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110-643: According to reenactments, in September–October 1991, during some meetings of the Cosa Nostra " Interprovincial Commission " occurred in Enna or thereabouts and led by the boss Salvatore Riina , it was decided to start with terrorist actions, because 475 people suspected to be mafiosi were arrested. Mafia terrorism against Italian state had to be claimed under the name " Falange Armata ". Thereupon, in December 1991, there

220-482: 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

330-504: 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

440-556: 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

550-452: 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

660-658: A fact of maximum attention. Between March and May 1993, 121 decrees for 41-bis regime were revoked under the sign of Edoardo Fazzioli (at the time deputy chief of DAP), as Amato suggested in his note of 6 March. On 27 May, in Florence, there was the Via dei Georgofili bombing that caused five victims and about 48 wounded, again under the tag Falange Armata . Una trattativa indubbiamente ci fu e venne, quantomeno inizialmente, impostata su un do ut des. L'iniziativa fu assunta da rappresentanti delle istituzioni e non dagli uomini di mafia. There

770-476: 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

880-442: 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

990-444: 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

1100-412: 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

1210-402: 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

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1320-563: A long note in which he expressed his idea to abandon totally the article 41-bis and to refold on other penitentiary instruments in order to face mafia. On 17 March, some self-styled relatives of mafiosi inmates, that were jailed in Asinara Penitentiary and Pianosa Penitentiary , sent a threatening letter to the President of Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and, for information, to: the Pope ;

1430-574: 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

1540-786: 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

1650-545: A negotiation with the Italian State concerning pentiti and prison; still in that period, Riina said also to Giovanni Brusca that he drew up a " papello " (a written piece of paper) of requests in exchange for the end of the attacks. On 1 July the judge Borsellino, who was in Rome to interrogate the pentito Gaspare Mutolo , was invited to Viminale in order to meet the minister Mancino; according to Mutolo, Borsellino came back from

1760-564: A note to Conso in which he explained his new way to secretly not extend 373 measures of 41 bis in November, that would have constituted "a positive signal of detente". On 22 July Salvatore Cancemi gives himself up to Carabinieri and showed immediately the intention to collaborate with justice. Between 20 and 27 July, the DAP extended numerous measures of 41 bis regarding several dangerous mafia criminals. On 27 July Col. Mori met Di Maggio to discuss about

1870-447: 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

1980-421: 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

2090-414: 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

2200-411: A soccer match at Stadio Olimpico ; according to Spatuzza, in that occasion Graviano confided to him that they were obtaining all they wanted thanks to the contacts with Marcello Dell'Utri and, by him, with Silvio Berlusconi . On 2 November 1993, the minister Conso did not renewed around 334 measures of 41 bis "to stop massacres" (according to him). However, on 23 January 1994, in Rome, the attempt at

2310-468: 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

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2420-583: 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, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and South America. These diaspora-based outfits replicated

2530-403: 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 the word include: The public's association of the word with

2640-428: A word, not a comment, not an institutional intervent to weaken the article 41 bis in order to distance from him those dangers. If that letter-threat was considered to maintain or to revoke the article 41-bis in the next November 1993, and how much weight was attributed to it, it's not easy to say, even because it is not mentioned in any official act. But for sure, even in light of the following attempts, it should have been

2750-584: 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

2860-408: Is an association of gangs which sell their protection and arbitration services under a common brand. The Mafia's core activities are protection racketeering , the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions. The basic group is known as a " family ", "clan", or cosca . Each family claims sovereignty over a territory, usually

2970-401: 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,

3080-415: 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

3190-457: 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

3300-788: The Article 41-bis prison regime , that is the "hard prison regime" reserved to mafia inmates: the next day it came an anonymous phone call in the name of the tag "Falange Armata" which threatened to not modify the prison regimes. In the same time, the Carabinieri captain Giuseppe De Donno contacted Vito Ciancimino through his son Massimo on behalf of the colonel Mario Mori (at time ROS vice-commander) who informed General Subranni; in turn, Ciancimino and his son contacted Riina through Antonino Cinà (doctor and mafioso of San Lorenzo in Palermo ). Moreover,

