Lupara bianca

Lupara bianca is a journalistic term to indicate a Mafia slaying done in such a way that the victim's body is never found.[1][2]

Typical ways to carry out a lupara bianca include burying a victim in the open countryside or in remote places in which it would be difficult to find it, or burying the victim in the concrete found in construction sites, or dissolving the body in acid and throwing the remains in the sea: this latter method was widely used by the Corleonesi faction during the Second Mafia War.[3] The lupara bianca prevents the family of the victim from holding a proper funeral in absence of a body, and it also destroys evidence that might point to the killers' identities. The term comes from the lupara, a weapon typically associated with the Sicilian Mafia.

Real-life incidents

It is speculated Hamilton, Ontario bootlegger Rocco Perri was murdered by being fitted with cement shoes and thrown into Hamilton Harbour in 1944.[4]

Sicilian mobster Santino Di Matteo's son Giuseppe's body was dissolved in acid, in 1996, after 779 days of being held hostage.[5][6][7]

References

  1. "Lupara". Vocabolario Treccani online (in Italian).
  2. "Lupara bianca". Sito ufficiale della Casa Editrice Edizioni Simone, dizionario online (in Italian).
  3. "Cadavere sciolto nell'acido, stile corleonese per la 'ndrangheta che comanda a Milano". il Fatto Quotidiano (in Italian).
  4. "April 23, 1944: Hamilton mobster Rocco Perri disappears". thespec.com. 23 September 2016. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  5. Jamieson, The Antimafia, p. 217
  6. (in Italian) "Uccisero il piccolo Giuseppe Di Matteo", La Repubblica, January 16, 2012
  7. (in Italian) La madre del bimbo sciolto nell'acido: «Giuseppe ha vinto, la mafia ha perso», Corriere della Sera, November 10, 2008
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