I'm still trying to find which thread it was, but there was a link to the Mary Ferrell docs, in it they had the Gambinos at 1000 members. That was when I said, " okay, the Feds were playing catch up still"... If you had the standard ten made guys per crew, you are talking about a hundred capos. I've heard as many as thirty for the Gambinos, but a hundred???!!!!

(It's something that inadvertently gives credence to the Gambinos selling memberships' but that another thread...)


If that's true, then sure, Buffalo coulda have two or even three hundred guys. It woulda still meant the Gambinos were five times bigger. And if you think the Gambinos were about 300, then the same rate of like 5-1 could apply, and that would have Buffalo at 60 guys. So to me either way, 200 or 60 are plausible, but I think the smaller number more likely.

But it's compelling, the MAFIA WAS STRONG AS HELL DURING THIS PERIOD. Think about it, the Yakuza ( the organization most similar to the Sicilian mafia, to me) could support 10-15 or 20 thousand guys. At the height of mafia power, I certainly think they coulda supported 2700 guys....mThe UNIONS alone might have been able to support 2000 guys, I dunno. It's an interesting question, the numbers of made guys during that period.