Giovanni Inzerillo (born in Brooklyn, New York, April 30, 1972), is a construction entrepreneur and son of

Salvatore Inzerillo Salvatore Inzerillo (; 20 August 1944 – 11 May 1981) was an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio (a diminutive for Salvatore). He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family. A prolific heroin traffic ...

, a notorious Sicilian Mafia boss who was killed in May 1981 on the orders of Mafia boss Salvatore "Totò" Riina during the

Second Mafia War The Second Mafia War was a period of conflict involving the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place from 1981 to 1993. It involved thousands of homicides, the deadliest of which incident left 40 dead in 1987. Sometimes referred to as The Great Mafia ...

. After the

Corleonesi Mafia clan The Corleonesi Mafia clan was a faction within the Corleone family of the Sicilian Mafia, formed in the 1970s. Notable leaders included Luciano Leggio, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, and Leoluca Bagarella. Corleonesi affiliates wer ...

killed his father, they also murdered his 15-year-old brother, Giuseppe. Giuseppe had vowed to avenge his father, and not long afterwards he was kidnapped, tortured and killed. A number of informants, including

Tommaso Buscetta Tommaso Buscetta (; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was a high-ranking Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization. Buscetta p ...

, said that it was

Pino Greco Giuseppe Greco (; 4 January 1952 – September 1985) was an Italian hitman and high-ranking member of the Sicilian Mafia. A number of sources refer to him exclusively as Pino Greco, although ''Giuseppe'' was his Christian name; ''Pino'' is a fr ...

who abducted and shot him through the head, but first hacked his arm off, symbolically removing the arm the youngster had vowed to shoot Riina with.Shawcross & Young, ''Men of Honour'', p. 144.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', p. 305. When Totò Riina gave the instructions to exterminate the clan he made it quite clear: "Not even the pips must remain from the Inzerillo family"."Inzerillo, Nicchi and the Others: The Big Bosses jailed in New York"
''

la Repubblica (; English: "the Republic") is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper with an average circulation of 151,309 copies in May 2023. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and l ...

'', February 7, 2008. The Inzerillo family had been on the verge of total extermination by the Corleonesi. With the intervention of relatives in New York, including associates of the

Gambino crime family The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. ...

, a deal was worked out that allowed the surviving Inzerillos to take refuge in the U.S., with the agreement that none of them, or their offspring, could ever return to Sicily."Changes in Mafia Leadership Reveal New Links to US-Based La Cosa Nostra"
DNI Open Source Center, November 19, 2007. Many went to the New York area and joined forces with the Gambino family. They were dubbed "''gli scappati''" (the escapees).
''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'', November 5, 2007. Giovanni returned to Sicily in 2000. Officially he is a building constructor and lives in the same house his father lived in at 346 Via Castellana in the district of Palermo called Passo di Rigano. He was indicted and arrested on February 7, 2008, in

Operation Old Bridge Operation Old Bridge is the code name for the February 7, 2008 arrests in Italy and the United States that targeted the Gambino crime family; among the indicted were the reputed acting bosses Jackie D'Amico, Nicholas Corozzo and Joseph Corozzo ...

against the Gambinos in New York and their connections in Palermo, involved in drug trafficking."Dozens Arrested in Italy and US in Major Mafia-busting Operation"
''la Repubblica'', February 7, 2008.
''la Repubblica'', February 7, 2008.

References

*Shawcross, Tim & Martin Young (1987). ''Men of Honour: The Confessions of Tommaso Buscetta'', Glasgow: Collins . * Stille, Alexander (1995). ''Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic'', New York: Vintage .

External links

"Inzerillo jr, da 'scappato' a capomafia"
''la Repubblica'', Palermo, February 8, 2008.

''la Repubblica'', Palermo, June 3, 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Inzerillo, Giovanni 1972 births Living people Sicilian mafiosi American gangsters of Italian descent People of Sicilian descent Inzerillo-Gambino Mafia clan Italian exiles