What got you interested?

[B.]

We have people from all over the world here and there are guys in Sweden, Russia, and Scotland who have more accurate info about the mafia than people born and raised in NYC, but of course we also have NYC and Chicago people who know their shit too.

I don't remember the last time we had a thread like this, but I'm genuinely interested in what everyone's entry point is. Doesn't matter if you started with the Sopranos, Wikipedia, or you were raised around it, how'd you catch the bug?

[KCMOb]

Sopranos, for sure.

[SonnyBlackstein]

The oxymoron of crime and honor. The 'nobility' of rebellion against feudal overlords by immoral means. A society which prides itself upon principle, yet its every act is unprincipled.

And here's one to really cook your goose; Having a better kind of criminal. Sammy Gravano " they're bad guys, but they're OUR bad guys'. Women and old ladies could walk home at night. Anyone here want to send their grandma into the Bronx now a days at 11pm?

That if SOMEONE imports H, it'll be sold only to the 'moolinyan' neighborhoods. And it's better it be us.

Not everyone can be a doctor, but everyone wants to be wealthy. We can live in a society whereby there's no drugs but gambling and loan in the underworld. This vs blacks or cartels whereby society has zero ethics and is eroded by definition.

And no I do not 'support' the camorra drug suburbs, that is not LCN, that is just organized crime.

LCN in theory has honor and respect.

I'd rather a Chin calling the shots, than a Blood "general" if you catch my mean.

[Pogo The Clown]

Saw an old and degraded bootleg VHS copy of the Godfather 1&2 and loved it. From there I read the book and loved that. That of course led to going to the local library and the internet to read up on the real Mafia. Not long after I discovered the American Mafia site and here we are over 20 years later.


Pogo

[aray22]

My favorite movies ever since I was a kid were crime/violence movies. Obviously loved The Godfather and Goodfellas. I think what made me more interested in the actual Mafia was the inside the American mob series from 2013.

[PolackTony]

Grew up near Joey Lombardo’s building and by his Huron Social Athletic Club, by Jackie Cerone Jr and Willie Messino’s II Jacks club, etc., in the Grand Ave Patch in Chicago. Everyone knew that the neighborhood was controlled by the mob, but it wasn’t a subject that I dedicated any serious study to until years later. As a kid, I read mob coverage in the local papers; I remember after Operations GambAt and Silver Shovel in the early 90s, reading about Pat Marcy and Fred Roti. Roti was revealed as a made member of the mafia at that time. I had recently read Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” and it blew my mind that one of the most powerful politicians in the city wasn’t just in the pocket of the mafia, but a member of it himself. Became much more directly interested after Family Secrets hit. Family Secrets was a huge deal locally in Chicago, with lots of in-depth coverage in the press. We had never gotten an inside view of the outfit prior to this; Joey the Clown on the lam, Frankie Calabrese Jr testifying against his own dad, and a made guy in Chicago testifying on the witness stand — Family Secrets had it all. I’d say that Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Coen’s book on Family Secrets (easily the best book on the Chicago outfit ever) was my real entrance to digging into the subject myself.

[TallGuy19]

I started watching The Sopranos in college and was curious about the real Mafia.

[thekiduknow]

I saw Goodfellas when I was 13, and watched the Godfather/Sopranos not too long afterwards. I loved the world those movies/show depicted, but never actually researched it. I also remember watching a very 90s documentary on the history channel about the St. Valentines Day Massacre when I was a kid.

Flash forward to college and I was a history major looking for a thesis to write. I decided to finally dig in and wrote about the Bonanno war and the Commission. I got interested in them because I was originally from Arizona and have family there. I'm too afraid to read it now, as all I had was the Bonanno books/Five Families and contemporary newspaper articles, so I had really no idea what I was talking about. I had no idea Mary Ferrell existed, much less how to file a FOIA request so I had no FBI files. I didn't even know about this board.

After college, I decided to keep researching it as I didn't want my brain to atrophy, but quickly became completely engrossed in it. Once I had time to really sit and read, without the pressure of a deadline, I really started to enjoy it and realized there's so much more than I thought. Been on a binge since 2018.

[B.]

Kid -- I was in a sociology / US history program my first or second year of school and realized I could save time by doing projects based on the mob books I was already reading. Did a presentation about the mafia and tried to show the induction ceremony from the Bronson movie (back when Netflix mailed you DVDs) but the DVD player didn't work so I got to stand there with my dick (actually my notes, same thing) in my hand trying to describe the ceremony. Didn't exactly seduce the college girls with that one... I remember seeing their blank faces staring out at me.

