Is the Mafia Finished?
A question to which the answer is no.
Professor John Dickie, who is the world’s acknowledged expert of Sicilian organised crime, has an interesting article in The Guardian about the latest wave of arrests in Palermo. His conclusion is stark:
“Cosa Nostra looks more and more toothless and friendless. During this new wave of arrests, there was not a single murder on the charge sheets, and not a single politician called to account. (At least so far.) As after 2008, the Palermo underworld now faces a rebuild. But this time it is from an even lower base.”
The main reason for this is not police pressure alone, though that does not help, but because Italy’s leading crime group is now the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, who made quite a few far-sighted choices decades ago - including moving operations into countries such as Germany - and who now control the ultra-profitable cocaine trade in Europe, through the ports of Gioia Tauro and Amsterdam. Once just a bunch of kidnappers in remote Aspromonte, the Calabrians have made it big, and the Sicilians are looking left behind.
But Professor Dickie is not altogether optimistic about Sicily. While the criminals are suffering, the causes of crime continue to flourish. The swamp remains undrained. If I understand him aright (but do read it for yourself), there has been no anti-Mafia dividend and Sicily remains the place it always was, a place where the institutions are distrusted, because for years the anti-Mafia activists have been barking up the wrong tree, namely claiming that there is collusion between politicians and Mafiosi.
“A good part of the blame lies with one trial that, for 15 long years after 2008, hoovered up what little attention Italy could devote to mafia issues. Called the state-mafia negotiation trial, it centred on a conspiracy theory so abstruse that a baffled foreign media ignored it. Yet it set judges at each other’s throats, and divided the anti-mafia movement into fanatical camps. In essence, the prosecution argued that the murders of Falcone and Borsellino were part of an unspeakable pact that bound Cosa Nostra to politicians and deep-state actors such as secret agents and Freemasons. In the end, so the prosecution claimed, the pact brought Silvio Berlusconi to power in 1994, and left the mafia free to resume its ancient partnership with the powers that be. It took until 2023 for the supreme court to demolish this nonsense. But by then, beliefs were so entrenched that many are still convinced there was a cover-up.”
Indeed they are. The supreme court can say what it likes, but for most Italians this is not nonsense: they readily believe in collusion between Mafia and politicians, Mafia and the Church, and various dark forces such as the Freemasons, a joke group to us Brits, but a group Italians take very seriously indeed. Moreover, there is evidence for such collusion, as people who have read my previous articles will know. Think of Cardinal Ruffini, who denied the Mafia existed; Mario Scelba, minister of the interior, who connived at the murder of Salvatore Giuliano, and think of that famous kiss between Andreotti and Riina, which may just have happened; think of the way Berlusconi employed a Mafioso at his villa in Lombardy.
Whatever the truth of these things, Sicilians distrust the state at best. Most loathe it, and if that is the case, the conditions for the flourishing of the Mafia will always exist. Thus the very latest developments come as no surprise. However, they contradict what Professor Dickie says in his article. Here is the account in the Giornale di Sicilia, translated and slightly abridged for your convenience.
“An anti-mafia operation by the Carabinieri against the Cosa Nostra of Catania is underway in the provinces of Catania and Syracuse. The Special Operations Group is executing a precautionary measure against 19 suspects.
“An order was issued against them by the investigating judge in Catania, at the request of the local district prosecutor's office, which speaks of the crimes of mafia-type association, extortion, trafficking and dealing in narcotics, money laundering and mafia-type political and electoral collusion.
“The investigation … has made it possible to acquire a serious body of circumstantial evidence on the basis of which the criminal affairs of the Catania Santapaola-Ercolano family were reconstructed, developed through groups historically linked to them such as that of Castello Ursino and that of the Ramacca family, the latter being hegemonic in the territory even after the arrest in 2022 of its leading exponent, Pasquale Oliva. The circumstantial evidence also highlights the clans' ability to infiltrate government institutions, through local political figures whose candidacies they supported respectively for the 2021 elections for the Municipalities of Misterbianco and Ramacca and for the 2022 Sicilian Regional Assembly. The investigation has identified and reconstructed the organizational chart of the Castello Ursino group's mafia association, headed by Ernesto Marletta and the organizer Rosario Bucolo. The latter was also involved, through other affiliates, in the management of extortion against various commercial and business activities in the city centre, with requests for bribes or a tax on work, in the fraudulent transfer of money through bogus companies, a strategy adopted by the group's top management for the creation, also thanks to compliant professionals, of activities in the funeral services sector, fictitiously registered to third parties and at the service of the association's interests. And two companies were seized by order of the investigating judge: Nicotra Biagio Alessio and San Marco Funeral Services.”
So it seems from this (and apologies for the long sentences, but that is how journalists in Italy write) that the Catania clans have been influencing elections and getting their men elected, and, surprise, surprise, they have been involved in the funeral trade as part of their money laundering. Who would have thought it? You might like to look at the San Marco funeral services gorgeous website here. One might also remember that this topic - the Mafia and undertakers colluding - was the subject of The Gravedigger of Bronte, a work of fiction that becomes rather believable in the light of this.
