I apologize if some of these questions have been asked before , but I was unable to find the appropriate thread . Anyways here they are :


1. What does omerta exactly entail for LCN members ?

I realize that it's commonly accepted that omerta means that an LCN member must not talk to anyone who isn't a member of LCN about family affairs under pain of death , yet this view doesn't seem to be exactly clear . After one can bring up examples of former LCN members like Joe Bonanno and Michael Franzese spilling the beans without becoming informants and not getting whacked . To go further I do believe that John " Sausage " Barbato actually admitted in court to being an LCN member in order to get a lower sentence , yet there's no news of him being punished for it by his colleagues .

2. Can a wiseguy whack a civilian without permission ?

If let's say a wiseguy gets pissed at his neighbor and wants to whack him then does he need to get a thumbs up first ? Or can he just do it on a whim ?

3 . Are there forbidden targets for LCN members ?

I know women aren't off limits , however it's alleged that cops and judges are and to be fair I don't know of any judge or cop getting whacked by an LCN family . Also what's the deal with kids ?


4. Can someone be banished from LCN ?

I know the practice of forced retirement ( called shelving IIRC ) exists , but I'm pretty sure I read in one of Pistone's books that the practice of banishment also exists . Is this true ?

5. Do most LCN families source their drugs from Mexican cartels ?

It's commonly accepted that much of the high level wholesale drug market in the US is in the hands of the various Mexican cartels , however I don't believe I've read about any proven connections between Mexican cartels and LCN families . I also believe I've read that Colombian cartels are still pretty active in the Northeastern US , so that makes the issue of who they source their drugs from not so obvious to me .

6. How involved is LCN in human and arms trafficking ?

I know the recent indictment for the 2016 East Coast LCN bust mentioned arms trafficking , but you don't really hear much about LCN involvement in these two rackets .

7. Why has gambling been such a big moneymaker for LCN ?

Is it because of Italian/Italian American cultural affinities toward gambling ? Or is it due to some other factor ?

8. Do LCN members and/or families carry out contract killings for trusted civilian customers ?

If let's say someone wants someone dead then can they go to a local wiseguy and pay to have said person wasted ? Would an LCN family approve of that as long as said customer is thought to be trustworthy ?

9 . Do LCN families have links with terrorists ?

I know it's been documented that several Italian OC groups ( like certain Camorra clans ) have links to and do business with terrorist groups , but is this also true of the American Cosa Nostra groups ? Has any Italian American mob family been caught dealing with ( say ) Al Qaeda ?

Anyways thanks ahead of time for any answers .

Sorry I can give opinions only about 3 questions, I am not sure enough about the other ones:


It depends on whether it's about just the American Cosa Nostra or the Italian one too. In Italy, there have been many cops, judges, prosecutors etc killed by the mafia, especially starting with the 80s until and including the first 90s. Children got sometimes killed too, and this seems to have been less a taboo than law enforcement, because murders of children happened even before the 80s, when the so-called "old / conservative" mafia was still in charge. In America, I think the cases of hits against law enforcement were very few, like Carmine Persico ordering from jail to kill the prosecutor George Aronwald, but the triggermen killed the "wrong" George Aronwald by mistake, who was the prosecutor's father, an administrative law judge who didn't have anything to do with the antimafia. In some cases they killed crooked law enforcement, perceiving them as underworld rivals or double-crossers. Like for example, when Nicky Scarfo and Nick Virgilio killed the judge Edwin Helfant, with Angelo Bruno's authorization, because he double-crossed Virgilio during his trial: they paid him to give Virgilio a lenient sentence, Helfant took the money but still sent him away for a long time. So, when Virgilio got out, he wanted revenge for being cheated out of both freedom and money.


Again, in America I don't know, but in Italy it happens. Like when Gaetano Badalamenti was expelled in 1978 from the mafia, because he was involved in a murder of a boss which supposedly shouldn't have been carried out without the whole Commission's authorization. But in reality, it was because the killed boss was an important ally of Toto' Riina, whose allies in the commission were becoming the majority and he just used this excuse to weaken the competition, which Badalamenti and some others headed.


Here almost the same. In America, I think not, at least I never heard about the mafia accepting outside contracts and some posters on forums said they were pretty confident it never happened. In Italy, on the other hand, there have been cases when somebody who wasn't made into the mafia asked for a "favor". Like the brothers Diego and Ignazio Agro', big loansharks from Racalmuto (Agrigento province) asked a Cosa Nostra boss, Salvatore Fragapane, to kill Mariano Mancuso who didn't pay back the loan in time. Or another case, when an Agrigento politician, Ignazio Vetro, was killed because he was having an affair with the wife of a local businessman, Carmelo Russello, so he and his brother Angelo asked the mafia boss Cesare Lombardozzi and he sent Giuseppe Falsone to carry out the hit (the same Giuseppe Falsone who later became a commission member for the Agrigento province).

