At dawn in the early 1960s, Sicily stood on the edge of violent transformation. Luciano Leggio, a former field guard, had risen to lead the ruthless Corleonesi faction, a group that would soon redefine the brutal legacy of the Mafia. Sensing danger, Giuseppe Di Cristina, the head of Cosa Nostra in Corleone, took a risky step, meeting secretly with the police. Di Cristina offered a rare glimpse into the closed world of Cosa Nostra at its highest levels.
Leggio’s group was not bound by tradition; they were driven by an unrelenting thirst for power and were willing to wipe out anyone in their path. Di Cristina’s warning was stark: the old era of the Mafia was ending, and in its place, Leggio was about to impose a reign of terror that would leave the Sicilian Mafia in chaos. Luciano Leggio was born in January 1925 into extreme poverty, far removed from the more refined world of Dr. Michele Navarra, who would later become his boss.
His family struggled to feed their ten children, so they sent him to a religious school to train as a priest. That plan failed when he refused to study and left school at age nine. To compensate for his lack of formal education, Leggio later threatened a teacher with a firearm, forcing her to teach him to read and write. Despite his harsh path, some religious teachings stayed with him; it was said that every evening he knelt before a cross and recited the grievances he believed had been committed against him.
Behind his back, Leggio was known by several nicknames. He was called “the fire pellet” for his sharp temper and “the cripple” for his slight limp, which resulted from Pott’s disease, a form of tuberculosis affecting the spine that caused chronic back pain, fever, and severe night sweats. Leggio likely caught Navarra’s attention at age nineteen when countryside guards caught him stealing bundles of wheat after harvest and loading them onto mules with a partner. When arrested, Leggio showed no resistance, but his eyes blazed with anger when one of the guards kicked him.
After spending three months in prison, Leggio was sentenced to a year and four months, but the sentence was suspended, and he was released. Driven by a desire for revenge, Leggio enlisted Giovanni Pasqua, a soldier living next to one of the guards. Leggio was determined that those who had wronged him, starting with Pasqua’s neighbor, Cuggio Caiani, would not escape punishment. One evening in March of the following year, the forty-five-year-old Caiani was walking home when he noticed two men tracking him, both dressed in blue wool with hoods lowered over their faces.
Caiani hurried home and shared his fears with his wife, Matilina, suspecting one of the men might be his neighbor, Giovanni Pasqua. The next morning, while cleaning the stable where he kept his horse, Caiani spotted the same two hooded figures waiting for him. Panicked, he ran toward an open door, but it was closed in his face before he could enter. Desperate, he rushed back to his house and barely managed to knock before one of the gunmen shot him twice.
Despite his serious injuries, Caiani stumbled through the door and dragged himself up the stairs. He turned to face his attackers, calling out to the man he recognized, but the gunman continued firing, ending his life. Despite Matilina’s testimony identifying the killers, the judicial system rejected her evidence, and the case was closed. Around this time, Leggio likely began his involvement with the Mafia.
Five years after the murder of the guard who had arrested him, the police captured Leggio’s partner, Giovanni Pasqua, who initially confessed but later recanted, claiming he had been tortured by the police. The court acquitted both Leggio and Pasqua for lack of evidence. The appeals court upheld the verdict, dismissing Matilina’s testimony as incoherent and ruling that the murder, which occurred eight months after Leggio’s earlier arrest, was too far removed to be connected. This marked the Corleonesi’s first major victory over Italian justice, a pattern of escaping legal consequences they would repeat for decades.
Leggio’s success in evading justice brought him prestige in Corleone. He quickly exploited this newfound respect to secure a position of power. Choosing an estate he desired, Leggio adopted a ruthless approach: he assassinated the estate’s supervisor from behind, then confronted the owner, saying, “I will replace the dear departed. ” The owner, familiar with the brutal promotion tactics used by Navarra, raised no objections.
Leggio rose to become the youngest supervisor in Sicily. Among Navarra’s ten bosses and soldiers stationed as enforcers on various estates, including Vicutwood, a notorious burial site for both bandits and Mafia members, this strategic positioning ensured the doctor maintained control not only over the city but also over the largest surrounding estates. Navarra made clear that Leggio was “la sua cosa personale,” his personal thing, a reference to the name Cosa Nostra, “our thing. ” Leggio roamed the estate on horseback armed with a whip and a hunting rifle, upholding the traditional Mafia role of protecting the property of wealthy landowners, including using violence to suppress peasants’ demands for land ownership and maintain the established order.