One of the arrested politicians is a man called Giuseppe Castiglione, speaking above about Saint Agatha, who allegedly was elected through Mafia interests in the Sicilians regional elections. There ia long involved article about him here, highlights of which follow:
“Only a few days ago, regional deputy Giuseppe Castiglione appeared smiling during the ribbon-cutting for the inauguration of an archaeological site in Misterbianco. That photo is perhaps the last public moment before his arrest charged with political-mafia electoral collusion. An alleged illicit pact that the former president of the Catania city council is claimed to have have signed in order to win the election in 2022. Behind his 5,397 votes are said to be hidden the interests of some prominent figures in the Etna mafia scene and that of Domenico Colombo, who is among those most cited in the 1,300 pages of the order of today's Operation Mercurio. Colombo is not only a former employee of the subsidiary Sostare, later seconded to Asec, but he is also the cousin of the former Cosa Nostra regent in Catania Francesco Santapaola, known as Coluccio like his father Salvatore, cousin of the more famous Nitto Santapaola.
“Cosa Nostra's support for Castiglione began at least in October 2021. For Colombo, he was a person willing to listen to requests, specifically those of Cosa Nostra. Also making his availability to support Castiglione's race appears the name of Rosario Bucolo, indicated as the head of the Cosa Nostra Santapaola family in the Castello Ursino area. Bucolo would have made votes available and in exchange the goal was not to obtain money but assignments of work, public supplies to the Catania cemetery and other favours, even quite trivial, such as the remaking of the pedestrian crossings in a street in the Librino neighbourhood. An alleged exchange that would have foreseen precise guarantees from the autonomist politician, apparently eager to have a list of the number of voters and votes that Bucolo could guarantee to the cause.
“Cosa Nostra's strategy was to create a sort of welfare parallel to that of the government institutions. Even managing to fix a small square in Librino but strictly «for the people» or guaranteeing jobs «because we only bring well-being. But work-related well-being», Bucolo underlined again.
Castiglione's political cause would also have been supported by Antonino Bergamo. Known by the nickname of Nino dello Sferro, from the name of the district where he had a petrol pump, he is considered one of the trusted men of Enzo Aiello, the former provincial representative of Cosa Nostra in Catania who has been detained for years. On 7 October 2021, investigators followed Colombo's movements and tailed him while he met Castiglione. The two, according to the reconstruction of the carabinieri, would have headed first to the Sferro district, to meet Bergamo, and then to Librino in front of Bucolo. “Mate, stay calm,” Colombo said to the politician. “Now I’m introducing you to two people, one who gives you 230 written votes: he has a big funeral business.” Castiglione, however, seemed worried about the progress of the electoral campaign, but Colombo was always there to reassure him. The bugs also managed to intercept part of the conversation between the Cosa Nostra representative and Castiglione: “I’m putting my face out there,” Bucolo said to the politician. “I’m one for the right things, if I tell you I’ll do it, I’ll do it.” Bucolo, for his part, assured that he could also fish for votes in nursing homes, where the elderly vote in one way or another, but also in the funeral trade.
Two months earlier, on July 8, 2021, investigators listened to a conversation that took place in Colombo's car. This time, with him is Matteo Marchese, former deputy mayor and municipal councillor in Misterbianco. The subject of the discussion is the reason why Giuseppe Castiglione contacted Colombo in the previous days, but this time it is not about votes but about money: «He says "I need 2000 euros” – Colombo tells Marchese referring to the words that the then President of the Council of Catania allegedly said – “Because now he is going to Malta and he needs the money. He has already done it several times”, Colombo claims. The money, according to the reconstruction reported by the investigators, would have been made available by Francesco Santapaola’s wife.
The excitement of the weeks preceding the regional elections, which took place on 25 September 2022, is made up of dozens of meetings and meals. One of these, according to the investigators, is particularly important. It is held in Aci Catena and the inevitable Colombo is there, but in place of Giuseppe Castiglione there is his father, Santo. Together with the two there is a third individual, “an important person”. A presence that would have worried Castiglione senior himself: «You make the agreements with these people – he told Colombo – We are big shots, we can't be seen with people like that. I understand that he's in charge here». After the election, Bergamo and Colombo commented on Castiglione's second place on the list of Popolari e autonomisti with almost 5,500 votes behind the former councillor Giuseppe Lombardo, nephew of the former governor Raffaele: «Now let him have fun – Bergamo said regarding Castiglione's election – Then we'll go for it». A few moments before, Colombo and Bergamo had celebrated directly on the phone with the new regional deputy: «We won. We won. Nino, we won».
This is interesting because it shows just how the collusion works at grass roots level - going round nursing homes, telling people how to vote, speaking to undertakers (again!) - and the relatively minor payoffs such as the 2,000 euro for a trip to Malta - and how the Mafia have privatised public works. So the collusion is going on.
My conclusion is this. Yes, Professor Dickie is right that the Mafia in Sicily is a shadow of its former self, in part thanks to the Calabrians. But the Professor is wrong to think that the politicians and the Mafia are not colluding; it is this collusion that gives the Mafia their competitive edge, as has been often observed. And if the Mafia is in decline, it just requires some emergent young genius to turn it around. Someone should write a book about that. Oh wait, they just did. It is called The Chemist of Catania.