2022 national confirmed membership counts

[Snakes]

Bobbybats can tell you exactly how many made guys KC has left, but he hasn't posted much lately.

[JoeCamel]

Bobbybats can tell you exactly how many made guys KC has left, but he hasn't posted much lately.

The List I posted earlier was basically his, by avvocato as proxy. But the bar is confirmed by FBI, courts, or major news outlet

[Wiseguy]

Bobbybats can tell you exactly how many made guys KC has left, but he hasn't posted much lately.

Tell us or show us?

[JoeCamel]

i wonder if theres more satellite crews around. like luisi was a philly guys with a crew of guys in the suburbs of boston. the colombos made ralph deleo who had a crew of guys in the boston burbs. i bet this is probaly the way things are moving forward. merlino has a crew in florida. the bonannos making guys in hamilton where ever the fuck that is. more spread out i guess. just dudes meeting in prison and keeping in touch threw social media. it wouldnt shock me if nyc familys just start making guys from around new england just report to them a few hours away

Interesting Sociological theory on the future of LCN outside of NY/NJ Metro. I think as time goes on we will see this. Coming from New England, specifically North shore Mass (where people do still rub shoulders with real live La Cosa Nostra guys, who are basically spread from Boston proper to Essex county to a couple residents in southern Maine, to Billy Angelesco in Saco before he went to jail again,) you will occasionally hear about Gambinos and Genovese guys and maybe the odd Colombo even, living or hanging out in Massachusetts and RI and obviously Connecticut. You see a Genovese Presence with the whole western CT/Springfield thing, then believe it or not outside of Scott there have been rumblings about Matty G letting all sorts of stuff go on in RI. A guy in point Judith In my industry was telling me around 3-4 months ago there was Gambino stuff going on locally.

One thing about New England people don’t realize is it’s literally 14 mins to the mass border from where I am living in maine, Rhode Island is an hour 25 mins with no traffic, Hartford Connecticut is 2 hours, Boston suburbs 35 minutes. New Rochelle about 3 and half, Jersey border in 4 hours 15 minutes with no traffic. Geographic reasons alone, I would be willing to bet the NY5 is all over New England collaborating with the Patriarcas when the occasion calls for it. The Genovese were going to make two guys from Boston in the Springfield crew 6 or 8 years ago as reported by Stephanie Berry

[Snakes]

Bobbybats can tell you exactly how many made guys KC has left, but he hasn't posted much lately.

Tell us or show us?

There are very few guys I'd trust on here while not providing a source and he is one. I'm not saying you have to believe, but I do.

[JoeCamel]

Bobbybats can tell you exactly how many made guys KC has left, but he hasn't posted much lately.

Tell us or show us?

There are very few guys I'd trust on here while not providing a source and he is one. I'm not saying you have to believe, but I do.

For the record I trust him too, that’s why I included that list from earlier, but we wouldn’t want wiseguy to have an aneurism by using uncited sources. We have to remember that on the Black Hand Forum, the rest of us are all just passing through. Tourists. Wiseguy lives here. We are held to a higher standard on the Blackhand Forum then GangsterBB. If don’t follow the rules, the sting of his attack over the message board leaves you depressed and impotent for months. Hail wiseguy hail white America hail T…R…U…m…P

[JoeCamel]

I’m sorry guys stuck inside and home from work in this Blizzard and Black Hand Forum is all I’ve got today. Been having way too much fun

[PogueMahone]

Surprised to see that Rochester still has so many possible members. Who are their confirmed members? Is there still a presence or are they essentially all old and retired? I know nothing about the city’s mob.

[Pogo The Clown]

Surprised to see that Rochester still has so many possible members. Who are their confirmed members? Is there still a presence or are they essentially all old and retired? I know nothing about the city’s mob.

Dominic “Sonny” Celestino/91
Anthony Colombo/79
?-Francesco “Frank” Frassetto/73
Thomas Marotta/79
Reigo Marterano/87? (Dead?)
Donald Paone/78
Loren Piccarreto/70


The youngest guy, Piccarreto, is living in California and doing interviews about the mob. That is pretty much the status of the Rochester family.


