Mafia Stars

Mafia groups in the United States first became strong and influential in the Chicago area, and has gradually progressed from small neighborhood operations to citywide and also international organizations. The Mafia had expanded to 26 crime families nationwide in the major cities of the US, with the epicenter of organized crime beeing based in New York. After many wars between the gangs, five families ended up dominating New York. Those families were named after their prominent early members and they are: the Bonanno family, the Colombo family, the Gambino family, the Genovese family, and the Lucchese family.

Each family was ultimately controlled by a Don, who was insulated from actual operations by several layers of authority. According to popular belief, the Don’s closest and most trusted advisor was referred to as the consigliere (”counselor” in Italian). In reality, the consigliere was meant to be something of a “hearing officer” who was not only charged with mediating intra-family disputes, but also for taking care of the economic side of the “business”. An underboss was also a possible and a very common title in crime families. Each family had regimes, and a varying number of soldati (lit. “soldiers”), or made-men, who conducted actual operations.

Each regime was headed by a caporegime, who reported to the boss. When the mafia boss made a decision, he never issued orders directly to the soldiers who would carry it out, but instead passed instructions down through the chain of command. In this way, the higher levels of the organization were effectively insulated from incrimination if a lower level member should be captured by law enforcement.

The initiation ritual originaly emerged in Sicily in the mid-19th century and has hardly changed to this day. The man of honor supposed to be initiated would be led into the presence of a group of bosses and underbosses. One of these men would prick the initiate’s arm or hand and tell him to smear the blood onto a sacred image, usually a saint. The oath of loyalty would than be taken as the image was burned and scattered, symbolising the annihilation of traitors.

A hit, or assassination, of a made man had to be preapproved by the leadership of his family, or retaliatory hits would be made, possibly inciting a war. In a state of war, families would go to the mattresses — rent vacant apartments and have a number of soldiers sleeping on mattresses on the floor in shifts, with the others ready at the windows to fire at members of rival families.

During the Fascist period in Italy, prefect of Palermo used special powers granted to him to prosecute the Mafia, which forced many Mafiosi to flee abroad or risk being jailed. Many of the Mafiosi who escaped from Sicily fled to the United States, among them Joseph Bonanno, who came to dominate the US branch of the Mafia. The US Goverment back then, took advantage of Mafia and used their influence on Sicily during the invasion of Italy and Sicily. Many analysts now agree that because of the US interest, Lucky Luciano and other members of Mafia who had been imprisoned during this time in USA, suddenly became valuable patriots. US military intelligence used Luciano’s influence to ease the way for advancing American troops during the invasion of Italy and Sicily in 1943.

From the American perspective, an additional benefit was the fact that many of the Sicilian and Italian Mafiosi were hard line anti-communists, as the Mafia despised any other form of social organisation in its heartland of Sicily, as they were the monopolist of power and violence on the island. US Goverment saw Mafia as valuable allies to fight the communism in America. Lucky Luciano was permitted to run his crime network from his jail cell in exchange for his assistance. After the war, Luciano was rewarded by being deported to Italy, where he was able to continue his criminal career. in 1946, Luciano went to Sicily to continue his activities and back then Luciano went on to forge a crucial alliance with the Corsican Mafia, leading to the development of a vast international heroin trafficking network, initially supplied from Turkey and based in Marseille. This network was also known as the “French Connection”.

Turkey soon began to eliminate its opium production, so Luciano used his connections with the Corsicans to open a dialogue with expatriate Corsican mafiosi in South Vietnam. Together with leading American mob bosses including Santo Trafficante Jr, Luciano and his successors took advantage of the chaotic conditions of the Vietnam War to establish an unassailable supply and distribution base in the “Golden Triangle”, which was soon supplying huge amounts of Asian heroin into the United States, Australia and other countries via the U.S. military.

