Thats where you are wrong. I don't "want them to have 50 or 60 members" I could care less how many members they have, they could have 5, or 500 and it would make no difference to me.

But when it comes to whos word I tend to lean towards when it comes to Detroit information, I take Scotts word as he has FBI contacts in Detroit and other sources as well, and isn't some random BS artist poster from Detroit that pretends to be in the know to seem cool.

I think Ivy is pretty close to the mark. When Scott makes those lists he includes made guys, guys he thinks might be made,and guys he knows are not made, but are players in the family, including some non-Italians.

In addition to Scott, there are two other people who occasionally post that are from the Detroit area, and who seem fairly knowledgeable. When you read someones posts for a long period you can usually tell who's full of it, and both these guys seem pretty legit. Both of them feel that the Detroit family has 28-30 made guys, and that 8-10 of them are old and retired or semi-retired. This was before Tocco died, implying at most 20 active made guys, maybe a couple less.

As far as them making 20 guys, there is no indication of that. Scott himself says that Tocco made a batch early in the century when he go out of prison, and another batch in 2006-2007. He believes that they have not made any since then.
He recently posted that there are a half dozen guys that are sons or nephews of made guys that could be made, but that they are short of other suitable recruits.

As far as them being under the radar. There is some indication that the local papers report gambling type arrests as individual arrests, rather than connecting them to the Detroit Family. Beyond that, to say that they are involved in drugs, extortion, or street tax and are so clever that they never get arrested is ridiculous.

If you run a drug operation long term, people get arrested. There is no such pattern of arrests. Obviously this does not preclude individual made guys from financing drug buys from a safe distance, but they could not be running them without arrests, period.

At least theoretically you could collect from strip clubs and
independent bookies as long as it was low key, not too much money, and actually offered a service, IE protection from anyone else in the case of strip clubs, or an effective layoff service to the bookies. Even that would have to be semi-voluntary with moderate amounts, or someone would get scared and go to the fed, and there would be arrests. There have been no such arrests.

If you look at the whole of what little we know, these guys mostly own legitimate or semi-legitimate businesses, mainly bars,restaurants,strip clubs, car dealerships and construction companies. They run gambling and low key shylocking operations and probably launder some of the money through their businesses. Individual made guys may well be involved in other things, but if their was a lot more going on there would be more arrests.

IMHO I think IVY is placing a little too much emphasis on lack of OC identified arrests in the case of Detroit, because they are certainly a unique family in many ways. Nonetheless I see no evidence from any credible source that he is very far off, either. Even Scott says that he doesn't see a long term future for this family due to a lack of suitable recruits. If anyone has any evidence to the contrary I would genuinely like to hear it.

Best post on this family in a long while.

It isn't just Detroit, its any family.

His motto is, if there aren't a bunch of indictments...and or the feds didnt say it...it isnt true.

Good post overall though.

I don't find it hard to believe there are close to 40 made guys though, but I could be off.

I don't think he made 20 guys, I think it was like 3-5 each ceremony...

and Jackie will probably make the other 5 within a year or 2 now that Tocco has passed and the decision is his alone.

But again, that is just me speculating.

You happen to know they have inducted 20 guys since 2000? Sure you do, pal.



You say you don't care one way or the other but why do you ignore all the other evidence and just go with what Scott says? It's because you're happy to have him spoon feed you what you want to hear. What about "most experts" mentioned above in that article that tend to think the mob's presence is confined primarily in the Northeast and Chicago today? You completely ignore them. There isn't close to the mob activity in Detroit today that even small families in New England or Philadelphia have and yet you still believe it has as many members as those families do. The feds had the family at a max of 30 members 15-20 years ago but you believe it's almost doubled in size since then, despite so many members dying off in recent years. You do care. Which is why you go with one source and nothing else.




Yup. It is any family. Because the same factors apply across the board. Detroit isn't "different" or "special" or knows how to stay "under the radar" anymore than another family does. Those are worn-out phrases used by internet posters who can't let their prized crime family go.

And one may be able to discount the lack of mob busts as not necessarily meaning much in the short term. But, over the long term, the evidence (or lack thereof) cannot be ignored. There's just little in the way to support these claims that what's left of the mob in Detroit has either the size of scope that some claim it does. We won't see another bust in Detroit like the one in 1996 again.

Because he has forgotten more about the Detroit mob than you know. That's why.

Why would I ever go with what you have to say over Scott? He has sources in Detroit. You have google.

Twenty years ago, pre-Internet, that would have sounded like he had a venereal disease.

Pssst. Ivy has Google.

"with a lot of bodies being left out onto the streets. "

This is starting to crack me up....he's said this in every post....

I'm sure he's been here before .

