Genovese and Bonannos strongest

[johnny_scootch]

http://cosanostranews.com/


This is a link to an article Scarpo wrote about the Genovese family. I found one part of it very interesting.
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Longo "believes the Genovese family is so much stronger than the other families in the event there was a war," said an FBI report, adding that Longo said the Genoveses have "30 or 40 quality guys," naming Aparo, Falcetti, and DiChiara, as some of them.

Longo, heralding how alive the Genovese crime family was, told Durso that he and other "tough guys" would soon be inducted to increase the family's muscle that much more. "Whenever we step out and do something (murder, according to the FBI report ) we going to get the guys we can trust and do it," Longo said.

Durso also was told by Longo that a Genovese hit squad might need him, Durso, to help whack a man believed to have been an informant. "If there’s a problem, the guys . . . we’re going to pull together—you’ll be one of them," Longo said. "If we ever step out and do something, we go to the guys we can trust and do it. We ain’t going to put guys on the line who are going to become rats a day later."

At the same cafe meeting, Longo "reiterates that the Genovese family is the strongest LCN [La Cosa Nostra] family, rivaled only by 'Joe's family,' meaning the Bonanno family headed by Joseph Massino," according to court filings quoted in media reports.

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So at this point in time whenever this was a Genovese captain believes the Bonannos were stronger then the Gambino and Lucchese families. Thats very surprising to me even taking into account the legal troubles both those families were going thru at the time.

[Pogo The Clown]

This backs up what the Feds said back in 2000 about the Bonannos overtaking the Gambinos as the #2 family in NY. Obviously that has changed since then.


Pogo

[Rocco]

This backs up what the Feds said back in 2000 about the Bonannos overtaking the Gambinos as the #2 family in NY. Obviously that has changed since then.


Pogo

I belive it. To this day the Gambinos haven't recovered in size and strength from the Gotti yrs.

[Hailbritain]

The bonnanos were pretty much the only family with there full administration on the street , they were obviously a strong family . I know there wasn't much of a commission left butthe last meeting in 2000 massino chaired it because he was the only official New York boss free on the street . I think it's believable the bonnanos were on a par with the gambinos at that time

[SonnyBlackstein]

This backs up what the Feds said back in 2000 about the Bonannos overtaking the Gambinos as the #2 family in NY. Obviously that has changed since then.

Regardless what criteria you use to rank the families, this is debateable at best and in my opinion, simply wrong.

I can't see, apart from Joe being the only head on the street how IN ANY measurable factor, the Bonannos wouldve replaced the Gambino's as the No 2 family. Members, rackets, anything.

[Pogo The Clown]

At the time their numbers and rackets were pretty comparable due to the beating the Gambinos took in the 90s while the Bonannos went relatively unscathed during that period. In 2000 the Gambinos were also just coming off losing most of their leadership.


Pogo

[Pogo The Clown]

Here is a good article from 2000 that talks about the resurgence of the Bonannos and them overtaking the Gambinos

Based on electronic eavesdropping and Mafia informers, federal and state investigators say that although the Genovese family remains the largest and most dangerous mob organization in the region and the country, the Bonannos have replaced the Gambino family as the second most powerful of the five Mafia groups in New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/29/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

[SonnyBlackstein]

Isnt membership set?
Bonaanos Max out around 140/150. The Gambinos never went that low, even post Gotti.

And the Binos have had union (ILA, Construction, Garbage etc) influence which FAR outweighs anything the Bonannos have had in decades.


The comparison is apples and oranges.

[SonnyBlackstein]

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/29/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

The article also states "As the power of other Mafia families withered in the late 1990's, Mr. Massino increased the Bonanno ranks of active ''made'' soldiers and capos, or captains, to about 110 from a low of 80 in the early 1990's, investigators said."

Do you believe the Gambinos had less or even close to this number of made guys?
Of course not.

Additionaly " family's largest booty, law enforcement officials said, comes from illegal bookmaking on sports and numbers gambling and from loan-sharking"

Also stating the familys revenue source is gambling and loan, not unions or sophisticated rackets.

So in summation by the articles own voice, youve got a small amount of guys doing basic types of crimes.
The Gambinos were clearly larger and more sophisticated.

[Pogo The Clown]

By 2000 the Gambino membership had dipped below 200 members with a large portion of them in prison including most of the Gotti era Capos. In contrast the Bonannos were approaching 150 members with far fewer of them in prison and with most of their leadership and Capos on the street.


As for rackets by 2000 the Gambinos had lost the garment center, the garbage rackets and the airports. The docks had been reduced to insignificance and their construction rackets had been significantly reduced.


Pogo

[SonnyBlackstein]

In contrast the Bonannos were approaching 150 members

As your article states they only had 110. And thats TOTAL not a street number. Not 150.

[Pogo The Clown]

Some of the later informants like Vitale and Lino had them closer to 150 during this time period.


