Mafia!
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You lisina to me, some day you goin a be runna da bussiness, you goina have a beautiful wife, lotsa money, a biga home and maybe a couple od bambino, some day you goina come hom and maybe finda you wife in be with another man. Whata you gonna do then? Pointa to you watch and say, "Times Up?"
The Mafia in Los Angeles
If they joined the Gangster Squad, their targets would be the likes of Bugsy Siegel, the playboy refugee from New York's Murder Inc., and Jack Dragna, the Sicilian banana importer who quietly lorded over the city's rackets.Then there was Mickey Cohen, the dapper former prizefighter who had come to town as Bugsy's muscle but soon had his own cafe on North La Brea and a "paint store" nearby with three phones to take bets. That's where he'd shot a produce broker whose family ran competing bookie joints. Mickey said the man came at him with a .45, the one found beside the body, and there were no witnesses to contradict his story. "It was me or him," Mickey said. "I let him have it."
There had been three more mob rub-outs around L.A. since then, including the shotgunning of two Chicago men outside a Hollywood apartment. That one generated a "Gangsters in Gambling War" headline that was a prime reason Police Chief C.B. Horrall wanted those 18 cops to see what a Thompson submachine gun looked like.
"You'll be working with these," Burns told them.
The deal was: If they signed on, they'd continue to belisted on the rosters of their old stations. They'd have no office, only two unmarked cars. They'd almost never make arrests. They'd simply gather "intelligence" and be available for other chores. In effect, they would not exist.
Burns gave them a week to ponder advice from an old lieutenant at the 77th, who said an assignment like that could get you in good with the chief. "Or you could end up down in San Pedro, walking a beat in a fog."
After the week, only seven came back, making a squad of eight, counting Burns.
"We did a lot of things that we'd get indicted for today," said Sgt. Jack O'Mara.
On the job a decade before J. Edgar Hoover's FBI acknowledged the existence of the Mafia, they took an anything-goes approach to making life hell for Mickey Cohen and driving other such characters from the Southern California sunshine.
They used a look-alike Pac Bell truck to plant bugs, to hell with warrants. They did secret favors for Jack Webb, who glorified the LAPD with his "Dragnet" TV show. They stole evidence from mobsters and neutralized a pesky newspaper columnist. And Jack O'Mara personally set a trap for the showboating Mickey, to prove he was a killer.
There were close calls grand jury investigations, lawsuits and a skeptical chief or two but they endured through the 1950s. That's when one of their cases changed the ground rules for policing in California and when one of their own Jerry Wooters, the most reckless of them all grew far too friendly with L.A.'s homegrown hoodlum, Jack "the Enforcer" Whalen.
But when "the Enforcer" made the mistake of confronting Mickey and his crew at a hangout in the Valley, a bullet between the eyes signaled that the Gangster Squad's time was over, and so was a defining era in the city's history.
Noir L.A. was a time and place where truth was not found in the sunlight, and justice not found in marble courthouses, and where not a single gangland killing was solved, not one, for half a century. Not on paper, anyway.
Their first assignment: the visitors shaking down Hollywood restaurants and nightclubs. "Hoodlum types from Rhode Island," in O'Mara's words, "what we called 'dandruff.' "
The fear of evil outsiders had been a refrain in L.A. before any of these cops were born. You could go back to 1891, when this was a community of 70,000 with a police force of 75, and hear Chief John Glass warn of "Eastern crooks" seeking warm weather and easy pickings. After the turn of the century, the invaders were upgraded to "Eastern gangsters," and in 1927 Det. Ed "Roughhouse" Brown became a local legend by escorting Al Capone to the train when the notorious mobster was discovered in a downtown hotel. "I thought you folks liked tourists," Capone said before returning to Chicago.
Now a new group of "tourists" was demanding 25% of the take at landmarks such as the Mocambo and Brown Derby, and the club owners did not want to go to court, worried what might happen to their families. A state crime report would warn anew of an "Invasion of Undesirables." "What are you gonna do?" O'Mara asked.
The view was great from the hills off Mulholland Drive. So why not escort these hoodlums up there and, as O'Mara put it, "have a little heart-to-heart talk with 'em, emphasize the fact that this wasn't New York, this wasn't Chicago, this wasn't Cleveland. And we leaned on 'em a little, you know what I mean? Up in the Hollywood Hills, off Coldwater Canyon, anywhere up there. And it's dark at night."
Amid that darkness, he would "put a kind of a gun to their ear and say, 'You want to sneeze?' "
That was O'Mara's signature, the gun in the ear and a few suggestive words: "Do you feel a sneeze coming on? A real loud sneeze?"
The squad members met on street corners or in parking lots. Their 1940 Fords had 200,000 miles on them and holes in the floorboard so they could pour fluid into the master cylinders. At times five men rode in one, and if several smoked cigars, their suits would stink so bad they'd hang them outdoors at night.
Their three Tommy guns came with 50-round drums and beautiful violin cases, but were a pain they couldn't leave them in the trunk and risk having them stolen. O'Mara slept with his under his bed.
When they did get an office, it was a cubbyhole in the decaying Central station, which had horse stalls from the 1880s.
