Politicians are sometimes formally inducted into mafia families as members.

Evidence

Protection contracts are available not only to financiers and entrepreneurs but to politicians as well. There are a few known instances in which they are “made members” of a mafia family. Leonardo Vitale revealed that Pino Trapani of the Palermo town council was a member of the mafia family of the Porta Nuova district; Buscetta added that Trapani fulfilled the role of consigliere (OSPA: V, 733-734). Calderone recalls: “I personally met Onorevole Calogero Volpe [a member of parliament] who was ritually introduced to me by my brother as a man of honor, in Caltanisetta, in [Volpe’s] office” (AC: II, 594). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 466

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the reader’s private-protection framework: inducting a politician as a formal member converts an arm’s-length protection contract into a closed, reputation-bound membership — mirroring Milgrom’s point about how membership substitutes for continuous screening.