Sicilian Mafia

This article is about the Sicilian criminal society. For the American counterpart, see American Mafia. For other uses, see Sicilian Mafia (disambiguation).

The Mafia (also known as Cosa Nostra) is a Sicilian criminal society which is believed to have emerged in late 19th century Sicily. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct. Each group, known as a "family" or cosca, claims sovereignty over a territory in which it operates its rackets - usually a town or village or a neighborhood of a larger city.

Offshoots of the Mafia emerged in the United States and in Australia during the late 19th century following waves of Sicilian and Southern Italian emigration (see Italian-American Mafia).

Etymology

There are several theories about the origin of the term "Mafia" (sometimes spelt "Maffia" in early texts). The Sicilian adjective mafiusu may derive from the slang Arabic mahyas (مهياص), meaning "aggressive boasting, bragging", or marfud meaning "rejected". Roughly translated, it means "swagger", but can also be translated as "boldness, bravado". In reference to a man, mafiusu in 19th century Sicily was ambiguous, signifying a bully, arrogant but also fearless, enterprising, and proud, according to scholar Diego Gambetta.

The public's association of the word with the criminal secret society was perhaps inspired by the 1863 play "I mafiusi di la Vicaria" ("The Mafiosi of the Vicaria") by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaetano Mosca. The words Mafia and mafiusi are never mentioned in the play; they were probably put in the title to add a local flair. The play is about a Palermo prison gang with traits similar to the Mafia: a boss, an initiaion ritual, and talk of "umirtà" ("humility") and "pizzu" (a codeword for protection money). Soon after, the use of the term "mafia" began appearing in the Italian state's early reports on the phenomenon. The word made its first official appearance in 1865 in a report by the prefect of Palermo, Filippo Antonio Gualterio.

Leopoldo Franchetti, an Italian deputy who travelled to Sicily and who wrote one of the first authoritative reports on the mafia in 1876, saw the Mafia as an "industry of violence" and described the designation of the term "mafia": "the term mafia found a class of violent criminals ready and waiting for a name to define them, and, given their special character and importance in Sicilian society, they had the right to a different name from that defining vulgar criminals in other countries." Franchetti saw the Mafia as deeply rooted in Sicilian society and impossible to quench unless the very structure of the island's social institutions were to undergo a fundamental change.

Some observers have seen "mafia" as a set of attributes deeply rooted in popular culture, as a "way of being", as illustrated in the definition by Pitrè at the end of the 19th century: "Mafia is the consciousness of one's own worth, the exaggerated concept of individual force as the sole arbiter of every conflict, of every clash of interests or ideas."

Many Sicilians did not regard these men as criminals but as role models and protectors, given that the state appeared to offer no protection for the poor and weak. As late as the 1950s, the funeral epitaph of the legendary boss of Villalba, Calogero Vizzini, stated that "his 'mafia' was not criminal, but stood for respect of the law, defense of all rights, greatness of character. It was love." Here, "mafia" means something like pride, honour, or even social responsibility: an attitude, not an organization. Likewise, in 1925, the former Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando stated in the Italian senate that he was proud of being mafioso, because that word meant honourable, noble, generous.

The name "Cosa Nostra"

When the American mafioso Joseph Valachi testified before the McClellan Commission in 1962, he revealed that American mafiosi referred to their organization by the term cosa nostra ("our thing"). At the time, it was understood as a proper name, fostered by the FBI and disseminated by the media. The designation gained wide popularity and almost replaced the term Mafia. The FBI even added the article to the term, calling it La Cosa Nostra. In Italy the article la is never used when referring to the Sicilian Mafia.

Italian investigators didn't take the term seriously, believing it was only used by the American Mafia. Then, in 1984, the Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta revealed to the anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone that the term was used by the Sicilian Mafia as well. According to Buscetta, the word "mafia" was a literary creation. Other defectors, such as Antonio Calderone and Salvatore Contorno, confirmed this. Mafiosi introduce known members to each other as belonging to cosa nostra ("our thing") or la stessa cosa ("the same thing"), e.g. "he is the same thing, a mafioso, as you". The name is not a formal one, however, as members see no need for one.

