Organized Crime - The Mafia - A Study by Artur Victoria

The "MAFIA" is the paradigm of the organized crime. You ally; there is who reduces the concept of this to the phenomena "MAFIA."

Actually, no there is a MAFIA, but before several organizations, with different designations and common manners of criminal planning and acting way usually designated by "mobsters."

The Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia, there are about 30 years, it defined the Mafia as "an association of criminals with ends of the associates" illicit enrichment, that it is put as middleman, imposed by the violence, between the property and the work, between the production and the consumption, between the citizens and the State " while, in another perspective, sociologist Raimondo Catanzaro defined her recently as "she elaborates of the violence."

Evolution

The "MAFIA" (Italy - American) had origin in Sicily, in the centuries XII or XIII, since the successive occupations that this island of the South of Italy suffered along the times, assumed as organized insurrection. Their cultural roots are rural, just if transferring for the great cities (mainly Palermo) in the first decades of this century, implanting their traditional methods of action quickly: the "protector pays" in other words, the extortion. First in the fairs and markets, to proceed further on into sectors and areas like trade and building societies, demanding percentages progressively higher and, later, ending for constituting their own construction companies, that started to dominate the market.

Though, the decisive factor that it still marks it’s today evolution, it happens in the seventies when, with the dismantlement of the clandestine laboratories and of "French Connection" nets (in Marseilles - South of France), the MAFIA takes ownership of the European traffic of heroine and corresponding bulky profits.

Like this, of a subordinate position (support to the traffic of the product for Sicily) in a short space of time it started to process at their own laboratories the originating from morphine it reorganizes the presence in the of the international traffic scene. It becomes supplier from 65 to 70% of the heroine consumed in the E.UA and in the nineties, it assumes a growing intervention in the traffic of cocaine to Europe. At the same time actualizing the intervention methods and areas adapted to features more "entrepreneurs" and "executives.

Types and methods

Today, it is usual to speak in Mafia of the East Countries, Turkish Mafia, Japanese Mafia, Chinese Mafia, and other. Actually there are organized crime groups, that historical and culturally nothing has to do with the Sicilian Mafia, tends in common with this just the methods of criminal acting ways.

In Italy, type mobster’s organized criminality this divided in four different branches, out of traditional regional borders in the South of Italy: "COSA NOSTRA", in Sicily, "CAMORRA", in Naples; "N" DRANGHETTA", in the it would Silence; "SACRED CORONA UNITA", in the southeast.

"COSA NOSTRA" is the most important, involving about 140 families composed among 30 to 300 base mobsters, the soldiers or "homo d" onore". it is a structure articulate, unitary and nested.

Neapolitan A"Camorra" and Calabrian "N"dranghetta", as well as "Sacred Corona Unita", don"t have this structure vertically nested and compartmentalized but yes a horizontal structure, intending the "families" the control of the illegal activities in the whole territory of regional action (in the it "Cosa Nostra", to avoid larger conflicts, each "family" has a own territory, at the level of the neighborhood).

The action basis of these organizations is the traditional activities of extortion ("protection pays"), manipulation of working contracts, drugs traffic and money laundry.

"N"dranghetta" is the most sanguinary and violent, is tended specialized in kidnappings, i for areas of Canada, U.S.A., Australia, South of France and Germany (where we found Calabrian communities).

"Camorra" reconverted their activities of cigarettes smuggling for the most lucrative activities of drugs traffic assuming a paper of almost monopoly of cocaine among South America (namely Peru and Colombia) and Europe, having "bases" in you vary European countries. In the traffic of heroine and hashish, it operates in the smaller spaces left by the activities of the it "Sews Nostra", the one which has a relevant rule in almost monopoly in the international traffic of these products to the U.S.A.Their money laundry is done with resource to institutions of credit that controls and to companies that indirectly owns, fundamentally in the building , transports and of the industry sectors.

b) The Mafia turned into an American problem - starting from the beginning of the century, accompanying the migratory currents of Sicilians for the "New World", many were the "mobsters" that settled in the U.S.A. developing their "families", the image and structure of the organization - Sicilian mother, maintaining a relationship of "branch". “Cosa Nostra” in spite of the deep relationships of collaboration that, for common interest, the two organizations maintains with the Mafia.

