During the 1980s the situation of the mafia in Palermo became more uncertain. In 1986-87 the police received an unprecedented number of reports from shopkeepers complaining about the pressure to pay protection money to which they were being subjected. From October 1986 to April 1987 there were sixty-six such complaints, coming mostly from the center of the city and involving restaurants, automobile dealerships, hotels, discos, travel agencies, and all types of shops. The police could not understand why traditionally reticent merchants were suddenly coming forward. The fact was that they had been paying protection all along, but now the demands were coming from unfamiliar sources and were too outrageously high to be credible (the lowest reported demand was for 30 million lire, the highest for half a billion).

QUESTION: Why did merchants stay silent for so long under credible threats but break silence over outrageous ones? What threshold of absurdity triggers reporting?

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 673