It was tempting to see them as a wrecking crew, with several resembling another new team in town, the football Rams. Doug "Jumbo" Kennard stood 6-foot-4, Archie Case weighed 250 and Benny Williams was construction-strong one of the cops who built the Police Academy in their spare time.
But a team needed a quarterback or two, men tough and clever, like Burns, who'd been a gunnery officer during the war. Or Jack O'Mara.
Born in 1917, he spent his toddler years in Portland, Ore., until ice storms inspired his father to pile the family into a Model T and drive south. Jack landed at Manual Arts High, where he wasn't the speediest guy on the track team but never understood how anyone beat him. For fun, he boxed.
Not quite 135 pounds, he had to stuff himself with bananas and ice cream to make the weight for the LAPD, which needed men in the wake of its scandals of the 1930s, when a mayor and chief were caught selling promotions and a rogue squad planted a bomb under the car of a civic reformer. "It was a lousy, crooked department," said Max Solomon, Bugsy Siegel's attorney.
O'Mara became part of a generation that was supposed to change all that. At the academy, he foolishly kept racing the fastest man in the Class of 1940, Tom Bradley, the former UCLA track star and future mayor, though he had no chance of winning.
He worked patrol and traffic until Pearl Harbor, when the U.S. Coast Guard gave him an aptitude test and sent him to a cryptography unit in the Aleutian Islands, part of the effort to intercept Japanese communications and break their code. Who knew he had brains? When he returned, he was a pipe-smoking, 165-pound Spencer Tracy look-alike, and just the sort Burns wanted for his hush-hush unit.
Other cops suspected they were internal spies, headhunters, a rumor that started when a beat officer confided to the chief's office that a bookmaking barber was inviting cops to "get on the take." The squad caravaned to the barbershop, "ripped everything, kicked all the walls out," O'Mara said, and shaved the guy's head with his own razors.
Pleased, the brass gave them more muscle: 6-foot-5 Jerry Greeley and Lindo "Jaco" Giacopuzzi, a 230-pound former all-Valley football lineman who had built himself up carting milk cans at his family's dairy. When that pair got a Tommy gun, they showed they understood the rules of this gig that there were none in dealing with Mickey Cohen and his ilk. Asked to stake out the clothing store Mickey had opened, they decided to leave his crew guessing whether they were cops or out-of-town hoods.
They took the plates off their unmarked car and found others from Illinois in the trash at the DMV, then parked up the block from Mickey's place. One of Mickey's men went out to investigate and "every time he'd pass by us, we'd put our coat up and pull our hat down," Giacopuzzi recalled. "So when we left, I was driving, and all the men in Mickey's establishment there came out on the sidewalk . . . and I took the car and I swerved it . . . and Greeley leaned way out of the window with the Tommy gun. And you should have seen them hit the deck."
It was a great prank to share with the squad, the fake drive-by, and maybe they wouldn't have done it later, after someone not faking came by Mickey's haberdashery on the Sunset Strip with a shotgun. That was no laughing matter, the dead body that marked the start of the Sunset Wars.
The squad made news for the first time on Nov. 15, 1947, with a report that Willie Burns and O'Mara had led a "flying detachment" that rousted six Midwesterners on Wilshire in a limo with New York plates. The six were booked on suspicion of robbery, though there was no evidence they had yet committed any crime in Los Angeles. Photographers were invited into the Wilshire station to snap them seated on a bench, several with bowed heads. Then four were escorted to the county border.
Of course, no one knew then what would become of the two men who were allowed to stay on promises of good behavior. Who could have guessed that James Fratianno, an ex-con "used-car salesman" from Cleveland, would become infamous as Jimmy the Weasel, the L.A. mob's most prolific hit man? Who could have guessed that James Regace would rise to head that mob three decades later, under his real name, Dominic Brooklier?
What mattered at the time was that the squad had sent some suspicious characters packing and thus sent a signal to the civilian populace and to Mickey et al. That second audience did get the message the bug in Mickey's Brentwood home made that clear.
His right-hand man, Neddie Herbert, was overheard the day after the roust, saying: "I can't meet you at the Mocambo, I'm afraid they'll pick me up." At 3:30 a.m., he updated Mickey: "Somebody else got picked up. Jesus Christ. I'm getting out of this. I want to live to be a grandfather."
"They can't make anybody leave town," Mickey said. "It's against the Constitution."
The Gangster Squad could not take credit for that eavesdropping, or be blamed when it turned into a fiasco. The squad was still getting organized when vice detectives leaped at an opening provided by Mickey's renovation of a ranch house on Moreno Drive. Five posed as construction workers, when the real ones took off, and hid a microphone between the wood bin and the fireplace.
The bug was set by the time Mickey and Lavonne Cohen moved in, and soon was picking up barking by Tuffy, their bulldog. The vice team's mistake was hiring a private bugging expert, because he secretly ran a second line to his own listening post. For a year it gave him along with the LAPD a window into what Mickey was up to: talking about fixing charity boxing matches, telling someone back East that "we need a shotgun in the outfit," grumbling about greedy cops who "grab it and tear your arm off" when you offer them "a gift."
But the bug picked up nothing of note on June 20, 1947, when Bugsy Siegel was shot through the eye while reading the Los Angeles Times in his living room a few miles east. Mickey kept mum about Bugsy's demise, which left him and Jack Dragna to fight for control of local gambling.
