Salvatore Riina (Italian pronunciation: [salvaˈtoːre (toˈtɔ r)riˈiːna]; 16 November 1930 – 17 November 2017), called Totò (sicilian diminutive of Salvatore), was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s with the assassinations of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, resulting in widespread public outcry, legal change and a major crackdown by the authorities.

Riina succeeded Luciano Leggio as head of the Corleonesi criminal organisation in the mid-1970s and achieved dominance through a campaign of violence, which caused police to target his rivals.

Although this scorched-earth policy neutralized any internal threat to Riina's position, he increasingly showed a lack of his earlier guile by bringing his organisation into open confrontation with the state.

[3] The head of the Mafia family in Corleone was Michele Navarra until 6 August 1958, when he was shot dead by a trio of gunmen with submachine guns on the orders of Luciano Leggio, a ruthless 33-year-old Mafioso, who subsequently became the new boss.

[4] In the early 1960s, Leggio, Riina and Provenzano, who had spent the previous few years hunting down and killing dozens of Navarra's surviving supporters, were forced to go into hiding due to arrest warrants.

His compare d'anello (a kind of best man and trusted friend, typical of the Southern Italian tradition) at his wedding in 1974 was Domenico Tripodo, a powerful 'Ndrangheta boss and prolific cigarette smuggler.

Ciancimino, who was born in Corleone, corruptly allowed untrammelled property development on the well-known valley known as the "Golden Bowl" (Conca d'Oro), amassing a vast fortune in the process.

Lima granted a valuable monopoly concession on tax collection to Mafia businessman Ignazio Salvo, and was instrumental in Rome-based Giulio Andreotti becoming a force in national politics.

[16][17] Whereas his predecessors had kept a low profile, leading some in law enforcement to question the very existence of the Mafia, Riina ordered the murders of judges, policemen and prosecutors in an attempt to terrify the authorities.

However, not long after arriving, on the evening of 3 September 1982, he was gunned down in a drive-by in the city centre with his wife, Emanuela Setti Carraro, and his police escort, Domenico Russo.

[19] This was followed by the deaths of his brother Vincenzo, son-in-law Giuseppe Genova, brother-in-law Pietro and four of his nephews, Domenico and Benedetto Buscetta, and Orazio and Antonio D'Amico.

[26] Buscetta helped judges Falcone and Paolo Borsellino achieve significant success in the fight against organized crime that led to 475 Mafia members indicted, and 338 convicted in the Maxi Trial.

[27] In an attempt to divert investigative resources away from Buscetta's key revelations, Riina ordered a terrorist-style atrocity in the form of the 23 December 1984 Train 904 bombing; 17 people were killed and 267 wounded in the Apennine Base Tunnel.

[27] Riina pinned his hopes on the lengthy appeal process that had frequently set convicted mafiosi free, and he suspended the campaign of murders against officials while the cases went to higher courts.

When the convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court of Cassation On 30 January 1992,[29][30] the council of top bosses headed by Riina reacted by ordering the assassination of Salvatore Lima (on the grounds that he was an ally of Giulio Andreotti), and Giovanni Falcone.

Knowing Riina would order the death of subordinates whom he considered unreliable, Di Maggio fled Sicily in 1992 and collaborated with the Carabinieri police after he was arrested on 8 January 1993 in Novara.

On 14 January, the Carabinieri special operational squad, led by Captain Sergio De Caprio (nicknamed "capitano ultimo"), began the surveillance activity around the complex of villas in via Bernini, aboard a white mimetized van (nicknamed "balena"), the same evening De Caprio showed to Di Maggio the surveillance tape of that day, from which he recognized Riina's wife, Ninetta Bagarella, exiting with her kids on board a blue Volkswagen Golf driven by a bodyguard.

[5][40][41]After Riina's capture, numerous terror attacks were ordered as a warning to its members to not turn state's witness, and in response to the overruling of the Article 41-bis prison regime.

[42] On 14 May 1993, television host Maurizio Costanzo, who had expressed delight at the arrest of Riina, was almost killed by a bomb as he drove down a Rome street; 23 people were injured.

Less than a fortnight later, on 27 May, a bomb under the Florence Torre dei Pulci killed five people: Fabrizio Nencini and his wife Angelamaria; their daughters, nine-year-old Nadia and two-month-old Caterina; and Dario Capolicchio, aged 20.

Mori confirmed that channels of communication were opened with Cosa Nostra through Vito Ciancimino – a former mayor of Palermo convicted for Mafia association – who was close to the Corleonesi.

In 2006, the Palermo Court acquitted Mario Mori and Captain "Ultimo" (Sergio De Caprio [it]) – the man who arrested Riina – of the charge of consciously aiding and abetting the Mafia.

[47] According to an FBI memo revealed in 2007, leaders of the Five Families voted in late 1986 on whether to issue a contract for the death of then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Rudy Giuliani.

[48] Heads of the Lucchese, Bonanno, and Genovese families rejected the idea, though Colombo and Gambino leaders, Carmine Persico and John Gotti, encouraged assassination.

Riina allegedly was suspicious of Giuliani's efforts to prosecute the American Mafia and was worried that he might have spoken with Italian anti-mafia prosecutors and politicians, including Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were both murdered in 1992 in separate car bombings.

[87] On 31 December 2004, Riina's youngest son, Giuseppe, one of those taken into custody in June 2002, was sentenced to 14 years for various crimes, including Mafia association, extortion and money laundering.