Internet Group Fights the Mob

When it came down to business, Cosa Nostra could always count on fear.

No more.

In a rebellion shaking the Sicilian Mafia to its centuries-old roots, businesses are joining forces in refusing to submit to demands for protection money called "pizzo."

And they're getting away with it, threatening to sap an already weakened crime syndicate of one of its steadiest sources of revenue.

The Mafia has a history of bouncing back from defeat, but this time it is up against something entirely new: a Web site where businessmen are finding safety in numbers to say no to the mob.

At the same time, businessmen ranging from neighborhood shopkeepers to industrialists are being emboldened by arrests of fugitive bosses, and the discovery in raids of meticulous Mafia bookkeeping on who paid the "pizzo" and how much.

"This rebellion goes to the heart of the Mafia," said Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia, who has investigated extortion cases for years. "If it works, we will have a great advantage in the fight against the Mafia."

These latest gains build on other successes in the fight to break Cosa Nostra's stranglehold on Sicily. In the last two decades, the syndicate has been battered by testimony from turncoats, who helped send hundreds of mobsters to prison in the late 1980s, and a fierce state crackdown a decade later after bombs killed two Palermo anti-Mafia prosecutors.

The number of rebels on the Web site is still tiny compared to Palermo's businesses overall, but their movement has helped to chip away at the Mafia's psychological hold on Sicilians — long conditioned to believe that defiance would bring ruin or a death sentence. And any consistent crumbling of that culture of fear could ultimately lead to Cosa Nostra's undoing.

The businesses are openly defying the Mafia by signing on to a Web site called "Addiopizzo" (Goodbye Pizzo), which brings together businesses in the Sicilian capital that are resisting extortion.

The campaign was launched in 2004 by a group of youths thinking of opening a pub. They started off by plastering Palermo with anti-pizzo fliers, reading "An ENTIRE PEOPLE WHO PAYS THE PIZZO IS A PEOPLE WITHOUT DIGNITY," and eventually brought their campaign online where it struck a profound chord with Sicilians fed up with Mafia bullying.

Confindustria, the industrialists' lobby, has also boosted the movement with a threat to expel members who pay protection money. Its Sicilian branch has gone through a list of pizzo-paying companies found in a raid on a top Mafia boss' hideout, and this month began summoning heads of those companies to demand to know if they indeed had been paying and should be drummed out of the politically influential lobby.

In one case, the director of a private clinic said her institution wound up on Cosa Nostra's list because a mobster was treated there, although it apparently was unclear during his hospitalization that he was a Mafioso.

At the same time, authorities are ratcheting up the pressure on business owners, aggressively prosecuting those who refuse to testify against the Mafia in clear-cut cases of extortion. Under Italian law, a businessman who denies paying up despite flagrant evidence — such as being caught on a surveillance tape — can be charged with "aiding and abetting" Cosa Nostra.

"Now it is a bigger risk for us to pay than not to pay," said Ugo Argiroffi, an engineer who recently added his Palermo construction company, C.O.C.I. to Addiopizzo's list (http://www.addiopizzo.org in Italian with an English link).

While the nearly 230 businesses on the list are only a fraction of Palermo's thousands of stores, offices and factories, a similar group has sprouted up in Catania, Sicily's second-largest city.

Perhaps most significant, the rebellion has taken root in strongholds of the most ruthless Mafia clans — places such as Gela, a drab, industrial coastal town. Some 80 Gela businessmen in recent months have denounced extortion attempts.

It is a dramatic turn since the early '90s, when a Gela merchant who denounced extortion was slain by the Mafia, and a Gela car dealer, whose showroom was repeatedly torched, had to move his family and change his name after he testified in court.

In another prominent case, Libero Grassi, who had a Palermo clothing business, was gunned down by the Mafia in 1991 after he made a futile public plea for other merchants to join him in denouncing extortion.

Prosecutors trace the extortion rebellion back to the scramble for power after Bernardo Provenzano, the alleged "boss of bosses," was captured last year near his hometown of Corleone.

