The real name: Cosa Nostra
  According to some mafiosi, the real name of the Mafia is "Cosa Nostra" ("Our thing").
  Many have claimed, as did the Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta, that the word "mafia" was a literary creation.
  Other Mafia defectors, such as Antonio Calderone and Salvatore Contorno, said the same thing.
  According to them, the real thing was "cosa nostra". To men of honour belonging to the organization, there is no need to
  name it.
  Mafiosi introduce known members to other known members as belonging to "cosa nostra" (our thing) or la stessa cosa (the
  same thing), meaning "he is the same thing, a mafioso, as you".
  Only the outside world needs a name to describe it, hence the capitalized form "Cosa Nostra".
  Cosa Nostra was first used, in the early 1960s, in the United States by Joseph Valachi, a mafioso turned state witness,
  during the hearings of the McClellan Commission.
  At the time, it was understood as a proper name, fostered by the FBI and disseminated by the media.
  The designation gained wide popularity and almost replaced the term Mafia.
  The FBI even added an article to the term, calling it 'La Cosa Nostra'.
  In Italy the article 'la' is never used when the term refers to the Mafia.

Rituals of Sicilian Cosa Nostra
The orientation ritual in most families happens when a man becomes an associate, and then, a soldier.
As described by Tommaso Buscetta to judge Giovanni Falcone, the neophyte is brought together with at least three "men of honor" of the family and the oldest member present warns him that "this House" is meant to protect the weak against the abuse of the powerful; he then pricks the finger of the initiate and spills
his blood onto a sacred image, usually of a saint.
The image is placed in the hand of the initiate and lit on fire.
The neophyte must withstand the pain of the burning, passing the image from hand to hand, until the image has been consumed, while swearing to keep faith with the principles of "Cosa Nostra," solemnly swearing "may my flesh burn like this saint if I fail to keep my oath."
Joseph Valachi was the first person to mention that in court.
The Sicilians also have a law of silence, called omertà; it forbids the common man, woman or child to cooperate at all with the police or the government, upon pain of death.

  Origins of Sicilian Cosa Nostra
  It has long been debated whether the mafia has medieval origins. Deceased pentito Tommaso Buscetta thought so, whilst modern
  scholars now believe otherwise.
  It is possible that the "original" mafia formed as a secret society sworn to protect the Sicilian population from the threat of Catalan
  marauders in the fifteenth century.
  However, there is very little historical evidence to suggest this. It is also feasible that the "Robin Hood" myth was perpetuated by the
  earliest known mafiosi as a means of gaining goodwill and trust from the Sicilian people.
  After the Revolution of 1848 and the revolution of 1860, Sicily had fallen to complete disorder. The earliest mafiosi, at that time
  separate, small bands of outlaws, offered their guns in the revolt.
  Author John Dickie claims that the main reasons for this were the chance to burn police records and evidence, and to kill off police and
  pentiti in the chaos. However, once a new government was established in Rome and it became clear that the mafia would be unable to
  execute these actions, they began refining their methods and techniques over the latter half of the nineteenth century.
  Protecting the large lemon groves and estates of local nobility became a lucrative but dangerous business.
  Palermo was initially the main area of these activities, but the Sicilian mafia's dominance soon spread over all of western Sicily.
  In order to strengthen the bond between the disparate gangs and so ensure greater profits and a safer working environment, it is
  possible that the mafia as such was formed at this time in about the mid-19th century.

Mafia after the unification of Italy
From 1860, the year when the new unified Italian state first took over both Sicily and the Papal States, the Popes were hostile to the state.
From 1870, the Pope declared himself besieged by the Italian state and strongly encouraged Catholics to refuse to cooperate with the state.
Broadly speaking, in mainland Italy, this did not lead to violence.
Sicily was strongly Catholic, but in a strongly tribal sense rather than in an intellectual and theological sense, and had a tradition of suspicion of outsiders.
The friction between the Church and the state gave a great advantage to violent criminal bands in Sicily who could claim to peasants and townspeople that cooperating with the police (representing the new Italian state) was an anti-Catholic activity.
It was in the two decades following the 1860 unification that the term Mafia came to the attention of the general public, although it was considered to be more of an attitude and value system than an organization.
The first mention in official law documentation of the 'mafia' came in the late 1800s, when a Dr. Galati was subject to threats of violence from a local mafioso, who was attempting to oust Galati from his own lemon grove in order to move himself in.
Protection rackets, cattle rustling and bribery of state officials were the main sources of income and protection for the early mafia.
Cosa Nostra also borrowed heavily from masonic oaths and rituals, such as the now famous initiation ceremony.

