I was in Leeds for my birthday yesterday and me and my good lady were sitting in a bar enjoying a frothy ale or 3 and had the misfortune of sitting next to 2 chaps who quite frankly were talking a load of crap. Whilst we have no "mafia" as such in the UK we do have villains and blood families who control organised crime. The main family in Newcastle these days is a rum bunch called the Sears who over the last 10 years have ousted another rum bunch called the Conroy's,who all got too old or went to jail.

Well these 2 blokes sitting in Leeds (which is over 100 miles from Newcastle) were talking about the Conroys,how they knew them and did "business" with them and they were this and that etc.etc.etc.

I of course knew they were talking utter rubbish but being the gent i am said nothing,drank up and just left. The moral of the tale is there are always wannabee idiots who talk themselves up about things they know nothing about.

Sad really!

They might have done business with them, you never asked them.

Believe me, if someone in the UK says they did business with so and so then ya gotta believe it more then you don't because the UK gangsters aren't worth bragging about and are not big enough for the likes of you to get worked up over.

By saying that they were wannabes smacks of envy to me because you live in Newcastle and have bypassed these folks is completely your choice. You always have the option to be with people if you so desire to.

Why so confrontational?

Yogi is one of the board's oldest and most well liked members, so try to treat him accordingly.

Why join a board just to provoke the long standing members and moderators?

Did we put an ad out for obnoxious this week?

I'm sorry to state the facts. I got the informative side of writing a reply from yours truly: Mr Turnbull.

Yes, the movie is infinitely enjoyable, but it does take liberties with Bugsy's life:
The film shows Siegel making his first trip to the West Coast during WWII. He made his first trip in 1933, and two years later had moved there more or less full time. He'd been to Vegas many times before the War, trying to get the sawdust joints in town to buy into the Transnational Racing Wire.

After the Harry Greenberg murder rap was dismissed, Bugsy thought it would be prudent to hole up in Vegas for a while. He found seven hotels operating, some with air conditioning, but all in the "Western corral" style. He tried to buy into El Rancho Vegas but was rebuffed. He did buy into the El Cortez, and got Lansky and some of his NY pals to invest. They doubled their money in less than a year. That's when he set his sights on the Flamingo. It was already called that by its owner, Billy Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, whose degenerate gambling left him without the means to finish it. Bugsy bought him out, and convinced his Cortez investors to put in their profits (and a lot more) to finishing the Flamingo. As you said, PB, Bugsy didn't really "invent" Vegas, but he was the first to envision it as a modern, Monaco or Miami Beach west of the Mississippi.

BTW: Big Greenie didn't try to find refuge with Bugsy. And Bugsy didn't take him for a ride. Greenie tried to hide from Bugsy. Murder Inc. sent Allie Tick Tock Tannenbaum and Frankie Mr. Gray Carbo to Bugsy. The three hunted Greenie down. Carbo pulled the trigger; Bugsy drove the crash car.

Being a pain in the ass will get you banned here, just as you were before as Mini and Lompoc.

Zito is history. As we know, history repeats itself.

I don't know whether to be annoyed at this or just have a good chortle!

I think i will take the second option!

Always the best option, Yogi. You're ever the gentleman.

MYTH: Mafia families fight each other for control of territories.
REALITY: While intra-family wars for control of the family are common, inter-family wars are rare. They cost too much in blood and money, are too disruptive of business, encourage treason, etc. The Mob has adopted a maxim from the 19th Century robber barons: monopoly and cartels are good, competition is bad.

This is especially true in New York City. None of the Five Families completely controls one or more of NYC’s boroughs—most have rackets that abut others’ within the boroughs. They’ve learned very carefully how to avoid territorial disputes. Let’s take a hypothetical example:

Suppose that, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush, Coney Island Avenue has, over the years, become the unofficial dividing line between the Gambinos’ operations (west side of Coney Island Avenue) and the Colombos’ (east side). One day a Colombo made guy rents a vacant storefront on the west side of the street and opens a bookmaking operation. That’s Gambino territory, and the local Gambino crew chief reports the transgression to his caporegime. But the capo doesn’t do anything immediately—he waits a month or six weeks to see if the Colombos’ new business is booming. If it is, he lodges a formal beef with his counterpart capo in the Colombo family.

A sitdown is arranged. After the pro forma bellowing, shouting and threats are dispensed, the two capos come to the preordained settlement: the Colombos can keep the storefront open, but they have to pay the Gambinos a “franchise fee” of $4k/week to operate in their territory. If the business is booming, fine. If the Colombos can’t make the $4k/week payment, they’ll ask for a reduction. If the Gambinos refuse, the Colombos will fold the operation. No way are the two families going to war over such a small time racket.

But what if the racket is big—really big time? Greed is the common denominator among Mafia families. But they’ve all learned that too much greed can be lethal. Huge, citywide and statewide rackets like the “Concrete Club,” the garbage hauling “association" and others are cartelized among the families to prevent jealousy and the fighting that inevitably accompanies it. Sometimes all five will participate. In some cases, the family that launched the big racket will invite another family to participate. That’s a way of messaging the other three families: “We’re sharing this racket—and if you try to muscle in, you’ll be fighting two families, not just one.” But to hog the racket would be fatal.

