for dozens of celebrities.
Fuschia Sumner, daughter of musician , said “I do” to partner Max Wright in the sun-drenched town of Noto last summer.
Falcone’s death sparked a huge crackdown on the Sicilian mafia in the 90s Credit: AP:Associated Press
Wanted posters for the Sicilian Mafia’s top chief Bernardo Provenzano in Bagheria in 2005 Credit: ImageForum
Radiohead frontman wed Italian actress Dajana Roncione in Bagheria in 2020.
But it was the which solidified Sicily as one of the new islands of love.
The songstress and band member , held a among a host of celebrity pals last year.
The exclusive guest list included , Troye Sivan, and rapper Yung Lean.
Despite the glitzy celeb photo dumps making the island look like a picturesque destination, Italian mafia experts have been quick to remind the world that the history of Sicily is far darker than many believe.
When asked how the Mafia of the 80s and 90s would react to a , John simply responded: “They’d expect their cut.”
The Sicilian Mafia was known for its extortion tactics.
Members of the mafiosi in the late 70s even had enough power that they were allowed to run the company that collected all of Sicily’s taxes.
James Suckling and Jaime Winstone tied the knot in Sicily Credit: supplied
Fuschia Kate Sumner, daughter of musician Sting, celebrated her wedding to partner Maximilian Wright in the sun-drenched town of Noto, Sicily Credit: BackGrid
This allowed them to take a 10 per cent commission on every local’s taxes on the island, according to John.
He says that if a big celebrity marriage was set to take place on Sicilian shores when they were at their peak, then mafiosi would quickly demand a cut from food vendors, venue owners and even the local bands.
John added that Sicily was on the verge of becoming a narco state at the height of the Cosa Nostra.
“The Mafia’s drug dealers were shifting huge amounts of heroin into the United States through their business partners in the American Mafia,” he said.
But in the late 80s, Italy began to fight back and stand up to the Mafia, eventually staging the Maxi Trail which saw 338 mafiosa jailed for a total of 2,665, in 1992.
“One by one, the most brutal bosses who’d been leading a civil war within the Mafia were rounded up,” according to John.
“Then the Mafia was forced to go quiet. And there began to be a drastic reduction in the number of mafia murders.”
The latest statistics from 2023, show that there wasn’t a single murder linked to the Mafia, across the 12 months.
John Dickie is an author, expert and leading voice on the Cosa Nostra crime syndicate in Sicily Credit: Handout What is the Mafia?
THE Mafia is a structured society of criminals of primarily Italian or Sicilian birth who were able to run regions through fear.
The term applies to the traditional criminal organisation in Sicily and also the one in the United States.
The Sicilian Mafia is frequently referred to as La Cosa Nostra by its members.
They call themselves “men of honour”, although the public often refers to them as mafiosi.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many mafiosi emigrated to the US and formed new criminal organisations.
By the early 1930s the organised Italian criminals in the US had seized control of various illegal activities from rival Irish, Jewish, and other gangs.
Investigations conducted by US government later revealed the structure of the American Mafia was similar to that of the Sicilian outfits.
From the 1950s, mafia operations were conducted by some 24 groups, or “families,” throughout the country.
In most cities where syndicated crime operated, there was one family, but in New York City there were five: Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Colombo, and Bonanno.
The heads of the most powerful families made up a commission whose main function was judicial.
At the head of each family was a “boss,” or “don,” whose authority could be challenged only by the commission.
Each don had an underboss, and a consigliere, or counsellor, who had considerable power and influence.
By the late 20th century the Mafia’s role in US organised crime seemed to be diminishing.
While in Sicily a crackdown by the authorities.
Omerta is the code of silence and secrecy that forbids mafiosi from betraying their comrades to the authorities.
The penalty for transgression is death, and relatives of the turncoat may also be murdered.
“They’re still operating today, but they’re in a terrible, terrible state,” John added.
Remaining members of the Mafia are now left to pick up scraps across the city in an attempt to keep making money.
The main way they operate today is essentially as the island’s debt collectors, John says.
“If you’re a landlord and you’ve got a tenant who just won’t leave, you might be tempted to get the local Mafia boss to scare the tenant out,” John explained.
“That kind of thing still gives the Mafia its toehold.”
John added: “There’s no comparison to how it was a few years ago. People were even frightened to mention the word mafia in the past.
“Sicily really is a very, very different place. It’s now heaving with tourists most of the year.”
As Dua Lipa and Callum Turner for their dream wedding they will be surrounded by loved ones basking in Sicily’s sunshine.
But, go back 30 years and they would have risked being around members of Italy’s most dangerous Mafia instead.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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