"Michele Pantaleone was one of the first to shed light on the links between 
organized crime and political power, reaffirming that without some government 
officials complicity, organized crime is improbable. 

Organized Crime is usually merely the symptom of a chain and/or circle of 
corrupt officials. Have the "Task Forces" offer immunity, or reduced 
sentences to the thugs to "give up" those "on the take", like Legislators, 
Judges, Mayors, Councils, Police, etc, IMHO would seal the doom of both.
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Sicilian Writer Pantaleone Dies 
 Tue Feb 12, 3:02 PM ET 

 PALERMO, Sicily - Michele Pantaleone, a respected author and expert on the 
Sicilian Mafia and one of the first to shed light on the links between 
organized crime and political power, has died at age 90.

  Pantaleone died Monday night in his home in Palermo, the Sicilian regional 
capital, the Italian news  agency ANSA reported.

 Pantaleone began studying the Mafia in Sicily in the 1950s and explored its 
structure, activities and culture in detail in work that spanned decades.

 "He was the first one to provide the Italian public opinion with a lot of 
material" on organized crime, said an Italian journalist, Saverio Lodato, who 
covers the Mafia. "Thanks to his work, the Mafia became a national issue."

 In "Mafia e Politica" ("Mafia and Politics"), Pantaleone described the 
condition of Sicilian peasants and their relationship with the island's 
mobsters. In other books, he examined the role of "pentiti," or  turncoats, 
and drug trafficking, one of the mob's most lucrative activities.

Pantaleone's funeral will be held Wednesday in his hometown, Villalba, in 
central Sicily, ANSA said.