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87-492: The basic group is known as a " family ", "clan", or cosca . Each family claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town, village or neighborhood ( borgata ) of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets . Its members call themselves " men of honour ", although the public often refers to them as mafiosi . By the 20th century, wide-scale emigration from Sicily led to the formation of mafiosi style gangs in Australia,

174-534: A pentito . Buscetta revealed information to Falcone for 45 days, explaining the inner workings and hierarchical structures of Cosa Nostra including the Sicilian Mafia Commission , that, until then, were unclear because of the strict code of silence . This became known as the "Buscetta theorem". He also revealed Mafia initiation rituals . Buscetta refused to speak with Falcone of the political ties of Cosa Nostra because, in his opinion,

261-614: A drug trafficking network, but on 3 November 1972, was arrested by the Brazilian military government , and subsequently extradited to Italy exactly one month later where he began a ten year sentence at Palermo's Ucciardone prison for drug trafficking, reduced to eight years after appeal. He was later transferred to the Le Nuove prison in Turin . In February 1980, he was granted "half-freedom", immediately fleeing back to Brazil to escape

348-486: A "sect of thieves" that operated throughout Sicily. This "sect" was mostly rural, composed of cattle thieves, smugglers, wealthy farmers, and their guards. The sect made "affiliates every day of the brightest young people coming from the rural class, of the guardians of the fields in the Palermitan countryside, and of the large number of smugglers; a sect which gives and receives protection to and from certain men who make

435-508: A century later, Diego Gambetta concurred with Franchetti's analysis, arguing that the Mafia exists because the government does not provide adequate protection to merchants from property crime, fraud, and breaches of contract. Gambetta wrote that Sicily (in the early 1990s) had "no clear property rights legislation or administrative or financial codes of practice", and that its court system was "appalling" in its inefficiency. Gambetta recommended that

522-560: A certain line of conduct such as maintaining one's pride or even bullying in a given situation. On the other hand, the same word in Sicily can also indicate, not a special organization, but the combination of many small organizations, that pursue various goals, in the course of which its members almost always do things that are basically illegal and sometimes even criminal. Like Pitrè, some scholars viewed mafiosi as individuals behaving according to specific subcultural codes, but did not consider

609-456: 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 argued that the Mafia would never disappear unless the very structure of the island's social institutions were to undergo a fundamental change. Over

696-468: A family can be a sole "enterprise" or part of a larger syndicate or cartel . Despite the name, most crime families are generally not based on or formed around actual familial connections, although they do tend to be ethnically based, and many members may in fact be related to one another. Crime "families" tend to be associated more directly with their respective territories than the individuals to whom their members may or may not be related. The origins of

783-484: A fragile production system that made them quite vulnerable to sabotage. Likewise, cattle are very easy to steal. The Mafia was often more effective than the police at recovering stolen cattle; in the 1920s, it was noted that the Mafia's success rate at recovering stolen cattle was 95%, whereas the police managed only 10%. In 1864, Niccolò Turrisi Colonna , leader of the Palermo National Guard, wrote of

870-453: A glassworks store, but in 1956, he returned to Palermo where he joined Angelo La Barbera and Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco together with mafiosi Antonino Sorci, Pietro Davì and Gaetano Badalamenti , dealing with the cigarette and drug smuggling. He married his second wife Vera Girotti in 1966 and had one child. Two years later, he married his third wife Cristina De Almeida Guimarães after moving to Brazil, and had four children. In 1958 he

957-453: A great degree that in the late 1990s, after many Camorra leaders were imprisoned during a large-scale crackdown in Naples , many of their wives, girlfriends, daughters, and even mothers took temporary control of their gangs, in a widespread phenomenon of Camorra "godmothers". Sometimes the term is used to describe distinct units of crime syndicates of other ethnic and national origin, such as

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1044-441: A juridical ordering that is parallel to that of the state – a kind of anti-state. The Mafia is all of these but none of these exclusively. Diego Gambetta characterizes mafiosi as "guarantors of trust". He says that Sicilian society has a general lack of trust among its people. This is true for other parts of southern Italy, which never experienced the same post-war economic growth that northern and central Italy enjoyed due in part to

