the murder of Mario Iovine was clearly a response from the De Falco clan to the murder of Enzo the Fugitive and so Sandokan went on the hunt to eliminate the surviving De Falco brothers who were holed up in the bunkers of their fortress homes as soon as they stuck their noses out a door or window they were greeted with a hail of shotgun pellets but in the end Giuseppe De Falco was killed shortly thereafter his consigliere the lawyer Aldo Scalzone was also killed spelling the ultimate defeat of the De Falco clan the surviving brother Nunzio gave up the fight and withdrew to Spain where he contented himself with looking after the immense patrimony the brothers had accumulated in Malaga Seville Barcelona and on the Costa del Sol restaurants pizzerias hotels and nightclubs and in the end even Antonio Salzillo had no choice but to declare defeat he probably managed to procure false identity documents and make it to Germany where he had many business interests

as for Sandokan even though he was the mastermind behind the defeat of the De Falco family which stood in the way of Mario Iovine’s supremacy in the organization there are those who mutter that he was also responsible for the murder of Mario Iovine in Cascais that he had his own hired killers murder Iovine and then blamed it on the De Falcos as a logical response to the murder of Enzo the Fugitive thus eliminating in a single sequence all the stumbling blocks between him and the top position in the organization and he did it by using the method that he had already tried with Antonio Bardellino that is by ensuring that the bosses above him in the hierarchy wipe one another out Sandokan in fact couldn’t remain stuck in the role of heir apparent forever his turn to command had to come sometime and he had proved his ability to take advantage of the right opportunity with great cunning and determination

the only boss who was a member of the original gang and is still in play is Luigi Venosa also known as il Cocchiere the Coachman he considers himself Antonio Bardellino’s true heir so Sandokan sets up a series of murderous ambushes against him in one the Coachman survives the hit squad’s bullets because he is wearing a bulletproof vest and returns fire with his trusty Kalashnikov he survives another ambush because his car is armor plated the Coachman is wily and elusive he disguises himself as a woman an immigrant a housepainter he moves safely from town to town on a bicycle on foot on a moped on a scooter right under the noses of the clan patrols who hunt everywhere for him and by night he slips into the homes of friends and sleeps on their couches he knows that even if his house is an armored fortress with guards and security systems the enemy will find a way to kill him so he sneaks into the homes of people above the shadow of suspicion he shows up for dinner without warning and then spends the night sleeping like a baby and sneaks out the following morning in a new disguise