Besides New York,on what other cities the Mafia works. I bet they work in Vegas. What about LA, etc?

Thanks

Giorgio Luigi Gambino

I really do not have any clue as to whether this will be right, but I always thought that the Mafia refers to the Five Families in New York. All other Families were not fully Sicilian, thus were not classed as the actual Mafia. The Five Families are bound to control parts of Las Vegas, though, with relationships with Families across the rest of the country. Probably wrong, though.

Mick

Officially there was supposed to be 26 Mafia Families in the US. Basically one for every major city. Now most of them are crushed now because of law enforcement intervention. But surprisingly New York has held on after taking beating after beating. Much like Tina Turner.

The Mafia have been well known to own Vegas. From the begining with Bugsy Seigal to help such Casino's like the Tropicana etc. Up until the Skimming trials in the 80's the Mafia have had a firm hold on Vegas.

The major Mafia centers in the US, in addition to NYC, were Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Buffalo and Los Angeles. Often the family in one of those major cities operated adjuncts in other cities, for example, Chicago=Dallas and Buffalo=Toronto. Several families had a presence, but not an overpowering presence, in Vegas ( Mafia nfluence in Vegas has been vastly exaggerated). I put this in the past tense because, with the overall drastic weakening of the Mafia, there's really no telling who's in charge in some cities and outposts anymore.
Mick, please note that US Mafia has always admitted non-Sicilian Italians to full membership. And plenty of Dons weren't Sicilian.
You may be thinking of the Chicago "Outfit" under Torrio and Capone, which was never a Mafia family.

Okay thanks for clearing that up. Yeah, I was thinking of Capone etc. Actually, the reason I posted was the fact that when I am corrected by someone else, I tend to remember it more than by just reading others' posts.

So, what actually defines a Mafia Family? How would you say which Family is Mafia, and which Family isn't?

Mick

Well all the Bosses of each Family will know the bosses of each other Family, at least by name. Think of Apalachin in the late 50's when bosses from all over the States came for that one disaterous Commission meeting.

Mick, on a smaller scale, think of Gateshead/Newcastle. You'll probably know a few names of the nutters, hard baskets around there. The one's you don't know will be nobodies. They've all heard of each over.

Donnie Brasco goes into well with a move to Milwakee. He managed to get in with some mob guys there because they knew who Lefty was from Mulberry Street. Up until then the Milwakee guys nearly whacked him because they thought he was a nobody.

I'm glad you mentioned that example, Turi! It not only supports your point, it's an important and exciting story that was left out of the film. It should have been included. Another great story from the book that wasn't included in the film was the back-and-forth with Tony Mirra, truly "a very scary guy."

Turnbull, that's exactly what i've been thinking. I mean, as much as I love the film, I just wished it included more like the examples both of us have given. I figure it could have worked as a three hour epic, just like Goodfellas/Casino. All the elements are there, a narrative might have also worked well with it.

We can only dream.

Does anyone know if the Mafia in New Orleans is based here, or if it's just a territory of a Family from somewhere else?

Correct me if im wrong but wasnt the first real Sicilian crime boss based in New Orleans when he came to America. I forgot his name but I think he was before Joe "the boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano.

The Matranga family of New Orleans was the first Mafia family in America (1880s). Don Vito Cascio Ferro of Sicily tried to establish a heroin connection with the NYC Mafiosi ca. 1910, but after things got hot for him, he holed up in New Orleans. In the 1990s, the New Orleans Mafia made ties with the Gambino and Lucchese families in NYC, but I don't know who's in charge there today.

was there any in Baltimore or Philly?

Philadelphia had a substantial Mafia faction under Angelo Bruno, "the gentle Don." Atlantic City, NJ, fell under the Philly mob. When casino gambling was legalized, the heat got turned up. Bruno was murdered. Then Phil "Chicken Man" Testa, his successor, was bombed. This set the stage for Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, who came up out of AC and then ran the Philly mob. A nonstop string of murders brought him and his people to the attention of law enforcement--probably the biggest government takedown until the famous "Commission" case in NYC. I don't think Baltimore has a separate Mafia family--it may be dominated by one of the NYC families.

Accualy there still is, I live in chicago. Except now they are more quiet and they get local street gangs like Gangster Disciples to do there dirty work. Bascily there is still a mob but they forgot what a mob is. They pay street gangs to sell crack for them. Recently there was a murder in some alley that suposedlly had something to do with the mafia. Most of the mobsters are African American while the bosses are Italian. They use street gangs as fronts. Like a mobster will throw up gang signs so everyone around him suspects him of being in a gang but accualy he is in the mob so when police arrest him they think it's just a gang thing. The cops are really stupid in this city. They have just assumed that they will never beat gangs so they just let them be gangsters. My friend did errands for this supossedly mob boss. He was a lemo-driver and would always walk into the mob bosses house before the real mob boss walked in, I guess to make sure no one was in it. And some of my friends brag about how they know the boss and stuff.