Sicilian Mafia

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"Cosa Nostra" redirects here. For the American counterpart, see American Mafia.
Sicilian Mafia
Sicilian mafia 1901 maxi trial.jpg
Founding location Sicily, Italy
Years active mid 1800s–present
Territory Italy, mostly Sicily; Quebec and Ontario in Canada; Victoria in Australia; United Kingdom and Germany in all Europe; Venezuela, Argentine, Brazil and Colombia in all Latin America; South Africa in Africa
Ethnicity "Made men" are Italians, mostly Sicilians, with some associates of various ethnicities
Membership at least 5000-8000
Criminal activities Racketeering, drug trafficking, murder, corruption, human trafficking, fraud, illegal waste management, extortion, assault, smuggling, gambling, terrorism, weapons trafficking, loan sharking, prostitution, money laundering, fencing, construction management and robbery
Allies Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, American mafia, Corsican mafia Colombian drug cartels,[citation needed] and, formerly, the Banda della Magliana and Mala del Brenta
Rivals Various Camorra clans, 'Ndrangheta[citation needed]

The Sicilian Mafia (also known as Cosa Nostra, in English "Our Thing") is a criminal syndicate in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering. Each group, known as a "family", "clan", or "cosca", claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (borgata) of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets. Its members call themselves "men of honour", although the public often refers to them as "mafiosi".

By 2004, its annual revenue had reached 30 billion euro, equivalent to one third of the 120 billion euro total annual revenue for Italian organized crime groups estimated by Confesercenti, one of the leading business associations in Italy. (Italy's National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Piero Grasso suggests the total annual income for Italian organized crime groups may be much higher -- near 135 billion euro -- due to arms and narcotics trafficking not considered in Confesercenti's calculations.) According to a 2003 estimate by Italian anti-mafia officials, the total combined assets of the all italian organized crime and three other Italian crime organizations (Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, the Neapolitan Camorra, and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita (Sacred United Crown)) totaled around $1 trillion. Ndrangheta earns around 55 billion euros, Cosa Nostra 30 billion euros and Camorra around 35-40 billion eur.

According to the classic definition, the Mafia is a criminal organization originating in Sicily.[1] However, the term "mafia" has become a generic term for any organized criminal network with similar structure, methods, and interests.

The Mafia proper frequently parallels, collaborates with or clashes with, networks originating in other parts of southern Italy, such as the Camorra (from Campania), the 'Ndrangheta (from Calabria), the Stidda (southern Sicily) and the Sacra Corona Unita (from Apulia). Giovanni Falcone, the anti-Mafia judge murdered by the Mafia in 1992, however, objected to the conflation of the term "Mafia" with organized crime in general:


The American Mafia arose from offshoots of the Mafia that emerged in the United States during the late nineteenth century, following waves of emigration from Italy. There were similar offshoots in Canada among Italian Canadians. The same has been claimed of organised crime among Italians in Australia.[3]



Possible origins from Arabic include:

  • mahyas (مهياص) = aggressive boasting, bragging
  • marfud (مرفوض) = rejected.
  • maha = quarry, cave[5]
  • mu'afa = safety, protection[5]

The public's association of the word with the criminal secret society was perhaps inspired by the 1863 play I Mafiusi di la Vicaria ("The Mafiosi of the Vicaria") by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaetano Mosca. The words "Mafia" and "mafiusi" are never mentioned in the play; "mafiusi" was probably put in the title to add a local flair. The play is about a Palermo prison gang with traits similar to the Mafia: a boss, an initiation ritual, and talk of "umirtà" (omertà or code of silence) and "pizzu" (a codeword for extortion money).[6] The play had great success throughout Italy. Soon after, the use of the term "mafia" began appearing in the Italian state's early reports on the phenomenon. The word made its first official appearance in 1865 in a report by the prefect of Palermo, Filippo Antonio Gualterio.[7]

According to legend, the word Mafia was first used in the Sicilian revolt – the Sicilian Vespers – against rule of the Capetian House of Anjou on 30 March 1282. In this legend, Mafia is the acronym for "Morte Alla Francia, Italia Avanti" (Italian for "Death to France, Italy Forward!"), or "Morte Alla Francia, Italia Anela" (Italian for "Death to France, Italy Begs!").[8] However, this version is now discarded by most serious historians.[4]

"Cosa Nostra" and other names[edit]

According to Mafia turncoats (pentiti), the real name of the Mafia is "Cosa Nostra" ("Our Thing"). When the Italian-American mafioso Joseph Valachi testified before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations in 1963 (known as the Valachi hearings), he revealed that American mafiosi referred to their organization by the term cosa nostra ("our thing" or "this thing of ours").[9][10][11] At the time, it was understood as a proper name, fostered by the FBI and disseminated by the media. The FBI even added the article la to the term, calling it La Cosa Nostra (in Italy, the article la is not used when referring to Cosa Nostra).

