Coronavirus: The lure of mafia money during the crisis

[Newest Reality]

The entire Trump Administration and his appointees come so very close to this model and the article might predict some sort of outcome that is similar in some ways. Quid pro quo?

The reason I even suggest that is that the Don has been involved with mobsters, (foreign and domestic) and has done money laundering, so he knows how it works.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52537573

On the island of Sicily, the brother of a mafioso - a member of a mafia group - has been distributing food to the poor in a neighbourhood of Palermo.

"People ring me and they cry over the phone," he says. "They say their children can't eat. A young woman has been calling me every single day. She has five kids and doesn't know how to feed them."

He wouldn't confirm that he was part of the mafia himself, but he said that if being a mafioso meant helping people, then he was "proud to be a mafioso".

The coronavirus is new, but distributing food parcels to the needy is an old mafia tactic.

"The aim is to gain credibility and to step in as an alternative to the state," says Nicola Gratteri, an anti-mafia investigator and head of the prosecutor's office in Catanzaro, in Calabria.

[tanyev]

1. "to step in as an alternative to the state"--That's it in a nutshell.

Needy Amin is now the Chief Executive of the state, but so many of his tweets, remarks and actions are in direct opposition to the state. Interesting read, thanks.

[Newest Reality]

2. You got it.

Thanks for the comment.

[Nature Man]

4. I think the characterization given by the movie version of Henry Hill

said it best (paraphrase):

"that's what they never understood, the mafia was just a place people who couldn't go to the police could go . . ." or something like that.

[Wounded Bear]

3. ISIS did it too...