CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION: 8 nov 2007

American Cosa Nostra

The Italian Mafia continues to dominate organized crime in the U.S. It uses this status to maintain control over much of both Chicago's and New York City's organized criminal activity, as well as criminal activity in other cities in the Northeast and across the country, such as Philadelphia, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and many others. The Mafia and its reputation have become entrenched in American popular culture, being portrayed in movies, TV shows, commercial advertising and video games.

The American Mafia, specifically the Five Families of New York, has its roots in the Sicilian Mafia, but has been a separate organization in the United States for many years. Today, American Cosa Nostra cooperates in various criminal activities with the different Italian organized crime groups, such as Camorra, which are headquartered in Italy. It is wrongly known as the "original Mafia", although it was neither the oldest criminal organization, nor the first to act in the U.S. In 1986, according to government reports, it was estimated that there are 1,700 members of "Cosa Nostra" and thousands of associate members. Reports also are said to include the Italian-American Mafia as the largest organized crime group in the United States and continues to hold dominance over the National Crime Syndicate, despite the increasing numbers of street gangs and other organizations of neither Italian nor Sicilian ethnicity. American Cosa Nostra is most active in the New York metropolitan area, Philadelphia, New England (see the Patriarca crime family), Detroit (see the Detroit Outfit, and Chicago (see the Chicago Outfit), but there are actually a total of 26 Cosa Nostra family cities around the United States[1].

History

Mafia groups in the United States first became influential in the New York City area, gradually progressing from small neighborhood operations in poor Italian ghettos to citywide and eventually international organizations. The American Mafia started with the La Mano Nera, "The Black Hand", extorting Italians (and other immigrants) around New York city. Black Hand gangsters would threaten them by mail if their extortion demands were not met. The threats were sometimes marked with a hand-print in black ink at the bottom of the page. As more Sicilian gangsters immigrated to the U.S., they expanded their criminal activities from extortion to loan-sharking, prostitution, drugs and alcohol, robbery, kidnapping, and murder.
Giuseppe Esposito was the first known Sicilian Mafia member to emigrate to the United States. He and six other Sicilians fled to New York after murdering eleven wealthy landowners as well as the chancellor and a vice chancellor of a Sicilian province. He was arrested in New Orleans in 1881 and extradited to Italy.

New Orleans was also the site of the first Mafia incident in the United States that received both national and international attention. On October 15, 1890, New Orleans Police Superintendent David Hennessey was murdered execution-style. Hundreds of Sicilians were arrested, and nineteen were eventually indicted for the murder. An acquittal followed, with rumors of bribed and intimidated witnesses. The outraged citizens of New Orleans organized a lynch mob and proceeded to kill eleven of the nineteen defendants. Two were hanged, nine were shot, and the remaining eight escaped[2].
In the 1910s and 1920s in New York City, the Sicilian Mafia developed into the Five Points Gang.

The rising: the Prohibition

Charles "Lucky" Luciano, one of the most famous American bosses
Mafia activities were restricted until 1920, when they exploded because of the introduction of the prohibition. Al Capone's Syndicate in the 1920s ruled Chicago.
By the end of the 1920s, two factions of organized crime had emerged, causing the Castellamarese war for control of organized crime in New York City. With the murder of Joseph Masseria, the leader of one of the factions, the war ended uniting the two sides back into one organization now dubbed Cosa Nostra. Salvatore Maranzano, the first leader of American Mafia, was himself murdered within six months and Charles "Lucky" Luciano became the new leader. Maranzano had established the code of conduct for the organization, set up the "family" divisions and structure, and established procedures for resolving disputes. Luciano set up the "Commission" to rule their activities. The Commission included bosses from six or seven families.

After-war
In 1951, a U.S. Senate Committee, led by Democratic Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, determined that a "sinister criminal organization", with ties to the USSR, also known as the Mafia operated around the United States.
In 1957, the New York State Police uncovered a meeting of major American Cosa Nostra figures from around the country in the small upstate New York town of Apalachin. This gathering has become known as the Apalachin Conference. Many of the attendees were arrested and this event was the catalyst that changed the way law enforcement battles organized crime.
In 1963, Joseph Valachi became the first American Cosa Nostra member to provide a detailed look at the inside of the organization. Having been recruited by FBI Special Agents, and testifying before the US Senate McClellan Committee, Valachi exposed the name, structure, power bases, codes, swearing-in ceremony, and members of this organization. All of this had been secret up to this point.

