Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra)

The Mafia is an informal alliance of criminal organizations that adhere to a shared organizational structure and set of rules. Although the public frequently refers to them as mafiosi, its members refer to themselves as "men of honor." It's possible that the Arabic roots of the word mafia date back to Sicily. The mafia was first mentioned in a report written by Palermo's prefect Filippo Antonio Gualterio in 1865. Any organized criminal network can now be referred to as a mafia.
The Cosa Nostra is the real name of the Mafia, claim renegades ("Our Thing"). The phrase "he is the same thing as you — a mafioso" is used by mafiosi to announce themselves to other known members as belonging to cosa nostra ("our thing") or la stessa cosa ("the same thing"). Throughout its history, the Sicilian Mafia has gone by several names to identify itself, including "The Honoured Society." Franchetti contended that the Mafia arises because the government does not shield business owners from fraud, theft, and contract violations. Diego Gambetta suggested that the government liberalize the medication industry and do away with cigarette price gouging.
The need for mafioso engagement in political and economic matters would decline if these issues were fixed. Due to mafiosi's extreme secrecy and lack of historical records, it is difficult to determine how the Cosa Nostra organization came to be. The shift of Sicily from feudalism to capitalism and its union with the rest of Italy in the 19th century gave rise to the Mafia. Desperate peasants were driven to steal by rising food prices, the loss of public and church estates, and other factors. Young men were enlisted into "companies-at-arms" by local elites in rural communities lacking a proper constabulary to combat banditry.
The Mafia mostly operated in western regions with high agricultural productivity. Cattle farmers and citrus producers were two early Mafia targets because of their heightened vulnerability to theft and vandalism. When it came to locating stolen cattle, the Mafia frequently outperformed the police. Mafiosi utilized their supporters in government to avoid justice and to target and harm less powerful rivals. Ermanno Sangiorgi identified 670 mafiosi from eight Mafia groups between 1898 and 1900.
Sulphur, Sicily's most valuable export product, is abundant in places where the mafia is connected. In order to establish Fascist rule over Sicily and eradicate the Mafia, Benito Mussolini launched a campaign in 1925. Mussolini thought that putting down the Mafia would provide him a pretext to put down his political rivals. To combat the Mafia, Cesare Mori assembled a small force of police, carabinieri, and militiamen. Although the Fascist press claimed he had permanently destroyed the Mafia, he was quite effective in suppressing it.
Almost 500,000 Allied soldiers invaded Sicily in 1943. The Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories appointed new mayors as Fascist mayors were removed from office. Many of them turned out to be mafiosi, including Giuseppe Genco Russo and Calogero Vizzini. Palermo experienced a significant building boom after the war. Only five people received 80% of the building permits, and none of them worked for large construction companies.
Before the city's planning was established, several buildings were built illegally. The first prominent fight between Mafia clans in post-war Italy was known as the First Mafia War. Mafia activity decreased as clans broke up and mafiosi fled. The Sicilian Mafia Commission was disbanded, and it wasn't until 1969 that it was revived. Beginning in the early 1980s, heroin addiction in North America experienced a dramatic increase.
Around the island, the Cosa Nostra built heroin refineries. The Corleonesi recruited new members covertly, manipulated members of other clans, and bought cash-strapped Palermo clans into the fold. In the Sicilian Mafia, Salvatore Riina essentially rose to the position of "boss of bosses." Numerous rival mafiosi were killed, occasionally by traitors inside their own clans. Mafia chose to recruit relatives rather than kill them for testifying against them.
A prosecutor and an anti-mafia businessman were also killed three years after they killed a Palermo judge and his son in 1988. Attacks occurred on popular tourist destinations like Milan's Via Palestro and Florence's Via dei Georgofili. According to Antonino Giuffrè, Cosa Nostra spoke with Silvio Berlusconi's representatives directly in 1993. Amnesty International is worried that the 41-bis system may subject detainees to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment."
According to estimates, the 'Ndrangheta possessed 80% of the cocaine transported into Europe in 2006. The Mafia capitalizes on the European immigration crisis, according to the Mafia Capitale probe in 2015. In Palermo, the Cosa Nostra has long held the position of power. Cosa Nostra is not a single entity; rather, it is a loose association of roughly 100 groupings that go by the names "families," "cosche," "borgatas," or "clans." The "boss" (capofamiglia or rappresentante) of a clan is supported by advisors, an underboss (capo bastone or sotto capo), and other clan members. The boss has close relationships with all clan members because most Sicilian clans are tiny, unlike larger organizations where he might enjoy more advantages and benefits. Sometimes a son or other relative serves as the underboss, taking control in the event that the boss becomes ill, is killed, or is put in prison. Everyone respects mafiosi because they know that doing so could result in deadly retaliation. Districts (Mandamenti) of three or four geographically nearby clans are how clans are arranged. A representative is chosen by their district to serve on the provincial commission. The commission's control over the use of violence is one of its main responsibilities. Any murder of a mafioso or other notable person requires commission approval. In addition, the commission has the authority to name a regent to lead the clan until it can choose a new leader. Mafia boss Giovanni Brusca talked about the event where he officially became a full member of the Cosa Nostra after his imprisonment. As Riina lit the saint's image on fire, Brusca smeared his blood on it while holding it in his cupped hands. Equal-status mafiosi will occasionally refer to one another as "compare," while inferiors will refer to their superiors as "padrino." No one is allowed to approach one of our buddies directly. Even if your wife is ready to give birth, you have an obligation to be present at all times for Cosa Nostra. In the Mafia, it is forbidden to record damning information on paper for fear that the authorities would obtain it. Alcohol and other drug use is discouraged among mafiosi because when they are inebriated, they are more prone to blurt out sensitive information. Mafiosi are barred from recording anything about their operations in case the police find such documentation. On pain of death, those who purchase protection or enter into other agreements are expected to maintain their secrecy. Protection from the Mafia does not only apply to unlawful conduct. Shop owners frequently pay the Mafia to keep them safe from burglars. Over the years, mafiosi have provided protection for a wide range of clients, including landowners, plantation owners, politicians, business owners, and drug traffickers. The amount of money the Mafia demands from Sicilian businesses is inversely correlated with the business's revenue. The Sicilian economy is mired in a poverty trap due to mafia extortion. The competition of another racketeer within their sphere of influence is intolerable to protection racketeers. Mafia leaders prefer to form a lasting relationship with a client over signing one-time contracts. Although a typical excuse is a lack of expertise, the main motivation is to divest oneself of any interests that clash with their responsibilities as guardians. Mafiosi bargain for areas where they can control the use of force to resolve conflicts. They support smuggling groups financially and by offering protection. In exchange for their support during elections, politicians woo them and provide them favors. Most Mafia wars have their origins in Mafia battles. Mafiosi intimidate rivals and seize contracts by threatening violence and vandalism. Cosa Nostra forbids some crimes, whether committed by members or lone criminals. The most frequent targets of mafia violence are rival mafia families vying for power and resources. When it comes to violent defense, there is no quality spectrum. A mafioso's reputation and, with it, his business, can be utterly destroyed by a string of missteps. When a Mafia boss leaves his position as leader, his clan's standing as capable enforcers and protectors frequently follows.
== Making Money ==
So, in the mid-1900s, you're a youngster growing up in lower-class New York, and you spend your childhood seeing your parents struggle to make ends meet. They are anxious about making ends meet, squeezing pennies at every step, and you say to yourself, "There has to be something better than this; I never want to be poor again. " Then you see these local wiseguys mafia members strolling about your neighborhood; they wear fancy clothes, drive classy vehicles, have all the money, and appear successful; people adore them, and they come man beer. They are nearly everything your parents aren't, so you begin to admire them and come to the conclusion He's a jerk. Why would I want to go to school and join the rat race only to end up like my parents when I can join the world's most powerful criminal organization?
an organization so strong that at its peak, the five largest Mafia families were comparable to the size of the top ten US corporations at the time They dominate trucking, the ports, the waste industry, and a substantial chunk of the meat, produce, and seafood sectors. They also control the carpenters and electrical unions, and they have judges on their payroll and in their pockets. So, you've decided to become a mafioso. The only problem is that the world's most effective criminal organization's inner workings on how to join the mafia and climb up the ranks are packed with secrecy. So, if you want to be a successful mobster, you must first know the Mafia's economics.
You are aware of the Mafia, or Cosa Nostra as it is known in America. The Cosa Nostra cult is a cult. Everything they do is for financial gain. No criminal organization in our country's history has ever permeated legitimate institutions of society like the Mafia. The Mafia is a business, but they are plainly not like many other enterprises.
A typical firm produces money by adding value to the world by solving consumer concerns. Amazon offers value by having a broad choice and rapid shipping, among other things. Google provides the benefit of placing the collective knowledge of the human race at your fingertips. So, these enterprises get paid money in exchange for the perceived value they bring to the world, which makes their owners feel free and affluent, as it should. The difficulty is that offering honest value is tough for the most part as you have to labor honestly and obey these absurd laws and regulations.
