mafia101 i dont understand the central question of being officially recognized. if there is no overall ruling body that makes said decisions who is this authority deciding which mafia/criminal groups are official or not?
my inclusion of the info about the alliance with HA and woolley street gangs was only to illustrate that of all the mafia cells,factions or groups the hells angels and woolley could have teamed up with they chose rizzuto/sollecito and those allied with them. rizzuto/sollecito must then carry some significant weight in the milieu for said alliance.
i always enjoy current topics such as this and we can all disagree without being so disagreeable. i was without power for a couple days and would have enjoyed to jump in sooner. alas could not summon enough interweb particles to do so. it may have taken hours to post even this with the sludgy inconsistent power lately.
oh well.
I already brought up how in Project Otremens there were recordings discussing the Commission during that time period and how Joe Todaro was invited to join it. There's much more needed to observe what role the Commission plays today but based on this it does look like it's still functioning.
Vito to me it looks like you're thinking if other LCN Families don't recognize the group led by Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito as a official Mafia Family or even Amico Nostra meaning LCN members then they have no status in the criminal underworld. That is not the case as we clearly see they're considered 2nd only behind the Hells Angels in Montreal. I use Rochester as a example again because they didn't have recognition but they still ran rackets in their city without issue. They were still respected criminals just as Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito are but in the eyes of LCN members they are not members of the organization. That is what I'm trying to drive at here.