Pogo

[Wiseguy]

To be clear, we're talking about the early 2000's and not also the present, correct? There's no argument as far as now. The Gambinos are a strong #2 and definitely stronger than the Bonannos. As for the early 2000's, it may be one of the few times I take exception with the feds. Or at least I'm not totally convinced the Bonannos were stronger. Of course, that's where you get into what criteria we're using to judge strength.

The numbers? It seems the Gambinos went from around 250 members to about 200 after the Gotti fallout. I do recall one article saying they were reduced from 20+ crews to only 10 fully functioning crews for a time. On the Bonanno side, I always had a hard time believing they got as high as 150 members, even with them picking names out of the phone book. One FBI list in 2001 had 111 members. In his 2003 testimony, Frank Lino cited 12 captains and 100 soldiers. And wiretaps in the 2006 Basciano case showed the family with under 100 soldiers. So it seems the Gambinos, even with reduced numbers, we're still almost twice the size of the Bonannos in terms of total membership. Though, before the indictments started coming, maybe the Bonannos had more of their guys on the street.

As for rackets, yes the Gambinos had lost the garment center and their share of the airport. Garbage was also drastically reduced, although not completely eliminated. Same for the waterfront. Construction and related things like trucking, though also reduced, were the least impacted by comparison. Of course the Bonannos never had much of these things to begin with. At least not for decades. Whatever the Gambinos had left in terms of labor rackets, it was more than the Bonannos.

So do we look at the street rackets? I think the Bonannos probably rivaled the Gambinos in the drug trade. But I think the Gambinos maintained a bigger stake in gambling. They had lost some territory there but, according to one article, it was to the Genovese. While the Bonannos certainly had their share of the stock scams, through the 1990s you saw the Gambinos involved in those as well as other things like the calling card scam, phone sex lines, etc. One also has to consider the Gambinos still covered more ground, not only in New York, but still maintaining a presence in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Florida.

I recall Sal Vitale saying a "family is only as strong as its boss." I don't think that's necessarily true. One could argue Massino was the top boss for a time, being the last one on the street, and its probably why he chaired the last known Commission meeting in 2000. But I don't think anyone would claim his family was the strongest.

[Wiseguy]

An interesting article from 2005...


BIZ BOOMS FOR GAMBINOS’ NEW GODBROTHERS
By Murray Weiss
September 29, 2005 |


The Gambino crime family didn’t go away when John “Junior” Gotti was put away – they lowered their profile, then regrouped and re-energized under the iron-fisted leadership of a pair of no-nonsense brothers from Howard Beach, Nicholas and Anthony Corozzo.

Returning to their hardcore roots, the 200-member Gambino mob has been stuffing its pockets from a trifecta of time-honored rackets – gambling, extortion and labor corruption – that once made them a billion-dollar-a-year powerhouse before Dapper Don John Gotti’s lust for the media glare brought so much FBI heat, the crime family nearly had a meltdown.

“They were shaken and wounded . . . but the Gambinos still remain a very, very active family, neck-and-neck with the Genoveses,” a top mob-hunter said yesterday.

During the past 15 years, a celebrated parade of Gambino bosses – most notably John the elder, his three brothers, Gene, Peter, Richard V., and Gotti’s son John “Junior” – have been sent to prison by local, state and federal authorities, especially the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“That was John – he put everyone in the spotlight,” another mob expert said.

The heat resulted in the convictions of a laundry list of capos and top lieutenants – men such as Frank Locascio, his son, Salvatore, Richard Martino, Primo Casserino, Andrew Campos, Thomas “Huck” Carbonaro, Anthony “Sonny” Ciccone and even the Corozzos themselves. The crackdown helped the feds remove the Gambinos’ lucrative stranglehold on a number of businesses such as construction industries, labor unions and the waterfront, along with various devious scams on Wall Street and the Internet.

One expert, the renowned ex-NYPD Detective Sgt. Joseph Coffey, said the Gambinos were thrown into “chaos” by law enforcement – but now they’re back.

“They were a viable criminal enterprise before John Gotti and they are a viable criminal enterprise now,” said James Margolin, the FBI’s spokesman in New York.

Along with the Corozzos, who came out of prison in the past year, several other Gambino powers have re-emerged, including Danny Marino and Anthony “The Genius” Megale, federal officials say.

The Gambinos’ long-established moneymaking rackets include rake-offs from nightclubs and strip joints, prostitution, pornography and gambling all along the East Coast from Miami to Montreal. “That’s where they’re making their money,” one source said.

“It’s all about making money,” a federal official said. “That’s what La Cosa Nostra families do.”

And what are the prospects that another Gotti can take control of the Gambinos?

“Fuhgeddaboutit,” one source said.

The Corozzos do not like the Gottis.

http://nypost.com/2005/09/29/biz-booms- ... dbrothers/

[SonnyBlackstein]

So you have in summation, around 200 (give or take) vs 100 (give or take) members and sophisticated rackets (union, waterfront etc) vs basic gambling and loan. Gambino vs Bonanno.

It's simply false that the Bonannos were even close too, let alone rivalled or surpassed the Gambinos in any measurable level of strength.

A functioning street administration appears to be their sole claim to power.