This is where the Mafia has an edge: instead of making money by delivering value, they make money by taking value. As a result, you can consider the mob to be anti-business. an anti-business that is not constrained by the plebeian laws that ordinary enterprises must follow Now, of all the different ways they make money, commonly described as rackets, say protection money if we're swapping labor unions or just simple larceny. The majority of them center around extorting value from individuals. Consider the typical protection racket: instead of solving a problem that they already have; mod members go door to door to small and pop companies and fabricate an issue for them and offer a remedy.
You must pay us $100 every week to shield you from those nasty men who will break your windows, examine your property, rob you, and possibly injure your family. If they approve, you're now drawing in $400 per month in pure unadulterated cash flow. If they don't, perhaps their windows will be conveniently damaged the next day by some pesky robbers; this is known as the broken window fallacy. Get a hundred brick-and-mortar establishments under your control, and you'll have nearly half a million bucks streaming in every year from just one of your rackets without having to give any value. When the Mafia is not stealing from people, other gangs act similarly to ordinary businesses, giving services to consumers by selling unlawful goods because illegal commodities are very profitable.
Back during Prohibition, they used drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling, loan sharking, and drinking. whatever is popular at the time With all of this racketeering money rolling in, the mafia can't just spend it all as the IRS would wonder where it's all coming from. As a result, they frequently establish up legal organizations to launder that money and clean away all the leftover blood to make it appear authentic. They'll also receive legal revenue, so it's a win-win situation. These might be legal casinos in Las Vegas and Atlanta, among other places.
Money is one thing the mafia has in common with ordinary enterprises. At the end of the day, it's not about honor, respect, loyalty, God, or any of the other things you see in Godfather flicks - a mafia family's solitary God is the Holy Dollar, and this is where you come in. If you want to be a mafioso and command the prestige that you so much seek, you must first understand your place in the organization. Your sole task is to aid make the family money, specifically to make the leader of the family, the boss or the Godfather, more money. There are two methods to achieve this: you can be an earner, someone who focused on creating money and giving it to family while getting a piece of the money you create, or you can be a murderer.
After all, because the Mafia operates outside of the law, they'll need someone to enforce their laws and contracts to ensure they get paid. So, if you're an astute dispassionate murderer, this role is great for you, and you can earn a lot of money. The regular person who joins the mob will likely specialize in one of these two areas: earning money or murder. Pick your poison, but if you happen to be one of those rare animals that are brilliant at both and merciless at the negotiating table and behind the pistol, you have a very profitable future ahead of you. You might even have what it takes to be a godfather someday.
Once you've decided on a job route, it's time to start rising the ranks. The mob, like any other well-oiled organization such as the military enterprises, has a highly well-defined hierarchy and structure that you must ascend. This is why it is referred to as organized crime. At the bottom of the pyramid are associates, and this is where you will begin. We need clever imaginative criminals to manage our empire, but how can we recruit them?
How do we screen them? How do we know we can trust them? Consider yourself an intern; you're nobody who isn't formally part of the family yet, but you're still working under official family members and helping out in their rackets; you're doing all the groundwork. We handled grunt work for the mob bosses or upper echelon mob guys, and those mobsters were powerful back then. If they handed you a task, you couldn't decline and you had to complete it.
This may not sound like the glamorous gangster life you had planned for, but great things take time, so accept this as an opportunity to prove yourself. An associate's ultimate goal is to be initiated into the Mafia as a made man, with the following rank being a soldier. Any aspiring mafioso's dream is to become a made man; it shows that you've been officially initiated into the life and that you're a part of something bigger than yourself. You command respect, rank, and fear, and are untouchable by other criminals. If anybody even mildly embarrasses you, your Mafia brothers will take care of it.
This is our goal, so how good are you at making money for the family? How skilled are you at receiving directives while remaining loyal to your family? Do you want to murder or be killed? How competent are you at avoiding those who will kill you in an instant if you say the wrong thing or offend the wrong person? They never hesitate to kill if you make even the smallest mistake.
There are a lot of power plays involved, so you'll need a lot of emotional intelligence. This is also where you'll start learning about the mob and their working culture. The most important rule of the mob that must never be broken if you don't want to get whacked is what's known as omerta. Their code of silence to never expose life's secrets to outsiders or authorities made the mafia appear impenetrable in the eyes of the public and law enforcement because they couldn't get anyone to talk or act as an informant. This meant that unless you were prosecuting the mob or investigating the mob, you had no access to anyone on the inside.
The breaching of omertà is also what led to the mob's demise, which is a story for another video. Another intriguing truth is that mafia members never referred to themselves as the Mafia, the mob, or any other incriminating word like that in order to keep themselves out of the public view and to Port Authorities. They only ever refer to themselves as La Cosa Nostra, which translates to "our thing" in Italian. Indeed, for a long time, some questioned if the mob even existed, suggesting it was a mere plan. You've had a number of achievements, haven't you?
For example, you got the Justice Developer to drop the term "mafia" in town, and it was your doing. It was the voice of the entire Italian population. Getting the United States Justice Department to outlaw the use of the term "mafia" is a very good political maneuver. That is an excellent political dump. This is how well they hid in the darkness.
When the producer of The Godfather came to meet Joe Colombo, he sent for him, and Joey genuinely read the script of The Godfather at the moment. He extracted any mention of the word mafia from the script. To become an associate as a teenager is relatively simple; the mafia enjoys cultivating street youngsters while they are young. They'll begin by giving you tiny duties here and there, and if they like you, they'll gradually offer you more and more responsibilities. It's more difficult to be an associate as an adult since people are less likely to trust you as an adult, and it's typically better to establish your worth.
and how you may make money while inviting them to approach you In the case of Joe Pistone, he was an undercover FBI agent acting as Donnie Brasco, a renowned jewel thief. To become an associate, he had to spend six months hanging out at the bars and restaurants frequented by mafia members in order to create ties. You don't stroll into a mafia establishment and say, "Hey, I'm Donnie Brasco, jewel thief, and I'd want to start doing business with you. " Once you've become an associate, it's time to start making money for love and showing them how ambitious you are, but not so ambitious that you endanger people's egos. Another thing to remember is that the law favors bloodlines; you don't have to be wholly Italian to be an associate, but you'll never be able to become a main man if you're not fully Italian or if you're not related to the law.
and as you acquire their trust, as you prove yourself as an earner or a killer, as you demonstrate that you're a worthwhile asset to the family, It's time to grow up and become a Made man. But first, we need to get our hands bloodied. Again, people are a crime organization's main vulnerability, so even if an associate has proven themselves to the family, you need some influence on them to ensure they stay committed for life. This is where building your bones comes in. Before you may become a created man, you must be sponsored by an existing Made man.
Another criteria is that you carry out a hit in which you take another person's life in the name of the family. Not only will this demonstrate your seriousness about life, but the family will have a potential murder conviction hanging over your head to prevent you from ever turning on them. It's time for your initiation ritual once you've held the trigger and seen The Life Drain from their eyes. You won't know when this will happen, but at some point you'll get a call ordering you to get ready, so you'll suit up, get picked up in the car, circle around for a while to evade any police tails, and then arrive at a random area. You'll come into a room full of mobsters, who will grill you about why you're there.
Of course, you already know why, but if you say no, they'll put a pistol in a knife on a table to signal that you don't live by God. However, you live and die by the pistol and knife. The boss, or the underboss, will hand you a picture of a saint and prick your finger. You will let the blood trickle over St. Hill like the Saint on fire, and you will swear fealty to the family.
If I betray the oath of a Martha, may my soul burn in hell like this card flames. then suddenly you've moved from associate to soldier, and you're now in the same ranks as the local gangsters you grew up idolizing. However, all of the benefits of being a created man come at a low cost. The main condition is that you prioritize your family above all else. If your wife was dying in before of your eyes and the family contacted you, you should leave her in the blink of an eye.
As an official member of La Cosa Nostra, you are now free to progress up the ranks. Your primary task is to assist with the rackets and discover new and inventive ways to make money for the family. Here's how it works: as an associate, you work for soldiers and their captain, also known as a capo, who can be thought of as the manager who led that crew all the different crews and the family take orders from the next level in the chain of command, the underboss, who is similar to the vice president and can take over if the boss is taken down. He's also the family's chief of operations, handling all of the day-to-day activities of the family's most lucrative rackets. Then there's the boss, generally known as Don or the Godfather; he's the family's CEO and has the last word on all decisions.
Finally, you have the family's consiglieri, who is the family's advisor and the boss's right-hand man. He's normally a trusted friend and confidant, and I'll keep referring to him as the advisor since he's the undef Lee butchering this. The adviser is frequently considered as the family's third in command; they are also the mediators and arbitrators in controversies, as well as the intermediaries between the family and other crime families and commercial associates. The reason it's set up this way is that it not only helps with organization but also functions as insulation. Because the few at the top are sheltered from the little day-to-day offenses of the many at the bottom, it is more difficult to prosecute them.
