The Mafia Today

What has changed in Cosa Nostra from the early 90s to the present day?

Honestly, here in New York, not much has changed. The Mafia is getting bigger and bigger in Suffolk County.

But what has happened with the NYC Docks, the waste removal companies? What have happened with things of this nature?

I don't live in NY, so I can only speculate. But the mob will never be completely eliminated. They may go through down periods, but they'll probably always be around.

In regard to your specific question, it's quite simple: most of the mob figureheads went to jail in the 1990s (Gotti, Gotti Jr., Gravanno, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, to name a few).

As was the 70s 80s and 90s companies
were controlled by one or 2 factions of
the existing families,NEW-YORKS GOVERNMENT
hit hard on unions,they were de-regulated
and split up such as B.F.I. and certain
concrete co-ops,wrecking yards fell under
the same madness,these companies would be
split into 2 or 3 seperate entities so that the families could not control the bids
or the routes that existed for certain waste
haulers,bid rigging among concrete companies
was way out of hand,city jobs were being billed
out at 2 or 3 times the going rate.Some waste
companies such as WASTE MGMT.are non union,thus
allowing them to bid cheaper and control their
workers easier,they could also bid union jobs
at the same rate but pay the workers less,a common practice from my neck of the woods,
stock fraud and insurance scams are very much
a common practice in every-day life for some
of the more well to do factions of NEW-YORKS
families.

Dec/01/03 WATER FRONT STILL MOBBED UP
BAYONNE, N.J. -- The headquarters of New Jersey's most notorious union is a white-brick building on a blue-collar block. Flanked by a deli and a hair salon, its ornate front windows feature an anchor and rope motif.

The custom-made glass is opaque; it's impossible to peer inside International Longshoremen's Association Local 1588. But that hasn't stopped law enforcement from trying.

Local 1588 was historically so corrupt that mob enforcers were unnecessary, according to one veteran investigator. Kickbacks, extortion and fraud became as routine as a Labor Day picnic at the local, long a lucrative outpost for the powerful Genovese crime family.

In 1954, when Marlon Brando starred in the Oscar-winning "On The Waterfront," one of 1588's delegates was already under investigation for taking kickbacks from its members.

Nearly 50 years later in this weathered waterfront city, the cast of characters on the genuine New Jersey docks remains consistent: Local 1588's president and seven others with union ties face a racketeering trial this spring.

The group demanded cash and kickbacks from dozens of union members in return for promotions, overtime and job training, authorities said. The local's leadership "blatantly and repeatedly" associated with the Mafia, added an infuriated federal judge _ who then appointed a former NYPD commissioner as the union's boss.

Robert McGuire, who ran the nation's largest police force from 1978 to 1983, predicted it will take at least three years to de-Genovese the corruption-riddled local.

"There's been mob dominance and domination for many, many, many years," says McGuire, who took over this year. "When it becomes very pervasive, it's like rooting out a cancer in a body."

Longtime ILA spokesman James McNamara complains that prosecutors "paint the whole ILA with a brush that's not accurate," ignoring its honest workers.

Over on Kennedy Boulevard, headquarters of Local 1588, one of those honest workers smokes a morning cigarette. Union veteran Vincent Sorrenti pauses to greet a visitor.

"Nice to meet you," Sorrenti says, his monotone matching his seen-it-all-before demeanor. "No comment."

___

The president's job at the 440-member local comes with an office, salary, benefits _ and lately, criminal charges. The last three heads of 1588 all wound up as defendants.

The latest was John Timpanaro, indicted for racketeering and extortion just months after his January 2002 installation. Timpanaro, at age 45 the head of a new generation at the local, faces trial with his co-defendants in the spring.

His predecessors, John Angelone and Eugene G'Sell, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to embezzle union funds. The two admitted to forcing union employees to surrender huge chunks of their no-show job salaries to the Mafia.

Typically, authorities say, the union catered to the mob over its membership.

Organized crime's waterfront control is multifaceted _ from extorting a Staten Island trucking firm to fixing bids on the ILA's prescription drug plan. The latter scam netted $400,000 for the Genovese and Gambino families, and led investigators to a $3 million mob extortion plot against action movie star Steven Seagal.

At Local 1588, Angelone and G'Sell were installed by the local's real power: Genovese associate Joseph Lore, who took over in 1988 from legendary New Jersey mobster John DiGilio.

