The Rise and Fall of Organized Crime in the United States
2019; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 49; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1086/706895
ISSN2153-0416
Autores Tópico(s)Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance
ResumoPrevious articleNext article FreeThe Rise and Fall of Organized Crime in the United StatesJames B. JacobsJames B. JacobsAbstractFull TextPDF Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreAbstractThe Italian American Cosa Nostra crime families are the longest-lived and most successful organized crime organizations in US history, achieving their pinnacle of power in the 1970s and 1980s. The families seized opportunities during the early twentieth-century labor wars and under national alcohol prohibition from 1919 to 1933. Control of labor unions gave them power to determine the companies that could operate in various sectors and enabled them to establish employer cartels that rigged bids and fixed prices, and provided opportunity to exploit pension and welfare funds. The racketeers were urban power brokers. The families also profited from gambling, illicit drugs, loan-sharking, prostitution, and pornography, and they extorted protection payments from other black marketeers. For decades they faced little risk from law enforcement. FBI Director Hoover denied the existence of a national organized crime threat. Local police were corrupted. After Hoover’s death, the FBI made eradicating organized crime a top priority. Relentless law enforcement coincided with socioeconomic and political changes that greatly weakened the Cosa Nostra families.As the second decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, the Cosa Nostra crime families are shadows of their former selves. Relentless investigation and prosecution of Cosa Nostra members and associates, legalization of gambling, increased competition in other black markets, dramatic decline of private sector unions, waning influence of urban political machines, disappearance of Italian neighborhoods, and emergence of new organized crime groups have all contributed to the decline of the Cosa Nostra families. In this essay I describe their rise and fall.The academic and popular treatment of organized crime in the United States, including in this essay, overwhelmingly focuses on Italian American Mafia or Cosa Nostra “families.” This is justified by their longevity; alliances with political, business, and law enforcement elites in numerous cities; political and economic power; headline-making assassinations; and colorful depictions in print, movies, and television series. There is no denying Italian American dominance among organized crime groups, at least since the late 1930s, although non–Italian American groups have sometimes competed and sometimes cooperated with a Cosa Nostra family. The mostly Irish American Winter Hill Gang in Boston, which flourished from the 1960s to the 1980s, is a good example (Lehr and O’Neill 2001). During roughly that same period, the Westies, an Irish American New York City gang, engaged in extreme violence, sometimes at the behest of one of the Cosa Nostra families, often in furtherance of drug trafficking (English 1990). Throughout the twentieth century, black organized crime groups have been active in gambling, prostitution, and other rackets (Schatzberg 1993). In the 1970s, for example, Nikki Barnes established a seven-man African American syndicate to control heroin distribution in Harlem (Barnes and Folsom 2007). Russian and Russian American crime groups rose to prominence in the 1990s (Finckenauer 1994; Handelman 1995). Vyacheslav Ivankov built an international operation that included narcotics, money laundering, and prostitution. He forged ties with Cosa Nostra groups and Colombian drug lords in Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. Chinese triads or tongs have long operated in Chinese American neighborhoods of some American cities (Chin 1990, 1994).Colombian drug traffickers, Jamaican posses, and Central American gangs are well-entrenched in many parts of the United States (Kenny and Finckenauer 1995). In the twenty-first century, MS-13, a gang with one foot in the United States and the other in Central America, has been heavily involved in drug trafficking and extortion (Progressive Management 2017). In the 1990s and 2000s, Armenian Power attracted major law-enforcement attention, at least in Los Angeles. In 2011, a hundred people associated with Armenian Power were charged with crimes ranging from identity theft to kidnapping, fraud, extortion, loan-sharking, robbery, witness intimidation, and drug trafficking. In 2015, a shootout in Waco, Texas, between the Bandidos Motorcycle Club and Cossacks Motorcycle Club left nine dead. In its wake, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) labeled seven motorcycle gangs as highly structured criminal enterprises (Duara 2015). Despite recognizing all this organized crime diversity, I deal exclusively with the Cosa