We've all seen the mafia on films, what's the mafia
like in reality?
Updated Sep 23, 2018
I grew up in a neighbourhood labeled as “Mafioso” from both the police and the
people. It had such a bad reputation that my schoolmates were not allowed, by
their parents, to come and study at my house. ( I also faced discrimination at
school, but this is a different story). I lived next to them, talked to them and
played cards ( common thing in the south) with them. I can give you good
insights of what mafia really is and how it differs from the movies.
I am from Calabria ( I now live abroad since over 10 years), where mafia is is
called ‘Ndrangheta and is the most powerful criminal organization in the world,
yes in the entire world.
It’s all about power. There is an old quote here in the south that says
“cummannare e' megghio ca futtere”. Leading, have the power is better than
sex. Because when you have the power money and everything else is just a
consequence. John Gotti did not kill Paul Castellano because he wanted his
money, he did it because he wanted the power, he wanted to be the boss.
They “own” the land. Or this is what they think. There is a recording of the
Australian police on a Calabrian boss, he is pissed off that someone is selling
drugs in his territory. In the phone call he says “Melbourne is mine, all this
f***ng city is mine, I own this city!” this pretty much sums up their mentality.
And you can see this also in NY. The 5 families divided the territory and each of
them “owns” one of the borough. When Italy started building the highway
autostrada del sole, each Ndrangheta clan got a piece of the cake (extortion to
the company building the highway, force them to buy material from “their
companies “and so on) depending on where the construction was. Every single
meter of this highway construction was owned by the families, carefully divided
depending on which part of the territory the works were going at that moment.
They have little or no culture. Calabria, historically, is the Italian region with
more illiterates. Many of this Mafioso’s ( they are called ‘ndranghetisti) have no
school degree at all. Some of them cannot even write (as of 2007 when I left my
home town).
They are smart. The ones who climb the ladder of power are extremely smart.
They learn about investing, finance and how to “clean” the money. Some of
them even entered politics. If they used their brain for good instead of being
Mafioso. They would have probably done something very good for our region.
Killing and spending time in jail are the way to raise to power. No one
becomes a boss without killing and spending some time in jail. This explains
their ruthless and why is easier for them to kill someone. It’s how they raise to
power and since power is what they want, killing becomes the best way to raise
faster to the top.
They are traditionalist. Their rules date back hundred of years, yet they still
follow them. The ritual to enter the Ndrangheta, called baptism, is the same as
100 years ago. It gets passed from generation in generation by voice. And it
never get lost or changed. Every single word or gesture is exactly as it was 100
years ago.
They are extremely religious. I don’t know if this is because the church has a lot
of influence in the south, or because they are afraid to die. But many of them
are super religious. They go to church every Sunday, they actively participate in
the hundred of religious procession that every year take place in Calabria. In fact
every year they reunite, all the families, to discuss about issues and “business”.
You know what is the place where they always meet every year? The sanctuary
of the virgin of Polsi.
Women play an important role. They might look like having a very low profile,
but they are the ones who “take care” of the family and the business when the
men are in hiding or in jail. They are the ones who wear black when one of the
closest member of the family die (wear black when a close relative die is
common in the south). They are also the ones who cry loud, scream and ask for
revenge. The words they use are like encrypted messages, it can be terrifying
hearing them cry. Trust me.
They are incredibly rich. It does not matter what your role in the family is, as
soon as you become part of it, when you receive your baptism, you will start
managing money, a lot of them. There is a recording of the Italian police
between a boss and his men. They hid money in a hole underground and these
men went to recover them, one of the man says to the boss in a call “We
recovered the money, but 8 millions are not usable because the mud and the
water ruined them” the boss replies “that’s ok, throw them away and bring the
rest”.
They have a horizontal structure. Unlike Mafia and Camorra where you know
who is the big boss, because they have a pyramidal structure, Ndrangheta has a
horizontal structure. It means that every family is on the same level of the
others, and it also means that is very hard to the Italian police to track them and
understand exactly what are they doing. And as they are so traditionalist, they
will recreate the exact same structure wherever they go Australia, Canada, US,
Germany. It does not matter, the structure of the clan is exactly the same and
they always “respond” to the mother clan, the ones who are in Calabria.
They live and breathe Mafia. Is a life choice, a life style. Is the way how they live
their entire life? I read an answer that says that is always your best friend who
kills you, this is absolutely true. There are many stories (confirmed by the trials
and the police) where someone is invited to a meeting by their friends and then
is killed. They know that they will be killed, but they go anyway because this is
what being a Mafioso mean.
They respect each other. Yeah, they can kill each other, but they still respect. If
a boss is going to be killed, the killer is instructed to give him the last bullet in
the head because the boss has the right to see in the face the man who will kill
him.
They are real family. John Gotti was the boss of the Gambino family as Toto
Riina was the boss of the Corleonesi in Sicily. In Calabria a Ndrangheta clan is a
real family, with blood tie. Everyone is involved in the business of the family,
some families are old as hundred of years and these are the most respected
families (mostly from the southern part of Calabria). This explain why very few
betray the family and become informant with the police, because it means
sending your relatives to jail. Brothers, father, sisters everyone. This also explain
why faida, a feud or war between families, are so extremely violent. Because
everyone who is killed has a relative who will look for revenge, even if this
means to wait 20 years.
They care about the people of “their land”. This is very common among bosses,
and you can see some example also from Pablo Escobar, who built houses for
the poor in Medellin or John Gotti (just watch his funeral on YouTube). In a
recording of the police, 2 families are in war and a big boss calls a meeting with
the 2 families and says to them “Be aware, people are scared as hell. The people
in town are getting scared of you, if you lose them or they turn their back on
you, it’s over. You are done. Never get the people against you“.
My neighbourhood took years to “clean” his reputation. But when you live in
one of this places, you learn at a very young age how to “smell” the danger. We
didn't have to see someone killed to understand that something was going on.
You must learn it immediately, you must grow up smarter, you must understand
when is time to go home early (before dark) or not to stay close to certain
people because they might be a target. We also learned how to avoid certain
places and how to immediately understand that something is wrong (movement
of people, police, stranger in town etc. etc.)
2 people have been killed few hundred meters from my house, I knew both of
them, I grew up with them. One was killed by his cousin for the power
(confirmed by his cousin during a trial in tribunal), another one was killed in
front of his wife and daughter (I was already living abroad when happened). We
had all the national media come down to our town, the first thing those
journalist do is to come to ask us, the people, why we did not see anything.
They want to show to the world that Calabrian are omertosi and want to show
to who does not know about mafia, that the people protect the Mafiosi.
This pisses me off every single time. We are not omertosi (omertà is a code of
silence in mafia), as I said we must learn how to avoid danger. The media says
that we don’t care “as long as they kill each other”, this is another BS. We care,
we care a lot because if someone is killed today, there will be revenge and we
know it. It can take years but that death will be avenged, this is how it works.
Did I feel sad for these 2 people who were killed next to my house? Yes, of
course, I knew them very well. They never did anything wrong to me or my
family. But this was their life choice, and probably not even a choice since their
2 families were historically belonging to this world for ages. This is what their
life was and they accepted it since the beginning.
There is only one way to defeat mafia and any criminal organisation in the
south, and is with culture, knowledge and jobs for the youngest. A writer said
this:
“As long as mafia will keep giving more jobs than the government, they will
always be strong.”