3410-498: The Corte di Cassazione confirmed the Maxi Trial sentence that condemned Riina and many other bosses to life imprisonment ; after the sentence, the bosses Sicilian Mafia Commission and Interprovincial Commission decided to start the massacres season yet planned. In 1992 the boss Giovanni Brusca tried to open a first negotiation through the mafioso Antonino Gioè (who will be one among

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3520-527: 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

3630-440: The attack in via D'Amelio , the public prosecutor's office in Palermo files the archiving request of the investigation defined "Mafia e Appalti" ("Mafia and Tenders"), on which both Giovanni Falcone and later Paolo Borsellino worked with great interest. The archiving decree was issued on 14 August 1992. On 22 July Colonel Mori met lawyer Fernanda Contri (general secretary at Palazzo Chigi ) in order that she referred to

3740-601: The bishop of Florence ; the cardinal of Palermo ; the prime minister Giuliano Amato ; the ministers Conso and Mancino ; the journalist Maurizio Costanzo ; the deputy Vittorio Sgarbi ; the CSM ; the Giornale di Sicilia . On 1 April another phone call on behalf of Falange Armata threatened the president Scalfaro and the minister Mancino. On 14 May, Maurizio Costanzo avoid a car bomb explosion claimed by Falange Armata . The subsequent attacks in Florence and Rome seemed direct against

3850-619: The boss Salvatore Riina wanted to revenge for his activity of antimafia magistrate. In the massacre even his wife Francesca Morvillo and three police escorts (Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo and Antonio Montinaro) lost their life. Also this time the attack was claimed with the tag "Falange Armata". On 8 June the Italian Cabinet, after the Capaci bombing, approved the Decree Law " Scotti - Martelli " (also known as "Falcone Decree"), which introduced

3960-438: The minister of Defence Salvo Andò . Claudio Martelli was watched by mafia bosses because according to the pentiti Angelo Siino , Nino Giuffrè and Gaspare Spatuzza he was between "those four crasti (Sicilian for cuckholded ) socialists who first took our votes, in '87, and then waged war against us". In particular, Claudio Martelli called Giovanni Falcone as main chief for Penal Affairs in ministry. On 30 January 1992

4070-405: 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

4180-747: The "mafiosi inmates problem". During the night between 27 and 28 July there were the Via Palestro massacre in Milan (five dead and thirteen wounded) and after few minutes two bomb cars exploded in front of San Giovanni in Laterano and San Giorgio al Velabro in Rome (both without victims). The next day two anonymous letters sent to the Il Messaggero and Corriere della Sera editorial staff blackmailed new attacks. On 22 October 1993 Col. Mori met again Di Maggio. In

4290-416: 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

4400-495: 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

4510-630: The Carabinieri marshal Roberto Tempesta contacted Antonino Gioè (boss of the Family of Altofonte ) through Paolo Bellini (former right-wing terrorist and police informer of the SISMI ) in order to recover some robbed art; Tempesta informed Mori about those contacts. At the end of June, captain De Donno met Liliana Ferraro , vice-chief of Penal Affairs, at the Ministry of Justice , to whom asked politic covering to

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4620-700: The Colonel Mario Mori and the Captain Giuseppe De Donno , and the answer was that "the request is unacceptable". Then Gioè threatened that they could have hit the Italian artistic heritage, referring to an attack against the Leaning Tower of Pisa . On 12 March 1992 the deputy Salvo Lima , Sicilian parliamentarian of Democrazia Cristiana , was killed some days before the Italian general election since he

4730-464: 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

4840-401: 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

4950-482: 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

5060-491: 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

5170-475: 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

5280-409: 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

5390-404: 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

5500-490: 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

5610-473: The Public Administration in order to be lawyer. Even if after ten years in that office a replacement would be normal, in this case there would be uspecified disagreement with the president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro , according to former DAP deputy chief Edoardo Fazzioli. For his part, Scalfaro denied totally the existence of this disagreement. Nicolò Amato was replaced by Adalberto Capriotti, who at that time

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5720-435: 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

