Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Minnesota, Fats Clark, There's Chuck, Butterface Bryant. Where's
Speaker 1: a couple of goons ready to break your thumbs on Butterface.
Speaker 1: I'm actually the opposite of butter Face. I'm a butter body.
Speaker 1: Those are what I came up with. That's good, Okay,
Speaker 1: you get the papers. Get the papers. This one is
Speaker 1: going to be lousy. With Chuck's Italian impressive. I want
Speaker 1: to go ahead and um apologize to the Italian American
Speaker 1: Anti Defamation League. Actually that is a serious c o A.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say because a lot of Italian Americans
Speaker 1: get upset about things like the Sopranos being portrayed as
Speaker 1: game bixters. We're not saying all Italian Americans and gangsters,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna talk about the mafia. It's a real thing,
Speaker 1: and specifically we're gonna when you say the mafia, even
Speaker 1: though it's used in all these different ways, right, it's
Speaker 1: it's specific to Italian organized crime groups or Sicilian. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: Sicily is a part of Italy. Yeah, sort of, that's Sicilians,
Speaker 1: and they probably would say not so much. Well, under
Speaker 1: modern geopolitics, it's a part of Italy, right, I just
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that in Sicily. Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: talk about the mafia, even even broadly, the Sicilian mafia
Speaker 1: is part of five total right. Yes, Oh we got
Speaker 1: going already, did you know? Yeah? I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's set up here. We are you? I mean, should
Speaker 1: we name those or you just want to get to
Speaker 1: those at the appropriate time? Did I throw you off? No?
Speaker 1: I'll name him right now. Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra Mafia
Speaker 1: from nap the Calabrian mafia from Calabria, right, Uh, the
Speaker 1: Sacra Corona, Yunita or Unita, they're recent, they are based
Speaker 1: in the Puglia region region. He's getting out of hand already.
Speaker 1: And look also Nostra, which is uh, that's a good
Speaker 1: place to start, yeah, because that's what's been come to
Speaker 1: be called the American mafia. That is exactly right, Chuck.
Speaker 1: And that's our first bit of jargon we should cover.
Speaker 1: I think it is grammatically incorrect. It is you know, uh,
Speaker 1: cosin nostra means our way, right, Yeah, possibly our thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the FBI and I think the sixties were wire tapping, um,
Speaker 1: the American mafia. They mentioned cosin nostra and um the
Speaker 1: FBI came to use that as the term for the
Speaker 1: Italian mafia, adding law so it means the r way.
Speaker 1: I came up with the Italian mafia in the United States.
Speaker 1: But it's stuck, right when the FBI labels you, that
Speaker 1: label sticks and black. Cosa nostra, like you said, describes
Speaker 1: the American mafia, which is one of the five Italian
Speaker 1: mafia groups in the world. Today. I got a friend
Speaker 1: named Blastfeld. We call him Blass, and I call him
Speaker 1: La Blasa nostra. It's a good nickname, I think. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's some other terms we're gonna throw about here. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Almerta. I did look up how to pronounce some
Speaker 1: of these. Actually, the Almerta is the code of silence, really,
Speaker 1: that's how you pronounce it. Yeah, tah is the and
Speaker 1: fascists on top. A made man is someone who is been,
Speaker 1: you know, inducted into the mafia family. A capo originally
Speaker 1: was the head of the family in Sicily, but now
Speaker 1: there are lieutenants in the mafia. Then the family, of
Speaker 1: course is the gang within the mafia, like the family
Speaker 1: is uh, each individual gang, and then of course the
Speaker 1: wise guys. Let's let's break down the hierarchy. Right, we're
Speaker 1: talking family is a gang within the mafia, and there
Speaker 1: can be usually say anywhere from ten to a hundred,
Speaker 1: which strikes me as an incredibly arbitrary number. But there
Speaker 1: are different families within the mafia. And if you're talking
Speaker 1: about the Sicilian mafia, there's there's a lot of families.
Speaker 1: There a lot of families in the US, right, um,
Speaker 1: and beneath the in the hierarchy, beneath the family, each
Speaker 1: families is headed by a boss, right don a don
Speaker 1: or boss. Then you've got the underboss, possibly more than one,
Speaker 1: but usually just one. Uh. The boss is right hand man. Yes,
Speaker 1: Sometimes underboss makes his own decisions based on the you know,
Speaker 1: the family way. Sometimes the underboss will go to the
Speaker 1: boss say what should I do? Boss? Then travel down
Speaker 1: to the lieutenants and let the now and you know, Chuck.
Speaker 1: As I was reading this and reading about the structure
Speaker 1: of the mafia organization, it occurred to me that like
Speaker 1: a lot of this mirrors management and organizational styles found incorporations.
Speaker 1: That's why they call it organized crime. It is it
Speaker 1: is very much like Okay, so you have a boss
Speaker 1: who's real hands on, the underboss is going to probably
Speaker 1: not be very uh not be empowered, just like right
Speaker 1: if if you have a hands on manager, the supervisor
Speaker 1: right below him is not going to have a lot
Speaker 1: of power authority, right, Okay, Well let's just keep going.
Speaker 1: The copos are beneath the underboss. They're like lieutenants, lieutenants,
Speaker 1: and they will either control a part of the family
Speaker 1: or maybe a geographical area, or maybe they run a
Speaker 1: certain racket only like I just deal in uh, prostitution, prostitution,
Speaker 1: illegal gambling, legal gambling, right, or it could be like um,
Speaker 1: Tony owns you know, everything west of eleventh Street. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's how the the capo um, that's how the
Speaker 1: capo h is a cappo really hats off to you,
Speaker 1: capo off to you at the pronunciation. But that's how
Speaker 1: the the what is it the capo is defined? Right?
