Sacra Corona Unita

Sacra Corona Unita

Founded	Early 1980s
Founding location	Apulia,Italy
Years active	Early 1980s–present
Territory	Mainly active in theSalentoarea inApulia.Its also present in otheritalian regions and countries.
Ethnicity	Apulians
Membership	approximately 2,000
Activities	Cigarette smuggling,arms trafficking,drug trafficking,human trafficking,money laundering,extortion,political corruption,prostitution,usury
Allies	'Ndrangheta Camorra Società foggiana Albanian mafia Balkanscriminal organizations
Rivals	Internal wars between clans of the SCU

Sacra Corona Unita(pronounced[ˈsaːkrakoˈroːnauˈniːta];Italianfor 'United Sacred Crown'; acronym:SCU), also known as theFourth Mafia,is aMafia-typecriminal organizationfrom theApuliaregion inSouthern Italy,and it is especially active in the areas ofBrindisi,Lecce,andTaranto.

Origin of the name

Informer Cosimo Capodieci said the SCU used "theCoronabecause it resembles a crown, meaning therosarytypically used in Church in order to carry out the functions of Jesus Christ and the cross...Unitabecause it was necessary to be connected to one another, similar to the rings of a chain. "Sacra(Sacred) because at the time of the affiliation the new member is "baptized".

History

Sacra Corona Unita was formed in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was formally established in a prison in 1983, according to a document found by investigators in the cell of the organisation's founder,Pino Rogoli.The Sacra Corona Unita was created to counter the overwhelming power in the prisons and on the Apulian territory of some of the more established mafia organisations, such as the Campania families united inRaffaele Cutolo'sNuova Camorra Organizzata.

According to one account of Rogoli's rise to leadership, the foundations of Sacra Corona Unita were laid by Rogoli on Christmas night 1981. At the time, Rogoli was a 32-year-old tiler from Mesagnese who was serving a sentence inTraniprison for a bank robbery and murder inGiovinazzoin 1980.In prison, Rogoli had come into contact with exponents of the'ndrangheta.and had affiliated himself withUmberto Bellocco,capobastoneand founder of theBellocco 'ndrina.Together withVincenzo StranieriofManduriaand Mario Papalia, linked toCosa Nostra,Rogoli set up the Sacra Corona Unita, whose structure and rituals closely resembled that of the 'ndrangheta, and was officially sanctioned as the supreme head of the newly formed organisation.However, the "Statuto della S.C.U." (charter of the Sacra Corona Unita) seized from Rogoli by the Italian law enforcement agencies in 1984 states that the organisation was established on 1 May 1983.

Under Rogoli's leadership, the Sacra Corona Unita mixed Apulian interests and opportunities with 'Ndrangheta and Camorra traditions. While it is often referred to as the "fourth mafia", it remained only a loose association of some ten to fifteen criminal groups in southern Apulia, whose cohesion, stability and economic and political power were always far inferior to those of the 'Ndrangheta and the Mafia. After the defection of some of its leaders and the arrest of most of its members in the early 2000s, Sacra Corona Unita no longer exists as a single, viable organisation.

Activities

Originally preying on the region's substantial wine and olive oil industries, the group moved intocigarette smuggling,arms trafficking, drug trafficking,human trafficking,money laundering,extortion, andpolitical corruption.

According to a survey conducted by theEurispesthe main sources of income of the organization are:

• Drug trafficking— €878 million per year
• Prostitution— €775 million per year
• Arms trafficking— €516 million per year
• Extortionandusury— €351 million per year

Structure

The SCU is made up of three distinct groupings or levels. Members can 'graduate' from one level to the next by going throughriti battesimali(baptismal rites). The religious symbolism is probably left over from the SCU's association with the Camorra.

• Società Minore – The lowest level, made up of lower-level criminals who do street-level activities. Members start out aspicciottiand go through a 40-day trial to ensure they are suitable for criminal work and are not associated with the police. They are then inducted into the next phase of the level, themanovalanza,or worker. The candidate must also swear an oath of devotion to SCU.
• Società Maggiore – The second level, made up of two positions.
• Lo Sgarro – The position is given only to members who have killed at least three people for SCU, and from now on members cannot leave, on pain of death. Members can now form their own crew of picciotti, known as afiliale.Upon indoctrination into theLa Santaposition the member is given a firearm (to symbolically use on oneself upon failing SCU), acyanidepill,cotton(representingMont Blanc,which is considered sacred), a lemon (treating the wounds of one's comrades), a needle to puncture the index finger of the right hand, handkerchiefs (representing purity of spirit) and aspartenza(a gift of some sort, usually cigarettes).
• Società Segreta– The top level, the core of the organization where key decisions are made.

