In the Sagana mountains, Giuliano collected a gang of approximately fifty bandits, criminals, deserters, and homeless men under his leadership and gave them military-style marksmanship training. The gang took to robbery and burglary for the money they needed for food and weapons. When carabinieri came to look for them, they were met with accurate submachinegun fire. He also joined a Sicilian separatist group, Movement for the Independence of Sicily (MIS), with close ties to the Mafia and led small-scale attacks on government and police targets in the name of this movement. His actions continued post-war, and he supported the MIS and the similar MASCA with funds for the 1946 elections, in which both groups did poorly.
Reputedly, Giuliano himself would have liked to have seen Sicily become a state within the United States of America. He sent president Harry S. Truman a letter in which he urged him to annex Sicily.
Giuliano also fostered a number of myths around himself. One tale tells how he discovered a postal worker was stealing letters that contained money Sicilian families had sent to their relatives in the USA; he killed the postal worker and assured the letters continued to their correct destinations. When he robbed the duchess of Pratameno, he left her with her wedding ring and borrowed a book she was reading; he returned it later with compliments. He fostered cooperation of poor tenant farmers by sending them money and food.
