The term bootlegging was used to describe the production and transportation of illegal alcohol during prohibition. This term originated when American settlers would hide flasks of liquor in their boots when going to trade with Native Americans. Another term for this illegal business was rum-running. Bootleggers would smuggle alcohol into the United States from across the Canadian and Mexican borders. This alcohol was most commonly sourced from the Caribbean islands and French controlled St. Pierre and Miquelon. “A favorite rendezvous of the rum-running ships was a point opposite Atlantic City, New Jersey, just outside of the 3-mile limit beyond which the U.S. government lacked jurisdiction.”(Bootlegging, 1) Once the United States coast guard …show more content…
The term mafia is commonly used to refer to any large groups of organized criminals, such as the Russian mafia or the Japanese Yakuza, but the term was coined originally to refer to organized criminals of Italian descent. The mafia formed in Sicily as a vigilante group as the islands inhabitants did not trust the Spanish government. In the 1940’s, many mafiosi arrived in the United States after attack from the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, although organized gangs of Italian-Americans were involved in the bootlegging business at the beginning of prohibition. “In the late 1920’s a bloody power struggle known as the Castellammarese war broke out between New York City’s two biggest Italian-American criminal gangs.”(Mafia, 2) In 1931, Salvatore Marzano and his gang were the victors, and declared himself the leader of the criminal underworld in New York. He was killed that same year by “Lucky” Luciano. Luciano then created a sort of government for the mafia, who would create policy, resolve conflicts, and allowed members to vote on decisions as a democracy. American crime families followed a strict hierarchy, lead by a crime boss who ruled with unquestioned authority. The process of becoming a mafia member was complicated. All potential mafia members required Italian heritage, and men often had to commit murder before becoming a full member. “Becoming a member of the mafia was meant to
Thomas Reppetto’s book is a solid account of the events that took place between 1880 and 1995. The events are detailed and contain fact and evidence, he uses first hand knowledge, being a former chicago commander of detectives, Reppetto was well equipped to write this book. In American Mafia, and its rise to power, Reppetto shows the different parts of the mafia and their communication with the police and italian civilians. The book starts off showing the worst part of the mob, or mafia, and how bad they truly are. Using examples like how many people they’ve taken out and how they’d be one of the richest fortune 500 companies, ift was legal. The book also has how the police reacted to the crimes, in chapter one, they take you into the lives
Once people wanted a drink, nothing stopped them. Subsequently, prohibition sparked American ingenuity to step to the forefront. A black market emerged, as brewing beer making wine, and distilling whiskey, became a national past time. Enterprising home brewers could make enough Home brew, Dago Red, Bathtub Gin or Moonshine to quench their thirst and to sell as well. Therefore, stills begin popping up in basements, barns, backrooms, and the deep woods. Both Canada and Mexico were wet, and their border towns offered many opportunities for thirsty Americans to quench their thirst. Ships anchored outside the three-mile limit on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, loaded with alcohol becoming floating bars and nightclubs. Additional ships offered cases of alcohol spirits only to the professional rumrunners. Illegal liquor grew to such an extent that enforcement became virtually impossible.
Organized crime is a collective result of the commitment, knowledge, and actions of three components: (1) Criminal groups, who are core persons tied by racial, linguistic, ethnic or other bonds; (2) Protectors, who are persons who protect the group’s interests; and (3) Specialist support, which are persons who knowingly render services on an side-job basis to enhance the group’s interests. In order to thrive, an organized crime group needs many different elements. First, it needs an ensured continuity of members, clients, supporters, funds, etc. Additionally, it needs structure, criminality, violence, memberships based on common grounds, and a willingness to corrupt a power and profit goal. Generally, mafia organized crime groups disguise themselves behind the ownership of a legitimate business to avoid questioning from the Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.) regarding any financial sources. The ille...
