Even the Mafia bows down to us. Romanzo Criminale s1e8 starring Francesco Montanari & Vinicio Marchioni & Alessandro Roja & Marco Bocci & Daniela Virgilio & Andrea Sartoretti et al, Lebanase to gang
Tommaso Buscetta, the Mafia boss, has been arrested in Brazil. Buscetta is also known as ‘the boss of two worlds’. Romanzo Criminale s2e8, television news
It’s the world’s most powerful crime syndicate. Power created by violence and intimidation, murder and torture. It’s been widely suspected for many years that their influence reaches up to the highest level of politics, finance and business. Mafia Empire: Vow of Silence, 2006
In Italy a former prime minister faced trial for Mafia connections yet was later acquitted, and his deputy was gunned down. ibid.
For years the true history of the Mafia has been a closed book to the outside world. But now high-ranking members are betraying the Mafia and are telling the real story: Joseph ‘Joe Dogs’ Iannuzzi, family Gambino location confidential; ‘Joe Dogs’ criminal career involved him in one of the most powerful families in New York: he turned on the Mafia after being beaten nearly to death and lives in hiding. ibid.
Dominick Montiglio, family Gambino, location confidential. Montiglio also turned on the Mafia after they put out a contract on his life. ibid.
Tommaso Buscetta, family: Santa Maria de Jesus, Sicily … the most important witness against the Italian and American Mafia. ibid.
Former members and associates were part of a Mafia world that revolved around a cycle of violence, extortion and obedience. ibid.
At the heart of the secret ceremony is a vow of loyalty and silence called Omerta. Betrayal of the Mafia’s secrets was punishable by death. In America it became known as La Cosa Nostra. ibid.
The organisation flourished. Their wealth enabled them to buy police, politicians and judges. ibid.
However, the Sicilian Mafia was on the verge of defeat at the hands of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. ibid.
The Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 put an end to Mussolini and liberated the Mafiosi languishing in jail. ibid.
The Mafia succeeding in influencing post-war elections in Sicily ensuring that politicians would serve their interests. ibid.
In Palermo in 1957 American and Sicilian Mafia held a series of secret meetings to discuss their common future. In attendance were American godfathers Joe Bonanno and Lucky Luciano, now living back in Italy. ibid.
Joe Valachi testified before Congress about the existence of organised crime. ibid.
Luciano’s place in America had been taken by a quiet Sicilian, Carlo Gambino. He was to become the most powerful Mafia boss in America. ibid.
For more than 50 years the Mafia reigns supreme in America and Italy. Mafia Empire: Breaking the Vow
In Sicily a war broke out for control of the drug profits. ibid.
Lending money at exorbitant interest rates known as Points and collecting debts with the threat of violence was the long-time Mafia tradition of loan-sharking. ibid.
For years the Mafia had perpetuated the myth that they were not involved in the drugs trade ... The international narcotics conspiracy was the link between the Sicilian and American Mafia. ibid.
Despite the Mafia’s awareness of the risks of drug trafficking the enormous profits proved too much of a temptation. ibid.
Sicilian Mafia members were dispatched from Palermo to the United States, Canada and South America to set up their drugs trade. ibid.
In the late 1970s the Al Dente was one of a network of pizzarias which provided the perfect cover for many of the Sicilians involved in the international heroin conspiracy. ibid.
The key intermediary between the Sicilian and American Mafia was Carmine Galante. ibid.
With convictions and lengthy jail sentences for almost all the defendants, the Pizza Connection trial was hailed as a major triumph. ibid.
In Italy [Tommy] Buscetta’s revelations led to mass arrests which in turn led to the mass trial – the Maxiprocesso – which was held in 1986 in a specially built bomb-proof courthouse known as the Bunker next to the jail. ibid.
In Italy and America the Mafia is the number one target for an all-out assault by the FBI and the Italian police in an unprecedented attack on organised crime that began in the 1980s. Mafia Empire: Vendetta
In Italy the Sicilian Mafia embarked on a campaign of terror in a last-ditch attempt to intimidate the State as their political supporters failed to protect them. The prosecution and arrest of the Mafia godfathers changed the face of organised crime, and raised the prospect of its eventual disappearance. ibid.
While the Sicilian Mafia dominated the heroin trade in the 1980s the American Mafia were opposed to it. ibid.
As in the United States the trade in drugs had a profound effect on the internal structure and the character of the Mafia. ibid.
Hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing: those three things will keep you alive. That is the code of Italy’s most violent Mafia: the Camorra. And this is where it’s gripped the strongest – Naples. A city in the heart of Europe. It’s brutality is notorious. It’s killed more people than the IRA. Mark Franchetti, Italy’s Bloodiest Mafia
There’s another side to the city if you know where to look. The grim estates of north Naples. With addicts openly shooting up after buying heroin from the Camorra. ibid.
Neapolitans don’t call it the Camorra. They call it Itsistema – the System. The System isn’t one organisation with a single godfather like Sicily’s Cosa Nostra. It’s a system of competing, often warring, criminal clans who can strike anyone at any time. ibid.
The Camorra has been a blight on Naples for more than a century ... It wasn’t until it started dealing in illegal drugs that it became truly rich. ibid.
The Camorra has raked in millions dumping toxic waste on this land. ibid.
I’m in Naples. Southern Italy. A city under the control of the Camorra, one of the oldest, most powerful gangs in the world ... The Camorra is old-school Mafia. Inside the Gangsters’ Code: Naples, Discovery 2013
The Camorra, the most brutal, are strangling the life out of Naples. ibid.
It’s a loose conglomerate of guys running wild. ibid.
The new Camorra knows no boundaries. ibid.
[Gennaro] Panzuto was a Mafia boss; for years he played a key role in the Naples’ Camorra, but now he’s turned state witness and is helping put his former associates behind bars. Our World: Confessions of a Mafia Killer, BBC 2020
The Camorra is the City’s Mafia, one of the world’s most deadly and secretive criminal networks, but now one of its bosses and killers is breaking the code of silence. ibid.
Panzutto’s white-collar helpers set up dozens of companies to trade goods between northern England and Naples; it was a big tax dodging scam which started with shoes … He was arrested and extradited. ibid.
The godfather was born Vito Andolini, in the town of Corleone in Sicily. In 1901 his father was murdered for an insult to the local Mafia chieftain. His older brother Paolo swore revenge and disappeared into the hills, leaving Vito, the only male heir, to stand with his mother at the funeral. The Godfather II 1974 starring Robert De Niro & Al Pacino & Robert Duvall & Diane Keaton & Talia Shire & Morgana King & John Cazale & Marianna Hill & Lee Strasberg et al, director Francis Ford Coppola
Why is such a beautiful country so violent? The Godfather III 1990 starring Al Pacino & Andy Garcia & Diane Keaton & Talia Shire & Sofia Coppola & George Hamilton & Bridget Fonda et al, director Francis Ford Coppola, Anthony
Into the 1960s Leonardo Sciascia’s novels would expose the power of the Sicilian Mafia. Timeshift: Italian Noir: The Story of Italian Crime Fiction, BBC 2019
It’s estimated he [Salvatori Reiina] and the families aligned with him killed as many as a thousand people in the area around Palermo. Alexander Stille, author Excellent Cadavers