First Mafia War

The First Mafia War was the first high-profile conflict between Mafia clans in post-war Italy (the Sicilian Mafia has a long history of violent rivalries).

In December 1962 some heroin went missing from a shipment to America. When the Sicilian Mafia Commission could not decide who was to blame, one of the clans involved – the La Barbera clan – took matters into its own hands. They murdered a mafioso from the Greco clan whom they suspected of stealing the heroin, triggering a war in which many non-mafiosi would be killed in the crossfire.[89] In April 1963, several bystanders were wounded during a shootout in Palermo.[90] In May, Angelo La Barbera survived a murder attempt in Milan. In June, six military officers and a policeman in Ciaculli were killed while trying to dispose of a car bomb.

The fact that the conflict spread outside Sicily and claimed innocent lives provoked national outrage and a crackdown in which nearly 2,000 arrests were made. Mafia activity fell as clans disbanded and mafiosi went into hiding. The Commission was dissolved; it would not reform until 1969.[91] 117 suspects were put on trial in 1968, but most were acquitted or received light sentences

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