This is a great documentary about organized crime in detroit, one of the most powerful mafia families thats around

It's a great view because Detroit isn't one of the families that gets much television time or press.

However, they definitely aren't one of the most powerful families around, at least not anymore. There are most assuredly members still alive but the amount is probably no larger than most crews in NY and the average age is well above 70.

The experts in the video disagree

Maybe if you measure success in terms of convictions it could be considered a powerful family - the same names have been running it for decades.

I certainly think it's possible, however unlikely, that they still exert substantial influence over certain crimes in the area. However, they are most definitely the smallest out of any remaining mafia families which means that they can't number more than a couple dozen at most. It's difficult for any criminal organization to remain as a power with those types of numbers.

I believe that they still have control over a small area of the city but have nowhere near the amount of influence they did in the seventies and eighties.

As an interesting aside, my old boss's first cousin was Harvey Leach, the furniture company president found murdered on his wedding day.

U guys on here are funny, u have people that lives in detroit that studies them all day everyday and u guys are basically saying thier lying, if a certain family choose to shelf a guy rather than killing him and u guys think thier weak, u can have only 20 made guys and still be powerful cause u have associates that will do anything for u, and with detroit they probally have guys thats made with no jail records that people are not aware of

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Organized Crime In Detroit: Forgotten But Not Gone

