I'm aware of the contacts Difronzo's companies got. You could also bring up the Hired Truck Program. I'm not saying there is no corruption. I'm saying there isn't the kind of widespread, institutionalized corruption that some of you guys seem to be insinuating.

The Grand Ave guys targeted stash houses, stealing both money and drugs. Of course they're going to turn around and sell the drugs they've stolen and not just flush them down the toilet. But we're not talking about a crew specifically designed to be in the drug business, ie having an ongoing operation of buying drugs from a supplier and then distributing those drugs to other dealers. These guys were a robbery crew (a much more traditional Outfit venture) who happened to target places where drugs would be. There involvement in narcotics was more of an indirect, ad-hoc nature.



What don't we outside of Chicago not understand?

You look at that 2004 Stier investigation report and it alleges quite a bit - union members associating with Outfit figures, bid rigging, bribery, banned officials on union payroll, union fund embezzlement, inflated service costs, sham contracts, etc - across several Teamsters locals.

But it's interesting how little, if anything, in the way of indictments came as a result of this investigation. Do we believe that the Outfit had the "juice" to stave off indictments from the Justice Department? Or was much of what was in the report more of a residual nature?

I'm reminded of that "Mob Lite" article back in 2000 where Howard Abadinsky talks about the more restrained approach the Outfit takes to labor racketeering. And I'm aware of examples people will bring up , such as family members of past Outfit figures being involved in insurance providers that service unions (like Jack Cerone or David Dorfman), the Colis with Local 727, James Glimco with Local 777, and so on.

The question is, at what point does much of this stop being labor racketeering activity directly run by and for Outfit interests and begin being more about the descendants of past Outfit figures naturally remaining in unions or related business and operating at various levels of legality?

I suppose one could argue this is something of the image you had in mind when you talked about the way the mob in NY should have gone when it came to unions and legitimate business. However, if we're talking about organized crime, by definition there has to be a central hierarchical organization - a mob - at its core. For all the remaining union examples people can bring up, one cannot ignore the fact that the core in Chicago has dwindled considerably to the point where there are little more than two dozen actual members. Once the membership is gone, can one even argue a mob still exists?

Sure, Anthony Lapiana made a ton of money selling off his insurance company. He and his blood family are set for life and I imagine he kicked up a good chunk of change to his mob superiors. But none of that changes the overall state of the mob in Detroit. Same thing goes for Chicago above.