After the arrest of Mafia boss Totò Riina in January 1993, the remaining bosses, among them Giuseppe Graviano, Matteo Messina Denaro, Giovanni Brusca, Leoluca Bagarella, Antonino Gioè and Gioacchino La Barbera came together a few times (often in the Santa Flavia area in Bagheria, on an estate owned by the mafioso Leonardo Greco).

[5] One of the hitmen who killed Puglisi, Salvatore Grigoli, later confessed and revealed the priest’s last words as his killers approached: "I've been expecting you.

She reportedly followed the Milan stock market on teletext and was an avid reader of the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore. Much of the Gravianos' wealth was invested in Italian blue-chip companies.

[11][12] The third brother Benedetto Graviano, who has served a five-year sentence for Mafia conspiracy, has been arrested in July 2004 for cocaine trafficking.

The Mafia family of Santa Maria di Gesù had tried to take over the Brancaccio area, but Cosa Nostra’s boss Bernardo Provenzano decided to re-instate the Gravianos.

[15] According to the pentito Antonino Giuffrè the Graviano brothers were the intermediaries between Cosa Nostra and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Cosa Nostra decided to back Berlusconi's Forza Italia party from its foundation in 1993, in exchange for help in resolving the mafia's judicial problems.

The mafia turned to Forza Italia when its traditional contacts in the discredited Christian Democrat party proved unable to protect its members from the rigours of the law.

[19] On 4 December 2009, Spatuzza repeated his accusations in court at the appeal hearing against Dell’Utri, sentenced to 9 years in 2004, for collusion with the Mafia.

[20] He testified: "Graviano told me the name of Berlusconi and said that thanks to him and the man from our home town [an apparent reference to Dell' Utri] we have the country in our hands."