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Sacra Corona Unita, or United Sacred Crown, is a Mafia-like criminal organization from Apulia (in Italian Puglia) region in Southern Italy, and is especially active in the areas of Brindisi and Lecce and not, like people tend to believe, in the region as a whole.
Background and activities
The SCU is relatively new, first appearing in 1983. It has some religious symbolism, similar to the Camorra. SCU leader and founder Giuseppe Rogoli revealed a pyramidal structure to the SCU, with camorristi (soldiers) at the bottom; as well as sgarristi (enforcers), santisti, evangelisti, and trequartino levels of membership. The crimine was the boss. The Sacra Corona Unita consists of about 50 Clans with approximately 2,000 members and specializes in smuggling cigarettes, drugs, arms, and people. The Sacra Corona Unita collects payoffs from other criminal groups for landing rights on the southeast coast of Italy. This territory is a natural gateway for smuggling to and from post-Communist countries like Croatia, Yugoslavia, and Albania. Very few SCU members have been identified in the United States, however there are some links to individuals in Illinois, Florida and possibly New York. The Sacra Corona Unita is also involved in money laundering, extortion, and political corruption. Investigations by police and reports showed the SCU had links to the Colombians, other Italian crime groups, as well as Russian and Asian organized crime groups.
Symbolism
Informer Cosimo Capodieci said the SCU used "the Crown (Corona) because it resembles a crown, meaning the rosary typically used in Church in order to carry out the functions of Jesus Christ and the cross... United (Unita) because it was necessary to be connected to one another, similar to the rings of a chain."[1]
Rivals
The internal difficulties of the SCU aided the birth of antagonistic criminal groups such as:
- Remo Lecce Libera - formed by some leading criminal figures from Lecce, who claim to be independent from any criminal group other than the 'Ndrangheta. The term Remo indicates Remo Morello, a criminal from the Salento area, killed by criminals from the Campania region because he opposed any external interference;
- Nuova Famiglia Salentina - formed in 1986 by De Matteis Pantaleo, from Lecce and stemming from the Famiglia Salentina Libera born in the early 1980s as an autonomous criminal movement in the Salento area with no links with extra-regional Mafia expressions;
- Rosa dei Venti - formed in 1990 by De Tommasi in the Lecce prison, following an internal division in the SCU.[2]