Today Cosa Nostra is involved in a broad spectrum of illegal activities. These include murder, extortion, drug trafficking, corruption of public officials, gambling, infiltration of legitimate businesses, labor racketeering, loan sharking, prostitution, pornography, tax fraud schemes, and most notably today, stock manipulation schemes.

Union corruption

Jimmy Hoffa
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 Matteo Bari, enforcer for the Mafia. In the 1980s, the United States federal government made a determined effort to remove Mafia influence from labor unions.

Structure
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 from Cleveland, and other gang leaders, such as Al Capone.
Boss—The head of the family, usually reigning as a dictator, sometimes called the don or "godfather". The Boss receives a cut of every operation taken on by every member of his family. Depending on the Family, the Boss may be chosen by a vote from the Caporegimes of the family. In the event of a tie, the Underboss must vote. In the past, all the members of a Family voted on the Boss, but by the late 1950s, any gathering such as that attracted too much attention.

Underboss—The Underboss, usually appointed by the Boss, is the second in command of the family. The Underboss is in charge of all of the Capos, who are controlled by the Boss. The Underboss is usually first in line to become Acting Boss if the Boss is imprisoned or dies.

Consigliere—The Consigliere is an advisor to the family. They are often low profile gangsters that can be trusted. They are used as a mediator of disputes or representatives or aides in meetings with other Families. They often keep the Family looking as legitimate as possible, and are, themselves, legitimate apart from some minor gambling or loan sharking. Often Consiglieres are lawyers or stock brokers, are trusted and have a close friendship or relationship with the Don. They usually do not have crews of their own, but still wield great power in the Family. They are also often the liaison between the Don and important 'bought' figures, such as politicians or Judges.

Caporegime (or Capo)—A Capo (sometimes called 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 consisting of up to ten Soldiers. Capos 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. Capos are nominated by the Underboss, but typically chosen by the Boss himself.

Soldier—Soldiers are members of the family, and can only be of Italian 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 Capo (or several Capos) 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 Capo's crew that recommended him. Sometimes a soldier will be called a button man, because, in theory, when a capo presses a button, someone dies. They are also called made men, who have made their bones, by committing a murder in front of Mafia witnesses. This ensures the soldier's reliability: he will never testify against a man who could testify against him. Being made is the beginning but not the end of a Mafia career. (The definitions of made man and making one's bones are inferred: Most books on the Mafia—fiction or nonfiction—assume these terms but never define them.)

Associate—An Associate is not a member of the mob, and an Associate's role is more similar to that of an errand boy. They are usually a go-between or sometimes deal in drugs to keep the heat off the actual members. In other cases, an associate might be a corrupt labor union delegate or businessman.[24] Non-Italians will never go any further than this. However, occasionally an associate will become powerful within his own family, for example Joe Watts, a close associate of John Gotti.

The American Mafia's organizational structure and system of control were created by Salvatore Maranzano (who became the first "capo di tutti capi" in the US, though he was killed after holding the position for only six months, by Lucky Luciano).
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. In The Godfather: Part II, These links are called "buffers": they provide what the intelligence community calls plausible deniability.

Rituals
The initiation ritual emerged from various sources, such as Catholic confraternities and Masonic Lodges in mid-nineteenth century Sicily[25] 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.

There are many symbolic deeds done during certain gangland executions that are requested by the don. For allowing Joseph Pistone into the Bonanno crime family caporegime Dominick Napolitano had his hands severed. Later during the attempted murder of Joseph Ianuzzi this is what Tommy Agro attempted to do.
As in the murder of Lucchese crime family soldier Bruno Facciola, a dead canary was stuffed inside his mouth after he was shot to death.
A mobster who was thought to be skimming from gambling profits was shot dead and found with a twenty-dollar bill shoved into his rectum.
Frank Abbandando Jr. gave a powerful capo in the Colombo crime family the middle finger and although his life was spared, his middle fingers were severed by a dull knife and sent to him preserved in vinegar.

CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION

giovedì 8 novembre 2007

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