Italian
Organized Crime—Overview
Since
their appearance in the 1800s, the Italian criminal societies known
as the Mafia have infiltrated the social and economic fabric of Italy
and now impact the world. They are some of the most notorious and
widespread of all criminal societies.
There are several groups currently active in the U.S.: the Sicilian
Mafia; the Camorra or Neapolitan Mafia; the ’Ndrangheta or
Calabrian Mafia; and the Sacra Corona Unita or United Sacred Crown.
We estimate the four groups have approximately 25,000 members total,
with 250,000 affiliates worldwide. There are more than 3,000 members
and affiliates in the U.S., scattered mostly throughout the major
cities in the Northeast, the Midwest, California, and the South.
Their largest presence centers around New York, southern New Jersey,
and Philadelphia.
Their criminal activities are international with members and affiliates
in Canada, South America, Australia, and parts of Europe. They are
also known to collaborate with other international organized crime
groups from all over the world, especially in drug trafficking.
The major threats to American society posed by these groups are
drug trafficking and money laundering. They have been involved in
heroin trafficking for decades. Two major investigations that targeted
Italian organized crime drug trafficking in the 1980s are known as
the “French Connection” and the “Pizza Connection.”
These groups don’t limit themselves to drug running, though. They’re
also involved in illegal gambling, political corruption, extortion, kidnapping,
fraud, counterfeiting, infiltration of legitimate businesses, murders, bombings,
and weapons trafficking. Industry experts in Italy estimate that their worldwide
criminal activity is worth more than $100 billion annually.
A Long History
These enterprises evolved over the course of 3,000 years during numerous periods
of invasion and exploitation by numerous conquering armies in Italy. Over
the millennia, Sicilians became more clannish and began to rely on familial
ties for safety, protection, justice, and survival.
An underground secret society formed initially as resistance fighters
against the invaders and to exact frontier vigilante justice against
oppression. A member was known as a “Man Of Honor,” respected and admired because he protected his family and friends
and kept
silent even unto death.
Sicilians weren’t concerned if the group profited from its
actions because it came at the expense of the oppressive authorities.
These secret societies eventually grew into the Mafia.
Since the 1900s, thousands of Italian organized crime figures—mostly
Sicilian Mafiosi—have come illegally to this country. Many
who fled here in the early 1920s helped establish what is known today
as La Cosa Nostra or the American Mafia.
Charles “Lucky” Luciano, a Mafioso from Sicily, came
to the U.S. during this era and is credited for making the American
La Cosa Nostra what it is today. Luciano structured the La Cosa Nostra
after the Sicilian Mafia. When Luciano was deported back to Italy
in 1946 for operating a prostitution ring, he became a liaison between
the Sicilian Mafia and La Cosa Nostra.
Sicilian Mafia (based in Sicily)
The Sicilian Mafia formed in the mid-1800s to unify the Sicilian peasants against
their enemies. In Sicily, the word Mafia tends to mean “manly.” The
Sicilian Mafia changed from a group of honorable Sicilian men to an organized
criminal group in the 1920s.
In the 1950s, Sicily enjoyed a massive building boom. Taking advantage
of the opportunity, the Sicilian Mafia gained control of the building
contracts and made millions of dollars. Today, the Sicilian Mafia
has evolved into an international organized crime group. Some experts
estimate it is the second largest organization in Italy.
The Sicilian Mafia specializes in heroin trafficking, political
corruption, and military arms trafficking—and is also known
to engage in arson, frauds, counterfeiting, and other racketeering
crimes. With an estimated 2,500 Sicilian Mafia affiliates it is the
most powerful and most active Italian organized crime group in the
U.S.
The Sicilian Mafia is infamous for its aggressive assaults on Italian
law enforcement officials. In Sicily the term “Excellent Cadaver” is
used to distinguish the assassination of prominent government officials
from the common criminals and ordinary citizens killed by the Mafia.
High-ranking victims include police commissioners, mayors, judges,
police colonels and generals, and Parliament members.
