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ROME — It has been the stuff of macabre legend for years — that those who cross the Sicilian mafia end up encased in the concrete pylons of viaducts and bridges.

The truth about the mafia and construction, however, is more prosaic — and far more lethal.

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Rather than dumping rival gangsters into wet cement, organized crime groups imperil people’s lives by building bridges, tunnels, roads and apartment blocks with low quality materials and slapdash techniques.

Using cement containing too much sand, for instance, produces bridges and viaducts liable to crumble.

Italian prosecutors have launched an investigation into Tuesday’s collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, a disaster which has so far claimed the lives of 38 people, with another 10 to 20 still missing.

Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images

There is no suggestion, at this point, that organized crime had any role in the construction of the bridge. It was completed in 1967, before the mafia organizations of the south had started their infiltration of northern Italy.