The conflict in Corleone soon reached its peak when Navarra and his most ruthless right-hand man, Leggio, faced a young, idealistic resistor determined to challenge their dominance. Like Navarra, Placido Rizzotto came from a Mafia background, but he was fundamentally different. Unlike Navarra, who embraced the Mafia, Rizzotto rebelled against it. His father, an estate guard and convicted Mafioso under Mussolini, was imprisoned when Rizzotto was only eleven.
During World War II, the semi-literate Rizzotto was drafted into the fascist army, but after Italy’s surrender on September 8, 1943, following the fall of Sicily, he shed his uniform and joined the partisans fighting the Nazis in the Alps. Among the young members of the Garibaldi Brigade, known for their red scarves, Rizzotto learned endurance and participated in discussions about freedom and equality. When he returned to Corleone in 1945, his newfound revolutionary zeal earned him the nickname “the Northern Wind. ”
Rizzotto became an outspoken critic of Mafia cattle rustling and encouraged peasants to resist the dominance of wealthy landowners.
He urged them to take advantage of new decrees issued by the national unity government in Rome, which granted peasant cooperatives the right to claim land neglected by its owners. In a bold move against landowners and Mafiosi alike, Rizzotto led provocative land seizures. Navarra sought to crush the peasant protests before they gained momentum. On one estate, guards fired on protesting peasants, and later that night, the home of the Communist Party secretary was shot at.
The bloodiest display of this violence occurred on May 1, 1947, when the notorious bandit Salvatore Giuliano and his men opened fire on peasants at Portella della Ginestra, killing eleven and wounding twenty-seven. In Corleone, Leggio responded to the peasants with brutal force, slaughtering hundreds of mules and donkeys and setting fire to barns and haystacks. Despite these atrocities, no one dared report him to the police. Rizzotto continued his struggle undeterred, constantly denouncing Leggio and his protectors in his speeches, urging peasants to report what they knew to the authorities.
Navarra tried to dissuade Rizzotto from his fight, but Rizzotto refused to back down. Rizzotto achieved a decisive moment against Leggio when the two clashed outside the municipal gardens at the entrance to Corleone. Leggio and his men mocked the red scarves worn by former partisans marching through town. The provocation escalated into a brawl, and someone called Rizzotto to try to break it up.
Despite initially calling for calm, Rizzotto was enraged by the Mafia’s insults; he, too, wore the red scarf during his partisan years. In a fit of anger, Rizzotto grabbed the weak Leggio, lifted him off the ground, slammed him against the wall, and hung him by his coat on the sharp bars of the garden’s iron gate. Despite warnings from his father, Rizzotto agreed to meet Navarra about three weeks after the brawl. The meeting was set for the evening of March 10, 1948, on Corleone’s main street near Navarra’s house.
But that night, the thirty-three-year-old Rizzotto never returned home. The same night, a thirteen-year-old shepherd died under mysterious circumstances. The boy had been tending his father’s sheep outside Corleone when he fell suddenly ill. He was taken to the hospital under Navarra’s care.
Delirious, the boy described seeing the murder of a peasant that night on a road at the foot of Mount Racà Busambra while guarding his flock. The boy lost consciousness and soon died. An autopsy revealed he had been poisoned. Investigators later discovered that unknown friends had brought the boy to Navarra’s hospital, but they could not prove what many locals suspected: that the boy had witnessed Rizzotto’s murder and Navarra had injected him with a fatal dose to silence him.
A week after Rizzotto’s disappearance, an anonymous message written in broken language reached investigators. The message warned: “Beware of the people who told you they were the executors of the Rizzotto murder. One of them is Leggio. ” Despite scant evidence against Leggio nine months after the crime, the police requested his exile to the mainland.
Leggio did not appear at the court hearing scheduled to consider the proposal, and from that day, he became a fugitive. His reputation as an untouchable figure continued to grow. Rumors circulated that he was hiding in an underground tunnel, a mountain hut, a Palermo clinic, or even a luxurious seaside hotel. In reality, Leggio did not need to go far, protected as he was by many local notables, including a baron and his wife, who had a partner among their staff assisting him.
A year after Rizzotto’s disappearance, new testimony about the crime emerged from an unexpected source. Giovanni Pasqua, imprisoned in Palermo, the same man who had helped Leggio commit his first murder four years earlier, came forward to testify. Pasqua identified the killers of the peasant leader as Leggio, Pasquale Criscione, and Vincenzo Collura, a former rival of Navarra for control of the Corleone clan. Pasqua’s testimony came after the arrival in Corleone of Carabinieri Captain Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, a determined and charismatic figure.
