What do you think were the most significant organized crime trials in the 20th century? I mean, ones that really harmed a specific organization or had the potential to do so. Usually, if a boss and a couple of underlings are arrested, they are immediately substituted, but what if the whole gang "administration" is removed and lose all appeals?

The first coming to mind are:

1) The Morello-Lupo mafia trial in 1910; New York (imprisoned for 10 years the boss of bosses Giuseppe Morello, the boss Ignazio Lupo a a number of mafia members of lower position)

2) The Camorra trial in 1918; New York (the main camorra boss Pellegrino Morano sentenced to 20 years to life, boss Alessandro Vollero served 14 years, boss Leopoldo Lauritano sentenced to 5 years, (boss?) Angelo Giordano executed, (Morano's underboss?) Antonio Parretti executed, a number of lower camorristi imprisoned and the corrupt detective Michael Meali removed from service)

3) Egan's rats trial in 1924; St.Louis (boss William "Dint" Colbeck put away for 16 years, also imprisoned another 8 prominent members of the gang, leading to its implosion and division in smaller groups)

4) The 1939 trial in Kansas city (convicted at the same time the mafia boss of the city, Charlie Carrollo, the corrupt police chief, Otto Higgins, and the local corrupt politician n.1, Tom Pendergast, with several associates). This trial in my opinion had a big potential, but wasn't de-facto very effective due to the short sentences.

5) The 1943 Chicago mafia trial (basically put away the whole outfit administration except Tony Accardo, including the power-behind-the-throne, Paul Ricca, while the front boss, Frank Nitti, killed himself). In my opinion, this trial is generally underestimated and overshadowed by the media-overblown "Family secrets" in the 2000s. While Family Secrets only put away a couple of semi-retired individuals with replacements ready for them, the 1943 one had a great potential to throw the whole organization into disarray due to the imprisonment for 10 years of almost all key members. Unfortunately, the effect was nullified due to them having bought the freedom after 3,5 years.

6) The Apalachin conspiracy trial after 1957 (nothing much came out of it, yet it was a great wasted possibility to put away the WHOLE AMERICAN MAFIA LEADERSHIP at least for some time)

7) And, of course, the Commission trial in concluded in 1987 (hit all of the 5 families in New York, even though the Gambino defendants died before trial and the Genovese boss was the front one. Still, a number of important bosses and high-ranking members received up to 100 years).

What do you think, which criminal proceedings could be added to the list? Many, like Family Secrets or the John Gotti trial were in my opinion a little overestimated concerning their alleged effect on the mafia organizations, while some others had more effect of potential, but usually aren't given much credit.

Pizza connection trial?

That was pretty relevant, but the main defendant, Gaetano Badalamenti, was already deposed from being the head of the commission in Sicily by the time he was arrested and I am not sure whether he had power in America. On the other hand, there was also Salvatore Catalano, but what exactly was his position, acting underboss for the Bonannos? I thought that most of the Pizza Connection defendants were members and associates of groups that lost the war in Sicily to Riina.

By the way, is Salvatore Catalano related to Onofrio Catalano, boss (or former boss) of Ciminna in Sicily? I remember reading Buscetta named Salvatore Catalano as member of the Ciminna family, not sure if it's the same person.

New Jersey Luchese trial where they got off

Maxi trial

+1

Not a trial, but the Susurluk scandal in Turkey in 1996 showed the link of Turkish organized crime with the government. The Turkish government used Turkish gangs to assassinate high ranking members of separatist organization operating in Turkey (primarily the PKK) and their sponsors. The scandal also showed the public of how the Turkish government was involved with heroin trafficking in to Europe and a lot of more things like money laundering. The scandal even showed that the Turkish government backed a coup in Azerbaijan just to control drug routes.
This scandal all was the result of a car crash in which a Turkish mob boss, his girlfriend and a high ranking Istanbul cop were killed with one survivor: a member of the parliament who also was a Kurdish clan leader.
The trials resulting from the scandal weren't significant as almost no one in the political world was convicted or whose convictions were overturned after the investigations were seen as unreliable. However the whole system of corruption and co-operation of the Turkish government and Turkish intelligence agency with the Turkish mob became public which obviously was a big thing.

Did the gangsters and politicians involved in this have anything to do with the Ergenekon trials by chance?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_trials

I have bought the book "Turkish mafia" on amazon but it was written before the Ergenekon trials ended.

During 2012 or 2013 there were articles claiming that the people involved in susurluk were just a cell of Ergenekon. I haven't put in much effort in researching the link between the two organizations but I will try to dig for more info and share what I can find from Turkish sources. Also from what I can see is that susurluk was just a small part of the whole Ergenekon organization.

