MAFIA SICILY

Based primaily in Sicily, the Sicilian Mafia formed in the mid-1800s to unify the Sicilian peasants against their enemies. 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 changed from a group of honorable Sicilian men to an organized criminal group in the 1920s. 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. Today, the Sicilian Mafia has evolved into an international organized crime group. Some experts estimate the Sicilian Mafia is the second largest organization in Italy, second only to the Fiat Corporation. 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. The Sicilian Mafia is also known to engage in arson, frauds, counterfeiting, and other racketeering crimes. The Sicilian Mafia is a dual organization. The "high Mafia" consists of lawyers, financiers, and professionals and seeks power and resources by bribing or pressuring politicians, judges and administrators. The "low Mafia" is the violent Mafia of thugs and bandits who threaten and kill to keep the victim population in line. Sometimes the two are hard to keep apart, but the two tendencies can always be distinguished. The Sicilian Mafia, high and low, is infamous for its aggressive assaults on Italian law enforcement officials. 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 with a vengeance. 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 dei 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.