Italian Organized Crime and the Albanian Connection Unit 4- Chapter 6 Italian Organized Crime and the Albanian Connection

The Mezzogiorno The southern Italian experience, which dates back more than a thousand years, led to the development of a culture that stresses the variables necessary for survival in a hostile environment

The Mezzogiorno Cont. The southern Italian developed an ideal of manliness, omertá, that includes noncooperation with authorities, self-control in the face of adversity, and the vendetta—“blood washes blood”—which dictated that any offense or slight to the famiglia (family) had to be avenged, no matter what the consequences or how long it took

The Mezzogiorno Cont. The family patriarch, the capo di famiglia, arbitrated all ambiguous situations The family was organized hierarchically The mezzogiorno, literally midday, but a nickname for southern Italy, never enjoyed a Renaissance, remaining mired in feudalism and dependant on agriculture, a legacy of political, social, and economic repression and exploitation

The Mezzogiorno Cont. Vast government spending in the mezzogiorno, often on useless building projects that provide patronage opportunities, became a vehicle for Mafia infiltration The mafioso adds nothing of value to his environment Campania has become northern Italy’s garbage dump

The Mezzogiorno Cont. This history led to the development of three different types of criminal organization Neapolitan Camorra Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta Cosa Nostra A fourth criminal organization, Sacra Corona Unita, is more recent

The Sicilian Mafia The largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily lies almost at its center. As such, it was a bitterly fought over prize colonized by commercial powers In 1860, Italy was freed of foreign rule and united by Giuseppe Garibaldi The new Italian state was unable to establish a monopoly over the use of force in Sicily and, instead, violence became democratized

The Sicilian Mafia Cont. Unwilling or unable to impose law and order, the government in Rome turned a blind eye through successive regimes as Mafia clans maintained a uniquely Sicilian form of order Eventually the aristocracy collapsed and the administration of their lands fell to middlemen called gabelloti, managers who had already gained the reputation of uomi inteso—“strong men”

The Sicilian Mafia Cont. The gabelloto ruled over the estate—latifondo— with brute force The gabelloto was a patron to his peasants who labored on the latifondo Headed by a capomafioso, each group of mafiosi is organized into a cosca (the plural is cosche) associated with a particular mandamento or district

The Sicilian Mafia Cont. Mafia means “protection against the arrogance of the powerful, remedy to any damage, sturdiness of body, strength and serenity of spirit, and the best and most exquisite part of life” Because kinship can strengthen cohesion, sons, brothers, nephews, and other relatives are frequently admitted to cosca membership

The Sicilian Mafia Cont. In southern Italy an ethos of mistrust and suspicion pervades personal and business relationships—a dilemma the mafioso can overcome by offering himself as a guarantor The mafioso brought order, albeit a conservative if not reactionary form, and dispensed primitive justice in a lawless society

The Sicilian Mafia Cont. Every mafioso demands rispetto, indeed, is referred to as a uomo di rispetto—a man worthy of respect The constitutional state and elected parliament that accompanied Sicily’s union with Italy provided a crucial step in the rise to power of the Mafia

Mussolini and the Mafia Mussolini’s rise to power of in the 1920s had important implications for both the Sicilian and American Mafia The impact of the Mafia can be seen by comparing the elections of 1922, when no Fascist was elected to Parliament from Sicily, with the elections of 1924, when thirty-eight Fascists were elected out of the fifty- seven representatives from Sicily

Mussolini and the Mafia Cont. A totalitarian regime does not tolerate pockets of authority that are not under its control, and Mussolini quickly moved to destroy the Mafia Mori assembled a small army of agents and set about the task of purging the island of Mafiosi The Fascists replaced the Mafia as intermediaries and maintainers of Sicilian law and order

Mussolini and the Mafia Cont. In 1928, Mori declared that the Mafia had been destroyed. However, the reality was otherwise, and the Mafia began to reassert itself by 1941 Many Mafia bosses assumed important positions within the regime, and the Fascists failed to significantly transform social and economic conditions upon which the Mafia depended The campaign against the Mafia did succeed in driving some important mafiosi out of Sicily