In 1984, the Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta revealed to the anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone that the term was used by the Sicilian Mafia as well.[12] Buscetta dismissed the word "mafia" as a mere literary creation. Other defectors, such as Antonino Calderone and Salvatore Contorno, confirmed the use of Cosa Nostra to describe the Mafia.[13] Mafiosi introduce known members to each other as belonging to cosa nostra ("our thing") or la stessa cosa ("the same thing"), meaning "he is the same thing, a mafioso, as you".


Cosa Nostra should not be confused with other mafia-type organizations in Italy such as the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, the Camorra in Campania, or the Sacra Corona Unita in Apulia.



Post-feudal Sicily[edit]

The Brigand family, 19th century

Modern scholars believe that the Mafia's seeds were planted in the upheaval of Sicily's transition out of feudalism in 1812 and its later annexation by mainland Italy in 1860. Under feudalism, the nobility owned most of the land and enforced law and order through their private armies. After 1812, the feudal barons steadily sold off or rented their lands to private citizens. Primogeniture was abolished, land could no longer be seized to settle debts, and one fifth of the land was to become private property of the peasants.[15] After Italy annexed Sicily in 1860, it redistributed a large share of public and church land to private citizens. The result was a huge boom in landowners: from 2,000 in 1812 to 20,000 by 1861.[16] The nobles also released their private armies to let the state take over the task of law enforcement. However, the authorities were incapable of properly enforcing property rights and contracts, largely due to their inexperience with free market capitalism.[17] Lack of manpower was also a problem: there were often less than 350 active policemen for the entire island. Some towns did not have any permanent police force, only visited every few months by some troops to collect malcontents, leaving criminals to operate with impunity from the law in the interim.[18] With more property owners and commercial activity came more disputes that needed settling, contracts that needed enforcing, transactions that needed oversight, and properties that needed protecting. Because the authorities were undermanned and unreliable, property owners turned to extralegal arbitrators and protectors. These extralegal protectors would eventually organize themselves into the first Mafia clans.

The oldest reference to Mafia groups in Sicily dates back to 1838, in a report of the General Prosecutor of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, although the term "mafia" was not used. Historian Salvatore Lupo described the phenomenon as proto-Mafia.[19] The report described the phenomenon rather than the name: "In many villages, there are unions or fraternities – kinds of sects – which are called partiti, with no political colour or goal, with no meeting places, and with no other bond but that of dependency on a chief."[8][20][21][22]

Banditry was a serious problem at the time. Rising food prices,[16] the loss of public and church lands,[15] and the loss of feudal common rights pushed many desperate peasants to banditry. With no police to call upon, local elites in countryside towns recruited young men into "companies-at-arms" to hunt down thieves and negotiate the return of stolen property, in exchange for a pardon for the thieves and a fee from the victims.[23] These companies-at-arms were often made up of former bandits and criminals, usually the most skilled and violent of them.[16] While this saved communities the trouble of training their own policemen, it may have made the companies-at-arms more inclined to collude with their former brethren rather than destroy them.[16]

There was little Mafia activity in the eastern half of Sicily. This did not mean there was little violence; the most violent conflicts over land took place in the east, but they did not involve mafiosi.[23] In the east, the ruling elites were more cohesive and active during the transition from feudalism to capitalism. They maintained their large stables of enforcers, and were able to absorb or suppress any emerging violent groups.[24] Furthermore, the land in the east was generally divided into a smaller number of large estates, so there were fewer landowners and their large estates often required its guardians to patrol it full-time. This meant that guardians of such estates tended to be bound to a single employer, giving them little autonomy or leverage to demand high payments.[25]

Mafia activity was most prevalent in the most prosperous areas of western Sicily, especially Palermo, where the dense concentrations of landowners and merchants offered ample opportunities for protection racketeering and extortion. There, the estates tended to be smaller than in the east, and thus did not require the total, round-the-clock attention of a protector. A protector could thus afford to serve multiple clients, giving him greater independence. The greater number of clients demanding protection also allowed him to charge high prices.[25] The landowners in this region were also frequently absent and could not watch over their properties should the mafioso withdraw protection, further increasing his bargaining power.[26]

The lucrative citrus orchards around Palermo were a favorite target of extortionists and protection racketeers, as they had a fragile production system that made them quite vulnerable to sabotage.[27] Mafia clans forced landowners to hire their members as custodians by scaring away unaffiliated applicants.[28] Cattle ranchers were also very vulnerable to thieves, and so they too needed mafioso protection.