Speaker 1: And I thought about this too, and good fellas, PAULI,
Speaker 1: as you know, big and important as he seemed, was
Speaker 1: just a capo, was he? He went in an under Boston.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Who was a big daddy in
Speaker 1: that movie? They never showed because think about it, like
Speaker 1: Henry hill Um or what is his name, Leiota Hendry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy and all they were really just soldiers, yeah,
Speaker 1: well made. And Hendry couldn't be made because remember he
Speaker 1: couldn't trace his bloodline back to the old country, right,
Speaker 1: so he would have been an associate. Yeah, but Joe
Speaker 1: Pesci was made. No, he wasn't. No, remember what happened
Speaker 1: to him when he went to go get made. Well
Speaker 1: he was, he was set to be made because his
Speaker 1: bloodline was was correct. Yeah, okay, that's so. Beneath the Coppos, right,
Speaker 1: are soldiers and they're the lowest rank and file, lowest
Speaker 1: level rank and file members of the mafia, but they
Speaker 1: are members. They have been inducted into the family, young
Speaker 1: guys who are are probably trying to make their way
Speaker 1: up to at least Cappo. And then you've got associates,
Speaker 1: which are anybody from an investment banker, an accountant, the
Speaker 1: accountant in Untouchables, he would have been an associate to,
Speaker 1: like somebody who work with who's good at safe cracking
Speaker 1: or hijacking or dealing drug, dirty cop, somebody who works
Speaker 1: with the mob, but I remember the family. That's an
Speaker 1: associate and Josh, then there's one more very important part
Speaker 1: of the mafia family. Yeah. And there's a couple of
Speaker 1: ways to pronounce this, the Conciliada, I like the the
Speaker 1: hard g Consigliati. Yeah, and that is If anyone's ever
Speaker 1: seen the movie Godfather, which you should, um obviously, Robert
Speaker 1: Duval is Tom Hagen. If you haven't seen The Godfather,
Speaker 1: press Paul Is on this podcast, rent or buy it. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll go buy one and two. Yeah, you need to
Speaker 1: see both of those. Uh, and and then come back
Speaker 1: to this. And actually, while you're at it, go watch
Speaker 1: Good Fellows as well and Casino and um Apocalypse. Now. So,
Speaker 1: Robert Duval played Tom Hagen, who is the council YadA
Speaker 1: and the Godfather, And the key here is that they're
Speaker 1: not a part of the family's hierarchy. They're not an
Speaker 1: actual family member, not supposed to be. Yeah, because they're
Speaker 1: supposed to offer outside advice their advisors. They're supposed to
Speaker 1: rule on fairness rather than Vendetta's personal feelings, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. They're elected they're not appointed. Yeah, did you
Speaker 1: know that. Well, that's ideally how it goes. So I
Speaker 1: really all of the soldiers, the copos, the the under boss,
Speaker 1: the boss, all these people, I guess probably not the boss,
Speaker 1: but UM elect this guy to basically say, I'm going
Speaker 1: to serve as the tiebreaker the referee probably obviously a
Speaker 1: very trusted, wise person. But the problem is most of
Speaker 1: the time they're just appointed by the boss. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what it says. In reality, a lot of times
Speaker 1: they are appointed, they're not always impartial like they're supposed
Speaker 1: to be. That's the real world mafia, not Tom Hagen
Speaker 1: in the movies. And Duval was a great consulada. He
Speaker 1: was excellent. He's just a class act. He is all
Speaker 1: the way around. Um, there's no head of the mafia.
Speaker 1: It is not a group, a single organization. It's not
Speaker 1: like that. It depends. What do you mean. Are you
Speaker 1: talking about the American mafia, the Sicilian mafia. Well, we're
Speaker 1: talking to as a whole, largely about last So if
Speaker 1: we're talking about Lakosa Nostra, there have been times when
Speaker 1: there were basically ahead of the mafia before I think
Speaker 1: the thirties, before the five families of New York were
Speaker 1: really established and defined. There were people who were really
Speaker 1: running the show or trying to run the show in
Speaker 1: the country for the whole thing. Yeah, but for the
Speaker 1: most part, you're absolutely right. It's there's nobody running the head.
Speaker 1: There's a commission. I guess you could say, is the
Speaker 1: head of the mafia. Right. Yeah, we'll get to the
Speaker 1: commission in a minute. That's good stuff. When it comes
Speaker 1: to naming the families, it's not a clear cut thing.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it was the region. Uh. In the case of
Speaker 1: New York, the main families were kind of accidentally named
Speaker 1: in the Senate subcommittee testimony of A. Joe Alacchi in
Speaker 1: nine sixty three. So once you say it in a
Speaker 1: subcommittee meeting and then all of a sudden, it's sort
Speaker 1: of the family names kind of stuck. And those names, Josh,
Speaker 1: you want to go for those? Uh? Yeah, there were
Speaker 1: the Banana, Jenna, Vasi, Gambino, Luches, and Profacci, very good
Speaker 1: and some of those have been around before that. Um.
Speaker 1: I believe the Bonano family was around for well since
Speaker 1: the thirties, right, the um Profacci was around as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: The gene Vase was relatively new oh, I'm sorry. In
Speaker 1: the thirties it was Scalazi, Profacci, Luciano, Gagliano, and Banano. Okay,
Speaker 1: and then in the sixties when Joe Volacci named him,
Speaker 1: that was what they were named as they were named
Speaker 1: after the most powerful bosses for their current bosses. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and and sometimes the family name would be transplanted if
Speaker 1: they were taken over, like it almost happened with the
Speaker 1: Gambinos and John Gotti took over the Gambino family. They
Speaker 1: were very close to being called the Gotti family. But Gotti,
Speaker 1: as everyone knows, was arrested for racketeering thanks to Sammy
Speaker 1: the Bulgravano, and he's still behind bars today, so it
Speaker 1: never became the Gotti family. No, the Profacci family did
Speaker 1: become the Colombo crime family. So it does happen. There
Speaker 1: are changes, that's right, But like we said, no hard
Speaker 1: infest rules. That's that's the five families of New York
Speaker 1: and those are the ones. They are most prominent. You
Speaker 1: don't hear about the Buffalo family or the San Francisco
Speaker 1: family or the Cleveland family, but these families exist. Uh.
