Raffaele Ganci (4 January 1932 – 3 June 2022) was a member of the Mafia in

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

from the Noce neighbourhood in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , 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 province. The ...

. He was considered to be the right-hand man of Cosa Nostra boss Totò Riina and sat on the Sicilian Mafia Commission.Ordinanza di custodia cautelare in carcere
, Tribunale di Caltanissetta, Ufficio del giudice per le indagini preliminari, 11 April 1994

Riina loyalist

Ganci was close to the

Corleonesi The Corleonesi Mafia clan was a faction within the Corleone family of the Sicilian Mafia, formed in the 1970s. Notable leaders included Luciano Leggio, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, and Leoluca Bagarella. Corleonesi affiliates wer ...

circle of which Riina was a member and sided with them against other Palermitan Mafia families in the Second Mafia War. He was held responsible for the killings of Riina’s rivals Stefano Bontade and Salvatore Inzerillo in 1981. He was sentenced to life for the killing of general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, the prefect of Palermo, appointed to crack down on Cosa Nostra in 1982.25 anni fa fu ucciso il generale Dalla Chiesa
RaiNews24, 3 September 2007 Riina appointed him to the Sicilian Mafia Commission in 1983 for the Noce mandamento after Ganci killed his own boss Salvatore Scaglione.Paoli, ''Mafia Brotherhoods'', p. 54 As a member of the Commission he was responsible for ordering the killings of Antimafia magistrates

Giovanni Falcone Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian ...

and

Paolo Borsellino Paolo Emanuele Borsellino (; 19 January 1940 – 19 July 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of ...

in 1992.

Butcher shop

The family ran a popular butcher shop on the Via Lo Jacono. During the day Raffaele Ganci and his sons Calogero, Stefano, and Domenico attended clients, while they went on killing sprees at night. The shop was located somewhere between the residences of Antimafia judges Rocco Chinnici on the Via Pipitone Federico and the one of

. The wives of the judges regularly bought meat there, while the Gancis plotted the killing of their husbands. On 10 June 1993, Raffaele Ganci was arrested in Terrasini after five years on the run, together with his son Calogero Ganci and his son-in-law Francesco Paolo Anselmo. L'amico di Riina
La Repubblica, 11 June 1993

Son repents

His son Calogero Ganci, a

pentito ''Pentito'' (; lit. "repentant"; plural: ''pentiti'') is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public ...

, became a witness for the prosecution, in 1996, and confessed to more than 100 murders. He also gave testimony about his father and his brothers and their involvement in Mafia killings such as the car-bomb that killed Antimafia judge Chinnici in 1983, police officers

Ninni Cassarà Antonino "Ninni" Cassarà (; May 7, 1947 – August 6, 1985) was an Italian policeman killed by Cosa Nostra. Life Born in Palermo on May 7, 1947, he was Commissioner in Reggio Calabria and then in Trapani, where he learned about Giovanni ...

, captain D'Aleo, and the first

Leonardo Vitale Leonardo Vitale (; 27 June 1941 – 2 December 1984) was a member of the Sicilian Mafia who was one of the first to become an informant, or ''pentito'', although originally his confessions were not taken seriously. Vitale was a " man of honour" ...

.Ganci: "Ho ucciso io Dalla Chiesa"
''Il Corriere della Sera'', 19 June 1996A hit-man sings, but the show isn't over
The Independent (London), 23 June 1996 Raffaele Ganci was involved in the decision to kill the Antimafia judges

and

, and he and his sons participated in the execution of the bomb attacks. Ganci had doubts about the terrorist campaign in 1993, a series of bomb attacks in 1993 on the Via dei Georgofili in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, on the Via Palestro in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

and at the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and the Via San Teodoro in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, which left 10 people dead and 93 injured as well as damage to centres of cultural heritage such as the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of th ...

Gallery. According to his son Calogero: "My father told me that Cosa Nostra was ruined by the massacres decided by Riina."Brusca: ecco dov'e' il mio "tesoro"
Corriere della Sera, 22 September 1996 In 2002, Ganci was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the murder of Chinnici. He was incarcerated serving several life sentences under the strict

article 41-bis prison regime In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act, also known as carcere duro ("hard prison regime"), is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations and impose ...

. Raffaele Ganci died in Milan on 3 June 2022 at the age of 90.Mafia, è morto a 90 anni Raffaele Ganci, uno dei padrini delle stragi. Era stato trasferito in ospedale a Milano, in regime di 41 bis
repubblica.it, 3 June 2022

References

Books

* Paoli, Letizia (2003). ''Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style'', New York: Oxford University Press

External links

* , by Angelo Ruoppolo, Teleacras Agrigento, 14 January 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ganci, Raffaele 1932 births 2022 deaths Gangsters from Palermo Male murderers Sicilian Mafia Commission Sicilian mafiosi Butchers