CarabinieriThe Carabinieri (ˌkærəbɪnˈjɛəri, also USˌkɑːr-, karabiˈnjɛːri; formally Arma dei Carabinieri, "Arm of Carabineers"; previously Corpo dei Carabinieri Reali, "Royal Carabineers Corps") are the national gendarmerie of Italy who primarily carry out domestic and foreign policing duties. It is one of Italy's main law enforcement agencies, alongside the Polizia di Stato and the Guardia di Finanza. As with the Guardia di Finanza but in contrast to the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri are a military force.
Giorgio NapolitanoGiorgio Napolitano (ˈdʒordʒo napoliˈtaːno; born 29 June 1925) is an Italian politician who served as president of Italy from 2006 to 2015, the first to be re-elected to the office. Due to his dominant position in Italian politics, some critics have sometimes referred to him as Re Giorgio ("King Giorgio"). In office from 2006 to 2015, he is the longest-serving and longest-lived president in the history of the modern Italian Republic, which has been in existence since 1946.
SiciliansThe Sicilians (Siciliani), or Sicilian people, are a Romance-speaking ethnic group who are indigenous to the island of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the largest and most populous of the autonomous regions of Italy. History of Sicily and Prehistoric Italy#Sicily The Sicilian people are indigenous to the island of Sicily, which was first populated beginning in the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.
Pizzo (mafia)The pizzo (ˈpittso) is protection money paid to the Mafia often in the form of a forced transfer of money resulting from extortion. The term is derived from the Sicilian pizzu ('beak'). To let someone wet their beak (Sicilian language fari vagnari u pizzu) is to pay protection money. The practice is widespread in Southern Italy, not only by the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, but also by the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria and the Camorra in Campania.
StiddaThe Stidda; ˈstiɖːa) is a Sicilian and Maltese Mafia-type criminal organization and criminal society centered in the central-southern part of Sicily and Malta. Members are known as stiddari or stiddaroli. It is most active in the rural parts of southern Sicily and Malta and is a rival to the Cosa Nostra, originating as a dissident offshoot group of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. Some members have a star tattooed on their bodies. Little is known of the origins of the organization, though it is believed to have come about in a similar fashion to the Mafia, in the same rural environment of Sicily.
Emirate of SicilyThe Emirate of Sicily or Fatimid Sicily (ʾImārat Ṣiqilliya) was an Islamic kingdom that ruled the Muslim territories on the island of Sicily between 831 and 1091. Its capital was Palermo (Arabic: Balarm), which, during this period, became a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world. Sicily was part of the Byzantine Empire when Muslim forces from Ifriqiya began launching raids in 652. Through a prolonged series of conflicts from 827 to 902, they gradually conquered the entirety of Sicily, with only the stronghold of Rometta, in the far northeast, holding out until 965.
CataniaCatania (kəˈtɑːniə, alsoUK-ˈteɪn-, US-ˈtæn-, Sicilian and kaˈtaːnja) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by the presence of important road and rail transport infrastructures as well as by the main airport in Sicily, fifth in Italy. It is located on Sicily's east coast, at the base of the active volcano, Mount Etna, and it faces the Ionian Sea.
RacketeeringRacketeering is a type of organized crime in which the persons set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and often still specifically, racketeering may refer to an organized criminal act in which the perpetrators offer a service that will not be put into effect, offer a service to solve a nonexistent problem, or offer a service that solves a problem that would not exist without the racket.
French ConnectionThe French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and was dismantled in the 1970s. It was responsible for providing the vast majority of the heroin used in the United States at the time. The operation was headed by Corsicans Antoine Guérini and Paul Carbone (with associate François Spirito). It also involved Auguste Ricord, Paul Mondoloni and Salvatore Greco.
