Hello guys! Long time no see! I have studied hard, but still reading eventhough I don`t write.

Ok, I will try to write more.

2 questions.

Carmine Persico Jr and Vittorio Amuso are in jail as we all know well(unless they are escaping in this moment and we don`t know! ). They run the Colombo and Lucchese Families from prison. So, where do they keep the money? I don`t think they could afford to have money in cash in their cell. I don`t think they can have a bank account. So? They get money from the Family, but where does the money go?

About low key bosses like Carlo Gambino, he used to live in a modest house, but the Gambino Family was the richiest Family in the USA. Where did the money go? I don`t think either Carlo Gambino could afford to have money in cash or a bank account.

@ the mental picture



Through their extended families, friends, affiliates and various "off the books" interests and ventures.

First, the Genovese family has always been the richest family in the U.S. Even when the Gambinos surpassed them in size, the Genovese were considered by most law enforcement and mob experts to be wealthier.

Second, this is a good article on the subject...


But where are the dons' yachts?
Forbes
October 21, 1991

Why are there no Mafia chieftains among The Forbes Four Hundred? Because, as the case of mob boss John Gotti Jr. shows, life does not imitate "The Godfather."

John Joseph Gotti Jr.

Mafia boss, NYC, 50. Married, 3 children (1 killed accidentally). Son of day laborer; high school dropout. Led street gang into notorious Gambino mob, NYC's biggest, 1966. Advanced via loan-sharking, hijacking; proved mettle by doing time (5 years altogether; hijacking, manslaughter). Released, became family member 1977. Rose fast; capitalized on mob's resentment of then-boss Paul Castellano. After Castellano's murder in 1986, was named successor to improve, redistribute mob wealth. Kept promise. Now jailed, awaiting trial (racketeering, tax evasion, murder), but still boss, widely feared. Powerful: controls much NYC gambling, loan-sharking; also key New York labor unions involving airport, garment, trucking, construction, garbage. Violent, profane; compulsive gambler. "A thug, not a racketeer." Net worth: whatever he wants.

Altogether, the five New York Mafia families, with some 900 members and 9,000 associates, are said to rake in over $ 1 billion a year in operating profits. The figure is based on a formula designed by Wharton Econometrics for the President's Commission on Organized Crime. Based on its size, Gotti's Gambino family could be expected to take in more than half of that, with roughly half of the family's income -- perhaps $ 300 million a year -- going to John Gotti.

Why, then, is this dominant force in the crime industry not among. The Forbes Four Hundred? Simple. That $ 300 million figure is a myth, based upon a flawed understanding of how the Mafia families make and distribute their money. If Gotti's net worth is even a fraction of the $ 275 million threshold to The Forbes Four Hundred, we'd be surprised.

For the record, Gotti, who did not file a tax return, at least between 1984 and 1989, claims to have been a $ 36,000-a-year plumbing supplies salesman for Arc Plumbing & Heating. At one time he sold construction services for a construction company, and these days he claims to sell zippers to the garment industry, where the family controls several important unions. According to his biographers, Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci (Mob Star) and John Cummings and Ernest Volkman (Goombata), he is involved in two or three bars, a disco, a motel, a Chinese restaurant, a school busing service. His wife Victoria owns the couple's middle-class house in Queen's Howard Beach section; his son and son-in-law own the family vacation home in the Poconos. Gotti used to spend time at a condominium at Gurney's son Montauk Point, at Long Island's eastern tip, and he keeps a speedboat -- the Acquittal. But he owns neither the boat nor the condo. The Gambino family's Manhattan headquarters, the Ravenite Social Club at 247 Mulberry Street, is owned by somebody else.

"I'd be a billionaire if I was a selfish boss, but that's not me," Gotti, bugged by government agents, boasted to an associate a year or so back. Populism pays -- in the Mafia as almost everywhere else -- and Gotti came to power by promising to share the wealth with the membership.

Gotti contrasts sharply with Colombia's billionaire cocaine lords -- or even American mobsters like Moe Dalitz and Meyer Lansky, both of whom evidently accumulated $ 100 million fortunes and therefore made The Forbes Four Hundred in 1982. Lansky and Dalitz created real business organizations with a hierarchy of managers and operators. But as head of a Mafia crime family, Gotti runs an enterprise utterly different from conventional business organizations -- indeed, utterly different from the business as portrayed in the Godfather movies, in which Michael Corleone could easily swing a $ 600 million cash takeover deal.