Nostra crime families, no small challenge given their long history and their presence in at least 24 cities.The families operate independently, but often cooperate, especially in “open cities” like Miami and Las Vegas. Since 1950, there have been no wars between the families, each being recognized as having exclusive jurisdiction in its city except New York City. Relations are more complex for the five New York City families, but they too have largely respected one another’s territory, interests, and operations. There is no national body that governs all the families.The families are organized similarly. A boss or “godfather” dominates each. The boss appoints an underboss, the consiglieri (counselors), and a number of capos (captains). Each captain oversees a crew of soldiers and associates. Soldiers are full members of the family (“made men”), but associates are not. The capos and soldiers pursue their own underworld and upperworld opportunities. They are entrepreneurs in crime. The boss is entitled to a percentage of each subordinate’s earnings.Members of Cosa Nostra have been involved in myriad schemes and businesses. Labor racketeering has been especially important. Control of a union makes possible extortion of employers and employees and establishment of employer cartels that rig bids and fix prices. Cosa Nostra members have or have had ownership interests in all sorts of companies. They are active in black markets in drugs, gambling, prostitution, pornography, and loan-sharking.Until the 1970s, the Cosa Nostra families were not seriously threatened by federal, state, and local law enforcement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover did not regard the local families as a federal problem. Local police did not have the resources or expertise to support systematic investigations and make cases against members of the families. Besides and importantly, many urban police departments were corrupted by the crime families. The occasional successful prosecution had little, if any, effect on the families’ businesses and operations. New members could easily be recruited to replace imprisoned colleagues.Federal law enforcement’s view of Italian American organized crime changed radically in the 1960s. Cosa Nostra attracted the attention of powerful congresspersons who warned especially of organized crime’s role in unions and the legitimate economy. Consequently in 1968, Congress enacted the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Title III provided for electronic eavesdropping pursuant to court orders. Wiretaps and bugs became the most important investigatory tools for combatting organized crime. In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which facilitated organized crime investigations and made possible the simultaneous prosecution of multiple members of each crime family. It made membership in an organized crime group an offense and authorized lengthy prison terms and substantial financial penalties. In 1970, Congress created the Witness Security Program, which offered protection and relocation with a new identity to Cosa Nostra defendants who became cooperating government witnesses.More importantly, the FBI reinvented itself after Hoover’s death in 1972. Hoover defined the FBI’s top priority as internal subversion by Communists, socialists, and other left-wingers. His successors and the Criminal Division of the DOJ made organized crime control a top priority. In 1968, the DOJ established more than a dozen organized crime strike forces in jurisdictions where Cosa Nostra was thought to be strongest. The strike forces, reporting directly to the DOJ headquarters, were independent of the US Attorneys’ offices in those jurisdictions. Thus, they focused full time on investigating and prosecuting organized crime without responsibility for dealing with other crime problems.In 1975, after Cosa Nostra’s assassination of former Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa, labor racketeering became the principal focus of the federal effort. A few important prosecutions were brought in the 1970s, followed by a torrent in the 1980s. Practically every Cosa Nostra boss, and usually their successors, were convicted. Hundreds of Cosa Nostra members were imprisoned. In addition, a civil remedy, wielded by federal prosecutors, enabled lawsuits to bring organized-crime-dominated unions under the remedial authority of federal courts. By 2000 Cosa Nostra was severely weakened everywhere and in several cities eradicated.Here is how this essay is organized. Section I describes in more detail the inter- and intra-organization of Cosa Nostra families. Section II describes their infiltration and exploitation of unions, business, and politics. Section III examines the Cosa Nostra crime families’ black market operations. Section IV focuses on their political influence and role as a power broker in urban America. Section V sketches the evolution of the federal, state, and local organized crime control campaign. Section VI surveys the