The Provenzano Code
If you thought The Da Vinci Code was a mindbender, try unscrambling The Provenzano Code. The cryptic cipher was invented by a Mafia boss, allowing him to run the mob for years when he was Italy's most wanted man.
Using numbers, letters, Bible quotations and references to the 'adored Jesus Christ' written on scraps of paper called pizzini, Bernardo Provenzano ordered his foot soldiers to murder, extort, blackmail and rob.
Details were revealed in a book which went on sale in Italy yesterday, written by investigating magistrate Michele Prestipino.
Provenzano was the undisputed head of the Sicilian Mafia from 1993 until his arrest in April ended 43 years on the run. Police finally caught up with him in a farmhouse near the hill town of Corleone, made famous in The Godfather films.
They discovered that his command centre consisted of just two typewriters, and a copy of the Bible brimming with homemade tabs, underlining and annotations of Old and New Testament verses.
The pizzini were typed on onionskin paper and folded until they could fit between two toes. They were then sealed in transparent tape and despatched via a chain of messengers.
"The language he used is the only instrument we have to understand the personality of the man who for more than ten years headed one of the most powerful crime organisations," said Mr Prestipino.
Provenzano assigned numbers from two to 164 to his accomplices - he was number one. Many of them did not know which number referred to which person.
Officials think he managed to evade capture because he was fed information from corrupt police officers. One of the notes written after a fruitless police raid says: "I thank my adored Jesus Christ - at the time he provided for me." They believe Christ refers to a mole within the force.
Mr Prestipino said: "In one note he thanks his adored Jesus Christ for telling him that police had planted a listening device and a camera in a barn where a Mafia summit was due to be held.
"He was able to tip off his associates so that when they arrived and held the meeting all talk was whispered.
"It's hard to believe that he had some form of heavenly message telling him that police had bugged the place. The suspicion has always been that he was fed information."
In some pizzini words of the Hail Mary prayer were jumbled and numbers inserted.
Mr Prestipino said he was confident he had cracked the number code. Provenzano, who has refused to co-operate with police, is in solitary confinement in prison.
Police have sent his annotated Bible to the FBI. Mr Prestipino added: "Hopefully we can eventually crack it, but I have a feeling it may well take many years."
The plot of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's murder-mystery novel, centres on cryptic references hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci.
