As you say it. Let me quote wikipedia on this topic : Benito Mussolini ruthlessly suppressed the Mafia, imprisoning many men on mere suspicion of being a mafioso. The Mafia did not become powerful in Italy again until after the country's surrender in the Second World War. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, a series of internecine "gang wars" led to many prominent Mafia members being murdered, and a new generation of mafiosi has placed more emphasis on "white-collar" criminal activity as opposed to more traditional racketeering enterprises. In reaction to these developments, the Italian press has come up with the phrase La Cosa Nuova ("the new thing", a play on La Cosa Nostra) to refer to the revamped organization. ...and I'm trading...
So what? Does it say: "there is no mafia in Sicily" or "mafia is everywhere, so sicilians should not care" as you seem to support? Keep on trading; no problem for me.
Well you could explain better. Can you read italian? If so go there and see the figures for yourself. http://www.svileg.censis.it/inizia/catania99/c99_02.htm Basically it says that half of the people indicted in Italy for belonging to any criminal organization is sicilian. Does it mean anything to you, or am I misunderstanding this too.
You say people negating mafia are part of the family. Wikipedia says that mafia ha focus now on white collar crime. For you I'm negating (I'm still looking for where I said that..) and I'm trading, a typical white collar money laundering activity.... Got it ?
So, if I move to for example Switzerland and start a business I would have some men in black coats knocking on my door? LOL. What kind of mafia are you talking about? I think the mafia on Sicily interferes quite much in everyday life, in Switzerland I would expect it only to be money laudering. Quite a difference. I am from Norway running a legal business there, I have yet to see any mafia here. Of course, the government uses mafia methods to collect taxes, but I guess that is not regarded as mafia.
Cause you think it's like this in Sicily ? Common, go over it and forget this epinal image of the local mafia. They are now playing at another level nowadays. Mafias are everywhere now from cigarettes illicit trading to high level finance activities. Who the hell would lose its time going from one business to the other and get money ? This is small criminality and has nothing to do with modern mafia activities. By the way, in case you don't know it, Switzerland is one of the central point for cigarettes traffic
Wikipedia is only partly right: what they call white collar is basically money laundering. That means they are laundering the profits arising from their usual business, mainly drugs and extortion.
Saying sicily is full of mafiosi is like saying that Switzerland is full of cows and just produce chocolate. Epinal refers to the Epinal's images but it's a typical french thing. It's true that it's perhaps not that well known by people in other countries. I should have used 'traditional' (but epinal is really stronger).