Mickey's crew did complain about the leader of the Gangster Squad, Willie Burns, and how some cops were harassing customers at his haberdashery. "It's ridiculous," Mickey said. "Anybody who they see leave the store they take right downtown." Not long after, Burns' wife received flowers at home, a funeral arrangement.
Some hoodlums understand the wisdom of anonymity, but the 5-foot-5 Mickey was the opposite breed, like Capone, or later John Gotti. Mickey cultivated his image as a "dese, dem and dose" sort who worked his way up to monogrammed silk pajamas.
He could claim to be a local boy too, for while he was Brooklyn-born, as Meyer Harris Cohen, his mother moved west to Boyle Heights, where he got a paperboy's education in the streets and began boxing with a Star of David on his trunks. He moved East to compete as a top featherweight and settled in Cleveland and Chicago, where he met the Capones and segued into "rooting," his term for "sticking up joints."
Now Mickey sped between nightspots in an entourage of Cadillacs and boasted that he wore suits just twice, then sold them at his store. He made no secret of his hand-washing mania, either, cleaning them constantly for fear that germs, not bullets, would get him.
But he was no joke a commission appointed by Gov. Earl Warren estimated that "the Cohen gang" had 500 bookies under its wing, with Mickey demanding $40 a week for each telephone in return for his protection. And although the LAPD once was the place to secure that protection, by 1947 he found it easier to do business in some of the county's other 46 law enforcement jurisdictions, especially Burbank, whose police chief soon was able to buy a 56-foot yacht, largely with cash.
Yet it wasn't easy to get the goods on Mickey, for he'd say one instant that a gambling joint was worth "over half a million," then lament that he still owed $45,000 on his house and, oh yeah, "I haven't booked a horse in four years."
Later, Mickey insisted he knew all along the cops had "a bug in my rug" and that's why he dished them so much nonsense. But he seems to have learned of the bug by chance, when his gardener plunged a shovel through an underground wire. Mickey had his property swept and found the mike by the wood box.
Soon after, he obtained partial transcripts of his conversations, 126 pages of notes that the private bug man apparently had taken and now was selling along the Sunset Strip. The San Francisco Chronicle and the L.A. Times got them too, generating "Cohen's Secrets" and "Cohen's Big Deals" headlines . . . and questions about why the man still walked free if authorities had all that dirt on him.
That's why the Gangster Squad had its own bug man.
Paul Lieberman, LA Times
Mafia
From an Iowa farm family that came west in a covered wagon, Con Keeler had grown up tinkering with radios and could cobble together crude bugs using telephone and hearing aid parts. He also knew Navy intelligence officers who were developing eavesdropping systems that did not require long, telltale wires a welcome innovation given that Mickey would be looking for wires.In this system, the mike was connected to a transmitter that sent signals you could pick up blocks away. The downside was that you had to hide a six-pack of batteries with the transmitter and replace them every week. But the first challenge was planting the equipment.
That was especially daunting at Mickey's house because someone probably Dragna had exploded dynamite under it. Mickey now had round-the-clock guards, swinging searchlights and an armored front door with a porthole window.
The answer? A diversion. As soon as Mickey and Lavonne went out one night, two squad members began digging noisily in a nearby lot. When Mickey's guards went to have a look, Keeler climbed a fence and crept though an orange grove behind the house. He had burlap over his shoes to silence his footsteps and ammonia on his clothes to drive off dogs.
The bombing had left splintered openings under the house, and Keeler was able to slide one bug inside a closet where Mickey stacked dozens of pairs of shoes. Then he crept out through the orchard and past the home of an English physician who had worked for British intelligence in the war and was letting them use his garage as a listening post.
But they hadn't counted on what their bugging would do to Mickey's TV. At a time when only 10 million Americans had sets, he had the fanciest sold by W&J Sloane department store, with a "distinguished mahogany" cabinet and 45 tubes to guarantee clear reception. Now they overheard him ranting about the screwy lines on Channel 2.
Listening from the doctor's garage, the squad knew what was up their transmission was too close to the lowest frequency picked up by a TV. Mickey was likely to figure it out also.
"We could hear him call up and raise hell with W&J Sloane company. 'Take this goddamn thing out of here or come out and have somebody fix it!' " O'Mara recalled. "Sure enough, they sent a technician out."
O'Mara had an idea intercept the repair truck. "Pulled him over, talked to him. He was scared, but he agreed. 'I'd like you to take a man,' I said."
Mickey wanted service? He'd get two men fiddling with the back of his set. "While we're in, we put in another bug. Right in his TV. And the batteries to run the damn bug."
This one used a slightly different frequency that would not put annoying oscillations on Channel 2.
"Mickey said, 'Fine, well, fine, thank you, guys' and gave 'em 25 bucks apiece for a tip, you know. Well, my guy takes Mickey aside and says, 'Lookit, I'll be back in here once a week and take care of it. You know, there's a lot of bugs in televisions and stuff you have to work out.' "
Mickey had to think his lavish tips were why the repairman was so eager to get into his TV every week.