  Fascist era
  During the Fascist period in Italy, Cesare Mori, prefect of Palermo, used special powers granted to him to prosecute the Mafia, forcing many
  Mafiosi to flee abroad or risk being jailed.
  Many of the Mafiosi who escaped fled to the United States, among them Joseph Bonanno, nicknamed Joe Bananas, who came to dominate the
  U.S. branch of the Mafia.
  However, when Mori started to persecute the Mafiosi involved in the Fascist hierarchy, he was removed, and the Fascist authorities proclaimed
  that the Mafia had been defeated.
  Though the mafia was weakened, it had not been defeated as claimed.
  Despite his assault on their brethren, Mussolini had his admirers in the New York Mafia, notably Vito Genovese (although he was from Naples and
  not from Sicily).

  Maxi Trial and war against the government
  The Second Mafia War in the early 1980s was a large scale conflict within the Mafia that also led to the assassinations of several
  politicians, police chiefs and magistrates. Salvatore Riina and his Corleonesi faction ultimately prevailed in the war.
  The new generation of mafiosi placed more emphasis on "white-collar" criminal activity as opposed to more traditional racketeering
  enterprises. In reaction to these developments, the Italian press has come up with the phrase Cosa Nuova ("the new thing", a play
  on Cosa Nostra) to refer to the revamped organization.
  The first major pentito (a captured mafioso to collaborate with the judicial system) was Tommaso Buscetta who had lost several allies
  in the war and began to talk to prosecutor Giovanni Falcone around 1983.
  This led to the Maxi Trial (1986-1987) which resulted in several hundred convictions of leading mafiosi.
  When the Italian Supreme Court confirmed the convictions in January 1992, Riina took revenge. The politician Salvatore Lima was killed
  in March 1992; he had long been suspected of being the main government connection of the Mafia (later confirmed by testimony of
  Buscetta), and the Mafia was clearly displeased with his services.
  Falcone and fellow anti-Mafia prosecutor Paolo Borsellino were killed a few months later. This led to a public outcry and a massive
  government crackdown, resulting in Riina's arrest in January 1993.
  More and more pentitos started to emerge. Many would pay a high price for their co-operation usually through the murder of relatives.
  For example, Cosa Nostra defector Francesco Mannoia's mother, aunt and sister were murdered.
  The Corleonesi retaliated with a campaign of terrorism, a series of bombings against several tourist spots on the Italian mainland: the
  Via dei Georgofili in Florence, Via Palestro in Milan, and the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and Via San Teodoro in Rome, which left 10
  people dead and 93 injured and caused severe damage to cultural heritage such as the Uffizi Gallery.
Bernardo Provenzano took over as boss of the Corleonesi and halted this campaign and replaced it with a campaign of quietness known as pax mafiosi. This campaign has allowed the Mafia to slowly regain the power it once had. He was arrested in 2006, after 43 years on the run.

  Ten Commandments
  In November 2007 Sicilian police reported to have found a list of "Ten Commandments" in the hideout of mafia boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo.
  Similar to the Biblical Ten Commandments, they are thought to be a guideline on how to be a good mobster. The commandments are as follows:
  1. None can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a 3rd person to do it.
  2. Never look at the wives of friends.
  3. Never be seen with cops.
  4. Don't go to pubs and clubs.
  5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife's about to give birth.
  6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.
  7. Wives must be treated with respect.
  8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.
  9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.
  10. People who can't be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who
  behaves badly and doesn't hold to moral values.

