Originally Posted by NYMafia
Originally Posted by Dob_Peppino
Originally Posted by NYMafia
Originally Posted by Big_Tuna93
Always laugh when people bring up guys like Nicky Barnes as if they were the big dope dealers in NYC. Guys like Galante moved more dope than any of those guys from behind bars. Italians ran that racket.


You're 1000% correct BigTuna.

Guys like Nicky Barnes, Goldfinger Terrell, Frank Matthews, etc., bought buy the kilo, or kilos, and broke it down to 'quarters' which they had a legion of 'sitters' sell for $50 a bag from dingy apartments all over West Harlem and the Bronx. That was big for them.

But aside from that, more often than not, they were using street dealers (who were junkies themselves), to sell $10 and $25 bags to fellow junkies who'd line up (literally), sometimes by the dozens at a time to cop their stuff.
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While guys like Carmine Galante, Vito Genovese, Joseph Di Palermo, John Ormento, etc., moved hundreds of kilograms at a shot that they'd smuggle into the United States from overseas past the Canadian border, ships that docked into NY Harbor, etc.

There's just no comparison...It's like talking' apples and potatoes.




I've been looking in to the drug trade alot lately. The mob had the heroin game on lock until about 1968. After that, not as strong. I read a report from the mid 70s of the "top narcotics traffickers in New York". It was 15 names. Some familar, like Barnes, DiPalermo, and Lucas. But what I found particularly interesting, was the 5 hispanic dealers whom I NEVER heard of any any criminal context. I bring this up to say, that there was and is alot of money there and it all didn't belong to the mob. And furthermore, blacks and hispanics became just as resourceful and innovative in that racket without the mafia. They had there day, then they went to build stuff and collect garbage. Lots of money. But they were not the shotcallers beyond the 60s. Thats a fact. Lastly, Nicky Barnes, Frank Lucas, Frank Matthews, Eddie Jackson, Doc Davis, (just to name a few) were elite level narco traffickers, no matter how you slice it. I mean every position in the LCN is not a great one. Would you rather be the boss of San Jose or Nicky Barnes??? There were several millionaire kingpins during the 70s, in harlem alone.


Don Pep, I respectfully have to disagree with your assessment here.

What about the so-called "Cherry Hill" Gambino brothers? They ran a multi-multi-multimillion-dollar world-wide "international" heroin smuggling and distribution network from the 1950s-60s, well into the 1970s and 1980s?...

How bout the infamous "Pizza Connection" that moved $1.6-Billion (NOT million, billion) dollars in product from Europe to America?

For that matter, how about their Sicilian counterparts and affiliates who picked up the ball and continued running with it for years to come?

And thats not mentioning the Calabrian N'drangheta who grew to eventually dwarf the Sicilians on the world-wide stage, all across Europe and North America too, in both heroin and cocaine, among other illegal substances?

The blacks never had that type or international power and buying ability or connections.

Hispanics like the Colombians and Mexicans? Well, thats another story altogether. You gotta remember that where they originate from, their homeland, is where the "farming and cultivation" for such products come from. So naturally, (I would hope,) they would be on top of that sort of business.....But even they are challenged when it comes to matching the talents and abilities of the Mafia.

All these other organizations that you wanna bring up are, for me at least, "one trick ponies" compared to the Sicilians, Calabrese and Napolitani....and the collective Italian mobs in general.

We could go around in circles on this one. Everybody knows the Mafia is the most sophisticated criminal organization (or at least it was), so lets get that out the way.
The 5 guys I named probably came close to that Pizza connection money collectively and 4 of them had connections outside of LCN drug pipelines. There were about 15 guys in harlem alone during the late 60s -70s who were multi-millionaires. Not even counting the other boroughs and forget about the rest of the country. Its a open drug market, the mob made money, the blacks, the hispanics and even the asians sneaked in and got some of it.
It just is what it is. The mob had the game sowed up with the 60% pure kilo for 50 thousand. When those guys got the 93%-97% pure kilo for 16 thousand, that changed the game. Today its a different game altogether. But they all had their day. And at the end of the day the few things they all had in common was, some went to jail forever. Some got killed never to be seen again. Some got killed for their family to see in the newspapers. Some of them lost their honor because they told. But NONE of them or their organizations are BIGGER THAN THE DRUG TRADE!!!
It was here and it will be here. Everyone will have their day. that's a line from a drug movie haha




Last edited by Dob_Peppino; 01/19/24 10:20 PM.
"Joe Bananas went after Carlo Gambino, the war went on for seven years..... When guys go to the mattresses, they're not out earning" -Tony Soprano