More Sharing ServicesShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on email136CBS/istockphotoBy James Buccellato and Scott M. BurnsteinDETROIT (WWJ) – The Detroit mafia lives in the shadows. It always has, now, more than ever.“They don’t chase the news cameras like in other cities and a lot of them have been very adept of veiling themselves in legitimacy,” said former federal prosecutor and organized crime task force member Keith Corbett, of the area’s ruling mob powers. “In relative terms, it’s been a recipe for success, in that most of them have avoided long, if any, prison sentences and, for the most part, very few people have any idea who they are.”That hasn’t exactly been the case for other organized crime families around the country.Notorious Boston Irish mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger was apprehended earlier this week in California, arrested for 19 gangland-related homicides after 16 years on the run from the law. Bulger, the inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s character in the Oscar-winning film “The Departed,” ran the Boston underworld for over two decades and had for years been No. 2 on the FBI’s famed Most Wanted List, behind only Osama Bin Laden.The Philadelphia mob made headlines last month when federal investigators arrested reputed godfather Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi. Philly’s alleged No. 1 gangster and a dozen of his suspected underlings were all charged in a 50-count racketeering indictment involving gambling and loan-sharking.Interestingly, the Ligambi arrest comes on the heels of one of the largest mob busts in American history when in January the U.S. Justice Department rounded up over 100 suspected East Coast organized crime members, many of them alleged to be high-ranking mafia leaders, on charges including murder, gambling, loan-sharking, extortion and narcotics trafficking.Top Chicago Mafioso Michael “Fat Mike” Sarno and a number of his associates were convicted on federal racketeering charges stemming from a mob-ran video poker operation late last December.Four major busts in six months and all of the investigations involve customary mafia locales: New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Providence and Newark.One of the traditional mob hotbeds absent from the recent slew of arrests and convictions was Detroit, a longstanding picture of stability and efficiency in an underworld landscape littered with defectors, dissidents and dim-bulb thugs.Those who remember stories about the infamous Purple Gang from the city’s bloody Prohibition era or the everlasting hubbub regarding the mysterious disappearance of labor boss Jimmy Hoffa may wonder if organized crime still exists in the Motor City.Indeed, many would probably be surprised to find out that Detroit’s mafia is still alive, well and racketeering in 2011.Few would suggest that the local crime family has the manpower or criminal reach it once had, but it nevertheless continues to function – and when compared to other mob syndicates across the country, at a fairly high level.As recently as 2006, FBI agents in Detroit arrested more than a dozen individuals under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) charging them with bookmaking, money laundering and extortion. Though federal authorities did not officially link the case to the mob, sources in local law enforcement confirm that the indictment’s alleged ringleaders, Peter Tocco of Troy and Jack V. Giacalone of West Bloomfield, as well as several of their co-defendants are affiliated with the area’s mafia family.Tocco, 62 and referred to on federal surveillance tapes by such monikers as “Blackie” and “Specs,” pled guilty to the charges and served a two-year prison sentence before being released last year. Giacalone, 60, went to trial and was acquitted. Sources peg Giacalone, known by nicknames like, “Jackie the Kid” and “Jackie the Bathrobe,” as someone being groomed to be a future don.People around Detroit with even a vague familiarity of local mob affairs are most likely aware of the names Tocco and Giacalone, longstanding staples in newspaper headlines from the area’s underworld dating back nearly a century.Peter Tocco’s grandfather was William “Black Bill” Tocco, the Detroit mafia’s founding father, establishing the crime syndicate in 1931 after winning a violent street war for gangland supremacy in the city in the aftermath of Prohibition. His uncle is Giacomo “Black Jack” Tocco, Black Bill’s eldest son and the city’s current mob boss, in power since the 1970s.Jackie Giacalone is the son of retired mob underboss Vito “Billy Jack” Giacalone, 87 and the nephew of former Detroit mafia street boss, Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone, who died of cancer in 2001.During the 1950s and 60s, Congressional committees named Black Bill Tocco and both Giacalone brothers as being top echelon mob leaders in the Motor City.The following decade the Giacalone brothers gained national infamy, having their names echoed on television newscasts from coast to coast after they became central figures in the Hoffa case.All three mobsters were linked closely to legendary godfather Joe Zerilli, Detroit’s undisputed “boss of bosses” for over four decades and a highly-respected mob dignitary that was one of the few non-New York bosses granted a seat on the notorious “Commission,” a nationwide mafia board of directors. He was brother-in-laws with Black Bill Tocco, having come over together from Sicily in 1910.The Detroit don’s only son, Anthony “Tony Z” Zerilli, was initially tagged as his father’s replacement, however following Tony Z’s imprisonment in 1973 on charges of skimming millions of dollars from a Las Vegas hotel and casino, the aging mob chieftain demoted his offspring in favor of his nephew Jack Tocco. Both the younger Tocco and Zerilli received college business degrees from the University of Detroit-Mercy in 1949, around the same time, according to Congressional testimony, they “made their bones” and were inducted into the mafia.When Joe Zerilli passed away from natural causes in 1977, Tocco took control of the crime family, naming his first-cousin Tony Z his second-in-charge as a measure of good faith. The pair of mob princes ran the local mafia in tandem uninterrupted until 1996 when they were arrested in a widespread RICO indictment, titled, Operation Gametax, charging virtually the entire syndicate administration with bookmaking, loansharking and extortion.Tocco was convicted in 1998, Zerilli in 2002 and after each conviction, federal law enforcement described the situation in hyperbolic terms, claiming to have “driven a stake through the heart” of the Detroit mafia.This proved hardly true. Although a majority of the mobsters arrested in the bust were convicted, most of them received relatively light sentences. Curiously, Tocco, who was found to be the kingpin of the continuing criminal enterprise in the case, served barely two years behind bars.With so many sons, nephews and cousins employed in the “family business,” the mob’s rackets more or less continued with little to no interruption. In a measure to ensure loyalty, Joe Zerilli had planned it that way, making it a requirement as early as the 1930s that his soldiers married other soldiers’ daughters, sisters, nieces and cousins.The strategy has paid dividends since unlike most of the country’s mob families in the past three decades that have been torn apart at the seams from within, overwhelmed by informers or “rats,” as they’re called in underworld circles, the Detroit mob has been virtually free of turncoats.