A plot of Sicilian land that belonged to jailed 'boss of bosses' Salvatore 'Toto' Riina is to be turned into a farm tourism business run by the unemployed .
The land near the town of Corleone was confiscated from Riina after his arrest in 1993 .
Riina is known as 'the beast' for his ferocious crimes. He was the leading Mafia don who masterminded Cosa Nostra's bloody offensive against the state in the early 1990s .
The 130-hectare plot will be leased out to a cooperative of 15 unemployed people .
A special consortium set up by six town councils in the area and tasked with putting Mafia assets to the service of the community, 'Consorzio Legalita' e Sviluppo', will run the competition to decide the winning cooperative .
"This initiative is the jewel in the crown of a project that is being used as a model for the management of property confiscated from the Mafia in other parts of Italy," said Palermo Prefect Giosue' Marino .
Farm-tourism - or agritourism - establishments enable people to have a break on a working farm and try their hand at activities like making wine, cheese and honey, feeding the animals, helping with the harvest and riding on tractors .
They also offer guests the chance to discover the different Italian regions' culinary heritage, feasting on fresh home-grown goodies and traditional dishes. The sector is flourishing here .
Riina, 75, is currently serving 12 life sentences although he is believed to have killed dozens of people personally and ordered the murder of hundreds more .
His crimes include ordering the 1992 car-bombings that killed anti-Mob magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Corleone was Riina's notorious power base in the hills near Palermo where he bred the fierce new dominant Mafia of the '80s and '90s .
The Italian authorities have made a point of putting confiscated Mafia property to good use, preferably something involving public institutions, so as to symbolise the return of the state's control .
The luxury villa in Corleone where Riina once lived, for example, has been turned into the local headquarters of the tax police .
