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The Mafia, what a concept: organized crime, extortion, kidnapping, blackmail, homicide, robbery, and ransom. All this for power and status. Who would have thought landowners would become this powerful? This is why I wanted to research the mafia, to learn about what my Sicilian Mafiosi relatives were up to back then in the 13th century, and how they got their power. I intended to learn about the Mafia’s techniques for “getting what they want” and how not to get caught by the Police, so I can apply it to my life. Not really, I just wanted to learn about my Sicilian Mafiosi relative’s activities, the history and origins of the mafia, and how it spread all over the world.
When I needed to find information to get me started on research the first thing I looked at was the Webster’s Family Reference Book, volume 6. The entry was brief but to summarize it in my own words it said: The Mafia (not called the Mafia until the 19th century) was started because Sicilian landowners needed to employ people to manage their land. Through extortion, kidnapping, blackmail, homicide, robbery, and ransom the Sicilian Pre-Mafia gained so much land and power that they virtually ruled Sicily until the efforts of the fascists put a temporary crimp on the Mafia’s style and power. After the fascists were taken out during World War 2 the Mafia had the chance to spread to all corners of the globe.
I found that by using the search key word “Mafia” you can find many dedicated web sites about the mafia. The source for this data was from an official American Mafia web site. This source is an article from www.AmericanMafia.com; the article is “Origins and History of The Mafia ‘Commission’” by Richard Lindberg. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has openly denied the existence of a National Mafia or other organized crime network, until 1957. To think of even suggesting that a group (or many groups) of career criminals associated with twenty-four crime “families” was taboo. The giggle factor also played a role in keeping the Mafia under wraps for a long time. All this was secretly put to a meeting to define objectives of Mafiosi and to set a national policy to sensor the Mafia from the public.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was forced to admit that a crime cartel was alive and well in American. When this was disclosed to the public a list of sixty-five ranking Mafiosi was released on November 14, 1957. State troopers accompanied by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms tax unit, noticed and monitored a few infamous Mafia “officials” entering and leaving from the house of the rich president of the Canada Dry Bottling Company. Roadblocks were quickly setup. The aging “dons” ran into nearby woods throwing away guns and money. Even though no one was charged with a crime, attending media outlets and reporters fixated national attention on this rumored crime commission. The origins of the American Mafia date back to 1931.
The New York underworld of crime had coalesced with ruling by an old-fashioned crime boss named “Joe the Boss” Masseria. He hid his various illegal businesses under the disguise of familial traditions, honor, respect, and oaths of loyalty. Many of the younger bosses: primarily Joe Profaci, Thomas Lucchese, and Joseph Bonanno hated that the older bosses (who cloaked themselves in outdated and forgotten European customs) should be instructing them on what to do.
This caused the Young Turk Faction to align itself with Brooklyn mob-boss Salvatore Maranzano. He was a “Mustache Pete” who wanted and tried to fulfill the Mafiosi dream to be the “Boss of Bosses.” Maranzano was born in Castellammarese de Golfo (located in Sicily). He started the war against the Neapolitan Masseria in 1928. This war became known as the Castellammarese War. Bullets and insults were traded for three years. With no resolution in sight (for the Castellammarese War), hoping for victory is all the sided could do. Getting tired of endless bloodshed, Salvatore “Lucky” Luciano, tried to start an ally of Masseria, he was pressed for a settlement of the dispute. Masseria refused, this caused Luciano to plot the death of the older man (Masseria). Vito Genovese, Ciro Terranova, Joe Adonis, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Albert Anastasia, all played important roles in the development of the modern American Mafia, including its ruling a National Commission.
Masseria was killed inside the Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant located somewhere in the Coney Island part of Brooklyn. This murder took place on April 15 (at least he didn’t have to do taxes), 1931. The Neapolitan “family” boss was shot with a hand gun six times. He sat by himself at a table feasting on antipasto and linguine. This took place after “Lucky” Luciano excused himself from the table and went into the restroom. He believed himself to be immortal to the doings of his overly jealous upstarts. An army of 600 “soldiers” backed Maranzano. He proclaimed himself to be the “Boss of Bosses”. This proclamation took place in a secret meeting inside a Bronx social hall. Maranzano drafted the organizational structure that is used by the Mafia today in America. Supposedly, Maranzano coined the phrase “La Cosa Nostra,” which means “this thing of ours”. The American Mafia is also referred to as “Cosa Nostra”, which is translated into “our affair”.
Luciano ordered the assassination of Maranzano inside his real estate office on Park Avenue. He was killed on September 10, 1931. Four men disguised and acting like policemen brushed through security, they emptied their six-shot revolvers into the Boss of Bosses’ head and body. Maranzano’s body was found in Newark Bay. With in the next day, three other “Mustache Petes” were systematically eliminated. With an opening in the “crime lord position”, Luciano and Meyer Lansky realized the National Mafia needed charter members. Luciano, Joseph, Bonnano, Vincent Mangano, Joseph Profaci, Thomas Gagliano, Stefano Magaddino, and Frank Nitti were brought in as charter Mafiosi. Sam Giancana was serving (for nine years) as Chicago’s representative of the Outfit in the 1950s. Giancana was smart and kept his organization a very long arms length away.
