The Mafia and Freemasonry

'A Web of Favoritism and Corruption'

Brother, foot to foot teaches you that you should, whenever asked, go on a brother's errand, if within the length of your cable-tow, even if you should have to go barefoot and bareheaded. Knee to knee, that you should always remember a Master Mason in your devotions to Almighty God. Breast to breast, that you should keep the Master Mason's secrets, when given to you in charge as such, as secure and inviolable in your breast as they were in his own before communicated to you. Hand to back, that you should support a Master Mason behind his back as before his face. Mouth to ear, that you should support his good name as well behind his back as before his face.

'The Five Points of Fellowship'
Master Master Initiation Ritual

You must conceal all crimes of your brother Masons...and should you be summoned as a witness against a brother Mason be always sure to shield him...It may be perjury to do this, it is true, but you're keeping your obligations.


Ronayne
Handbook of Masonry, page 183



The committee feels that the link between Cosa Nostra and institutions is mostly through the "Massoneria" (freemasonry):

The fundamental terrain on which the link between Cosa Nostra with public officials and private professions was created and reinforced is the Massoneria. The Massoneria bond serves to keep the relationship continuous and organic. The admission of members of Cosa Nostra, even at high levels, in Massoneria is not an occassional or episodical one, but a strategic choice. The oath of allegence to Cosa Nostra remains the pivot point around which "uomini d'onore" (men of honor) are prominently held. But the Massoneria associations offer the mafia a formidible instrument to extend their own power, to obtain favors and privileges in every field: both for the conclusion of big business and "fixing trials", as many collaborators with justice have revealed.


Commissione Parlamentare d'inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia e sulle altre associazioni criminali similari
(CPA: Commissione Parlamentare Antimafia)
Relazione sui Rapporti tra Mafia e Politica, Page 59
Roma, 1993

CSD - Centro Siciliano di Documentazione "Giuseppe Impastato"

Law Enforcement in Italy and Europe against mafia and organized crime

Umberto Santino

Premise: The Sicilian Mafia as a local and transnational criminality and the proliferation of criminals of the mafia type

1. The laws regarding organized crime in Italy

1.1. 114 laws in ten years
1.2. From Palermo's maxi-trial to the arrest of mafia bosses
1.3. The Antimafia Committee's report on mafia and politics
1.4. The mafia as a political subject. Double mafia in a double State

2. European Unity: first tentatives at anticrime politics

2.1. A continent of variable legality
2.2. The drug plan in the European Union
2.3. Measures against money laundering
2.4. EEC fraud and organized crime

3. The contradictions of today's society: basic trends and compensative measures

The Author
Endnotes
References


Premise: The Sicilian Mafia as a local and transnational criminality and the proliferation of criminals of the mafia type

The Sicilian Mafia is probably the best known form of organized crime, so much so, that mass media represents it as sort of a universal Evil. The "octopus" that directly or indirectly controls all criminal activities: from drug to arms trafficking and now even radioactive substances. In reality the Sicilian Mafia can be considered a "winning model" of organized crime (at least up until now) due to its complexity and long-standing role in society, but care must be taken against stereotypes that always see the octopus' tentacles everywhere.

The mafia's strength lies in its capacity to be both local and international, in the sense that it grew to a worldwide level without losing its roots in Sicilian society. Its strong-point has historically been the capacity to combine continuity with innovation: it has never abbandoned its traditional activities (extortion for example) but knew how to choose the most profitable activities and become a part of them.

Immigration to the United States during the end of the XIX century has also had a role in the formation of this "cultural elasticity and adaptibility", eventhough, at first the connections between Sicilian Mafiosos and Sicilian-Americans were rare. Only after the second world war has the connection between them grown closer and drug trafficking has "welded" Sicily to the United States, but both groups remain autonomous. In the last few decades the Sicilian Mafia has grown on the national, European and international level. It has trafficked heroin with the Corso-Marsigliesi (the French Connection), with Turkish, Middle East and Asiatic clans and now deals cocaine with the Latin American Cartels. International channels are used for money laundering from Switzerland to the tax havens worldwide. At first the mafia organization was only present in the western part of Sicily, now it is found in all of Sicily and in many Italian regions, countries of Europe and in th e world. Besides this spread of the mafia, the development of illegal activities, the formation and strengthening of other criminal groups similar to the mafia are causes for worry. Many criminal organizations are present in Italy: the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, the Camorra in Campania, the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia and other groups. On the international level, besides historical groups like the Japanese Yakusa and the Chinese Triads, new organizations like the South American Cartels and the Russian Mafia have formed.

