THINK THE MAFIA IS GONE? THEN THINK AGAIN.
Exactly what is the Mafia? Mafia, more specifically the Italian-American Mafia, is a group of criminals organized into "families," and operating primarily in North America. Also known as La Cosa Nostra, at one time there were 26 families in the United States - roughly one for each major city. The Mafia composed of bosses of numerous families, mostly New York, was the overseeing authority for all of the other La Cosa Nostra families. New York City is the place of origin for organized crime in the United States. Currently, there are five families in the New York City outfit of the La Cosa Nostra. The five families are, the Gambinos, Genovese, Colombo, Bonanno, and Lucchese crime families. There is even a family in Denver who had its last known whereabouts in January 1999, Clarence Smaldone is still alive and considered the underboss of a two-member mob family. The most important day in most mobsters life, the day they get made and become a full member La Cosa Nostra. To become a member of the family one would have to be recommended by a Mafia member. After that they go through a ceremony this ceremony is usually done in the basement of a fellow mobsters house. The mobster is told that this is a secret society and there is one way in and one way out. You come in on your feet and you go out in a coffin. Then their is the final initiation where everybody holds hands and the boss (in Italian) says, "In honor of our brotherhood, I untie the knot," and everybody lets go. The the new made guy stands and joins hands in the circle and again the boss says, "In honor of our brotherhood, I tie the knot." Then one is at full loyalty to the Mafia. If they asked one to leave their mother while on a death bed would one come? Or if they asked one to kill your own brother, would you? One would have to or die them selves. If so which finger would you use to pull the trigger with.
The Mafia has no mercy for any one just look at what happened to Joe Iannuzzi. Joe Dogs, as he was known in The Family for his love of greyhound racing, he was broken. His head was battered until its flesh puffed up around his skull, his nose was split open and crushed. His teeth were cracked. An ear dangled. His ribs were broken and his genitals swollen. This guy got ...
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...d to more than $50,000,000,000 per year.
The ability of organized crime to flourish in the United States rests upon several factors. One factor is the threats, intimidation, and bodily violence (including assassination) that a syndicate can bring to bear to prevent victims or witnesses (including its own members) from informing on or testifying against its activities. Jury tampering and the bribing of judges are other tactics used to prevent successful government prosecutions. Bribery and payoffs, sometimes on a systematic and far-reaching scale, are useful tools for ensuring that municipal police forces tolerate organized crime's activities.
Another important contribution to the continuing prosperity of syndicate operations is that numbers rackets and other types of illegal gambling, which provide the economic base for some of the uglier forms of organized crime, are activities that many American citizens feel are not innately immoral or socially destructive and therefore deserve a certain grudging tolerance on the part of law-enforcement agencies.
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
Mexico is a country rich in tradition, history and culture. Unfortunately, Mexico has not been talked about for any of those descriptions I mentioned above lately. Mexico has become a country full of death and violence. The Mexican government has been fighting a war with drug traffickers since December 2006. At the same time, drug cartels have fought each other for control of territory. More than 60,000 people have been killed (CNN). Despite the “war” launched at these multi-billion dollar organized crime groups, Mexico has not been able to stop its slide as a failed state. Almost every day there seems to be either dead bodies lying on the ground, a school closed due to vandalism, disappeared people, or bullet-riddled houses and cars. Sadly, there is not much the citizens of Mexico can do to ask for justice and change to the mess they are living in right now. So who is to blame for all of this? The Mexican drug cartels have completely taken over Mexico. They have become powerful through corruption and violence. The cartels use their power to intimidate and even murder anyone who tries to get in their way. They do not have a problem with decapitating heads in order to make a statement. The drug cartels also use their money to gain power. Given the amount of money they have, the cartels have millions of dollars invested in keeping authorities off their business. They can be very effective in bribing government officials at all levels, from border patrol just patrolling the border to state and high ranking federal officials. Given the resources they have, they can reach out and kill government officials at all levels. Since government officials are faced with bribes and or certain death, even the most unbreakable are caut...
Mexico has a long history of cartels the deaths, drugs and weapon trafficking is in all time high increasing year by year. “Mexico's gangs have flourished since the late 19th century, mostly in the north due to their proximity to towns along the U.S.-Mexico border. But it was the American appetite for cocaine in the 1970s that gave Mexican drug cartels immense power to manufacture and transport drugs across the border. Early Mexican gangs were primarily situated in border towns where prostitution, drug use, bootlegging and extortion flourished” (Wagner). They keep themselves armed and ready with gun supplies shipped from the U.S, taking control of the drug trades. The violence is spilling so out of control that they overthrew the Mexican government.
