The Italian Mafia

To what extent is Italy really run by the Mafia and other criminal organisations? Is their influence growing or shrinking? Is it just in the south of the countr? Is the Mafia a meme organisation bigged up by stupid Hollywood film-makers?

Wait the mafia is not a meme ?

Italy 3rd world confirmed

I lived in Italy for some time. Mafia has greater power in the South, were infrastructure and opportunities are lacking. In the North is not as noticeable.

I can make a comparison to Mexico, where the South is devoid of civilization and impunity reigns, while the capital and center is much more tranquil and "normal".

Apart from that, I don't know more about it.

From what I've heard, in towns in the South most businesses pay protection to the Mafia.

But aren't the most cartel run areas the north and center? The south may be 3rd world but at least they aren't getting beheaded.

>To what extent is Italy really run by the Mafia and other criminal organisations?
Once in a while you hear about some camorra-owned business somewhere and newspapers talk as if your local butcher payed pizzo.
>Is their influence growing or shrinking?
Shrinking since a couple decades.
>Is it just in the south of the countr?
The south has more shitty areas therefore powers other than the State find an opportunity to manage things. Pretty much the same phenomenon happening in many full-islamic neighbourhoods in the rest of Europe.
>Is the Mafia a meme organisation bigged up by stupid Hollywood film-makers?
Nowadays Mafia's dwarfed by Camorra and 'ndrangheta, which became pretty much multinationals.

Outside Mexico you don't here much about the South. We do.

The high profile "events" usually happen in border regions and ports, which are highly contested areas and have a lot of media just waiting for something. That's why the behead and dismember bodies. Because it's shocking and the media will pick on it.

The density of crime is greater in the South when looking at the country as a whole.

>center
No

I'm bored, so I'm going to give you an essay. You have to understand what the mafia is. It's both a group of people and a system of governing/controlling a territory. The second one implies a degree of consent by the people. Also we have several mafia-like organizations :^)
>To what extent is Italy really run by the Mafia and other criminal organisations?
It's not "run by the mafia" in the larger sense, but there are definitely very huge sacks where they can do what they want. But mainly what mafia-like cartels draw their profits from is 1) drug traffic 2) public contracts in building
>Is their influence growing or shrinking?
They definitely took some huge strikes in the last few years and the foreign cartels are eating a part of their profits, on the other hand some of them are extremely good at branching and finding political backers to do moneylaundering
>Is it just in the south of the country?
Some scary things where a whole town would back the mafia boss saying he did nothing wrong are just in the South (some parts of it), and I'd like to say it's shrinking a bit with time. Mafia as a system? It has perfectly integrated with the Northern economy, especially building. EXPO 2015 in Milan was revealed to have been thoroughly infiltrated
>Is the Mafia a meme organisation bigged up by stupid Hollywood film-makers?
The Mafia as you see it in movies is entirely a meme that romanticizes what used to exist until the 1960, before mass emigration to North Italy and before drug traffick got really big. If anything what's weird is that those Hollywood movies shaped the new generation of mafiosos in Italy who now actually take their AESTHETIC from shit like Scarface and the likes
Have a very Italian picture to go with all this

>EXPO 2015
lel I was there