The difference is Detroit has an identifiable leadership and enough made members for multiple crews. I'll take the word of the FBI and Michigan State Police. When they say the Detroit mob is dead then I'll believe it

I am not from Rockford, I am from New York but I have known guys from there for 30 years, and I now live 45 minuites from there. I am not from Pittsburgh but I have know guys from there since the 80s.

I thought you said in an earlier post that you moved to the midwest after "retirement" but kept up your contacts through old friends?

Maybe someone should ask the Detroit FBI and Michigan State Police why there aren't more cases devoted to the LCN there.

This is, of course, a rhetorical question and probably part of the reason why some OC experts don't consider Detroit to be among the remaining viable families.

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.

Maybe someone should ask the Detroit FBI and Michigan State Police why there aren't more cases devoted to the LCN there.

This is, of course, a rhetorical question and probably part of the reason why some OC experts don't consider Detroit to be among the remaining viable families.

While your point is understood regarding the FBI's intel, how do you attribute the major success they have had in dismantling 16 out of the original 24 mafia families across the country? Over the last 30 years, they have indicted and convicted most mob bosses across the country and dealt blows to some who have never recovered. Must be really bad intel. Lol

I'm no particular fan of the FBI, but they certainly have been winning the war on Italian LCN. At the end of the day, traditional family structure across the country no longer exist in Buffalo, KC, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Milwaukee, San Francisco, San Jose, Northeast PA, Rochester, Dallas, New Orleans and Denver.

Some will make the argument that Buffalo, KC, Cleveland and Pittsburgh etc still exist...the fact of the matter is that there are remnants (or guys who were made) that are still leftover, but that doesn't constitute a family. They may even run gambling and other schemes, but the pyramid structure that LCN was based off is gone in the aforementioned cities. Prime example in Pittsburgh, there was just a large illegal gambling operation that was busted and not one mention of it being controlled by LCN. As far as I'm concerned, Buffalo and KC have been dead for a while and they have "remnants" leftover and Cleveland has been gone since the early 1990's. RICO is too powerful and it is very easy to tie somebody into a RICO conspiracy.

While your point is understood regarding the FBI's intel, how do you attribute the major success they have had in dismantling 16 out of the original 24 mafia families across the country? Over the last 30 years, they have indicted and convicted most mob bosses across the country and dealt blows to some who have never recovered. Must be really bad intel. Lol

Hey Mulberry,

While I agree the age and attrition caught up with families like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Northeast PA as well as some others, federal statutes like RICO has dealt a major blow to these families. In Cleveland, James "Jack White" Licavoli was the first mafia boss convicted under the statute. Once he went to prison and Angelo Lonardo cooperated, it decimated the family and they never recovered because they did not properly replenish the ranks. In Pittsburgh, when it became known that underboss Chucky Porter was giving information from prison 2 years into his 28 year sentence for racketeering, it certainly gave the Feds enough info to decimate the entire Youngstown, OH operation as well as convicted a group of Pittsburgh mobsters for bribery of a public official to take control of the Rincon Indian Casino in San Diego. Porter's information also gave up Sonny Ciancutti's illegal gambling operation as well as John "Duffy" Conley's video poker operation. Sure, age and attrition caught up with Pittsburgh as well but the Feds have the RICO tool at their disposal and now that they know how to effectively use, it's not hard to wrap somebody up into a continuing criminal enterprise.

Also, my theory has been that when the first and second waves of Italian immigrants emigrated to the U.S., they brought with them their culture, traditions, beliefs, honor, codes and overall dedication to LCN. We are now in 2014, more than 100 years from that first major wave of Italian immigrants and the American Mafia is now inducting members who are not full blooded Italian, who have never set foot in Italy and who will never have those "old school" traditions that guys like Carlo Gambino, Tommy Lucchese, Russell Bufalino, Anthony Milano, John Scalish, John LaRocca, Vito Genovese, Joe Bonanno and Angelo Bruno as well as many others. Also, the corruption of public officials still happens, but not nearly to the extent that it did even 30 years ago. People aren't afraid to run to the FBI any longer, hence the FBI extracts the information they need to tie somebody into a conspiracy and deal a major blow to a crime family. "Many" of the guys today that are under 55 years old grew up when the mafia was starting to decline. They got into this thing on the tail end of booming times and many of them like Joey Merlino, George Borgesi, Nicky Scarfo Jr., Jackie "The Kid" Giacalone, Frank Calabrese Jr and John Gotti Jr. to name a few were spoiled brats who rode the coat tails of their blue collar fathers who came up in the organization the old fashioned way...they earned their stripes based on their ability to produce solid revenue for the family and their uncanny ability to carry out a hit if needed. A lot of these young guys were handed things because of who their fathers were without having to put in a lot of the serious work of building their reputations.

There are many variables that are debatable but the fact of the matter is that the "many" of the guys today are soft and they realize that they will either spend the rest of their lives in the can or could take their ill gotten gains and move to another place without retribution. At this day in age, it's easier to run to the FBI than it is to do 15 years. One could also make the argument that drug trafficking and the stiff sentences make it much easier to roll over than to do 25-life.