Lore, a waterfront hiring agent for a Bayonne company, was an old-school mobster, a hard case who once threatened to take a blow torch to Angelone's crotch.

For nine years, the reputed Genovese family member received up to $2,000 per week through the no-show job scam _ a grand total of $821,000 looted from Local 1588. The Lore era ended quietly in July, far from the Bayonne docks, when a Trenton judge sent the 64-year-old to jail for 70 months.

DiGilio's exit was more dramatic. In 1988, two weeks before his loan-sharking sentencing, the body of the ex-middleweight boxer was fished out of the Hackensack River with two bullets behind his ear.

His body was decomposed, but his killer thoughtfully wedged one of the slain mobster's credit cards between DiGilio's legs to make identification easy.

The hit came four months short of the union's 50th anniversary _ a brutal reminder of what went awry at Local 1588 after its launch in September 1938.

___

Organized crime's interest in the waterfront predated Local 1588, and the attraction was obvious _ boatloads of money. The New York-New Jersey docks remain the busiest on the Eastern seaboard, with an estimated $86 billion in waterborne cargo moved through in 2001.

The corruption often increased the cost of goods shipped through the port, effectively creating a "mob tax" passed on to consumers, McGuire says.

Yet there was no bloody war when the Genovese family claimed the New Jersey docks in the late 1960s. George Barone, a veteran mob killer employed by "Fat Tony" Salerno, represented the Genovese crew at a peaceful mob sitdown with the Gambino family.

Barone's pedigree was impeccable. He was a member of the Jets, the Hell's Kitchen gang immortalized in "West Side Story," and a contemporary of infamous mob boss Vito Genovese.

Barone became both an ILA official and a made man who handled his murderous work with elan, notching a dozen killings along the way. When he met with the Gambinos, an understanding was reached: The Brooklyn and Staten Island waterfront belonged to the Gambino family; Manhattan and New Jersey went to the Genoveses.

Everybody was happy, and everyone was soon to get richer.

By the mid-1970s, DiGilio was installed at Local 1588, taking advantage of its location _ far from the Genoveses' Manhattan base, and under law enforcement's radar.

"John was a maverick," says Lawrence Lezak, law director for the watchdog Waterfront Commission. "He was a big moneymaker for the Genovese crime family."

DiGilio operated in anonymity until 1981, when he was publicly linked with 1588 secretary-treasurer Donald Carson, the son of a Bayonne cop and a 22-year veteran longshoreman. By then, the pair was extorting money for labor peace, authorities said.

DiGilio's murder neatly coincided with Carson's criminal conviction, leaving a leadership void quickly filled by other Genovese associates. Local 1588, along with five other metropolitan ILA locals, was targeted by "Operation Marionette" _ a federal probe into the Mafia's puppet-like control of the unions.

In 1992, Local 1588 acknowledged what federal authorities had long suspected: it was a mob-run racketeering enterprise, and had been for years. The union signed a consent decree promising its officers would sever all illegal ties.

Agreeing to the decree was the union's president, future felon Eugene G'Sell.

___

The deal had little effect on Genovese control of Local 1588. The Timpanaro indictments, a decade later, convinced federal Judge John S. Martin to name McGuire as union administrator in January 2003.

For McGuire, it was reminiscent of his successful 1992-97 assignment to clean up the Gambino-dominated Garment District in Manhattan. This task was more daunting, as McGuire discovered that organized crime was "a way of life" on the waterfront.

"There are those individuals who would rather keep the old regime in place," he says.

McGuire recruited a forensic auditor and a pair of veteran investigators to help out at 1588. One was Tom Gallagher, a balding, burly veteran of 27 years with the Waterfront Commission.

Like Barone, Gallagher knows the docks' history. He remembers, for example, "Benny Eggs" Mangano and "Johnny Sausage" Barbato, two Genovese hoods, collecting a reputed $25 on every container unloaded.

He's watched, too, as mob influence over the union became less violent, more subtle.

"It's not like the old days," Gallagher notes while touring the Bayonne waterfront. "They realize that action draws heat and makes headlines."

Lezak agrees, saying the mob families declared a hiatus on waterfront hits shortly after the DiGilio slaying. But other approaches endure.

"I can walk up to you, and you know who I am, and I don't have to say a word," Lezak says. "I'm right there and you know what I'm there for."

