Mario Prestifilippo was born on December 7, 1958, in Sicily. Raised in a region long dominated by the Mafia, Prestifilippo was drawn into organized crime at a young age. By the early 1980s, he had become a trusted enforcer and hitman for the Ciaculli Mafia Family, which was increasingly influenced and controlled by the Corleonesi clan under Salvatore Riina. Prestifilippo rose rapidly through the Mafia’s ranks, developing a close friendship with notorious killer Giuseppe “Pino” Greco. He became known as a reliable and ruthless assassin, able to operate in the violent underworld of Palermo at the height of the Second Mafia War. His early criminal years were defined by loyalty to both Greco and the Corleonesi’s bloody campaign to eliminate rivals and seize control of Cosa Nostra.

During the Second Mafia War (1981–1984), Mario Prestifilippo was a prominent member of the Corleonesi’s feared “death squad.” He played a key role in multiple high-profile killings, including the infamous Circonvallazione massacre on June 16, 1982, which was part of a wave of violence that targeted rival Mafia families and their associates. After the murder of his friend and mentor, Pino Greco, in 1985, Prestifilippo briefly took command of the Ciaculli Mafia Family. However, he soon found himself at odds with the Corleonesi leadership, especially after protesting Greco’s execution—a rare act of dissent in a world where loyalty was enforced by violence.

By the late 1980s, Prestifilippo was a fugitive, wanted for dozens of suspected murders and being tried in absentia in the massive Maxi Trial against the Mafia. His resistance to the Corleonesi’s decisions made him a liability. On September 29, 1987, while moving between safe houses on his motorbike in Bagheria, Prestifilippo was ambushed and shot dead by two assassins armed with a shotgun and an AK-47. His killing was seen as a message to any Mafiosi who dared to question the ruthless authority of Riina and his allies. Prestifilippo’s death marked the end of another violent chapter in the history of the Sicilian Mafia, and he remains remembered as both a deadly hitman and a rare example of internal dissent in Cosa Nostra’s ranks.