I do not give all the credit to the FBI, but the fact of the matter is that the FBI has more informants (not all of them mobsters), more favorable laws and tools like RICO at their disposal. It has never been argued that if the U.S. government has a target on your back, they have more time and more money to bring you down. If anything, even if the Feds don't get a conviction all the time, they still accomplished ruining a mobster financially. A RICO trial now runs in the ball park of $500k-$1 million dollars...and a lot of the younger guys in today's mafia don't have the foresight to pack a parachute for a rainy day...because if there is one certainty in life is that rainy days happen, and sometimes they are devastating. And even the guys who pack a parachute and have that kind of cash laying around end up having to spend it all on their defense, they lose their homes and in some cases, they lose their families.

My two cents.

My guess is the FBI in Michigan are more concerned with terrorism since the Detroit area has the highest concentration of Muslims. The state police are probably more concerned with out of control black gangs and crime in the Detroit metro area. A bunch of bookies and loansharks are very low on their list.
According to Jerry Capeci, there are only 3 FBI agents assigned to the entire Lucchese Family. How many FBI agents do you think are assigned to the traditional organized crime in the Detroit area? That would explain the lack of indictments. If a bomb went off in DC or NYC or a plane blew up, would you like to explain to Congress why your FBI agents were busy chasing after a bunch of geriatric bookies instead of working on national security threats?

Here's a 2011 article on the Detroit Mafia that has been posted here before:

Detroit Mob

I'd say they're on life support, but not extinct. Once the current crop of leaders dies off or decides to retire, it may go the way of the Buffalo Family.

Your assessment of I L is spot on....but anyway
Some of the most absurd, demostrativly incorrect info on the LCN has come from FBI reports. Some examples I love to use is that they had me as made when I was 19 years old, (I wasnt) Joe Falcone li8stred as a Pittston/Scranton Capo (he was a Buffalo capo and one time acting underboss)and that the Bannono family was so decimated by indictments it no longer existed.
The FBI is good at arresting old men for crimes they comiited in 1960 or crimes they may have commited or may commit under RICO, but their intel on the overall LCN sucks

Louie earned himself a month's vacation from the boards. He had been warned once before about flaming other members. He chose to ignore that warning.

The FBI has been on the money in some cases and way off on others.

Many others before you have floated that theory. But even if that excuse holds water, and that's debatable, it only works for so long. The feds have the same changing priorities in the Tri-State area, New England, Philadelphia, and Chicago and yet there have still been ongoing mob cases there. Am I really supposed to believe Detroit is so different?

NY, Chicago, Philly, and NE are much more active than Detroit, that's why law enforcement continues to go after them. Are you really comparing law enforcement's focus on the hundreds of NY/NJ mafia members to the 25 or so Detroit mobsters. The FBI's own website states that Italian organized crime is most active in the Northeast, so that just might explain why there is more focus on those areas than in the Midwest.

The entire Lucchese Family has 3 FBI agents assigned to it. How many do you think they assigned to Detroit? I would bet 10:1 that there are no FBI agents assigned to the Detroit mob. You expect us to believe that the FBI has almost no resources to go after the Lucchese Family's hundreds of members and associate's union infiltration, garbage, drug trafficking, murder, extortion, bid rigging and dozens of other criminal activities, yet it has active investigations and agents assigned to the Detroit mob's 25 geriatric members gambling and loansharking?

I think I'll take the word of the FBI, state police, and Detroit mob experts that the family is still active.

I'm certainly not comparing Detroit to any of the NY families. But a more apt comparison would be New Jersey, New England, Philadelphia, or Chicago. And there have been far more cases involving those families than Detroit. I, probably more than anybody, take into account what the FBI says. But I also look at all the evidence. And the lack of cases involving Detroit makes me question just how active they really are, as well as makes me lean towards those OC experts who don't really view that family as one of the remaining viable families. There wasn't much in the way of mob cases there even before the downgrade in federal manpower after 9/11 and I'm willing to bet the next 10-15 years won't be any different.

Lucchese family has 3 fbi agents? are you kidding? where did you get this?

Let's be real here...No terrorist group wants to blow up Detroit? What would that accomplish, the city is a shadow of its former self? A few auto plants left and the steel industry collapsed more than 40 years ago...what commerce if any does a terrorist group threaten in Detroit? NYC, Washington, D.C., Boston, L.A., Dallas, Houston and San Francisco are much more likely targets for a terrorist organization.

It's up to the U.S. Justice Department on where to allocate their resources. And if the U.S. Justice Department has no agents assigned to the Detroit Mafia, then they don't consider it a threat.

According to Scott Burnstein's latest chart, he has 51 active members listed with another 5 to be made...doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me. Detroit is officially according to Burstein bigger than any other family outside NYC. I could post the chart that he created if you would like.

I'm going by FBI reports from the 1996 case. Detroit had an estimated 30 made guys. Since then, I think 3 have died, one flipped, and Zerilli semi-flipped. Assuming no new members have been made, that's 25 members. Enough for 3 crews.