Salvatore “Totò” Catalano: Extortion Charges Dropped, Possible Influence in Sicily
Salvatore “Totò” Catalano: Extortion Charges Dropped, Possible Influence in Sicily
"I've come across some powder, a few kilos… worst case scenario, I'll blow his house up… he won't take me for a ride, Uncle Totò, I'll blow his house up, you can be sure of that," Filippo Cimilluca is heard telling Salvatore Catalano on a police wiretap.
The case began in 2021, when Cimilluca allegedly loaned a local businessman an unspecified amount for renovations. In return, he demanded €500 ($580) a month for life. Payments continued into 2023, but the businessman believed he had fully repaid the loan and decided to sell his business. The Mafiosi then demanded a “severance package” of €30,000 ($34,000), insisting he would pay one way or another.
When the businessman refused, the group launched a series of intimidation tactics—demands, veiled threats that became increasingly explicit, repeated requests for money, tense meetings, and even near-physical confrontations. At one point, they threatened to blow up the man’s home.
Unbeknownst to them, the businessman had gone to the authorities. Investigators recorded multiple conversations, and in late 2024, Cimilluca, Vito Pampinella, and Salvatore Catalano were arrested on extortion charges. A fourth man, Antonio Baucina, was arrested on weapons charges.
Cimilluca and Pampinella opted for an expedited trial and were convicted last month, receiving sentences of 8 and 6 years respectively. Catalano chose an ordinary trial; the extortion charge was dropped, but he was sentenced to 9 months for aggravated arbitrary exercise of his rights, the prosecution wanted 11 years. Because his pre-trial detention and house arrest exceeded his sentence, he was released with time served. Catalano's lawyers have already announced their intention to appeal because they believe there should've been a full acquittal.
Born in 1941, in Ciminna, Sicily, and arriving in the US by 1966, Catalano, already affilated with the local Family in Ciminna, became an influential Wiseguy in the Bonanno Family. By the late 1970s, Catalano became a Captain and served as the point of contact in NYC for the infamous Pizza Connection case. In the fall of 1980, the Family had elected Catalano to serve as the Acting Boss while their Official Boss, Philip Rastelli, was back in prison.
Catalano, now 84, returned to Ciminna, Sicily after serving 25 years of his 45-year sentence handed down in 1987 for the infamous Pizza Connection case, and after receiving a deportation order upon his release in 2009.
Affiliation?
Salvatore Catalano began his criminal career as a member of the Ciminna family in Sicily before emigrating to the United States, where he formally transferred his membership to the Bonanno family in New York. His activity and status within Cosa Nostra has remained unknown since his deportation up until 2016 when he was see attending the funeral of the mother of Francesco Cali, a influential Gambino member, in Ciminna. Two years later, Italian authorities surveilled him traveling from Ciminna to Passo di Rigano, where he met privately with boss Tommaso Inzerillo. Moments earlier, Inzerillo had been with Francesco and Giovanni Inzerillo, but stepped away to take a walk and meet with Catalano.
Recent reports from Totò's extortion case described him as a "Capomandamento", a position within the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, but not America's Cosa Nostra, and as the Boss of Ciminna.
Without access to law enforcement reports or testimony its hard to say whether these descriptions are accurate. But what we can gather from these reports, arrests, and interactions with other Cosa Nostra members, is that Catalano remains active in that network and has likely transferred his membership back to Sicily.
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