Omerta and all that "code of honor" BS has fallen by the wayside. Any Mob guy, including bosses, will talk if it gets them a shorter sentence. Then they go on to write books.


Yes, but it would be frowned upon as being too risky and "undisciplined," unless the civilian was involved in some way with Mob business. A beating is usual.


Not any more.


Yes, but someone whose behavior or performance would be considered so unacceptable as to be banished, would likely be whacked.



If there's money to be made, they'll source drugs from anyone and everybody.


See answer above.


Because gambling until fairly recently was illegal everywhere except Nevada. Even now, with casino gambling available in more than half the states and off-track betting common, many people still prefer the convenience of betting or gaming with a local operator. Most important: they can get credit from loan sharks, which they can't get from legal casinos.


Not unless the civilian customer is or will be connected to the Mob in some way. For example, you can't go to a Mob guy and ask him to kill your cheating wife's lover. But, you might get a Mob guy to agree to kill your business rival in return for a piece of the business you'd get if your rival was out of the way.


Probably not in the US. Probably yes in Europe.

The omertà means that you belong to a secret society and that the other people out the society must not know about it. The omertà was (in italy) a way of life means that you've chosen to live by rules and laws that don't belong to the state,that if you are marked to dead you can't flip but accept your fate; good example was Sonny Black that know that he would be whacked for pistone affair but don't flipped.



Yes,the rule say that for kill a wiseguy you must ask the permission but if you kill a civilian,nothing change; only if you don't drawn to much attention on the family liek did the demeo.



This is a tough question,the "don't touch the women and the childrens" rule is a bullshit in the us the women if close to mobster was killed,gravano ordered to kill pete calabro a rogue cop and in the sicilian mafia often the pentiti's children are killed; so NO there no forbidden targets.



No,a mobster was killed or forced to retire (if is lucky).



The american mafia stuff was the heroin,after the pizza connection the mob buy drug from the colombians and now from the mexicans but the southamericans don't need the mob to sell the drug.


Yes but only a little bit because both are dangerous and risk heavy sentence for few money; the human traffick was led by the east europe criminals and the weapons traffick by the gang or the mc



It is it because of Italian/Italian American cultural affinities toward gambling ? Or is it due to some other factor ?

This is an insult, everyone likes to bet and especially in times of crisis many bet, hoping to win and change life


In 2017 with all this rat I doubt that a wiseguy would accept to kill somebody from a civilian. In italy some said that salvo lima in 1991 was killed as a favour to the other politicians but there are no proofs.



Not the american mafia but the ndrangheta regularly sells weapons to terrorists

In Lima's case I thought it was Riina's revenge against the politicians who betrayed him: he always insisted they should use their power to have the Maxi-trial convictions overturned and, when this didn't happen, after they were affirmed by the supreme court (after the "sentence-killer" judge Corrado Carnevale was sent away), Riina still insisted they should do "something" and killed Lima to send a message to Andreotti who Lima was close to. Because of that, the mafia politicians distanced themselves from the bosses even more, and this contributed to the further mass arrests, after the Falcone and Borsellino killings too. Although other murders were sometimes committed by the mafia as favor to politicians, like when Giulio Andreotti asked the Salvo cousins (2 mafiosi from Salemi) to kill the journalist Mino Pecorelli and they brought the request to Stefano Bontate and Gaetano Badalamenti who arranged the hit; also quite recent articles say that the general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa was killed at the request of the politician Francesco Cosentino. I never heard that name before, read he is already dead since the first 80s, but in the last articles it is said he was the 2nd most powerful white collar criminal in Italy at the time. To be precise, it lists 4 considered the most powerful, in that order:

1) Giulio Andreotti
2) Francesco Cosentino
3) Umberto Ortolani
4) Licio Gelli

Don't know how true this is though. Would be interesting to hear opinions...

To clarify my questions pertain to the American Cosa Nostra families as opposed to the Sicilian ones .

Also I did not mean to insult Italians/Italian Americans for what it's worth .

At any rate thanks for the answers .

It also strikes me as interesting that none of the American Cosa Nostra families seem to have had conflicts with non LCN/Italian criminal organizations since Prohibition ended . Is this really the case ? If so then how have the various American LCN families managed to avoid wars with ( for example ) the various street gangs that can be found in practically every major American city ?

American LCN (individuals and families) have cooperated with other ethnic gangs--for example, Russians and the Westies in NYC. Same's probably true in other cities.