The Sicilian Mafia as we know it, actually originated some time during the mid 19th Century. Industrialisation and trade of Italy were the main driving force behind the development of the Sicilian mafia. The Sicilian mafia has always been at the strongest in the west of Sicily, around the city of Palermo, which some people like to call the birthplace of Mafia. Palermo was the center of trade, commerce and politics for the island of Sicily, as opposed to the continental part of the island which was economically underdeveloped when compared to Palermo.

The main source of wealth of the island were the large estates of lemon and orange estates. In the bare begining, the Mafia served as a special kind of protection for the large orange and lemon estates arround Palermo. In its early days, even some members of the ruling aristocracy were the members of the mafia. Maybe the most important member back than was Baron Turrisi Colonna, a well known as a political protector of members of Mafia. This kind of relationship with the Government became characteristic for the Sicilan Mafia.

While there may be thousands of mafia groups in Russia only a handful are large enough to maintain a serious threat. The biggest gangs are the Dolgopruadnanskaya and the Solntsevskaya.

The latter, named after the Moscow suburb of Solntsevo from which it hails, has around 5,000 members.

Its leader is believed to be Sergei Mikhailov, known as Mikhas, who is being held by the authorities in Switzerland.

The Solntsevskaya specialises in drugs and gun smuggling but is not averse to extortion and the American hotelier Paul Tatum, who was shot dead in 1995, claimed they had threatened his life only a few weeks before.

Quite a lot has been written and said about Al Capone in newspaper and magazine articles, books, and movies that is completely false. One of the most common fictions is that like many gangsters of that era, he was born in Italy. Absolutely not true. This amazing crime czar was strictly domestic — taking the feudal Italian criminal society and fashioning it into a modern American criminal enterprise.Certainly many Italian immigrants, like immigrants of all nationalities, frequently came to the New World with very few assets. Many of them were peasants escaping the lack of opportunity in rural Italy. When they came to the large American port cities they often ended up as laborers because of the inability to speak and write English and lack of professional skills. This was not the case with Al Capone’s family. Capone had mastered the art of politics, and as a wealthy, powerful gangster figure, he attempted to balance his activities. Despite his illegitimate occupation, he had become a highly visible public figure. He made daily trips to City Hall, opened soup kitchens to feed the poor, and even lobbied for milk bottle dating to ensure the safety of the city’s children. City officials often were embarrassed by the politic strength of Capone, and began leveraging his illegal activities through police raids, along with setting intentional fires to his places of business.

In the beginning, the public glamorized Capone’s activities and identified with him as a modern day Robin Hood. It wasn’t long, however, before the public started weighing against him when it was believed that he had ordered the death of a famed local prosecutor named Billy McSwiggin. The young prosecutor had before tried to pin Capone with the violent murder of a rival gang member and he had a reputation for going after bootleggers. Although many speculated against Al’s involvement in McSwiggin’s death, there was a great outcry against gangster violence, and public sentiment went against Capone.

Capone quickly went into hiding, fearing he would be tried for McSwiggin’s murder. He remained out of sight for nearly three months, and then after realizing he couldn’t live the remainder of his life underground, he negotiated his surrender to the Chicago Police. The authorities eventually recognized that they lacked sufficient evidence to bring Capone to trial, and though very unpopular with public opinion, he was set free. The public was outraged and law officials were left embarrassed. “Big Al” had become one of the most powerful crime czars in Chicago. It was said that Capone was now big as life, and more powerful than the mayor himself.

By 1929, Capone’s empire was worth over $62,000,000, and he was ready to wage war on his most prominent bootlegging rival, George “Bugs” Moran. Bugs was also one of the principal Chicago gangsters. He was known to publicly talk against Capone, and maintained a sense of spiteful arrogance that was said to anger Capone so much that Moran became one of Al’s routine topics of discussion. It was rumored that Capone gave orders to take Bugs down by assassinating his gang members from the bottom, not stopping until they reached Bugs.

