Pentito (Italian: "he who has repented", pluralised pentiti) designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations. The government passed legislation creating the judicial category pentiti to fight terrorism in the 1970s, during the "Years of Lead". Their correct technical name in Italian is collaboratori di giustizia (collaborators with justice). In the wake of the Maxi Trial in 1986-87, and after the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, the term was more often used for former members of the Sicilian Mafia who abandoned their organization and started helping in investigations.

In exchange for the information they deliver, pentiti receive shorter sentences for their crimes, in some cases even freedom. In the Italian judicial system, pentiti can obtain personal protection, a new name, and some money to start a new life in another place, possibly abroad. This practice is common in other countries as well: in the United States, criminals testifying against their former associates can enter the Witness Protection Program, and be given new identities, with supporting paperwork.

Carmine Schiavone is a former member of the Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta between Naples and Salerno. He is a cousin of former Camorra superboss, Francesco Schiavone. He became a pentito and collaborated with Italian Justice. He was the chief witness against the Casalesi clan during the Spartacus Maxi trial that culminated in sixteen senior Casalesi figures being sentenced to life imprisonment, among them Francesco Bidognetti, Michele Zagaria and Antonio Iovine. After living in the Witness Protection Program for some years, Schiavione retired to live in the province of Viterbo, with his wife and two children.

Antonio "Nino" Frassica (born December 11, 1950) is an Italian actor.

Born in Messina, he debuted for Italian television with Renzo Arbore's Quelli della notte (1985), in which he played a semi-illiterate friar. Later, again under Arbore, he was given a major role in the also surreal and successful Indietro tutta! of 1987.

Frassica has subsequently featured in numerous comic movies, Il Bi e il Ba (1986), and TV shows for Italian television. He plays Lt. Cecchini on the Italian TV series Don Matteo.

Tommaso Buscetta (13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito (informant) in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà. Many mafiosi would follow his example.

He was the youngest of 17 children raised in a poverty-stricken area of Palermo, which he escaped by getting involved with crime at a young age. He first became involved with the Mafia in 1945 and by the following year he was a full-fledged member of the Porta Nuova Family and his first boss was Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò. His first work was mostly smuggling cigarettes.

After the Ciaculli Massacre in 1963, Buscetta fled to the United States where the local Gambino crime family helped him to get started in the pizza business. In 1968, Buscetta was convicted of double murder, but the conviction was in absentia as he was not actually in custody (In Italy, it is possible for fugitives to be prosecuted without them being present).

In 1970 Buscetta was arrested in New York. Because Italian authorities did not ask for his extradition he was released. Buscetta moved on to Brazil where he set up a drug trafficking network. In 1972 Buscetta was arrested and tortured by the Brazilian military regime, and subsequently extradited to Italy where he began a life sentence for the earlier double murder conviction. In 1980, while on a day-release from prison, he fled again to Brazil to escape the brewing Mafia War instigated by Totò Riina that subsequently led to the deaths of many of Buscetta's allies, including Stefano Bontade. Arrested once more in 1983, Buscetta was sent back to Italy. He attempted suicide, and when that failed, he decided that he was utterly disillusioned with the Mafia. Buscetta asked to talk to Giovanni Falcone and began his life as an informant.

Gaspare Spatuzza (Palermo, April 8, 1964), is a Sicilian mafioso from the Brancaccio quarter in Palermo. He was a killer for the brothers Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano who headed the Mafia family of Brancaccio. After the arrest of the Gravianos in January 1994, he apparently succeeded them as the regent of the Mafia family. He was arrested in 1997 and started to cooperate with the judicial authorities in 2008. In his testimony he claimed that media tycoon and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi made a deal with the Sicilian Mafia in 1993 that put the country "in the hands" of Cosa Nostra.

Spatuzza has been convicted of six bomb attacks and 40 homicides. He confessed the murder of the parish priest, father Pino Puglisi, on September 15, 1993. Puglisi was the pastor of San Gaetano’s Parish in the rough Palermo neighbourhood of Brancaccio, and spoke out against the Mafia.

Spatuzza himself was arrested in July 1997. On April 14, 1998, Spatuzza, Nino Mangano, Cosimo Lo Nigro and Luigi Giacalone received life sentences for the killing of father Puglisi. He was also sentenced for the murder the young son of state witness Santo Di Matteo, Giuseppe, who had been kidnapped and killed after 779 days in a failed attempt to force the father to retract his testimony on the killing of Antimafia judge Giovanni Falcone.