Sicilian Cosa Nostra Research Articles

Is the Sinaloa Cartel a Mafia?

Abstract Aiming to reduce the conceptual ambiguity surrounding the topic of organized crime, this study assesses the extent to which the Sinaloa Cartel, the most prominent Mexican drug syndicate, has the characteristics of a mafia. The study uses Paoli’s 2020 mafia framework, which identifies seven typifying characteristics of mafias, such as the Sicilian Cosa Nostra or the Japanese Yakuza. It relies on a broad review of the literature, court transcripts and media sources. The Sinaloa Cartel fully meets none of the seven typifying traits of mafias. It comes closest on the last trait, popular legitimacy and power-sharing, but it is properly characterized as a large drug-selling enterprise. Lastly, the study draws (sombre) policy implications from the analysis.

There’s a long year to be spent. Cosa Nostra and football in Palermo

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the relations between the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and football in Palermo. Through the analysis of the judicial file of a case dating back to 2007, the author shows how the control of the territory, through extortions against the Palermo football club, matter to the Sicilian mafia more than an involvement in the football business. The article highlights two level of relations between the mafia and football: the intermediation for the mafia, which is made by legal actors to grant Cosa Nostra its territorial sovereignty; the intermediation by the mafia, when Cosa Nostra intervenes on behalf of some actors who are part of the mafia network.

Where do we go when we follow the money? The political-economic construction of Antimafia investigators in Western Sicily

ABSTRACTThis paper traces the changing role of wealth and movements of money in investigators' evolving anthropological imagination of the social structure of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and its relationship with its surrounding in key moments of Antimafia investigations in one Sicilian province over the past 40 years. The routes of money, which initially marked exchange-based relations between two otherwise mutually extraneous actors, gradually indexed a more complex combination of reciprocity, exchange, and redistribution both within the mafia legally constructed and in its relationship to its surrounding. At the same time, the public and official anthropological imaginary of the mafia-politica nexus permits only exchange between mutually-external parties or reciprocity as an entity-creating internal thread. As a result, the complexity of wealth, which investigations reveal by 'following money,' requires constant reduction to individual bearers of monetary worth and interests.

Mafia war: simulating conflict escalation in criminal organizations

The paper describes a simulation model of conflict escalation in criminal organizations, investigating conditions of stability and collapse of the organization. As a paradigmatic case, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra provides the background for the formulation of the model assumptions. Cosa Nostra faced two so-called Mafia wars. Outbreak of wars is replicated by the simulation model. Since criminal organizations operate outside the state monopoly of violence, they provide a laboratory for studying war and state in the making: Organizational stability remains dependent on the loyalty of the Mafiosi. Monte-Carlo simulation experiments reveal a constant danger of a Hobbesian war of all against all. A statistical examination of explanatory factors of the distribution of violence shows that minimal differences in the initial conditions open up pathways to the escalation of violence. Central factors for stability are economic prosperity and normative commitment to the organization. Once the economic carrying capacity of the environment is reached, normative binding forces control escalation of violence. However, stability remains precarious and is in constant danger of falling in a trap cycle of revenge. This path-dependent effect is the central mechanism for the escalation of violence.

Cosa Nostra and Camorra: illegal activities and organisational structures

This article intends to develop an introductory reflection concerning the most recent trends of two of the major Italian mafia organisations: the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Campanian Camorra. Following a comparative perspective, the analysis will focus the attention on changes that have occurred in recent years both at the level of illegal activities and at the level of organisational structures. After the bombs of the nineties, Cosa Nostra has moved towards a flexible and less centralised organisation, investing dirty money in the legal economic sector, to reduce its exposure to law enforcement investigations. At the same time, the Camorra clans have considerably widened their range of activity both at a local and international level.

Overcoming the ‘Ndrangheta: contrasting methods and continuities of action: A report from the ‘La ferita’ conference, Reggio Calabria, November 2010

The ‘Ndrangheta is one of southern Italy's three traditional mafias; with its roots in Calabria, it has a presence in other Italian regions and operates from bases abroad, including outside Europe. Until a few years into the new millennium the other two, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Camorra of Campania, were much better known. Serious studies of the ‘Ndrangheta could be counted on the fingers of two hands, the few journalists who took an interest were not well known, and its public image was largely linked to kidnapping, in which the Calabrian gangs were specialists. In 2005, however, the vice-president of the Calabrian Regional Council was murdered, and on 15 August 2007, the Ferragosto holiday, six young Calabrians were killed in Duisburg; these events helped to break the silence around the ‘Ndrangheta that had prevailed for a long time. Anti-Ndrangheta groups, consisting mainly of young people, have formed; journalists with a national profile have started to file reports from Calabria; there has been an explosion in reportage (not, in truth, of high quality) on the ‘Ndrangheta's origins, characteristics and business activity; and finally, in 2008, the Parliamentary Commission on the Mafia devoted a special report to the Calabrian mafia for the first time. Despite this rapid growth of interest, there have still been very few serious studies.