1131-444: A lack of cooperation and healthy competition among the locals. The Mafia may provide a sense of security to those who pay it for protection, but the Mafia actually increases the general amount of distrust in Sicilian society. Those who are under mafia protection have an incentive to cheat those who are not under protection. The Mafia fosters crime by making it safer for criminals to engage in illegal dealings with each other (criminals are

1218-411: A large share of public and church land to private citizens. The result was a huge increase in the number of landowners – from 2,000 in 1812 to 20,000 by 1861. With this increase in property owners and commerce came more disputes that needed settling, contracts that needed enforcing, transactions that needed oversight, and properties that needed protecting. The barons released their private armies to let

1305-399: A living on traffic and internal commerce. It is a sect with little or no fear of public bodies, because its members believe that they can easily elude this." It had special signals for members to recognize each other, offered protection services, scorned the law, and had a code of loyalty and non-interaction with the police known as umirtà ("code of silence"). Colonna warned in his report that

1392-572: A mafioso rather than employing full-time guards. A mafioso in these regions could protect multiple small estates at once, which gave him great independence and leverage to charge high prices. The landowners in this region were also frequently absent and could not watch over their properties should the protector withdraw, further increasing his bargaining power. The early Mafia was deeply involved with citrus growers and cattle ranchers, as these industries were particularly vulnerable to thieves and vandals and thus badly needed protection. Citrus plantations had

1479-820: A mafioso." The Sicilian Mafia has used other names to describe itself throughout its history, such as "The Honored Society". Mafiosi are known among themselves as "men of honor" or "men of respect". Cosa Nostra should not be confused with other mafia-type organizations in Southern Italy, such as the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria , the Camorra in Campania , or the Sacra Corona Unita and Società foggiana in Apulia . In 1876, Leopoldo Franchetti described

1566-754: A member of the Cosa Nostra says, that president is mine (è cosa mia), and if you need a favor, you must go through me. In other words, the Cosa Nostra figure maintains a sort of monopoly on that politician. Every family head in the Mafia selects a man whose characteristics already make him look approachable. Forget the idea that some pact is reached first. On the contrary, one goes to that candidate and says, "Onorevole, I can do this and that for you now, and we hope that when you are elected you will remember us". The candidate wins and he has to pay something back. You tell him, "We need this, will you do it or not?". The politician understands immediately and acts always. During

1653-446: A series of reports between 1898 and 1900, Ermanno Sangiorgi, the police chief of Palermo, identified 670 mafiosi belonging to eight Mafia clans, which went through alternating phases of cooperation and conflict. The report mentioned initiation rituals and codes of conduct, as well as criminal activities that included counterfeiting, kidnappings for ransom, murder, robbery, and witness intimidation. The Mafia also maintained funds to support

1740-419: A small fraction of the Sicilian population could vote, so a single mafia boss could control a sizable 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. Given the highly fragmented and shaky Italian political system, cliques of Mafia-friendly politicians exerted a strong influence. In

1827-413: A smaller number of large estates so that there were fewer landowners, and their large estates often required its guardians to patrol it full-time. The owners of such estates needed to hire full-time guardians. By contrast, in the west, the estates tended to be smaller and thus did not require the total, round-the-clock attention of a guardian. It was cheaper for these estates to contract their protection to

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1914-446: A spate of late-1980s "Mafia princess" television movies underscore this confusion. It can further be speculated that the Mafia was simply emulating, to a certain degree, a more medieval order in which a noble family would more or less serve as the power in a local village, in a sort of inverted hacienda culture. The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta is, however, purported to be organized along familial lines as 'ndrine . Nevertheless,

2001-470: A successful campaign would strengthen him as the new leader, legitimizing and empowering his rule. He believed that such suppression would be a great propaganda coup for fascism , and it would also provide an excuse to suppress his political opponents on the island since many Sicilian politicians had Mafia links. As prime minister, Mussolini visited Sicily in May 1924 and passed through Piana dei Greci , where he