For years, Provenzano — who reputedly took the helm of Cosa Nostra in 1993 — had employed an extortion strategy of "let them pay a little but make everyone pay," according to Piero Grasso, a former Palermo prosecutor who is now Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor based in Rome.

The Mafia chief feared excessive greed and violence would draw a fierce police crackdown, Grasso said in an interview. But in the struggle to succeed Provenzano, Palermo area boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo ruthlessly dispensed with the low profile.

Under Lo Piccolo, according to Grasso, the small army of henchmen who shake down merchants was doubled, from 500 to 1,000 men, judging from entries in confiscated extortion ledgers.

The extortionists received monthly "salaries" worth $3,000, generous by Sicily's standards, plus an extra month's pay as a Christmas bonus, Grasso said.

A rash of arson attacks on businesses this past year apparently reflected Lo Piccolo's determination to press extortion demands.

The strategy appears to have backfired: The harder the Mafia squeezed, the more their victims resisted. Crucially, no businessmen or their relatives have thus far been killed for their defiance, although some may have lost Mafia-wary customers.

In one high-profile case, Vincenzo Conticello, owner of Antica Focacceria San Francesco, a landmark Palermo restaurant that specializes in sandwiches stuffed with calf's spleen and lung, spent $1.8 million buying supplies from "friends" of a gangster who had elbowed into his business.

Eventually the restaurateur got fed up and went to police. At the trial, he pointed out the three gangsters who had extorted him and in November they were jailed for 10 to 16 years. Conticello was granted police protection.

When Mafia boss Lo Piccolo was arrested in November outside Palermo, police found a list of hundreds of names of those who paid the "pizzo" plus a breakdown of how the money was divvied up — a treasure trove of information on how the mob operates.

In December, police scored another coup when they shot dead Daniele Emmanuello, the reputed boss of the Gela area's extortion rackets, as he fled from a farmhouse hideout.

Emmanuello didn't take time to change out of his pajamas, but he did swallow some handwritten notes. Authorities are examining them for more information on the pizzo racket.

Until now, the money figures had been largely guesswork. But taking advantage of the confiscated Mafia ledgers, Antonio La Spina, a University of Palermo sociology professor, has pieced together the clearest picture for a report given to The Associated Press before its publication this week in a book called "The Costs of Illegality."

His researchers calculate the pizzo payments averaging $1,200 a month add up to nearly $260 million in Palermo province alone.

"For a street vendor, 'pizzo' ranges from 50 to 100 euros a month, a neighborhood bread store 150-250 euros, a simple clothing store 250 euros, a jewelry store, 1,000 euros, your local mini-mart 500 euros," said Attilio Scaglione, one of the researchers. A euro is worth roughly $1.50.

These days, the Mafia appears to be trying to pick symbolic targets rather than punish the pizzo-refusers en masse.

At Rodolfo Guajana's company, a wholesaler for hardware stores across Sicily since 1875, attackers this summer punched a hole in the roof, poured in gasoline and torched the warehouse.

Guajana believes the Mafia attacked him because it was known that his family had a history of refusing to pay.

"What happened here was the Mafia was saying to all merchants: `What happened to Guajana can happen to you if you don't pay,'" said Guajana.

Across the island in Agrigento, industrialist Salvatore Moncada described himself as proof businessmen can stand up to mobsters.

He has repeatedly refused demands made of his 180-employee company, Moncada Costruzioni Srl, Italy's fifth-largest producer of wind energy. In one case, Moncada's testimony helped jail a mobster who demanded $7,500.

At one point, Moncada wore a wire to a meeting with a mobster. "I was sweating a little bit," he recalled. But no threats were made and the gangster wasn't arrested. But Moncada said he can understand why some businessmen decide it pays to pay off the Mafia.

A pizzo of 2 percent of a contract's value is a lot less than the price of a 24-hour guard, he said. "In the end you say, 'Sorry, I'll pay and that's that.'"