Pogo

[PolackTony]

Wish I knew more about Chicago. Only Chicago stuff I ever read about was in the Family Secrets book where it was made clear to me how different Chicago is than NY. I realize that being made is a totally different thing and the whole outfit (made members) seemed to be kept small by design but they are down to only 14 confirmed made guys in 2022? That seems crazy. I'm not trying to argue it's more or there's this huge roster of young low key Chicago up and comers we don't know about... but Jesus, talk about attrition. That's really surprising the old timers just took what they could and said fuck it. Smart I guess, but these guys really said it's over lol

Don’t how much you’ve delved into it, but the Chicago threads on here are an amazing resource. All sorts of stuff that you won’t ever read about in any book about Chicago.

Chicago was hit a by a series of major federal cases in the 80s and 90s that severely damaged the admin and membership and destroyed their pillars of power: control of the unions and the ability to orchestrate corruption in the city government and Cook County court system. I believe that a big part of what drove the intense federal attack on the Chicago Outfit was their arguably unequaled and basically open level of infiltration of key institutions in what was the country’s second largest city. One of the most important politicians in Chicago history and the second most powerful elected official in the city government, Alderman Fred Roti, was an inducted LCN member. Through him and Pat Marcy they controlled the Loop, City Hall and the city services departments (paving, sewers, garbage collection, the freakin snowplow fleet, you name it). They could fix murder cases like nothing. Corruption in Chicago was at almost cartoonish levels, and some of the suburban governments like Melrose Park or Cicero were even worse. Once the Outfit lost their ability to engage in large scale corruption and to bend the police departments and court system to their will, it was left vastly diminished.

Good stuff. Thank you. I know theres a lot of good Chicago stuff on here and some of the best Chicago researchers in the world. I'm just so 'far behind' that I wouldn't know where to start lol. Tons of substantial long Chicago threads here that I'll eventually get to.

What you said makes a lot of sense. General attrition, a drastic change in the culture around Chicago and the suburbs, indictments, all of it - but I'm just thinking from a NY perspective at least 3 of the 5 families could be considered comparable in terms of influence, power, how far the tentacles stretched - and despite all of the same things being taken away from them, they still managed to make attempts to replenish the ranks. I know the culture in NY is totally different but it's just shocking to me that there weren't a couple old timers in Chicago who thought of what they had as "a thing" and wanted to see it continue.

Gene Borrello is a knuckle dragger but one thing he said that stuck with me was that Vin Asaro and every other old timer he encountered outwardly expressed concern that LCN needs to continue beyond their lifetimes and it was their responsibility to make sure that happens.

Wholesale corruption of civil servants might be a thing of the past but that surely can't be it - none of the Chicago guys wanted these crews to continue? I'm thinking that wasn't an edict from the top down, but the Chicago crews are so autonomous from one another that there may be different attitudes towards expansion , replenishing the ranks, etc between all the crews - some don't give a shit and some do? Is that what it is?

One thing I will say based on the limited Chicago stuff I've read is it seems there's no room for games or error with those guys. Seems like a totally different ball game. Some of the stories from Nick Calabrese were insane

Yeah, it can be a lot to digest, especially if one isn’t familiar with Chicago in general and doesn’t know Melrose Park from Elmwood Park.

My above post reads as a bit overstated compared to my actual belief. I don’t mean to posit that Chicago’s striking decline was monocausal and only attributable to the loss of their political and judicial corruption apparatus. But I highlighted this as I do think it was a key factor among several. My take is that the level of corruption in Chicagoland was such that much of the Outfit’s MO was downstream from this as an enabling condition for their operations for decades. As a prime example, their ability to exact street taxes from criminals and greymarket businesses on such a wide scale in a huge metro area was predicated on their well-deserved reputation for brutal violence. With the loss of influence over the court system and police departments, their ability to use force to control rackets was greatly diminished.