On May 23, 1992, the Sicilian Mafia struck Italian law enforcement
with a vengeance. At approximately 6 p.m., Italian Magistrate Giovanni
Falcone, his wife, and three police body guards were killed by a
massive bomb. Falcone was the director of Criminal Affairs in Rome.
The bomb made a crater 30 feet in diameter in the road. The murders
became known as the Capaci Massacre.
Less than two months later, on July 19, the Mafia struck Falcone’s
newly named replacement, Judge Paolo Borsellino in Palermo, Sicily.
Borsellino and five bodyguards were killed outside the apartment
of Borsellino’s mother when a car packed with explosives was
detonated by remote control.
Under Judge Falcone’s tenure the FBI and Italian law enforcement
established a close working relationship aimed at dismantling Italian
organized crime groups operating in both countries. That relationship
has intensified since then.
Camorra or Neapolitan Mafia (based in Naples)
The word “Camorra” means gang. The Camorra first appeared in the
mid-1800s in Naples, Italy, as a prison gang. Once released, members formed
clans in the cities and continued to grow in power. The Camorra has more than
100 clans and approximately 7,000 members, making it the largest of the Italian
organized crime groups.
In the 1970s, the Sicilian Mafia convinced the Camorra to convert
their cigarette smuggling routes into drug smuggling routes with
the Sicilian Mafia's assistance. Not all Camorra leaders agreed,
leading to the Camorra Wars that cost 400 lives. Opponents of drug
trafficking lost the war.
The Camorra made a fortune in reconstruction after an earthquake
ravaged the Campania region in 1980. Now it specializes in cigarette
smuggling and receives payoffs from other criminal groups for any
cigarette traffic through Italy. The Camorra is also involved in
money laundering, extortion, alien smuggling, robbery, blackmail,
kidnapping, political corruption, and counterfeiting.
It is believed that nearly 200 Camorra affiliates reside in this
country, many of whom arrived during the Camorra Wars.
’Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia (based in Calabria)
The word “’Ndrangheta” comes from the Greek meaning courage
or loyalty. The ’Ndrangheta formed in the 1860s when a group of Sicilians
was banished from the island by the Italian government. They settled in Calabria
and formed small criminal groups.
There are about 160 ’Ndrangheta cells with roughly 6,000 members.
They specialize in kidnapping and political corruption, but also
engage in drug trafficking, murder, bombings, counterfeiting, gambling,
frauds, thefts, labor racketeering, loansharking, and alien smuggling.
Cells are loosely connected family groups based on blood relationships
and marriages. In the U.S., there are an estimated 100-200 members
and associates, primarily in New York and Florida.
Sacra Corona Unita or United Sacred Crown (based in the
Puglia region)
Law enforcement became aware of the Sacra Corona Unita in the late 1980s. Like
other groups, it started as a prison gang. As its members were released, they
settled in the Puglia region in Italy and continued to grow and form links
with other Mafia groups. The Sacra Corona Unita is headquartered in Brindisi,
located in the southeastern region of Puglia.
The Sacra Corona Unita consists of about 50 clans with approximately
2,000 members and specializes in smuggling cigarettes, drugs, arms,
and people. It is also involved in money laundering, extortion, and
political corruption. The organization collects payoffs from other
criminal groups for landing rights on the southeast coast of Italy,
a natural gateway for smuggling to and from post-Communist countries
like Croatia, Yugoslavia, and Albania.
Very few Sacra Corona Unita members have been identified in the
U.S., although some individuals in Illinois, Florida, and New York
have links to the organization.
Organized
Crime home
La Cosa Nostra
La Cosa Nostra is the foremost organized criminal threat to American society.
Literally translated into English it means “this thing of ours.” It
is a nationwide alliance of criminals—linked by blood ties or through conspiracy—dedicated
to pursuing crime and protecting its members.
La Cosa Nostra, or the LCN as it is known by the FBI,
consists of different “families” or groups that
are generally arranged geographically and engaged in significant
and organized
racketeering activity. It is also known as the Mafia, a term
used to describe other organized crime groups.
The LCN is most active in the New York metropolitan area,
parts of New Jersey, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and New
England. It has members in other major cities and is involved
in international crimes.