Known for his courage and unwavering commitment to the state, dalla Chiesa was determined to fight the Mafia. He made a point of meeting Rizzotto’s parents, showing his personal interest in the case. Rizzotto’s murder became the captain’s first major case. For five months, he relentlessly tracked the three suspects, eventually arresting both Criscione and Collura while Leggio remained at large.
During interrogation, Criscione and Collura confessed to the crime, revealing that on a rock atop Busambra, Leggio had shot Rizzotto three times, killing him. They then disposed of the body in a rocky crevice to prevent crows from detecting the smell of decay. Despite dalla Chiesa’s tireless efforts, the case collapsed when Criscione and Collura recanted their confessions in court, claiming they had been forced under torture. Despite the prosecution demanding life sentences for all defendants, the Palermo court acquitted them for lack of evidence and revoked Leggio’s arrest warrant.
Before following this thread further, it is necessary to introduce Bernardo Provenzano and Totò Riina. In 1945, Salvatore “Totò” Riina likely met Bernardo Provenzano, two years his junior, and the two soon became inseparable. During this period, Riina was also close friends with his future brother-in-law, Calogero Bagarella. Around that time, Luciano Leggio recruited them despite receiving warnings: Riina was cautioned by a policeman and Provenzano by his older brother about the dangers of associating with Leggio.
In 1949, at age eighteen, Riina committed his first murder and was sentenced to twelve years, but was released after serving only six in 1955. Returning to Dr. Navarra, it is known that he was not officially identified by the police as the head of the Corleone family until 1948. This led to a court order for his internal exile for five years on the mainland, a ruling overturned on appeal.
He was sentenced to exile again, but Navarra’s lawyers skillfully manipulated the legal system, allowing him to return home after only one month in exile. Despite all his cunning, Navarra failed to recognize the growing ambition of his once-loyal followers. While Navarra adhered to traditional Mafia methods, leveraging his influence over rural estates and infiltrating the political system, Leggio pursued more aggressive and profitable ventures. One of his boldest schemes was cattle rustling.
Leggio formed a gang specifically for this purpose, stealing animals from their owners. After slaughtering and butchering the cattle, they transported the meat to Palermo for sale. To further profit from these ventures, Leggio established a road transport company, making frequent trips to the Sicilian capital more lucrative. Leggio had ambitious plans to use his trucks to transport tons of equipment for a new dam intended to provide water to citrus groves.
However, this threatened the control of local bosses who had monopolized the water supply for over a century, charging exorbitant prices. These bosses quietly convinced Navarra to oppose the project. Navarra then spread rumors that such a large dam posed a danger, claiming it would eventually collapse and flood Corleone. According to one account, the increasingly frustrated Leggio was sent to Palermo not only to sell meat but to represent Navarra at a rare conference held at the city’s Grand Hotel in October 1957.
The meeting was attended by Sicilian Mafia bosses and an unprecedented delegation from the American Cosa Nostra led by Joseph Bonanno. However, it is unlikely that Leggio was actually present at this conference. Navarra was a lesser figure in the Mafia hierarchy centered in Palermo, and it is improbable that the American Mafia would endorse or approve the assassination of a regional Sicilian leader. But that is precisely what Leggio did the following year.
Leggio’s frustration with Navarra, compounded by his sabotage of Leggio’s business plans, turned his anger toward Angelo Ventiloro, one of Navarra’s aides and a fellow cattle rustler. Ventiloro had strong reasons to oppose the dam, as it threatened to flood his wheat fields and vineyards. In retaliation, Leggio began pressuring Ventiloro to sell his land and leave. One morning in May 1958, Ventiloro entered one of his wine cellars, struck by the pungent smell of wine.
Every barrel had been smashed to pieces. It was not long before news spread that Leggio was behind the destruction. Despite his close ties to Navarra, Ventiloro faced consequences for opposing Leggio. A month later, when the wheat ripened, he was forced to beg local peasants for days before anyone dared help him harvest.
Their fear of Leggio was too great. Eventually, a few peasants agreed to work, but secretly and under cover of night. Yet no sooner had they finished than the entire crop mysteriously vanished, and again rumors pointed to Leggio, who was said to have loaded the harvest onto his trucks. Despite growing pressure, Ventiloro refused to sell his land.
