Hi,

can me someone explain the structure of Cosa Nostra, Camorrah & Ndrangheta?

There is so much bullshit in the german wiki-page.

I thing I know: Cosa Nostra is in Sicily and every city has a boss with his own family. They have their own comission just like in us. I thing I read, that they have a "real" boss of bosses.

And I thing the Camorrah is pretty the same in neapel but with no comission.

Is the Ndrangheta one big family or?

I don´t know

I don't think Cosa Nostra in Sicily has a boss of bosses, they supposedly have a head of the commission (Cupola), which represents the largest family. But US has that as well, it's commonly been the boss of the Genovese. It was Carlo Gambino back in the old days and Paul Castellano for a little bit.

The Camorra is definitely not the same, I'm not as educated in the Camorra (really looking forward to getting home and cracking open Saviano's book, "Gomorrah"). But I believe the Camorra is made up of various families, sort of like Cosa Nostra, but these families aren't as organized with one another, like Cosa Nostra is. Meaning, families tend to war alot amongst each othet. Raffele Cutolo attempted to make the Camorra more along the lines of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and tried to create structure and a commission like entity with the NCO, but that failed, many of those loyal to him were killed in a war with the traditional Camorra clans. Cutolo tried to run things from prison after this, through his sister, but I believe she just ended up being imprisoned as well.


The 'Ndrangheta isn't one big family, it's made up of clans from specific provinces in Calabria. Each clan has their own boss, and the clan only answers to that boss. I don't believe the provincial bosses answer to some big boss. The different clans tend to work together, more often than not their warring and killing each other. One of the bigger 'Ndrangheta clans have been the Commisso Family.

I'm probably off on a lot of that, perhaps Furio would be able to give you better answers.

The sicilian mafia hierarchy is the same as the american cousins : made men,capo, boss over every province of Sicily has its own Commission. Clans are organized into districts (mandamenti) of three or four geographically adjacent clans. Each district elects a representative (capo mandamento) to sit on its Provincial Commission. The National Commission was a super partes organ born to sette the dispute and avoid wars.


In Campany there are a clan for many small towns or many clans in the big cities; the most important city is Naples. There are no organi for setlte disputes maybe the biggest clans sometime intervent for avoid wars that will ruin the bussiness;after Cutolo nobody tried to make a fusion of the clans in few biggest because nobody after cutolo had the charisma or the strenght for try it; for sure there are clans federato like the Secondigliano alliance but never more.
In the camorra you can start like a sentry or a pusher or even a killer as minor and maybe become boss at the age of 20 like is happening with the old boss was arrested and the young boy combat for the drugs traffick.
The camorra is the most violent and dont had even a making ceremony.

The ndrangheta is the most powerful and secret of the three.
The members are blood related and often marry a woman of the rival clan for stop the war.
The hierarchy is misterious and other roles are often indivuaded.
A non member is called contrasto onorato and is a parent for blood or wedding after made enter in minor society and if is a good member go in the Mayor society. Some ranks like the santista was created for made people that could be made normanly as politics, bussiness men,massoni and even cops).

If you speak English, when I'll had time I'll post the hierarchy charts.

Sorry if found errors i was writing with a mobile Phone and had a grammar corrector.

I agree with Furio.Sicilian mafia don't have real boss of bosses today,only Toto Riina was "boss of bosses".

Bernardo Provenzano was pretty much at the same level when he took the reigns from Riina, but I think it's safe to say that he was the last capo dei capi..

Billy today in the sicilian mafia the commission was more a confederation that a centralized state; It happened because after Riina was arrested in 1993, Provenzano had to mediate between the faction that want to continue to fight against the state and the other faction that want to stop the bombing.
At the end Provenzano and his successor Messina Denaro are like a primum inter partes that a boss.

In the ndrangheta at the annuale meeting at polsi called crimine, is electra a capo crimine but his role is too settle dispute between the families.

