8 ms·

It is probably no coincidence that this happened in an Italian region where organized criminality was born (Calabria, the other ones are Sicilia and Campania.).

It is probably no coincidence that this happened in an Italian region where organized criminality was born (Calabria, the other ones are Sicilia and Campania.). This phenomenon happens there because organized criminality put their hands on government contracts and bribes the government inspectors. In this way organized criminality deals two important damages: it steals government money and it dramatically decreases life quality of the people living in those regions. For example, people from Calabria use to move to other regions when they need health treatments. Disclosure: I'm Italian.

anovikov 6y ago
Why no radical approach has been taken to fix it?
- majewsky 6y ago
  Whoever tries to undermine the actions of the mob is next in line for a tragic accident. In a way, it's a coordination problem. If everyone outside of the mob were to unite at once against them, the mob wouldn't stand a chance. But that's not how activism works.
  - btbuildem 6y ago
    > If everyone [outside of the mob] were to unite at once That's basically how the mafia works
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Because it's almost certainly not as simple and unambigious as he's claiming. Everyone in NYC thinks they know all the ways they can fix Buffalo
  - georgeecollins 6y ago
    >> Everyone in NYC thinks they know all the ways they can fix Buffalo This sentence intrigued me, but as a life long Californian I wasn't sure what you meant.
    - misthop 6y ago
      I assume the meant Albany - as in everyone in NYC thinks they know how to fix the state government. Or maybe there is a huge mob presence in Bufallo?
    - datameta 6y ago
      While technically in the same state Buffalo, NY is a city on the Canadian border that is farther away from NYC than Washington D.C. is. As a new yorker, I can safely say my fellow new yorkers can't honestly pretend to know how to tackle what issues Buffalo might be facing.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >Everyone in NYC thinks they know all the ways they can fix Buffalo Why would NYC try to solve Buffalo's problems? Isn't that the job of the Buffalo municipal government and state government in Albany?
- izietto 6y ago
  It is not so easy, even to explain. Many books have been written about organized criminality in Italy and many have to be written yet. Consider that Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mafia) at the beginning of '90 had so much power that managed to start a negotiation with high functionaries of the Italian government about which laws could pass and which not (la "Trattativa Stato-Mafia", the "State-Mafia Pact"). In those regions, Italian government and organized criminality have been the same thing for a lot of time. Would you fight yourself? Also, let me add that a radical approach had been taken by two judges, Falcone and Borsellino. They almost destroyed Cosa Nostra, at the cost of their own lives. They have been both murdered by Cosa Nostra, along with their security, in the 1992. For the curious, this is the wiki page of the State-Mafia Pact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-Mafia_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-Mafia_Pact
  - anovikov 6y ago
    Well, for example it can be countered by offering all young men from these regions jobs outside. For example, in the military, creating a large mobile military force recruited from these regions for operations in say, Afghanistan, offering them good pay and discouraging them from returning - and encouraging people from other regions or countries moving in their place (for example by lowering barrier of entry for immigrants as long as they are going there, or increasing otherwise) - until "locals" become a minority and their social connection networks disrupts or become irrelevant. This mafia thing is definitely cultural - "it is the way things are done there" - so it can be fixed by replacing/diluting people.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      >Well, for example it can be countered by offering all young men from these regions jobs outside. For example, in the military, creating a large mobile military force recruited from these regions for operations in say, Afghanistan, offering them good pay and discouraging them from returning - and encouraging people from other regions or countries moving in their place So, striping the place from its inhabitans, sending them to imperialist wars to be killed and kill, and bringing people from other countries to take their place? Keeping the mafia sounds better than this scheme. Why not buldoze their houses and kill every first born while at it? >This mafia thing is definitely cultural - "it is the way things are done there" - so it can be fixed by replacing/diluting people. Yeah, like any cultural problem can be fixed by nuking a region.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  It's not just the mob - even "legit" businesses like consumer product mfgs. have 2 sets of books, don't pay taxes, etc. in Italy and Greece. Greece has literally never been financially viable in modern times since founding (ie. the last century) largely due to tax evasion. Western European countries have declared war on Greece in the past to make it pay bonds. Currently the CCP controls Greek UN votes via ownership of their largest port and loans (aka debt trap.) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-un-rights/greece-blocks-eu-statement-on-china-human-rights-at-u-n-idUSKBN1990FP https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-un-rights/greece-block...
- kzrdude 6y ago
  I guess the system is tugging away at it and trying to fix corruption. Italy has the strictest approach to organized crime in Europe. So the government tries to go at it with lots of resources. This court proceeding for example was the result of a raid where 2500 police officiers participated (and years of work). See for example https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/italy-mafia-trial-ndragheta-calabria https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/italy-mafia-tr...
- InvOfSmallC 6y ago
