The mafia punishes theft by its own members to enforce internal property rights

Evidence

Stealing may be punished even when the culprit is himself a man of honor. Damiano Caruso took part in the so-called “slaughter of Viale Lazio” in 1969, says Calderone, and this action “had gone to his head and he did not want to obey anyone any longer.” He was subsequently banished to the United States, where he became the cause of complaints from Charles Gambino himself, then the “boss of bosses.” When he returned to Palermo, according to Calderone, he robbed a store belonging to a man of honor, as well as a jewelry shop owned by a protégé of Toto Riina. Caruso was punished for his audacity, murdered in Milan together with his mistress and her fourteen-year-old daughter. A cousin of Caruso’s who began to ask questions about his relative also disappeared without a trace (AC: I, 54). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 444

Categorization

• XREF: Internal governance of a private enforcer parallels Gambetta’s model — the protection firm must police its own agents to maintain its reputational capital, like Milgrom’s private judges needing to be trusted themselves.