New York’s Five Major Crime Families

The New York Crime Families or Mafia as a Business

• The New York Mafia, known as the Cosa Nostra, operates as a ruthless and adaptable business, constantly changing and finding new ways to operate, similar to an amoeba.
• The primary goal is to understand the hidden structure and machinery that allows the Crime Families to continue running.

Historical Transformation: The Castellammarese War

• The current structure of the Crime Families in New York emerged from a period of significant violence, specifically the Castellammarese War in 1930-1931.
• This war dismantled the old system led by old-school Sicilian bosses like Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, often referred to as “Mustache Petes”.
• Younger, more Americanized mobsters, such as Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese, found the constant, messy street violence to be bad for business as it attracted unwanted attention.
• Lucky Luciano orchestrated a “corporate takeover” of the powerful Crime Families of the Mafia, ending the era of the single, all-powerful boss by arranging the murders of Masseria and Maranzano.

The Commission: A New Era of Stability

• Following the internal conflicts, Luciano established “The Commission,” conceived as a board of directors or a Supreme Court for the Crime Families or mob, to ensure stability and prevent destructive internal wars.
• The Commission held real power, mediating disputes and approving major decisions, including the appointment of new family bosses and authorizing hits on high-ranking “made guys.”
• This centralized authority aimed to maintain order and structure within the various Crime Families of the Mafia.

Organizational Structure and Insulation

• The Mafia’s structure emphasizes insulation to avoid detection and ensure survival.
• Orders and illegal activities flow down a hierarchical chain: from the Boss, to an Underboss or Consigliere (advisor), then to Capos (captains), who manage soldiers on the street.
• This multi-layered structure ensures that the individuals directly involved in committing crimes, who are most likely to be caught, are several steps removed from the boss, making it difficult for law enforcement to connect the dots.

Modern Money-Making Rackets

• While traditional rackets like loan sharking and gambling persist, the Mafia has adapted its methods.
• Loan sharking remains a reliable income source, with high-interest rates (“the vig”) and the threat of violence serving as collateral, making it a high-risk but profitable venture.
• Gambling has shifted from backroom card games to online platforms, often run through offshore servers (e.g., Costa Rica), making them harder to trace directly, though the Mafia still controls the players and network.
• A significant new area of infiltration is legitimate businesses, particularly the food industry.  Where Crime Families of Cosa Nostra sets up ostensibly legitimate vendor companies to control supply chains.
• These vendors sell essential restaurant supplies (pasta, sauce, olive oil, cheese, linens, water delivery, imported Italian goods) to restaurants, often those they own or influence, at inflated prices, effectively disguising extortion as commerce.
• Labor racketeering in industries like construction also continues, with mob influence in unions forcing contractors to use specific, mob-controlled shell companies for materials (e.g., fiber optics) at inflated prices.
• Debt collection within industries is another revenue stream; the Crime Families collects debts between companies, taking a substantial cut (sometimes up to half) for their “service,” which appears as a legitimate transaction on paper.
• International schemes, such as the high-end Range Rover scam, involved exploiting global markets by using straw buyers and fraudulent paperwork to export vehicles to countries like China, where demand was high, and selling them for massive profits.

Lost Rackets

• The Crime Families of the Mafia has largely abandoned certain rackets due to increased difficulty and law enforcement efforts.
• Counterfeiting money became too challenging with advancements in security features on currency (watermarks, security threads).
• Old-style prostitution rackets, like 1-800 numbers, have largely died out.
• Insider trading has become too risky due to aggressive monitoring by federal agencies like the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), which possess greater resources than local law enforcement.
• The Mafia now prefers cash-heavy industries that are easier to obscure.

Enforcement and “Murder Incorporated”

• Enforcement, through the threat or use of violence, is crucial to the Mafia’s operations.
• “Murder Incorporated” was the enforcement arm or security division of the National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s and 40s, responsible for an estimated 400 to 1,000 killings.
• To maintain insulation, Murder Incorporated was deliberately kept separate from the main crime families and often employed Jewish mobsters rather than Italian-made men, allowing bosses to remain clean with “plausible deniability.”
• Key figures in Murder Incorporated included Lepke Buchalter (overall head) and Albert “Mad Hatter” Anastasia (chief of operations/Lord High Executioner).
• They operated out of a candy store in Brooklyn called “Midnight Roses” (Rosy Gold’s Candy Store), open all hours for hit orders.
• Their methods were brutal and often designed to send messages, as exemplified by the murder of Walter Sage, who was stabbed with an ice pick, tied to a slot machine, and dumped in a lake after skimming from slot machines.
• Murder Incorporated ultimately unraveled when one of its main hitmen, Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, was arrested and “flipped.” He then became a state’s witness in 1940, leading to the breakdown of the careful structure of the crime families.

Leadership Styles: Secrecy vs. Spectacle

• The Mafia has seen different leadership styles, particularly the contrast between secrecy and spectacle.
• Carlo Gambino, “The Fox,” epitomized quiet power, prioritizing a low profile and operating from the shadows, making him almost invisible to the public and law enforcement. His philosophy was embodied by “the lion and the fox” (strength and cunning). He was only arrested once for tax evasion in 1937, long before becoming a boss.
• Joe Colombo, in contrast, embraced the limelight, appearing on TV talk shows and starting the Italian-American Civil Rights League to counter what he perceived as unfair targeting of Italians by law enforcement.
• Colombo’s high-profile approach made him a target, leading to him being shot and paralyzed at one of his own rallies in 1971, likely due to an internal family dispute fueled by the public attention he generated.
• John Gotti, “The Teflon Don,” was another example of a flamboyant leader, loving attention, fancy suits, and constantly in the news, directly opposing Gambino’s discreet style.
• While Gotti initially seemed to escape prosecution due to his “Teflon” ability, his visibility ultimately made him Target Number One, especially as law enforcement gained new tools.
• The 1968 Crime Control Act (Title III) provided law enforcement with enhanced electronic surveillance capabilities, like wiretaps, which proved crucial against verbose figures like Gotti.
• Gotti’s own underboss, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, “flipped” and testified against him, leading to Gotti’s downfall because he was too loud and visible.

Modern Mafia Operations and Survival

• The main takeaway for how the Cosa Nostra operates today is its continued adaptation, similar to an amoeba.
• They have “professionalized,” moving away from old rackets like counterfeiting and dock control.
• Survival now depends on operating more like a ruthless, yet discreet, business focused on profit.
• They exploit legitimate business networks in food distribution, construction, online gambling, and complex debt collection schemes.
• The modern crime families of the Mafia prioritizes staying low-profile; visibility is now a liability.
• Quiet, disciplined approaches, like those of Gambino and the Genovese family (dubbed the “Ivy League of the Mafia”), have proven more successful and sustainable, while flashy, high-visibility gangsters like Colombo and Gotti have ultimately faced destruction due to increased government surveillance and enforcement.