  It's hard to do something about an org that is everywhere in the world.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  If you want to go down a rabbit hole you should read about the recent Italian trial of ~300 mobsters. IIRC they have something like 800 witnesses scheduled to appear and they had to build a special courtroom to hold everyone. One of the accused was in hiding and police only located him after finding his cooking channel on YouTube. Unfortunately English-language reporting is pretty light on the details presented in court but here are two articles to get you started. About the trial: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55633091 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55633091 About the prosecutor: https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/mafia-trial-italy-nicola-gratteri-ndrangheta-b1787416.html https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/mafia-trial...
- philwelch 6y ago
  Mussolini cracked down on organized crime pretty hard. But he didn’t completely wipe them out, and so when WW2 rolls along and the Allies are invading Italy, they actually get in contact with the surviving mafiosi and cut a deal with them to gather intelligence and organize resistance against the fascist state. This sort of thing continued after the war because the Mafia are also reliably anti-communist. So yeah—a radical approach was taken to fix it, and then organized crime was reinstalled by the OSS and the CIA.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Fascinating. I didn't realize the Mafia was still around until reading your comment. After rabbitholing for a bit I realize now that they are still very much around. They remind me of the Mexican Cartels a little bit.
- stopBurncoins 6y ago
  Please also remember that the mafia is just one of the big organized crimes in Italy. We have whole criminal families and such, "cosa nostra", "'ndrangeta" and many more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime_in_Italy Unfortunately they are all very much still alive, and I am pretty sure a lot of those are older than Italy
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Wow! It's so involved and deep! Feels like I'm reading a technical manual on organized crime. Any idea why Italy is so susceptible to this compared to the rest of Europe? Or is the Italian version just glamourized by the media more? Mexican cartels kind of make sense being the gate way for drugs from South America to the U.S. Does Italy serve a similar function for Europe maybe?
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      Sorry it's come to my attention that I can come across sarcastic and snarky without meaning too. Just for clarity I was genuine in my previous comment. :)
    - qsort 6y ago
      (not parent but also Italian) First of all, Italy is a profoundly divided country geographically, to the point where the North and the South are almost operating as if they were different countries. Specifically, there are regions with unemployment numbers that are almost unbelivable for a first-world country: https://www.statista.com/statistics/778264/unemployment-rate-in-italy-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/778264/unemployment-rate.... The "Southern Question" ("questione meridionale") is a recurrent theme in the political discourse and has been so literally since Italy has been a country. The lack of economic development in the South is also compounded by a very ineffective national welfare system, and, more generally, by an incredibly inefficient but very large public sector. This is a hotbed for organized criminal associations, who are always ready to prey on corrupt local officials and widespread discontent. Also bear in mind that the average Italian company is much smaller than the average American (or even German or French) company, which (aside from being in and of itself an economic problem) makes criminal schemes easier to set in motion, either directly or through corrupt politicians. Another major issue is that criminal organizations have deep ties with the political power itself, to the point where such ties are referred to as "a pact": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-Mafia_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-Mafia_Pact As for the media issue, it's probably true that we know more about the Italian mafia due to its ties with American criminal organizations, but I don't feel one could say it's just media coverage, it's a massive problem, at least when compared with other European countries.
marakv2 6y ago
I saw the same thing when working at the docks in Melbourne (forklift driver for 6 months). The check-in had a few cards for people who I had never met, but we're on my schedule (less than 50-100 onsite per day and I was involved in warehouse organisation which required me to pass out location sheets to other drivers). Eventually I got to speaking with the site manager and I mentioned in passing the cards. He clammed up immediately and I shrugged it off. A few months later after I left, the manager and I were having a beer and grouching about that site and he told me that those cards were for the local .. well mafia for lack of a better word. They were clocked in by a senior member every day, and clocked out at the end, the pay cheques were sent off and as a result we never had any break ins. Crazy. It opened my eyes up a lot and over the years since then I have seen similar things in a few other industries, eg in Japan and hospitality we had a very friendly grandpa style gentleman visit the restaurant once a month, hand over a receipt to the manager and she paid him some cash. Turns out he was Yakuza and that was our payment for the month
- philbarr 6y ago
  That sounds the same setup as Nice Guy Eddie has in Reservoir Dogs. Probably you don't want to meet the people who had those cards as they might have a penchant for chopping people's ears off and setting them on fire.
Udik 6y ago
I think the mafia is overhyped and an easy way of keeping up the fiction of a clear separation between good and bad, citizens and criminals, oppressed and oppressors. In this specific case, there is no need whatsoever for the threatening employee to be part of a criminal association. In a land where many people have little to lose and are, by culture, prone to up their threats until they have their way, victims are afraid of refusing their requests. This in turn further encourages the behaviour. The issue, more than the power of the mafia, is the weakness of the state: extremely slow, sloppy and reluctant in prosecuting crime (big or small), very quick in pardoning convicted criminals. (Italian here, too)

anovikov 6y ago

Why no radical approach has been taken to fix it?