Again, it’s just one of several converging factors. Of course, there’s the more general pattern of attrition, assimilation of Italians, and loss of core inner city Italian communities that one sees in other cities. Another major factor I think is the modest size of the made membership in the family. Chicago didn’t have a deep enough bench, didn’t have enough redundancy, to prove resilient to repeated federal attacks. There were leaders who were apparently keen to keep the family running (Aiuppa and Cerone), as we see induction ceremonies in the 80s and 90s, but it wasn’t enough to deal with the compounding effects of attrition and LE pressure. Later, it appears that Jimmy Marcello and Mike Sarno tried to ramp things up (with it being long-rumored but as yet unproven that Sarno inducted a group of younger guys), but we know where they wound up. Marcello and Lombardo were sent to Florence Admax. It’s amazing to me that after that anyone would still try to keep things running.

As you suggested, the thinking has indeed been that different crews had different outlooks on keeping the life running. Under DiFronzo Elmwood Park was reportedly shifted away from street rackets to legit businesses. By all appearances DiFronzo was largely content to live off of his car dealerships and other businesses and let the thing whither away. It’s been debated for years now whether DiFronzo was a CI and whether this had any effect on his push to get his guys off the street. Cicero was still actively running blue collar street rackets, but again, look what that got them.

It’s tempting to say that Chicago not caring about LCN traditions has also played a factor here. That may or may not be true. I personally don’t think that we know enough about how or what these guys actually thought about these things to make a strong claim there. Either way, what happened with Chicago isn’t very different than what happened with Detroit, which also underwent a sharp and dramatic decline. Detroit being almost entirely Sicilian and based around a very tight knit network of families from a handful of strong mafia lineages didn’t apparently make them any more resilient to changing pressures and conditions, so I’m not inclined to think that a lack of appreciation for LCN as a cultural tradition was important in Chicago’s decline.

[Wiseguy]

i wonder if theres more satellite crews around. like luisi was a philly guys with a crew of guys in the suburbs of boston. the colombos made ralph deleo who had a crew of guys in the boston burbs. i bet this is probaly the way things are moving forward. merlino has a crew in florida. the bonannos making guys in hamilton where ever the fuck that is. more spread out i guess. just dudes meeting in prison and keeping in touch threw social media. it wouldnt shock me if nyc familys just start making guys from around new england just report to them a few hours away

Interesting Sociological theory on the future of LCN outside of NY/NJ Metro. I think as time goes on we will see this. Coming from New England, specifically North shore Mass (where people do still rub shoulders with real live La Cosa Nostra guys, who are basically spread from Boston proper to Essex county to a couple residents in southern Maine, to Billy Angelesco in Saco before he went to jail again,) you will occasionally hear about Gambinos and Genovese guys and maybe the odd Colombo even, living or hanging out in Massachusetts and RI and obviously Connecticut. You see a Genovese Presence with the whole western CT/Springfield thing, then believe it or not outside of Scott there have been rumblings about Matty G letting all sorts of stuff go on in RI. A guy in point Judith In my industry was telling me around 3-4 months ago there was Gambino stuff going on locally.

One thing about New England people don’t realize is it’s literally 14 mins to the mass border from where I am living in maine, Rhode Island is an hour 25 mins with no traffic, Hartford Connecticut is 2 hours, Boston suburbs 35 minutes. New Rochelle about 3 and half, Jersey border in 4 hours 15 minutes with no traffic. Geographic reasons alone, I would be willing to bet the NY5 is all over New England collaborating with the Patriarcas when the occasion calls for it. The Genovese were going to make two guys from Boston in the Springfield crew 6 or 8 years ago as reported by Stephanie Berry

It's the exact opposite.

Examples like DeLeo's crew or the the Bonannos making a guy in Canada were anomalies. The exceptions to the rule.

There's not much evidence of a Bonanno crew in Montreal today. Nobody can positively name a single living member up there. Everybody died or was killed.

There's not really a Genovese crew left in Springfield. There's one living member we know of and he's in prison. The 2010 bust basically took out what attrition hadn't and the 2016 arrests was a mopping up operation of a handful of associates. There's a reason the remnants up there were merged with the Ianniello crew in New York .

What's left of the Patriarca family is pretty much a Boston organization at this point. A handful of mostly old and inactive members still living in Providence. Nothing left in Connecticut.

When you read the Wikileaks report from over a decade ago regarding Merlino in Florida, it sounds more like some hangers on than an actual crew.

