Wealthy customers can formally join the mafia as internalized members

Evidence

The case of the banker Michele Sindona is an infamous example of an internalized customer. Although there is no definitive evidence, there are indications that he was a “made member,” and it is undeniable that whenever Sindona needed protection, he obtained it (De Luca 1986). During the banker’s self-staged kidnaping—engineered in order to spur into action his political friends, who, in his view, were not giving him enough support after his bankruptcy—he was helped by both American and Sicilian mafiosi. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 413

Categorization

• XREF: Directly instantiates Gambetta’s model of the customer-protector relationship collapsing into full membership — relevant to the reader’s mapping of Puzo’s customer-turned-insiders onto Gambetta’s internalized customer category.