As retired Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno put it in his autobiography, A Man of Honor: "Family membership does not entitle one to a monetary stipend, it simply places the family member in a society of friends who can help each other through a network of connections."

The structure of a Mafia family reflects a feudal organism devised in Sicily a thousand years ago to protect its members from foreign conquerors. Today, in the U.S., the members of a Mafia family still must be of Italian blood. Their only earthly allegiance is to the boss who heads the family -- the "don," the father, who gives it focus, direction and shape.

Yet the boss ultimately serves at the pleasure of the independent operators who have chosen to follow him. If he tries to exact too much tribute from them, he winds up without a following, or splattered on the sidewalk in front of a posh Manhattan restaurant. While a John Gotti might do business with a Meyer Lansky, he would never admit Lansky to the family. And a Lansky would exercise more control over his organization -- and extract a bigger share of its earnings -- than Gotti could ever receive.

Below the boss in a Mafia family is his underboss, a kind of chief administrative officer, and his consigliere, an in-house counselor who provides legal or other advice and serves as a sort of family ombudsman. But the real business is done by the various working crews (regimes). The crews are headed by captains (caporegimes, or capos) and made up both "made" -- that is, initiated -- members or soldiers (soldati), and nonmember associates. The working stiffs of the crews are the wiseguys -- the street toughs with few employable skills, less inclination to acquire them and a considerable thirst for violence.

These crews are much more than a crime family's operating divisions. They are made up the independent businessmen who pledge fidelity to a particular crime family's boss. "They [the wiseguys] spent every waking hour thinking about how they were going to make money," recalls one-time FBI man Joe Pistone, who as Donnie Brasco spent six years underground in the Mafia. "They did not think or talk much about their wives, girlfriends, families, hobbies. The mob was their job as well as their whole life . . . far more than it is with ordinary 'straight' citizens."

The boss provides the crews with protection, sets policy and allocates territory, resolves disputes among the crews and in the end licenses everything they do. If the boss gets implicated in a wiseguy's crime, the boss tells the wiseguy how to plead, provides lawyers and bail money, bribes judges or law enforcement officers, decides whether and how to intimidate jurors and damaging witnesses.

In exchange for these executive services, a portion of the crews' revenues percolates up through the family's ranks. The crews' soldiers and their associates give up part of whatever they make to their captains; the captains tithe to the boss, underboss and consigliere. Gotti's Gambino family even has a house tax: Each captain has to kick in $ 10,000 a quarter to the family, or altogether nearly $ 1 million a year, to fund various family services.

"In effect," says Ronald Goldstock, director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, "what the members give is essentially a tax; what they get in exchange is government services."

Like legitimate businessmen, the crews struggle to keep their profits up and their costs down, including the cost of the services provided by the boss and his captains. When it comes to forking over money to the family, each mobster is "supposed to do the right thing," says Martin Light, a onetime mob lawyer. "If you make ten thousand and you pass up five, that's very nice. That's doing the right thing." But everybody chisels. Says former FBI undercover agent Joe Pistone: "If the score is, say $ 200,000, they [the captains] will say the score was $ 150,000 . . . so they will pocket $ 50,000 and split $ 150,000 [with the higher-ups]."

The money comes pouring in from all over, from the wiseguys and their associates, from hijacking, extortion and gasoline bootlegging, from businessmen, corporations and labor unions, from the garment industry, construction, the docks, in dribs and drabs, in chunks and gobs, from tens of thousands of sources. And it goes on no matter what happens. Goes on when the boss dies or is killed, decides to retire or goes to jail. It's a veritable money machine, self-starting and self-perpetuating.

But there is a hazard in doing business with the kinds of people attracted to the mob. As one wiseguy once put it to Pistone: "You can lie, you can steal, you can cheat, you can kill, and it's all legitimate. You can do anything you want, and nobody can say anything about it. Who wouldn't want to be a wiseguy?"

