Michele Greco
Encyclopedia
Michele Greco was a member of the Sicilian
Mafia
, previously incarcerated for multiple murders. His nickname was "il Papa" (The Pope) because of his ability to mediate between different Mafia families. Greco was the head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission
.
and in Croceverde Giardini
, two suburbs close to Palermo
. He took over the mandamento
of Croceverde Giardini after his father Giuseppe Greco, "Piddu u tinenti", died. He was a cousin of Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, the first "secretary" of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission
that was formed somewhere in 1958.
He and his brother Salvatore Greco
operated low profile and were able to enter into relationships with businessmen, politicians, magistrates and law enforcement officials through their membership of Masonic lodges.
Salvatore Greco’s nickname was "The Senator" for his political connections. He was the kingmaker of Christian Democrat politicians such as Giovanni Gioia, Vito Ciancimino
and Giuseppe Insalaco. Many of those notables were invited by "The Pope" and "The Senator" to wine and dine and take part in hunting parties at his estate La Favarella. The estate was also used as a refuge for mafiosi on the run, and to set up a heroin laboratory.
Greco, along with other Mafia families around Palermo
, controlled a large portion of the water supply. He was financing the digging of his wells with government money. According to the law, landowners were only allowed to have wells for their own private use and all excess water belonged to the public. However, the city of Palermo issued regular contracts to buy water from Greco and other Mafia bosses for a full third of the water supply. During the summer, when water was particularly scarce and badly needed for irrigation, Greco sold water at exorbitant prices. The perpetual shortage of water was maintained by the Mafia and their friends in city hall.
Another money making scheme was collecting subsidies from the European Community (EC) for destroying citrus crops he had never grown. The EC, in order to limit production, paid farmers to destroy part of their production. Greco paid EC inspectors to falsify the records.
(Cupola) in 1978, after Gaetano Badalamenti
was expelled. Greco gave the Commission a façade of neutrality behind which the Corleonesi
effectively hid their expansion. In 1981, Mafia bosses Stefano Bontade
and Salvatore Inzerillo
were murdered within a few weeks of each other in the midst of the Second Mafia War
. Through his position within the Cupola, Michele Greco assumed indirect control of Stefano Bontade's Mafia family after his murder. Not long after Greco invited a number of Bontade's allies for a meeting at his country estate. A couple members of the clan were suspicious and did not go, but at least eleven mafiosi went along and were wiped out, never to be seen again.
As it turned out, Michele Greco had been allied with Salvatore Riina
and the Corleonesi
all along. Riina had used Greco's position on the Commission to help banish Gaetano Badalamenti
from the Mafia and then, after Riina ordered Bontade's murder, he had Greco oversee Bontade's Mafia clan who was in control of a heroin distribution network in the United States, along with the Inzerillo
Mafia clan.
One of the men who did not turn up to the fateful meeting at Greco's estate was Salvatore Contorno
. He sensed trouble and soon went into hiding when the Mafia War broke out. He narrowly escaped death during an ambush by a Corleonesi hitman, Michele's nephew Pino Greco. While in hiding from both the authorities and the Corleonesi, Contorno sent anonymous letters to the police, revealing to the authorities information on the Mafia, its members, the various factions and the violent turmoil it was undergoing. Contorno was eventually arrested in 1983 and became a fully fledged informant the following year, following Tommaso Buscetta
's example.
Contorno's revelations in his letters to the police were the first time the authorities had really learned of Michele Greco's high-ranking membership of the Mafia. Previously he had just been regarded as a rather secretive landowner with a suspiciously high-income, although he did come from a long line of mafiosi.
Greco was a powerful mafia boss, descended from a long line of mafiosi, but in the latter part of his criminal career he could be best described as little more than Riina's "puppet boss". According to pentito
Tommaso Buscetta
, Michele Greco, "given his bland and weak personality, was the perfect person to become head of the Commission so as not to stand in the way of Riina designs." Buscetta explained that during meetings between the heads of various Mafia families, Michele Greco would just nod his head and agree with virtually everything Riina said.
Based on Salvatore Contorno's anonymous revelations, police chief Antonino 'Ninni' Cassarà drew up a report in July 1982 listing 162 Mafiosi who warranted arrest, and the report was unofficially known as the 'Michele Greco + 161' report, signalling Greco's importance over the other suspects. On August 6, 1985, Ninni Cassarà and one of his bodyguards, Giovanni Lercara, were massacred by a team of up to fifteen gunmen outside Cassarà's home in front of his horrified wife.