The Godfather is one of the few films in which I personally did not find any significant weakness even after many viewings. From the direction, to the acting, to the storyline, to the score, The Godfather has the word classic written all over, and it really is not much of a surprise that it is now considered by many one of the top five movies of all time. Perhaps when it comes to cinematic techniques The Godfather has not been as revolutionary as Citizen Kane, but its influence on motion pictures is comparable. Rarely a movie has defined or re-defined a genre as much as this one did for “gangster movies”, but its influence goes well beyond that.

The Godfather’s influence has been so big through the years that elements of it can be found in virtually every “organized crime film” nowadays; almost every comedy featuring a gangster in the last few years has spoofed something in The Godfather. The Italian-American old mobster a-la Don Vito Corleone has become one of the most established figures in the public’s imagination.

But to say that The Godfather is simply “influential” is to diminish its true qualities, and so is to describe it simply as “a movie about gangsters”. The Mafia is certainly the main focus the story revolves around (despite the fact that the word is never mentioned), but although the movie never tries to forcedly insert separate subjects it contains an amount of psychological and social subtexts that cannot be overlooked. Considerations on how the social environments changes us, on how moral values appear different from different point of views, on how violence can destroy a human soul, and on how power can corrupt an individual are deeply blended into a story that stays practically always true to complete realism, and the result is a picture of astonishing efficacy and believability.

As good as the direction and the story are, it would be unfair not to consider the major role that the actors’ performances had in the cinematic triumph that was The Godfather. Praised by many as the best cast to ever appear in an American movie, all the cast in The Godfather succeeds in portraying complex, three-dimensional characters without ever making a slip. The exceptional portrayals of Don Vito and Michael Corleone respectively by Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, the performances by Robert Duvall, James Caan and Diane Keaton as Tom Hagen, Santino Corleone and Kay Adams, the ruthless Virgil Sollozzo played by Al Lettieri — as well as more than a few other roles — are all perfect for the movie, and they all succeed in making us believe these are real people, not just actors. We are not watching a central character and a bunch of incomplete figures that revolve around him: although Michael Corleone is the character that gets the most screen time, everybody is the center of this world his own way. The movie makes it possible for the viewers to identify with different characters and to observe how their personality and story fits in, and it does it much more effectively than many bloated multiple-storyline movies that came out in the last few years.

The movie opens on the wedding of Don Vito Corleone’s daughter, Connie (Talia Shire). Don Corleone is a powerful man, and it was not without the use of violence that he achieved this position during the course of his life. The wedding scene gives a perfect setting of where and how the Don’s power extends; from the regular worker in a neighborhood, to the immensely popular singer, to the friends in politics and right to the ruthless killer, Don Corleone has links to people ready to ask him favors and to pay him back. Some are trustworthy, some are not, but thanks to his intelligence and intuit the Don can almost always distinguish the two.

However, this is 1946, times are changing, and to many of the younger people working in the crime business, Don Corleone’s ideas are becoming obsolete. The Don believes that the new trend in the business, narcotics, is too dangerous and the families dealing with it would eventually end up self-destroying; while his family had deals in alcohol and gambling for a long time, part of the Government and law enforcement was ready to close one eye. Drugs are another thing.

To this day, Don Corleone was able to keep things together while maintaining his economic and political power, but things will brutally change when a powerful drug dealer name Sollozzo enters the picture. The refusal of Don Corleone to cooperate with Sollozzo, and a weakness immediately spotted by the latter, will ignite a war that will cost many lives, and that will see Michael Corleone, Vito’s younger son and the one who never wanted to take part in the family business, lose his “innocence” and transform into a gangster as ruthless as the people he initially stood up against.

