3. ORGANIZED CRIMINALITY SICILYNA to.

Analysis of the phenomenon and evolutionary profiles The trend of the mafia phenomenon in the Sicilian Region has not undergone total substantial changes compared to the previous semester, in which Cosa Nostra would still maintain control of the territory in a socio-economic context still strongly yielding to mafia pressure1.

Despite the many contrast activities carried out over time Cosa Nostra would continue to show strong capacity for adaptation and renewal for achieving its illicit purposes.

"There have been thirty years since Capaci and Via D'Amelio and extraordinary results have been achieved in contrast to the challenge launched by Totò Riina, as evidenced by the capture of Matteo Messina Money, of which it is necessary to honor and merit the DDA of Palermo and the Forces of the Order that allowed it.

But the capture of Matthew Messina Denaro shows that Cosa Nostra still exists and, surpassed the fracture between corleonesis and losers, continues in its traffics through the strategy of submergence that allowed the most sought after latizer of the organization to be treated in a clinic in Palermo for a long time, as in the eighties, when the networks of protection and the omerity, well mixed, allowed other mafias to turn.

It, in fact, continues to highlight the operativity of its joints in almost all the territory of the island with consolidated projections in other Italian regions and also overseas through the relations entertained with representatives of families rooted from time to time abroad.

In Cosa Nostra Palermo, as in those active in the western and eastern provinces of Sicily, the prolonged absence at the top of an authoritative and recognized leadership would be favoring the affirmation at the head of sendings and families of new members who boast a mafia family origin.

However, there would be no shortage of attempts by elderly men of honor, recently returned to freedom, to re-accredit themselves within their membership.

In the Sicilian territory there is also the presence of other mafia organizations both native and foreign, who manage to coexist with Cosa Nostra because of a wide variety of relationships and changing balances.

Agrigento continues to record the operation of the stidda and other paramafiosi sodalizi, such as cribs and famigghiedde. In the province of Catania and, more generally in Eastern Sicily, there are still important mafia families that can be traced back to Cosa Nostra that to its model refer

In this regard, the Prefect of Palermo dott.

Giuseppe FORLANI, nella "Conferenza Interprovinciale delle Autorità di pubblica Sicurezza" del 6 luglio 2022, ha sottolineato "la necessità di mantenere alta l'attenzione anche sul fenomeno delle estorsioni, cui sovente si correla anche una qualche sorta di "consenso" da parte della vittima, che intravede nella pratica illecita quasi un "corrispettivo" per un "servizio" prestato in suo favore da "cosa nostra"; con l'importanza di arginare tale sotterraneo "consensualismo", che costituisce, peraltro, un forte ostacolo alla presentazione delle necessarie denunce da parte dei soggetti estorti".

Intervention of the 28 gennaio 2023 of the Attorney General of the Republic at the Court of Appeal of Palermo during the inauguration of the judicial year 2023.

2nd semester 3. Sicilian organized crime

in the organizational, functional and criminal aspects.

In this territorial context, other non-recognized mafia partnerships operate in Cosa Nostra which possess the same articulation as the families of Catania and, in other cases, alternate with a matrix to ban adaptive organizational patterns and fluids typical of the neighborhoods in which these groups insist.

The "...mafia organizations of the district have moved with a strategy aimed at consolidating the social control of the territory, considered a fundamental element for their own survival and an indispensable condition for any criminal strategy of accumulation of wealth; therefore, the structural and operational characteristics of the mafia associations rooted in the territory and their organic composition."3.

Clearly, it is also the propensity of the Catalan sodalizi to expand their zone of influence in the surrounding contexts. In fact, in the provinces of Syracuse and Ragusa, the influences of the Catalan Cosa Nostra are tangible and, to a lesser extent, also of the Gelese shin.

However, thanks to the "Polizia di Stato, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza, Guardia di Finanza, Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate, effective interventions have been developed against the various Cosa Nostra joints and other criminal consorteries of criminal type established in the district - among them the execution clans of the Ragusa - order

416-bis of the Criminal Code..."4.

Even in the second half of 2022, organized Sicilian crime would have an "attractive capacity" on young generations, involving not only the direct lineage of mafia families but, also and above all, a broader user basin in order to broaden the necessary criminal manpower.

