Number of Families according to Bill Bonanno

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Pittston, PA would also be under Pittsburgh ?

Pittston, PA is Bufalino territory.
The following towns are in the Wyoming Valley:
Wilkes-Barre
Hazelton
Scranton
Pittston
Russell Bufalino's territory comprised the entire valley.
Coal mines and dress factories were the main industries there.
It is now very economically depressed.

[cavita]

Tucson was the Bonnanos, not a seperate Family. Don't believe Madison was a separate Family. They were more like a Crew connected to Milwaukee like Pueblo was connected to Denver or San Diego connected to L.A.

Madison was a separate family as 1960s FBI files stated how Balistrieri of Milwaukee wanted to move in and take over Madison in 1966 but was discouraged by Chicago. By 1973 however, Milwaukee mob member and informant Augie Maniaci stated that Madison had disbanded by a vote if its remaining members.

[Frank]

I think Frattiano made a few mistakes when naming the families at that time. He didn't mention the Bufalino Family for one. Never heard of the Steubensville or Connecticut families.

[B.]

My personal, unfounded opinion from research is that there were probably at least a couple more small families ala Birmingham that sprang up and died out early on. I'd have to recheck, but I recall a Sicilian source saying that families in Sicily originally required ten members to qualify for a new family, which sounds small but so are/were most Sicilian villages. I imagine the same principle applied to Sicilian colonies in the US. There were a number of places where small colonies existed because of work available at the time. The mafia's needs were also much different then. Look at a place like the Scranton family, for example. They have been ID'd as the first family in Pennsylvania and started circa ~1900 because of mining work available at the time, which the mafiosi from Montedoro were skilled in. The ability to compete in rackets and more lucrative businesses were a luxury for early mafia members -- having steady work, even in manual labor, was a major draw and would have likely led to the creation of small mafia clusters. The mafia wasn't developed around a checklist of illegal operations, but a desire to gain an advantage in any possible situation, which back then in the US was more likely through skilled/unskilled labor (which they then used as a springboard to get involved in other unethical/illegal/corrupt activities within and around their colonies). These clusters would have broken apart as work dried up and/or Sicilian/Italian colonies were stunted or slowly dissolved. Look at Joe Morello doing manual labor in Texas in the years leading up to his taking over a family in NYC and becoming capo dei capi. If he wasn't a member yet, he was no doubt tapped into a mafia network as his stepfather and other relatives were mafia members and they would have used those connections to find suitable places to work. Where mafia members lived and worked, they would also need a family in relative proximity because that's how the mafia works.

The US was also a much different landscape back then and "big cities" weren't as defined as they are today in many places. Much like some cities boomed and died back then (and still do, though there is enough cultural reinforcement and metropolitan presence to keep them "big"), I assume a few mafia families ala Birmingham came and went that we'll never know about. Immigrants didn't say to themselves, "I'll go to Detroit because they're going to have a pro football team, the automotive industry, and it'll sound important to call ourselves the Motor City Mafia", they went because they had connections there and likely some kind of humble economic opportunity they could potentially take advantage of. I mean Hell, if the son of a mafia boss hadn't written his third autobiography right before his death, we may not even know about Birmingham. Who knows what else has been lost to history unless new sources become available.

[JeremyTheJew]

Tucson was the Bonnanos, not a seperate Family. Don't believe Madison was a separate Family. They were more like a Crew connected to Milwaukee like Pueblo was connected to Denver or San Diego connected to L.A.

Madison was a separate family as 1960s FBI files stated how Balistrieri of Milwaukee wanted to move in and take over Madison in 1966 but was discouraged by Chicago. By 1973 however, Milwaukee mob member and informant Augie Maniaci stated that Madison had disbanded by a vote if its remaining members.

So Madison had a "full" admin?


I was under impression Madison was a Chicago sub group.

its interesting Fratiano said all of those were Fams. Presumably active?

also noticed Las Vegas has never been mentioned, which I can avree and understand. But I thought places such as Tuscon and San Jose possibly even Dallas would have been comparable to Spilotro crew? Or Marshall Caifano? I dong think Cairfano had a crew actually.

[B.]

Madison was its own distinct family, with members from the same area of Sicily as the Milwaukee membership. They were very much like small Sicilian coscas pre-1960s. They had their own administration, but seem to have operated under some amount of direction from Milwaukee. They also seem to have only been marginally involved in crime, as most of their leading members were heavily involved in the cheese business, which took up most of their time.

[Snakes]

The families listed as still having living members by the FBI's indices in 1997 were:

Bonanno
Buffalo
Chicago
Cleveland
Colombo
DeCavalcante
Denver
Detroit
Gambino
Genovese
Kansas City
Los Angeles
Luchesse
Madison
Milwaukee
New England
New Orleans
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Pittston (Bufalino)
Rochester
Rockford
San Francisco
San Jose
St. Louis
Tampa
Tucson

[Stroccos]

Interesting that fraitiano said that Steubenville Ohio had its own family , James tripodi was the boss there and reported to Pittsburgh ? and was tied in with Cleveland as well

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Interesting that fraitiano said that Steubenville Ohio had its own family , James tripodi was the boss there and reported to Pittsburgh ? and was tied in with Cleveland as well

From yours and JCB's posts, it seems that each town, Akron, Warren, now Steubenville, etc. had their
own leader or semi-autonomous group. Some or all probably answered in some capacity to Cleve; Pitt; Youngstown
bosses. Seems the entire 'rust belt' was covered.

