When Mussolini Put the Mafia Out of Business in Italy
In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified, and Prohibition of the manufacture, transport, and sale of alcohol throughout America went into effect a year later. One of its unintended and unforeseen consequences was to boost organized crime throughout the US. In effect, Prohibition took what had been a huge legal and taxed industry, and gifted it to the criminal classes. The result was a business boom for organized crime in the US in general, and the Italian-American mafia in particular, which was better positioned than any other criminal group to take advantage of the new opportunities presented.
However, just as fate handed the Italian mob a precious gift in the New World, it dealt it a severe blowback in the Old Country. Benito Mussolini and his fascists came to power in Italy around the time that Prohibition went into effect in the US. No Italian government before had managed to keep the Sicilian mafia and the Camorra in check. Nor has any Italian government since. As seen below, Mussolini crushed them. Farcical buffoon he might have been, but the Italian dictator did manage to successfully suppress the mafia and organized crime in Italy.
