With DiFronzo gone, DeLaurentis is allegedly the guy in charge of...what exactly?

Is the “Outfit” still a structured and vertically layered organization?

Did it morph into some sort of underworld within itself? A criminal subculture made of distinct, localized and loosely-associated crews, with no active administration on top, save for emeritus, wealthy members filling the role of occasional advisers?

Perhaps we’re looking at something even beyond that: independent groups with a shared history lacking any sort of ruling panel, each centered around few former members of a now fully defunct organization completely cut-off from the rest of the American LCN.

When was the last serious indictment that confirmed the many allegations about their elite status? Their scope, structural shape, influence, political pull and wealth. I’m talking unions, big-time construction/service industry racketeering, spread-out gambling rings, drugs, kick-ups, active connections to other criminal organizations and out-of-state LCN families, etc...

Family Secrets was mostly about murder cold cases.

According to this 1998 article, in the late 1990’s they were believed to have approximately 70 members and between 700 to 1,200 associates > http://www.ipsn.org/characters/coia/magazines/traditional_organized_crime_in_chicago.htm

According to Nick Calabrese’s testimony, they had around 60 made guys in the early 2000’s.

If these numbers were correct and we assume that their manpower didn’t decrease drastically in less than two decades it would make them bigger than Philly.

Yet the number of investigations are far too low for a criminal organization of that reported size.

The cases of the last few years involving Sarno, Fratto, Dziuban/Carparelli, Davis and Panozzo didn’t really painted them as refined, top-tier, organized nor “white collar”. It all seemed quite scattered around, average-to-small-time and boorish.

Does Chicago have its own Capeci? Where can I find reliable crime reports/intel about them? Scott Burnstrein’s website is far too fanboy-ish to be taken seriously.

We can’t use the “they’re so secretive, so smart, so well-connected...” card anymore. It’s like we’re talking about the illuminati or something.

PS — one of the authors of the Law Studies review I linked above published an article in 2016 about the Outfit and its reputed connections to street gangs. It’s pretty straightforward but there’s this interesting part where he implies:



What are these Southern Italian crime principals he referred to? The only possible explanation I could think of is that he meant that they have more to share with the Camorra or other Southern Italian criminal subcultures than the Sicilians. Which is quite odd because, if I remember correctly, Giancana was the one who introduced the making ceremony and “Sicilianized” the Outfit in order to be in line with crime families on the East Coast.

The Outfit always had non-italians in high ranking positions and give to the non-italians top guys the same power and respect that gave to capos while in the other families until the decline of the 1990s preferred to use their men.
For Giancana that sicilianized the outfit,before the made men invitecthe associates to a meeting and say to them "you're in" and so they become outfit made men.

http://mafiamembershipcharts.blogspot.com/search/label/Chicago

4. Andriacci-Joseph The Builder 1932 (I)
5. Begenie-Phillip
6. Bellavia-Robert Gasbeet 1939
7. Berretoni-Anthony Dago Tony 1931 Chic, Hgts.
8. Bonavolante-Joseph 1957
9. Bruscato-Frank 1928
10. Carioscia-Michael 1933
11. Carparelli-Paul 1969
12. Caruso-Frank Jnr. Toots 1945
13. Cataudella-Nicholas 1959
14. Cataudella-Salvatore Sammy Cards 1952
15. Cecola-Salvatore 1945 L.V.
16. Cimino-Virgil 1943
17. Culotta-Joseph Joe Kong
18. Daddano-William Jnr 1935
19. D'Amico-Mario 1936
20. DeLaurentis-Salvatore Pizza Guy 1938
21. DeRosa-Frank 1943
22. DiFronzo-Peter 1933
23. Esposito-Anthony
24. Filippino-Rocco
25. Forliano-Thomas 1949
26. Fratto-John Des Moines, Iowa
27. Gagliano-Gary 1943
28. Giannone-Anthony
29. Guzzino-Nicholas 1942 Chicago Heights
30. Guzzino-Richard 1939
31. Ignoffo-Roland 1949
32. Inendino-James Jimmy I 1941
33. LaValley-James 1944-
34. Lombardi-Joseph Pretty Boy 1936
35. Lombardo-Joseph 1929 (I)
36. Lombardo-Rocco 1940 L.V.
37. Magnifichi-Michael 1962
38. Malmento-Michael 1931
39. Manno-Pat Jnr. 1933
40. Marcello-James Jimmy the Man 1942 (I)
41. Marcello-Michael 1950
42. Marino-Louis 1932
43. Martin-Gino Blackie 1922
44. Matassa-John Jnr. Pudgy 1951
45. Panno-Frank 1933-
46. Panozzo-Robert Pinocchio
47. Rizzola-Rick L.V.
48. Rosetti-Al
49. Salerno-Robert 1935
50. Scalise-Donald 1938
51. Scalise-Joseph Jerry 1937
52. Scalise-Terry 1956
53. Spano-Michael Jnr. 1940 Cicero
54. Spillone-Vito 1960
55. Spina-Christopher Nose 1953
56. Spirrizzi-John
57. Spirrizzi-Richard
58. Talerico-Joseph 1955
59. Talerico-Michael 1952
60. Tominello-Raymond 1940
61. Vena-Albert 1948