“Almost everyone important in the crime family is related by blood or marriage in some way to almost everyone else of any significance and this makes the organization extremely difficult to penetrate,” retired Detroit FBI agent Mike Carone notes. “For an outsider, whether in law enforcement or not, to get real close to these guys is practically impossible.”Nove Tocco, Joe Zerilli’s grandson, became the only member of the crime family to ever testify against the syndicate in open court when he began working for the feds in 2000, two years after he was convicted in the Gametax case. He debriefed for the federal authorities and testified at his cousin Jack Tocco’s sentencing hearing in exchange for a sentence reduction.The FBI in Detroit asserts that upon Tocco’s release from federal prison in 2002, he re-assumed his position as boss and continues to head the crime family to this day at the ripe old age of 84.Detroit’s mafia faction has also avoided the internecine warfare that has plagued other national mafia groups, as a general rule, being free of renegades, a phenomenon most experts credit to the syndicate’s intermarriage edict and its longstanding policy of only utilizing violence as a method of last resort.“It’s a lot harder to get the motivation to start a war if the guys you’re going to be shooting at and trying to kill are your own family,” Carone said. “That’s not to say the mafia around her doesn’t murder people, but that it’s probably a little less frequent when compared to other big city mobs.”The last round of known or possible-related mob murders took place between 1998 and 2002, a timeline some sources in law enforcement tie to the fallout from the convictions and subsequent prison sentences of city mafia royalty, like Jack Tocco and Tony Zerilli.The mini hit parade started in 1998 in the months after a slew of convictions in the Gametax case when a former mob associate under the direction of the Giacalone brothers wound up dead in Great Britain after he had turned informant for the government.Three years later in 2001, there was the murder of strip club operator, John “John John” Jarjosa, Jr.,34, whose father was convicted mob associate John “J.J.” Jarjosa, Sr., away serving a prison sentence related to the Gametax bust at the time of his son’s death. Jarjosa, Jr, was gunned down at the corner of 8 Mile and Evergreen in broad daylight, his black Corvette boxed in as he took fire from two gun-wielding assailants in a turn-around lane.In 2002, a young reputed mob enforcer, Gerard “Gerry the Blade” Bianchette, 31, was shotgunned to death at a Macomb County construction site in the months surrounding the conviction of Tony Zerilli.Though all three murders remains unsolved, law enforcement describe each as a professional hit, most likely rooted in gangland conflict.Just last month, a pair of reputed mobbed-up brothers, the Sicilian-born, Giuseppe and Girolamo D’anna, owners of the Tiramisu Italian restaurant in Shelby Township, were indicted on assault to commit murder, extortion and witness intimidation charges. Authorities allege the brothers stormed into a competing Italian restaurant across the street for Tiramisu, severely beat its owner with an aluminum baseball bat and threatened to kill him and his entire family if he went to the police. According to confidential sources, the D’anna brothers are connected to the local mafia family and have alleged ties to mob activity back in their native Sicily.A federal point shaving bust alleged to be headed by Gary Manzi and Mitchell “Steady Eddie” Karam, two reputed Detroit mob associates of Chaldean descent, made headlines in 2009. Karam, long linked to the crime family and a one-time close friend of deceased reputed mob power, Jack “Fat Jackie” Lucido, and Mazi, a local convenient store owner, are accused of paying players on both the University of Toledo football and basketball teams to alter outcomes of games so they could win close to a half a million dollars in wagers.At its peak in the 1960s, the mafia in the Motor City was estimated to have roughly 100 fully-inducted members. Currently, it’s probably closer to between 40 and 50. The number had dropped to around 30-35 at the time of the Gametax trial, but reports indicate the family has since increased its ranks with at least two initiation ceremonies being held in the last eight years.Most people might not know the mob still exists in Detroit, yet the organization doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.“To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of their demise have been much overstated,” Corbett said. “The current leaders, guys like Jack Tocco, may be on the way out due to age, but there is a younger generation coming up behind them ready, willing and able to take the reins. From its inception, this organization was built for the long haul and it will continue to sustain. I don’t think we’ll be talking about the eradication of the mafia in Detroit for quite a while.”——James Buccellato, PhD. James is a political scientist. Currently he is researching the history of social banditry in America.Scott M. Burnstein is a local author and crime expert, who has been featured on the History Channel’s hit show, “Gangland” and whose first book, “Motor City Mafia – A Century of Organized Crime in the City of Detroit,” was a regional best-seller. His writing has appeared in both the Detroit Free Press and the Oakland PressMore Sharing ServicesShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on email136We RecommendTony Tocco, Aquitted In Detroit’s…Trebek Fires Back At Famous SNL SketchFrom Around the WebPuppies left in dumpster reunited with…  (Yahoo!)Ford debuts impressive liftgate…  (YouTube)[what's this]©2013 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved.Privacy Policy Ad Choices Terms of Use EEO Reports Deals WWJ-TV Public File WKBD-TV Public FilePowered by WordPress.com VIP HomeNewsSportsBest OfPhotosWeatherVideoDealsCircularsPlaces 