The Sicilian Mafia has used other names to describe itself throughout its history, such as "The Honoured Society." Mafiosi are known among themselves as "men of honour" or "men of respect."

Structure and composition

Hierarchy of a Cosa Nostra family.

Cosa Nostra is not a monolothic organization, but loose association of groups called "families". Today, Cosa Nostra is estimated to have about 100 families, almost half of them in the province of Palermo, with at least 3,500 to 4,000 full members.

In 1984, the mafioso informant Tommaso Buscetta explained to prosecutors the pyramidal command structure of a typical family. A family is led by a "boss" (capofamiglia), who is aided by a second-in-command (a sotto capo or "underboss") and one or more advisers (consigliere). Under his command are crews of "soldiers", each led by a caporegime.

Other than its members, Cosa Nostra makes extensive use of "associates". These are people who aid or work for a family (or even multiple families) but are not treated as true members. These include corrupt officials and prospective mafisosi. An associate is considered nothing more than a tool; "nothing mixed with nil."

The most powerful boss is often referred to as the capo di tutti capi ("boss of bosses"), who alledgedly commands all the families of Cosa Nostra. Calogero Vizzini, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano were especially influential bosses that have each been described by the media and law enforcement as being the "boss of bosses" of their times. However, such a position does not actually exist, according to later Mafia turncoats such as Buscetta. According to Mafia historian Salvatore Lupo "the emphasis of the media on the definition of capo dei capi is without any foundation".

Traditionally, only men can become mafiosi, though in recent times there have been reports of women assuming the responsibilities of imprisoned mafioso relatives.

Commission

For many years, the power apparatuses of the individual families were the sole ruling bodies within the association, and they have remained the real centers of power even after superordinate bodies were created in Cosa Nostra beginning in the late 1950s (the Sicilian Mafia Commission also known as known as Commissione or Cupola).

The Commission is a body of leading Cosa Nostra members who decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the organisation. It is composed of representatives of a mandamento (a "district" of three geographically contiguous Mafia families) that are called capo mandamento or rappresentante. The Commission is not a central government of the Mafia, but a representative mechanism for consultation of independent families who decide by consensus. "Contrary to the wide-spread image presented by the media, these superordinate bodies of coordination cannot be compared with the executive boards of major legal firms. Their power is intentionally limited. And it would be entirely wrong to see in the Cosa Nostra a centrally managed, internationally active Mafia holding company," according to criminologist Letizia Paoli.

The jurisdiction extends over a province; each province of Sicily has some kind of a Commission, except Messina, Siracusa and Ragusa. Beyond the provincial level details are vague. According to Buscetta a commissione interprovinciale – Interprovincional Commission – was set up in the 1970s, while Calderone claims that there had been a rappresentante regionale in the 1950s even before the Commissions and the capi mandamento were created.

Activities

Extortion

It is estimated that the Sicilian Mafia makes more than €10 billion a year through protection rackets. Roughly 80% of Sicilian businesses pay protection money to Cosa Nostra, which can range from €200 a month for a small shop or bar to €5,000 a month for a supermarket. In Sicily, protection money is known as pizzo; the anti-extortion support group Addiopizzo derives its name from this.

Drug trafficking

In 2003, the Sicilian Mafia is estimated to have made over €8 billion through drug trafficking.

Sicily is a major transshipment center for Southwest and Southeast Asian heroin.

Arms trafficking

In 2003, the Sicilian Mafia is estimated to have made over €1.5 billion through weapons trafficking.

Loan sharking

In a 2007 publication, the Italian small-business association Confesercenti reported that about 25.2% of Sicilian businesses are indebted to loan sharks, who collect around €1.4 billion a year in payments.

Control of contracting

The Sicilian Mafia makes around €6.5 billion a year through control of public and private contracts.

Rituals and codes of conduct

Initiation ceremony

A prospective mafioso is carefully supervised and tested to assess his obedience, discretion, ability and ruthlessness. He is almost always required to commit murder as his ultimate trial.

