Exploring the intricate connection between corruption, organized crime, and sports, this book reveals how the influence of the mafia in Italian soccer mirrors the broader Italian power structure. It offers a unique perspective on how systemic issues within society manifest in the world of sports, highlighting the pervasive nature of corruption in this context.
Offering a blend of autobiography, travel ethnography, memoir, and investigative journalism, this book explores the 'ndrangheta, one of the world's most powerful criminal organizations. It takes readers on a journey through small villages in Italy and various locations globally, providing a comprehensive understanding of its influence and operations. Through personal narratives and in-depth research, the author sheds light on the complexities of this notorious group and its impact on society.
The 'ndrangheta is one of wealthiest and most powerful criminal organizations today. Combining autobiography, travel ethnography, memoir, and investigative journalism, this book provides a global outlook on the 'ndrangheta, taking the reader to small villages and locations in Italy and in different countries around the world.
This book presents primary research conducted in Italy, USA, Australia and the UK on countering strategies and institutional perceptions of Italian mafias and local organized crime groups. Through interviews and interpretation of original documents, this study firstly demonstrates the interaction between institutional understanding of the criminal threats and historical events that have shaped these perceptions. Secondly, it combines analysis of policies and criminal law provisions to identify how policing models which combat mafia and organised crime activities are organized and constructed in each country within a comparative perspective. After presenting the similarities between the four differing policing models, Sergi pushes the comparison further by identifying both conceptual and procedural convergences and divergences across both the four models and within international frameworks. By looking at topics as varied as mafia mobility, money laundering, drug networks and gang violence, this book ultimately seeks to reconsider the conceptualizations of both mafia and organized crime from a socio-behavioural and cultural perspective.
This book presents an historical and sociological account of the Italian mafia-type organisation known as the ‘ndrangheta. It draws together diverse perspectives on the various ‘ndrangheta clans and their behavioural models, focusing specifically on their organisational skills, their bonds with Calabrian society and Calabrian communities around the world, their mobility, and their characterisation as poly-crime organisations. The authors demonstrate that ‘ndrangheta clans have an innovative way of being and doing mafia work through a dense network of relationships both in the ‘upperworld’ and in the ‘underworld’, a particularly acute sense of business, a reputation built on the protection of blood and family ties, and, last but not least, a symbiotic relationship and camouflage within Calabrian society. By focusing on both the structures and the activities of the clans and with findings based on judicial documents, this book explores why the ‘ndrangheta is today labeled as “the most powerful Italian mafia”. It will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of organised crime and sociology.