THE BLACK HAND FORUM

It's because Cosa Nostra in America was always primarily a criminal organization with strong focus on crime facilitated by being somewhat secretive. In Sicily it retained the more secret society aspect which is incidentally but not necessarily involved in crime aspect until after Capaci.

Many of the members over the years testified they made money from normal jobs more than from crime. This changed for many of then in 1970s with drug trafficking but still crime only became the primary focus once they had to be in hiding and on the lam. Then there was no way to earn money from legal jobs. Also, the enormous sums of money that came from drug trafficking attracted a new type of person to Cosa Nostra - the person who wants a lavish and rich lifestyle. In the past it wasn't guaranteed that Cosa Nostra would provide this. Once such people entered Cosa Nostra then the enormous sums of money had to be generated at all costs so the old rules of no loan sharking or no robbers allowed and so on had to change. This also came at the same time as the asset seizure laws which means they can lose everything just as fast as they made it. This destroyed any "ethics" they did have.

toto wrote:It used to be robbery was something not allowed.

Exactly. But in Italy only. In America they have always committed robberies. Hijackings of alcohol trucks during prohibition were more than common, and after it ended, robberies were still not only carried out, but sanctioned by high-ranking mafia members, and weren't considered a crime too "low-life" for the mafia at all. Just to make several examples: Fred Randaccio, Willie Daddano, Tony Corallo (I think he was somehow involved in the Lufthansa heist?), even Carlo Gambino was indicted for hijacking a truck shortly before he died. So why do you think robbery and theft was for a certain time taboo for the mafia in Sicily but never in America? That makes little sense to me, since the American mafia isn't more "wild" than the Sicilian one, in some aspects it's even more "business-like".

It used to be robbery was something not allowed. Now however, they are involved in planning home invasion type robberies. Some guys were arrested in Palermo planning such a robbery on a businessman's house just a couple of years ago. I cannot remember which family it was but its no longer considered as being disallowed.

After Capaci they were forced to go in to hiding and they get arrested very quickly. Most of the guys involved now are full time criminals so they need to do these things to make money. It used to be that they all had jobs so they didn't need to do these things. Leonardo Messina even mentioned that he made more money working as butcher than he ever did from Cosa Nostra. Alessandro D'Ambrogio was caught on a bug saying maybe they should all get jobs because they don't make enough money from pizzo because business is so bad they just close the shops than pay it. But this won't happen. Now Cosa Nostra has transformed in to a professional criminal organization it cannot go back to its roots of a freemasonry for poor people (or as Messina put it a secret sect) which incidentally was involved in crime.

Curiosity: why do you think the Sicilian mafia is almost never involved in crimes like robberies and thefts (except the Stidda maybe), while the American mafia is or at least was at a time? Even the Chicago Outfit at the height of its power used to do some, like Willie Daddano's group. On one hand the mafia in America seems more "white collar" than in Sicily, they go around accompanied by lawyers, own legitimate businesses, don't spend decades on the run, but on the other hand they do or did robberies and home invasions, while in Sicily thefts and robberies are never done by the mafia as far as I know, I even read that in some zones the growth of the number of thefts was proportional to the decrease of the influence of the mafia. It's somehow contradictory, isn't it? In Sicily the mafia is more "rough" and in large part still rural, yet they don't do robberies, while the American mafia which is more "white collar" in appearance was often involved in big heists, hijackings or even home invasions.