Antonio Nicaso is an expert on the Calabrian mafia (known as 'Ndrangheta). Nicaso lives and works in North America. He teaches courses on "Social History of Organized Crime in Canada" and "Mafia Culture and the Power of Symbols, Rituals and Myth" at Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario. He also teaches at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo, Ontario and the Italian School of Middlebury College in Oakland, California in the United States and is the co-director of the Research in Forensic Semiotics Unit at Victoria College (University of Toronto). 

Nicaso is also the President of Centro Scuola e Cultura, in Toronto. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, at York University (Toronto); on the International Advisory Council of the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies “Niccolò Machiavelli” in Rome (Italy), and on the Expert Advisory Committee on Bullying, Intimidation and Gang Violence in Montreal.

He has been a key speaker at various symposia in North America, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, Caribbean and Australia. He has published more than 30 books. His book Global Mafia, published in 1995, concerned international criminal partnerships. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, at York University (Toronto); on the International Advisory Council of the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies "Niccolò Machiavelli" in Rome, Italy, and on the Expert Advisory Committee on Bullying, Intimidation and Gang Violence in Montreal. He is also president of Centro Scuola e Cultura, a program offering Italian courses and courses abroad in Italy.

One of his latest publications include Made men: Mafia Culture and the Power of Symbols, Rituals, and Myth, (2013) which attempts to deconstruct the myth propagated by cinema, television and the media of mafiosi as men of honour and Dire e non dire (Saying and Not Saying, 2012), which analyses the use of language, behavioural norms and rules associated with those involved in organised crime. Another of his books, Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War (2015), which debuted in fall 2017, now available on Netflix worldwide.

Contacts:
Email: an65[at]queensu(dot)ca
 

	Made Men: Mafia Culture and the Power of Symbols, Rituals, and Myth The novel The Godfather (1969) and the movie of the same name (1972) entrenched the myth of the Mafiosi as valiant knights, men of honor, and defenders of the traditional concept of family. As a result of this movie and other popular portrayals, the image of mobsters as “men of honor and tradition” has become iconic throughout America. Yet the truth of the matter belies this more noble image.
	Bad Blood (Business or Blood TV Tie-in): Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War In 2012, Vito Rizzuto emerged from prison, a sixty-six-year-old man who could carefully reconstruct his crime family or damn the consequences and punish his betrayers. From the events leading to his imprisonment, through the bloodshed following his release, to his mysterious death in 2013 and morerecent efforts to continue his family’s dominance, Bad Blood is the final word in the story of a twenty-first-century criminal mastermind.
	This book is about secret history of the blood and power of the 'Ndrangheta (1860-2018).  Nicola Gratteri, a public prosecutor who has been at the fight forefront against the Calabrian mafia for thirty years, and Antonio Nicaso, author and university Professor, has been investigating criminal organizations for thirty years—reconstruct in detail evolutionary phases of the 'Ndrangheta. They share how it has transformed from a regional gang subversive to parasitic one on this territory's power and government, infiltrating and dangerously polluting the national and international politics and economy in an uninterrupted and ferocious sequence of crimes, murders, violence, and oppression.