LCN need to change their game

LCN guys are going away for murder, murder conspiracy etc.
I think the feds are trying to tell them something: Curb the violence.

I know violence and the threat of violence is necessary for that line of business but perhaps LCN should lean more towards money-making rackets that DON'T require violence like credit card fraud, bank fraud, loan fraud, identity theft, intellectual property theft, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud etc.

Then pool their money and invest in legitimate companies overseas.

Violence, drug trafficking, cash counterfeiting, high profile robberies are all crimes that attract additional heat.

The non violent white collar schemes combined with legitimate business fronts is the way of the future for LCN in my opinion.

What do you think?

White collar crime are for smart guys and need a great organization,the street crime as drug or rubbery are for thugs that want fast cash and feel like al capone.

The future of LCN made the guys that was smart and money makers using less violence and usa the associate for the most dangerous crimes so if flips won't make serious damage.

right, because there were way too many mafia-related murders in the usa in the past 10 years . . . it almost felt like canada or philly in the 90s

jokes aside neo I believe that they have it covered.

Doing stromg arm shit like robberies is a dead end occupation. Think about .all the camera's that are out there. All the money is in construction, gambling, shylocking, or just being legitimate.

Doesn't look like it.

The five families are getting smashed by indictment after indictment and rat after rat.

They curbed the violence in New York ten years ago. Look at the murder rates. And please don't tell me that they made the bodies disappear because when a wiseguy disappears it's still headline news. You would have read about it, and it would be included in the charts.


They're already in most of those rackets.


That's all well and good. But without the tried and true blue collar twin pillars: Bookmaking and shylocking, there IS no American Mafia. Period.

The standup guys still outnumber the rats in droves.

6 Don't forget NJ

Not only that but some here will recall the predictions made by prosecutors and the FBI back in the 1990's about them wiping out the mob in "5 or 10 years." Well, that was 20 years ago and the 5 NY families are still there despite an ongoing wave of indictments. Nowadays, you don't hear those same predictions anymore.

From a purely law enforcement approach, the NY Mafia is virtually indestructible. Prosecutions and rats weaken the families and move the process along but it is slow attrition over a long period of time that will finally see the end.

Exactly. Status quo for another generation or two, and then you'll see some real changes. But for the time being, they're not going anywhere.

How many Italian kids even grow up in rough areas anymore? Those are the kind of situations that create recruits. Besides family ties.

Speaking of Italians, my friends grandma just died. Italian lady, 92 years old. Stayed put in Flushing -- now its all Asians, I've heard.

the one thing that has allowed the LCN to continue on has been their ability to adapt to changes in society. will it last forever ? probably not. it will continue to go on in its well entrenched NE strongholds, and chicago.

ok once again:

it all goes down to the need for aggregation and self-protection.

If a criminally-minded individual decides to get busy he can either start his own thing or he can lean toward a pre-existing structure erected by experienced and like-minded crooks who've been doing what he's been craving to since before he was even born.

then geography and ethnicity come into play.

If the above mentioned wannabe happens to be an italian-lastnamed thug based along the "Italian Belt" (ny-nj-pa-ma-ri-ct-il-fl) then he's most likely to be dragged into the cosa nostra.

simply put this is how that thing is still up and running

If he's a non-italian caucasian based, let's say, in the upper-midwest then chances are that he might fall into the biker subculture or whatever german/scandinavian cabal society they may have over there.

and so forth...

So if LCN goes away eventually, will there no longer be gambling, union corruption, construction, etc? Wouldn't there always be LCN as long as these crimes around? I mean why wouldn't these LCN guys just keep handing down the white collar crimes to the next generation?

What next generation? It is just a bunch of burglars and drug dealers getting made nowadays.

All the smart Italians are becoming lawyers, doctors, wall street brokers etc.

The LCN is just left scraping the bottom of the gene pool.

You have a lot of opinions for someone who just joined the board.

I think you're doing a disservice to quite a few members with that comment. Some are thugs, some are crazy, some are muscle, some are run of the mill criminals and some are damn fucking smart. It's always been that way. It's not that way for the majority of guys but it's not as if the Mafia only inducts members with a low IQ.

And for the record, Italian-Americans aren't only just becoming successful now. Rudy Giuliani, a guy responsible for a lot of guys going away and changing the game with RICO, is Italian American. We're talking what, 25, 30 years ago.

I'm just saying the LCN have got a bleak future a head of them if they only continue to recruit 100% Italians because that talent pool is drying up as Italians don't need to be involved in OC anymore.......adleast not the smart ones who can easily make it in the legitimate world and thrive.

You think this is his first time here? Pffft.

It's Suboxone Boy.

Exactly. It will be status quo for another couple of generations, and that's when attrition will start to thin the ranks. But for the time being, they're not going anywhere.

Yeah PB, that was the implication. I can tell how this clown writes.

He also tries to emulate things you say when he posts in some of his posts. He's so transparent.

Like that gene pool comment, am I wrong or have you not said that before? Sorry if I'm mistaken but I feel like he's doing it on purpose. So weird.

Right away into the topics that I tend to post in (Genovese Family, etc.). I knew from his first post and so did everyone else. They've been talking about it on the other board for days. It's him.