In 1864, Niccolò Turrisi Colonna, leader of the Palermo National Guard, wrote of a "sect of thieves" that operated across Sicily. This "sect" was mostly rural, composed of cattle thieves, smugglers, wealthy farmers and their guards.[20][29] The sect made "affiliates every day of the brightest young people coming from the rural class, of the guardians of the fields in the Palermitan countryside, and of the large number of smugglers; a sect which gives and receives protection to and from certain men who make a living on traffic and internal commerce. It is a sect with little or no fear of public bodies, because its members believe that they can easily elude this."[30] It had special signals to recognize each other, offered protection services, scorned the law and had a code of loyalty and non-interaction with the police known as umirtà ("code of silence").[29][31] Colonna warned in his report that the Italian government's brutal and clumsy attempts to crush unlawfulness only made the problem worse by alienating the populace. An 1865 dispatch from the prefect of Palermo to Rome first officially described the phenomenon as a "Mafia".[7][32] An 1876 police report makes the earliest known description of the familiar initiation ritual.[33]



In a series of reports between 1898 and 1900, Ermanno Sangiorgi, the police chief of Palermo, identified 670 mafiosi belonging to eight Mafia clans that went through alternating phases of cooperation and conflict.[35] The report mentioned initiation rituals and codes of conduct, as well as criminal activities that included counterfeiting, ransom kidnappings, robbery, murder and witness intimidation. The Mafia also maintained funds to support the families of imprisoned members and pay defense lawyers.[36]

Fascist suppression[edit]

In 1925, Benito Mussolini initiated a campaign to destroy the Mafia and assert Fascist control over Sicilian life. The Mafia threatened and undermined his power in Sicily, and a successful campaign would strengthen him as the new leader, legitimizing and empowering his rule.[37] Not only would this be a great propaganda coup for Fascism, but it would also provide an excuse to suppress his political opponents on the island, since many Sicilian politicians had Mafia links.

As prime minister, he visited Sicily in May 1924 and passed through Piana dei Greci where he was received by the mayor/Mafia boss Francesco Cuccia. At some point Cuccia expressed surprise at Mussolini’s police escort and whispered in his ear: "You are with me, you are under my protection. What do you need all these cops for?" After Mussolini rejected Cuccia's offer of protection, the sindaco, feeling he had been slighted, instructed the townsfolk to not attend the duce's speech. Mussolini felt humiliated and outraged.[38][39]

Cuccia’s careless remark has passed into history as the catalyst for Mussolini’s war on the Mafia. When Mussolini firmly established his power in January 1925, he appointed Cesare Mori as the Prefect of Palermo in October 1925 and granted him special powers to fight the Mafia.[38] Mori formed a small army of policemen, carabinieri and militiamen, which went from town to town, rounding up suspects. To force suspects to surrender, they would take their families hostage, sell off their property,[40] or publicly slaughter their livestock.[41] By 1928, over 11,000 suspects were arrested.[42] Confessions were sometimes extracted through beatings and torture. Some mafiosi who had been on the losing end of Mafia feuds voluntarily cooperated with prosecutors,[43] perhaps as a way of obtaining protection and revenge. Charges of Mafia association were typically leveled at poor peasants and gabellotti (farm leaseholders), but were avoided when dealing with major landowners.[44] Many were tried en masse.[45][46] More than 1,200 were convicted and imprisoned,[47] and many others were internally exiled without trial.[48]

Mori's campaign ended in June 1929 when Mussolini recalled him to Rome. Although he did not permanently crush the Mafia as the Fascist press proclaimed, his campaign was nonetheless very successful at suppressing it. As the Mafia informant Antonino Calderone reminisced: "The music changed. Mafiosi had a hard life. [...] After the war the mafia hardly existed anymore. The Sicilian Families had all been broken up."[48]

Sicily's murder rate sharply declined.[49] Landowners were able to raise the legal rents on their lands; sometimes as much as ten-thousandfold.[43] Many mafiosi fled to the United States. Among these were Carlo Gambino and Joseph Bonanno, who would go on to become powerful Mafia bosses in New York City.

Post-Fascist revival[edit]

In 1943, nearly half a million Allied troops invaded Sicily. Crime soared in the upheaval and chaos. Many inmates escaped from their prisons, banditry returned and the black market thrived.[12] During the first six months of Allied occupation, party politics in Sicily were banned.[50] Most institutions, with the exception of the police and carabinieri,[51] were destroyed, and the American occupiers had to build a new order from scratch. As Fascist mayors were deposed, the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) simply appointed replacements. Many turned out to be mafiosi, such as Calogero Vizzini and Giuseppe Genco Russo.[52][53] They could easily present themselves as political dissidents,[54] and their anti-communist position gave them additional credibility. Mafia bosses reformed their clans, absorbing some of the marauding bandits into their ranks.[55]

The changing economic landscape of Sicily would shift the Mafia's power base from rural to the urban areas. The Minister of Agriculture – a communist – pushed for reforms in which peasants were to get larger shares of produce, be allowed to form cooperatives and take over badly used land, and remove the system by which leaseholders (known as "gabelloti") could rent land from landowners for their own short-term use.[56] Owners of especially large estates were to be forced to sell off some of their land. The Mafia, which had connections to many landowners, murdered many socialist reformers. The most notorious attack was the Portella della Ginestra massacre, when 11 persons were killed and 33 wounded during May Day celebrations on May 1, 1947. The bloodbath was perpetrated by the bandit Salvatore Giuliano who was possibly backed by local Mafia bosses.[57][58] In the end, though, they couldn't stop the process, and many landowners chose to sell their land to mafiosi, who offered more money than the government.[59]


