Organized crime in Italy – Wikipedia

Prevalent criminal organizations and activities in Italy
“ italian Mafia ” and “ italian gang ” redirect here. For the Italian-American organize crime group often referred to in North America as the “ Italian Mafia ” or ” italian Mob ”, see Italian-American Mafia. For the celebrated sicilian organized crime group sometimes referred to colloquially as merely the “ italian Mafia ” or “ italian Mob ”, see sicilian Mafia incidence of organized crime ‘s extortion in Italy by state . Map of the Southern Italian criminal syndicates.

Organized crime in Italy and its criminal organizations have been prevalent in Italy, specially southerly Italy, for centuries and have affected the social and economic liveliness of many italian regions since at least the nineteenth hundred. There are six major native mafia-like organizations that are heavily active in Italy. The oldest and presently most potent of these organizations, having begun to develop between 1500 and 1800, are the Cosa Nostra of Sicily, the ‘Ndrangheta from Calabria ( who are considered to be among the biggest cocaine smugglers in Europe ) and the Camorra based in Campania, besides called the Neapolitan Mafia. In addition to these three long-established organizations, there are besides three early significantly active voice organized crime syndicates that were founded in the twentieth century : the Stidda of Sicily and the Sacra Corona Unita and Società foggiana, both from Apulia. Four other italian organized crime groups, namely the Banda della Magliana of Rome, the Mala del Brenta of Veneto, angstrom well as the Banda della Comasina and Turatello Crew, both based in Milan, held considerable influence at the height of their power but are now badly weakened by italian law enforcement or even considered defunct or inactive. One early group, the Basilischi of Basilicata area, are presently active but are considered to have by and large fallen under the determine of the larger and more brawny ‘Ndrangheta. other crime groups include the Casamonica kin, a criminal organization of by and large Sinti ethnicity present in Rome and engage in the area of the Castelli Romani and the Lazio coast. The latest creation of italian organized crime ( IOC ), Mafia Capitale ( which was partially a successor or good continuation of Banda della Magliana, involving many erstwhile Banda della Magliana members and associates ) was by and large disbanded by the police in 2014. [ 1 ] The best-known italian organized crime group is the Mafia or sicilian Mafia ( referred to as Cosa Nostra by members ). As the master group named “ Mafia “, the sicilian Mafia is the footing for the current colloquial custom of the term to refer to organized crime groups. It along with the Neapolitan Camorra and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta are active throughout Italy, having bearing besides in other countries. [ 2 ]

sicilian Mafia [edit ]

La Cosa Nostra [edit ]

