How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

August 2, 1958. Corleone mafia boss Michele Navarra is driving down a quiet Sicilian country road in his Fiat 1100. Next to him is Giovanni Russo, not a gangster, but a doctor. Navarra, no ordinary boss, is also a doctor. Two cars block their way in the road. There’s not enough space to turn back. Suddenly appearing at both sides of the road are men armed with sub machine guns.

They open fire. Hundreds of bullets tear the men to pieces. The king is dead, and what will follow are decades of extreme violence. The man behind this historical hit was Luciano Leggio. He was once a young man who aspired to a life of crime. He was taken under the wing of Navarra and did some of this dirty work for him.

It was almost a father and son story. One time Leggio took out a trade union leader for Navarra, only there was a witness, an 11-year old shepherd. Suffering from shock, his pop took him to a hospital which Navarra ran. He made the mistake of talking about what he'd seen, after which Navarra gave him a fatal injection. Leggio was saved from the law.

But as time passed, Leggio had big ideas of his own. He started running his own rackets behind the boss’s back. Soon what was called the “cosca leggiana” was at war with the “Navarriani”. Prior to his own death, Navarra tried to have Leggio shot down. It didn’t work, and revenge came soon after. Leggio was now the Corleone boss.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

This sets the scene for much of the violence that was to come. Leggio just taking a boss out like that of course resulted in him gaining a lot of enemies. But he also had an ace on the hole,that was a man named Salvatore "Totò" Riina, who would in time become arguably the most brutal mafia boss that’s ever lived. He was one of the men who fired a machine gun into Navarra’s car that day.

He would be the man to take over the Corleone family and do it in a style that painted Sicily and even streets of the USA a lurid shade of red. Before any of this happened the Sicilian Mafia, in general, had been growing in size for many years. From its beginnings around the 1850s when peasants rose up and formed violent gangs that extorted landowners, the families expanded and so did their power.

One of those families was the Corleone family, the Corleonesi. The town of Corleone was tiny, just an outback, and that’s why mafia bosses from bigger towns and the city of Palermo would often say they were the peasant Mafiosi. Peasants maybe, but after Leggio took over, anyone against them was about to discover that the peasants meant business. It’s a complicated story, but let’s just say the Corleonesi had its allies and its enemies.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

Blood was spilled, so much so that in 1970the Sicilian Mafia Commission was set up to ensure disputes didn’t always end in bloodshed and business could run smoothly between the various families. Leggio was on that commission, but after he was imprisoned in 1974, the mafia’s most indomitable monster, Riina, took his place. This man wanted one thing and one thing only. That was for the Corleone's to be the most powerful family of all and for him to be the boss of bosses.

To achieve that, he had to kill a lot of people, which as you’ll see, included untold numbers of gangsters but also their family members. Regular citizens would die, as would police, politicians, and some of the most renowned anti-mafia people in Italy. One man would have an entire country gripped in fear. It’s said the Great Mafia War didn’t really start until 1981, but it’s also called the Second Mafia War.

The first was a timid affair in comparison to what was to become, but let’s just say that arguments over supplying Americans with heroin led to a massacre and some bullets in the back. The American heroin trade, like the cocaine trade today, meant bodies piling up far from North America. Those first skirmishes over heroin went back to the 1960s, but the narrative stayed the same in that there was always division, there was always backstabbing, there was always someone vying to take control.

So much for honor among men. It was more like a zoo and the animals were armed. One of the men involved in murders that happened around the time of the first war was Giuseppe Di Cristina, another powerful boss nick named“The Tiger.” He was also one of the first people to point out that the Corleonesi with Riina was planning to take over.

It was kill or be killed, and he was killed. In 1978, while standing at a bus stop, on the orders of Riina, Di Cristina was shot down. Men close to him were also taken out at different times. The same year, also under the orders of Riina, the powerful boss Giuseppe Calderone was taken out. Riina wanted it to look like someone else had done it.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

He even had Mafiosi in tears at Calderone’s funeral when he read a moving eulogy about how the man had been such a stand-up guy and maker of peace. And this was before the war actually started. What really kicked it off was the murder of Stefano Bontade. He was one of the most powerful bosses of all and had equally powerful allies, so he was also a threat to Riina’s rise to the top. Killing Bontade was no small deal.

