Giovanni Riina, son of the super boss Totò, remains in 41 bis
The surveillance court of Rome has confirmed the harsh prison sentence for the son of the superboss Totò

by Editorial Staff

May 12, 2025

The surveillance court of Rome has confirmed the harsh prison sentence for Giovanni Riina, son of the superboss Totò, in prison since 1996, where he is serving a life sentence for three murders that took place in Corleone in 1995. The magistrates ruled negatively even though in December the Court of Cassation had annulled with referral a previous denial to revoke the so-called 41 bis: the supreme judges, partly accepting the defense's arguments, had asked to reevaluate the "current dangerousness", referring the provision to the Roman "surveillance".

Now, however, the court's judgment has not changed, on the basis of a series of considerations, relating to the connections, still existing, with the world outside the prisons and above all to the figure of Riina's second son, who has not yet turned fifty and has spent more than half of his life in prison.

Totò Riina died in 2017 but his image and his surname are still considered, in all mafia circles, a point of reference. In its negative opinion regarding the revocation, the National Anti-Mafia Directorate, represented by the prosecutor Franca Imbergamo, had highlighted some concrete elements, in particular the fact that the Riina family, although on paper without economic income, would continue to live without any problems of sustenance, given that from numerous exponents of the clans would come forms of support linked to the hidden management of a "large illicit patrimony accumulated over the years".

This is how Riina's widow, Ninetta Bagarella, and his sons Giovanni and Giuseppe Salvatore Riina (the latter free, after serving a sentence for mafia), would still receive "the proceeds that the mafia association collects on the territory". Giovanni Riina is also "an extremely dangerous person, whose ability to maintain connections with the criminal association has certainly not diminished", especially at a time when the mafia districts are repeatedly trying to form a new top of the organization, drawing inspiration from "the most consolidated historical traditions of the criminal association", given that "the exercise of power always responds to organizational canons".