5830-429: 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,

5940-564: The Stadio Olimpico failed due a malfunctioning of the remote controller that should provocate the explosion. The attempt was not repeated. In that period, according to the pentito Tullio Cannella, Bernardo Provenzano and the Graviano brothers abandoned the Sicilia Libera project to give electoral support to the new political party Forza Italia founded by Silvio Berlusconi . According to

6050-549: The Vatican in the next July. So that collection of recipients, in short, seemed a victim list, if not of people, at least of location linked to them, and the President of the Republic remained at the top of that possible targets list. But Scalfaro, as well as those other recipients who had already suffered an attempt, maintained a rigorous and detached profile compared to those solicitations, denying himself to any request of intervention. Not

6160-519: The article 41-bis was asked also to them. Among them there were the names of the Pope, of the bishop of Florence, of Maurizio Costanzo. Not by chance, few days later, on 14 May, the same Costanzo would have been the target of an attempt in front of the Teatro Parioli, where it hosted his talk show. It was evidently an intimidation against a journalist active against mafia, but also a help request to make public

6270-449: 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

6380-451: 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

6490-778: 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

6600-512: The collaboration relationship with Ciancimino; Ferraro, moreover, invited him to refer it to the judge Paolo Borsellino . On 25 June colonel Mori and captain De Donno met judge Borsellino: according to that was referred by Mori and De Donno, during this meeting Borsellino discussed with the two officials about the investigations of the inquiry " mafia e appalti " ("mafia and tenders"). On 28 June Borsellino met in Rome Ferraro, who talked to him about

6710-514: The contacts between colonel Mori and Ciancimino: however Borsellino declared to be already informed about these contacts. The same day Amato I Cabinet took office: Amato nominated the Christian Democrat deputy Nicola Mancino as Ministry of the Interior in place of Vincenzo Scotti . In that time, Salvatore Riina showed to Salvatore Cancemi a requests list affirming that it was going on

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6820-568: 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,

6930-408: 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

7040-760: 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

7150-467: 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

7260-544: 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

7370-591: 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

7480-444: 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

7590-429: 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

7700-538: 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

7810-410: 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

7920-572: The judge Piero Grasso , but the attack did not work for technical problems. In the same time, Colonel Mori met deputy Luciano Violante (then president of Antimafia Commission ) to support a secret summit with Ciancimino in order to discuss about political problems, but the summit was rejected by Violante. Between October and November, Giovanni Brusca and Antonino Gioè ordered to collocate an artillery bullet into Giardino di Boboli in Florence in order to create social alarm and fear and so to resume

8030-471: The killers of Capaci bombing ), which was put in contact by Bellini, an art trafficker linked to secret services . Through Gioè, Brusca made know to the Carabinieri Marshal Tempesta that, in return of the recovery of other precious artworks, he wanted the agreement of the house arrest for five mafiosi bosses, among which the father Bernardo Brusca . The Marshal Tempesta asked to his superiors,

8140-571: 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

8250-423: The magistrate annotated all his investigative intuitions and never separated from it, was not found. After the via D'Amelio bombing, the decree "Scotti-Martelli" was converted in law and over 100 particularly dangerous mafiosi inmates were transferred to Asinara prison and Pianosa prison , where they were submitted to the 41-bis regime that was applied even to other 400 mafiosi inmates. On 20 July, one day after

8360-660: 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

8470-565: The marshal Guazzelli was killed along the road Agrigento - Porto Empedocle and the homicide was claimed again with the tag "Falange Armata". Guazzelli was killed since mafiosi bosses wanted to give a strong signal to Mannino and Subranni, to raise the game and to impose a high-level deal. On 23 May there was the Capaci bombing , in which Giovanni Falcone was killed, since the Interprovincial and Provincial Commission of Cosa nostra and led by

8580-444: The meeting visibly upset. In the same period, Giovanni Brusca received by Salvatore Biondino the instruction to suspend the preparation of the attack against Mannino because they were "working for more important things". According to Salvatore Cancemi , in those days Riina insisted to accelerate the murder of Borsellino and to execute it with impressive manners. On 15 July Borsellino confided to his wife Agnese that General Subranni