He had ties to politicians and those ties of course helped his friends. He once said this to another boss, “We are in charge in Sicily, and unless you want the whole DC canceled out, you do as we say.” DC stood for the political party, Democrazia Cristiana, Christian Democrat. It was the statement of all statements to kill this man.

On 23 April 1981, while driving home in his Giulietta 2000 after celebrating his 42nd birthday, he was machine-gunned down just outside the city of Palermo. Just three weeks later, another powerful Palermo boss, Salvatore Inzerillo, was killed. He’d just finished a date with his mistress when he was walking to the bullet-proof car he’d just bought.

A man appeared in the street and fired anAK-47 into him. He was hit so many times in the after math he barely looked human. This caused outrage. At his funeral, his 15-year old son told everyone there that he would get his revenge. Not long after, he was kidnapped by Riina’s hitman, Pino Greco. Prior to shooting him in the head, Greco cutoff the young man’s arm.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

Why? Because that was the arm he vowed to use to shoot Riina. Inzerillo’s brother then had the audacity to ask the commission what was happening. He was strangled to death not long after. His other brother, another heroin trafficker, was soon found murdered far off in New Jersey. Riina was taking no risks. Everyone that might seek revenge had to go.

The bloodshed wasn’t exactly a secret. This is what the New York Times wrote about the conflicts and schisms:“ The structure of the underworld is a shift, with rivalries over status and territory and balance among rival gangs being excluded. For years there has been no 'head of all heads' in Sicily.” One was coming, but to get there Riina had to murder a lot more people, more than anyone ever thought was possible.

“How long will it take to crush the Mafia?” asked the Times, not realizing how much destruction the mafia itself had done. You might be wondering, how come the commission didn’t stop all of this bloodshed. Well, it’s a complicated story again, just as all these stories are. Basically, Giuseppe Di Cristina and Salvatore Inzerillo were part of the commission and you know what happened to them. Another guy on the commission was GaetanoBadalamenti, a person of note.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

This guy was one of the main people behind the “Pizza Connection” a billion and a half dollar enterprise in which heroin was trafficked to the U.S. and sold out of pizza parlors. Long before the Mexican cartels and Big Pharma supplied strong opioids to desperate Americans, the mafia did the job.

Many became millionaires as a result, but the windfall meant fear and jealousy. Badalamenti wanted to go after the Corleonesi, but the aging Salvatore “Ciaschiteddu” Greco, once the secretary of the commission, persuaded him and his allies to do otherwise. This was a man that you could say got a lot of respect since his criminal prowess went way back to the days of the old-school mafia.

He might have moved to Venezuela in the 1970s,but all the time he was forming alliances with the Italian-American mafia. In 1978, he passed away from liver cirrhosis, just before the guys he tried to convince not to feud did feud. Of Riina and Leggio’s main enemies, there was still Badalamenti alive and kicking.

He was kind of alone now, so after being kicked out of the commission and realizing his days were likely numbered, he fled to Brazil, although he was still supplying heroin to the US from there. He was eventually extradited from Spain to the US and given a hefty prison sentence, although even in prison he had some control over criminal activities. A New York Times reporter said this about him. He is “a manipulator who would do anything to regain leadership of the Sicilian mob.”

In 2002, he was convicted in Italy in absentia of killing Giuseppe Impastato. Impastato was a political activist who wasted no time in mocking and criticizing the mafia, and he often targeted Badalamenti in spite of knowing the dangers. Part of this was driven by the fact the mafia had killed his uncle. On the orders of Badalamenti, Impastato was murdered in 1978.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

His body was tied over a railway line and TNT was detonated below it, blowing him to pieces. Badalamenti died of natural causes in 2004while still incarcerated in America. Critics of the mafia, like Impastato, were slaughtered even if what they said didn’t pose an immediate threat to operations. Giuseppe Fava was a journalist who wrote a critical piece for a magazine called, “The four horsemen of the Mafia apocalypse.”