The now consolidated strategy of "submersion" dictated by the Sicilian organizations previews the minimal appeal to violence in order to avoid social alarm and guarantee, at the same time, a "healthy" economic enrichment through the acquisition of greater and new positions of power.

In the period of reference are confirmed as the main criminal interests of the Sicilian mafia, the traffic of narcotics, extortion, infiltration in the sectors of public administration, in the legal economy, in the game and in the online betting, the latter sector that guarantees a singular mode of control of the territory, instrumental also for the money laundering of the illegally accumulated capitals.

In drug trafficking, Cosa Nostra's ability to establish trade relations and to engage in alliances or forms of cooperation with other mafia matrices, such as 'ndrangheta and Camorra, is confirmed to purchase large-scale quantities.

From the investigative activities concluded in the reference period emerged as Cosa Nostra, for the supply of cocaine, has maintained a privileged trading channel especially with the Calabrian mafia clans.

However, it cannot be excluded that Cosa Nostra manages, over time, to reactivate the old flows with the suppliers of the American continent and regain the historic role of international player in the field of drug trafficking.

Excerpt of the intervention of the Attorney General f.f. of the Court of Appeal of Catania, on the occasion of the inauguration of the judicial year 2023.

Citato stralcio of the intervention of the Attorney General f.f. of the Court of Appeal of Catania.

the activity carried out and the results achieved by Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate

SEMETRAL REPORT TO PARLIAMENT With reference to the spaccio per minute, criminal organizations would also search for maneuverance among the youngest in peripherals and more degraded urban areas.

In some neighborhoods Catania, for example, such activities would also be considered a kind of "employment" and, therefore, an opportunity of rapid gain for many families (not necessarily mafias) willing also to involve children.

Another criminal area preferred by the Mafia organizations is that of extortion, considered strategic for the support of the family of prisoners and through which the clans express a more incisive "control" of the territory.

In addition to the request of the traditional "pizzo", however, alternative modus operandi emerge according to which criminal organizations would tend to prefer more subdole and less obvious forms of extortion: to the deliveries of money, for example, they would replace the assumptions or supplies of products and services that, for the economic operators vessati, would be more appreciated because "business cost, well tolerated.

Mafia-type organizations, in order to infiltrate the economic fabric of the Region, seek qualified support from public officials, representatives of local institutions and entrepreneurs, also attempting to recruit individuals with strong organizational and entrepreneurial skills.

It does not escape the criminal interests even the agro-pastorizia, an important sector of the Sicilian economy and the subject of articulated attempts aimed at the unlawful acquisition of Community contributions granted for the rural development of the island.

In the Sicilian region the presence of foreign criminal organizations has also been found which has sometimes been recognized the mafia connotation.

In particular, we refer to Nigerian cultist-based partnerships and identified by various Englishmen, mainly active in drug trafficking, prostitution and, in some cases, human trafficking.

In this regard, it is also worth mentioning the presence of Tunisian subjects dedicated above all to promoting illegal immigration.

On the level of aggression against illicit patricians, with reference to seizures and confiscations, also in the semester in question the DIA has achieved remarkable results, in order to effectively stem the economic power of Cosa Nostra, carrying out ablative measures of goods for an estimated total value of 2 million and a half of Euro7.

Also towards the contrast of mafia infiltration in public procurement and local authorities, the DIA has ensured - together with other police forces - the usual, effective contribution, in support of the Prefectious Authority, allowing the issue of 55 anti-mafia interdittives8.

In the semester, 4 municipal councils remain in Sicily.9

As recently stated by the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal in Palermo, Lia SAVA, in his speech at the inauguration of the Jubilee Year 2023.

MAPHITE, EIYE, VICKINGS, BLACK AXE, etc.

This is in particular 5 decretes of seizure of the value of approximately 1, 25 million euros and 3 decrees of confiscation of the value of approximately 1, 2 million euros.

In detail, 25 in Palermo, 6 in Trapani, 3 in Agrigento, 3 in Caltanissetta, 9 in Enna and 9 in Messina.

Calatabiano (CT) with DPR of 18 ottobre 2021, Barrafranca (EN) with DPR extension of 2 agosto 2022, San Giuseppe Jato (PA) with DPR extension of the 8 novembre 2022 and Bolognetta (PA) with 19 novembre 2021 DPR.

2nd semester 3. Sicilian organized crime