The Sacra Corona Unita consists of about 50 clans with approximately 2,000 members and specializes in smuggling cigarettes,drugs,arms,and people. The Sacra Corona Unita collects payoffs from other criminal groups for landing rights on the southeast coast of Italy.

The SCU uses a hierarchical structure when running its organization, and the higher you climb the more responsibility and money you gain. Men are the predominant rulers of the group. In recent years, the SCU has been finding ways to exploit people online by scamming and hacking individuals for money. This money is then laundered into countries across Europe, such as the U.K., Spain, and Germany.

Presence outside Apulia

The Sacra Corona Unita has the Apulian region as their main territory, however, they are known to have a presence in other parts of Italy, especially inModena,Mantua,andReggio Emilia.Outside Italy, the organization has a presence in Albania, Spain, Germany, United States and the United Kingdom.

• The organization has long been present in Albania, partly because of the proximity of Apulia and Albania and the diffusion of the Italian language. Albania is a point of arrival for huge quantities of smuggled cigarettes and drugs from Afghanistan.
• Spain is considered a logistical base for the trafficking operations of the organization. SCU fugitives have been stopped in seaside resorts south ofBarcelona.
• While the organization does not have consolidated structures in Germany, it is known that theRogoli-Buccarella-Donatiello clan,thePadovanoclan, theTornese clanand theMesagnesi clanhave a presence in the country. TheCoca-familyinvestigation documented large cocaine trafficking from Germany to the province ofBrindisi.
• The USFBIsay: "Very few members of the Sacra Corona Unita have been identified in the United States, although some individuals inIllinois,FloridaandNew Yorkwould have ties with the organization. "
• In the United Kingdom the Sacra Corona Unita is believed to invest dirty money in hotels and in the tourism sector.

With the decreasing importance of the Adriatic corridor as a smuggling channel as the situation in the Balkans normalises, and a series of successful police and judicial operations against it in recent years, the Sacra Corona Unita has been reduced to a fraction of its former power, which peaked around the mid-1990s.

Alliances of Sacra Corona Unita

'Ndrangheta

Giuseppe Rogoli, one of the founders of the SCU, was an affiliate of the 'Ndrangheta in Apulia, even before the creation of the Sacra Corona Unita. The SCU, after Cutolo's downfall, can be considered an offshoot of the 'Ndrangheta in the region, due to Rogoli asked for the permission of theCapobastoneUmberto Belloccoto create an "Apulian 'Ndrangheta", which becomes the today's Sacra Corona Unita.

On 13 November 2017, the operation Lampo ended, lasting three years and started from the Sant'Anna operation, which arrested 10 alleged affiliates of the SCU and its alleged head Cataldo Caporosso operating inMassafra,Statte,Palagianoand in the Tamburi district ofTaranto.The coterie had entered the fish and local cocaine market. The criminal activities of the criminal association would always have been endorsed by the 'Ndrangheta Boss Umberto Bellocco who, after 21 years in prison, would have met the Sacra Corona Unita member Cataldo Caporosso and conferred on him the dowry ofpadrino.

On 14 November 2018, the operation Galassia of theGuardia di Finanzaended, in which the presumed member of thePesce-Bellocco 'ndrina, Antonio Zungri, some members of theTegano 'ndrinaand perhaps of thePiromalli 'ndrinatogether with the Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita's Capriati and Parisi clans were illegally included in the commercial network of the online betting companiesPlanetwin365,Betaland,EnjoybetandPlanetwin.The Apulian clans set up its own foreign bookmaker with interests and projections in Brazil, Colombia, Nigeria, Romania, Vietnam, Panama, Paraguay, Argentina and Russia. In this operation were seized assets worth over €1 billion, while over 80 searches have been carried out throughout Italy.

Camorra

Although the first structured criminal organization in Apulia was created by theNuova Camorra Organizzata,preceding the SCU, the Apulian underworld frowned upon their region being dominated by an outside organization. Taking advantage of the downfall ofRaffaele Cutolo,the local criminals distanced themselves of the Camorra and get more aligned to the 'Ndrangheta.

