How can the NY Mafia modernize?

What steps do you think the NY Mafia could take to modernize, streamline their operations, and continue to survive as a dominant crime influence at least within NY?

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They can't. They are the italian mob and today there are less italians that want to joint the mob,if would try to modernize they should made white people that have no italian blood like the greek guy that killed Bulger,guys that wasnt flip if they had all the readons to do it,but at this point wouldnt be the italian mafia anymore. They can try to "import" more criminals from fatherland but this isnt a secure method to modernize.

I have to agree with you Furio. Its pretty much all over

The technology and sophistication of law enforcement today, coupled with the lack of a strong recruitment base, has pretty much wiped out any chance of a 'comeback' or 'requiem' as we say.

The true need for Cosa Nostra was from a bygone era. Today the same 'needs' and prejudices just don't exist for the Italian people anymore. That fact, coupled with the uneven matching of a smart LE, and a dumb CN, has lead to a destruction of the organization as we once knew and revered it.

Less ranks but with more quality...instead of the 5 Families having 500+ made guys, why not have 200 made guys that are quality earners instead of those that will be brokesters forced into pettier extortions and drugs just to eek out a living.

They’ve adapted to the no murders rule which helps keep the heat off them.

Focus on legit business within their insular circle...construction schemes etc.

Crypto schemes

Gambling and loans which will always have a demand even if much less than before.

In cities like Cleveland or Pittsburgh the old timers lead a small ganbling rings that still made milions a years but in city like NY the mob need numbers because it must fight against all city gangs.

The mob doesn't need to fight all city gangs, they need to reposition themselves and become deeply entrenched in the economic and social fabric of society like before, leave the shit bag street rackets for the city gangs. Come on think big! The Mafia's economic clout and control of industries is what set them apart from street gangs, it was the defining line.

Today they need hackers and businessmen.

The last thing the Mob needs to do is to fight city gangs. The retail side of the drug trade - even mid level - is something they should have no interest in. That area is crowded with street gangs and bikers. There's a lot of money to be made in the retail drug game, but it's a very competitive and violent world and you need numbers for that. I'm talking quantity over quality numbers. And if they want to keep the violence to a bare minimum, the retail side of the drug game is something they should leave alone.

I agree with what has been said in this thread. Construction, white collar schemes (like alcohol and tobacco tax scams...there's a TON of money in that), increasing their interest in the docks (that way they can still get involved with narcotics in terms of importation, which is something the Sicilian Mafia, Ndrangheta, Camorra,...are all doing nowadays in Europe), getting more into cybercrime (mail order scams...also lots and lots of money in this)... Aside from that gambling and loans will indeed always be a thing; there will always be people that can't go through the legal channels, so this will and should continue to be part of the Mob's bread and butter.

They are already big in online gambling via Costa Rica.

The mob was always spkit in two like the Gambinos under Carlo that had two underbosses: Dellacroce for the blue collar crimes and Castellano for the white collar crimes.
Today only the desperates want to joint the mob and only because have no other possibiliies. Now the big families have something in the docks or unions but nothing compared to the 1980s.
Now onlycthe street guys was inducted and only few if them have the capacità to run a white collar racket.
I dont said that have to fight but the numbers are useful to impress the street gangs.

The real mafia is white collar not street gangs, freemasons!!

Would Medicare For All mean more or less medicare fraud?

The real mafia born as the armed wing of the landowners in the 19th century and in the cities they engaged in gambling, prostitution and asking for protection money.
They made the leap in quality in the 50s when with the economic boom in Italy they managed to invest money in construction (the famous plunder of Palermo) but their main source of income has always been drug trafficking. For the American mafia it has always been the same thing, of course they had the unions, the control of the ports and the construction but most of the family members were involved in blue collar crimes because ahven't the skill to run a white collar scheme.

The main source of income for the Mafia in Italy has always been drug trafficking? I call bs the Mafia is involved in every economic sector over there that's imaginable: construction, information technology, hotels, waste management, produce, transportation and trucking industry, funeral services, oil and gas, renewable energy, online gambling, everything! Can't believe with the billions in assets seized in those areas that you could say that.

Dillydolly read a book on the sicilian mafia history,until the 50s when they starting fuelling the America with heroin,there was a rural mafia and with the cash they made can invest in hotels,industries ecc but no cash no investment.
Anyway every family invest the money that gain from street rackets in legal investment.

Oh okay I see what you're saying.