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Film Rights to Mobster's Memoir "Unlocked: A Journey From Prison to Proust" Optioned by The Sopranos Dr. Melfi

Like so many wiseguys before him, Lou Ferrante finally got pinched. After years of hijackings, beatings and other violent crimes, he was busted for armed robbery and sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison. Life behind bars was a shock to the smart-aleck kid from Queens who had joined the Gambino crime family. But even more shocking was how he spent his time.

While other prisoners slept, Ferrante would rise early to daven, reciting prayers of his newfound Jewish faith. He wore a yarmulke in the exercise yard and followed kosher dietary laws. He spent months in an upstate prison writing a Torah commentary but shoved it under his mattress when the Sabbath began on Friday night.

Desperate to pass the days, Ferrante began reading books for the first time in his life. He took up writing and cranked out a 1,200-page novel that he now admits is terrible. As his sentence ended, he told anyone who would listen that he was a changed man and that Judaism was his rock.

"I figured that with Judaism, you don't go through a middleman, you go right to the top guy and talk to him," Ferrante said, sounding like a cross between Joe Pesci and Paulie Walnuts. "That's how I used to handle business on the streets. It made a lot of sense."

Released from prison two years ago, the 38-year-old Ferrante began writing a book about his experiences. That memoir, "Unlocked: A Journey From Prison to Proust," will be published in March by HarperCollins. When he sent a copy of it to "Sopranos" star Lorraine Bracco -- contacting her through friends of a friend -- he hoped simply to get a blurb. But she called him immediately after reading it and made a pitch for the film rights.

"This story has shades of 'Goodfellas' and 'Shawshank Redemption,' " said Bracco, who played Dr. Jennifer Melfi, the shrink to gangster Tony Soprano on the HBO show. "And for whatever reason, these mob stories always seem to find me. This is the first book I've ever optioned for a film, and I'm very excited about it."

Bracco, who also played the wife of gangster Henry Hill in "Goodfellas," can't help but see the irony: Here she is, helping a real-life mobster redeem himself after playing a similar role on television. To fully explore Ferrante's tale, she said she'll be seeking creative advice from David Chase, who created "The Sopranos," and Nick Pileggi, the author of "Wiseguy" and "Casino."

"Imagine all the things he [Ferrante] has been through, the changes he underwent in prison," the actress said. "And then think about the fact that it's not just a great movie story, it's true."

Some may be tempted to dismiss Ferrante's book, because the image of a tough guy reading the Talmud invites obvious jokes. (Alternate titles might include "From Meatballs to Matzo Balls" or "The Mobster Who Became a Mensch"). But to hear Ferrante speak seriously about his life is to hear the story of a man who once brutalized others -- and vows to change. He's just moved into a new home in upstate New York and hopes to make a living as a writer.

Unlike most mob memoirs, "Unlocked" doesn't dwell unduly on criminal exploits, nor does it name many names. Although the author spent time with both John and Peter Gotti, they are rarely mentioned. Instead, he tries to provide some insight into his own behavior, something rarely found in Mafia tell-alls, according to Pileggi, who wrote a blurb for the book. Indeed, Ferrante makes no excuses for his violent behavior and begins his memoir with the story of a truck hijacking in which he and his crew terrorized an innocent driver who begged for his life.

Let the therapy begin: "He wasn't just robbing money, he was robbing the souls of other people," said Bracco, describing Ferrante's past. "When you stand with a gun and tell someone what to do, you're putting fear into their lives. You're destroying something. It's almost like a molester stealing the soul of a child."

It took nearly a decade in prison for Ferrante to realize that his career in organized crime was a physical and spiritual dead end.

He saw other prisoners slowly losing their minds behind bars and said he turned to reading, writing and religion as an escape from daily life. But what he found was the cornerstone of a new identity.

"I thought about my life," he wrote. "Why did I end up here, living with animals? I beat men up. I shoved guns in their mouths. I even bit people. I lived like an animal on the street. I didn't realize it until I was placed in this zoo. I hated myself for being one of them."

