They are not a huge single organized crime organization as the article says. There is no such thing. I bet legal lobbies in US deal with much more power and money than the single most powerful crime org in Italy.
Thank you. Pretty much any time you see the term "Mafia", you know you're dealing with amateur pseudo-journalism.
I came here to point out that Sicilian organized crime is probably not the "bank" here. Sicilian crime syndicates are generally not as powerful as the Campania/Napoli groups these days.
The Sicilian tradition of protection rackets is actually based on an (arguably) noble history of maintaining the integrity of blood family against a constant stream of outside conquerors. I'm not defending organized crime in any way shape or form, but lumping the protection rackets together with drug traffickers and other gangs is just kind of wrong on some level.
Organized crime doesn't have to work exactly like the Cosa Nostra to qualify. I guess neither of us know enough about the relevant law to take this discussion much further.
The Sicilian Mafia has gone mostly “legit,” in the sense that they operate in legal industries, e.g. olive oil. They just use criminal means to extract hugely excessive rents from those industries.
agree title is misleading. organized crime does not mean italian mafia, which is what this post is about. the Bratva for instance is structured completely different, which I won't go into here today. even the Italians in NYC I've met who are in the family and connected are structured completely differently. many of these families have moved to completely legit businesses and just keep the fear factor in place to secure large city / gvt contracts. pay scale is on a much different scale than this.
not saying the post was inaccurate at all, but it is only describing about 5% of criminal enterprise.
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