ROME
Sunday 12 January 2014 / For the independent
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First the brash young men arrive in polo shirts and sunglasses, kissing and embracing each other. Then the banquet begins with oysters and Dom Perignon and ends, usually, with an arrest, a disappearance or a murder.
It sounds like a scene from Goodfellas or The Sopranos. But two years of video surveillance by Sicilian law enforcement agencies shows how the sons of jailed Cosa Nostra leaders are trying to reform "la Cupola" – the regular gathering of Mafia families from across Sicily to discuss business plans. It is not clear to what extent the weakened crime syndicate is benefiting, or whether the Mafia's young guns are just playing at being gangsters.
With Cosa Nostra weakened by a succession of arrests, the growth of rival crime syndicates and the lack of a boss of bosses of the stature of Bernardo Provenzano or Toto Riina, the clans are trying to regroup and strengthen the organisation – and enjoy themselves at the same time.
"It's no longer about small extortion rackets. The new Godfathers of Palermo, young and ambitious, need to see each other in order to reorganise Cosa Nostra, and for some time they've been organising meetings in the best restaurants in Palermo," said Salvo Palazzolo, in a report for La Repubblica. Carabinieri have filmed about 20 such gatherings in the past two years.
"Food is considered a measure of their power and prestige. Around the table there are declarations of war, pacts are made, alliances agreed upon and murders are decided," added the journalist Attilio Bolzoni.
Victims might even be among those feasting on the lobster. In 2011, at Palermo's swanky Villa Pensabene restaurant, the veteran mobster Giuseppe Calascibetta rolled up, arm in arm with young Cosa Nostra figures, for a Cupola feast. In September that year he was shot dead.
The Cupola was first mentioned during the judicial probe into the first Mafia war, the bloody conflict between Palermo families that saw 63 murders between 1961 and 1963.
But the Cupola or commission was not officially recognised by the courts until the maxi-trial in 1986-7 of Sicilian Mafia members. This then allowed the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone to portray Cosa Nostra as a hierarchical organisation governed by the Cupola. As a result he was able to prosecute senior bosses for crimes committed by their underlings.
Many of the older figures in Cosa Nostra have since been jailed. After the bloody 1980s and 1990s, which culminated with bomb attacks and the murder of anti-Mafia magistrates, including Falcone, the crime syndicate also suffered a huge backlash.
Toto Riina, the violent head of the Mafia who orchestrated the brief war on the state, was captured in 1993. His successor as the boss of bosses, Bernardo Provenzano, sought to lower the crime syndicate's profile by concentrating on infiltrating state institutions and on creaming off money from public construction contracts.
Following Provenzano's capture in 2006 and the arrest of his successor Salvatore lo Piccolo a year later, the nearest Cosa Nostra currently has to a "boss of bosses" is Matteo Messina Denaro. But the net appears to be closing in on him, too.
Another expert on organised crime in Italy, Corrado de Rosa said: "I don't think the bosses who are sitting at the tables in Palermo in the past few months are just playing. Certainly they're not as powerful as they once were, and they like to show off, but especially now that Matteo Messina Denaro is being hunted by the state and his capture is getting closer, it is not surprising that they are seeking to reorganise themselves."
He added that with the uncertain political climate in Italy, it is to be expected that the clans of Cosa Nostra will seek to work together more closely.
The Mafia is thought to have made countless millions by selling votes to crooked politicians in Sicily.
The continued threat posed by Cosa Nostra was underlined in December when the Palermo magistrate Nino di Matteo had his protection stepped up after death threats from the imprisoned former "boss of bosses", Riina. One source suggested that explosives had been organised for an assassination attempt.
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My Comment :
"Toto Riina, the violent head of the Mafia who orchestrated the brief war on the state, was captured in 1993. His successor as the boss of bosses, Bernardo Provenzano, sought to lower the crime syndicate's profile by concentrating on infiltrating state institutions and on creaming off money from public construction contracts."
"Toto Riina, the violent head of the Mafia who orchestrated the brief war on the state, was captured in 1993. His successor as the boss of bosses, Bernardo Provenzano, sought to lower the crime syndicate's profile by concentrating on infiltrating state institutions and on creaming off money from public construction contracts."
1. Do notice the striking resemblance between the described Italian Mafia policy of willfully infiltrating into the so-called upper-world and the UK mafia-policy - according to the (only recently leaked) Operation Tiberius (*) report - adopted by UK organised crime in general and at large.
2. So make no mistake : The Sicilian, Cosa Nostra, the Calabrian 'Ndragneta and the Napolitan Camorra have been role models for organised crime in other parts of the world.
3. Moreover : The three main Italian-originated Mafia syndicates de facto do represent multi-national commercial corporations with influential subsidiaries all over the world, including in the UK (and elsewhere in the EU).
4. However, not only are the Italian mafia clans active all over our planet, but so do the organised crime syndicates from Eastern Europe, Russia, South, Central and North America, the Middle East and Asia (Japan : Yakuza and Chine : Triades) and do not underestimate in this context, the rapidly increasing role of the motorbike gangs such as the internationally organised chapters from the Hells Angels and the Bandidos.
5. Given thereby, that many multi-nationally operating "traditional enterprises" - from the financial sector for example, which regularly seem to be organised into (mafia-like) cartels, in order to make huge illegal profits from purposely breaking the law - have been caught read handed on the wrong side of the law c.q. caught red handed, while aggressively lobbying for the removal of the boundaries of the law, and we can gradually become aware of an enormous world-wide operating apparatus (effort), that is collectively aiming for a systematical overtaking of our precious, democratically based, law-maintaining, judiciary and political institutions.