majewsky 6y ago
Whoever tries to undermine the actions of the mob is next in line for a tragic accident. In a way, it's a coordination problem. If everyone outside of the mob were to unite at once against them, the mob wouldn't stand a chance. But that's not how activism works.
- btbuildem 6y ago
  > If everyone [outside of the mob] were to unite at once That's basically how the mafia works
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Because it's almost certainly not as simple and unambigious as he's claiming. Everyone in NYC thinks they know all the ways they can fix Buffalo
- georgeecollins 6y ago
  >> Everyone in NYC thinks they know all the ways they can fix Buffalo This sentence intrigued me, but as a life long Californian I wasn't sure what you meant.
  - misthop 6y ago
    I assume the meant Albany - as in everyone in NYC thinks they know how to fix the state government. Or maybe there is a huge mob presence in Bufallo?
  - datameta 6y ago
    While technically in the same state Buffalo, NY is a city on the Canadian border that is farther away from NYC than Washington D.C. is. As a new yorker, I can safely say my fellow new yorkers can't honestly pretend to know how to tackle what issues Buffalo might be facing.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >Everyone in NYC thinks they know all the ways they can fix Buffalo Why would NYC try to solve Buffalo's problems? Isn't that the job of the Buffalo municipal government and state government in Albany?
izietto 6y ago
It is not so easy, even to explain. Many books have been written about organized criminality in Italy and many have to be written yet. Consider that Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mafia) at the beginning of '90 had so much power that managed to start a negotiation with high functionaries of the Italian government about which laws could pass and which not (la "Trattativa Stato-Mafia", the "State-Mafia Pact"). In those regions, Italian government and organized criminality have been the same thing for a lot of time. Would you fight yourself? Also, let me add that a radical approach had been taken by two judges, Falcone and Borsellino. They almost destroyed Cosa Nostra, at the cost of their own lives. They have been both murdered by Cosa Nostra, along with their security, in the 1992. For the curious, this is the wiki page of the State-Mafia Pact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-Mafia_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-Mafia_Pact
- anovikov 6y ago
  Well, for example it can be countered by offering all young men from these regions jobs outside. For example, in the military, creating a large mobile military force recruited from these regions for operations in say, Afghanistan, offering them good pay and discouraging them from returning - and encouraging people from other regions or countries moving in their place (for example by lowering barrier of entry for immigrants as long as they are going there, or increasing otherwise) - until "locals" become a minority and their social connection networks disrupts or become irrelevant. This mafia thing is definitely cultural - "it is the way things are done there" - so it can be fixed by replacing/diluting people.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >Well, for example it can be countered by offering all young men from these regions jobs outside. For example, in the military, creating a large mobile military force recruited from these regions for operations in say, Afghanistan, offering them good pay and discouraging them from returning - and encouraging people from other regions or countries moving in their place So, striping the place from its inhabitans, sending them to imperialist wars to be killed and kill, and bringing people from other countries to take their place? Keeping the mafia sounds better than this scheme. Why not buldoze their houses and kill every first born while at it? >This mafia thing is definitely cultural - "it is the way things are done there" - so it can be fixed by replacing/diluting people. Yeah, like any cultural problem can be fixed by nuking a region.
redis_mlc 6y ago
It's not just the mob - even "legit" businesses like consumer product mfgs. have 2 sets of books, don't pay taxes, etc. in Italy and Greece. Greece has literally never been financially viable in modern times since founding (ie. the last century) largely due to tax evasion. Western European countries have declared war on Greece in the past to make it pay bonds. Currently the CCP controls Greek UN votes via ownership of their largest port and loans (aka debt trap.) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-un-rights/greece-blocks-eu-statement-on-china-human-rights-at-u-n-idUSKBN1990FP https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-un-rights/greece-block...
kzrdude 6y ago
I guess the system is tugging away at it and trying to fix corruption. Italy has the strictest approach to organized crime in Europe. So the government tries to go at it with lots of resources. This court proceeding for example was the result of a raid where 2500 police officiers participated (and years of work). See for example https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/italy-mafia-trial-ndragheta-calabria https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/italy-mafia-tr...
InvOfSmallC 6y ago
It's hard to do something about an org that is everywhere in the world.
elliekelly 6y ago
If you want to go down a rabbit hole you should read about the recent Italian trial of ~300 mobsters. IIRC they have something like 800 witnesses scheduled to appear and they had to build a special courtroom to hold everyone. One of the accused was in hiding and police only located him after finding his cooking channel on YouTube. Unfortunately English-language reporting is pretty light on the details presented in court but here are two articles to get you started. About the trial: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55633091 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55633091 About the prosecutor: https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/mafia-trial-italy-nicola-gratteri-ndrangheta-b1787416.html https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/mafia-trial...
philwelch 6y ago
Mussolini cracked down on organized crime pretty hard. But he didn’t completely wipe them out, and so when WW2 rolls along and the Allies are invading Italy, they actually get in contact with the surviving mafiosi and cut a deal with them to gather intelligence and organize resistance against the fascist state. This sort of thing continued after the war because the Mafia are also reliably anti-communist. So yeah—a radical approach was taken to fix it, and then organized crime was reinstalled by the OSS and the CIA.