However, according to the pentito Antonio Accurso, the Camorra'sDi Lauro clanhas several links to the Sacra Corona Unita in question with regards to drug trafficking.

Balkan organizations

The Apulian mafias have long been rooted in Albania, a neighbouring country where the Italian language is widespread. TheAlbanian mafiacollaborates with the SCU to make Albania a sorting centre for large amounts of smuggled cigarettes, anddrugs from Afghanistan,much of which enter Italy through the coasts of Montenegro, Croatia and Albania.On 27 July 1999 police in Durrës (Albania), with Italian assistance, arrested one of the godfathers of the Sacra Corona Unita. This Albanian link seems to confirm that the Sacra Corona Unita and the Albanian mafia are "partners" in Apulia and delegate several criminal activities.

Rivals

The internal difficulties of the SCU aided the birth of antagonistic criminal groups such as:

• Remo Lecce Libera:formed by some leading criminal figures from Lecce, who claim to be independent from any criminal group other than the 'Ndrangheta. The term Remo indicates Remo Morello, a criminal from theSalentoarea, killed by criminals from theCampaniaregion because he opposed any external interference;
• Nuova Famiglia Salentina:formed in 1986 by De Matteis Pantaleo, from Lecce and stemming from the Famiglia Salentina Libera born in the early 1980s as an autonomous criminal movement in theSalentoarea with no links with extra-regional Mafia expressions, the organization fought afeudagainst SCU's clans in Lecce;
• Rosa dei Venti:formed in 1990 by De Tommasi in the Lecce prison, following an internal division in the SCU.

Internal divisions

Società Foggiana

Main article:Società foggiana

The murder of Giuseppe Laviano, lieutenant of the Sacra Corona Unita inFoggia(whose body was never found), in January 1989, marked a turning point in the mafia war and the rise of Rocco Moretti, known asil porco(the pig),in the context of the Foggia organized crime at the expense of Laviano himself. After the murder, Moretti became the head of the new criminal organizationSocietà foggianain Foggia. Following the arrests made by the police in theMantideoperation, among the many details, macabre revelations also emerged, such as the photo of Laviano's severed head, shown to the main members of theSocietà Foggianaduring the summits.

The relations between the Foggia delinquency and the Camorra are probably the oldest and deepest ones. The Foggia delinquency has managed to make the qualitative leap thanks to the Camorra, particularly theNuova Camorra Organizzata;during the NCO period many "Cutoliani" spent periods of imprisonment in the prisons ofSan Severoand Foggia, making contacts with and recruiting local criminals. Raffaele Cutolo's sisterRosetta Cutolospent time in San Severo.Cutolo even organized a sort of offshoot of the NCO in northern Apulia, theNuova Camorra Pugliese;the killing of Don Peppe Sciorio, Lieutenant of Cutolo for Foggia, was another clear sign that the Foggia criminals wanted to become independent.

TheSocietà Foggianais considered the most brutal and bloody of all the Italian mafias.

The most powerful clans inside the Società Foggiana are theTrisciuoglio clan,theSinesi-Francavilla clanand theMoretti-Pellegrino-Lanza clan.

In September 2019, the Italian police dismantled an internationaldrug traffickingalliance between the powerful Gionta clan of the Camorra, the Società Foggiana, and Moroccan drug traffickers.The investigation started in 2016 against aMaghrebgang based in the region ofTrentino-Alto Adige.The vast network of drug traffickers, extended from Morocco, passing through Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands to finally arrive inTrentinoand inBolzano.Arriving in Italy, the drugs were sold in parks, historic centers and near schools by mainly Tunisian and Moroccan pushers. Nineteen people were arrested, with four still being wanted in Italy, Spain and in the Netherlands at the time, and seventy-three under investigation. Over one ton of hashish and 2 kg of cocaine were seized.

In January 2020 two bomb attempts were made in Foggia to murder a key witness in a major trial against mobsters; nobody was injured. The anti-mafia task force was reinforced after the attacks, and 20,000 people marched through Foggia in a protest organised by the anti-mafia groupLibera.

See also

• Sicilian Mafia
• Camorra
• Società foggiana
• Stidda
• Banda della Magliana
• Albanian Mafia

Further reading

• Maria Grazia Pasculli (2011)."Organized crime in Italy: the Puglia mafia".Prim@ Facie.10(18): 40.ISSN1678-2593.OCLC1031892311.