Links To American Gangsters
In 1949 Vizzini and Italian-American crime boss Lucky Luciano set up a candy factory in Palermo exporting all over Europe and to the US. Police suspected that it was a cover for heroin trafficking. The laboratory operated undisturbed until April 11, 1954, when the Roman daily Avanti! published a photograph of the factory under the headline "Textiles and Sweets on the Drug Route." That evening the factory was closed, and the laboratory's chemists were reportedly smuggled out of the country.
In 1950, Lucky Luciano was photographed in front of the Hotel Sole in the centre of old Palermo – often the residence of Don Calò Vizzini – talking with Don Calò’s bodyguards. The photographer was beaten up, but he never reported the fact to the authorities after receiving an expensive new camera and cash. Vizzini’s network reached the United States where he knew the future family boss Angelo Annaloro of Philadelphia, known as Angelo Bruno, who was born in Villalba.
Read more about this topic: Calogero Vizzini
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