It would be f'n painful to read the paper that went along with it, though it mainly pulled from Valachi Papers and Underboss.

[CabriniGreen]

The oxymoron of crime and honor. The 'nobility' of rebellion against feudal overlords by immoral means. A society which prides itself upon principle, yet its every act is unprincipled.

And here's one to really cook your goose; Having a better kind of criminal. Sammy Gravano " they're bad guys, but they're OUR bad guys'. Women and old ladies could walk home at night. Anyone here want to send their grandma into the Bronx now a days at 11pm?

That if SOMEONE imports H, it'll be sold only to the 'moolinyan' neighborhoods. And it's better it be us.

Not everyone can be a doctor, but everyone wants to be wealthy. We can live in a society whereby there's no drugs but gambling and loan in the underworld. This vs blacks or cartels whereby society has zero ethics and is eroded by definition.

And no I do not 'support' the camorra drug suburbs, that is not LCN, that is just organized crime.

LCN in theory has honor and respect.

I'd rather a Chin calling the shots, than a Blood "general" if you catch my mean.

Lmao... I love you... but this reads like an intro to a REALLY BAD mob B movie. Just say you find gangsters fascinating, it's much less cringe.

And you REALLY confused on the drug shit. Cosa Nostra manages resources and contacts within a territorial sphere of influence. The real issue is you don't view the narcotics trade as a resource WORTH managing. Drug dealing, no. Narcotics traffic, different animal. You confusing the Greek with Poot and Bodie.

One second you are " sell it to the moolies, as long as it's US". Lol, Us who? THEN a paragraph later the dirty Italians in Naples are scum, lol. The Dia just recently equated the Secondigliano people to Cosa Nostra.

A Guttadauro in Sicily will be a practicing surgeon, yet still supervise an International narcotic ring from Brazil, AND STILL send goons to tune up a Bank executive over a 16 million dollar debt instead of involving lawyers and lawsuits. You guys make more distinctions than the mafia itself....



The "Genovese" who just got busted for the fentanyl? Probably sold it to " Bloods". It reminds me of the stolen car scene in Sopranos, lol.... Sonny... don't be THAT guy...lol

[B.]

You're only allowed to shame Sonny if you tell us how you got interested, Cabrini. I'd actually be fascinated to know your intro to this stuff since you're focused on drug trafficking and see the mafia more as a cartel

[motorfab]

I have always been interested in crime stories, but concerning the history of the mafia, it seems to me that it dates back to 2009: One evening when I was bored, I watched on a VOD service a French version of the documentary Crime Inc (version that I never saw again later). I found it fascinating straight away and started getting books and other documentaries about this.

As I said, I've always liked crime stories, and so before that I was interested in French criminals and the French Connection, which you know, is my main interest. It was still some time later, around 2012 or 2013, that I discovered a series of documentaries on the Canadian underworld on a cable channel. Needless to say, once it was specified in it that most of these guys were involved with the French Connection and with the Bonanno Crime Family (which also started to interest me during this period), my second main interest in the mob was born.

By chance, I came across this forum in 2017, and since then I definitely fell into the subject thanks to the conversations I had here with the members. Since I've been here I've discovered other interests such as the history of the old mafia, Los Angeles (which already interested me a little before), the mafias in Italy, and without being an expert I also like read about New Orleans, Buffalo, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Pittston & KC. And since several months I've been grabbed by the history of 'ndrangheta in Australia, I must confessed, thanks to the Underbelly serie ^^

That's a lot of details for a simple question, but that's how a froggy like me falls into the mafia History

[chin_gigante]

I watched Goodfellas for the first time just before I turned 16 and shortly after that read Wiseguy. I wasn't much of a reader then but it hooked me and I read it back to front probably more times than any other book. That pushed me down the rabbit hole of all those mob documentaries that have been uploaded to YouTube and served as my introduction to the Philly mob.

When I started university, I began reading all the books I could find on Philadelphia (starting with Mafia Prince - thanks Scott) as means of procrastination. A couple of years later I joined here and realised there were a lot of people who knew a lot more than me, so I had to do a hell of a lot more reading to catch up.

I still consider myself far behind. Outside of NY, Philly, Montreal, and a little on the DeCavalcantes, LA, and Cleveland, my knowledge on Cosa Nostra in the US is a drop in the bucket compared to guys like yourself, B, and Christie and Antiliar. Your ability to have an in depth and insightful conversation about Montreal in the 2010s one minute and then switch to the heritage of members of the Alabama family still astounds me.

[B.]

Haha, you're too kind. It's a mental condition at this point but also an escape from all the bullshit in the world.

