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Mafia Boss or Good Neighbor? London Court Set to Rule Suburban London Father Is Revealed as a Fugitive Italian Mobster
(about 3 hours later)
LONDON — To the Italian police, he was Domenico Rancadore, or “the professor,” a Mafia boss on the lam as a dangerous fugitive for almost two decades. To those who lived near him in a bland West London suburb, he was Marc Skinner, a family man, former teacher and “one of the best neighbors” who spent contented hours buffing the paint jobs on his upscale cars. LONDON — To the Italian police, he was Domenico Rancadore, or “the professor,” a Mafia boss on the lam as a dangerous fugitive for almost two decades, a onetime enforcer for the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. To those who lived near him on a leafy street in a bland West London suburb, he was Marc Skinner, a father of two, a former teacher and a good neighbor who spent contented hours buffing the paint jobs on his fancy cars.
On Friday, Mr. Rancadore may discover which of those rival personae — gangster or good guy — will determine his immediate destiny. But this week, his double life began unraveling. A British judge denied him bail on Friday, two days after his arrest on an international warrant seeking his extradition to Italy to serve a seven-year sentence for extortion and other crimes.
Mr. Rancadore, 64, was arrested by the British police on Wednesday on a European warrant issued by the Italian authorities. A British judge was set to rule, possibly on Friday, whether the warrant was valid and whether Mr. Rancadore should be freed on bail. "There are concerns about the validity of the warrant that has come before the court," Judge Quentin Purdy said Thursday. Right until the brief court hearing on Friday, there had been speculation that he would be freed because of technical flaws in the warrant. At a separate hearing the day before, Judge Quentin Purdy of Westminster Magistrates’ Court said, “There are concerns about the validity of the warrant that has come before the court.”
The case has proved to be one of those August news items that titillates readers, listeners and viewers with its curious juxtaposition of conflicting images: from Sicily to suburbia, as The Independent newspaper put it. But on Friday, while Mr. Rancadore, 64, was still in a police holding cell, a new warrant was issued. At the court hearing later, Judge Purdy denied his bail request, meaning that Mr. Rancadore will remain in custody while he awaits extradition proceedings. “It seems to be very clear on the information before me that you have actively evaded apprehension for a significant period of time,” Judge Purdy told him.
“Not much happens in Uxbridge, a West London commuter suburb just inside the M25” orbital highway, The Independent reported on Thursday. “Or at least it didn’t until today, when a quiet, dapper and ‘very pleasant’ gentleman who lived on Manor Waye and was often seen polishing his cars was revealed to be a wanted Sicilian mafia boss.” A daughter, Daniela, blew him a kiss as he was led back to his cell, according to reporters who were in the courtroom.
According to court filings in London, Mr. Rancadore is wanted in Italy to serve a seven-year prison term imposed in his absence in 1999 on charges of Mafia membership, extortion and other serious crimes. The Italian authorities had placed him on a list of “dangerous fugitives,” the daily La Repubblica reported. According to court filings in London, Mr. Rancadore was sentenced in 1999 to seven years in prison after being tried in absentia and convicted of extortion, membership in the Mafia and other serious crimes. The Italian authorities placed him on a list of “dangerous fugitives,” the Italian Interior Ministry said, because he had been a “man of honor” in Cosa Nostra.
As a top Mafia member, the Italian authorities said, Mr. Rancadore went by the sobriquet U profissuri, the professor, from a Mafia clan at Trabia near Palermo, the Sicilian capital. But according to British media reports, he lived in England under the assumed name Marc Skinner and had been a physical education instructor before retiring to live on a state pension. As a top Mafia member, the Italian authorities said, Mr. Rancadore went by the sobriquet U Profissuri, the professor, from a Mafia clan in Trabia near Palermo, the Sicilian capital.
