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Vito Roberto Palazzolo (born July 31, 1947) is an Italian businessman living in South Africa. Born in Terrasini, he moved to South Africa in the mid-1980s. He also goes by the name Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko. He is alleged to be a member of the Sicilian Mafia, an allegation he denies.〔〔 (Il boss finanziere della mafia ), Antimafia Duemila, N° 28, January 2003〕 In March 2009, the highest court in Italy confirmed a 2006 nine-year sentence for association with the Mafia.〔 (Il Sudafrica nega l'estradizione di Palazzolo ), La Repubblica, June 19, 2010〕〔 (Definitiva la condanna per il re del riciclaggio ), La Repubblica, March 18, 2009〕 He is alleged to be a Mafia treasurer linked to Bernardo Provenzano, the Mafia boss arrested in April 2006 in Corleone, Sicily, and his predecessor Salvatore Riina, both serving life sentences in Italian jails.〔〔 Palazzolo maintains his innocence and claims that he has been persecuted by the Italian government, the press, lawyers, politicians, and "opportunists" for the last 19 years.〔(Presumed Guilty ), Vito Palazzolo's website (accessed September 11, 2010)〕 On March 30, 2012 Palazzolo was arrested by Interpol at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand.〔 (Arrestato Vito Roberto Palazzolo, 'cassiere' dei boss di Cosa Nostra ), La Repubblica, March 31, 2012〕〔(Thailand arrests Vito Roberto Palazzolo, 'South African' mafia banker wanted in Italy ), Global Post, March 31, 2012〕 ==Money laundering accusations== Palazzolo was born in Terrasini, Sicily (Italy). He left home in 1962 at the age of 15 and emigrated to Switzerland. He completed his studies in Switzerland and Germany and started working as a private banker, servicing high-net-worth individuals, and made substantial amounts of money in the diamond trade.〔〔Trepp, ''Swiss Connection'', pp. 246-250〕 In 1982, he founded Consultfin SA with Franco Della Torre, a financial services arm of one of three major Swiss banks in Lugano, Switzerland. The company became a conduit for financial operations of heroin traffickers linked to the Mafia.〔〔 Palazzolo first came to the attention of law enforcement in Italy and the United States in the course of money laundering activities in the Pizza Connection heroin trafficking ring between Turkey, Sicily and New York.〔Powis, (The Money Launderers ), pp. 16/21/28〕 Italian and US intelligence officers estimate that Palazzolo was involved in a network that laundered more than US$1.5 billion in drug money through Switzerland. Some of the money was moved by Palazzolo through offshore companies and fronts from 1979 until his arrest in Lugano (Switzerland) on April 20, 1984, on an international arrest warrant from Italy.〔 (Il boss finanziere della mafia ), Antimafia Duemila, N° 28, January 2003〕〔〔, ''Daily Dispatch'', March 7, 2000〕 The Swiss Criminal Court in Lugano sentenced Palazzolo in September 1985 to a three-year prison term for money laundering, after establishing he was in control of some of the accounts where money raised from the heroin sales were deposited.〔 ('Pizza connection' tre le condanne e una assoluzione ), ''La Repubblica'', September 27, 1985〕〔(Top cop backs Mafia man ), ''Mail & Guardian'', December 12, 1997〕〔(Palazzolo: The mobster from Burgersdorp ), ''Mail & Guardian'', November 19, 1999〕 The Court established that Palazzolo and his partner Franco Della Torre moved 6 million dollars in 1982, half of which was converted into 200 kg. of gold, for Mafia boss Antonio Rotolo, who seriously threatened Palazzolo to return him the money when the latter was warned that the FBI was investigating the suspicious money transfers.〔(Sentence ) by the Criminal Appeal Court of Lugano, No. 130-162(88), September 26, 1985〕 Palazzolo "participated in the financing of the illegal trafficking of narcotics and served as intermediaries in its financing, making the necessary preparations and contributing in this way to dealing in considerable quantities of morphine base, which were shipped by sea from Turkey to Southern Italy, where it was processed into heroin, and from there sent to the USA for sale to consumers."〔 The appeal court increased the sentence to five-and-a-half years in April 1986.〔 ("Pizza Connection"-Mitglied in Südafrika verhaftet ), ''Neue Zürcher Zeitung'', February 4, 1988〕〔 (Schmutzige Wäsche ), ''Der Spiegel'', May 12, 1986〕 In 1993, the Bundesgericht in Bern reduced the sentence to three years and nine months,〔 Roth, ''(Ermitteln verboten! ), p. 24〕 for having acted in "dolus eventualis", which is a legal interpretation of reckless disregard, somewhere between intent and negligence.〔(Dolus ) at legalcity.net〕 In Italy he was charged for the same offences in the procedures against the Italian end of the Pizza Connection. An arrest warrant was issued in April 1984 by prosecuting magistrate Giovanni Falcone requesting Palazzolo’s extradition. The extradition was refused because he was already on trial before the Swiss courts. In March 1992 a criminal court in Rome convicted Palazzolo for the crime of “association with the purpose of financing for narcotics trafficking” and sentenced him to two years. He was acquitted on the charge of Mafia association, however, because the fact “did not exist”. The conviction was suspended, because Palazzolo had already served three years in prison in Switzerland, for the same facts.〔(Review application before Appeal Court of Caltanissetta ), by the defence lwayers of Palazzolo, November 25, 2010〕 At the time, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered him to be one of the top seven in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.〔(FBI names Palazzolo as Cosa Nostra don ), ''Mail & Guardian'', October 12, 1998〕〔(Palazzolo top mafioso - FBI ), ''Daily Dispatch'', October 13, 1998〕 However, he is never mentioned as a member of the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in court sentences and academic studies. State witness Antonino Giuffrè claimed that the Sicilian Mafia's interests in the drug trade in Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and the Far East were managed by Palazzolo.〔(Mafia's link to Colombian cartel is revealed ), ''The Independent'' (London), December 11, 2004〕〔 Giuffrè's claim could not be substantiated. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Vito Roberto Palazzolo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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