law enforcement strategies wielded by federal, state, and local law enforcement and by local governments. Section VII reviews the reasons for Cosa Nostra’s decline and speculates on its current and future prospects.I. The Organization of Italian American Organized CrimeThe origins of Cosa Nostra date from the nineteenth century in Italy and later in the United States. Its prominence, visibility, and a widely shared organizational structure date from the twentieth century.A. Cosa Nostra FamiliesEach family is headed by a boss, sometimes called the “godfather.” How bosses are chosen or choose themselves is not clear. There is most likely no single method. Perhaps in some cases, as in the Godfather movies, the incumbent boss chose his successor. This would have required acquiescence by at least a substantial proportion of the family’s membership. Perhaps in other cases the underboss, consiglieri, and capos, after negotiation and deal making, reached a consensus. Leadership succession is sometimes determined by intrafamily warfare as occurred in the Bonanno wars of the 1960s in New York City (DeStefano 2006). In theory, the boss exercises nearly absolute authority over the family; receives a share of his subordinates’ revenues; oversees payoffs to politicians, police, and other officials; and takes care of the families of imprisoned (and sometimes deceased) members. Reality often differed. Imprisoned members’ families were frequently not provided for adequately, if at all. Ambitious subordinates disagreed with a boss’s policies or appointments and otherwise felt mistreated or disrespected.Bosses of two dozen Cosa Nostra families operating over three-quarters of a century necessarily varied greatly in intelligence, energy, competence, and ambition. Since the mid-1970s, bosses have faced significant threats of arrest and prosecution. It would have been challenging for bosses tied up in criminal litigation to effectively govern their families. That challenge would have been even greater after conviction and during a lengthy imprisonment. There appears to be no standard practice or rule about when leadership must be relinquished.Each family has an underboss, consiglieri, and several capos. The boss appoints this leadership team without the need for advice and consent, but subordinates’ approval or at least respect for the underboss, consiglieri, and capos would likely be important. Each capo has authority over a “crew” comprising soldiers, sometimes called “good fellows” or “wise guys.” All members must be males of Italian descent (Sicilian according to some writers). The consanguine definition of “Italian descent” is not clear. Are two “full-blooded” Italian parents required? John Gotti’s wife, Victoria, had a Russian mother and an Italian father, so her son John Gotti Jr., Gambino boss for several years, was not full-blooded Italian. What counts as qualifying Italian lineage—“fully” Italian mother, father, or both—is not clear and probably varies between families and over time.An individual must be invited to become a made member, almost always after years of being associated with the family. Prominent defector Joseph Valachi, a member of the predecessor of New York City’s Lucchese family, testifying before Senator McClellan’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described the secret Cosa Nostra induction ceremony. It included an oath of fealty to the family and its code of omerta that requires silence about the family’s organization, membership, and activities (McClellan 1962). Blood is drawn from the initiate’s hand (usually the trigger finger). Then a picture of a saint is burned in that hand (Fresolone and Wagman 1994; Maas 1997). Subsequent defectors confirmed Valachi’s description of the ceremony. FBI agents, using an eavesdropping device, in 1989 recorded the initiation of four men into New England’s Patriarca family (United States v. Bianco1). The following year, George Fresolone, cooperating with the FBI, recorded his initiation into the Bruno-Scarfo family (Fresolone and Wagman 1994). Fresolone claimed in his autobiography that the Philadelphia family’s failure to provide financial assistance to his family when he was incarcerated led to his disillusionment with Cosa Nostra and ultimately to his violation of omerta (Fresolone and Wagman 1994). His information contributed to racketeering indictments in 1991 against 38 reputed mobsters, including Nicodemo Scarfo, the Philadelphia–Atlantic City boss (Cox 1989).Cosa Nostra crews include “associates” who work for and with made members. A 1998 estimate of the size and composition of New York’s Genovese family calculated that there were four or five associates for every made member, of whom there were approximately 250 (Raab 1998c). Associates need not be Italian.A high-earning associate can be highly influential within the family leadership. Meyer Lansky, a principal in the development of Las Vegas as a gambling center, became one of Cosa Nostra’s most powerful figures, although he