Sack of Palermo[edit]

Main article: Sack of Palermo

The post-war period saw a huge building boom in Palermo. Allied bombing in World War II had left more than 14,000 people homeless, and migrants were pouring in from the countryside,[61] so there was a huge demand for new homes. Much of this construction was subsidized by public money. In 1956, two Mafia-connected officials, Vito Ciancimino and Salvatore Lima, took control of Palermo's Office of Public Works. Between 1959 and 1963, about 80 percent of building permits were given to just five people, none of whom represented major construction firms and were probably Mafia frontmen.[62] Construction companies unconnected with the Mafia were forced to pay protection money. Many buildings were illegally constructed before the city's planning was finalized. Mafiosi scared off anyone who dared to question the illegal building. The result of this unregulated building was the demolition of many historic buildings and the erection of apartment blocks, many of which were not up to standard.


First Mafia War[edit]

Main article: Ciaculli massacre


In 1962, the mafia boss Cesare Manzella organized a drug shipment to America with the help of two Sicilian clans, the Grecos and the La Barberas. Manzella entrusted another boss, Calcedonio Di Pisa, to handle the heroin. When the shipment arrived in America, however, the American buyers claimed some heroin was missing, and paid Di Pisa a commensurately lower sum. Di Pisa accused the Americans of defrauding him, while the La Barberas accused Di Pisa of embezzling the missing heroin. The Sicilian Mafia Commission sided with Di Pisa, to the open anger of the La Barberas. The La Barberas murdered Di Pisa and Manzella, triggering a war.[64]

Many non-mafiosi were killed in the crossfire. In April 1963, several bystanders were wounded during a shootout in Palermo.[65] In May, Angelo La Barbera survived a murder attempt in Milan. In June, six military officers and a policeman in Ciaculli were killed while trying to dispose of a car bomb. These incidents provoked national outrage and a crackdown in which nearly 2,000 arrests were made. Mafia activity fell as clans disbanded and mafiosi went into hiding. The Sicilian Mafia Commission was dissolved; it would not reform until 1969.[66] 117 suspects were put on trial in 1968, but most were acquitted or received light sentences.[67] The inactivity plus money lost to legal fees and so forth reduced most mafiosi to poverty.[68]

Smuggling boom[edit]

The 1950s and 1960s were difficult times for the mafia, but in the 1970s their rackets grew considerably more lucrative, particularly smuggling. The most lucrative racket of the 1970s was cigarette smuggling.[69] Sicilian and Neapolitan crime bosses negotiated a joint monopoly over the smuggling of cigarettes to Naples.

When heroin refineries operated by Corsican gangsters in Marseilles were shut down by French authorities, morphine traffickers looked to Sicily. Starting in 1975, Cosa Nostra set up heroin refineries across the island.[70] As well as refining heroin, Cosa Nostra also sought to control its distribution. Sicilian mafiosi moved to the United States to personally control distribution networks there, often at the expense of their U.S. counterparts. Heroin addiction in Europe and North America surged,[citation needed] and seizures by police increased dramatically. By 1982, the Sicilian Mafia controlled about 80 percent of the heroin trade in the north-eastern United States.[71] Heroin was often distributed to street dealers from Mafia-owned pizzerias, and the revenues could be passed off as restaurant profits (the so-called Pizza Connection).

Second Mafia War[edit]

Main article: Second Mafia War

In the early 1970s, Luciano Leggio, boss of the Corleone clan and member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission, forged a coalition of mafia clans known as the Corleonesi, with himself as its leader. He initiated a campaign to dominate Cosa Nostra and its narcotics trade. Because Leggio was imprisoned in 1974, he acted through his deputy, Salvatore Riina, to whom he would eventually hand over control. The Corleonesi bribed cash-strapped Palermo clans into the fold, subverted members of other clans and secretly recruited new members.[72] In 1977, the Corleonesi had Gaetano Badalamenti expelled from the Commission on trumped-up charges of hiding drug revenues.[73] In April 1981, the Corleonesi murdered another rival member of the Commission, Stefano Bontade, and the Second Mafia War began in earnest.[74] Hundreds of enemy mafiosi and their relatives were murdered,[75] sometimes by traitors in their own clans. By manipulating the Mafia's rules and eliminating rivals, the Corleonesi came to completely dominate the Commission. Riina used his power over the Commission to replace the bosses of certain clans with hand-picked regents.[76] In the end, the Corleonesi faction won and Riina effectively became the "boss of bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia.


