Luciano Leggio

Lore & Background

Leggio was one of ten children raised in extreme poverty on a small farm. He turned to crime in his teens and received his first conviction at age 18 for stealing corn. After completing his six-month sentence, he murdered the man who had reported him to the police. In 1945, he was recruited by Mafia boss Michele Navarra to work as an enforcer and hitman. That same year, Leggio murdered a farm hand to take his job, then took over the farm at gunpoint. While in prison in the early 1950s, he met Salvatore Riina, then aged 19 and serving a six-year sentence for manslaughter; they later became accomplices, along with Calogero Bagarella and Bernardo Provenzano.

Reader's Guide

Leggio's significance lies in his transformation of the Corleone Mafia from a local faction into the dominant force in Sicily through the Corleonesi alliance. His ability to evade conviction for decades—through witness intimidation, evidence tampering, and acquittals in farcical trials—highlighted the Mafia's grip on the justice system. Even after receiving a life sentence in 1975, he retained influence from prison, commissioning murders such as that of Lieutenant Colonel Giuseppe Russo in 1977 and ordering the 1979 killing of Judge Cesare Terranova, though he was acquitted for lack of evidence. By the end of the 1970s, his lieutenant Salvatore Riina had taken control of the Corleonesi. Leggio died in prison from a heart attack in 1993, aged 68, and is buried in Corleone. His legacy is that of a ruthless strategist who reshaped the Mafia's power structure.

Did You Know?

• Leggio's surname is often spelled Liggio due to a misspelling in court documents in the 1960s.
• He was acquitted of four murders in the Maxi Trial of 1986/87, despite prosecutors alleging he masterminded them from prison.
• He ordered the 1979 murder of Judge Cesare Terranova as revenge for an insult during interrogation in the 1960s.
• Leggio suffered from Pott's disease most of his life and had to wear a brace.

From Lambrate to the Top

Francesco Turatello entered the world on April 4, 1944, in the small town of Asiago in the Veneto region, the son of a seamstress who had fled back to her hometown during the Second World War. Though some accounts suggest he was the biological child of Frank Coppola, a major drug trafficker with deep roots in the American Mafia, that claim is widely regarded as false; what is certain is that Coppola served as his godfather. In his earliest years, Turatello followed his mother to Milan, where he took up residence in the Lambrate district. As a young man he trained as an amateur boxer, and it was in that same neighborhood that he first entered the criminal underworld, beginning with petty car theft. His forceful personality and relentless drive carried him upward through the ranks until he stood at the helm of a gang composed largely of immigrants from Catania, Sicily. His striking appearance earned him the moniker Faccia d'Angelo, or Angel Face, a nickname that stuck throughout his years of power.

King of the Po Valley's Shadow Economy

At the height of his influence during the 1970s and into the early 1980s, Turatello's organization dominated the clandestine criminal economy of Milan and the broader Po Valley. The gang sought to monopolize every illicit racket operating within the city, including exclusive control over prostitution, and generated billions of lire in revenue. Robberies and kidnappings formed additional pillars of their operation, often carried out in coordination with the Banda dei Marsigliesi under Albert Bergamelli. His reach extended well beyond Milan's borders, making him the de facto boss of all illegal enterprises stretching across the Po Valley. His position was underpinned by deep ties to the Sicilian Mafia; Luciano Leggio, head of the Corleonesi faction, personally appointed Turatello to oversee the entire drug trade in the Milan region. He also maintained close alliances with the Nuova Camorra Organizzata led by Raffaele Cutolo and kept regular contact with Neapolitan Camorristi, weaving himself into a web of inter-regional criminal partnerships that made him one of the most connected figures in Italian organized crime.

The Vallanzasca War and Murky National Shadows

Turatello's name became inseparable from one of Milan's most violent criminal feuds, his bitter rivalry with Renato Vallanzasca. The two men and their respective gangs waged a bloody war that claimed numerous victims on both sides before both were eventually arrested for their roles in the conflict. In a striking turn, once behind bars the two former enemies reconciled and forged a genuine friendship; Turatello even stood as witness to Vallanzasca's marriage to Giuliana Brusa, a ceremony held inside the prison walls. Beyond his local turf, Turatello's name surfaced in connection with some of the darkest episodes of 1970s Italian history. He has been linked to the circumstances surrounding the abduction and murder of former prime minister Aldo Moro, as well as to criminal acts attributed to the Banda della Magliana operating out of Rome. These associations, whether as direct participant or peripheral contact, cemented his reputation as a figure who moved through the most dangerous corridors of Italian criminal and political life during a turbulent decade.

Sixty Stabs in the Sardinian Sun

After a prolonged period on the run, Turatello was finally apprehended in 1981 in Piazza Cordusio, Milan. He faced trial on an extensive list of charges and received a lengthy prison sentence. Even from behind bars he continued to direct his gang's operations and coordinate business affairs, but his authority was gradually eroded as his former right-hand man, Angelo Epaminonda, seized control of the organization. On August 17, 1981, during an open-yard exercise at the Badu 'e Carros high-security prison in Nuoro, Sardinia, Turatello was ambushed by four men: NCO hitman Pasquale Barra, Vincenzo Andraous, and the well-known Catania assassins Salvatore Maltese and Antonino Faro. Barra and Andraous pinned him down while Faro and Maltese drove knives into his body sixty times. Andraous was wounded in the chaos and later treated in the prison infirmary. The killing was carried out without the Sicilian Mafia's consent, an affront to the honor of Leggio and Coppola. The probable mastermind, Raffaele Cutolo, and the supposed death-sentence issuer, Carmela Provenzano, were never formally proven. Barra subsequently defected to become a pentito, as Epaminonda did after Turatello's death.