OK, so the bug couldn't hear much when Mickey's TV was on, and it was on all the time. But O'Mara sensed that their mission might be measured by small victories, and it was a small victory, for sure, to be able to say, a half-century later . . . and that's how Mickey Cohen wound up paying for his own bugging.
The Mafia, also referred to in "True Lords" Italian as Cosa Nostra ("Our Thing" or "This Thing of Ours"), is a secret society formed in the mid-19th century in Sicily. An offshoot emerged on the East Coast of the United States during the late 19th century following waves of Italian immigration to that country.
The Mafia's power in the United States peaked in the mid-20th century, until a series of FBI investigations in the 1970s and 1980s somewhat curtailed the Mafia's influence. Despite the decline, the Mafia and its reputation have become entrenched in American popular culture, portrayed in movies, TV shows, and even commercial advertising.
Despite its decline the Mafia has remained the most powerful criminal organization operating in the U.S. and uses this status to maintain control over much of both Chicago's and New York City's organized criminal activity.
Mafia Origin of the term
The word 'mafia' derives form of old Sicilian adjective "mafiusu" which has its roots in the Arabic mahjas, meaning "aggressive boasting, bragging". Roughly translated it means "swagger", but can also be translated as "boldness, bravado". In reference to a man, "mafiusu" in nineteenth-century Sicily was ambiguous, signyfying a Bully, arrogant but also fearless, enterprising, and proud, according to scholar Diego Gambetta.The connotation of the word with the criminal secret society was made by the 1863 play I mafiusu di la Vicaria 'The Beautiful (people) of Vicaria' by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaetano Mosca which is about criminal gangs in the Palermo prison. The words mafia or mafiusu are never mentioned in the play, and were probably put in the title because it would add local flair.
The association between "mafiusu" and criminal gangs was made by the association the play's title made with the criminal gangs that was new to Siclian and Italian society at the time. Consequently, the word mafia was generated from fictional source loosely inspired by the real thing and was used by outsiders to describe it. The use of the term mafia was subsequently taken over in the Italian state's early reports on the phenomenon. The word "mafia" made its first official appearance in 1865 in a report by the then prefect of Palermo, the marquis Filippo Antonio Gualterio.
Leopoldo Franchetti, an Italian deputy who travelled to Sicily and who wrote one of the first authoritative reports on the mafia in 1876, described the designation of the term mafia: "the term mafia found a class of violent criminals ready and waiting for a name to define them, and, given their special character and importance in Sicilian society, they had the right to a different name from that defining vulgar criminals in other countries".
Some observers have seen "mafia" as a set of positive attributes deeply rooted in popular culture, as a "way of being", as illustrated in the definition by the Sicilian ethnographer, Giuseppe Pitr', at the end of the 19th century: "Mafia is the consciousness of one's own worth, the exaggerated concept of individual force as the sole arbiter of every conflict, of every clash of interests or ideas."
Many Sicilians did not regard these men as criminals but as role models and protectors, given that the state appeared to offer no protection of the poor and weak. As late as the 1950s, the Funeral epitaph of the legendary boss of Villalba, Calogero Vizzini, stated that "his 'mafia' was not criminal, but stood for respect of the law, defense of all rights, greatness of character. It was love." Here, "mafia" means something like pride, honor, even social responsibility; an attitude, not an organization. Likewise, in 1925, the former Italian prime minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando stated in the Italian senate that he was proud of being "mafioso", because that word meant honorable, noble, generous.
Mafia Cosa Nostra
According to some mafiosi, the real name of the Mafia is Cosa Nostra, meaning 'our world, tradition, values'. Many have claimed, as did the Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta, that the word mafia was a literary creation. Other Mafia defectors, such as Antonio Calderone and Salvatore Contorno, said the same thing. According to them, the real thing was "cosa nostra". To men of honour belonging to the organisation, there is no need to name it. Mafiosi introduce known members to other known members as belonging to "cosa nostra" (our thing) or "la stessa cosa" (the same thing). Only the outside world needs a name to describe it, hence the capitalized version of the words: Cosa Nostra.Cosa Nostra was first used, in the beginning of the 1960s, in the United States by Joseph Valachi, a mafioso turned state witness, during the hearings of the McClellan Commission. At the time, it was understood as a proper name, fostered by the FBI and disseminated by the media. The designation gained wide popularity and almost replaced the term Mafia. The FBI even added an article to the term, calling it 'La Cosa Nostra'. In Italy the article 'la' is never used when the term refers to the Mafia; commonly "la nostra cosa" is used when meaning "our thing" in general contexts (the inverted ordering of the words in "Cosa Nostra" is due to dialectal influences).
