Sicily's Cosa Nostra is stronger than ever - but its new young bosses are doing `business' differently On a sun-drenched morning last week in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, a bunker-like courtroom in the Ucciardone prison was the scene of a rare challenge to the mafia. Bosses and low-ranking "soldiers" stared fixedly from their steel cages as seven shopkeepers - hidden by shaded glass - identified those who had allegedly collected extortion money from them for years. To date, 18 Palermitans - owners of bars and pizzerias, shops and car showrooms, even a street vendor who sells olives - have picked out their tormentors, for whom extortion rackets are the key instrument to control a neighbourhood. One witness had paid the same mafioso for 22 years; a refusal would have meant a gangster holding a gun to his temple or burning his shop down. At best. One man, the son of an ironmonger, recently refused to pay - and subsequently found a video cassette of the Agatha Christie film A Murder Is Announced on the seat of his scooter.
On a sun-drenched morning last week in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, a bunker-like courtroom in the Ucciardone prison was the scene of a rare challenge to the mafia. Bosses and low-ranking "soldiers" stared fixedly from their steel cages as seven shopkeepers - hidden by shaded glass - identified those who had allegedly collected extortion money from them for years.
To date, 18 Palermitans - owners of bars and pizzerias, shops and car showrooms, even a street vendor who sells olives - have picked out their tormentors, for whom extortion rackets are the key instrument to control a neighbourhood.
One witness had paid the same mafioso for 22 years; a refusal would have meant a gangster holding a gun to his temple or burning his shop down. At best. One man, the son of an ironmonger, recently refused to pay - and subsequently found a video cassette of the Agatha Christie film A Murder Is Announced on the seat of his scooter.
The hut was in a valley a five-minute drive from the dismal town of Corleone. Here the leader of both the mafia and the Corleonese clan, the richest and most powerful crime family in history, had spent his last weeks of freedom in a squalid home that smelt dankly of ricotta cheese. The godfather looked like a peasant, with his silver hair and weather-beaten face. He had been living off simple food such as boiled chicory; the only hints of his wealth were seven Scottish-made cashmere sweaters and £30,000 in cash. Where, I wondered, were the gangsters of the Godfather films with their beautiful women, luxury villas, limousines and partying?
The godfather looked like a peasant, with his silver hair and weather-beaten face. He had been living off simple food such as boiled chicory; the only hints of his wealth were seven Scottish-made cashmere sweaters and £30,000 in cash. Where, I wondered, were the gangsters of the Godfather films with their beautiful women, luxury villas, limousines and partying?
Call me naive, but i never knew they were so big.
The stakes are staggering: the mafia and its two junior cousins, the Camorra and the 'Ndrangheta, earn £42 billion a year, or 10.5% of Italy's GDP - not including another £35 billion or so from drug trafficking. The roots of such wealth are protection rackets and public works contracts. The mafia ensures that businesses under its control win lucrative contracts to build roads and public buildings such as hospitals or even law courts, or to supply hospitals with medical supplies.
10.5% of Italian GDP, plus a nearly equal amount of drug running. (No cite given for the numbers.) "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
