What's seperates the Bonanno's from the other families is ofcourse that they were originally a very tight-knit organization with close ties to Sicily.

But it's even more because of Joe Bonanno's business acumen. It where the Bonanno's who largerly engineered the heroin connection and it where they who created the power structure in Montreal by making allegiances with the local mafiosi over there and creating a separate faction. I really think this was (at least from a gangster's point of view) an ingenius move. They really opened Montreal up to the New York families.

I can't deny that Bonanno is for me one of the more intriguing mobsters. He is however a controversial figure. But I think we can all agree that he was a very capable leader of men, although he was slipping at the end.

I'm not that well informed about their current status. I think they lost a lot of their influence of the years. But back in the days they were (at least for me) one of the more interesting families.