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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 ...
Based on research conducted in this capacity he wrote the acclaimed Theft of the Nation, a treatise on the Cosa Nostra, and later the smaller Criminal Organization, in which he extended his conceptualization of organized crime to include criminal groups other than the Cosa Nostra. Cressey is credited with the theory of the "fraud triangle ...
The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 0-618-35367-4; Finkelstein, Monte S. Separatism, the Allies and the Mafia: The Struggle for Sicilian Independence 1943-1948, Lehigh University Press; Lupo, Salvatore (2009). The History of the Mafia, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-13134-6
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 ...
The Maxi Trial (Italian: Maxiprocesso) was a criminal trial against the Sicilian Mafia that took place in Palermo, Sicily.The trial lasted from 10 February 1986 (the first day of the Corte d'Assise) to 30 January 1992 (the final day of the Supreme Court of Cassation), and was held in a bunker-style courthouse specially constructed for this purpose inside the walls of the Ucciardone prison.
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.
Tommaso Buscetta (Italian pronunciation: [tomˈmaːzo buʃˈʃetta]; 13 July 1928 – 2 April 2000) was a high ranking Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia.He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization.
The Mafia was identified with the Cosa Nostra organization, and defined a unique, pyramidal and apex type organization, provincially directed by a Commission or Cupola and regionally by an interprovincial organism, in which the head of the Palermo Commission has a hegemonic role. [5] This premise became known as the Buscetta theorem.