Because family is at the heart of the Mafia
There were three men named Marino, on both sides of the Leggio-Navarra war in Corleone. One is related to two Mafia bosses. In my first post on the relations among defendants at the 1969 Corleonesi trial, I focused on the Leggio-Riina connections. Another set of defendants with a common surname are the Marinos, whose paternal... Continue Reading →
Mafia leadership for the past hundred years in Corleone have all been related to one another, through blood and marriage. Cattle theft in Sicily, before the twentieth century, was like car theft today, in that it was a crime that required a village. A thief who takes a car needs a network of criminals to... Continue Reading →
In 1958, Luciano Leggio started a mafia war that lasted five years, and killed more than fifty people, starting with Dr. Michele Navarra, the former boss in Corleone. The victory was short lived, as police swept up dozens of mafiosi from Corleone and Palermo in the early 1960s. Three major trials were held in mainland Italian... Continue Reading →
Dr. Michele Navarra and his successor, Luciano Leggio, dominated the Corleonesi Mafia after World War II. A few months before Domenico Liggio married, in the summer of 1834, he lived with his widowed mother and an older brother, Salvatore, near the ancient Ospedale dei Bianchi in Corleone: the same hospital Dr. Michele Navarra would run,... Continue Reading →
Mafia Genealogy 