Based primarily in Sicily, the sicilian Mafia formed in the nineteenth hundred by clans which sprang out of groups of bandits ; these groups gained local anesthetic might and determine. [ citation needed ] In Sicily, the word mafia tends to mean “ male ” and a Mafioso considers himself a “ man of Honour. ” however, the organization is known as “ Cosa Nostra ” —Our Thing—or Our Affair. The sicilian Mafia originally engaged in such lower-level activities as extortion, cattle larceny and, upon Sicily becoming part of a democratic Italy, election idle in addition to other kinds of relatively subordinate larceny and imposter. [ citation needed ] In the 1950s, sicily experienced a hearty construction boom. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Sicilian Mafia gained control of the build contracts and made millions of dollars. [ 3 ] It participated in the growing commercial enterprise of large-scale heroin traffic, both in Italy and Europe and in US-connected traffic ; a celebrated example of this are the french Connection smuggling with corsican criminals and the Italian-American Mafia. The sicilian Mafia has evolved into an international organized crime group. The sicilian Mafia specializes in heroin traffic, political putrescence and military arms trafficking and is the most knock-down and most active italian organized crime group in the United States with estimates of more than 2,500 sicilian Mafia affiliates located there. [ 4 ] The sicilian Mafia is besides known to engage in arson, fraud, forge, and early racketeering crimes. It is estimated to have 3,500–4,000 kernel members with 100 clans, with around 50 in the city of Palermo alone. [ 5 ] The sicilian Mafia has had influence in ‘legitimate ‘ might, peculiarly under the corrupt Christian democratic governments from the 1950s to the early 1990s. It has had determine with lawyers, financiers, and professionals ; besides it has had exponent and resources by bribing or pressuring politicians, judges and administrators. It has less of these now than previously on the heels of the Maxi-Trials, the campaign by magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and early actions against bribe politicians and judges ; however it retains some influence. The sicilian Mafia became ill-famed for aggressive assaults on italian law enforcement officials during the reign of Salvatore Riina, besides known as Toto Riina. In Sicily the term “ excellent Cadaver ” is used to distinguish the assassination of outstanding government officials from the common criminals and ordinary citizens killed by the Mafia. Some of their high rank victims include patrol commissioners, mayors, judges, patrol colonels and generals, and Parliament members. On May 23, 1992, the sicilian Mafia struck italian law enforcement. At approximately 18h00, italian Magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three police body guards were killed by a massive bomb calorimeter. Falcone, Director of Prosecutions ( roughly, District Attorney ) for the court of Palermo and read/write head of the especial anti-Mafia fact-finding police squad, had become the arrangement ‘s most formidable enemy. His team was moving to prepare cases against most of the Mafia leadership. The bombard made a crater 10 metres in diameter in the road Falcone ‘s caravan was traveling. This became known as the Capaci Massacre. Less than two months late, on 19 July 1992, the Mafia struck Falcone ‘s successor, Judge Paolo Borsellino, besides in Palermo, Sicily. Borsellino and five bodyguards were killed outside the apartment of Borsellino ‘s mother when a car packed with explosives was detonated by outback control as the estimate approached the front door of his mother ‘s apartment. In 1993 the authorities arrested Salvatore “ Totó ” Riina, believed at the time to be the Capo di tutti capi and creditworthy directly or indirectly for scores if not hundreds of killings, after years of investigation which some believe was delayed by Mafia charm within the patrol and Carabinieri. After Riina ‘s arrest control of the constitution fell to Bernardo Provenzano who had come to reject Riina ‘s scheme of war against the authorities in privilege of a scheme of bribery, corruption and influence-peddling. As a consequence the rate of Mafia killings fell precipitously but Mafia influence not only in the international drug and slave trades but locally in structure and public contracts in Sicily continued. Provenzano was himself captured in 2006 after being wanted for 43 years. In July, 2013, the italian patrol conducted cross raids targeting clear mafia crime bosses. In Ostia, a coastal community near the capital, police arrested 51 suspects for alleged crimes connected with Italy ‘s sicilian Mafia. Allegations included extortion, murder, international drug traffic and illegal see of the slot machine market. [ 6 ]

Stidda or La Stidda [edit ]

La Stidda ( sicilian, star ) is the name given to the sicilian organization founded by criminals Giuseppe Croce Benvento and Salvatore Calafato, both of Palma di Montechiaro, Agrigento province of Sicily. The Stidda ‘s power bases are centered in the cities of Gela and Favara, Caltanissetta and Agrigento provinces. The organization ‘s groups and activities have flourished in the cities of Agrigento, Catania, Syracuse and Enna in the provinces of the same name, Niscemi and Riesi of Caltanissetta state and Vittoria of Ragusa state, located chiefly on the Southern and Eastern coasts of Sicily. The Stidda has extended its power and influence into the mainland Italy provinces of Milan, Genoa and Turin. The members of the organization are called stiddari in Caltanissetta state and stiddaroli in Agrigento state. Stidda members can be identified and sometimes introduced to each other by a tattoo of five green marks arranged in a r-2, forming a star called “ i punti della malavita ” or “ the points of the criminal life. ” The Cosa Nostra wars of the late 1970s and early 1980s that brought the Corleonesi Clan and its evil and pitiless leaders Luciano Leggio, Salvatore “ Toto ” Riina and Bernardo Provenzano sometimes referred to as “ Cosa Nuova ” into world power caused disorganization and disenchantment inside the traditional Cosa Nostra might root and values system, leaving the growing Stidda organization to counter Cosa Nostra ‘s baron, charm and expansion in Southern and Eastern Sicily. The Stidda membership was reinforced by Cosa Nostra men of honor such as those patriotic to slain Capo Giuseppe Di Cristina of Riesi who had defected from Cosa Nostra ‘s ranks due to the bloodthirsty reign of the Corleonesi kin. The organization besides looked to enlarge its membership by absorbing local anesthetic thugs and criminals ( picciotti ) who were at the margins of organized crime to gain more world power and credibility in the italian hell. From 1978 to 1990, early Corleonesi kin leader and imposter to the Cosa Nostra ‘s “ Capo di Tutti Capi ” title, Salvatore Riina, waged a war within Cosa Nostra and against the Stidda spreading end and panic among mafiosi and the public in his quest for a crime dictatorship, leaving over 500 in Cosa Nostra and over 1,000 in La Stidda absolutely, including Stidda Capos Calogero Lauria and Vincenzo Spina. With the 1993 capture and imprisonment of Salvatore Riina, along with the imprison of Bernardo Provenzano ‘s, “ pax mafia, ” following a new, less violent and low-key approach path to criminal activities the Stidda has gained power, influence and credibility among the longer established criminal organizations within Italy and around the world, making itself an hell player. The Stidda is sometimes called the “ Fifth Mafia ” in the italian media and weight-lift .

