![]() ![]() Mob history tells of two famous occurrences in now-famous locales. The outdoor swimming pool at Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1947. In addition, the Camorra Mob has been illegally dumping and burning toxic waste for decades, which has had disastrous consequences for the environment, agriculture, food production and human health. But even when the dumps weren't closed, Naples' streets were famous for being trash-filled due to Camorra mismanagement of the waste system. ![]() The badly run system gained worldwide attention back in 2008, when uncollected garbage piled up on the city's streets for more than two weeks because the Mafia left the dumps closed. The Italian Mafia's Camorra group is said to have controlled garbage in the city of Naples since the early 1980s. While Mob involvement in garbage collection in New York City has declined, it still continues in other places like Philadelphia and New Jersey. The group included members and associates of three different Mob crews - the Gambino, Genovese and Luchese crime families - all connected to the garbage-hauling business. As recently as January 2013, 30 people were indicted for extortion in New York City. It was one of Rudy Giuliani's top priorities as New York City mayor, and he and attorney Robert Morgenthau oversaw indictments of members of the Genovese and Gambino crime families throughout the 1990s. Law enforcement in New York has made ongoing strides to, ahem, clean up the industry. In its mouth was a note: "Welcome to New York". When a national waste-industry leader, Browning-Ferris Industries, entered the market in 1992, an executive's wife found the decapitated head of a German shepherd on her lawn. The Mafia entered the industry through the Teamsters union, gaining influence over certain routes and using unsavory tactics to keep competition at bay. Carters, as trash haulers are known, have always been able to carve out and sell routes to one another, making the system vulnerable to strong-arm tactics. In the U.S., La Cosa Nostra has been part of New York's commercial sanitation system since the 1950s (personal trash is hauled by the city's Department of Sanitation). The connection between the garbage-hauling industry and organized crime goes back decades. Eleven entrepreneurs suspected of links with the Naples-area Camorra Mafia were arrested on June 11, 2008, accused of illegally burying household rubbish and sometimes toxic industrial waste. Let's take a look at some of the business and industries that have historically been controlled by the Mafia and see whether they are still connected today.Ī woman covers her nose past uncollected rubbish on Jin Pozzuoli, near Naples. It might have a lower profile, but in some industries (and union halls and political back rooms) the Mafia still has sway. While traditional criminal activities have waned, the Mafia has adapted to the times and is finding ways to thrive in today's economy. That impression, it turns out, is a myth. Given this information, it's easy to get the impression that some of the Mafia's power has diminished. Law enforcement officials say violent organized crime is down in the U.S., too. In 2020, just 28 murders in Italy were Mafia-related, compared with 527 between 19. The Mafia's murder rate in Italy fell by 80 percent between 19. ![]() Membership in the Italian Mafia, aka La Cosa Nostra, is said to have dropped to 3,000 in Italy and another 3,000 in the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's 2011 historic roundup of members of New York's "Five Families" (Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Luchese). The law seems more adept at catching these criminals, and a slew of high-profile indictments have made headlines, beginning with the famous cases brought by Manhattan attorneys Rudy Giuliani in the 1980s and Robert Morgenthau in the 1990s, and leading up to former U.S. In the digital age, cash businesses are more transparent, which makes it harder to strong-arm the competition. Waste management, for example, has become so strongly tied to organized crime that in some parts of the country the term "sanitation crew" might as well be synonymous with "the Mob."Įven as Mob types have gained higher profiles on TV and in movies, there's still the perception that the actual Mob is less present or relevant than it was in the past. The Mafia favors unregulated or cash-based businesses that require the strength and stomach to do things members of polite society avoid. Organized criminals have long invested in legitimate business as both a base of operations and a means of laundering money from illegal activities such as drug trafficking, weapons dealing, prostitution, smuggling, counterfeiting and robbery. ![]()
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