- published: 08 Nov 2015
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The Mafia (also known as Cosa Nostra) is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering. Each group, known as a "family", "clan", or "cosca", claims sovereignty over a territory in which it operates its rackets – usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (borgata) of a larger city. Its members call themselves "men of honour", although the public often refers to them as "mafiosi".
According to the classic definition, the Mafia is a criminality originating in Sicily - i.e. Cosa Nostra. However, the term "mafia" has become a generic term for any organized criminal network with similar structure, methods, and interests.
The Mafia proper frequently parallels, collaborates with or clashes with, networks originating in other parts of southern Italy, such as the Camorra (from Campania), the 'Ndrangheta (from Calabria), the Stidda (southern Sicily) and the Sacra Corona Unita (from Apulia). However, Giovanni Falcone, the anti-Mafia judge murdered by the Mafia in 1992, objected to the inflation of the use of "Mafia" to organized crime in general:
John Edward Alite a.k.a. "Johnny Alletto" (born September 30, 1962) is a New York City mobster. A former member of the Gambino crime family he was a friend and crew leader for John A. Gotti in the 1980s and 1990s. Following extradition from Brazil in 2006, he was convicted in Tampa, FL of several counts of murder conspiracy, racketeering and other charges stemming from allegedly heading a unit of the Gambino organization in Florida and was sentenced in 2011 to 10 years in prison (of which he had already served six). He was a prosecution witness against former associates, including Gotti and Charles Carneglia, in wide-ranging racketeering trials. While a part of the Gambino organization, because his family is Albanian, not Italian, Alite could not become a made member of the organization.
He testified in court that he was introduced to organized crime when an uncle of his took him to a gambling den in The Bronx and was accompanied by a made man in the Gambino crime family. Alite grew up in Woodhaven, Queens and says he briefly attended the University of Tampa on a baseball scholarship and played on the university team, The Spartans but left after one semester following an injury. He married his wife Carol on February 14, 1989 in Hawaii by a justice of the peace. The witness to his wedding was John Gotti Jr. He divorced his wife several years later. He is the father of four children, two from an ex-wife, Carol, and two from a common-law wife. In 2009 Carol complained while testifying in court that her ex-husband John owed her more than $30,000 in child support. This would end up not being true.