The camouflage of the extortion activity and the different types of extra-legal authority in illegal and legal markets

In Italy, extortion and racketeering are still the pivotal activities of different mafia organizations, both in legal and illegal areas, thanks to the various functions they can guarantee. Hence, even though in different local contexts extortion and racketeering still keep their power syndicate feature, their enterprise syndicate feature, untied from extralegal violence, is ever ncreasing. The persistence and the new twist of extortion and racketeering have turned them into a so-to-say mother crime, i.e. the ‘spring’ which enables further illegal mafia activities. In Northern Italy there are some areas where the mafia underworld is infiltrating the legal market, either by offering goods and/or services (for example, in the construction business, waste disposal, slot machines) or by blending in thanks to money laundering or the corruption of politicians, administrators and entrepreneurs. In this scenario, extortion follows the above-mentioned activities and becomes the mafia underworld’s second phase. This is the reason why it is strictly necessary to modify policies against crime, first of all by organizing and selecting them according to a specific hierarchy. It must be acknowledged that certain crimes, due to their specificity, can be more harmful than others and can initiate a sequence of other crimes.