The 'Michele Greco + 161' report was just the start of an investigation that was to become the Maxi Trial
, where most of the leadership of the Mafia were tried for numberless crimes. On July 9, 1983, Greco was indicted by judge Giovanni Falcone
, along with 14 others among which his brother Salvatore Greco, Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano
and Nitto Santapaola for the murder on the prefect
of Palermo, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa
on September 3, 1982.
After four-years on the run, Michele Greco was arrested on February 20, 1986, and he joined the hundreds of defendants at the Maxi Trial
, which had started just ten-days previously. Greco was charged with ordering seventy-eight murders, including those of the anti-Mafia magistrate
Rocco Chinnici
, Chinnici's two bodyguards and an innocent bystander, the four of whom had been killed by a car bomb
in 1983.
Greco gave testimony at the trial where, like his co-defendants, he insisted he was completely innocent and knew nothing about any Mafia. To illustrate his standing as a supposedly honest citizen, he boasted of all the illustrious people he had entertained at his large estate, including a former chief prosecutor and police chiefs. He also admitted that Stefano Bontade
had often hunted on his estate, and in something of an alarmingly off-hand statement, Greco said that he and Stefano "were together on the Holy Friday
, just days before his misfortune." The "misfortune" he referred to was Stefano being machine-gunned in the face.
At the end of the trial, on December 16, 1987, Michele Greco, then aged 63, was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to life imprisonment
.
, who would release Mafiosi on the slightest of pretexts, much to the frustration of the Maxi Trial's architects, Giovanni Falcone
and Paolo Borsellino
. Greco was released on appeal on February 27, 1991, but Giovanni Falcone, who had become head of the Penal Affairs section of the Italian ministry of Justice, issued a decree that ordered the re-incarceration of Greco and other mafiosi.
In the light of this, Michele Greco was quickly rearrested in February 1992 and put back behind bars to serve his freshly reinstated life-sentence. Greco never admitted his crimes nor his position in Cosa Nostra. In a letter sent to the press in the summer of 2007, he claimed he was "as innocent as a newborn child." He added that "because of an injustice in the 1980s I have been buried alive and have been in prison for 22 years. The dampness of my cell has destroyed my health and I am truly in a bad way." He remained in prison
in Rome until his death on February 13, 2008.
According to historian John Dickie
, Greco "was the very archetype of a mafia capo: unsmiling, taciturn, given to speaking only in maxims and allusive parables."
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, previously incarcerated for multiple murders. His nickname was "il Papa" (The Pope) because of his ability to mediate between different Mafia families. Greco was the head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission
Sicilian Mafia Commission
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra...
.
Rise to power
Michele Greco was part of the powerful Greco Mafia clan that ruled both in his native CiaculliCiaculli
Ciaculli is an outlying suburb of Palermo, Sicily in Italy. It counts less than 5000 residents. Ciaculli is close to the suburb of Croceverde. Ciaculli has been important within the history of the Cosa Nostra. The best known Mafia family is the Greco Mafia clan...
and in Croceverde Giardini
Croceverde
Croceverde is an outlying suburb of Palermo, Sicily in Italy. It has less than 5000 residents. Croceverde is close to the suburb of Ciaculli. It has been important within the history of the Cosa Nostra, and is relatively rural in character....
, two suburbs close to Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
. He took over the mandamento
Mandamento
Historically a mandamento was the part of Italian territory under the jurisdiction of a "pretore" which is a kind of magistrate. These divisions were abolished in 1923....
of Croceverde Giardini after his father Giuseppe Greco, "Piddu u tinenti", died. He was a cousin of Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, the first "secretary" of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission
Sicilian Mafia Commission
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra...
that was formed somewhere in 1958.
He and his brother Salvatore Greco
Salvatore Greco
Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco was a powerful mafioso and boss of the Mafia Family in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo famous for its citrus fruit groves, where he was born...
operated low profile and were able to enter into relationships with businessmen, politicians, magistrates and law enforcement officials through their membership of Masonic lodges.
