1. Mafia is a criminal phenomenon originating in Sicily, centred around Palermo, but which has spread to the whole of Sicily, to various areas of Italy and abroad. Because of its exclusive nature does not leave any room for rivals.
Over the course of time the meaning of the term "Mafia" has broadened and has become a socio-legal parameter to describe all phenomena of the same kind, regardless of their local denomination, with the feature of "quid pluris" under article 416 of the Italian Criminal Code which defines the crime of criminal conspiracy of a Mafia type. (1)
From a structural point of view, the Sicilian Mafia is commonly identified with its largest organisation known as "Cosa Nostra", by far the most important, with a structure rooted in the original social traditions, it has formal governing bodies, selective election criteria, and exerts absolute control over a territory.
It is organised as a pyramid with "families", "mandamenti", "provincial committees" and a "regional committee", so that it is able to lay down unified strategies, applicable throughout its widespread branches and complex organisation.
The basic structure of "Cosa Nostra" is the "family", which is a group of individuals controlling a particular town or a clearly-defined geographical area. It is governed by a "family head", traditionally elected, who appoints a "counsellor" to act as advisor, and a number of "capi-decina" who co-ordinate and run the "men of honour". Several adjacent "families" make up a "mandamento" whose leader is a member of the "provincial committee". The members of the "provincial committees" make up the "regional committee" . The Palermo "committee" is nevertheless endowed with much greater authority and freedom of action than the others.
This organisational structure is comparatively recent, it was defined at the end of the Fifties with the help of the Italo-American Mafia bosses in order to manage the internal affairs and the organisation's increasing criminal activities more easily.
The Mafia came into being in the 19th century to mediate between the large land-owners and the farm labourers, it was used by the former to exert control and power over the latter, until it gradually acquired wider powers of representation and eventually took over from the landowners themselves.
It has developed in time, moving out of the countryside into the towns, exploiting the post-war reconstruction effort in the Fifties, the building boom subsequently known as "the sack of Palermo", beside cigarette smuggling, kidnapping and drug trafficking.
The Mafia has gradually managed to adjust its traditional archaic values to meet contemporary demands, working in total osmosis with society, combining intimidation and patronage, violence and corruption, but never changing its character.
At different times people, even experts, have spoken about a "new Mafia", restricting their analysis to the different "modi operandi" used by the Mafia.
Many Mafia members who have decided to cooperate with the State in Italy (2) have justified this decision on the grounds that the Mafia has taken a turn for the worse in its development, and no longer stands for the things in which they had originally believed.
While accepting that their intentions may be honest, one must recognise the ambiguity of their position, based as it is upon the assumption that there exists a "good Mafia" versus a "bad Mafia" which was until a few decades ago endorsed also by some socio-political figures.
In reality, the Mafia has undergone a structural and functional change, its image has continuously changed.
The old-time Mafiosi, like Genco Russo and Calogero Vizzini, former bosses of "Cosa Nostra" in the years between the two world wars, are the archetypes of the "man of honour" of a bygone age, as a social intermediary and a man standing for order and peace.
The term "Godfather" was coined precisely in order to enhance the figure of the "Mafia type", who co-ordinated all social demands.
However, this mediation is certainly not invited; it is imposed by the Mafia through intimidation and subjection; it is a means of settling disputes and ordering the dynamics of the Sicilian community with a protective function in order to gain illegal profits in exchange for protection.
The old Mafiosi complemented political and institutional authority at a time of considerable social disarray which they themselves fuelled and which paralysed society, even if it may appear to have positive effects on public security, order and social progress.
The truth of the matter is that the "old Mafia" reflected the conditions of the rural system in which it operated and which was based on values that were not only connected with freeing people from poverty, but also with the prestige of recognition thanks to carefully chosen relations.
Against this background of fake solidarity, the Mafia attracted cultural sympathies from short-sighted observers of Sicilian history as a result of the analysis of those who for too long viewed the Mafia as a mere product of local folklore.
But only a superficial observer could ignore the murders of judges and investigators, the massacres that have occurred time and time again throughout the history of the Mafia, or the events that occurred at Ciaculli (Palermo) in June 1963, were the Carabinieri Lieutenant Malausa and 7 of his colleagues lost their lives, the massacre in Viale Lazio in December 1969, (3) the murder of Judge Scaglione, the booby-trapped cars against Judges Chinnici and Palermo, no less hideous than the bomb attacks which killed Judges Falcone and Borsellino in 1992.
