Are the Colombo's still that strong? For some reason, I thought they were down to about 40-50 made guys. Are they still in control of unions?
That number could be about right if you're taking active members on the street. But the family has approximately 100 or so total members.
Over the past decade, there have been Colombo cases involving the Operating Engineers Union, Concrete Workers Union, and a few others.
Hell's Angels for one I think would give them a run for their money. All of your talk of unions and branching into legitimate business is for the damn birds. Last big time legit business was the crap in Texas and they are all about to get ass reamed for doing it. Your living in the past, the Italians are no where near as strong as they used to be. You like to watch the Sopranos and Goodfellas and say "oh man look at the power they have" when in reality they have been reduced to bird shit.
I don't think anyone is saying the Italian mob is as strong as it used to be. But it's still very much a force in New York, including in both unions and legitimate businesses. Do your research.
The Gambino's and Genovese's had 200 or more at one point. Most of the 5 Families had 100 or more in their heyday.
The most recent estimates still put those families at about 200 members each.
Great article from NY Magazine and Jerry Capeci. This was from a while back in 2005, but Capeci at the time estimated the Colombo's at 75-85...that has to be severely reduced now after all the convictions and turncoats.
His figures were in a little strange in that one because some of them seemed to be inflated, while the Colombos seem low-balled. There were 112 members cited in the 2004 NJ OC report. And 100 or so members have been cited in more recent articles. There's over 90 listed on the forum chart.
I agree much with your post. But I also think that some posters have forgot about the Chinese tongs and local syndicates in other areas of our country that had/have politicians in their pockets too (except labor/union racketeering, la cosa nostra practically invented/innovated that). On the other notion of structure and code of conduct; 1% percenters, prison orgs, & Chicago street orgs have it too.
Also agree with your comment about the gang signs/colors but they carry themselves more or less like fraternities , but even then it can be hard at time to tell who's a member (strictly speaking Chicago orgs).
Except, for the most part, the Chinese groups' influence didn't extend beyond their own communities. The labor racketeering is what really gave the LCN the clout to effect society in general.
