Mafia Type Organisations And Extortion In Italy

Mafia-type organizations generate several distorting effects on the economy. In Italy their presence is endemic, and not only in Southern regions such as Sicily, Campania or Calabria. Such organizations endure the fierce and continuous pressure exerted by Italian anti-mafia policy, maybe the most articulate and effective such policy in the world. Nevertheless, they have survived by submerging, transforming, and relocating their operations. The analysis of the different Mafias of today benefits from a huge amount of empirical data produced by investigators. This allows us to outline more reliable indexes of the penetration of Mafiosi in given territories, as well as to estimate the size of their activities in a transparent and empirically testable way. The contributions gathered in this book stem from the application of an innovative methodology originally introduced by the Fondazione Rocco Chinnici, and they enlarge our understanding of such a complex and dynamic phenomenon. After the presentation of the approach, the chapters are devoted to the Camorra's present situation, to an estimate of the size of extortion, to a comparison between Cosa Nostra and Camorra, to the analysis of wiretapped conversations and, finally, to the delocalization of Mafias and the perspectives of a European anti-mafia policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Crime.

Relying on previously undisclosed confessions of former mafia members now cooperating with the police, Letizia Paoli provides a clinically accurate portrait of mafia behavior, motivations, and structure in Italy. The mafia, Paoli demonstrates, are essentially multifunctional ritual brotherhoods focused above all on retaining and consolidating their local political power base. A truly interdisciplinary work of history, politics, economics, and sociology, Mafia Brotherhoods reveals in dramatic detail the true face of one of the world's most mythologized criminal organizations.

This book presents an historical and sociological account of the Italian mafia-type organisation known as the ‘ndrangheta. It draws together diverse perspectives on the various ‘ndrangheta clans and their behavioural models, focusing specifically on their organisational skills, their bonds with Calabrian society and Calabrian communities around the world, their mobility, and their characterisation as poly-crime organisations. The authors demonstrate that ‘ndrangheta clans have an innovative way of being and doing mafia work through a dense network of relationships both in the ‘upperworld’ and in the ‘underworld’, a particularly acute sense of business, a reputation built on the protection of blood and family ties, and, last but not least, a symbiotic relationship and camouflage within Calabrian society. By focusing on both the structures and the activities of the clans and with findings based on judicial documents, this book explores why the ‘ndrangheta is today labeled as “the most powerful Italian mafia”. It will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of organised crime and sociology.

*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading The word "mafia," Sicilian in origin, is synonymous with Italy, but Italy is home to several different mafias, with three being particularly notorious. While the Cosa Nostra of western Sicily is the most infamous, other powerful groups include the ferocious 'Ndrangheta of Calabria and the Camorra, the third-largest mafia, which is active in Naples and the Campania region. A "mafia" is loosely defined as a criminal organization that is interested in social, economic and political power, combining elements of a traditional secret society with those of a business, but further levels of nuance are necessary in order to understand these groups. In a general sense, this is because each mafia creates a myth about the development of the organization, which becomes like an unquestionable truth. In essence, part of what makes its members so completely loyal to it is also what makes outsiders so utterly afraid of it. The 'Ndrangheta (pronounced an-drang-et-ah) is a close neighbor of the Cosa Nostra and currently considered the most powerful (and difficult to spell) criminal organization in Italy. The 'Ndrangheta is centered around Calabria, the most southwestern region of Italy, almost touching the Sicilian city of Messina. Though it began as far back as the late 19th century, it was not until the 1950s that the 'Ndrangheta started to spread its tentacles throughout Italy and then across the entire globe, forming an empire that now ranges from Australia and Turkey to Chile to Canada. The fact that the 'Ndrangheta is overshadowed by the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, as well as by the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, allowed it to grow and develop outside of the public eye. For years, people actually considered the Calabrian mafia to be part of the Cosa Nostra as a mere appendage, rather than its own entity. This false belief was perpetuated by the high-profile Sicilian pentito, Tommaso Buscetta, and it was not until the beginning of the 21st century that the 'Ndrangheta came into the public eye due to two dramatic killings, the assassination of a politician and the "Duisburg massacre" in a small German village. Nonetheless, the 'Ndrangheta is actually the second oldest mafia in Italy, and, despite its origins in Calabria, the poorest region of Italy, it is the wealthiest of Italy's illegal criminal organizations. Given that people have always been less familiar with this organization, studies on the 'Ndrangheta have also lagged behind work done on the Camorra and the Cosa Nostra. The government took an early interest in the Camorra and Cosa Nostra, creating a paper trail that does not exist for the 'Ndrangheta, and the region of Calabria suffered numerous earthquakes that destroyed what little archival evidence there was available. Of course, the 'Ndrangheta places a premium on secrecy, and thus far it has only had an extremely low number of traitors who were able to testify to the organization's inner workings. Finally, the fact that the 'Ndrangheta is essentially a plural organization makes it very hard to delineate the parameters of what constitutes an 'Ndrangheta cell and what is simply gang activity. 'Ndrangheta: The History of Italy's Most Powerful Organized Crime Syndicate examines how one of the world's strongest mobs formed, its inner workings, and the events that made it feared around the globe. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the 'Ndrangheta like never before.

Despite a rapidly changing economic and legal landscape, Italian mafias remain prominent actors in the global criminal underworld. This book provides an extensive and up-to-date view of how they adapt to shifting economic opportunities and intensifying legal and civic backlash.

This book presents a multi-disciplinary investigation into extortion rackets with a particular focus on the structures of criminal organisations and their collapse, societal processes in which extortion rackets strive and fail and the impacts of bottom-up and top-down ways of fighting extortion racketeering. Through integrating a range of disciplines and methods the book provides an extensive case study of empirically based computational social science. It is based on a wealth of qualitative data regarding multiple extortion rackets, such as the Sicilian Mafia, an international money laundering organisation and a predatory extortion case in Germany. Computational methods are used for data analysis, to help in operationalising data for use in agent-based models and to explore structures and dynamics of extortion racketeering through simulations. In addition to textual data sources, stakeholders and experts are extensively involved, providing narratives for analysis and qualitative validation of models. The book presents a systematic application of computational social science methods to the substantive area of extortion racketeering. The reader will gain a deep understanding of extortion rackets, in particular their entrenchment in society and processes supporting and undermining extortion rackets. Also covered are computational social science methods, in particular computationally assisted text analysis and agent-based modelling, and the integration of empirical, theoretical and computational social science.

Over the last twenty years the Camorra of Naples and the surrounding region has risen to a level of strength which rivals that of the Sicilian mafia. "The Camorra" traces the Camorra from its origins in Naples in the mid-nineteenth century to its present dominance of both Naples and the Campania region. "The Camorra" examines the transformation of small time cigarette smugglers of the 1960s into modern international businessmen, often through the use of trial documents and interviews with some key protagonists. Tom Behan places great emphasis on the fact that all major political parties have been involved with the camorra, along with the police, the judiciary, the business community and administrators. Behan argues that the solution to the problem of the Camorra lies not with these forces but with those ordinary people who suffer the consequences of a political and economic system defined as "political criminality."