Today's criminal market is complex because the criminal activities are more articulated and the criminal groups have grown in number. Therefore, it is misleading to sustain that the mafia or any other criminal organization has a monopoly on world crime. There isn't a monarchy, a Number One, in the organized crime world, but there are many republics that variously interact and are protagonists of the international division of criminal labor.

Today's society produces criminality because of some of its main characteristics (the contradictions will be dealt with at the end of the chapter) and the intertwining of legal and illegal economies, that have grown closer, as have criminals in the social and institutional context. Drugs and money laundering are the best known aspects of today's criminal activities, but the most devastitating is probably the connection between politics and crime. This mixture between illegal and legal, criminal and institutional, is the heart of the mafia's historical model, but it has grown and spread indipendent of the presence of Sicilian mafiosos or Sicilian-Americans. It is not the mafia that has invaded the world, it is the world that has produced more and more groups and organizations of the mafia type.

In light of all this, the actual judicial system, both national and international are greatly inadequate. Not only are they behind the times but the repressive measures are often counteractions that can not debilitate phenomenons that proliferate due to the system's contradictions.


The laws regarding organized crime in Italy

1.1. 114 laws in ten years

Only in the last few years has Italian legislation prepared itself to deal with the great increase in the mafia's activities and with other forms of organized crime. In ten years, from 1982-1992, 114 laws regarding organized crime, directly or indirectly, were introduced. All of these laws are connected with terrible crimes that shocked both local and international public opinion, and are considered the offspring of the emergency situation, that is, they are answers to the criminal challenge and not part of a coherent law enforcement program.

The first general Italian law, the so called Rognoni-La Torre Law (named after the backers of two proposals that were later unified, the Christian-democrat Minister Virginio Rognoni and the Comunist leader Pio La Torre, assassinated April 30, 1982) or "Antimafia law", was approved September 13, 1982, after the assassination of General-Prefect Dalla Chiesa, and for the first time defined mafia as a specific type of organized crime. According to article 416 bis, introduced by the new law,

The organization is of the mafia type when its components use intimidation, subjection and, consequencially, silence (omertà), to commit crimes, directly or indirectly acquire the management or the control of businesses, concessions, authorizations, public contracts and public services to obtain either unjust profits or advantages for themselves or others.

Article 416 of the Italian Penal Code that has its origins in the fascist period (1930), defines simple organized crime on the basis of the presence of three elements: the associative bond, the organized structure, the criminal program. Organized crime of the mafia type presents additional specific characteristics: the associative bond has such an intimidating capacity to cause subjection and omertà. It is at such a level that it may be considered a system, an absolute rule of obedience and a law of silence, that first of all demands, from the entire population, the refusal to collaborate with law enforcement. An actual submission to the power of the mafia.

Besides the creation of this type of crime, the most important and original points of the new antimafia law are the measures taken to control the origins of patrimonies, that allow the confiscation of possessions of illecit origin, and the explicit authorization to subcontract public works.

The role of Alto Commissario (High Commissioner) was also created in September 1982 to fight the mafia, giving a government official the power to coordinate the fight, that Prefect Dalla Chiesa so vainly requested. The High Commissioner's first headquarters was Palermo, and later Rome, and was substantially useless and canceled in 1992.

During the last few years other provisions intervened. The most significant are: the measures taken against the money laundering, the provisions for those mafiosos that collaborate with law enforcement officials, the so called "pentiti" (repenters), the revision of the procedure code for the treatment of mafiosos, the creation of the DIA (Direzione Investigativa Antimafia: Antimafia Investigative Administration) and the DNA (Direzione Nazionale Antimafia or Superprocura: National Antimafia Administration) and the integration of criminal association of the mafia type, that includes those that interfere with the right to vote.