Camorra or Campanian Mafia [edit ]

The origins of the Camorra are unclear. It may date to the seventeenth century, [ 7 ] however the beginning official manipulation of camorra as a word dates from 1735, when a royal rule authorised the constitution of eight gambling houses in Naples. The Camorra ‘s main businesses are drug traffic, racketeer, counterfeiting and money laundering. It is besides not unusual for Camorra clans to infiltrate in the politics of their respective areas. The Camorra besides specializes in cigarette smuggle and receives payoffs from other condemnable groups for any cigarette traffic through Italy. In the 1970s, the sicilian Mafia convinced the Camorra to convert the cigarette smuggling routes into drug smuggling routes with the Sicilian Mafia ‘s aid but not all Camorra leaders agreed. This brought about the Camorra Wars between two factions and about 400 men were murdered. Those opposed to drug traffic lost the war. The Camorra controls the drug craft in Europe and is organized by management principles. In the early 2000s, the Di Lauro kin ran the then largest alfresco commercialize in Europe, based in Secondigliano. The former leader of the kin, Paolo Di Lauro, who designed the system has been imprisoned since 2005, his arrangement produced about €200 million ( about US $ 250 million ) annually only in the drug traffic business. The Di Lauro clan war against the Scissionisti di Secondigliano inspired the current italian television series Gomorrah. [ 8 ] Outside Italy the Camorra has a strong presence in Spain, where the administration established its massive businesses revolving about drug traffic and money wash, reinvesting its money in the creation of hotels, nightclubs, restaurants and companies around the state. [ 9 ] It is believed that closely 200 Camorra affiliates reside in the United States. many came to the US during the Camorra Wars ever since the former nineteenth hundred and specially twentieth century, as shown by an honest-to-god administration beneficial known as Black Hand and the late Brooklyn Camorra. The Camorra conducts money launder, extortion, estrange smuggling, looting, blackmail, kidnapping, political corruption, and forge .

‘Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia [edit ]

Derived from the greek word andragathía think of courage or loyalty, the ‘Ndrangheta formed in the 1890s in Calabria. The ‘Ndrangheta consists of 160 cells and approximately 6,000 members, worldwide some estimate there to be vitamin a many as 10,000 effect members [ 10 ] and specializes in political corruptness and cocaine traffic. The ‘Ndrangheta cells are loosely connected syndicate groups based on blood relationships and marriages. Since the 1950s, the constitution has spread towards Northern Italy and cosmopolitan. According to a 2013 “ Threat Assessment on Italian Organised Crime ” of Europol and the Guardia di Finanza, the ‘Ndrangheta is among the richest ( in 2008 their income was around 55 billion dollars ) and most potent organize crime groups in the world. [ 11 ] The ‘Ndrangheta is besides known to engage in cocaine ( controlling up to 80 % of that flowing through Europe ) [ 10 ] and heroin traffic, murder, bombings, counterfeiting, illegal gamble, fraud, thefts, labor racketeer, loan shark, illegal immigration, and rarely some kidnapping.

Basilischi ( Basilicatan Mafia ) [edit ]

The Basilischi is a mafia constitution founded in 1994 in Potenza. It ‘s sometimes called Italy ‘s fifth mafia. [ 12 ] After the maxi-trial in 1999 which caused the capture of many high-level members, the group became fracture and fell promote under the influence of the more herculean Calabrian-based ‘Ndrangheta .