After his arrest, the mafioso Giovanni Brusca described the ceremony in which he was formally made a full member of Cosa Nostra. In 1976 he was invited to a "banquet" at a country house. He was brought into a room where several mafiosi were sitting around a table with a pistol, a dagger and an image of a saint on it. They questioned his commitment and his feelings about criminality and murder (despite already having a history of such acts). When he affirmed himself, Salvatore Riina, then the most powerful boss of Cosa Nostra, took a needle and pricked Brusca's finger. Brusca smeared his blood on the image of the saint, which he held in his cupped hands as Riina set it alight. As Brusca juggled the burning image in his hands, Riina said to him: "If you betray Cosa Nostra, your flesh will burn like this saint."

Introductions

A mafioso is not supposed to introduce himself to another mafioso. He must ask a third, mutually-known mafioso, to introduce him to the latter as "a friend of ours". Right after his initiation, Brusca was introduced to his own mafioso father in this manner by Riina.

Ten Commandments

In November 2007 Sicilian police reported to have found a list of "Ten Commandments" in the hideout of mafia boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo. Similar to the Biblical Ten Commandments, they are thought to be a guideline on how to be a good, respectful honourable mafioso. The commandments are as follows:

1. No one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.
2. Never look at the wives of friends.
3. Never be seen with cops.
4. Don't go to pubs and clubs.
5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife is about to give birth.
6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.
7. Wives must be treated with respect.
8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.
9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.
10. People who can't be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn't hold to moral values.

Omertà: the code of silence

Omertà is a code of silence that forbids members from cooperating at all with the police or prosecutors should they be arrested. The penalty for transgression is death, and relatives of the turncoat may also be murdered. To a degree, Cosa Nostra also imposes this code on the general population, persecuting any citizen who aids the authorities.

History

Post-feudal Sicily

The genesis of Cosa Nostra is hard to trace because of its secretive nature and lack of historical record-keeping. It is widely believed that its seeds were planted in the upheaval from Sicily's transition from feudalism to capitalism in 1812 and its later annexation by mainland Italy in 1860. The Sicilian state couldn't fully enforce law and order. Many groups, from bandits to artisan guilds, used violence to plunder or settle disputes. The common traditions and structure that distinguishes the Mafia may have been shared between criminals in prison.

In 1864, Niccolò Turrisi Colonna, leader of the Palermo National Guard, wrote of a "sect of thieves" that operated across Sicily. This "sect" had special signals to recognize each other, had political protection in may regions, and a code of loyalty and non-interaction with the police known as umirtà ("humility"). The sect was mostly rural, comprising plantation wardens and smugglers, among others. Colonna warned in his report that the Italian government's brutal and ham-fisted attempts to crush unlawfulness only made the problem of crime worse by alienating the populace. An 1865 dispatch from the prefect of Palermo to Rome first officially described the phenomenon as a "Mafia".

Much of the Mafia's early activity centered around the lucrative citrus export industry around Palermo, whose fragile production system made it quite vulnerable to extortion. What is probably the earliest detailed account of Mafia activity comes from the memoirs of a citrus plantation owner named Gaspare Galati in the 1870s. After firing his warden for stealing coal and produce, Galati received threatening letters demanding that he rehire this "man of honour". Two successive replacements he hired were shot, but the police failed to find any evidence implicating the "man of honour". Galati's own inquiries led him to believe the "man of honour" was part of a group known as a cosca, based in a nearby village and led by a local landowner and former revolutionary. Many such groups existed that disrupted citrus plantations to either extort money or buy them at low prices. Worse still, these groups appeared to have allies in the police and local government. Galati gave up and fled home to Naples.

The accounts of Galati and others alarmed politicians in Rome. One described the mafia as "an instrument of local government", given its level of collusion with Sicilian officials. Throughout the late 1870s, the government ordered numerous authoritarian crackdowns in which entire towns were encircled and suspects deported en masse. The crackdowns failed, however, to deal with the political corruption, and many well-connected mafiosi escaped the dragnet.

