Tommaso Buscetta

Tommaso Buscetta (July 13, 1928 - April 2, 2000) was an Italian mafioso, and later repented.

Italian Mafia turncoat was first in the Italian pentiti witness protection program.

He was the last of fourteen children raised in a poverty stricken area, which he escaped by getting involved with crime at a young age. He became a fully fledged member of the Mafia at the age of eighteen and worked as a hitman. In 1968, Buscetta was convicted of double-murder, but the conviction was in absentia as he was not actually in custody (it is possible in Italy for fugitives to be prosecuted without them being present.)

Tomasso Buscetta fled the USA then down to Brazil where he set up a drug-trafficking network. In 1972 Buscetta was was arrested and extradited to Italy where began his life-sentence for the earlier double-murder conviction. In 1980, whilst on a day-release from prison, he fled over to Brazil to hide out from the brewing Mafia War instigated by Toto Riina. Arrested once more in 1982, Buscetta was sent back to Italy. He made a suicide attempt, and when that failed he decided that he was utterly dissillusioned with the Mafia and the blood-thirsty treachery of people like Riina. Buscetta asked to talk to Giovanni Falcone and began his life as an informant. He paid heavily for being a 'rat' - over a dozen of Buscetta's relatives, including two of his sons, were killed in revenge.

His testimony in the New York “pizza connection” trial in the mid-1980s allowed the conviction of hundreds of mobsters in Italy and the United States.

In Italy he helped the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino to achieve significant successes in the fight against organised crime (the two judges were later both killed by Mafia). He was the star witness in the so-called Maxi Trials that lead to almost 350 Mafia members being sent to prison.

As a reward for his help, Buscetta - who was described as highly intelligent and polite by his handlers - was allowed to go and live in the USA under a new identity in the Witness Protection Program.

He died of natural causes in 2000, aged 71