Greco family (Mafia clan)
The extended Greco family, consisting of three sexes, belonged to one of the most powerful and influential mafia clans in Sicily and Calabria since the late 19th century . The extended family ruled both in Ciaculli and in Croceverde-Giardini , two south-eastern outskirts of Palermo from a citrus-growing area known as Conca d'Oro . In Calabria it had a smaller and less important offshoot that was active on the olive oil market . Family members were important high-ranking figures of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta . Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco was the first "secretary" of the Sicilian Mafia Commission , the Cupola as the supreme supervisory body of the Mafia, while Michele Greco , also known as "the Pope" , was one of his successors. According pentito Antonio Calderone "the Greco's on all of Sicily exercised effective power out." According to Giovanni Brusca family Greco was very significant, and those who in any internal Mafia war were decisive.
Early history
There were two different family factions, which can probably be traced back to their common ancestor Salvatore Greco. Salvatore Greco is mentioned in the Sangiorgi report at the turn of the century as the Capomafia of Ciaculli. The other faction from the neighboring Croceverde-Giardini is derived from the leader Giuseppe Greco, " Piddu u Tinenti - Piddu the lieutenant " . Giuseppe Greco (born May 21, 1894 in Palermo, son of Francesco Greco and Rosa De Caro; † unknown) was Gabelloto from "I Giardini", an estate of about 300 hectares of citrus plantation , which belonged to Count Tagliava. He was a representative of the old agricultural mafia. The famous “Mandarino Tardivo di Ciaculli” tangerine variety formed the core of their plantations . With Caterina Ferrara, " Piddu " had four sons and two daughters, only two of whom were accepted into the Mafia league:
- Francesco Greco: * 1921 surgeon in Palermo
- Giuseppe Greco: * 1922 shot dead by the Greco from Ciaculli on October 1st
- Michele "U'Papa" Greco: * 1924, head of the Cupola and fruit grower in Ciaculli (Mafioso)
- Salvatore "Il Senatore" Greco: * 1927 "Mediator" (Mafioso)
- Rosa Greco: * 1930 married to a civil servant in Villabate
- Nunzia Greco: * 1933 married to a Palermitan surgeon
The Greco family was a typical representative of the rural mafia in Sicily. In 1916 , she ordered the killing of a priest who, during a Sunday sermon, had denounced the mafia's interference in the administration of church revenues and charity funds. In 1921 , a member of the Greco who had felt a sgarro killed two shepherds with their flock. In 1929 , another Greco fired twenty bullets into large wine barrels belonging to an enemy mafiosi and then sat down amid the foaming splinters to smoke his pipe.
The Greco War
In 1939, a bloody feud of revenge began between the two factions of the clan during a fight over a question of honor among young people. The son of Giuseppe Greco, " Piddu u tinenti ", boss of the Croceverde-Giardini Cosca, was killed. In the years 1946 - 47 the family war between factions of Ciaculli and Croce Verde Giardini reached its climax. On August 26, 1946, Giuseppe Greco, head of the Ciaculli clan and brother-in-law of " Piddu u tinenti " and his brother Pietro Greco were killed with machine guns and hand grenades . The Ciaculli faction reacted a few months later when two " Soldati " were shot by " Piddu u tinenti " with a Lupara . In revenge, the Giardini Cosca kidnapped two members of the rival faction, who were never seen again afterwards, called Lupara Bianca . The battle between the two clans reached another climax on September 17, 1947, with a large-scale shootout in the main square of Ciaculli. First, an important member of the Giardini Cosca was shot with a submachine gun. When it became apparent that he was not yet dead, two women from the Ciaculli clan, Antonina (51 years old) and Rosalia (19 years old) Greco, widow and daughter of one of the bosses killed the year before, took to the streets and killed the victim with kitchen knives . In return, the victim's brother and sister shot the women. Antonina was wounded and her daughter was killed. Their attackers were then shot dead by Antonina's 18-year-old son. A total of eleven members of the two clans died and several others were wounded in the feud before other Palermitan mafia bosses put pressure on “ Piddu u tinenti ” to end the bloody feud that drew too much public attention. In addition, “ Piddu ” should unite both factions after the enemy bosses were murdered. His status would henceforth depend on how he would handle the situation.