Btw how is the book haven't read it. Most of my knowledge regarding the Turkish mob is coming from relatives and older members of the Turkish community in the Netherlands and recent articles. Most articles from 10 years ago or older only explained how hard it was for LE to hit the Turkish underworld. And that most Turks were involved in heroin dealing, corruption etc. the usual when Turkish OC is mentioned.

@Yigido

Where I live there's a large Turkish community. Today the Turkish mob in the Netherlands and Belgium is not as visible as it seemed to be 20 years ago. There still is Turkish organized crime of course, only quite low-key and not on the same large scale it used to be. One thing confuses me however. Often you hear people claim that the Grey Wolves is the same as the ethnic Turkish mob. Now I have heard before that there are big Turkish gangsters that have connections to the Grey Wolves. But I don't think that the Grey Wolves are really as such the "Turkish mafia".

Over here most of them are ethnic Turks, the majority from the Black Sea and Central Anatolia regions. In London for instance and some parts of the Netherlands such as The Hague and Rotterdam a large amount of the "Turkish" community seem to be actually Kurdish. And as some claim all ethnic Turkish gangsters are part of the Grey Wolves, there are also people who claim that all ethnic Kurdish gangsters from Turkey are part of the PKK. But I think that might be bullshit as well.

To be honest, I haven't yet finished it myself, am still at the beginning, but it seems interesting for now; I knew absolutely nothing about organized crime in Turkey before bying it, so there is nothing on the same subject I can compare it to.
There is another more recent book though:
http://www.amazon.com/Heroin-Organized-Making-Modern-Turkey/dp/0198716028
But it's quite expensive, I think I will wait for a lower price used copy.

The grey wolves are a political organization and just as you said they are connected to gangsters. They aren't the turkish mob.

In london and UK in general, most of the Turks come from cyprus 300.000 I think out of the 500.000 with the rest of them being kurds. In the Netherlands its The Hague as you said having the majority of Kurds.

And the PKK grey wolves thing is really bullshit. My father told me a story that when he was in his early 20s he was a member of the grey wolves, not the mob. He said that they didn't get violent with the PKK afiliated groups, but they weren't friendly with each other. Every group wether PKK or grey wolves has a local boss in every city and my dads boss was one of the rough guys that hated Kurds to the gut. One day my father was clubbing and saw his boss drinking with the boss of the PKK afiliated group in our town . Point is that these political groups are a lie, the upper echelons of these organizations are very tight with each other.

Mostly in the Netherlands we come from the central and northern parts as you said. With some exceptions from the east or west. In Turkey the North is more affiliated with OC and the central regions where I am from is very safe. But in Europe most immigrants are from the Central parts of Turkey and a lot of them did choose the life, because of circumstances.

And btw I think they know how to keep a low profile, sure they aren't as active as before but they do great job in not being on the news for every little thing that happens like with the Moroccans or Dutch gangsters from Amsterdam. And I dunno but Dutch journalism is weak when it comes to Turkish OC. There was this gangster from my neighborhood that got killed. And they couldn't write shit about him. A lot of people knew that he did time in the UK for selling heroin to the IRA. The man was involved with Turkish pimps from Germany. There are more cases like this when they can't write shit about someone that has done some heavy things. They either don't research this at all, or they aren't interested in Turkish OC.

85 dollars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_Trial

Spartacus Trial

More than 1300 people were investigated, 508 witnesses gave evidence and 626 were interviewed in the trial which saw the heaviest penalties ever for organised crime with a total of 700 years of imprisonment. Over the course of the initial trial and the appeal, five people involved in the case were murdered, including a court interpreter. A judge and two journalists were threatened with death.In all, 115 people were prosecuted, 27 life sentences, plus 750 years in prison were handed out to the defendants. On January 15, 2010, Italy's Supreme Court confirmed the sentence

Where I live Italians and Turks are by far the most numerous non-indigenous groups, followed by Moroccans, Greeks and then Albanians. I think all the Turks I know are from the North of the Central regions, but when you go to the West of Belgium there also is a fairly large Turkish community with most of the people from that community being from the Aegean region such as Izmir and Emirdag. Few Kurds over here, but you do get some small pockets of them of course. I went to school with a few of them, one actually had family in The Hague. Over there he had an uncle who was on the run for some crime-related activities. But as there aren't too many Kurds over here a lot of people just think they're Turks. Both people are easy to distinguish however. Kurds in general look very Middle Eastern, very close to Iranians and Afghans. Turks on the other hand are quite a diverse bunch. I know some that look a bit asiatic, some that look like other Southern Europeans and also quite a few that look almost nordic. I have for instance a Turkish friend who has ginger hair and I also have met a few blonde ones.