During the 1940s, a Jewish-Italian combination known as the “Big Six” (Frank Costello, Joe Adonis, Meyer Lansky, Tony Accardo, Jake Guzik, and Longy Zwillman) were influential in policymaking. However, their precise role and eventual successors is open to interpretation. After Lansky died in 1983, the Jewish presence on the Commission all but disappeared. In April 1986, Mafia membership totaled at around 1,700 Mafiosi. The President’s Commission gathered this data on Organized Crime. The 1,700 Mafiosi were members in twenty-four major “families”.
Many other crime groups soon fell under the influence of bigger, better-organized crime families. The Chicago family dominated the smaller midwestern crime groups in Kansas City, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Rockford, and Detroit. The Genovese family controlled Cleveland. The Genovese family was based in New York. In November 1986, heads of the five crime families were convicted of conducting the doings of “La Cosa Nostra”.
Putting the heads of crime in jail was a lethal blow to the national Mafia, but many younger Mafiosi rushed in and took the place of the 1931 crime lords. It is believed that the national Mafia Commission still exists in a diminished capacity and is centralized along the East Coast.
For an interview I had to do it online because all the people I know who are actively involved in the Mafia live in Sicily. I went to the chat room on www.AmericanMafia.com to find a person to interview. I found a person who went by the screen name of Jimmy_The_Weasel. He claimed to be related to the real Jimmy the Weasel. The real Jimmy The Weasel was shot in the back of the head, the bullet ripped out his left eye.
I found out a lot from him. One interesting thing he told me about was a day in the life of a Mafiosi. It went as follows: Wake up, put on holster, take gun from under pillow and put it in holster, watch your back, eat breakfast at a place where family cooks (or other trusted people cook), leave and watch your back some more. By lunch: eat at a trusted restaurant, and watch your back until the next Mafia meeting, eat dinner at the meeting (hoping that your are still needed in the Mafia and are not going to be poisoned), go home and put gun under pillow and sleep.
Jimmy told me that he was a New York cop for five years. After his five years he was convinced to go to the “Mafia Side”, he was 28 at the time. Because of his accuracy with handguns he was a hit man and made ten thousand dollars on his first kill.
He made Capo Mafioso (the next highest rank, “second to Boss of Bosses”) for a few years. He dropped down (by his own will) to a driver because his life was in danger more than he could handle. He stated, “When you get shot at three times in a week you want out”.
He retired when his doctor said to him “your blood pressure is so high it is like your being shot at every day”; according to Jimmy this is a true quote. His “family” said that because he was likely to die of a heart attack because of the stress he should retire and relax. He would not tell me where but he has a vacation home that he frequents in the southeastern United States.
When I was looking for a source, I would naturally choose a book called The Mafia Encyclopedia by Carl Sifakis. It was a huge glossary of famous and infamous Mafiosi. The part of the book I primarily used was the summary of the American Mafia. Some facts about organized crime and the Mafia I did not know prior to researching this topic were as follows. The Mafia was denied existence by the government until 1986. During the Mafia trials (the trials of the afore mentioned five heads of crime) the government officials even remotely involved in this were very anti-Italian. During the trials it was determined that most crime (excluding white collar crime) was executed by groups with a strong ethnic background. This caused any general study of crime to be a study of ethnicity. Prior to 1920 almost no organized crime was present in the United States. Prohibition brought a big demand for alcohol. The Mafia filled this demand well.
Russia is a big country with much Mafia activity and little police activity. When researching the Mafia I would be sure to include a source called Russia and the Plague of Organized Crime by Ulrich Schmid. This document originally printed in “Swiss Preview of World Affairs”, in September, 1993. Most people in Russia with over priced goods in their stores are considered “Russian Mafia”. The Mafia controls or influences almost every privately owned store in Russia. The Russian Mafia has its slippery little tentacles on almost every illegal business.
Russian has a big banking system and the Mafia takes advantage of that. Each year Russian banks loose several hundred billion rubles do to false mafia back accounts. It is estimates that seventy percent of St. Petersburg police are corrupt and have “Mafia” connections. There are 150 active Mafia gangs in Russia today. Russia’s forty percent tax is government but it is blamed on the Mafia. With the downfall of communism in Russian a need for organized crime arose.
I learned a lot; it is just too bad that I have limited time to work on this assignment because there is at least 10 times the data that I researched and I could not put in this paper. With the Mafia being over 800 years old and reaching all over the world there is so much to learn. I learned about the ways my Sicilian Mafiosi relatives gained power and wealth and how so many people around the world started their own Mafias, like in the United States, USSR (now Russia, Russia still has a Mafia), China, and many other small countries are ruled by Mafias.
Jimmy_The_Weasel. Online Interview. April 1-6, 2003. Yahoo. Email: Jimmy_The_Weasel@yahoo.com. New York, United States.
Lindberg, Richard. “Origins and History of the Mafia ‘Commission’”. Search International. http://www.Search-International.com. 2001.
“Mafia”. Webster’s Family Reference Books. Vol. 6. 10 Vols. Great Neck, New York: Archer World Wide, inc., 1996-97.
Schmid, Ulrich. “Russian And The Plague of Organized Crime” Swiss Preview of World Affairs. Ed. Elenor Goldstien. (sept., 1993): 6-8. Rpt. In Crime. Boca Raton, Fl.: Social Issues Resources Series, inc., 1993-1994.
Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia: From Accardo to Zwilliman.: Checkmark Books, 1999.
