The Secret of the Greco Family (El Secreto de la Familia Greco), is a Mexican crime drama series inspired by real events and based on the Argentinian miniseries Historia de un clan. There are 9 episodes in total with a runtime of about 45-60 minutes. The show is filmed between Argentina and Mexico and is directed by Alejandro Ciancio.

It is created by Luis and Sebastián Ortega, along with executive producer Pablo Culell. Starring Fernando Colunga, Lisa Owen, Manuel Masalva, Luis Machín, Rafael Ferro, Alejandro de Hoyos, Samantha Siqueiros, Roberta Damián, Antonio de la Vega, Delfina Chaves, Celina Font, Eliseo Barrionuevo, Guadalupe Docampo, Junior Pisanu, Ernesto Claudio, Juan Sorini, Iván Espeche, Camila Flamenco and Carola Reyna.

The official synopsis of the series reads, “A seemingly perfect Family secretly kidnaps wealthy people for ransom in order to maintain their high standard of living and social status. Based on a true story.” The story focuses on the Greco family members, who under the facade of being a traditional family hide a clan of criminals who kidnap, torture and murder their victims if they do not get the ransom they ask for.

The Secret of the Greco Family is Based On?

The Netflix series is actually based on the Puccio family from Argentina, between 1982 and 1985, Arquimedes Puccio, with the help of two of his sons and three acquaintances, kidnapped four people and killed three of them. While in the show, it is shown that the family consisted of only four children – 2 boys & 2 girls. The real family had one more son, who was never caught and his whereabouts are unknown.

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The real family comprised father Arquímedes Puccio, mother Epifanía Calvo, and five children (three sons and two daughters) – Alejandro, Silvia, Daniel, Guillermo, and Adriana Puccio. They lived in a large house in San Isidro, a wealthy suburb of Buenos Aires. It is believed that Arquímedes helped the secret service kidnap people during the dictatorship when tens of thousands of those suspected of opposing the military were abducted.

Taking inspiration from their methods, he eventually started to work independently, choosing wealthy victims to kidnap for ransom. The Puccios including the father and two sons – Alejandro and Daniel, had at least three other male accomplices: Roberto Oscar Díaz, Guillermo Fernández Laborda and Rodolfo Victoriano Franco.

Their first victim was named Ricardo Manoukian, who disappeared on July 22, 1982. Manoukian’s family paid a ransom of $250,000 but nevertheless, he was later killed with three shots to the neck. He had been introduced to Alejandro Puccio by friends in his neighbourhood, and the two often played tennis and football together.

The second victim was Engineer Eduardo Aulet, who was kidnapped on May 5, 1983. Although his family paid $150,000 for his ransom, the Puccios killed him and buried his body, which was found four years later. The third target Businessman Emilio Naum died in a struggle with members of the clan as they were trying to abduct him in June of 1984.

Businesswoman Bollini de Prado was the only one who survived after police grew suspicious and raided the Puccio home. She was the family’s last victim and was kidnapped and held for almost a month. The police detained the kidnappers as the latter attempted to retrieve the ransom on 23 August 1985. And arrested all the members from the house in the raid, as shown in the show.

However, there’s a slight difference in the ending, as the polo player, Alejandro did try to kill himself by jumping off the building floor, but he didn’t try to kill himself again and in 2007, he was paroled. A year later, he died of pneumonia at the age of 49. In 2011, Silvia, the second eldest child who taught art locally, died of cancer. And in 2013, Arquímedes died of a stroke, still proclaiming his innocence.

The Secret of the Greco Family is currently streaming on Netflix.

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