Word: mafiosi
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...impact of the raid was enormous, sending a chill of apprehension through the ranks of the Mafiosi whose names have yet to appear on warrants and placing politicians who have long winked at the Mafia on notice that they too might be called to account...
...1980s-style Mafia that differs considerably from the all-in-the-family cliches of Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Today's mobster, in both Italy and the U.S., is greedier, meaner and less likely to respect the Mafia's internal code of honor than were the Mafiosi in the generation of his father's father (see box). Officials on both sides of the Atlantic consider Buscetta's break with the Mob a significant gain for law enforcement, which has thus far had only limited success in getting those who really know about Mafia operations...
...whose territory covers the southern district of New York, said that as a result of Buscetta's disclosures, "we have a whole new area of intelligence that wasn't available to us before." U.S. and Italian authorities hope to use that information to round up even more Mafiosi and crack the Sicilian connection that has smuggled billions of dollars' worth of heroin into the U.S. in the past few years...
Some U.S. Mafiosi believe that Buscetta may also be trying to get back at those who kept him out of the Mob's higher councils because he had abandoned his first wife, thereby showing disrespect for the institution of marriage Others see a simpler motive. "He's settling scores," says a former New York detective who has spent most of his ife studying the Mafia. "He's trying to get even with the people who killed his family...
According to Buscetta, the Mafia structure resembles a pyramid, whose base is composed of cosche, families or clans whose territorial and operational boundaries are strictly defined but whose chiefs bear little resemblance to the almost feudal Mafiosi depicted in The Godfather. In a startling statement, Buscetta disclosed that the capifamiglia, or family bosses, are elected and sometimes even fired by a vote of family members. He asserted that few such men were oldtime "men of honor," the occasionally benevolent criminals who were fully initiated into the codes and rituals of the Mafia. Only 8% to 10%, he said, met these...