One thing I have always been curious about is the approximate annual income of mobsters. How much would you say the average Capo in the Genoves or Gambino crime families brings in a year after his kick up? What about a soldier? I would guess that the average Capo in a big family would make around 500k - 1 mil a year and a soldier in a big family somewhere around 100-200k a year? Thats just a guess off the top of my head. What do you guys think?
Also would a consiglieri make more than a capo? Sorry for all the questions I am just very interested and this is the first time I have had a vessel in which I can find an answear.

Thank you for your time.

I don't know if there is any definitive answer. I think they all vary somewhat depending on their native abilities, the greed of their bosses, the size of their crews, and how risky or dangerous their particular area of expertise happens to be.

TB did a few posts on that here.
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=367602&page=all

Based on other books I've read I don't think the numbers are quite that high for capos -on average. The ones who are very entreprenurial, cunning and intelligent might get that but most of them? I don't think so.

The soldiers I would put around 80-150K-again this can vary widely based on skill sets. Some soldiers are "specials" , get to report directly to the boss or have a business which only they know how to run-these guys get to make a little more. Other guys -like Lefty Ruggiero- had no special skills, weren't well liked or respected, were always in debt and wouldn't be above robbing parking meters if need be. I am just basing this mostly on what I've read from Capeci and Pistone.

Some of the biggest moneymakers for the mob were loansharking and gambling/numbers. Those businesses are all but legal in America today. I'd like to see a study to see what impact credit cards, payday loans, rent-to own, and various state lotteries had on Mafia profits in those businesses.

IRL as opposed to the movies, the consigliere usually had his own rackets and businesses so I would think he'd earn (on his own) comparable to a capo. Of course the underboss and consigliere also get "gifts" and "tribute" so that would put the consigliere over the top.

Thanks for the feedback. As for the numbers I was guessing, I meant strictly for a Capo in a prominent family like the Gambino's or the Genovese'. I wouldn't think that a Capo in a smaller syndicate would make that kind of money but only in one of the bigger families. Again I could be way off but if a Genovese Capo has 10-15 soldiers in his crew each bringing in 100k+ maybe 500k a year isn't too far off.

I guess there is really no way for us to know for sure except from what actually mobsters and Captains admit to. Even then they may be prone to embelish and exagerate.

Henry Hill claimed that Paul Vario once showed him a hidden vault that contained over $1 Million in hard cash.
Wikipedia claims Vario was earning about $25,000 a day (even more impressive when you remember this was back in the 60's and 70's).

Roy DeMeo was another good earner.

Joe Pistone said that Tony MIrra would "go nuts" if he didnt pull in $5000 on a weekend from the club he "minded".
Mirra also had a fruit machine racket that fetched in $2000 a week.
Mirra was pretty much a one man outfit though where as DeMeo had a crew behind him.

Its intresting to note what a tight fisted old bas****d Nino Gaggi was though!
He paid his Nephew Dominick Montiglio who was his errand boy and acted as a go between with DeMeo (Nino didnt want to be photographed at the Gemini) a poxy $250 a week!!!
Yet one Christmas he gave Roy DeMeo's 3 kids $5000 each!!!!!
Work that one out!

Joseph Defede

During the late 90's, Amuso's relationship with DeFede began to sour. Suspecting that DeFede was hiding money from the family, Amuso replaced him as acting boss with Steven Crea, head of the family's powerful Bronx faction. Once Crea took over, family profits rose enormously. That was enough to convince Amuso that DeFede had been skimming; Amuso reportedly decided to have him murdered.

On February 5. 2002, DeFede was released from a Lexington, Kentucky prison medical center. Having heard of Amuso's plans to kill him, DeFede immediately became a government informant. DeFede explained the Garment District rackets and the protection rackets in Howard Beach, Queens. He also provided information leading to the convictions of Crea, Louis Daidone, Dominic Truscello, Joseph Tangorra, Anthony Baratta, and a number of family captains, soldiers and associates. While testifying against Gambino crime family boss Peter Gotti, DeFede exclaimed that all he made during his reign as acting boss was $1,014,000, or approximately $250,000 per year. DeFede also estimated that a low ranking family soldier would make on average $50,000 per year.

DeFede is presumed to be in hiding under the federal Witness Protection Program.

Quite a big contrast between this report and the claims in the above post about Demeo and Vario.

I made a stab at this question a while back. Here's the post:

AVOIDING TAX EVASION CHARGES

Income tax evasion has put more mobsters away for more years than RICO and drugs combined. It’s easy: the Feds don’t have to prove that you made your money through crime—all they have to do is to show that you’re living beyond your means. Even a weak tax evasion case has a good chance of bringing in a conviction. While some jurors might have some empathy for the defendant, they all think of themselves as “tax drones.” So, if the prosecutor points to the defendant and tells the jurors, “The reason you’re paying high taxes is because guys like him are cheating on theirs…” the jurors are ready to believe him.