2088-518: A trial in 1993, the Mafia member Salvatore Cancemi confessed to Buscetta that he had strangled two of Buscetta's sons to death. After the trial, Buscetta embraced Cancemi and said: "You could not refuse the order. I forgive you because I know what it means to be in Cosa Nostra." Buscetta died of cancer on 2 April 2000, aged 71, having lived out most of his life in hiding with his third wife and family in Florida, United States, under false names. He

2175-617: A war. Crime family A crime family is a unit of an organized crime syndicate, particularly in Italian organized crime and especially in the Sicilian Mafia and Italian-American Mafia , often operating within a specific geographic territory or a specific set of activities. In its strictest sense, a family (or clan ) is a criminal gang , operating either on a unitary basis or as an organized collection of smaller gangs (e.g., cells , factions , crews , etc.). In turn,

2262-663: Is a good front for illegitimate operations. The First Mafia War was the first high-profile conflict between Mafia clans in post-war Italy (the Sicilian Mafia has a long history of violent rivalries). In 1962, mafia boss Cesare Manzella organized a drug shipment to the United States with the help of two Sicilian clans, the Grecos and the La Barberas. Manzella entrusted another boss, Calcedonio Di Pisa , to handle

2349-400: Is hard to trace because mafiosi are very secretive and do not keep historical records of their own. They have been known to spread deliberate lies about their past and sometimes come to believe in their own myths. The Mafia's genesis began in the 19th century as the product of Sicily's transition from feudalism to capitalism as well as its unification with mainland Italy . Under feudalism,

2436-414: Is not a centralized organization. It is more of a federation of independent gangs who sell their services under a common brand. This cartel claims the exclusive right to sell extralegal protection services within their territories, and by their labels ( man of honor , mafioso , etc.), they distinguish themselves from common criminals whom they exclude from the protection market. Hence the term mafia found

2523-459: Is weak or absent creates a demand for private protection (which mafia-type organizations can supply) and opportunities for extortion (also by mafia-type organizations). A 2017 study in the Journal of Economic History links the emergence of the Sicilian Mafia also to the surging demand for oranges and lemons following the late 18th-century discovery that citrus fruits cured scurvy . A 2019 study in

2610-702: The First Mafia War , he was wanted by police. Buscetta fled to Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, and finally the United States. In 1968, Buscetta was convicted in absentia by an Italian court of two murders related to the Ciaculli Massacre. On 25 August 1970, Buscetta was arrested in Brooklyn , New York, but was released on 4 December 1970. On 21 July 1971, an arrest warrant was issued by Italian police. Buscetta moved to Brazil , having undergone plastic surgery and vocal cord surgery, he set up

2697-487: The Irish Mob , Japanese Yakuza , Chinese Tongs and Triads , Indian mafia , Colombian and Mexican drug cartels , Albanian mafia , Russian mafia . Although not necessarily the norm, some of these entities, like the 'Ndrangheta, may also be organized along blood-family lines. Tommaso Buscetta Tommaso Buscetta ( Italian pronunciation: [tomˈmaːzo buʃˈʃetta] ; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000)

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2784-530: The Review of Economic Studies linked Mafia activity to "the rise of socialist Peasant Fasci organizations. In an environment with weak state presence, this socialist threat triggered landowners, estate managers, and local politicians to turn to the Mafia to resist and combat peasant demands." In 1925, Benito Mussolini initiated a campaign to destroy the Mafia and assert Fascist control over Sicilian life. The Mafia threatened and undermined his power in Sicily, and

2871-404: The nobility owned most of the land and enforced the law through their private armies and manorial courts . After 1812, the feudal barons steadily sold off or rented their lands to private citizens. Primogeniture was abolished, land could no longer be seized to settle debts, and one fifth of the land became private property of the peasants. After Italy annexed Sicily in 1860, it redistributed

2958-416: The 1950s, a crackdown in the United States on drug trafficking led to the imprisonment of many American mafiosi. Cuba , a major hub for drug smuggling, was taken over by Fidel Castro and associated communists. In 1957 American mafia boss Joseph Bonanno returned to Sicily to franchise his heroin operations to the Sicilian clans. Anticipating rivalries for the lucrative American drug market, he negotiated

