Mafia code of honour list discovered as leader arrested
The Sicilian Mafia “has no more leadership. Today it is an organisation without structure that can no longer move except with difficulty”, Mr Grasso said.
Lo Piccolo, 63, who was arrested Monday, took the helm of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, a year and a half ago after the arrest of supremo Bernardo Provenzano in April 2006.
Italian police found what they say is a Ten Commandments-style code of behaviour for Mafia members at the hideout of the captured Mafia boss.
Prohibitions include frequenting bars and looking at friends’ wives, while members are urged to treat their own wives with respect.
The list was discovered during the arrest of Lo Piccolo.
It is thought to have been drawn up as a “guide to being a good mobster”.
Activities apparently beyond the pale for mafiosi are being friends with the police, being late for appointments and “appropriating money if it belongs to other mafia members or to other families”.
The decalogue was discovered along with a large number of other coded documents in a house near Palermo where Mr Lo Piccolo was apprehended after spending more than two decades on the run from police.
Investigators say that the documents will give them an insight into how the Mafia operates.
The following lists the Mafia’s Ten Commandments beside the original Ten Commandments:
1. No-one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.
2. Never look at the wives of friends.
3. Never be seen with cops.
4. Don’t go to pubs and clubs.
5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty — even if your wife’s about to give birth.
6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.
7. Wives must be treated with respect.
8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.
9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.
10. People who can’t be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn’t hold to moral values.
