Is the mafia taken seriously anymore?

Does anyone take them seriously anymore, obviously I am in the UK so only talk as someone looking in from the outside.

Obviously Cosa Nostra had a huge amount of power years ago.

But now, they seem a bit of a laughing stock, they don't even deal with rats.

Other crime groups are now more violent and deadly, so who would take them seriously?

Movies and tv shows kept them in the public spotlight way past their prime. Law enforcement wants to keep the public feeling safe, so they keep Cosa Nostra propped up. The public wants to see the documentaries, and the indictments. Also the majority of new gangs are made up of minorities, prosecuting them or having frequent mass arrests leads to pushback from their communities. The public shares some of the blame for being suckers.

All true, Jace. Plus: Americans are obsessed with "secret societies." In the early days, it was the Freemasons. Then the KKK. In the 1940s and 50s it was the Communist Party USA, Now (and for a long time) it's the Mafia. Thanks to mass media, movies, TV, Internet, etc., the public won't let it alone. Mafia has the dubious distinction of being a :"secret society" that isn't secret. If "Mafia" were a brand, it'd have more recognition than Apple and McDonald's combined.

They seem like a laughing stock according to whom? Internet dwellers? Which family?

The reason why they don’t go after rats has been discussed a lot on this site. No need to repeat it.

Violence doesn’t always equal to power. Street gangs kill hundreds of people annually in the northeast alone, but they don’t have the influence that the LCN still carries in the same area.

The American Mafia would have disappeared for real if they kept acting like they did up until the early ‘90s. The worst mob takedowns happened *because* of violence. Violence doesn’t pay for our mobsters, this isn’t Canada. It was a smart move on their hand to take the quiet road. Their #1 skill is how adaptable they are.

Obviously there are people out there who take their cues from dumb action tv shows where you see guys getting gunned down every five minutes and think that’s how a serious OC should be. It’s just pathetic really. If these people were in the life they’d be gone (arrested) in a week time.

As for your claim of them being a “laughing stock” I have yet to meet an individual in real life who thinks that. And I live in a traditionally mobbed up area. I know cops, p.i.s, civvies that work in mafia influenced industries (construction, food distribution), and a few felons. They’d say the mob isn’t what it used to be, which is obvious!, but they admit they’re still fear them, would never deal with them and god forbid cross them.

according to FBI they are still the major threat in New York metropolitan area

They don't have the power they once did, but I still wouldn't rattle any of their cages. I think they still have capable people.

2019 article about NY mob

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/the-five-families/amp

Interesting part:

“Allon Lifshitz is deputy chief of the criminal division of the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Together with his colleague Kristin Mace, the current chief of the Organized Crime And Gangs Section, Lifshitz is responsible for prosecuting the mob.

‘The mafia today is a significant presence,’ he told GQ, ‘no less than in the past’

Lifshitz said their drug operations are probably more formalised today. “There’s always been a rule against selling drugs in the mob, but more of our big cases involving the big moneymakers involve drugs, including importing drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, from overseas or selling opioids domestically.

“What you think of as their traditional bread and butter – loan-sharking and extortion – are,” he said, “going on every day in New York City.”

For Lifshitz to say ‘The mafia today is a significant presence,’ he told GQ, ‘no less than in the past’ is ludicrous. I said that prosecutors keep them propped up for their own funding and publicity, that is an example of it. Regarding extortion, it is almost always a case of a person borrowing money and being threatened for not paying it back. Lifshitz
is full of shitz.

They’d receive funding anyway. They don’t just investigate the mob, but all OC groups in the city.


It’s extortion no matter how you frame it


you think you know more and better than actual investigators

I've got no real life experience with the American mafia since I don't live in the USA let alone NYC, but going by what I read I don't see any other criminal organizations challenging the mob either. Probably that's largely because there's little conflict of interest, but I don't think the mob is disrespected by other gangs.

As far as their lack of violent activity goes...even though it's very unlikely they're gonna whack you these days, the fear that something "might" happen is still more than enough for most people.

I live in a border region in Europe and this area has registered activity from at least one major Ndrangheta clan from San Luca, a mafia clan from Agrigento, a Turkish clan from Trabzon, an Albanian clan from Shköder, a Dutch Traveller clan from North Brabant, an outlaw motorcycle group and a Moroccan gang based in the Netherlands. None of these organizations have killed anyone in this area, but nobody is willing to find out what would happen if they would cross them.

No, Mr. Giggles. I am saying that they --the investigators--want to keep their jobs and high profile, To do so they play things up. They no more, but when they put stuff out their is no reason not to occasionally question what they say, or to point out their phoniness.

Again, their jobs and funds are solidly secured because they don’t focus only on the mob, hence the name of their section.

There will never be a lack of organized crime groups in a city like NY so there really is no need to play things up.

Even If their intentions were to “hype” their jobs they would have pushed the Cartels or the Chinese or the Russians to get extra publicity from pundits and making it more “politically” relevant. The mafia doesn’t trigger the same response from nation-wide media because it can’t be twisted into more current, larger and pressing issues such as immigration (Cartels) or geopolitics (China, Russia).

