By George H. Wittman on 12.12.07 @ 12:07AM
Business is good in Sicily and beyond, and very personal.
There was a time when the capture of a major mafia leader in
Sicily with ties to the American Cosa Nostra would have
prompted considerable media attention. Old-fashioned criminal
terrorism, however, has been downgraded by Islamic jihadism.
Nonetheless, life goes on apace for the oldest continuing terror
organization in the West.
Unfortunately for the Sicilian mafia, they now have to work on a
new compromise candidate to be a unifying leader among their
"families." Until that is accomplished, the deadly struggle for
ascendancy among the dominant clans will return to what it was
prior to the relatively peaceful period of Pax Mafiosa of the last
capo di tutti capi, Bernardo Provenzano.
Provenzano, now aged 74, was finally found and arrested in April
2006, having taken over from the legendary Salvatore Riina in 1993.
Provenzano had hid for many years in his home farming region of the
town of Corleone, a community well known to fans of The
Godfather. Provenzano had been instrumental in bringing about
a relatively peaceful period during which Sicilian criminal
enterprises returned to profitability after the bloody terrorist
years of "Toto" Riina. Riina's murderous regime had resulted in the
deaths of top-ranked anti-mafia police officers and judicial
magistrates in Rome, Milan and Florence -- and brought down the
wrath of an outraged Italian public.
With the steadying hand of Provenzano gone from the scene, the
struggle for supremacy quickly grew as Palermo and Corleone
groupings battled for control of Palermo's metropolitan area.
Salvatore Lo Piccolo headed the indigenous Palermo faction and Nino
Rotolo had taken over as the principal Corleone family boss. What
followed was a return to the sanguinary days before Provenzano's
successful peace making. A key mafia boss of Corleone connection
was assassinated in June 2007 and all sides "went to the
mattresses." The traditional gang violence had returned.
Meanwhile, Lo Piccolo's Palermo organization that earlier had
had close ties to the Gambino crime family of New York succeeded in
rejuvenating these contacts post-Gotti. With the aid of the
Americans, Palermo's families, now effectively under the direction
of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, expanded their drug operations throughout
the U.S., Canada, and the Dominican Republic. Lo Piccolo was on his
way to eventually assuming the power once held by the now jailed
Bernardo Provenzano. However, Lo Piccolo's strictly Palermo base
worked against a consensus in his favor among the other Sicilian
families.
It would appear that Lo Piccolo and his Palermo allies had long
been laundering their drug profits through various business
operations in New York, e.g. real estate, food processing, and
other trading mechanisms. The Corleone families wanted to
participate in this activity and moved to agree to the return to
Sicily of a hated rival family, the Inzerillo's, in exchange for a
piece of the new action in the Caribbean and North America. After a
few more purposeful deaths, the situation has appeared to be moving
toward settlement with the usual theme of "the business of
organized crime is business."
The sums involved are enormous. To begin with, it's estimated
that the Sicilian mafia employs directly and indirectly through its
criminal operations and ancillary commercial activities about 10%
of the Sicilian population. Interpol has now reported the spread of
mafia operations, along with accompanying violence, from Italy to
several European countries, including Germany.
An annual income of about 30 billion euro makes the Sicilian
mafia revenue about one third of the bottom line of 90 billion euro
estimated for all Italian criminal enterprises as calculated by the
Italian business association, Confesercenti. If the income from
arms and drug trafficking is included, the National Anti-Mafia
Prosecution Office estimates the final sum to be closer to 135
billion euro. This figure constitutes the gross revenue of the
Sicilian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta of Calabria, the Camorra of Naples
and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita from, among other things: loan
sharking, extortion, public works skimming, protection rackets,
and...investments in the American and European stock markets.
A few weeks ago on November 5th Salvatore Lo Piccolo and his
son, Sandro, were arrested along with two of their top capos in a
house on the outskirts of Palermo. The long negotiated promotion to
"boss of bosses" of the elder Lo Piccolo, now 65 years old, thus
has been canceled and the expectation is for a possible return to
the bloody battling to name a new unifying chief.
At this time, the leading candidate is the still-at-large Matteo
Messina Denaro, 45, the son of the famous Don Ciccio (Francesco M.
Denaro), an ally of the Corleone tribal grouping going back to both
Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. Matteo Denaro is said to be in
the mold of the late John Gotti in terms of personal flamboyance
and a past replete with murder and mayhem.
To the question as to whether or not Italy's organized crime,
and the Sicilian mafia in particular, would ever do business with
Islamic extremists, their answer is obvious. Business is business
and there's nothing personal involved!
topics:
Business, Islam