From Palermo to Ciudad Juárez: Organized Crime in Italy and Mexico in Comparative Perspective

The paper starts from the assumption that OC is a specific type of system oriented towards an authoritative allocation of resources and that, as such, cannot survive without a territory where its power can be exerted through a mechanism of extortion and protection. The introduction states firstly that the cradle of OC is in the city, where it embodies the most unconventional and violent face of the capitalist accumulation of resources. Secondly, it asserts that it is necessary to take a closer look at the relationship between the city and the state in the nation-building process. The OC is, in fact, a direct consequence of the attempt, on the part of the central government, to reduce the cost of the process of the monopolization of force by co-opting local potentates instead of defeating them. The paper then compares Palermo and Ciudad Juarez, by looking at the two different paradigmatic models of OC that originated in these two cities: the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the maras. Besides, Italy and Mexico share many political and social variables in their historical evolution: the late formation of a unified state in the second half of the 1850s; the strategic even if peripheral role in the international politics, thanks to their peculiar relationships with the US; but also the Spanish legacy (in Italy, mainly in Southern regions), which probably helps us to explain other cultural similarities (e.g. family and religion). The first section shortly reconstructs the history of Cosa nostra, emphasizing how its process of institutionalization and entrenchment in the Palermitan society results in one of the most striking example of political Mafia. The second section analyzes the role of OC after the end of Cold War, when old hierarchies of scale, based on nation-states, became destabilized, and when the historic dependence on the center of so many peripheries in the international system was replaced by the center’s growing subjugation to the peripheries. The third section analyzes Ciudad Juarez both comparing it with other Latin American cities that gave birth to some of the most famous cartels of narco-trafficking, and stressing its peculiarities that concur to define the assembled crime paradigm. The conclusion, finally, challenges the widely accepted assumption that state violence – i.e. war on drugs – can be the right strategy to combat OC. On the contrary, social scientists should revisit and develop Tilly’s idea of trust networks to find at least a theoretically plausible answer to OC.

Anti-Money Laundering in Europe: Banks as Rent-Seekers in the Enhancement of the Third Money Laundering Directive

Criminals organising their criminal activities for profit is not something of the last few years, but it hails back to the early Christian world. Nevertheless, the knowledge of the average citizen about organised crime is generally limited to a superficial image of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra or South American Drugs Cartels due to large Hollywood productions that romanticise these criminal constituencies. The true nature of these criminals and their activities has for the most part remained unclear for the public and policy makers. With some cynicism one could argue that policy makers are more or less as blind about organised crime as the average ignorant citizen.In the last two decades, the European Legislature has tried to lever criminal activities by organized crime. This has led to a well elaborated anti-money laundering framework. The approach taken in the contemporary European anti-money laundering framework is threefold. First, the framework comprises a set of first-pillar Community Regulations and Directives. These measures form the backbone of the European ant-money laundering framework. The latest regulatory initiative is the Council of Europe's third Money Laundering Directive (2005/60/EC). Coordinated measures on the Community level were necessary to prevent money launderers from abusing the European Community's frontierless internal market for their criminal activities. Second, this category contains additional legislative measures against money laundering. One of these measures is Regulation 1889/2005 on the Controls of Cash Entering or Leaving the Community. The necessity of this regulation laid in the highly divergent approaches taken by the Member States. Third, this category includes third pillar measures against cross-border money laundering. Third pillar measures mainly require Member States to diminish money laundering by monitoring their banking transactions, accounts and confidentialities.On the contrary to prior anti-money laundering laws, the latest (third) Money Laundering Directive has a central role for banks. The banking sector is involved in the enforcement of the third Money Laundering Directive through the introduction of disclosure requirements (customer due diligence). The aim of the Directive is to involve all the actors that might get in contact with cross-border money laundering transactions. This paper will examine whether banks indeed have the incentive to enforce the Directive. The first presumption is that, albeit the newest Money Laundering Directive is wider (i.e. broader scope and covers more topics and players) than prior regulatory ventures, it does not necessarily bring a more sophisticated regime. The second presumption is that, there is a risk of rent-seeking that prevents private banks from actually maximizing their gatekeeper role. The rent-seeking risk is mainly fostered by the regulatory framework in which banks operate. Both presumptions form the backbone of this paper and will be thoroughly examined.

Mafia and organised crime in Italy: The unacknowledged successes of law enforcement

Analysing the phenomenon of the mafia and organised crime in Italy as well as the related control policies, it is evident that, although unacknowledged by the media, policy-making and law enforcement communities, significant successes have been achieved in the fight against the mafia since the early 1990s. As a result of these successes, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and, to a lesser extent, all other forms of southern Italian organised crime have entered a period of serious crisis. This does not mean that the Sicilian mafia is defeated or that the law enforcement repression should be relaxed.

Italian Organised Crime: Mafia Associations and Criminal Enterprises

The article reviews the different forms of organised crime in Italy. To begin with, it focuses on the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, Italy's two largest and most powerful mafia associations. With their centuries-old histories, articulated structures, sophisticated ritual and symbolic apparatuses and claim to exercise a political dominion, these associations have few parallels in the world of organised crime. In its second section, the article considers other groups and networks that are--with varying degrees of justification--also routinely described as organised crime: these range from the Neapolitan camorra to Apulian organised crime and the so-called new 'foreign mafie' and other criminal entrepreneurs. Whereas the new Italian and foreign players are likely to expand their activities on Italy's illegal markets, the future of Cosa Nostra and the 'Ndrangheta is more uncertain and largely depends on the decisions made by the public administrations.

Mafia: The Sicilian Cosa Nostra

Revelations in recent years by high profile Mafia members allow for a better understanding than was previously possible of the organization, rules, norms of behaviour and activities of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra as well as other Italian organized crime groups. This article uses these, in combination with other information, to examine the internal functioning of Cosa Nostra (its ideology, admission criteria, structure, relations and modes of conflict regulation) and to consider the nature of its contemporary transformation in terms both of economic activities and its changing relationship with Italy's political class and secret societies.

Mafia: The Sicilian Cosa Nostra

Revelations in recent years by high profile Mafia members allow for a better understanding than was previously possible of the organization, rules, norms of behaviour and activities of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra as well as other Italian organized crime groups. This article uses these, in combination with other information, to examine the internal functioning of Cosa Nostra (its ideology, admission criteria, structure, relations and modes of conflict regulation) and to consider the nature of its contemporary transformation in terms both of economic activities and its changing relationship with Italy's political class and secret societies.