Italian Mafia (Cosa Nostra)

The Mafia also known as Cosa Nostra is a secret Sicilian criminal society which is believed to have emerged in late 19th century.

La Cosa Nostra (our thing) is one of the oldest criminal groups in the world and, of course, the most common. The roots go back to the nineteenth century, and a place of its origin is the Italian island of Sicily. Despite multiple efforts to defeat it is still sinewy. Except in Italy, it is present in the United States, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia and other Eastern European countries. Its leadership is in the family communities that have become the prototype of many criminal associations in the world: family Bonnano, Corleone, Madonia ...

European police sources believe that the Sicilian mafia has about 1500 members and nearly fifteen thousand associates in southern Italy. Its main income comes from cocaine and heroin trafficking. The '90 of the last century, concluded a contract with the Colombian cartel, which was given exclusive rights to sell South American cocaine into Europe. From 1992. Sicilian Mafia imported more than two hundred tons of drugs in Europe, where it earned about ten billion dollars. Economic power of the Sicilian Mafia is so great that Cuntrere brothers, Paolo and Pasquale, in 1980. purchased the Caribbean island of Aruba, and with it the hotels, land, banks, police, customs officials, state bureaucracy and politicians.

In addition to the vast economic power of the Sicilian Mafia has the power of a large number of politicians and business people. In the nineties Italy was on the initiative of a few courageous prosecutors conducted a clean arm action with a view to eradicate corruption that has affected all levels of government and business in Italy.

The result of the action, after two years of implementation, was that more than 1500 politicians and business people were arrested and accused of corruption. Until 1993. the third of the members of the Italian Parliament was accused of corruption and the investigation was the director of national media company RAI. It was concluded that a bribe during the eighties and nineties, reaching the figure of about twenty billion dollars, a scandal has forced many important public figures to leave their political positions.