History of La Cosa Nostra
Although La Cosa Nostra has its roots in Italian organized crime, it has been
a separate organization for many years. Today, La Cosa Nostra cooperates
in various criminal activities with different criminal groups that are headquartered
in Italy.
Giuseppe Esposito was the first known Sicilian Mafia member
to emigrate to the U.S. He and six other Sicilians fled to
New York after murdering the chancellor and a vice chancellor
of a Sicilian province and 11 wealthy landowners. He was arrested
in New Orleans in 1881 and extradited to Italy.
New Orleans was also the site of the first major Mafia incident
in this country. On October 15, 1890, New Orleans Police Superintendent
David Hennessey was murdered execution-style. Hundreds of Sicilians
were arrested, and 19 were eventually indicted for the murder.
An acquittal generated rumors of widespread bribery and intimidated
witnesses. Outraged citizens of New Orleans organized a lynch
mob and killed 11 of the 19 defendants. Two were hanged, nine
were shot, and the remaining eight escaped.
The American Mafia has evolved over the years as various gangs
assumed—and lost—dominance over the years: the
Black Hand gangs around 1900; the Five Points Gang in the 1910s
and ‘20s in New York City; Al Capone’s Syndicate
in Chicago in the 1920s. By the end of the ‘20s, two
primary factions had emerged, leading to a war for control
of organized crime in New York City.
The murder of faction leader Joseph Masseria brought an end
to the gang warfare, and the two groups united to form the
organization now dubbed La Cosa Nostra. It was not a peaceful
beginning: Salvatore Maranzano, the first leader of La Cosa
Nostra, was murdered within six months.
Charles “Lucky” Luciano became the new leader.
Maranzano had established the La Cosa Nostra code of conduct,
set up the “family” divisions and structure, and
established procedures for resolving disputes. Luciano set
up the “Commission” to rule all La Cosa Nostra
activities. The Commission included bosses from six or seven
families.
Luciano was deported back to Italy in 1946 based on his conviction
for operating a prostitution ring. There, he became a liaison
between the Sicilian Mafia and La Cosa Nostra.
Other Historical Highlights:
1951: A U.S. Senate committee led by Democrat
Estes Kefauver of Tennessee determined that a “sinister
criminal organization” known as the Mafia operated in
this nation.
1957: The New
York State Police uncovered a meeting of major LCN figures from around the country in the small upstate New York town
of Apalachin. Many of the attendees were arrested. The event
was the catalyst that changed the way law enforcement battles
organized crime.
1963: Joseph Valachi became the first La
Cosa Nostra member to provide a detailed looked inside the
organization. Recruited by FBI agents, Valachi revealed to
a U.S. Senate committee numerous secrets of the organization,
including its name, structure, power bases, codes, swearing-in
ceremony, and members of the organization.
Today, La Cosa Nostra is involved in a broad spectrum of illegal
activities: murder, extortion, drug trafficking, corruption
of public officials, gambling, infiltration of legitimate businesses,
labor racketeering, loan sharking, prostitution, pornography,
tax-fraud schemes, and stock manipulation schemes.
The Genovese Crime Family
Named after legendary boss Vito Genovese, the Genovese crime
family was once considered the most powerful organized crime
family in the nation. Members and their numerous associates engaged
in drug trafficking, murder, assault, gambling, extortion, loansharking,
labor racketeering, money laundering, arson, gasoline bootlegging,
and infiltration of legitimate businesses.
Genovese family members are also involved in stock market
manipulation and other illegal frauds and schemes as evidenced
by the recent FBI investigation code named “Mobstocks.”
The Genovese crime family has its roots in the Italian criminal
groups in New York controlled by Joseph Masseria in the 1920s.
The family history is rife with murder, violence, and greed.
Early History—Masseria and Maranzano
Masseria sparked the so-called “Castellammarese War” in 1928 when
he tried to gain control of organized crime across the country. The war ended
in 1931 when Salvatore Maranzano conspired with Masseria’s top soldier,
Charles “Lucky” Luciano, to have Masseria killed. Maranzano emerged
as the most powerful Mafia boss in the nation, setting up five separate criminal
groups in New York and calling himself “Boss of Bosses.”
