Scott Bernstein posted this over on the RD

Has Scott or anyone else over there ever opined on what the "Detroit connection's" rackets are these days?

He's said it's mostly the standard gambling, loansharking, and extortion rackets.

There was a book called The New Ethnic Mobs from the 1990's. It did a good summary of the family at the time. It said it still controlled the region's bookmaking, as well as controlled or got a share of any high stakes card games and loansharking the Detroit metropolitan area.

From what I can tell, it's basically bookmaking and loansharking at this point. Plus whatever legit interests the family has.

It's just interesting to me because all of the mobsters around there are in the northern suburbs, generally speaking, while the majority of the working class (these days probably more like working poor) suburbs where you would expect most stuff like that to flourish are on the exact other side of the city, south of it, or "down river."

And in between them you basically have a city that is not really a city.

Metro Detroit for the most part does not really have an urban feel, or culture. In Chicago you drive by certain low-rent neighborhoods int he city and the suburbs and can really visualize how there could be a card game in back, poker machine, guy giving out juice loans, etc.

Much harder to visualize that in Detroit. There was such a complete and rapid exodus from the city by the whites that there isn't anywhere near the amount of older stuff you would expect to find, generally speaking.

But it's a big place, and I'm sure there is a lot I don't know about it.

My understanding is that most of what's left of the mob's presence in Detroit is in the eastern suburbs. Even Scott said there's not much of a presence, if any, in Detroit proper. The ethnic makeup alone in Detroit, to say nothing of the decay, more or less precludes a Mafia family there being powerful today.

Sounds about right. That's where the Italians went. I would imagine its in a pretty sorry state. Those burbs aren't like old school urban burbs like Melrose Park or Elmwood Park in Chicago. They are for the most part extremely boring bedroom communities. Picturing a mob running around them is somewhat comical.

I guess that's the state of the mob these days, it will just get sillier and sillier until one day Rudy Fratto will be sitting by himself in his garage yelling that he's the boss of this place while kids on bikes throw rocks at him.

I don't really think there is a viable Mafia family in Detroit proper. Much of that functionality has been overtaken by Chaldeans or by the city and county political structure. The former Detroit mayor is on trial for essentially doing a lot of the same things a mob member would have done-kickbacks on contracts, no-show jobs for family and friends, extortion, etc.

I don't know about other areas but it would be interesting if there were a peer reviewed study about the impact of state lotteries on organized crime bookmaking and gambling games. The only people I know that are even aware of where or how to place a bet are much older people. But just about everyone knows where/how to play the lotto.

Michigan in general has lost a lot of people. I think Michigan was among the few or even only state(s) to do since the last census. The entire state of Michigan has fewer people than the NYC metro area. There just may not be the population density to support a vibrant traditional OC family.

The legal lottery certainly cut into the numbers racket, although it didn't complete kill it. People still play the numbers because it typically has better odds and there's no state tax. Legalized gambling as also cut into other forms of gambling, including the mob's high stakes card games and video poker. You don't hear about the old back room casinos much anymore since legal gambling is so prevalent around the country.

The one exception is sports betting. For the mob, that's going as strong as ever and really is their bread and butter. They still control the lion's share of the business in areas where the mob still has a presence. The mob caters to the typical sports betting clientele - whites. And it controls a lot of the offshore phone banks and websites.

As for the Chaldeans in Detroit, the LCN there has a long standing relationship with them; at least as far as gambling operations go. But like I said, it's basically down to the basic sports betting and loansharking at this point. Those are the two standard illegal rackets that are usually the last to go after everything else.

Hey, Ivy does Scott post on gangster bb? I was trying to get in touch with him.

Has kwame kilpatrick been convicted yet. Didn't they try connecting him to some girls murder as well?

Alot of albanian organised crime in the michigan area. But i think alot of the actual drug trade is run by black gangsters. I think that the decrease in population has led to alot of murders between drug gangs fighting over better turf or markets.

Kwame isn't convicted on these latest charges quite yet, but he is sunk. There was the most incriminating testimony yet yesterday.

The girl you are talking about was a stripper named Tamara Green, and, yes, many people in the know don't put killing her past him at all. Not leastly because he had the two cops who were digging on the case fired. I mean, gee, I am not a cop or anything, but that sounds suspicious.

It all stemmed from an incident where he threw some wild party at his mayoral mansion (some people, including reporters, still deny there was a party but from what I've heard it absolutely happened) and apparently his wife went berserk and attacked the stripper, aka Strawberry. Everyone denied everything. Not too long after that they found the girl shot in her car for no apparent reason. There is a lot more to the case but I haven't been following it at all. As you might expect a stripper in Detroit had some shady aquantinces and I think she was in the car with a drug dealer at the time so even though Kwame is a POS I guess it is not a sure thing he is a murdering POS. But I wouldn't put it past him.

Yes, he posts under the name "mcscott."

Thanks, Ivy! Nice to make your acquaintance...

I heard the detriot crew had alot to do wth papa johns dominiones and pizza hut help them turn into franchises and more ...any idea on that....

What about the big three cheysler gm and ford wonder if the wiseguys over there have a big thing in that and just been quiter than a mute...wont suprise me most of detriot is pure gangster and smart ones with degrees and shit business oeiwnted with killer instincts detroit is

GM is partly owned by the government so I doubt it

Domino's was started by an Irish orphan named Tom Monaghan who is so Catholic he is building his own city in Florida so he can outlaw alcohol and porn. The answer is no.

Ford is currently being run by Alan Mullaley who loses more IQ points every time he takes a piss than everyone in the entire history of the mafia would have if you put them all together.

So the answer on that is also no.

I can say for sure these guys have no part of the UAW or the CAW as I hold a pretty good position in the CAW and know first hand these guys are not involved.

Did you see his post in which he admits that he thinks the family will be pretty much extinct in 20 years due to an extreme lack of youthful members? I'd repost it here, but RD seems to be down again.

The eventual dying off of people born before circa 1950 is gonna hit the mob like a tsunami. It will be fascinating to see what the mob is like in 2035 or so.

Yeah, I saw that post. Of course, he's saying the Detroit family will finally become extinct in 20-30 years. One could argue it will happen much sooner than that, if it already hasn't.

One question , I know it is very unlikely and implausible at this point, but what if it's all old man Jack pulling a DiFronzo and self deactivating, what If he dropped dead and the geezers appointed Jackie Giacolone boss, he's a he'll of allot younger mayb wed see some activity

One thing to keep in mind is Detroit received Italian immigrants in the tens of thousands, while Chicago received them in the hundreds of thousands, and New York City, let alone the East Coast in its entirity, likely millions. (Four million total Italian immigrants to the US from like 1850-1920s, when it began to peter out.)

So I'm not sure how long a city with a relatively small Italian immigrant population three, four generations in, and virtually no Italian community to speak of, could be expected to support a mafia branch.

Interestingly I was just reading about it and apparently the closest thing metro Detroit has to a "Little Italy" is a small string of Italian stores and restaurants along Garfield Road in Clinton Township.

No disagreement from this corner with the immigration agreement, but on the other hand Kansas City,Missouri hosted a decent size mafia family as well, he'll we've had activity there in the past few years so I wouldn't be totally surprised