Effective strategies for targeted attacks to the network of Cosa Nostra affiliates

Network dismantling has recently gained interest in the fields of intelligence agencies, anti-corruption analysts and criminal investigators due to its efficiency in disrupting the activity of malicious agents. Here, we apply this approach to detect effective strategies for targeted attacks to Cosa Nostra by analysing the collaboration network of affiliates that participate to the same crimes. We preliminarily detect statistically significant homophily patterns induced by being member of the same mafia syndicate. We also find that links between members belonging to different mafia syndicates play a crucial role in connecting the network into a unique component, confirming the relevance of weak ties. Inspired by this result we investigate the resilience properties of the network under random and targeted attacks with a percolation based toy model. Random removal of nodes results to be quite inefficient in dismantling the network. Conversely, targeted attacks where nodes are removed according to ranked network centralities are significantly more effective. A strategy based on a removal of nodes that takes into account how much a member collaborates with different mafia syndicates has an efficiency similar to the one where nodes are removed according to their degree. The advantage of such a strategy is that it does not require a complete knowledge of the underlying network to be operationally effective.

Automated summary

Network dismantling has gained interest in various fields due to its efficiency in disrupting malicious activity. This study applies this approach to detect effective strategies for targeted attacks on Cosa Nostra by analyzing the collaboration network of affiliates. The study finds statistically significant patterns of homophily within the same mafia syndicate and highlights the importance of weak ties. It also shows that targeted attacks based on network centralities are more effective than random removal of nodes. A strategy considering collaboration with different mafia syndicates is as efficient as one based on node degree, without requiring complete knowledge of the underlying network.