The social and economic development of Sicily, in terms of the Italian political and institutional structures in general, has conditioned the attitudes of the Mafia, which has therefore adopted organisational and more remunerative behavioural standards, seeking out legal and illegal areas of the economy to occupy, as well as local and national personalities ready to compromise with it.
Urbanisation, population growth, internal migration towards the areas with a higher concentration of human and production resources, and the consequent economically central role of Palermo in the Sixties, created a new model of the Mafia which, compared to the past, was:
- closer to an entrepreneurial organisational structure;
- attentive to the cost-effectiveness of criminal activities;
- modern in terms of its relationships with public pressure groups and lobbies.
The lack of any consistent and coherent policy to contain it enabled the Mafia in the Sixties to establish more open relations with the local politicians who were approached in broad daylight. When the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Committee was set up, (4) and following the social alarm raised by the Ciaculli massacre, these relations were merely concealed, but not interrupted.
In the Seventies, the exponential growth in the power of the Mafia groups from Corleone, a small agricultural town in the province of Palermo, enjoyed the support of a number of "Palermo families" who saw in the arrogance of these 'social climbers' from the peasantry a means of providing them with enormous possibilities to improve the management of their profits from various illegal business ventures which they then entrusted to this new group to manage on their behalf. And it was precisely the Corleonesi which brought about considerable changes in the structure of Cosa Nostra. Such changes should not be considered as sprouting from a different Mafia culture, but as the result of converging interests and the development of criminal solutions which had already been emerging for some time. As this new "family" increased its power, violence and utter determination gained the upper hand in the strategies implemented by Cosa Nostra.
The message of the Mafia had been revised. Previously it had tried to avoid anything which might give rise to social alarm or bring about a direct attack on the State. One example of this is kidnapping, which had traditionally been avoided by the Mafia because it did not fit in with the rules of the organisation and because it was repugnant to the public mind. But it was precisely this kind of crimes, mostly perpetrated in Northern Italy, which created the original wealth that was to permit Cosa Nostra in general and the Corleonesi in particular, to be able to afford keeping on with their cigarette smuggling and drug trafficking activities which were costly.
This compromise was soon accepted, albeit reluctantly, by every Mafia family that was thereby able to appropriate a substantial part of the profits from the monopoly of the international drug trade, particularly in the direction of America and the Middle East.
As time passed, the first refineries for pure morphine were set up in Sicily, using specialist members of the same families, bringing in enormous profits.
In the early Eighties a new "Mafia war" led to the breakdown in the structure of Cosa Nostra following the functional breakdown mentioned above. This led to a radical change in the whole organisation. The victors from Corleone redefined the internal order, doing away with any dialectical arrangements, depriving the fringe groups of their traditional autonomy, and doing away with any decision-making capability on the part of the advisory bodies.
Against this background, the rise to power of Riina occurred in two stages:
- eliminating the most representative members of the enemy camp;
- gradually selecting key people within the group on the basis of individual reliability, usefulness, and pre-emption.
The result, which could be foreseen analysing what was occurring, was that the Mafia became a sophisticated association of organised gangsters. However this did not entail a complete change, it was simply a natural development in terms of the decisions and choices made at the time, it met a "historical" need.

The 1992-1993 bomb attacks (5) were an attempt to convince the institutions to restore earlier forms of mediation and collusion through the implementation of a murderous strategy designed to strike at enemies or individuals no longer deemed reliable. In the history of the Sicilian Mafia the use of indiscriminate bombing is something which has surfaced at regular intervals at certain specific social/historical times. Nevertheless, the utter determination of the Corleone family made it possible to overcome the selection criteria that used to be adopted for choosing criminal actions, broadening their scope and techniques in view of the need to spread a message as broadly as possible in order to obtain the desired effect.
There is no doubt that the special anti-Mafia laws (6) attracted and steered public awareness. They followed a tortuous path as a result of the emergency situations caused by crimes that had a great impact on public opinion. Only recently they have become an effective means to fight crime for specific legislation has made it possible to enhance the law enforcement action to confront the structural and functional changes in Cosa Nostra. With these laws it was possible to attack the most important aspect of the Mafia organisation, namely the control over the territory viewed as an economic area.
The most delicate moment in the balance of power within the Sicilian Mafia was the arrest of Salvatore Riina (15.01.1993).