Shortly after, he received an anonymous blackmail letter demanding money and threatening dire consequences if he did not comply. When Navarra learned of this, he devised a plan to trap the writer of the mysterious letter. Ventiloro agreed to the plan and arranged a meeting near his farm in late June, where several of Navarra’s soldiers waited hidden in a cattle barn. As a man approached on a mule, the soldiers opened fire, hitting him in the arm.
But when they saw that the still-living man was Leggio, the soldiers panicked and fled. On August 2, 1958, a young doctor was driving with his older colleague, Michele Navarra, toward Corleone. However, Leggio had set an ambush, and as Navarra and the other doctor passed, they were forced off the road and struck by a hail of bullets, killing them both. Thus, the powerful figure known as “Padre Nostro” was eliminated.
Despite Navarra’s high rank within the Mafia and his influential connections outside it, Leggio managed to destroy him. This ambitious young man overthrew the boss through a combination of audacity, cunning, speed, and brutal violence, a formula that would define the Corleonesi’s approach ever after. After Navarra’s murder, Leggio tasked Riina with confronting three of Navarra’s loyalists. When one of them extended his hand in a gesture of peace, Riina refused to shake it and instead demanded they hand over the men who had shot Leggio.
In that tense moment, Provenzano and another Mafioso appeared, firing heavily. One man was killed instantly while the other two fled through the streets of Corleone in a desperate attempt to escape. They did not get far; both were shot dead, and a stray bullet struck a two-year-old girl standing nearby. As Provenzano and his partner sped down the main street, another of Navarra’s men managed to shoot Provenzano in the head, while his partner sought refuge in a shop.
Questioned at the hospital, Provenzano remembered only feeling sharp pain before losing consciousness. A police officer was the sole witness who provided useful information, identifying Riina among the gunmen. Initially, several witnesses confirmed Provenzano’s involvement, but within a month, they recanted and left Corleone. Captain dalla Chiesa of the Carabinieri found insufficient evidence to solve these crimes.
Shortly after the incident, dalla Chiesa officially recorded Provenzano’s name in his files, accusing him of various thefts, including cattle, cheese, and a hunting rifle. Soon after, Provenzano went into hiding, beginning a life of fugitive existence that would eventually set a record. From that moment on, any talk of peace was abandoned, and Leggio ordered his men to eliminate his opponents. Leggio’s wrath extended beyond his Mafia rivals to innocent locals as well.
Riina brutally shot a traitor in the back, heart, and mouth. The final shot was a stern warning to anyone who might consider speaking openly about Leggio’s crimes. Between 1943 and 1961, Corleone witnessed fifty-two murders and twenty-two attempted murders. Despite the escalating violence, only one newspaper, L’Ora, based in Palermo, dared to cast light on the Corleone family during this period.
In 1958, L’Ora published a series of investigative reports detailing Luciano Leggio’s rise in Corleone following the assassination of former boss Michele Navarra. The brave journalists behind this exposé, Felice Chilanti, Mario Farinella, and others, faced swift retaliation. On October 19, 1958, a bomb packed with five kilograms of TNT exploded outside the newspaper’s offices, destroying half the printing press. The incident did not deter the paper; it was published just two days later with a bold front-page headline declaring: “The Mafia threatens us.
” “The investigation continues. ”
Since early 1961, Leggio adopted a more covert approach than the usual street shootings, known as the “lupara bianca,” or “white shotgun. ” This method was reserved especially for those Leggio considered exceptionally despicable, individuals he believed did not deserve to be mourned by their families. In 1963, Leggio planned to use the “lupara bianca” again in the final stages of the five-year conflict, targeting Francesco Streva, Navarra’s most dangerous lieutenant.
Streva was described by police as cunning, brave, and vindictive. However, Provenzano and another partner failed in their first attempt, with Provenzano shot in the shoulder by Streva. Four months later, a trap was set for Streva by Leggio, and Provenzano and another partner ambushed and killed him, along with his two bodyguards and even the guard dog accompanying them. This bloody conflict, which ended with Leggio installed as the undisputed boss of the notorious Corleone family, served as a brutal training ground for Riina and Provenzano, who carried out their violent deeds with complete impunity.
For Leggio, control of Corleone was merely a starting point. His ambitions extended to Palermo. He turned his attention to the city dominated by Christian Democratic mayor Salvo Lima, the son of a Mafioso. The Corleonesi had a trump card in Palermo’s political scene: a direct line to Vito Ciancimino, the city’s public works councilor.
