What makes the Mafia so powerful?

I'm sorry to ask this question but what makes the mafia so powerful and different from other large American gangs like the Latin Kings, Texas Syndicate or Tangos Blast etc? Is the mafia really the most powerful gangs or other gangs like the Texas Syndicate that have sophisticated structures and deal in drug trafficking and drug sales is equally or more powerful than some mafia families? Or is the Mafia's past is somewhat clouding or misleading the actual power of the Mafia in 2014. I know the mafia is not organization but a plural name for Italian-American sophisticated gangs and sophisticated structure. But I have to ask,how much money the largest family is making a year(Genovese)?

Sorry for my ignorance but I simply don't know much about the mob but I simply can not believe the mob is as powerful as it's potrayed. I like to think that there are some gangs that make much more money than the mob like American drug organizations like the Black Mafia family.

Borderprotector, Welcome to the boards.

It's really difficult to say, while the Mafia does not possess the power they once had in this country, they are still established and feared in NY, NJ, IL, and PA. In terms of just dollars and cents I would say that one of the Mexican or Columbian Cartels is making more cash than the Genovese's and that Cartel wields more political power back in their home country were corruption is much worse that here if you can believe that. It kind of hard to say because none of these groups are filing tax returns or profit statements.

If your a Border Agent thank you for your service.

LOL at you thinking I am border agent but no sadly I am not a border accent just a regular college student that wants to be a truck driver. I know a thing or two about cartels in Mexico but besides that I don't know shit about American gangs especially the mob but the mob seems a lot more sophisticated than the cartels. As you can not compare the corruption in Mexico than in the U.S. I guess lobbying is a legit form of corruption here in the U.S . I think the cartels are more comparable to the mob in the 1920s where corruption in the U.S was similar to that of present Mexico and gangsters were much more brazen because of their political and law enforcement connections. The cartels wouldn't have much power if they legalize drugs. Without corruption the cartels can't operate. It's all about the cash that make them so powerful but now they are starting g to operate more like an organized crime group exerting their lower unto local politician, businessmen and other criminals via their extortion and kidnapping for ransom. Back in the day the cartels were much smaller in scope and man power and operations operated in the shadows. Regular citizens weren't affected by them and didn't even knew who these shadowy drug bosses were. People knew about Chapo and Caro Quintero but only by name they had no idea what they become or how much power these capos held. Over the years they(cartels) have transformed themselves into more organized groups relying less on corruption and more on intimidation and man power. It's truly a shame what they have done to Mexico. Not in a million years I would of thought Mexico would become like this.

But not to get off tracked but how much money do you think the whole Genovese make a year. Honestly. Also the whole drug bosses being billionair is is bullshit. There are probably a few that could be billionaires like Amado or Chapo but the vast majority of them are multimillionaires. Osiel Cardenas had 250 million dollars under his name or so it said but I believe these figures more than Forbes naming Chapo a billionaire. I personally don't think he was, neither did Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Z-40 the car washer made 50-100 million and he was one of Los Zetas top dogs.

Are you Mexican, BP??

I always thought it was ironic that the mob could be so powerful and all-reaching, but crews could be wiped out and sent away for life over something as simple as an off duty traffic cop in the right place at the right time. Someone so small and low on the authority scale can change the whole game. Kinda crazy

Fear..

Interesting question.

Like others said the Italian-American mob today is far from what it was in the past,but I do believe that at its peak it was the strongest criminal organization that ever existed simply by virtue of being the strongest organization in the strongest country. Like NNY78 noted, it's one thing to have power in Columbia or Italy or post-communist Russia, and another to have it in America. As far as money goes, the cartels and modern day mafias make more money because of drugs, but that only goes so far. And most of it ends up being seized. But as far as power goes, no one will ever have the kind of power the mob had in America.
The Pablo Escobars and El Chapos and Schiavones make their billions and are on top for a decade or two, but they all end up dead or in prison and unable to spend. There are many like them, but only a few like Carlo Gambino or Tony Accardo or Gery Catena who kept their money, died as free men in their own beds, and more importantly, their power was their own, they weren't simply rich pawns for other (government)players.

As for what made the mob that way, I think it was a combination of two things:

- the clannish Italian/Sicillian culture that made them very cunning and Machiavellian and anti-authority and adept at expoloiting the system, more so than their Irish and Jewish contemporaries.
- a perfect storm set of circumstances that are unlikely to be replicated: prohibition, the rise of the labor unions, gambling being illegal, Hoover being a huge jerkoff etc.

^^^and dont forget the biggest reason-PROHIBITION!

And that's why it can't be duplicated. That set of simultaneous circumstances will never be available to exploit again in this country.