In their propensities to maximize revenues, bosses differ. Gotti's predecessor, Paul Castellano, was greedy and squeezed his captains until the cost of Castellano's services outran their value. Then Gotti was able to drum up rank-and-file support for killing him.

The captains' businesses -- gambling, loan-sharking, narcotics distribution and the like -- are mainly service businesses with high operating costs and low operating margins. They are businesses that cannot easily be capitalized with commercial bank debt; they cannot be taken public at a multiple of cash flow. Some of these criminal revenues re reinvested in maintaining the businesses -- financing loan sharks, for example. But most go to supporting the thousands of bookies, numbers runners and assorted hangers-on who keep the Mafia money machine humming.

Gotti and the other mob bosses have their expenses, too. Gotti reportedly pays his lawyers a minimum of $ 300,000 a year. There are bills for gambling, and partying, high-priced clothes, jewelry and cars, women and booze, tips for bartenders and waiters, luxury hotel suites in Las Vegas, drugs. Gotti is a compulsive and rather irrational gambler who has often been known to blow $ 100,000 a weekend betting on what anyone else would consider sure losers. Easy take, easy go.

Vincent Cafaro was asked by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations what happened to all the money he'd taken in as a Genovese family soldier. "I spent it," Cafaro cheerfully replied. "Just gave it away. As I was making it I was spending it. . . . If I had it to spend, I'd spend $ 3 million."

Even when there is some extra money lying around, it can't be invested in big houses or luxury yachts. A Mafia boss must adjust his lifestyle to the visible source of his income -- the trucking or garbage, vending machine or linen supply business he pays taxes on to keep the Internal Revenue Service at bay.

Some mob money undoubtedly is laundered through numbered accounts in the Bahamas, the Caymans or Switzerland. But not much. "The five families live in New York," says one investigator. "So they reinvest the money in the local community for their own purposes."

Or simply bury it. A former bookmaker recalls borrowing $ 150,000 from Genovese boss Anthony Salerno, and receiving a shopping bag full of cash wrapped up in newspapers 30 years old. One retired FBI agent still remembers how the bail money one Mafioso posted smelled musty from long-term burial.

But then, Gotti and his ilk don't keep score with money. What Mafia chieftains really want is power and control -- the power to tell which companies what to buy from which suppliers; the power to take workers out on strike; the power to tell politicians how to vote. "Men of my tradition," wrote Mafia don Joseph Bonanno in A Man of Honor, "have always considered wealth a by-product of power."

In the currency he values, Gotti is indeed a rich man: Many fear him. But in terms of money and tangible assets -- let alone morality -- he is a piker, and worse.

The heads of the five New York crime families and their home addresses were identified by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1988 and 1990 reports.

Yes, The Genovese Family is the richiest one, but what about The Gambino Family under Carlo Gambino`s goverment?
At least when Don Carlo was the boss, there was some reasons to believe Gambino Family was the most powerful until Carlo Gamino`s death.

After Vito Genovese went to jail through a alleged plot by Carlo Gambino, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello and others Carlo Gambino was regarded as Capo di tutti capi, of course he never called himself like this as Maranzano did before and we know how he ended up.
After Vito Genovese died, Carlo Gambino seems to have more influence over Genovese Family.
When Thomas Eboli was the acting boss(although Phillip Lombardo was the boss behind, but it is another story) borrowed 4 million of dollars from Carlo Gambino in theory to run the family, so it is amazing that the richiest family asks money from the another one as a loan. Carlo Gambino maybe knew Eboli would fail to payback as he finally did because he wanted Frank Tieri as the boss, Eboli was killed and Welcome Frank Tieri. I know most of the time Genovese Family was the richiest and it is now. But I am not sure when Carlo Gambino was the boss, I would like you and others to confirm or correct what I am saying please.

But whatever it was, I would like to know how Carlo Gambino run the money of the family as he lived in a modest house.

Very good question, I would like to know the same.

At his peak, Gambino was the top boss. Sort of a first among equals. But that doesn't mean he was boss of bosses. There's really never been such a thing in the American LCN. The closest thing was Salvatore Riina in the Sicilian Mafia. And Gambino's influence of the other families has also been overhyped. He never controlled Tieri. And if Colombo was his puppet, why did Colombo ignore his wishes to step down from the Italian Civil Rights League?