For some time, the internal structure of Cosa Nostra had been seriously undermined by a number of internal and external causes.
The internal causes were:
- the reform in the internal organisation introduced by Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, another leader from Corleone and the ensuing concentration of power in the hands of a few;
- making the purposes of the organisation coincide with the interests of a few faithful members, and creating tension in the whole structure with the effect of demotivating many of the Corleone families' allies.
The external causes included:
- the high quality of those investigating the Mafia, and the use made of ad hoc legislation to encourage collaboration with the State;
- the break in the contacts between Cosa Nostra and national and regional political environments conditioned by developments of the Mafia's territorial power;
- the emergence of other criminal organisations in Sicily no longer directly controllable by Cosa Nostra which in some areas had to defend its power;
- the exponential growth of other Mafia-type criminal organisations able to have a much greater impact in many parts of Italy and abroad, particularly the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta and the Neapolitan Camorra.
In this situation, Cosa Nostra began a slow process of implosion, causing the outbreak of internal disputes leading to:
- secret alliances breaking the strict discipline of "democratic centralism";
- irreversible splits between men of honour belonging to the same family;
- fewer contacts with other criminal organisations;
- a better organisation of the structures responsible for money-laundering, which improved reliability, but very often reduced the ability to deal with partners in the highest-level markets;
- the inability to manage wisely and cost-effectively the capital flowing from large-scale public works, delegating the power to business committees not always directly controlled by the Mafia;
- the proliferation of piecemeal alliances with members of other criminal groups operating in the drug trafficking sector; these were the main causes for the weakening of Cosa Nostra in the Seventies and Eighties.
We may therefore summarise the situation at present and with a view to possible future developments as follows:
A. The current situation:
- Salvatore Riina may be still considered as the head of Cosa Nostra;
- his "regent" (7) is Bernardo Provenzano, who is supported by some leading Corleone figures who are still at large (Bagarella, Brusca, Aglieri, Greco and Troia);
- the organisation may certainly count on a ferocious group of killers ready to undertake any type of action, both in Palermo and the area around Trapani;
- investigations are revealing that:
there is no change in the system of alliances;
drug trafficking is still controlled by the same men of honour ;
there is an increased tendency to co-operate with justice and turn to collaborating with the State, but in some cases it is a ruse.
B. Future developments:
- it is likely that groups may emerge in opposition to the Corleone families;
- already significant changes have taken place in the organisation of Cosa Nostra (interruption of affiliations, (8) breaking up of some "families", dissolution of the "committee" etc.). This has already occurred in the past when there was the need to recover the credibility and secrecy that had been jeopardised;
- a development in military tactics leading to new attacks against the institutions and to killing public figures it is also likely.
In short, at present it appears that even though the foundations of "Cosa Nostra" have been shaken, the organisation is slowly recovering from the pressure being exerted by the law enforcement bodies. As the internal order is imploding, a new leadership is gaining strength and, with guidance by the bosses at large is creating a new scenery unknown both to the collaborators of justice and to the investigators.
The recent revival in murders in the Palermo area, which rose considerable public alarm, seems to result from the wish of the Corleonesi to legitimate their military and territorial power using "surgical operations" and symbolic repressive actions against emerging figures among the so called "escapees", that is those who lost the Mafia war in the early Eighties.
This show of strength is particularly important for them in view of the creation of a new flexible internal organisation, with different relationships between the "families" and the territory.
The undisputed ability of Provenzano, outstanding leader still at large, to forge relations together with the military determination of Cosa Nostra could start a new season. In 1992 and 1993, Cosa Nostra followed a "stragism" strategy, now it needs to close ranks, to acquire internal credibility more than to demonstrate its military power, further it has to consolidate alliances with other areas of the national organised crime which have opposed the leadership of Cosa Nostra.
Lastly, we should not underestimate the attempts that may be made to re-establish relations with members of the institutions at various levels, in order to guarantee renewed access to certain corridors of power.

2. In addition to the developments of Cosa Nostra in the Palermo area, particular attention should be devoted to the criminal scene in Catania, the second "criminal pole" in Sicily.
In order to appraise the development of this phenomenon a broad distinction must be drawn between the organisations that are believed to be part of Cosa Nostra and the others.
The criminal organisations considered to be close to Cosa Nostra are believed to have made decisions consistently with the desire of the main organisation to close ranks and have also implemented a policy of agreements with other groups of different criminal backgrounds.