I purposely decided not to spoil much about the plot because I believe that the film is perfectly enjoyed without knowing anything in advance, and — believe it or not — there are still quite a lot of people who have never seen this movie. There are multiple scenes that manage to create an incredible tension, various twists, and although like any other masterpiece The Godfather can be watched knowing the whole story beforehand and still be a phenomenal experience, I believe it is always a pleasure to see it for the first time and enjoy its multiple climaxes. Besides, to outline such complicated characters and such an emotionally intense story in a short review like this one would be inadmissible.

There has been much speculation on how the events in The Godfather novel written by Mario Puzo, the book the film is based on, could be an exposé of true facts. Many believe that the character of Johnny Fontane , for instance, was based on Frank Sinatra’s real life, and many of the other characters were modeled after real people. I won’t go into that: frankly, I have no idea whether these voices are reliable, although the Frank Sinatra reference seems obviously quite believable.

The cinematography of The Godfather is dark and tasteful, and colors are used perfectly to give a true feel of the era it is set in. There is a fair amount of violence, though rarely gratuitous.

The Godfather certainly doesn’t need my recommendation. The film is universally considered one of the best of all time, and the performances by Pacino and Brando alone is the stuff of legends.

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Gender Makeup: Male

Racial Makeup: Mexican-American/Hispanic

Origin: The Mexican Mafia (EME) was formed in the late 50s at Duel Vocational Center, a youthful offender facility in California, from an urban Los Angeles street gang.

Characteristics:

EME’s philosophy centers on ethnic solidarity and control of drug trafficking.
EME is the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ most active gang, in terms of incident frequency rather than severity.
Ordinarily, each prison has a separate leadership.
Identifiers/Symbols:

Initials “EME.”
The Mexican flag symbols such as the eagle with a snake in conjunction with the initials “EME.”
A single hand print, usually black in color.
The EME symbol of eternal war.
Initials ‘MM’ or ‘M.’
Many intelligence personnel and officers confuse the EME with the Mexikanemi from Texas. Great care should be taken in evaluating these distinct groups. Some believe the Mexikanemi share identical tattoos and symbols with EME, but there are subtle differences to be taken into account when attempting to associate membership.

Enemies/Rivals:

The La Nuestra Familia is the EME’s chief rival. They are said to have a “kill on sight relationship,” which has resulted in Federal Bureau of Prisons adopting an absolute separation of confirmed members. Other rivals include:

Northern Structure
Arizona’s New Mexican Mafia
Black Guerrilla Family
black street gangs
Allies:

The EME has a very active working relationship with the Aryan Brotherhood. Other allies include:

Arizona’s Old Mexican Mafia
Mexikanemi
New Mexico Syndicate
urban Latino street gangs.
The EME often provides protection for imprisoned La Costa Nostra members.

Recruitment/Initiation:

Members are Mexican-American/Hispanic male inmates.
The wives, girlfriends, and relatives of the EME are held in extremely high regard due to their support of drug transactions, financial activities, and mail-forwarding operations.
The EME is generally considered a “blood in, blood out” organization.
Propensity for Disruptive Behavior:

EME is not readily recognizable in the Florida Department of Corrections; however the history of the group and documented acts of violence in other jurisdictions warrants STG certification.
Receipt of inmates on interstate compact and the current membership in groups with Hispanic/Latino supremacy ideology and Latino street gangs lend to the threat.
The main activities of the EME are centered around drug trafficking, extortion, pressure rackets, and internal discipline.

The EME uses killing as a means of discipline or gaining respect. EME killings are extremely gruesome and calculated to establish fear and intimidation.

Company documents show that the Italian criminal syndicate appears to have been aided and abetted in obtaining their licences by former National Central Intelligence Services (NCIS) operator and self-described “business consultant” Zackey Nefungo Nujoma, former president Sam Nujoma’s youngest son.Two shelf companies — Avila Investments and Marbella Investments (Pty) Ltd. — nominally controlled by local lawyer CJ Gouws and Nujoma — are among the eight diamond buyers and 18 diamond cutters currently licensed by the ministry in terms of the Diamond Act (Act 13 of 1999).

