How Cosa Nostra's 'Cattle Mafia' Is Destroying Sicily's Farmers

Lorenzo Tondo at the British publication the Guardian offers a piece on how Sicilian organized crime has retreated to the countryside in Sicily.

The Napoli sisters keep their entire harvest in a glass jar, resting on a wooden table in the living room. Inside, there are only a dozen stalks of wheat. The rest of the crop – 80,000 kilograms – was destroyed by the Sicilian mafia, determined to force out these three women working in the land of The Godfather.

For three generations, the Napoli family farmed wheat and hay in Corleone, the historic stronghold of Cosa Nostra. Their father, Salvatore, was a hard worker who, after much sacrifice in the fields, managed to send his three daughters – Marianna, Ina and Irene – to university.

But a crisis in what was the world’s most notorious mafia, broken apart by prosecutors, has pushed Cosa Nostra back to their rural origins, and they want their land back.

… The crisis in the mafia’s origins lie in the jailing of more than 4,000 mafiosi since 1990 and the replacement of the old mobsters with younger bosses who lacked their authority.

Drug trafficking, once under the monopoly control of Cosa Nostra, is now run by the most powerful Calabrian mafia, the ’Ndrangheta. The Sicilian construction industry, which once represented a giant business for the mafia, has lost more than €1bn since 2007, according to the Italian Association of Builders.

Far from Palermo, hidden in the Sicilian interior, Cosa Nostra is trying to start again from scratch.

“It is as if, pushed by the crisis, Cosa Nostra has withdrawn into the countryside,” says Sergio Lari, the head of the Caltanissetta prosecutor’s office in the centre of Sicily. “Far from the pressure of the authorities in the big cities, the bosses seem to have found a safe haven.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/14/cosa-nostra-cattle-mafia-sicily-farmers-intimidation#img-1 

Italian Government: Corleone's City Hall Is Mafia-infested

While serving on a U.S. Navy harbor tugboat at the nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland in 1975, I traveled to Sicily on vacation.

Being part-Italian on my mother's side, and as a student of crime since my early teens, I was curious to see the town of Corleone. Corleone, wrongly or rightly, is a town associated mostly with Cosa Nostra, Sicily's infamous organized crime group.

Prior to my trip to Sicily, I'd read a good number of travel and historical books on the island, as well as on Cosa Nostra, and of course I'd read the Mario Puzo novel, The Godfather. I also watched the first two films based on Puzo's novel a few years prior to my trip.

Corleone is the town that writer Mario Puzo used famously for his Godfather novel and he gave the name of the town to his main character. Film director Francis Ford Coppola also used the name of the town in his film series, but he filmed scenes in different towns in Sicily.

Hiring a car and driver in Palermo, I was driven through the beautiful countryside to Corleone and then given a tour of the picturesque Sicilian town with a dark and violent history. The people were warm, friendly and open, although the town held many criminal secrets, then and now.

It was an interesting day that I can still recall vividly.

The British newspaper The Telegraph offers a piece on how Corleone remains plagued by organized crime.        

The Italian government believes Mafiosi have infiltrated the local administration of Corleone, the Sicilian town which inspired the fictional crime clan's name in "The Godfather"novel and movie.

Premier Matteo Renzi's Cabinet on Wednesday dissolved Corleone's municipal government and put its City Hall under temporary control of the interior ministry.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano had proposed the action. Corleone's mayor also voiced worries about Mafia infiltration.

Using intimidation, Sicily's Cosa Nostra frequently influences decisions and public contract bidding or backs local politicians sympathetic to the Mafia's economic interests.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch a video via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/10/italian-government-corleones-city-hall-is-mafia-infested/

You can also read an earlier post on the Sicilian Cosa Nostra via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2016/07/the-real-godfather-true-story-of.html

Cosa Nostra At A Crossroads As Nigerian Gangsters Hit Sicily's Shores

Lorenzo Tondo at the British newspaper the Guardian offers a piece on the changing face of organized crime in Sicily.

Prosecutors in the Sicilian capital of Palermo are warning that a new alliance between the mafia and Nigerian criminal gangs moving in from Libya could herald a new era of organised crime.

“Even the Sicilian mafia has to deal with the wave of migration from Africa,” said Leonardo Agueci, Palermo’s deputy chief prosecutor. “The neighbourhoods under mafia control have changed profoundly in recent years due to the growing presence of foreigners, especially Nigerians coming on boats. Among them, there [are a small number] of people who want to transfer their illegal trafficking, linked to prostitution and drug dealing, to Sicily. And the mafia was quite happy to integrate them into their criminal business.”

In Ballarò, a mafia stronghold market area in the historic centre of the city, a whistle is traditionally used by drug dealers to attract customers, who are offered hashish, marijuana and cocaine. In the past this signal was only used by Italian dealers working for Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia. About two years ago, when Nigerians adopted the whistle, offering drugs at a discount, it was clear that a new criminal organisation had set foot in the city.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jun/11/mafia-palermo-nigerian-gangsters-hit-sicily-shores