In general organized crime reports in Belgium and the Netherlands just plain suck ass. I have yet to read an objective local report on the subject. The OC journalists we have always get caught up in hypes, which in the Netherlands is now evident with their reports on the "Mocro-maffia". In Belgium we had something similar years ago with the Albanians and later on very briefly with Chechen criminals active in Antwerp. They always seem to make a mountain out of a molehill.

I know right. I read an article for example from 2006 i think. And they talk about a thing called "turkish fatigue" ifyou translate it to english. The article said 14 murders were commited in the turkish underworld and all cases were unsolved. Now a few morroccans do the same but with AKs and everybody is going with the mocro mafia hype.

Turks are very diverse. When the turks settled in Anatolia they mixed with the locals. Thats why we are so diverse. The asian looking are usually Turks who fled from the russian rule in the steppes, whom are less mixed with other ethnicities than us.

Furio did this trial actually Harm the camorra or did they recover easily from this trial?

Seriously, its the early 90's Boston trial where they recorded the Guild Street induction ceremony.....first and only time. Greatest piece of tape in LCN history...

The trial ended January 15, 2010 with the judgment of the Supreme Court, which has hit hard the leaders of the camorra.

Were rejected all appeals presented by the 24 defendants sentenced on appeal, and sentenced to life in prison sixteen camorristi, including Francesco Schiavone (Sandokan), Francesco Bidognetti, Michele Zagaria and Antonio Iovine. Were also confirmed the other eight convictions, including one for the Basque Antonio (21 years), Luigi Diana (16 years), now a pentito, and Nicola Pezzella (15 years).

yigido we could say that has seriously damaged the vertices of of the Casalesi clan, to seriously damage the Camorra should be given an alternative to young people, instead of be criminals but with the economic crisis is impossible.

@ Furio

The structure of the Camorra should also be taken into account. Whereas the Sicilian mafia more or less has a central commission that discuss criminal activities with each other which makes it easier for one clan to "know" things about another clan, when it comes to the Camorra a lot of the clans operate completely independent from one another. What hurts one Camorra clan does not necessarily hurt another Camorra clan.

Yes killingjoke,in fact I wrote "we could say that has seriously damaged the vertices of of the Casalesi clan"

True, I overlooked it. I should read better next time lol.
The Casalesi were once said to be the most powerful and the most dangerous, I assume that's not the case anymore?

If I remember correctly, there was originally 98 defendants in the Spartacus indictment, then it was split into 2 trials: one for the murders with the 24 defedants Furio mentioned, and the rest for lesser crimes like extortion, money laundering, camorra association etc. Does anyone know what happened with this "rest"? After all, it was the majority of the defendants; while the media talk only about the 24 bosses and hitmen from the "murder branch" of the trial.

Concerning the main defedant from the Spartacus trial, a quote from a 1992 newspaper (don't know where can the whole article be found, but this quote is all over internet):




From the chronology of his arrests it seems that he was rarely out of jail in that period, yet still managed to make positive headlines for himself in the news.

By the way, while the law enformcement said the indictment was named "Spartacus" because it was like they were rebelling agains the camorra like Spartcacus and the slaves against the Romans. And I initially thought it was the other way around: the surname of the boss is SCHIAVOne (schiavo=slave), so it was as if they were suppressing the camorra like the Romans were suppressing the slave rebellion.

They sometimes choose names for the indictment impossible to figure out on your own: for example, the operation "Havana" in the Agrigento province was named so because the boss Salvatore Di Gangi smoked Havana cigars.

HK has any one ever posted funzi tieris rico indictment think that was the first mafia rico trial and first conviction. he was out on bail and died after the conviction ive never read what the hell they had on him that would be a cool read. probably a lot from jimmy weasel.was he on trial alone

By the way, while the law enformcement said the indictment was named "Spartacus" because it was like they were rebelling agains the camorra like Spartcacus and the slaves against the Romans. And I initially thought it was the other way around: the surname of the boss is SCHIAVOne (schiavo=slave), so it was as if they were suppressing the camorra like the Romans were suppressing the slave rebellion.

Maybe we could punish the camorristi as the Romans did with the spartaco slaves ie crucifying on the Via Appia.seriously Casalesi clan is the strongest clan of the Camorra, although divided into families inside (Schiavone, Bidognetti, Zagaria etc.) controls widely throughout the province of Caserta and the low Latium ie approximately 8,000 sq km just over 4,000 square miles;and since 1990 murdered more than 600 people, now has been hit and is vulnerable but continues to be as strong and organized of the clans.