Nuovo Mafia/Cosa Nostra The end of WWII brought a Mafia renaissance in Sicily as a vacuum in local leadership was filled by former capomafiosi In 1946 the government in Rome announced Sicilian autonomy

Nuovo Mafia/Cosa Nostra Cont. The new mafioso is not bound by the traditions of the rural cosca The New Mafia—called Cosa Nostra by its members— has a distinctly American tint, the result of American gangsters being deported to Sicily

Nuovo Mafia/Cosa Nostra Cont. Initially, Cosa Nostra resorted to robbery and kidnapping to accumulate the capital necessary to be a player in legal endeavors such as the construction industry and in the illicit heroin and cocaine marketplaces The New Mafia has also continued the pizzo, protection money extorted from large and small businesses

Nuovo Mafia/Cosa Nostra Cont. The contrast between the “Two Mafias” is evidenced by a conflict between the capomafiosi of Corleone in the immediate postwar years At the age of nineteen, Leggio became the youngest gabelloto in the history of Sicily

Nuovo Mafia/Cosa Nostra Cont. The Old Mafia benefited from feudal conditions, living off control of the land and cheap labor During the 1960s, the emerging cosche engaged in a bitter struggle for dominance In 1967, the Mafia war led to the trial of 114 mafiosi, and Leggio emerged as the most powerful capomafioso

Nuovo Mafia/Cosa Nostra Cont. When Leggio died in 1993, his right-hand man, Salvatore (Totò) Riina, became head of the Corleone cosca Riina formed private alliances with rising members of many cosche, planted his own men in others, and then with a reign of terror came to dominate the Mafia

Politics and the Mafia Mafia voting strength is based on the circle of family and friends that each mafioso can deliver as many as forty to fifty votes Mafia is able to control votes because in the environment in which it operates there is always fear of reprisals The leveling of political traditions and an absence ideology among the political parties, leads voters almost naturally, without any forcing, to respect the “marching orders” given by the Mafia

Politics and the Mafia Cont. In 1987, angry over the government’s maxitrial, the fugitive capo di tutti i capi Totò Riina ordered a switch in votes In 1992, the Mafia murdered the Sicilian head of the Christian Democratic Party in a Palermo suburb By 1993, increasing scandal and the collapse of European communism finally led to the demise of the CDP

The Structure of the Mafia At the center of the Mafia is the padrino or capomafioso, around whom other mafiosi gather, forming a cosca The typical cosca rarely has more than fifteen or twenty members, and at the center are four or five blood relatives The cosca is devoid of any rigid organization

Structure Cont. The members are gli uomini qualificati (“qualified men”) Flexibility prevents the cosca from becoming bureaucratic The mafioso succeeds because he commands a partito, a network of relationships whereby he is able to act as an intermediary—a broker— providing services, which include votes and violence for the holders of institutionalized power

Structure Cont. The initiation ceremony is similar to that used by American Mafia Families Once initiated into the cosca, the mafioso became a compadre Each village has its own cosca, larger ones have more, and collectively they are the Mafia

Four Levels of the Mafia The first, the famiglia, constitutes the nucleus The second level consists of a group of several families who come together to form a cosca In the third level the cosca establishes working relationships with other cosche, respecting territories and boundaries

Levels Cont. The fourth level is achieved when cosche join in an alliance called consorteria, in which one cosca is recognized as supreme and its leader is the leader of the consorteria—capo di tutti capi, the boss of all bosses

Structure Cont. The New Mafia has a membership in excess of 5,000, each with his own network Each cosca is held together by a core of blood relatives and encompasses a membership of twenty-five to thirty persons The cosca is hierarchical

Structure Cont. In contrast with crime Families in the United States, many Mafia and ’Ndragheta chieftains provide their members with salaries and there is a common fund to deal with legal expenses to support the families of imprisoned members Despite its weakened condition, the pool of Mafia prospects remains strong

