Salvatore Inzerillo (; 20 August 1944 – 11 May 1981) was an Italian member of the

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily a ...

, also known as Totuccio (a diminutive for Salvatore). He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family. A prolific heroin trafficker, he was killed in May 1981 by the Corleonesi of

Totò Riina Salvatore Riina (; 16 November 1930 – 17 November 2017), called (, 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 ...

in the

Second Mafia War The Second Mafia War was a period of conflict involving the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place from the late 1970s to the early 1990s and involved thousands of homicides. Sometimes referred to as The Great Mafia War or the ''Mattanza'' (Italian ...

who opposed the established Palermo Mafia families of which Inzerillo was one of the main proponents.

Early life

Inzerillo was born in

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

. He married his cousin, Giuseppa Di Maggio, the daughter of his mother's brother, Rosario Di Maggiothe boss of the Passo di Rigano Mafia family.Arlacchi, ''Mafia Business'', pp. 199-200 Through a string of marriages the Inzerillos were related to the Di Maggio and Spatola families in Palermo and the Gambinos in New York.Sterling, ''Octopus'', pp. 199-200. He had two sons, Giuseppe and

Giovanni Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...

. Inzerillo was a close ally of

Stefano Bontade Stefano Bontade (23 April 1939 – 23 April 1981) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. His actual surname was Bontate. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the ''Principe di Villagrazia'' (Prin ...

and

Gaetano Badalamenti Gaetano Badalamenti (; 14 September 1923 – 29 April 2004) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. ''Don Tano'' Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s. In 198 ...

and a relative of the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Mafia boss

Carlo Gambino Carlo Gambino (; August 24, 1902 – October 15, 1976) was an Italian-American crime boss of the Gambino crime family. After the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, and the imprisonment of Vito Genovese in 1959, Gambino took over the Commission o ...

. He became a member of the

Sicilian Mafia Commission The Sicilian Mafia Commission (Italian: ''Commissione provinciale''), known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Sicilian Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicili ...

in 1978, succeeding his uncle Rosario Di Maggio, and formed a strong alliance with Bontade against the growing power of

and the Corleonesi who were increasingly challenging the established Mafia families of Palermo.

Killed in the Second Mafia War

Salvatore Inzerillo ordered the killing of prosecuting judge

Gaetano Costa Gaetano Costa (; Caltanissetta, 1 March 1916 - Palermo, 6 August 1980) was an Italian magistrate killed by the Cosa Nostra. Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, he was assassinated by the Mafia on 6 August 1980 while browsing books on a stall located ...

who signed the 53 arrest warrants against the Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino clan and their heroin-trafficking network in May 1980. Costa was murdered on August 6, 1980. Inzerillo acted without asking permission from the Mafia Commission to prove he could commit a murder in rival territory (that of

Giuseppe Calò Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò (born 30 September 1931) is an Italian mobster and member of the Sicilian Mafia in Porta Nuova. He was referred to as the "''cassiere di Cosa Nostra''" (Mafia's Cashier) because he was heavily involved in the financial si ...

) just as the Corleonesi.Shawcross & Young, ''Men Of Honour'', p. 126Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', p. 110 On 11 May 1981, Inzerillo was gunned down in Palermo as he strolled towards his recently acquired bullet-proof car after leaving the house of his mistress. He was rendered almost unrecognizable by a hail of bullets from a

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...

. The firearm used was an

AK-47 The AK-47, officially known as the ''Avtomat Kalashnikova'' (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is a gas operated, gas-operated assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian s ...

, the same gun that killed Bontade the previous month.Shawcross & Young, ''Men Of Honour'', p. 143 The deaths of these two powerful mafiosi kick-started the

that lasted almost two-years and saw hundreds of mafiosi killed as Totò Riina and the Corleonesi decimated their rivals in order to take over Cosa Nostra by sheer brute force. It is believed Inzerillo was murdered by

Pino Greco Pino or Piño may refer to: People * Danny Pino (born 1974), American actor * Domenico Pino (1760–1826), Italian general of the Napoleonic Wars * Fernando Solanas (born 1936), aka "Pino" Solanas, Argentine filmmaker * Frank J. Pino (1909� ...

, one of Riina's most lethal hitmen. At Inzerillo's funeral, his teenage son Giuseppe vowed to avenge his father, and not long afterwards the boy was kidnapped, tortured and killed. A number of informants, including

Tommaso Buscetta Tommaso Buscetta (; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was an Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization. Buscetta participated i ...

, said that it was Pino Greco who abducted the youth and shot him through the head, but first hacked his arm off, symbolically removing the arm the youngster had vowed to shoot Riina with.Shawcross & Young, ''Men Of Honour'', p. 144Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', p. 305 Santo Inzerillo, the brother of Salvatore, was strangled on 26 May 1981, when he came to a meeting to ask clarifications about the killing of his relatives. One of the other brothers, Pietro Inzerillo subsequently turned up murdered in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, also in 1981.

References

Sources

*Arlacchi, Pino (1988). ''Mafia Business. The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'', Oxford: Oxford University Press *Jamieson, Alison (2000), ''The Antimafia. Italy’s Fight Against Organized Crime'', London: MacMillan Press *Paoli, Letizia (2003). ''Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style'', Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press *Shawcross, Tim & Martin Young (1987). ''Men Of Honour: The Confessions Of Tommaso Buscetta'', Glasgow: Collins * Sterling, Claire (1990), ''Octopus. How the long reach of the Sicilian Mafia controls the global narcotics trade'', New York: Simon & Schuster, * Stille, Alexander (1995). ''Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic'', New York: Vintage {{DEFAULTSORT:Inzerillo, Salvatore 1944 births 1981 deaths Gangsters from Palermo Mafiosi murdered by the Corleonesi Sicilian Mafia Commission Inzerillo-Gambino Mafia clan Italian drug traffickers People murdered in Italy