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The Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra (Italian: [ˈkɔːza ˈnɔstra, ˈkɔːsa-], Sicilian: [ˈkɔːsa ˈnɔʂː(ɽ)a]; "our thing" [3]), also referred to as simply Mafia, is a criminal society and criminal organization originating on the island of Sicily and dates back to the mid-19th century. It is an association of gangs which sell their ...
Francesco Madonia (1924–2007); Stefano Magaddino (1891–1974); Andrea Manciaracina; Vittorio Mangano (1940–2000); Francesco Marino Mannoia; Cesare Manzella (1897–1963); Salvatore Maranzano (1886–1931)
The Sicilian Mafia Commission (Italian: Commissione provinciale), known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Sicilian Mafia members who decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra.
In the 2018 book, The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia, Alex Perry reports that the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta has, for the past decade, been replacing the Sicilian Cosa Nostra as the primary drug traffickers in North America. [17] Musitano crime family – a Calabrian mafia family, based in ...
To become member of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra (both the original Sicilian Mafia or the Italian-American offshoot often known as the "American Mafia") – to become a "man of honor" or a "made man" – an aspiring member must take part in an initiation ritual or initiation ceremony. The ceremony involves significant ritual, oaths, blood, and an ...
January 6 – Piersanti Mattarella, President of the Regional Government of Sicily wanting to clean up the government's public contracts racket that benefited Cosa Nostra, passing a law enforcing the same building standards used in the rest of Italy, thereby making the Mafia's building schemes illegal.
The term was coined by the press and is informal; the criminal organizations themselves have their own names (e.g. the Sicilian Mafia and the related Italian-American Mafia refer to their organizations as "Cosa Nostra"; the "Japanese Mafia" calls itself "Ninkyō dantai", but is more commonly known as "Yakuza" by the public; "Russian Mafia ...
He is credited with the popularization of the term cosa nostra. [3] Valachi was convicted of drug trafficking in 1959, and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. In 1962 while he and Genovese family boss Vito Genovese were in prison together, he murdered an inmate he thought was a hitman sent by Genovese, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.