Sicilian Mafia The word
mafia originated in Sicily. The
Sicilian noun (in ) roughly translates to mean "
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. 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. The genesis of the
Sicilian Mafia 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, 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 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. 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 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 the 1950s, Sicily experienced a substantial construction boom. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Sicilian Mafia gained control of the building contracts and made millions of dollars. It participated in the growing business of large-scale heroin trafficking, both in Italy and Europe and in US-connected trafficking; a famous example of this are the
French Connection smuggling with Corsican criminals and the Italian-American Mafia. The Sicilian Mafia has evolved into an international
organized crime group. It specializes in heroin trafficking,
political corruption, and military
arms trafficking and is the most powerful and most active Italian
organized crime group in the United States, with estimates of more than 2,500 affiliates located there. The Sicilian Mafia is also known to engage in arson, frauds, counterfeiting, and other racketeering crimes. It is estimated to have 3,500–4,000 core members with 100 clans, with around 50 in the city of Palermo alone. The Cosa Nostra has had influence in 'legitimate' power too, particularly under the corrupt
Christian Democratic governments, from between the 1950s to the early 1990s. Its reach included many prominent lawyers, financiers, and professionals; it has also exerted power by bribing or pressuring politicians, judges, and administrators. It has lost influence on the heels of the
Maxi Trials, the campaign by magistrates
Giovanni Falcone and
Paolo Borsellino and other actions against corrupt politicians and judges; however it retains some influence. The Sicilian Mafia became infamous for aggressive assaults on Italian law enforcement officials during the reign of
Salvatore Riina, also known as "Toto Riina". In Sicily the term
Excellent Cadavers is used to distinguish the assassination of prominent government officials from the common criminals and ordinary citizens killed by the Mafia. Some of their high ranking victims include police commissioners, mayors, judges, police colonels and generals, and Parliament members. On 23 May 1992, the Sicilian Mafia struck Italian law enforcement. At approximately 6 pm,
Italian Magistrate
Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three police body guards were killed by a massive bomb. Falcone, Director of Prosecutions (roughly, District Attorney) for the court of
Palermo and head of the special anti-Mafia investigative squad, had become the organization's most formidable enemy. His team was moving to prepare cases against most of the Mafia leadership. The bomb made a crater in diameter in the road Falcone's caravan was traveling on. This became known as the
Capaci bombing. Less than two months later, on 19 July 1992, the Mafia struck Falcone's replacement, Judge
Paolo Borsellino, also in
Palermo, Sicily. Borsellino and five bodyguards were killed outside the apartment of Borsellino's mother when a car packed with explosives was detonated by remote control as the judge approached the front door of his mother's apartment. In 1993, the authorities arrested Salvatore Riina, believed at the time to be the
capo di tutti capi and responsible directly or indirectly for scores (if not hundreds) of killings. Riina's arrest came after years of investigation – which some believe was delayed by Mafia influence within the
Carabinieri. Control of the organization then fell to
Bernardo Provenzano who had come to reject Riina's strategy of war against the authorities, in favor of an approach of bribery, corruption, and influence-peddling. As a consequence, the rate of Mafia killings fell sharply, but its influence continued in the international drug and slave trades, as well as locally in construction and public contracts in Sicily. Provenzano was himself captured in 2006 after being wanted for 43 years. In July, 2013, the Italian police conducted sweeping raids targeting top mafia crime bosses. In
Ostia, a coastal community near the capital, police arrested 51 suspects for alleged crimes connected with Italy's
Sicilian Mafia. Allegations included extortion, murder, international drug trafficking, and illegal control of the slot machine market.
Camorra The origins of the
Camorra are unclear. It may date to the 17th century, however the first official use of
camorra as a word dates from 1735, when a royal decree authorized the establishment of eight gambling houses in Naples. The Camorra's main businesses are drug trafficking, racketeering, counterfeiting and money laundering. It is also not unusual for Camorra clans to infiltrate the politics of their respective areas. The Camorra also specializes in
cigarette smuggling and receives payoffs from other criminal groups for any cigarette traffic through Italy. In the 1970s, the Sicilian Mafia convinced the Camorra to convert their cigarette smuggling routes into drug smuggling routes. Yet not all Camorra leaders agreed, sparking a war between the two factions and resulting in the murder of almost 400 men. Those opposed to drug trafficking lost the war. The Camorra Mafia controls the drug trade in Europe and is organized on a system of specific management principles. From the 1990s to the early 2000s, the
Di Lauro clan ran the then-largest open-air market in Europe, based in
Secondigliano. The former leader of the clan,
Paolo Di Lauro, who designed the system, has been imprisoned since 2005. His organization however earned about €200 million annually, solely from the drug trafficking business. The Di Lauro clan war against the
Scissionisti di Secondigliano inspired the current Italian television series
Gomorrah. Outside Italy, the Camorra has a strong presence in Spain. There, the organization has established a massive business operation revolving around drug trafficking and
money laundering. They are known to reinvest their profits into the creation of hotels, nightclubs, restaurants and companies around the country. According to Naples public prosecutor Giovanni Melillo, during a 2023 speech of the
Antimafia Commission, the most powerful groups of the Camorra in the present day are the
Mazzarella clan and the
Secondigliano Alliance. The latter is an alliance of the
Licciardi,
Contini and
Mallardo clans.
'Ndrangheta Derived from the Greek word (meaning courage or loyalty), the
'Ndrangheta formed in the 1890s in
Calabria. The 'Ndrangheta consists of 160 cells and approximately 6,000 members, although worldwide estimates put core membership at around 10,000. The group specializes in political corruption and cocaine trafficking. The 'Ndrangheta cells are loosely connected family groups based on blood relationships and marriages. Since the 1950s, the organization's influence has spread towards Northern Italy and worldwide. According to a 2013 "Threat Assessment on Italian Organized Crime" by
Europol and the
Guardia di Finanza, the 'Ndrangheta is among the richest (in 2008 their income was around 55 billion dollars) and most powerful organized crime groups in the world. The 'Ndrangheta is also known to engage in cocaine (controlling up to 80% of that flowing through Europe) and heroin trafficking, murder, bombings, counterfeiting, illegal gambling, frauds, thefts, labor racketeering, loan sharking, illegal immigration, and rarely some kidnapping. == Other crime groups ==