Corleone votes to expel mafia boss son due to 'reputational damage'

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The town of Corleone, in Sicily, Italy, immortalized as a mafia town by The Godfather trilogy, has urged the "swift removal" of Giuseppe Salvatore Riina, also known as Salvuccio, from the town as his presence threatened "reputational damage" to the town, given that he's a convicted mafioso.

Salvuccio, the son of one of Italy's most feared mafia heads, Salvatore “Totò” Riina, nicknamed the Beast, returned to Corleone earlier in April after he had been convicted and imprisoned for nearly nine years on charges of extortion, money laundering, and mafia association.

Corleone's local authorities voted, weeks after Salvuccio's return, in favor of a resolution demanding that he be removed from the town noting, in a statement, that “the reputational damage that the Riina family has caused to the city is serious and difficult to recover.”

The resolution noted, “We want to send a loud and clear message once again: Corleone wants to leave behind its mafia past [behind], even by pushing away unwelcome fellow citizens, such as Salvuccio Riina who has never distanced himself from the despicable crimes of his father, Totò.”

Law enforcement officials were informed of the resolution, but it remained up to the magistrates in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, to decide whether to have Salvuccio expelled.

Salvuccio, who was found guilty of mafia participation in 2004 and resided in northern Italy before coming home last month, published a book in 2016 called Riina Family Life, which caused controversy in the nation. After it was published, notices at store displays, from Sicily to Milan, advised buyers that the book wasn't being sold at the store.

Italy catches most wanted Mafia boss ending a 30-year manhunt

Italian police, earlier in January, arrested one of the Sicilian Mafia's most well-known bosses, Matteo Messina Denaro, a cold-hearted operator who has been hiding for 30 years.  

The 60-year-old was caught after a visit to a health clinic in the Sicilian capital Palermo where he was getting treatment. Messina Denaro surrendered without dispute, according to officials.  

Reports say that the man who once boasted that he could "fill a cemetery" with his victims, had been a leading figure in Cosa Nostra, the real-life Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in the Godfather movies.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni headed to Palermo to congratulate officials in person for the "major blow for organized crime".  

The mobster was believed to have been undergoing periodic treatment for colon cancer, and was using a false ID.  

When he was arrested, he was not armed, as per the prosecutors, and he seemed to be in good health, dressed well with luxury accessories, including a watch that officials valued at up to 35,000 euros ($37,872).

Messina Denaro's convictions included a life sentence given in absentia in 2020 for the 1992 murder of anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone.

Despite his fugitive status, he had been an "operative boss", with "contacts and economic resources", Chief prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia confirmed, warning that Cosa Nostra "has never been the exclusive property of Messina Denaro".  

"Obviously the mafia is not defeated, and the biggest mistake to make would be to think that the game is over," he said.  

"Because the game is not over." 

Read more: EU Press freedom: Italy's PM takes anti-Mafia journalist to trial