3045-495: The 1980s, leading social scientists like Henner Hess  [ de ] and Anton Blok that conducted the first field studies on the phenomenon between the 1960s and the early 1980s, saw the Mafia as merely a form of behaviour and power, downplaying its organisational aspects. Their thinking was shaped by sicilianismo , a late 19th-century movement opposed to the indiscriminate criminalization of all Sicilians by Italian law enforcement and public opinion, promoted in particular by

3132-516: The Italian government's brutal and clumsy attempts to crush crime only made the problem worse by alienating the populace. An 1865 dispatch from the prefect of Palermo to Rome first officially described the phenomenon as a "Mafia". An 1876 police report provides the earliest known description of the familiar initiation ritual . Mafiosi meddled in politics early on, bullying voters into voting for candidates they favored. At this period in history, only

3219-401: The Mafia a formal organisation. Judicial investigations by Falcone and scientific research in the 1980s provided solid proof of the existence of well-structured Mafia groups with entrepreneurial characteristics. Pino Arlacchi , in his seminal 1983 study La mafia imprenditrice (Mafia Business), summarised the dominant way of looking at the mafia up to that point by writing, “Social research into

3306-485: The Mafia as the Fascist press proclaimed, but his campaign was very successful at suppressing it. There was nearly no mafia left after the war. The Sicilian families had been shut down by the prefect Mori. Sicily's murder rate sharply declined. Landowners were able to raise the legal rents on their lands, sometimes as much as ten-thousandfold. In 1943, nearly half a million Allied troops invaded Sicily. Crime soared in

3393-494: The Mafia business, but neglected the cultural symbols and codes by which the Mafia legitimized its existence and by which it rooted itself into Sicilian society. According to Lupo, there are several lines of interpretation, often blended to some extent, to define the Mafia: it has been viewed as a mirror of traditional Sicilian society; as an enterprise or type of criminal industry; as a more or less centralized secret society; and as

3480-475: The Mafia in 1992, had objected to the conflation of the term "Mafia" with organized crime in general: While there was a time when people were reluctant to pronounce the word "Mafia" ... nowadays people have gone so far in the opposite direction that it has become an overused term ... I am no longer willing to accept the habit of speaking of the Mafia in descriptive and all-inclusive terms that make it possible to stack up phenomena that are indeed related to

3567-466: The Mafia is often erroneously seen as similar to other non-Sicilian organized criminal associations. These two paradigms missed essential aspects of the Mafia that became clear when investigators were confronted with the testimonies of Mafia turncoats, like those of Buscetta to Judge Falcone at the Maxi Trial . The economic approach to explain the Mafia did illustrate the development and operations of

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3654-404: The Mafia were forced to pay protection money . Many buildings were illegally constructed before the city's planning was finalized. Mafiosi scared off anyone who dared to question the illegal building. The result of this unregulated building was the demolition of many historic buildings and the erection of apartment blocks, many of which were not up to standard. Mafia organizations entirely control

3741-497: The Mafia's most important clients because they can't get protection from the legal system). And since mafiosi charge fees for their services, they increase transaction costs, which in turn leads to a higher cost of living for average Sicilians. Introduced in 1982 by Pio La Torre , article 416-bis of the Italian Penal Code defines a Mafia-type association ( associazione di tipo mafioso ) as one where "those belonging to

3828-434: The Sicilian Mafia as an "industry of violence". In 1993, the Italian sociologist Diego Gambetta described it as a cartel of private protection firms. He further characterized mafiosi as "guarantors of trust", and that Sicilian people tend to be distrustful of each other and therefore routinely seek mafia protection in their business dealings. The central activity of the Mafia is the arbitration of disputes between criminals and

3915-427: The Sicilian ethnographer Giuseppe Pitrè . According to the sicilianisti , the term 'mafia' simply embodied an attitude, a mentality deeply rooted in the island's popular culture; an expression of the local traditional society's fundamental rejection of the foreign invaders who had ruled Sicily for centuries. "Mafia" was a "way of being", according to a definition by Pitrè: Mafia is the consciousness of one's own worth,