Speaker 1: Most of the time. They're named after the city that
Speaker 1: they're running. Yeah, except in New York because so there
Speaker 1: were just too many of them. Yeah, you couldn't call
Speaker 1: the New York family because all five of them would
Speaker 1: be like, oh what about the meat? It does happen
Speaker 1: elsewhere though, Like there's the Patriarch crime family they run
Speaker 1: New England apparently. Yeah. Nice, Well I'll talk about them
Speaker 1: in a second. Right, where are we What which we
Speaker 1: hit next? There's so much goodness in here. Well, let's
Speaker 1: just go with the flow. How do you become a
Speaker 1: member of the mafia. Let's say you're a um, you're
Speaker 1: a low level safe cracker. Right, they'd be exciting, right,
Speaker 1: but h and you've really proven your work. You've made
Speaker 1: a lot of money. You're like, look, I want to
Speaker 1: move on up. I like safe cracking, but I also
Speaker 1: want to run numbers and horses and kids exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: I want to become a member of the family. I
Speaker 1: am Italian. I got to prove that my father at
Speaker 1: least as Italian. Yeah. Most most of the time, it's
Speaker 1: got to be both, but sometimes you can slip by it.
Speaker 1: Just the old man is Italian, which is what kept
Speaker 1: Henry Hill out of mafia because his father was Irish.
Speaker 1: That's right, Um, I want to be inducted. What happens
Speaker 1: well at an induction ceremony? It was really like most
Speaker 1: induction ceremonies were pretty quiet and secret for a long time.
Speaker 1: But as we said, Joe Valachi's testimony in the sixties
Speaker 1: kind of blew the lid on a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff and this was one of them. Uh, what happens
Speaker 1: is you sit down at at a table, you get
Speaker 1: you're told to get dressed up or get dressed taken
Speaker 1: to a private place. At your long table, you sit
Speaker 1: next to the boss other mafio, so guys are gonna
Speaker 1: be there, recite some oaths, promises of loyalty. Then you've
Speaker 1: got to burn a piece of pay hold it. Here's
Speaker 1: where the patriarchal family comes in. So in October, the
Speaker 1: FBI managed to tap an entire induction ceremony and with
Speaker 1: the card that piece of paper they talk about, it's
Speaker 1: actually an image of a saint, like a family may have,
Speaker 1: like a patron saying or whatever. So it's an image
Speaker 1: of that and the the inductee holds it and says
Speaker 1: something like well, in the patriarchal family, they were made
Speaker 1: to say, as burns this saint, so we'll burn my soul.
Speaker 1: I enter alive into this organization and leave it dead
Speaker 1: and you go drop the burning scene. Yeah, and all
Speaker 1: of them are thinking probably in the next few years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll give you six months. Uh so, yeah, you burn
Speaker 1: the thing holding your hand. Is there any kind of
Speaker 1: like feet of strength that you're supposed to hold it
Speaker 1: till it burns your fingers or anything like that that
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of times. The the new soldier
Speaker 1: is paired with a more experienced dude, who is your
Speaker 1: godfather guide you through the whole mafia things. I did
Speaker 1: not know that. I just thought godfather was like another
Speaker 1: name for like a coppo or a boss or the Don. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought I thought in The Godfather it was Don
Speaker 1: Corleone was the Godfather, wouldn't he interesting? Uh, the inductee
Speaker 1: has to say, you know, I'm gonna be a got
Speaker 1: a pledge for life, take a drop of blood from
Speaker 1: the trigger finger, which I love that obviously, and uh boom,
Speaker 1: you're a made man. Yeah. Well, some the rumor has
Speaker 1: it is that you have to prove afterward by taking
Speaker 1: part in a murder, is the long standing rumor. But
Speaker 1: I think it's before before. Yeah, like you have to
Speaker 1: show that you're loyal enough to to kill when ordered
Speaker 1: to or at least help out in a killing. You're loyal,
Speaker 1: you can keep your mouth shut, you have the stomach
Speaker 1: for it. Allegedly, Allegedly, we need to say that we
Speaker 1: don't want to get sued by the mafia. And then
Speaker 1: the final thing you gotta do before you can become
Speaker 1: a made man is you have to face the commission.
Speaker 1: And uh, in the twenties and thirties, we mentioned the
Speaker 1: commission a second ago. There was so much activity, mob
Speaker 1: activity going on that they were recruiting soldiers left and
Speaker 1: right just to kind of like claim to two bodies
Speaker 1: and say, well, we've got all these guys, and it
Speaker 1: became confusing. I gottauld infiltrate and assassinate pretty easily. So
Speaker 1: they literally formed a commission that's like all right, you
Speaker 1: gotta it's like a registry almost. So remember I was saying,
Speaker 1: like there were heads of the mafia, like in the US,
Speaker 1: there were people vying for it, and this is what
Speaker 1: it was creating, this hugely violent point in mafia history. Right.
Speaker 1: So not only that, Chuck, it was prohibition as well. Well.
Speaker 1: That was a huge time of the mafia very much
Speaker 1: was right. So there's a lot a lot of money
Speaker 1: to be made, an unprecedented amount of money to be made.
Speaker 1: It was relatively new turf for the Italian mob in
Speaker 1: the US. They've only been here for like maybe thirty
Speaker 1: four years, right, um and the uh. There is a
Speaker 1: lot of wars going on. And the guy who basically
Speaker 1: brought ordered all this chaos through murder and structure was
Speaker 1: k Luciano. Yeah, he was the one that had the
Speaker 1: idea for the commission. And he also murdered the two
Speaker 1: guys who were like the rivals for the boss of
Speaker 1: bosses and then set up the five families. Now did he?