He was gunned down for that, by a young man named Maurizio Avola. His uncle had given the order, but that was just one hit he did out of 70. Years later, Avola explained to Time magazine how things went. He said:" I was one of the most trusted killers and I was very well paid … I never queued in bars, clubs or shops, and in restaurants, I never had to pay … My general sent me to kill people. I have to do it, refusal is impossible.

Mafioso execute orders given from above, just like soldiers at war…I’ve killed people with whom I shared meals with and men who trusted me.” If these stories sound somewhat labyrinthine that's because they are, but all you need to know is that many people who stepped into this maze or were dragged into it, were murdered.

To give you another example, one of Badalamenti's nephews was found in Germany. His body had been dismembered. One of the main hitmen for Riina was Giuseppe Greco, an astonishingly violent man that once admitted to executing around 80 people for Riina. It’s thought he may have murdered as many as 300. He didn’t work alone of course. It’s now known that he and others formed what was later called a Death Squad.

These people would frequently use a “Room of Death” where people would be tortured before they were usually garroted. Their bodies would often be dissolved in acid but at times they were fed to the pigs. On occasion, a person still breathing and half-conscious would be finished off by purposefully starved pigs. Greco was eventually assassinated himself, shot by people he trusted. Rinna didn’t much like how big Greco though the had become.

Filippo Marchese was another member of the death squad who played a big part in Riina’s rise to power. On the orders of Riina, he was garroted by Greco not long before Riina had Greco whacked. We’re not going to go into all members of the death squad, but let’s just say that often out of sheer paranoia their boss would have them murdered just as he’d ordered them to murder others.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

Those guys just never knew if they’d be next. Some survived, although most ended up serving long prison sentences for scores of murders they’d been convicted of. One such man was Raffaele Ganci, said to be the right-hand man of Riina.

He was sentenced to life in prison after being captured while on the run in 1993. Ganci was said to be behind many hits of other Mafiosi, but also of the military general, Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa. He’d been tasked with cracking down on mafia activities in Palermo. Ganci was also said to be behind car bombings that killed leading anti-mafia figures in Italy.

Believe it or not, he’s still alive today and doing time in Italy’s dungeon-type solitary confinement cells. His son later turned and became a witness for the prosecution, admitting himself to murdering around 100 people. This guy later said, “My father told me that Cosa Nostra was ruined by the massacres decided by Riina.” Riina was behind so much of this bloodshed his own body count would be in the thousands. Someone once said his violence was similar to ethnic cleansing.

It was Riina who masterminded the execution of anti-mafia Giovanni Falcone, a man seen as a saint by many Italian people. You can also blame Riina for the execution of another great anti-mafia figure, Paolo Borsellino. Nonetheless, it’s thought his assassination wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the help of people working for the Italian authorities. So many people in suits and uniforms were on the payroll, which made no place safe. For instance, Borsellino always kept a book on him that detailed what he knew. A lot of names were in that book, official ones, too.

That book mysteriously disappeared, something that has remained a mystery today. Around the same time, anti-mafia magistrate Rocco Chinnici died in a car bomb attack. The same bomb killed five others, including two bodyguards and the concierge of Chinnici’s apartment. These high-ranking officials may have died after the great war, but they died as a result of crackdowns that followed the war. They didn’t stop at officials either, innocent people were killed.

Again, on the orders of Riina, a 904 express train from Naples to Milan was partly blown up by a bomb in 1984. 16 people died and over 250 people were injured. At this point, Riina had already become the boss of bosses. The bombing wasn’t technically part of the Mafia War. It was, however, connected to it since it was devised as a way to take the heat off the mafia by making it look like a terrorist attack.

As the war was raging from 1981 to 1983 there were at least 400 mafia slayings just in the city of Palermo. 200 more people or thereabouts disappeared and were believed to have been taken out by the mafia. There was a name for this in Italian, “luparabianca” “White Shotgun”, which meant completely getting rid of the body.

