Italian police decipher 'Mafia code' in initiation script The initiate is required to use a knife or other sharp instrument to make a cut in his skin in order to make a blood oath in which he swears "eternal allegiance to the honoured society." The ceremony should be carried out in a place that is "sacred, sacrosanct and secure," the document explained. The three-page, hand-written document is covered in mysterious symbols, some of them resembling Cyrillic, Greek and ancient Egyptian. It was deciphered by two police officers with an interest in codes and word puzzles. The breakthrough came when they decoded the symbol that represented the letter C, which enabled them to slowly begin to understand the rest of the strange alphabet. The fact that the unusual document was found in Rome showed the extent to which the "Ndrangheta has spread from its traditional stronghold in Calabria to other parts of Italy, police said. The encoded pages were discovered during an investigation into the murder last January of Vincenzo Femia, who was shot dead on the streets of the capital.