  Traditional terminology

   1. Capo di Tutti Capi (the "Boss of All Bosses", namely Matteo Messina Denaro for the Sicilian Mafia and Renato Gagliano for the Sacra Corona Unita)

  2. Capo di Capi Re (a title of respect given to a senior or retired member, equivalent to being a member emeritus, literally, "King Boss of Bosses")

  3. Capo Crimine ("Crime Boss", known as a Don - the head of a crime family)

  4. Capo Bastone ("Club Head", known as the "Underboss" is second in command to the Capo Crimine)

  5. Consigliere (an advisor)

  6. Caporegime ("Regime head", a captain who commands a "crew" of around ten Sgarristi )

  7. Sgarrista or Soldato ("Soldier", made members of the Mafia who serve primarily as foot soldiers)

  8. Picciotto ("Little man", a low ranking member who serves as an "enforcer")

  9. Giovane D'Onore (an associate member, usually someone not of Italian ancestry).

  American Cosa Nostra
  The Italian Mafia continues to dominate organized crime in the U.S. It uses this status to maintain control over much of both Chicago's and New York City's
  organized criminal activity, as well as criminal activity in other cities in the Northeast and across the country, such as Philadelphia, Las Vegas, and many
  others.
  The Mafia and its reputation have become entrenched in American popular culture, being portrayed in movies, TV shows, commercial advertising and video
  games.
  The American Mafia, specifically the Five Families of New York, has its roots in the Sicilian Mafia, but has been a separate organization in the United States
  for many years.
  Today, American Cosa Nostra cooperates in various criminal activities with the different Italian organized crime groups, such as Camorra, which are
  headquartered in Italy.
  It is wrongly known as the "original Mafia", although it was neither the oldest criminal organization, nor the first to act in the U.S.
  In 1986, according to government reports, it was estimated that there are 1,700 members of "Cosa Nostra" and thousands of associate members.
  Reports also are said to include the Italian-American Mafia as the largest organized crime group in the United States and continues to hold dominance over
  the National Crime Syndicate, despite the increasing numbers of street gangs and other organizations of neither Italian nor Sicilian ethnicity.
  American Cosa Nostra is most active in the New York metropolitan area, Philadelphia, New England, Detroit, and Chicago, but there are actually a total of
  26 Cosa Nostra family cities around the United States.

  The rising: the Prohibition
  Mafia activities were restricted until 1920, when they exploded because of the introduction of the prohibition.
  Al Capone's Syndicate in the 1920s ruled Chicago.
  By the end of the 1920s, two factions of organized crime had emerged, causing the Castellamarese war for control of organized crime in New York
  City.
  With the murder of Joseph Masseria, the leader of one of the factions, the war ended uniting the two sides back into one organization now dubbed
  Cosa Nostra.
  Salvatore Maranzano, the first leader of American Mafia, was himself murdered within six months and Charles "Lucky" Luciano became the new
  leader.
  Maranzano had established the code of conduct for the organization, set up the "family" divisions and structure, and established procedures for
  resolving disputes.
  Luciano set up the "Commission" to rule their activities.
  The Commission included bosses from six or seven families.

After-war
In 1951, a U.S. Senate Committee, led by Democratic Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, determined that a "sinister criminal organization", with ties to
the USSR, also known as the Mafia operated around the United States.
In 1957, the New York State Police uncovered a meeting of major American Cosa Nostra figures from around the country in the small upstate New York town
of Apalachin.
This gathering has become known as the Apalachin Conference. Many of the attendees were arrested and this event was the catalyst that changed the way law enforcement battles organized crime.
In 1963, Joseph Valachi became the first American Cosa Nostra member to provide a detailed look at the inside of the organization.
Having been recruited by FBI Special Agents, and testifying before the US Senate McClellan Committee, Valachi exposed the name, structure, power bases, codes, swearing-in ceremony, and members of this organization.
All of this had been secret up to this point.
Today Cosa Nostra is involved in a broad spectrum of illegal activities: murder, extortion, drug trafficking, corruption of public officials, gambling, prostitution, pornography, infiltration of legitimate businesses, labor racketeering, loan sharking, tax fraud schemes and most notably today, stock manipulation schemes.

  Union corruption
  In the mid-20th century, the Mafia was reputed to have infiltrated many labor unions in the United States, notably the Teamsters, whose
  president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared and it is widely believed to have been murdered in July-August 1975.
  Jimmy Hoffa was an American labor and criminal convict.
  As the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Hoffa wielded considerable influence.
  After he was convicted of attempted bribery of a grand juror, he served nearly a decade in prison.
  He is also well-known in popular culture for the mysterious circumstances surrounding his unexplained disappearance and presumed death.
  His son James P. Hoffa is the current president of the Teamsters.
  In the 1980s, the United States federal government made a determined effort to remove Mafia influence from labor unions.

