Organized crime in Italy

Incidence of organized crime's extortion by province in Italy

Organized crime in Italy and its criminal organizations have been prevalent in Italy, especially Southern Italy, for centuries and have affected the social and economic life of many Italian regions since at least the 19th century.

Five major heavily active mafia-like organizations are known to exist in Italy. Among the oldest and most powerful of these organizations, having started to develop between 1500 and 1800, include: Cosa Nostra (the original "Mafia" or the Sicilian Mafia) of Sicily; 'Ndrangheta of Calabria (who are considered to be among the biggest cocaine smugglers in Europe); and Camorra of Naples. The remainder of the five most powerful are two organizations created in the 20th century: Stidda of Sicily and Sacra Corona Unita of Apulia.

Four other Italian organized crime groups, the Banda della Magliana of Rome, Mala del Brenta of Veneto, and Banda della Comasina and Turatello Crew of Milan, held considerable influence at the height of their power but are now weakened or even defunct or inactive. The latest creation of Italian organized crime (IOC), Mafia Capitale, was disbanded by the police.^[1]

The most notorious Italian organized crime group is the Mafia or Sicilian Mafia (referred to as Cosa Nostra by members). As the original "Mafia", the Sicilian Mafia is the basis for the current colloquial usage of the term "mafia" to refer to organized crime groups. The Mafia or Sicilian Mafia notably expanded into some foreign countries, especially the United States, where Sicilian mafiosi eventually joined together with Neapolitan criminal groups in the US and other Italian-American and Italian immigrant criminal groups to form the modern Italian-American Mafia (or simply the "American" Mafia). Though less well-known, the Neapolitan Camorra, Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, and offshoots of both these groups have also operated or set down roots in foreign countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra)

Based primarily in Sicily, the Sicilian Mafia formed in the 19th century by clans which sprang out of groups of bandits; these groups gained local power and influence. In Sicily, the word mafia tends to mean "manly" and a Mafioso considers himself a "Man of Honor." However, the organization is known as "Cosa Nostra"—Our Thing—or Our Affair. The Sicilian Mafia originally engaged in such lower-level activities as extortion, cattle theft and, upon Sicily becoming part of a democratic Italy, election slugging in addition to other kinds of relatively low-level theft and fraud.

In the 1950s, Sicily experienced a massive building 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.

Today, the Sicilian Mafia has evolved into an international organized crime group. The Sicilian Mafia 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 Sicilian Mafia affiliates located there.^[2] 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.^[3]

The Sicilian Mafia has had influence in 'legitimate' power, particularly under the corrupt Christian Democratic governments from the 1950s to the early 1990s. It has had influence with lawyers, financiers, and professionals; also it has had power and resources by bribing or pressuring politicians, judges and administrators. It has less of these now than previously 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 Toto Riina. In Sicily the term "Excellent Cadaver" 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 May 23, 1992, the Sicilian Mafia struck Italian law enforcement. At approximately 6:00 p.m., Italian Magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three police body guards were killed by a massive bomb. Falcone, Director of Prosecutions (roughly, District Attorney) and 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 30 feet in diameter in the road Falcone's caravan was traveling.

This became known as the Capaci Massacre. Less than two months later, on July 19, 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 "Totó" Riina, believed at the time to be the Capo di tutti capi and responsible directly or indirectly for scores if not hundreds of killings, after years of investigation which some believe was delayed by Mafia influence within the police and Carabinieri. After Riina's arrest control of the organization fell to Bernardo Provenzano who had come to reject Riina's strategy of war against the authorities in favor of a strategy of bribery, corruption and influence-peddling. As a consequence the rate of Mafia killings fell sharply but Mafia influence not only in the international drug and white slavery (prostitution) trade but locally in construction and public contracts in Sicily continued. 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.^[4]

Camorra or Campanian Mafia

The Camorra first appeared in the 17th century in Naples, Campania, Italy, as a prison gang. Once released, members formed gangs in the cities and continued to grow in power. The Camorra has more than 115 gangs with about 500 members each, for a total of about 57,500.^[5] The Camorra made its fortune in reconstruction after the 1980 Irpinia earthquake.^[2]

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 the cigarette smuggling routes into drug smuggling routes with the Sicilian [Mafia's assistance but not all Camorra leaders agreed. This brought about the Camorra Wars between two factions and almost 400 men were murdered. Those opposed to drug trafficking lost the war.