Pietro Palazzolo — also known as Peter von Palace-Kolbatschenko — the brother of wanted crime boss Vito Palazzolo, was one of Avila’s directors, suggesting that there may be a hidden organised crime interest. Vito Palazzolo, often referred to as the Mafia’s banker, has been involved in massive money-laundering schemes, as well as drug smuggling and immigration fraud. He is currently being tried in absentia in Italy for money laundering and racketeering.

Nujoma has denied any know-ledge of any organised crime links to either Avila or Marbella.

Gouws said his firm had sold the off-the-shelf companies to Nujoma, who is listed as a geologist in the company records, and who wanted to use them to apply for unspecified mining concessions.

Full ownership of these two companies was subsequently transferred to a blind, off-shore company, Diamond Ocean Enterprises Limited, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

It is not known who ultimately controls Diamond Ocean Enterprises, as the BVI’s banking secrecy laws prevent disclosure in this regard. Several sources spoken to were of the firm opinion that the licence belonged to the alleged Mafia kingpin. “It’s not Pietro, it is [Vito] Palazzolo himself,” one well-placed source said.

Nujoma denies knowing who Von Palace-Kolbatschenko really is and also declined to discuss who the real owners of Diamond Ocean Enterprises were. “I do not have any reason to tell you … why should I tell you?” he said. He was also unwilling to meet this week to discuss the matter.

Shown documentary evidence of the link, Namibia Diamond Commissioner Kennedy Hamutenya confirmed that Avila and Marbella obtained their licences in 2005 by buying them from Mumbai diamantaire SN Sharma, the holder of one of the six initial Namibian licences issued under the Namibian Diamond Act (Act 13 of 1999).

But neither the names Pietro Palazzolo nor Peter von Palace-Kolbatschenko have appeared anywhere in the application forms filed by Nujoma in terms of the Diamond Act for transfer of the licences, Hamutenya said.

And as far as he knew, neither his office nor the Minister of Mines and Energy, Errki Nghimtina, had ever given any written approval for the transfer of control or ownership of the licence-holding companies to Diamond Oceans Enterprises, he said.

Sections 21 and 22 of the Diamond Act forbid the transfer of any diamond licence or controlling interests in companies or close corporations holding such licences without written permission from the minister. Transgressions of the law are met with a R250 000 fine and/or five years imprisonment.

Furthermore, the Diamond Act states that the minister shall refuse to issue any diamond licence to an individual or entity which, “in the opinion of the Minister is or has been involved in activities relating to the unlawful dealing in or possession of diamonds”.

Extracts of company share registers obtained in terms of Section 113 of the Companies Act showed that Pietro Palazzolo, listed as a South African with Namibian residency, served as Avila’s director from November 29 2005 to June 2 2006.

Records show that Palazzolo resigned as director after 100% ownerships of Avila and Marbella were moved off-shore. Nujoma is currently listed as the only Namibian director in both Avila and Marbella Investments.

While Pietro Palazzolo appears to have a clean record, various public and confidential documents indicate that South African, Italian and American law-enforcement agencies consider him to be part of his brother’s operations.

Both Palazzolo brothers are known to be regular visitors to Namibia. Via their local unregistered Von Palace-Kolbatschenko Family Trust, they and Israeli diamantaire Gershon Ben-Tovim were at one stage partners in an ostrich venture on the farm Omburo-Sued, situated 30km west of Omaruru.

In 2002, workers at the farm said that various high-ranking government officials — including a top law-enforcement official — had over the years been regular visitors to Omburo-Sued, raising the question to what extent organised crime had penetrated the Namibian state.

Vito Palazzolo is also known to be currently shopping for a house in Windhoek’s more luxurious suburbs.
In 1997, a well-known Namibian businessman introduced the Palazzolo brothers and Ben-Tovim to a number of high-level contacts in the Angolan diamond industry, a source familiar with one of the trips to Angola said.

