Search results for " Sicilian Mafia"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
Killing methods in Sicilian Mafia families
2019
The Sicilian Mafia is a criminal organisation founded in Sicily which is an island south of the Italian mainland in the Mediterranean Sea. Until recently, this organization was responsible for many murders and bombings. However, recently, based on the investigations known as the “Mare Nostrum” operation, the Supreme Court convicted 67 people and sent them to prison. Some defendants were found guilty of as many as 39 murders. This article reviews the forensic analysis that was used when investigating responsibility for these Mafia murders. Our review is based on the court documents and the ballistic investigations which were carried out to evaluate the reliability of “repented” or “pentiti”…
Extortion, firm's size and the sectoral allocation of capital
2014
Extortion of firms is a typical activity of organized crime such as Mafia. We develop a simple principal-agent model to find the Mafia-optimal extortion as a function of firm’s observable characteristics, specifically firm’s size. We test the predictions of the model on a unique dataset on extortion in Sicily, the Italian region where Mafia is most active. Our empirical findings show that i) extortion moderately increases with firm’s size ii) extortion is regressive, the average extortion rate ranging from approximately 40% of operating profits for small firms to 2% for large firms iii) extortion turns average cost function decreasing, therefore influencing market competition
Economic Structure and Vulnerability to Organised Crime: Evidence from Sicily
2008
The economic analysis of organised crime suggests that some economic activities are particularly vulnerable to penetration by criminal organisations. This paper provides an analysis of the structure of the Sicilian economy and shows that, when compared with other Italian regions, it is characterised by a disproportionate presence of such activities. In particular, the economy of Sicily appears characterised by: (i) a large dimension of traditional sectors, such as the Construction sector, which also has a strong territorial specificity; (ii) a large presence of small firms; (iii) a low level of technology; (iii) a large public sector. The joint presence of these features creates fertile soi…
The Economics of Extortion: Theory and Evidence on the Sicilian Mafia
2019
This paper studies extortion of firms operating in legal sectors by a profit-maximizing criminal organization. We develop a simple principal-agent model under asymmetric information to find the Mafia-optimal extortion as a function of firms' observable characteristics, namely size and sector. We test the predictions of the model on a unique dataset on extortion in Sicily, the Italian region where the most powerful criminal organization, the Mafia, operates. In line with our theoretical model, our empirical findings show that extortion is strongly concave in firm's size and highly regressive. The percentage of profits appropriated by Mafia ranges from 40% for small firms to 2% for large firm…
Taking care of everyone’s business: interpreting Sicilian Mafia embedment through spatial network analysis
2022
Mafia-type organisations often have a strong geographical and cultural entrenchment in the territory they belong. However, their analysis as a spatially networked social structure is still missing. A combined socio-spatial network analysis is presented here, through the demise of a large police operation called Operazione Perseo in 2008. This approach is developed in two ways. At first, a visual representation of the social network of this large group of mafiosi embedded in a geographical space is presented. Three main salient territorial features of the network are thus highlighted. A high density of links in some neighbourhoods, as well as connections across different Mandamenti, the terr…