Maxi trial and war against the government[edit]



The Mafia retaliated violently. In 1988, they murdered a Palermo judge and his son; three years later a prosecutor and an anti-mafia businessman were also murdered. Salvatore Lima, a close political ally of the Mafia, was murdered for failing to reverse the convictions as promised. Falcone and Borsellino were killed by bombs in 1992. This led to a public outcry and a massive government crackdown, resulting in the arrest of Salvatore Riina in January 1993. More and more defectors emerged. Many would pay a high price for their cooperation, usually through the murder of relatives. For example, Francesco Marino Mannoia's mother, aunt and sister were murdered.[78]


After Riina's capture, leadership of the Mafia was briefly held by Leoluca Bagarella, then passed to Bernardo Provenzano when the former was himself captured in 1995.[80] Provenzano halted the campaign of violence and replaced it with a campaign of quietness known as pax mafiosa.

Provenzano years[edit]

Under Bernardo Provenzano's leadership, murders of state officials were halted. He also halted the policy of murdering informants and their families, with a view instead to getting them to retract their testimonies and return to the fold.[81] He also restored the common support fund for imprisoned mafiosi.


Modern Mafia in Italy[edit]

The incarcerated bosses are currently subjected to harsh controls on their contact with the outside world, limiting their ability to run their operations from behind bars under the article 41-bis prison regime. Antonino Giuffrè – a close confidant of Provenzano, turned pentito shortly after his capture in 2002 – alleges that in 1993 Cosa Nostra had direct contact with representatives of Silvio Berlusconi who was then planning the birth of Forza Italia.[82][83][84]

The alleged deal included a repeal of 41 bis, among other anti-Mafia laws in return for electoral support in Sicily. Nevertheless, Giuffrè's declarations have not yet been confirmed. The Italian Parliament, with the full support of Forza Italia reinforced the provisions of the 41 bis, which was to expire in 2002 but has been prolonged for another four years and extended to other crimes such as terrorism. However, according to one of Italy’s leading magazines, L'Espresso, 119 mafiosi – one-fifth of those incarcerated under the 41 bis regime – have been released on an individual basis.[85] The human rights group Amnesty International has expressed concern that the 41-bis regime could in some circumstances amount to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" for prisoners.[citation needed]

In addition to Salvatore Lima, mentioned above, the recently deceased politician Giulio Andreotti and the High Court judge Corrado Carnevale have long been suspected of having ties to the Mafia.[86]

By the late 1990s, the weakened Cosa Nostra had to yield most of the illegal drug trade to the 'Ndrangheta crime organization from Calabria. In 2006, the latter was estimated to control 80 percent of the cocaine imported to Europe.[87] In 2012, it was reported that the Mafia had joined forces with the Mexican drug cartels.[88]


It is difficult to define exactly, the single function, or goal, of the phenomenon of the Mafia. Until the early 1980s, mafia was generally considered a unique Sicilian cultural attitude and form of power, excluding any corporate or organisational dimension.[89] Some even used it as a defensive attempt to render the Mafia benign and romantic: not a criminal association, but the sum of Sicilian values that outsiders never will understand.[90]






Like Pitrè, many scholars viewed mafiosi as individuals behaving according to specific subcultural codes, but did not consider the Mafia a formal organisation. Judicial investigations and scientific research in the 1980s provided solid proof of the existence of well-structured Mafia groups with entrepreneurial characteristics. The Mafia was seen as an enterprise and its economic activities became the focus of academic analyses.[89] Ignoring the cultural aspects, the Mafia is often erroneously seen as similar to other non-Sicilian organized criminal associations.[1]


The economic paradigm was prevalent when the Italian Penal Code definition of criminal conspiracy (Article 416) was extended by Pio La Torre. Article 416 bis defines an association as being of Mafia-type nature "when those belonging to the association exploit the potential for intimidation which their membership gives them, and the compliance and omerta which membership entails and which lead to the committing of crimes, the direct or indirect assumption of management or control of financial activities, concessions, permissions, enterprises and public services for the purpose of deriving profit or wrongful advantages for themselves or others."[94] The term Mafia-type organisations is used to clearly distinguish the uniquely Sicilian Mafia from other criminal organisations – such as the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta, the Sacra Corona Unita – that are structured like the Mafia, but are not the Mafia. According to historian Salvatore Lupo, “if everything is Mafia, nothing is Mafia.”[1]

There are several lines of interpretation, often blended to some extent, to define the Mafia: it has been viewed as a mirror of traditional Sicilian society; as an enterprise or type of criminal industry; as a more or less centralized secret society; and/or as a juridical ordering that is parallel to that of the state – a kind of anti-state. The Mafia is all of these but none of these exclusively.[95]

Structure and composition[edit]

Cosa Nostra is not a monolithic organization, but rather a loose confederation of about one hundred groups known alternately as "families", "cosche", "borgatas" or "clans" (despite the name, their members are generally not related by blood), each of which claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighborhood of a larger city, though without ever fully conquering and legitimizing its monopoly of violence. For many years, the power apparatuses of the single families were the sole ruling bodies within the two associations, and they have remained the real centers of power even after superordinate bodies were created in the Cosa Nostra beginning in the late 1950s (the Sicilian Mafia Commission).[96]

