Established mafia families never successfully transplanted outside Sicily

Evidence

The geographic distribution of the mafia raises the question why was the mafia not exported to the rest of Italy. I am not suggesting that individual members and scattered groups have not operated elsewhere in the country; on the contrary, at various times mafiosi have scattered throughout Italy and entertained relationships with Neapolitan and Calabrese groups, as well as with autochthonous racketeers in the North. But, according to Calderone, there are only two other “recognized” groups, neither of which is a truly independent family: one in Turin, which is a decina of the Riesi family, and one in Rome, which is part of the Bontade family. The real question, therefore, is why established mafia families are not found outside Sicily. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 664

Categorization

• QUESTION: Gambetta poses the causal puzzle explicitly: why did a protection firm that thrives in western Sicily fail to replicate itself in the North, even with mafiosi present there? This is the natural next causal question to chase.
• XREF: This is the crux of Gambetta’s supply-side argument versus demand-pull alternatives—why the protection market did not emerge where demand presumably existed. Connects to the reader’s private-enforcement literature on why third-party institutions arise where information and enforcement costs are high.