8690-497: The negotiation with Marshal Tempesta: however the bullet was found only at a later time. In the same time Carabinieri General Francesco Delfino anticipated to minister Martelli that Riina would be individated and arrested within December; on 12 December minister Mancino affirmed during a meeting in Palermo that Riina was going to be arrested, and in the same month Colonel Mori consigned a map of Palermo to Ciancimino in order that he indicated Riina's hideout, but on 19 December Ciancimino

8800-497: 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

8910-499: The other recipients of the letter. The magistrate Sebastiano Ardita , former chief of Direzione generale dei detenuti e del trattamento , wrote about links between the massacres and the article 41-bis events in his Ricatto allo Stato ( Blackmail to the State ): Highlighting who were the other recipients of that letter is matter of great interest. They were names added "for information", but it appeared clear that an intervention against

9020-514: The pentito Nino Giuffrè , the Graviano brothers dealt with Berlusconi by the businessman Gianni Jenna in order to obtain judicial benefits and 41 bis reworking in exchange for electoral support to Forza Italia ; still according to Giuffrè, also Provenzano activated some channels to arrive to Marcello Dell'Utri and Berlusconi in order to present a list of requests about several arguments in which Cosa Nostra had interest. Even other pentiti talked about

9130-545: The prime minister Giuliano Amato about the occurred contacts with Ciancimino . On 10 August a set of measure against mafia was definitively approved: 7000 soldiers were sent in Sicily and over 100 mafiosi bosses were transferred to Asinara penitentiary . In September, Riina said to Brusca that the negotiation was interrupted and so that it was necessary another "colpettino" (literally "a little pat"): for this Riina appointed Brusca to prepare an assassination attempt against

9240-474: The problem of the inmates in the islands. It cannot be excluded that Costanzo's passiveness about the Cosa Nostra insistences and his resolute anti-mafia task were considered deserving for a model punishment. And it looks likewise disturbing the circumstance that the next attempt, again in May 1993, was in Florence. Whereas the third attempt proved to be directly against the Pope, because it happened exactly against

9350-446: 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 ,

9460-503: The same period, the businessman Tullio Cannella (trustworthy man of Leoluca Bagarella and Graviano brothers ) founded the separatist movement Sicilia Libera ( Free Sicily ) that linked itself to other similar movements forming the Lega Meridionale ( Southern League ). In October 1993, the pentito Gaspare Spatuzza declared that he met the boss Giuseppe Graviano at a bar in Rome to organize an attempt against Carabinieri during

9570-415: The son of Ciancimino, who consigned to judges both the documents). The second request of the papello is the "abrogation of 41 bis ", which concerns the "hard prison regime" for some categories of crimes, among which the organized crime. For this reason the investigators focused on probably linked episodes, like the fact that in 1993 about three hundred 41 bis applications were left to expire and Nicolò Amato

9680-447: 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

9790-429: The support of Cosa Nostra to Forza Italia at the Italian general election of 1994 . On 27 January 1994 in Milan the Graviano brothers, which were involved in the organisation of all the attempts, were arrested: from that moment the massacres strategy of Cosa Nostra stopped. After the first list of requests, created directly by Cosa Nostra, there was a second list with some changes made by Vito Ciancimino (as showed by

9900-590: The tag " Falange Armata ". After the murder of Lima, the deputy Calogero Mannino , at the time nominated minister for extraordinary intervents of the Mezzogiorno in Andreotti VII Cabinet , got in touch (through marshal of Carabinieri Giuliano Guazzelli ) with Antonio Subranni , at the time commander of ROS , because he was warned by a mafioso intimidation, a funeral flowers wreath, an evident death threat and he feared in turn to be killed. On 4 April 1992

10010-564: 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

10120-404: 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 –

10230-511: 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 was ambiguous, signifying a bully, arrogant but also fearless, enterprising and proud, according to scholar Diego Gambetta . In reference to

10340-409: 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

10450-818: 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

10560-407: 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

10670-513: Was another " Interprovincial Commission " meeting, always led by Riina, in which it was decided to hit in particular the judges Giovanni Falcone , Paolo Borsellino and several politicians: Sicilian deputy Salvo Lima and his assistant Sebastiano Purpura , the minister for extraordinary intervents of the Mezzogiorno Calogero Mannino , the minister of Justice Claudio Martelli , the minister of Communications Carlo Vizzini and

