A Maltese property firm’s description of the Sicilian province of Ragusa as “mafia-free” earned him the rebuke of a local newspaper there, for stamping the rest of the Sicilian island as a den of criminality.
The online Corriere di Ragusa said Frank Salt director Joseph Lupi’s “unhappy” comment – which seized on the region’s apparent mafia immunity as part of his sales pitch – had been “damaging” and a “gaffe”.
Lupi was quoted in a Frank Salt press release saying the company had chosen Ragusa to sell its new properties “mainly for its proximity to Pozzallo and the Maltese islands” and for “its non-involvement with the Sicilian mafia”.
The Corriere appeared to take umbrage at the comment: “In excluding the province of Ragusa from being ‘mafiosa’, it basically stamps the rest of the eight provinces as affiliates of Cosa Nostra.”
Ragusa is conveniently described as a ‘provincia babba’ – ‘babba’ being the Sicilian for imbecile or naïve – but made to imply the province as being tranquil, free from mafia activity.
“The initiative of the Maltese property firm is laudable,” the newspaper went on. “But it’s a pity that certain trappings of a subculture that all of Sicily is trying to distance itself from, returns to damage those who believe in the island’s salvation.”

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