THE BLACK HAND FORUM

Wiseguy wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 2:36 pm It's a matter of who's sustaining, who's declining, and who's declining even faster.

Heck I doubt if anyone is sustaining. The best of the best are probably even declining, albeit slowly. The demographic pressures alone would make sustaining pretty much impossible even for the Genovese Family.

Yeah I wasn’t saying I agreed with him. I don’t think the mob will *ever* be close to where it was in the mid 20th century. Funny enough, I think the marijuana industry—something Arilotta is intimately familiar with—is exhibit A on how the mob just isn’t what it once was. If this were 1971 the mob would have its tentacles spread all across that industry. They’d have satellite crews out West running growing operations and front companies designing their own strains and edibles. They’d have connected lawyers lobbying politicians and special interests groups. They’d be knee deep in CBD front companies.

Instead you likely got one or two crews in each family that have connections with growers in Canada or out West that just ship 50-100 pounds/month back East, and those guys just bust it down. Same shit they were doing in the 90s. Same shit a bunch of non-Italians with a fraction of the manpower are doing now.

Generally speaking, the socioeconomic, political, legal, etc. environment that existed decades ago and helped the LCN to rise doesn't exist anymore. There won't be any growing or rebounding again. It's a matter of who's sustaining, who's declining, and who's declining even faster.

I don't see how they could ever become what they were in the fifties and sixties again. Labor racketeering, truck hijacking, and numbers operations, which used to be major money makers, don't really exist anymore. Gambling and loansharking are the main rackets they have left, but those have been diminished by legalization. Drug dealing and extortion can be lucrative, but those will draw a lot of heat and create more informants.

Arilotta said in his Vlad interview that he thinks the mob will continue to grow more and more powerful, despite there being so many informants. He says the other families have finally started to realize they don’t need the muscle they had 30 years ago. Less bodies=fewer informants. He says when the other families (besides the Westside) fully transition from recruiting “capable” guys to recruiting earners and businessmen, they’ll regain a lot of the power they lost in the late 20th century.

I’m not sure I buy that they will ever be as powerful as they were, but I do agree that recruiting earners and keeping the violence to a minimum will keep the indictments to a minimum.

"You only hear about the all the guys who flipped, but if you ever took a look at the list of guys who went into prison and how many rolled over, it is not even close," one longtime mob hunter observed.

https://nypost.com/2005/09/26/feds-fear ... ming-year/

They aren’t vetted as well as the old days. They let pure earners in the family that aren’t willing to do time if they are caught. Use to have to be involved in a killing.

I wonder how many of these guys even have money by the time they flip. I know Gravano was allowed to keep a sizable chunk of money, but DiLeonardo said in a recent interview that he had nothing saved when he was in jail. Nick Caramandi said that he wished he had saved even 10% of the money he made. Both of those guys made millions of dollars, and both of them were dead broke when they flipped.

1) Rats doesn't need to hide because the Mob doesn't kill like the past days and they can easly turn back to their neighborhoods;
2)they are treated like stars,have their podcasts,write books and go on TV;
3)the feds allow them to keep some of their illegal money;
4)thanks to the complete assimilation of Italian Americans, the recruitment pool is drying up and many families are forced to scrape the barrel;
5)Many mobsters born between 1960s and 1970s wouldn't be made if there was no need to fill the ranks.