Two of the most powerful La Cosa Nostra families—known
today as the Genovese and Gambino
families—emerged from Maranzano’s restructuring
efforts. Maranzano named Luciano the first boss of what would
later be known as the Genovese family. Luciano showed his appreciation
less than five months later by sending five men dressed as
police officers to Maranzano’s office to murder him.
Luciano, Costello, and Genovese
With Maranzano out of the way, Luciano become the most powerful Mafia boss
in America and used his position to run La Cosa Nostra like a major corporation.
He set up the LCN Commission, or ruling body, composed of seven bosses, and
divided the different rackets among the families.
In 1936, Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison.
Ten years later, he was released from prison and deported to
Italy, never to return. When he was convicted, Frank Costello
became acting boss because Genovese—then just an underboss—had
fled to Italy to avoid a murder charge. His return to the states
was cleared when a key witness against him was poisoned and
the charges were dropped.
Costello led the family for approximately 20 years until May
of 1957 when Genovese took control by sending soldier Vincent “the
Chin” Gigante to murder him. Costello survived the attack
but relinquished control of the family to Genovese. Attempted
murder charges against Gigante were dismissed when Costello
refused to identify him as the shooter.
In 1959, it was Genovese’s turn to go to prison following
a conviction of conspiracy to violate narcotics laws. He received
a 15-year sentence but continued to run the family through
his underlings from his prison cell in Atlanta, Georgia.
Valachi Sings—and Lombardo Leads
About this time, Joseph Valachi, a “made man,” was sent to the
same prison as Genovese on a narcotics conviction. Labeled an informer, Valachi
survived three attempts on his life behind bars. Still in prison in 1962, he
killed a man he thought Genovese had sent to kill him. He was sentenced to
life for the murder.
The sentencing was a turning point for Valachi, who decided
to cooperate with the U.S. government. On September 27, 1963,
he appeared before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations and testified that he was a member of a secret
criminal society in the U.S. known as La Cosa Nostra.
In 1969, several years after Valachi began cooperating with
the FBI, Vito Genovese died in his prison cell. By then the
Genovese family was under the control of Philip “Benny
Squint” Lombardo. Unlike the bosses before him, Lombardo
preferred to rule behind his underboss. His first, Thomas Eboli,
was murdered in 1972. Lombardo promoted Frank “Funzi” Tieri,
and later Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno as his front
men.
Throughout the 1980s, the Genovese family hierarchy went through
several changes. Tieri, recognized on the street as the Genovese
family boss in the late 1970s, was convicted for operating
a criminal organization through a pattern of racketeering that
included murder and extortion.
Salerno then fronted as boss until he had stroke in 1981.
In 1985, Salerno and the bosses of the other four New York
families were convicted for operating a criminal enterprise—the
LCN Commission. Lombardo, his two captains in prison and his
health failing, turned full control of the Genovese family
over to Gigante—the man who tried to kill Costello 30
years earlier.
Fish on the Hook
In 1986, a second member turned against the Genovese family when Vincent “Fish” Cafaro,
a soldier and right-hand-man to Anthony Salerno, decided to cooperate with
the FBI and testify. According to Cafaro’s sworn statement, Gigante ran
the family from behind the scenes while pretending to be mentally ill. Cafaro
said this behavior helped further insulate Gigante from authorities while he
ran the Genovese family’s criminal activities.
Gigante’s odd behavior and mumbling while he walked
around New York’s East Village in a bathrobe earned him
the nickname “the Odd Father.” After an FBI investigation,
Gigante was convicted of racketeering and murder conspiracy
in December 1997 and sentenced to 12 years. Another FBI investigation
led to his indictment on January 17, 2002, accusing him of
continuing to run the Genovese family from prison. He pled
guilty to obstruction of justice in 2003.
Gigante died in prison in December 2005 in the same federal
hospital where Gambino family leader John Gotti had died in
2002.
