Totò Riina
| Salvatore Riina | |
|---|---|
Mugshot of Mafia boss Totò Riina after his arrest in 1993
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|
| Born |
Salvatore Riina 16 November 1930 Corleone, Sicily, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Other names |
"La Belva" (The Beast) "U curtu" (The Short One) |
| Occupation | Mafia Boss |
| Criminal charge |
Mafia association Multiple murder |
| Criminal penalty |
Life imprisonment (multiple life sentences related to different homicides and mass murders) |
| Criminal status | Imprisoned since 1993 |
| Spouse(s) | Antonia "Ninetta" Bagarella |
| Children | Giovanni, Giuseppe |
| Allegiance | Corleonesi |
| Conviction(s) | Mafia association, multiple murder |
Salvatore "Totò" Riina (born 16 November 1930) aka U' curtu or "il capo dei capi" (the boss of the bosses) is the former chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 90's, when the deaths of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino caused widespread public revulsion and led to a major crackdown by the authorities.
Riina succeeded Luciano Leggio as foremost boss of the Corleonesi faction of the criminal organization in the early 1980s and achieved dominance by a campaign of violence, which caused police to target his rivals. As a fugitive Riina was less vulnerable to the law enforcement reaction to his methods, and police removed many of the older type of boss, who had operated by influence peddling and bribery. Favoured assassin Giovanni Brusca estimated he murdered 100-200 people on Riina's orders. Riina also advocated, in violation of traditional Mafia codes, the killing of women and children, and killed uninvolved members of the public solely to distract law enforcement. Although his scorched-earth policy neutralized any internal threat to his position, Riina increasingly showed a lack of his earlier guile by bringing his organization into open confrontation with national authorities. After decades living as a fugitive he was captured, which provoked a series of indiscriminate bombings of art galleries and churches. Riina is currently being held on the stringent Article 41-bis prison regime, one of several measures that resulted from his defiant strategy.
Riina was born and raised in a poverty stricken countryside house in Corleone. When he was young, his family found an unexploded American bomb dating back to World War II: his father Giovanni attempted to open it to sell the powder to hunters, but in doing so he caused it to explode, killing himself and Riina's seven-year-old brother Francesco. Afterwards, Salvatore "Totò" Riina became the effective male head of the family. He joined the local Mafia clan at the age of nineteen by committing a murder on their behalf. The following year he killed a man during an argument and served six years in prison for manslaughter.
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Wikipedia