Mafiosi meddled in politics early on, bullying voters into voting for candidates they favoured. At this period in history, only a small fraction of the Sicilian population could vote, so a single mafia boss could control a sizeable chunk of the electorate and thus wield considerable political leverage. Mafiosi used their allies in government to avoid prosecution as well as persecute less well-connected rivals. The highly fragmented and shaky Italian political system allow cliques of Mafia-friendly politicians to exert a lot of influence.

In an 1898 report to prosecutors, the police chief of Palermo identified eight mafia families operating in the suburbs and villages near the city. The report mentioned initiation rituals and codes of conduct, as well as criminal activities that included counterfeiting, ransom kidnappings, robbery, murder and witness intimidation. The mafia also maintained funds to support the families of imprisoned members and pay defense lawyers.

Fascist repression

In the 1925, Benito Mussolini initiated a campaign to destroy the Mafia and its political allies. In doing so, he would suppress many political opponents on the island and score a great propaganda coup for Fascism. In October 1925, he appointed Cesare Mori prefect of Palermo and gave him special powers to attack the Mafia. Like previous crackdowns, it involved massive round-ups of suspected criminals; over 11,000 arrests were made over the course of the campaign. Wives and children of mafiosi were sometimes taken hostage to force their surrender. Many were tried in en masse. More than 1,200 were convicted and imprisoned, and many others were internally exiled without trial.

Mori's campaign ended in June 1929 when Mussolini recalled him to Rome. Although he didn't totally crush the Mafia as the Fascist press proclaimed, his campaign was nonetheless very successful. In 1986, the mafioso defector Antonino Calderone said of the period: "The music changed. Mafiosi had a hard life. [...] After the war the mafia hardly existed anymore. The Sicilian Families had all been broken up." Many mafiosi fled to the United States. Among these were Carlo Gambino and Joseph Bonanno, who would go on to become powerful mafia bosses in New York City.

Post-Fascist revival

In 1943, nearly half a million Allied troops invaded Sicily. Fascist rule ended, but the crime rate soared in the upheaval and chaos. Many inmates escaped from their prisons. Banditry returned and the black market thrived. As Fascist mayors were deposed, mafiosi such as Calogero Vizzini and Giuseppe Genco Russo were often appointed in their place. Many presented themselves as antifascist and anticommunist.

The changing economic landscape of Sicily would shift the Mafia's power base from the rural to the urban. The Minster of Agriculutre - a communist - pushed for reforms in which peasants were to get larger shares of produce, be allowed to form cooperatives and take over badly used land, and remove the system by which leaseholders could rent land from landowners for their own short-term use. Owners of especially large estates were be forced to sell off their excess land. Many such landowners chose to sell their land to mafiosi, who offered more money than the government.

After the war, the Italian government poured public money into rebuilding Sicily, leading to a big construction boom. In 1956, two Mafia-connected officials, Vito Ciancimino and Salvatore Lima, took control of Palermo's Office of Public Works. Between 1959 and 1963, about 80% of building permits were given to just five people. Many buildings were illegally constructed before the city's planning was finalized. Many historical villas and the surrounding green belt were demolished. (see Sack of Palermo)

In the 1950s, a crackdown in the United States on drug trafficking led to the imprisonment of many American mafiosi. Furthermore, Cuba, a major hub for drug smuggling, fell to Fidel Castro. This prompted the American mafia boss Joseph Bonanno to return to Sicily in 1957 to franchise out his heroin operations to the Sicilian families. Anticipating rivalries for the lucrative American drug market, he negotiated the establishment of a Sicilian Mafia Commission to mediate disputes.

Maxi Trial and war against the government

The Second Mafia War in the early 1980s was a large scale conflict within the Mafia that also led to the assassinations of several politicians, police chiefs and magistrates. In two years, an estimated 1,000 were killed in Sicily. Salvatore Riina and his Corleonesi faction ultimately prevailed in the war. The new generation of mafiosi placed more emphasis on "white-collar" criminal activity as opposed to more traditional racketeering enterprises. In reaction to these developments, the Italian press has come up with the phrase Cosa Nuova ("the new thing", a play on Cosa Nostra) to refer to the revamped organization.

