I am curious about the ins and outs of the Mobs racketeering of Waste Management. Its a big thing in The Sopranos and also is a big racket in real life. Anyone with some knowledge on how it all works? What about Waste Management in general, I know you gotta have trucks, and a place to dump. So, do you pay rent to a landifll owner to dump your stuff until you can afford a piece of land yourself? Just curious on how it all works.

Ace

One of the ways that the mob gets around providing illegal protection to businesses is that they set up a waste management company and then go to a businessman and 'explain' to that person that it is in their best interests to contract with "this waste management company" to have their garbage removed. If the person agrees to use the 'suggested' waste removal company, a sticker is given to the business owner to put in his window showing that his business now has a contract with "XYZ Disposal Management" which really means that "this business is paying us to protect them, so back off."

If the businessman does not agree to contract with the 'suggested' garbage removal company, he will then have some unwanted problems with his business and eventually will have no choice but to give in to using the 'suggested' waste management company.

By using this angle, the mob could 'legaly' extort protection money from a business without breaking the law.

So the business owner is getting his garbage removed, but in reality he is really paying for protection for his buisness.


Don Cardi

Thanks DC!

There's a book that goes into the Luchesse family rackets of garbage and construction, it's not too well written and it's not that great a book but the part that explains the rackets is interesting. The Book is called Gangbusters by Ernest Volkman.

It focuses more on the unionizing of the garbage companies and using that to get business, they don't even need to use violence against their customers because they get the waste management companies into the union, and no non-union hauler that has any brains is going to encroach on their turf, so if someone wants their garbage taken away they will do it through one of the XYZ type of companies Cardo mentioned. This keeps the illusion of a clean business for the public, cause the customer isn't going to be intimidated, it'll be the business owners getting the offer they can't refuse.