Colombo and the other bosses thought they were well protected since they had all these soldiers and underlings to do their illegal bidding and they were completely untouchable. All of the crews run the family's rackets, and as money is earned, it flows up the chain of command. whoever made the money, like an associate, receives their cut, and the associate transfers the money up to the troops and the crew's capital. They receive their cut, which is then distributed to the underboss boss and the advisor. so you understand how the mob functions and how they make money from rackets and legitimate enterprises You understand your function in the Mafia, the corporate culture, the omerta code, what they're searching for, and how it's designed for insulation.
So now it's time to get out there and start working towards becoming a Manman and being everything your parents weren't. Who knows, maybe one day you'll be a Godfather. — Introduction An organized crime group is a sort of worldwide, national, or local grouping of highly centralized enterprises controlled by criminals that try to illegally rule and control the production and distribution of a given commodity or service. • Ultimately, it is the consequence of a self-perpetuating criminal conspiracy encompassing the callous misuse of society's social, political, and economic structures. Gang • A gang is an organized group of three or more persons whose objective is to participate in criminal behavior and who use viciousness or terror to urge their criminal targets.
• Members distinguish themselves collectively by adopting a group identity, which they use to create an atmosphere of terror or intimidation, such as a common name, slogan, identifying sign, symbol, tattoo or other physical marking, clothing style or color, hairstyle, hand sign or graffiti, and so on. • Gangs are made up of tough and hardened criminals who will kill, assault, or use violence without hesitation. They commit robberies, kidnappings, murders, extortion, and smuggling. Some gangs participate in anti-social activities, obtaining a portion of the plunder or a fixed amount of money in exchange for support. • They have contemporary weapons, bullet-proof coats, cars, and so forth.
The criminal gangs are efficient, disciplined, and dangerous. The racketeering. . . A racket is a planned or systematic criminal action, frequently in the appearance of a company or a way to generate illicit or extorted money on a regular basis.
A racket is typically a continuing illicit operation. According to Donald Taft, it is "an organized crime in which the criminal elements provide a service to those members of society who are typically involved in some respectable business activity. " It also includes dishonest techniques of making money like as tricking or defrauding others, selling worthless goods and articles, tainted commodities, counterfeit drugs, and so on. Racketeering The racketeers do not collect all of the earnings, but rather permit the owners of the illegal companies to continue their operations such as prostitution, gambling, liquor trafficking, drug dealing, and so on, while paying them with regular set money. • In actuality, money is asked and paid in exchange for a criminal group's 'protection' of illegitimate company owners.
Fraud and embezzlement operations, kidnapping, murder and murder-for-hire, bribery and police corruption, iseduction, cybercrime, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, extortion, prostitution, and commercial sexual exploitation of children, human trafficking, smuggling, witness tampering and intimidation, illegal gambling or bookmaking, including match fixing, and so on are some examples. Syndicates of Crime. . . • The crime syndicate, often known as the "Mafia," is the most important sector of organized crime that aims to control the provision of protection.
• They build their own 'business' methods, which are generally run from established headquarters. • They avoid using violence and have respectable positions in society. • They live in luxurious neighborhoods, freely interacting with high-status others and engaging in authorized earning pursuits. They are typically organized criminal gangs that supply illegal goods and services. Illegal commodities might include narcotics, liquor, and so on, while illegal services could include call girls, gambling, and so on.
They primarily operate in large metropolitan regions that also serve as major hubs of communication, transportation, and distribution of goods. Syndicates of Crime • They have an established hierarchy. They don't deal with each other directly. • Each syndicate has a boss who is usually hidden behind the scenes. Frontmen/underboss at various levels carry out the tasks delegated to them.
The underboss gathers information, conveys messages to the boss, and distributes directives to subordinates. • There may be no underboss in some circumstances, but the boss may have an advisor or counselor. Criminals below the level of the underboss work as 'intermediaries' between the upper and lower level staff. • Some of these intermediates serve as operating unit chiefs. Ordinary offenders report to the 'intermediaries' at the lowest level.
• Outside of the syndicate's structure, there are a huge number of employees and agents who do the majority of the real labor in various criminal organizations.
== Mafia Offer ==
What if you could increase the value of your product or service so much that customers can hardly refuse your offer? This type of maneuver is known in TOC circles as a "Mafia Offer". A Mafia Offer can be sold successfully to 70% or more of all prospective buyers. Imagine you could crash your competition's production cycle time to less than 2 days. Your customers would be crazy to turn down guaranteed deliver in 3 days, even if it involves a higher price. You might even back up this guarantee financially, and offer the product free if delivered late.
Using a "Mafia Offer" in marketing When is your hardest rival your "absolutely best friend?" ” The majority of businesses in today's fast-paced environment tag with their rivals. When one person lowers the price, others do likewise. When someone gradually introduces a new feature or service, the competition catches up. The game of back and forth exchanges never ends. What if there was an alternative? What if you could make your product or service so much more valuable that clients would find it difficult to reject your offer? In the TOC community, this kind of action is referred to as a "Mafia Offer" (so named after the Godfather, a notorious mafia don famed for the phrase "simply give them an offer they cannot refuse"). What does "Mafia Offer" mean? A Mafia Offer typically fetches premium pricing and can be offered to 70% or more of all potential customers. Can you envision converting 70% of all potential customers who look into your goods or services? Although it might seem impossible, with a Mafia Offer 70% is just the start! According to fundamental economics, market value is a result of supply and demand. Consider a sudden increase in demand for your goods. Due to the fact that your product is far more valuable to the buyer, you might sell at a greater price and yet generate more sales. To put it another way, any customer would have to be insane to purchase the product from anyone other than you. Gun Using the Theory of Constraints to Find a Mafia Offer By removing pointless restrictions or obstructions to the throughput of our customers, we produce an offer that cannot be rejected. Voila! Your product provides value that is disproportionate. Say, for instance, that your product typically takes two weeks to arrive, but that your consumers frequently require it sooner. However, none of your rivals have been able to significantly reduce the production cycle time. You gather your team and question a wide range of presumptions that underlie the production process. You learn that it is possible to shorten the cycle time, but doing so requires releasing a lot of minuscule batches, which raises setup requirements and reduces plant productivity. You figure out a technique to decrease the amount flowing from one operation to the next (the transfer batch size) without increasing the process batch size, meaning setups won't be affected. When you research your rivals, you find that they place a strong emphasis on efficiency measurements and are unlikely to alter long-standing norms any time soon. You continue to modify your processes until the production cycle time is less than two days. A definite competitive advantage has been created by you! A Mafia Offer can be used to capitalize on this clear advantage. Why? Your clients would be stupid to reject a guaranteed delivery in three days, even if it means paying more, given how crucial quick delivery is to them. You could even provide financial support for this assurance and offer the product for free if it is delivered late. What a deal, I say! In addition to making your clients drool to sign up for it, your rival cannot and will not be able to compete with it in the near future. Their core business practices would need to change, and there would appear to be a significant financial risk involved. Take a look at a few well-known Mafia Offers in business history: Hyundai promises to purchase back your brand-new vehicle if you lose your job within the following two years (made during a recession year) Domino's Pizza: Eat for FREE if we deliver in 30 minutes or less. Xerox - We provide copies at a fixed price per page whenever and wherever you need them (instead of selling expensive machines and inconvenient servicing) You must therefore consider the limitations on your business's operations when developing the Mafia Offer in order to give what clients need when they need it. The next step is to propose terms and conditions that will first make your rivals chuckle, then break down in tears. When is your hardest rival your "absolutely best friend?" ” A: When you can present clients with an offer that they CANNOT IMAGINE matching!
A Mafia Offer is an offer so good that your customers can't refuse it and your competition can't or won't offer the same. The operational improvements required for a Mafia Offer to be considered competitive are called decisive competitive edge, operational advantage, or competitive advantage. A Mafia Offer typically requires that you do something different (make operational improvements to establish a decisive competitive edge) to address your prospect's core problem. A Mafia Offer can only be created by satisfying a significant need of the market to the extent that no other significant competitor can.
A Mafia Offer sounds like it belongs in a movie rather than something that could actually help you increase and manage your sales to boost revenue in your company. In his book It's Not Luck, Dr. Goldratt first presented the idea of a Mafia Offer . A Mafia Offer, according to him later, is "an offer they can't reject" . However, he more commonly uses the term "unrefusable offer" in his literature , and more lately, he has emphasized the necessity to create, seize, and maintain a clear competitive advantage . I shall use the term "Mafia Offer" throughout this chapter and have defined it as follows: An offer that is so irresistible to your clients that neither they nor your rivals can or will make the same concessions. The decisive competitive edge, operational advantage, or competitive advantage are additional terms I'll use to describe the operational upgrades necessary for a Mafia Offer. Simply said, a mafia offer is an offer you make to your market—your prospects and customers—to pique their interest in your goods or services while providing them with something that your rivals won't be able to match right away. Naturally, the offer you provide combines your goods, services, and methods of delivery. Furthermore, you must be providing something of equal or better value than what you are asking for in order for your offer—the solution you are selling—to be unrefusable. Many people mistake a Mafia Offer for a sustainable competitive advantage , a unique selling proposition , or a customer value proposition . It would appear at first glance that a Mafia Offer is comparable to these other concepts, however when most people use these terms, they mean something quite different from what TOC professionals mean by a Mafia Offer. Take what you presently do and condense it into a USP, CVP, or SCA that specifically addresses one or more of your customers' problems or the gaps in the market's current offers. These possibilities could be mafia offers, but they aren't always. An SCA is not an offer in and of itself, but rather a technological or operational advantage . Most businesses provide answers to the numerous issues or symptoms that their clients may be experiencing. With a Mafia Offer, we are tackling the main issue that our consumers have while conducting business in our sector. A Mafia Offer often calls for you to take an unconventional approach in order to solve the fundamental issue facing your prospect. Due to your competitors' unwillingness or lack of knowledge to implement the same enhancements, you can genuinely give something irresistible to your customers that you can't or won't be able to do for them. In other words, you must create a competitive advantage. A Mafia Offer is a market offer that is based on this advantage and is therefore sustainable. Mafia Offers "can only be generated by satisfying a significant need of the market to the extent that no other large rival can" and are neither a positioning nor a tagline . If there is a market constraint, we start with a Mafia Offer.