The Italian journalist Mauro De Mauro kidnapped by the mafia on the evening of September 16, 1970 was the first to publish a detailed map of the Sicilian Mafia, which was confirmed 22 years later by the Mafia pentito (turncoat) Tommaso Buscetta in his testimony to Judge Giovanni Falcone.[97]

Today, according to the Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, Francesco Messineo, there are 94 Mafia clans in Sicily subject to 29 mandamenti,[98] with a total of at least 3,500 to 4,000 full members.[99] Most are based in western Sicily, almost half of them in the province of Palermo.[12]

Clan hierarchy[edit]

Hierarchy of a Cosa Nostra clan.

In 1984, the mafioso informant Tommaso Buscetta explained to prosecutors the command structure of a typical clan.[12] A clan is led by a "boss" (capofamiglia or rappresentante), who is aided by an underboss (capo bastone or sotto capo) and supervised by one or more advisers (consigliere). Under his command are groups (decina) of about ten "soldiers" (soldati, operai, or picciotti). Each decina is led by a capodecina.

The actual structure of any given clan can vary. Despite the name decina, they do not necessarily have ten soldiers, but can have anything from five to thirty.[100] Some clans are so small that they don't even have decinas and capodecinas, and even in large clans certain soldiers may report directly to the boss.[101]



The consigliere ("counselor") of the clan is also elected on a yearly basis. One of his jobs is to supervise the actions of the boss and his immediate underlings, particularly in financial matters (e.g. preventing embezzlement).[104] He also serves as an impartial adviser to the boss and mediator in internal disputes. To fulfill this role, the consigliere must be impartial, devoid of conflict of interest and ambition.[105]

Other than its members, Cosa Nostra makes extensive use of "associates". These are people who work for or aid a clan (or even multiple clans) but are not treated as true members. These include corrupt officials and prospective mafiosi. An associate is considered by the mafiosi nothing more than a tool, someone that they can "use", or "nothing mixed with nil."[12]



Membership in Cosa Nostra is open only to Sicilian men. A candidate cannot be a relative or have any close links with a lawman, such as a policeman or a judge. There is no strict age limit: boys as young as sixteen have been initiated.[108] A prospective mafioso is carefully tested for obedience, discretion, courage, ruthlessness and skill at espionage.[12][108] He is almost always required to commit murder as his ultimate trial,[12] even if he doesn't plan to be a career assassin. The act of murder is to prove his sincerity (i.e. he is not an undercover policeman) and to bind him into silence (i.e. he cannot break omertà without facing murder charges himself).

To be part of the Mafia is highly desirable for many street criminals. For one, mafiosi receive a great deal of respect, for everyone knows that to offend a mafioso is to risk lethal retribution from him or his colleagues. Mafiosi have an easier time getting away with crimes, negotiating deals, and demanding privileges. A full member also gains more freedom to participate in certain rackets which the Mafia controls (particularly protection racketeering).

Traditionally, only men can become mafiosi, though in recent times there have been reports of women assuming the responsibilities of imprisoned mafiosi relatives.[109][110]

Although clans are also called "families", their members are usually not related by blood. The Mafia actually has rules designed to prevent nepotism. Membership and rank in the Mafia are not hereditary. Most new bosses are not related to their predecessor. The Commission forbids relatives from holding positions in inter-clan bodies at the same time.[111] That said, mafiosi frequently bring their sons into the trade. They have an easier time entering, because the son bears his father's seal of approval and is familiar with the traditions and requirements of Cosa Nostra.

A mafioso's legitimate occupation, if any, generally does not affect his prestige within Cosa Nostra.[112] Historically, most mafiosi were employed in menial jobs, and many bosses did not work at all.[112] Professionals such as lawyers and doctors do exist within the organization, and are employed according to whatever useful skills they have.[108]




A major function of the Commission is to regulate the use of violence.[113][115] For instance, a mafioso who wants to commit a murder in another clan's territory must ask the permission of the local boss; the commission enforces this rule.[115] Any murder of a mafioso or prominent individual (police, lawyers, politicians, journalists, etc.) must be approved by the commission.[116] Such acts can potentially upset other clans and spark a war, so the Commission provides a means by which to obtain their approval.[117]


Rituals and codes of conduct[edit]

Initiation ceremony[edit]

One of the first accounts of an initiation ceremony into the Mafia was given by Bernardino Verro, a leader of the Fasci Siciliani, a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the early 1890s. In order to give the movement teeth and to protect himself from harm, Verro became a member of a Mafia group in Corleone, the Fratuzzi (Little Brothers). In a memoir written many years later, he described the initiation ritual he underwent in the spring of 1893:



