Not to defend Oak here, but does anyone honestly believe someone like Frank Costello could attain all that power, rub shoulders with the political denizens of New York, become "Prime Minister of the Underworld", without selling a few of his chums down the river? Honestly now?
There were a lot less rats back then because the mafia were basically given carte blanche because the FBI were too busy chasing their tails over communists.
Look at how quickly Costello moved out of the way when Genovese tried to take him out.
A lot of these guys wouldn't have been able to do the hard time if the FBI dangled all the benefits guys like Massino, Leonetti, D'Arco and Gravano got.
I mean all of those guys got to keep the lions share of their illicitly gained wealth; the Feds even agreed to back off Massino's wife even though she was complicit in a lot of his rackets, he practically gave her more power than his own brother in law.
Here's the thing - the Costello era was completely different. In those days, law enforcement didn't corrupt mobsters, mobsters corrupted law enforcement. Most mobsters in those days never got hard time, and a lot of very successful ones were able to brush shoulders with high society. That doesn't mean all of them were snitches. In fact, the FBI's mindset in that time was to put organized crime and the Mafia in the backseat whilst the dealt with bank robberies and the like.
In an era where it was dirt-cheap to corrupt law enforcement and mess with the court system however you pleased, there is little point in risking your entire career and reputation to drop a couple of dimes on the competition.
To be honest I don't see what's so hard to believe about upper-echelon criminals having a relationship with the authorities.
No, no, no. There's nothing hard to be "about upper-echelon criminals having a relationship with the authorities." It's the notion that HALF - yes, 50% - of mobsters IN HISTORY were informers. That's the notion that I, and I assume just about everybody else in the forum, has a problem with.
These guys aren't mythical heroes, and you gotta grease palms to get shit done. I absolutely can see these guys dropping dimes on their competition. Not in the traditional snitching sense where a guy takes the stand, but passing along info here and there in exchange for leniency or other favors. The world is not as black and white as some of you seem to think it is. Look at the well-known cases of guys who sort of "ratted their way to the top". Whitey Bulger/Stevie Flemmi and Greg Scarpa are the most well-known but I'd bet both balls there are plenty more who never had any paperwork to go with the info they gave up.
If they never had any paperwork to go with the info they gave up then there cannot have been any substantial info. Which means their snitching was completely pointless. Which would mean that all they did was risk their career and reputation over inconsequential information that was so pathetic it was never even documented.
Here's the thing with using Greg Scarpa as an example of how an informer can use it to his advantage, yada yada. Greg Scarpa was a person who, over a 30 year period as an FBI, never spent more than 30 days behind bars despite everybody else falling around him. If you can find me more examples like that, you might have a case of a potential informer on your hands. The thing is, the vast majority of mobsters get locked up and don't have a seemingly mystical fairy godmother giving them lenient sentences. They don't have the feds vouching for less jail time. How can you argue that a mobster is an informant when he doesn't regular, heavy jail stretches. Why would the FBI conduct serious, lengthy investigations on their top-echelon informers?
Here's the other thing with Scarpa. Everybody SUSPECTED he was an informer anyways. Rumors went round for years. Peter Lance's book "Deal with the Devil" goes into more detail. Not to mention, Scarpa was open about having a "girlfriend" with the feds who could help him out. There was even a NY Post article written BEFORE his death that indicated he was a rat.
So how on earth can you tell me that 50% of all mobsters in history were informers? And how on earth can you say they were just like Scarpa, when Scarpa's underworld status was completely unique for 30 years.