== Broken Window Fallacy ==
According to the shattered windows theory in criminology, visual evidence of crime, anti-social behavior, and public disorder create an urban setting that promotes additional crime. William Bratton, the police commissioner for New York City, and Rudy Giuliani, the mayor, popularized the theory in the 1990s. In his 1972 book Defensible Space, Oscar Newman developed the defensible space idea. According to Newman, people are protective of places they feel a connection to. In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell also connects this idea to the actuality of New York City.
According to the belief, the landscape "communicates" with individuals. A damaged window sends the message to criminals that a society lacks informal social control. A cohesive society begins to disintegrate as people begin to spend less time in communal areas in an effort to be secure. The idea of people influencing space can also be viewed as people influencing space, with environmental factors impacting and limiting daily decision-making. According to the belief, less polite individuals who attempt to leave their mark on the group are expelled.
Informal social control is frequently cited as a useful tactic for taming disruptive behavior. Wilson and Kelling identify two categories of organizations that help to keep the peace: "community watchmen" and "vigilantes." The potential for criminal misbehavior increases with the size of the public land. bones from shattered windows. According to theory, disruption in public places is bad since it makes people afraid.
As the perception of disorder grows, fear increases, leading to a social pattern that rips a community's social fabric. According to the shattered windows model, police responses to small violations "substantially enhanced the risk of feeling endangered."
Broken window enforcement is a highly discretionary police function that calls for rigorous instruction, regulations, and oversight. According to Bratton and Kelling, law enforcement should be successful in apprehending petty offenders but also punishing them lightly. The intention is to prevent repeat offenders from committing more heinous crimes. Ranasinghe goes into great length about The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs and its significance to the development of broken-window theory. He asserts that Jacobs' writings served as the inspiration for Kelling's interest in "small offenses and disorderly behavior and situations."
Zimbardo arranged for a car to be parked idly in a Bronx neighborhood without any license plates and with the hood up. Minutes after being abandoned, the Bronx automobile was attacked. In all instances, the bulk of adult "vandals," according to Zimbardo, were Caucasian, well-groomed, and appeared respectable. The Broken Windows author George L. Kelling was a consultant for the New York City Transit Authority in 1985. Leading a program to remove graffiti from New York's subway system from 1984 to 1990 was one of his most significant initiatives.
According to a study, these regulations drastically reduced the incidence of both minor and serious crime. The majority of crimes in New York City have decreased steadily since their high in 1990, when Giuliani's predecessor David Dinkins was in office. Despite having distinct police policies, other cities also had lower crime rates. By heavily staffing areas with cops, the Safe Streets Program aimed to discourage and lower reckless driving and crime. Researchers in the Netherlands looked at whether other crimes including stealing, littering, and other antisocial conduct were more likely to occur when there was obvious disorder.
They discovered that environmental cleanup was more efficient than petty arrests. Governments and housing organizations may want other side effects of enhanced street cleaning and monitoring. The shattered windows idea is used in education to encourage order in classrooms and school environments. A number of school movements support the use of severe, paternalistic methods to ensure student discipline. While fixing cracked windows won't ensure effective teaching and learning, ignoring them is likely to significantly raise the likelihood of a worrying downward spiral.
In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the broken windows idea of policing was widely used. People who lived in places with a lot of physical disorder were the focus of the policy. The decline in crime rates was more likely the result of other causes, such the city of New York's economic development. In 2006, Bernard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig examined New York City's inner-city project renters who had relocated to more orderly neighborhoods. They discovered that the tenants were still committing crimes at the same rate.
Window repair, according to criminologist Ralph B. Taylor of Baltimore, is merely a partial and transient fix. Broken windows enforcement has occasionally come to be linked with zealotry, leading some detractors to assert that it promotes discriminatory behavior. According to Dorothy Roberts, the criminalization of communities of color results from the application of the shattered windows theory. Broken window policing has been condemned by several movements like Black Lives Matter. The theory has additionally come under fire for its flawed methodology and its use of racialized stereotypes.
According to Robert J. Sampson, it is inferred that those who engage in disorder and crime have a direct connection to racial or ethnic minorities as well as groups that have socioeconomic instability. The broken windows theory applied to policing can lead to development initiatives that lessen physical disorder but encourage unwelcome gentrification. Minority groups have frequently been the targets of Broken Windows-style policing. A bias against the poor would be connected to racism because minorities are more likely to be poorer. The broken windows argument is questioned and confirmed by coauthors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner in their book Freakonomics, who write that "the pool of possible offenders had substantially decreased." Levitt had linked that potential development to Roe v. Wade's legalization of abortion.
== Made Man ==
A made man is a fully initiated Mafia member in both the American and Sicilian mafias. An associate must be Italian or of Italian ancestry and endorsed by another made man in order to become "made." The oath of omertà, the Mafia's code of honor, and the code of silence must be taken in order to be inducted. Following the induction ceremony, the associate is deemed a "made man" and is given the Mafia rank of soldier . Only made men can advance through the Mafia's ranks, from soldier to caporegime to consigliere to underboss to boss.
Other typical names for members include "made men," "man of honor," "man of respect," "one of us," "friend of ours," "good fellow," and "wiseguy." The last two names, however, can also refer to non-initiated Mafia allies who collaborate closely with the Mafia, rather than merely official "made men." Being a "made man" for the Mafia typically equates to earning or making one's "bones," "button," or becoming a "button man."
The phrases "opening the books" and "closing the books" are used in the Mafia to denote, respectively, that a family is ready or unwilling/unable to accept new members. Other street terms for being initiated into the Mafia include being "straightened out" or "baptized," as well as earning one's "badge". The correct phrase for a member of the Sicilian Mafia in Sicily is uomo d'onore, or omu d'onuri in Sicilian. Although the names "mafioso" and "mafiosi" are frequently used in casual speech and by the media and scholars, they are rarely employed by Sicilian and Italian-American Mafia members themselves.
=== Overview ===
For example, Henry Hill, a well-known Lucchese family associate who was portrayed in the 1990 film Goodfellas, was unable to become a made man despite his extensive Mafia career and his mother's Sicilian descent because the American Mafia traditionally required that the inductee be a male of full Sicilian descent. However, this requirement soon expanded to males of full Italian descent. Salvatore Vitale claims that the Commission resolved to reinstate the requirement that both parents be of Italian origin at a meeting held in 2000. . The son of Italian-American mobster John Gotti, John A. Gotti, whose maternal grandmother was Russian, and Frank Salemme of the New England Patriarca crime family, whose father was of Italian descent but whose mother was of Irish descent, are two examples of made members who are not wholly of Italian descent. Other partially Italian-American associates have concealed their non-Italian ancestry to enter the Philadelphia Mafia, such as made man Andrew Thomas DelGiorno of the Scarfo criminal family, who was of Polish and Italian descent but was able to hide his Polish ancestry on his mother's side .
Historically, because the Sicilian counterpart and other similar Italian crime organizations started in Southern Italy, males of Northern Italian extraction were seen as unsuitable candidates for membership in the American Mafia. Gregory Scarpa, a capo from the Colombo family, almost didn't get accepted into the American Cosa Nostra since his ancestors were from the Veneto province of Northern Italy. However, the Colombo family leadership decided to induct him anyway due to his capacity for producing money and readiness to employ violence .
Generally, a member of the Mafia cannot be a member of a crime family's associate who has served in any capacity as a law enforcement officer or who has even attended or applied to a law enforcement training program. Henry Borelli, a member of the DeMeo crew, for instance, could never rise to prominence in the Gambino family since he had passed the admission exam for the New York City Police Department in the early 1970s. Salvatore Vitale, the underboss for Bonanno, was only "made" because his future boss and brother-in-law Joseph Massino were able to conceal Vitale's prior employment as a prison officer .
In addition, corrupt NYPD police detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa performed duties for the Lucchese crime family equivalent to those of a soldier or made man, despite never being officially made a member of the Mafia. Ron Previte, a soldier for the Scarfo crime family and a former  member of the Philadelphia police force, is one exception to this rule.
