The Sicilian Mafia is trying to re-establish long-dormant ties to mobsters in the United States and New York, according to a report by the Italian anti-Mafia commission.
The legendary Costa Nostra has been sending associates across the Atlantic to rebuild its networks in America that were destroyed during the 1980s, according to an Italian parliamentary report obtained by the British news agency.
The American mob has its roots in Italian organized crime but the two entities have long been separate. That's changing.
When scores of mobsters were rounded up by the feds in the New York area earlier this month, the Daily News revealed that the suspects included reputed Gambino capo Frank Cali, who has ties to the Inzerillo crime family of Sicily.
Inzerillo mobsters have been living in exile in Brooklyn for two decades.
Cali not only shares an allegiance to the same mob code as the Inzerillos, he's related through marriage to Gambino associate Frank Inzerillo. He's also the brother-in-law of Gambino soldier and restaurateur Pietro (Tall Pete) Inzerillo.
Usually, American and Sicilian mobsters cannot be made members of both crime families because they don't share all the same rules. An exception appears to have been made for Cali, the wealthy owner of food import-export businesses. He is alleged to be a member of the Sicilian Mafia as well.
According to the BBC report, the Italian mob has sent its leaders to the U.S. to recruit gangsters who were expelled from Sicily during a bloody mob war in the 1980s.
The Italian anti-Mafia commission found that the Sicilian mob is "re-establishing its links with its American cousins," the BBC reported.
The report also claims that several American food distribution and construction firms are controlled by mob families in the U.S. - and the Italian mob wants a piece of that action, as well as a slice of the lucrative online gambling market.
The anti-Mafia commission puts the responsibility of stopping the Sicilian mob on the shoulders of the Italian government, saying authorities must do more to protect people who have come forward as witnesses against the gangsters.
