Word: nostra
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Many of the Cosa Nostra's legitimate business fronts were acquired when the owner could not pay his debt. Some public officials were acquired in the same manner. Over his head in various business deals, James Marcus, the former Water Commissioner of New York City, took a loan at 104% annual interest. When he was unable to pay, the gangsters found him a willing victim for other schemes, including graft on city projects. In the case of Marcus, as with many other public officials, the loan was almost certainly a come-on for what the Mob really wanted: a good...
...NARCOTICS TRAFFIC, chiefly in heroin, is less lucrative than gambling, but still profitable enough, bringing in more than $350 million in revenue and $25 million in profits. Because of the risks involved in peddling drugs directly, Cosa Nostra once again contracts the retail trade to its sharecroppers, saving for itself the less dangerous and infinitely more profitable role of importer and wholesaler. The sums involved are substantial. By the time opium from Turkey, the chief supplier for the U.S., is processed into heroin and shipped to New York, it is worth about $225,000 per kilogram. The price to society...
...BUSINESS INFILTRATION is the organization's fastest-growing source of revenue. Its interests extend to an estimated 5,000 business concerns. Indeed, Cosa Nostra's penetration of the above-ground world of finance and commerce is probably the greatest threat that it poses to the nation today. A business can be acquired in any number of ways, from foreclosure on a usurious loan to outright purchase. LCN, after all, has more venture capital than any other nongovernmental organization in the world. New York's Carlo Gambino and his adopted family own large chunks of real estate in the New York...
Another legacy from the Sicilian Mafia is Cosa Nostra's almost mystical concept of respect. Something like the Oriental notion of "face," respect means more to a Cosa Nostra mobster than money. If he does not have the regard of his fellow members, he is nothing, even in his own eyes. An equally high value is placed on loyalty. It is not always honored, to be sure, but it nevertheless remains a powerful binding force within the organization. Indeed, the very human characteristics of respect and loyalty, together with the organization's dynastic structure, offer some clues to its remarkable...
...immediate group and one's own rules. Does the younger generation have any qualms about what it is doing? It would seem not. In The Godfather, the Dartmouth-educated son of a New York boss gives his bride what is probably the typical rationale. Members of Cosa Nostra, he reasons, are no worse than any other Americans. "In my history course at Dartmouth, we did some background on all the Presidents, and they had fathers and grandfathers who were lucky they didn't get hanged...