Mafia Rituals
The orientation ritual in most families happens when a man becomes an associate, and then, a soldier. As described by Tommaso Buscetta to judge Giovanni Falcone, the neophyte is brought together with at least three "men of honor" of the family and the oldest member present warns him that "this House" is meant to protect the weak against the abuse of the powerful; he then pricks the finger of the initiate and spills his blood onto a sacred image. The image is placed in the hand of the initiate and lit on fire. The neophyte must withstand the pain of the burning, passing the image from hand to hand, until the image has been consumed, while swearing to keep faith with the principles of "Cosa Nostra," solemnly swearing that "may my flesh burn like this saint if I fail to keep my oath."The Mafia in Sicily
Originating during the mid 19th century, the Mafia served as protection for the large orange and lemon estates surrounding the city of Palermo. From this, the Mafia began to spread its roots among the landowners and politicians of Sicily. Forming strong links with the government (it is more than likely that many politicians were members or collaborators) the Mafia gained significant power.During the Fascist period in Italy, Cesare Mori, prefect of Palermo, used special powers granted to him to prosecute the Mafia, forcing many Mafiosi to flee abroad or risk being jailed. Many of the Mafiosi who escaped fled to the United States, among them Joseph Bonanno, nicknamed Joe Bananas, who came to dominate the U.S. branch of the Mafia. However, when Mori started to persecute the Mafiosi involved in the Fascist hierarchy, he was removed, and the Fascist authorities proclaimed that the Mafia had been defeated. Despite his assault on their brethren, Mussolini had his fans in the New York Mafia, notably Vito Genovese.
The United States used the Italian connection of the American Mafiosi during the invasion of Italy and Sicily in 1943. Lucky Luciano and other members of Mafia, who had been imprisoned during this time in the U.S., provided information for US military intelligence, who used Luciano's influence to ease the way for advancing American troops.
Some mafia analysts, such as the Catanese author Alfio Caruso, argue that the U.S. Office of Strategic Services deliberately allowed the mafia to recover its social and economic position as the "anti-State" in Sicily and that the U.S.-mafia alliance forged in 1943 was the true turning point of mafia history and the foundation of its subsequent 60-year career. Others, such as the Palermitan historian Francesco Renda, have argued that there was no such alliance. Rather, the mafia exploited the chaos of post-fascist Sicily to reconquer its social base. The OSS indeed, in its 1944 "Report on the Problem of Mafia" by the agent W. E. Scotten, pointed to the signs of mafia resurgence and warned of its perils for social order and economic progress.
An alleged additional benefit (from the American perspective) was that many of the Sicilian-Italian Mafiosi were hardline anti-communists. They were therefore seen as valuable allies by the anti-communist Americans, who allegedly used them to root out socialist and communist elements in the American shipping industry, the wartime resistance movements, and in many postwar local and regional governments in areas where the Mafia held sway.
According to drug trade expert Dr Alfred W. McCoy, Luciano was permitted to run his crime network from his jail cell in exchange for his assistance. After the war Luciano was rewarded by being deported to Italy, where he was able to continue his criminal career unhindered. He went to Sicily in 1946 to continue his activities and according to McCoy's landmark 1972 book The Politics of Heroin in South-East Asia, Luciano went on to forge a crucial alliance with the Corsican Mafia, leading to the development of a vast international heroin trafficking network, initially supplied from Turkey and based in Marseille the so-called "French Connection".
Later, when Turkey began to eliminate its opium production, he used his connections with the Corsicans to open a dialogue with expatriate Corsican mafiosi in South Vietnam. In collaboration with leading American mob bosses including Santo Trafficante Jr., Luciano and his successors, took advantage of the chaotic conditions of the Vietnam war to establish an unassailable supply and distribution base in the "Golden Triangle", which was soon funnelling huge amounts of Asian heroin into the United States, Australia and other countries via the U.S. military.
After Fascism, the Mafia did not become powerful in Italy again until after the country's surrender in the Second World War, and the U.S. occupation. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, a series of internecine "gang wars" led to many prominent Mafia members being Murdered, and a new generation of mafiosi has placed more emphasis on "white-collar" criminal activity as opposed to more traditional racketeering enterprises. In reaction to these developments, the Italian press has come up with the phrase Cosa Nuova ("the new thing", a play on Cosa Nostra) to refer to the revamped organization.
Salvatore RiinaThe main split in the Sicilian Mafia at present is between those bosses who have been convicted and are now in jail, chiefly Salvatore 'Tot'' Riina and Leoluca Bagarella, and those such as the recently caught capo di tutti capi Bernardo Provenzano, who are on the run, or who have not been indicted. The incarcerated bosses are currently subjected to harsh controls on their contact with the outside world, limiting their ability to run their operations from behind bars under the Italian law 41 bis. Antonino Giuffr' a close confidant of Provenzano, turned pentito shortly after his capture in 2002 alleges that in 1993, Cosa Nostra had direct contact with representatives of Silvio Berlusconi while he was planning the birth of Forza Italia.
The deal that he says was alleged to have been made was a repeal of 41 bis, among other anti-Mafia laws in return for electoral deliverances in Sicily. Giuffr''s declarations have not been confirmed. The Italian Parliament, with the support of Forza Italia, extended the enforcement of 41 bis, which was to expire in 2002 but has been prolonged for another four years and extended to other crimes such as terrorism. However, according to one of Italy's leading magazines, L'Espresso 119 mafiosi one-fifth of those encarcerated under the 41 bis regime have been released on an individual basis. The human-rights group Amnesty International has expressed concern that the 41-bis regime could in some circumstances amount to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" for prisoners.
