A capodecina (literally 'head of ten',[1] also called caporegime in the American Mafia) is the head of a decina, a branch within a Sicilian Mafia family.
The term derives from dieci ('ten'), suggesting that each would be in charge of ten men.
[3] The term was mentioned as early as the 1880s in Sicily to describe the organisation of the Fratellanza, a Mafia-type organisation in Agrigento, in the south of Sicily.
[4] The Mafioso Melchiorre Allegra spoke of a capo della decina in his 1937 testimony.
He said a family split into groups of ten men each when it became unmanageably large.