The path back to self-respect included religion, and Ferrante explored several. Shedding Catholicism for Judaism took guts, because fellow Italians viewed him as a traitor and wondered if he was snitching on them to the feds. Others saw him lose the protection of a larger group and decided he was ripe for attack.

"In jail, most American Jews are not considered dangerous," he observed. "The dozen or so I did time with were all there for nonviolent crime. I don't think anybody ever checked into protective custody saying, 'I'm scared for my life; the Jews are after me.' "

When he was finally released, Ferrante's friends were impressed with his new interest in writing. A few, including screenwriter David Black ("Law & Order"), introduced him to other authors and agents, but none was interested in his novel. They all urged him to tell his own story. Reluctant at first to revisit the past, he finally relented.

Ferrante sent a few early chapters to literary agent Lisa Queen, whom he had met through a mutual friend. She was impressed with the fluid, poetic quality of his writing and signed him up on the spot. "I sold the book about two weeks later, and it all happened very quickly," Queen said. "The book was obviously true to life. But he is also quite funny. Humor helps him tell his stories."

Like the time, shortly after his release, he ran into a Mafia big shot who was slurping matzo ball soup in a kosher diner. Ferrante realized the guy was high on the list of mobsters with whom he couldn't associate, according to his probation guidelines.

"The guy gives me a big hug, but my first question is whether he thinks he's being watched by the feds," Ferrante recalled. "He said he probably was. So I tell him: 'I'm going to have to report this whole thing to my probation officer.' That much I understood. But why he was there in a kosher restaurant, I couldn't begin to tell you."

Thanks to Josh Getlin

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Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans and the Movies

DON’T get her wrong: Rosanne De Luca Braun loves “The Godfather.” Ditto, “The Sopranos.” But she has devoted much of the last seven years to exploring why certain Italian-American stereotypes — especially the gun-toting, cannoli-loving mobster — loom so large on screen, and in the national psyche.

The result of her labors is the documentary “Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans and the Movies,” which will have its Long Island premiere on Jan. 20 at the Cinema Arts Center in Huntington. Dominic Chianese, who played Uncle Junior in “The Sopranos” television series, is scheduled to make a guest appearance at the theater.

Running 57 minutes, “Beyond Wiseguys” interweaves celebrated movie and TV scenes with interviews with scholars and members of the film and TV industries. Among those appearing are the directors Martin Scorsese, David Chase and Spike Lee, the actor-director John Turturro (who was co-executive producer of the documentary with Ms. Braun), and, from the acting ranks, Marisa Tomei, Paul Sorvino, Ben Gazzara, Isabella Rossellini, Susan Sarandon and Mr. Chianese.

Some tell of having endured typecasting or of fighting ethnic clichés. Yet Ms. Braun, 59, of Sicilian and Calabrian descent herself, says she is not merely beating a drum against intolerance. “I’m not anti mob movies,” she said recently over lunch in her condominium overlooking Long Island Sound in Northport. (She shares it with her husband, Edward Braun, the chairman of the technology-instrument company Veeco.)

“I don’t relate to the fact that these are ‘stereotypes,’ ” Ms. Braun said. “I relate to the characters. And in the case of a great work of art, I don’t view it as Italian-American — it’s American.”

Nevertheless, “Beyond Wiseguys” has its roots partly in community concern over negative screen images. In 2000, Ms. Braun, then director of marketing and development at the Cinema Arts Center, worked with its co-directors, Vic Skolnick, Charlotte Sky and Dylan Skolnick, to organize an Italian-American film festival devoid of “made” men, rubouts and the like.

Such films proved hard to find, though. The depiction of Italian-Americans as voluble, emotional and sometimes murderous had remained “largely formulaic,” Ms. Braun said, from the earliest days of the movie industry.

That was true, she said, even though “we found an endless supply of Italian-American craftsmen working behind the scenes in Hollywood from Day 1 — set designers, composers, writers, costume designers,” making their mark in often sophisticated ways.

Convinced she was “really onto something,” Ms. Braun left her job in 2000 to work on the idea. She sent her outline to Mr. Turturro.