Additionally, some people have been disqualified from joining the Cosa Nostra because they didn't match the requirements. "Mad Sam" DeStefano was a vicious loan shark who enjoyed torturing and killing people. The Chicago Outfit accepted his earning potential but never employed him because they were worried that his peculiar actions would garner too much attention.
A contract killing is frequently necessary for an associate to complete in order to qualify for induction. This guideline was traditionally used to demonstrate the associate's allegiance to the Mafia. It now also serves as proof that a person is not a covert law enforcement officer. The first contract killing is known as "making one's bones" or earning one's "button," thus becoming a "button man," and any killings committed for personal reasons are prohibited from being utilized to satisfy the criterion.
The Apalachin conference led to the closure of the mob's membership records in 1957, and they weren't opened again until 1976. . Entrance ceremony
=== Article focus: Mafia initiation ceremony ===
An associate must now have at least two sponsors, one of whom must have known him for 10 to 15 years, according to Joe Pistone's accounts in his books The Way of the Wiseguy and Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business. An associate would first need to be sponsored by a made man. The associate's reliability and skills are attested to by the sponsor, who is familiar with him. Although a capo or other senior members will assess the potential member's trustworthiness, the boss of the family into which he will be recruited will make the final choice.
An associate will receive a call asking him to get ready and dressed when the criminal family "opens the books" . He will then be picked up and driven, either alone or with other accepted candidates, to the room where the ceremony will take place. The mafia code of silence, known as the oath of omertà, must be taken in order to be inducted. Although the ritual varies from family to family, it usually entails the inductee being pricked on the trigger finger, dripping blood onto a picture of a saint, usually St. Francis of Assisi or the Virgin Mary, which is then set ablaze in his hand, and kept burning until the inductee has sworn the oath of loyalty to his new "family," such as, "As burns this saint, so will burn my soul. 
=== Privileges ===
Following the induction ceremony, the associate earns the title of soldier  and rises through the ranks of the Mafia. He is given obligations and gains advantages. As long as he remains popular and makes enough money—a portion of which must be handed up the hierarchy—a made man has the entire support and protection of the Mafia establishment at his disposal. A made man is usually regarded as "untouchable" by other criminals; he is to be feared and revered. To strike, let alone kill, a made man without the approval of the Mafia family leadership is punishable by death, regardless of whether the offender has a valid complaint .
A nonfiction book titled Wiseguy described this kind of retaliation, and the 1990 movie Goodfellas, which follows the life of Henry Hill, a former Lucchese crime family associate who became an FBI informant, dramatized it. It concerned the circumstances surrounding Tommy DeSimone's disappearance, who was a member of the Lucchese crime family. DeSimone allegedly died at the hands of the Gambino crime family. His crime was killing made man William "Billy Batts" Bentvena, a member of the Gambino crew under the command of then-capo and current boss John Gotti, without getting permission. A made man can be killed, though, if a compelling reason is given and the Mafia family's hierarchy gives the go-ahead.
== Omerta ==
Omerta is a Southern Italian code of silence, honor, and conduct that emphasizes non-cooperation with authorities, the government, or outsiders, particularly during criminal investigations, as well as deliberate ignorance of and general avoidance of interfering with other people's illicit activities. It originated and is still widely used in Southern Italy, a region long known for its banditry or brigandage and Mafia-style criminal gangs. Similar codes are also strongly ingrained in other Mediterranean regions, such as Malta, Corsica, and Crete in Greece, all of which have ties to Southern Italy's past cultural traditions.
Criminal circles frequently retaliate against informers, who are referred to as "rats" or "snitches" in these contexts.
=== Code ===
The Oxford English Dictionary states that the word's pronunciation suggests it is not of Sicilian origin; instead, it may have come from the now-rare Spanish word hombredad, which means manliness and is modeled after the Sicilian word omu, which means "man." Additionally, it has been asserted that the word is derived from the Latin word humilitas, which in some southern Italian dialects evolved into umilta and then ultimately into omerta. However, the geographical spread of the word does not strongly support this theory. Without mentioning Spanish, the first Antimafia Commission of the Italian parliament confirmed the origin based on omu on Antonio Cutrera's authority in the 1970s.
The fundamental tenet of omerta is that one should not turn to legitimately established authorities in order to resolve personal issues. According to Cutrera, the worst mark against manhood is the possibility of being a cascittuni. A person who has been wronged is required to protect his or her own interests by seeking out a patron or exacting revenge on the offender rather than waiting for the state to step in.
A person should categorically avoid interfering in other people's business and should never report a crime to the police, but if it is justified, he may personally avenge a physical attack on himself or on his family by vendetta, literally a taking of revenge, a feud. Omerta is defined as "the categorical prohibition of cooperation with state authorities or reliance on its services, even when one has been the victim of a crime." Even if someone is found guilty of a crime they did not commit, they must complete their sentence instead of providing the police with information on the genuine offender, even if they have no connection to the Mafia. In Mafia culture, breaching the omerta carries a death sentence.
Omerta is a very strict kind of unity and loyalty to the ruling class. One of its fundamental principles is that turning in even one's greatest enemy to the authorities is deeply degrading and disgraceful. Because of this, many crimes involving the Mafia go unsolved. Observers of the Mafia debate whether omerta should best be understood as an expression of social consensus for the Mafia or whether it is instead a pragmatic response based primarily on fear, as implied by a popular Sicilian proverb: "Cu e surdu, orbu e taci, campa cent'anni 'mpaci" .
It has also been described as follows: "Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward. Whoever cannot take care of himself without police protection is both. It is as cowardly to betray an offender to justice, even though his offences be against yourself, as it is not to avenge an injury by violence. It is dastardly and contemptible in a wounded man to betray the name of his assailant, because if he recovers, he must naturally expect to take vengeance himself."
=== History ===
One of the first Mafia researchers and former public security officer Antonio Cutrera claims that omerta is a pact of silence. Even in self-defense and even when the accused is not guilty of the crimes alleged against them, it locks men's lips. When speaking to his attacker, a wounded native first said, "If I live, I'll murder you. If I die, I forgive you," which Cutrera then quoted.
Long before Cosa Nostra emerged, Sicilians followed the code, which may have been greatly impacted by years of government repression and foreign dominance. It was noted as a means of resisting Spanish power as least as early as the 16th century.
The Italian-American mafioso Joseph Valachi famously broke the omerta code in 1963, when he publicly spoke out about the existence of the Mafia and testified before a United States Senate committee. He broke his blood pledge for the first time in the Italian-American Mafia's modern history. Omerta was broken in Sicily by the pentito phenomenon.
Among the most famous Mafia pentiti is Tommaso Buscetta, the first important witness in Italy, who both helped prosecutor Giovanni Falcone to understand the inner workings of Cosa Nostra and described the Sicilian Mafia Commission or Cupola, the leadership of the Sicilian Mafia. A predecessor, Leonardo Vitale, who gave himself up to the police in 1973, was judged mentally ill and so his testimony led to the conviction of only himself and his uncle.
=== In sports ===
Omerta is widely reported in sport in relation to use of prohibited substances by athletes. The Cycling Independent Reform Commission report of 2015 contains the word "omerta" no fewer than 17 times, and stated:
A former directeur sportif described omerta as a system in which riders were open among themselves about doping, and omerta operated externally so doping was not spoken about in public. An academic paper highlighted that those who broke the code of silence within cycling were ostracised and sometimes pushed out of the sport because they were not willing to support or join in with doping. Any rider who did speak out about doping could find himself informally sanctioned by the rest of the peloton.
=== In popular culture ===
Mario Puzo wrote novels based on the principles of omerta and the Cosa Nostra. His best known works in that vein are the trilogy The Godfather ,The Sicilian , and Omerta .
The 2010 videogame Fallout: New Vegas features a tribe of gangsters called the Omertas. The 2002 videogame Mafia names its campaign's tenth chapter "Omerta".
The American heavy metal band Lamb of God released the song "Omerta" from their third studio album Ashes of the Wake , which begins with lead singer Randy Blythe performing a spoken word description of omerta.
In 2019, Canadian rapper Drake released a song called "Omerta" in the extended play The Best in the World Pack.
== Joe Pistone ==
Between September 1976 and July 1981, Joseph Dominick Pistone, a former FBI agent from the United States, operated undercover as Donnie Brasco as part of an infiltration primarily into the Bonanno crime family and, to a lesser extent, the Colombo crime family, two of the Five Families of the Mafia in New York City. Pistone spent 17 years as an FBI agent, from 1969 until his resignation in 1986. Over 200 Mafia members were indicted and over 100 were found guilty using the evidence Pistone gathered; some of those responsible for his infiltration were also murdered by other mobsters.
Pistone was a pioneer of extended covert operations. Former Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, who passed away in 1972, opposed FBI agents working secretly due to the possibility of their becoming corrupted; Pistone's work later assisted in persuading the FBI that deploying undercover agents in addition to informants is an essential tool in law enforcement. In his 1988 book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, which served as the inspiration for the 1997 biopic based on his life, Pistone went into depth about his undercover work.