I grew up near the Colacurcios and used to hear stories as a kid about them being the Seattle "mafia", was told they used to buy their lawyers expensive cars as gifts (no idea if true), and heard about their ties to Governor Rosellini. Of course they weren't part of the mafia but it made me aware of Italian-American OC.

The original spark for me came on a family trip to the east coast in the late 1990s. My best friend and I stayed with a family friend who was a programming director for PBS and he wanted us to watch a few documentaries and give our opinions as 13-year-old boys. One of the docs was about Casso and Amuso's reign. Along with the violence being riveting, I remember it showing Fat Pete Chiodo and describing him as a "mafia hitman" -- my idea of the mafia was slick guys in pinstripes with tommy guns and I thought to myself "the mafia is f'n weird if this giant slob in glasses is a hitman." I didn't retain anything but I always remembered the surveillance photo of Fat Pete of all people. My buddy and I picked that doc as our favorite but I don't now if it ever aired.

When I got online I looked this stuff up but was disappointed when I found out how "few" members they had. I had no clue what a member vs. associate was and got the impression the mafia was small and weak, not a Godfather type syndicate that controlled everything in the country. I browsed Gangland a few times and brushed up on the Gottis but lost interest.

Flash forward to when I'm 18 and for whatever reason I caught the bug. Don't remember the first book but it was either Underboss or Valachi Papers. Raab's book came out not long after and filled in a ton of gaps. Started going to AmericanMafia forum and reading any book I could find -- the stuff where they really dug into the organizations themselves were my favorite. Started reading Gangland every week, probably read every Gangland in the archive too because it was free then.

I ended up randomly getting Blood Oath a short time later and was taken by all of the politics and organizational stuff. The idea of a Philly crew based in Newark who mingled with the NYC/NJ Families, the way these guys were just as preoccupied with inductions and promotions as they were crime and business was really interesting to me. I didn't even know who Nicky Scarfo was, he was just a footnote to me.

I wanted to learn more about the Philly Family and ended up getting Blood & Honor. I remember Pogo saying he read it in a day. I actually had to forcefully restrain myself from doing that because I didn't want it to end. Pogo actually had a big influence -- he was one of the few people on AM trying to accurately catalog the organizational info about all these groups. He ended up inviting me to RealDeal where the level of discussion was way higher.

I had no interest in anything pre-1931 back then. I thought it was all loosely-organized Italian street gangs who came together over bootlegging and the idea of that bored the fuck out of me. I eventually started to absorb what guys like Rick, CC, and DaveC were sharing about the history and by then I'd exhausted all of Anastasia's books and got ahold of Celeste Morello's work, which schooled me on ethnic dynamics, Sicilian lineages, sleeper members, etc. Her books had a huge impact on me and put what I'd learned from Anastasia's books into a whole new context, making me want to learn similar things about other Families.

That's my bio. It all started with Fat Pete Chiodo on a dubbed VHS... ridiculous.

[CabriniGreen]

You're only allowed to shame Sonny if you tell us how you got interested, Cabrini. I'd actually be fascinated to know your intro to this stuff since you're focused on drug trafficking and see the mafia more as a cartel

I don't where yall get this from...


With me it started initially with rap references. Like it's Capones and Gottis and Siegels. But also Escobars, Noriega and Khadafi and Husseins. So just notorious outlaws and criminals. I'm like... who da fuck are these people?

I'm not sure how it started, but I do remember initially not being interested in the mafia, but rather Sicilians.
It was actually to understand the Sicilian psyche, so I could better understand the inherent criminality of my own family.

I was very intrigued as to why they hated government so much. And dedicated to to being in opposition to the law. I started reading... I think 2 things really grabbed me...



1. I think it's called Mafia Dynasty, about the Gambinos. There was something in there about Ettore Zappi. He managed to lock a department store into a contract that gave him exclusive rights to supply.... mattresses I think. And also managed an exclusive trucking contract as well. I remember having a thought that this was more clever business then criminal, at least to me. It was my introduction to like... corporate racket. I just thought it was so smart.


2. I read John Dicke history of Cosa Nostra. Specifically, his chapter on the " Industry Of Violence", and the monopolization of the use of violence. It was such a brilliant concept to me... violence as a form of currency.

3. Which brings me to my 3rd point. I came to view the illegitimate economy, as just as relevant as the legal one. The mafia to me, represents the Corporate mirror of capitalism, kind of.

You see this today with things like legal bets vs bookies. Or legal weed vs the Black market. I can't help but wonder what ndrangheta clan has made a fortune
siphoning off expensive Russian oil......