Mafias in the Digital Age: Opportunities and Limits for Traditional Organized Crime

Abstract This article examines the relationship between Italian mafia-type groups and digital technologies, challenging the idea that mafias are undergoing a linear transformation into "cybermafias". While institutional and investigative discourses increasingly emphasize mafia involvement in online environments, systematic empirical evidence on how mafia power operates in digital settings remains limited. Drawing on qualitative analysis of 20 judicial proceedings and 12 semi-structured interviews with prosecutors, law enforcement officers, investigative journalists and cybersecurity experts, the article focuses on three empirical domains: encrypted phones, online gambling and online fraud. The findings show that digital technologies are not incorporated uniformly. Encrypted phones function mainly as defensive infrastructures for traditional criminal activities; online gambling is exploited through territorially anchored nodes; online fraud reveals mediated access to cybercrime through external technical expertise. The article argues that digital technologies expand opportunities for mafia groups but also expose the limits of mafia power in environments characterized by anonymity, immateriality, transnationality and technical specialization. Rather than replacing territorial power, digital technologies are selectively integrated when they can be connected to territory, social capital, intimidation or external expertise.