himself could never become a made man. Nor could Murray Humphries, Red Dorfman, and Stanley Korshak, major figures in the Chicago family in the 1950s, 1960s, and into the 1970s. Nor was Moe Dalitz in Cleveland. Benjamin Siegel played a key figure in establishing Cosa Nostra’s Las Vegas gambling empire.Cosa Nostra members and associates function as criminal entrepreneurs, seeking out profitable legal and illegal opportunities; the legal businesses were typically run in illegal ways (Jacobs and Panarella 1998). Members and associates must share revenues with the family’s leaders, but there are no hard-and-fast accounting rules or fixed percentages. Presumably, the sizes of payments to capos, consiglieri, underbosses, and bosses are individually negotiated. Financial disputes are not litigated in lawsuits; a subordinate suspected of cheating the boss can be assaulted or killed.B. Relations among FamiliesDespite the late Donald Cressey’s (1969) assertion that Italian American organized crime constituted a nationwide conspiracy, Cosa Nostra has never been a single organization. Since the 1930s, at least 24 Italian American crime families have operated independently, each with exclusive jurisdiction in its own geographic area (except in New York City, where five families operate). Each family chooses its own leaders, members, and associates; launches and conducts its own criminal enterprises; invests in legitimate enterprises; and divvies up revenues. Retired Bonanno family boss Joseph Bonanno claimed in his autobiography that the families were governed by a nationwide Cosa Nostra “commission” established in the 1930s by Charles Luciano (Bonanno and Lalli 1983). However, other than a bungled 1957 conclave in Apalachin, New York, attended by dozens of Cosa Nostra figures from all over the country, there is little evidence to support the existence of a national governing body (United States v. Bufalino). A nominal commission with representatives from some families may have met occasionally to discuss mutual interests and inter- and intrafamily disputes, but if so it did not in any meaningful sense “govern” the organized crime families.Cosa Nostra families sometimes cooperated on ventures. Several families, for example, cooperated in skimming from Las Vegas casinos in order to avoid taxes. Several families operated in Miami, which apparently was considered “an open city.”Indictments in the 1986 “commission case,” which brought charges against the leaders of four of the five Cosa Nostra families in New York City, charged the existence of a commission comprised of the heads of the five families (Bonanno, Columbo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese). According to the prosecutors, this commission “regulated and facilitated the families’ interrelationships, promoted and carried out joint ventures, resolved actual and potential disputes, extended formal recognition to new bosses and, from time to time, resolved leadership disputes within a family, approving the initiation or ‘making’ of new members or soldiers, keeping persons inside and outside La Cosa Nostra in fear of the commission with threats, violence, and murder” (United States v. Salerno, indictment; see Jacobs, Panarella, and Worthington 1994). To the extent that the commission existed, it is not clear how it enforced its decisions. Most likely, the New York City bosses met from time to time on an ad hoc basis to discuss issues of common concern, for example, the 1960s warfare within the Bonanno family. There was no commission office, no staff, no budget. We know nothing about the alleged commission’s decision-making procedures. Was unanimity required? If not, did bosses in the minority acquiesce to the will of majority?There is lore that commission approval was needed before members of a family could depose (assassinate) their boss. However, no information has surfaced that John Gotti, a Gambino family capo, sought, much less received, commission approval to assassinate Gambino boss Paul Castellano. Surely Gotti would not have risked disclosing his plot to the other families’ bosses lest information be leaked to Castellano. It is hard to imagine Gotti having been able to arrange a confidential meeting with the bosses minus Castellano. And if Gotti had appeared before the commission, would his anti-Castellano allegations have been accepted at face value, or would the bosses have wanted to hear what Castellano or any defenders of his leadership had to say? Without some kind of fact-finding, it would have been hard for a commission to anticipate the ramifications of an unsuccessful or even a successful assassination attempt. Finally, might not the other bosses have been reluctant to approve a capo’s assassination of a boss in light of their own vulnerability to subordinates?Families are better conceptualized as franchises than as formal bureaucratic organizations. A made member or associate derives power and economic benefit from being recognized by the family. Businessmen, union officers, and