b.

Analysis of the criminal phenomenon of Cosa Nostra, stydda, and other Sicilian mafia organizations The countless contrast activities carried out over the years, even with the capture of important latitudes, and the apprehension by the State of illicit patrimonies accumulated in decades of criminal activity, have strongly resized the power of Cosa Nostra by cracking the traditional leadership structure.

Cosa Nostra continues to be looking for a leadership that, after the death of RIINA Salvatore in 2017, is no longer reconstituted. Every attempt to reconstitution of the c.d.

"professional commission" has been vanquished by the incessant investigative activities that have compromised the compactness and strength of Cosa Nostra.

It is more than an attempt to give a new order to send and families with the identification of new subjects to be put at the top, mostly young people who have a mafia family origin, opposed the presence of elderly men of honor who, returning to freedom, claim to regain their role of rank within the organization.

Specifically, Cosa Nostra, engaged in cyclical tightenings and in attempts to stabilize between the new and old generations, adopted a coordination model based on the sharing of the address lines and a collegial and "intermandamental" operational management.

Investigative evidence has shown that the traditional territorial division has been less rigid, seeing frequent episodes of territorial treasury of the various mandates also in different provinces.

However, despite these criticisms Cosa Nostra denotes a never-bearing attempt to restore consistency on the organizational level to its territorial structures, especially by making appeal to traditional mafia customs and rules, to recover the ancient ability to affect the control of economic activities in the territory, adapting its decision models according to horizontal patterns of consultation and greater interaction between the various provincial joints.

In the Sicilian regional context, in Cosa Nostra there are other organized partnerships of mafia matrix.

A particular emphasis is given to stidda7, characterized by a horizontal structure, constituted by autonomous groups, historically born in opposition to Cosa Nostra, but currently rather prone to strategies of non- belligerence, preferring intentions of sharing and sharing of illicit affairs.

Eastern Sicily continues to be characterized by a more varied plurality of consortia, especially in the city of Catania: those constituting true and proper joints of Cosa Nostra (which to its model refer to the structural, functional and motivational aspect) and others, with the same connotation, but distinct from Cosa Nostra.

The extra criminal landscape Cosa Nostra has, in part, the same structural characteristics of the families of Catania, in other cases alternating a banditsca matrix with adaptive and fluid formulas typical of the neighborhoods in which the groups insist.

Evident characteristic is the tendency of the Catanians to expand their zone of influence beyond the ethnic province.

La varietà del contesto criminale della Sicilia centro-orientale, rispetto alle province occidentali, è più visibile nelle zone costiere, gravitanti attorno all'abitato di Gela (CL), nel quale era emerso, fin dalla metà degli anni '80, il fenomeno della stidda, una realtà criminale che nel tempo ha espanso il proprio territorio di influenza anche in porzioni delle confinanti province di Agrigento e Ragusa, con velleità di contrapposizione alle storiche famiglie di cosa nostra.

Resized in the intentions, so as to arrive at recent forms of alliance or coexistence, the stidda still manages

Originally formed in the coastal strip of the Province of Caltanissetta, it subsequently expanded its presence in portions of the adjacent provinces of Agrigento and Ragusa.

activity carried out and results achieved from Investment Directorate Antimativaa

Half-yearly report TO PARLIAMENT still express a significant potential for the inquential, for example in the management dynamics of fruit and vegetable markets.

Considering the complex relations between the families of Cosa Nostra and the other clans present in eastern Sicily, the current criminal balances are characterized by "variable geometry", due to the fluidity of criminal leadership and illegal business disputed or reason of alliances and tregue among the different clans.

In the provinces of Syracuse and Ragusa, tangible are the influences of the Catalan Cosa Nostra and, to a lesser extent, of the Gelese stedda in the only ibleo territory.

With regard to the organized crime in Messina, the peculiarity of the consorteries present is to have on the one hand a modus operandi assimibile to Cosa Nostra Palermo, on the other to resent the influence of the ethnic criminal groups.