Speaker 1: The commission is different now, The commission is the same
Speaker 1: as as the committee meetings. Right, that's the same thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well they grew out of the committee meetings, so the
Speaker 1: commission got a register. That's the last thing you have
Speaker 1: to do is literally be like, all right, my name
Speaker 1: is Josh the the I Clark. No, it's just Minnesota
Speaker 1: Fats clients. So the Fats Clark and I'm with the
Speaker 1: Gambino family and I live in Bayonne, New Jersey, and
Speaker 1: Kate and Long walks on the beach at night and
Speaker 1: drown people with my bare hands. Right, So, um, you
Speaker 1: can finally your made man. You're in the commission, you're registered,
Speaker 1: you're the dude, right Well, the commission passes you, they
Speaker 1: say that's okay. Well, well this guy is okay with
Speaker 1: me to be in your family, because part of the
Speaker 1: reason of passing lists of prospective members around is it
Speaker 1: weeds out guys who another family has a beef with.
Speaker 1: Who if it becomes part of your family, that's gonna
Speaker 1: lead to war. Yeah, you don't want that to happen. Plus,
Speaker 1: it brings them out of anonymity so that they can't
Speaker 1: just walk up and shoot somebody in the face, right right, right,
Speaker 1: because you can't do that unless you're made right right. Well,
Speaker 1: this good stuff it is. It's just amazing. Middle class
Speaker 1: white dudes like us are fascinated by the mafia. Where
Speaker 1: we all want to be in the mafia. Uh So
Speaker 1: let's talk about how the mafia makes money, because that's
Speaker 1: what the mafia is. Let's I mean, let's get real.
Speaker 1: The mafia is there to make money, and uh they
Speaker 1: have a history of doing it through illegal means. Otherwise
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be the mafia. They'd just be corporations. Right.
Speaker 1: One of the way is one of the classic ways
Speaker 1: you'll see in movies, which is actually a very real thing,
Speaker 1: is extortion protection fees happens all the time, or it
Speaker 1: did happen. Imagine it still does in some cases. Still.
Speaker 1: Jerry was telling us about kiding Guatemala, who's who's killed
Speaker 1: because the family couldn't pay for protection. Oh is that why? Man?
Speaker 1: That's awful. Wow, I realized that was a reason. So
Speaker 1: you know, that's the scene from the movie where they
Speaker 1: go into the and rough up the shop owner and
Speaker 1: say you gotta pay for protection. Basically to protect you
Speaker 1: from us. Is sort of what it boils down to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although imagine sometimes it might have been some legitimate protections.
Speaker 1: But the impression I have of it is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're saying, if you don't pay, then you're not going
Speaker 1: to be protected from us. But I think if you
Speaker 1: do pay, you kind of enter into this fold where
Speaker 1: other people can't mess with you, and if they do,
Speaker 1: you can go to the capo or whoever is running
Speaker 1: the show that you're paying tribute to um and say
Speaker 1: I've got this problem I need you to take care of.
Speaker 1: Like I think it gives you access if you're like
Speaker 1: a regular paying person. And we'll see when we talk
Speaker 1: about mafia history how closely this mirrors, you know, sicily
Speaker 1: and the under the feudal system, any feudal system. Really well,
Speaker 1: remember in The Departed when Leo just went house on
Speaker 1: those two guys that were extorting the shop owner and
Speaker 1: he thought he did this guy favor, and then the
Speaker 1: shop owner was all ticked off. Afterwards, He's like, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, man, you know you you brought down this
Speaker 1: a reign of terror on me. Oh that's right, he
Speaker 1: killed you can kill him. But he mutilated their faces
Speaker 1: in the shop. Um. That was such a good movie.
Speaker 1: It was. It was great. So alcohol. We talked about prohibition,
Speaker 1: illegal drugs, prostitution, gambling. Those are extortion, and that's just
Speaker 1: the illegal stuff they can also they also managed to
Speaker 1: make money off stuff that would otherwise be illegal if
Speaker 1: they hadn't hijacked it, or would otherwise be legal. I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, like importing and exporting stuff like that. It
Speaker 1: was stealing things that other people important. Next, well, that's
Speaker 1: what I mean. But Gotti was like, was he the
Speaker 1: one that was into women's apparel? That man had taste?
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's they probably modeled that DeNiro thing
Speaker 1: at the end on him, the end of Good Fellows
Speaker 1: where DeNiro has the the Ladies Clothing warehouse. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that was on Gotti. But I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was because I think Jimmy was an actual person because
Speaker 1: that was all Henry Hill like real life stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they could have borrowed who knows, or maybe whoever
Speaker 1: he was based on was into women's clothing. Maybe. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, they want to make lots of money.
Speaker 1: So while there are like muggings and stupid things like that,
Speaker 1: they generally would rather hijack a boat and pay off
Speaker 1: a dock worker or steal a semi truck full of
Speaker 1: cigarettes instead of knocking off a store or something like that.
Speaker 1: They want the big dough or they could, say, I
Speaker 1: don't know, infiltrate a labor union and threatened to have
Speaker 1: their workers slow or stop construction if they don't get
Speaker 1: additional money. Yeah, that happened in New York for decades.
Speaker 1: The Mafia infiltrated the Team Stretch union specifically, and they
Speaker 1: said in this article, at one point the Mafia could
Speaker 1: have nearly brought all construction and shipping into the US
Speaker 1: to a halt that they wanted to write that was
Speaker 1: thanks in large part to a guy named Jimmy Hoffa,
Speaker 1: who actually it turned out, you know, he was a
Speaker 1: labor organ eys are in the thirties and that was
Speaker 1: like when the cops used to crack the heads of
Speaker 1: labor organizers on behalf of guys like Henry Ford. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: so he was like the real deal, but he was
Speaker 1: also super crooked too. Yeah, he's buried in Oakland Cemetery
Speaker 1: right here in Atlanta, is all right? Now, he's famous
Speaker 1: for not knowing where he was buried. Really, Yeah, he disappeared, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: the rumor was he's buried under Giant Stadium and I've
Speaker 1: heard that one before too. But you know, you know,
Speaker 1: they finally pinched him and he went to prison for
Speaker 1: a while, and Nixon pardoned him, supposedly because half of
Speaker 1: the teamsters and like a bunch of gangsters like gave
Speaker 1: a lot of money to Nixon's campaign. Interesting, that's allegedly,
Speaker 1: but Halfa gets out and starts campaigning for prison reform.
