libero

grassi

"I wanted to warn our unknown extortionist that we are not willing to give in to demands and have placed ourselves under police protection."

(from a letter published in Giornale di Sicilia, January 10, 1991)

"I'm not crazy: I just don't like paying. It's a renunciation of my dignity as an entrepreneur."

Libero Grassi was a businessman in Palermo who manufactured women’s underwear and employed several workers. With radical political views, he had joined the Italian Republican Party. In the early 1980s, he became a target of Cosa Nostra, which demanded the payment of pizzo (extortion money). This form of extortion was (and still is) widespread, carried out in various ways by organized crime against countless Sicilian business owners.

Libero Grassi had the courage to resist these demands. He came out into the open and took a public stand: in January 1991, the Giornale di Sicilia published a letter from him in which he declared his refusal to give in to the Mafia’s threats. On April 11 of the same year, he appeared on Samarcanda, a talk show hosted by Michele Santoro on Rai Tre, where he explained his position.

After the interview, Sicindustria (the local branch of the national employers' association) distanced itself from him. The loneliness of his battle became painfully clear when he learned of a decision by a Catania judge who ruled that paying Mafia "protection" money was not a crime.

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s.

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s.

By then vulnerable, he became an easy target for the Mafia. On the morning of August 29, 1991, while walking to his car on the way to his factory—without personal protection, which he had declined—he was killed with four gunshots. The perpetrators and masterminds were later identified: the trigger was pulled by Salvino Madonia, son of the Resuttana boss, following an order from the entire Mafia Commission (Cupola).

Just a few months after Libero Grassi’s murder, the Italian government issued Decree-Law No. 419, later converted into Law No. 172/1992, which established a Solidarity Fund for victims of extortion and usury.

However, Libero Grassi’s legacy began to take root: since then, many extortion demands have been reported, with the growing belief that refusing to pay pizzo not only means rejecting the grip of organized crime and stripping it of legitimacy, but also choosing to live in freedom.