In my opinion the single most important core racket that the Mafia ever operated throughout its entire history back in Sicily was extortion, in all its varied forms. Extortion and shakedowns, or il 'pizzo,' was the easiest and most rudimentary racket for all of them. Long before even narcotics came along, extortion was in their bones.

With the great wealth they developed over the decades (over the centuries), they were able to deeply infiltrate the Italian government to the highest levels. Even in Rome. THIS truly gave them their power as 'kingmakers' and 'invisible governors' over nearly the entire nation.

Their control over government and business was, and is, so much more pervasive than we ever had here in the United States that its even hard for us to truly comprehend how deeply they dug into Italy's soul.

In Italy and Sicily, Cosa Nostra is a 'second government' in the truest sense of the word. In the last few decades they've been busted up a lot, but don't kid yourself, they still have deep ties to the highest politicians and businesses there.

In terms of extortion it's gonna be hard to keep that practice alive in the US. Especially since the Italian enclaves are much smaller nowadays, a lot of them have moved to the suburbs and the majority of the Italian Americans are thoroughly Americanized. An Italian American business owner that is victim of a shakedown? He won't hesitate to call the cops. Especially with how non-violent the American Mob is nowadays.

Who are they gonna extort? Albanians? Russians? Dominicans? Salvadorans? Puerto Ricans? Chinese? Vietnamese? Cambodians? Haitians? Cape Verdeans?
Those are the basically the only communities that still have fresh off the boat migrants (who don't dare to call the cops yet) arriving in northeast cities and are communities that have a substantial criminal activity going on over there - but they are already getting preyed upon by their own kind, their own criminal gangs. And the American Mob these days is not violent enough and lacks numbers to challenge the criminals in those communities.

You don't need large numbers to be influential in the underworld, as long as you stick to your last. In a lot of criminal areas Cosa Nostra still has the know-how and the reach the other gangs simply lack. There's - even today, no matter what state the Mob is in - not a single other type of organized crime group that conducts illegal gambling and loansharking with as much sophistication as Cosa Nostra does and not a single other type of organized crime group that has the know-how to make a ton of money of these rackets as Cosa Nostra can.
Just take a look at "Operation Shark Bait" in 2018. They had 3 million on the street generating a 1.3 million profit in a mere two years and this was just a Genovese associate we're talking about.
I can't take of another criminal enterprise with the same level of reach in that department.

Gambling and loansharking will always be in demand and the American Mob can and will continue to make a ton of money of this.

Drug trafficking, if we're talking about influencing the retail drug business? Not a chance.
Extortion? That's largely over.

There are still plenty of other rackets the American Mob, if they play it smart, can somewhat monopolize and off which they can still make more money than other criminal gangs are making off drug dealing, extortion, prostitution and local gambling.

In America anything and everything was second to gambling for the Mafia, since it is all legalized now that has shrunk tremendously. They have modernized by going into legitimate busineses for the most part. Their time is over and I think it has been over for a while.

You are 100% correct Jace. First bootlegging, then later gambling was the hub of the wheel that turned everything else. Without gambling the remaining 'wiseguys' out there today are floundering.

And on that note any real 'wiseguys' know that fact very well. The only ones left in the street fooling around today are the 'dumbguys' who are either too young or too stupid, or both, to have learned that lesson from their elders and the mob's prior history.

The legalizing of nearly every 'vice' that was once their base businesses, as well as the RICO laws and other legislation that has slammed down on them in recent decades is TRULY what had destroyed (past tenses here) the mafia.

Plenty of racketeers, but no rackets left to run, does NOT make a Mafia!

Its' OVER! ..... But the last of the Mohicans out there today just don't know it yet. But they'll have a lot of time to ponder that reality when they're sitting in a jail cell, which is exactly what awaits anyone who continues to fool around in the streets.

Those who were old enough and smart enough to have built up a large enough bankroll should be going into legitimate businesses.

And not to scheme and scam those businesses. But to actually invest and operate those businesses so as to grow their wealth accordingly and make them successful.

With the advent of legalized sports betting a major illicit revenue stream has been affected.

Yet, because those who bet and are lucky enough to win have to pay taxes on those winnings, and cannot 'float' a line of credit with the' legal' book which requires you to 'post up' funds BEFORE you wager a bet, illegal bookmakers will continue to operate.

To what degree is anyones guess.

Another plus for illicit gaming operations is that losing bettors can borrow funds if wanted. THAT is not a service that legal books offer either.

So there's a few dynamics here that still favor street bookmakers.