Speaker 1: Five years after that. Four years after that, he goes
Speaker 1: to lunch in Michigan. Never seen from again has declared
Speaker 1: legally dead in nineteen eight three, but he was the
Speaker 1: head of the Teamsters, but he was finally pinched for fraud.
Speaker 1: And the whole point of being of controlling a labor
Speaker 1: union was you controlled labor, but you also add access
Speaker 1: to their pension which everybody is paying into. Well, they
Speaker 1: used the pension to underwrite huge contracts in Vegas at
Speaker 1: one point to control until the seventies. Alright, we're getting
Speaker 1: all that. Uh, let's go back to the history. You
Speaker 1: were talking about how it mirrored Sicily, and I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the most fascinating parts about this. So
Speaker 1: go yeah, because extortion is another way of extracting tribute.
Speaker 1: It's another way of saying extracting tribute. Right in Sicily.
Speaker 1: Sicily lived under the feudal system long after the rest
Speaker 1: of Europe. Look to other forms of governance, right, and
Speaker 1: the feudal system is basically like, I'm a landowner. I
Speaker 1: control all this land, but I can't possibly work all
Speaker 1: of it. I'll let you guys live on this land.
Speaker 1: I'll let you live and you give me some of
Speaker 1: your grain, most of your grain, however, much of your
Speaker 1: green I want. That was an early model for what
Speaker 1: the mafia did, right, and if you don't do this,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have this other class of society. Basically
Speaker 1: my foot soldiers kill you or kill your wife or
Speaker 1: whatever until you do what I want you to. That's
Speaker 1: the feudal system. Yeah. And the reason that Sicily was
Speaker 1: kind of the birthplace, not kind of, was the birth
Speaker 1: birthplace of the mafia. It was because Sicily is out
Speaker 1: there in the med It's very accessible and because of that,
Speaker 1: it was invaded a lot. It's very strategic, controlled by
Speaker 1: a lot of different people over the years, and that
Speaker 1: led to instability such that the people of Sicily didn't
Speaker 1: look too and sometimes it was just lawlessness, but they
Speaker 1: regardless even if there were laws, they didn't look to
Speaker 1: the state to solve their problems. It became very much
Speaker 1: a family thing, a local thing. Yeah, you solved it locally.
Speaker 1: Your family took care of business. They took care of
Speaker 1: things outside the law. And that kind of is what
Speaker 1: birth the mafia. So basically you can look at that
Speaker 1: capo's territory or the capos racket as the land, the
Speaker 1: feudal land, the capos the feudal lord, right, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and it mirrors it almost identically. There's extortion, there's tribute, um,
Speaker 1: there's there's the threat of violence, there's the use of violence.
Speaker 1: All of it is based out of this feudal system
Speaker 1: that collapsed in the nineteenth century in Sicily, but was
Speaker 1: immediately replaced after this bout of lawlessness by the mafia
Speaker 1: following pretty much the same thing. And then they came
Speaker 1: to America. Then they came to it. Well, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is actually interesting how this happened to and um, Mussolini
Speaker 1: had a big crack down on the mafia. It's very
Speaker 1: harsh on the mafia, put a lot of them in prison,
Speaker 1: and then the U. S troops occupied Sicily during World
Speaker 1: War Two. They thought a lot of these jailed people
Speaker 1: were political prisoners, so not only did they set a
Speaker 1: lot of them free, they made the mayors and police
Speaker 1: chiefs and that was they were like, hey, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate that we're back on the streets now. Thanks for
Speaker 1: quashing Mussolini. We're in more control than we ever was
Speaker 1: yea who was a real thorn in our side for
Speaker 1: a long time. So uh. In the postwar Sicily, there
Speaker 1: was a group there was a ceasefire because there was
Speaker 1: so much warring going on within the families, and they
Speaker 1: formed the Cupola and the Coppola basically oversaw all of
Speaker 1: the families commission. Yeah, it's an early version of the
Speaker 1: commission that would happen years later. And Um, the American mafia,
Speaker 1: the tactics that like casinostri uses mirrors the Sicilian mafia
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, like recruiting young guys to
Speaker 1: like do the dirty work and eventually inducting them. Um,
Speaker 1: the the whole extracting tribute in the form of extortionmarta,
Speaker 1: the code of silence, right, Um, yeah, the whole lifestyle
Speaker 1: of the mobster is reflected in the Sicily right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's the birthplace. Yeah, and it was going pretty
Speaker 1: well in Sicily until the eighties and nineteen eighties, so
Speaker 1: not even that long ago. And uh, they had a
Speaker 1: big trial called the Maxi Trial, right because, uh, the
Speaker 1: the government went after the Sicilian mafia, and the Sicilian
Speaker 1: mafia was like, okay, well, these two big prosecutors are
Speaker 1: coming after are both gonna dyeing car bombs. And I
Speaker 1: think they underestimated the response to the public, which turned
Speaker 1: against him. So they had this Maxi Trial, which they've
Speaker 1: built a special courthouse, which is essentially a bunker. Try
Speaker 1: four hundred Sicilian mobsters, and I think three hundred, three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty eight were found guilty. I got a
Speaker 1: different number. I got three hundred and sixty convictions. It's
Speaker 1: a two year trial. They had three judges. They had
Speaker 1: one judge and two alternates that literally sat in on
Speaker 1: the whole trial. Just in case something happened to the
Speaker 1: one judge, like a car bomb, they wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: start all over declare mistrial. The second one would step up.
Speaker 1: Somebody killed the second guy, the third guy would step up.
Speaker 1: Nothing happened to the first guy. He made it all
Speaker 1: the way through. I can't believe that. I know um
Speaker 1: a hundred and fourteen acquittals. Out of the hundred fourteen acquittals,
Speaker 1: eighteen of them were murdered. One of them was murdered
Speaker 1: within an hour of leaving the courtroom. On the way home.