I think part of the Outfit's foundation was the corruption in Chicago. Someone on a documentary said once that the difference between NY and Chicago is that in NY the mafia existed in spite of the government whereas in Chicago the two were in collusion with each other, from the ground up. The city's not controlled by those mob friendly officials anymore. I know people still like to say Chicago is corrupted but that's just political banter. It's nothing like it was 50 years ago.

First due the racist the politicians wouldn't accept bribes by blacks or latinos but now the politicians aren't all white and for sure accept bribes by street gangs and for sure the same is for the police.

Politicians did accept bribes from Black racketeers, read up on Policy Kings Furio.

Every person out there has its price, if he won't do it for 10,000$ he will for 20,000$.Black/White/Yellow doesn't matter , whoever has the money to pay them , they accept.

If you mean Teddy Roe that was 60 years ago.

Furio, look into Howard Brookins, Walter Burnett, and the big one Willie Cochran, and you can find the connections on street gangs influence with Chicago politicians.

Kelly-Nash machine, Mushmouth, Jones Brothers, etc back in the 1920s/30s and prior. Read the book and you'll know more on them. Even here in the South , Policy/Numbers Kingpin had politicians in their pocker or mutual interests.

I haven’t visited this forum in a long time because there is almost nothing to talk about. There hasn’t been a major scam uncovered in almost decades now.

They had a video poker thing going in the early-mid 2000s but I can’t imagine that was enough to power an elite criminal organization then, or now.

It’s most likely completely dunzo.

If you have no major rackets, don’t use violence and don’t have any coherent structure, what makes you the mob?

People on here will argue the Outfit is so subversive no one really knows blah blah blah...phooey. They were powered by alcohol, then gambling and corruption, but evidence of their criminality bubbled up in various ways since it was founded, Now it’s near radio silence.

This generation’s Accardo likely owns something like a storage space empire in Elgin.

It’s over.

To believe the Outfit exists in anything more than myth you have to believe that it’s so subversive nobody knows what it’s doing and, concurrently, it never gets caught.

Historically it never functioned without putting people in trunks. Now it just doesn’t? How does it control anything? How does it protect itself?

It’s absurd. It’s a criminal organization. Even at its height when it was a legitimately terrifying entity, it had to kill people all the time to keep them in line. Now no one flips, no one rips them off and everyone on the street respects them because... why?

If you read the stuff from the late 90s/Family Secrets — much of the original reporting which took place over the precedfing 50 years — it’s clear it was almost finished then, and was actually fascinating as a relic of another era circa 2000..

An organization can’t function without being an organization. A couple hundred Ford employees can’t go off and start Ford 2; similarly a half dozen 75 year olds can’t carry out the activities of a “mob” in any meaningful sense.

I used to think it was on its last legs. At this point I would imagine it’s complely gone. Some of the old guys may still run a couple brothels or something as “sole proprietors” but I’d guess that’s the extent of it.

There aren’t even neighborhoods left where these guys came from. Not a single one.

So what explains that new FBI guy for Chicago, sallett or whatever is name is, saying that they are still watching the outfit and haven't forgot about them? I guess that's all made up too. If you think that the outfit is gone, you are hilariously misinformed.

@ Furio - thanks for that list but it’s quite outdated. Tony Dote and Rudy Fratto are allegedly made but don’t appear. Vito D. Spillone and Gino Martin passed away a few years ago.

I still don't get the whole “Southern Italian organized crime principles” statement by Johnson. And how does having higher up associates of non-Italian descent fit into that?

@ jonnynonos - my thoughts exactly. I forgot to mention the 28 members argument in my opening post but we all got the picture. What is available online about them doesn't make it look like a cohesive organization at all.

@ Moscone - typical government sensationalism. With the impact of black and Hispanic crime groups all over Chicagoland, bringing up the Outfit as a major point of focus for LE agencies is ridiculous.

Like I was saying in the OP, the mob in Chicago has scattered into small independent crews...at best. Similarly to the “Irish mob” in today’s Boston, today’s “Outfit” should be understood as a general term for a spread out criminal subculture made of smaller cliques of mostly Italian-last named crooks criminally unrelated to one another.

I take it by Bill Feather'site.I don't agreee with you,for sure in the last 50 y the other gangs gained the political influence that Outfit had,but that in a city like Chicago with not more italian recruitment pool,the Outfit still exist is a fact.But the Outfit wasn't a tipical LCN family and for this even if he had maybe 40/50 made men had more non-italian associates that are in the same level of the made men.Somone said that in the Outfit a capo was a boss in his own so from the outsite can look like small italian gangs but they had a hierarchy and are still powerful in the unions and had strong political influence that why the FBI are focused on it,because the others are only street level gangs.

