I was thinking, with so much trade and shipping going around Italy (there in the mediterranean), there was an inordinate potential for organized criminal misdeeds. Is this one of the reasons organized crime thrived and became complex down to ranks etc in that region?
Or was there even more organized crime in Italy, is that just hollywood fiction?
It actually has more to do with modern dynamics of power and authority in post-unification Italy. In fact, Sicily's role in Mediterranean trade declined as Europe industrialized in the 19th century.
u/mikedash wrote this very extensive and detailed answer on the 19th-century origins of the Sicilian mafia which you might be interested in. There is of course always more that can be said (both linked to parallel organizations in the United States which took a life of their own, and how organized crime in Italy changed in the 1970s and 1980s) but I think it can go a long way to answering many of your questions.