Speaker 1: I supposedly was going to like a surprise or not
Speaker 1: a surprise party, but like a a celebration. I got
Speaker 1: acquitted party, and then those are those are good parties.
Speaker 1: He got off. And then a lot of successful appeals
Speaker 1: after that, with the Maxi trial and what I got
Speaker 1: is only sixty. By nine eighty nine, only sixty of
Speaker 1: the original three sixty remained in prison. Wow. So the
Speaker 1: Maxi trial kind of turned out to be the Mini
Speaker 1: trial in the end. So it's not surprised that it's
Speaker 1: no surprised that the Maxi trild didn't get rid of
Speaker 1: the Sicilian mafia. In the Italian government sent seven thousand
Speaker 1: troops to occupy Sicily for six years, and that apparently worked.
Speaker 1: According to this article, they the Sicilian mafia is still around,
Speaker 1: but is less violent than it was before. I didn't
Speaker 1: know was that recent? You know? I didn't either, kind
Speaker 1: of like, um, sudd war is sweet, odd, I don't
Speaker 1: know that guy. I don't know if I've ever helped dumber.
Speaker 1: By the way, in the podcast, I should have had
Speaker 1: that cut out, but I was like, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was endearing. This is me. It's endearing warts and all.
Speaker 1: The American mafia Josh. Yeah, the the Italians and Sicilians
Speaker 1: came to the United States and the eighteen hundreds big
Speaker 1: time in the twentieth century. Most of these were just
Speaker 1: regular folks, not mafia, starting a good, honest life here. Nice.
Speaker 1: Some of them weren't, uh, in in New Orleans. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the first um I guess mafia incident Italian mafia incident
Speaker 1: in the country happened right in the eighteen nineties. There
Speaker 1: was um a mobster, Well, there was a there was
Speaker 1: a group a family that was basically getting heat from
Speaker 1: the local police chief. So they offered them right and
Speaker 1: at trial, this this uh mafia family was they well
Speaker 1: they all got off basically from blatantly bribing and intimidating witnesses.
Speaker 1: And uh the people of New Orleans did not like this,
Speaker 1: so they actually um formed a lynch mob and went
Speaker 1: and killed sixteen and these these mobsters, and that was
Speaker 1: the first mafia. That was the United States introduction to
Speaker 1: the Italian mob crazy and they were defeated by Nola. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look at him go at least temporarily. Who knows what
Speaker 1: happened after that. Uh So, first half of the twentieth
Speaker 1: century in New York City is where a lot of
Speaker 1: it's happening because a lot of the immigrants poured into there. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you had the Five Families, you had prohibition making everybody rich.
Speaker 1: You had bosses and underbosses getting killed like monthly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Luke Chase's right. They went through three three bosses
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty in one year, three different bosses. This
Speaker 1: is the time when Lucky Lichiano was killing everybody. To
Speaker 1: basically set up the structure this organization. And he defined
Speaker 1: the five Families, and that's like literally is like this,
Speaker 1: this is the name of your family. This is who
Speaker 1: you are, this is this, this and this. There's five
Speaker 1: families out component in Chicago, and then the Buffalo family
Speaker 1: and that's the Commission, the little family. I love that.
Speaker 1: And uh, the way they describe it here is they
Speaker 1: were basically kind of like Senator so al Capone represented
Speaker 1: like all of the West coast because he was, you know,
Speaker 1: the closest one obviously, and uh, they had to you know,
Speaker 1: the Commission had to approve things assassinations, kidnappings, big money
Speaker 1: deals that had to all go through the Commission. And
Speaker 1: they had meetings every five years, every five years committee
Speaker 1: And probably the most famous meeting of all time was
Speaker 1: their nineteen fifty seven meeting in Appalachian on the New
Speaker 1: York Pennsylvania border. And apparently this state trooper was a
Speaker 1: little suspicious of the scores of Lincoln Town cars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wise guys who were showing up, so he himself let
Speaker 1: a raid on the Mobster convention. And basically this is
Speaker 1: a time when the public and the government denied that
Speaker 1: there was such thing as mafia nine fifties. It seems
Speaker 1: like second nature now because of all the popular culture stuff,
Speaker 1: But it was long before any of that, right, But
Speaker 1: not only that, it seems it seems obvious now because
Speaker 1: of the Appalachian rate. It was basically tantamount to us
Speaker 1: rating convention of ghosts and being like, okay, well there
Speaker 1: really are ghosts. Right, It's pretty much the same thing.
Speaker 1: And it brought them mafia undeniably into the light. And
Speaker 1: there really was mafia. Here's all their leaders. You know,
Speaker 1: I just try. I like the ghost convention, things like
Speaker 1: to go to that. Uh should we talk about Vegas
Speaker 1: for a minute or Kennedy first? Either one? Alright, let's
Speaker 1: go with Kennedy. Everyone knows that John F. Kennedy. Everyone
Speaker 1: has long associated him with the mafia, partially because his dad, Joe,
Speaker 1: was alleged bootlegger during Prohibition, involved with the mob obviously
Speaker 1: if you're bootlegging in that part of the country. And
Speaker 1: uh also had connections to people like Meyer land Ski,
Speaker 1: who was a friend of Lucky lu Les. Yeah, Ben Kingsley,
Speaker 1: he saw Bugsy right, great movie. One of the other
Speaker 1: things that happened was JFK was assassinated and Jack Jack
Speaker 1: Ruby killed. Lee. Harvey Oswald, who allegedly assassinated Kennedy was
Speaker 1: an associate. He was a mob associate, so there's that tie.
Speaker 1: Other people say that the mafia didn't like Castro kicking
Speaker 1: them out of the Cuban casino business, so they think
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs may had something to do with
Speaker 1: the mafia because Kennedy didn't call in an airstrikes. Robert
Speaker 1: Kennedy went after the mafia. He died by an assassin's bullet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've stood at that very spot, have you really? The
Speaker 1: kitchen was the deal with sir Han sier Han, I
Speaker 1: don't know that weird. Yeah, we need to look all
Speaker 1: that stuff up. Let's be a good podcast. And then
Speaker 1: while the girlfriends go head Yeah, same gene Conna. It
Speaker 1: was pretty cool, dude, as far as the mafia bosses go.
