Antonino Giuffrè

Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè (born July 21, 1945) is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002.

Giuffrè was known in mafia circles as Manuzza (the Hand), because his right hand was crippled by polio. Other sources claim he lost his hand in a hunting accident. Giuffrè was trained as an agricultural sciences specialist. His rise in the Mafia ran parallel to the ascension of the Corleonesi clan headed by Salvatore Riina. He became the head of the mandamento of Caccamo and is a nephew of American Mob Boss John Stanfa from Philadelphia.

Antonino Giuffrè was arrested on April 16, 2002. He started feeding investigators information even before he agreed to turn state' witness (or pentito) in June, 2002. He is one of the most important mafia turncoats since Tommaso Buscetta in 1984. His collaboration has updated investigators' knowledge and provided a new interpretation for the sensitive issue of Cosa Nostra's relations with politics in the early 1990s. "It's very simple: we are the fish and politics is the water," Giuffrè said.

Giuffrè has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Cosa Nostra's affairs over the past two decades, partly from having played host to Michele Greco 'the Pope' in the 1980s, when the supreme mafia boss was on the run and took refuge near Caccamo, Giuffrè's home town. Subsequently he became one of the right-hand man of Bernardo Provenzano who became the Mafia’s reference point when Salvatore Riina was arrested in January 1993.

Giuffrè became part of the "directorate" that was established by Bernardo Provenzano, according to Antonio Ingroia, a leading anti-Mafia magistrate in Sicily. This group "of about four to seven people" met very infrequently, only when necessary, when there were strategic decisions to make. Among the other members of the directorate were Salvatore Lo Piccolo from Palermo; Benedetto Spera from Belmonte Mezzagno; Salvatore Rinella from Trabia; Giuseppe Balsano from Monreale; Matteo Messina Denaro from Castelvetrano; Vincenzo Virga from Trapani; and Andrea Manciaracina from Mazara del Vallo.

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