The man referred to as the "Deadliest Mafia Hitman To Ever Live", Sicilian Mafioso Giuseppe Greco ~

The man referred to as the "Deadliest Mafia Hitman To Ever Live", Sicilian Mafioso Giuseppe Greco ~

Though he died in 1985, the name “Giuseppe Greco” strikes fear into the hearts of Sicilians to this very day. As one of the most brutal enforcers of the Sicilian Mafia, Greco went above and beyond the proverbial call of duty. More than just a hitman, Greco is considered one of the most One method of torture reported during the war involved the force-feeding of uncooked rice to prisoners, followed by the pumping of water into their stomachs. The intent was indeed to cause  serial killers in Sicilian history — indeed, in the world.

Many people often debate who the greatest mafia hitman ever was, ..and despite a body count north of 300, Greco remains relatively unknown by American mob enthusiasts. That's most likely because he was doing his damage on a different continent. Greco was born on January 4, 1952, in Ciaculli, a town in the province of Palermo. Greco had a solid mafia pedigree being born into a heavily active mafia family. His father was himself also a hitman. He was nicknamed "Scarpa", an Italian word meaning "shoe". As such, the younger Greco would be given a nickname based on his father's: "Scarpuzzedda", meaning "little shoe". At school, Greco was considered a talented student by his teachers and peers, for his extreme knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages. When Greco was old enough, he followed in his father's footsteps and eventually joined the Sicilian Mafia. He started off as a driver for Kalsa boss Tommaso Spadaro, whose nephew was Giuseppe Lucchese, who would go on to become Greco's best friend and accomplice in many murders, and ironically he was also Greco's executioner. Giuseppe was affiliated to the Ciaculli mafia clan, in which his uncle, Michele Greco aka "the Pope", was the boss. So like many of mafioso before him and after, Giuseppe was born into a mafia family and environment, so his path was already set for him. Little did anyone know at the time, Giuseppe was ripe for the challenge and made for this life. 

Greco would find his footing in the mafia as a hitman. It was apparent the young man found his calling because Giuseppe was highly effective, eliminating every target given to him by his bosses. By 1979, Giuseppe Greco had increased his influence and power considerably and he sat on the Sicilian Mafia Commission alongside his uncle and boss Michele Greco, who by that point began controlling the entire Ciaculli-Croceverde Giardini-Brancaccio clans. This was an unusual arrangement as, with the exception of the Corleone family, only one boss was normally allowed to be on the Commission for each family.  The Ciaculli were allied with the Corleonesi and their bosses, Salvatore Riina, and Bernardo Provenzano. Together, the two clans formed a formidable force in Sicily. Unfortunately for the opposing mafia clans, their ambition was only matched by their aggression, forming a cocktail of destruction and chaos destroying everybody and everything in the wake of their rise to becoming the ultimate mafia power in Sicily.

 

Giuseppe's appetite for murder was on full display as the young hitman would come into his own during the Second Mafia War. From 1981 until 1983, Giuseppe Greco carried out scores of murders, often with his favourite weapon, an AK-47. When Riina would bark, it was Greco who bit. Greco performed countless hits on behalf of Riina and his uncle. Toto Riina was possibly the most blood thirsty mafia boss to ever live. Because of that terrifying quality, Giuseppe's body count would rapidly increase.

In 1981, the Commission formed what would become known as the "Death Squad", kind of like their version of "Murder Inc", ..which was led by none other than Giuseppe Greco. Known throughout Sicily for being a crack shot with an AK-47, Greco — often on the orders of Riina, though he also took orders from his uncle — led a squad of hitters that included Giuseppe Lucchese, Mario Prestifilippo, and Giuseppe Marchese. An archive of the Italian Parliament details the Death Squad’s activities. Between 1981 and 1983, only a 3-year span, at least 400 people died at the hands of the Mafia in Palermo alone, and at least another 400 more died throughout Sicily at the orders of the Commission. Giuseppe Greco is credited with over 80 confirmed kills while leading his band of vicious killers, although authorities believe he's responsible for over 300 murders during his very short but illustrious mafia career— making him one of the most prolific killers in history.

Among the many notorious hits Greco carried out, perhaps most shocking was the killing of Palermo mafia heavyweight Salvatore Inzerillo. In 1980, after Inzerillo crossed the Corleonisi, Giuseppe Greco was once again called upon and swung into action. He gunned Inzerillo down in the driveway of a mistress, tearing his body apart with AK-47 fire. And when Greco got word that Inzerillo’s 15-year-old son had vowed vengeance, he kidnapped the boy and hacked off his shooting arm. He eventually shot him in the head and dissolved his corpse in acid for good measure. Greco became notorious for either garrotting his victims or riddling them with rounds from his trademark AK-47, and then disposing of bodies with barrels of acid or even hungry pigs.

The Second Mafia War differed from the first in that the Riina-led Corleonesi specifically declared war on the Italian state. Prior to Riina, the Mafia only killed authority figures as a last resort — but thanks to Riina’s influence, it remains a common tactic to this day. Greco didn't seem to care who he was ordered to kill. Most of his victims were fellow criminals, but he wouldn't hesitate to kill just about anyone despite their position or status in society. The majority of  Greco's victims were killed during the Second Mafia War, which technically began in 1978 and intensified between 1981 and 1983 with more than 1,000 homicides, as rival clans fought against each other and against the state, with judges, prosecutors and politicians prominent in the fight against organised crime, with themselves often becoming targets. Unlike the mafia in America, Riina set a new precedent in Sicily by ordering the deaths of non-mafiosos, such as judges, prosecutors, journalists, politicians and many enemy family members. The majority of them taken out by Greco's hand.