This has been a topic of much debate. You can believe what you like, and so can the guys who made the video, but the claim alone that the Detroit LCN is the "most successful Mafia family" shows there's more than a little hype involved there. Look at the article you posted and how much of it deals with the past. Also, it says something when you have to use hypotheticals and guesswork to bolster your position. If we compare apples to apples, i.e. the demonstrable evidence between Detroit and the other families, Detroit would be dead last of the ones remaining.

If u read the article it says they recently held a coupple of cereamonies which prove thier still actively making people, in the video above it mentions how no one really knows who's made and who's not in that family cause they do such a good job of blending in to legitament businesses, and if thats true than its possible that alot of thier members is unknown because they don't have jail records and have become successful business men but in the video above it says "the kid" is holding walk and talks with ranking members in supermarkets and such, the task force in detroit calls them very successful, if ur an active family with the less convictions makes u powerful in my book, and its hard to dispute because its proven thier still be making members

i have to agree with bigfella to consider how successful how low key they are like the way it was planned to be since prohibition the least turncoats out every family besides they are really rich ...to think they dont have their hands in the big three gm chrysler and ford your crazy to think they didnt have something to do with papa gino dominoes pizza hut all being originated in detroit and michigan period your crazy and the factory's like general mills post kelloggs all has the mob written all over it and then the teamsters casino's its easy to see because no one got indicted for those extortion or loan sharking and one didnt rast them out just proves how tight they keep their business and family in tact all together to think of a city close to a million in residents alone with all those fortune 500 compaqnies and how strong they was and still are is not capable bacause the size of the family is not 100 like it was is stupidity and ignorant thinking..the reason they down sized and didnt mind to inducting new people after old ones passed away was probably they knew they way things was going as development in life and law enforcement it was prone to get more attention and scrutiny from the feds with 100 members then stay away.... same reason why they kept the inheritance of families within to make it strong within the family by blood loyalty and togetherness rather than size of numbers just makes the whole business in general easier for someone in the outside world or the law to gain accssess to the information rather keeping within the FAMILY like it suppossed to be ...By far in my opinion is the detroit mob not only smarter but in better position to keep the family going another 50 years running like a machine with interference compared to my city of boston or ny five families chicago or philly we can debate all we want the fact is history proves it itself and so do the facts and that no one can change for nothing

and i forgot to mention isiah thomas bill laimbeer and the rest of detroit greatest confessed to playing at mob owned gambling homes and private casino's spending over 100-500k a night and these are the one's that confessed never mind the dtroit tigers red wings lion who knows how many ball players they had ....they got caught them scheming with the toledo players never mind what they did with michigan or michigan state players against rivals ohio st and penn st only god knows and im a michigan fanatic so all this is making me think some of our players (michigan) skimmed the games like trey burke and hardaway jr shit they was up against louisville big time and and dont know what the fuck pitino had going on with his fuckin cousins who could be connected or a long time friend ...see you guys got me thinking im a michigan crazy fan college football fan and high school football fanatic and you guys go me thinking anguilo did it with bc players look at the college boosters and nba ref donahue so who knows what be going on until someone gets caught anything can happen remeber the mob was vegas before and after vegas so dont ever under estimate lmaol

If no convictions, no cases, no viewable activity, nothing on the radar were indicators of success then the Partnership would be fighting it out with Lincoln Nebraska for the countries most powerful family apparently.

Because there aint shit going on in Lincoln.

Detroit is factually the weakest of the remaining families and if it had more than 10 active guys on the street who didnt get discount public transport Ill give my nuts to the cat.

There's successful 'under the radar' ie the Westside and then there's 'non-existent' under the radar, Detroit.

Get over it.

a afamily in nebraska where the did this family come from ???

There isnt one. Was to illustrate a point.

The organized task force in detroit disagrees with u, and if u don't mind I rather take thier word over yours

and one thing we cant change and have to face it like it or not is facts and evidence and history and that we cant do nothing cause i dont like tha fact its detroit rather boston but the facts of the matter is its def detroit if not than who had such a long run with less rats less media and fbi scrutiny law enforcement period and still has a piece over fortune 500 companies runs all types of gambling operations keep a strict tightknit family and is still active until this day dosent matter if they are 40 with a college degree or 70 and still a soldier and they are active and effective FACTS

And the lasts hits i belkieve is to make new guys and they did it and was made and dont be suprised if its grandson zerelli or greatnephew/cousin tocca giacolome whoever its famiy and close family or someone they know is in it and in it for life and thats why they are so secretive smart low key and most of all loyal to one another and know one besides them is in their business ...no one in ny boston philly chicago or jersey can say that even in cali so like it or not we all have to face it detroit is the most lucrative REAl family there is because its ran like the families was meant to be with omerta loyalty and cash cow

You guys are all ignorant. Detroit isn't dead last and it's nowhere near the most powerful. KC, LA, Cleveland, Pittsburg etc are all weaker than Detroit by a longshot. NY, NJ, Chicago are all stronger than Detroit by a longshot.

