The secret lives of the Mafia hunters

The Mafia has been part of Sicilian life for generations, and so has the battle by police to arrest its leaders. The elite unit that goes after them is called the Catturandi, which means "the catchers" - one of its officers told Max Paradiso about the shadowy world in which he works, and how he kept his job hidden from his girlfriend until she recognised his bottom on TV.

对西西里的几代人来说，黑手党是他们生活的一部分，警方对其头目的追捕战斗也是同样。追捕黑手党的精英集团叫做Ctturandi，意为“捕手”，其中一位官员向Max Paradiso描述了他工作的神秘世界，并讲诉了他如何瞒着自己的女友知道她从电视上认出了他的臀部。

The only time you are likely to see a member of the Catturandi is when they arrest a mafioso. They are the men "without a name and without a face" - when they carry out operations they wear balaclavas to ensure they can’t be identified.

只有当Catturandi人员抓捕了黑手党人的时候，你才有可能看到他们。他们“无名无面”，当他们执行任务是，他们都带着套头露脸帽以保不被认出。

"We prefer to be called ’The Band of Lions’ because that’s what we are: wild, free, and ready to attack at any given time in this jungle," says IMD. There are fewer than 20 of them, and there is an obvious reason why they keep a low profile. "Back in the day, you would receive death threats from the bad guys, goat heads sent directly to your house - it wasn’t pleasant," he says. In the 90s he also received photographs of his car number plate, marked with a red cross. The threats drove some of his colleagues to leave the Catturandi but not IMD - and over the years the risk of assassination has reduced.

IMD说：“我们喜欢被叫做‘狮群’，因为那就是我们：野性，自由，在丛林中时刻准备好进攻。”他们不到20人，保持低调的原因也很明显。他说：“以前，我们会收到坏人的死亡威胁，羊头也会被直接送到家门口，这让人很不舒服。”在90年代，他也收到过在他车牌号上画着叉号的照片。这些威胁使得他的一些同事离开了Catturandi，但是IMD没有离开，近年以来，暗杀已经减少了。

He and his fellow officers find they often develop strangely intimate relationships with the criminals they track. They can wiretap and tail them for decades before making an arrest. "It’s like living with these people. You hear them conceiving their children, you listen to their family issues, you see their kids growing up and their emotions become yours," says IMD.

他和同事们发现，他们经常会和追捕的罪犯发展出非常亲密的关系。他们在对黑手党人实行逮捕之前，可能会窃听和跟踪他们长达数十年。IMD说，“你就像和他们一起生活一样，你听到他们有了孩子，听到他们的家事，看着他们的孩子长大，和他们同欢同悲。”

One of the men they bugged was a doctor in Palermo, who is now in jail. "He was really knowledgeable, we all learned Italian literature by constantly listening to him. We would take notes, get books he mentioned in his never-ending lectures to his kids. It was like listening to a radio programme and we were all fascinated by his manners, his way of thinking and his creativity. It was hard to believe he was a mobster."

他们窃听的一个男人是巴勒莫地区的一位博士，现在已经入狱。“他真的很博学，我们通过窃听他学到了意大利文学的知识。我们在听他给孩子们上的永不停止的讲座时，做笔记、买书。这就像听广播节目似的，我们都被他的礼仪，思维方式和创造力折服。”

At the moment of arrest, when the Catturandi storm a mobster’s house, IMD says he can have mixed feelings. "You want to ask them a lot of questions: Why do you kill? Why do you do that to another human being?" But the opportunities for conversation are limited, and any exchanges tend to be unsatisfying.

实行逮捕时，当Catturandi冲入匪徒的房子，IMD说，他会有一种复杂的情感。“你想要问他们很多问题：你为什么杀人？为什么对另一个同胞坐那种事？”但是对话的机会非常有限并且已有的交流都不令人满意。

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来源:BBC英语新闻爱语吧作者:Sally