Those aged over 50 with a penchant for The Godfather trilogy can now have a unique mafia experience: meeting the offspring of the “boss of all bosses”. The son of one of Italy’s most notorious mafia leaders has started leading excursions for American tourists, sparking anger among those fighting the mob in Sicily.

Angelo Provenzano has signed up with the Boston-based Overseas Adventure Travel to talk to tourists about life with Bernardo Provenzano as a father.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Angelo Provenzano told the Italian media that the tours were a ‘personal affair’. Photograph: ANSA

The older Provenzano is serving a life sentence for mafia crimes, including his involvement in the murders of the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. He spent 43 years on the run before being arrested in 2006 near his birthplace of Corleone, which became the family name in The Godfather films.

That Provenzano’s 39-year-old son is now earning a living from talking to holidaymakers in Palermo has sparked criticism from Addiopizzo, an organisation set up to help Sicilians stop paying protection money.

Dario Riccobono, one of Addiopizzo’s founding members, said the tour was offensive to the families of those who had been killed by the mafia. “He’s the son of the most famous mafia boss in Sicily, the director of the worst period of slaughter in the Italian mafia,” Riccobono told the Guardian. The older Provenzano took over the leadership of Costa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, after the arrest in 1993 of Salvatore “Totò” Riina.

Through their criminal organisation they were responsible for a murderous campaign in Sicily following the 1980s “Maxi Trial”, an unprecedented crackdown on organised crime in which more than 400 mobsters were put in the dock.

Riccobono recognised that the younger Provenzano should not be held responsible for the crimes of his father, but blamed him for never publicly condemning the mafia boss.

“It’s clear that a person can’t pay for their father, no one’s asking for him to go to prison, but if he wants a normal life he should act in a certain way,” said Riccobono, whose organisation also works with tourists. He referred to the Sicilian activist Giuseppe “Peppino” Impastato, who was murdered in 1978 after campaigning against the mafia life he had been born into, as a positive example and “a point of reference”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Giovanni Impastato, whose activist brother was murdered by the mafia. Photograph: Eric Vandeville/Gamma-Rapho/Getty

Overseas Adventure Travel refused to comment on its mafia tour when contacted by the Guardian. Hotel Plaza Opera, which hosts the company’s guests, confirmed that Provenzano worked with the agency’s tourists but did not give further details.

Speaking to Italian media, Provenzano described the matter as a “personal affair” and asked: “Do I have the right to a normal life or not?”

He told La Repubblica newspaper: “For me, it’s only a matter of an important job opportunity in a sector, tourism, in which I have always thought there’s potential.” Provenzano, who spent the first 16 years of his life living in hiding, said people in Sicily and elsewhere were prejudiced against his family.



Maurizio Artale, president of Palermo’s Centro Padre Nostro, said the tours had come under fire “simply because it’s Provenzano”.

“I don’t know what he says during these tours. People are free to go where they want. If there are people who travel from Boston to hear Provenzano, it doesn’t mean that they’re all mafiosi!” he told the Guardian.

Artale’s organisation is named after Father Guiseppe “Pino” Puglisi, a parish priest who was murdered by Cosa Nostra in 1993. “Since 1995 tourists have come here, asking why a priest was killed. People want to understand,” he said.

What mattered was whether the younger Provenzano chose to live an honest life, said Artale, rather than speaking out against historical crimes. “What should they do, kill all the sons of the mafia?” he asked.





