Former FBI agent Jaoquin "Jack" Garcia gives a good breakdown of the tensions between the Rudaj group and the LCN.

His first encounter with the Albanians was when the FBI was running a strip club undercover in the Bronx and the Albanians tried to shake it down. He got the Gambinos to back them off which, as he put it, "showed the mob was strong enough to bully the Albanians" or it showed the two groups were working together.

He goes on to talk about other indignities the mob suffered as the Rudaj organization, which actually consisted of Albanians, as well as some Italians and Greeks, expanded their territory. The other leader of the group, in addition to Alex Rudaj, was Nardino "Lenny" Colotti, a former Gambino associate.

He says the group wanted to be the "sixth family" but it's operations basically consisted of a bookmaking operation and card games in Westchester, dozens of poker machines in Westchester, the Bronx, and Queens, and several gambling clubs it either ran or extorted money from - the latter being Greek clubs who had previously paid money to the Luccheses to operate. Some of the group's leaders also had real estate.

He talked about how Gambino captain Greg DePalma was able to settle a lot of beefs with the Albanians but not all. And the gas station meeting happened after things had risen to a boiling point when the Rudaj group shutdown a Greek club in Astoria (backed by the Gambinos). It seems both the Albanians and the Gambinos saw an opportunity to move in on territory long held by the Luccheses.

Anyway, while a lot of news articles painted the picture of the mob being the one to back down, Garcia actually sees it the other way. His take was basically that, after the meeting where you had like 20 Gambino guys there and 5 or 6 Rudaj guys, the Albanians realized they had gone about as far as they could go and the mob was too strong if push came to shove.

The press loves the concept of the new overthrowing the old and so it usually took that route in how it reported things. And those of us who go back a while on these forums know there were a few Albanian posters that derived a lot of their personal self-worth and national pride from this story. But the Rudaj organization was never in a position or had the manpower to be a major threat to the LCN. The fact they were essentially wiped out in a single indictment shows the difference.

Those who wonder why the Albanians weren't wiped off the map have probably watched too many movies. At some point in the 1990's the LCN actually moved to cut way down on murders due to the heat they were bringing. Contrast that with the cowboy ways of the Rudaj group, which brought some initial victories but also the attention of law enforcement. The Rudaj organization lasted little more than a decade because of it.