Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Friday, May 03, 2013

A Room With No View

I'm no expert by any means on furniture styles: French Colonial? Laz-E-Boy? It's much the same to me. Looking at this room, however, gives one a sense of opulence that hints at grander things throughout the  rest of the mansion as well as enough money to install a foam ball pit should one desire. elegance galore is the vibe this room gives off...but I daresay you would not want to hang out there or (gasp!) live there. You see, this room is underground...FAR underground. The only contact with the outside world is through secret phone lines and video cameras installed topside. Very few people know who resides here...or at least who USED to reside here.
This room is part of an underground lair designed and used not by Dr. Evil, but by the head of a Mafia family in Southern Italy! In fact, according to a recent BBC report, a great number of such folks used to live in underground bunkers adorned like this one prior to their being discovered by the anti-mob police recently. Some background:
In Southern Italy and Sicily, there are four major mob families: Cosa Nostra, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unitas, and 'Ndrangheta, all of whom make most of their lira through drug smuggling. Efforts by police to destroy the operations drove the bosses to build underground bunkers like the one pictured above. Some were ocean shipping containers welded together, and one enterprising Mafioso even tore up the main street in a town in order to more easily construct his subterranean hideout. Strangely, nobody said a word!
These bunkers have become such a booming business that there are individuals whose claim to fame lies in the area of building such places underground. Such enclosures become home, hideout, fortress, and command center for some of the most wanted men in that part of the world.
Of course, the irony is that in sequestering themselves below ground never to see the actual light of day, they are imprisoning themselves in much the same manner as the law enforcement people would...but with nicer furniture.
The article did not go on to indicate what happens now that these underground cities have been discovered, but it's safe to say, I think, that the kind of money that is involved in the drug trade will finance some very nice digs (so to speak) in another location.

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