I'm sure. This place has lighter admission requirements than a gay bar.

Jesus what are you in some mafia sowing circle? This guys got dirt on every family in the us and canada.

It's true. I love this place, and I try to stick up for the mods and the owner wherever and whenever I can. But if we're living in a day and age where you can change your IP whenever you want with a free iPhone app, they they should really consider making this place "invite only."

Seems every city has its own private "TheArm"
I wonder why some of those guys don't take a shot at screenwriting. They have all of the creativity, but seem to lack in business acumen.

First, let me say that I am from New England. I don't know anything about Detroit but what I have read. Having said that, it seems to me that people have a tendency to distort both what Ivy actually says and what Scott Burnstein actually says.

Let's look at this from the angle of what the Feds have actually said, what Scott has actually said, and what Ivy's saying based on simple arithmetic.

In the mid 90's the Feds said that Detroit had 29 members. A few years later they were quoted as saying there were 30 members.

Scott said there were two making ceremonies roughly around 2001 and 2006. I don't
Remember exactly how many he said were made, but I THINK he said he THOUGHT
there were 4 or 5 each time.

Even if there were as many as 5 each time that is 10 new members in addition to the 30 quoted by the Feds. Quite a few of these guys have died in the last 13 years. 10 new guys would be barely enough to keep them at the 30 the Feds quoted 13 years ago. Maybe not even enough. Also remember that one of that roughly 30 is is a rat , one is shelved, and quite a few are very old and retired or semi- retired based on Scott's own information.

Based on simple math, it's hard to believe that there much more 30 and probably no more than 20 active, maybe less.

It could be that Scott's wrong, and others have been made, but if we are going to accept him as generally reliable, and I do, then it's hard to believe that both his street sources and his FBI sources missed a making ceremony.The Feds haven't said anything since 2001.

Now Scott did recently say that there are a half dozen sons and nephews of made guys that could be made in the near future. Maybe Jackie will make them. Maybe he will find other recruits and make them too.We don't know. It's speculation.

Speculation aside, it's hard to believe that there currently more than 30 made guys, give or take a couple, and hard to believe that there are more than about 20 active guys, give or take a couple. It's just math. I don' mean that in condescending way, and I'm not sure I'm right either. I don't know any more than you.

Excellent post! Welcome to the site Mack hopefully you stick around.

whatever IVY said is the way it is, END OF STORY

^lol. Polygamists' word is bond.

I just heard some very disturbing news today about the D'anna brothers. Seems they are importing some hitters from Terasani. The Winsdor and Hamilton guys have ties to them to so the kid doesn't know where their loyalties are, and they are the hitters the kid would rely on. It's worse than I even thought. This is going to be worse than 1930. Everyone better pack a lunch because this could get sticky.

Go find a sandpit to play in child.

Stop spreading bullshit. Troll somewhere else, the only joke here is you.

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.

durkadurka is history.

Holy shit that was intense.

First thing I thought after reading this thread
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FONN-0uoTHI

Holy shit
Can someone explain to me though what on earth "gorilla warfare" is?

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which a small group of combatants such as armed civilians use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility to fight a larger and less-mobile traditional military

I thought he did a pretty decent enough job of trolling the folks he set out to troll. Good for him, I found him entertaining.

Better than the goofball regulars that pat each other on the back after corny inside jokes & lame pop culture references that miss by a mile anyways..

Huron,

This is not the first time that you have chimed in after the mods canned one of these thumb sucking idiots. You have some insightful stuff to share especially about Chicago why not stick with that?. If you have a problem with the mods talk to them personally about it and move on. Anyway I enjoy your Chicago posts.

Cmon, it was obvious he was trolling, and like the countless numbers before him, all the usual suspects ate the bate with reckless abandon (per usual).

"What!? There's no way you know any mob guys, Yeah right! Let alone multiple guys from multiple families in different cities! No way, Fuck You! Get out!"

It's like these guys are just waiting in the wings, ready to rip anyone's head off who defies popular opinion around these parts. Wasn't it obvious he was trolling? I dunno I thought it was. His posts were pretty humorous in their outlandishness too. His over the top threats as a response were the icing on the cake.

People around here take this mob shit way too fuckin seriously, they completely lose their wits when someone makes an outlandish claim. That durka guy obviously played into that & probably had a good laugh. Even his username was a (not so underhanded) jab against these guys.

Why can't I think that's funny?

You keep avoiding the question - why don't you also look at other evidence in regards to Detroit in addition to what Scott says (which changes much of the time, by the way)? Because he's the only one telling you what you want to hear.

And you can spare me the Google accusations. We all use Google. It's simply a tool to find additional sources instead of being spoon fed info by one guy.