I don't know if this has been posted before, but found an interesting article on Giuseppe Morello from 1922, after he was released from prison and hiding in Sicily.

I didn't realize that at least part of the counterfeit operation was really a form of extortion where they made Italian shop owners give them change for obviously fake bills. I always thought they tried to pass them as real money.

Also a clever scheme was to send shop owners black hand letters and walk into the store only minutes later and have the owner ask for his help, of course for a price.

Read the article here.