Stupid shit you wish people would stop saying regarding the Mafia or just organized crime in general. I'll go first, " You're not even Italian!" So you have to be Italian to be interested in this subject? You know how many non-Italian associates helped make this thing what it was/is? Some with even more clout than some made men? Even in Italy, big busts often involve a rainbow mix of criminals involved from all over the world. Or here's a similar one, "You're not even from Chicago!" As if somehow being from Chicago makes you the absolute authority on organized crime in Chicago. There's people not even from Chicago who probably know more about your own city than you do. Ridiculous.

"Hes my homie"

Fuckin stupid word.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUG0IMjfxCE

i'm not sure if this is what you were angling for. however anytime i can find even a minor reason to insert anything from MR.CONDUCTOR...i will. not to divert topic but carlin was the best. i was very lucky to see him in concert twice before he died. the true GOAT of stand up bar none.

Uhm...99% of the Mafia, Ndrangheta, Camorra or SCU busts have a 99% ratio of Italian criminals that are involved. Sure, you'll find of Balkan associate pop up here or there or a North African drug dealer that worked for usually an SCU or Camorra clan, but those really show up in a small percentage of the Big Four busts in Italy.

There are a small number of similar criminal organizations operating in Italy. They are mostly based outside of Italy, or composed of non-Italians living in Italy, such as the Chinese, Russian, Georgian, Nigerian and Balkan crime groups including the Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Montenegrin and the Albanian mafia.

Exactly Hollander, no doubt that Italians outnumber everyone else, but we have seen busts where many associates of other ethnicities are busted with the big 4.

Do you know who I am? do you know who my father is ? I heard he's a rat... I think the phone is tapped, I hear tapping....
I can go on and on. I hate that shit !

Oh here's another one, "I wonder what organization is going to replace the 5 Families when they die out?" How many decades they've been saying that now? Everyone's always looking for the next big thing and the media eats it up. Also, anyone who says that the Colombos will be absorbed by one of the other Families (something else people have been saying for decades), I can't take them seriously.

Oh here's another one, "bosses like Accardo, Gambino, Costello, and Trafficante are true bosses because they died in bed and not in prison unlike Gotti, Gigante, Persico, etc" This is also fucking ridiculous. For starters, those bosses died or became inactive before RICO, before idiots like Scarfo, Gotti, and Amuso brought so much grief to the mob, and before the government’s all-out assault on the mob. Gigante gets a pass because let's face it, his crazy act did keep him on the streets for decades, and he only got a lousy 12-year sentence in the end, which isn't shit when he went decades ordering murders and conducting numerous racketeering schemes.

Most of what you say can be applied here

Thanks, you're right.

"Greek Mafia, Russian Mafia, Chinese Mafia"

Good one Jace. I prefer to say Greek mob, Russian mob, or Chinese Triads or organized crime. Mafia is Italian. Period. I know that it's become a generalized term but I'm a stickler.

We're on the same page on that. There is a Russian mob and Triads, I don't think any Greek mob ever really existed. Small groups yes, a mob no.

In North America there has never been such a thing as a substantial Greek mob and it has definitely only been small crews like the ones in Astoria and Philly.

In Europe on the other hand - operating from Greece and Cyprus - there definitely is Greek organized crime that's noteworthy enough to mention. There are more than a few organized crime networks operating from Athens that run protection rackets, loansharking, drugs...and that have infiltrated legal economies (Greek OC is highly known for its stakes in the shipping industry) and a lot money is laundered through major soccer teams. The Grigorakos clan used to be the most notorious name in the 90's and early 2000's, but after their downfall the biggest power was the conglomerate that was formed by the criminal organizations of Vassilis Stefanakos, Yiannis Skaftouros and Panagiotis Vlastos. In the past ten years there has been a big fallout. A number of other crime bosses have now taken over the power structure. In the last 10 years I think there have been about 40 major gangland hits in Greece (not counting the hits that happened on Greek soil due to conflicts within foreign criminal organizations from Kosovo/Albania, Serbia/Montenegro, Turkey and Georgia).
There's also the so-called "Mylopotamos mafia" which operates from Athens, but whose members come from a certain region in Crete. They are active in the illegal European arms trade and run large cannabis farms on the island of Crete. Members of that organization have been detected in other European countries (a connected family for some time lived in a town close to where I live in Belgium).
Moreover in Cyprus there's about 12 to 15 local crime families operating and many of them have been active for generations and have also infiltrated the legal economy. Two of those families formed a conglomerate and used to be very well known in the UK as well (specifically North London) where they were active in extortion, loansharking and heroin smuggling. A member of one of these families owns a well known nightclub in London.

In Western Europe, Greek organized crime is definitely a thing. Of course not as huge as the Italian criminal organizations and probably not as endemic as the ones from Turkey, Serbia/Montenegro, Albania/Kosovo, the FSU states, UK, Ireland and the Netherlands either. But they're definitely big and far-reaching enough to count them in as a factor; probably on par with Corsican or maybe even Bulgarian organized crime in the way that they have a ton of influence on their local economies.

When it comes to Greek organized crime , its a very strange thing. It is country with a lot of ports and islands , yet with very weak organized crime when compared to other states that have exit to the sea ( Italy, Montenegro, Albania , Spain , Netherlands and so on).

It's definitely a favorite hiding spot for Mafia fugitives, as we've seen over the years.

Greeks and Sephardi Jews were among the earliest people involved in the global opium/heroin trade.