Prominent Sicilian mafiosi
Calogero Vizzini, boss of Villalba, was considered to be one of the most influential Mafia bosses of Sicily after World War II until his death in 1954.Giuseppe Genco Russo, boss of Mussomeli, considered to be the heir of Calogero Vizzini. *Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco boss of the Mafia Family in Ciaculli, he was the first "secretary" of the first Sicilian Mafia Commission that was formed somewhere in 1958.
Tommaso Buscetta, the first Sicilian Mafioso to become an informant in 1984. (A predecessor, Leonardo Vitale, who gave himself up to the police in 1973, was judged as suffering from 'mental semi-infirmity', and his evidence led to the conviction of himself and his uncle only.) Generally known as the 'Supergrass', Buscetta's evidence was used to great effect during the Maxi-Trials.
Salvatore Riina, also known as Tot' Riina is one of the most infamous members of the Sicilian Mafia. He was nicknamed The Beast, or sometimes The Short One ('U curtu in Sicilian) and ruled the Mafia with an iron hand from the 1980s until his arrest in 1993.
Bernardo Provenzano, successor of Riina at the head of the Corleonesi and a such considered one of the most powerful bosses of the Sicilian Mafia. Provenzano was a fugitive from justice since 1963. He was captured on 11 April 2006 in Sicily. Before capture, authorities have reportedly been 'close' to capturing him for 10 years. Giovanni 'lo scannacristiani' Brusca, who was involved in the Murder of Giovanni Falcone.
Matteo Messina Denaro, considered to be one of the successors of Provenzano.
Salvatore Lo Piccolo, considered to be one of the successors of Provenzano.
Other criminal organizations in Italy
The Sicilian Mafia is organized into cosche (clans) in Sicily; in other regions there exist other similar organisations: 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, Sacra corona unita in Apulia, Camorra in Naples, the Stidda in southern Sicily. Although the different crime empires do business with each other, these are separate and distinct organisations from the Sicilian Mafia. A 2003 Eurispes report on Italian organised crime indicates the possibility that the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta may have superseded the Sicilian Mafia in power and profit.Mafia in the United States
Mafia groups in the United States first became influential in the New York City area, gradually progressing from small neighborhood operations to citywide and eventually international organizations. The mafia started when a group called "The Black Hand" vandalised Italian (and other immigrant) neighborhoods all around New York city. The Black Hand would attack anyone prosperous in the neighborhood, and usually threaten them with mail. They would sign it with a hand covered in black ink at the bottom of the page (before the theory of fingerprints started, hence the name "blackmail".) As many gangs started, the Italians built a retaliation gang, which eventually exterminated the Black Hand and started doing other crimes than retaliation, such as robbery, which then progressed to Murder, kidnappings, and extortion.The Mafia had eventually expanded to twenty-six crime families nationwide in the major cities of the United States, with the center of organized crime based in New York. After many turf wars, the Five Families ended up dominating New York, named after prominent early members: the Bonanno family, the Colombo family, the Gambino family, the Genovese family, and the Lucchese family. These families held underground conferences with other mafia notables like Joe Porrello of Cleveland, and other gang leaders, such as Al Capone, who despite myths was not in fact a member of the Italian mafia, but a leader of a Chicago bootlegger gang.
Carmine Galante after his gangland executionEach family was ultimately controlled by a Don, who was insulated from actual operations by several layers of authority. According to popular belief, the Don's closest and most trusted advisor was referred to as the consigliere ("counselor" in Italian). In reality, the consigliere was meant to be something of a "hearing officer" who was charged with mediating intra-family disputes. He also takes care of the economic side of the "business". An underboss was possible as well. The "underboss guard" was a position between the consiglieri and underboss, providing tactical information as well as advice to the boss. There were then a number of regimes with a varying number of soldati (lit. "soldiers"), or "made" men, who conducted actual operations. Most recently there have been two new positions in the family leadership, the family messenger and Street Boss. These positions were created by former Genovese leader Vincent Gigante.
Each faction was headed by a caporegime, who reported to the boss. When the boss made a decision, he never issued orders directly to the soldiers who would carry it out, but instead passed instructions down through the chain of command. In this way, the higher levels of the organization were effectively insulated from incrimination if a lower level member should be captured by law enforcement. This structure is depicted in Mario Puzo's famous novel The Godfather.
The initiation ritual emerged from various sources, such as Catholic confraternities and Masonic Lodges in mid-nineteenth century Sicily and has hardly changed to this day. The Chief of Police of Palermo in 1875 reported that the man of honor to be initiated would be led into the presence of a group of bosses and underbosses. One of these men would prick the initiate's arm or hand and tell him to smear the blood onto a sacred image, usually a saint. The oath of loyalty would be taken as the image was burned and scattered, thus symbolising the annihilation of traitors. This was confirmed by the first pentito, Tommaso Buscetta.
A hit, or assassination, of a "made" man had to be preapproved by the leadership of his family, or retaliatory hits would be made, possibly inciting a war. In a state of war, families would go to the mattresses rent vacant apartments and have a number of soldiers sleeping on mattresses on the floor in shifts, with the others ready at the windows to fire at members of rival families.
The American Mafia eventually became more accommodating of non-Sicilian Italians among the sworn-in membership of "made" men and forged closer associations with gangsters of other nationalities, thus becoming distinct from the original organization in Sicily.