Mediation of the feud
Giuseppe " Piddu " Greco asked Antonio Cottone , head of the Mafia family from Villabate , a town near Ciaculli and Croceverde, to mediate. Cottone, who had been deported from the USA , was considered an influential mafioso in Palermo as well as in his home village Villabate and still had good connections in the USA with Joe Profaci , who came from his village. At that time Profaci was in Sicily and apparently he played an important role in the peace negotiations. The peace between the two rival factions of the Greco clan was made by transferring the rights of the Giardini estate to Salvatore " Ciaschiteddu " Greco (son of Giuseppe Greco of Ciaculli) and his cousin Salvatore Greco, " l'Ingegnere ". Salvatore Greco, " the engineer " or " Totò il Lungo - Totò the Tall One ", was the son of Pietro Greco from Ciaculli. You became a co-owner of a citrus export business and a partner in a bus company. Historians are skeptical of the blood feud theory. At stake were the control of the citrus plantations, the administration of the business and the transport of citrus products as well as the control of the wholesale markets in the east of Palermo. Six of the victims were not named Greco. The legend of the blood feud, in all likelihood, was spread to hide the real motives behind the fight.
Descendants of the Ciaculli faction
The sons of Giuseppe Greco and Pietro Greco:
- Salvatore " Ciaschiteddu " Greco (son of Giuseppe Greco and Santa Greco, sister of " Piddu u Tinenti - Piddu the lieutenant ")
- Salvatore Greco (son of Pietro Greco), also known as " L'Ingegnere " (the engineer) or " Totò il Lungo - Totó the tall one ".
Descendants of the Croceverde Giardini faction
Giuseppe Greco, " Piddu u Tinenti ", head of the Croceverde-Giardini fraction, and his two sons:
- Michele Greco " Il Papa "
- Salvatore Greco " Il Senatore ". Salvatore was married to the daughter of Antonio "Nino" Cottone, who acted as a peacemaker between the two factions.
" Piddu the lieutenant " asked Antonio Cottone ( 1904 / 1905 - August 22. 1956 ), head of the Mafia family of Villabate, a town near Ciaculli and Croce Verde, to mediate. Cottone, who had been deported from the USA, was considered an influential Mafioso in both Palermo and his home village Villabate, and still had good connections in the USA, especially with Joe Profaci , who came from the same village. Profaci was in Sicily at the time and it appeared that he was playing an important role in the peace negotiations.
Consolidation phase and new conflicts over the fruit and vegetable trade
" Piddu the Lieutenant " then largely withdrew from the active and dangerous life as a Mafioso and settled in a modern house in Palermo, where he consistently consolidated and expanded relationships and friendships among the "legal" sections of upper society protect younger kin when they conflict with the law. His influence in the higher circles of Palermo was considerable. Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini accepted an invitation from “Piddu” Greco to bless the new church in Croceverde-Giardini and then to have dinner with him. The Grecos were protagonists of the violent conflict over the fruit and vegetable wholesale market in Palermo, which was relocated from the Zisa district to Acquasanta near the port in January 1955 and thus disrupted the delicate balance of power in Cosa Nostra. The Acquasanta mafia clan tried to fend off the thugs, who traditionally - like the Grecos and Cottone - belonged to the "Mafia dei Giardini - Mafia of the Gardens" and who now invaded their territory by force. The bosses of the Acquasanta Mafia clan, Gaetano Galatolo and Nicola D'Alessandro, and Francesco Greco from the Ciaculli clan, a large fruit and vegetable wholesaler, were killed in a dispute over the protection thugs. In the same way, a violent conflict flared up in some villages outside of Palermo, such as Bagheria and Villabate , for control of the irrigation, transportation and wholesale market businesses. On August 22, 1956, Nino Cottone was also murdered. In the end, Acquasanta had to share the wholesale profits with the Greco Mafia clan of Ciaculli, which traditionally controlled the fruit and vegetable supply of the Palermo wholesale markets.
Promotion to the Commission
Although the two cousins Salvatore " Ciaschiteddu " Greco and Salvatore " L'Ingegnere " Greco were descendants of the old and established rural mafia, they quickly learned to profit from the economic boom of the post-war period and took part in the cigarette smuggling and heroin trade . Both attended Mafia meetings in October 1957 at the Grand Hotel des Palmes between prominent American and Sicilian Mafiosi. The heroin trade may have been discussed between the two groups, but there was certainly no general agreement on the transatlantic heroin trade between the Sicilian Mafia and the American Cosa Nostra, as was often assumed.
