its my understanding that the fed feel there is only 11 active families left and u can put them in 3 tiers.
Tier 1 is the five NY families
Tier 2 is chicago, new england, philly and new jersey
Tier 3 would be detroit and buffalo
In other areas cleveland, tampa, LA and other places there mayb some Italian OC still remaining. Made fuys working together but they dont have the manpower or the structure needed to qualify as a official family
That 11 families figure came from an article US News & World Report did back in 2006. In addition to the 5 NY families, it also listed Chicago, Detroit, New England, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Miami. Listing Miami wasn't a reference to the Trafficante family, but to the NY families that are active in the Miami/South Florida area. As for Detroit, some articles in recent years have listed it, others have not. For me, the lack of cases there tip the scales to the latter.
You basically have two types of families. Ones that are viable and ones that are not. Viable means they meet the RICO standard - "a
pattern of continuing criminal activity in behalf of an
organization." In other words, is there some kind of formal structure with ongoing activity? Yes, obviously, for the 5 NY families. Yes, but less so, for New England, Philadelphia, and Chicago. New Jersey may be in a grey area between the two now. And though there may be more of the mob left in Buffalo or Detroit than, say, Cleveland or St. Louis, they don't really meet the RICO standard either at this point.
