Catania, inside the Cosa Nostra system: the new mafia PAST AND PRESENT by Laura Distefano
CATANIA - The mafia evolves. It changes. For a (former) boss of the 90s, today's one cannot be called “Cosa Nostra. It has turned into organized crime ”. Even if they call themselves “Santapaola” they do “everything between themselves”, he says. “Before it worked in a pyramid way”, says the man who at one point - almost thirty years ago, when they arrested everyone - found himself at the absolute top. But these remain the statements of a mafioso (convicted of mafia and murders) collected in an interview left in a drawer from before the covid nightmare. But to know (and write) the mafia you have to talk to those who have been inside the system. Who burned the holy card in his hand, promising fidelity to the association, if not he would have ended up burned like that image.
“I don't remember the words of the rite anymore, it's been too long. But more or less it was like that ". Never a name on who was his godfather and who proposed him as a man of honor. “They asked me many times to collaborate but I never did. Yet when they arrested me everyone thought the opposite ”. These are just some passages of a two-hour dialogue, between 'on and off the record'. Friends, education, intelligence. These are words that are quoted many times. But what they slap in the face with a story about the Cosa Nostra family from Catania who killed, harassed, stolen, polluted institutions and businesses in the 1990s. “I am not an angel. And I'm certainly not innocent. I consider myself a retired mafioso ”. He guarantees that no one after prison has approached him to "return". But he is convinced that things work differently today. Before becoming a “man of honor, there was the apprenticeship that lasted for years. Today everyone is a boss ”.
And let's go back to the initial concept. The mafia evolves and changes. But reading the papers of Kronos, Chaos and Agorà - the last three investigations on the Santapaola-Ercolano family - there was an attempt to bring things back in time.It was even decided to entrust the reins to those who had the surname Santapaola. Or to give the card to an expert mafia like Antonio Tomaselli. In the end, the mafia legacy would have passed into the hands of several people, but they too - Turi Rinaldi in particular - in the interceptions speak of resuming the historical extortions. But at the same time there are the new generation who look (too much) to the violent crime of Naples. Young people, for the most part managers of drug dealing squares, who 'claim' belonging to Cosa Nostra and are also capable of killing without thinking about it. And perhaps without even asking for the authorization of the 'old bosses'.