Mafia guys are slam-dunk prospects for tax evasion. They’re all greedy, and they regard paying taxes on the same level as being cuckolded. Aniello (Mr. Neil) Dellacroce, the feared and respected Gambino caporegime, went away for five years because he lost $100k in a Puerto Rican casino at a time when he declared income of only $10k on his tax return. He was still in prison when Carlo Gambino was on his deathbed, which probably was why Gambino named Paul Castellano, rather than Mr. Neil, as his heir.

But, if a mob guy is smart and careful (big ifs), he can avoid getting nailed on tax evasion. Here’s now:

Let’s say you’re a captain in a NYC mob family. Your main source of income is an electrical wholesale firm that actually sells electrical supplies. But the supplies are most often stolen from others and sold to mob-connected contractors. It’s also a front for your loansharking, fencing and drug operations, which your subordinates operate for you at careful arms-length. You earn between $3 million and $5 million annually, all of it illegal. You’re smart enough to know that you need to live modestly and inconspicuously. You live in the same Brooklyn home you occupied when you started out. It’s now worth about $550k--modest by NYC standards. You could have paid it off years ago. But, to bolster the fiction that you’re just a workin’ stiff, you’ve taken out second mortgages to pay for your kids’ colleges. You drive a three-year-old Cad, your wife a four-year-old Lexus. You both wear off-the-rack clothes and costume jewelry.

Your accountant tells you that, to maintain that lifestyle and keep the Internal Revenue Service off your back, you need to show and pay taxes on $90k annual household income. So you arrange for the associate who’s the nominal “owner” of your electrical wholesale business to put you and the Mrs. on his payroll—you as a “salesman” at $50k/yr., she as a “bookkeeper” at $40k. You pay your taxes scrupulously.

Now, you aren’t busting your coglioni and putting your life at risk in the mob just to live like a wage-slave cafone. How do you enjoy your money without attracting the IRS?

It seems that the electrical firm (meaning you) owns a $10 million “retreat” in Glen Cove, Long Island—right on the Sound, complete with 60-foot yacht. The firm lists it as a “guest house and entertainment center” for wooing clients, and as a “rest and recreation” facility for employees. To maintain the façade, part of the home’s basement is equipped as a “showroom” with displays of electrical equipment that the firm sells. A smaller “showroom” space is laid out on the boat. You and your wife spend a lot of time there because you’re the firm’s “top salesman.” You meet with your associates at the Glen Cove house and list them as “clients” in your business logbook.

You and your wife also own Armani suits, Givinchy gowns, Bally and Jimmy Choo shoes, Cartier jewelry, Louis Vuitton luggage, etc. But there are no sales receipts in your name. They’re stored at your non-mobbed-up cousin’s home in a modest neighborhood in Queens. Anytime you and the Mrs. go out on the town (often), you and she visit the cousin’s place to get dressed and decked out. The cousin calls a limo for you, which pulls into his garage to avoid surveillance. You and your wife jump inside and hunker down behind the tinted windows. You pay for everything in cash. When you travel to Paris on vacation, you fly Tourist class and reserve a room in a modest pension. But a Family associate in Naples secretly booked you into the Ritz under phony names, using phony Italian passports, and has made reservations for you in all the Michelin 3-star restaurants, where you pay cash. For your jaunts around France, you rent a chauffeured limo, using the phony passport as I.D, when required. It’s all prepaid—in cash.

Now, the NYC police and the FBI know good and well that you’re a capo in a mob family, and have a pretty good idea of how you’re earning your money. But, like all government employees, they don’t want to work any harder than necessary to earn their paychecks. You’ve hidden your criminal activities and your spending well enough so that it won’t be easy for them to gather up enough evidence and witnesses to bring you to trial. With the new priority for tracking down terrorists, law enforcement has a good excuse not to spend a lot of time, money and personnel trying to convict you—especially since there are plenty enough dumb mobsters who are easy pickings compared with you.

So they take the lazy-cops’ out—turn the investigation over to the IRS to see if they can nail you for tax evasion. But IRS investigators don’t want to work any harder than their law enforcement brethren. The IRS clerk who gets your case is looking for a slam-dunk—and there isn’t one in your case because she finds that you’ve filed returns and paid taxes punctiliously every year. She kicks your file back to her supervisor, who hands it to an investigator. He’s got a huge caseload because the Administration has been in a budget-cutting mode and no taxpayers—and their Congressmen—are anxious to see funding restored to the IRS.