The Camorra controls the drug trade in Europe, and is organized by management principles. It runs the largest open-air market in the world in Secondigliano in Naples. The gangs themselves are loosely controlled franchises. The former leader, Paolo Di Lauro, who designed the system has been imprisoned since 2005. The organization produced about €200 million (about $250 million) annually. They inspired the current Italian television series Gomorrah.^[5]

It is believed that nearly 200 Camorra affiliates reside in the United States. Many came to the US during the Camorra Wars ever since the 19th century, as proved by an old organization best known as Black Hand. The Camorra conducts money laundering, extortion, alien smuggling, robbery, blackmail, kidnapping, political corruption, and counterfeiting.

'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia

Derived from the Greek word andragathía meaning courage or loyalty, the 'Ndrangheta formed in the 1890s in Calabria. The 'Ndrangheta consists of 160 cells and approximately 6,000 members, worldwide some estimate there to be as many as 10,000 core members^[6] and specializes in political corruption and cocaine trafficking. The 'Ndrangheta cells are loosely connected family groups based on blood relationships and marriages. 'Ndrangheta presence in the United States is estimated between 100 and 200 members and associates. The majority of that presence is in New York and Florida. The 'Ndrangheta is also known to engage in cocaine (controlling up to 80% of that flowing through Europe)^[6] and heroin trafficking, murder, bombings, counterfeiting, illegal gambling, frauds, thefts, labor racketeering, loansharking, illegal immigration, and rarely some kidnapping.

Basilischi (Basilicatan Mafia)

The Basilischi was a mafia organization founded in 1994 in Potenza. It's sometimes called Italy's fifth mafia (if La Stidda is included as part of the Sicilian Mafia.)^[7] After the maxi-trial in 1999 which caused the capture of many high-ranking members, the Basilischi's turf was assumed by the 'Ndrangheta.

Sacra Corona Unita (Apulian Mafia)

The Sacra Corona Unita (SCU), or United Sacred Crown, is a Mafia-like criminal organization from the region of Apulia (in Italian Puglia) in Southern Italy, and is especially active in the areas of Brindisi and Lecce and not, as people tend to believe, in the region as a whole. The SCU was founded in the late 1970s as the Nuova Grande Camorra Pugliese, based in Foggia, by the Camorra member Raffaele Cutolo, who wanted to expand his operations into Apulia. It has also been suggested that elements of this group originated from the 'Ndrangheta, but it is not know if they were breakaways from it or the result of indirect co-operation with clans of the 'Ndrangheta.

A few years after the creation of the SCU, following the downfall of Cutolo, the organization began to operate independently from the Camorra under the leadership of Giuseppe Rogoli. Under his leadership the SCU mixed its Apulian interests and opportunities with 'Ndrangheta and Camorra traditions. Originally preying on the region's substantial wine and olive oil industries, the group moved into fraud, gunrunning, and drug trafficking, and made alliances with international criminal organizations such as the Russian and Albanian mafias, the Colombian drug cartels, and some Asian organizations. The Sacra Corona Unita consists of about 50 Clans with approximately 2,000 Core members^[2] and specializes in smuggling cigarettes, drugs, arms, and people.

Very few SCU members have been identified in the United States, however there are some links to individuals in Illinois, Florida, and possibly New York. The Sacra Corona Unita is also reported to be involved in money laundering, extortion, and political corruption and collects payoffs from other criminal groups for landing rights on the southeast coast of Italy. This territory is a natural gateway for smuggling to and from post-Communist countries like Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania.

With the decreasing importance of the Adriatic corridor as a smuggling route (thanks to the normalization of the Balkans area) and a series of successful police and judicial operations against it in recent years, the Sacra Corona Unita has been considered, if not actually defeated, to be reduced to a fraction of its former power, which peaked around the mid-1990s.

Local Rivals
The internal difficulties of the SCU aided the birth of antagonistic criminal groups such as:

• Remo Lecce Libera: formed by some leading criminal figures from Lecce, who claim to be independent from any criminal group other than the 'Ndrangheta. The term Remo indicates Remo Morello, a criminal from the Salento area, killed by criminals from the Campania region because he opposed any external interference;
• Nuova Famiglia Salentina: formed in 1986 by De Matteis Pantaleo, from Lecce and stemming from the Famiglia Salentina Libera born in the early 1980s as an autonomous criminal movement in the Salento area with no links with extra-regional Mafia expressions
• Rosa dei Venti: formed in 1990 by De Tommasi in the Lecce prison, following an internal division in the SCU.^[8]

Mala del Brenta

The Mala del Brenta was in operation throughout the Veneto region, across Northeast Italy and into Croatia/Yugoslavia, Malta, Hungary and possibly Austria in the 1970s and 1980s.