The elements of the ceremony have changed little over the Mafia's history.[122] These elements have been the subject of much curiosity and speculation. The sociologist Diego Gambetta points out that the Mafia, being a secretive criminal organization, cannot keep written records and thus cannot have its recruits sign application forms and written contracts as legitimate institutions do. Thus they rely on the old-fashioned ritual ceremony. The elements of the ceremony are made deliberately specific, bizarre and painful so that the event is both memorable and unambiguous, and the ceremony is witnessed by a number of senior mafiosi. The participants may not even care about what the symbols mean, and they may indeed have no intrinsic meaning. The real point of the ritual is to leave no doubt about the mafioso's new status so that it cannot be denied or revoked on a whim.[123]


A mafioso is not supposed to introduce himself to another mafioso he does not personally know, even if both mafiosi know of each other through reputation, because there is a risk that the mafioso might accidentally expose himself to an outsider or undercover policeman. If he wants to establish a relationship, he must ask a third mafioso whom they both personally know to introduce them to each other in a face-to-face meeting. This intermediary can vouch that neither of the two is an impostor.

This tradition is upheld very scrupulously, often to the detriment of efficient operation. For instance, when the mafioso Indelicato Amedeo returned to Sicily following his initiation in America in the 1950s, he could not introduce himself to his own mafioso father, but had to wait for a mafioso from America who knew of his induction to come to Sicily.[124]


Mafiosi of equal status sometimes call each other "compare", while inferiors call their superiors "padrino".[125] "Padrino" is the Italian term for "godfather".

Ten Commandments[edit]

In November 2007 Sicilian police reported discovery of a list of "Ten Commandments" in the hideout of mafia boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo, thought to be guidelines on good, respectful and honourable conduct for a mafioso.[126]

  2. Never look at the wives of friends.
  3. Never be seen with cops.
  4. Don't go to pubs and clubs.
  6. Appointments must absolutely be respected. (probably refers to formal rank and authority.[127])
  7. Wives must be treated with respect.

The pentito Antonino Calderone recounted similar Commandments in his 1987 testimony:



Main article: Omertà


The need for secrecy and inconspicuousness deeply colors the traditions and mannerisms of mafiosi. Mafiosi are discouraged from consuming alcohol or other drugs, as in an inebriated state they are more likely to blurt out sensitive information. They also frequently adopt self-effacing attitudes to strangers so as to avoid unwanted attention.[129] Whereas most Sicilians tend to be very verbose and expressive, mafiosi tend to be more terse and subdued. Mafiosi are also forbidden from writing down anything about their activities, lest such evidence be discovered by police.[130]


Protection rackets[edit]

Protection racketeering is one of the Sicilian Mafia's core activities. This aspect of the Mafia is often overlooked in the media because, unlike drug dealing and extortion, it is often not reported to the police. But many scholars, such as Diego Gambetta and Leopold Franchetti, see it as the Mafia's defining characteristic, the source of their power and place in Sicilian society. Gambetta describes the Mafia as a cartel of "private protection firms" who act as guarantors of trust and security in areas of the economy where such things are scarce and fragile. In exchange for money or favors, mafiosi use the credible threat of violence to protect their clients from fraudsters, thieves, and competitors.[131]

For example: suppose a meat wholesaler wishes to sell some meat to a supermarket without paying taxes. Neither the seller nor buyer can turn to the police or the courts for help should something go wrong, such as the seller supplying rotten meat or the buyer not paying up. The law does not enforce black market agreements; it punishes them. Without the arbitration of the law, the seller could cheat the buyer with impunity or vice versa. If the parties both do not trust each other, they cannot do business and they could both lose out on a profitable deal. Instead, the parties can approach the local mafia clan to supervise their illegal deal. In exchange for a commission, the mafioso promises to both the buyer and seller that if either of them tries to cheat the other, the cheater can expect to be assaulted or have his property vandalized. Such is the mafioso's reputation for viciousness and reliability that neither the buyer nor the seller would consider cheating. Only a fool would dare cheat somebody protected by the Mafia. With the traders satisfied that this mafioso can discourage cheating, the transaction proceeds smoothly and all parties leave satisfied.[131] The Mafia's protection is not restricted to illegal activities. Shopkeepers often pay the Mafia to protect them from thieves. If a shopkeeper enters into a protection contract with a mafioso, the mafioso will make it publicly known that if any thief were foolish enough to rob his client's shop, he would track down the thief, beat him up, and, if possible, recover the stolen merchandise (mafiosi make it their business to know all the fences in their territory).[131]

Mafiosi have protected a great variety of clients over the years: landowners, plantation owners, politicians, shopkeepers, drug dealers, etc. Whilst some people are coerced into buying protection and some do not receive any actual protection for their money (extortion), by and large there are many clients who actively seek and benefit from mafioso protection. This is one of the main reasons why the Mafia has resisted more than a century of government efforts to destroy it: the people who willingly solicit these services protect the Mafia from the authorities. If you are enjoying the benefits of Mafia protection, you do not want the police arresting your mafioso.[131]

It is estimated that the Sicilian Mafia costs the Sicilian economy more than €10 billion a year through protection rackets.[132] Roughly 70 percent of Sicilian businesses pay protection money to Cosa Nostra.[133] Monthly payments can range from €200 for a small shop or bar to €5,000 for a supermarket.[134][135][136] In Sicily, protection money is known as pizzo; the anti-extortion support group Addiopizzo derives its name from this. Mafiosi might sometimes ask for favors instead of money, such as assistance in committing a crime.