While the Americans have among their main activities the exploration of game houses and prostitution, specializing at the illegal markets, the Sicilians refuse these activities, tending to articulate the action in the illegal markets with a convenient presence in the legal markets.

c) In the European east, the economical and politics opening, conjugated with an evident authority crisis in several States in democratization process, gave an easy way to the operational development of the organized crime.
In Russia there are about 3 000 "gangs" that integrate hundreds of thousands of elements, with ramifications in all of the social steps. In other territories of the Soviet former-union (namely in the area of the Baltic), in Poland, Hungary, in former Czechoslovak and Bulgaria, organized criminal groups have been implanting and I win an active expression. With roots in the old "nomenkulatura" or in the groups that then dominated the market, these "Mafia of the East" are devoted fundamentally to the the traffic of drug (namely in Russia and Czech Republic), but also in weapons, prostitution and traffic of luxery cars (mainly in Poland face the territorial proximity with Germany), as well as to the I traffic and smuggling of products of first need, medicines, disks, cassettes and videos, as well as luxury products (perfumes, clocks, precious stones.).

They used methods type Sicilian violence.
The mobsters nets in Russia, for instance, have an ethnic base in their constitution (azeris in the leadership; tchechenians as operational armed; uzbeques and tadjiques in the traffic of opium; Ukrainian and Russian in the traffic of popies and synthetic drugs; tartars in the game, night clubs and terrorism; the Georgian ones in the stolen cars; the daguestaneses in the great bandit’s), they are individualistic and mutually conflicting, without any central organism of control (to not to be it "Half" that congregates only 20 great groups of the area of Moscow).

Like this brief historical overview organized crime represents that offence segment to which are reported the illegal activities which can affect more political economic and social fields, activities that are constantly developed through different means by individual associations with a well-defined hierarchy, with a specialized structure and the purpose of obtaining illicit profits at very high levels.

- Narcotics traffic - in every year hundreds of persons are involve in narcotics traffic and many tones of drugs are confiscated. The cocaine and heroin and the most wanted.
- Person’s traffic is a new form of organized crime. Young women and children are transported from Eastern Europe to Western Europe for prostitution and organs transplant.
- Arts traffic - today, one of the most prosperous businesses is the arts traffic. Many values are brought outside of countries.
- Stolen cars from Western Europe especially are sell in Eastern Europe.
- Arms dealing have become a new business, especially for the ex-Soviet Union states.
- Money laundering. Many western businessmen used the Eastern European bank systems for money laundering.
- The minor delinquency the antechamber of the organized crime. The little offenders unidentified yet for the perpetration of robberies, thefts and false money placation, represents the engrossed segment by a severe selection by organized crime groups.
- Corruption of the main public officials is a new and dangerous form of organized crime. The organized crime groups succeeded to destroy the people’s trust through bribe and influence traffic.
- illegal goods: goods that are illegal as such; the production of, trade in and sometimes also possession of such goods are punishable offences; think of for example narcotic substances and forged brand cigarettes.
- illegal trade in legal goods; this concerns black markets for goods that involve evasion of taxes, duties or import duties and are traded unlawfully on black markets; think of legally produced cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and fuels.
- illegal provision of services; think of facilitation of illegal immigrants (human smuggling) and illegal employment in prostitution (human trafficking).

The definition contains the punishment requirement to ensure that those who commit rather harmless offences are not classed under organised crime.

Very curious is a overlooking comparison on some Eastern activities in general and some other regions:

Organized crime has become a general phenomenon in the Eastern Europe and in the ex-Soviet Union states.
Ukraine - Caucasian Mafia is the most structured criminal organization, based on the blood ties. These organizations act on the same principles as the Italian mob.

Criminal groups act especially in the drug dealing, involving much deeper to create a new, honest look, through the opening of new firms and casinos, which helps to money laundering.
Russia - the illegal guns, ammunition and explosives traffic is a more and more often- practiced activity by the Russian crime organization.

The main sources of obtaining of those mentioned above are the military dumps of the ex-Soviet army and the military units that belonged to the large military industrial complex, converted to private or mix firms.
Poland - the most known kind of organized crime from Poland is still the narcotic traffic.
The synthetic narcotics production and selling internal and external market is higher and higher.
Slovakia, a country situated at the crossroads between East and West is in the attention of Mafia organizations with a well-known tradition that included it in the main drugs, guns and not for long radioactive substances traffic routes.
Slovenia is situated on the most frequently used Balkan-shipping route of the heroine. Besides, Slovenia is also recognized as a big LSD drug consumer.