definitely still number 1. They're stronger than what you're saying

drugs are to risky for the mob anyway

The Mexican Mafia in the United States can easily overpower Cosa Nostra in the next ten years. The money they can make each week would make the Italians look like fools.

Thats where most of the money is. The more someone leaves their comfort zones and take risks, the more money you can ultimately pull in.

Not trying to start anything, but that JasonAnthony guy was a complete tool. Everyone knows the mafia doesn't wield the power it used to, however in terms of the East Coast (New York, Jersey especially) there's no doubt they're number one.

The Mexicans will not over power them. Maybe in the southwest but nowhere else.

The South Nicky. Aside from South Florida the mob has no presence in the south. Mexican Cartels are huge in those areas

if you mean the mexican mafia prison gang located in south california no, if you mean the cartels it's another matter but they are not an homegrown criminal group i think their target is just supplying american drug market but not to infiltrate the territory and most of money come back to mexico

yeah cartels and us mob are 2 different things

The activities of the Mexican cartels are mostly ( I say 'mostly') limited to supplying narcotics. They are the importers, middle men are La Eme, Aryan Brotherhood, Hells Angels, MS13,...who in turn sell it to smaller groups.
Dixie Mafia, Black Guerilla Family, Gangster Disciples,...mostly work with Colombians.
Neither the Mexicans nor the Colombians are almighty, eventhough Mexican cartels control the importation of narcotics in the Southwest and a good chunk of the deep South, while Colombians mostly control the importation in the Southeast.

The power of the 'homegrown' groups ( not including the more recent Albanian, Russian, Dominican, Cuban, Asian,...arrivals) can be divided as such : Italian-American OC is the most powerful in the northeast and small parts of the midwest, while everything west and south is divided between Chicanos, African-Americans and White Southerners. This concerning 'homegrown' OC.

i'm quite agree about it
homegrown groups are almost always the strongest and i doubt any of the recent groups is even equal to them
most of the chinese groups could be called homegrown groups anyway since they have been in the states a very long time

The Chinese have been in the USA since the 1840's where they developped the Tongs. But most Tongs aren't that deeply involved in criminal activity anymore. Most Chinese gangs in the USA are mainly composed of first- or second-generation immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia. Also a lot of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam ( the Hoa people are so-called 'ethnic Chinese, even though they have both Chinese and a small degree of Cham ancestry). That's why I count the Chinese groups in the USA among the 'foreign' groups

are triads and yakuzu even that big in the U.S.? If they are im guessing west coast. But i doubt anything anywhere else except in maybe some chinatowns

It's funny how we are arguing over which criminal organization is strongest. It's just like schoolyard kids arguing over which superhero is strongest. La Cosa Nostra obviously has a lot of "fans" in the house; that whole romanticised thing about the mob makes a lot of people regard that organization as being somehow more deserving of respect and worship than many of these other criminal organizations without the mob's history and past.

Triads and Triad-affiliated gangs are extremely active in the Chinatowns ( especially the one in New York) and in the West Coast ( especially in San Francisco). Like I said before, they are mostly composed of newer arrivals from the Chinese community rather than being composed of descendants of the Chinese that lived in the USA hundred years ago.
Yakuza has a presence on the West Coast, but they mostly let Hmong gangs do the dirty work. Apparently they struck a partnership with these gangs.

As far as the drug trade goes in new york its a mixture of dominican, mexican ,jamaican and puerto rican drug smuggling groups that are bringing in cocaine and heroin from their countries and then selling it either wholesale or packaging it up ready for retail to their own gangs or someone else's. I think that the dominicans are the most prevalent out of these groups in the north east. You then have some african american suppliers that are shipping cocaine from the west coast and places like atlanta and texas, or they are buying it off local dominicans in manhattan and then setting up pipelines to other areas of sale like upstate new york, these pipelines are often street gang affiliated.Then you got albanians that are involved with smuggling marijuana from canada, they have also been involved with heroin and cocaine trafficking as well as synthetic drugs, so they are sort of all over the place but none the less very active in the drug trade.Asian gangs vary from being fringe to heavy players in the drug trade, vietnamese gangs are heavily involved with grow ops not to sure about other asian groups. La cosa nostra drug activity by most recent examples is cocaine, marijuana, ecstacy and pescription pills, however the major difference between them and the other groups is that their drug activity is not continuous for example when a mafia connected drug ring is taken down the chances of another mobster coming in and replacing it are slim. This is one of the reasons why they are no longer on top the drug trade anymore.