Sacra Corona Unita ( Apulian Mafia ) [edit ]

The Sacra Corona Unita ( SCU ), or United Sacred Crown, is a Mafia-like criminal constitution from the area of Apulia ( in Italian Puglia ) in Southern Italy, and is specially active agent in the areas of Brindisi and Lecce and not, as people tend to believe, in the region as a whole. The SCU was founded in the former 1970s as the Nuova Grande Camorra Pugliese, based in Foggia, by the Camorra penis Raffaele Cutolo, who wanted to expand his operations into Apulia. It has besides been suggested that elements of this group originated from the ‘Ndrangheta, but it is not known if they were breakaways from it or the result of indirect co-operation with clans of the ‘Ndrangheta. A few years after the creation of the SCU, following the downfall of Cutolo, the organization began to operate independently from the Camorra under the leadership of Giuseppe Rogoli. Under his leadership the SCU mixed its Apulian interests and opportunities with ‘Ndrangheta and Camorra traditions. primitively preying on the region ‘s hearty wine and olive anoint industries, the group moved into imposter, gunrunning, and drug traffic, and made alliances with international condemnable organizations such as the Russian and Albanian mafia, the colombian drug cartels, and some asian organizations. The Sacra Corona Unita consists of about 50 Clans with approximately 2,000 Core members [ 4 ] and specializes in smuggling cigarettes, drugs, arms, and people. identical few SCU members have been identified in the United States, however there are some links to individuals in Illinois, Florida, and possibly New York. The Sacra Corona Unita is besides reported to be involved in money laundering, extortion, and political putrescence and collects payoffs from other criminal groups for landing rights on the southeast coast of Italy. This district is a natural gateway for smuggling to and from post-communist countries like Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania. With the decreasing importance of the Adriatic corridor as a smuggling route ( thanks to the standardization of the Balkans area ) and a series of successful police and discriminative operations against it in late years, the Sacra Corona Unita has been considered, if not actually defeated, to be reduced to a fraction of its former world power, which peaked around the mid-1990s. Local Rivals
The inner difficulties of the SCU aided the birth of antagonistic criminal groups such as :

• Remo Lecce Libera: formed by some leading criminal figures from Lecce, who claim to be independent from any criminal group other than the ‘Ndrangheta. The term Remo indicates Remo Morello, a criminal from the Salento area, killed by criminals from the Campania region because he opposed any external interference;
• Nuova Famiglia Salentina: formed in 1986 by De Matteis Pantaleo, from Lecce and stemming from the Famiglia Salentina Libera born in the early 1980s as an autonomous criminal movement in the Salento area with no links with extra-regional Mafia expressions
• Rosa dei Venti: formed in 1990 by De Tommasi in the Lecce prison, following an internal division in the SCU.[13]

Società foggiana ( Foggian mafia ) [edit ]

The Società foggiana besides known as Mafia Foggiana ( Foggian mafia ) and the fifth mafia [ 14 ] is an mafia -type criminal organization operate in a large part of the Province of Foggia, including the city of Foggia itself, and having significant infiltrations besides in other italian regions. [ 15 ] Currently, it is considered one of the most brutal and bloody of all the organized crime groups in Italy. [ 16 ] There was about one murder a workweek, one looting a day and an extortion undertake every 48 hours in Foggia state in 2017 and 2018. [ 17 ] These were incorrectly reported as the bring of the Sacra Corona Unita ( the fourth mafia ) by news media unaware of the new independent mafia in Foggia state. “ But that was n’t the case. We are witnessing what should be called a fifth mafia, independent of the Sacra Corona Unita ” according to Giuseppe Volpe, a prosecutor and anti-mafia oral sex of Bari. [ 18 ] The Società foggiana is known to have numerous alliances with Balkans criminal groups, in particular with the Albanians. [ 19 ] The most herculean clans inside the Società Foggiana are :

• Trisciuoglio clan
• Sinesi-Francavilla clan
• Moretti-Pellegrino-Lanza clan[20]

Mala del Brenta [edit ]

The Mala del Brenta has operated throughout the Veneto region in the 1980s and 1990s. sicilian mafioso controlled much of the mafia bodily process in the Veneto throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and included most notably : Salvatore “ Totuccio ” Contorno, Gaetano Fidanzati, Antonino Duca, Salvatore and Gaetano Badalamenti, and Giuseppe Madonia. Veneto underworld figures and bandits started to work for such mafiosi in the 1980s. [ 21 ] Sometimes Felice “ Angel Face ” Maniero is indicated as the drawing card of the group .