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Fascinating. I didn't realize the Mafia was still around until reading your comment. After rabbitholing for a bit I realize now that they are still very much around. They remind me of the Mexican Cartels a little bit.

stopBurncoins 6y ago
Please also remember that the mafia is just one of the big organized crimes in Italy. We have whole criminal families and such, "cosa nostra", "'ndrangeta" and many more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime_in_Italy Unfortunately they are all very much still alive, and I am pretty sure a lot of those are older than Italy
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  Wow! It's so involved and deep! Feels like I'm reading a technical manual on organized crime. Any idea why Italy is so susceptible to this compared to the rest of Europe? Or is the Italian version just glamourized by the media more? Mexican cartels kind of make sense being the gate way for drugs from South America to the U.S. Does Italy serve a similar function for Europe maybe?
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Sorry it's come to my attention that I can come across sarcastic and snarky without meaning too. Just for clarity I was genuine in my previous comment. :)
  - qsort 6y ago
    (not parent but also Italian) First of all, Italy is a profoundly divided country geographically, to the point where the North and the South are almost operating as if they were different countries. Specifically, there are regions with unemployment numbers that are almost unbelivable for a first-world country: https://www.statista.com/statistics/778264/unemployment-rate-in-italy-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/778264/unemployment-rate.... The "Southern Question" ("questione meridionale") is a recurrent theme in the political discourse and has been so literally since Italy has been a country. The lack of economic development in the South is also compounded by a very ineffective national welfare system, and, more generally, by an incredibly inefficient but very large public sector. This is a hotbed for organized criminal associations, who are always ready to prey on corrupt local officials and widespread discontent. Also bear in mind that the average Italian company is much smaller than the average American (or even German or French) company, which (aside from being in and of itself an economic problem) makes criminal schemes easier to set in motion, either directly or through corrupt politicians. Another major issue is that criminal organizations have deep ties with the political power itself, to the point where such ties are referred to as "a pact": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-Mafia_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-Mafia_Pact As for the media issue, it's probably true that we know more about the Italian mafia due to its ties with American criminal organizations, but I don't feel one could say it's just media coverage, it's a massive problem, at least when compared with other European countries.

marakv2 6y ago

I saw the same thing when working at the docks in Melbourne (forklift driver for 6 months). The check-in had a few cards for people who I had never met, but we're on my schedule (less than 50-100 onsite per day and I was involved in warehouse organisation which required me to pass out location sheets to other drivers). Eventually I got to speaking with the site manager and I mentioned in passing the cards. He clammed up immediately and I shrugged it off. A few months later after I left, the manager and I were having a beer and grouching about that site and he told me that those cards were for the local .. well mafia for lack of a better word. They were clocked in by a senior member every day, and clocked out at the end, the pay cheques were sent off and as a result we never had any break ins. Crazy. It opened my eyes up a lot and over the years since then I have seen similar things in a few other industries, eg in Japan and hospitality we had a very friendly grandpa style gentleman visit the restaurant once a month, hand over a receipt to the manager and she paid him some cash. Turns out he was Yakuza and that was our payment for the month

philbarr 6y ago
That sounds the same setup as Nice Guy Eddie has in Reservoir Dogs. Probably you don't want to meet the people who had those cards as they might have a penchant for chopping people's ears off and setting them on fire.

Udik 6y ago

I think the mafia is overhyped and an easy way of keeping up the fiction of a clear separation between good and bad, citizens and criminals, oppressed and oppressors. In this specific case, there is no need whatsoever for the threatening employee to be part of a criminal association. In a land where many people have little to lose and are, by culture, prone to up their threats until they have their way, victims are afraid of refusing their requests. This in turn further encourages the behaviour. The issue, more than the power of the mafia, is the weakness of the state: extremely slow, sloppy and reluctant in prosecuting crime (big or small), very quick in pardoning convicted criminals. (Italian here, too)