

While there was a time when people were reluctant to pronounce the word "Mafia" . But Giovanni Falcone, the anti-Mafia judge who was murdered by the Mafia in 1992, had objected to the conflation of the term "Mafia" with organized crime in general: The term mafia has become a generic term for any organized criminal network with similar structure, methods, and interests. The word was first documented in 1865 in a report by the prefect of Palermo Filippo Antonio Gualterio ( it). Soon after, the use of the term "mafia" began appearing in the Italian state's early reports on the group. The play had great success throughout Italy.
THE ITALIAN MAN WHO WENT TO MALTA ORIGINAL CODE
The play is about a Palermo prison gang with traits similar to the Mafia: a boss, an initiation ritual, and talk of umirtà ( omertà or code of silence) and " pizzu" (a codeword for extortion money).

The words mafia and mafiusi are never mentioned in the play. The public's association of the word with the criminal secret society was perhaps inspired by the 1863 play "I mafiusi di la Vicaria" ( it) ("The Mafiosi of the Vicaria") by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaspare Mosca.


Each family claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighbourhood ( borgata) of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets. The basic group is known as a "family", "clan", or cosca. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organisational structure and code of conduct, and present themselves to the public under a common brand. The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa Nostra ( Italian:, Sicilian: "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia- terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily and dating to at least the 19th century. Racketeering, drug trafficking, murder, extortion, loan sharking, assault, smuggling, terrorism, illegal gambling, prostitution, theft, money laundering, arms trafficking, fraud, fencing, kidnapping, robbery Mostly western Sicily, particularly Palermo, Trapani, and Agrigento For similar organizations generally, see Mafia. For the Italian-American counterpart also known as the Mafia or Cosa Nostra, see American Mafia. For other Italian criminal organizations, see Organized crime in Italy. "The Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" redirect here.