I wouldn't call it very weak. It's not as entrenched as it is in Italy and the Balkans and it's not as internationally widespread, but local organized crime groups have successfully muscled their way in a substantial part of the legitimate world. And investigative reporters who are getting close to exposing contacts between organized crime, officials, law enforcement and big businesses are frequently threatened or even assassinated (such as in the case of Giorgos Karavaiz). They don't have anything resembling a Cosa Nostra, Ndrangheta, Camorra or SCU with thousands of members each, but there are quite a number of organized crime networks with enough muscle at their disposal to hold quite a bit of influence in their respective sector.

I'd say Spain doesn't have that much of a homegrown organized crime scene, except for smuggling groups in Galicia and Cadiz. The Galician smugglers' role is largely limited to transporting cocaine shipments from the Latin American cartels (usually the Colombians) to the organized crime groups in other parts of Europe. Their local political influence has diminished greatly compared to the 80's.
There are a ton of major European criminal organizations that have property in Spain though; groups from Italy, the Balkans, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, France, the FSU as well as outlaw motorcycle groups all have operatives in Spain.

Spain have none domestic organized crime groups, but its a smuggling hub for all other powerful groups and some of most powerful drug traffickers hide in Spain. Netherlands have both , but Greece was always 'short' of organized crime groups, very strange thing, its not a rich country, with weak laws , surrounded by sea. It has all factors for powerful organized crime groups , domestic or not.

What you said about Crete, true. I went to Greece 11 times. Once we were on holiday in Crete, got friendly with some locals there and they tried to sell me some guns, they were very open about it , told me how its pretty big thing there. I was pretty shocked , never saw anything illegal in Greece , but then when i was in Egypt , literally everyone offered me hashish , even in pharmacy lol

Gun culture is huge in Crete lol. It's actually illegal to own a gun in Crete, but a lot of families own them. Vendetta killings still happen every now and then.
Several Cretan families also run huge illegal cannabis plantations. The government must surely know about them, but they only bust one once in a while.

Egyptians are one of the world's most avid consumers of hashish lol. It's a strange situation if you come from Western Europe because the hashish trade in Egypt isn't really seemingly controlled by big professional organized crime groups (like usually is the case in our region) yet at the same time the possession of marihuana is still illegal. It's like there's just some kind of cultural tolerance policy going on.

Speaking of hashish.

The name "assassin" is commonly believed to be a mutation of the Arabic hashshshin (???????), which allegedly derives from the drug hashish that was said to be used by the group before going into battle. However, there are those who dispute this etymology, arguing that it originates from Marco Polo's account of his visit to Alamut in 1273, in which he describes a drug whose effects are more like those of alcohol than of hashish. However, alcohol is not likely to have been the drug described, being totally prohibited by the Muslim faith. It is suggested by some writers that assassin simply means "followers of Al-Hassan" (or Hassan-i-Sabah, the Sheikh of Alamut)). Others suggest that since hashish-eaters were generally ostracized in the Middle Ages, the word "Hashshashin" had become a common synonym for "outlaws." So the attribution of Hassan's Ismaili sect with this term is not necessarily a clue for drug use. Some common accounts of their connection with hashish are that these "assassins" would take hashish before missions in order to calm themselves; others say that it helped to boost their strength, and turned them into madmen in battle. Yet other accounts state it was used in their initiation rites in order to show the neophyte the sensual pleasures awaiting him in the afterlife. The connection between their mysticism and that drug is not something subject to reliable or consistent historical accounts; this is not surprising given their secrecy and infamy.

The word Hashish (of probable Arabic origin) refers to resin collected from cannabis flowers. This could be the true drug of the Assassins as described by Marco Polo.

Just thought of another one: "I thought this was supposed to be a secret society" everytime something that would normally be hidden is revealed. For example, when someone posted a list on Reddit and Facebook of recent shelved LCN members, people were predictably saying that. First of all, the mob itself didn't post it. People talk. Always have and always will. Their best efforts will never change that. Information comes to the surface. Second of all, it hasn't been a secret society for decades now. Let's not pretend otherwise. And regardless of how you feel, there are still some staunch Mafiosi out there who still believe in La Cosa Nostra. Not everyone is a Merlino or Gotti.

"Dons don't wear shorts," some people take those Sopranos quotes too serious. Like they heard it once on a TV show and think that every mobster, don or not, is breaking some kind of rule by wearing shorts. Get real.

You're on quite a Richie Aprile kick lately.

“Like”

Listen to any comment from a student these days and the word (like) is used several times in each sentence.

Another thing I noticed is the same students parents speak the same way since they start to parrot the children …….which is making them all brainwashed.
These stupid ass parents are supposed to be forming foundations, tradition and common cense into their children, not letting bad teachers and professors do that.

You are right - this is a definite fallacy. It's like saying you'd only want to be treated by a cancer doctor who had actually had cancer, rather than evaluating their abilities based on their education, experience or qualifications. You're either in the mafia or you're not and if you're not then it wouldn't matter if you're Italian, German, Pakistani or Japanese - you're just not in. And historically there would have been many Jewish men walking around that would know a lot more about it than you would, no matter how Italian you were.

Agree 100%

So according to this, Accardo was "dead" or "inactive" before RICO? Lol Accardo died in 1992 as a free man and was active until his last breath. I think you are mixing stuff. Sounds like you come from across the street with those "nazi" statements which you place them as facts. And if you wanna go deeper in history, the term "Mafia" probably comes from Arabic word/words.

In his last 5 or 10 years alive, I highly doubt that Accardo was all that active. He took a step back, I personally believe that but it's not written in stone. And what about the others? Still, comparing present-day bosses to pre-RICO bosses are unfair comparisons, that's my fucking point. Lots of Sicilian dialect is rooted in Arabic, your fucking point? It's still primarily an Italian word and Chinese Mafia, Russian Mafia, Irish Mafia, just sounds fucking stupid and lazy when many other ethnic organizations have their own names, no need to lump every group under one name.