Man of Honour

When Claudio Samperi, for years a mafia boss in Catania, defected to the police, the Mafia put up a reward of half a million Euros for his head. They were just hours from attacking the police station where he was on remand. Samperi escaped, and in this programme he provides a unique insider account of life in the Mafia. From the initial petty thieving that served as his induction into the Mafia, to the dramatic consequences of his defection after being ordered by “Nitto” Santapaola, the top Mafia boss in Catania, to kill his own sister.

Samperi was the first big fish to defect for years, and one of the first in Mafia history. His testimony put hundreds of Mafiosi in prison, many of them for life.

Men of Honour is a story of blackmail, murder and drug dealing; but also of the wives and mistresses of the Mafia bosses, and of the luxuries that life as a man of honour in Catania afforded Samperi.

Samperi also reveals shocking details of the close collaboration between senior political figures, police officers and the Mafia, and of the secretive “third level” of powerful men at the very pinnacle of Italian society: judges, political leaders and businessmen who fraternize with top Mafia bosses.