Outsourced killers are executed after use because they become dangerous liabilities

Evidence

There is a natural tendency to assign delicate tasks to men with stable ties to the firm. Tommaso Buscetta claims that killers are never recruited on the market for a single job (TB: III, 138); they are always members of one kind or other. There are occasional examples of spies and killers drawn from among the easy-to-blackmail denizens of the criminal world; but these individuals risk disappearing soon after they have accomplished their task, as they become dangerous as well as expendable. Giuseppe Scozzari, a petty thief and drug dealer operating in Turin, went to Sicily on a murder assignment on behalf of a local boss, was wounded in action, and had to be rescued by his brother-in-law and brought back to Turin, where he vanished. His remains were found in a well in the countryside four years later (OSAG: 383-386). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 175

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Gambetta/Milgrom framework: the mafia minimizes information leakage and moral-hazard risk by keeping lethal tasks in-house rather than contracting on the open market. Also echoes Schelling on commitment — the expendable outsider is the hired gun with no stake in the relationship.
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the reader’s thesis in the ‘On Sacrifice’ article context — the expendable assassin mirrors the expendable sacrificial victim: used for a purpose, then eliminated once they’ve served.