About two years after getting your file, the IRS investigator finally picks it up and drives out to look at your Brooklyn home. One glance tells him what your accountant told you: yours is a $90k income home—and you’ve been paying taxes on $90k every year. He heads for the Glen Cove “business retreat” listed as the electrical wholesale firm’s property, rings the doorbell, shows his badge, and asks the caretaker if he can look around the property. You’ve already instructed the caretaker to let him in. The investigator sees the showrooms in the basement and on the boat, and the business cards and sales literature you’ve carefully planted in other spaces. He suspects it’s a front, but he can’t prove it—easily. Of course the IRS could put serious resources into checking out your “employer” in surveilling the Glen Cove mansion, looking at your travels abroad, etc. But that costs time and money—and anyway, since law enforcement wasn’t willing to do it, why should they? So, their conclusion is, “insufficient evidence for prosecution.”

Sooner or later, your own greed is going to trip you up. But until then, as Jackie Brown, the gun dealer in “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” said: “It’s a great life—as long as you don’t weaken.”
_________________________

Well in the days of Demeo and VArio those were the Mob's peak heydays as you will.

First, gambling and loansharking are still the bread and butter for the mob. That's a fact that can be seen in mob indictments over the past decade. But a few things should be pointed out.

While the mob is still involved in the numbers racket, it isn't nearly what it was as far as a source of mob income. This is due to a few different factors, including the legal state lotto as well as changing demographics in mob gambling clientele. Today, numbers is basically an appendage to what is far and away the biggest gambling revenue producer for the mob and their single biggest money maker over all - sports betting. And that is still illegal in every area of the country except for a couple places and is one area where the mob has been able to retain it's dominance. The money made from other gambling sources, like numbers, video poker, and card games, is only a fraction of what the mob takes in from bookmaking.

As it always has, loansharking goes hand with gambling. A bettor racks up a $50,000 gambling debt and has to go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. What payday loan outlet is going to give a degenerate gambling 50 grand? Or often times, the bookie and the loanshark are the same person. Instead of demanding the $50,000 immediately, the bookie/loanshark simply charges the bettor 2% vig on the debt each week. That's $1,000 every week. And that doesn't come off the top. He can pay the grand every week for the next 10 years and in 10 years he still owes the original $50,000. Likewise, there are still others on the wrong side of the law, and even obstensibly legitimate businesses who don't have any other means of obtaining a loan except a mob loanshark.

As to the original question, the mob basically mirrors society in general. On one end of the spectrum you have mobsters who are very wealthy. Millionaires. On the other end you have the poor ones, the "brokesters." In the middle you have the average mob guy is basically middle class. Most mob guys fall in this category.

The rates charged by payday loan/rent-a-center places can be far higher than rates charged by mobsters in most instances. A 2% /week loan comes out to ~104% APR. Most payday loan places are dealing with APR's of at least 300% APR. Some charge rates as high as 1000% or more. They would superficially be more attractive because theoretically you don't have to worry about someone threatening to break your legs or put your daughter on the street. Payday loans and credit cards are also dealing in volumes that most loan sharks couldn't dream of.
Payday Loans in California/ The Outfit

A kindler gentler shylock

As far as larger amounts for loans I think the subprime lending, hard money lenders and general home equity loans filled that market. In the glory days of loan sharks, people weren't borrowing against their homes as much as they've done in the past 10-20 years. The market for credit has expanded exponentially in the past 2-3 decades.

This is something I am very interested in. I'm not saying mob or independent loan sharks don't exist, still thrive and fill a market. I would just like to be able to determine what impact the credit expansion has had on them. There's got to be a rigorous study/comparison out there somewhere.

[quote]

First, the weekly rate by a loanshark is going to depend no any number of things. Who he's lending to, for what, how much, how long, etc. It might be 2% a week. It might be 5% a week. The lower the amount loaned, the higher the vig.

Second, the loanshark doesn't just lend to anyone. They have to know them. It's often a different clientele that is going to a loanshark and one that is going to the local payday loan outlet. Often it's people who are already involved through gambling.

Third, as for "larger amounts," the mob doesn't make millions from the racket by only lending nickels and dimes.

Sweet. Another cool article. Thank you.

I was always a little sceptical of DeFede's numbers, considering how low they were for a guy who had been acting boss for that long. But these guys have a habit of being dishonest, especially about what they're bringing in. It's almost routine for mob guys to cry poor when they are hauled into court.

