Silvio Berlusconi – Italy’s former Prime Minister and one of the world’s most recognisable politicians – did business with the mafia for nearly two decades.

That is the conclusion of the country’s Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome. The billionaire tycoon, nicknamed the Teflon Don, worked with Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, via his conduit and former senator Marcello Dell’Utri after judges sentenced Dell’Utri to seven years for mafia association.

Three-time premier Berlusconi, 77, has always denied rumours that mob links were behind the large and opaquely sourced investments used to kickstart his construction and media businesses in the 1970s and 1980s.

But Supreme Court judges accepted prosecutor Aurelio Galasso’s claim that “for 18 years, from 1974 to 1992, Marcello Dell’Utri was the guarantor of the agreement between Berlusconi and Cosa Nostra”. The verdict confirms the sentence imposed on 72-year-old Dell’Utri by Palermo’s Court of Appeal in March last year.

-snip-

Read more:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...ed-9358790.html

Yo! the best government Chicago ever had was run by Al Capone. America's most successful corporation was chaired by one Salvatore Lucania, also known as Charles "Lucky" Luciano. So maybe Berlusconi was on to something.

And if we're going to castigate politicians for being in bed with the 'Honored Society', does it mean we can dig up JFK, and shut off the Eternal Zippo Lighter, because as I recollect, he owed his election to Mo Mo Giancana, and Salvatore Trafficante. Capice?