US and Italian prosecutors discovered in the 1980s during a case dubbed "The Pizza Connection" that the Sicilian Mafia was involved in a massive drug ring in America in cooperation with the US mob.
La Cosa Nostra in the US avoided attacking police, prosecutors or judges, trying to keep out of the public eye. However, the Sicilian Mafia of the 1980s and early '90s launched what is known here as "the massacre strategy," murdering anyone brave enough to oppose it.
This culminated in the 1992 slayings of two nationally admired Sicilian prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, both of whom were killed in huge bomb blasts. Italians were outraged and a major crackdown followed.
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