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AWN Elstar O - L17 ‘hold court or divide territories, and they often defer ultimately to mail, smuggling (especially the smuggling of narcotics), labor The traditional Mafia is not a compact, centrally organized society: or party such as the Communist Party, but.a collection of gangs autonomons in their own territories and loosely federated when =) federated at all. The pattern of connections among local Mafia gangs depends chtefly upon the existing relationships between their leaders, Theae relationships may be cooperative, as in the case of inter~ . territorial collusion in » broad conspiracy, or close family tles; or they may be inimical, stemming from rivalry or the exlatenc an active vendetta. ct Adobe Above the local level, territorial gangs sometimes appear, . created : by ambitious and power ful lockl chiefs. Above such territorial gangs there is no fixed hierarchy. Powerful chiefs meet occasionally to: a chief of supreme prestige. The Mafia syatem of administration is” primitive. The leader ia the one with the "psychological drop, " 1.0, the one who instills the greateat tear of refusal to comply with bis. ae Recently, Mafia crime has been accentuated and has become better |. organized in Palermo than it was formerly. The possibility exista .- that the Mafia in Sicily has begun to achieve greater centraltzetion , since the establishment in 1947 of the Sicilian regional autonomy centered in Palermo. | racketeering, black-market operations, and many other crimes, though the persistent emphasis over many decades has been upoa the operation of a deadly protection racket. ‘es J het among Mafia modi operandi are murder and intimidation, {ced upon victims, witnesses, and all opposition. . The Mafia is distinguished from crime {in general in Sicily by its traditional exclusiveness; close family ties among its adherents a2