I don’t fully disagree with you Furio. It’s a fact that the associate-per-member ratio in Chicago was wider than elsewhere, that plus the number of highly regarded non-Italians involved.

As I said in the OP we could be looking at a web of different crews still gravitating around a ruling center. But, based on the evidence available to us, I’m more inclined to believe that whatever is still going on is independent and loose. Like I said the best example that comes to mind are Irish-American crews in metro Boston. Definitely there, but fluid in structure, activity and membership.

Lastly, I wouldn’t underestimate the pull “street gangs” have in Chicago. Pull is unquestionably connected to fear, money and manpower. I doubt that a multimillionaire black or Hispanic kingpin with a literal army of men under him has a hard time getting his way with local public officials.

I want to add that people tend to forget that the Black & Hispanic underworld of Chicago have their syndicates as well. You have to understand it's more than street gangs.

I read somewhere that the bosses of the top mobs in Chicago live in the suburbs or out of town and there sending orders down the chain, the Young's kids that's doing all the shooting, I would imagine are on thier own

But the reason why the black mobs don't get as much attention as the Mafia is because thier hierarchy is not made public and there's not any beat writers that covers them daily

A general bias & ignorance is the reason for that overlook aspect. Think about the entire FBI personnel ( 35,000) and how many are Black? 4%. LoL.

Example: who's the boss for g.d?
Who's the boss for b.d.?
Who's the boss for vice Lords and Latin Kings?
And so in and so forth, we know who are the bosses for the Mafia families

For that information you'll have to get the updated Chicago Gang Book (2018) online. But word of caution on accuracy on who's actually is legit and falsely associated. Chicago street gangs ( aka Mobs/Nations) leadership have always been grounded in sections ( decks, cliques) for the top largest groups and more tight knit leadership for the smallest ones.

Therefore there's no single leader but leaders depending on who you're referring to specifically. Hispanic mobs generally have their traditional hierarchy in tact. Black mobs have a hierachy too just more cliquish groups.

I sure do, hence the quote marks.



Have you given a read to the article I linked about the Outfit and street gangs? What’s your opinion?

There aren't any more hierarchies

The new things are cliques of morons that control 1, 2, 3, or 4 blocks at the most and shoot at each other over social media beefs

The gang scene in chicago is over on an organized level

That 28 members thing is ancient and has been debated on here extensively. If I remember correctly, the posters who I considered more rational all ended up coming to a kind of consensus that it was the last time the FBI had given any real insight into membership and if you parce it up now — and now another 5 years later — probably half-to-three quarters are dead, in jail or like 90.

One of the interesting takeaways though — again, for people who display some kind of objectivity — was that virtually everyone on the list was a known gangster who had been arrested multiple times for high profile cases.

So in order to believe that the Outfit still has a fraction of the vitality it once had, you have to believe that a lot of new people have moved into those roles but no one knows who they are, really what they’re doing, and they never get caught. Which is obviously silly.

Arrests don't determine weather a family is active or not,if that was the case then buffalo and Detroit must be defunct. A few years ago we saw reports that the guys Sarno bought into the Cicero crew was causing problems...but nobody knows who they are, just because a family don't call the newspapers Everytime they make someone doesn't mean it's not happening

I actually read that some years ago. It's mutual benefits for both groups as with any other criminal element. Check out some of my past threads which have plenty of conversations on the LCN/Street Orgs interactions.

I digress though. Outfit is still active just wouldn't expect feds to roll out indictments every other year when it's lightweight syndicate ( membership wise). Same can be said with Chicago street gangs that are the same size or somewhat larger than the Outfit ( literally are a dozen or so street orgs of comparable size).

I can attest there are defo more than 28 members and more than the 6o that calabrese testified to. Are they on the corners anymore muscling shopkeepers for protection? No. They are deeply tied into city politics however. Interstate trucking hijacking, still some union racketeering, loan sharking & semi-legitimate business. They have evolved. They are stil heavily tied into chgo police dept. their structure is more alligned to the camorra. Family clans are the m. o.
No more outsiders. Remember when calabrese sr told jr about christmas tree. Stonger but smaller? They will never be what they once where but are still viable, still respected. If not, why was there no retribution when panozzo was jacking those cartel stash houses?

They still have killers in the family. A couple of years ago when Chuckie Russell got pinched, they found out that he was killing black drug dealers and leaving their bodies in bad neighborhoods to make it look like it was other gangs. Guy was even trying to buy Uzi submachine guns and stuff, and he was up there in age too.

An italian investigation few years back said Chicago is also recruiting a lot of zips.