These last days, around 20 people were arrested in France and Italy in a mafia sweep regarding an alliance between members of the Corsican Mob, the N'Drangheta and the Sacra Corona Unita.

It happened thanks to the information provided by a high level mob guy on the Italian side : Marco Raduano is the former boss of the "Societa Fogiana" (a branch of the Sacra Corona Unita). He was arrested a few months ago hiding in Corsica after his escape from prison in 2023.

He admitted to have been in Corsica under the protection of Charles Pieri, a well known Corsican Mob Boss who runs the northern part of the island.

A N'drangheta member based in Corsica called Marco Fufaro put Raduano in contact with Charles Pieri's crew and arranged his secret transfert to Corsica.

It is even alleged that both Marco Raduano and Marco Fufaro were involved in the killing in 2023 of Paul-Felix Paoli, a Corsican mob member and rival to Charles Pieri.

While it is known that the Corsican mob has ties to the Italian Mafia, it has rarely been reported in such details. The possibility that the N'drangheta and Sacra Corona Unita cooperated with the Corsican mob on a hit is actually unheard of.

Interesting that SCU members are hiding in Corsica. Historically the Sicilians always had the most contact with the Corsicans.

The times are changed. Now the ndrangheta are the big player in the drug trade so the Corsicans have more interes to make an alliance with the Calabrians.
I always immaginate the Corsica as the Sicily of the France but seems strange to me that the SCU members are hising there.

Furio is right since 'broker' Roberto Pannunzi the 'ndrangheta had ties to the French guys.
Italy and France are neighbours in the north.

Why is it that in Apulia, they say that there was no mafia type organization until maybe 1980s?
Is that correct?
If so ,what took so long?

And of course, it was the Italian who ratted lol

The northern part of the Apulia was influenced by Raffaele Cutolo ' s NCO and other part by the ndrangheta.
Its incorrect to say that before the 1980 there was no crime group but they became organized when the Apulia with his position became a route for cigarette smuggling and heroin traffick. First was only small time criminals and after born the SCU.
There is a movie Fine Pena:Mai that was the story of a real gangster from street thug in the 1970s to boss thanks to drug money until he get life.

yes, in the past they were more linked with the Sicilians because of the international drug trafficking, today they are more linked with the Ndrangheta that is very present in the French riviera

Who were the 179 men, supposed branch of the Camorra,tried in Bari in 1891?
Were they an organized crime group that never gets overlooked ? Or just a roundup of street criminals

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48101549

the 'camorristi' were present for centuries in the prisons of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but they only became organized in 1800, I don't know if this is the case but probably something organized was already there in Puglia

The Underworld in Puglia is diverse for example the Sacra Corona Unita (SCU), or United Sacred Crown, is a Mafia-like criminal organization from the region of Apulia (in Italian Puglia) and is especially active in the areas of Brindisi and Lecce and not, as people tend to believe, in the region as a whole.

It gets confusing trying to sort them out.
Is the one in Lecce and Brindisi also active in Bari,another area on the seacoast ?

The Foggia society is not a branch of the SCU. It lacks an aggregating summit, but has a compact internal structure, being organized in "batteries" on a federal model with a strong family connotation. This aspect determines a consequent impenetrability that represents a strong point, to which is added the strong roots in the territory,

I've read that the Barese Camorra is active in Bari,although its not the same as the Neapolitan Camorra. Would they be organized in Bari the way the Foggia Socirty is in Foggia ,for the same reasons?

And is the Barese Camorra the only group in Bari or is the SCU of Lecce and Brindisi ,also in Bari ?

In the 80's, Salvatore Contini, a member of the Sardinian mafia, and Jean marc Leccia, a famous chemist of the French connection, killed Guy Orsoni, a member of an important criminal clan which is still active today and runs part of Southern Corsica. Contini and Leccia were quickly arrested.

At the time, the Orsoni clan was also involved with the independantist guerilla in Corsica so it had 3 of their guys break in to the prison and kill Contini and Leccia then surrender to the police.

That's the Corsicans for you...Fierce people.

Are Corsicans Italian but just politically part of France?
Or are they French in a area that is geographically part of Italy?
Or a mixed Italian/French people with no way to distinguish if a Corsican is either French or Italian?