4002-543: The United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and South America. These diaspora-based outfits replicated the traditions and methods of their Sicilian ancestors to varying extents. The word mafia originated in Sicily. The Sicilian noun mafiusu (in Italian: mafioso ) roughly translates to mean " swagger ", but can also be translated as "boldness, bravado ". In reference to a man, mafiusu in 19th-century Sicily

4089-447: The association exploit the potential for intimidation which their membership gives them, and the compliance and omertà which membership entails and which lead to the committing of crimes, the direct or indirect assumption of management or control of financial activities, concessions, permissions, enterprises and public services for the purpose of deriving profit or wrongful advantages for themselves or others". The genesis of Cosa Nostra

4176-580: The authorities. He provided important testimony at the 1986/87 Maxi Trial , the largest anti-Mafia trial in history. After the murder of the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino , Buscetta gave further testimony to the Antimafia Commission linking Italian politicians to the Mafia. Buscetta entered the Witness Protection Program in the United States, where he remained until his death in 2000. Tommaso Buscetta

4263-477: The brewing Second Mafia War instigated by Salvatore Riina . On 11 September 1982, Buscetta's two sons from his first wife, Benedetto and Antonio, disappeared, never to be found again , which prompted his collaboration with Italian authorities. This was followed by the deaths of his brother Vincenzo, son-in-law Giuseppe Genova, brother-in-law Pietro and four of his nephews, Domenico and Benedetto Buscetta, and Orazio and Antonio D'Amico. The war subsequently led to

4350-456: The building sector in Palermo – the quarries where aggregates are mined, site clearance firms, cement plants, metal depots for the construction industry, wholesalers for sanitary fixtures, and so on. During the 1950s, the Mafia continued its deep penetration of the construction and cement industries. The cement business was appealing because it allows high levels of local economic involvement and

4437-789: The catalyst for Mussolini's war on the Mafia. Mussolini firmly established his power in January 1925; he appointed Cesare Mori as the Prefect of Palermo in October 1925 and granted him special powers to fight the Mafia. Mori formed a small army of policemen, carabinieri and militiamen, which went from town to town rounding up suspects. To force suspects to surrender, they would take their families hostage, sell off their property, or publicly slaughter their livestock. By 1928, more than 11,000 suspects were arrested. Confessions were sometimes extracted through beatings and torture. Some mafiosi who had been on

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4524-507: The deaths of many of Buscetta's allies, including Stefano Bontade . Buscetta was arrested in São Paulo , Brazil once again on 23 October 1983. He was extradited to Italy on 28 June 1984, where he attempted suicide by ingestion of barbiturates ; when that failed, he decided that he was utterly disillusioned with the Mafia. Buscetta asked to talk to the anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone , and began his life as an informant, referred to as

4611-408: The emergence of the Sicilian Mafia to the resource curse . Early Mafia activity was strongly linked to Sicilian municipalities abundant in sulfur , Sicily's most valuable export commodity. The combination of a weak state and a lootable natural resource made the sulfur-rich parts of Sicily vulnerable to the emergence of mafia-type organizations. A valuable natural resource in areas where law enforcement

4698-763: The establishment of a Sicilian Mafia Commission to mediate disputes. The post-war period saw a huge building boom in Palermo. Allied bombing in World War II had left more than 14,000 people homeless, and migrants were pouring in from the countryside, so there was a huge demand for new homes. Much of this construction was subsidized by public money. 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 percent of building permits were given to just five people, none of whom represented major construction firms; they were likely Mafia frontmen. Construction companies unconnected with

4785-472: The exaggerated concept of individual force as the sole arbiter of every conflict, of every clash of interests or ideas. Other scholars such as Gaetano Mosca say: ...with the word Mafia, the Sicilians intend to express two things, two social phenomena, that can be analyzed in separate ways even though they are closely related. The Mafia, or rather the essence of the Mafia, is a way of thinking that requires