[Stroccos]

Interesting that fraitiano said that Steubenville Ohio had its own family , James tripodi was the boss there and reported to Pittsburgh ? and was tied in with Cleveland as well

From yours and JCB's posts, it seems that each town, Akron, Warren, now Steubenville, etc. had their
own leader or semi-autonomous group. Some or all probably answered in some capacity to Cleve; Pitt; Youngstown
bosses. Seems the entire 'rust belt' was covered.

The Cleveland syndicate had interests almost nation wide
Being that faraitiano was from Cleveland and tight delsanter and James licavoli ,I find it interesting that he said Steubenville is its own family , he could of just meant mob activity was there

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Interesting that fraitiano said that Steubenville Ohio had its own family , James tripodi was the boss there and reported to Pittsburgh ? and was tied in with Cleveland as well

From yours and JCB's posts, it seems that each town, Akron, Warren, now Steubenville, etc. had their
own leader or semi-autonomous group. Some or all probably answered in some capacity to Cleve; Pitt; Youngstown
bosses. Seems the entire 'rust belt' was covered.

The Cleveland syndicate had interests almost nation wide
Being that faraitiano was from Cleveland and tight delsanter and James licavoli ,I find it interesting that he said Steubenville is its own family , he could of just meant mob activity was there

Agreed, 1st I ever heard of a Steubenville Family. JCB, any thoughts?

[Stroccos]

Interesting that fraitiano said that Steubenville Ohio had its own family , James tripodi was the boss there and reported to Pittsburgh ? and was tied in with Cleveland as well

From yours and JCB's posts, it seems that each town, Akron, Warren, now Steubenville, etc. had their
own leader or semi-autonomous group. Some or all probably answered in some capacity to Cleve; Pitt; Youngstown
bosses. Seems the entire 'rust belt' was covered.

The Cleveland syndicate had interests almost nation wide
Being that faraitiano was from Cleveland and tight delsanter and James licavoli ,I find it interesting that he said Steubenville is its own family , he could of just meant mob activity was there

Agreed, 1st I ever heard of a Steubenville Family. JCB, any thoughts?

James Tripodi I believe was a capo in the larocca crime family , while he “rights” to stubenville and probably ran it as he saw fit , I believed he would answer to pitt. I thought he was with Cleveland because of how close he was with the Milano’s but according to fbi informant he was with Pittsburg

[B.]

Fratianno also made a comment about Calumet City formerly having its own "boss". Note that the book almost exclusively refers to Chicago crew leaders as "capos", so this is in contrast to that. Could be a reference to Chicago Heights, which was its own family originally.

edit: Inspired by Morello's article that was posted, I'm of the opinion like she is that Philly likely had ~3 distinct mafia groups before Sabella. Chicago area had 2 Sicilian families, I believe, plus possibly a separate Iowa family in that area. The Riberesi had established their club in NJ by the early 1920s and direct descendents of well-known DeCavs were established in Elizabeth shortly after the turn of the century, with those names being likely mafiosi, so it's not unreasonable to think that there were two NJ families, plus the 5 families in NJ/NYC area by the 1910s. When Gentile talks abut assembly meetings, he makes it sound like there were a significantly larger number of family representatives than the normal leader/assistant arrangement we know of would total, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that some of these areas had a few smaller groups that were later consolidated into one family as relatively larger family sizes became the norm in the USA.

[Confederate]

The families listed as still having living members by the FBI's indices in 1997 were:

Bonanno
Buffalo
Chicago
Cleveland
Colombo
DeCavalcante
Denver
Detroit
Gambino
Genovese
Kansas City
Los Angeles
Luchesse
Madison
Milwaukee
New England
New Orleans
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Pittston (Bufalino)
Rochester
Rockford
San Francisco
San Jose
St. Louis
Tampa
Tucson

If you eliminate Tuscon, (which is really part of the Bonnano Family), you have 26 Families. 26 seems to be the magic number that somehow, someway, always gets quoted.

[johngotti2018]

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... 3&tab=page

Mary Ferrell 1968

1)NY (5 Families)
2)New England (Raymond Patriarca)
3)New Jersey (Samuel Decavalcante)
4)Buffalo,NY (Steve Magaddino)
5)Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania (Sebastian LaRocca)
6)Upstate Pennsylvania (Russell Bufalino)
7)Cleveland,Ohio (John Scalish)
8)Kansas City,Missouri (Nicholas Civella)
9)Detroit,Michigan(Anthony Zerilli)
10)New Orleans,Louisiana (Carlos Marcello)
11)Dallas,Texas (Joseph Civello)
12)Milwaukee,Wisconsin (Frank Balestrieri)
13)Denver,Colorado (James Coletti)
14)Los Angeles,California (Nick Licata)
15)San Josè,California (Joseph Cerrito)
16)San Francisco,California (Joseph Lanza)
17)Tampa (Trafficante)
18)Dallas (Joseph Civello)
19)St. Louis,Missouri (Anthony Giordano)
20)Springfield,Illinois (Frank Zito)