The crime of laundering money of illecit origin was introduced in Italian legal system in 1978 with article 648 bis of the Penal Code, limited to the profits obtained from aggravated robbery, aggravated extortion and kidnapping for extortion. Article 23 of the law n° 55 of March 19, 1990, extended the crime to the capital obtained from the production and sale of drugs. Later, the law by decree of May 3, 1991 n° 143, converted into law n° 197 of July 5, 1991, introduced "emergency actions to limit the use of cash and bearer securities in transactions and prevent the utilization of the financial system in money laundering". These measures decree that sums above 20,000,000 lire must be transfered either in cash or through approved mediators or by means explicitly indicated, dictate rules that regulate finance companies and in exception of the right to secrecy, allow the exchange of information between control organizations.

Law n° 328, published August 28, 1993 in the "Gazzetta Ufficiale", repealed in part the European convention concerning money laundering. With this new regulation, the crime money laundering regards any case of reinvestment of profits obtained from any type of crime and therefore, not only the four crimes covered by the previous laws (that is, drug dealing, kidnapping, aggravated robbery and extortion). There are still a few problems to be resolved. A central data bank to keep track of all the financial operations is lacking, so sums can be kept under 20,000,000 lire and therefore, avoid controls. The companies registry is lacking, eventhough it was established by law in 1942, so it is impossible to follow transactions between firms.

In 1990, other measures were passed regarding the exclusion of those condemned of serious crimes (drug dealing, kidnapping, massacres, mafia member) from the benefits given to prisoners by the "Gozzini Law" (the benefits are home imprisonment and limited liberty), detention in prison while awaiting trial for those suspected of being guilty of serious crimes, regulations concerning wire tapping, reduction of the punishment for those that collaborate with justice, the prolongation of preliminary investigations from a period of six months to one year, the modification of the terms of the prescription of crimes.

The law by decree n° 345 of October 29, 1991 was converted into law n° 410 of December 30, 1991 and established the DIA, to coordinate the police forces and conform the organization of investigative services with the goal of preventing and repressing organized crime.

At the same time, law by decree n° 367 of November 20, 1991, converted into law n° 8 of January 20, 1992, established the district antimafia administrations and the DNA. One of the candidates for the position of Superprocuratore (General Attorney) was Giovanni Falcone, assassinated with his wife and three bodyguards, May 23, 1992, while driving on the highway that connects Palermo's airport Punta Raisi to Palermo (the Capaci massacre).

After the Capaci massacre and the massacre of Via D'Amelio, where Judge Paolo Borsellino and five of his bodyguards were assassinated July 19, 1992, new emergency measures entitled "Urgent modifications to the new Penal Proceedings Code and actions against organized crime of the mafia type" were taken. The decree n° 306 of June 8, 1992, converted into law n° 356 of August 7, 1992, introduces significant modifications to the Penal Proceedings Code approved in 1988, that replaced the investigative rite with a prosecutive rite. The modifications regard the way proof is acquired and constituted: for common criminals the proof is constituted during the debate, while for mafiosos, due to their capacity to intimidate, proof can be drawn from other proceedings.

The new law introduces further preventive measures for "pentiti", arranges severe prison terms for mafiosos, exasperates preventive measures regarding patrimonies and has two clauses regarding elections. The first, article 11 bis, that integrates article 416 bis, states that it is organized crime of the mafia type when intimidation is used: to hinder or deny the right to vote or to obtain votes. The second regulation is article 11 ter, that punishes the "political-mafia exchange": when a member of the mafia promises to obtain votes for a politician in exchange for money. The original form of the law included the promise to obtain concessions, authorizations, contracts, public financing, or any means of gaining illegal profits. Law n° 16 of January 18, 1992, that also deals with elections and limits the passive electorate, states that if a person undergoes penal proceedings for organized crime of the mafia type and/or other crimes related to organized crime, he must be suspended or removed from the position of regional, provincial or city counsellor, President of the regional, provincial or city council, and other administrative responsibilities.

The regulative framework that began taking shape during the last decade was fairly chaotic, nonetheless, a few fondamental principles were set up.

