Sacra Corona Unita (pronounced [ˈsaːkra koˈroːna uˈniːta]; Italian for 'United Sacred Crown'; acronym: SCU), also known as the Fourth Mafia,[3][4][5] is a Mafia-type criminal organization from the Apulia region in Southern Italy, and it is especially active in the areas of Brindisi, Lecce, and Taranto.
[6] Informer Cosimo Capodieci said the SCU used "the Corona because it resembles a crown, meaning the rosary typically used in Church in order to carry out the functions of Jesus Christ and the cross... Unita because it was necessary to be connected to one another, similar to the rings of a chain.
[8] Sacra Corona Unita was formed in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was formally established in a prison in 1983, according to a document found by investigators in the cell of the organisation's founder, Pino Rogoli [it].
The Sacra Corona Unita was created to counter the overwhelming power in the prisons and on the Apulian territory of some of the more established mafia organisations, such as the Campania families united in Raffaele Cutolo's Nuova Camorra Organizzata.
Together with Vincenzo Stranieri [it] of Manduria and Mario Papalia, linked to Cosa Nostra, Rogoli set up the Sacra Corona Unita, whose structure and rituals closely resembled that of the 'ndrangheta, and was officially sanctioned as the supreme head of the newly formed organisation.
[3] The Sacra Corona Unita has the Apulian region as their main territory, however, they are known to have a presence in other parts of Italy, especially in Modena, Mantua, and Reggio Emilia.
[15] With the decreasing importance of the Adriatic corridor as a smuggling channel as the situation in the Balkans normalises, and a series of successful police and judicial operations against it in recent years, the Sacra Corona Unita has been reduced to a fraction of its former power, which peaked around the mid-1990s.
The SCU, after Cutolo's downfall, can be considered an offshoot of the 'Ndrangheta in the region, due to Rogoli asked for the permission of the Capobastone Umberto Bellocco to create an "Apulian 'Ndrangheta", which becomes the today's Sacra Corona Unita.
The Apulian clans set up its own foreign bookmaker with interests and projections in Brazil, Colombia, Nigeria, Romania, Vietnam, Panama, Paraguay, Argentina and Russia.
[13] However, according to the pentito Antonio Accurso, the Camorra's Di Lauro clan has several links to the Sacra Corona Unita in question with regards to drug trafficking.
[21] The internal difficulties of the SCU aided the birth of antagonistic criminal groups such as: The murder of Giuseppe Laviano, lieutenant of the Sacra Corona Unita in Foggia (whose body was never found), in January 1989, marked a turning point in the mafia war and the rise of Rocco Moretti, known as il porco (the pig),[24] in the context of the Foggia organized crime at the expense of Laviano himself.
Following the arrests made by the police in the Mantide operation, among the many details, macabre revelations also emerged, such as the photo of Laviano's severed head, shown to the main members of the Società Foggiana during the summits.