Ciancimino was pivotal during the city’s construction boom, serving as a crucial link between the politicians who granted contracts, the companies that executed them, and the Mafia that took its cut. Under Lima and Ciancimino, Palermo experienced a construction boom with over four thousand building permits issued between 1959 and 1963. Remarkably, eighty percent of these permits were granted to inexperienced intermediaries, funneling substantial bribes to the Mafia. Leggio quickly realized that Ciancimino was not swayed by intimidation.
So he entrusted Bernardo Provenzano with building a working relationship with him. To gain a foothold in Palermo, Leggio knew he needed alliances with the dominant Mafia bosses. Among them was the influential Stefano Bontate, head of the largest clan in Palermo. Bontate, one of the first to use acid to dispose of bodies, despised the Corleonesi and mocked their rural origins.
Nevertheless, Leggio managed to expand his operations beyond the meat market he had dominated for years, extending into activities such as the grain market, snooker tables, and pinball machines. This diversification made Leggio wealthy, and those in his inner circle prospered with him. One of Leggio’s first strategic moves was to ally with the Greco brothers, a prominent family from the coastal village of Ciaculli east of Palermo. Together, they sought to challenge the dominant La Barbera clan for control of the city’s lucrative real estate boom.
Salvatore La Barbera, boss of central Palermo, wielded significant power and influence, particularly in a district that had become a prime destination for developers. He also had a close relationship with the mayor, Salvo Lima. But Leggio soon found himself embroiled in this power struggle, which escalated into a full-scale war involving all of Palermo’s Mafia families. The murder of Salvatore La Barbera in 1963 intensified the conflict, as his brother demanded answers from the other bosses but was met with silence and denial.
The war reached its horrific peak with the Ciaculli massacre, in which a car bomb killed seven police officers. An Alfa Romeo Giulietta was found near the villa of Mafia boss Salvatore Greco in Ciaculli after a tip-off. They found a crude explosive device in the back seat they believed had been defused. However, when an officer opened the trunk during an inspection, the bomb exploded, causing a massive blast.
The Ciaculli bombing marked a critical turning point, bringing the full force of the law down on the Mafia and ending years of relative impunity. Public outrage over the police deaths led to the creation of Italy’s first anti-Mafia commission, which began a sweeping investigation into Mafia operations. This campaign resulted in nearly two thousand arrests. The bombing also exposed the deceptive role of Michele Cavataio in the Mafia war, revealing his twisted tactics to other clans.
According to Tommaso Buscetta, the Mafia commission was dissolved, and Cosa Nostra leaders agreed to suspend all activities until the intense government scrutiny subsided. During this period, Leggio’s deteriorating health made him an increasingly vulnerable figure. In the fall of 1963, he narrowly escaped arrest after an informant revealed he was suffering from spinal tuberculosis and receiving treatment at a Palermo hospital under a false identity. However, Carabinieri Colonel Ignazio Melo misidentified the hospital, allowing Leggio to escape.
In December 1963, Riina was arrested. Thanks to Carabinieri investigations, it was discovered that Leggio’s hideout was the home of Leo Lucchina, rumored to be the lover of Placido Rizzotto, the unionist Leggio himself had killed in 1948. On the evening of May 14, 1964, the new police chief of Corleone, Angelo Mangano, arrested Leggio. The legend that Leo Lucchina was Rizzotto’s lover or fiancée was not in fact true; nearly sixty years later, she stated she had actually been engaged to Pasquale Criscione, one of the men acquitted of Rizzotto’s murder.
In 1966, Cesare Terranova attempted to interrogate Leggio, but he refused, pretending not to remember even his own name or his parents’ names. Three years later, in 1969, Terranova brought Leggio and sixty-three other Mafiosi to trial. Despite facing serious charges, including nine murders, and suffering from poor health, Leggio made sure to attend court sessions regularly, often appearing on crutches or lying on a stretcher. The prosecution’s two main witnesses faced significant difficulties.
One suffered a nervous breakdown diagnosed as an acute psychological reaction caused by fear. The other, a barber, fell silent during his testimony and later claimed he knew nothing. Meanwhile, judges and prosecutors received anonymous threats. When the verdict was announced, all sixty-four defendants were acquitted, with the judges citing insufficient evidence for conviction on charges of criminal conspiracy or murder.
