Police Successes in the Mafia Wars
But it is not what it seems.
The San Cristoforo quarter of Catania is run down and supposedly dangerous. I was there earlier this year and went exploring, and did not feel threatened. It lies on the far side of the Castello Ursino, and is where the character Roberto Costacurta lives in The Castle of the Women. Anyway, it is here that the Italian police have scored a major success, as you can read here. I translate for your convenience:
“One hundred grams of amnesia-type marijuana and 125 grams of cocaine were seized by the carabinieri of the investigative unit of Catania, in the historic San Cristoforo district, during a search in the home of a 24-year-old drug dealer who was arrested. During the search, a ledger, a notepad with data on his pusher activity, and 2,800 euros, believed to be the proceeds of the sale of drugs, were also found and seized. The judicial authority validated the arrest and ordered the precautionary measure of house arrest.”
Why this should make the papers is interesting. San Cristoforo is a heartland of the Mafia, which controls the drug trade. This man, only under house arrest, has an exiguous amount of drugs in his house and a smallish amount of money, and, tellingly, no weapons. Moreover, the fool was in the habit of keeping records. Whoever this man was, he was small potatoes. But the police have to be seen to be doing something, and that is why this very minor arrest is given publicity. But will it make a difference? No.
The same source has a report of someone being arrested in Licata for drug dealing. This chap at least had a kilo of marijuana and a sawn off shot gun. The man is now in jail, rather than under house arrest. The police have also been at work in Francofonte where a father and son have been arrested. Again, the amount of drugs found has been tiny: 115 and 25 grams of marijuana. The younger man, aged 25, had a previous conviction for murder (so why was he at liberty in the first place?) and the father, aged 44, was pluripregiudicato, that is, had a criminal record as long as your arm. One notes that the father is only 19 years his son’s senior, which makes perfect sense to me.
There is no dount that these people are criminlas (though of course the coutrts decide that) but they are not major players. The bosses sit in comfort, and no one threatens them.
Over in Palermo, nothing is different. Here there has been another ‘major’ success. As reported here, four members of the Porta Nuova mandamento have been arrested and jailed. Porta Nuova is the new gate of the city, near the Palace of the Normans, and the road leading out of it is Corso Calatafimi which eventually takes you to Provincial Road number one, leading to Monreale. (Never, ever try driving in Palermo.) The mandamento (mandate, literally, but better patch of territory) of the Porta Nuova coscha, or clan, are the poor and shabby streets off the Corso (this is where my character Muniddu lives with his family.) The four men have been arrested for ‘mafia association, association aimed at drug trafficking, production, trafficking and possession of drugs, extortion, personal injury and illegal carrying of firearms.’ There main modus operandi, it seems, was securing the public spaces in which drugs were sold. They did this by scaring off anyone who might want to muscle in on the territory. They were, it seems, responsible for ‘beating up a man in the Zisa district, in broad daylight and without masks, and the heavy threats exerted against some pushers, firing a gunshot at a wall for intimidation purposes, to impose the rules of the association on drug trafficking.’ So these were enforcers, known enforcers too. But, once again, they are not the kingpins, and the Porta Nuova mandamento will find it easy to replace them.
Are things likely to change? It is most unlikely. One of the pentiti has this to say about life in Palermo’s famous Ucciardone prison: ‘"The mandamento is also present in prison, where problems are solved with the intervention of men of honour." The words of the collaborator of justice Alessio Puccio are eloquent about the power of the Mafiosi inside the jails, where some prisoners are also involved in managing drug dealing. "If a person in the mandamento is beaten by other people, we intervene. If you have created problems outside the mandamento and you are in prison, the reprimand comes to you in prison."‘
So not only do the police not control the streets and squares in Catania and Palermo and other Sicilian cities and towns, they do not even control the inside of the prisons, where drug dealing and punishment beatings are rife. What hope is there?