10780-486: Was another anonymous phone call on behalf of Falange Armata in which minister Mancino, the police general chief Vincenzo Parisi and Nicolò Amato (at that time chief of DAP ) were threatened. The next day minister Martelli was forced to resign because the Tangentopoli scandal; the deputy Giovanni Conso succeeded him. On 6 March, Nicolò Amato (sustained by Parisi and the minister of Interior) sent to minister Conso

10890-481: Was arrested by police before he could give back the maps. On 15 January 1993, in Palermo , Totò Riina , Cosa nostra boss, was arrested by ROS of Carabinieri , led by Colonel Mori and General Delfino, which used the new pentito Baldassare Di Maggio to identify Riina who was fugitive for 23 years. After the arrest, there were two mafioso groups with different ideas: one (formed by Leoluca Bagarella , Giovanni Brusca , brothers Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano )

11000-412: Was asked by letter to revoke the decree on the hard prison regime. Cosa Nostra The Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra ( Italian: [ˈkɔːza ˈnɔstra, ˈkɔːsa -] , Sicilian: [ˈkɔːsa ˈnɔʂː(ɽ)a] ; "our thing" ), also referred to as simply Mafia , is a criminal society and criminal organization originating on the island of Sicily and dates back to the mid-19th century. It

11110-400: Was claimed again with the tag "Falange Armata". According to the prosecutor Nino di Matteo , the murder of Borsellino was executed in order to "protect the negotiation from the danger that judge Borsellino, become aware about it, revealed it and denounced publicly its existence, and so compromise irreversibly the desired result". From the place of the massacre Borsellino's red notebook, in which

11220-417: Was close to mafia environments while some days before he told her that there was a contact between mafia and deviated parts of the State, and that soon he would also be killed. In the same time, Riina would have said to Brusca that the negotiation was abruptly interrupted and there was "a wall to be overstepped". On 19 July, with an attack in via D'Amelio , in Palermo, Paolo Borsellino was killed. The attack

11330-457: Was favorable to continue the attacks against the Italian State, the other one (formed by Michelangelo La Barbera , Raffaele Ganci , Salvatore Cancemi , Matteo Motisi , Benedetto Spera , Nino Giuffrè , Pietro Aglieri ) was against the continuation of the attacks. The boss Bernardo Provenzano played as peacemaker between these two fronts, and he succeeded to impose the condition to do attacks out of Sicily, in "continent". On 9 February, there

11440-589: Was general prosecutor at Appellate court in Trento . Palermo prosecutors noticed that on 14 June 1993 the Falange Armata restarted to call, "showing satisfaction for the designation of Capriotti" and defining it "a victory for the Falange ". After it other calls followed, in which Mancino and Parisi were threatened with death (on 19 June), then Capriotti and his vice Di Maggio (on 16 September). On 26 June, Capriotti sent

11550-405: 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

11660-557: Was no more able to guarantee the interests of mafia clans within the government: in particular, he didn't succeed to influence the Maxi Trial in Cassation. Actually the real target was Giulio Andreotti : Cosa nostra would have retaliated on the prime minister, but he was too protected and unreachable. So the choice fell on the Andreotti's reference person in Sicily, and the homicide claimed with

11770-502: 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

11880-494: Was replaced as chief of Dipartimento dell'amministrazione penitenziaria . The isolation of Totò Riina was revoked; moreover, several people who tried to modify the article 41-bis were involved. Calogero Mannino , investigated for the negotiation, received a notification in which "there are references about "pressures" that Mannino would have do on institutional figures and about 41-bis topic". Even Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro were called to testify: to Scalfaro

11990-457: 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

12100-565: Was undoubtedly a negotiation, and it was, at least initially, based on a do ut des . The initiative was taken by representatives of the [Italian] institutions and not by mobsters. In early June, Nicolò Amato was removed as chief of Dipartimento dell'amministrazione penitenziaria and was sent as representative of Italy within the Committee for the Prevention of Torture . The promotion seemed misleading to Amato, and shortly after he decided to leave

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