Organized
Crime home
The Pantheon Project and the Italian American Working
Group
Over the years, FBI investigations have revealed how organized
criminal groups have proliferated and impacted much of the
world. Partnerships with foreign law enforcement agencies are
essential to combat global organized crime groups.
The Pantheon Project was developed to improve
cooperation between Italy and the U.S. in fighting Italian
organized crime. Through the project, two FBI investigators
are detailed to the headquarters of the Italian National Police,
while the FBI hosts two Italian officers. The investigators
work side-by-side with host agents and other law enforcement
officials to help investigate the Sicilian mafia and La Cosa
Nostra. They also work on Albanian organized crime.
Italian American Working Group
The FBI takes part in the Italian American Working Group, which meets every
year. The group addresses organized crime, cyber crime, money laundering,
international terrorism, illegal immigration, cooperating witnesses, drug
smuggling, art theft, extradition matters, and cigarette smuggling. The U.S.
and Italy take turns hosting the meetings.
Organized
Crime home
Labor Racketeering
Labor racketeering is the domination, manipulation, and control
of a labor movement in order to affect related businesses and
industries. It can lead to the denial of workers’ rights
and inflicts an economic loss on the workers, business, industry,
insurer, or consumer.
The historical involvement of La Cosa Nostra in labor racketeering
has been thoroughly documented:
- More than one-third of the 58 members arrested in 1957
at the Apalachin conference in New York listed their employment
as “labor” or “labor-management relations.”
- Three major U.S. Senate investigations have documented
La Cosa Nostra’s involvement in labor racketeering.
One of these, the McClellan Committee, in the late-1950s,
found systemic racketeering in both the International Brotherhood
of Teamsters and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees
International Union.
- In 1986, the President’s Council on Organized Crime
reported that five major unions—including the Teamsters
and the Laborers International Union of North America—were
dominated by organized crime.
- In the early 1980s, former Gambino Family Boss Paul Castellano
was overheard saying, “Our job is to run the unions.”
Labor racketeering has become one of La Cosa Nostra’s
fundamental sources of profit, national power, and influence.
FBI investigations over the years have clearly demonstrated
that labor racketeering costs the American public millions
of dollars each year through increased labor costs that are
eventually passed on to consumers.
Labor unions provide a rich source for organized criminal
groups to exploit: their pension, welfare, and health funds.
There are approximately 75,000 union locals in the U.S., and
many of them maintain their own benefit funds. In the mid-1980s,
the Teamsters controlled more than 1,000 funds with total assets
of more than $9 billion.
Labor racketeers attempt to control health, welfare, and pension
plans by offering “sweetheart” contracts, peaceful
labor relations, and relaxed work rules to companies, or by
rigging union elections.
Labor law violations occur primarily in large cities with
both a strong industrial base and strong labor unions, like
New York, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia.
These cities also have a large presence of organized crime
figures.
We have several investigative techniques to root out labor
law violations: electronic surveillance, undercover operations,
confidential sources, and victim interviews. We also have numerous
criminal and civil statutes to use at our disposal, primarily
through the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO)
Statute.
The civil provisions of the RICO statute have proven to be
very powerful weapons, especially the consent decrees. They
are often more productive because they attack the entire corrupt
entity instead of imprisoning individuals, who can easily be
replaced with other organized crime members or associates.
Consent decrees are most effective when there is long-term,
systemic corruption at virtually every level of a labor union
by criminal organizations. A civil RICO complaint and subsequent
consent decree can restore democracy to a corrupt union by
imposing civil remedies designed to eliminate such corruption
and deter its re-emergence.
The Teamsters are the best example of how efficiently the
civil RICO process can be used. For decades, the Teamsters
has been substantially controlled by La Cosa Nostra. In recent
years, four of eight Teamster presidents were indicted, yet
the union continued to be controlled by organized crime elements.
The government has been fairly successful at removing the extensive
criminal influence from this 1.4 million-member union by using
the civil process.
We work closely with the Office of Labor Racketeering in the
Department of Labor and with the U.S. Attorneys' offices
in investigating violations of labor law.
Organized
Crime home |