‘Paramafia’: Ideas for a Complementary Mafia Model

From decades, traditional Italian mafias (Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra) settled in non-traditional areas, especially Northern Italy. Morover, in addition to a diffusion of mafia groups, today we observe a spread of mafia’s method. This paper aims at investigating in deep the process of developing a mafia-kind modus operandi in new organization formed by people extraneous (by family, background and territorial origins) to mafia. The research has a qualitative approach and explore two case studies localised in Bergamo, a district in Northern Italy, using analysis of judicial documents and institutional reports and in-depth interviewing with experts and inhabitants. Scientific studies on mafia hybridization focuses their attention mainly on ‘simple’ criminal groups that evolve into mafia-type one. Empirical research conversely shows in recent time a new, different trend. We can describe this phenomenon with the definition ‘paramafia’. For ‘paramafia’ we mean the systematic assumption of a modus operandi typical of mafia repertoire by organizations whose members are formally unrelated to traditional mafia organizations – players are in nuce not criminals. Members of a paramafia group are connected to each other in a lasting relationship, are hierarchically ordered according to a division of labour and aim to achieve profits and power, committing systematically crimes. There are several similarities between paramafia and traditional mafia: the method and the crimes practiced (e.g. intimidation, extortion, corruption, illegal waste disposal), a hierarchical structure of groups, the contemporaneous interest for profits and power. A paramafia phenomenon could rise when there is an extended, strict (monopolizing) relationship between a group with public functions (politicians, entrepreneurs, officials) and the social fabric in which the group is operating. The group also needs a large relationship network, and the settlement area must be relatively small – therefore, there is a high density of social relationships. A crucial factor is that the social fabric must be characterized by an originary ‘criminal void’ (no other organized crime operating group in the area). The limit of a paramafia organization is in its continuity: traditional mafias have an ideological structure that permits the reproduction of the phenomenon; in paramafia there is no a latency, or is weak, consequently its ‘life’ is limited. A fundamental difference is in the relation between profit and power: power is the main dimension of mafia’s essence and it leads to profit; in paramafia model, from profit comes power.