They probably were among the toughest, smartest and most sophisticated criminals of the last century, they were just too few of them so they never could become as big as the Italians, Colombians, Russians etc.

Corsicans are not Italians, per se. But they do share many similarities to the Italian people related to the Italian language and people and culture. The fact that they are so geographically close to Italy has helped in that regard through the years.

They are more French than Italians but there is some overlap for example Corsican is a Romance language consisting of the continuum of the Tuscan Italo-Dalmatian dialects.

The island of Corsica was mainly settled by migrants from Tuscany and Liguria. When it comes to genetic heritage the Corsicans are basically original Northern Italians. Due to the fact that they lived on an insular and mountainous island in the Mediterranean they developed their own close-knit traditions. I'd say they're ethnically Northern Italian (Tuscan/Ligurian) and culturally closer to Sicilians (seeing Sicily is in many ways a "sister island" of Corsica). Due to the fact that they've been living under French rule for a long time they adopted for instance French first names, but ethnically and culturally they're in many ways more "Italian" than they're "French".

I agree with your assessment. In fact, if you look at many Corsican first names and surnames, many at very Italianate in both their spelling and pronunciation. To the point that you think you're reading about Italians. And yes, the close geography of Sicily and Corsica also plays a part in this.

As a Frenchman who speaks Italian and know Italy well, i'd say that Corsican are ethnically Italian but culturally French.

The Corsicans speak a dialect that is very close to some other italian dialects and they have italian surnames (Paoli, Casanova, Mancini,...). They are as close to the Italian nation than Sardinia or Sicily. But because of the French assimilation system, they've lost their language and were educated the French way.

Interestingly Corsica is famous for producing two kind of people : policemen and gangsters. There are indeed many corsicans in the Police (including at a high level position). As you can imagine, sometimes these two worlds collude...

As Frank Costello in The Departed says: "When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?"

Lol. No doubt.

Also about 5.5 million French nationals are of Italian origin, corresponding to about 8% of the total population. French-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to France during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in France.

This has turned into an interesting topic for discussion.

Corsican organized crime has been operating more "underground" for at least the last two decades. Organized drug crime is more of a hot topic in France these days and the drug trade is dominated by Algerians in the big cities.

Corsican gangsters however are definitely operating in a rather sophisticated and shrewd way as far as organized crime goes. And they were deep in the '70s and early '80s. Family of mine lived in Brussels back in those days. The heroin trade in Brussels was completely controlled by French guys who in turn worked with the Corsican mob that operated from Marseille. Family of my father's side lived in an apartment above a bar operated by some shady French guy. That guy often had visits from guys coming over from the South of France - apparently you could tell by the accent and French-Corsican gangsters were spoken often about and were very feared in those days, even in Belgium. Anyway, that French guy who owned the bar in the apartment was sketchy, but also a bit of a loudmouth and not the sharpest tool in the shed. One day he just packed to leave for the French Riviera. Nobody heard anything about that guy for months and after a while word got back to the people living in that block that they found him burned to death in his car in Marseille. The French-Corsican heroin underworld was ruthless back in the days and they didn't think twice about having you clipped when they had a hunch you could become a liability.

Much like Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Corsican mob was very active in the Resistance against the nazi and in helping for the D-Day.

As a reward, after the war, the French authorities granted to the Corsicans the exclusive rights to run gambling club in Paris (kind of like the indians and the Casinos in the US). There were very few gambling clubs in Paris and all run by the Corsicans, until very recently (they all close because they were linked to Corsican organized crime...).

The Corsican mob was able to flourish because it had no competition in France. They were by far the most organized and dangerous criminal groups in the country so they could freely take over the rackets in Marseille and Paris.

For some reason Ligurians ,like in Genoa were considered ethnically/racially as Southern Italians during the Italian diasphora to America in early 1900s

The guy who protected them Charles Pieri is not just a powerful mob boss he is called the shadow man of Corsican nationalism for nearly forty years,.

Considered by the police to be the last living historical leader of the Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC), Charles Pieri is a miracle survivor who survived the bloody history of the Years of Lead which saw nationalists kill each other during the 1990s.