Two persistent stereotypes—that mafiosi, like Don Corleone in The Godfather, were reluctant to embark on the drug trade, and that in Sicily they were occupied exclusively with rural affairs until the 1960s—are simply untrue. As early as 1935, Serafino Mancuso was sentenced by a U.S. court to forty years' imprisonment for dealing in narcotics. Deported in 1947, he returned to Alcamo, where he resumed with his brother what was to be a long-lived and successful business. The Mancusos were not just merchants; they were also competent in processing morphine (Serafino, for instance, reprocessed ten kilos of poor-quality heroin, "squeezing" five good kilos out of it). In 1947-48 Lucky Luciano, Frank Coppola, and Angelo Di Carlo were also deported to Italy and brought their expertise back to their homeland. These repatriations gave the trade new impetus (CPM: 74, 78, 622, 999).

DEFINE: Corrects the persistent stereotype that mafia avoided narcotics and stayed rural until the 1960s.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 628