The key strategy, equivalent to customer allocation, consisted in binding fishing firms to sell only to prescribed mandatari; producers were thus the "property" of these middlemen (CPM-RMI: 97-98). Evidence was also found of a "development of connections" with respect to large buyers: the typical mandatario's family included wholesale dealers, fishmongers, and private auctioneers, even though by law the auctioneers should have been municipal employees (CPM-RMI: 96-97).

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 535