The Decline of the Mafia As the political role of mafiosi changed, so too did their ability to act as brokers between peasant and officialdom The New Mafia reflects the emerging mezzogiorno Since 1971, the Nuovo Mafia has assassinated investigative, judicial, and political officials, something that was anathema to the old Mafia

The Decline Cont. As the Mafia was reduced to a marginal role in society, many mafiosi reacted in a manner similar to other marginalized persons Following the assassinations of government officials, the New Mafia lost the support of important elements of Italian society

The Decline Cont. In 1992, Italy enacted a witness protection law Officials arrested leading Mafiosi Excesses at home, the vigorous government response, and the increasing number of informers have weakened the Mafia

The Neapolitan Camorra Whereas the Mafia began as more of an idea than an organization and evolved along cultural lines in western Sicily, the Camorra was deliberately structured as a criminal society The Camorra as an organization developed in Spanish prisons during the Bourbon rule of the Two Sicilies (the Mezzogiorno) early in the nineteenth century

The Neapolitan Camorra Cont. Although burglary and other remunerative felonies were not neglected, extortion was the principal industry; and the assassination of an inconvenient person could be purchased by anyone with the price The Camorra was highly organized and disciplined

The Neapolitan Camorra Cont. The camorrista was a flamboyant actor whose manner of walking and style of dress clearly marked him as a member of the societá. The old Camorra did not survive Mussolini because, like the Mafia, it required weak government control

The Neapolitan Camorra Cont. In the countryside Camorra gangs began to emerge as soon as the Allied forces withdrew The earlier versions of Camorra were not directly involved in politics, but during the 1980s the new Camorra began to penetrate the local political scene, and some members hold local elected offices

The Neapolitan Camorra Cont. Camorra clans form alliances, enterprises mixing legitimate business, such as construction, with illegitimate, such as drug and arms trafficking A growing population and rampant poverty led to the development of new Camorra gangs that operated for many years without direct conflict with their older and more established brethren who often had Sicilian Mafia ties

The Structure of the Camorra Compared with its predecessors, the modern Camorra has a ‘fragmented’ and widespread structure, made up of a number of gangs [more than 100] which easily band together and then split up, sometimes peacefully, but more often after bloody wars

Structure Cont. The modern Camorra is less structured and less family based than the Mafia is There is a general absence of rituals, although the NCO used a century-old ceremony to initiate members Territorial control is reputedly essential to Camorra clans

Structure Cont. Camorra groups dominate illegal gambling and usury within their territorial hegemony, although some of their gambling operations reach northern cities Camorra leaders have engaged in violent struggles that have taken the lives of dozens of people

Structure Cont. The clans maintain military wings comprised of salaried retainers and many of the killings are perpetrated by young men—twelve to seventeen— enlisted by the military branch of the clans Dozens of camorristi have become pentiti— government informants

The ’Ndrangheta Italy’s poorest province, Calabria has a population in excess of two million people; the capital city, Reggio di Calabria, is home to about 200,000 Much of the housing stock was built illegally by criminal groups, the fearsome Onerate Societá (“Honored Society”) or ‘Ndrangheta (“Brotherhood”) which in the early twentieth century established groups in Canada and Australia

The ’Ndrangheta Cont. In Calabria the term ’ndrangheta, “society of men of honor,” is used to indicate a high degree of heroism and virtue as embodied in the ’ndranghetisti, men who are governed by omertá There is a Mafia-type hierarchy in each andrine or ’ndrina —equivalent to a cosca—and members take a blood oath

The ’Ndrangheta Cont. ’Ndrangheta gained popular support because of its political stance against the central government ’Ndrangheta had no positive program; its sense of social justice was basically destructive The ’ Ndrangheta sometimes referred to as the “Calabrian Mafia,” consists of 85 to 144 to160 andrine, some exceeding 200 members, with a combined membership of 5,000 to 6,000

The ’Ndrangheta Cont. ’ Ndrangheta clans are based on blood ties, allowing for a high degree of internal cohesion which protects against informants At its core, a ’ndrina is composed of one or two biological families and their network of artificial kinships ’Ndrangheta women frequently play important roles, maintaining family traditions and running family enterprises