The first major pentito (a captured mafioso who collaborated with the judicial system) was Tommaso Buscetta who had lost several allies in the war and began to talk to prosecutor Giovanni Falcone around 1983. This led to the Maxi Trial (1986-1987) which resulted in several hundred convictions of leading mafiosi. When the Italian Supreme Court confirmed the convictions in January 1992, Riina took revenge. The politician Salvatore Lima was killed in March 1992; he had long been suspected of being the main government connection of the Mafia (later confirmed by testimony of Buscetta), and the Mafia was clearly displeased with his services. Falcone and fellow anti-Mafia prosecutor Paolo Borsellino were killed a few months later. This led to a public outcry and a massive government crackdown, resulting in Riina's arrest in January 1993. More and more pentitos started to emerge. Many would pay a high price for their co-operation usually through the murder of relatives. For example, Cosa Nostra defector Francesco Marino Mannoia's mother, aunt and sister were murdered.

The Corleonesi retaliated with a campaign of terrorism, a series of bombings against several tourist spots on the Italian mainland: the Via dei Georgofili in Florence, Via Palestro in Milan, and the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and Via San Teodoro in Rome, which left 10 people dead and 93 injured and caused severe damage to cultural heritage such as the Uffizi Gallery. Bernardo Provenzano took over as boss of the Corleonesi and halted this campaign and replaced it with a campaign of quietness known as pax mafiosi. This campaign has allowed the Mafia to slowly regain the power it once had. He was arrested in 2006, after 43 years on the run.

The modern Mafia in Italy

The main split in the Sicilian Mafia at present is between those bosses who have been convicted and are now imprisoned, chiefly Riina and capo di tutti capi Bernardo Provenzano, and those who are on the run, or who have not been indicted. The incarcerated bosses are currently subjected to harsh controls on their contact with the outside world, limiting their ability to run their operations from behind bars under the article 41-bis prison regime. Antonino Giuffrè – a close confidant of Provenzano, turned pentito shortly after his capture in 2002 – alleges that in 1993, Cosa Nostra had direct contact with representatives of Silvio Berlusconi who was then planning the birth of Forza Italia.

The deal that he says was alleged to have been made was a repeal of 41 bis, among other anti-Mafia laws in return for electoral deliverances in Sicily. Giuffrè's declarations have not been confirmed. The Italian Parliament, with the support of Forza Italia, extended the enforcement of 41 bis, which was to expire in 2002 but has been prolonged for another four years and extended to other crimes such as terrorism. However, according to one of Italy’s leading magazines, L'Espresso, 119 mafiosi – one-fifth of those incarcerated under the 41 bis regime – have been released on an individual basis. The human rights group Amnesty International has expressed concern that the 41-bis regime could in some circumstances amount to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" for prisoners.

In addition to Salvatore Lima, mentioned above, the politician Giulio Andreotti and the High Court judge Corrado Carnevale have long been suspected of having ties to the Mafia.

By the late 1990s, the weakened Cosa Nostra had to yield most of the illegal drug trade to the 'Ndrangheta crime organization from Calabria. In 2006, the latter was estimated to control 80% of the cocaine import to Europe. The mafia also have a strong business in extortion big companies as well as smaller ones. It estimates that 7% of Italy's output is filtered off by organised crime. The Mafia has turned into one of Italy's biggest business enterprises with a turnover of more than US$120bn a year.

As of 2000, the Italy's Mafia controlled 20% of the country's businesses and 15% of its GNP, according to a leading Italian trade association.

