The don (leader) of a Mafia family pricks a finger of the novice. Blood drips onto the picture of a “saint.” Next, fire consumes the picture. ‘Should you divulge any of the secrets of the organization, your soul will burn like this saint,’ the don tells the young man.

THE code of silence—in Italian, omertà—kept organized crime pretty much underground for many years. Today, however, criminal gangs are making headlines everywhere as some mobsters turn informer. The most prominent figure to be accused by these pentiti, or Mafia turncoats, was Giulio Andreotti, who was Italy’s prime minister seven times and is now being tried for his Mafia connections.

Criminal organizations everywhere have spread their tentacles into all walks of life: the Mafia in Italy and in the United States, where it is also called the Cosa Nostra; the drug cartels in South America; the Triads of China; the yakuza in Japan. Their evil activities affect all of us and make life more expensive.

In the United States, it is said, the Mafia divides the city of New York among five families, making billions through extortion, protection rackets, loan-sharking, gambling, drug dealing, and prostitution. It is alleged that the Mafia families have a tight grip on labor unions in garbage-hauling businesses, trucking, construction, food distribution, and textiles. With the power they have over the labor unions, they can iron out labor disputes or they can sabotage a project. On a construction site, for instance, one day a bulldozer will not move, another day the brakes on a backhoe fail, and operating engineers “slow walk” the project—these incidents and more persist until the builder agrees to bend to the mob’s demands, whether they be payoffs or work contracts. In fact, “payoffs to the Mob can assure businessmen of prompt deliveries, labor peace and the ability to use cheaper workers,” reports Time magazine.

The Mafia—Its Origins

“The Mafia arose in Sicily during the late Middle Ages, where it possibly began as a secret organization dedicated to overthrowing the rule of the various foreign conquerors of the island—e.g., Saracens, Normans, and Spaniards. The Mafia owed its origins and drew its members from the many small private armies, or mafie, that were hired by absentee landlords to protect their landed estates from bandits in the lawless conditions that prevailed over much of Sicily through the centuries. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the energetic ruffians in these private armies organized themselves and grew so powerful that they turned against the landowners and became the sole law on many of the estates, extorting money from the landowners in return for protecting the latter’s crops.” (The New Encyclopædia Britannica) Extorting protection money became their modus operandi. They took their methods to the United States, where they moved into gambling, labor racketeering, loan-sharking, drug trafficking, and prostitution.