Unione Corse

The Unione Corse is a secretive criminal organization operating primarily out of Corsica and Marseilles in France. Unlike the Sicilian Mafia, it has not attempted to gain a foothold in the United States, and thus does not have the other organization's notoriety. "Unione Corse" is the general name given by French and American authorities to the major Corsican gangs who organized the French Connection, the heroin trade between France and the U.S. from the 1950s to the early 1970s.

Characteristics and activities

The Unione Corse is alleged to be far more secretive and tightly knit than the Mafia, and law enforcement have found it hard to extract information from members, who follow a code of silence similar to the Sicilian Omertà. One typical example would be that of Antoine Rinieri, who was arrested in New York City in the early 1960s carrying around $247,000 in cash from a suspected drug deal. Under police interrogation he refused to give his real name or what he was doing with the money and was sentenced to six months imprisonment for contempt of court. At the end of his sentence he was deported back to France, but since no link was established between his money and drug trafficking, the government was forced to pay him back the sum, with interest.

Like the Mafia, the Unione Corse is also split into separate crime families. As of the early 1970s, there were around 15 clans operating in France, the most notorious being the Francisci, Orsini, Venturi, and Guerini.

Activities of the Corsican Mafia

• Money laundering
• Racketeering
• Drug trafficking
• Prostitution
• Extortion
• Control of football clubs
• Malpractice at the levels of the European subventions
• Robbery
• White-collar crime
• Tax avoidance and tax evasion
• Contract killing
• Casinos, hotel nightclubs
• Political corruption

Relationship with the French government

The Unione Corse has enjoyed some degree of influence within French government and law enforcement. During World War II, the organization carried out murders of prominent German sympathisers in Marseille on behalf of the French Resistance, and this continued into the postwar years. In 1948 the French government called upon the Unione Corse again to break up union strikes in Marseille which had Communist support. The gangsters provided an army of strikebreaking longshoremen to unload the ships and gunned down or intimidated defiant union leaders.

The organization had also managed to infiltrate various government agencies with its own members, such as the police, customs service and SDECE. It is believed that the organization's influence was one of the key factors behind the government's reluctance to crack down on their criminal activity.

Involvement in the heroin trade

For more details on this topic, see French Connection.

The Unione Corse was heavily involved in the heroin trade for a good part of the 20th century. It was heavily involved in the drugs trade in South-East Asia in the 1940s, and after the French retreat from Indochina in 1954, Corsican mobsters flew in drugs from Laos to South Vietnam by plane. The operations were collectively known as "Air Opium".

The most famous aspect of the Unione Corse's involvement in the heroin trade was what became known as "the French Connection". Between the 1930s and 1970s, they smuggled heroin refined in Marseilles to New York. Ultimately, international cooperation between law enforcement agencies dismantled the operation.

Notable members

• Antoine Guérini
• Marcel Francisci^[1]
• Dominique Venturi^[1]
• Lucien Sarti

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Time.com: The Milieu of the Corsican Godfathers

References

• "The Milieu of the Corsican Godfathers" - 1972 TIME article