Michele Pantaleone (30 November 1911 – 12 February 2002) was a respected journalist and expert on the Sicilian Mafia and one of the first to shed light on the links between organized crime and political power.

Pantaleone was born in Villalba, a village in a poor region of Sicily, where most people lived of subsistence agriculture, which was also the home town of the prominent Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini.

Pantaleone was born in Villalba, into a local family of professionals whose republican traditions opposed the power of Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini, who was a staunch catholic as well.

The socialist Pantaleone organised an election rally of the Blocco del popolo (The Popular Front) in Sicily in Villalba on 16 September 1944, inviting the Palermo-based communist leader Girolamo Li Causi.

But when Li Causi started to talk about how the peasants were being deceived by ‘a powerful leaseholder’ – a thinly disguised reference to Vizzini – the Mafia boss hurled: It’s a lie.

He was elected as regional deputy in the Sicilian parliament in 1947-1951 and again in 1967-1971 as an independent candidate on the list of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI).

According to his version published in "Mafia e politica 1943-1962" a US Army airplane had flown over Villalba on the day of the invasion and dropped a yellow silk foulard (scarf) marked with a black L (indicating Luciano).

Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini climbed aboard and spent the next six days travelling through western Sicily organizing support for the advancing American troops.