Law enforcement and the Mafia
United States
In the United States, Murders of state officials have been rare. In several Mafia families, killing a state authority is strictly forbidden, and even conspiring to commit such a Murder is punishable by death. The mobster Dutch Schultz was reportedly killed by his peers out of fear that he would carry out a plan to kill New York City prosecutor Thomas Dewey.The Mafia began a steep decline in the late-1970s and early 1980s due in part to laws such as the RICO Act, which made it a crime to belong to an organization that performed illegal acts, and to programs such as the witness protection program, followed by a resurgence in the late 1980's, into the 1990's as the Mafia sought out new avenues of revenue. These factors, combined with the modest dissolution of the distinct Italian-American community through death, intermarriage, the lack of continued Italian immigration, and cultural assimilation, resulted in the appearance of a reduced Mafia presence in the United States.
In the mid-20th century, the Mafia was reputed to have infiltrated many labor unions in the United States, notably the Teamsters, whose president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared and is widely rumored to have been killed by the Mafia. In the 1980s, the United States federal government made a determined effort to remove Mafia influence from labor unions.
Today, the Mafia is still the dominant organized crime group in the United States, but its power and influence continues to decline due to aggressive FBI investigations which have led to mob informants, violation of mob rules, family infighting, and death or imprisonment of its top leaders. Recent setbacks include relentless prosecution of the Five Families and arrests of the Chicago Outfit's hierarchy.
According to Selwyn Raab, author of "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires", after 9/11 the FBI has redirected most of its attention to finding terrorists, which led to a resurgence of Mafia in the U.S.
Mafia Italy
Judge Giovanni FalconeIn Italy there has been a long history of police, prosecutors and judges being Murdered by the Mafia in an attempt to discourage vigorous policing. The Italian government officials who were assassinated because of their attempts in bringing the Mafia to justice are called Excellent Cadavers.There is some evidence that in Italy, law enforcement seems to be finally gaining the upper hand over the Mafia organisations, through stronger laws and the breaking down of the "code of silence" or "Omert'". A huge help in fighting the military side of the Mafia has been provided by many so-called pentiti (Mafia members who dissociated for a milder judicial treatment), like Tommaso Buscetta.
In recent decades, one of the most famous figures in Italy in the context of Mafia has been Tot' Riina, who ordered the Murder of the magistrates/ prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in 1992.
Recently, former Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti (Democrazia Cristiana) stood judicially accused of relationships with Mafia, but the case partially collapsed because of the expiry of the statute of limitations. In more detail, the trial court stated that proof of relationships with Mafia were not existing for the period after 1980. On the other hand, the trial court, and the appeal one, stated that his connection with Mafia had been constant and well-documented until the early 80s.
Mafia structure
Known as the Honored Society among Mafiosi, the chain of command is organized in a pyramid similar to a modern corporate structure.Traditional terminology
Capo di Tutti Capi (the "Boss of All Bosses",namely Matteo Messina Denaro for the Sicilian Mafia and Renato Gagliano for the Sacra Corona Unita; not applicable to the American Mafia)Capo di Capi Re (a title of respect given to a senior or retired member, equivalent to being a member emeritus, literally, "King Boss of Bosses")
Capo Crimini ("Crime Boss", known as a Don - the head of a crime family)
Capo Bastone ("Beat Head", known as the "Underboss" is second in command to the Capo Crimini)
Consigliere (an advisor)
Caporegime ("Regime head", a captain who commands a "crew" of around ten Sgarriste or "soldiers")
Sgarrista or Soldati ("Soldier", made members of the Mafia who serve primarily as foot soldiers)
Picciotto ("Little man", a low ranking member who serves as an "enforcer") Giovane D'Onore (an associate member, usually someone not of Italian or Sicilian ancestry)
Sicilian Mafia structure
Capofamiglia - (Don)Consigliere - (Counselor/Advisor)
Sotto Capo - (Underboss)
Capodecina - (Group Boss/Capo)
Uomini D'onore - ("Men of Honor")
Mafia Modern terminology
Boss or Don - The head of the family, usually reigning as a dictator. The Boss or Don receives a cut of every operation taken on by every member of his family. He makes decisions on initiation (who gets "made") and assassinations. The Boss or Don is chosen by a vote from the Captains of the family. If there is a tie, the Underboss must vote. The Boss appoints the Consigliere. (Typically, when referring to organized crime not dominated by Italians, the term Boss is used.)Underboss - The Underboss, usually appointed by the Boss, is the second in command of the family. The Underboss is considered the Captain that is in charge of all of the other Captains, who is controlled by the Boss. The Underboss is usually first in line to become Acting Boss if the Boss is imprisoned.
Consigliere - The Consigliere is an advisor to the family. They are often low profile gangsters that can be trusted. They often keep the family looking as legitimate as possible, and are, themselves, legitimate apart from some minor gambling or loan sharking.