Protection from theft[edit]

Protection from theft is one service that the Mafia provides to paying "clients". Mafiosi themselves are generally forbidden from committing theft[137] (though in practice they are merely forbidden from stealing from anyone connected to the Mafia).[138] Instead, mafiosi make it their business to know all the thieves and fences operating within their territory. If a protected business is robbed, the clan will use these contacts to track down and return the stolen goods and punish the thieves, usually by beating them up.[139] Since the pursuit of thieves and their loot often goes into territories of other clans, clans routinely cooperate with each other on this matter, providing information and blocking the sale of the loot if they can.[139]

Protection from competition[edit]

Mafiosi sometimes protect businessmen from competitors by threatening their competitors with violence. If two businessmen are competing for a government contract, the protected can ask his mafioso friends to bully his rival out of the bidding process. In another example, a mafioso acting on behalf of a coffee supplier might pressure local bars into serving only his client's coffee.


Client relations[edit]

Mafiosi approach potential clients in an aggressive but friendly manner, like a door-to-door salesman.[141] They may even offer a few free favors as enticement. If a client rejects their overtures, mafiosi sometimes coerce them by vandalizing their property or other forms of harassment. Physical assault is rare; clients may be murdered for breaching agreements or talking to the police, but not for simply refusing protection.[142]



Protection territories[edit]


Other activities[edit]

Vote buying[edit]

Politicians court mafiosi to obtain votes during elections. A mafioso's mere endorsement of a certain candidate can be enough for his clients, relatives and associates to vote for said candidate. A particularly influential mafioso can bring in thousands of votes for a candidate; such is the respect a mafioso can command.[146] The Italian Parliament has a huge number of seats (945, roughly 1 per 64,000 citizens) and a large number of political parties competing for them, meaning a candidate can win with only a few thousand votes. A mafia clan's support can thus be decisive for his success.


Politicians usually repay this support with favours, such as sabotaging police investigations or giving contracts and permits.[148]

Although they are not ideological themselves, mafiosi have traditionally opposed extreme parties such as Fascists and Communists, and favoured centre candidates.[148]



Mafiosi rarely directly involve themselves in smuggling operations. When they do, it is usually when the operations are especially risky. In this case, they may induct smugglers into their clans in the hope of binding them more firmly.[150] This was the case with heroin smuggling, where the volumes and profits involved were too large to keep the operations at arm's length.

Bid rigging[edit]

The Sicilian Mafia in Italy is believed to have a turnover of €6.5 billion through control of public and private contracts.[151] Mafiosi use threats of violence and vandalism to muscle out competitors and win contracts for the companies they control.[112] They rarely manage the businesses they control themselves, but take a cut of their profits, usually through payoffs (Pizzo).[152]

Loan sharking[edit]

In a 2007 publication, the Italian small-business association Confesercenti reported that about 25.2 percent of Sicilian businesses were indebted to loan sharks, who collected around €1.4 billion a year in payments.[153] This figure has risen during the late-2000s recession, as tighter lending by banks forces the desperate to borrow from the Mafia.[154][155]

Forbidden crimes[edit]


Violence and reputation[edit]



Murders are almost always carried out by members. It is very rare for the Mafia to recruit an outsider for a single job, and such people are liable to be eliminated soon afterwards because they become expendable liabilities.[157] Mafia violence is most commonly directed at other Mafia families competing for territory and business.[158] Violence is more common in the Sicilian Mafia than the American Mafia because Mafia families in Sicily are smaller and more numerous, creating a more volatile atmosphere.[159]



Compared to other occupations, reputation is especially valuable for a mafioso, as his primary product is protection through intimidation. The reputation of a mafioso is dichotomous: he is either a good protector or a bad one; there is no mediocrity. This is because a mafioso can only either succeed at an act of violence or fail utterly. There is no spectrum of quality when it comes to violent protection.[162] Consequently, a series of failures can completely ruin a mafioso's reputation, and with it his business.



Notable Sicilian mafiosi[edit]

Informants and witness[edit]

See also[edit]


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  127. ^
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  153. ^ (Italian) "Le mani della criminalità sulle imprese (The grip of criminality on enterprises)". October 22, 2007.  The statistics in the report were obtained from the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
  154. ^ Italian Mafia cashes in on recession, Euranet, March 9, 2009
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  165. ^ Gambetta. The Siclian Mafia. p. 61


External links[edit]

Media related to Mafia at Wikimedia Commons