Ciaculli massacre

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The Ciaculli massacre on 30 June 1963 was caused by a car bomb that exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission and the boss of the Ciaculli Mafia family. At first, mafia boss Pietro Torretta was considered to be the instigator behind the bomb attack, but it was eventually found to be Michele Cavataio. The Ciaculli massacre was the culmination of a bloody Mafia war between rival clans in Palermo in the early 1960s—now known as the First Mafia War, a second started in the early 1980s—for the control of the profitable opportunities brought about by rapid urban growth and the illicit heroin trade to North America. The unprecedented ferocity of the struggle reaped 68 victims from 1961 to 1963.

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