What crews were the most feared and what crews were the richest? We always hear that there are two types of gangsters. The ones who are great businessmen that make a lot of money for themselves and the family but don’t get their hands too dirty. And the ones who are the opposite. The gangsters who might not make as much money as others but are feared. Very rarely do you see someone who is both. The DeMeo crew is one of the most feared crews to ever exist. I think finding crews that collectively made huge amounts of money would be tougher. In the Italian and Italian American Mafia.

No one can know who was the richest , as they are giving their best to cover everything. And to answer this: Corleonesi, the inner circle of Corleonesi at beginning.

And if you count beginning of Corleonesi as family, then most feared crew would be the one that run room of death in Sicily.

Some of the most feared crews I have heard about are the DeMeo crew, Gotti crew when he was a capo, and Casso’s crew

How many separate crews did the Corleonesi have? They had so many members. But I think the Corleonesi did end up becoming the richest crew after they inherited all of the rackets from their decimated enemies. Riina himself had $250 million in assets confiscated approximately. I am not sure how much of that was cash or other quickly convertible possessions of his.

The bath avenue crew was tough but they aren’t on the same level as the other crews.

Anthony casso and amuso brooklyn guys there like a dozen those guys killed alot of people. And did alot of time. Most are all free today. George conte george neck frank last.... name a few

Most of the Bonanno crews are as tough as they come. Look at what they did to the Luccheses, just roll into their social club and threatened an acting boss with guns drawn.

Well u can't compare any crews from 5 families to any crew from Italy. The italians are 10 levels above them

When we compare money from the 1980s up to now then yes. But it was the opposite until the Italians got into cigarette smuggling and drug trafficking. And once they made their fortune that way they would invest it and watch it grow quickly. They learned from the Americans.

That Casso crew was full of killers. I think the DeMeo crew was so feared that even Gotti’s Ozone crew did not want to have any problems with them.

What incident are you referring to?

You don't know?

A bunch of armed Bonanno guys went into a social club and threatened Madonna and Crea Sr. That's when Crea put a contract out on a Bonanno associate but it was settled before the hit could take place. He's in lock up facing a charge for it. This all happened in 2012.

I never heard that. In a way it shows how far the American movies has fallen. I don’t think something like that would have happened years ago. Takes a lot of balls to do that either way.

https://www.cosanostranews.com/2014/11/a-bath-avenue-crew-story-book-excerpt.html?m=1
Here is a story about one of the Bath Avenue crew members telling George Conte off.

Lombardozzi’s crew must have been full of great earners with his Wall Street connections.

I think that the Outfit crews in Las Vegas especially the Spilotro crew was the toughest and richest because the Chicago Outfit crontrolled the biggest casinos in LV plus Spilotro had a crew of robbers at his orders.

https://www.cosanostranews.com/2019/11/new-genovese-street-boss-comes-from.html?m=1

New Genovese Street Boss Comes From Mafia's Most Powerful Crew

By Ed Scarpo Sunday, November 03, 2019

The East Harlem/Bronx crew.

The American crews don't have a thing on the Sicilians, Calabrians or Neapolitans these days.

For some reason I'd still put the Americans over for instance the Puglians, at least when it comes to professionalism. Maybe even turnover, seeing the money making base of the Puglians is very much confined to Puglia itself whereas you can find Mafia, Ndrangheta and Camorra cells operating in plenty of European countries.

It's hard to find stats on the annual revenue of the American mob so it's a bit hard to compare. For that reason I don't know how they do compared to for instance the Rome-based groups either. The Casamonica group for instance is rumored to have a total annual turnover of about 90 million, but then again the check cash scam ran by a few Genovese associates alone netted about 9 million.

TheKillingJoke the Casamonica are thousand men made their money primaly with the drugs and after with the loansharking (many vips had debts with them) and after with the protection racke ecc.
You cant compare a single crew with the Casamonicas but for sure the Gambino or the Genovese families made more money that this fucking gypsies.

It is hard to tell how much anyone is making. You are right, compared to the Italians, the Americans don’t compare in today’s day. In the past they might have but the Italians made money that the Americans never really saw. The Americans were on the verge of it before they were flipped upside down by law enforcement.

Franzese made millions of dollars a week. I would think he would have to be the biggest earner the American mafia has ever had. Of course we don’t know because we don’t have much info on some of the biggest earners and just how much they were making. But I find it hard to believe anyone else in the american mafia made money like that unless they were heavily involved in drug trafficking. It’s more impressive when someone finds a scheme like the gas scams and they make more money with that than pushing drugs.

Great article. It looks like the power for both the Genovese and Lucchese are both in Harlem and the Bronx traditionally.