=== Young adulthood and career ===
Pistone was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1939. He was raised in Paterson, New Jersey, where he attended Eastside High School, and is of Calabrian and Sicilian descent. He studied at Paterson State College, where he earned his anthropology degree in 1965.
Before being sworn into the FBI on July 7, 1969, and assigned to Jacksonville, Florida, he worked for three years at the Office of Naval Intelligence and one year as a teacher at Paterson School No. 10 in New Jersey. He moved to New York in 1974 to work in the truck and hijack unit. He subsequently received covert employment infiltrating a car theft ring because of his proficiency with 18-wheelers and bulldozers; this assignment led to over 30 arrests and raised Pistone's profile among law enforcement.
=== FBI's Donnie Brasco-like career ===
Pistone offered in the spring of 1976 to infiltrate the Bonanno criminal family, a position that he was well-suited for thanks to his fluency in Italian, Sicilian ancestry, and understanding of mafia quirks acquired through his Paterson upbringing. For the undercover operation, Donald "Donnie" Brasco's fictitious name and biography, which includes work as a low-level jewel thief, were developed. He underwent rigorous training, including FBI gemology classes, before posing as a jewel thief.
The operation's two simultaneous operations took place in Miami and New York City, hence the code name "Sun-Apple." After months of preparation, Pistone launched his undercover operation in September 1976. Originally expected to run for around six months, the operation ended up lasting many years. When someone called the FBI inquiring for Pistone, they were informed that no one with that name worked there and that his name had been removed from office rolls and his personnel file. His coworkers, acquaintances, and informants were in the dark about what had occurred. The operation's initial goal was to compromise high-profile fences and truck hijackings, which would then lead to the Mafia. Pistone provided information on Mafia activity throughout some of the most tense power conflicts in organized crime when he was operating undercover.
a surveillance image taken by the FBI showing Tony Rossi, Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, and Joseph Pistone. Original notes written by Joseph D. Pistone while The Undercover Man, directed by Rossella Biscotti, was being shot in 2008.
Pistone, a member of the Colombo family, which was largely involved in robberies and hijackings, worked his way up to being a teammate in Jilly Greca's gang. Pistone switched to the Bonanno family after roughly six months by getting close to Anthony Mirra. When Mirra was imprisoned, Pistone received instruction in mafia practices from Mike "Mimi" Sabella, the commander of the Bonanno soldier Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero. Additionally, Pistone did business with Frank Balistrieri of the Milwaukee crime family regarding vending machines. Pistone reported to captain Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano following the 1979 murder of Carmine Galante.
When Pistone founded and ran the King's Court Bottle Club in Holiday, Florida, he was in charge of a successful economic endeavor. Pistone collaborated with another FBI agent in Florida who was posing as Tony Rossi. Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato, who had previously avoided death after missing a May 1981 meeting that left Indelicato, Phillip Giaccone, and Dominick Trinchera dead, was the son of Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato. Later, Napolitano contacted Pistone, whom he hoped to make a made man, to carry out the murder.
The FBI then gave the order to shut down Pistone's business. In order to demonstrate his commitment, Napolitano would claim that he was "making his bones" up until that December, when he was expected to become a successful man. But Pistone's superiors imposed a deadline of July 26 because they thought the operation was getting too risky. FBI agents Doug Fencl, Jim Kinne, and Jerry Loar didn't reveal Pistone's status as an agent to Napolitano until after he had left. A $500 bonus was given to Pistone at the conclusion of the operation.
=== Aftermath ===
Soon after, on August 17, 1981, Napolitano was shot dead and had his hands amputated because he had permitted an FBI agent to infiltrate the family. The FBI detained Ruggiero on August 29, 1981. In the future, on February 18, 1982, Mirra was also killed. Pistone had said, "My aim in all of this was to put individuals in jail, not get them killed," regarding Napolitano's fate, but he is also believed to have said that he never felt any regret. In November 1982, Ruggiero, along with Nicholas Santora, Antonio Tomasulo, and Anthony "Fat Tony" Rabito, would be convicted in a six-week jury trial for racketeering conspiracy, receiving a 15-year prison sentence.
The Mafia expelled the Bonanno family from the Commission and issued a $500,000 contract to Pistone. Agents from the FBI counseled New York Mafia bosses against killing Pistone. Paul Castellano, the chairman of the Commission, canceled the contract because he believed that killing a federal agent would "draw too much attention." Pistone gave his initial public testimony on August 2, 1982. Over 200 Mafia members were indicted as a result of the evidence Pistone gathered, and over 100 of them were found guilty. Although Pistone resigned from the FBI in 1986, he continued to testify when called upon, including at the Pizza Connection Trial.
While Pistone's infiltration decimated the Bonanno family, the family was consequently not a main target in the Mafia Commission Trial that saw the top leadership of the Five Families sent to prison, as the Bonannos had already been kicked off the Commission. By dodging this bullet, the family kept its leadership intact and was able to consolidate its power once again. The boss who led that resurgence, Joseph Massino, was convicted in 2004 of ordering Napolitano to be killed for allowing Pistone into the family.
Pistone lives in an undisclosed location with his wife Maggie and their three daughters, under assumed names. Pistone has been active as an author and consultant to worldwide law enforcement agencies, including Scotland Yard, and has been called to testify before the United States Senate as an expert on organized crime.
In September 2012, Pistone testified in Montreal, Quebec, at the Charbonneau Commission public inquiry into corruption, as an expert witness.
=== Media ===
Pistone detailed his undercover experience in his 1988 book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia. The book was the basis for the 1997 film Donnie Brasco, for which Pistone worked as a technical adviser, starring Johnny Depp as Pistone and Al Pacino as "Lefty" Ruggiero. It was also the basis for the short-lived 2000 television series Falcone, starring Jason Gedrick as Pistone . Pistone was a consultant on Donnie Brasco to add authenticity to the fictionalized portrayals and settings. His life was used in an episode of FBI: The Untold Stories.
Pistone revisited his experiences as Donnie Brasco in his books The Way of the Wiseguy and Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business . Pistone wrote a novel titled, The Good Guys , with Joseph Bonanno's son, Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno. He has also written several works of fiction such as Deep Cover, Mobbed Up and Snake Eyes. He has served as an executive producer on movies relating to the Mafia, including the 2006 film 10th & Wolf. In 2008, Italian artist Rossella Biscotti interviewed Pistone in her video The Undercover Man. A play based on Donnie Brasco opened at the Pennsylvania Playhouse.
Pistone is featured in the eighth episode of UK history TV channel Yesterday's documentary series Mafia's Greatest Hits. A Secrets of the Dead episode, "Gangland Graveyard", features Pistone and his infiltration of the Mafia as part of the long-running investigation into the murder of three Mafia captains by Massino.
Pistone featured prominently in the 2013 mini-series Inside the American Mob. He features prominently in episode 1 "Stayin' Alive in the '70s" and is the main focus of episode 2, "Operation Donnie Brasco".
In May 2020, Pistone started a podcast called Deep Cover: The Real Donnie Brasco.
== Make one's bones ==
To kill someone in order to obtain membership in a criminal organization. Used in this way, the phrase is often associated with the Mafia. As in these examples, in organized-crime usage the phrase refers to establishing one's credibility by killing someone. to be very sure and definite about (something) Make no bones about the seriousness of the matter. He made no bones about his plans to cut expenses. Make no bones about it—we will win.
== Initiation Ritual ==
To join the Mafia or Cosa Nostra, an aspiring member must take part in an initiation ritual. The ceremony involves significant ritual, oaths, blood, and an agreement to follow the rules of the Mafia. The first known account of the ceremony dates back to 1877 in Sicily. The first account of an initiation ceremony was given by Bernardino Verro, a leader of the Fasci Siciliani. In the U.S. it was provided in 1963 by Joe Valachi, who was initiated in 1930.
An aspirant member must participate in an initiation ritual or ceremony to become a full member of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra—either the original Sicilian Mafia or the Italian-American branch frequently referred to as the "American Mafia"—to become a "man of honor" or a "made man." Significant rituals, oaths, blood, and a pledge to abide by the inductee's presentation of the Mafia's rules are all part of the ceremony. The event was documented for the first time in 1877 in Sicily.
According to various different sources, the ceremony's regular order has some characteristics in common. The new recruit is first presented by a member before being escorted into the presence of other members. The officiating member then pricks his finger with a needle after explaining the association and outlining its fundamental guidelines. A card depicting a saint is stained with a few droplets of blood, burned while being transferred quickly from hand to hand to prevent burns, and ultimately, the novice swears allegiance to the Mafia family. The William Galt novel I Beati Paoli, which was serialized in 1909, popularized the oral stories about the initiation ceremonies of the Sicilian cult Beati Paoli, which may have served as inspiration for this.
=== At Sicily ===
The first recorded report of the ritual was published in 1877 in Monreale in an article about the Stuppagghiari, an early Mafia-like organization. Agrigento's Fratellanza (Brotherhood) trial in 1884 and Bagheria's Fratuzzi (Little Brothers) trial provide other early accounts (1889).