Salvatore Greco’s nickname was "The Senator" for his political connections. He was the kingmaker of Christian Democrat politicians such as Giovanni Gioia, Vito Ciancimino
Vito Ciancimino
Vito Ciancimino was an Italian politician who served as mayor of Palermo, Sicily. He belonged to the Christian Democrat party , and was the first Italian politician to be found guilty of Mafia membership...
and Giuseppe Insalaco. Many of those notables were invited by "The Pope" and "The Senator" to wine and dine and take part in hunting parties at his estate La Favarella. The estate was also used as a refuge for mafiosi on the run, and to set up a heroin laboratory.
Greco, along with other Mafia families around Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, controlled a large portion of the water supply. He was financing the digging of his wells with government money. According to the law, landowners were only allowed to have wells for their own private use and all excess water belonged to the public. However, the city of Palermo issued regular contracts to buy water from Greco and other Mafia bosses for a full third of the water supply. During the summer, when water was particularly scarce and badly needed for irrigation, Greco sold water at exorbitant prices. The perpetual shortage of water was maintained by the Mafia and their friends in city hall.
Another money making scheme was collecting subsidies from the European Community (EC) for destroying citrus crops he had never grown. The EC, in order to limit production, paid farmers to destroy part of their production. Greco paid EC inspectors to falsify the records.
Puppet boss
Michele Greco was nominated the head of the Sicilian Mafia CommissionSicilian Mafia Commission
The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra...
(Cupola) in 1978, after Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti 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...
was expelled. Greco gave the Commission a façade of neutrality behind which the Corleonesi
Corleonesi
The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca...
effectively hid their expansion. In 1981, Mafia bosses Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
and Salvatore Inzerillo
Salvatore Inzerillo
Salvatore Inzerillo was an Italian criminal, a member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio . He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family...
were murdered within a few weeks of each other in the midst of the Second Mafia War
Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a conflict within the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place in the early 1980s. As with any criminal organization, the history of the Sicilian Mafia is replete with conflicts and power struggles, and the violence that results from them, but these are generally localised and...
. Through his position within the Cupola, Michele Greco assumed indirect control of Stefano Bontade's Mafia family after his murder. Not long after Greco invited a number of Bontade's allies for a meeting at his country estate. A couple members of the clan were suspicious and did not go, but at least eleven mafiosi went along and were wiped out, never to be seen again.
As it turned out, Michele Greco had been allied with Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
and the Corleonesi
Corleonesi
The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca...
all along. Riina had used Greco's position on the Commission to help banish Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti 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...
from the Mafia and then, after Riina ordered Bontade's murder, he had Greco oversee Bontade's Mafia clan who was in control of a heroin distribution network in the United States, along with the Inzerillo
Salvatore Inzerillo
Salvatore Inzerillo was an Italian criminal, a member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio . He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family...
Mafia clan.
One of the men who did not turn up to the fateful meeting at Greco's estate was Salvatore Contorno
Salvatore Contorno
Salvatore "Totuccio" Contorno is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who turned into a state witness against Cosa Nostra in October 1984, following the example of Tommaso Buscetta. He gave detailed accounts of the inner-workings of the Sicilian Mafia...
. He sensed trouble and soon went into hiding when the Mafia War broke out. He narrowly escaped death during an ambush by a Corleonesi hitman, Michele's nephew Pino Greco. While in hiding from both the authorities and the Corleonesi, Contorno sent anonymous letters to the police, revealing to the authorities information on the Mafia, its members, the various factions and the violent turmoil it was undergoing. Contorno was eventually arrested in 1983 and became a fully fledged informant the following year, following Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...
's example.
Contorno's revelations in his letters to the police were the first time the authorities had really learned of Michele Greco's high-ranking membership of the Mafia. Previously he had just been regarded as a rather secretive landowner with a suspiciously high-income, although he did come from a long line of mafiosi.
Greco was a powerful mafia boss, descended from a long line of mafiosi, but in the latter part of his criminal career he could be best described as little more than Riina's "puppet boss". According to pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...
, Michele Greco, "given his bland and weak personality, was the perfect person to become head of the Commission so as not to stand in the way of Riina designs." Buscetta explained that during meetings between the heads of various Mafia families, Michele Greco would just nod his head and agree with virtually everything Riina said.
Manhunt and capture
The 'Michele Greco + 161' report was just the start of an investigation that was to become the Maxi Trial
Maxi Trial
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
, where most of the leadership of the Mafia were tried for numberless crimes. On July 9, 1983, Greco was indicted by judge Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
, along with 14 others among which his brother Salvatore Greco, Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...
and Nitto Santapaola for the murder on the prefect
Prefect
Prefect is a magisterial title of varying definition....
of Palermo, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa
Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa
Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa was a general of the Italian carabinieri notable for campaigning against terrorism during the 1970s in Italy, and later assassinated by the Mafia in Palermo.-Biography:...
on September 3, 1982.
