Posted on 02/23/2006 1:56:49 PM PST by Calpernia
A federal indictment unsealed Thursday charges 32 people with racketeering crimes, including people described as the acting boss, members and associates of the Genovese organized crime family.
The 42-count indictment says the defendants engaged in crimes for more than a decade.
Those crimes include murder, violent extortion of individuals and businesses, labor racketeering, obstruction of justice, narcotics trafficking, money laundering and firearms trafficking.
Federal prosecutors planned to release details at a noon news conference.
Gee, I saw two freepers posting that the mafia doesn't exist anymore. I will have to go find them and ping them.
Isn't it just the Italian Yakuza?
The Italian Mafia is done. Has been for years. They're still around, but current-generation guys don't have the stomach for extreme savagery. The various South American gangs are another story.
When the USSR collapsed, has nobody ever wondered what happened to the legions of KGB thugs who held up the old regime? People highly trained in assassination techniques, surveillance and counter-surveillance? People professionally trained in how to get into highly-guarded installations? What do you think that members of the "Russian Mafia" were doing during the Soviet era?
40 posted on 02/19/2006 12:05:06 PM EST by SauronOfMordor
Some of the aligned I mentioned in the other thread (Longshoreman).
Cryptic has interesting thought. That would explain the Asian money (David Chang and Tongsun).
Hillary and Chuck?
The Genovese Family
200 to 225 members
Boss: Vincent “Chin” Gigante, 76
Underboss: Venero “Benny Eggs” Mangano, 83 (Incarcerated)
Consigliere: Vacant
The Genovese clan, long considered the Ivy League of organized crime, is the only family whose heir apparent and official boss seem to be one and the same. Vincent “Chin” Gigante took over around 1982. He’s been in federal prison since 1997. The Oddfather, whose crazy-man strolls in Greenwich Village in his pajamas kept him out of prison for decades, is scheduled for release at age 82, in 2010— if he lives that long.
His genes give him a good shot. His brother Mario, believed by some to function as Chin’s acting boss, is active at 81. Their mom, whose calls of “Cinzini” out her Greenwich Village apartment window gave Vincent his nickname, lived to 95.
Until then, he has a committee of three serving as his eyes and ears: Mario, who ended three years of supervised release in June following a 42-month term for labor racketeering, and two longtime allies who hail from his downtown, or West Side, base: Lawrence “Little Larry” Dentico, 81, and Dominick “Quiet Dom” Cirillo, 75.
“Mario is a gangster in his own right,” says one law-enforcement expert. “He’s Chin’s blood-family connection. Larry and Quiet Dom are trustworthy old-timers who do his bidding with little fear of opposition from within or outside the family.”
As Gigante told a prison guard who wondered if younger inmates were bothering him: “Nobody ***** with me.” Or his disciples.
Genoveses 'top of five Mafia families'
The FBI considers the Genoveses to be the biggest and most powerful of New York's five Mafia gangs.
The four other families have seen their leaderships undermined by a relentless campaign against organised crime in the United States over the past 20 years, detectives say.
That has led to a new underworld order. The Genoveses - once seen as the second most powerful family after the Gambinos - have now moved up to the number one slot, the FBI believes.
The Gambinos were crippled by the arrests of their boss John Gotti and other leading figures.
Nobody complained about the Mafia when the Italians got the NAZIs off the docks at the ports.
Not sure exactly what you're getting at, but generally speaking I think the US Mafia has its own interests distinct from the Yakuza or other Asian crime groups such as the Triads or Korean gangs (Tongsun Park is Korean, but he gets around). They might use the Mafia to help with distribution in certain cases--for instance with narcotics exported from Asia to the US--and sometimes the Mafia is used as a supplier for gunrunning to Asian groups, but apart from such cooperation towards mutual benefit they're distinct groups running their own rackets.
32 Democrats just lost their voting privileges.
Not really sure what that has to do with the post you're replying to, but whatever.
They've been predicting the demise of the mob since they got Capone and Luciano. It's the guys coming over from Italy and filling the ranks who are much more brutal than the American Mob that is keeping it going.
This makes sense. I will post more later. I have to go finish getting dinner on the table.
ciao!
No, the mob I knew when I was little experienced the demise. The mob was infiltrated. Be back later.
I'm aware there were Japanese war criminals tied to the Yakuza. Still not sure where you're going with that. I'll wait to see what you post after dinner--about that time here, too.
Notes:
(snip)
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century, Japan underwent great industrial and social change and the Yakuza were not slow in adapting to, and exploiting these changes. They began recruiting heavily within the shipping and construction industry and also began to co-operate with authorities in return for more favourable treatment from police. The number of Yakuza members continued to rise steadily up until Japan's involvement in WWII. During the American occupation of Japan after WWII food was rationed and this led to a flourishing black market in a variety of goods and the emergence of a new kind of Yakuza (gurentai - or street hustler). The Yakuza began to take many of their cues from the Italian Mafia that was operating in America at the time and would dress in dark suits, withshoes and shortAcropped hair.
Between 1958-1963 the number of Yakuza members rose to a record 180,000 people, in approximately 5,000 gangs throughout Japan. This increase in gangs also led to an increase in violence as the gangs began to mark out their territories. From this high of 180,000 members in the early 1960's numbers have continued to decline. In 1988 the National Police Agency estimated that there were 3,400 organized crime groups operating with roughly 100,000 members (this compares to an estimated 30,000 members of organized crime in the US).
More recently the Yakuza has begun to branch into legitimate society through businesses that are easily accessable for them, such as finance, real estate and investment banking. There is even concern that the Yakuza is developing the kind of financial power that could threaten the whole economy. In 1992 steps were taken to reduce the Yakuza's increasing politcal and financial influence by passing the Act for the Prevention of Unlawful Activities by Boryokudan (Yakuza or criminal gang) Members in 1992. So incensed by this new law, wives and daughters of Yakuza members marched through Ginza in Tokyo in protest.
The new law has appeared to make little inroads into the perceived problem and the Yakuza are still ever present in Japanese society. An example of this was shown in 1995 when a large earthquake hit Japan. The city of Kobe, home to Japan's largest Yakuza organization the 'Yamaguchi-gumi', was hit the hardest and in the immediate aftermarth, with local authorities slow to respond to the devastation the local Yakuza provided food and clothing for thousands of people in need. This was not only an embarrassment for the local authorities but also a PR coup for the Yakuza.
(snip)
;)
LOL......how wrong they were.
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