Here's a list of some of the income Amuso and Casso were receiving after the took over the Lucchese family -

$15,000 to $20,000 a month from Long Island carting shakedowns
$75,000 a month from shakedowns and sweetheart contracts at the airports
$20,000 a week from video poker machines
$245,000 a year from a major concrete company
$200,000 a year from one of their operators in the garment center
$100,000 from their underlings at Christmas
$600,000+ - the amount Greek gambling operators paid in tribute one year to be able to operate in Queens with permission of the Lucchese family.

Indeed.
My only point is that there are many more avenues of credit available than there used to be, even for people with marginal credit, bad jobs, no jobs or poor business plans. This has to have impacted the market for traditional OC loansharking, as even though their interest rates are if anything lower, there is a stigma and fear involved in dealing with a mob backed shark, that isn't there for other alternatives.

I'm not arguing that the mob still isn't making millions from loansharking. But I don't think it's quite as much as it used to be. It's a hypothesis. I'm not aware of any rigorous comparative studies.

According to this article the payday loan business is by itself a $42 billion concern.
Payday Lenders

That swamps any loan shark portfolio by any current mob family that I know of. I imagine it would be at least comparable to, if not larger than mob loansharking in total. But like I said, I don't know of any studies. The industry is able to spend millions to ensure that state/federal laws remain to its liking.

And of course that doesn't include other "shady" creditors such as credit cards, hard money lenders, rent-to-own places, subprime mortgage orginators, etc.

When Lawrence Dentico was indicted he was accused of having a "mere" $1.6 million in loansharking proceeds over a 6 year period. And he was at the top. I don't doubt that loansharking remains profitable for certain families or groups. I just don't know that it's quite as lucrative as it used to be. For someone who needs $30K to set up a drug deal, bring in Eastern European prostitutes or pay off his local councilman to get a shady land deal approved, the local loan shark will remain the go-to guy. For others???

Perhaps technology advancement is hindering Mob guys?

Nowerdays, all cars leave the factory with an immobilser/alarm fitted as standard.
Here on my side of the pond in England, in the 1980's that wasnt the case and cars were getting nicked all the time and I'm sure it was the same in the USA (my Uncle had his Vauxhall Astra nicked from the Hospital car park!).
Some cars even have trackers now too.
Cars are harder to steal today than 20 or 30 years ago.
Porno theaters were a major attraction in the 70's when not many people had a VCR.
Today you can pick up a cheap DVD player for very low money.
I bet the security at JFK airport is much greater than when Jimmy Burke, Henry Hill, John Gotti, Roy DeMeo and god knows who else were helping themselves to merchandise
Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso said that the mobs golden age was passed and that the "big money" wasnt available like it was years ago.

The mob is still involved in fencing stolen goods but the large scale hijacking operations, like out out of JFK Airport, back in day are basically over. They're also still involved in stolen car rings and chop shops but also not to the degree they once were.

Up to through the 1970's the mob controlled the porn industry because there were relatively few outlets for it. They controlled the distribution companies as well as the theaters that showed the movies themselves. Video tapes came along in the 1980's and they deluted the market. Movies that once sold for $100 or more a piece now sold for a few bucks. And this allowed independent operators to glut the market. Then in the 1990's the internet came along and now anyone looking for it can basically get it for free. Also, in the 1990's the Giuliani adminsitration closed down the porn stores and peep shows in Times Square, most of which were tied to the mob.

Over the last decade the mob has still been involved in shaking down porn shops and the like. And there are still some connected guys involved in the distribution end. But it's also not the business it once was.

Legal means of obtaining loans, whether it be banks, payday loan stores, or whatever have always dwarfed loans made by the mob. And that's because a lot more people can go to a bank or a payday loan outlet, or get a credit card for that matter, than approach a mob loanshark. Like I keep saying, it's a certain type of clientele that usually borrows from the mob. Usually gamblers but also others that the mob knows but have otherwise lost the ability to obtain money elsewhere. Also, unlike other places, the mob doesn't necessarily have to have any collateral. The collateral the borrower puts up is their knee caps, so to speak.

The reason why gambling and loansharking are called the "bread and butter" or "lifeblood" of the mob is becasue they are ongoing and neverending. Unlike some other rackets we've been talking about like hijacking, porn, etc. People will always want to bet on sports or whatever and many will tend to get in over their heads and need ready cash. It's a symbiotic relationship that fuels the day-to-day business of the mob.

Gambling and loansharking are hand-in-glove. A guy who can't afford to go to the track or a casino is likely not to have enough ready cash to bet at a level he wants but can't afford. The odds are not what makes Mob gambling operators rich--it's the vig on the loans. As for the borrowers: victim is as victim does.

Re. payday loans: Here in AZ, payday lenders are permitted to legally charge 15% per week, which works out to 496% compound annual interest. That's way more than Mob loansharks charge.