Sao Paulo, Brazil. Forty police officers surround the home of Tommaso Buscetta and arrest him while he is with Leonardo Badalamenti, son of the mafia boss Gaetano. A bribery attempt by Buscetta himself is futile, and he is sent to prison for several drug-related murders. In 1984, judges Giovanni Falcone and Vincenzo Geraci visit him, urging him to cooperate with justice, but he initially refuses. The Italian government then requests his extradition from the Brazilian authorities. When extradition is granted, he attempts suicide by ingesting strychnine to avoid it. Rescued, he arrives in Italy where he decides to cooperate, beginning by revealing the Mafia’s organizational charts and plans to Judge Falcone. For this reason, he is considered one of the first collaborators in history, after Leonardo Vitale. He no longer supported the new Cosa Nostra, claiming that it itself had lost its identity. Thanks to his collaboration, magistrates understood and understood the Cosa Nostra system, which consisted of soldiers selected by the family, above them the capos decina, chosen by the head of the family, above them the consiglieres and the sottobosco, and finally the capo famiglia. In 1984, he was extradited to the United States, receiving from the government a new identity, citizenship, and probation in exchange for further revelations against the American Cosa Nostra. He testified in 1986 at the Maxi Trial in Palermo (which arose from statements made to Falcone) and in the “Pizza Connection” trial, held in New York and involving Gaetano Badalamenti and other Sicilian-American mafiosi accused of drug trafficking.