Can't you make your point without a statement like that?

The author of that article (Scott Bernstein) posts regularly over on the Real Deal forum. He's talked about rumors of there being recent ceremonies but nothing substantiated. And, considering his spotty track record when it comes to the Detroit membership, I don't put a lot of stock in rumors passed along on the internet.

And it's not the Task Force saying Detroit is still powerful. It's Scott's interpretation of that. There was a time I felt I could take him at his word but no longer. Rumor, hearsay, speculation, etc. is cheap. The real proof isn't even so much what the FBI in Detroit says but what it does. If they don't bother to bring ongoing significant cases against the Detroit LCN, that tells you all you need to know. And it's not because the Detroit wiseguys are smarter or have figured some way to stay under the radar. It's because they're low in numbers and their activity doesn't extend much beyond bookmaking and loansharking. They're a low priority. Meanwhile, we still see regular mob cases in other areas of the country.



Before you start calling others "ignorant," you should know that the feds no longer even recognize formally structured, viable families in Kansas City, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. So, to say Detroit is stronger than them isn't saying much. There are, at most, 10 mob families still considered to be viable - the 5 NY families, New Jersey, New England, Philadelphia, Chicago, and maybe Detroit. And that's because there's differing opinions on Detroit, even among mob experts. But even if we count Detroit, it's dead last among those remaining families.

Yeah, it's not a problem of Detroit not being efficiently run or led, it's just that their activity is limited to what Ivy said - bookmaking and loan sharking in select areas. As long as the body count stays low and no drugs get involved the feds have higher priorities than a few guys running some card or dice games on the weekend.

NYC has the manpower pool to draw from while these other areas simply do not. With all the busts in the last 30 years it's just not feasible for anyone to join the mob anymore and that's why the guys in it now are considered reckless and untrustworthy - they typically have nothing to lose and so join the mob.

I'm not saying Detroit doesn't exist or that they aren't efficiently led by a smart, veteran group of guys - I'm just saying that what is there is small and limited in scope, which is probably how they'd like it to stay.

I'm goin to quote the experts
That would be Keith corbett federal prosecutor and the head of the of task force in Detroit

"they are still a viable family"
"there cloaking themselves now in legit ament business , now more than ever but im not saying there doing legit ament business"

"there's no reason to beleive there has been a cessation in the illegal activities which have generated them money for the last 100 years"

Not interpretation. Straight from the experts mouth

There are probably still Detroit mobsters around, but the truth is: they have no real recruitment pool in Detroit. After all, 83% of the city is African American. Only 10% is considered 'white', of which a large part would be Middle Eastern and from the Balkans. The Italian population isn't that large anymore and thus there will not be a lot of Italian OC around. I've once heard somebody say that the Albanians, Lebanese and Assyrians don't fuck around in Detroit though.

Never trust a cop.

again because there are no indictments just saids that they are under the radar ..them being low in numbers is just saying they dont have 100 made guys anymmore... and again with all thise companies and the ventures looking to be corrrupted the mob has been doing it for the last 5 decades prove they are still doing it but in a more sophisticsted way since almost all their members have college degrees thay just do it in a smarter clever way....whatever the case it might be hard to swallow and muster that yes detroit is the strongest family is because we are indenail becuase of indictments or business just exposed just shows us that they more secretive and real tightknit of a family

Sophisticated....a 70 year old guy beatin the shit out of some computer geek and force the kid to work for him and do some computer frauds.... just kiddin

Actions speak louder than words, even when it involves law enforcement. They can say this or that about the Detroit mob but, if it results little in the way of cases, that tells you all you need to know. And once again, other experts disagree about the continued viability of the Detroit LCN.



Lack of indictments does not mean "under the radar." That's wishful thinking nonsense. You may as well say the same thing about Pittsburgh, Tampa, or LA. The people who have a hard time swallowing the truth about Detroit are those trying to sell something and those who want to buy what they're selling. Seriously, what are all these people going to say 10 years from now when we've continued to see little to nothing in the way of mob activity in Detroit?

Can you or someone else post a link to these quotes, thanks.

well ivy then thats when we can say its deteraited or its damn near dead but unil fbi and prosecutors are saying is a factor and is significant in illegal activities and has a strong image and force in that area then we cant be blind and just assume they demolished

I think its funny how people refuse to believe that thier is a functional mob outside of thier precious new york, and people that never stepped foot in detriot think they know better than detroits local law enforcement...lol