The Sacra Corona Unita: Origins, Characteristics and Strategies

This chapter aims at providing an overview on the history, characteristics, strategies and modus operandi of Sacra Corona Unita, a relatively new mafia-type organization rooted in the Southern part of Apulia, Italy. Defined since the mid 1990s by the Italian Parliamentary Anti-mafia Committee as the “fourth mafia” – beside Cosa nostra, ‘ndrangheta and camorra – the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU) consists of a conglomeration of various criminal groups which became active between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. The presence of very close relationships with members of both Calabrian ‘ndrangheta and Neapolitan camorra played a crucial role in the creation of this new criminal syndicate. Its internal code of conduct, the so-called Statute, as well as the extremely elaborated rituals which should be followed in order to affiliate new members and allow the promotion of affiliates through the various hierarchical levels of the organization strongly rely upon the old ‘ndrangheta’s tradition. Thus, the chapter focuses, from a comparative perspective, on a socio-cultural analysis of rituals, norms and code of conduct adopted by SCU, paying special attention to the similarities and differences existing with the other traditional mafia-type organizations.