Last Days of the Lo Piccolos, part two

The rise and fall of a father-and-son Mafia team

by Carl Russo

[This two-part article is a prequel to the chapters about the Lo Piccolo crime family in my book, The Sicilian Mafia: A True Crime Travel Guide. Read part one.]

Sandro Lo PiccoloA STRAIGHT LINE can be drawn across metropolitan Palermo starting in the gloomy slums of the San Lorenzo district and ending at the sunny fishing village of Sferracavallo—a cross-section of the Lo Piccolos’ dominion. The delinquent young men recruited from the projects made willing foot soldiers in the rackets that financed Salvatore and Sandro’s extravagant lifestyle.

Everyone along the line paid the Lo Piccolos the pizzo, and not just the small shopkeepers. Protection payments were collected from construction companies, gas stations and discotheques. Drug profits from the bosses’ network of traffickers were laundered through gaming rooms, supermarkets and even state railroad expansion.