I could assure you of one thing. The Latin kings are not afraid of the mafia. They killed an Italian on 18 ave, when it was all Italan without blinking and eye.

Now 18 ave is 75 percent Chinese?

My youngest son had a problem with the latin kings about 12 yrs ago. My son was talking to a so called friend. Then a car pulls up his friend split. He knew to split because evidently he bothered one of the Latin kings sisters. She told her brother so car load of them gets out of the car with baseball bats and screw drivers and they start hitting my son.

What saved him it was winter time and he had a heavy coat on. He was taking BJJ plus he could fight. He got,out of it but was stabbed 5 times and they broke his elbow. He needed three operations to fix it.

He was still living in my house back then. He says hello and goes to his room without telling me what happened. I found out later when his friends came to the door to ask about him

They killed a randomn Italian or a member of the Mafia? obviously now things are different and gangs don't fear the mob as much but if they killed one of the 18th ave crew back in the 80's or 90's they'd have been hit for certain, too many Sicilian killers in that crew.

And The Latin Kings attack people with baseball bats and screwdrivers? Are you sure they were gang members or just a gang of youths acting hard? I've never heard of genuine gang members that roll around with screwdrivers, it's knives and guns.

You shouldn't come at me with a screwdriver. My mother came at me with a screwdriver once. Once.

And foot (may I call you foot?) I am not making light of your situations, but everytime you tell one of your stories, Danny Vermin quotes go thru my head for some reason.
You wouldn't believe the stuff that goes thru my head daily, though, so...

His father called him Foot once. And then he set him on fire. Ba-dum-bum.

I knew latin kings that are old men now. They were into phone cards and everything else. Then you had Latin kings that were young guys teens and guys in their 20s those are that went after my son by mistake as I told you.

The guy they killed was a connected guy in the 1980s. I was amazed by the balls they had doing that.

Funny remember that guy in that movie

You can call me foot in Portugese translated I think it means Footreads. It is how Brazilian foot ball players communicate non verbally with each other in their short passing game. The position of their foot on the ball tells their short receivers where to move to receive the pass. As far as I know no one else does that or can do that.

When you get old you know a lot of stories about everything. Some are real and some how changed with time. I am pretty sure most are real, but who knows really after all I am old. But in my head I am still in my 20's. My old wife seems to like that about me.

They get arrested they don't consider a screwdriver a weapon.

Funny you should mention that. In the 60s they had people marching against the Vietnam conflict which was their right. Funny those pacifists really liked to fight

Any way people did not mind that. But, the burning the flag a lot of people did not like that. They should make flags that are fire proof. Protest but burning the flag? Find another way to protest.

Some guys saw them do that and got pretty mad. So I was told by this guy a gang member. They saw the guy alone and kidnaped him off the street. They took him to a safe house. Then they told him they were going to protest him doing that in the same way.

They rapped a flag around his face, and set it on fire.

Border, Lobbying by special interests is considered a form of corruption by some,legal as it may be. I think we have made some progress since the Mafia's heyday when it comes to the political corruption that allowed the LCN to flourish, though in a few places like NJ, NY and IL its still quite prevalent.Back in the day individuals like Rockefeller, Morgan and Carnegie and others used their power to influence national elections and the prices of goods and services while the Mafia would use trickery or extortion to ensnare a politician into doing there bidding, these two groups had the same motives, power and money,but used different means to achieve their goals.

That's not a surprise. The Gemini Twins had their battles with the Puerto Ricans too. I believe Jimmy Burke's son was killed by a Puerto Rican. The Bath Street crew had their fights with Latin Kings too

Your going to dig this. We were always fighting the viceroys a PR gang.

One of them I recognized in a movie with Dustin Hoffman the Marathan man. He was one of the PR's that robbed hoffmans house to get his fathers 45.

He got no billing his real name is Pablo Guzman later he became an investigative
Reporter for channel 5 news. He still might be a reporter.

J:"He looks like somebody we know"

T:"woah...It's him, just with a beard"

^^^^^^^^

Could be .

Thats a fair response.
I do so love how some Americans are so pro-free speech.

As long as you agree with them.

Overt jingoism isn't mutually exclusive to Americans. We have a poster here whose signature reads "British is best." And he never misses an opportunity to fan the flames of a dangerous brand of nationalism. It happens everywhere .

I'm sure those guys are representative of all Americans. You are so tolerant and unbiased

Simple, to the point & true

That fargin bastige

Interesting use of the word 'tolerant' given the context.

Note how I stated 'some'. Not 'all'.