Under McGuire, some things have already changed at the local. In the past, potential members were recruited by friends or a relatives. McGuire's group, in soliciting 100 potential new members, found half through local employment agencies.

The McGuire team also provided the membership with a detailed accounting of its annual budget _ right down to the penny. "One member said, `That's the first financial statement I've heard in 35 years,"' McGuire says.

Local 1588 is still battling in court to get McGuire booted. James A. Cohen, attorney for 1588, said the government takeover was nothing more than a patronage deal to benefit McGuire and his associates.

Back on the docks, the indicted Timpanaro returned to the Bayonne waterfront as a foreman after serving a 60-day suspension, his presence a counterpoint to the arrival of McGuire, Gallagher and company.

His trial next spring will go a long way toward determining the local's future.

"If there's an acquittal, that's a whole different ballgame," said Waterfront Commission executive director Thomas De Maria. "Not that the investigation was for naught, but obviously the only message would be you can get away with it."

today in kansas my faimly has rodded the banks and stores. so my faimly is the most powerful faimly in the kansas.

NOOO MINE IS!

nice article, wheres it from!?

I think that the MOB has changed drastically! Now what I am about to write must be looked at from a mobsters perspective, and not from a moral everyday working man's perspective. Years ago there were rules and parameters within mob circles. There was honor amongst the ranks. If you got caught, you did the time, mouth shut, no qualms. Your family was taken care of. In my opinion the last two guys to live up to the cosa nostra tradition were John Gotti and Vincent The Chin. The Chin continues to do his time like a man. Gotti did his time like a man. Today you have the young leftover punks who walk around acting like big shots shouting out who they think they are, who they know, what family they are with, etc. Then when they get caught they sing like birds and take everyone down with them. Yes I agree that the mob is still active, but I think after Gotti and The Chin, much power was lost and those left over right now are not old school members who can run a family to it's fullest potential. Today the Non-Italian mobs are taking over the neighborhoods, but unlike the old Italian mob bosses, the Non-Italian mobs desicrate thier own territories. No rules, no parameters.
I do believe that life is a circle and sooner or later the Italian mobs will rise back to the power that they once held.

Don Cardi

The NY post on Feb the 8th released information and says the current FBI intelligence shows the stats have increased to roughly 651 NY wiseguys compared to 570 in 2001.

Genevese was 152, now 181
Gambino was 130, now 168
Lucchese was 113, now 91
Colombo was 90, now 65
Bonanno was 85, now 146

Where did you find that out Turi?

Is there anywhere on the net were i could find those stats? I've been searching for up-to-date cosa nostra info for a while.

Yeah sure, half way down this page shows what members they had in 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1998026.stm and then this article has the latest news http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/16151.htm

Interesting that you posted those statistics, Turi. Today's NYTimes has a story that two Gambinos were arrested for running a sophisticated telephone "cramming" racket that netted them $200 million over five years. Working out of dummy companies ("long firms" to those of you in the UK) in Overland, Kansas, the two guys contracted with big, legitimate local telephone companies to bill customers for "services" they didn't order, such as "voice mail." The trick was that the "crammed" services were buried down in the multi-page monthly telephone bills that people received. People seldom scrutinize their phone bills, so most of them just paid for non-existent services. The legit local telco remitted those fees to the Mob dummy corporations, less their billing fee. Not bad!

Is Mob related murder getting more difficult to execute these days with the improvement in forensics and other crime solving technologies? You just can't dump dead bodies anywhere and expect people not to find or know who did it.

Thanks man. Both articles are very interesting. One thing that didn't surprise me was the stuff about the 'real life Sopranos', the fact that since the Sopranos has been such a succes the NJ mob has recruited more people!!! Great, you can make a bunch of wannabes who get really into a TV series and happen to be Italian so they figure they'll try the Wiseguy way of life! Christ, how long before these guys turn Goverment witness or get clipped for being a bad earner!

Interesting peice Turnbull, i've been reading a lot more into white collar rackets wherever I can find them and recently worked out the Pump and Dump scams. It actually frightens me of how simple it is. I trade with virtual shares on the internet (citycomment.co.uk) so I understand the share game completely. I could run this scam. Not only are the monatary rewards high but without a RICO case and/or OC connection, prison terms will be shorter and in slacker institutions.