There is a debate if this organization shall be considered a mafia-like organization, even if, according to Article 416-bis cp, introduced into Italy in 1982, it falls into the category of mafia-type organization displaying some of the characteristics described therein.^[9] This is in spite of its origins in the Northern Italian region of the Veneto, and its North Italian membership base. Having originally spawned from the Southern Italian organized crime syndicates, who had operated and infiltrated the Veneto region during the 1970s, their vision of unifying Veneto banditry into a mafia-style syndicate was first realised under the leadership of Felice "Angel Face" Maniero throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

These original Sicilian mafiosi, controlled much of the mafia activity in the Veneto, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and included most notably: Salvatore "Totuccio" Contorno, Gaetano Fidanzati, Antonino Duca, Salvatore and Gaetano Badalamenti, and Giuseppe Madonia. Veneti malavitosi, or underworld figures and bandits, learned from these Sicilians the necessary means for organizing themselves and taking the reins of control from the successive two decades.

Sometimes referred to as the fifth and smallest of the Mafia organizations across Italy during its existence, it operated under the sanction of the Corleonesi clan from Sicily and had strong links with other mafia families, such as Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita.

Banda della Magliana

The Banda della Maglian (English translation: Magliana Gang) was an Italian criminal organization based in Rome and active mostly throughout the late 1970s until the early 1990s. The gang's name refers to the neighborhood in Rome, the Magliana, from which most of its members came. The Banda della Magliana was involved in criminal activities during the Italian "years of lead" (or anni di piombo). The organization was tied to other Italian criminal organizations such as the Cosa Nostra, Camorra and the 'Ndrangheta, but it was also notably connected to neofascist paramilitary and terrorist organizations, including the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR), the neofascist group responsible for the 1980 Bologna massacre. In addition to their involvement in traditional organized crime rackets, the Banda della Magliana is also believed to have worked for Italian political figures such as Licio Gelli, grand-master of the illegal and underground freemason lodge known as Propaganda Due (P2), which was purportedly connected to neofascist and far-right militant paramilitary groups.

Banda della Comasina and the Turatello Crew

The Banda della Comasina (English translation: Comasina Gang) was an organized crime group active mainly in Milan, the Milan metropolitan area, and Lombardia in the 1970s or anni di piombo. Their name is derived from the Milan neighborhood of Comasina, the founding location of the organization. The group was led by the Milan crime boss Renato Vallanzasca, a powerful figure in the Milanese underworld in the 1970s. The group began as a smaller robbery gang, and continued to specialize in armed robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, and truck hijacking even as they grew in power and expanded into other subtler areas of organized crime. The gang became notorious for brazenly setting up roadblocks and robbing members of the Milan police force. As the Banda della Comasina rose in power, they expanded into other areas of organized crime, such as arms trafficking, illegal gambling, drug trafficking, contract killing, extortion, racketeering, bootlegging, and corruption.

The group's downfall was partially brought about by its brazen disregard for subtlety and authority and its continued reliance on kidnapping and armed robbery to make money. The gang's leader, Renato Vallanzasca, repeatedly escaped from police custody and continued to commit robberies and kidnappings of wealthy and powerful people even while living as fugitive. In 1976, the group committed approximately 70 robberies and multiple kidnappings (many of which were never reported to police), including the kidnapping of a prominent Bergamo businessman, and several of the robberies resulted in the murder of the robbery victims, including four policemen, a doctor and a bank employee. That same year, Vallanzasca (still a fugitive at this point) and the gang kidnapped 16-year-old Emanuela Trapani, the daughter of a Milanese businessman, and held her captive for over a month and a half, from December 1976 to January 1977, only releasing the girl upon the payment of a ransom of one billion in Italian currency.^[11] Soon after, the gang was responsible for the killing of two highway police officers who had stopped a car containing Vallanzasca and other members of the gang. Two other members of the Banda della Comasina, Carlo Carluccio and Antonio Furiato, were killed in separate gun battles with policemen, in Piazza Vetra in Milan and on the Autostrada A4 motorway respectively.

