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Soldato Futuro
A soldato or soldier is the first official level of both the American Mafia and the Sicilian Mafia in the formal Mafia hierarchy or cadre. It is also commonly used as a rank in other Italian criminal organizations, such as the 'Ndrangheta and Camorra. The promotion to the rank of soldier is an elevation in the chain of command from the associate level. The associate, who is not an initiated member of the Mafia, must prove himself to the family and take the oath of Omertà in order to become an initiated made man and therefore rise to the rank of soldato. Picciotto (plural: ''picciotti'') is often used to refer to a lower-level mafioso or soldato, but it usually indicates a younger, inexperienced soldato and may even be used loosely to refer to a closely connected, up-and-coming associate who is not necessarily a made man yet (and therefore not yet officially a "soldato"). "Picciotti" usually perform simple tasks such as beatings, money collection, and robbery. Duties and advant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mafia Family Structure Tree
"Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of disputes between criminals as well as the organization and enforcement of illicit agreements between criminals through the use of or threat of violence. Mafias often engage in secondary activities such as gambling, loan sharking, drug-trafficking, prostitution, and fraud. In modern times, the 'Ndrangheta, originating in the Southern Italian region of Calabria, is widely considered the richest and most powerful mafia in the world. The term "mafia" was originally applied only to the Italian Mafia or specifically the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia, and the term originates in Sicily. However, the term has since expanded to encompass other organizations of similar methods and purpose, e.g., "the Russian Mafia" or "the Japanese Mafi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selwyn Raab
Selwyn Raab (born June 26, 1934 in New York City) is an American journalist, author and former investigative reporter for ''The New York Times''. He has written extensively about the American Mafia and criminal justice issues. Early life and education A native New Yorker, Raab grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side. He attended Seward Park Campus, Seward Park High School and later graduated from the City College of New York, where he received a B.A. degree in English literature in 1956. At City College he was campus correspondent for ''The Times'' and an editor of ''Observation Post'', a student newspaper. Career Raab got his first jobs as a reporter with the ''Bridgeport Sunday Herald'' newspaper in Bridgeport, Connecticut and ''The Star-Ledger'' newspaper in Newark, New Jersey. ''New York World-Telegram and Sun'' (1960–1966) From 1960 to 1966, he joined the New York World-Telegram, ''New York World-Telegram and Sun''. He was originally assigned as an education reporter. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Anastasio
Anthony Anastasio (; born Antonio Anastasio, ; February 24, 1906 – March 1, 1963) was an Italian-American mobster and labor racketeer for the Gambino crime family who controlled the Brooklyn dockyards for over thirty years. He controlled Brooklyn Local 1814, and became a vice president of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). Anastasio died on March 1, 1963. Early life Anastasio was born on February 24, 1906, in Tropea, Calabria, Italy to Bartolomeo Anastasio and Marianna Polistena. Anastasio had seven brothers: Raffaele; Frank; Albert; Joseph; Gerardo; Luigi, who moved to Australia; and Salvatore Anastasio; and a sister, Maria. In 1919, Anastasio, with his brothers Joseph, Albert, and Gerardo, arrived in New York City, working on a freighter. Deserting the ship, the brothers illegally entered the United States. The boys soon started working as longshoremen on the Brooklyn waterfront. Anastasio married Rose Lacqua and the couple had two daughters, Louise and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Five Families
The Five Families refers to five major New York City organized crime families of the Italian American Mafia formed in 1931 by Salvatore Maranzano following his victory in the Castellammarese War. Maranzano reorganized the Italian American gangs in New York City into the Maranzano, Profaci, Mangano, Luciano, and Gagliano families, which are now known as the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families. Each family had a demarcated territory and an organizationally structured hierarchy and reported up to the same overarching governing entity. Initially, Maranzano intended each family's boss to report to him as the '' capo di tutti i capi'' ("boss of all the bosses"). However, this led to his assassination that September, and that role was abolished for The Commission, a ruling committee established by Lucky Luciano to oversee all Mafia activities in the United States and to mediate conflicts between families. It consisted of the bosses of the Five Families as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Scopo
Ralph "Little Ralphie" Scopo Sr. (1932 – March 9, 1993) was a New York mobster with the Colombo crime family who became a powerful labor racketeer. He was the father of Colombo mobsters Joseph Scopo and Ralph Scopo Jr., and the grandfather of Joseph Scopo Jr. and Ralph Scopo III. Concrete Club Scopo was the president of the Cement and Concrete Workers District Council of the Laborers' International Union of North America from 1977 to April 1985. During this time, Scopo used his position to extort money from cement contractors in New York in return for large construction contracts and labor peace. Contracts between $2 million and $15 million were reserved for a club of contractors called the "Concrete Club", which were selected by The Commission. In return, the contractors gave a two percent kickback of the contract value to The Commission. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pump And Dump
Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operators of the scheme "dump" (sell) their overvalued shares, the price falls and investors lose their money. This is most common with small-cap cryptocurrencies and very small corporations/companies, i.e. " microcaps". While fraudsters in the past relied on cold calls, the Internet now offers a cheaper and easier way of reaching large numbers of potential investors through spam email, investment research websites, social media, and misinformation. Scenarios Pump-and-dump schemes may take place on the Internet using an email spam campaign, through media channels via a fake press release, or through telemarketing from " boiler room" brokerage houses (such as that dramatized in the 2000 film '' Boiler Room''). Often the stock promoter will cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Felix Alderisio
Felix Anthony "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio (April 26, 1912 – September 25, 1971) was an American enforcer, bagman, hitman and burglar for the Chicago Outfit. He was underboss to Sam Giancana during the 1960s, and boss from 1967 to his imprisonment in 1969. Early life Alderisio began his criminal career as a teenager during the Prohibition era. One of his early arrests was for vagrancy; he frequently waited outside Outfit boss Al Capone's Lexington Hotel headquarters in the hope of getting a job as a messenger. In the early 1930s, Alderisio's maternal cousin Louis Fratto brought Alderisio into the Outfit. Alderisio began working with Sam Battaglia and John Marshall Caifano as an enforcer. Rising steadily through the ranks during the Great Depression, Alderisio soon gained a reputation for brutality. By the end of the decade, Alderisio was working under Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, the Outfit's financial expert, as a bagman delivering payoffs to Chicago judges and police officials ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Outfit
The Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or The Organization) is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate or crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, that originated in the city's South Side in the early 1910s. It is part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. The Outfit rose to power in the 1920s under the control of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone and the period was marked by bloody gang wars for control of the distribution of illegal alcohol during Prohibition. Since then, the Outfit has been involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including loansharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, political corruption and murder. Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and the Outfit was next run by Paul Ricca. He shared power with Tony Accardo from 1943 until his death in 1972; Accardo became the sole power in the Outfit upon Ricca's death and was one of the longest sit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Castellano
Constantino Paul Castellano (; June 26, 1915 – December 16, 1985), was an American crime boss who succeeded Carlo Gambino as head of the Gambino crime family. Castellano was killed in an unsanctioned hit on December 16, 1985. Early life Castellano was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in 1915, to Italian immigrants Giuseppe and Concetta Castellano (née Cassata). Giuseppe was a butcher and an early member of the Mangano crime family, the forerunner of the Gambino family. Maas, Peter. ''Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia.'' New York City: HarperCollins, 1996. . Castellano dropped out of school in the eighth grade to learn butchering and collecting numbers game receipts, both from In July 1934, Castellano was arrested for the first time in Hartford, Connecticut for robbing a haberdasher. The 19-year-old Castellano refused to identify his two accomplices to the police and served a three-month prison sentence. By refusing to cooperate with authorities, Cas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert DiBernardo
Robert "DiB" DiBernardo (May 31, 1937 in Hewlett, New York – June 5, 1986) was a member of the Gambino crime family and one of John Gotti's subordinates, who was reputed to control much of the commercial pornography in the US. During the 1984 US presidential election, publicity about DiBernardo having rented business premises from the husband of Geraldine Ferraro embroiled her in damaging media innuendo about organized crime. By some accounts, DiBernardo was ''the'' major figure behind the US adult industry. In any event, he was a relatively capable businessman who did not have any personal reputation for involvement in violence, but his Mafia links deterred potential competitors and warded off other criminals. He became immensely influential in the US pornography business, and an associate of Reuben Sturman. Whether DiBernardo's relationship with Sturman and others was based on outright extortion or mutual advantage was never established. DiBernardo was seen as a phenomenal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gambino Crime Family
The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing. The family was one of the five families that were founded in New York after the Castellammarese War of 1931. For most of the next quarter-century, it was a minor player in organized crime. Its most prominent member during this time was its underboss Albe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Capeci
Gerald Capeci () is an American journalist and author who specializes in coverage of the Five Mafia crime families of New York City. Capeci has been described by news organizations, such as CNN and BBC, as an expert on the American Mafia. BBC News Online, Saturday, November 10, 2001 ''Gang Land'' Capeci currently writes a column called ''Gang Land'', which has been published in '''', '''', and the '' |
