Understanding Mafia Networks

Roberto Musotto

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780429515217
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Sozialwissenschaften
• Categoria: Kriminologie

The Sicilian Mafia is the most famous criminal organisation in the world. While its own code of honour, rustic chivalry and violence methods have been adopted by other illicit groups, very little is known about how the Mafia, Cosa Nostra, is actually organised and embedded in its territory. Who runs the day-to-day operations? What does it take for a Mafioso to raise the ranks and become a boss? How can the organisation protect itself and re-group after arrests?

This book explores for the first time the structure of this criminal organisation through the lens of spatial and social network analysis and answers these questions. This is done by looking at the relationships of 176 members of the organisation that have been recently involved in building the Cupola, the highest ruling and judicial body in the organisation. Starting from the arrest warrant that uncovered this criminal restructuring, a method and several alternatives are offered, explained and commented on how to analyse and visualise criminal networks.

The book confirms the assumption that the Sicilian Mafia is a criminal organisation that is deeply rooted in its territory. Mafiosi live, work and interact only in the remit of their own neighbourhood. Bosses are evasive, even to their own affiliates, and mid-level members are in charge of keeping the whole network operational. This book is particularly useful to students, researchers and law enforcement agencies that look at new ways to understand and disrupt the operations and structure of criminal organisations around the world.

1Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9780429203206-1

Introduction: framing the Sicilian Mafia

When I was an undergraduate law student in Palermo (Sicily, Italy), common tradition was that exams were celebrated with a bottle of Bomba di Ballarò.¹ Ballarò, inside the Palazzo Reale neighbourhood,² is one of the historical markets of the town that stretches out to the doors of the law faculty.

During the day it is a colourful and loud place where one can buy fresh vegetables and fruits; at night it is the students, blue-collar workers, and the cheerful hoi polloi of the town that gather around smoky bars and pushy drug dealers. More importantly, Ballarò is the marketplace for the local Mafia family.³ During my college days, I was not very concerned with the social dynamics that ruled over that surreal atmosphere, as my objective was to offer as many drinks as I could with the five euro note I had in my pocket. I never had a clue of what was inside one bottle of bomba – the sweet and lightly carbonated pink drink of mysteries – but I was sure I could find the best one in the homonymous ‘Pub Ballarò’. Scattered green cases of local beer Forst repurposed as seats and white plastic tables along the road surrounded the entrance of the pub, where the bartender took the money with one hand and pushed drinks with the other. That pub was owned by Giovanni Gianni Nicchi, the young rampant boss of the Pagliarelli mandamento⁴ (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Map of the old town of Palermo. The Palazzo Reale neighbourhood is the one on the lower left corner.

Source: Bellafiore, 2009

In the same period I was experimenting with Nicchi’s bottles. He was just about to start his run from Italian Justice and was fiercely opposing the project of reconstruction of the Cupola⁵ and the election of the new supreme boss of the organisation. Despite him being in hiding, it was still possible to spot him sometimes around the pub area in his shiny black puffa jacket driving the same coloured T-Max Yamaha. But why would a Cupola be needed in the Mafia? Why this young boss was contrasting such a plan? Why did every other affiliate think it to be necessary?

The answer to these questions is in this book, which offers a new perspective on the structure and organisation of the Sicilian Mafia by employing the instruments of social and spatial network analysis to show how its internal structure looks and what are the investigative relevant patterns that emerge from such an analysis. Through the book, it will be possible to explain how a big market area, such as Ballarò, falls in the hands of few people who do not have the best intentions for the rest of the community. This will be done by following the story of the reconstruction of the Cupola in 2006 around Palermo (and its surrounding districts), taking clues from the information gathered from the covert network, to understand how it worked (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 Ballarò market by night. The light on the left is Nicchi’s Pub.

Source: Francesco Bucolo.

After briefly presenting a definition of organised crime and distinguishing it from the Mafia and Mafia-type organisations, the structure and organisation of the Sicilian Mafia will be explained in the light of classic and the most recent views found in the literature. This introduction is necessary because, over the years, the perception of what the Mafia is has evolved. What we think could be included under the ‘Mafia’ label has changed following some cultural and technological evolutionary patterns.⁶