At one of the meetings, American mafia boss Joe Bonanno suggested that the Sicilians set up a Sicilian mafia commission in order to avoid violent disputes, modeled on the American mafia, which had already formed its commission in the 1930s. The Sicilians agreed and Tommaso Buscetta , Gaetano Badalamenti and Salvatore " Ciaschiteddu " Greco laid down the ground rules. Sometime in 1958, the first Mafia Commission sat down. “ Ciaschiteddu ” Greco was appointed the first segretario (secretary), essentially “ Primus inter pares ” - the first among equals. This position came almost naturally to him because he was leading one of the most influential mafia clans at the time. However, the commission could not prevent the outbreak of a violent Mafia war in 1962.
The First Great Mafia War
The two cousins Salvatore " Ciaschiteddu " Greco and Salvatore " L'Ingegnere " Greco from the Ciaculli family were also the protagonists of the First Mafia War between rival clans in Palermo in the early 1960s in order to control the profitable opportunities that emerged rapid urban growth and the expansion of the illegal heroin trade into North America. The conflict was sparked by an argument over an underweight heroin shipment and the December 1962 murder of Calcedonio Di Pisa - an ally of the Grecos . The Grecos suspected the brothers Salvatore and Angelo La Barbera of the act. The clash between the Grecos and La Barbera was a conflict between old and new mafia structures. According to the anti- mafia judge Cesare Terranova , the Grecos “represented the traditional mafia, a mafia that builds its power on respect ... and is linked by a dense network of friendships, interests and safeguards with the leading mafiosi of the Palermo area. You have a dominant position in the field of cigarette and drug smuggling. The La Barberas, on the other hand, came out of nowhere and their power was based on their entrepreneurial nature and their following - a determined group of professional contract killers ”.
On June 30, 1963, a car bomb exploded near Greco's home in Ciaculli, killing seven police and military officers who had been sent to defuse after an anonymous phone call. The outrage over the Ciaculli massacre turned the Mafia war into a war against the Mafia. It prompted the state's first concerted anti-Mafia efforts in post-war Italy. The Sicilian Mafia Commission was disbanded and many of the mafiosi who had escaped arrest have fled abroad. Even the old "Piddu" Greco was arrested in October 1965 and sent into internal exile from Sicily in May 1966 . The chaos caused by the Ciaculli massacre had even disrupted the Sicilian heroin trade with the United States. Mafiosi have been tracked down, arrested and imprisoned. Control of drug trafficking currently fell into the hands of Pietro Davì, Tommaso Buscetta and Gaetano Badalamenti. Salvatore " L'Ingegnere " and " Ciaschiteddu " Greco were sentenced in absentia to 10 and four years in prison, respectively , in 1968 at the " Trial of 114 ". " Ciaschiteddu " Greco moved to Venezuela and the whereabouts of " L'Ingegnere " remained unknown. In 1973 , both were to receive the maximum duration of five years of internal exile on the remote island of Asinara, but they could not be found.
Regaining strength
In the 1970s he recovered from the Greco clan. This time it was the Grecos from Croceverde who gained in importance. The brothers Michele Greco and Salvatore Greco behaved inconspicuously and were able to establish relationships with business people, politicians, judges and law enforcement officers through their membership in Masonic lodges. Salvatore Grecos was named "Il Senatore" for his political connections. He was considered the "kingmaker" of Christian Democratic politicians such as Giovanni Gioia, Vito Ciancimino and Giuseppe Insalaco. High-ranking figures were invited to dine at Michele Greco's La Favarella estate and take part in hunting trips. The property was also used as a refuge for mafiosi and to run a heroin laboratory. In 1974 the Sicilian Mafia Commission was restored under the leadership of Gaetano Badalamenti. Michele Greco was appointed head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission (Cupola) in 1978 after the previous leader Gaetano Badalamenti was voted out of office in the run-up to the Second Mafia War between the Corleonesi led by Totò Riina and the faction of Stefano Bontade and Salvatore Inzerillo. In January 1978 the ailing " Ciaschiteddu " Greco returned from Venezuela to try to prevent Gaetano Badalamenti, Giuseppe Di Cristina, Giuseppe Calderone and Salvatore Inzerillo from taking revenge on the growing power of the Corleonesi. But his efforts were in vain.
