Hi, Does anyone have any information on how the mobsters reacted to the crack explosion, in particular in New York?

Were many made men involved in supplying cocaine to the street gangs? Did they come into conflict with the newly rich street dealers throughout the city? Were there any gangs set up that dealt crack in Italian neighborhoods and paid tribute to the various families?

With all the money been made in this era you would have thought that the five families would have been extremely interested in this but I've never really heard of them been involved, I know they have been heavily involved in heroin and just wondered of anyone knew how they reacted to the new drug in the city.

Thanks

I don't know whether an official Capo-led crew ever dealt in the drug, but the mob's younger "farm teams" did get involved with crack cocaine. The Bath Avenue Crew for instance was known for being involved with crack trafficking in Bensonhurst.

Wasn't it in the movie New Jack City, some part where the mafia tried to muscle in and nino brown took care of them? That is a good question, I am sure there had to be some areas of the mob that supplied or had their hands in getting some profit off it....liked to hear what some people who know more about this have to say, because that was/is a huge money maker for many during that time period when they took over huge projects and controlled everything

They were wholesaling coke for sure. The young guys probably sold crack to an extent. It wasn't an official family business from what I know, but when you have thousands of connected criminals in a city, some are gonna have a coke connect and they're gonna use it. Not to mention they were mostly sniffing coke back then so suppliers were in their circles.

crack=money=LCN, simple math

Well I do not know about other guys but Nicky Scarfo sr kept our neighborhood "right" for all those years .As soon as he was put away they moved in like COCKROACHES !

You brought that shit around he shoot you him self.His guys really did have to hide there drug activity. Not like these other guys.

Yep a little 5ft guy

Crack = Cocaine + Baking soda

The mob dealt with coke heavily, the main ingredient in making crack. The rest is basic, I mean I could learn how to make it just from a recipe on the net.

The mob rarely handled distribution of the product on the streets so they were mostly involved in moving wholesale product or as middlemen.

That would be called "freebase" It was around in the early 70's do not believe all the stuff you hear now days..

When it got to the blacks it became crack and they went nutz over that shit,selling everything too get it.Then to sell it..

Ya its a simple recipe takes less then a minute to make on a stove less in a microwave. I thought that shit would have died no off but like the herion its getting bigger. people after a day do crazy shit then super regrets. I could imagine some of the wannabes in the Colombo war taking a blast before shooting some old made guy for scarpa

It was big after you came home from the bars and clubs and disco's .At after hour clubs and peoples homes . The white people would not cook it up and take it out .They would snort all night and then cook till dawn...

Freebase cocaine is the technical name for crack, they're not different drugs. Look it up.

In freebase form it's almost completely pure due to the process and the route of administration by smoking. You're basically getting pure cocaine into your body in one of the fastest acting routes of administration (except for IV) so yeah, it's VERY addictive.

Thats what we were saying !!!!

Do not have to look anything up ever...If I put a question mark after I don't know and I am asking.
Cos I did not learn from a book, I was there..

I thought you were implying that somehow "freebase" is different from crack.
It doesn't matter where you learned about it, with things like drugs it's better to learn from a book/online than from the streets because there's plenty of myths and wrong info out there that people claim as truth.
I'm not trying to nitpick or anything I was just correcting you, assuming you meant they're different.

Mal I understand ,and in most cases now days it is a little different they now add stuff, that I do not know about to maximize profit. Like I said this stuff is sometimes harmless sometime it is toxic.Back in the day they did not add stuff cos they did not want to hurt people ,and it was cheep did not need to mess around.

I do not condone drugs I was posting a post that I know about very well 35 years ago or more.But trust me what Pmac and I posted is right on ,only Pmac was in the 2000 sometime(or sooner) I am 60 plus years old and my info comes from 70's and 80's.

And trust me you will have 20 guys come and post what is in this cut now days.If cooking for there own supply no cut or if they have a steady and same people buying they will keep it right.Now if it going to the street it will be cut with a wide range of things ,most to speed the body up...

Oh no I believe ya, I'm sure they add all sort of things nowadays to maximize profits, even lethal ones, the customers be damned if they die or not.
At least back then they thought enough ahead that the costumer should be well enough to come back and buy his next dose, but not anymore. lol.
I'm just talking about the pharmacology of the drugs because it's something I know a lot about, mostly from reading but even from being around it. Where I live crack is pretty much unheard of thank God. Here it's still the classics - Dope, Coke and Pot.

i dont think it was the bath avenue that was running the crack trade in bensonhurst it was a luchesse connected group led by james galione.

Officials Say Mafia Ran Crack Ring In Brooklyn

By RANDY KENNEDY

Published: October 2, 1996


In a case that law enforcement officials said erodes the myth that the Mafia will not stoop to street-level drug dealing, the United States Attorney in Brooklyn announced the arrest yesterday of 40 people believed to be members of a crack-cocaine ring operated by the Lucchese crime family.

The arrests, made before dawn by hundreds of city police officers and Federal agents, were all the more unusual because prosecutors said the dealers found their customers on the streets of Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge, two largely middle-class Brooklyn neighborhoods thought to have escaped the scourge of crack that swept through the city beginning in the 1980's.

Relying on wiretaps, surveillance and the accounts of former drug dealers who cooperated after being arrested, prosecutors said yesterday that the ring -- under the control of James Galione, a ''made'' or inducted member of the Lucchese family -- had assumed control of most crack and powder cocaine dealing in the neighborhoods as early as 1992.