Prominent Sicilian mafiosi

See also: List of Sicilian mafiosi

• Vito Cascio Ferro Prominent early Don, imprisoned by Cesare Mori.
• Calogero Vizzini (1877 – 1954), boss of Villalba, was considered to be one of the most influential Mafia bosses of Sicily after World War II until his death in 1954.
• Giuseppe Genco Russo (1893 – 1976), boss of Mussomeli, considered to be the heir of Calogero Vizzini.
• Michele Navarra (1905 – 1958), boss of the Mafia Family in Corleone from 1940s to 1958
• Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco (1923 – 1978), boss of the Mafia Family in Ciaculli, he was the first "secretary" of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission that was formed somewhere in 1958.
• Gaetano Badalamenti (1923 – 2004), boss of the Mafia Family in Cinisi
• Angelo La Barbera (1924 – 1975) boss of the Mafia Family in Palermo Centro
• Michele Greco (1924 – 2008), boss of the Mafia Family in Croceverde
• Luciano Liggio (1925 – 1993), boss of the Mafia Family in Corleone
• Tommaso Buscetta (1928 – 2000), Sicilian Mafioso who became a pentito (informant) in 1984. Buscetta's evidence was used to great effect during the Maxi-Trials.
• Salvatore Riina (born 1930), also known as Totò Riina is one of the most infamous members of the Sicilian Mafia. He was nicknamed The Beast, or sometimes The Short One ('U Curtu in Sicilian) and ruled the Mafia with an iron hand from the 1980s until his arrest in 1993.
• Bernardo Provenzano (born 1933), successor of Riina at the head of the Corleonesi and as such considered one of the most powerful bosses of the Sicilian Mafia. Provenzano was a fugitive from justice since 1963. He was captured on 11 April 2006 in Sicily. Before capture, authorities had reportedly been 'close' to capturing him for 10 years.
• Stefano Bontade (1939 – 1981), boss of the Mafia Family in Santa Maria di Gesù
• Leoluca Bagarella (born 1941), member of the Mafia Family in Corleone arrested in 1995
• Salvatore Lo Piccolo (born 1942), considered to be one of the successors of Provenzano.
• Salvatore Inzerillo (1944 – 1981), boss of the Mafia Family in Passo di Rigano
• Giovanni 'Lo Scannacristiani' Brusca (born 1957), who was involved in the murder of Giovanni Falcone.
• Matteo Messina Denaro (born 1962), considered to be one of the successors of Provenzano.
• Michele Cavataio died in Mafia hit in 1969
• Benedetto Santapaola (born 1938), the most important boss of Catania.

See also

• Camorra
• 'Ndrangheta
• Sacra Corona Unita

Sources

• Arlacchi, Pino (1988). Mafia Business. The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-285197-7
• Template:It icon Arlacchi, Pino (1994). Addio Cosa nostra: La vita di Tommaso Buscetta, Milan: Rizzoli ISBN 88-17-84299-0
• Chubb, Judith (1989). The Mafia and Politics, Cornell Studies in International Affairs, Occasional Papers No. 23.
• Dickie, John (2007). Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia, Hodder. ISBN 978-0-340-93526-2
• Gambetta, Diego (1993).The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection, London: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-80742-1
• Hess, Henner (1998). Mafia & Mafiosi: Origin, Power, and Myth, London: Hurst & Co Publishers, ISBN 1-85065-500-6
• Template:It icon Lupo, Salvatore (1993). Storia della mafia dalle origine ai giorni nostri, Rome: Donzelli editore ISBN 88-7989-020-4
• Paoli, Letizia (2003). Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style, New York: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-515724-9 (Review by Klaus Von Lampe) (Review by Alexandra V. Orlova)
• Raab, Selwyn (2205). Five Families. The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires, New York: Thomas Dunne Books, ISBN 978-1-86105-952-9
• Servadio, Gaia (1976), Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day, London: Secker & Warburg ISBN 0-436-44700-2

External links

• The financial mafia. The illegal accumulation of wealth and the financial-industrial complex by Umberto Santino, in "Contemporary Crises" 12, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, September 1988, pp.203-243
• Template:PDFlink, by Oriana Bandiera, London School of Economics, August 1999
• Gangrule, American mafia history
• The Mafia in Sicilian History
• Cosa Nostra - Rebranding the Mafia
• Italian Mafia Terms Defined
• The 26 Original American Mafia Families- AmericanMafia.com
• FBI Mafia Monograph