Word: nostra
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...sweeping change is the result of a deal the government cut with the Teamsters in 1989 to settle a massive racketeering suit alleging that the union's leadership had made a "devil's pact" with the Cosa Nostra. To avoid a costly trial and the threat of a government trusteeship, Teamsters leaders agreed to major reforms. If the Orlando convention follows the new rules, in December the 1.6 million members of the most powerful U.S. union will freely elect their president and 17-member executive board for the first time. That's good news for the rank and file, whose...
...helped destroy the Scarfo family, the first Mafia family to be wiped off the map. Not since Joe Valachi has anyone done this much damage to the Cosa Nostra. But here you are with a completely new identity under the Federal Witness Protection Program, somewhere a long way from Philadelphia. What's life like...
...ghostwriter Laurence Shames' imagery is so hard-boiled it could be served at picnics. (When Gloria, the maid, dropped a steak into hot oil, "it sizzled like a soul in hell.") But the story is fast paced, and the vivid vignettes include the immortal words of a Cosa Nostra capo who was once asked if his beef shipments contained horsemeat. "Well," he answered, "some of it moos and some...
...crime is an estimated $100 billion-a-year untaxed business operated by groups ranging from motorcycle gangs to Asian drug triads. But the Italian Mafia is still the only group that has infiltrated hundreds of legitimate U.S. industries and labor unions. Despite the wave of new prosecutions, the Cosa Nostra -- and particularly the Genovese branch -- is showing few signs of abandoning these businesses, which today are far more lucrative than such traditional vices as gambling and loan-sharking. "In terms of the Genovese family, I'm afraid we haven't even made a dent," concedes investigator Coffey...
...average $15 million-a-year painting contractor saved $3.8 million in costs by paying gangsters. How? The payoff entitled the contractor to use low-wage painters without getting any flak from the mobbed-up union. But in the end, consumers often pay the price. Economists estimate that Cosa Nostra's penetration of industries in New York City alone costs citizens hundreds of millions of dollars annually from inflated prices for everything from fresh fish to new condominiums. The biggest beneficiary: the Genovese clan...