Mafia - A History

The government hired assassins to kill communist politicians in Italy ultimately changing how their country’s government. In America, some political candidates would look to the mafia to help them get elected. Election workers were assaulted and kidnapped while bombs exploded at their candidate’s house and political leaders were often murdered. This was to guarantee that someone would get into office. The final example is that congress even had to get involved into the war against the mafia.

These Mafia members led a revolt against the French and Arabs and gained power over time. As time progressed, the Mafia controlled the government, banks, and police activity and turned to crime for profit. A Mafia-run Sicily prospered until the rise of Benito Mussolini. As an advocate of socialism, he began to crack down on Mafia activity in Italy (Brief History 2). This forced many of the prominent mob bosses to flee America where they would prosper for a decade and a half.

Although the police managed to kill one ... ... middle of paper ... ... investing their time and money into multiple illegal schemes as well as legitimate business enterprises. Yet, the Mafia were doomed to eventually fail/weaken. Greedy families ignored rules like the narcotics rule, and other families schemed for power against the commission creating disjunction. Additionally, the size of the operations involved in racketeering and political corruption eventually caught the eye of cavalier justice administrations. Once the public had been made aware of organized crime, lawmakers aggressively fought back through anti-Mafia commissions, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and investigations into corrupt businesses.

At this time, Arab forces were occupying Sicily. The natives were being oppressed, so they took refuge in the surrounding hills and formed a secret society to protect against the foreign invaders. This secret society was named Mafia, after the Arabic word for refuge. The society's intentions were to create a sense of family, based on ancestry and Sicilian heritage. During the 1700's, Mafia leaders began to force their way to the head positions in the Sicilian government and used government funds for their own private endeavours.

Organized crime groups can manage to manipulate financial markets, labor unions and even legitimate industries. They bring drugs and raise violence they buy off officials and use extortion and intimidation to keep their unlegitimate enterprises afloat that include prostitution and human trafficking. They cause our countries millions because of fraud and financial scams. Global organized crime brings $1 trillion dollars into their pockets. It is believed that modern organized crime began in Italy in the 19th Century with the Sicilian group La Cosa Notra and other Sicilian mafia were more powerful than the Italian government.

In New York five families reigned supreme: the Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese, Bonanno and Colombo families. They “generated a toxic effect on the lives of all New Yorkers and untold millions of Americans...” (Raab). The Gambino Crime Family, the most powerful of the five, sank it tentacles into virtually every aspect of American life from its beginning during... ... middle of paper ... ... stamps many corrupt OPA officials started selling them in bulk to the gangsters. Gambino realized that just buying them from the officials was much safer than robbing safes and began distributing the illegal rations through his old bootlegging channels. Cosa Nostra informer said that Gambino often collected over $1 million on a single deal alone.

Mobsters started running very illegal monopolies as a living and hiring common people to do their dirty work. This lead to some very serious gang related violence. Due to all of this occurring at the same time, it changed the way in which police forces were ran. Prohibition led to widespread organized crime in the 1920s and 1930s because it opened up an illegal monopoly for gangs, initiated gang related violence, and the change it the way police forces operated, forever changing America as a result. Big time Mobsters began setting up some big ideas for big business.

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.

The war attracted attention from the police after a while, which led to Police chief David Hennesy getting shot and killed by members of the Matranga. Nine of the Matranga crime family were put on trial for the murder, but before they could be convicted or set free, a lynch mob that was worried that they might be set free, attacked them at their holding cells. Eleven of the mafia members (nine on trial plus two visitors) sucumbed to injuries that they suffered during the attack. None of the lynch mob were charged with murder, because it would be too hard to figure out which members of the mob actually killed them. This series of attacks is probably one of the best examples of how the criminal punishment system in New Orleans was affected by the expansion of the commerce and ports.

To gain a foothold in Europe, the Colombians have got to strike deals with the Mafia, which ironically guards its home turf. (273) Italy in general, has added to the crime list of the Mafia for over 100 years. The famous Al Capone, the Italian-American gangster of the Prohibition era, also known as Scarface because of a knife cut to his cheek. (Nash 79) He was born Alphonse Capone in Naples, Italy, and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He left school at an early age and spent nearly ten years "hanging-out" with gangs.