Sicilian cartels organized per province, not as one unified mafia-wide cartel

Evidence

Since the end of the 1950s, however, a series of attempts has been made to establish a more systematic organization among firms—not as a single cartel embracing all Sicilian families, as so many observers simplistically believe, but a number of cartels, at least one per province. The first to attempt this coordination was the province of Palermo, which had the highest concentration of families (approximately forty-six; see Table 2). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 283

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the reader’s core project: the per-province cartel structure, not a single statewide monopoly, is the actual organizational form — a fine-grained corrective to the common ‘one big mafia’ assumption.