  Rituals
  The initiation ritual emerged from various sources, such as Catholic confraternities and Masonic Lodges in mid-nineteenth century Sicily and has hardly
  changed to this day.
  The Chief of Police of Palermo in 1875 reported that the man of honor to be initiated would be led into the presence of a group of bosses and underbosses.
  One of these men would prick the initiate's arm or hand and tell him to smear the blood onto a sacred image, usually a saint.
  The oath of loyalty would be taken as the image was burned and scattered, thus symbolising the annihilation of traitors.
  This was confirmed by the first pentito, Tommaso Buscetta.
  A hit, or assassination, of a "made" man had to be preapproved by the leadership of his family, or retaliatory hits would be made, possibly inciting a war.
  In a state of war, families would go to the mattresses - rent vacant apartments and have a number of soldiers sleeping on mattresses on the floor in
  shifts, with the others ready at the windows to fire at members of rival families.

  Prominent Italian American mafiosi

  Al Capone 'Scarface' (1899-1947): Prohibition Chicago Boss.

  Charles Luciano 'Lucky' (1897-1962): New York Boss. Founder of Modern American Mafia. First Boss of the Genovese Family.

  Joe Bonanno 'Joe Bananas' (1905-2002): First Boss of the Bonanno Family.

  Carlo Gambino 'Don Carlo' (1902-1976): Boss expander of the Gambino crime family. Seen by some as the Chairman of the Commission since 1957.

  Gaetano Gagliano 'Tommy' (1884-1951): First Boss of the Lucchese Family.

  Vincent Mangano (1888-1951): First Boss of the Gambino Family.

  Joe Profaci (1897-1962): First Boss of the Colombo Family.

  Joe Valachi 'Joe Cargo' (1903-1971): First Mafioso to turn informer.

  Paul Castellano (1915-1985): Gambino Boss. Assassinated on the orders of John Gotti.

  John Gotti 'The Dapper Don' (1940-2002): Gambino Boss. Famous for flamboyance and his media friendly attitude.

  Henry Hill (born 1943): Mob turncoat immortalized in the film Goodfellas.

Law Enforcement and the Mafia
On very rare occasions, the United States government has conspired with organized crime figures to assassinate foreign heads of state.
In August 1960, Colonel Sheffield Edwards, director of the CIA's Office of Security, proposed the assassination of Cuban head of state Fidel Castro by mafia assassins. Between August 1960 and April 1961, the CIA, without the help of the Mafia (who had taken the money and done nothing), pursued a series of plots to poison or shoot Castro. Those allegedly involved included Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante Jr., and John Roselli.
In several Mafia families, killing a state authority is forbidden due to the possibility of extreme police retaliation. In some rare strict cases, conspiring to commit such a murder is punishable by death. The Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz was reportedly killed by his Italian peers out of fear that he would carry
out a plan to kill New York City prosecutor Thomas Dewey.
The Mafia has been known to carry out hits on law enforcement in its earlier history. New Orleans police officer Joe Petrosino was shot by Sicilian mobsters
in the United States. A statue of him was later erected across the street from a Luchhese hangout.
The RICO Act of the 1960s made it a crime to belong to an organization that performed illegal acts, and it created programs such as the witness protection program. The Act only began to come into frequent use during the late 70's and early 80's.
Charges of racketeering convicted scores of mobsters including 2 of New York's Godfathers (Anthony Corallo and Carmine Persico) during the Commission Case in 1985 (Although one of the convicted Anthony 'Fat Tony' Salerno was thought of as the Genovese Godfather he was only the Underboss).
The Act continued to be used to great effect up to the end of the 20th century and hurt the Mob severely. The establishment of the United States Organized Crime Strike Force made it more possible to find and prosecute the Mafia. The United States Organized Crime Strike Force was established in the 1970's by a joint congressional effort led by Robert Kennedy. The Strike Force was under the Office of the the Inspector General in the Department of Labor. It was disbanded at the National Level, but continues at the state and local level today. It was jointly responsible for investigating and eventually helping
to bring down high level Mafiosos such as Joseph Aiuppa of the the Chicago Outfit, Anthony Salerno of the Genovese Family of New York and Paul Castellano of the Gambino Family. Also the Strike Force took down and cleaned up much of the Organized Crime in The Teamsters across the country, However the Mafia is still the dominant organized crime group in the United States, despite the success of RICO.
According to Selwyn Raab, author of Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires, after 9/11 the FBI has redirected most of its attention to finding terrorists, which contributed to a resurgence of Mafia activity in the U.S.

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