This is a list of Italian organized crime groups around the world. This list does not include all groups, clans or families identified as Cosa Nostra (Mafia crime families). This list does not include all Camorra, 'Ndrangheta or Sacra Corona Unita clans ("crime families").
In Italy there are many different Mafia-like organizations.
According to the 2004 New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, there were 24 active Mafia families in the United States. [2] In 2004, author Thomas Milhorn reported that the Mafia was active in 26 cities across the United States. [3]
Western New York
The city of Youngstown was at one point considered open territory, split between the Cleveland crime family (Porrello family) and the Pittsburgh crime family (LaRocca family).
Las Vegas is considered open territory allowing all crime families to operate in the city's casinos. Since the 1930s, the Los Angeles family, the Five Families of New York and the Midwest families have owned and operated in Casinos in the Las Vegas Strip .
In Southern Ontario there are two types of Italian organized crime Cosa Nostra (Sicilian) and 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian). [15] In the 2018 book, The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World's Most Powerful Mafia, Alex Perry reports that the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta has, for the past decade, been replacing the Sicilian Cosa Nostra as the primary drug traffickers in North America. [16]
Carmine Verduci was also linked with the 'Ndrangheta group. [19] Leaders are based both in Calabria, Italy and Ontario. [20] The Siderno clans are part of the Commisso 'ndrina a crime family based in Calabria. [15]
During a 2018 criminal trial, an Italian police expert testified that the 'Ndrangheta operated in the Greater Toronto Area and in Thunder Bay particularly in drug trafficking, extortion, loan sharking, theft of public funds, robbery, fraud, electoral crimes and crimes of violence. After the trial, Tom Andreopoulos, deputy chief federal prosecutor, said that this was the first time in Canada that the 'Ndrangheta was targeted as an organized crime group since 1997, when the Criminal Code was amended to include the offence of criminal organization. [21] He offered this comment about the organization: [22]
We're talking about structured organized crime. We're talking about a political entity, almost; a culture of crime that colonizes across the sea from Italy to Canada. This is one of the most sophisticated criminal organizations in the world.
In Quebec there are two types of Italian organized crime: Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta. While Canadian law enforcement agencies consider the Rizzuto and Cotroni crime families to be separate, the FBI considers them to be sub-units of the Bonanno crime family's Montreal faction. [23]
The Rosario mafia – led by Juan Galiffi during the 1920s and 1930s. [33]
The 'Ndrangheta is an Italian Mafia-type association based in the peninsular region of Calabria and dating back to the 19th century. Although loosely structured, it is considered one of the most powerful organized crime groups in the world. It is characterized by a horizontal structure made up of autonomous clans known as 'ndrine, based almost exclusively on blood ties. Since the 1950s, following wide-scale emigration from Calabria, 'Ndrangheta clans dispersed to other European countries, Australia and the Americas. Currently, its main activity is drug trafficking, but it also deals with arms trafficking, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, and loan sharking.
Carlo Gambino was a Sicilian crime boss who was the leader and namesake of the Gambino crime family of New York City. Following the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, and the imprisonment of Vito Genovese in 1959, Gambino took over the Commission of the American Mafia and played a powerful role in organized crime until his death from a heart attack in 1976. During a criminal career that spanned over fifty years, Gambino served only twenty-two months in prison for a tax evasion charge in 1937.
The Gambino crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, 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 Havana Conference of 1946 was a historic meeting of United States Mafia and Cosa Nostra leaders in Havana, Cuba. Supposedly arranged by Charles "Lucky" Luciano, the conference was held to discuss important mob policies, rules, and business interests. The Havana Conference was attended by delegations representing crime families throughout the United States. The conference was held during the week of December 22, 1946, at the Hotel Nacional. The Havana Conference is considered to have been the most important mob summit since the Atlantic City Conference of 1929. Decisions made in Havana resonated throughout US crime families during the ensuing decades.
Frank Alphonse "Funzi" Tieri was an Italian-American mobster who eventually became the front boss of the Genovese crime family of New York City.
The Five Families refer to five Italian American Mafia crime families that operate in New York City. In 1931, the five families were organized 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, respectively. Each family had a demarcated territory and an organizationally structured hierarchy and reported to the same overarching governing entity.
Thomas Gaetano Lucchese, sometimes known by the nicknames "Tommy", "Thomas Luckese", "Tommy Brown" or "Tommy Three-Finger Brown", was an Italian-American gangster and founding member of the Mafia in the United States, an offshoot of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. From 1951 until 1967, he was the boss of the Lucchese crime family, one of the Five Families that dominate organized crime in New York City.
Criminal organizations have been prevalent in Italy, especially in the southern part of the country, for centuries and have affected the social and economic life of many Italian regions. There are major native mafia-like organizations that are heavily active in Italy. The most powerful of these organizations are the Camorra from Campania, the 'Ndrangheta from Calabria and the Cosa Nostra from Sicily.
Capo dei capi, capo di tutti i capi or Godfather are terms used mainly by the media, public, fiction writers and law enforcement community to indicate a supremely powerful crime boss in the Sicilian or American Mafia who holds great influence over the whole organization. The term was introduced to the U.S. public by the Kefauver Commission in 1950.
The Commission is the governing body of the American Mafia, formed in 1931 by Charles "Lucky" Luciano following the Castellammarese War. The Commission replaced the title of capo di tutti i capi, held by Salvatore Maranzano before his murder, with a ruling committee that consists of the bosses of the Five Families of New York City, as well as the bosses of the Chicago Outfit and, at various times, the leaders of smaller families, such as Buffalo, Philadelphia, Detroit, and others. The purpose of the Commission was to oversee all Mafia activities in the United States and serve to mediate conflicts among families.
The Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan was a Mafia clan of the Cosa Nostra and held a key position in the illicit drug trade and money laundering for Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and 1990s. The Italian press baptized the clan as "The Rothschilds of the Mafia" or "The Bankers of Cosa Nostra".
The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society and organized crime group. In North America, the organization is often colloquially referred to as the Italian Mafia or Italian Mob, though these terms may also apply to the separate yet related Sicilian Mafia or other organized crime groups in Italy, or ethnic Italian crime groups in other countries. The organization is often referred to by its members as Cosa Nostra and by the American government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original Mafia or Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, with "American Mafia" originally referring simply to Mafia groups from Sicily operating in the United States.
Francesco Paolo Augusto "Frank" Cali, also known as "Franky Boy", was an American mobster and the acting boss of the Gambino crime family of New York City at the time of his death. Law enforcement considered Cali to have been the Gambinos' "ambassador to Sicilian mobsters" and had linked him to the Inzerillo Mafia family from Palermo. According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Lipton, he was "seen as a man of influence and power by organized crime members in Italy." Cali was shot and killed outside his home in Staten Island on March 13, 2019, in connection with the killer's belief in the QAnon conspiracy theory.
To become member of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra – to become a "man of honor" or a "made man" – an aspiring member must take part in an initiation ritual or initiation ceremony. The ceremony involves significant ritual, oaths, blood, and an agreement is made to follow the rules of the Mafia as presented to the inductee. The first known account of the ceremony dates back to 1877 in Sicily.
The Cotroni crime family, originally Cotrone, was an Italian-Canadian 'Ndrangheta-type organized crime syndicate based in Montreal, Quebec. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered the family a branch of the Bonanno crime family of New York City.
The Bonanno crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City as part of the criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia.
This is a list of organized crime in the 1950s, arranged chronologically.
