by Thomas L. Jones
Prologue
The criminal organization known as Cosa Nostra had its roots in the
Mafia. Members of this secret society fled Sicily and immigrated to America
during the 1880’s. By 1890, Mafia groups had formed in New Orleans, New York
and other parts of the country. In the 1920’s, Prohibition offered these
groups massive opportunities to develop great wealth and enormous power. By
1931, Cosa Nostra, the American version of the Mafia, was in place and
operational.
Over the next sixty years it evolved into a sophisticated criminal
organization with rules and behavioural codes of conduct. These helped protect
and shield it from law enforcement attack and harassment. For the first thirty
years of its existence, most of these agencies did not even admit to its
presence.
When Robert Kennedy took over the Justice Department in 1961, the FBI’s New
York office, the biggest in the country, had more than 400 agents looking for
"Reds under beds." They had exactly four agents tracking the largest
criminal conspiracy since the secession of the Confederacy.
In 1985, the FBI estimated that a huge, sprawling empire of crime was made up
of at least 25 Cosa Nostra families across America, containing possibly
2000 members and many more associates. Although each of these units was
autonomous, they collectively comprised a federation acknowledging the authority
of a governing body or Commission, made up of the leaders of the biggest
and most powerful families.
The hierarchy and formal structure of its bureaucracy has remained remarkably
constant since its inception in 1931. The family is led by a boss or capo,
whose
deputy is called a sottocapo, or underboss. Senior members with no
line authority, but the power to mediate disputes and liase with other families,
are called consiglieres. The front line troops are called soldiers,
often referred to as “wiseguys” or “buttons,” and are led by street
chiefs known as caporegimes. Beneath the soldiers, at the lowest level on
the totem pole, are associates, men who help create the wealth but do not
share the power structure or the protection it affords its members.
The family is controlled by a rigid code of conduct, the strongest features
of which are respect for the family and its leaders, and obedience to omerta:
a strict code of silence about its activities to any outsider.
A major characteristic of Cosa Nostra is its predilection to violence and the
way it uses force to maintain omerta. It also follows this rule in
eliminating opposition, extortion of its victims and control of its objectives.
The sole and only purpose of Cosa Nostra is to make money.
The backbone of the organization is a reliance on gambling at all levels,
from sports betting to numbers, in order to generate cashflow to fund its other
major enterprises. These are mainly loan-sharking, narcotics and control of
unions.
One of its most insidious enterprises is labour racketeering, which not only
creates cash, but also supplies power and influence. Over the years, it has
claimed a major stake here, through its representatives in construction,
transportation, food processing, waste disposal and garment manufacturing to
name a few examples.
From a beachhead in legitimate businesses, often acquired illegally as a
result of loan-shark activities, it has acquired a veneer of respectability, but
more importantly, an impressive network of political and corporate contacts.
Italian-Americans haven’t produced the most crooks, or necessarily even the
best -- just the most powerful.
