Since first becoming well known in the
18th century, organized crime in Italy
and its criminal organizations have
infiltrated the social and economic life
of many regions, particularly in
Southern Italy, the most notorious of
which is the Sicilian Mafia, which would
later expand into some foreign
countries, especially the United States.
Five principal mafia-like organizations
are known to exist in Italy: Cosa Nostra
of Sicily, 'Ndrangheta of Calabria, who
are considered to be among the biggest
cocaine smugglers in Europe, and Camorra
of Naples, are the oldest of the five,
having started to develop between 1500
and 1800. In the 20th century two new
criminal organizations, Stidda and Sacra
Corona Unita of Apulia, were created.The
latest creation of Italian organized
crime is Mafia Capitale.
Sicilian Mafia 
Based primarily in Sicily, the Sicilian
Mafia formed in the mid-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.
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
The Sicilian Mafia has had influence in
'legitimate' power, particularly under
the corrupt Christian Democratic
governments from the 50's-early 90's. 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 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
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.
= Stidda or La Stidda =
La Stidda is the name given to the
Sicilian organization started by
criminals Giuseppe Croce Benvento and
Salvatore Calafato, both of Palmi di
Montechiaro, Agrigento province. The
Stidda's power bases are centered in the
cities of Gela and Favara, Caltanissetta
and Agrigento provinces. The
organization's groups and activities
have flourished in the cities of
Agrigento, Catania, Siracusa and Enna in
the provinces of the same name, Niscemi
and Riesi of Caltanissetta province and
Vittoria of Ragusa province, located
mainly on the Southern and Eastern
coasts of Sicily.
The Stidda has extended its power and
influence into the mainland Italy
provinces of Milano, Genova and Torino.
The members of the organization are
called stiddari in Caltanissetta
province and stiddaroli in Agrigento
province. Stidda members can be
identified and sometimes introduced to
each other by a tattoo of five greenish
marks arranged in a circle, forming a
star called "i punti della malavita" or
"the points of the criminal life."
The Cosa Nostra wars of the late 1970s
and early 1980s that brought the
Corleonesi Clan and its vicious and
ruthless leaders Luciano Leggio, Toto
Riina and Bernardo Provenzano sometimes
referred to as "Cosa Nuova" into power
caused disorganization and
disenchantment inside the traditional
Cosa Nostra power base and values
system, leaving the growing Stidda
organization to counter Cosa Nostra's
power, influence and expansion in
Southern and Eastern Sicily. The Stidda
membership was reinforced by Cosa Nostra
men of honor such as those loyal to
slain Capo Giuseppe DiCristina of Riesi
who had defected from Cosa Nostra's
ranks due to the bloodthirsty reign of
the Corleonesi clan.
The organization also looked to enlarge
its membership by absorbing local thugs
and criminals who were at the margins of
organized crime to gain more power and
credibility in the Italian underworld.
From 1978 to 1990, former Corleonesi
clan leader and pretender to the Cosa
Nostra's "Capo di Tutti Capi" title,
Toto Riina, waged a war within Cosa
Nostra and against the Stidda spreading
death and terror among mafiosi and the
public in his quest for a crime
dictatorship, leaving over 500 in Cosa
Nostra and over 1000 in La Stidda dead,
including Stidda Capos Calogero Lauria
and Vincenzo Spina.
With the 1993 capture and imprisonment
of Totò Riina, along with the currently
jailed Bernardo Provenzano's, "pax
mafia," following a new, less violent
and low key approach to criminal
activities the Stidda has gained power,
influence and credibility among the
longer established criminal
organizations within Italy and around
the world, making itself an underworld
player in the United States, Canada and
Germany. The Stidda is sometimes called
the "Fifth Mafia" in the Italian media
and press.
Camorra or Campanian Mafia 
The word “Camorra” means gang. The
Camorra first appeared in the mid-1800s
in Naples, Campania, Italy, as a prison
gang. Once released, members formed
clans in the cities and continued to
grow in power. The Camorra has more than
100 clans and approximately 7,000
members, making it the largest of the
Italian organized crime groups. The
Camorra made its fortune in
reconstruction after a powerful
earthquake ravaged the Campania region
in 1980. The Camorra is considered the
second largest IOC group with over 100
clans and approximately 7,000 members.
The Camorra 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.
It is believed that nearly 200 Camorra
affiliates reside in the United States.
Many came to the USA 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. Some believe it is now
the strongest mafia in Italy.
'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia 
Derived from the Greek word andragathía
meaning courage or loyalty, the
'Ndrangheta formed in the 1850s. The
'Ndrangheta consists of 160 cells and
approximately 6,000 members, world-wide
some estimate there to be as many as
10,000 core members and specializes in
kidnapping and political corruption. 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 and heroin trafficking, murder,
bombings, counterfeiting, illegal
gambling, frauds, thefts, labor
racketeering, loansharking, illegal
immigration, and kidnapping.
Basilischi 
The Basilischi are a mafia organization
founded in 1994 in Potenza. It's
sometimes called Italy's fifth mafia.
This organization has assumed a role for
the control of illegal activities in the
region. They are believed to be an
independently run 'ndrina from the
Rosarno Alliance involving 5 clans of in
the provinces of Reggio Calabria & Gioia
Tauro plain. Not a lot is known of them.
There is another belief that this group
was created by local crime bosses and
criminals with the help of the Pesce and
Serraino 'Ndrangheta clans from Rosarno
in the northern and western areas of the
region of Calabria and so would more
than likely be smuggling drugs and arms
up Italy into the rest of Italy for
these Clans.
Sacra Corona Unita 
Sacra Corona Unita, or United Sacred
Crown, is a Mafia-like criminal
organization from the region of Apulia
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 originally 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 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
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.
Mala del Brenta 
The Mala del Brenta, also known as the
Mala del Piovese or Malavita del Brenta
was in operation throughout the Veneto
region, across Northern 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. 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 70's, 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
90's.
These original Sicilian mafiosi,
controlled much of the mafia activity in
the Veneto, throughout the 60's and
70's, and included most notably:
Salvatore "Totuccio" Contorno, Gaetano
Fidanzati, Antonino Duca and Gaetano &
Salvatore 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 Magliana 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". 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, 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 the
Italian secret services and political
figures such as Licio Gelli,
grand-master of the illegal and
underground freemason lodge known as
Propaganda Due, all of which were
purportedly connected to neofascist and
far-right militant paramilitary groups.
Mafia Capitale 
The Mafia Capitale is an Italian
Mafia-type, crime syndicate, or secret
society, that originated in the region
of Lazio and its capital Rome. Founded
in early 2000s by Massimo Carminati on
the ashes of Banda della Magliana.
Italian crime in U.S. and other foreign
countries 
Those currently active in the United
States are the Sicilian Mafia, Camorra
or Neapolitan Mafia, 'Ndrangheta or
Calabrian Mafia, and Sacra Corona Unita
or "United Sacred Crown". The FBI refers
to them as "Italian Organized Crime".
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 Italians gangs have also connections
with the Corsican gangs. This
collaboration were mostly important
during the French Connection era. During
the 90's the links between the Corsican
Mafia and the Sicilian Mafia permitted
an establishment of some Sicilians
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.
Non-Italian criminal groups 
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 gangs, and Balkan crime groups
including the Greek, Serbian, Romanian,
Bulgarian, Montenegrin and the Albanian
mafia, the last of which seems to be the
most prominently expanding in recent
years. 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
Sardinian banditry
References 
