Antonino "Nino" Rotolo (born January 3, 1946) is a Sicilian Mafia boss from the Pagliarelli area in Palermo that traditionally was under the control of the Motisi Mafia family. Rotolo was the underboss of Matteo Motisi, but according to some pentiti he was the de facto leader representing the mandamento on the Sicilian Mafia Commission. In 2006, the police deduced that Rotolo — Number 25 in the numbered code of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano — had become a key figure in Cosa Nostra's hierarchy.
Ally of the Corleonesi
Rotolo was a loyal ally of the Corleonesi of Totò Riina in the Second Mafia War. According to the pentito Giuseppe Marchese he was part of the hit team that killed Stefano Bontade and he strangled Santo Inzerillo, the brother of Salvatore Inzerillo, with his own hands on May 26, 1981, when Inzerillo came to a meeting to ask clarifications about the killing of his relatives.
Rotolo was actively involved in heroin trafficking in the 1980s. According to Tommaso Buscetta, three Palermo Mafia families dominated heroin trafficking around 1980: the Porta Nuova family with Nunzio La Mattina as the main organizer; the Brancaccio with Giuseppe Savoca and the Pagliarelli family with Antonino Rotolo. Rotolo received morphine base from the Turkish trafficker Yasar Avni Mussulullu who delivered the shipments close to the coast of Sicily on Rotolo's indications where they were picked by smaller fishing boats. The morphine base was refined into heroin at laboratories on Sicily and smuggled to the United States to feed the famous Pizza Connection. One of Rotolo's heroin refiners was Francesco Marino Mannoia after Bontade was killed. Rotolo was also managing the money flow of the proceeds through Swiss bank accounts.
On May 31, 1985, Rotolo was arrested together with Giuseppe Calò in the latter's elegant villa near Rome. He was one of the defendants at the Maxi Trial against Cosa Nostra that started in 1986. According to Francesco Marino Mannoia, who became a pentito, Rotolo was one of the killers of Piersanti Mattarella, the regional president of Sicily at the time. He was also a member of the hit team that killed the communist politician Pio La Torre and the prefect of Palermo, general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, according to the pentito Calogero Ganci.
Deputy of Provenzano
After the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on April 11, 2006, the pizzini (small slips of paper used to communicate with other mafiosi to avoid phone conversations) found at his hideout indicated that Provenzano's joint deputies in Palermo were Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Antonino Rotolo. In a message referring to an important decision for Cosa Nostra, Provenzano told Rotolo: "It's up to you, me and Lo Piccolo to decide this thing."
Rotolo was involved in the Sicilian regional election of May 2006, supporting the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (Unione dei Democratici Cristiani e di Centro, UDC), the party of the incumbent president of the autonomous region of Sicily, Salvatore Cuffaro. "We are ninety-nine per cent oriented towards the UDC", he was overheard saying. Cuffaro won the election, defeating Rita Borsellino, the sister of judge Paolo Borsellino who was killed by the Mafia in 1992.
Operation Gotha
Rotolo was arrested again on June 20, 2006, two months after the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano. The authorities issued 52 arrest warrants against the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in the city of Palermo (Operation Gotha). Among the other arrestees were Rotolo's right-hand men Antonino Cinà (who had been the personal physician of Salvatore Riina and Provenzano) and the builder Francesco Bonura. The raids arose from reading Provenzano's notes in the light of evidence from the eavesdropping operation.
The surveillance operation showed that Rotolo had built a kind of federation within the Mafia, comprising 13 families grouped in four clans. The city of Palermo was ruled by a triumvirate of bosses headed by Rotolo, Cinà and Bonura, comprising 13 families that were grouped into 4 clans, thus replacing Palermo's Mafia Commission.