The Five Families were established by Charlie "Lucky" Luciano in the wake of the Castellammarese War (1929 - September 10, 1931), a gang war in New York between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzano. The arrangement, under the administration of The Commission, was created to divide the city among the gangs with mutual interests, and prevent the continuous grab for more territory. Of course, the arrangement has been anything but peaceful, and the Five Families have all gone through periods of prosperity and decline. So who are they, and how are they doing now? [more inside]
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing on May 14, 2009 - 68 comments

Real L.A. Noir. (Video/audio auto-plays). Los Angeles Times reporter Paul Lieberman has been chronicling the era of the LAPD Gangster Squad, a secret division of the department that tried to combat the mobs of Jack Dragna and Mickey Cohen in the 1940s and '50s. (Keep the cast of characters straight with this handy chart.)
posted by Bookhouse on Nov 1, 2008 - 9 comments

Among industrialized nations, Japan has a pretty low rate of violent crime, a relatively high number of police, and a virtually non-existent acquittal rate. Yet, somehow the Yakuza persists.
posted by absalom on May 12, 2008 - 54 comments

"The ‘Ndrangheta cannot be beheaded.” Organized crime is Italy's biggest industry. Most people are more familiar with the Sicilian Mafia or maybe even the Neopolitan Camorra, but it's the Calabrian 'Ndranghta (very in-depth article) that has police around the world worried now, especially after they were blamed for a six-person murder in Germany this summer. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse on Nov 17, 2007 - 24 comments

The Hollywood moguls were appalled...Hitherto, Tinseltown had the police and politicians in its capacious pocket, yet here, landing like a ton of hot manure, was this crummy magazine from the east coast. A sharp look from British Journalism Review at the career of Robert Harrison, whose 1952 magazine Confidential single-handedly "opened the floodgates of tell-all sleaze." Seems Harrison branched out from publishing a long string of 1940s girlie mags after being inspired by the Estes Kefauver organized crime hearings that gripped early TV audiences in the U.S.A.
posted by mediareport on Oct 19, 2006 - 2 comments

Organized crime growing in Canada, police chiefs ask for public to help Police chiefs in Canada seem to confuse Canadians with Batman. Who do we take on first? The Hell's Angels, the Mafia, or the Asian gangs. So many gangs, so few Batgadgets.
posted by Coop on Aug 21, 2004 - 20 comments

GangRule - the history of organized crime in New York City. A growing database of photos, biographies, newspaper clippings and family trees from 1890 on. And for the godfather trackers among us, there's also Boston Mafia, which includes the history of a notorious contemporary fugitive, lately in the news via testimony from his brother, Billy Bulger.
posted by madamjujujive on Jun 24, 2003 - 8 comments

The Maltesos. Well, there's no Webistics, and Big Pussy hasn't turned up floating down the Fox River, but here's your modern American mob family, suburban style. Betty Loren-Maltese, longtime mayor of the Town of Cicero, which abuts Chicago's West Side, has been indicted for looting the town's health insurance system to the tune of at least $10 million. The US Attorney says it is the largest dollar amount in any single organized crime investigation. [more inside]
posted by dhartung on Jun 16, 2001 - 8 comments

John Salvati: not funny. Man imprissoned for 30 YEARS, known to be innocent by FBI, FBI kept him there b/c if the real perp was caught, dozens of informants would have been revealed. 30 years, gone, makes me sick feeling. There will be more news on this soon, I hope.
posted by tomplus2 on May 3, 2001 - 9 comments

High-tech world mafias breeze past borders. This is a good introduction to a disturbing and daunting problem that touches on many issues: online privacy, bureaucratic inertia, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the future of immigration policy. In the underworld, dealing drugs is day-trading while dealing humans is blue chip investing.
posted by aflakete on Jan 8, 2001 - 5 comments