I've posted this a few times before, and it always gets me, cause I actually think Riinas role should be examined, how powerful was he really? Cause the corleonesi seemed more of a coalition than I initially thought...





“The Nuvolettas are the only family outside Sicily that sits in the cupola, the high command of Cosa Nostra. Not simply allies or affiliates, they are one of the most powerful groups in the bosom of the Mafia, with structural ties to the Corleones. So powerful—according to pentito Giovanni Brusca—that when in the late 1990s the Sicilians decided to plant bombs all over Italy, they asked the Marano clan for advice and cooperation. The Nuvolettas thought the idea was crazy, a strategy that had more to do with political favors than military results. They refused to participate in the attacks or provide logistical support, a refusal expressed without any hint of reprisal. Totò Riina personally implored the boss Angelo Nuvoletta to corrupt the judges in his first mass trial, but here too the Marano clan refused to help the military wing of the Corleone family. During the feuds within La Nuova Famiglia, after their victory over Cutolo, the Nuvolettas sent for Giovanni Brusca, the boss of San Giovanni Jato and the murderer of Judge Giovanni Falcone.* They wanted Brusca to eliminate five people in Campania and dissolve two of them in acid. They called him the way you would call a plumber".

Excerpt From: Roberto Saviano & Virginia Jewiss. “Gomorrah.” Picador, 2007. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/rlf9w.l

That's the thing about the sicilians' ,they have always been an INSTRUMENT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT...



Naples is like LA or Chicago in Italy. Naples is the STREETS, Naples is gangs, open air drug markets and gun battles on the sidewalk type shit. Naples gangsters, for the most part, supply the internal market of Italy, and Europe ( For example, in Gomorah, it says the Licciardi family completely monopolized criminal activity in the Chech Republic, kinda like Ndrangheta and Austrailia)they don't move around as much as the two RURAL mafias, cause they don't have to really. Naples in a word is URBAN. The strongest families also appear to be FAMILY CLANS.


If you have ever seen the Wire, the Barksdale gang, looks like a Naples clan, like if they were in Italy, it would be very similar, drugs, family ties, even the secondigliano
alliance kind of resembles the co-op. The same way the Vele projects in the movie reminded me so much of Cabrini in Chicago.

I see the Calabrians as being a mix of both, they have rural bases, but use narcotics routes to gain footholds in many urban markets, Family clans again,
But not nearly as violent as the Naples clans. They also have a whole hierarchy for the lower level members, and a secret branch of upper leaders secret from the rest of the organization, Furio probably knows the name, I'll look it up....

Also I think the closest thing Naples had to a commission was the Secondigliano alliance, the Licciardi, Contini, Stabile, Di Lauro, Prestieri, Mallardo, Lo Russo, Bochetti, Sarno, Bosti. Also the Caserta bosses, the Casalesi, here is an excerpt from Gomorrah...



“The Casalesi clan, which takes its name from Casal di Principe, is a confederation of all the Camorra families in the Caserta area: Castelvolturno, Villa Literno, Gricignano, San Tammaro, Cesa, Villa di Briano, Mondragone, Carinola, Marcianise, San Nicola La Strada, Calvi Risorta, Lusciano, and dozens of other towns. Each with its own area capo, each a part of the Casalesi network. Antonio Bardellino, the Casalesi clan founder, was the first in Italy to understand that cocaine would far surpass heroin in the long run. Yet heroin continued to be the mainstay of Cosa Nostra and many Camorra families. In the 1980s heroin addicts were considered to be literal gold mines, whereas coke was thought to be an elite drug. But Antonio Bardellino understood that big money was to be had by marketing a drug that didn’t kill quickly, that was more like a bourgeois cocktail than a poison for outcasts. So he created an import-export company that shipped fish flour from South America to Aversa. Fish flour that concealed tons of cocaine. Bardellino peddled heroin as well; the shipments to John Gotti in America were packed in espresso filters. An American narcotics squad once intercepted sixty-seven kilos of heroin, but it wasn’t a disastrous loss for the San Cipriano d’Aversa boss. A few days later he had a call put through to Gotti: “Now we’re sending twice as much another way.” From the marshes of Aversa was born a cartel that knew how to stand up to Cutolo, and the ferocity of that war is still imprinted in the genetic code of the Caserta clans”

Excerpt From: Roberto Saviano & Virginia Jewiss. “Gomorrah.” Picador, 2007. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/rlf9w.l


If this is against the rules, I apologize, is it?