Banda della Magliana [edit ]

The Banda della Magliana ( english translation : Magliana Gang ) was an italian condemnable arrangement based in Rome and active largely throughout the recently 1970s until the early 1990s. The gang ‘s name refers to the vicinity in Rome, the Magliana, from which most of its members came. The Banda della Magliana was involved in criminal activities during the italian “ years of lead “ ( or anni di piombo ). The administration was tied to other italian criminal organizations such as the Cosa Nostra, Camorra and the ‘Ndrangheta, but it was besides notably connected to neofascist paramilitary and terrorist organizations, including the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari ( NAR ), the neofascist group creditworthy for the 1980 Bologna massacre. In addition to their interest in traditional organized crime rackets, the Banda della Magliana is besides believed to have worked for italian political figures such as Licio Gelli, grand-master of the illegal and belowground freemason hostel known as Propaganda Due ( P2 ), which was purportedly connected to neofascist and reactionary belligerent paramilitary groups .

Mafia Capitale [edit ]

The Mafia Capitale was an italian Mafia-type, crime syndicate, or secret club, that originated in the region of Lazio and its capital Rome. [ 1 ] It was founded in early 2000s by Massimo Carminati from the remains of the Banda della Magliana. [ 22 ]

Banda della Comasina and the Turatello Crew [edit ]

The Banda della Comasina ( english translation : Comasina Gang ) was an organized crime group active chiefly in Milan, the Milan metropolitan area, and Lombardia in the 1970s and 1980s, or anni di piombo. Their identify is derived from the Milan neighborhood of Comasina, the founding localization of the organization. The group was led by the Milan crime boss Renato Vallanzasca, a knock-down name in the milanese hell in the 1970s. The group began as a smaller looting and kidnapping gang, and continued to specialize in arm robbery, kidnap, carjack, and hand truck hijacking even as they grew in power and expanded into other subtle areas of organized crime. The gang became ill-famed for brazenly setting up roadblocks and robbing members of the Milan police push. As the Banda della Comasina rose in ability, they expanded into other areas of organized crime, such as arms trafficking, illegal gamble, drug traffic, narrow kill, extortion, racketeering, bootlegging, and corruptness. The group ‘s downfall was partially brought about by its brazen neglect for both nuance and authority and its retain reliance on kidnap and armed looting to make money. The gang ‘s leader, Renato Vallanzasca, repeatedly escaped from police custody and continued to commit robberies and kidnappings of affluent and mighty people even while living as fugitive. In 1976, the group committed approximately 70 robberies and multiple kidnappings ( many of which were never reported to police ), including the kidnap of a outstanding Bergamo businessman, and respective of the robberies resulted in the mangle of the looting victims and responding officers, including four policemen, a doctor and a bank employee. That same year, Vallanzasca ( calm a fleeting at this point ) and the crowd kidnapped 16-year-old Emanuela Trapani, the daughter of a milanese businessman, and held her captive for over a month and a half, from December 1976 to January 1977, only releasing the girlfriend upon the payment of a ransom of one billion in italian currentness. [ 23 ] soon after, the crowd was creditworthy for the kill of two highway patrol officers who had stopped a car containing Vallanzasca and early members of the gang. Two other members of the Banda della Comasina, Carlo Carluccio and Antonio Furiato, were killed in separate gunman battles with policemen, in Piazza Vetra in Milan and on the Autostrada A4 expressway respectively. Vallanzasca was finally captured, and, while in prison, he developed an confederation and friendship with his erstwhile rival, Francis Turatello, another recently incarcerated and herculean crime party boss in Milan with strong connections to the sicilian Mafia, Camorra, and Italian-American Gambino crime family ( a well as possible ties to the Banda della Magliana and italian political terrorist groups ). As the leader of the alleged Turatello Crew, Francis Turatello was a protege of the sicilian Mafia and an important ally in Milan for both the sicilian Mafia and Nuova Camorra Organizzata. The Turatello Crew controlled versatile illegal rackets in the Milan underworld with the back of the sicilian Mafia and Camorra, controlling prostitution in Milan and, like the Banda della Comasina, participating in robbery and kidnapping. The Turatello Crew and Banda della Comasina had in fact been in the in-between of a gang war with each other when both of their leaders, Vallanzasca and Turatello, were incarcerated in the same prison, at which point the two crime figures reconciled and bonded. The newly forged alliance between the Banda della Comasina and the Mafia- and Camorra-backed Turatello Crew merely increased the Banda della Comasina ‘s determine and power in the Milan underworld, and the two groups cooperated in controlling much of milanese organized crime while their leaders remained imprison and controlling the illegals operations from within prison. however, while in prison in 1981, Turatello was assassinated by orders of Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo, and the Turatello Crew collapsed while the Banda della Comasina lost an authoritative raw ally. soon after Turatello ‘s assassination, Vallanzasca, inactive imprisoned, organized and participated in a prison rebellion in which two pentiti, or former gangsters that had collaborated with the italian government, were viciously killed. Despite repeat escape attempts, Vallanzasca remains in prison serving four consecutive life sentences and an extra 290 years, and the Banda della Comisina soon collapsed and disbanded in the early 1980s in Vallanzasca ‘s absence .

