gohnjotti wrote: ↑Sun Aug 11, 2019 2:13 am
Hey 500year. I can’t comment on the Mafia’s earlier history, but I can give a bit of insight for the timeframe you are referring to, which seems to be the 1980s-Present, when Gravano, Vitale, and Massino all flipped.
In terms of recent LCN history (1980-Onwards), there are a very few “family-wide” rackets, i.e. rackets or business interests that the whole family can benefit from. Ones I can think about are certain unions where everybody and their aunt is given a no-show job, or interests in the Italian feasts. But other than a few small examples, there are almost no family-owned rackets, and there are definitely no on-paper family-owned assets. When I say family I am, of course, referring to crime families.
Instead, the Mafia is more a collection of criminals who each make money however they please under the protection and strict guidelines of whatever crime family they’re in. Whereas individual members of a family work together on a specific racket (oftentimes a whole crew works together on a certain racket) there are actually few, if any, family-wide business interests that the boss keeps track of.
What this means is that somebody like Joseph Massino will have very little knowledge of what the 150 or so soldiers in his family are doing to earn a living. Soldiers are not obligated to give anybody a detailed breakdown of what they’re doing; presumably, they’d tell their immediate higher-up (their capo) what sort of rackets they’re involved in, but that’s the extent. All soldiers have to do is give an envelope every week that somewhat reflects a portion of their income. The capo takes the envelope, takes some cash for himself, and is supposed to give the envelope to the administration (boss, underboss and consigliere), who disperse it among themselves.
Historically, some bosses have been more “hands-on” with low-level soldiers, but in general all they are hoping for is an envelope stuffed with cash every month. Street-level soldiers are generally involved in blue-collar rackets such as illegal gambling, loansharking, drug-dealing, extortion, etc. Some capos/soldiers have sway in unions, which the boss will often involve himself in, and other capos/soldiers may have more sophisticated white-collar rackets like stock fraud, union scams, etc.
My area of expertise is the Colombo family, so I can give you some examples (from the 1980s-Present) of the boss’ involvement in his underlings rackets.
For starters, the Mafia Commission DID have a collective “asset” up until 1986; the Concrete Club. This was not an official or registered “club,” but was basically a Mafia-controlled group of concrete contractors. The Mafia illegally prevented the contractors from bidding on jobs over $1 million, and instead handpicked which company would do the contract. This meant that there was no competitive bidding for concrete contracts, so contractors could charge exorbitant fees and the buyer could not go to any other concrete company who would do the job for cheaper. The Mafia then imposed a tax on the contractors which earned them millions.
This, in effect, was a Commission-owned asset. The reason the bosses got involved was because each crime family had different contractors under their protection, so the families collaborated to make sure each Mafia-backed contractor received a fair piece. A similar thing happened with Windows Contracting, until a bust in 1990.
Since then, there have been no Commission-wide business interests or assets (to the best of my knowledge). Crime families still cooperate and negotiate with each other, over things such as territory, or a shared interest in a particular union or racket.
One example of this is the shared Colombo/Genovese control over Locals 14 and 15 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. After a bust in 2003, state Attorney General Elliot Spitzer called the Colombo/Genovese collaboration as a “joint venture” that “would be the envy of Wall Street.” The Colombo family allegedly controlled the union’s business interests in Brooklyn, while the Genovese controlled their interests in Manhattan (which was likely a lot more profitable).
With this control, the two families extorted cash bribes from construction contractors to ensure “labor piece.” Mobsters would also buy things to bill to contractors, including TVs, VCRs, and even fur coats. Union positions were also bought and sold.
In this case, the only reason the bosses themselves were brought into the scheme is because they would sometimes have to represent their family in sitdowns. For the Colombos, underboss John DeRoss had a very hands-on role with the union control. The family’s acting boss, Joel Cacace, was not actually heavily involved with the union, but - as tribute - the Colombos in charge of the union - John DeRoss, capo Vincent Ricciardo and soldier Charles Panarella - gave Cacace’s children “no-show” jobs; jobs in which Cacace’s children never worked, but were nonetheless paid by the union. A no-show job was also granted to the son of the Colombo family’s imprisoned-for-life boss, Carmine Persico.
But, to answer your question, if Joel Cacace, the acting boss of the Colombo family at the time, were to flip and begin cooperating with the FBI, he would likely have very little to say about the union control itself. He would be able to testify that the mobsters controlled the union, that his sons were given no-show jobs over the union, but that’s about it. He would most likely not be able to discuss the ins-and-outs of the actual scheme. Therefore, even though that union control was a “family”-run enterprise, the boss was not a hands-on participant.
Another example is the continued control over the Cement and Concrete Workers Union. There was a period in the 1990s when the administration of the Colombo family actually had no knowledge or input in soldier Ralph Scopo Jr.’s control over Local 6A of the Cement and Concrete Workers Union. Scopo Jr. was eventually brought back into the fold and placed in a crew but, even then, the top administration probably had virtually no knowledge of how the union was actually controlled. Scopo Jr.’s immediate higher-up, his captain Dino Calabro, was privy to the union control, because Calabro had a financial interest in the union (through Scopo), and Scopo had to ask permission from Calabro on big administration changes within the union. But that’s the extent of it; the Union was a Colombo family operation, but the bosses themselves had no reason to know about the details or have a hands-on role. They just collected their envelopes every month.
So, when Bonanno boss Joey Massino flipped, how did the family cope? I am not 100% sure on the fallout of Massino’s cooperation, but I am relatively sure it wasn’t that major. Massino had no specific details on most of his soldiers rackets. For example, he collected thousands of dollars a month from soldier Vito Grimaldi, who was a wealthy member of Massino’s Queens crew prior to Massino becoming boss. Grimaldi earned this money through his ownership and control of illegal gambling machines, so I guess you could consider that a “Bonanno family” asset or enteprise. But could Massino point to where any of these Joker Poker machines were? Probably not. Could he point to exactly how much income Grimaldi was making from them? Probably not. All a boss can do is hope/expect that his underlings are giving them a fair share of the loot. There are always problems with soldiers misdeclaring how much they are earning, or giving their higher-ups far less than what they’re actually earning. I believe Gang Land News reported that when Sal LoCascio, a Gambino capo, was arrested in the early 2000s for running a multimillion-dollar online fraud operation, the higher-ups of the Gambinos were infuriated because LoCascio had only given them a minuscule amount of tribute. Until the bust, there was no way the bosses could actually tell LoCascio was under-cutting them.
I know I rambled a bit, but I hope that helped clear up your question.