The ’Ndrangheta Cont. ’Ndrangheta has a commission that recognizes territorial hegemony and mediates disputes in an effort to reduce the high level of violence for which Calabresi are noted In 1999, the Carabinieri captured the man reputed to be the most powerful ’Ndrangheta boss; Giuseppe Piromalli was convicted of murder in absentia and had been a fugitive since 1993

The ’Ndrangheta Cont. The organization exhibits its criminal skills mainly in kidnapping, vast-scale international arms and drug trafficking, extortion from almost all profit-making activities, and control of public contracts Like the Mafia, the ’Ndrangheta has been active in provincial politics, but unlike the Mafia, until 2005 the ’Ndrangheta avoided direct confrontations with the Italian state

The Sacra Corona Unita and the Albanian Connection The Puglia (Apulia) region at the heel of the Italian boot forms an elongated peninsula on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas The Sacra Corona Unita (SCU), Sacred United Crown, evolved in the region already noted for Camorra and ’Ndrangheta activities

The Sacra Corona Unita and the Albanian Connection Cont. The origins of the SAC are traced to Giuseppe Rogoli who, while a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder, reportedly established the organization as a ritual brotherhood on Christmas day 1983 at least in part as a response to the expansionist plans of Camorra leader Raffaele Cutolo

The Sacra Corona Unita and the Albanian Connection Cont. The SCU is organized horizontally with a series of about forty-five autonomous clans accountable to the common interests of the organization Total membership is estimated at about 2,000, and women often play important roles in its business operations The SCU has close ties to the Balkans

The Sacra Corona Unita and the Albanian Connection Cont. Organized crime in the largely rural countries of the Balkans has its roots in the traditional clan structure based familial ties for protection and mutual assistance Clan relationships operate under the kanun, or code, which values loyalty and besa, or secrecy

The Albanian Connection Since 1992, ethnic Albanian organized crime groups have profited greatly from instability and war in the Balkans to become the fastest growing ethnic criminal presence in Europe, with operations reaching as far as Australia and the United States

The Albanian Connection Cont. Albania is distinguished by its strong sense of familial and clan ties and the country’s criminal groups (fis) have much in common with their southern Italian colleagues, including concepts of omertá and famiglia Albanian influence in the mezzogiorno dates back to the migration of Albanians driven from their country by the Ottoman invasion in the fifteenth century

The Albanian Connection Cont. Once the most isolated country in Europe, Albania became a haven for local and foreign criminal groups after the collapse of its Stalinist regime in the early 1990s From the firm hand of Stalinesque communism to unbridled freedom—anarchy—criminal groups quickly filled the power vacuum

The Albanian Connection Cont. Taking advantage of a weak central government and a great deal of political chaos, SCU clans were quick to establish a presence in Albania, linking up with local criminal groups

The Albanian Connection Cont. Massive migration of Albanians abroad during the 1990s and the drastic increase of the Albanian Diaspora in the USA, Canada, and Europe, provided a perfect cover for Albanian criminals who brought with them a strong sense of extended family

The Albanian Connection Cont. Albanian crime groups are very violent, their major source of income derived from trafficking in economic migrants, women, children, drugs, contraband, weapons and automobiles

The Albanian Connection Cont. In neighboring Yugoslavia, ethnic Albanian crime Families were looking to widen their drug, prostitution and weapons smuggling rings. Some dispatched lieutenants to countries such as Italy, Germany and Slovakia

The Albanian Connection Cont. Being a rather recent phenomenon not as strong as the Mafia or Camorra, SCU leaders apparently decided to join forces rather than run the risk of a conflict with Albanian groups who are known to be extremely violent

The Albanian Connection Cont. A crackdown in Sicily led hundreds of mafiosi to relocate to the Albanian coastal town of Vlorë, and their Albanian counterparts are found throughout Italy

The Albanian Connection Cont. With its strategic position on the Adriatic, the SCU is able to provide smuggling services to the Mafia, Camorra, and ’Ndranghetta Albanian criminals are also involved in the traffic of illegal immigrants to Western Europe