Antonio Salvo

Who was Antonio Salvo?

Antonio Nino Salvo and his cousin Ignazio Salvo were two wealthy businessmen from the town of Salemi in the province of Trapani. They had strong political connections with the Christian Democrat party, in particular with the former mayor of Palermo, Salvo Lima, and Giulio Andreotti. At the Maxi Trial against the Mafia in the mid-1980s, they were convicted of being Mafia members.

Salvo Lima arranged an unusually lucrative concession to collect taxes in Sicily for the Salvo cousins island, in exchange for their loyalty to Lima and the Andreotti faction of the DC. The Salvos were allowed 10 percent of the take – three times as much as the national average of 3.3 percent. Subsequently, the Salvos expanded their economic activity to many other areas such agribusiness and tourism. They owned the Zagarella Hotel complex in Santa Flavia, near Palermo.