Feb 27 2008
Sicilian, US Mafia Renewing Ties
The report said many US food distribution and construction firms were controlled by the US Mafia, whose bosses were of Sicilian origin.
Sicily’s Cosa Nostra is renewing ties with its US “cousins” to reinforce the Mafia network there and its hold over organised crime, according to an Italian parliamentary report published Wednesday.
The fence-building comes more than 20 years after the two sides fought a bloody internecine battle, according to an annual report of the Italian parliament’s anti-Mafia commission.
“Cosa Nostra is re-establishing its links with the ‘American cousins’ by sending its top members across the Atlantic or allowing those who had been constrained by the 1980s war to return to Italy,” it said.
“Cosa Nostra is thus trying to regain its front-rank role amongst criminal organisations,” it said, adding that the Italy- and US-based crime networks closely collaborated in several areas like drug-trafficking.
Recalling the arrests of 81 suspected Mafia members in Sicily and New York this February, the report said many US food distribution and construction firms were controlled by the US Mafia, whose bosses were of Sicilian origin.
The Mafia of today is a far cry from the gangsters who ran liquor in cities like Chicago and New York during prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s.
It is no longer capable of infiltrating unions, corrupting politicians or working side by side with the CIA and the US government in the way it did in World War II, when it was enlisted to help out with the Sicily landings.
New York’s mob families faced a recruitment problem in the 1970s and the 1980s, when some of them turned to Sicilian gangsters for help.
The Mafia has increasingly been diversifying into industries such as illegal online gambling, while still maintaining its foothold in the lucrative drugs trade and its traditional activities of extortion and racketeering.
Sicilian, US Mafia Renewing Ties - Published: February 27, 2008 - http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=127393