Capo (or Captain)- A Captain is in charge of a crew. There are usually four to six crews in each family, possibly even seven to nine crews. Each one consists of 20 to 30 Soldiers. Captains run their own small family, but must follow the limitations and guidelines created by the Boss, as well as pay him his cut of their profits. Captains are nominated by the Underboss, but typically chosen by the Boss himself. Soldier - Soldiers are made members of the family, and can only be of Italian or Sicilian background. Soldiers start as Associates that have proven themselves. When the books are open, meaning that there is an open spot in the family, a Captain (or several Captains) may recommend an up-and-coming Associate to be a new member. In the case that there is only one slot and multiple recommendations, the Boss will decide. The new member usually becomes part of the Captain's crew that recommended him. Associate - An Associate is not a member of the mob, but more of an errand boy. They're usually a go-between or sometimes deal in drugs to keep the heat off the actual members. Non-Italians will never go any further than this, with a few exceptions.
Joint projects of the U.S. government and the Mafia
The United States government has conspired with organized crime figures to assassinate foreign heads of state. In August 1960, Colonel Sheffield Edwards, director of the CIA's Office of Security, proposed the assassination of Cuban head of state Fidel Castro by mafia assassins. Between August 1960, and April 1961, the CIA with the help of the Mafia pursued a series of plots to Poison or shoot Castro (CIA, Inspector General's Report on Efforts to Assassinate Fidel Castro, p. 3, 14, archived at: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/chron.html). Those allegedly involved included Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, Jr., John Roselli, and Jimmy Hoffa.Media portrayal of the Mafia
Marlon Brando as Don Corleone in The Godfather, from Paramount Pictures via the Canadian PressThe Godfather, a novel by Mario Puzo; later made into a film and two sequels by Francis Ford Coppola. The trilogy of films, starring Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, is probably the most influential depiction of the Mafia in American popular culture. The Corleone family portrayed in the story is an amalgamation of several real-life Mafia families.La Piovra, Italian TV series by Luigi Perelli after stories by Sandro Petraglia is the most vast and dramatic Italian series on the Mafia spawning over 10 series and 60 hours.
Goodfellas, a film directed by Martin Scorsese based on the life of Henry Hill. Bugsy, a film about Bugsy Siegel starring Warren Beatty.
Prizzi's Honor, a Mafia film starring Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, and William Hickey
Donnie Brasco, a film about the first FBI agent to infiltrate the Mafia. The Untouchables, film portrayal of Eliot Ness and the Untouchables, a group of law enforcers organized to fight Al Capone's organization.
Carlito's Way, 1993. Starring Al Pacino, Sean Penn and Penelope Ann Miller. A Brian De Palma film. A film about Carlito Brigante (Pacino), a gangster who is saved from a possible heavy sentence by his lawyer Dave (Penn) to try and repent and leave criminal life, but unfortunately he is too immersed in it to easily get out. (Note: Brigante is actually a Puerto Rican gangster with connections to the Mafia, rather than a true member).
Casino, film portrayal of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, general manager of a Las Vegas casino starring Robert De Niro and directed by Scorsese. "Lefty" was renamed as Sam "Ace" Rothstein in the film.
Gotti, an HBO feature on the recently deceased former Gambino family chieftain. The Sopranos, an HBO series featuring a Mafioso and his two families his wife and kids and his crime family starring James Gandolfini.
A Bronx Tale, based on the memoirs of actor Chazz Palminteri, is the story about a mob boss (Palminteri) in the Bronx who befriends the son of a working class Italian father (Robert De Niro).
Raging Bull, true story about boxing great Jake LaMotta amidst an atmosphere of Mob influence, also starring Robert De Niro and directed by Martin Scorsese. Once Upon a Time in America, a film about the Jewish Mafia in America, from Italian director Sergio Leone.
Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That, comedies starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, director Jim Jarmusch's late 90's film about a black hitman (played by Forest Whitaker) who is betrayed by his Italian Mafia employers. A History of Violence is about an owner of a diner in Indiana who encounters Mafia members who say he is an old "friend."
The Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories video games all feature the Mafia to varying degrees in their storylines.
The television series The Simpsons incorporates the fictional Springfield's extension of the Mafia into occasional episodes; its ringleader, Fat Tony, is voiced by Joe Mantegna.
The Departed (2006) is a remake of the Chinese Mafia thriller Infernal Affairs (2002) and directed by Martin Scorsese.
Townies (2006) about the Charlestown mob in Massachusetts.
The Godfather: The Game was released to all home consoles (and the PC) in 2006. A hand-held version for the PSP is going to be released this year.
Mobsters (1991) The story of a group of friends in turn of the century New York, from their early days as street hoods to their rise in the world of organized crime. As their crime empire expands, they have to deal with many problems, including their own differing opinions on how to run their business, the local Godfather, and the psychotic Mad Dog Coll.
The New Orleans Mafia was linked to the Kennedy assassination in Oliver Stone's film JFK.
Mafia is a video game based on two Mafia families feuding with one-another. Noir, an anime series featured the Mafia in episodes 8-9.
Two Batman graphic novels by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, showcase the slow changeover of power in the criminal underworld of Gotham City, with the traditional Mafia families becoming overshadowed by Batman's Rogues Gallery.
Another DC comics character, Helena Bertinelli, aka The Huntress, is the daughter of a Mafia family, who became a costumed crimefighter after her family was killed in a hit by a rival gang. She would later infiltrate the Gotham Mafia as a Capo, and provide Batman with an "Atlas of organized crime", prompting him to compliment her for the first time ever.
