Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the Cia, and the Mafia

by Paul L. Williams

Sindona’s dream of an independent Sicily was shared by the CIA not only because of its strategic location for US military bases but also because of the island’s pivotal importance to the narcotics industry. By 1970, the Mafia had established hundreds of laboratories within Sicily for the refinement of heroin. One was an orange-roofed stucco villa on the Via Messina Marina; another was a decrepit storefront near Brancaccio.1 The capos no longer needed the services of the Corsicans. They had established their own connections to the drug lords of Southeast Asia and had obtained the services of talented French scientists.2 To maintain their monopoly on the trade, the Sicilian mob worked with the Nixon administration in launching the so-called war on drugs. The war resulted in raids by Interpol on Corsican laboratories throughout the French Riviera, eradicating the only source of competition. Business was booming. By 1971, there were more than 500,000 heroin addicts in the United States, producing a cash flow of $12 billion.