The Caputo Family of Madison, WI

Somewhat of a Mafia phenomenon has to be the Cosa Nostra Family said to have existed for nearly sixty years in Madison, Wisconsin.

If in fact it was even a formally recognized borgata, and not just a satellite regime of the larger Balistrieri Family in nearby Milwaukee which has been suggested by some, the network headed by Carlo Caputo was without a doubt the smallest mafia Family to ever exist in the United States.

Carlo Caputo was born in Bagheria on the outskirts of Palermo, Sicily back on September 21, 1903. After immigrating to the United States in 1919 at the age of sixteen, he seems to have first migrated to Chicago where he was said to have quickly affiliated with the Sicilian Mafia faction of that city.

https://thenewyorkmafia.com/caputo-family-madison-wisconsin/

No gangland wars! No killings! No jealousy and Macheivellian plots!.... No major indictments!

Just a quiet serene existence as a successful mafioso who accumulated wealth and prestige within his community!...

For that very reason many of these smaller out of state borgata bosses and their members often lived good lives. And were the envy of many mafiosi from major cities where there was always strife and intrigue.

I'm from a tiny farm town about an hour away from Madison. In the 80's it was said that the mob controlled a lot of the milk hauling business. The truck routes that pick up milk at the farms and deliver it to cheese factories and other processing plants. Our next door neighbor was supposedly involved, he was an old timer that owned a cheese factory.

These days I think a lot of the drivers are independent, not sure about back in the day. That's a hard life. A lot of fathers refused to pass the business on to their sons, they said it was no life. Some guys push themselves too hard and end up hooked on coke or meth.

This blew my mind when I was told but back in the 50's and 60's the FBI was common in our area. I said why way the fuck out here? No clear answer but mob was kinda murmured, and gambling. The agents would drop by the VFW on Saturday nights and they'd apparently kind of hide the card playing money but they weren't there to bust WWII vets and farmers anyway.

I knew a guy who's dad tried to become a vending distributor in the 70's or maybe very early 80's in Milwaukee.

Apparently some company had come out with a new mechanism or something where they always gave the right change and didn't rip you off. Was this a big problem? I'm too young.

Anyway when he went around to businesses to see about placing the machines, across the board the response was "are you fucking crazy? They'll destroy my place, get out.". Never placed a single machine.

As a side note this guy was in milwaukee jail in the 70's and had a job in the nurses quarters or something to do with medical staff, he was friendly with some of them. A huge black guy told him he was gonna make him his bitch. The Dr. Or whatever had the guy brought to the medical area, strapped down and they started viscously jamming him with needles until he begged for mercy. And that was the end of that.

Obviously you folks are very well informed. Thus you may know if Dominic "Moosey" Caputo was part of this family. I do not.
Moosey worked at The Jungle Inn out side of Hubbard,Ohio and somehow had a Federal Gaming Stamp that they operated under.
When The Jungle Inn was raided and closed down in the late 40s by the governor for liquor violations and not for illegal gaming.
Dominic and his Gaming Stamp moved to The Jockey Club in Chester, W Va. A John LaRocca enterprise operated by Jo Jo Pecora.
Jo Jo took a Federal fall but not for illegal gaming but for traveling across state lines to operate casino gambling. Go figure?

I do not know of any connection between Dom Caputo and Carlo Caputo. Gotta understand that the surname Caputo is a fairly common last name to the Italian people. Not quite as common as a Russo, Lombardo, Caruso, Rizzo, etc., but it's up there. Not as rare a name such as a Profaci, Borruso, or Buccellato, etc. that would typically point to a connection per se.

Also the States as not even close to each other. It's like the other side of the moon in a sense.

This Carlo Caputo, as well as his "crew" were really an enigma, even among other very small borgatas. Generally even the small crews had 20, 25, 30, 35 men.

The whole Caputo Family had like 8, 10, 12..... really crazy when you think about it. We have single crews in NYC that literally dwarf the entire Madison "Family" lol

It is an interesting question, would you rather live in the big city and be able to make as you much as you can but have to deal with more competion and more headaches like traffic and a hectic lifestyle, or would you rather live somewhere smaller and not be able to make as much but be the wealthiest guy in town and have a five minute drive to work, if you had to work at all? I guess like most things in life it depends on the individual.

The guys who were hungrier were drawn to the big city mobs (unless you were born there. then it is what it is I guess). Other early mustaches headed to the smaller cities and towns so they could become big fish in small ponds. By and large I personally feel many of the more aggressive guys in small cities did better than their mob brethren in The Volcano as Bonanno so aptly put it in his book.

Ya, I'm sure you're right: areal needle in a hay stack. I was just taking a shot in the dark. Thanx anyway!

what does this particular video have to do about organized crime, the Milwaukee crew, or the Caputo Family? I fail to see the relevance. Its much ado and interviews don't speak about anything.