The court also ruled that Leggio’s physical condition made it unlikely he had directly participated in the murders. Instead, he was convicted only of an old grain theft and received a suspended sentence. By late 1969, Mafia bosses believed they had identified the mastermind behind the First Mafia War and the deadly car bomb: Michele “the Cobra” Cavataio, a notorious boss and building contractor. His reputation for treachery earned him this nickname, which also referred to the famous Cobra pistol he always carried.
In an attempt to escape trouble, Michele Cavataio claimed he had drawn a map, a map detailing Palermo’s Mafia families and their members, a claim that could be dangerous given the Mafia’s secrecy. On December 10, 1969, six Mafiosi dressed as police stormed a real estate office on Via Lazio in Palermo. Inside were Michele Cavataio and his men. The raiders succeeded in killing Cavataio.
However, he managed to return fire, killing one of the attackers, Calogero Bagarella. As Tommaso Buscetta later revealed to Giovanni Falcone, this assassination was a clear sign that the killing had the approval of all the major Sicilian families. The hit squad included not only Bagarella from Corleone but also soldiers from the families of Giuseppe Di Cristina and Bernardo Provenzano. This event earned Provenzano the nickname “Il Trattore,” or the tractor, because like a tractor, he crushed everything to pieces, and wherever he passed, grass no longer grew.
The Corleonesi exploited their newly acquired notoriety to ingratiate themselves with Palermo’s Mafia bosses. They soon found an ally in Gaetano Badalamenti. Both Riina and Provenzano served as loyal enforcers for Badalamenti. Even when Badalamenti was imprisoned, he maintained his influence, sending orders to Riina through intermediaries.
After Cavataio’s murder led to police raids in Palermo, Badalamenti advised Leggio to take refuge in Catania on Sicily’s east coast near Mount Etna. Leggio was hosted by Antonio Calderone, whose brother Giuseppe “Beppo” Calderone was the local Mafia boss in Catania. Buscetta explained that the assassination of Michele Cavataio marked the beginning of a new phase for Cosa Nostra, which was managed during its reorganization by a ruling triumvirate. This three-man council consisted of Gaetano Badalamenti, Stefano Bontate, and Totò Riina, who acted on Leggio’s behalf while he remained in Catania.
The Corleonesi now appeared on equal footing with two of Palermo’s most influential bosses. Despite their new status, they were financially strained and had not yet exploited the lucrative drug trade that was generating enormous wealth for the rest of the Mafia. Coveting profit, Bontate was among the pioneers of the drug trade in Sicily. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bontate and his partners controlled heroin trafficking, running refineries in Sicily to supply the American market.
In the early 1970s, Leggio left his villa on the slopes of Mount Etna and moved to Milan. True to his cruel nature, he ordered the killing of Damiano Caruso, a fellow Mafioso who had dared to murder a young soldier Leggio had taken under his wing. With Leggio now in Milan, Riina quickly became the Corleonesi’s main representative in Palermo. Although still technically under Leggio’s command, the more reserved and calculating Riina began to establish a strong foothold in the city, expanding his influence by forming new alliances with Mafia across Sicily, often without the approval or even knowledge of clan leaders.
With Provenzano at his side, Riina increasingly took control of the Corleonesi’s strategy, gradually marginalizing Leggio. Bontate contemptuously referred to Riina as a “Corleone peasant,” underestimating his growing power. As tensions among the triumvirate made meetings nearly impossible, the clans replaced it in the early 1970s with a broader commission of more than a dozen bosses to oversee Palermo and the surrounding areas. Led by Gaetano Badalamenti, this new commission pledged to uphold the traditional rules of Cosa Nostra, a move that angered Leggio.
In response, Leggio stormed out of one of its first meetings. However, Riina secured a seat on the commission, alternating with Provenzano every two years. In 1973, Leonardo Vitale, the first Mafioso to break the code of silence, omertà, since World War II, provided investigators with invaluable information about the Mafia’s inner workings and the rise of the Corleonesi. Vitale, who had personal knowledge of Riina, was the first to describe him as one of the most powerful Mafia bosses.
He detailed Riina’s political connections, identified numerous Mafiosi, and revealed a conspiracy to assassinate Judge Terranova. His testimony was significant because it proved the Mafia was active at a time when many experts believed it did not exist. Leggio was finally arrested in Milan on May 16, 1974. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975, he is believed to have retained significant influence over the Corleonesi from behind bars.
What Leggio left behind were Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, dubbed the beasts for their ferocity; they were the two most dangerous men under his command. On November 15, 1993, Luciano Leggio suffered a heart attack and died at the age of sixty-eight.