italian criminal groups in other countries [edit ]

italian organized crime groups, in detail the sicilian mafia and the Camorra, have been involved in heroin traffic for decades. Two major investigations that targeted their drug trafficking schemes in the 1970s and 80s are known as the “ french connection ” and “ Pizza Connection. ” [ 24 ] These and other investigations have documented their cooperation in drug traffic with early major drug trafficking organizations. italian crime groups are besides involved in illegal gambling, political corruption, extortion, kidnapping, fraud, counterfeiting, percolation of legitimate businesses, murders, bombings, and weapons trafficking. industry experts in Italy estimate that their cosmopolitan criminal bodily process is worth more than US $ 100 billion per annum. [ 25 ] [ 26 ] The italian crime groups ( particularly the sicilian Mafia ) have besides connections with the corsican gangs. This collaboration were by and large significant during the french Connection era. During the 1990s the links between the Corsican mafia and the sicilian Mafia permitted an establishment of some sicilian gangsters in the Lavezzi Islands. Those presently active in the United States are the sicilian Mafia, Camorra or Campanian Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia, and Sacra Corona Unita or “ United Sacred Crown ”. The Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) refers to them as “ italian Organized crime ” ( IOC ). These italian crime groups frequently collaborate with the Italian-American Mafia, which is itself an outgrowth of the sicilian Mafia. [ 25 ] Outside of Italy, the United States, and Southern France, the sicilian Mafia and the ‘Ndrangheta have besides established strongholds in Belgium, Canada ( Rizzuto crime class, Musitano crime syndicate, Papalia crime kin, Luppino crime family, Cotroni crime syndicate, Commisso ‘ndrina, Siderno Group ) ; Australia ( Siderno Group, The Carlton Crew, Honoured Society, Barbaro ‘ndrina ) ; and Germany ( see Duisburg massacre ). In the UK, in especial the ‘Ndrangheta and the Camorra consider the area an area of concern for laundering money, using fiscal companies and business activities, having boastfully investments in London. [ 27 ] [ 28 ] outdoor Italy, the Camorra is particularly salute in countries such as Spain, the Netherlands and France. The presence of the organization in the countries is by and large related to the international drug traffic and to money launder. [ 29 ] [ 30 ] [ 31 ] The ‘Ndrangheta carved out turf or formed close ties with local organized crime group in latin american english countries such as Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. The Camorra besides maintained important drug routes from South America since the 1980s. And the sicilian mafia had its bearing in Venezuela, where the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia kin in particular had a significant presence. [ 32 ] [ 33 ]

Non-Italian criminal groups in Italy [edit ]

There is a small number of exchangeable criminal organizations operating in Italy but based outside of Italy or composed of non-Italians living in Italy, such as the taiwanese Triads, Russian, Georgian and Israeli networks, African ( notably Nigerian ) gangs, and Balkan crime groups including the Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Montenegrin ( who ran cigarette smuggling operations with the Sacra Corona Unita ) and the albanian mafia. The albanian gangs chiefly operate in not only Albania but besides notably in Italy, specially the more feeder northern parts of Italy. All these organizations operate by and large in prostitution and drug traffic under the permission and the control of the italian organized crime groups .