Salvatore Inzerillo
Encyclopedia
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...
, 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
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...
of Totò Riina in 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...
who opposed the established Palermo Mafia families of which Inzerillo was one of the main proponents.
Biography
Inzerillo was born in PalermoPalermo
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...
.
Inzerillo married Giuseppa Di Maggio, the daughter of his mother’s brother, Rosario Di Maggio – the boss of the Passo di Rigano Mafia family. Through a string of marriages the Inzerillo’s were related to the Di Maggio and Spatola families in Palermo and the Gambino’s in New York. He had two sons, Giuseppe and Giovanni
Giovanni Inzerillo
Giovanni Inzerillo , is a construction entrepreneur and son of Salvatore Inzerillo, a notorious Sicilian Mafia boss who was killed in May 1981 on the orders of Mafia boss Salvatore "Totò" Riina during the Second Mafia War.After the Corleonesi killed his father, they also murdered his...
.
Inzerillo was a close ally of 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 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...
and a relative of the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
Mafia boss Carlo Gambino
Carlo Gambino
"Don" Carlo Gambino, was a Sicilian mafioso who became Boss of the Gambino crime family, that still bears his name today. After the 1957 Apalachin Convention he unexpectedly seized control of the Commission of the American Mafia. Gambino was known for being low-key and secretive...
. He became a member 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...
in 1978 succeeding his uncle Rosario Di Maggio, and formed a strong alliance with Bontade against the growing power of Totò Riina 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...
who were increasingly challenging the established Mafia families of Palermo.
Heroin trafficking
In the 1970s, like many Sicilian mafiosi, Inzerillo got involved in heroin trafficking. The Inzerillo-clan allied with relatives in Sicily such as the Spatola and Di Maggio families and other Mafia clans like the one ruled by Stefano BontadeStefano 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...
. The Inzerillo-Spatola-Di Maggio-Gambino network and other Sicilian suppliers dominated heroin trafficking since the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s when US and Italian law enforcement were able to significantly reduce the heroin supply of the Sicilian Mafia (the so-called Pizza Connection
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
).
According to the Palermo prosecuting office:
Salvatore Inzerillo coordinated most of the heroin trafficking to the US for the Mafia families involved. They supplied the Sicilian faction of Gambino crime family
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
– the so-called Cherry Hill
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Cherry Hill is a township in Camden County, New Jersey, in the United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township had a population of 71,045, representing an increase of 1,080 from the 69,965 residents enumerated during the 2000 Census...
Gambino’s who were related to the Inzerillo’s – in New York through Inzerillo’s cousins John
John Gambino
John Gambino , is an American mobster. He became a made member of the Gambino crime family in 1975 and a capodecina or captain, and head of the crime family's Sicilian faction, appointed by family boss John Gotti in 1986, according to Mafia turncoat Sammy Gravano.-Transatlantic Mafia clan:Together...
, Giuseppe and Rosario Gambino
Rosario Gambino
Rosario "Sal" Gambino is an Italian mobster in the Gambino crime family. He became nationally known when he and his brothers set up a multimillion dollar heroin cartel during the 1970s and 1980s...
with heroin that was refined in laboratories on Sicily from Turkish morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
base.
According to 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...
, the investigating magistrate who was assigned the investigation into heroin trafficking case, estimated that by the late 1970s the Inzerillo-Gambino-Spatola network was smuggling US$600 million worth of heroin into the US each year. The proceeds were re-invested in real estate. Inzerillo's brother-in-law, Rosario Spatola, who in his youth peddled watered milk in the streets of Palermo, became Palermo’s largest building contractor and biggest taxpayer of Sicily, thanks to his close relationship with Christian Democrat
Christian Democracy (Italy)
Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....
politician Vito Ciancimino
Vito Ciancimino
Vito Ciancimino was an Italian politician who served as mayor of Palermo, Sicily. He belonged to the Christian Democrat party , and was the first Italian politician to be found guilty of Mafia membership...
. By 1982, their holdings in Palermo alone were estimated to be worth around US$ 1 billion.
Killed in the Second Mafia War
Giuseppe Calò
Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....
) just as the Corleonesi.
On May 11, 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
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
. The firearm used was an AK-47
AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...
, the same gun that killed Bontade the previous month. The deaths of these two powerful mafiosi kick-started 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...
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, 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
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...
, 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.
Santo Inzerillo, the brother of Salvatore, was strangled on May 26, 1981, when he came to a meeting to ask clarifications about the killing of his relatives. One of the other brothers, Pietro Inzerillo
Pietro Inzerillo
Pietro Inzerillo may refer to:*Pietro Inzarillo or Inzerillo , a New York underworld figure and a member of the Morello crime family*Pietro Inzerillo , a member of the Sicilian Mafia family from Palermo...
subsequently turned up murdered in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, proving the Corleonesi's reach stretched across the Atlantic.
Exile and return of the Inzerillo clan
The Inzerillo family had been on the verge of total extermination by the Corleonesi. With the intervention of relatives in New York, including associates of the Gambino crime familyGambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
, a deal was worked out that allowed the surviving Inzerillos to take refuge in the U.S., with the agreement that none of them, or their offspring, could ever return to Sicily. Many went to the New York area and joined forces with the Gambino family. They were dubbed "gli scappati" (the escapees). Rosario Naimo
Rosario Naimo
Rosario Naimo is a member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Saro or Saruzzo. He was seen as an important go-between between the Sicilian and American Mafia, closely related with the Gambino crime family...
, an important go-between between the Sicilian and American Mafia, had been appointed to guarantee the agreement. However, after the arrest of Totò Riina and other hardline Corleonesi like Leoluca Bagarella
Leoluca Bagarella
Leoluca Bagarella is an Italian criminal and member of the Sicilian Mafia. He is from the town of Corleone and was a member of the Corleonesi.-Biography:...