Usually, they left a body as a statement, but not always. What’s strange is that the Corleonesi didn’t suffer that many casualties themselves, with experts now saying it was because they kept well-hidden while their enemies were known to go out in public. They were sneaky as hell, too, and had little honor. Some people now say all honor went out of the window when Riina went on his rampage.

For example, one time men who had allied withthe murdered Bontade and Inzerillo were invited to a formal meal. They thought the invitation came from an ally, when in fact the friend had turned and had set up the guys for Riina. Four men were slaughtered before they got a chance to taste the caponata. The man who had changed sides and lured them was boss and commission member, Rosario Ricco bono. After the favor, Riina’s rationale was thus:

If he can turn on his old friends, he can turn on me. He also knew if he took out Ricco bono and all his men, he could hand over some territory to other families. It’s ironic that so-called men of honor proved themselves to be the most dishonorable men in the world. In November 1982, Ricco bono and eight of his men were invited to that banquet at the palatial house of one of Riina’s allies.

While Ricco bono was catching some Z’s after a big meal, his men were led away one by one for a private chat. They were each strangled to death. Ricco bono died after his nap, although his body has never been found. A few days later, Ricco bono’s bother was found headless inside his car. Then they got the rest of Ricco bono’s crew and some of his family until anyone who’d been allied to him was dead.

The only survivor was his driver, SalvatoreLo Piccolo. Piccolo later became one of the most powerful Mafiosi that’s ever lived, and he made his fair share of enemies. A wiretap conversation revealed that one of those enemies said he was, “One who should have died. He was the ‘godson’ of Riccobono and should have gone.”

He ended up making tens of millions from trafficking cocaine to the US and around Europe, only to be arrested in 2007 in front of a daughter who cried out, “I love you, dad.” Yep, murderers and thieves also read their kids bedtime stories. Piccolo survived Riina’s wrath, but in reality, no one was safe in the early 80s, not even those aligned with Riina if he started seeing them as a threat. Still, he became the boss and once his natural mafia enemies had been taken care of, he concentrated on what the mafia called “excellent cadavers”.

The first of these in mafia history had been Emanuele Notarbartolo, arguably the first anti-mafia proponent. He was viciously stabbed to death while traveling through a train tunnel in 1893. Just as the mafia war was getting started, Piersanti Mattarella, the President of the Regional Government of Sicily, was assassinated. Pretty much all the big names in the mafia were said to be behind the murder.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands

In 1982, Pio La Torre and his driver were shot to pieces while in their car. La Torre was the Communist leader and a person whose whole life had been dedicated to fighting for the poor. Prior to his death, he’d brought in a new law. That was “mafia conspiracy” and it meant assets could be taken from the mafia if those assets were ill-gotten.

That didn’t go down too well with the bosses. They blew up and gunned down top police and any street cops that got in their way. Judges got it, as did political figures. We won’t go into all their stories, but understandably people started saying enough is enough. After the war, as you know, Riina had assassinated some of the people who’d helped him rise to power.

He also still kept killing anyone he thought was against him. One of the survivors later said that if you didn’t do as Riina said you were as good as dead, but this kind of destroyed the demi-democracy the mafia once had. Some Mafioso watched too many people die. They had had enough and talked to the cops, such as Leonardo Messina.

He said, “Riina used us to get rid of the old bosses, then they got rid of all those who raised their heads…all that's left are men without character, who are their dolls." State witness (“pentito”) Salvatore Contorno, described it this way: “Clans that win and losers don't exist, because there are no losers. They, the Corleonesi, killed them all.”

That’s why the mafia war was called “Mattanza” in Italian, meaning, “The Slaughter.” How many people died in all? It’s hard to say. One of Riina’s guys named Giovanni Brusca, the man who pushed the button that blew up Falcone, said he personally took out up to200 men. He was just one of many prolific killers. Riina himself was captured in 1993 and he died in prison in 2017 of natural causes. He was 87, and still said to be the boss.

How the 'Great Mafia War' Killed Thousands