Gambino was the top boss much like Joe Massino was the top boss in the late 1990's and early 2000's, i.e. the boss with the most seniority. But Massino being the top boss on the street didn't give him control over the other families or make the Bonannos the #1 family.

Great article. That bit about Salerno lending out $150,000 in "a shopping bad warapped up in newspapers thirty years old", crazy.

You have to wonder if Tomy Ryan Eboli actually thought he could get away with chiseling Carlo or if his "ventures" really just fell through.

Well,Carlo Gambino was not that arrogant as saying he is the boss of bosses, but on the facts...You know there are things which are not supposed to exist or happen, but they do in the real fact, the point is that they will never admit. The same happens with decitions of Presidents in many countries or somes issues from United Nations. Sometimes(just not to say almost always)there are hidden interests involving politicians and high ranking business men, of course dont expect them to admit it, because the point is that you must not to be aware about some things. The same I think in my modest opinion, I may wrong, we know the Mafia doesn`t make an online update for us of their day by day operations. Lucky Luciano got rid of Maranzano, who was arrogant to call himself Boss of bosses. Then Lucky Luciano organized the Commision, he never called himself boss of bosses, but... He acted as one, so did Carlo Gambino.
Frank Tiere was believed to be a friend of Carlo Gambino. Jospeh Colombo leadership was supported by Carlo Gambino and Thomas Lucchese in return for warning about the Magliocco-Bonanno plot. So I don`t think you can be more than the boss who put you in charge. And yes, Colombo did not quit the Italian-american league, he was believe to be shot on Joey Gallo`s orders. But it was true Carlo Gambino hated publicity and was upset about it. And it is not a non-sense theory if Carlo Gambino managed to prepare the hit in the shadows.

About Joseph Massino, Massino was never even a quarter of a top boss Carlo Gambino was. Just not to say he became an informant. And the context is different, the law enforcement in the 70s was not as strong as it was in the 90s and 2000s.And most of the official bosses during Massino leadreship were in jail or next to be arrested, so the comparing among bosses who is the top boss over the others may not make sense. I have doubts about Massino being the Top Boss, remember why he was nicknamed as "The Last Don". In regular conditions "The Chin" Gigante should have been the Boss of bosses.

Of course, I am not saying "you are wrong I have the truth", it is just my conclusion after thinking about the matter.

Well, he was gunned down... I don`t think his plans went further if he was not alive anymore.

Of course end result was that he died anyway. It'd of course be a stupid move to try and rip off a guy like Carlo, but if Eboli was one of the guys (like Galante) that apparently didnt think too highly of Gambino, perhaps he thought he could take the money and not really have to pay him back, since he was, after all, the Genovese "boss", as far as anybody was meant to know.

This was still early stages of the ruling panel approach, and Tommy Ryan was supposedly amongst the first few guys (with Jerry Catena, Mike Miranda and Benny Squints Lombardo) to be picked/designated as Acting Boss/es. At this stage, was Tommy Ryan aware of the whole "front boss" thing and that to an extant he was actually subservient or at least equal to the others? Like Salerno was later shown to be fully aware of his actual position on the ladder?

I mean, Eboli was in close with Genovese and may very well have believed that whatever would happen, surely he wouldn't get whacked.

Obviously, Don Carlo wasn't fucking around but.

BTW, I didn't really word the first post right. Of course once he died all his investments and interests would have been subsumed by other wiseguys. Many sources state, however, that the actual reason for the loan was a large "business" investment (some sources cite drug trafficking, others financial) that would "revive" the Family (like they needed reviving). I wonder if it's so simple as said venture simply "got busted/fell through/died on the vine" etc etc. Even if the crew was being legally battered, he was losing vast amounts, whatever.

Surely if it came to it, there could have been some sort of arrangement hammered out at a sitdown? Mobsters at that level, at that time and place? Furthermore, nobody from the Genovese seemed to have any qualms over one of their top guys being whacked. Even if it was Gambino that ordered it. Were they all complicit to a degree?

So regardless of the dyamics in the situation, or what was going through Tommy Ryans mind...it seems Carlo Gambino just really wanted him dead.

Great thread!