Originally Posted By: IvyLeague

First, one of the most fundamental ideas of organized crime is the organization not being dependent on a single man, even the boss. So, I'm not sure that some Gambino bosses avoiding prison, in itself, would necessarily make that family stronger.


In 1990, one FBI official (Richard Ross) said, "You keep hearing all this crap about Gotti being the boss of the bosses, but the Genovese have always been the country's most powerful family."

In 1994, in his testimony in a case against the Mason Tenders Union, former Lucchese acting boss Al D'Arco said, "I have always considered the Genovese Family to be the most powerful LCN family in the United States."

A contributor Jerry Capeci used in his old Gang Land News articles back in the day, who answered questions under "Ask Andy," said "The Genovese family has probably been the most powerful La Cosa Nostra family of the last hundred years."

In 2000, while talking about the Commission Case, former NY federal prosecutor Michael Chertoff said, "The Genovese family, I think, in many ways was the most powerful family in the country in terms of it's domination and exploitation of labor unions and legitimate businesses."

In Selwyn Raab's book 2006 book Five Families, on page 315, he writes that the Genovese family were believed to be "more affluent" than the Gambinos.

It's the Genovese family that has always been referred to as the "Ivy League of the Underworld, the "Rolls Royce of Organized Crime," and who one law enforcement official said had "more or less invented labor racketeering."


Ivy, most of these statements were made after John Gotii´s conviction. And they reflect only personal opinions. Please note the bolded words in some of the quotes. Same kind of statements can be found regarding John Gotti in and around the late 1980s when LE was hunting his ass. Back then, LE said that Gotti was the leader of the most powerful crime family in the US. I´m not disputing that the Genoveses are at this moment, and has been for the last 10-15 years, the most powerful Family. But the Gambinos have historically always had a larger amount of soldiers and a larger amount of captains. This is an important criteria to use when measuring power. Another important criteria to use is stability within a Family. Bosses who were able to keep themselves away from being indicted and convicted had it easier bringing stability and prosperity to his Family. Many Genovese bosses, as I mentioned in my earlier post, spent many years behind bars. So from a historically point of view, I´m not so sure that the Genoveses always has been the most powerful Family, something you seem to claim in your post.

Revis, Camarel and Ivy are right. The last boss of bosses was Maranzano. Since his death in 1931, no boss ever held that title again. Nor was there a boss who had the ambition of becoming one (in contrary to what you may be reading or hearing or seeing in the media). When the Commission was formed, it took over the duties the boss of bosses once had; to be the supreme decision maker in important major issues. When the Commission was formed those decisions were made within the group of bosses who sat on it. And there was always a voting involved. Carlo Gambino (or any other member of the Commission for that matter) did not personally appoint other bosses, murders in the other families did not happen solely to one Commission member´s will and command, no boss on the Commission meddled in the internal affairs of other Families without the backing of the Commission. These things, which had previously been the duties of the boss of bosses, would have never been accepted by the Commission members because it would have opposed the ultimate purpose of the creation of the Commission.

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