22 DEC 2020 · HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MAFIA

23 DEC 2020 · Vito Cascioferro. can be considered the link between criminal organizations from Sicily with those already branched in the United States. His unwavering ambivalence allows him to build a network of trafficking, connivance, favors, murders, also making use of popular support that sees in him a champion of the oppressed, at that time he becomes in the eyes of his countrymen a Godfather.

19 JAN 2021 · Contrary to popular belief, the Mafia made its first officially documented appearance in the United States in 1890 in New Orleans and not New York. On October 5, 1890, New Orleans police chief Captain Hennessy was killed in an ambush by some men, In that city in the south of the United States there was a feud between the criminal families of the Provenzano and that of the Matragna. Following the murder, 19 Italian residents were arrested there. The suspects were imprisoned in the parish prison. At the end of the trial in March, some of them were acquitted. This determined the inhabitants' violent reaction so much so that the next day a huge crowd formed outside the prison. The troublemakers forced the prison doors and 11 of the arrested were lynched to death. Notable is the ruling of the Grand Jury of New Orleans, which in 1891, called to rule on those criminal facts, ruled: "The extent of our investigation has identified the existence of the secret organization called mafia."

1 FEB 2021 · Music by Syon (Thomas Nicosia) Prelude in Em. By 1900, the center of economic development was New York, one of the most prosperous and cosmopolitan cities in the world. Eighty percent of the biggest billing companies in America were based in this metropolis. Everything was happening in those streets, in fact you crossed the capitals from Wall Street with the labor of Italian migrants landed by the transatlantic at Ellis Island. In the island were waiting for a hundred inspectors and health officers inside a huge center for immigration. By 1910, the number of Italians living in New York was nearly half a million, two-thirds of whom were men. They lived in promiscuity and in the almost total absence of hygiene. The neighborhoods in which immigrants went to live were the oldest in the city, occupied by two generations before by the Irish. It was Elizabeth and Mulberry Street. The only advantage over those who worked in Italy was the salary. Decidedly higher in the United States of America. Even if life cost much more Italian immigrants, enduring tremendous deprivations, were able to put something aside and then send it home. Immediate were the clashes with the Irish community already present in New York. The two communities immediately began a real racial conflict. In those years, the Irish controlled the metropolis through Tammany Hall, an Irish political organization. It was clear that social political control was carried out with violence.

20 FEB 2021 · Music by Syon (Thomas Nicosia) Prelude in Em Initially, counterfeiting and the spending of counterfeit notes was, together with the crimes of extortion and kidnapping, one of the first criminal activities, or rather a racket, in which the Italian criminals arrived in the new continent. On July 5, 1865, the federal government, and precisely the Treasury Department, set up secret services to counter counterfeiting. The first phenomena were evident in several cities in the United States such as New Orleans, Washington, Pittsburgh, and clearly they could not miss in New York. The American intelligence branch was headed by an Irish officer named William Flynn. He was an imposing man, very astute and determined. At the end of the 19th century the situation in that metropolis was very serious. A large number of counterfeit notes and coins circulated.

12 MAR 2021 · Music by Syon (Thomas Nicosia) Prelude in Em In the early years of the twentieth century a wave of terror unprecedented in peacetime crossed the United States. The members of the secret organization threatened to kill the members of the Italian community if they did not agree to pay. The acolytes of the black hand burned or blew up the houses, kidnapped the children of the victims, so much so that in 1899 in Brooklyn it was already a habitual phenomenon. There were cases in which the torturers, armed with guns and knives, faced in broad daylight on the street the victims. The leaders of the Black Hand were originally members of the Sicilian Mafia. Many of the worst criminals had emigrated, along with the many honest Italians, to the USA.

9 APR 2021 · The activity of extortion always began with a latch letter of which a dark association called The Black Hand materializes. What was a letter of scrocco? It was an extortion letter that was delivered to Italian families who had a minimum of income aggredibile. The extortion letters were written with several dialects, from this it was deduced that they were certainly written by people from different regions of Italy.

17 APR 2021 · Music by Syon (Thomas Nicosia) Prelude in Em It is not the American dream that pushes Italian migrants to reach the American shores. Therefore to understand the phenomenon it is necessary to ask two questions. Who were the migrants? Why were they willing to risk their lives, and that of their loved ones, by traveling in inhumane conditions in the third class of ocean liners for about two weeks?

17 APR 2021 · Music by Syon (Thomas Nicosia) Prelude in Em Thanks to the investigations of the Secret Services aimed at the contrast and the falsification and spending of counterfeit banknotes in New York, the evidence was gathered that it operated "The most secret and terrible organization in the world" as the eminent New York Times wrote defining the mafia.

14 MAY 2021 · Music by Syon (Thomas Nicosia) Prelude in Em. Giuseppe Morello was another and dangerous, he used to wear a .45 caliber pistol on his belt and a knife tied to his left leg, the tip of which was covered with a small cork to avoid injury while walking. He arrived in the United States of America in 1982. He was born in Corleone in 1867. He escaped from Sicily because he was suspected of a murder and abigée and was also convicted of the crime of counterfeiting coins and spending false coins. In the period between 1898 and 1899 Morello most likely resumed the activity of forger. He could make use of a network of small drug dealers and some workers capable of mixing inks and making clichés for printing.