Salvatore Riina, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetSalvatore Riina
Sicilian mafia boss
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Corleone, Sicily, Italy
About Salvatore Riina
- Salvatore "Totò" Riina (Italian pronunciation: [salva'to?re (to't? r)ri'i?na]; 16 November 1930 – 17 November 2017 ), called Totò 'u Curtu (Sicilian for "Totò the Short", Totò being the diminutive of Salvatore), was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s with the assassinations of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, resulting in widespread public outcry and a major crackdown by the authorities.
- He was also known by the nicknames la belva ("the beast") and il capo dei capi (Sicilian: 'u capu di 'i capi, "the boss of bosses"). Riina succeeded Luciano Leggio as head of the Corleonesi criminal organisation in the mid 1970s and achieved dominance through a campaign of violence, which caused police to target his rivals.
- As a fugitive, Riina was less vulnerable to law enforcement's reaction to his methods, as the policing removed many of the established chiefs who had traditionally sought influence through bribery.
- In violation of established Mafia codes, Riina advocated the killing of women and children, and killed blameless members of the public solely to distract law enforcement agencies.
- Assassin Giovanni Brusca estimated he murdered between 100 and 200 people on behalf of Riina.
- Although this scorched-earth policy neutralized any internal threat to Riina's position, he increasingly showed a lack of his earlier guile by bringing his organisation into open confrontation with the state.
- After 23 years living as a fugitive he was captured in 1993, provoking a series of indiscriminate bombings of art galleries and churches by his organisation.
- His lack of repentance subjected him to the stringent Article 41-bis prison regime until his death.
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