People of the United States saw not only opportunity in prohibition but a need to make a penny with the Great Depression in the midst. This led to bootlegging (the illegal distribution of liquor, often illicitly distilled), to the financial advantage of organized crime. "Prohibition". 2015. In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide. Abington: Helicon. With illegal actions happening in the Country, there were kingpins that wanted to capitalize on that possible investment and bring themselves into wealth and power. Prohibition brought the bootlegger into being as a new kind of criminal, epitomized by the career of the notorious Al Capone. This is the time to acquire your Wines and Liquors. Prices are advancing daily and will continue to advance whether Prohibition becomes effective July 1,1919, or January 20, 1920 Prohibition". 2009. In Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable. Al Capones' reign was throughout the city and the boroughs of Chicago, however there were bootleggers all throughout the entire country. In 1920 during the height of Prohibition, Capone’s multi-million dollar Chicago operation in bootlegging, prostitution and gambling dominated the organized crime scene. Capone was responsible for many brutal acts of violence, mainly against other gangsters.
The public demand for alcohol led to a soaring business for bootleggers. When prohibition began, people immediately wanted a way to drink. Therefore, the profitable bootlegging business was born. Before Prohibition gangs existed, but had little influence. Now, they had gained tremendous power almost overnight. Bootlegging was easy; some gangs even paid hundreds of poor immigrants to maintain stills in their apartments. Common citizens, once law abiding, now became criminals by making their own alcohol. However, this forced risks for those who made their own. The less fortunate Americans consumed homemade alcoholic beverages that were sometimes made with wood alcohol. In return, many died due to alcohol poisoning.
'Bootleggers' made and distributed alcohol across America. 'Rum Runners' smuggled alcohol into the US, but it was not always certain where it was from and what it was. These people claimed that the alcohol was from places like Canada or Scotland, when instead the substances were things like Jamaica Ginger, Jackass Brandy or Yack Yack Bourbon, which were all dangerous. Illegal Bars were set up, or as they were known in the states as 'speakeasies' -called this because people had to be quiet in them to avoid discovery.
People in Sicily believed that they could not trust the country’s police service, so they created their own organized protection that later evolved into the Mafia. Later on, the group engaged in organized crime and formed the Sicilian mafia. They came from Sicily to America during the mid 1800s due to bad conditions in Sicily where almost everyone was below the poverty line. Giuseppe Esposito and six other Sicilian members were the first to leave and fled to New York after they killed the chancellor and vice chancellor of Sicily. Then on the five main Sicilian mafia families were created and the majority of the mafia came to America in the early 20th century.
In the year 1920, Prohibition was established. It was came with the 18th amendment. This banned the distribution of alcoholic beverages. Criminals saw this as an opportunity. It was a way to make easy cash. Criminals would import it, manufacture it, steal the product, and then sell it for a lot of profit. Alcohol was extremely popular, and there was a lot of business to be made. Especially since there was no legal competition since it was now banned, there would be no tax on the product and merely all the money made was for the person to keep. Bootlegging was the name given to this criminal behavior. Criminals and gangsters were flourishing with all the profits that were being made from bootlegging alcohol.
The Mafia is a secret criminal organization that has great economic and political control over large parts of Sicilian society and operates both criminal and legitimate enterprises in the United States. It is believed to have started during Sicily's late Middle Ages, beginning as separate bonds of strong-arm enforcers hired by local landowners. It eventually evolved into a network of independent groups governing in rural areas. With the Sicilian immigration of the late 19th century, the Mafia began to operate in several large United States cities. During the period of Prohibition it monopolized the trade in bootleg liquor and controlled loan sharking, gambling, and prostitution. Competing Mafia families established mutually recognized territories, reaching agreement by negotiation or by intimidation. By the mid-1930 the Mafia had taken on the institutionalized structure that is now typical of organized crime in the United States.
