Decline and Fall?

I'm finishing up the book The Last Godfather by Anthony DeStefano, which details the penetration and near destruction of the Bonanno Crime Family, particularly under Joey Massino.

Reading that book and also reading the posts here in the Crown Witness and Chicago Outfit Family Secrets threads raised a few other questions.

1) With the combined threat of a) lengthy prison sentences, b) constant audio, visual and electronic surveillance, c) witness protection program available to even the most heinous murderers who inform or testify, d) laws that provide prosecutors multiple bites at the apple for the same crime, e) laws and prosecutors that aggressively pursue the wealth or freedom of the relatives of Mafia members,
is it all just a matter of time before the US Cosa Nostra collapses?

2) If the remedies in #1 above were available in the twenties and thirties would the US Families been able to reach the levels of power they enjoyed until the mid seventies? Or were mafiosi back then just made of sterner stuff. In the Massino case, one person turned and then a multitude of people turned because no one wanted to be the last one left.

3) Despite the aggressive attack on the US Mafia, and the resultant grandstanding by federal prosecutors/agencies it is still possible and even easy in most US areas to purchase narcotics, place a bet, get an unlicensed loan, purchase items that "fell off a truck", or buy intimate time with a friendly woman. There are other things the Mafia does which are not reliant on a "paying customer", i.e. extortion, labor racketeering, robbery but one could argue that other groups or corporations have taken up the slack. So ultimately has anything really changed?

4) As I mentioned elsewhere I've also been doing a lot of reading on La Eme (Mexican Mafia variant). Despite the fact that almost all of its membership will spend some time in prison and at any given time most of its formal membership might be incarcerated, it has maintained structure and enforced discipline to a far greater extent than the traditional Mafia, even going so far as to exert unchallenged control from the prison to the streets. It's only had a few turncoats, nothing like the Mafia. Why is that? Is it just that the Feds have not made it a high priority as yet?


5) Why has the US Mafia generally avoided the more violent tactics of the Sicilian Mafia or Mexican crime groups?
There have been relatively few threats or attacks against family members of turncoats and certainly no recent high profile assassinations of judges, prosecutors, police or jurors. I can understand accepting 10-20 year prison sentences with no problem. But in today's world of multiple decade sentences, Supermax prisons and federal attempts to go after personal family assets, you might think that a criminal with nothing left to lose would risk more violent responses.

I think the Massino/Bonanno trials were the last successes for the FBI. If you you at their recent indictments and busts they've not had close to the same success. These guys don't bother going to trial anymore, they take their plea deal, get half the time and live with doing 5-15 years.

Look at the recent Gambino bust. D'Amico, Cefalu, Jojo Corozzo, Cali, DeCicco all got between 8 months and 2 years...that's a joke since these guys are all heavy hitters in the family.

The feds still haven't been able to really nail the Genovese hard to this day. The Gambinos haven't been nailed since the John Gotti trial where half the Capos went away. The Lucchese's haven't been touched in five years and now Crea and Caridi (Underboss and Consigliere) are back out.

I'll have more later

As for the Outfit, a lot of the major players weren't touched. DiFronzo, Adriachhi, Caruso, Matassa, D'Amico, Fratto and Torrebene weren't even indicted. Zizzo was killed before he could even go to trial, so he's been replaced. Lombardo is still giving orders through his cell, and Marcello was a front for DiFronzo.

That "bust" was three made guys (Lombardo, Marcello, and Zizzo) and a slew of associates, the damage it did to the Outfit will be minimal over time.

Look around the country for a second...Ligambi has been running Philadelphia since '99...no indictments. Manocchio has been running Providence/Boston since '96...no indictments. DiFronzo has been running Chicago since '93...no indictments. Tocco has been the boss of Detroit forever and has only served one year in prison. Dotaro hasn't been indicted and he's been the boss of Buffalo since the mid 80s, though Falzone could be the boss now, unsure about that. That zip Guarrci has been running the DeCavalcante's for a while now...no indictments.

What does the above mean? Well after 9/11 the feds had to spread a lot of their resources out due to counter-terrorism, the result was the bulk of their OC agents were all in New York watching the Five Families with very little watching the other signifcant families around the country. Now if the feds want to go after these families they will have to play catchup like they did in the late 70s/early 80s.

The "fall" of LCN has been greatly exagerrated by the feds and the media, it's become another form of lazy journalism. Are they as strong as they were in 1979? No. But they are far from being supplanted and being wiped away anytime soon.

The mob are a lot richer though.

And your point being?

Point is that they will be better off modernising and throw the traditions away as there is no honour anymore, nor are many rules followed. What happened in Sicily years ago to start the Mafia isn't enough to keep it going in the 21th Century. I bet ya that these young, spoilt and rich gangsters in LCN today will probably be laughing at the likes of Capone and Luciano and how they were among the originals.

The mob has always been "modernizing" itself by moving itself into newer rackets over the years. What traditions should be thrown away? The traditions were pretty much thrown by the wayside by the late 1970s.