A leader of the Fasci Siciliani, a well-known social movement with democratic and socialist roots that emerged in Sicily in the early 1890s, Bernardino Verro provided one of the earliest first-person reports of an initiation ritual. Verro joined the Fratuzzi in Corleone to give the movement some clout and shield himself from peril. He details the initiation ceremony he went through in the spring of 1893 in a book that was written many years later:
was invited to attend a private Fratuzzi meeting. I walked into a shadowy space where a large group of armed men were seated around a table. A paper with a drawing of a skull and a knife were in the middle of the table. To join the Fratuzzi, one had to go through an initiation process that included tests of loyalty and being stabbed in the bottom lip with a knife's point so that the blood seeped into the skull.
Soon after, Verro left the Mafia and, according to police accounts, turned into their most ferocious adversary. When he was the mayor of Corleone in 1915, the Mafia killed him.
=== United States ===
The Apalachin conference led to the closure of the mob's membership records in 1957; they weren't opened again until 1976. Joe Valachi, who was initiated in 1930, gave the first account of the ceremony in the United States in his evidence at the McClellan hearings in 1963. The Cosa Nostra, often known as the Mafia, is an organization that exists in the United States, and Valachi's case helped convince the nation of this. He gave the FBI first-hand knowledge of the Mafia's inner workings, including one of the first descriptions of the induction ceremony ever made.
=== Ceremony ===
=== picking new participants ===
One cannot simply decide to join the Mafia; membership is sought from specific individuals. Tommaso Buscetta was questioned about how he joined the Cosa Nostra during his testimony for the Pizza Connection Trial. Joe Valachi was courted for a long time before he agreed to join, and when asked how he became a member, he replied, "I didn't write out any application to become a member—I was called, I was welcomed." Mafioso Bobby Doyle's argument that a solo career in crime was far riskier eventually convinced him. Things had been getting difficult for Valachi in terms of repeated arrests and other consequences of his lifestyle, and he understood the logic of Doyle's reasoning. Doyle remarked to Valachi, "Join us and you will be made. You will earn money and you are not to steal anymore."
=== Descriptions ===
A dinner or gathering serves as the ceremony. It is possible to induct many people at once. They are "made" or "baptized" or "receive their badges" when inducted, among other phrases like "wiseguys," "a friend of ours," "nice man," "one of us," and "straightened out."
The most well-known account of the ceremony was provided by Valachi:
I take a seat at the table. Wine is present. Someone in front of me brandished a rifle and a knife. The weapon was what we would refer to as a dagger, and the gun was a.38. When Maranzano signals for us to move, we speak a few Italian words. Joe Bonanno then uses a pin to pierce my finger and squeezes it until blood starts to ooze out. Then, as Mr. Maranzano puts it, "This blood implies that we are now one Family," happens. Knives and guns determine both how you live and how you pass away.
Valachi and three other people were inducted. About 40 people were present, allowing the new initiates to "meet the family."
Other information came to light during the 1989 FBI-recorded induction of the Patriarca crime family. Tortora, the inductee, was informed that he would be baptized before taking the oath. The baptism seems to symbolize the new stage of life that is beginning. "You were baptized when you were a newborn, your parents did it. But now, this time, we're going to baptize you." One illustration of the Mafia's familial attitude is this. It is hinted that the member's family, specifically his parents, have been replaced by the Mafia. Tortora is questioned if he would kill his brother for the Mafia, which serves as additional proof of this mindset. The fact that members devote their entire life to the organization probably contributes to this mentality. The oaths themselves speak of the family link, and we might speculate that the secrecy laws stand for both a sense of familial devotion and self-preservation. All mafia families are seen as being related despite their hostilities. There is a bond even between the groups in Sicily and New York City.
Inductee Flamaro's trigger finger was particularly poked in another instance of Valachi's description in the 1989 induction recording, confirming the gesture's symbolic nature. After that, a compadre or friend was selected for him, and unlike previous ceremonies mentioned, there was no mention of setting a saint's image on fire. According to Buscetta's statement, after his finger was punctured, the blood was transferred to a saint's image and burned. Jimmy Fratianno, inducted in 1947, recalled the Capo pricking his finger and saying, "This drop of blood symbolizes your birth into our family, we are one until death." Buscetta then swore that if he broke the rules, "my flesh would burn like this saint." A variation on this oath is "As burns this saint, so will burn my soul. I enter alive and I will have to get out dead.
Although the tradition appears to have mostly gone out, it was once rumored that the potential member had to commit murder in order to complete the induction procedure.
=== Rules ===
The Mafia Code is strikingly similar to those of other criminal organizations and societies as well as to those enforced in American jails and prisons. It is largely the same as the thieves code, according to Donald Cressey, which he describes as having five fundamental components:
1. Be devoted to the organization's members. Respect each other's interests by not interfering. Don't spread rumors. ...
2. Be logical. Become a part of the group. Never fight a conflict you can't win. ... The instruction includes daily living.
3. Be a guy of integrity. Honor women and your elders. Don't upset the balance. ...
4. Be a guy of integrity. Keep your mouth closed, your eyes and ears open. Don't give up. ... Because "If you can't pay, don't play," the "stand-up guy" displays heart and guts in the face of hardship, even punishment.
5. Be classy. Be self-reliant. Understand how to navigate the world.
=== Women ===
When Jimmy Fratianno joined the mafia in 1947, he took a similar pledge to Valachi. "You must never divulge any of the secrets of this Cosa Nostra. You must never abuse the wife or children of another member. You must never get involved with narcotics," were the three instructions given to him.
Joseph Russo also mentioned in the Patriarca ceremony that you shouldn't play around with your sisters, wives, or girlfriends unless you have "honorable" intentions.
Buscetta also described how he received instructions on how to behave "appropriately." The punishment for disobeying these regulations, according to him, was death. He claimed he was instructed to "be silent, not to look at other men's wives or ladies, not to steal, and especially, at all times, I had to haste, quitting whatever I was doing."
=== Omertà ===
The Omertà, or pledge of silence, is the most significant norm. According to FBI informants, it is a rule that is routinely broken but is also punishable by death. When he said, "It's no hope, no Jesus, no Madonna, nobody can save us if we ever give up this secret to anybody, any kinds of friends of mine, let's say," Biagio DiGiacomo underlined the seriousness of Omertà.
=== drug traffic ===
Many testimonies clarify the rules regarding drugs, detailing that members must refrain from both using and dealing any form of substance. These regulations are frequently disobeyed, as demonstrated by the FBI, and it has been questioned whether this rule was ever enforced or if it is simply a myth. In Joe Bonanno's 1983 autobiography, he claimed that neither he nor his family participated in the drug trade, calling it a "filthy industry." However, there isn't much evidence to suggest that the mafia has stopped running drug rings in more recent years. The five crime groups controlled the entire drug trade in New York City.
=== Introductions ===
Introductions were organized extremely well. Members were never allowed to identify themselves in an introduction, except under very specific circumstances, and were always introduced as "a buddy of mine" or "a friend of ours." Members no longer kiss each other when they are first introduced since it attracted too much attention from authorities.
=== Exposure ===
=== The McClellan Committee and Valachi ===
In 1959, Genoese soldier Joe Valachi was found guilty of drug offenses and given a 15-year prison term. According to Valachi, he was testifying as a public service and to expose a powerful criminal organization that he had blamed for ruining his life. However, it is also possible that he was hoping for government protection as part of a plea deal that got him life in prison rather than the death penalty for a murder he had committed in 1962 while serving time for his drug offense.
Valachi killed a prisoner who believed Vito Genovese, a mob boss and fellow prisoner, had given the order to kill him. Genovese and Valachi were both incarcerated for trafficking heroin. On June 22, 1962, Valachi killed an inmate he thought was Joseph DiPalermo, a Mafia member he thought had been hired to assassinate him, with a pipe left behind by some construction work. After spending some time with FBI handlers, Valachi came forward and claimed that Genovese had kissed him on the cheek, which he mistook for a "kiss of death." Genovese had set a $100,000 price for Valachi's demise.
Soon after, Valachi made the decision to work with the Americans. Justice Division. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the United States, chaired by Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan, heard testimony from Valachi in October 1963. The Valachi hearings before the Senate Committee on Government Operations were the first time a member had openly admitted the existence of the Italian-American Mafia. His blood oath was broken by Valachi's testimony, which was the first significant omertà violation. He is credited with popularizing the term cosa nostra and was the first member of the Italian-American Mafia to publicly recognize the organization's existence.
Valachi supplied various facts about the Mafia's history, activities, and rituals. He also named numerous members and the major crime groups. Despite the fact that his revelations never directly resulted in the indictment of any Mafia leaders, they did help solve several unsolved killings. Valachi's televised testimony throughout the trial made American organized crime known to the entire globe.
=== Patriarca family ===
The FBI recorded the Patriarca crime family's initiation ritual on October 29, 1989, in Medford, Massachusetts. Given that the warrant for the "roaming bug" that was utilized to record the ceremony was based on incorrect information, this bugging has generated significant criticism.
