Thanks for posting this DB.


Does any1 have a subscription to the wallstreet journal? There was a story in it today about the mob and unions and you cant read it without a subscription....probably nothing i dont already know but it would be cool if someone could post it. Thanks.

This isn't the one you requested, Dellacroce. But it's the one,, DB posted.

The Wall Street Journal

February 18, 2014 10:02 PM
Mafia Is Down—but Not Out
Crime Families Adapt to Survive, Lowering Profile and Using Need-to-Know Tactics

By SEAN GARDINER and PERVAIZ SHALLWANI
For more than two decades, New York City's five organized-crime families were plagued by convictions brought on by strengthened federal laws and the increasing habit of higher-ranking members cooperating with the government.
Those years of high-profile decline created a perception that the city's mafia is on the verge of extinction. But law-enforcement officials and mob experts say the five families, while not the force they once were, are far from sleeping with the fishes. They have survived, the experts said, because of their persistence and ability to adapt.


"I don't know that I'd say La Cosa Nostra was what it was in its heyday but I wouldn't say by any means it's gone away," said Richard Frankel, special agent in charge of the Criminal Division for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office.
Mr. Frankel, who supervises the FBI's organized crime squads in New York, said he believes the city's Cosa Nostra has quietly staged a comeback and is now more powerful than it has been in years.
Despite the waves of prosecutions, each of the five mafia "borgatas"—the Genovese, Gambino, Luchese, Bonanno and Colombo—"still exists and each still has its hierarchy," said John Buretta, a former federal prosecutor who headed the organized-crime unit for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn.
One recent indictment that attests to organized crime's staying power, authorities said, is the Jan. 23 arrest of 78-year-old Vincent "Vinnie" Asaro, in connection with the 1978 Lufthansa heist of $6 million in cash and jewels at John F. Kennedy Airport.
The reputed Bonanno captain and four other reputed Bonanno members were charged with running a loan-sharking, extortion, gambling and murder enterprise from 1969—nine years before the Lufthansa robbery—to the present day. The defendants have pleaded not guilty.
The five families are no longer the federal government's top criminal concern in New York City. Counterterrorism and other criminal networks—such as Russian, Balkan, Asian and African organized syndicates that generally coexist peacefully and sometimes collaborate with the five families—have attracted investigators away from La Cosa Nostra, Mr. Frankel said.
Years ago, the FBI had a squad dedicated to each family. Now there are two: C-5, which handles the Genoveses, Bonannos and Colombos, and C-16, assigned to the Gambinos and Lucheses. A 2010 audit by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General found that after Sept. 11, 2001, organized crime is the FBI's sixth priority behind terrorism, espionage, cybercrime, public corruption and protecting civil rights.
At the NYPD, amid budget squeezes, the current 5,000-detective headcount is about 2,000 below the 2002 level. There has been an "across the board" reduction of detectives in precincts and specialty squads including organized crime, said Michael Palladino, president of the NYPD's detectives' union. The number of detectives investigating organized crime has remained stable in the past three years, though. The NYPD didn't return a request for comment.
As the ranks of organized-crime investigators decreased, the mafia adapted to law enforcement's investigative techniques. Unlike the in-your-face approach that media mob star John Gotti adopted in the 1980s, today's mafia has reverted to its roots and tried to become as invisible as possible, officials and experts say.
For instance, the Genovese family, which has traditionally been the largest, most powerful and most secretive, now likely uses a rotating panel of leaders to run day-to-day affairs to avoid any one boss from being targeted by prosecutors, Mr. Buretta said. Other crime families use a "street boss" model where lesser-known mobsters carry out the orders of imprisoned leaders, he said.
Today's crime families are also less territorial and more open to collaboration than the mobsters of past decades, said Inspector John Denesopolis, the commanding officer of the New York Police Department's Organized Crime unit. "As long as they are earning, they are less concerned," he said.
Another emerging trend in the past several years, Mr. Denesopolis said, is mafia families emulating the need-to-know tactics seen in terrorist cells—one group in the family isn't made aware of what crimes another group in the same family is involved in.
What hasn't changed much since the 1930s are the five families' bread and butter crimes: loan-sharking, extortion, gambling, narcotics and infiltrating organized labor, Mr. Frankel said. They aren't as involved in sophisticated financial frauds—such as stock pump-and-dump scams—as they were in the early 1990s, Mr. Frankel said. But they are resourceful when it comes to new opportunities, he added, citing recent prosecutions of offshore Internet gambling websites and trafficking in Viagra.
Hundreds of inducted members in the five families are still behind these enterprises. The Genovese lead with close to 200 such "made" men, while the Colombos and Lucheses are the smallest, with about 100 each, said Jerry Capeci, a longtime crime reporter who operates the website Gang Land News. The numbers are less than years ago but not substantially so, he said. There are also several thousand additional criminal associates, Mr. Denesopolis said.
Leadership ranks are also being replenished as many "sophisticated, capable" mafia veterans who are currently incarcerated will soon complete their sentences, said Mark Feldman, chief assistant Brooklyn District Attorney and a former chief of the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's organized-crime unit.
Law-enforcement officials say one trend has worked in their favor lately: the growing frequency of soldiers and leaders breaking oath of Omerta—the pledge allegiance to the family and agreeing to a code of honor that includes a vow of silence if arrested.
In 2004, Bonanno leader Joseph Massino shocked the underworld by becoming a government witness—the first head of one of the five families to do so. He has testified or provided information against other accused mobsters in several cases, including in the latest Lufthansa heist charges. He testified against reputed Bonanno leader Vincent Basciano, who was convicted in 2011 on racketeering and murder charges.
"Joe's cooperation had to shake the confidence in the code of honor in as dramatic a way as any cooperator ever had," Mr. Buretta said.
A recently retired NYPD detective who worked organized crime for more than 20 years, said old-timers followed the rules "to the letter" and would never talk to him or his partners after an arrest. "With these young kids, the rules are just suggestions," he said.
"They're younger, a lot of them have young kids and they don't want to look at 25 to life," he said. We sit them down and tell them, 'Listen, the next the time you pick up your baby daughter she's going to be 27 years old.' "

