Ascent To Power
Leggio soon began to build his own faction of mobsters loyal to him alone, including Riina and Provenzano, and in 1956 the Leggio faction went to war with Navarra and his followers. One evening in June 1958 Leggio was walking across a field when some of Navarra's men opened fire on him. He escaped with just a slight injury to his hand.
A couple of months later, on August 2, Leggio, Riina, Provenzano and a number of other gunmen set up an ambush just outside Corleone. Michele Navarra soon drove round the corner and the gunmen opened fire, riddling the car with two-hundred bullets. Navarra died instantly along with a friend (unconnected with the Mafia); he was giving a lift to Lercara Friddi. Leggio proclaimed himself boss of Corleone and over the next five years he and his men hunted down and killed around fifty more of Navarra's remaining supporters.
Leggio and his faction emerged victorious, and he eventually took his place on the Sicilian Mafia Commission. However, the increase in violence in Corleone, coupled with the Ciaculli massacre in Palermo relating to a separate Mafia War, had inspired a crackdown against the Mafia in 1963, meaning Leggio and his associates had to go into hiding.
Read more about this topic: Luciano Leggio
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