SAN ANDREAS
PAUL GRUMO, ALLEGED BOSS OF LOS SANTOS CRIME FAMILY, DIES AT 63
Booking photo of Paul Grumo following his arrest in 2021. (Los Santos Police Department)
BY HAROLD DALEY
Dec. 10 Updated 9:01AM PT
LOS SANTOS — Paul Grumo, the alleged boss of the Los Santos crime family, was found dead in his Palomino Creek home Sunday morning.
The 63-year-old died suddenly in his sleep, and authorities stated it is too early to comment on whether or not foul play factored into the death.
Born and raised in Tampa, Grumo is believed to have got his start in organized crime working for the Valenti crime family’s long-time Florida-based caporegime Frank D’Armi as a bookmaker in the late 1980s.
Grumo moved to Los Santos in 2013 when the Valenti family was in a state of turmoil with much of its upper echelon behind bars or on trial and deadly power struggles decimating the family further. Grumo has been linked to notorious Mafia bigwigs from Santino “The Butcher” Valenti’s inner circle such as the now-imprisoned Samuel “The Beak” Beccarini and Donald Rigazzi, who currently resides in Tampa.
Grumo was released from prison in 2009 after serving a 5 year sentence for aggravated assault, but otherwise managed to stay under the radar of law-enforcement and out of the public eye for much of his criminal career, until rising to the top of the Valenti crime family in recent years. Grumo faced a lengthy trial before eventually being acquitted of money laundering charges last year.
In stark contrast to Sonny Valenti—who through his bloody rise and high-profile trials became a celebrity and embraced a life of luxury, often seen wearing expensive suits, driving flashy sports cars, and lived in a Richman Hills mansion—Grumo largely managed to avoid headlines and exhibited a more humble lifestyle.
Mafia pundits point to Grumo as being a key figure in the rebuilding of the Valenti crime family, ushering in an era of stability for an organization that had been in constant turmoil since the 2011 conviction of its original boss Sonny Valenti. The Valenti family, once thought to be completely defunct, began making significant inroads and a resurgence in the Los Santos underworld in 2018 and beyond, which came to the surface with their bloody feud with the renegade Bellantonio crime family in 2019 and 2020.
Since then, there has been no violence linked to the Valenti family. Authorities believe that the rival organizations negotiated a peace treaty and cut all business ties, through the help of mediation from Bonanno family bigwig Joseph “The Barber” Uttaro.
The impact Grumo’s death may have on the landscape of the Valenti family and Los Santos underworld remains to be seen. Some believe that Sonny Valenti still holds the top seat in the family from behind bars, but his level of influence in the family’s modern state of affairs is largely unknown. The Butcher’s earliest possible release date is 2036.
