The trial centered on a number of independently owned pizza parlor fronts used to distribute drugs, which had imported US$1.65 billion of heroin from Southwest Asia to the United States between 1975 and 1984.

[3][4][5][6] The trial centered on a Mafia-run enterprise that involved processing heroin from Sicily, morphine purchased from Turkey and Southwest Asia, and cocaine from South America, for final distribution of the drugs in the United States through independently owned pizza parlor fronts as the money was laundered through several banks and brokerages in the United States and overseas.

[7] One of these witnesses was Sicilian Mafia pentito Tommaso Buscetta, who had already revealed information to Italian magistrate Giovanni Falcone to prepare for the Maxi Trial.

[15][16][17] Former undercover FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone, who infiltrated the Bonanno crime family between 1976 and 1981 using the alias "Donnie Brasco", also testified at the trial.

[18] Over the course of the trial, Gaetano Mazzara was murdered and Pietro Alfano was seriously wounded,[21] and on March 2, 1987, two of the 22 men pleaded guilty to lesser currency violations,[7][5][6] while 18 of the remaining 19 defendants were convicted of running an international drug ring.