The organisation of Cosa Nostra in Catania and province, according to the structure set up at the end of the Eighties, used to identify itself with the group led by Benedetto SANTAPAOLA and partly with the group led by Giuseppe PULVIRENTI, known as "Malpassotu".
At present the Catania Cosa Nostra includes the "ERCOLANO-SANTAPAOLA" families, an elite fraction of the "PULVIRENTI" group, and has established wide-ranging operational agreements with the "LAUDANI" and "SAVASTA" groups, and more recently with the "Cammisedda" group led by Giuseppe FERONE. These agreements and widespread alliances recently made by Cosa Nostra have made it possible to achieve an important result, namely, to stop or reduce serious internal conflicts causing a reduction in the number of murders.
At the moment, the only alternative to the large group of Cosa Nostra is the fringe group of the "Cursoti so called milanesi" (headed by Jimmy MIANO) and certain members of the former "PILLERA-CAPPELLO" group.
More specifically, with regard to recent developments in the province of Catania, we can say that:
- the Catania Mafia "families" are well organised, and are projected to pursuing operational strategies able to counterbalance the damage caused by the confessions of the many collaborating with justice. The search for new organisational models and less vulnerable structures in terms of information and news circulation has led to the adoption of new strategies in the traditionally "difficult" relationship with criminal groups not belonging to Cosa Nostra;
- agreements with these groups will lead to a reorganisation of the control on the territory and of the economic activities performed in it;
- the leadership of the ERCOLANO-SANTAPAOLA group is now thought to be in the hands of Salvatore CRISTALDI, a boss at large and a "man of honour" from PICANELLO (a district of Catania), directly acting on behalf of detained bosses still able to influence the organisation's strategic and tactical decisions;
- the evolution of this phenomenon could, in the medium term, create further conflicts between the groups, when considering the "cultural" aspiration to contrast the ppower of Cosa Nostra's "CAPPELLO-CURSOTI milanesi" group;
- in the wake of the decisions made by the Palermo Cosa Nostra, a fresh outbreak of attacks against enemies of the Santapaola group is likely;
- there are also indications that several indivduals loyal to SANTAPAOLA are anxious to carry out financial transactions in Eastern Europe, an extremely fertile ground for them forthe weapons and drug trafficking routes.

3. The "Stidda" is a criminal organisation with Mafia features which with extreme ferocity and determination aims at achieving full control of the territory, sometimes in violent conflict with Cosa Nostra, with the sole purpose of replacing Cosa Nostra in controlling criminal activities.
This organisation, which mostly operates in the provinces of Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Catania, Enna and Trapani, has ancient origins. At first it began with a number of men of honour who had been expelled from Cosa Nostra.
The new criminal groups forming around these disinherited former-members of Cosa Nostra, made up what is known as "Stidda".
The comparative analysis of the evidence surrendered by the various collaborators with justice and the results of investigations undertaken, has revealed something which is absolutely new and significant and which confirms the development that has taken place within the "Stidda" in recent years.
That is the "federal" structure among criminal groups from various Sicilian provinces all working for the same purposes, beyond territorial borders, in order to strengthen the potential of each of them in their own specific areas through a two-way exchange of criminal activities. Another element shared by these confederated criminal groups is the state of open conflict, or at least of opposition, to Cosa Nostra as indicated above, even though they tend to borrow its rules and pyramid-shaped organisation.
To give an example, in the province of Agrigento, investigations have revealed the existence of a unitary and compact association between the leaders of the local "Stidda" who, beyond all territorial limits, are working together to perpetrate crimes dictated by their common interests and needs. One of these was the murder of the Carabinieri Maresciallo Giuliano GUAZZELLI, an investigator who had provided valuable evidence in recent years for the fight against some dangerous members of the "Stidda" and the murder of Judge Rosario LIVATINO by members of the organisation living in Germany, as an exchange of favours.
Naturally the criminal activities of the "Stidda" are not limited to Sicily, they extend beyond Italy's borders.
Germany is the foreign country where the joint interests of the newly emerging confederated criminal groups concentrate. In certain German towns many members of these groups have strong connections which guarantee them both a safe place to hide and a link to carry out successfully other unlawful activities ranging from weapons and drug trading, to controlling gambling and carrying out armed robberies.
The organisation has recently been damaged by careful investigative work, but its current crisis, also caused by law enforcement action, could help its recovery.