FBI, law-enforcement authorities are now trying to use techniques developed against the Sicilian Mafia to fight the maras.

ECONOMIST: Criminal gangs in the Americas

Consciously or not, investigators around the world took the model of the American and Sicilian Mafia as their blueprint.

NPR: Tracking the World's Black Market: 'Illicit'

From Tunis to Lebanon to the Gulf States to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Mr. Qureia has overseen a confidence operation that puts the Sicilian Mafia to shame.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: After Arafat

Riina, known as The Beast, is currently serving multiple life-sentences after leading the Corleonesi faction of the criminal network to the top of the Sicilian mafia and waging a ruthless campaign of violence against rival mobsters and the Italian state in the 1980s and early 1990s.

BBC: File image of the town of Corleone

Experts say the 'Ndrangheta has overtaken the Sicilian Cosa Nostra mafia and become one of the world's biggest criminal organisations.

BBC: Map of Italy with Reggio Calabria

Experts say that Mr Camilleri's portrayal of Sicilian low life and of Mafia mores is uncannily real.

ECONOMIST: The Mafia, Italy��s favourite topic

But the suggestion by several delegates to the UN convention that the old Mafia was beaten was met with a heavy dose of Sicilian scepticism - not least in Corleone itself.

BBC: Mafia - past and present

The mayor of the Sicilian town of Corleone, famous for its connections to the Cosa Nostra mafia, has apologised to victims of the criminal network.

BBC: File image of the town of Corleone

The BBC's Alan Johnston, in Rome, says that although the mafia still has a presence in the town, some 60km from the Sicilian capital, Palermo, it is no longer the force it once was there.

BBC: File image of the town of Corleone

Just to be precise, Mafia, or even Cosa Nostra, should in fact refer only to the Sicilian version.

FORBES: The Market for Lemons and the Start of the Mafia