Greco carried out Riina's reign of terror, working closely in particular with Filippo Marchese, a notorious Corleonesi hitman who would bring his victims to a shack he nicknamed the "Room of Death", located in a wasteland far away from the city, where he would torture and kill them. Greco would participate in some of the torture and murder sessions, for no reason other than the thrill of it. Many victims would be lured to this place where they would be brutally tortured for an extended period of time and then murdered before being thrown into vats of acid or dismembered then dumped out in the Mediterranean. Greco helped Marchese carry out many killings there. They even developed a tag-team technique where he and Marchese would garot victims together, looping a length of rope round the victim's neck and each of them pulling on one end strangling the victim to death.

In November 1982, Greco and Marchese invited another prominent member of the Sicilian Mafia, Rosario Riccobono, who had recently lost Riina's trust, and eight of his men to a barbecue at Michele Greco's state. Riccobono was personally strangled by Greco, and his men were massacred by both Greco and Marchese. After killing Riccobono, Greco proceeded to murder even more of his men and his entire family, simply because Riccobono was not "useful" anymore for the Sicilian Mafia. Ironically, Greco's next victim would be Marchese, who Riina perceived as becoming too powerful. Giuseppe now found himself killing allies. Nevertheless, the loyal mafioso followed orders.

Incredibly Giuseppe participated in three so-called "massacres". He participated in the so-called "Christmas Massacre" when, on the afternoon of December 25, 1981, in Bagheria, three Mafiosi, including Giovanni Di Peri, the boss of Villabate were gunned down. In the summer of 1982 he also participated in the "Circonvallazione massacre" and in the "Via Carini massacre" where defector Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, his wife, and several others were shredded with an AK-47 courtesy of Greco.

At that point, Greco was considered the underboss of the Ciaculli. Despite this, Greco continued to murder his targets by himself rather than delegate murders to his underlings. On July 29, 1983, he and Nino Madonia parked a Fiat 126 loaded with explosives that exploded and killed magistrate Rocco Chinnici and three other people. Though most of Greco's victims were contract killings, he also took delight in torturing and murdering random people when he had the chance, for no apparent reason other than the thrill of it, and also assassinating ex-mafia members and police officers, again for no apparent reason. After killing his targets, he would also kill their families. Greco had a variety of ways to kill his victims, though he heavily favored the AK-47 assault rifle as his favorite method. He also strangled, garrotted, hacked, stabbed, bludgeoned, and bombed victims. Although Greco had his own squad of hitmen, they rarely killed his targets for him, but often worked together to eliminate their targets. In order to dispose of his victims' bodies, Greco would throw them into acid vats or give them to pigs for consumption. Though he rarely committed himself to it, Greco also participated in acts of terrorism to maintain his power and position.

With the end of the Second Mafia War, Greco was one of the most prominent of the new generation of Mafiosi who had distinguished themselves in the Second Mafia War, and reportedly began to act as the actual boss of the Ciaculli family, while his uncle went into hiding. He had also built up a following of younger Mafiosi who looked up to him, even more so than they did to the Corleonesi bosses. This bothered Toto Riina. In order to reduce the strength of the Ciaculli family and Greco's position, Riina ordered the massacre of Piazza Scaffa, resulting in the death of eight people in the Ciaculli clan. The event showed Greco's lack of effective power over his own territory.

In early 1985, Greco gunned down Stefano Bontade and Pio LaTorre. One of his last crimes was leading a large hit-squad that ambushed and shot to death police investigator Antonino Cassarà and his bodyguard on August 6, 1985. Three years earlier, Cassarà had issued a report leading to the arrest of 163 prominent Mafiosi, including Giuseppe Greco, the members of his death squad, and Michele Greco. 

In the end, even Giuseppe Greco also proved disposable to Riina. In September 1985, Greco invited two supposed friends, fellow hitmen Vincenzo Puccio and Giuseppe Lucchese, into his villa outside Bagheria, which is about 12 miles east of Palermo, only for the pair to draw their weapons and shoot him to death. His body was never found and his death was not confirmed until 1989 by an informant, Francesco Marino Mannoia, whose brother had also been in Greco’s house at the time of the killing. Riina was concerned that Greco was becoming too ambitious and independent-minded for his liking. As a strategy to delay and weaken the reactions of Greco's followers, Riina ordered the body to be dissolved in acid whilst in the meantime he told other Mafiosi that Greco was in hiding somewhere in the United States. Despite the years of loyal service and the mountain of bodies he's killed for his boss, in the end Riina provided Scarpuzzedda the same end he had afforded his litany of victims, a dip in a vat of acid. He was 33.

Giuseppe Greco was given a life sentence in absentia as part of the Maxi Trial in 1987 after being found guilty of 58 counts of murder, even though he was dead by then. Italian authorities believe his number is significantly higher, as a majority of mafia homicides go unsolved. Of all the accomplished hitman in the history of the mafia ..worldwide ..there's little doubt that Giuseppe Greco has the most bodies out of all of them. Greco thrived in an environment where murder was as customary buying a cup of coffee. Despite his demise at the relatively young age of 33, Greco left a lasting legacy as the mafia's most prolific killer to ever walk the streets of Sicily, or anywhere else for that matter. Shortly after his death, Riina explained why he killed Greco to one of Greco's close friends, saying, "You know we've found the medicine for madmen? ...We've killed "Little Shoe", ..he'd become crazy."