What is Mafia?

We often hear words like Liquor Mafia, Mining Mafia, Construction Mafia etc. What does the word ‘Mafia’ mean? Mafia originated from Italian island of Sicily. These were groups that engaged themselves in criminal activities and made money through sale of illegal items such as drugs, arms or by trafficking into human beings.  These criminal gangs emerged some 200 years ago and did a lot of damage to the world trade. Even now Italy has lot of such companies that cheat people world over, though the Italian government has busted some of these gangs like Al-Capone.