4872-555: The families of imprisoned members and pay defense lawyers. In an attempt to annihilate the Mafia, Italian troops arrested 64 people of Palermo in February 1898. The trial began in May 1901, but after one month, only 32 defendants were found guilty of starting a criminal association and, taking into account the time already spent in prison, many were released the next day. A 2015 study in The Economic Journal attributed

4959-605: The field of organised crime but that have little or nothing in common with the Mafia. According to Mafia turncoats ( pentiti ), the real name of the Mafia is "Cosa Nostra" ("Our Thing"). Italian American mafioso Joseph Valachi testified before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations in 1963 (at what are known as the Valachi hearings ). He revealed that American mafiosi referred to their organization by

5046-442: The first Mafia clans. In countryside towns that lacked formal constabulary, local elites responded to banditry by recruiting young men into "companies-at-arms" to hunt down thieves and negotiate the return of stolen property, in exchange for a pardon for the thieves and a fee from the victims. These companies-at-arms were often made up of former bandits and criminals, usually the most skilled and violent of them. This saved communities

5133-428: The government liberalize the drug market and abolish price-fixing of cigarettes so as to move these commodities out of the black market; to increase transparency in public contracting so that there can be no rigging, which mafiosi usually arbitrate; and redesign the voting process to make it harder to buy votes. Fixing these problems would reduce the demand for mafioso intervention in political and economic affairs. Until

5220-548: The heroin. When the shipment arrived in the United States, however, the American buyers claimed that some heroin was missing, and paid Di Pisa a commensurately lower sum. Di Pisa accused the Americans of defrauding him, while the La Barberas accused Di Pisa of embezzling the missing heroin. The Sicilian Mafia Commission sided with Di Pisa, and the La Barberas were outraged. The La Barberas murdered Di Pisa and Manzella, triggering

5307-407: The interim. Compounding these problems was banditry. Rising food prices, the loss of public and church lands, and the loss of feudal commons pushed many desperate peasants to steal. In the face of rising crime, booming commerce, and unreliable law enforcement, property owners and merchants turned to extralegal arbitrators and protectors. These extralegal protectors eventually organized themselves into

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5394-444: The largest trial against the Mafia in history, the Maxi Trial in Palermo, arising from the statements made to Falcone, Buscetta helped judges Falcone and Paolo Borsellino achieve significant success in the fight against organized crime that led to 475 Mafia members indicted, and 338 convicted, sentences upheld in 1992. In mid-1992, following the bomb attacks in which Falcone and Borsellino were killed, Buscetta began to speak of

5481-569: The losing end of Mafia feuds voluntarily cooperated with prosecutors, perhaps as a way of obtaining protection and revenge. Charges of Mafia association were typically leveled at poor peasants and gabellotti (farm leaseholders), but were avoided when dealing with major landowners. Many were tried 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. He did not permanently crush

5568-658: The marauding bandits into their ranks. The changing economic landscape of Sicily shifted the Mafia's power base from rural to urban areas. The Minister of Agriculture – 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 (known as " gabellotti ") could rent land from landowners for their own short-term use. Owners of especially large estates were to be forced to sell off some of their land. The Mafia had connections to many landowners and murdered many socialist reformers. The most notorious attack

5655-495: The organization and the enforcement of illicit agreements through the use of violence. The Mafia does not serve the general public as the police do, but only specific clients who pay them for protection. The mafia's principal activities are settling disputes among other criminals, protecting them against each other's cheating, and organizing and overseeing illicit agreements, often involving many agents, such as illicit cartel agreements in otherwise legal industries. The Sicilian Mafia

5742-520: The political ties of the Cosa Nostra with magistrates, accusing Salvo Lima , killed a few months earlier, and Giulio Andreotti of being the main political referents of the organization; in particular, he reported that he had known Lima personally since the late 1950s, and had met him last in 1980, and also reported that he had learned that the murder of the journalist Mino Pecorelli in 1979 would have been carried out in Andreotti's interest. Buscetta

5829-444: The question of the mafia has probably now reached the point where we can say that the mafia, as the term is commonly understood, does not exist”. Arlacchi contested that view, and stressed the economical aspects of the Mafia as a criminal organization. The Mafia was seen as an enterprise, and its economic activities became the focus of academic analyses. However, by ignoring the cultural aspects, according to historian Salvatore Lupo ,