politicians are likely to comply with a family member’s “requests” because of the family’s reputation for wielding power through violence and other means.II. Labor and Business RacketeeringThe Cosa Nostra families’ success over much of the twentieth century results from seeking out, developing, and exploiting a range of criminal and noncriminal opportunities including corruption of national and local labor unions; creation and enforcement of employer cartels; supplying illicit goods and services; and carrying out thefts, hijackings, frauds, and arson. At the same time, members often own and sometimes run ostensibly legitimate businesses, such as clubs, restaurants, trucking companies, linen suppliers, and concrete plants, and routinely violate antitrust, tax, and other laws. Cosa Nostra’s footholds in both the criminal underworld and the world of legitimate businesses, unions, and politics distinguish it from other organized crime groups active in US black markets (Jacobs 1999).A. Labor RacketeeringSince the beginning of the twentieth century, labor racketeering has provided Cosa Nostra with power, status, legitimacy, and financial reward (Seidman 1938; Taft 1958; Hutchinson 1969; Jacobs 2006). Infiltration of unions began in the 1910s and 1920s when companies recruited gangsters to break strikes, and unions recruited them to fight the strike breakers. With a foot in the door, organized crime families took over unions by replacing their officers by force or election fraud (Jacobs and Panarella 1998; Jacobs 2006). In some cases, they parlayed control of locals into influence and sometimes control of the national union (international if there were locals in Canada). For decades, Cosa Nostra wielded significant influence in the International Longshoremen’s Association, the Laborers Union, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.Cosa Nostra turned union power into profit by extortion (selling labor peace to employers), embezzling from and defrauding pension and welfare funds, taking employer payoffs in exchange for sweetheart contracts or ignoring violations of collective bargaining agreements, paying union officers bloated salaries, and forcing employers to hire no-shows (Reuter 1985, p. 56). The Cosa Nostra crime families also used their union power to acquire ownership interests in businesses; a business could not operate if the union would not allow its members to work for it. Organized crime figures could easily put an employer out of business or take an ownership interest. Moreover, by controlling which businesses could operate in a particular sector, they were able to establish employer associations (cartels) in waste hauling, construction, seaborne and air cargo, and other business sectors (New York State Organized Crime Task Force 1990; Jacobs 2006). The cartels set prices and decided which companies could bid on contracts and how much they could bid. In short, they designated who would win contracts.Beginning in the 1950s, Cosa Nostra’s influence in the International Longshoremen’s Union enabled the Gambino (Brooklyn and New Jersey) and Genovese (Manhattan) families to exploit many of the port’s operations. Cosa Nostra determined who worked on the docks and decided when cargo ships would be unloaded. They solicited bribes from or extorted shippers by determining which cargo was loaded and unloaded and when (Bell 1960; Abadinsky 1994). In the 1970s, the FBI’s massive Operation UNIRAC (Union Racketeering) investigation revealed that the Gambino and Genovese families’ influence in the Longshoremen’s Union extended from New York to Miami (United States v. Local 1804-1, International Longshoremen’s Association). Shippers paid off the families to avoid harm, to gain advantage, or both.Cosa Nostra wielded extraordinary influence in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). It was the nation’s largest private sector labor union, with 2.3 million members at its height. Jimmy Hoffa attained the presidency with the assistance of Cosa Nostra and, in return, deferred to their wishes. However, Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, and fraud and sent to prison in 1967. Frank Fitzsimmons served as acting president. President Richard Nixon pardoned Hoffa in December 1971 on condition that he not participate in union activities. Hoffa immediately repudiated that condition and sought to regain his old position. Cosa Nostra bosses, however, preferred Fitzsimmons and, after warning Hoffa to desist, assassinated him (Brandt 2004). Fitzsimmons served as IBT president from 1971 to 1981.By the late 1980s, organized crime was entrenched in at least 38 of the largest Teamster locals (PCOC 1986a; Jacobs and Cooperman 2011). Cosa Nostra bosses promoted their favored candidates for the IBT presidency and other top positions. For example, the Kansas City family successfully lobbied for Roy Williams’s candidacy to succeed Fitzsimmons. Williams resigned after conviction for conspiracy to bribe a US senator. The Cleveland family