During the 1980s, at the Maxi Trial against Cosa Nostra, informants Tommaso Buscetta and Salvatore Contorno were protected by the FBI due to the lack of a witness protection program in Italy. Although "pentiti" (usually from politically motivated terrorist organizations) had come forward since the 1970s during the so-called Years of Lead, it was not until the early 1990s that the program was officially established to efficiently manage the stream of "pentiti" which had defected from the major criminal organizations in Italy at the time, such as Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta, the Sacra Corona Unita, the Banda della Magliana and several others. Most of the witnesses are given new identities and live under government protection for several years, or sometimes their entire life.