Speaker 1: He uh supposedly set JFK up with all sorts of girlfriends,
Speaker 1: including Marilyn Monroe, so he could record and basically get
Speaker 1: dirt on the president. So Um, they think that Marilyn
Speaker 1: Monroe possibly was murdered by hitman that Giancanna had hired,
Speaker 1: and the Giancanna was going to testify about the Kennedy
Speaker 1: connection to the mob and he gets murdered, which basically
Speaker 1: just goes to show you that it's all mafia. Whether
Speaker 1: they're Italian, legitimate, whatever, it's all mafia. Right. So those
Speaker 1: are all the alleged links to the John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 1: former President of the United States. Then there's the Vegas connection. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, Vegas was just kind of started by by Bugsy.
Speaker 1: It was the Jewish mobsters that were the first up
Speaker 1: to Vegas. And then once it was set up, the
Speaker 1: gambling was happening legally for the first time. They're already
Speaker 1: running casinos, illegal casinos all over the country, but all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you got this haven in the desert.
Speaker 1: It's legal where you can go out there and do
Speaker 1: it for real. So the you know, they got in
Speaker 1: on the action. So the uh that one of the
Speaker 1: ways the Italian mob got in was through their um
Speaker 1: leveraging of pensions like you said, uh, teamsters labor union pensions,
Speaker 1: UH to underwrite casinos. A lot of construction going on exactly,
Speaker 1: or they would just basically show up and be like,
Speaker 1: I'm your partner now, right, Like Peschi showed up in Casino,
Speaker 1: which I thought was every bit as good as Good Fellas.
Speaker 1: I know people don't agree with that, but I thought
Speaker 1: Casino was terrific. It was a good movie, but it
Speaker 1: was not as good as as Good I'm giving it
Speaker 1: a slight tier two, but I love I love Casino.
Speaker 1: I thought it was great. Sharon Stone good stuff in
Speaker 1: that one. I thought she screwed that up, really she did.
Speaker 1: I mean she was great actress. I think her character
Speaker 1: got too much um emphasis in that movie. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: liked James Woods in that slime Ball for the ex boyfriend. God,
Speaker 1: he was slimy uh. Since the seventies, though, the Vegas
Speaker 1: has supposedly been pretty clean, supposedly, and I think it
Speaker 1: actually is. I think it's one of those ones where
Speaker 1: it's not like, yeah, it's clean, Wing Queen, like, I
Speaker 1: think it actually is pretty clean. Well, there's probably too
Speaker 1: much money at stake, now, Yeah, you don't want to
Speaker 1: lose your gambling license. If you're the Palms, you know
Speaker 1: it's no good or Steve Winn or Steve win how
Speaker 1: can we fight the mafia. How do we fight the mafia? Well, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we fight the mafia through a little law that was
Speaker 1: passed in nineteen seventies specifically to be used against the
Speaker 1: mafia called the RICO. Yeah. They invented a charge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the United States very smartly invented a charge. Um.
Speaker 1: It's called the Racketeering, Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act. The
Speaker 1: RICO Act, which is Title eighteen in the United States Code,
Speaker 1: section is nineteen six s one just top top my head.
Speaker 1: And um. Basically, it's it's set up so that you
Speaker 1: can go after an entire criminal enterprise and RICO. The
Speaker 1: RICO Act has just about any felony associated with it,
Speaker 1: but they have to be carried out by this enterprise
Speaker 1: two i think two felonies within a fifteen year period
Speaker 1: after that, right, and if it's the mafet, they're gonna
Speaker 1: they're gonna break two laws, like you know, within fifteen years,
Speaker 1: so that counts as racketeering. If two or more illegal
Speaker 1: acts happened, then they say that's an organized family crime, right,
Speaker 1: because a racket is you know, these different types of
Speaker 1: illegal activities that the mafia used to make money racketeering
Speaker 1: is this enterprise, right yea, and that an act of
Speaker 1: making that. So what they can do is not only
Speaker 1: can they attack a racketeering charge on which will give
Speaker 1: you extra time in addition to your crime other crimes
Speaker 1: like unloading the truck of cigarettes, it uh, it accomplished
Speaker 1: a very important thing and that the mafia boss could
Speaker 1: no longer sit behind a veil of safety because they're
Speaker 1: not the trigger man. Right, all of a sudden, John
Speaker 1: Gotti can be brought up in racketeering charges. And that's
Speaker 1: even if they can't pin an order for the murder
Speaker 1: on the boss. Because one of the things about the
Speaker 1: couple of and the commission was that it brought peace
Speaker 1: to the mafia among the families, but it also exposed
Speaker 1: the bosses because they were the ones who were approving
Speaker 1: murders and stuff. Now, right this with with the reco act,
Speaker 1: I think you don't have to you don't have to.
Speaker 1: You just have to say, this guy is the boss
Speaker 1: of this organization. Everything flows up to him. Anything we
Speaker 1: can pin on any other member can be pinned on
Speaker 1: the boss. And like you said, it adds it's not
Speaker 1: just bribery, it's bribery plus ten years because it was
Speaker 1: bribery in the context of racketeering. It's a huge law.
Speaker 1: But the the interesting thing to me is they almost
Speaker 1: never used it for mafia anymore. It's for corporations. Oh, interesting,
Speaker 1: corporate racketeering. Good. Yeah, that's what I say. Trump up
Speaker 1: some charges. You can you can also go that's kind
Speaker 1: of what it is. They created a loss so they
Speaker 1: could trump up charges. Right. You can also go undercover,
Speaker 1: like one Joe Pistone did. Yeah, the movie, The Great Movie.
