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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 ...
The five Mafia families in New York City are still active, albeit less powerful. The peak of the Mafia in the United States was during the 1940s and 50s, until the year 1970 when the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act) was enacted, which aimed to stop the Mafia and organized crime as a whole. [23]
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 ...
Clans in the Sicilian Mafia are united under a Mandamento, led by a Capo madamento, that represents the clans' bosses to the Cupola. In Sicily , there are 94 Mafia families subject to 29 mandamenti.
Other common names for members include man of honor (Italian: uomo d'onore), man of respect (Italian: uomo di rispetto), one of us (Italian: uno di noi), friend of ours (Italian: amico nostro), good fella, and wiseguy, although the last two terms can also apply to non-initiated Mafia associates who work closely with the Mafia, rather than just ...
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 ...
Soldier (Soldato in Italian) – A soldato or "soldier" is an inducted (or "made") member of the Mafia in general and an inducted member of a particular Mafia crime family, and traditionally they can only be of full Italian background (although today many families require men to be of only half-Italian descent, on their father's side). Once a ...
A crime family is a unit of an organized crime syndicate, particularly in Italian organized crime and especially in the Sicilian Mafia and Italian-American Mafia, often operating within a specific geographic territory or a specific set of activities.