Carlo Gambino become so powerful because yes,was smart but was sicilian and in the 1950s most of the family boss was sicilian and/or was born and emigrated to america so thanks to this net he can expand the family rackets,a thing that a boss like costello that was calabrian or genovese that,worst, was neapolitan wouldn't do.
Why wouldn’t Genovese or Costello not be able to expand the family rackets because of that? And Costello was northern Calabrese I believe which was closer to campania. Southern Calabria is more like Sicily in dialect and culture I’m assuming. And I would think that both Costello and Genovese had a lot of support from Sicilian mobsters within their crime families in order to become bosses no? My family is from Sicily and I’ve never understood the differences growing up.
I don't say that Costello and Genovese wasnt able to expansed their rackets but tgey used irish and Jew gangsters because some old sicilian mafiosi had a prejudice on them.
For Calabria,Campania and Sicily it are very different but today there arent so many prejudices but the sicilian mafia considerate for years the camorra and ndrangheta as inferior because less organizated. And today more Calabrians say that the Signa welcome to italy stay in Calabria and that the sicily is part of africa.
That sounds so childish because Calabria and Sicily practically border each other and from what I’ve read, even share the same dialect. It’s actually funny lol.
Revis_Island this is not true,even if Calabria and Sicily border each other they were different as for dialect that for the other things (Im italian and can say the difference between the two dialects) for the oc the Calabrians was focused until the 1990 on the kidnappings and after when the mafia declared war to the italian state,the ndrine used the bilion that made with kidnappings for replace cosa nostra in drug trade.
The sicilians for example considered the ndrangheta as the gambinos considered the decavalcante aka a peasants because they were only focused in blood ties and had no International links.
That wasnt true and cosa nostra had to ask help for save their men that was in narcos hands because have no money for pay the drug.
Its hard to explane but the proximity is only physical for the rest there is a huge abyss that divides them.
