The mob and the crack

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/02/nyregion/officials-say-mafia-ran-crack-ring-in-brooklyn.html

In this article Galione ran a crack ring for Luccheses for at least 100k a week and impose a street tax.
There was other cases in and out NY in whick the mob was directly involved with the crack?

Shows of desperation. A dirty racket that results in instant, severe prison sentences. Most of the families were happy to play middlemen between the cartels and the streets, mostly moving powdered coke, "yayo", that would be made into crack by the street level dealers.

Yes but Galione sell directly the crack wasnt a middleman.

Seems like a desperation move. The mob has historically had the privilege of avoiding the risk that comes with low level drug dealing.

I dont believe for a miunte that he was either selling anywhere near 100k worth of crack a week or making anywhere near 100k per week including a street tax.

It is a ridiculously high number, but it is what the police always do, exaggerate it tremendously. He may have sold it, but I cannot see for a fraction of a second anyone paying a mob guy a street tax back then, or now. Maybe in the 1940's, but the dealers in the street in the time of that arrest of Gallone would have killed him in a millisecond if he tried to shake them down. Anyone thinking the made 100k a week is out of touch.

I can believe it. Yeah sure, they're just lying on him. I can totally see low-level crack dealers paying the mob a street tax, and they wouldn't have fucking done shit about it.

James (Froggy) Galione was not just "shaking down" street dealers for an envelope. Froggy was in control of an entire crack network, from A to Z. Meaning that he actually operated a large network himself with many minions underneath him. Galione would actually purchase kilos of coke (crack), have his guys break them down to small retail bags for street sale, and then have his "crew" sell them at top dollar all over his Brooklyn territory.

This went on for some years. So a $100,000 gross sales figure per week is very much doable. Buying in bulk, then selling $10 "dime bags" or $25 to $50 tins of crack can generate a ton of cash each week. Especially when you doing it through dozens of "salesmen." In other words he controlled the business from "cradle to grave" so to speak.

Now, was his drug network somewhat of a phenomena for an organized crime figure? Absolutely! Especially for a "good fella." But that became his "charm" so to speak. And why he probably got a "position" in the first place. He must have brought in a lot of steady cash for the borgata.

Exactly TNYM, you explained it well. I was thinking the same thing, he was waist-deep in the crack game, not merely shaking them down.

t

You're going by a guess, he would have to control the area, and hire dealers, and others to supervise them., Plus you just plain do not know. I don't know for sure, but it does not make sense to me, and the amount of many any crime groups gets accused of making has always been historically exaggerated.

To the contrary, I do know! Once again I have to say to you that if you bother to actually research the particular drug case that Galione and his associates got nabbed for, and read through the arrests and particulars in the indictment, you'll see that what Dilly and I say is correct.

It was a huge, very pervasive operation that moved massive amounts of crack for a long time through an extensive network of "street dealers" he had under his control. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself and get back to me if you like. "Cradle to Grave" he controlled this particular drug ring.

$100,000 a week, totals out to a $5-million dollar "gross"drug business at the end of the year. That is NOT an excessive amount of money to handle in the narcotics business. Especially if you're handling it, as I said, "from the wholesale purchase by the kilogram, right on down to the actual retail street sales of $10 to $50 dollar tins."

It is a very doable figure!

To be fair to Jace, I believe oftentimes the feds do just throw figures out there without doing any hard math or thorough research. The media is also guilty, it sells papers. But I don't believe that's the case here, 100k doesn't seem farfetched at all.

Tins?
Tins??
TINS???

Police drug value assessment equation...

Break amount down to smallest quantity/highest selling price. Quadruple that.

Thus a $50 1/8th of pot = 10 dimebags = $100 x 4 = $400.

Absolutely. Especially in these types of cases, gambling case they're notorious for doing that. A bookmaker is grossing $50,000 a week ($2,5M a year), they'll claim he "netting" $50K a week! Thats what sells newspapers and gets these fellas promotions.

But as you say, in this case he was knocking em dead with profits. Thats why he got hammered by the judge.

Thats a term used for when guys bag up babania in "tin foil'.... it's sometimes called "tins"

You never that term before? Maybe thats a real NY thing. But its a thing!

Lol, so true!

They're called "Decks". You go up to Inwood trying to cop a "Tin" and they're going to hit you in the head with a box of Sucrets.

A "bag" is one thing. A "tin" is essentially the same thing but in a "tinfoil" as I said. But a "deck" is 10 bags of junk wrapped in a "bundle" for your information. (plus I never hung in Inwood in my lifetime. we don't hang in those shit-box areas ....(I also suspect I'm just a 'wee' bit older than you my man). Lol, so there's also a generation gap going on I suspect.

Another way to explain it is that a deck is NOT one hit, or one dose. It is probably around 10 to 15 grams (if you're not getting fucked in the ass) that are packaged separately in 10 little wrappers, but combined in a "deck" or a "bundle." Get it??

Lol, and not for nothing C-Note, but you gotta go a long way to teach me the street my friend.

"At the retail level, personal use quantities, commonly called decks, sold for $5 to $12."
https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs3/3950/heroin.htm

"Members of the gang distribute decks of heroin that are almost always stamped or labeled with various “brand names” in colored ink to allow dealers and purchasers alike to differentiate and market batches of heroin. For example, on various occasions, glassine envelopes were stamped “Coca Cola,” “Larry Bird,” “Kobe Bryant,” “Paid in Full,” “Best Buy,” and “K.O.,” and have since October 2020 been linked to over 10 fatal overdoses."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/...nue-street-gang-charged-drug-trafficking
"
TOMS RIVER - Township detectives made three arrests and seized 1,750 decks of heroin, two guns, 5 grams of cocaine and $9,500 in cash in a month-long investigations into the local drug trade.
On Aug. 3, police officers stopped a Ford F-350 pickup truck driven by William Needham, 34, of Manchester and executed a search warrant, finding 850 wax folds of heroin and $1,876 in cash, police said.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.app.com/amp/3355701001

"When debate fails, slander becomes the tool of the loser"

First of all C-Note, I'm not trying to "slander" you as you said. If anything, your prior statement saying that if I tried copping a "tin" of powder in Inwood "I'd get hit in the head with a box of Sucrets" was insulting to me....Not what I said back to you. That's number one.... Number two, A deck where I come from, and thats from the "old-time streets" of NYC, constituted appx 10-15 grams of drugs, typically heroin.

10 to 15 grams of anything is NOT one dose as I mentioned before. In the old days (1950s-1970s), what was called a "quarter" was a big package, that had several grams of diluted junk. It went for about $50 a quarter bag. A "deck" was way more than that. It was a bunch of little white folded bags each containing powder. Hence, A "full deck" of ten little packets wrapped in a thin rubber band.

Now if drug terminology has changed into something else nowadays, (like so many other things today), thats another conversation entirely.

But again, YOU were the one who first targeted me with a snide comment, remember? My comment to you was only in response to what you first said sarcastically to me!

In the early 2000s the packaging term for coke I always heard was bindle. Didn't matter what material was used.

I think depending upon the area you live in, the town, city, or state, some of these terms can "float" or have different meanings too.

But essentially, by any other name, 1 doze is 1 doze, a larger bag is just that, multiple dozes. For instance I've seen coke sold as ten dollar bags, $100 per gram, 1/8 of an ounce, 1/4 ounce, 1/2 ounce. one ounce, and up. What you may buy in a Disco an a "gram" is usually shit in both quality and volume (its not a gram or its cut to shit), compared to what you may buy back in your own neighborhood.

Names, amounts (weights), quality, price, etc., it's all subjective.