The first was the double track regime. The Penal Code Procedure was applied to common criminals and not to mafiosos, for which different prison treatment was expected.

The second principle regards the legislation that rewards mafiosos that collaborate with justice. It was introduced for terrorists but has been greatly expanded in the last few years.

The third principle was the reversal of the charges against the person investigated as a mafioso, that must prove the legitimate origin of goods and monies in his possession. But the Constitutional Court, with a sentence of February 1994, declared the latter unconstitutional.

Italian antimafia legislation, judged on the whole, is behind the times, was created as an emergency response, is inadequate in comprehending the mafia phenomenon and is characterized by the prevalence of symbolic-measures.

Organized crime of the mafia type has existed since the XIX century (1) but only with the law of 1982 was the crime of mafia association introduced. Since the second half of the 1950s the mafiosos, either directly or through their accomplices, became legitimate entrepreneurs, especially in construction, but only with the law of 1982 can these "mafia enterprises" be touched (2). Since the 1970's, the financial size of these mafia groups, both in terms of their capability of accumulating capital and utilization of the financial system for money laundering, is significant, but only with recent measures can they begin to be fought (3).

The responsive measures are almost always taken after the mafia has commited a terrible crime (murder of an important person, massacres) through laws by decree, that is, the due legal response to urgent situations, eventhough they have been greatly used in the last few years to escape the red tape of the parliamentary course. This is mainly due to the idea that mafia must be handled as an emergency. According to official government stereotypes, the mafia only exists when they murder someone, it is a problem only when they shoot someone influential, it's a national emergency when they murder an important government official and/or a famous person like Dalla Chiesa, Falcone and Borsellino. Instead, mafia has been a continuous part of our society for more than a century, an institution, and if for a certain period there aren't any murders that doesn't mean that the mafia doesn't exist anymore, it means that there is a "pax mafiosa" and things are going very well for organized crime.

It can be said that up until now, the Italian legal system deals with the mafia phenomenon inadequately, and lacks a concrete plan to contrast the mafia in all of its complex aspects. An example is the already mentioned article 416 bis that states, if the mafia member is armed, the punishment is greater; but the mafia is always armed and its characteristic is its use of private violence, that is, the non recognition of the State's monopoly on violence.

The measures taken to contrast the mafia are above all exclusively symbolic laws, that is, reactions to the most outstanding crimes. They want to demonstrate the institution's power because they are decreed almost immediately after a crime, without taking into consideration their real value and usefulness. After the 1992 massacres, in which Judges Falcone and Borsellino lost their lives, the army was sent to Sicily. Even this is a symbolic measure to contrast the mafia's territorial control. The mafia's territorial reign of Sicily is based on secular and widespread knowledge of the territory's reality while many of the drafted soldiers sent to Sicily are there for the first time.

1.2. From Palermo's maxi-trial to the arrest of mafia bosses

Even the repression carried out against the mafia phenomenon is based on a reaction to an emergency situation. Trials are conducted and concluded with convictions only after important crimes, while the mafia enjoys an absolute or almost absolute impunity. An example is Luciano Liggio, one of the bloodiest bosses: he received a series of acquittals for insufficiency of evidence and was sentenced to life imprisonment for only one murder (the murder of mafia boss, doctor and "Cavaliere al merito della Republica Italiana", Michele Navarra). This conviction came when Liggio's reputation was well known and his previous acquittals had become a national scandal.

Palermo's maxi-trial, the most important mafia trial in the history of Italy, was officiated after an enormous number of murders during the early 1980s and after the assassination of renowned persons like Vice-Questore Boris Giuliano, Magistrates Cesare Terranova and Gaetano Costa, President of the Sicilian Region Piersanti Mattarella, Regional Secretary of the Italian Comunist Party Pio La Torre and especially the Prefect Dalla Chiesa (4).

The first round of the maxi-trial ended with many convictions, but the Court of Appeals reduced many sentences and the mafiosos expected further reductions from the Corte di Cassazione (the Supreme Court) (5).