After four-years on the run, Michele Greco was arrested on February 20, 1986, and he joined the hundreds of defendants at the Maxi Trial
Maxi Trial
The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...
, which had started just ten-days previously. Greco was charged with ordering seventy-eight murders, including those of the anti-Mafia magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
Rocco Chinnici
Rocco Chinnici
Rocco Chinnici was a noted Italian Antimafia magistrate killed by the Mafia.-Life:Born at Misilmeri, Chinnici graduated in law at the University of Palermo in 1947 and started working as a magistrate in 1952 in Trapani. In 1966 he moved to the prosecutors office in Palermo...
, Chinnici's two bodyguards and an innocent bystander, the four of whom had been killed by a car bomb
Car bomb
A car bomb, or truck bomb also known as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device , is an improvised explosive device placed in a car or other vehicle and then detonated. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupants of the vehicle,...
in 1983.
Greco gave testimony at the trial where, like his co-defendants, he insisted he was completely innocent and knew nothing about any Mafia. To illustrate his standing as a supposedly honest citizen, he boasted of all the illustrious people he had entertained at his large estate, including a former chief prosecutor and police chiefs. He also admitted that Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
had often hunted on his estate, and in something of an alarmingly off-hand statement, Greco said that he and Stefano "were together on the Holy Friday
Good Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...
, just days before his misfortune." The "misfortune" he referred to was Stefano being machine-gunned in the face.
At the end of the trial, on December 16, 1987, Michele Greco, then aged 63, was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
.
Imprisonment and death
The Maxi Trial was largely undone by notoriously generous appeals, mostly thanks to Corrado CarnevaleCorrado Carnevale
Corrado Carnevale is an Italian judge, currently member of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. He became famous because of the large number of Mafia cases overturned in the Appeal Court where he was president, because of his involvement in some of the worst corruption scandals in the history...
, who would release Mafiosi on the slightest of pretexts, much to the frustration of the Maxi Trial's architects, Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
and Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
. Greco was released on appeal on February 27, 1991, but Giovanni Falcone, who had become head of the Penal Affairs section of the Italian ministry of Justice, issued a decree that ordered the re-incarceration of Greco and other mafiosi.
In the light of this, Michele Greco was quickly rearrested in February 1992 and put back behind bars to serve his freshly reinstated life-sentence. Greco never admitted his crimes nor his position in Cosa Nostra. In a letter sent to the press in the summer of 2007, he claimed he was "as innocent as a newborn child." He added that "because of an injustice in the 1980s I have been buried alive and have been in prison for 22 years. The dampness of my cell has destroyed my health and I am truly in a bad way." He remained in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
in Rome until his death on February 13, 2008.
According to historian John Dickie
John Dickie
John Dickie was a Scottish evangelist and writer.-Life:His father died when John was 15; his mother had died 4 years before. He and one sister were left orphans...
, Greco "was the very archetype of a mafia capo: unsmiling, taciturn, given to speaking only in maxims and allusive parables."
Sources
Caruso, Alfio (2000). Da cosa nasce cosa. Storia della mafia dal 1943 a oggi, Milan: Longanesi ISBN 88-304-1620-7- Dickie, John (2004). Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia, London: Coronet, ISBN 0-340-82435-2
- Schneider, Jane T. & Peter T. Schneider (2003). Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo, Berkeley: University of California Press ISBN 0-520-23609-2
- Stille, AlexanderAlexander StilleAlexander Stille is an American author and journalist. He is the son of Ugo Stille, a well-known Italian journalist and a former editor of Italy's Milan-based Corriere della Sera newspaper. Alexander Stille graduated from Yale and later the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism...
(1995). Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian RepublicExcellent CadaversExcellent Cadavers is a 1995 non-fiction book by American author Alexander Stille about the Sicilian Mafia, concentrating on magistrate Giovanni Falcone's fight against the Mafia and his 1992 assassination....
, New York: Vintage ISBN 0-09-959491-9
External links
Biographies of Mafia bosses- Best Of Sicily's Mafia page
- Video of Michele Greco giving a statement at the Maxi Trial, from youtube.com Michele Greco detto 'Il Papa', Teleacras on youtube.com