I don't know what that Jason guy was saying but people like that appear here every once in a while . There was one guy claiming inside knowledge on the outfit saying they're only second to the Genovese and Tony Accardo was never boss etc.

I just wanted to add another group who have a large influence in drug smuggling which would be the Nigerian enterprises that smuggle and traffick heroin.

Not sure what you are talking about. But don't get all B** hurt because somebody actually makes the case for your beloved Mafia/La Cosa Nostra no longer being the top criminal dog in, god forbid, the East Coast or elsewhere. If they are still the top dog in NYC, ok, good, great, you get a cookie and a pat on the back! But geesh, don't take your hero worship so far!

With extortion (the old fashioned baseball bat variety) if you look at recent mafia cases it seems like its mostly linked to loan sharking with some incidences of random businesses or people getting shaken down. The gambino bust involving the sex trafficking in 2010 had a few shake downs and some severe assaults on people. Chinatown gangs on the other hand are shaking evryone and their cousins down from businesses legal or otherwise to just flat out kidnapping and holding people for ransom. Latino gangs are known for shaking down local businesses and vendors in their area. Theres probably alot of lcn gang members that still engage in violent shakedowns when opportunity affords but i don't think theres an actual racket in an area where theres like a weekly collection or something. Im only talking about the actual verbal and physical act where someones walking up to someone and demanding money off of them.

I don't know if you're talking to me or Joe but if it is me i wasn't talking about you i didn't even read you comments. I couldn't care less if LCN are the top criminaal dog ( as you call it ) i'm not from the US nevermind the Northeast. Imo you're the only one who sounds butthurt.

do you have example of chinese and latino gangs involved in systematic extortions systems?
i also think lcn in the states is not involved in systematic extortions like the mafia in italy, but i think it's still involved although to a lesser extent

You can watch any documentary on chinatown gangs and its mentioned.
http://hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Patterns_of_Chinese_Gang_Extortion.pdf
http://www.gorillaconvict.com/green-dragons-2/
http://gothamist.com/2008/10/22/authorities_arrested_16_in_asian_or.php
http://www.streetgangs.com/news/051112_drug_extortion_lil_cycos

even though chinese gangs extort the majority of chinatown business it's just limited to a couple areas in ny, lcn is present in much more places
but i don't think there is any continuity time, it's more like a new gang formed starts extorting and replaced another previous one

whats the difference between one gang extorting a lot of people in one area and another gang extorting the same amount of people in multiple areas.

i highly doubt chinese gangs in chinatown extort more than lcn as a whole that's just speculation
i also bet there are several gangs in the bigger chinatowns not just one and they are not all related-eachother

Saying that they dont extort more than the lcn is just speculation on your part as well.

China town has many tongs that have been around since the 18th century and they often use the street gangs chinese, vietnamese, koreans or otherwise to collect debts, protection money, deal drugs. However these gangs often commit crimes for themselves as well.

Are the Tongs still really around ? I thought today's Chinese organized crime in the USA was mainly associated with immigrant Triads

There still around, but thers also alot of other groups swell such as the snake heads and triad societies as well as the home grown street gangs.

Heres a good article on how extensive they are.
http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/02/08/chi...c7179e8da=gnews

like i said in chinatowns there are several chinese groups, triads, tongs, street gangs, snake heads and even vietnamese, koreans, laotians gangs so the extortions are divided eventually among these gangs
that's coz i highly doubt chinese extortion racket in a couple of chinatowns is bigger than the lcn in the whole new york