Syndicate domination of the waste-removal industry goes back several generations. New York's 4oo,ooo industrial and commercial enterprises have to rely on some 400 small carters, mostly of Italian extraction. La Cosa Nostra enforces an illegal customer-allocation cartel among them, collecting a share of the profits. Over the past 30 years, at least 14 major criminal Investigations and prosecutions, plus repeated Congressional probes, have failed to loosen the Mafia's grip on carting. One result, according to Rand Corporation economist Peter Reuter, is that carting prices are 50 percent higher than they would otherwise be.
Construction shakedowns .
Her operation is now defunct. New York gangs also run a stable of experts adept in stock manipulations, insurance and bankruptcy scams and sophisticated bank frauds. Their swindles repeatedly cause financial disasters. For example, four New Jersey banks closed after corrupt unions lured them into accepting big deposits of benefit funds and relending the money to gangsters-who failed to repay. Colombo gang captain Michael Franzese defrauded victims ranging from General Motors and Mobil to the U.S. Small Business Administration.