The Italian Mafia will always be a force around the world.

At the end of his excellent book, "The Five Families," Selwyn Raab noted that, after Rudy Giuliani's success in the famous Commission Trial, Federal prosecutors were falling over themselves to bring RICO cases against Mafiosi, with considerable success. But, 9/11 redirected a lot of law enforcement resources toward terrorists, allowing the Mob to regroup. I'd add: As long as people want to gamble, whore, do drugs, buy stuff that fell off a truck, and borrow money they aren't qualified to have, there'll always be a Mafia.

I mentioned that the Cartels and Asian gangs do not draw the public's interest as much, and more importantly, the communities push back strongly claiming racism. Just look at all the books, movies, an tv series on the Mafia. They drew the most attention. At the end of the day, the D.A.s are political hacks. They get funded yearly, and funding can fluctuate. If they go harder after cartels and others, the protests would cause their superiors to tell them to back off. With the Mafia, they can do whatever they want. When we see mass roundups of Black, Hispanic, or Asians averaging age 70 being dragged out of their homes at 6 A.M. on gambling charges, that's when I'll see things as equal. The mafia is not as feared in nay way as they were in their heyday.

Yeah the FBI targets the mafia specifically so much that they decided to Slash their LCN squads by over 50% after 9/11. They're so focused on them that they got rid of multiple teams targeting a single family. Jace we went over this before.

— Cartels don’t draw the public’s interest? Ask literally anyone which group they think is more of a threat to the American people between the Mob and the Cartels and I guarantee you’ll get an easy 99% of responders picking the latter. Rightfully so.

— Most of those arrested among non-Italian groups aren’t as old because it’s hard to reach the age of 70 as a Cartel member or as a Black or an Hispanic hood.

— The only group that I’ve witnessed commonly “pushing back, claiming racism” are blacks. But they still get investigated a lot, and arrested a lot, because a lot of them commit a lot of crimes. I’ve never seen an Asian version of BLM protesting because a bunch of Filipino gangbangers or Chinese human traffickers or Korean scammers were arrested. Hispanic groups only push back against ICE on immigration topics but rarely when Cartel or gang members are investigated and arrested.

— The majority of Asian crime groups active in the Northeast are not as diversified and multilayered as the Mob is. They’re either very white collar orgs or quite low brow crews. Asian minorities are the most law-abiding demographics in the country so there are simply not that many crooks to begin with. Not to mention that they’re much more difficult to infiltrate due to the language barrier and cultural isolation.

— It should go without saying that there’s a massive difference between “the Mob is not as feared as in its heyday” … and … “the Mob is a laughing stock”, which is the argument made at the start of this thread. The first statement is obviously true and no one has ever denied it. The second is just arrogantly false.

I honestly doubt that the FBI chooses which group to investigate more based on how popular it is among readers and TV and movie audiences.

I'm in my 40s, and have lived in Italian neighborhoods in and around New York my whole life and I'll just say this - growing up, every day someone was pointed out to me as being "connected" or "with this family" or "his dad is such and such".... all the mob guys hung out at their social clubs, mob block parties everywhere, mob shootings were weekly to monthly occurrences. Yet in the last 20 years I can only remember a handful of shootings, don't see mob clubs anymore and never have conversations about "who's who."

The Italian mob may still be around in small numbers and still doing dirt, but their reach is so nominal that that they lack any significant influence and power.

None of that is necessarily a “bad” thing from their prospective.

Fewer shootouts equal fewer murder investigations and convictions. Plenty were sent away for good (and many ratted) because of their violent behavior. Not to mention that it’s even harder to get away with murder today.
Talking business in and around social clubs/hang outs isn’t the smartest strategy. A quieter approach was generally taken around the time Cefalù was rumored to be leading the Gambinos. Many relocated to NJ/SI/LI/Westchester and elsewhere so that’s also something to consider when it comes to the lack of social life and hang outs in metro NY.

I still get the “who’s who” whenever I meet my relatives and friends from LI/SI/Queens but that’s just anecdotal evidence based on personal experience so take it for what is worth.


There really is no middle ground on this site:
the mob is either as strong as in the 1980s or it lacks *any* significant influence and power.

Thanks for the responses, interesting comments.

I don't think they're feared anymore...Sure deadbeat gamblers might still get slapped around, but they're not killing anybody, even though the younger mob walk around like they think they're Al Capone

We have plenty of mob social clubs still located in Chicago, Elmwood Park and the Armour Square neighborhood near White Sox park being the two neighborhoods that have a few of them. But these two areas also still have lots of Italians unlike places such as Cicero.

Also in regards to Armour Square, Its a neighborhood that is located next to Bridgeport. Do not go to Bridgeport anymore because even though at one time it was Italian, its been overun by mexicans and white trash. The only good Italians left all live in Armour Square which borders Bridgeport and Chinatown. Its where all the social clubs are located. Bridgeport does not have any left.

I'm sure there are neighborhoods in New York that are the same way when it comes to being overun by mexicans and white trash that were once Italian enclaves.