5916-446: The state take over the job of enforcing the law, but the new authorities were not up to the task, largely due to clashes between official law and local customs. Lack of manpower was also a problem; there were often fewer than 350 active policemen for the entire island. Some towns did not have any permanent police force, and were only visited every few months by some troops to collect malcontents, leaving criminals to operate with impunity in

6003-770: The state was not ready for statements of that magnitude, and proved to be quite general on that subject. In December 1984, he was extradited to the United States where he received a new identity from the government, an American citizenship and was placed in the Witness Protection Program in exchange for new revelations against the American Mafia . He testified in the Pizza Connection Trial , which took place in 1985 in New York and saw defendants Gaetano Badalamenti and other Sicilian-American mafiosi accused of drug trafficking. He also testified in 1986 at

6090-568: The term cosa nostra ("our thing" or "this thing of ours" or simply "our cause" / "our interest"). At the time, Cosa Nostra was understood as a proper name, fostered by the FBI and disseminated by the media. The FBI added the article la to the term, calling it La Cosa Nostra (in Italy, the article la is not used when referring to Cosa Nostra ). In 1984, Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta revealed to anti-mafia Italian magistrate Giovanni Falcone that

6177-704: The term based on both of its meanings. As the Mafia was imported into the United States in the late 19th century, the English translation of the word cosca was more at clan or family . The term can be a point of confusion, especially in popular culture and Hollywood , because in the truest sense, crime families are not necessarily blood families who happen to be involved in criminal activity, and they are not necessarily based on blood relationships. In Sicily and America, most Mafia bosses are not related to their predecessors. Films like The Godfather and

6264-502: The term come from the Sicilian Mafia . In the Sicilian language , the word cosca , which is the crown of spiny, closely folded leaves on plants such as the artichoke or the thistle , symbolizes the tightness of relationships between members. The word cosca is also used for clan . In the early days of the Mafia , loose groups of bandits organized themselves into associations that over time became more organized, and they adopted

6351-556: The term stuck, both in the minds of popular culture as well as the national law enforcement community, and eventually began to be used to describe individual units of not only Sicilian gangsters, but those whose origins lie in other parts of Italy (e.g., the aforementioned ' Ndrangheta , the Neapolitan Camorra , the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita , etc.). Indeed, the "family" mystique persists to such

6438-402: The term was used by the Sicilian Mafia, as well. Buscetta dismissed the word "mafia" as a mere literary creation. Other defectors, such as Antonino Calderone and Salvatore Contorno , confirmed the use of Cosa Nostra by members. Mafiosi introduce known members to each other as belonging to cosa nostra ("our thing") or la stessa cosa ("the same thing"), meaning "he is the same thing as you –

6525-408: The trouble of training their own policemen, but it may have made the companies-at-arms more inclined to collude with their former brethren rather than destroy them. Scholars such as Salvatore Lupo have identified these groups as "proto-Mafia". The Mafia was (and still is) a largely western Sicilian phenomenon. There was little Mafia activity in the eastern half of Sicily. This did not mean that there

6612-823: The upheaval and chaos. Many inmates escaped from prisons, banditry returned, and the black market thrived. During the first six months of Allied occupation, party politics were banned in Sicily. Most institutions were destroyed, with the exception of the police and carabinieri, and the American occupiers had to build a new order from scratch. As Fascist mayors were deposed, the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) simply appointed replacements. Many turned out to be mafiosi, such as Calogero Vizzini and Giuseppe Genco Russo . They could easily present themselves as political dissidents, and their anti-communist position gave them additional credibility. Mafia bosses reformed their clans, absorbing some of

6699-406: The use of the term "mafia" began appearing in the Italian state's early reports on the group. The word was first documented in 1865 in a report by the prefect of Filippo Antonio Gualterio  [ it ] . The term mafia has become a generic term for any organized criminal network with similar structure, methods, and interests. But Giovanni Falcone , the anti-Mafia judge who was murdered by

