Sicilian+Mafia

__**Overview**__ The Sicilian Mafia is an Italian criminal organization that gains power and money through means of intimidation and violence. They in a sense have been successful from "cultivating the art of killing someone and getting away with it" [|Lorenzo Pichhi]. Many other criminal organizations such as the Russian and Chinese crime rings have been called the "Mafia" but none truly fit the criteria in the Sicilians. The Sicilian Mafia is different in the sense that it has a sense of family and is basically the governing entity of Sicily.

The first of signs of the Mafia can be seen in the late nineteenth century. It all began in the 1700s when many Sicilian nobles moved from their country estates to the cities of Palermo and Messana. During their absence, they left their lands in the hands of mangers or //gabelloti.// As time passed many of these gabelloti purchased the lands from their lords and ran them for themselves. These gabelloti would often intimidate the peasants working on their land to accept lower wages and would use local intermediaries for this purpose. These intermediaries were the origin of the mafiosi. After feudalism was abolished many barons tried to raise taxes on their peasants and the gabelloti were used to settle these disputes. Others believe that the mafia roots are from the 1860s when Sicily became a large producer of lemons because of its effective irrigation systems. Many people believe that the early mafia got its start by serving as a security service for the large lemon groves around Palermo.
 * __Beginnings__**

Omerta is a major principle of the Sicilian Mafia. It literally means manhood but has evolved into the Mafia's unwritten code. Its basic principle is that of silence. All members and non-members of the Sicily follow this code. This represents the Sicilian value of not cooperating with law enforcement. This is because people know that to talk means to die. This is how the Mafia has been able to survive through all of these years.
 * __Omerta__**

__**Evolution**__ Over the years the mafia used their positions as middlemen and protection services to make a profit. Eventually they came to the point where they required all businesses pay a "protection tax" so the businesses or their owners would not be harmed. In the 1950s, Sicily enjoyed a building boom using money from the Marshall Plan to help rebuild the island after World War II. The Mafia took advantage of this opportunity by gaining these contracts and using them to make millions of dollars. With this money the mafia bought up more contracts and eventually gained control of many sections of the economy including waste management and hotels. They created close ties with many politicians through bribes and blackmailing. They have used these politicians to get funding from the European Commission in the name of rebuilding Sicily. However, most of the time the money is not used for this purpose. Over the years the mafia has grown into a international organization and is considered to be more powerful in Sicily than the Italian government.

__**Mafia of Today**__ Today the Sicilian mafia engages in many criminal activities such as drug and military arms trafficking, political corruption, arson, fraud, racketeering, and counterfeiting. Though it does engage in all of these activities, the mafia is most well known for its assassinations.



The Sicilian Mafia is very famous for its agressive attacks on the government officials. The mafia calls these assassinations of powerful officials "Excellent Cadavers" to distinguish them from ordinary hits. The mafia often will assassinate judges or law enforcement officials who refuse to be bought off. In May 1992 the Mafia murdered the Italian Magistrate of Criminal Affairs, Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and several police guards with a car bomb. This assassination was seen as punishment for Falcone who was trying to crack down on organized crime. This hit came to be known as the the "Capaci Massacre".
 * __Assassinations__**

The Sicilian Mafia is said to have been on the decline in the past few years. Much of this decline is considered to be a result a crackdown by the Italian government, with the collaboration of other governments, on the Mafia's leaders. They believe with the flurry of recent arrests that there is a leadership vacuum among the mafia which can't be filled with the remaining members who were not as smart or ruthless as the leaders who have been arrested. There is general belief among Italian law enforcement that the "ndrangheta" ring from Calabria are starting to catch up with the Sicilian Mafia in drug trafficking. However the mafia is very much legitimized in its current businesses and it is so ingrained in Sicilian culture, that it is very doubtful that it will ever be destroyed.
 * __Recent Struggles__**


 * __Sources__**
 * 1) [|www.bestofsicily.com/mafia.htm]
 * 2) [|www.historyofthemafia.net/]
 * 3) [|www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/orgcrime/lcnindex.htm]
 * 4) [|www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A8676598]
 * 5) [|www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-02-29-italy-mafia_N.htm]
 * 6) [|www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=18419]

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