The defense lawyer, Euan Macmillan, said at a court appearance on Thursday that his client “has been in this country since 1993, so 20 years. He came here as a free man on his own Italian passport with his family. He has led a blameless life in this country for the past 20 years. He has lived a quiet life and his family have grown up here. He was as surprised as one would be, understandably, when the police arrived at his property.” In the 1990s, Mr. Rancadore was one of the leading Mafia representatives, said a high-ranking Italian police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media at this stage of the case. "Several police informers described him as part of Cosa Nostra, with a role of responsibility in Caccamo,” a town about 25 miles southeast of Palermo.
According to British media reports, neighbors remembered him as what Joan Hills, 76, who lives nearby, called “one of the best neighbors you could ever have.” Italian investigators believe that Mr. Rancadore fled Italy in the early 1990s because of an internal conflict, when the “boss of all bosses,” Salvatore Riina, ordered the killing of two top anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. The Italian police issued an international arrest warrant in 1998.
The Rancadore semidetached home was said to be distinguished by unusually tall hedges and closed circuit television cameras. However, experts describe Mr. Rancadore as a minor character among the many “Mafia gentlemen” of the time.
According to another neighbor, Terry Stidder, 53, Mr. Rancadore argued with people nearby about the intrusive dimensions of his hedge — a familiar phenomenon in the suburban battle for privacy — but insisted that “I’ve got to have this.” “The real leader was Giuseppe Rancadore, Domenico’s father,” said Raffaella Calandra, a reporter for the Italian network Radio24 who is an expert in Mafia cases. “The son lived much in his father’s shadow; his importance in the organization depended on his father’s importance. Magistrates described him as the educated son of the boss, with relative powers.”
Mr. Stidder said Mr. Rancadore drove upscale cars such as Mercedes and Jaguars that “always appeared new and he would take a bit of pride in them. He would be out cleaning them.” Regardless of his importance in the Mafia hierarchy, his case has proved to be one of those late-summer news items that titillates readers, listeners and viewers with its curious juxtaposition of conflicting images: from Sicily to suburbia, as The Independent newspaper put it.
“We always thought he was a chauffeur because he had such nice cars,” Mr. Stidder said. “Not much happens in Uxbridge, a West London commuter suburb,” The Independent said on Thursday. “Or at least it didn’t until today, when a quiet, dapper and ‘very pleasant’ gentleman who lived on Manor Waye and was often seen polishing his cars was revealed to be a wanted Sicilian Mafia boss.”
At the bail hearing on Friday, a prosecutor, Benjamin Seifert, said Mr. Rancadore was a head of the Cosa Nostra, “made up of thousands of members spreading terror in Sicily by imposing its rules and controlling the area and systematically murdering anybody who did not comply” with its will.
For almost two decades, though, he lived in England under the assumed name of Marc Skinner, using the maiden name of his wife, Anne, and leading an innocuous life in London’s outer fringes, far from the perennial battle in Sicily between the authorities and the mob.
His defense lawyer, Euan Macmillan, said in court on Thursday that his client had been in Britain since 1993. “He has led a blameless life in this country for the past 20 years,” Mr. Macmillan said. “He was as surprised as one would be, understandably, when the police arrived at his property.”
Joan Hills, 76, who lives nearby, told The Independent that Mr. Rancadore was “one of the best neighbors you could ever have.”
He was also a neighbor who prized discretion: the Rancadore home, painted white and semidetached, is distinguished by unusually tall hedges and closed-circuit television cameras.
According to another neighbor, Terry Stidder, 53, Mr. Rancadore was criticized for the intrusive dimensions of his hedge — a familiar phenomenon in the suburban battle for privacy — but insisted, “I’ve got to have this.”
Mr. Stidder said Mr. Rancadore drove expensive Mercedes-Benzes and Jaguars that “always appeared new.”
“He would take a bit of pride in them,” Mr. Stidder told The Independent. “He would be out cleaning them.
We always thought he was a chauffeur because he had such nice cars.”

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting from Siena, Italy.