6. The rapidly disappearing (i.e. the mystification of the) distinctions between organised crime and "traditional commercial enterprises" and their growing power over our political democratic and judiciary institutions, had - by the way - more or less been officially announced by the declaration from Dwight D. Eisenhower about the ever-growing power (over our aforementioned, precious democratic institutions) of the political-industrial-military complex...
7. The political-industrial-military complex, that seemed to have had a large (if not decisive) influence on the decision making process surrounding the illegal military intervention into the country of Iraq and in the process seemed to have fundamentally undermined the integrity of our institutions and of the people that are employing these institutions.
8. If we - on top of that - do count the numerous machinations of the internationally organised Jewish and Christen-Zionist pro-Eretz-Israellobby, we seemed to able to safely conclude that our regular political and judiciary institutions seemed to be heavily outnumbered by a large number of actors, that are consciously and (sometime even collectively) seeking the erosion of our democratic societies.
9. In countries as Russia - which is widely accepted as trade-partners and partners in international organisations like the UN, the IMF and the IOC - we already do observe an example of a successfully accomplished coup d'état against common society by the mafia.
10. In Russia we for example do observe the - internationally, both feared and respected) extreme-radical right head of state (the Putin-Medvedev syndicate), almost overtly entertaining direct relations with internationally organised crime (as well as with the theocratic Russian Orthodox Church, that is rendering him his electorate).
11. So I do repeat : Make no mistake, because the young Italian Turks of the Sicilian mafia - the Italian mafia, who even for years had the relatively semi-official comfort of the assistance of an internationally recognized, acting head of state (who regularly adapted the national criminal law at will, any time, he privately felt the need for that : The Lex Berlusconi) and their criminal competitors all over the world, seem to be gradually but certainly undermining (corrupting) and taking over our civil and political societies.
(*) (Apart from the fact, that at this time, official FOIA requests have been initiated towards the UK government, to finally make public the Tiberius report, but) Are not we allowed to deliberate that the apparent decision from the successive UK governments, to hide the truth about the fundamental infiltration by organised crime of the most crucial official institution of the UK, in itself might considered to be a striking example of the disturbance in the balance of power between the democratic elected representatives (including the departments of the executive power) and (national and international) organised crime....
d.d. 12-01-2014 / 14:09 UK time
2. So make no mistake : The Sicilian, Cosa Nostra, the Calabrian 'Ndragneta and the Napolitan Camorra have been role models for organised crime in other parts of the world.
3. Moreover : The three main Italian-originated Mafia syndicates de facto do represent multi-national commercial corporations with influential subsidiaries all over the world, including in the UK (and elsewhere in the EU).
4. However, not only are the Italian mafia clans active all over our planet, but so do the organised crime syndicates from Eastern Europe, Russia, South, Central and North America, the Middle East and Asia (Japan : Yakuza and Chine : Triades) and do not underestimate in this context, the rapidly increasing role of the motorbike gangs such as the internationally organised chapters from the Hells Angels and the Bandidos.
5. Given thereby, that many multi-nationally operating "traditional enterprises" - from the financial sector for example, which regularly seem to be organised into (mafia-like) cartels, in order to make huge illegal profits from purposely breaking the law - have been caught read handed on the wrong side of the law c.q. caught red handed, while aggressively lobbying for the removal of the boundaries of the law, and we can gradually become aware of an enormous world-wide operating apparatus (effort), that is collectively aiming for a systematical overtaking of our precious, democratically based, law-maintaining, judiciary and political institutions.
6. The rapidly disappearing (i.e. the mystification of the) distinctions between organised crime and "traditional commercial enterprises" and their growing power over our political democratic and judiciary institutions, had - by the way - more or less been officially announced by the declaration from Dwight D. Eisenhower about the ever-growing power (over our aforementioned, precious democratic institutions) of the political-industrial-military complex...
7. The political-industrial-military complex, that seemed to have had a large (if not decisive) influence on the decision making process surrounding the illegal military intervention into the country of Iraq and in the process seemed to have fundamentally undermined the integrity of our institutions and of the people that are employing these institutions.
8. If we - on top of that - do count the numerous machinations of the internationally organised Jewish and Christen-Zionist pro-Eretz-Israellobby, we seemed to able to safely conclude that our regular political and judiciary institutions seemed to be heavily outnumbered by a large number of actors, that are consciously and (sometime even collectively) seeking the erosion of our democratic societies.
9. In countries as Russia - which is widely accepted as trade-partners and partners in international organisations like the UN, the IMF and the IOC - we already do observe an example of a successfully accomplished coup d'état against common society by the mafia.
10. In Russia we for example do observe the - internationally, both feared and respected) extreme-radical right head of state (the Putin-Medvedev syndicate), almost overtly entertaining direct relations with internationally organised crime (as well as with the theocratic Russian Orthodox Church, that is rendering him his electorate).
11. So I do repeat : Make no mistake, because the young Italian Turks of the Sicilian mafia - the Italian mafia, who even for years had the relatively semi-official comfort of the assistance of an internationally recognized, acting head of state (who regularly adapted the national criminal law at will, any time, he privately felt the need for that : The Lex Berlusconi) and their criminal competitors all over the world, seem to be gradually but certainly undermining (corrupting) and taking over our civil and political societies.
(*) (Apart from the fact, that at this time, official FOIA requests have been initiated towards the UK government, to finally make public the Tiberius report, but) Are not we allowed to deliberate that the apparent decision from the successive UK governments, to hide the truth about the fundamental infiltration by organised crime of the most crucial official institution of the UK, in itself might considered to be a striking example of the disturbance in the balance of power between the democratic elected representatives (including the departments of the executive power) and (national and international) organised crime....
d.d. 12-01-2014 / 14:09 UK time
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