Because they excist as a criminal organization for more than a century. Many of the posters that claim to know much about them state the same as I do. Pizzaboy and eurodave acknowledged it themselves. I believe it was eurodave who recently stated that Calabrians have a different mentality, and he's from Calabria.
How long they've been around doesn't have anything to do with it. And, frankly, neither does where somebody lives. I call that the "geography card." Meaning, over the years I've encountered several posters on different forums who play that card by claiming to have exclusive insight simply based on the fact that they live in a certain area. As if they somehow absorb information that isn't available to the rest of us by some sort of osmosis. Or maybe it's something in the local drinking water.
Now, somebody being Calabrian, or Italian in general, may give them a certain insight into the general mentality. But it doesn't necessarily mean bupkis as far as them knowing more about the local organized crime scene. With very few exceptions, and I'm talking so few you could probably count them on one hand out of all the posters that have or do post on these forums, everybody gets their information the same way - books, news articles, indictments, etc. And even the authors or journalists get most of their information from law enforcement.
In short, posters that claim to know this or that are legion. Them actually knowing something is a different story.
Fair enough, but I used it to explain the Rizzutos role in the Canadian underworld. They gained their power and influence through their criminal network, not their organization as such.
And that's my point. If people want to talk about the larger "criminal network" the Rizzutos involved in, that's one thing. But too many, starting with the guys who wrote the books about them, talk as if they're talking about the Rizzutos alone when they're really talking more or less about the entire Montreal underworld. Which, in turn, makes many claims about the Rizzutos, as well as comparisons to LCN families in the U.S., inaccurate.