Vallanzasca was eventually captured, and, while in prison, he developed an alliance and friendship with his former rival, Francis Turatello, another recently incarcerated and powerful crime boss in Milan with strong connections to the Sicilian Mafia, Camorra, and Italian-American Gambino crime family (as well as possible ties to the Banda della Magliana and Italian political terrorist groups). As the leader of the so-called Turatello Crew, Francis Turatello was a protege of the Sicilian Mafia and an important ally in Milan for both the Sicilian Mafia and Nuova Camorra Organizzata. The Turatello Crew controlled various illegal rackets in the Milan underworld with the backing of the Sicilian Mafia and Camorra, controlling prostitution in Milan and, like the Banda della Comasina, participating in robbery and kidnapping. The Turatello Crew and Banda della Comasina had in fact been in the middle of a gang war with each other when both of their leaders, Vallanzasca and Turatello, were incarcerated in the same prison, at which point the two crime figures reconciled and bonded. The newly forged alliance between the Banda della Comasina and the Mafia- and Camorra-backed Turatello Crew only increased the Banda della Comasina's influence and power in the Milan underworld, and the two groups cooperated in controlling much of Milanese organized crime while their leaders remained incarcerated and controlling the illegals operations from within prison. However, while in prison in 1981, Turatello was assassinated by orders of Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo, and the Turatello Crew collapsed while the Banda della Comasina lost an important new ally. Soon after Turatello's assassination, Vallanzasca, still imprisoned, organized and participated in a prison revolt in which two pentiti, or former gangsters that had collaborated with the Italian government, were brutally killed. Despite repeated escape attempts, Vallanzasca remains in prison serving four consecutive life sentences and an additional 290 years, and the Banda della Comisina soon collapsed and disbanded in the early 1980s in Vallanzasca's absence.

Italian crime in US and other foreign countries

Those currently active in the United States are the Sicilian Mafia, Camorra or Campanian Mafia, 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia, and Sacra Corona Unita or "United Sacred Crown". The FBI refers to them as "Italian Organized Crime" (IOC). These Italian crime groups frequently collaborate with the Italian-American Mafia, which is itself an offshoot of the Sicilian Mafia and, to a lesser extent, the Camorra.

The Sicilian Mafia first gained footing in the United States following waves of immigration from Southern Italy into the United States. In the past, the Camorra also operated on a larger scale in the United States, forming the New York Camorra, which warred with the Sicilian Mafia in the United States and eventually became absorbed into the United States Sicilian Mafia to form what is now known as the American or Italian-American Mafia. Though many of the first Italian criminal groups in the US combined to create the Italian-American Mafia, more recent members of the Sicilian Mafia, Camorra, and 'Ndrangheta continue to semi-independently operate in the US or collaborate with the Italian-American Mafia.

The FBI estimates the size of the four IOC groups to be approximately 25,000 members and 250,000 affiliates worldwide. There are more than 3,000 members and affiliates in the United States scattered mostly throughout the major cities in the Northeast, the Midwest, California, and the South. However, their largest presence centers around Boston, New York, northern New Jersey, and Philadelphia. Their criminal activities are international with members and affiliates in Canada, South America, Australia, and parts of Europe. These organizations are also known to collaborate with other international organized crime groups from all over the world.

The Italian gangs (especially the Sicilian Mafia) have also connections with the Corsican gangs. This collaboration were mostly important during the French Connection era. During the 1990s the links between the Corsican Mafia and the Sicilian Mafia permitted an establishment of some Sicilian gangsters in the Lavezzi Islands.

The major threat to American society posed by IOC groups centers around drug trafficking and money laundering. IOC groups have been involved in heroin trafficking for decades. Two major investigations which targeted IOC drug trafficking in the 1980s are known as the "French Connection" and "Pizza Connection." These and other investigations have documented their cooperation in drug trafficking with other major drug trafficking organizations. IOC groups are also involved in illegal gambling, political corruption, extortion, kidnapping, frauds, counterfeiting, infiltration of legitimate businesses, murders, bombings, and weapons trafficking. Industry experts in Italy estimate that their worldwide criminal activity is worth more than $100 billion annually.

Outside of the United States, Italy, and Southern France, Italian organized crime groups have also established strongholds in Canada (Rizzuto crime family, Musitano crime family, Papalia crime family, Luppino crime family, Cotroni crime family, Commisso 'ndrina, Siderno Group); Australia (Siderno Group, The Carlton Crew, Honoured Society, Barbaro 'ndrina); and Germany (see Duisburg massacre). Italian organized crime groups also operate to varying extents throughout Western Europe, including the United Kingdom. In the UK in particular, historically influential but now defunct Italian organized crime gangs operating in Great Britain included the Sabini gang and Cortesi brothers.

Italian organized crime groups have also carved out turf or formed close ties with local organized crime group in Latin American countries such as Colombia and Venezuela (where the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan in particular has a significant presence.)

Non-Italian criminal groups in Italy

There is a small number of similar criminal organizations operating in Italy but based outside of Italy or composed of non-Italians living in Italy, such as the Chinese Triads, Russian, Georgian and Israeli networks, African (notably Nigerian) gangs, and Balkan crime groups including the Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Montenegrin (who ran cigarette smuggling operations with the Sacra Corona Unita) and the Albanian mafia. The Albanian gangs mainly operate in not only Albania but also notably in Italy, especially the more affluent northern parts of Italy. All these organizations operate mostly in prostitution under the permission and the control of the Italian organized crime groups.

See also

• Crime in Italy

References