Remembering Falcone: How Italy almost became a narco-state

In an extremely brutal attack on 23 May 1992, the Sicilian mafia killed one of Italy's most prominent anti-mafia investigators, Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three officers of their police escort as their cars passed near the small town of Capaci, in western Sicily.

The powerful bomb that exploded under the highway was detonated by a mobster responsible for over 100 murders: Giovanni Brusca, aka "U Verru" ["the pig" in Sicilian dialect] or "Scannacristiani" ("the people-slayer"). H...