Any legitimate entry into the diamond industry would afford the “Mob” a huge money-laundering opportunity, as the Kimberley Process of certification only covers rough diamonds, anti-corruption campaigning NGO Global Witness’s Alex Yearsley said.

Given that the Mob would be trying to “clean” proceeds from organised crime, it could offer as much as 30% above the reigning market price for rough diamonds, Yearsley explained.

Angola remains the major source of illicit rough diamonds in the region, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo. But because the Mafia would likely be looking to launder money through the purchase of diamonds, it would be willing to pay up to 30% more than the market price, making them very attractive as customers. The Angolan diamond industry is dominated by President Eduardo dos Santos’s daughter Isabella dos Santos, and international anti-corruption NGOs such as Global Witness and Fatal Attractions believe that Palazzolo has direct links to her.

Once rough diamonds have been cut, they would be virtually untraceable among the millions of carats of cut diamonds being traded internationally, Yearsley said.

FNB Namibia, through which Avila and Marbella have brought “millions of US dollars” into Namibia from a bank in Hong Kong, said the Bank of Namibia had approved all the paperwork and there “was nothing we could do”, according to its senior South African manager, Leonard Hayes.

Namibia’s diamond commissioner said that as far as he knew, only De Beers and their local associates in the diamond-cutting industry have been actively cutting diamonds. Any increased level of financial activity in either the Avila or Marbella bank accounts could therefore indicate money-laundering activity, he conceded.

Namibia’s Justice Minister and Attorney General Pendukeni Ithana-Iivula is still to table the Organised Crime and Money Laundering Bill, which would outlaw transactions where fronting is involved, in Parliament. Neither she nor her deputy, Uutoni Nujoma — Zackey Nujoma’s older brother — could be reached for comment in this regard.

Hamutenya made it clear that his ministry would not allow any individual to bring Namibia’s diamond industry into disrepute. “The [Diamond Act] also allows for such a licence to be taken away — if they break the law,” he said.

The adventures of Vito Palazzolo
In 1998, Vito Palazzolo was convicted of money laundering by a Swiss court for laundering $28-million. The $28-million was a fraction of the proceeds of a $750-million drug-smuggling operation run by Palazzolo in the United States during the 1980s. The profits from the operation were laundered through a complex web of international bank accounts and front companies, Swiss prosecutors said at the time of Palazzolo’s conviction.

The Von Palace-Kolbatschenko name — a fake Russian aristocratic name — was adopted by Palazzolo in 1987 after he fled Switzerland to former South African homeland Ciskei. Palazzolo escaped while he was on 36-hour Christmas parole from a Swiss jail, where he was awaiting trial.

He was again arrested in 1998 at his luxurious La Terra du Luc farm in Western Cape on a Swiss extradition warrant, and eventually served a few months in a Swiss jail before returning to South Africa.

Since then, he has beaten various criminal charges, including lying about his original South African citizenship application and bribing two former New National Party politicians to approve a controversial golf-course development in the ecologically sensitive Plettenberg Bay area.

Captain Piet Viljoen, a detective with the Scorpions, testified in November 2004 that Palazzolo was considered to be the “boss” of a mafia structure in Western Cape. The charge was denied, but Palazzolo remains under investigation in this regard.

Viljoen also testified in November 2004 that Palazzolo allegedly had links with Rashied Staggie, the Western Cape drug-lord now serving a sentence for various offenses. Palazzolo’s lawyer, former Gauteng attorney general Klaus Lieres von Wilkau, denied this accusation in court.

In 1998, the Institute of Security Studies’s organised crime expert Peter Gastrow wrote of Palazzolo in the African Security Review: “A man of considerable wealth, the police found some R500 000 worth of diamonds, and documents indicating that he had invested more than R25-million in various companies in South Africa and Namibia.

