The FBI in my experience hasn't really made claims about knowing the structure, except very vaguely, at least in recent times.
Usually the media reports people like "boss," which is a nice vague term--boss of the whole thing? Boss of a crew? Boss of a neighborhood?
Clearly for instance Sarno was in charge of something... but I don't think the feds generally try to exactly define the position... as they don't know. And, as I said, the structure may be surprisingly loose.
I don't ever remember hearing anyone suggesting that Peter DiFronzo or Matassa were the bosses of anything.
During the Family Secrets trial, a couple different articles cited the FBI as saying there were 4 crews and who the leaders were. More recently, in 2011, one FBI official said the Outfit was down to "two or three crews."
As I said earlier in this thread, the FBI said Sarno was the Outfit's acting boss prior to him being indicted.
Originally Posted By: jonnynonos
Therefore, if this is accurate, that number would not include the known made men in prison, including those who went away in FS.
That 28 number they cited appears to be a total figure, as FBI officials also referenced 25 and 30 members elsewhere.
Originally Posted By: dgvc63
Being from the area and working in the Southside I've got to say that ANYONE thinking they can list anything accurately in Chicago has another thing coming. If you concentrate only on the Italians you'll never get the scope of it. Torrio realized early that the only real factor is money, the only nationality is money and that's how the outfit works.
Gus Alex, Murray Humphreys, Ralph Pierce, Billy Dauber etc. "Can you make money?" that's the only question. Gamblers in Cal City may remember "Gold Man" who most certainly was not Italian. To try and view the Outfit like an East Coast family is not possible in many ways. Overly formalized thinking patterns don't work there.
Chicago is in fact a template for what's happened in general with most of organized crime in the United States in modern times, expansion, retrenchment and invisibility. Chicago was the first to look West and only because they did were gangsters like Bugsy Siegel drawn there in the first place. Anything West of the Mississippi as far as Eastern mobsters went, the first cut went to Chicago. Nowadays, who can say? The businesses are so deeply entrenched at this point, it would be finding needles in stacks of needles. Don Angelini's kid is a lawyer for Christ's sake. Slicker and no longer in the old neighborhood much. Northwest Suburbs and NW Indiana and in chambers of commerce. Baboom.
Notice how those non-Italian examples are from the distant past. The Chicago mob is very much an Italian thing now in terms of it's structure and the real power-players left. And the FBI is going to have as accurate an accounting of the Outfit's membership as any other family.
Originally Posted By: Snakes
The list wasn't made by me. I think Ivy or someone else posted in a couple of years ago in this same thread.
That list was originally posted on another forum years ago by a well known, and very well research poster on the Outfit. It was a list of names who he had specifically seen cited as made members of the Chicago Outfit. There may have been a few that were incorrect but I imagine most of them were right.
Originally Posted By: johnnynonos
I don't think it's a coincidence that the fed's number more or less coincides with the number, give or take a handful, that a bunch of people who primarily get their information from the media, with a small degree of word of mouth (us), come up with.
Of those listed you could probably put about 15 who are hard core gangsters who have been arrested multiple times and if they weren't "made" it would be surprising.
Another 10 or so who are again on public record for being, at the least, heavily involved.
And a handful who are more under the radar.
That is one reason why I think the number is probably accurate.
If someone were to come up with 30 more probable "made" guys, it would be a far more nebulous exercise...
The question marks on this list would be ahead of the most suspicious guys on the next list.
So, I don't think it's a coincidence.
No it wasn't a coincidence. The researcher I mentioned above said one time that the FBI actually released a list of 47 names of Outfit members to the local media back in the late 1990's. Since that time, about 20 Outfit members have died, leaving a number very close to what the feds have cited in recent years. If it makes some people feel better to believe the Outfit has 40, 50, 100 or whatever number, so be it, but it's pretty clear what the FBI has said.
Mods should mind their own business and leave poster's profile signatures alone.