Speaker 1: Donnie Brasco told his story pretty well. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: undercover for what six years, like deep undercover, scarily undercover. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to the point where even when he came out in trial, uh,
Speaker 1: testifying against people, some of the mob guys were like,
Speaker 1: how's he gonna turn it against us like that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they thought he was a rat. Yeah, they still didn't
Speaker 1: think he was a cop, even though he's on the
Speaker 1: stand saying I'm a cop. Yeah, I'm FBI. Yeah, Donnie Brasco.
Speaker 1: Look for it in theaters near you in Pacino was
Speaker 1: the Uh No, it was Johnny Depp And I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I thought I thought of Heshi when you said Paccino
Speaker 1: and Johnny deppia one man's pesci is another man's peccino. No,
Speaker 1: that's like one man's Casino is another man's good Fellows.
Speaker 1: One man's Madden is another man's must Burger. Maybe okay, ah,
Speaker 1: that's the mafia. There's so much there, Like this was
Speaker 1: the structure, bare bones, very little flesh on it. Just
Speaker 1: because there's so much to it. We could pole this
Speaker 1: could be part one in a series of tin snuffed
Speaker 1: out before the tenth though. Probably we were respectful. I
Speaker 1: think so too. Where are we, hey, man? I mean,
Speaker 1: if we weren't, just send us an email. Don't shoot
Speaker 1: us now, please, So chuck. That's it. That's it, all right.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about mafia, including a
Speaker 1: chart of the structure of a typical Sicilian mafia family
Speaker 1: or Locosa Noster family, just type in mafia in the
Speaker 1: handy search bar how stuff works dot com, which means
Speaker 1: it's time now for listener, ma'am. And for God's sakes,
Speaker 1: see The Godfather one and two and good Fellas and
Speaker 1: good Fellas and Casino and Donni Brasco and My Blue Heaven.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. And you can watch god Father three.
Speaker 1: I'm a proponent of it. Even though most people poop
Speaker 1: to it. Just take Sofia Coppola with a grain of
Speaker 1: salt and realized that she had She's a brilliant director
Speaker 1: in the making, and not a great actor. She's already
Speaker 1: a brilliant director. Not when you make up other three
Speaker 1: she wouldn't she made that movie up a few No
Speaker 1: know that I'm saying she was in it was a
Speaker 1: very poor actor. She went on to become a great
Speaker 1: director actor. So I'm gonna call this. We asked for
Speaker 1: sinking ship stories. We've got a couple that were okay,
Speaker 1: but our best one was an airplane falling out of
Speaker 1: the sky story. Hi guys, I know you called for
Speaker 1: seeking boats stories, but I hope you'll consider this falling
Speaker 1: airplane story and fall of oh seven. My boyfriend and
Speaker 1: I were coming home to the US after he had
Speaker 1: played some concerts in Germany. He was he in the scorpions.
Speaker 1: I don't know, this might be Hasslehoff. The flight to
Speaker 1: parted Cologne in the morning. We had been in the
Speaker 1: air for a couple of hours when suddenly we felt
Speaker 1: something akin to very violent turbulence. The plane dropped by out,
Speaker 1: dropped an altitude by a lot enough to make me
Speaker 1: feel like the bottom of my stomach had fallen out
Speaker 1: like a roller coaster. The plane momentarily righted. The captain
Speaker 1: got on the intercom said there was a there was
Speaker 1: some difficulties. The next few minutes felt like ages. The
Speaker 1: plane alternately banked from side to side, lost more altitude,
Speaker 1: and shook some more. Lights flickered on and off. The
Speaker 1: captain announced it was a fire in the first class cabin,
Speaker 1: and it didn't help that he sounded panicked and was
Speaker 1: nearly screaming. We were sitting in the back row, which,
Speaker 1: as we know, is not proven, but it's probably one
Speaker 1: of the best places to be if your plane is
Speaker 1: going to crash. Flight attendant ran too our row and
Speaker 1: threw open the overhead compartment looking for something. She hollered,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, there's only one, she said, only one.
Speaker 1: What we never found out? The lights went out for
Speaker 1: a longer period. That's when we noticed that the oxygen
Speaker 1: mask had deployed, but only for seats on the other
Speaker 1: side of the plane. Our entire side did not have
Speaker 1: oxygen masks deployed. My boyfriend was to my right, an
Speaker 1: elder Russian woman on my left. I was squeezing both
Speaker 1: of their hands and trying to stay calm. The Russian
Speaker 1: woman had both of her eyes closed. She was rocking
Speaker 1: back and forth and speaking softly under her voice. Suddenly
Speaker 1: the ground was coming very fast. We had miraculously hit
Speaker 1: the runway at Shannon Airport in Ireland, but we hit
Speaker 1: it hard because of the weight of all the fuel
Speaker 1: that was intended intended to fly us to Newark. The
Speaker 1: plane bounced a couple of times on the miscovered runway,
Speaker 1: lost all of the electrical power, air circulation shut down,
Speaker 1: and we were towed to the gate. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of tears, prayers and shaking up people, and the
Speaker 1: airplane doors were eventually hand cranked open and we deplaned.
Speaker 1: That is from Ariadne and carry the boyfriend. Wow, sinking ship.
Speaker 1: Who cares? Would you ever get on a plane again
Speaker 1: at something like that happened to you? Uh? These days?
Speaker 1: Yes you would, because you've kind of overcome that to
Speaker 1: a large degree. Yeah. Um, But with what I've gotten
Speaker 1: to the point now where I can I just sit
Speaker 1: there and look out the window and make myself watch
Speaker 1: take off and landing. Um, and I'm usually pretty good. Well,
Speaker 1: we fly alight now I quit smoking and I got
Speaker 1: over my fear of flying. Did you you've made so
Speaker 1: many changes at something? Anybody? Look at you. I can
Speaker 1: run two miles at a stretch now too. That's impressive.
Speaker 1: Onward and upward, onward and upward. If you have a
Speaker 1: story about a mail man you hated or who hated you,
Speaker 1: or mafia stuff, Okay, all right, we'll go with that one.
Speaker 1: Then if you have a story about the mafia, we
Speaker 1: want to hear it. We want you to wrap it
Speaker 1: up in an email and send it to stuff podcast
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
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