According to one source, the participants in this ceremony included consiglieri Joseph Russo, who oversaw some of the proceedings, mobster capos Biagio DiGiacomo, who administered the oaths, Boston residents Robert F. Carrozza, Vincent M. Ferrara, Charles Quintina, and Matthew Guglielmetti, as well as new members Robert DeLuca, Vincent Federico, Carmen Tortora, and Richard Floramo. According to a different newspaper report, there were 17 mafiosi there, including Raymond Patriarca, Jr., the current boss, and other senior members of the family.
The FBI monitored this event as part of a five-year investigation into local crime families that led to numerous indictments and arrests. Patriarca, DiGiacomo, Russo, Tortora, Ferrara, Carrozza, and Guglielmetti were among those charged; they were all in attendance during the trial. Antonio L. Spagnola, Nicholas Bianco, Louis Failla, and John E. Farrell are more well-known individuals among those who were charged. The Mafiosi were accused of breaking the law using information from the ceremony.
Thomas A. Hughes, an FBI Boston Mafia expert, hypothesized that the Patriarca crime family suffered embarrassment and disfavor since the sacred event was recorded when they were in charge.
=== Bonanno family ===
Damiano Zummo, a purported acting captain in the Bonanno criminal family, participated in an undercover police agent's induction ceremony that was secretly videotaped in Canada in November 2015. Zummo was a key player in the ceremony and was heard on the recording mentioning people who were in positions of authority inside the company. "The recording of a secret induction ceremony is an extraordinary achievement for law enforcement and deals a significant blow to La Cosa Nostra," a Brooklyn court official later stated. The recording also resulted in the arrest of 13 mobsters in November 2017, including Domenico Violi of the Luppino crime family in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, who was named underboss of the Buffalo crime family in October 2017.
== Mafia Hierarchy ==
An Associate is a member of a criminal group or crime family who frequently participates in their enterprises or does unlawful tasks for the boss or other group members.
In the formal Mafia hierarchy or cadre, a soldato or soldier is the first official rank of both the American Mafia and the Sicilian Mafia. Other Italian criminal gangs like the 'Ndrangheta and Camorra also frequently use it as a rank.
In Sicily, the term "caporegime" refers to the head of the family. Generally speaking, the phrase refers to the head of a branch of an organized crime syndicate who is in charge of a group of troops and directly answers to the don, an underboss, or a street boss.
Underboss: A strong second in command, the underboss could be a relative, like a son who is being prepared to eventually take over the family firm. Consigliere: The boss's counselor and advisor. The underboss is the boss's second in charge. Sometimes a son or other relative serves as the underboss, taking charge of the household in the event that the boss becomes ill, is killed, or is imprisoned. The status of underboss has, however, been partially challenged in the modern day by the post of street boss.
A crime family's boss, sometimes referred to as the capomandamento, capocrimine, rappresentante, don, or godfather, is at the top of the food chain.
Within the hierarchy of the Sicilian, Calabrian, and Italian-American Mafias, consigliere is a position. The novel The Godfather and the movie that was based on it helped to popularize the word in English. In the book, a consigliere is the boss' advisor or counselor who also has the duty to represent the boss in significant gatherings with members of the boss' criminal family and other crime families. The mob's equivalent of an elder statesman, the consigliere is a close friend and confidant who can be trusted. They serve as the boss of a Mafia crime family's counselor and occasionally "right-hand man." A consigliere is one of the few family members that can challenge the boss because of the nature of their position. They are frequently entrusted with doing so to make sure that upcoming plans are successful. In other portrayals, he lacks motivation and offers uncaring advice. What little is known about actual consignees does not match this passive portrayal of the consigliere. The top three positions and the three-person "administration" are the boss, underboss, and consignee.
== Demise of the Mafia ==
The Mafia is a network of organized crime groups with headquarters in Italy and the United States that engages in everything from drug trafficking to murder. In Sicily, an island off the southern tip of Italy that was governed by a succession of foreign invaders until 1861, the Mafia developed over many years. Sicilians formed groups to protect themselves, and by the 19th century, some of these groups had developed into private armies that demanded protection money from landowners and later became the Sicilian Mafia, a criminal organization still active today. During the 1920s Prohibition era, a distinct organization known as the American Mafia gained control and quickly prospered. However, by the late 20th century, anti-racketeering laws and other strategies had taken down powerful mob figures in both Italy and the US. The Mafia had suffered by the turn of the twenty-first century, but it was still in operation.
The Mafia is Growing
In Sicily, Italy, by the latter part of the 19th century, criminal organizations that had come to be known as the Mafia prospered by extorting protection money from businesspeople and landowners. By the 1920s, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), who came to office in 1922, was posing a threat to the Sicilian Mafia. Mussolini saw the Mafia as a danger to his fascist government and started a harsh campaign that resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of over a thousand alleged Mafiosi. After World War II, the Mafia reemerged as mob-backed construction businesses competed to control Sicily's construction boom in the 1950s (some Italian mobsters managed to flee to the United States, where they joined the growing American Mafia and the bootleg whiskey trade).
Did you realize? Al Capone, who oversaw Chicago's organized crime in the 1920s and was engaged in everything from murder to illicit gambling, was ultimately brought to justice in 1931 after being found guilty of income tax evasion. Capone was too ill to resume his criminal activities when he was released from prison in 1939. Age 48 saw his death in 1947.
Italian-American neighborhood gangs transformed into sophisticated criminal organizations thanks to their success in the black market for alcoholic beverages during the 1920s, when Prohibition was in effect in the United States, giving rise to the Mafia as a distinct organization. The Commission, which would act as the top governing body for the more than 20 Italian-American crime groups, or families, then active in the United States, was founded in 1931 by mobster Lucky Luciano (1897–1962).
The American Mafia expanded beyond bootlegging after Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and established itself in a variety of illegal businesses, including drug trafficking and loan sharking. They also infiltrated labor unions and legal industries like construction, waterfront trade, and the New York garment industry. By the middle of the 20th century, 24 known crime families with 5,000 "made," or inducted, members and thousands more associates were active in cities across the nation. Five significant Mafia groups made up the organized crime hub of America, which was New York City. Even though law enforcement authorities were aware of these criminal families' unlawful activities, they were unable to stop the Mafia's expansion, in part because gangsters routinely bought off politicians, businessmen, and witnesses, as well as intimidated jurors and witnesses.
Having War Declared on the Mafia in the 1950s and 1960s
The American Mafia was first acknowledged officially by any branch of the federal government during televised public hearings held by Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver (1903–1963) in the early 1950s as part of his inquiry into organized crime. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies, together with Congress, chose not to take any significant action, alleging a lack of concrete evidence. Then, in 1957, police in the little hamlet of Apalachin in upstate New York conducted a raid on a gathering of more than 60 mafia figures from throughout the nation. After the raid, the government was forced to acknowledge the Mafia's existence and concede that Italian-American gangs did not operate on a national scale.
Early in the 1960s, the U.S. Robert Kennedy, who served as attorney general from 1925 to 1968, increased government efforts to combat organized crime and union corruption. The leader of the Teamsters union, which has more than a million members, Jimmy Hoffa (1913–1975), was one of Kennedy's main targets. Kennedy also put pressure on J. Edgar Hoover to step up his agency's efforts against mobsters after being slow to go after the Mafia. The FBI started an electronic espionage program that yielded useful intelligence, despite the fact that its agents had little prior knowledge of the Mafia's operations. Another significant event occurred in 1963 when Joseph Valachi, a convicted New York mobster, violated the Mafia's holy oath of silence, or omerta, and turned government informant. This revealed and confirmed information about the Mafia's organizational structure and practices for the first time.
Overcoming the Mafia: The 1970s and Beyond
In the latter decades of the 20th century, the government started to prevail in its conflict with the Mafia. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, passed by Congress in 1970, was one of the most effective tools used to bust organized crime because it gave the government the ability to "attack criminal enterprises on a broad front, stripping them of their leadership and sources of both illicit and legitimate revenue in one massive prosecution." RICO statutes were used to imprison high-ranking mobsters during the 1980s and 1990s who had previously been able to dodge prosecution. Some Mafiosi decided to testify against other mobsters in exchange for a spot in the witness-protection program when faced with lengthy prison sentences (similar laws were successful in achieving mass convictions in Italy at this time). Additionally, Mafia membership in the United States decreased as isolated Italian-American areas, which had previously served as a popular recruiting ground for mobster recruiters, suffered demographic changes and increased social integration.
The American Mafia was a mere ghost of what it once was by the early 21st century, and the FBI had started to reduce the amount of resources it allocated to pursuing organized crime. According to Selwyn Raab, a journalist for the New York Times and an expert on organized crime, many crime clans throughout the rest of the United States were in disarray or on the verge of extinction, while crime families in New York and Chicago, the long-standing hubs of Mafia activity, had been battered but not driven out of business. Law enforcement agencies in Italy also kept making strides against organized crime. The Mafia is still present both there and in the US, where it continues to engage in some of its more established practices including loan ripping off and illicit gambling. Its influence over labor unions and sectors like construction has also decreased but not completely disappeared. The fact that major organized-crime resources were diverted to counterterrorism efforts after the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001, may have contributed to the Mafia's continued survival.
== See Also ==
* Racketeering
*Money Laundering