The foundation for the maxi-trial was already laid during the preliminary investigative phase done by Pal ermo's Antimafia Pool, created by Judge Rocco Chinnici, in which Judges Falcone and Borsellino worked, and was confirmed by the first degree conviction. Accordingly, mafia is identified with the Cosa Nostra organization, defined a unique, pyramidal and apex type organization, provincially directed by a "commissione" or "cupola" (commission or dome) and regionally by an interprovincial organism, in which the head of the Palermo commission has a hegemonic role. The leaders of Cosa Nostra are "Corleonesi", mafiosos from Corleone (a town in the province of Palermo, traditional stonghold of the mafia but also capital of the peasant's movement until the 1950s), long since working in Palermo.

According to this vision of the mafia, based on statements made by "pentiti", the most famous of which is Buscetta, the gravest crimes were decided by the cupola, the members of which are collectively responsible and therefore, the trials for mafia crimes must be tried as one and dealt with by the Court of Palermo, considered the capital of the mafia.

Other magistrates and the Cassazione, instead sustain, that mafia associations are autonomous groups, not connected amongst themselves, therefore, it is senseless to speak of collective responsibility for the cupola members, and consequentially, mafia trials must deal with the crime singly and they must be held where the crimes were commited. Only in February 1992 did the Cassazione agree with the theory of the Antimafia Pool of Palermo and the members of the cupola were considered responsible for most of the crimes commited in the 1980s in and around the mafia organization. In the meantime, the Antimafia Pool of Palermo was dismantled, Chinnici was murdered in 1983, Falcone and Borsellino in 1992.

Only after Falcone and Borsellino were assassinated were the most renowned mafia bosses, fugitives from justice for years, arrested. The so called boss of the bosses, Totò Riina, was fugitive for 23 years, and was finally arrested in downtown Palermo.

An important contribution to the understanding of the administrative structure of Cosa Nostra, its crimes, and the arrest of its bosses, is due to the "pentiti". The repenting phenomenon isn't completely a new one (significant cases are documented in the XIX century) (6). But only recently has it become so widespread, in fact, there are about 750 pentiti that collaborate with justice today.

The first pentiti, during the 1980s, were mostly drug traffickers working with mafiosos, and it can be explained by the expansion of the mafia's activities and the involvement of criminals foreign to the mafia tradition, that have no regard for omertà. The ensuing pentiti statements, beginning with Buscetta and Contorno, involve the declining mafiosos in a mafia war from 1981-3, and is explained by the internal violence caused by the tentative to take complete control by the Corleonesi. The boomerang effect involved the Corleonesi and their allies due to their continuous use of violence and even the most recent massacres, that caused a profound effect on public opinion and government reaction. This reaction can be outlined as follows: a very strong reaction after the gravest crimes (which lasted about two years or slightly more) followed by a weakening period, prelude to an actual reverse tendency demonstrated by the dismantling of the Antimafia Pool of Palermo and the isolation of Giovanni Falcone that rendered his work at the Court of Palermo almost impossible. Even now, two years after the 1992 massacres, after the latest "urgent" laws and the arrest of the mafia bosses, the reverse tendency has begun again, with doubts arising as to the legitimacy of using pentiti's testimonies, the attack against some magistrates particularly active by those close to the winners of the last election that brought to government those associated with the "Polo delle libertà" (Liberty Pole) (7).

Another important aspect of the battle against organized crime that was dealt with using the logic of an emergency situation: the seizure (a temporary measure) and the confiscation (a final measure) of all the possessions belonging to a person suspected of being a member of organized crime of the mafia type. The main difference, and it is a great difference, between seizing and confiscating is that possessions are often seized in too much of a hurry, always from the point of view of a responsive measure against the gravest mafia crimes and therefore, most of the possessions (real estate, automobiles, etc.) seized are then returned to the owner. From 1992 to 1993, just over 160 billion lire (about 100 million dollars) in possessions were confiscated. This sum is only 12% of the amount seized (1,334 billion lire).

The delays, uncertainties and about faces in the battle against organized crime in Italy have a deep rooted explanation: the mafia, as other Italian forms of organized crime are not only criminal organizations dedicated to various criminal activities, but are intertwined in the social context, especially economy and institutions. Without these intricate relationships, their growth and strength is uncomprenhensive.