Italy's Unknown 5th Mafia, The Stidda

In the late 1970s, as Sicily descended into all-out mafia war, the island’s allegiances split between the ruthless Corleonesi clan, led by Toto Riina, and southern gangsters fed up with Riina’s campaign of murder that was spilling innocent lives, and disgusting the Italian public.

This schism would be the birth of the Stidda — Sicilian for ‘star’ — a group that fought and thrived for turf in southern Sicily, and became prominent enough that, even today, people know it as Italy’s “Fifth Mafia”.

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