Salvatore Greco "The Engineer"

Salvatore Greco, (May 12, 1924 in Ciaculli – ?) also known as "l'ingegnere" (the engineer) or "Totò il lungo" (Totò the tall) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the son of Pietro Greco who was killed during a bloody internal feud between the factions of the Greco Mafia clan in Ciaculli and Croceverde Giardini in 1946. His cousin Salvatore Greco "Ciaschiteddu" was the first ‘secretary’ of the Sicilian Mafia Commission.

Salvatore Greco "the engineer" is one of the most enigmatic mafiosi of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. He was described as the "gray eminence of the entire organization, the one who held and pulled the strings, whether the task was to guide the extermination of enemies or to decide on strategies for moving drugs." He joined the masonic lodge Garibaldi in Palermo in 1946.

Judge Cesare Terranova, who investigated the Grecos and indicted them in the 1960s (when they were already at large), described "the engineer" as a pivotal figure in the international cigarette and heroin smuggling networks. He travelled constantly to Marseilles, Tangier, Gibraltar, Malta, Milan and Genoa, all crucial nodes in the international trafficking circuit of the Mediterranean. In 1952, "the engineer"’s name was connected with heroin when a load of six kilograms sent to him by Frank Coppola was intercepted at Alcamo. Greco owned clandestine boats that changed names constantly.

The Greco cousins were protagonists in a bloody Mafia war between rival clans in Palermo in the early 1960s – known as the First Mafia War, a second started in the early 1980s –, for the control of the profitable opportunities brought about by rapid urban growth and the illicit heroin trade to North America. The conflict was sparked by a quarrel over an underweight shipment of heroin and the murder of Calcedonio Di Pisa – an ally of the Greco's – in December 1962. The Greco’s suspected the brothers Salvatore and Angelo La Barbera of the attack.

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Wikipedia