Good story thank you

I do. There isn't much info in the article.


Mob's Hold on Unions Isn't What It Used to Be
Organized Crime's Presence in Labor Groups Is Weaker Today, but Not Totally Gone

By
Sean Gardiner
Feb. 18, 2014 9:49 p.m. ET

Thirty years ago, customers paid more for the salmon, shrimp and other seafood dishes they ordered at New York City restaurants because the Mafia controlled the truckers union that made deliveries to the Fulton Fish Market, according to law-enforcement officials and court records.

Fish spoils quickly, so the Mafia allegedly extorted payments from officials who ran the market by threatening delivery delays. In turn, fish-market officials demanded payoffs from restaurants, which passed that cost onto its patrons, law-enforcement officials said.

The exploitation of unions by organized crime has been an "unpleasant fact of life" since the late 19th century and "thrived practically unopposed" until the mid-1970s, James Jacobs, a professor at New York University School of Law, wrote in his 2006 book, "Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement."

The five families controlled construction, garment, waste hauling, trucking, airport cargo and other unions, he said in an interview. Paying extra to do business in New York—a so-called mob tax—"was just the way it was; it was accepted. You had to deal with them."

That started changing in the 1980s under then Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, Mr. Jacobs said.

"I think he's the most important organized-crime prosecutor in American history," he added. "I don't think he really gets enough credit for that."

In 1986, for example, federal prosecutors in Mr. Giuliani's office gained convictions against the leadership of all five families on accusations that the Mafia's control of concrete labor unions enabled them to demand a 2% kickback on concrete used in new building projects in New York City over $2 million.

