Rival protectors respond to encroachment on their clients with lethal force

Evidence

Elsewhere in his testimony Calderone reports a further attempt at extortion. He refers to a time when his brother Giuseppe had already been killed, and he was no longer the main protector of the Costanzos: “Toward the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s, the Costanzos opened a building site in Messina. After a while there was a demand for money from one or more Messinesi… Gino Costanzo told me about these demands for money and, if I am not wrong, he said that they came from persons who used to work for them. I asked him whether he had spoken to Nitto [Nitto Santapaola, now the main protector] and he said he had. Subsequently one of the extortionists was killed in Messina” (AC: I, 155). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 448

Categorization

• XREF: Directly evidences the reader’s threat of violence as credible commitment mechanism — the extortionist’s murder signals both consequence and the protector’s standing monopoly over his clients. — connects to: Defeated officials often redirect vengeance onto what their enemies love — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 2889