I imagine there will be a big shift after the guys born before 1950 or so start dying off. If you look at the Genovese chart, a huge chunk of the membership is 60-80. That cohort is going to be hard to replace when they all croak en masse starting 10 years or so from now. I think there will be substantial downsizing then. And think of all the accumulated knowledge, leadership skills, and "old school" ways (irreplaceable things from a totally different era) that will be dying with them.

In New York, the main effect of the prosecutorial onslaught seems to have been diminishing the families' control of the legitimate world, not killing off the families themselves. Generational attrition will be what does that eventually.

That's well put, Ivan. I basically agree with every word of it. But I think they have a full generation to go before attrition really takes its toll. And a generation is basically twenty years. You said ten. So it will probably be fifteen .

Well ten years from now is when the guys 70+ will start to go. But you're right, it won't get really noticeable until about 20 years from now.

All I really know is it's gonna be fun to watch. I'll be about 50 when the shit hits the fan.

I'll be in diapers. Circle of life .

pb you ever get my email? I think i got ur address right lol

I got it, kid. Just busy with Pop's physical therapy. One day it's in Manhattan, the next day it's in Westchester, the next day it's Montefiore in the Bronx. I shit you not.

I'll send you a long one tomorrow. Pinnacle . You'll be a little surprised at the very least.

You won't be in diapers, you'll be in your 70s. Sheesh.

You're an Italian guy, things probably won't start to get really ugly for you until you're 85 or so.

On a somewhat related note, my grandfather and great-grandfather didn't make it to 50, so I might not get to watch the mob age into oblivion after all. Ah well.

That's eerie, Ivan. My Dad is EXACTLY 85 and only started suffering health problems this past year.

And your grandparents mean nothing. Actuaries aren't even allowed to use them in approximating your life span. It's your parents and your lifestyle that they use in determining your risk.

Oh... sorry to hear that. It's not surprising though, every single older Italian-American guy I am acquainted with started to decline at about 85.



Well that's good to hear, my dad is still in decent shape at 65. But I'll probably get Alzheimer's in my mid-70s if a heart attack doesn't get me first, almost everyone in my family does.

I've put way too much thought into this stuff for someone who's only 35.

Does anyone think it is possible that there will be a 'contolled collapse' with families merging together or will it collapse suddenly (with a big indictment or something else)?

That's plausible. If the recruiting pool finally dries up that much in twenty years, I can see families merging to keep it Italian, rather than have each individual family getting taken apart by rival ethnic gangs. All for one and one for all. Better than losing out to a bunch of Eastern Europeans, Russians, Asians, Mexicans, and assorted American gangs. But it's way too early to hypothesize such a scenario.

So going back to my original question, if and when LCN collapses due to attrition or other factors, will the union corruption, white collar rackets, construction, etc be picked up by new ethnic groups? Or will these rackets just keep on going but maybe not necessarily controlled by defined groups (ie, loosely affiliated individuals who have their hands in certain things)?

Honestly, Baldo. I think it's just too early to speculate. They have another generation or two left in them as is. Crime will always be around, and somewhat organized crime will always be around. But the face will change over time. But it'll be awhile.

I would be surprised if future OC is defined by ethnic boundaries. I could be wrong but seems so restrictive in the modern world. I'm assuming these guys that own construction companies/other legit holdings will at least hand them down to their kids.

Things are not getting that good in the regular world like everyone expected .
I would not be surprised if it does not stay status quo ..

Everybody expected the families to be gone if not long gone.
I say the worse the country is in the better for that way of life.

There is always that possibility that the underworld and the corporate world and the blue collar world may meet again.

I don't think that LE will ever let it come to that,but as long as guys going to school for eight years after high school are making as much as the the guy that dropped out as a junior there is always that possibility ....just never know what that will bring.

At some point, it won't be. They don't call America a melting pot for nothing. Well, we're almost all melted now. And twenty years from now? Forget about it.


And those will be the last of the LCN millionaires in those businesses, the kids who are inheriting them now. It's nearly impossible to get a startup construction company going today if you have mob ties.

The guys who are already settled will hand them down to their kids. Beyond that, it's dog eat dog.

White collar crime is monitored in a far more aggressive manner. Most radical groups and terrorist organizations use bank fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, credit card theft, hacking etc to launder money, plus the SEC can crawl up your ass and take it all away from you and then some in a NY minute. Penalties are much stiffer, ask Bernie Madoff.

The bread and butter is and always will be gambling, shy locking and porn...the blue collar rackets can give criminals a hell of a run if they run a smooth book before getting raided. White collar crime always leaves a paper trail or at least an electronic fingerprint, ask Mike Franzese.

Either the white collar or blue collar have the same common denominator...a sharp tool called RICO. If you actually read the act, it's not hard to get wrapped up into one. ND Law Professor Robert Blakely was anti-mafia, this the "very broad" and somewhat open to interpretation law has hurt many of the top mobsters in the U.S. My two cents.

Plus, the government has the most comprehensive knowledge over LCN from decades of discovery, informants and new laws to combat it. When Hoover was head of the FBI, he was focused on Communism and was stubborn to believe that an underground criminal society existed. Since Valachi, it went downhill...and it's never coming back.