Addiopizzo is an association based in Palermo and its name means "farewell pizzo". Pizzo stands for the "protection money" collected by mafias from businesses under various excuses – in the end it's nothing but extortion. In 2004, a group of 7 young Palermitans managed to start a collective movement which consisted in business activities (shops, bars, hotels...) who simply refused to pay the pizzo requested by Cosa Nostra (Sicilian mafia) families. Today the organization has over 900 affiliates. Among them there are also the companies of the children of Libero Grassi, an Sicilian enterpreneur who tried to oppose alone to pizzo in the early '90s and paid for it with his life as Cosa Nostra shot him dead in 1991.