In fact, I'm not even sure if any of the NY families have functioning crews based in Florida now. (And yes, I'm aware Capeci called Farese a captain recently).

The general trend for LCN in the U.S. for years now is a shrinking, contracting presence. Not an expanding one. Families at a distance having less reason or occasion to interact with each other, at least outside of prison. Decades ago, the Mafia was national in scope. Today, its mainly concentrated in the New York metropolitan area. There you have at least 80% of the remaining membership. 95% of the membership in the Northeast.

[JoeCamel]

An active crew of 8 or 10 mainly associates under Albert calvanese and Santaniello actively committing loansharking and bookmaking in the Springfield area definitely constitutes A Genovese presence made guy or no made guy. We just saw Scibelli get pinched and there has been way more then just the tow truck extortion for activity in western Mass in the last 3-4 years. They are definitely kicking up and also definitely part of a broader crew that is dug into Connecticut and even Albany area. Definitely a decent amount of activity out there.

On this one I will agree to disagree. I am from New England . I definitely have lived one foot in and out of the criminal underworld in Northshore and Boston Route 1 corridor Massachusetts and even done some No Bond jail time before beating a string of cases. You didn’t really say nothing is going on but you implying that it’s all dying out is not reflective of reality. These guys definitely are still around and definitely have younger crews and textbox case associates and wannabes that manage to not got much attention because the targets of the state cops and organized crime task forces are mostly Dominican gangs and DTOs, with occasional theft rings and large scale frauds to keep them busy. I don’t know about Philly guys like some people say, but there are definitely Gambino associates hanging out in CT, RI, and south coast and south shore Massachusetts, aside
From the guys that already are known CT residents.

You have to remember, despite me abiding by the rules earlier with the membership estimates, I am going to empathetically state that there are quite a few guys that are 38, 40, 42, to mid 50s that are apparently made guys that have never been listed on these message boards. It is rampant exaggeration that New England is on its way out. They are still a local phenomenon comparable to Philly in Revere, Lynn, Lynnfield, Medford, the North shore, the North end, East Boston and the neighborhoods by Logan, the suburbs south of Boston off 93/24, as well as 1 or 2 guys who live on the seacoast/valley and 2/3 that I know of in southern Maine. Everyone who grew up in the neighborhoods and aren’t brand new yuppie transplants know exactly who these guys are. I know there are other guys who may have a similar perspective on this board. Their little Italian men’s club doesn’t stop because we don’t see them. I know for a fact the FBI barely pays attention to them. Way more dangerous fentanyl analogues and financial crimes to fry. Plus Black Lives Matter and a bunch of psycho redneck militias (incidentally a good example is those black guys from Rhode Island starting a stand off on 95)

[avvocato]

John Sciortino
Peter Simone
Frank Deluna
Willie Cammisano Jr
Vince Civella
Anthony Simone
James Moretina
John Mandacina (IP)
Jerry Cammisano
John Termini
Vincent Pisciotta (IP)
Dominic Scola
Nick LaBruzzo
Peter (PJ) Ribaste (maybe dead?)


This is avvocatos list from the recent Kansas City thread.
I believe most if not all are confirmed made (with the exception of maybe 3) so we can say 11-14 for KC. Definitely is more then 5.

PJ Ribaste’s sister recently passed away and he was listed as having predeceased her.

[Ryan98366]

Unbelievable to think Detroit has 7 made members and Chicago is under 20. What is worst is the made men are all old and unfit
. How many of those made men are in their 40’s and 50’s? Next to zero.

[PogueMahone]

Surprised to see that Rochester still has so many possible members. Who are their confirmed members? Is there still a presence or are they essentially all old and retired? I know nothing about the city’s mob.

Dominic “Sonny” Celestino/91
Anthony Colombo/79
?-Francesco “Frank” Frassetto/73
Thomas Marotta/79
Reigo Marterano/87? (Dead?)
Donald Paone/78
Loren Piccarreto/70


The youngest guy, Piccarreto, is living in California and doing interviews about the mob. That is pretty much the status of the Rochester family.


Pogo

Thanks Pogo. Much appreciated.