One real-life example can perhaps explain this concept. A group of teenagers at school start mimicking their ‘heroes’ from recent films and TV series such as Narcos, Gomorra, Suburra, and the likes. They listen to neomelodic songs⁷ that narrate the gestures of local criminals against police, rival fellows, or about their love and business exploits. They have been introduced to smoking weed, which they like to puff sporadically yet the need for smoking it grows in with increasing trend. As their consumption increases, their friend and local dealer invite them to bulk buy from either him or a common source. This means that they will end up smoking for free, thanks to economies of scale. While they might not be familiar with such a concept and subtleties of stock flows, they are quick in understanding that five blocks or sticks of hashish are purchased for, say, four euros and then sold for five, it is only needed to sell four of them to friends and acquaintances to get the cost back while keeping the last one for themselves.⁸ Better, next time fifty blocks or one hundred grams will be bought by them, a quantity that is still not too much that it cannot be hidden in pants or in smaller bits covered tightly with a cling film and chewing gum wrap in the mouth, if a police dog is sniffing nearby. With fifty blocks to give away, the investment comes back by just selling thirty of them at school and somewhere else for the ‘usual’ cost and keep the rest to share with friends, who can now benefit from the discounted price if they buy it directly – that is the power that connections create in network analysis terms. This can escalate quickly as well and create pyramidal operational lines, but the question here is, is this the Mafia? Is it Mafia-like behaviour? Strictly speaking, not at all. There is no affiliation, no real structure, and no sustainable project behind it (Di Fatta et al., 2017; Musotto and Wall, 2020). If this is true, then, how and where did they get their drug supply from? Could their first source be affiliated with the Mafia? Yes, very probably: it is not possible to bulk buy in Sicily without hitting one of the various Mafia intermediaries directly⁹ or indirectly.¹⁰ Therefore, should these teenagers be included in the general Mafia network and area of influence or not? It has to be borne in mind that if the answer is yes, consequences are that two people with a relatively low degree of offending behaviour are potentially going to be put at the same bar of affiliated smugglers that can move trucks, boats, planes, and mules carrying illicit drugs around the world. The counter-argument to this inclusion is that these teenagers never really wanted to join a crime syndicate, if not for the sole reason to smoke weed for free!

Yet, this situation can degenerate exponentially. Take again these same teenagers, but consider the time frame to be five years later now. They keep bulk buying and the gains are paying for their law school fees. They thought about stopping or reducing the amount they buy each week, but they are incapable of doing that. Too many people they know rely solely on their service that supports a much larger operation. They have now a stable contact in Amsterdam and one in Barcelona. Every other week they get a shipment from each of their contacts in a safe post box. While they have been trying to differentiate their drug range and have made pills out of them as well, the demand is not yet as strong in their circle. Simply put, they just could not help but grow bigger. Now it is manageable to sell at least one kilo of weed per week with peaks of three during holiday weeks. It is now a bulk of drugs and cash, and it is simply not possible to hide it anymore in a sealed jar in their bedroom at their parents’ house. Luckily there is enough money now to rent a flat in the city’s business district. In a building in an urban setting, where there are many offices and a few wealthy pensioners, it is a place where none would be too suspicious about the number of people coming in and out, its sounds and smells. Those drug deals that take place in dark alleys or dodgy apartments with few hand gestures are a far reality there. Customers can pick the quality they favour, as well as buy larger stocks in a safer and discreet environment away from the public streets. Lastly, with the seeds, they received from Amsterdam and a few internet searches they have started hydroponic cultivation to meet a more sophisticated demand and increase profits through smart mark-ups. This expansion goes on until the day one teenager in town is found with a stick of their hash during a random control by police, which leads them to the exact apartment where the responsible ones were carrying on with their business, without any hay of concern. My former school classmates and law school colleagues A.A. and B.B. (not real initials) were arrested on one occasion with one kilo of stashed marijuana and twenty-six full-grown plants tucked in a walk-in wardrobe turned into a hydroponic greenhouse (Monreale News, 2012).

Even if they were in constant contact and maintained business relations with people inside the Sicilian Mafia, they should be distinguished and kept separate from the core group. The reason why can be explained through the use of social network analysis: there was only one person, as alleged by the following investigation, that was part of the Mafia. If this affiliated member would have ceased to share products with them for any reason (for example an arrest, death, different business strategy from the criminal organisation), they would likely have had problems in meeting the requests of their clients. If in any way their activity would have ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover Page
• Endorsements Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 On the Mafia-type structure and origins in the light of social and spatial criminal networks
• 3 A meeting of minds in making the Cupola of the Sicilian Mafia: From rustic chivalry to Operazione Perseo
• 4 From evidence to proof: Reassessing the rule of law in consorting crimes through the use of social network analysis as a legal paradigm
• 5 Untangling the social network of the Sicilian Mafia
• 6 Mapping the Sicilian Mafia: Taking care of everyone’s business?
• Index