When people talk about the Illuminati, they are talking about the most secretive, powerful, wealthiest, influential, sneakiest, manipulated, greediest people on the earth. It was a group formed in Germany 1776 in order to rule the world with their wealth and power (“Illuminati” 1). Recently it has been on everyone’s mind, but why? It is being exposed more and more every day. They are trying to take over our nation. “The infamous Illuminati secret society has remained the focus of so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ for hundreds of years. They have been called the puppet masters who secretly pull the strings of the world’s events from elections to revolutions, and from business monopolies to stock market crashes” (Dice 1). People are completely oblivious of the Illuminati or chose to not believe this is going on behind closed doors. However, there are some people who do believe and are aware of what they are capable of. The Illuminati is harmfully corrupting our nation through the government, specialty groups, and celebrities.
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 1920 they officially became an organized criminal group. The names of the powerful families are; Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese, Bonanno, Colombo and they mainly operated in New York, Philadelphia, New England, Detroit, and Chicago. There are around 26 La Cosa Nostra family cities around the United States where they dominate and run organized crime throughout the cities and towns.
The Mexican drug cartel is made up of many different cartels, but the main one is the Sinaloa cartel. The Sinaloa cartel is one of the most dangerous cartels in mexico, it is also the most optimistic cartel in mexico, they will go to high extents into their projects. The leader of the Sinaloa cartel is Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, he is believed to be one of the most powerful drug lords in the whole world. There aren’t many organizations trying to stop the cartels besides the DEA which stands for Drug Enforcement Administration. The drug cartel is all about smuggling drugs to many parts of the world but mostly the U.S. since they share borders and is the closest place to take drugs to.
It works within structures as multifaceted as those of any large corporation and consists of thousands of criminals (Demleitner 671). That description can be scary to picture, the fact that thousands of criminals working in conjunction with the intent of national level crime activity. Organized crime is much more than what the public pictures it as. It can be as simple as two or three individuals selling drugs at a street corner. The organized crime that is in question that caused and continues to cause the nationwide influx on crime is the larger of the
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.
“I don’t trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.” This quote from The Godfather, which is famous for glorifying the Mafia, reflects the concerns of criminology within organized crime. Using ideas from Sutherland, Rawls and Nussbaum, one might argue that the relationship between organized crime and the governance relating to it plays a significant role and influence on society.
Our team presentation focused on three Latino gangs, MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha), the Mexican Mafia and the Los Surenos gang. My part of the presentation was to provide information on the type of crime these three gangs are known to commit. The crimes committed by the MS-13 gang are varied, violent, and take place all over the country. The FBI even put together a task force called the MS-13 National Gang Task Force in December of 2004 to try to put a stop to this gang’s activities. (www.fbi.gov). Los Surenos or Sur-13, originally based in Los Angeles, has also branched out from turf wars with rival gangs to “for profit”, violent crimes across the country. The Mexican Mafia has a similar story to tell as well in regards to gang crimes, which again range from respect crimes, and retaliatory violence to crimes for profit.
The Crips, originating in Los Angeles, California, are one of the oldest, largest, and most notorious gangs in the United States. They have been involved in murders, robberies and drug dealing in the Los Angeles area. The Crips are mostly identified by the blue color worn by their members. What was once a single gang is now a loose network of "franchises" around the United States. The gang primarily (but not exclusively) comprises African Americans. The Crips have an intense rivalry with the Bloods and are also known to feud with Chicano gangs.
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).
This idea of attitudes shows why a secret society such as the Mafia should luxuriate in Sicily, and could easily be transplanted into the ghettos of the New World. The associates of the Mafia are called fratellos. They are to obey a capo, which they elect. The capo then picks the consigliari (counselors), whom help him to make justice and judgments. When one of the fratellos finds himself in any sort of difficulty, the association tries to help and assist him.
Unfortunately, these criminals are not just fictional characters. Organized crime is a major issue not only in the United States, but around the globe. In recent times, criminal organizations have become increasingly transnational, meaning they are not limited within the borders that they originate in, as a result of the Internet and advances in communication technologies. Crime syndicates like the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Russian mafia, and the Sinaloa Cartel pose immense threats to many nations outside of their own. Evidently, it is important to understand what exactly these criminal organizations are. This paper will attempt to define organized crime, describe the common structures of criminal organizations, and detail efforts made by the federal government to control organized
Organized crime has had deep roots in almost every part of the world for hundreds of years. It has become entangled in aspects of people’s everyday lives, all the way up to the highest ranks of the government, and everywhere in between. In a majority cases cartels and mafias bring corruption with them everywhere they go. Seeing that developing countries have all the right ingredients for organized crime to flourish, its effects are severely felt by the population. These crime rings play big roles in creating instability in the society in which they function through the trade of illegal substances and establishment of large drug rings. The presence of an organized crime group in more developing nations also corrodes the local economy through