The daughter of notorious Sicilian mob boss Totò Riina has begun selling coffee pods and olive oil in his memory, just weeks after his death.
An unrepentant antithesis to ethical coffee, the “Uncle Totò” capsules are named after the ferocious Corleone-based godfather responsible for dozens of murders who once ordered a 13-year-old boy to be strangled and dissolved in acid.
Salvatore “Totò” Riina, the Sicilian "boss of all bosses" also known as “The Beast,” died late last month at age 87 of cancer while serving 26 life sentences.
The roses had barely wilted on his tomb in the hilltop town of Corleone before his daughter, Maria Concetta Riina and her husband Antonino Ciavarello, opened “Zu Toto” online web shop offering pre-sales of coffee pods.
The move was swiftly blocked by authorities Tuesday soon after after it went live, causing a stir across Italy.
"We want to sell some 'Zu Totò' brand products, we're starting with coffee pods, we're doing this pre-sale to get orders to get us going, seeing that they've seized everything from us without reason," the site said in its “about” section.
After the site was blocked, Maria Concetta Riina swiftly repeated the request on her Facebook page, adding that she and her husband will also be selling olive oil and reminding visitors "the lion is wounded but is not dead, it will soon rise up and keep fighting...as it has always done, always."
Totò Riina ordered dozens of murders during a bloody reign of terror against the Italian state and his rivals during the 1980s and 1990s. His crimes including involvement in the assassinations of anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino 25 years ago, as well as the prefect of Palermo in 1982 and the Sicilian governor Piersanti Mattarella, brother of current Italian president Sergio Mattarella.
Showing the new generation of Cosa Nostra's social savvy, the day after his death Riina's daughter changed her Facebook profile to a black rose and posted a cover photo of a woman’s lips covered by a finger with “shhh” tattooed on the front, considered widely to be a message urging loyalty and silence.
Her husband, Tony Ciavarello, a former Trombone player, is currently under house arrest for fraud-related charges. With more male bosses now going to prison, the daughters, sisters and wives of mafiosi are increasingly rising through the ranks of the traditionally male-dominated clans in Sicily and Calabria. On Tuesday, Maria Angela Di Trapani, the daughter of a mob boss and wife of a notorious mafioso, was among 25 arrested in a bust of a Palermo crime family she is accused of heading.