"Maierovitch, a man with a soft voice and owl-like features, became a prominent figure in the early 1980s when he collaborated with Giovanni Falcone in his successful efforts to track down fugitive mafia members. Together, the two convinced Tommaso Buscetta to return to Italy and become a state witness in the so-called maxi-trial of the Sicilian mafia leadership. In January 1992, thanks to his testimony, some 350 mafia bosses were convicted. Falcone and his colleague, magistrate Paolo Borsellino, are the titans of the anti-mafia struggle worldwide. They were assassinated in Sicily two months apart in 1992, shortly after the maxi-trial verdict was confirmed, and their deaths shook and ultimately dismantled the Italian political system. Both had (rightly) assumed that the most important figures in the Sicilian mafia enjoyed the protection of the highest political hierarchies in Rome. Maierovitch tells me about his dinners with Falcone and how they worked to protect the great turncoat Buscetta from possible murder or suicide. (He almost succeeded in attempting suicide while under the protection of the Brazilian judge.) At first, Maierovitch smiles as he remembers his Italian friend, but after a while he begins to shed silent tears: a fitting tribute to Falcone (after whom Maierovitch named his Institute for the Fight Against Crime), whose charisma and commitment to justice, in the face of Rome's corrupt ruling class, made him a popular hero throughout Italy and among all those who fight crime around the world."