Vincenzo Virga
Encyclopedia
Trapani
Trapani is a city and comune on the west coast of Sicily in Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Trapani. Founded by Elymians, the city is still an important fishing port and the main gateway to the nearby Egadi Islands.-History:...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
family and mandamento
Mandamento
Historically a mandamento was the part of Italian territory under the jurisdiction of a "pretore" which is a kind of magistrate. These divisions were abolished in 1923....
since 1982, when the previous boss, Salvatore Minore, was murdered.
Virga was one of the trusted men of Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...
and considered to be his financial brain. He was one of the members of the directorate that ruled Cosa Nostra, which was established by Provenzano after the arrest of Totò Riina. It consisted of about four to seven people who met infrequently, only when necessary, when there were strategic decisions to be made. Among the other members were Salvatore Lo Piccolo
Salvatore Lo Piccolo
Salvatore Lo Piccolo , also known as the Baron , is a Sicilian mafioso and one of the most powerful bosses of Palermo, Sicily. Lo Piccolo rose through the ranks of the Palermo mafia throughout the 1980s and he became the capo-mandamento of the San Lorenzo district in the early 1990s, replacing...
; Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè 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....
from Caccamo
Caccamo
Caccamo is a town and comune located on the Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily in the Province of Palermo.-History:The official founding of Caccamo was not until 1093, when the Normans began building the castle on a rocky spur overlooking a cliff. The castle itself is actually now being slowly converted...
; Benedetto Spera
Benedetto Spera
Benedetto Spera is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and the boss of the Belmonte Mezzagno Mafia family and the mandamento of Misilmeri in the province of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy...
from Belmonte Mezzagno; Salvatore Rinella from Trabia
Trabia
Trabia is a comune in the Province of Palermo in the Italian region Sicily, located about 30 km southeast of Palermo.The municipality of Trabia contains the frazione San Nicola l'Arena....
; Giuseppe Balsano from Monreale
Monreale
Monreale is a town and comune in the province of Palermo, in Sicily, Italy, on the slope of Monte Caputo, overlooking the very fertile valley called "La Conca d'oro" , famed for its orange, olive and almond trees, the produce of which is exported in large quantities...
; Matteo Messina Denaro
Matteo Messina Denaro
Matteo Messina Denaro , also known as Diabolik, is a Sicilian mafioso. He got his nickname from the Italian comic book character of the same name. He is considered to be one of the new leaders of Cosa Nostra after the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on April 11, 2006...
from Castelvetrano
Castelvetrano
Castelvetrano is a town and comune in the province of Trapani, Sicily, Italy. The archeological site of Selinunte is located within the territory of the comune. It was the birthplace of Giovanni Gentile, the key philosopher of the Fascist movement in Italy.The town is predominantly a farming town,...
; and Andrea Manciaracina
Andrea Manciaracina
Andrea Manciaracina is a member of Sicilian Mafia. His name is sometimes spelled as Mangiaracina.Manciaracina was born in Mazara del Vallo in the province of Trapani. He was initiated in Cosa Nostra in 1985 or 1986...
from Mazara del Vallo
Mazara del Vallo
Mazara del Vallo is a town and comune in southwestern Sicily, Italy, which lies mainly on the left bank at the mouth of the Mazaro river, administratively part of the province of Trapani....
.
Since 1994 Virga was on the run and wanted for the murders of judge Alberto Giacomelli and the journalist Mauro Rostagno. Virga's real skill was in masterminding the intricate financial dealings of the Mafia. His strong political and social support made it hard to arrest him.
On February 21, 2001, Virga was arrested in a remote cottage near Trapani while watching a video documentary about the 1992 assassinations of the two Antimafia judges Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
and Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
and surrounded by documents detailing the award of public works contracts to firms he controlled.
"He is a magician in piloting contracts. We have caught the business brain of Bernardo Provenzano," said police chief Giuseppe Linares when Virga was arrested. Under Virga's direction, the apparently sleepy, non-descript town of Trapani, with more banks than Italian cities five times its size, became a magnet for hundreds of millions of mafia revenue, which was recycled by investing in land developments and waste disposal.
On May 15, 2007, the Appeal Court in Milan sentenced the Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....
Senator and Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
’s right hand man Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi...
and Virga to two years each for attempted extortion of Trapani Basket Ball team by Publitalia, the Fininvest
Fininvest
Fininvest is a financial holding company controlled by Silvio Berlusconi's family and managed by Silvio Berlusconi's eldest daughter Marina Berlusconi.-Structure:...
concessionaire. Four years later, the Appeal Court in Milan nullified the sentence and absolved Dell'Utri and Virga because there is no substance to the fact.