Pizzo (mafia)

{{Short description|Protection money}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}}

File:Mappa del Pizzo.svg

The pizzo ({{IPA|it|ˈpittso|lang}}) is protection money paid to the Mafia often in the form of a forced transfer of money resulting from extortion. The term is derived from the Sicilian pizzu ('beak'). To "let someone wet their beak" (Sicilian language fari vagnari u pizzu) is to pay protection money. The practice used to be widespread in Southern Italy,{{citation needed|date=July 2015}} not only by the Sicilian Cosa Nostra but also by the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria and the Camorra in Campania. Another etymological explanation of the term is "beakerful", referring to the right of an overseer to scoop from the grain being threshed by peasants.Paoli, Mafia Brotherhoods, p. 241

Paying the pizzo may involve adding someone (often a member of a criminal organisation) to the payroll, provisioning of services by Mafia-controlled businesses or subcontracting to Mafia-controlled companies.Paoli, Mafia Brotherhoods, p. 164 Businesses that refuse to pay the pizzo may be burned down. In return for paying the pizzo, businesses receive "protection" and can enlist neighbourhood Mafiosi to cut through bureaucracy or resolve disputes with other tradesmen. Collecting the pizzo keeps the Mafia in touch with the community and allows it to "control their territory".{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/28/wmafia128.xml|title=The pizzo racket|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|date=28 April 2006}}{{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}

According to investigators, in 2008 the Mafia extorted more than 160 million euro a year from shops and businesses in the Palermo region, and they estimated that Sicily as a whole paid 10 times that figure.{{Cite web |date=2008-03-08 |title=Mafia-free supermarket defies mob extortion |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1581141/Mafia-free-supermarket-defies-mob-extortion.html |access-date=2024-09-01 |website=The Telegraph |language=en}} Approximately 80% of Sicilian businesses pay a pizzo.{{Cite web |date=2007-10-23 |title=Italy's biggest business: the Mafia |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567104/Italys-biggest-business-the-Mafia.html |access-date=2024-09-01 |website=The Telegraph |language=en}} According to University of Palermo, the pizzo averages €457 (US${{To USD round|457|EUR}}) per month for retail traders and €578 for hotels and restaurants, but construction companies are asked to pay over €2,000 per month according to economic daily Il Sole 24 Ore.[http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jLjxsdQPEBu-zA-ytPbvYHUSyOZA To the Mafia's horror, pizzo-free shop opens Palermo doors] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080314010142/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jLjxsdQPEBu-zA-ytPbvYHUSyOZA |date=14 March 2008 }}, AFP, 8 March 2008

Among the first to refuse to pay protection money was Libero Grassi, a shopkeeper from Palermo. In January 1991, he wrote an open letter to the Giornale di Sicilia, the local newspaper. Published on the front page, it was addressed to an anonymous "Dear Extortionist". It caused an uproar and later that same year Grassi was murdered.{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7342106.stm|title=Sicilians grow defiant of Mafia|website=BBC News|date=11 April 2008}}

In 2004, Addiopizzo (English: "Goodbye Pizzo"), a grassroots consumer movement frustrated with the Mafia's stranglehold on the local economy and political life, peppered Palermo with stickers stating: "An entire populace who pays pizzo is a mob without dignity". The group organise demonstrations wearing black T-shirts with the Addiopizzo logo, a broken circle with an X in the middle and the words "consumo critico" (critical consumption).{{cite news|first=Felice|last=Cavallaro|url=http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2006/05_Maggio/03/pizzo.shtml|title=One Hundred Defiant Shopkeepers Say "We Don't Pay Protection Money"|newspaper=Corriere della Sera|date=5 May 2006}}