“Palazzolo never ‘gets his hands dirty’ but is said to be a master at corrupting government officials, and is believed to have suborned an ANC Cabinet Minister, a security force general, a top immigration official and ‘many’ policemen,” according to Gastrow.

Source: Mail & Guardian Online

It was a play by Giuseppe Rizzotto that started it all. In a play entitled I mafiusi di la Vicaria, an association was made with the adjective ‘mafiusi’ – a word used to describe people who had a certain arrogant attitude springing from bravado and fearlessness – and criminal gangs. Mafia was born and became the readily accepted name for the unique brand of criminals found in 19th century Sicily.

The people of the Mafia (the mafiosi), however, prefer the name Cosa Nostra which means ‘our thing’ to describe organized crime groups. This term indicates exclusivity, a distinct separation between those who belonged and those who did not. Cosa Nostra members believed themselves to be people of honor. Consequently, to belong in the Cosa Nostra is to be an honorable (a better) man.

Cosa Nostra’s Brand of Protection

Originally, the mafiosi were not as organized as they are now clearly portrayed in movies and in pop culture. They belonged in groups but one group was quite independent of another. They were mainly criminals who joined the revolution against the Sicilian government around mid-19th century for a chance to purge the government records of their misdeeds.

The revolt established a connection among these groups of brigands and they began a new method of racketeering when order has once again been established in Sicily. What they did was offer their protection to the large estate holders and lemon plantation owners. This new racket apparently became successful for soon enough, Sicily became a labyrinth of criminal gangs who collaborated with one another and who knew well to steer clear of each other’s territory for their own self preservation and their own brand of peace.

Mafiosi: Always Landing on Their Feet

The Mafia members are always practical, and they were cunning, too. History proves that the mafiosi gained wide public support when they capitalized on the conflict between the Catholic Church and the state. Since Sicilians are predominantly Catholic, the Mafia members told them that it’s virtually ‘sinful’ to cooperate with the police. As it turned out, this strategy proved to be eminently successful. Thus, the Cosa Nostra had the run of the place for their criminal activities and protection racketeering.

In the fight against Communism, the mass appeal of the Mafia was used by Americans as a very effective weapon against communism. Since the mafiosi were vociferously against communism, the Americans used the established crime networks for underhanded ‘sweeping’ operations targeting those who leaned towards the communist ideology. In exchange for the Mafia’s help, the Americans looked the other way when organized crime activities were initiated by their Mafia ‘allies’. It was about this time when Mafia drug trafficking began.

Through the years, the Cosa Nostra continued to adapt and change to survive gang wars and inter-organization conflicts. They reinvented themselves to become the ‘respectable’ criminals with a particular set of standards and a unique way of doing things – the image that they are so well known for now.

Chinese mafia gangs in America

Many of us have watched movies and read novels about the vicious Japanese and Chinese gangs in America. The inner workings of the Triads and Yukasa, as they are most commonly known, are said to be the most violent of all crime gangs and once someone has crossed their path, there is no way out. But what is the truth about the Chinese Mafia and what do they really do? Well obviously not much is said about the inner workings of Chinese gangs, but the main industry that they are known for is controlling the drug trade especially in Heroin.

The Chinese crime gangs are mostly found in Chinatown, where they run nightclubs or have underground societies in various restaurants or shops. They use many of their fellow people, whom they have blackmailed or terrorized to hide their activities and create legal fronts for many illegal businesses. They will also not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way which has earned the Triad gang the reputation of being the most feared of the Chinese mafia gangs.

The secrecy of the many Chinese gangs has made police efforts extremely difficult and besides the illegal drug trade, Chinese gangs also take part in other organized crime like extortion, kidnapping, house breakings and invasions, as well as illegal immigrations. The Chinese gangs are becoming more infamous in America with movies often depicting the Chinese way of life in these gangs and for those victims of the Chinese Mafia, which only make you wonder, how much money are they making off illegal organized crime, how much are they growing and making an impact in our society.