Sicilian town angry over mafia son’s social media post

A son of an alleged Cosa Nostra mafia leader has sparked outrage in the Sicilian town of Corleone after posting a message on social media that was seen as a “despicable attack” on the Italian government.

On Ferragosto, a national holiday in Italy commemorated on August 15, “Salvuccio” Giuseppe Salvatore Riina, one of the sons of Salvatore “Totò” Riina, wished his followers on social media a “happy holiday” from “via Scorsone 24, Corleone, Italy”.

The Riina family lived in this place for many years, but in 2018 the street was renamed Via Terranova in honor of the anti-mafia judge Cesare Terranova, who was murdered in 1979 in an attack by Corleone mafia boss Luciano Liggio.

The Interior Ministry officials responsible for Corleone, as revealed in the book and film trilogy The Godfather, authorized the name change when the city government was dissolved due to Mafia involvement.

Walter Rà, the mayor of Corleone who was elected in June, called the act “cowardly” and insisted that the town had moved on from its terrible past and would not be intimidated. “We will not allow it,” he told Italian media. “We have turned the page here, no one will let us go back.”

Salvuccio Riina later edited the post to remove the reference to “via Scorsone”.

Totò Riina, nicknamed “the Beast”, is said to have ordered around 150 murders, including the death of a 13-year-old child by being dissolved in acid. He also ordered the killings of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. Riina died in prison in 2017.

Salvuccio, his third son, returned to Corleone in 2023 after serving nearly nine years in prison for mafia membership, money laundering and extortion, and subsequently spent time in Veneto and Abruzzo under a social plan. Corleone’s previous government wanted to remove him to protect the city’s image.

The city’s leaders have made it clear that they “resolutely distance themselves” from such comments and “condemn such bravado, which sounds like a despicable attack on the state and institutions.”

According to them, his statements “highlight a negative and distorted image of Corleone, and tarnish the efforts that the community makes every day to free itself from a reputation linked to the mafia and crime.”

In 2016, Salvuccio Riina wrote the controversial book Riina Family Life, which many bookstores refused to sell.

Totò Riina had three children: Maria Concetta, Giovanni Francesco and the youngest, Lucia. Giovanni Riina, a Cosa Nostra mafioso, was sentenced to life in prison in 1996. Lucia Riina founded Corleone, a restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, in 2019, but it closed a year later.