Case in point: Carmine Galante, the one-time pretender to the Bonanno throne, irritated lots of high-ranking Mafiosi with his coarseness and his bragging (threatening to “make Carlo Gambino s**t in the street”). But his unforgivable sin was to create a huge heroin pipeline from Sicily, and a distribution network in America (the “pizza connection”)—and he refused to share it with the other families. The Commission sanctioned a hit on him. Arrivederci, Lilo.

A really minor myth, but one that still persists nonetheless.

Carlo Gambino supposedly suffered a heart attack and died while watching a Yankee game on tv on October 15, 1976. There was no Yankee game on tv that day!

I got a question that I need answered. For years I held the rather romantic view that the mob was a once honored society that strayed from the path. I'm very young so it was very easy for me to think like this and I'm starting to come around that maybe I'm a bit to entranced by movies but the reason I thought that the olden mob wasn't so bad is because that most of the gangsters back then didn't seem like all that bad to me. Guys like Lucky, Costello, and Lansky didn't really strike me as scumbags. I just wanna know if some of these guys were actually half-way decent people or if they were all the low-life scumbags that the majority seem to be.

They would've been into the playoffs at that point. The Yankees lost the '76 series to the Big Red Machine.

The playoffs were finished then. The World Series started the following day (October 16th).

I may not love, like, respect or honor what they do. However, many of the older mafiosos I have nothin' but respect for. Because they truly are men of honor. Just don't ever disrespect them.

Well there's no denying that they are criminals but I do agree that not all of them were lowlife dirtbags. Most of them are though.

Wow. This is easily the most interesting thread in the section of the site. Thanks for all the info TB.

You just have to ask yourself though,
anyone with a basic high school education,especially if they were born into "the life" with a future of betrayal, prison,early death ,and no retirement plan, why would you get into it? I'd run from that faster than an amish upbringing.
Oh,almost forgot, if you're a stand up guy, you get whacked, if you're not, you go into WITSEC.

I think Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo, was one of the few that died of natural causes...and of course there was "Uncle Neil".

Don't forget Don Carlo.

Also,.....Lansky, Luciano, Bonnano ( father and son), Gotti, Costello, Paul Ricca, Genovese, Profaci, Magliocco,Magaddino.

Actually seems like the higher you were the more likely you would die of natural causes.

You are correct, but if i recollect, old man Bonanno was forced to retire after his "Man of honor" book hit the racks, or else they would've taken him for a ride.....and Frank Costello, had one zing off of his head from the "Chin", and later had the doors blown off of his mausoleum by Galante, not sure if there is truth to the last one,but there is an account of it out there.

And forgive my lack of detail in this account, but there was one high ranking mobster who went to mexico to cool his heels after a near miss, oh....nevermind, it was Giancana, who was found dead in his apt, with about $1500 on him, sorry to ramble, confused him with costello for a minute.
Kennedy conspiracies anyone?

Here's a question/observation.
Supposedly a mob person should get permission before killing anyone , but especially before killing another made member or someone completely uninvolved in the life. But is this "rule" even adhered to any more? Roy DeMeo murdered a made man when he was still an associate. DeMeo would go on to kill many other people-some of whom weren't criminals-with only mild expressions of disappointment from Castellano. Tommy Pitera and Greg Scarpa killed numerous people without any permission slips from higher ups. If we go back years before, Nicky Scarfo killed a longshoreman in a fight and was only exiled to Atlantic City.

How true is this rule, if it ever was?
These days as a Mob captain or underboss with the feds everywhere, why would you want to take the chance of being caught giving explicit permission to murder someone anyways?

That's a great question/observation,Lilo....
and as others have said before, being a good earner gets you a pass most of the time. DeMeo and his crew, were chopping up luxury vehicles and selling them to the saudi's for a premium I'm sure. As well as being ass deep in the coke trade. Plus most other crews were afraid of them due to their mechanized killing methods, (see "murder machine")
Even Gotti was aprehensive about visiting them, as well as Nino Gaggi's nephew Dominic Montiglio. I personally think that the average Capo's ego, or whomever is ordering the hit, doesn't think that the'll be wiretapped, or if so the code they use for a hit, will be cracked. Bottom line, I think you kick back enough for the boss, you can kill a guy just to take over his rackets.....just my observation, I think the esteemed Turnbull could probably add to this.

One other observation......did you notice how Scarfo, DeMeo, and I'm sure a score of others became really paranoid toward the end of their careers?
An interesting psychological phenomenon if there was one. Not that being careful keeps you alive but......

yeah and dotn forget about Gaspipe who I find to be one of the most interesting mob figures

You're right, I don't know enough about him(gaspipe) but didn't he go into hiding for a while before rolling over?
I'll have to re-reference "The five families"

yeah he was running the fam while on the lam and also orderign a bunch of hits on people he suspected of being informers or of double crossing him. read "Gaspipe:confessions of a Mafia Boss" its a good read!

Thank's for the suggestion, I will be reading alot more once the weather starts turning south....