I wrote my response in disgust at a pretty sick story. I thought it was rather tame to be honest considering it's about wrapping a flag around a guys face and setting it on fire. All because he was protesting and burnt a flag himself. I make a remark about 'tolerance' and free speech and you're into me for 'tolerance' and bias?

It's your dime.

That's it in a nutshell. Fear of the Mafia is based on the myth of Mafia invincibility--the myth that they will avenge any slight, track down any transgressor, get away with any murder, corrupt any public official..

Not any more. Today's Mafia does bring in considerable money in various rackets, and does wield political power in some areas. But the quality of leadership has declined since the Commission case and the various strike forces put the old timers away and busted the myth of Mafia invincibility. Today's leaders, and especially recruits, are more of Cosa Mia than Cosa Nostra. They turn rat at the slightest pressure. Not many are afraid of the Mob anymore.

That's like reading a story about a woman in Australia being raped and saying I love how some Australians respect women.

quote of the year

The Mafia at it's peak here in the U.S. was national in scope (approx 2 dozen families), controlled the lion's share of criminal enterprises in several U.S. cities, the "big four" national labor unions and countless locals in the northeast and midwest, whole industries in New York, and had unrivaled clout with politicians, judges, cops, etc. No criminal organization before or since, including the modern day Mafia, has, does have, or will have that kind of influence in this country.

That said, fast forward to today and what remains of the modern day Mafia is basically the 5 New York families and a handful of small ones in New Jersey, New England, Philadelphia, and Chicago. While a good argument can be made that the Mafia is still the strongest criminal organization in the Tri-State area, if not the northeast where about 90% of it's membership remains, in terms of an overall organized crime threat to this country, the Mexican DTO's are now #1 with their dominance of the drug trade across most of the nation. I'd look at these groups first before the drug/prison gangs you mentioned above.

youre a fargon ice hole

extremely popular one

LOL if this is what I think it's about!

Yes, you are correct I am both a Mexican citizen born in Monterrey,Nuevo Leon, Mexico but immigrated here when I was a small kid but moved back to my birth place when I was a young teenager and boy I can tell you how much Mexico has changed(which is good) since 2006 or so when Felipe Calderon won the presidency elections. Mexico was a peaceful place where under age people would go drinking across to Nuevo Laredo to have good cheap fun but since the 2003 war between Gulf and Sinaloa broke out. It was the calm before the storm. It really tainted Nuevo Laredo as a dangerous town because it brought out what the cartels were capable of. It really shook and took the town for surprise and captured national attention to the cartels. The cartels (Sinaloa and Tijuana) had some friction in the past but the war between them was low key in fashion. People got killed behind closed curtains and there very little mutilations but they didn't display the bodies to the public. What brought international attention to the cartels were the Los Zetas(back then the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel) was the shootouts and effectiveness of their techniques and tacticss vs Los Negros which was a hit squad that La Barbie used which were pretty much street thugs. Back then Los Zetas were primarily made of ex soldiers and police. So they kicked Barbie's and Chapo`s ass out of Nuevo Laredo. Modern day zetas resemble more street thugs whith half ass training but are more organized and do wield more influence on local and state authorities and local politicians. They do have some AEI on their ranks though and have heavily imflatrated the local and state.authorities. Only the army and Marines give them shit. But Nuevo Laredo and many towns close to the border feel very unsafe at times. I am falling.off track here but yes I am both Mexican and American. Mexican-Americans are more American than Mexican though culturally speaking except by town. Laredo Texas which is about 90% Hispanic and a lot of people speak.spanish ,the younger generations speak English though but they still know or understand Spanish. I speak, read and write English perfectly. If you.want.to know about the cartels I am the man to.ask.

Well I think the Mafia or more likely street gangs present the most danger to U.S citizens than the cartels ever would. You see the cartel's influence strongest is at the Mexican side border but once you cross the International bridge to the U.S the cartel I fluennce will always stay on the Mexican side. They(cartels) do have some pretty strong influence in Central America and some in South America..The distribution networks in the U.S aren't.exactly cartel members but.more of associates and what not. What I mean there isn't captains and gun men running rackets on the U.S side like they do in Mexico. There has been a.few cells.of Zetas operating here in Laredo but mainly for laumdering money or killing some body which they.rarely do o. this side of the border..Besides laundering money on the U.S side the cartels. They don't run shit on the U.S.
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Edit:Besides that this post was meant to be addressed to IvyLeague.Back in the 1920's what mob dominated the booze trade? The Outfit? Or was the slice was more equally cut.each dozen or so mob having.their fair share or did one group dominated more than half of the pie? Like the Sinaloa or.Nrdangheta in Italy.