The Second Great Mafia War
Michele Greco unofficially sided with the Corleonesi and remained something like the " puppet boss " for Corleonesi boss Totò Riina . The Corleonesi systematically decimated their opponents as the smoldering conflict escalated into a major Mafia war following the murder of Stefano Bontade in 1981. According to Tommaso Buscetta, Michele Greco only nodded his head and agreed to practically everything that Riina agreed upon at meetings between the bosses of the Mafia families. During the Second Mafia War, another descendant of the Greco clan gained much notoriety: Giuseppe " Pino " Greco , a distant relative of Salvatore and Michele Greco. Giuseppe " Pino " Greco was one of Totò Riina's favorite killers and was temporarily a member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission. Although Michele Greco was nominally chief and head of the commission, he was treated by Pino Greco as an irrelevant old man, which made it clear that, according to Pentito Francesco Marino Mannoia , "Pino" Greco held true power in the bloody time of the war. “ Pino ” Greco's contempt for the leadership of the Cosa Nostra was so strong that he no longer attended the meetings of the commission personally and instead sent his deputy, Vincenzo Puccio . The Greco family itself suffered almost no losses during the Second Great Mafia War, as the cruel violence was almost exclusively directed against the other side, the collapsing axis Bontade-Inzerillo-Badalamenti. In addition, the relative "Pino" Greco himself belonged to the " Squadra della Morte - Death Squad ", which flocked almost every day to eliminate the enemy either through public executions on the street or through the Lupara Bianca .
Fall of the Greco family
Towards the end of 1985 Giuseppe "Pino" Greco disappeared. He was murdered on the orders of Riina because he now considered his former "favorite killer" to be too ambitious and too dangerous. Riina's position was apparently threatened by a significant following of younger gangsters looking up to Greco and viewing him as a potential future boss. Michele Greco was arrested on February 20, 1986 and was one of hundreds of defendants in the Maxi Trial . Greco gave a testimony during the trial, and to illustrate his reputation as a supposedly honest citizen, he bragged about all of the famous people he'd invited and entertained on his large estate, including former attorneys general and police chiefs.
Relocation and restructuring
The Greco clan lost the mandamento of Ciaculli through a merger with Brancaccio , whereby the old leadership was also lost. However, the criminal presence of the Grecos appeared in Calabria in the late 1990s , and at the turn of the new millennium , Interpol and FBI informed that the Greco clan suddenly showed significant activity in the US and Australia . The Grecos were no longer part of the power structures of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, but restructured their organization in order to adapt to the new ways of organized crime. On January 22, 2019 , all newly appointed bosses of a newly formed Cupola were arrested by the Sicilian police, including Leandro Greco , the grandson of Michele Greco, also known as " Il Principe del Papa - the Prince of the Pope ".
Important members of the Greco clan
- Giuseppe Greco ( Piddu u Tinenti ) ( 1894 - unknown)
- Giuseppe "Pino" Greco ( 1952 - 1985 )
- Michele Greco ( 1924 - 2008 )
- Salvatore Greco (Mafioso, 1923) ( 1923 - 1978 )
- Salvatore Greco (Mafioso, 1924) ( 1924 - unknown)
- Salvatore Greco (Mafioso, 1927) ( 1927 - 1999 )
literature
- John Dickie: Cosa Nostra. A story of the Sicilian Mafia . London. 2004. Coronet. ISBN 0-340-82435-2 .
- Pino Arlacchi: Mafia from within: The life of Don Antonino Calderone . S. Fischer Verlag
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Al Cimino: Mafia Crimes . Arcturus Publishing. 2017. ISBN 978-178-8-28417-2 .
- ↑ The network: We show where the Mafia is in Germany. Possibly the Greco-Crescente clan is meant
- ^ Police report by Ermanno Sangiorgi
- ↑ Peter O. Chotjewitz: Malavita: Mafia between yesterday and tomorrow. Rowohlt Verlag GmbH. 2016. ISBN 978-3-688-10008-8 .
- ↑ Sicilian expression for personal insult
- ↑ Meaning of the word Sgarrista
- ^ Nigel Cawthorne: The History of the Mafia . Arcturus Publishing. 2011. ISBN 978-184-8-58384-9 .
- ↑ typical Sicilian short-barreled shotgun
- ↑ Cottone was employed in the AMGOT (Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories) in the post-war period
- ^ Peter T. Schneider and Jane Schneider, Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo. University of California Press. 2003. ISBN 978-052-0-92949-4 . P. 62.
- ^ Italy: Sicilian Blood. Time Magazine. 3rd September 1956
- ↑ Cronaca dimenticata. La Strage di Ciaculli e le 7 vittime delle forze dell'ordine. Siracusa live.it (ital.)
- ↑ Puparo: Recent Mafia activities - Brancaccio and Porta Nuova. Gangsters Inc.
- ^ Strike against the Sicilian Mafia - seven arrests. Hürriyet. German Output. 22nd January 2019
- ^ Italian 'mafia cancer' spreading throughout Europe. Bangkok Post. April 11, 2019