International Journal on Criminology Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 6

the Campanella Brothers and Bernard Barresi
in 2010 and imprisonment of Jacques
Cassandri in January 2011) have helped
to open the way to other groups from the
housing projects. They are waging outright
war to safeguard their territory and protect
their business interests.
A war of succession and a war of
secession are being waged simultaneously,
which, with the accidental death of Jean Gé
Colonna, the last gangland peace mediator,
has resulted in the fragmentation of the local
criminal territory.
There have been similar developments
in the United States with the arrival
of powerful criminal gangs from Latin
America, including Mexico and Guatemala.
As is often the case, there is evidence of
a “postcolonial” effect on changes to the
criminal environment.
Therefore, without us realizing it,
globalization and crime have progressed together,
at first in parallel and later through
direct cross-connections, with each fuelling
the other. The era of international criminal
behavior is now in full flow.
Unfortunately, in criminal matters,
like terrorism, which is just another facet of
crime, the new is too often just the forgotten.
Yet, it is still possible to be surprised.
Controlling territories, conquering other
spaces, attracting attention through bullying
and bragging, provoking governments
like Capone or Escobar, creating strategies
of fear through the murders of General Della
Chiesa, or judges Borsellino and Falcone,
before adopting a lower profile, criminal organizations,
especially in the financial sector,
have learned how to be forgotten.
However, more recently, some have
taken another path of "freeing up" entire
regions to create "Narco-States". On an entirely
different scale to petty score-settling,
there is a higher level of conflict mobilizing
veritable armies: criminal warfare.
International Journal on Criminology
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