, the Inzerillos started to come back to Sicily. Francesco Inzerillo was allowed to return in 1997 after he was expelled from the U.S.
Rosario Inzerillo, a brother of Salvatore, returned to Palermo in December 2004 with the approval of Salvatore Lo Piccolo
Salvatore Lo Piccolo
Salvatore Lo Piccolo , also known as the Baron , is a Sicilian mafioso and one of the most powerful bosses of Palermo, Sicily. Lo Piccolo rose through the ranks of the Palermo mafia throughout the 1980s and he became the capo-mandamento of the San Lorenzo district in the early 1990s, replacing...
, one of the leading Mafia bosses. Salvatore Inzerillo’s only surviving son Giovanni Inzerillo
Giovanni Inzerillo
Giovanni Inzerillo , is a construction entrepreneur and son of Salvatore Inzerillo, a notorious Sicilian Mafia boss who was killed in May 1981 on the orders of Mafia boss Salvatore "Totò" Riina during the Second Mafia War.After the Corleonesi killed his father, they also murdered his...
(born in New York in 1972), an American citizen – returned as well to re-open the family house in Via Castellana 346 after 25 years. The connection between Lo Piccolo and the Inzerillo family surfaced in a wiretap recording of Antonio Rotolo
Antonio Rotolo
Antonio "Nino" Rotolo is an Italian Mafia boss from the Pagliarelli area in Palermo that traditionally was under the control of the Motisi Mafia family. Rotolo was the underboss of Matteo Motisi, but according to some pentiti he was the de facto leader representing the mandamento on the Sicilian...
before his arrest in June 2006. In the recording apparently made to his soldiers he said, "The dead Inzerillo will always haunt you." He went on to say: "Have you understood yet or not that he, Lo Piccolo, is already using the Inzerillo's?"
Rosario Inzerillo's return sparked a dispute in Cosa Nostra’s ranks. Rotolo, fearing the revenge of the Inzerillo clan, is against the return and was overheard in a bugged conversation with Francesco Bonuro that he feared a vendetta. "If they start shooting, I'll be the first to get it and then it’ll be your turn." Rotolo said that Franco Inzerillo had tried to kill him. The pair did not trust Lo Piccolo and sought authorisation from Cosa Nostra boss 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...
to eliminate him.
One theory is that the Palermo families want to see the return of the Inzerillos because of their useful, on-the-ground American connections. "The Mafia has already made an agreement with the Italian-Americans in view of shared opportunities," said Piero Grasso, Italy’s national antimafia prosecutor. "In this new strategy, the American connections, the Inzerillos, are indispensable."
Other leading antimafia officials assert that the Sicilian mafia established new ties with the New York City-based Gambino crime family
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
and that such ties would enable both to profit from increased international drug trafficking and would provide Palermo's mafia factions an opportunity to launder their earnings in real estate within the United States. Their contact is Frank Cali
Frank Cali
Francesco Paolo Augusto Calì , known as "Frank" or "Franky Boy", is a reputed acting captain in the Staten Island faction of the Gambino crime family. Law enforcement considers Cali to be the Gambino "ambassador to Sicilian mobsters" and have linked him to the Inzerillo Mafia family from Palermo...
, a reputed acting caporegime
Caporegime
A caporegime or capodecina, usually shortened to just a capo, is a term used in the Mafia for a high ranking made member of a crime family who heads a "crew" of soldiers and has major social status and influence in the organization...
of the Gambino family.
The first one to talk about the return of the Inzerillos was the 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...
Maurizio Di Gati
Maurizio Di Gati
Maurizio Di Gati is a Sicilian mafioso and considered to be the boss of the Agrigento province before his arrest in November 2006....
, in December 2004. According to Di Gati, the Inzerillos were planning to re-open drug trafficking channels to Palermo in cooperation with the Gambinos and the Siderno clan of the 'Ndrangheta, based in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada. Lo Piccolo granted permission. Salvatore's second born and only surviving son Giovanni Inzerillo
Giovanni Inzerillo
Giovanni Inzerillo , is a construction entrepreneur and son of Salvatore Inzerillo, a notorious Sicilian Mafia boss who was killed in May 1981 on the orders of Mafia boss Salvatore "Totò" Riina during the Second Mafia War.After the Corleonesi killed his father, they also murdered his...
was indicted on February 7, 2008, in operation Old Bridge
Operation Old Bridge
Operation Old Bridge is the code name for the February 7, 2008 arrests in Italy and the United States that targeted the Gambino crime family. Among the indicted were the reputed acting bosses Jackie D'Amico, Nicholas Corozzo and Consigliere Joseph Corozzo of the Gambino crime family...
against the Gambinos in New York and their connections in Palermo, involved in drug trafficking.
Sources
- Arlacchi, Pino (1988). Mafia Business. The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-285197-7
- Jamieson, Alison (2000), The Antimafia. Italy’s Fight Against Organized Crime, London: MacMillan Press ISBN 0-333-80158-X
- Paoli, Letizia (2003). Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-515724-9
- Shawcross, Tim & Martin Young (1987). Men Of Honour: The Confessions Of Tommaso Buscetta, Glasgow: Collins ISBN 0-00-217589-4
- Sterling, ClaireClaire SterlingClaire Sterling was an American author and journalist whose work focused on crime, political assassination, and terrorism...
(1990), Octopus. How the long reach of the Sicilian Mafia controls the global narcotics trade, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-671-73402-4 - 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 Republic, New York: Vintage ISBN 0-09-959491-9