what is your opinion... Did Frank Lucas and Nicky Barnes power-wise and wealth rival the Five Families? particually the Genovese

Nicky Barnes was schooled by both Joe gallo and Matty Madonna while he was in prison and he bought a lot if heroin from Madonna and from guys in the bonanno family, I don't know much about Frank Lucas other than the movie American gangster was greatly exaggerated

Didn't Nicky Barnes criminal career at the top only last like 7 years? Hardly enough time to build up a network that could of rivaled any of the Five Families. Same with Frank Lucas. From Bumpy Johnson's death til his arrest, it was only about 6 years.

I dont know but it would have been interesting to see what the council would have become. I dont think that it was sustainable due to the fact that I dont believe they ( Nicky barnes and his guys) were into anything other than drug dealing.I dont think they were into gambling , load sharking and etc etc

In nick Barnes biography he claimed to have killed a made member of the mafia without retaliation

The mobsters name was mikey pugliese, theres a thread where i went into this bit more in depth, this should help. http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=661190
I thought his name was carmine pugliese. But heres the mobsters episode calling him mikey and saying he was a bonnano family soldier.

so Barnes was as powerful as the Five Families, the Genovese in particular? Bonanno as well?

He was one of the most powerful drug traffickers at the time and his status and position could have probably trumped a lot of people in new yorks criminal underworld. Cant say that he was more powerful than two crime families but i will say that the drug trafficking and running a union and gambling are completely different fields of criminal activity, and that killing barnes wasn't going to somehow bring things back to the way they were in fact it probably would have made things worser on the streets and in the prisons when it came to down to the mob trying to live and operate in the city.

did the Council rival the Comission in power?

I can find zero reference to this mikey pugliese guy. Zero reference to him existing, being made, etc. Can anyone provide real information

its actually referenced in that documentary, the undercover agent who infiltrated them, and also testimony in court against other members of the council.

Heres a link:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=18...pg=1371,1874829

i should note that the guys name is carmine pugliese in this article, mikey might be a nickname.

Yea, that's nice but the vast majority of documentaries have little concern for actual facts. Often those not associated with the actual research widely speculate about a guys status with no references or evidence. Can someone give me the case (i can pull the dockets) or the newspaper articles (got the database that can pull ever historical paper since the 1800s)

Well no wonder, the documentary didn't even get his name right.

I still can find no reference to this guy as being anything but a drug dealer.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/11/nyregi...-informant.html
Its actually one of the murders most of the council were charged with after barnes flipped.

What family? Who made him? That literally gives zero information

i posted that before i read your other posts.

yes they rivaled members of the 5 families when it came to dope dealing

they didn't have the same political connections

they were equals or above mafia members as far as the dope game went

i say mafia members because everybody in the mafia doesn't sell dope

in power in wealth?

Please don't tell me you're asking cook to clarify something lol. Cook follows his routine, he posts 3 or 4 randomly spaced out sentences with no basis in reality and that's about as much you get from him. That being said i'd say that was one of cooks most sensible posts.

how would you answer my question?

I'd say that the fact the Italians were involved and profiting from both Lucas and Barnes operations, makes it unlikely that they were threatened or rivaled by them. I'd also say that the five families were involved in very different rackets like Loansharking,Gambling,Extortion and Union related crimes, while neither Lucas or Barnes groups were this diverse or tried to impede on the Italians there. I think both decided to operate together and that the Italians profited much more from their crimes than vice-versa.

In all honesty though i'm not the person to ask, the knowledgabl,e posters on Black crime like BlackFamily or Scorcese, as well as all of the NY crime posters are.

Certainly not someone like cookcounty who professes to be an expert on any Chicago related crime even though he's usually wrong, and who has no problem chiming in on any other crime in the world without ever going further than his vague three sentence routine.

Anyway didnt Nicky and Frank eventually cut ties with italians ( stop getting their drugs from them)?

Think that was just Frank Lucas. Wikipedia says Madonna helped Barnes until 75 but who knows..It's wikipedia

frank lucas was a lying punk...

No. Not even close.

are u comparing nicky barnes and frank lucas to the entire five families?

or

are u comparing them to mafia members that sold drugs?

who do you think supplied them? that american ganster was a good movie but complete fiction

DON'T BELEIVE TO MUCH OF LUCAS . but he was not on the level of FRANK MATTHEWS ... HE WAS LEGENDARY !

It's funny seeing how indignant some are getting at the topic of the thread.