then promoted Jackie Presser’s successful candidacy (Brill 1978; Moldea 1978; Crowe 1993; Jacobs 2006; Jacobs and Cooperman 2011).Cosa Nostra’s influence in the Laborer’s International Union of North America guaranteed a powerful presence in the construction industries in many cities. Extensively recorded conversations of Sam DeCavalcante (New Jersey family) detailed his family’s control of a laborer’s union local (Zeiger 1970). For years, the “Outfit” (the Chicago family) strategically positioned Cosa Nostra members in the Laborers Union’s locals in that city (Abadinsky 1994). The President’s Commission on Organized Crime (PCOC 1986a) and several civil federal lawsuits documented the Lucchese and Genovese families’ influence in New York’s Laborers Local 6A and the Eastern District Council (New York State Organized Crime Task Force 1990).Cosa Nostra, especially the Lucchese crime family, has been firmly entrenched in many New York City local building trades’ unions, including painters, carpenters, mason tenders, and plumbers (New York State Organized Crime Task Force 1990). The “mobbed-up” unions crushed opposition by means of blacklisting and personal violence. Union officials who were members or associates of Cosa Nostra ran patronage systems in their locals.Cosa Nostra has had a strong presence in the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HEREIU). Control of HEREIU Local 54 enabled Philadelphia’s Bruno-Scarfo family to direct the purchasing decisions of Atlantic City hotels (Abadinsky 1994). In Chicago, the Outfit’s control of an HEREIU local gave it power over the restaurant industry (McClellan 1962). In New York City, the Colombo and Gambino families for many years dominated HEREIU Locals 6 and 100 (PCOC 1986a).Cosa Nostra benefited enormously from its union influence (New York State Organized Crime Task Force 1990). John Cody (Teamsters), Ralph Scopo (Laborers), Albert Anastasio and Anthony Scotto (Longshoremen), and Harry Davidoff (Teamsters) were among the most powerful New York City labor figures in the second half of the twentieth century. Red Dorfman was president of Chicago’s Waste Handler’s Union and a key figure in Chicago’s Outfit. Murray Humphries, another top Outfit figure, though not a union official himself, wielded enormous influence over several Chicago unions.As joint employer/union pension and welfare funds grew, Cosa Nostra members and associates, serving as fund trustees, treated the funds as piggy banks. The most notorious example was the Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland bosses’ exploitation of the massive Teamsters Central States Pension and Welfare Fund (United States v. Dorfman). Generous loans from this fund (controlled by the Chicago Cosa Nostra family through Allen Dorfman, who approved loans) financed Cosa Nostra’s operations in Las Vegas (Skolnick 1978).Control over unions enabled Cosa Nostra members to extort labor peace payoffs from businesses and to solicit bribes in exchange for sweetheart collective bargaining contracts (Jacobs and Panarella 1998; Jacobs 2006). Cosa Nostra–dominated unions turned a blind eye to employers’ failures to make required payments to pension and welfare funds by overlooking “double-breasted” shops (staffed by both union and nonunion workers) and by facilitating other employer practices that violated contractual obligations. In some jurisdictions, a mobbed-up union maintained two locals, one with a strong collective bargaining agreement and the other with a weak one. Employers who paid bribes to the union bosses and their Cosa Nostra allies were permitted to contract with the low-cost union. Employers were also induced to put no-show Cosa Nostra members, friends, or associates on their payrolls.Influence over unions and pension funds enabled Cosa Nostra to direct union contracts for dental and medical providers, legal services, and other goods and services (New York State Organized Crime Task Force 1990). Sometimes firms owned by Cosa Nostra members or associates were the chosen contractors; other times, contracts went to legitimate contractors who paid kickbacks. For example, contracts for maintaining the heavy equipment for unloading seaborne cargo in New Jersey have for decades been controlled by Cosa Nostra labor racketeers (Stewart 2019).Cosa Nostra racketeers also extorted kickbacks from rank and file union members. A worker had to pay part of his salary to an organized crime-controlled union boss in order to get a desirable assignment and even to work at all, especially on the New Jersey side of the Port of New York. These kickbacks were, among other ploys, sometimes called “Christmas gifts” from the union member to the boss (Stewart 2019).B. Business Racketeering and CartelsFrom the early twentieth century, New York City mobsters exerted strong influence in the construction industry, the garment center, the Fulton Fish Market, and sea cargo operations in the Port of New York and New Je
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