Italian mafia: How crime families went global

italian police have done a spate of anti-mafia raids, arresting dozens of suspects close to naples, rome and agrigento in sicily.

illegal drugs, palms trafficking, extortion, contract killings, political bribery, prostitution, artwork thefts... the list of crimes is lengthy.

so who're the italian mafia?

sicilian mafia - cosa nostra
the sicilian gangs installed the model for different mafias. they meted out neighborhood justice in the 1800s, then grew in power and sophistication.

cosa nostra manner "our thing" - it's miles the original mafia, with a capital m, primarily based on own family clans.

commercial
it's miles famous for the "omertà" - a code of silence worrying severe loyalty. turncoats danger torture and loss of life, or punishment of their loved ones.

even nowadays they settle some business disputes and retrieve stolen goods in sicily, undermining the sluggish-moving italian courts. but many despise them for the "pizzo" - protection cash - that they extort from groups.cosa nostra earned notoriety in the us, wherein it became the italian "mob", feuding and racketeering in chicago, ny and a few other cities. it amassed power with the aid of controlling illicit alcohol within the Nineteen Twenties prohibition generation.

the usa's fbi says america crime syndicate is basically cut loose the clans in italy. heroin trafficking stays a middle enterprise for cosa nostra.

say "mafia" now and many people will think of marlon brando within the godfather. the sicilian word certainly implies "manly", and the label is regularly applied loosely - and inaccurately - to organised crime gangs.

some italian mafia clans function globally, competing with similarly ruthless "mafia" gangs from russia, china, albania and several different international locations. sometimes gangs co-ordinate their crimes and percentage out the loot.

cosa nostra infiltrated nearby and countrywide politics not only in italy but additionally within the us.

the christian technological know-how screen and others documented the mafia's energy in italian society inside the 1980s.

but now not all huge italian corruption instances contain the mafia. rome's "mafia capital" trial uncovered big municipal corruption, however now not "mafia association".

nowadays cosa nostra and the three other major italian mafia groups - the camorra, 'ndrangheta and sacra corona unita - have an estimated 25,000 participants in overall, with 250,000 affiliates global, the fbi says.

cosa nostra become basically at struggle with the italian kingdom at some stage in the reign of "godfather" salvatore "toto" riina.in may additionally 1992, riina's guys detonated a bomb that killed prosecutor giovanni falcone, his wife and three bodyguards simply outside palermo.

 months later they killed his replacement paolo borsellino and five bodyguards in palermo, with a vehicle bomb.

riina died in jail in november 2017, elderly 87, at the same time as serving 26 lifestyles sentences for homicide.cosa nostra has muscled into a few eu-funded initiatives in sicily, intimidating local contractors. a bbc investigation in 2010 determined that wind farms had been a few of the companies centered.

sicilian society has fought back. an anti-mafia group referred to as libera terra runs new organizations, along with accommodations, with cash and property seized from the mafia.

prof federico varese, an oxford college professional at the mafia, says cosa nostra is now extorting "pizzo" from a few country-funded migrant shelters in sicily.

however a few migrant gangs are competing with the mafia, in nearby prostitution as an instance, he advised the bbc.

italian police have additionally positioned the mafia underneath "massive strain" in sicily, prof varese stated.

naples mafia - camorra
an expected 4,500 human beings are within the camorra clans in naples and caserta, just north of the port town.

their predominant commercial enterprise is drugs - they're regularly extraordinarily brutal. in addition they extort cash from creation corporations, toxic waste disposal and garment groups. their targets include chinese-run sweatshops making copies of italian models.