“When I sell liquor, they call it bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, they call it hospitality.”-Al Capone [Woog, 25]
La Cosa Nostra Perhaps one of the most poignant moments in American cinema is the closing scene in the film “The Godfather” when Don Vito Corleone’s son Michael takes over his father’s position... and one of the most unforgettable moments, a severed horses’s head lies bloody in a man’s bed. It is this tradition and brutality that characterizes the Mafia, a secret Sicilian society that lives and functions just as much today on American soil as it did and does still in Italy. To understand this organized crime, one must begin to understand how it came to be organized in the first place. During the medieval times in Sicily, Arabs invaded the land and native Sicilians fled and took refuge in the hills. Some of these refugees formed a secret society that gave protection to the people in exchange for money. This group took their name, “Mafia” based on the Arabic word for refuge. In America today, one can hear it also be called “La Cosa Nostra”, or “This Thing of Ours.” In the 1700s,Wealthy people would receive a card with a black hand drawn on and if they did not pay the money, they could expect murder, theft, and violence. During the time Mussolini was ruling Italy, this secret society was under heavy persecution and many fled to the United States. “Don (term for the boss or head of a Mafia family) Vito Cascio Ferro fled to the United States in 1901 to escape arrest. He is known as the Father of American Mafia.” (La Cosa Nostra) Many Italian immigrants came to the United States through Ellis Island in New York, which is today the most important center of organized Mafia crime in the United States. The new American Mafia came to power during the Prohibition by organizing the sale of outlawed alcohol, but after Prohibition was revoked, the Mafia needed a new “racket.” During the war, the Mafia got government issued ration stamps and sold them on the black market. These days the Mafia is involved in running prostitution, unions, construction, and gambling. New York, also called the “City that never sleeps,” houses the Five Families of New York. These Families are highly influential and powerful crime families and each holds claim to certain “rackets.” The Five Families are: Gambino, Bonano, Lucchese, Colombo, and Genovese. While all people in the Mafia are required to maintain certain silence about the workings of the Family, a code of silence called “Omerta,” d...
the mass flow of illegal liquor from various countries, mainly Canada. “Bootleggers smuggled liquor from oversees and Canada, stole it from government warehouses, and produced their own.” The newly established Federal Prohibition Bureau had only 1,550 agents, and “with 18,700 miles of vast and virtually unpoliceable coastline, it was clearly impossible to prevent immense quantities of liquor from entering the country.” Not even 5% of smuggled liquor was ever actually captured and seized from the hands of the bootleggers. Bootlegging had become a very competitive and lucrative market with the adaptation of prohibition. This illegal underground economy fell into the hands of organized gangs who over powered most of the authorities. Most of these gangsters, secured their businesses by bribing an immense number of city officials. Mainly government agents and people with high political status such as: Mayors, Judges, Police Chiefs, Senators and Governors, found their names on gangsters payroll.
Peter Maas declares organized crime the “biggest business in the country” (Maas). “The largest and best known organized crime group is the nationwide organization variously known as the ‘syndicate’, the ‘mob’, the ‘Mafia’, and the ‘Cosa Nostra’” (Nash, Jason O-155). Some activities of the Mafia include gambling, loan sharking, pornography, illicit drugs, and racketeering. The Mafia began in Sicily, but did not retain to just that one location. In fact, in the late nineteenth century many of the Sicilian members immigrated to the United States (Nash O-155). The Mafia in the United States contains members that are Americans with Sicilian ancestry (“Mafia” M-48). There are several Mafia groups in the United States. Law enforcement authorities agree that there are around twenty-five groups that operate in large cities across the nation (Nash O-155).
Mafia. What does this word mean? The actual members of the Mafia aren’t even sure where the word first originated or what it really means. One of the theories as to where the word came from is from Sicily, where people would yell “ Morte alla Francia, Italia anela!” (Death to France, Italy groans!), therefore forming the acronym MAFIA. Others claim the word derived from the battle cry of rebels who slaughtered thousands of Frenchmen after a French soldier raped a Palermo woman on her wedding day. Their slogan echoed her mother’s cry, “Ma fia, Ma fia” (my daughter my daughter). There are other less “glamorous” stories as to where the word originally formed. The most likely reasoning says that it came from the Arabic word mahias, meaning bold man. The American Mafia has become infamous due to its leaders, its method of operation, and its impact on the economy through illegal means.
The Mafia was first developed in Sicily in feudal times to protect the estates of landlords who were out of town. The word Mafia, derived from the Sicilian word, Mafioso, means family. Today, Mafia is a name which describes a loose association of criminal groups. These groups can be bound together by blood, oath or sworn secrecy. Many people had considered the Sicilian Mafia as the most ruthless mobsters of the twentieth century.