The minimal appeal to violence by the Sicilian organized crime strengthens the thesis of the intrinsic ability of the same to adapt in "camaleontic" form to the changing scenarios of the regional, national and foreign economy.

Judicial activities highlight the preference of Cosa Nostra and other Sicilian mafia organisations to infiltrate business environments where they can employ the huge illicit capital they have.

In addition to the traditional forms of subjection and control of the territory, in the period under review, a marked propensity to pervade the socio-economic fabric and to infiltrate and "control" the local political-administrative apparatuses.

Contrast activities also confirmed the "traditional" illicit interests of drug trafficking, extortion, game and online bets.

The drug remains for Sicilian mafias one of the safest sources of direct income for its affiliates, ensuring cooperation with other criminal organizations (such as ndrangheta and Camorra) for the supply of large quantities on a large scale.

In particular, the investigative findings also in the first half of 2023 have confirmed that Cosa Nostra maintains open a preferential channel of negotiation with the 'dazzy doctrines, especially for the purchase of cocaine.

Precisely in this regard, and in view of the fundamental importance of the drug sector, it cannot be excluded that Cosa Nostra can aspire to regain leadership positions in the management of drug supply channels.

The appeal to extortionive practice, ancient and fundamental instrument of control of the territory for Sicilian mafias, today is declined in more persuasive modes, without resorting to the use of violence, "limiting" to the imposition of supplies of goods, services and labor, even at prices slightly above those of market.

Moreover, the results of the investigations carried out in recent years, have evidenced how the commission of the "spy" crimes (extortion, illicit competition with threat or violence, fraudulent transfer of assets, troubled freedom of the incantes) is, among other things, "prodromic" to ensure a dominant position in the economic sectors of interest for the mafias.

In addition to the request of the traditional "pizzo", 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 able to return as "business cost, well tolerated, or even protection.8

According to the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal in Palermo, Lia SAVA, in his intervention on the occasion of the inauguration of the judicial year 2023.

2. Matrix Matrix Police activities also on the patrimonial level, have highlighted the tendency by the main mafia groups to ensure the management, direct or indirect, of dealers of games and bet rooms, even only imposing the installation of slot machines in bars or tobacco shops.

Moreover, in view of the agri-food and pastoral vocation of the Sicilian territory, the incessant action of contrast of Police and judiciary forces have allowed to discover illicit gains placed in place with the provision of agricultural land by "mafiose" companies or infiltrated by individuals close to crime figures to obtain support for rural development granted by the Agency for Agriculture.

In the entire Sicilian territory, in fact, the agropastoral sector represents the driving industry for the economy that, consequently, attracts the interest of the mafia consorteries flanked by lenders and complacent professionals.

The phenomenon continues to affect mainly the agro-pastoral areas of the heart of Sicily representing a threat to the real development of the productive activities of the sector.

In this area, the investigations also unveiled the involvement of individuals not directly linked to criminal organizations who tried to acquire unjust profits through false claims or fraudulent conduct.

From a point of view of the operational modes the mafia subjects, like all social or economic actors, have undergone an evolution, have adapted and adapted to the changes of society, have changed clothing and operating modes following the course of time.

Their most marked propensity is to promptly intellige any change in the economic order and to benefit from it.

The Sicilian mafias, in fact, turn their attention to business-entrepreneurship areas, taking advantage of the availability of large capital accumulated with traditional illicit activities.

These are criminal organizations that use the most advanced methodologies of investment, and also take advantage of the opportunities offered by the European Union funds.

The criminal strategies of Sicilian mafia partnerships are mainly developed on two distinct channels: the first is the one focused on the control of the territory perpetrated through the appeal to the traditional delittuose activities aimed at giving strength to the associative bond; the second oriented to the control of economic activities and public competitions until the conditioning of the decision-making processes of local authorities to increase their consent among the population.

It cannot be ruled out that Cosa Nostra and other Sicilian mafia organizations can show interest in investments related to the economic allocation provided by the PNRR.

As a result of this possible threat, the guard must be kept high in order to prevent any attempt at mafia infiltration in Sicilian public procurement.