In the film business, “I was nobody,” Ms. Braun explained. “I knew I was going to need a name attached to open some doors for me.”

Mr. Turturro soon signed on. The issue of ethnic sterotyping is something he deals with daily on a professional level, he said through an assistant.

It worked. “I could have said, ‘This is Daisy Duck,’ as long as I said, ‘John Turturro,’ ” said Ms. Braun, who rounded up interview subjects and, over time, raised “about $350,000.” (”Beyond Wiseguys” got its major financial backing from Italian-American sources, including LiDestri Foods of Rochester, a maker of pasta sauce and other products, and the National Italian American Foundation, but they had no editorial input, she said.)

When it came to making the film, two veteran documentary makers, Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher, collaborated with Ms. Braun, a neophyte.

Given the documentary’s many strands, Ms. Braun said she would most like viewers to take away the sense that Hollywood’s Italian-American sagas, at their best, transcend stereotype: “They’re filled with the aroma, and the real experiences, of Italian family life and Italian history,” she said.

Thanks to Karen Lipson

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A Tony Soprano Wedding

Sopranos alum James Gandolfini and his girlfriend of a couple of years, former model Deborah Lin, are engaged, sources reveal exclusively to PerezHilton.com.

"James popped the question while in the Bahamas over the holidays," an insider tells us. "They're thrilled."

Congrats!

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Mob Economics 101: Hauling Trash

The Italian government called in the army on Tuesday to clean up the mounting piles of waste in the city of Naples. Residents blame the authorities for not doing more to stop the Camorra, the region's Mafia group, which controls garbage collection and has caused the city's constant waste problem for more than a decade. Organized crime appears to have a hand in trash collection all over the world, from Naples to Tony Soprano's northern New Jersey. Why are gangsters always hauling garbage?

It's Mob Economics 101: Find a business that's easy to enter and lucrative to control. Criminal organizations make lots of money from drugs, human trafficking, and counterfeit goods, but creating a monopoly on garbage collection is attractive because the business itself is legal, and public contracts return big profits. Compared with something like running a casino or grocery store, the logistics of taking trash from Point A to Point B are a no-brainer. Anyone with a truck and a couple of strong guys can make good money, and there's always a demand for the service.

Here's how it works: The mob organizes the trash-hauling businesses in a given city to prevent competition from driving down prices. They fix prices, rig bids, and allocate territories in such a way that customers can't choose who picks up their garbage. The Camorra, a larger and older group than the Sicilian Mafia, have controlled the industry in Naples for about 25 years. The mob harasses non-Camorra garbage collectors and extorts money from them; meanwhile, its own companies do a shoddy job. The country's Mafia groups have also illegally dumped toxic, industrial waste in Naples and other parts of the country.

Criminal organizations elsewhere in the world also find profit in trash schemes. In parts of Taiwan, gangs dig into the riverbank for gravel and sell it to construction companies. Then, they fill up the holes with waste they've collected. Georgian crime bosses swooped in when the city of Tbilisi privatized waste transport. In New York City, La Cosa Nostra more or less dominated trash collection from the 1950s until Rudy Giuliani seized control of the industry as mayor in the 1990s. It all started when members worked their way into the Teamsters union, which included garbage truck drivers; this allowed the mob to dictate which companies the drivers would work for, effectively pushing out non-Mafia operations. (The Mafia also controlled the construction sector through unions.)

For a large crime organization, the garbage racket provides relatively little in the way of revenue compared with traditional criminal enterprises like gambling, loan-sharking, and narcotics. This is especially true in Italy, where the mob operates in many industries. The Camorra is thought to make $70 billion a year, much of it from drugs, contraband cigarettes, and DVDs, as well as public sector contracts in construction and cleaning. Another Italian group, the 'Ndrangheta, traffics 80 percent of Europe's cocaine. The Mafia is so pervasive in Italy that, according to a large trade association, it controls one out of every five businesses in the country.

Thanks to Michelle Tsai

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