''In the first instance, Galione actually took over existing street-level crack sales through these neighborhoods and inserted his own crack distributors,'' said Eric Friedberg, the chief of narcotics prosecution in the United States Attorney's office. To consolidate the family's control and increase its profits, Mr. Friedberg said, Mr. Galione exacted a ''street tax'' from other dealers not working for him, supposedly to protect them from rivals.

''In reality,'' he said, ''the tax insured the sellers' continued sales would be free from violent retribution by Galione and his managers.''

Mr. Galione's dealers, prosecutors said, were mostly men in their 20's who lived in the neighborhoods and relied on pagers and sophisticated codes to meet customers and deliver cocaine, in plastic bags, envelopes, and in one case, a Styrofoam cup.

Investigators were unable to say how much money the ring took in, but Carlo A. Boccia, the agent in charge of the New York field division of the Drug Enforcement Agency, said that more than $100,000 was passed on each week to Mr. Galione and other captains, including George Conte, who is now in prison awaiting sentencing in an unrelated murder and racketeering case. Mr. Galione's lawyer, Harry C. Batchelder Jr., did not return telephone calls to his office yesterday.

While the Lucchese family has been associated with the drug trade before -- the former head of the family was convicted in 1974 of running a huge heroin ring -- prosecutors said yesterday that its hands-on involvement with street-corner crack sales was unprecedented.

''Normally, one doesn't think of the local crack pusher as being affiliated with organized crime,'' Mr. Friedberg said. ''But in this case, that's what we found.''

Mr. Galione, who was also charged yesterday in an unrelated murder and racketeering case, was arraigned yesterday at the United States Courthouse in Brooklyn along with the 39 other defendants. All were held pending bail hearings next week.

Thanks Scorsese.

So there as this crew and the Bath Avenue crew selling crack, I wonder if they any more powerful made men would have tried to shake down the main players such as Supreme, Fat Cat, Alpo Martinez etc. Many of these were very young and had become millionaires over night surely that would have made them targets for extortion from career criminals.

Its hard to imagine John Gotti and members of his crew, many who were deep in the heroin game not seeing these young, black kids with lots of money as easy pickings. Also with crack spreading in the 80s like it did, it must have had some impact on the amount of heroin been sold? This would have been impacting on the men who dealt in it's bottom line.

I don't think supreme or any of those guys were extorted or had any involvement with lcn. They themselves weren't really soft targets for that kind of thing.

They were targeted by other dudes from their backgrounds who knew where they lived, where the stash houses were, where the safes were ,etc

Mafia button men would have stood out too much in the environments that these crack kingpins operated in.

Also as Scorcese pointed out about the Supreme team.....there was a hit put on a uniform in broad daylight..so I don't think some of the larger crews were gonna be afraid of the mob.

Ed Byrnes. Pappy put out the hit with the ok from Fat Cat. I can't see mafioso in south Jamaica at that time.

Az. Alpo. Rich. Are from Harlem. Uptown. They were copping from Pleasant Ave. when they got busted it left a vacuum for the Colombians.

I could be wrong but it's how I understand it.

cheech

you're right...i got confused...cat was blamed for that

read about the shooting years ago and because of the location...thought it was supreme

All good Gets. Much respect to you. Wasn't even correcting you. Pretty much same crew any ways.

And you were right on all your other points. Dead on.

Its sort of a point of debate whether fat cat gave the order or had anything to do with officer byrnes murder. Pappy Mason was running his own drug gang at the time and could have given the order by himself.

Wouldn't pleasant avenue be a bit before their time?

I wasn't there so don't know. Its how I understand it. Its semantics. Either way a cop is dead.

Yes. When I said "they" I meant black drug dealers from Harlem. It was late and I was a little saucy. Not the AZ, Alpo, Rich crew.

Whether it's true or not I don't care.

So the crack explosion really took the mob by surprise as it did most people and by the time they would have realised ho much money was been made, the crews selling the crack had become too powerful for the mob to exploit.

Is there any stories where they had mixed together, either in night clubs or in jail? With the racist attitudes of the time, you would think the two groups would have come into conflict at some point.

Also as a side point "Only built for cuban links" the album by Raekwon was heavily mafia influenced and very popular in its time. I wonder how the crack dealers viewed the mafia at the time and would they have shown the respect when coming into contact with them?

There were a lot of crack rings and organisations operating in the city at that time, i don't see how they could exploit it anymore than the dealers themselves.

Gambino turncoat andrew didonato claims to have shaken drug dealers down in brooklyn. However he doesn't really give much detail.

Another guy who was around into the 90s was ronald bumps basset who ran ran large numbers racket and heroin distribution was a contemporary of fat cat nichols may have had some lcn ties cause they both used to work for pops freeman who was allegedly affiliated with the genovese family. Whether or not he continued that relationship into the 80s i don't know. He was actually convicted again in 2013 for heroin trafficking.

Scorsese you ever been to the Coliseum Mall?

The OBFCL album and the mob references....direct result of them growing up on Staten Island with Italian kids who allowed people to believe that they were connected to lcn.

Wu-Gambinos

Strong Staten Island accent is heard on the early Wu albums

There's a skit called torture on maybe the first Method Man album where Meth and Rae are speaking to each other back and forth and iif you didn't know who it was could easily be two older Italian men

"I'll F'en hit your nuts with a spiked bat"
"I'll F'en cut your eyelids off and feed you nothing but sleeping pills"

Later on....a guy who was managing Wu members turned out to be really connected.....and he turned informant. ..Michael Caruso