A case brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn in 1990 alleged that the five families used a corrupt union to fix bids in exchange for receiving tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks on a $150 million contract to replace windows in New York City Housing Authority buildings.

Two high-ranking members and one soldier were convicted in that trial and five people were acquitted.

Still, Mr. Jacobs and other experts said that while the Mafia's hold on unions today has weakened, the Mafia's influence isn't totally lost.

Mr. Jacobs said there are still cases in which government-installed monitors are "trying to rehabilitate formerly mobbed-up unions" as well as new labor-racketeering prosecutions being brought against organized-crime members.

After the prosecutions "some unions were definitely cleaned up, other unions weren't completely clean and other unions…were cleaned up but have been infiltrated again," said Richard Frankel, special agent in charge of the Criminal Division for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office.

A law-enforcement official said Luchese and Genovese remain the most active of the five crime families when it comes to infiltrating and exploiting unions.

Ya your right not to much info, but thanks for posting.

Is it me or do they tend to do these articles a lot with same content e.g saying their not dead, keeping a low profile theme.

I don't doubt their statements- but when mafia investigations are buttering your bread, do you think a FBI guy in charge of these OC investigations is going to come out and say "The Mafia is dead"? It's like the NSA or the CIA saying there are no more terrorists, or they are much weakened. Never going to happen.

The feds will never say the American Mafia is dead. Like you already know, they will use attractive headlines in their press statements on the day of a huge bust like "Crippling mob bust decimates Gambino Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra!" Then a month later, announce how the mob is still alive and well. Yet, they're cutting back the task forces in charge of investigating LCN. Hmm
As far as Giuliani and the elimination of 'mob tax' on goods and services go... Yep, he sure did swing a heavy bat and cracked many a criminal skull to put an end to that, but guess who took the mob's place at the table? That's right, the people who learned how to extort from the best... The City and it's governing agencies. Exempli gratia: Garbage pickup in NYC. Little mom and pop shops weren't overcharged, they just had to use whatever company had that area. Large corporations & government agencies were jacked up and over billed. Take from the rich mentality. Today, the mob tax has been revamped and renamed to disguise itself as a legitimate cost of business. It costs approximately 10 thousand dollars annually to maintain a license to pickup trash in NYC. It also costs approximately 7 thousand annually per truck for the placard stating that you have that license. That gets passed to the consumer. Years ago, it cost roughly 1,000 - 1,500 a year, per truck to insure a truck. You didn't even need workers comp if you were a one man show. Today that same truck costs up to 11,000 to insure and workers comp is mandatory at a cost of 5,000 annually. Oh, and who do you think offers the 'best' workers comp plan? That's right, the government backed one. Next up, fuel. Companies used to get great deals on fugazi fuel. Or off road diesel/heating oil or 'red fuel' as we called it. Today, 4-5 bucks a gallon and if you get caught trying to save money using off road diesel (which, by the way is good for a diesel truck engine due to a higher sulphur content which promotes lubricity in the engine) it's a 20,000 dollar fine. Next up. Sanitation trucks ran 24/7. The garbage got picked up. If a private company doesn't have the trash off the sidewalk by 5am in Manhattan, 10, 000 dollar fine per location. If the truck doesn't have clear readable lettering, 10,000 dollar fine. If the tires are 'too old' 10 grand, if there's water leaking from the truck, 10 grand. And the city will use these types of fines to claim they're keeping the industry safer. Safety = cash bill in their eyes. I can go on and on and on, I'm sure you get the picture.
It's no different in the fish, veggie & meat markets. The city taxes them just as heavy. The regulatory fines they pay are through the roof. I know, I service these people and they all complain that they wish it was the way it used to be years ago. Times change and bad guys do too. Only difference is these days the ones with their hands in your pockets are the people with the suits on who you vote into office and who you pay their salaries. Believe me, I have left out a lot of other examples in the interest of not boring you to death, it I'm sure most here already know what I'm talking about.