This is great, Thanks Ivy. BTW where on earth do you get all this info from?
Wow. That's a lot of info. A lot of these don't make a whole lot of press coverage. I'm sure the FBI hates that.
Often, only the big cases, or where some big wig is charged, get a lot of attention in the press. The smaller stuff may get a blurb in the paper but is quickly gone. It's why so many of the average Joe's, who don't follow this stuff closely, are often surprised when a really big mob bust comes down the pike. Their response is usually, "Wow, I didn't know the mob was still around."
Anyway, to answer the original question, I follow news sites, the prosecutor's offices in different areas, the FBI's sites, the Justice Department site, and others. It's all there on the web for anyone to see if they take time.
There seems to be a lot of conjecture over Detroit membership numbers. That documentary that a poster from RD made, said something like 50 and that they were doing pretty well, but surely there can only be a handful?
That documentary (Detroit Mob Confidential) was also made, in part, by Scott. Again, one one hand, mcscott provides a lot of good info on Detroit. Information we wouldn't have otherwise. On the other hand, as I've said, I do believe he embellishes at times. Heck, in the trailer to that documentary, they call the Detroit mob "America's Most Successful Mafia family." To me, that sounds much like Volkman referring to the Luccheses as the "Crown Jewel" of the NY mob in his book
Gangbusters. Or the Rizzutos being called the "Sixth family" in the book by Lamothe and Humphreys.
I often get made out to be the bad guy over on the RD for saying there really shouldn't be much conjecture on Detroit. I may sound like a broken record but, the fact that there were 29 members back in 1996, doesn't make the estimate of 50 today seem very credible. Furthermore, the lack of cases in recent years is evidence in itself that the family may not be as big and robust as some want to believe.
One question I do have that I might have asked elsewhere as well is that, do people like bookies and collectors do other crimes, like robberies and trafficking or do they only stick to bookmaking.
If you look at the smaller families in particular, like New England or Philadelphia for example, bookmaking and loansharking are the core, day-to-day money makers. And other things, like drug trafficking, stolen goods, etc, seem to be an "appendage" to that. Ways to bring in some additional income.