That and the profit margins for bookmakers are higher than they used to be due to the internet and Costa Rica. They no longer have to pay guys to take bets on the phone but it’s been that way for the last 20 years but Legalized sports betting will cut into theyre action a little bit for sure

Going legitimate is smart if you can do it and succeed, but it doesn't come with the same head rush and thrills and chills. Just saying. Not to mention not as fascinating. I mean, if it were interesting there'd be more blockbuster movies and books on Corporate America, but nobody cares.

What do you think Lucky Luciano was doing before he met Arnold Rothstein? Shit bag street rackets. Where do you think the muscle comes from that racketeers need as leverage to extort industries? Shit bag street guys. There aren't a lot of shit bag Italian street guys anymore like there were up until the 80s or so. You need muscle to let the squares know you mean business. What do you think, that mob guys can just walk into some Wall Street firm today and say "hey, I'm in the mob. You've seen Goodfellas? Yeah, well I do that. So give me a cut now!". They'd call the cops.

I've seen where the Genovese family still engages in a lot of rackets like this so I'd guess they're probably the last of the families that has the brains to operate sophisticated rackets and still has enough muscle to enforce them. I think the rest, as others have pointed out, are mostly involved with gambling. And of course drugs, where the Italian mob is very low on the pecking order.

No, extortion has become much more sophisticated these days. They don't just walk into firms and demand a cut anymore, they can worm their way into key positions and exercise a stranglehold over industries. They can street loan legitimate businessmen and businesses startup money and if they become very successful, guess who they're beholden to? And mobsters need to realize that prison comes with the territory, you can't fear prison and be involved in crime, PERIOD! This is what makes other gangs such a force on the streets, they don't give a rat's ass fuck about prison and people know it. If anything prison is a badge of honor for them. That's what I admired about Carmine Galante, guy did decades in prison and still jumped head first into the dope game upon his release. Never ratted, never flipped. Didn’t give a rat's ass fuck.

In Sicily Provenzano took Cosa Nostra underground and infiltrated business, law enforcement, and politics. Provenzano's strategy of halting the killing, which he considered bad for business, was key to the organisation's survival.

Tobacco is legal, but there's still a killing to be made in selling untaxed cigarettes. Loans are legal, but not everyone can get loans from a payday loan place or a bank, and even those who can are oftentimes limited. Casinos are legal, but only in certain cities and states. The mob will always find a way to make money.

How? Let's say someone in management susses out their "worming". And fires them. What do they do? That's where the street goons are useful. But you have to have cops on the take to look the other way. Otherwise the cops just arrest your street goons. I only see the Russians doing this today, and I think it's more political. Connected to elected officials over there. I've read about some weird shit going on in Florida. Russian mob, Putin, Russian biker gangs, cops looking the other way, etc.

It seems only the Genovese have it like that anymore when it comes to the Italian mob. Don't know how they do it but they seem to.

stop being pieces of shit and start living like good hardworking americans

Definitely. Schemes involving untaxed cigarettes are a big time money maker. Same with missing trader frauds.

I think the way the mob has always gotten into key positions in companies or other organizations has been when owners or managers have big gambling or shylock debts. "Oh, you can't pay me the 10 thousand you owe? Well, maybe we can work something out. Put my friend here on the payroll and I'll stop charging interest". And it just goes downhill from there.

That's a good idea. Have their guys climb the corporate ladder and make decisions that line their pockets.

I know in Italy oftentimes Mafiosi are responsible for a wealthy businessman's success either through startup loans way back when or by frightening off or eliminating their competition and so their businesses basically become a piggy-bank for the Mafia.

Pretty sure you just explained Silvio Berlusconi, they are on another level, the system they use is superior IMO.

Andreotti LOL.

Under the corrupt Christian Democratic governments from the 1950s to the early 1990s. Cosa Nostra has had influence with lawyers, financiers, and professionals; also it has had power and resources by bribing or pressuring politicians, judges and administrators. It has less of these now however it retains some influence.

Cosa Nostra and Stidda still has an awful lot of influence with business and politics, I mean every time I turn around they're seizing the empire of some ultra-wealthy entrepreneur beholden to the Mafia.

I think Matteo Messina Denaro being on the run for going on 3 decades now suggests that Cosa Nostra still has considerable political influence. Plus there's the disappearance of key witnesses in the State-Mafia investigation. Then Bernardo Provenzano wasn't captured until 2006, long after the early 1990s which many consider the Mafia's downfall. Of course the mob's most violent and vicious killers, those killing and bombing left and right are doomed, but other than that I don't think very much has changed.