6786-633: The word include: The public's association of the word with the criminal secret society was perhaps inspired by the 1863 play " I mafiusi di la Vicaria  [ it ] " ("The Mafiosi of the Vicaria") by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaspare Mosca. The words mafia and mafiusi are never mentioned in the play. The drama is about a Palermo prison gang with traits similar to the Mafia: a boss, an initiation ritual, and talk of umirtà ( omertà or code of silence) and " pizzu " (a codeword for extortion money). The play had great success throughout Italy. Soon after,

6873-467: Was a high ranking Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia . He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization. Buscetta participated in criminal activity in Italy, the United States and Brazil before being arrested and extradited from Brazil to Italy. He became disillusioned with the Mafia after the murders of several of his family members, and in 1984, decided to cooperate with

6960-482: Was ambiguous, signifying a bully, arrogant but also fearless, enterprising and proud, according to scholar Diego Gambetta . In reference to a woman, however, the feminine-form, "mafiusa" , means a beautiful or attractive female. The Sicilian word mafie refers to the caves near Trapani and Marsala , which were often used as hiding places for refugees and criminals. Sicily was once an Islamic emirate , therefore mafia might have Arabic roots. Possible Arabic roots of

7047-741: Was arrested for cigarette smuggling and criminal association during an investigation conducted by the Guardia di Finanza against the Corsican Pascal Molinelli and the Tangerian Salomon Gozal, indicated as major suppliers of cigarettes and drugs for the Sicilian gangs; in January 1959 he was arrested again for the smuggling of two tons of cigarettes to supply Yugoslavia . After the Ciaculli Massacre in 1963, part of an internal Mafia conflict known as

7134-761: Was born on 13 July 1928, in Palermo , Sicily , the youngest of 17 children; his father was a glazier . Buscetta was raised in Kalsa , a poverty-stricken area of Palermo, which he escaped by getting involved with crime at a young age. He first became involved with the Sicilian Mafia in 1945, and in the following years he became a full-fledged member of the Porta Nuova mandamento , where he worked mostly in cigarette smuggling . Buscetta married his first wife Melchiorra Cavallaro in 1944 and had three children. In 1949, he moved to Argentina and then to Brazil, where he opened

7221-570: Was buried under a false name in North Miami, Florida . He was played by F. Murray Abraham in the 1999 film Excellent Cadavers . He was played by Vincent Riotta in the 2007 mini-series Il Capo dei Capi . He was portrayed by Sergio Vespertino in the 2016 Italian TV series The Mafia Kills Only in Summer . He was portrayed by Pierfrancesco Favino in the 2019 film The Traitor , directed by Marco Bellocchio and selected to compete for

7308-403: Was little violence; the most violent conflicts over land took place in the east, but they did not involve mafiosi. In the east, the ruling elites were more cohesive and active during the transition from feudalism to capitalism. They maintained their large stables of enforcers and were able to absorb or suppress any emerging violent groups. Furthermore, the land in the east was generally divided into

7395-469: Was one of the main witnesses of the trials against Andreotti for mafia association and for the Pecorelli murder. Andreotti was eventually acquitted in 1999 of the charge of having commissioned the assassination of Pecorelli. In court, Buscetta also elaborated in great detail the hidden exchanges that linked politicians and the Mafia. He stated: It is not Cosa Nostra that contacts the politician; instead

7482-500: Was received by mayor/Mafia boss Francesco Cuccia . At some point, Cuccia expressed surprise at Mussolini's police escort and whispered in his ear: "You are with me, you are under my protection. What do you need all these cops for?". After Mussolini rejected Cuccia's offer of protection, the sindaco felt that he had been slighted and instructed the townsfolk not to attend the duce ' s speech. Mussolini felt humiliated and outraged. Cuccia's careless remark has passed into history as

7569-459: Was the Portella della Ginestra massacre , when 11 people were killed and 33 wounded during May Day celebrations on May 1, 1947. The bloodbath was perpetrated by bandit Salvatore Giuliano , who was possibly backed by local Mafia bosses. In the end, though, they were unable to stop the process, and many landowners chose to sell their land to mafiosi, who offered more money than the government. In

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