Cosa Nostra News

Italy’s southern Puglia region was the site of lethal brutality this week courtesy of one of the country's lesser-known organised crime syndicates. On Wednesday, a group of up to five gunmen riding through the region shot at two other vehicles in separate, but related, incidents, killing four. One of two cars in which people were murdered this week. The violence commenced on Wednesday when four or five gunmen opened fire on another vehicle, killing two men inside. Law enforcement sources have since identified the man they believe was the main target as a Foggia mob boss, and the other man, the driver, his brother-in-law. (A civil war within the region's Mafia group may have set these events in motion.)

The book mentioned in this story, which is the source of the allegations mentioned below, probably is a hoax. I'd like to know: Who published it? It seems too consumer-friendly, and in my mind appears more like the fraudulent efforts of a savvy marketer, assisted by attention-seeking newspapers. Perhaps ISIS itself is perpetuating a hoax. These suicidal murderers have an affinity for propaganda. So let us move under the pretext that this "manual of hate" truly exists....and accept this at face value.... New ISIS propganda details a "brutal plan to march through western Europe and take control of Italy" claim new reports. The hate manual, titled The Black Flags from Rome, ranks several of Italy's Mafias as ISIS militants' most feared adversaries -- yet the group seems unaware of Rome's own homegrown Mafia.

Italian Law Enforcement Officials Call It Italy's Fifth Major Mafia Group Mafia Capitale is based in Rome. In a story posted this week about Matteo Messina Denaro ,  The Independent notes that Italian law enforcement has uncovered what is believed to be Italy's fifth major Mafia group. It's based in Rome. The organized crime group is less violent prone than the traditional Mafias and seems to largely rely on corruption. In terms of age, it goes back "at least three administrations."

Bet you didn't know Sicily has two Mafias. La Stidda ("star") There's Cosa Nostra, of course. And there's La Stidda (Sicilian for "the star"), a Sicilian-based Mafia group that's a direct rival to Cosa Nostra. All members wear the same star-shaped tattoo. La Stidda was created by "Men of Honor" (members of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra) who broke apart following the murder of Mafia-boss Giuseppe Di Cristina during a major Mafia war of the early 1980s. In addition to the Cosa Nostra , there are two other historical Mafias in Italy: the Neapolitan Camorra and the Calabrian Ndrangheta. A fourth also is recognized, the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita, which was originally formed in the 1970s to rival the traditional Camorra. La Stidda is something like Sicily's version of the Sacra Corona Unita. As noted in Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic (Alexander Stille), it largely consists of ...

Two-year-old Domenico was killed in a savage slaughter by the Mafia in Southern Italy. A 30-year-old woman, and not her mobbed-up boyfriend, is considered to have been the likely target of a hit in Southern Italy last month that killed her, her boyfriend -- and her 2-year-old son. As reported  in March, a Mafia hit team engaged Cosimo Orlando, 43, in a high-speed chase with before driving his car off the road and slaughtering Cosimo and two of his passengers: girlfriend Carla Maria Fornari and her son Domenico. Two other children in the car survived. As the UK's  Daily Mail  reported: "The trio were killed instantly" when the hitmen "opened fire with machine guns riddling [the vehicle] with bullets..." The hit's location -- at Palagiano, near Taranto, in the southern Italian region of Puglia -- is considered to be a stronghold of the local mafia, the Sacra Corona Unita. Originally, the hit was seen as revenge for a double homicide c...

As reported , the Sacra Corona Unita is believed to be behind the triple killings this week of a mobster on parole, along with his girlfriend and her 2-year-old son. The Local  reported that 2-year-old Domenico was shot dead along with his mother and her partner when gunmen ran them off the road and shot them to death in Taranto, Italy, in March 2014. Where the "4th Mafia" was established. Two more children in the car lived through the ordeal by playing dead. "Investigators said the woman - the widow of a murdered mafioso - had provided information which led to the arrest of several criminals while her partner, himself a convicted murderer, had been taking advantage of day releases from prison to try to regain control of the local drug market."

Mobster on parole slain with girlfriend and her son. In the "heel" of Italy's boot, hitmen shot and killed a mobster on parole for a double homicide he'd been convicted of in 1998. Also killed were the mobster's girlfriend and her two-year-old son. The shooters engaged Cosimo Orlando, 43, in a high speed chase before driving his car off the road. Travelling with Cosimo at the time were Carla Maria Fornari, 30 and her son Domenico. "The trio were killed instantly after hitmen forced their car off the road and then opened fire with machine guns riddling it with bullets - amazingly two other children inside survived," according to UK's the Daily Mail .