How active and strong is the mafia in New Jersey?

Was the jersey mafia ever really that strong? Is it still strong today and to what extent? Who are the top guys in jersey today. I saw that a good amount of the leaders are in jail so does anyone have any idea as to who has taken over for those said people? When I say mafia in jersey I'm not talking about one faction I'm taking about all factions. From the 5 families as well as the decavalcante's.

I would say the mafia is still very active in north jersey, with the gambinos, geneveses, bonnanos, and lucheses all having crews based there. The geneveses seem to have the largest and strongest presence with 5 crews, they seem to have the most pull with the unions on the waterfront and in garbage hauling,and having the biggest books. The lucheses jersey crew has been battered by indictments over the last 5 or ten years, with operation heat, when they were working with the bloods and then again a few years later with the big online gambling busts, it seems both of those cases are close to coming to a close, which means we could see all the pernas facing some heavy jail time. Theres also phillys north jersey crew run by licata, which has been characterized by the feds as being nothing more then a gambling ring. With all the indictments in the late 1990s and early 2000s against the decalvacantes their power and influence within the construction industry(which has always been their main niche) is down to only a small fraction of what it used to be with a lot of guys being ousted from union jobs and one of their main unions,local 394, being put under govt oversight in 2006. Overall, Needless to say the mob is still very active in gambling and loansharking while still maintaining some influence in the garbage hauling industry and on the ports.

But im sure other posters(skinny) can provide alot more insight than i can.

Thanks a lot the insight you have was great. I just did some research on it and I saw that the gatto crew had a sports bar that was raking in $300k-$500k a week. That's a crazy amount of money.

Dellacroce pretty much summed it up. Other than New York, there is more mob activity in New Jersey than anywhere else in the country.

i thought the five families thought of jersey as a joke

Doesn't mean they don't have interests there themselves

yeah but i'm sure they're making people from new jersey

shit they make anybody anyway so it actually doesn't make much difference

"i thought the five families thought of jersey as a joke"

I thought they meant the jersey family, not new jersey itself. Many of them lived there at one time or another. I believe Gigante lived in a place called Old Tappan (or something like that) for a while. Also, I thought that Philadelphia also had crews specifically assigned to New Jersey. It would seem Atlantic City would be the kind of place that would attract them. It would also be hard to believe that a place with the potential for large garbage hauling and ports would be seen as a 'joke'.

Does anyone know if Connecticut has any significant mob activity? Parts of it are considered part of the New York Metropolitan Area. I would think that if the mob was in a place like Westchester County, then it wouldn't be a huge jump for them to go into Connecticut.

They thought of the jersey family as a joke not the state where they have a lot of interests in

Just the Decavalcante family. Carmine Lupertazi looked at the sopranos as nothing more than a glorified crew. That's the way the five families of NYC looked at the Decavalcante's. The 5 family branches in NJ also looked at the Decavalcante's that way. Who was more successful at their height the Decavalcante's or the jersey crews for the Gambino's, Genovese's, Lucchese's, Bonanno's etc. North east NJ Italians and NYC Italians are one in the same

that means the 5 families made people from a state they thought of as a joke

http://bitterqueen.typepad.com/friends_o...rth-jersey.html

The feds have charged reputed Genovese capo Joseph Lascala and several purported members or associates of his North Jersey crew, including alleged "right-hand man" Patsy Pirozzi, with racketeering for, among other things, their alleged roles in taking sports bets through a website and running card games at social clubs according to a press release from the Department of Justice.

The feds built their case relying upon confidential informants and flipped co-conspirators among other investigative measures, and in describing the scope of the online betting operation which was located in Costa Rica -- dubbed "the office" -- defendant Joseph Graziano was recorded at a meeting as stating the following according to the criminal complaint:

"You're in the wrong business now, you know? . . . . You should be in the sports business. . . . They're gonna build it up to, like, [expletive] no end. . . . I call the kid up. In the office down there, I'm really proud of him. I mean, he has 50 phones in his [expletive] place. . . . And, it's nice, it’s like an auction. . . ."

Deadbeats who didn't pay up on their gambling losses got beatdowns according to the criminal complaint, and Lascala once allegedly "commended [ a cooperating witness] for his/her actions in beating the delinquent bettor."

http://bitterqueen.typepad.com/files/joseph-lascala-criminal-complaint.pdf

http://www.waterfrontcommission.org/docs/WCNYH_2012_Annual_Report.pdf

Take a look,is interesting because talk of the crime activity in New Jersey of the 5 family from 2011 to now.

here a example

Shop Steward and ILA Local 1 Trustee Highlighted in Commission
Public Hearings Removed from the Waterfront . By Commission Order
dated October 25, 2011, William A. Vitale, a suspended shop steward at Maher Terminals and a trustee of ILA Local 1, was removed from working on the waterfront for the theft of $96,582.75 from Maher Terminals, for committing frauds in connection with a sworn interview conducted by the Commission, and associating with an associate of the Genovese Crime
Family. On April 28, 2011, in Union County Superior Court, Vitale pleaded guilty to theft by deception (a crime of the 3rd degree). On September 23, 2011, the Court sentenced Vitale to three years probation and ordered him to pay restitution of $96,582.75 to Maher Terminals, forfeit his waterfront registration, and resign his position with the ILA. Vitale admitted that he lied and caused false time records to be created which resulted in Maher
Terminals paying him for hours that he did not work. He also testified falsely during a sworn Commission interview in response to questions concerning his presence in Florida, California,
and Aruba, when he was paid for working at the terminal. Vitale also visited in prison Joseph Lore, an associate of the Genovese Crime Family on the ILA Ethical Practices Counsel’s Barred
List, who was convicted of charges pertaining to embezzlement from ILA Local 1588 and using intimidation or force against a witness. Both Vitale and Lore were subjects of testimony during
the Commission's 2010 Public Hearings pertaining to no show jobs and organized crime associations on the waterfront.

Not only are you trolling again, you can't even read. It was the DeCavalcantes the NY families were said to look down on, not the state itself. The NY families have been active there for decades.

Thank you for posting that link.
I think another good example of the Genovese power in Jersey was in the section on the "work slowdown" in May 2012. Trucks backed up for 4 days causing massive delays on the NJ Turnpike because two Genovese no-show workers got fired. I hadn't heard about that in the news, but it's pretty indicative of their influence down there. I can't imagine any other family with that kind of clout.


In May of 2012, APM Terminals determined that two ILA workers were being paid for
hours that they did not work, even when they were not present at the Port. The terminal fired
these individuals for their no-show activities. The reaction was swift and potent – a concerted
slowdown at the Port by the ILA workers, who insisted on “thorough” inspections of equipment
at port terminals. This troubling example of the use of union power for individualized gains
caused lengthy and costly delays for trucks at Port Newark-Elizabeth terminals in advance of the
Memorial Day weekend

Someone said that Jerry Catena was richer than any mobster in NJ or NYC. And he was worth almost a billion by the time of his death. Who are some big earning and powerful NJ mobsters of the past that most people don't know about.

How accurate were the sopranos with their portrayal of NJ mobsters? I was under the impression that they were extremely accurate with their actions, accents, way of doing business etc.