I don't think there was a tax on sicilian mobsters. They distributed it through the families, in fact a number of those sicilians actually joined those families. It was a mutual partnership if anything. Also your talking about the mafia of 30-50 years ago
Regarding the Pizza Connection and the heroin dealing under Carlo Gambino and Castellano...
If there is a Sicilian faction in a Gambino Family and they are moving the Smack, but their top guy is a both a member of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and a made man, a Capo with the Gambinos, then that Sicilian Capo is kicking up to the Gambino Boss.
So in that arrangement, the zips are doing the shipping and receiving, they are collecting the money, and sending the stuff out to the small time distributors, and also kicking up tax to the American Boss. The idea behind the rule against drug dealing was to insulate all Americans (anyone "on record" with Uncle Sam) and by extension the American Cosa Nostra Boss, from RICO and Rockefeller drug laws. The idea I guess was that surveillance would be harder when the guys moving the stuff are illegals with no papers, no social security numbers, nothing.
Its a very gross exaggeration to say everyone on the harbour is mafia connected.
Not when one Union (Int'l Longshoreman's Union) controls the whole harbor and you got key people in the Union.