Businessmen. That’s how the Caserta Camorristi define themselves, nothing more than businessmen. A clan made up of violent company men and killer managers, of builders and landowners. Each with his own armed band and linked by common economic interests. The Casalesi cartel’s strength has always been its ability to handle large drug lots without needing to feed an internal market.


They are present on Rome’s vast drug market, but more significant is their role in the sale of huge consignments. The 2006 acts of the Anti-Mafia Commission indicate that the Casalesi were supplying the Palermo families with drugs. Alliances with Nigerian and Albanian clans meant they no longer had to be involved in direct peddling and narcotrafficking operations. Pacts with clans in Lagos and Benin City, alliances with Mafia families in Pristina and Tirana, and agreements with Ukrainian Mafiosi in Lviv and Kiev liberated the Casalesi from bottom-rung criminal activities.


At the same time the Casalesi received privileged treatment in investments in Eastern Europe and in the purchase of cocaine from Nigeria-based international traffickers. New leaders and new wars. It all happened after the explosion of the Bardellino clan, the origin of the Camorra’s entrepreneurial power[…]”

Excerpt From: Roberto Saviano & Virginia Jewiss. “Gomorrah.” Picador, 2007. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/rlf9w.l

Excerpt From: Roberto Saviano & Virginia Jewiss. “Gomorrah.” Picador, 2007. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/rlf9w.l

Excerpt From: Roberto Saviano & Virginia Jewiss. “Gomorrah.” Picador, 2007. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/rlf9w.l

Also guys, notice the overarching theme of the mafia this last decade to 15 years or so....


It's all family clans, moving huge drug shipments. Everything feeds off of this ability to procure drugs, get drugs to the market, and sell them.

The ndrangheta is more dangerous because is split in two society the minor and the mayor and the ,men that stay only in the minor never know or many men stay on the top.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Ndrangheta#/media/File:Locale_e_societ%C3%A0.jpg

@Sinatra


You are the (IMO) the most knowledgeable on Canada, so I think you will really enjoy those books, Gomorah and the John Dickie book on the Sicilians.


The siclian book is really interesting, as he takes an intellectual approach to explaining the mafia that I have found to be unsurpassed. Particularly his chapter on " THE INDUSTRY OF VIOLENCE IN SICILY", just fascinating shit, also he goes all the way back to Antonio Giammonna, one of the earliest recognized bosses from like 1870!

Thanks for the endorsement, Cabrini, but I'm far from the most knowledgeable lol. Guys like Antimafia & Laurentian, who has yet to join this forum deserve that distinction, I think.


And yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting the chance to read those two. Mostly "Gomorrah". I'm most interested, in terms of the Sicilians is what is spoken on lightly in the Excellent Cadavers doc. Which is the two rungs of Cosa Nostra that once existed. Which almost sound like how the 'Ndrangheta operate now, the documentary mentioned how you had the normal Cosa Nostra, which operated in the traditional rackets and violence. But then you had an elite Cosa Nostra, the political Cosa Nostra, whose members were only known to select bosses, which solely focused on building relationships in parliment and corrupting the political and judicial system. These guys were the ones Tommaso Buscetta was supposedly the most reluctant to speak on, really fearing he and Falcone would be killed on short notice if he spoke on them. He eventually did and it let to the exposure of the Lima cousins as Mafiosi.