Rome // When Italian police caught up with Bernardo Provenzano, they finally solved the mystery of how the notorious 'boss of bosses' had been able to direct the activities of the Sicilian mafia despite having been on the run for a remarkable 43 years. From his hiding place in a grubby shack on a bare hillside outside the town of Corleone, home to the mafia's most feared clan, he issued instructions on scraps of paper which were then smuggled out in bundles of laundry.
Using a battered electric typewriter and a calculator to tot up the money extorted by his thugs, Provenzano controlled Cosa Nostra's murderous activities right under the noses of police until he was sensationally arrested in 2006. Now, the godfather, who has been in jail ever since, has apparently found a new way to communicate with the outside world - Facebook. Italians were shocked to learn this month that Provenzano and other convicted mobsters have profiles on the popular social networking site. Not only that, but the profiles have attracted thousands of admirers.
Online fans of Provenzano paid homage on his Facebook profile to "someone who tricked the state for 40 years" and launched a darkly ironic campaign for him to be declared a saint by the Pope. One support group calls itself "Bernardo Provenzano e un bravo ragazzo" - "Bernardo Provenzano is a good bloke" - next to a photograph of the innocuous looking, bespectacled 75-year-old gangster. Provenzano's brutal predecessor as leader of Cosa Nostra, Salvatore "the Beast" Riina, proved to be even more popular.
The 78-year-old, who orchestrated a campaign of terror against not only the state but also perceived rivals within the mafia, attracted more than 2,000 supporters, who praised him as a "great" man. Don't expect to see many holiday snaps on his profile though - Riina's travel opportunities have been drastically curtailed since he was jailed in 1993 and ordered to serve no less than 12 life sentences for murder.
Homage was also paid to Matteo Messina Denaro, 46, the last of Provenzano's henchmen still at large. A playboy with a love of fast cars, he won a reputation for savagery after once murdering a rival and strangling to death his pregnant girlfriend. The families of people killed by the mafia are outraged that convicted murderers and extortionists have become online idols and suspect that gangsters are using the networking site to communicate with each other or to recruit followers.
"I'm convinced that they are using Facebook to transmit messages," said Sonia Alfano, the president of the National Association of Families of Mafia Victims. She recalled reading a message posted on Riina's Facebook profile in which an Italian teenager wrote: "I'm ready to serve you, I'm at your disposition and I'm armed."Ms Alfano, whose journalist father was assassinated by Cosa Nostra, said: "It's incredible. I'd like to talk to this kid and ask him if he knows what it means to kill a person, if he knows the pain that such an act will cause."
Anti-mafia investigators said that anyone who signed up to the Facebook sites should be investigated by the police. "These people represent potential mobsters," said Carlo Vizzini, a member of Italy's parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission. "They belong to the so-called grey zone of people willing to support the bosses and the mafia." The mafia profiles put Facebook in an uncomfortable position. While the presence of convicted killers on a site which is aimed at reuniting high school buddies and former lovers is unpalatable, it is not illegal.
"We often see debates and discussions but nevertheless this sort of controversy is not enough of a reason to remove a group or pages from the site," a spokesman said. But the backlash against the online adulation of mafia mobsters has already begun. Search for Salvatore 'Toto' Riina on Facebook now and you find that many of the pages dedicated to him have been shut down. A message on one of them reads: "This group has been closed in honour of all those killed by the mafia and of those who continue to risk their lives to annihilate them."
Italians can take some comfort from the fact that Facebook profiles set up in honour of mafia victims have attracted far more members than those dedicated to the mafiosi themselves. But the fact that even a minority of people continue to hero worship men responsible for leaving a bloody trail across the towns and cities of southern Italy is disturbing. Italy has waged war against Cosa Nostra for years but vanquishing the mafia takes more than wire taps, raids and arrests by armed Carabinieri.
"If by magic all mafiosi were to one day disappear from the face of the Earth, the phenomenon of the mafia would still remain because it has entered the DNA of Italians," said Andrea Camilleri, a celebrated Sicilian author of crime novels. It will take more than a fight waged on Facebook to quash one of Europe's most feared and effective criminal organisations. * The National
