Creating The Mob

The establishment of prohibition, while originally designed to be a good thing, actually made criminals out of some people, both those who liked to have a drink and those who sold and made the alcohol. By 1931, the mob had organized. After a series of power struggles and murders, mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano established the “Commission,” a governing body headed by five New York City crime families. Thus began four decades under the rule of the “Five Families” using tactics like loansharking, extortion, and labor union infiltration to influence and profit from a range of businesses. “They didn’t rob banks…they didn’t have to,” says Selwyn Raab, author of Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires. “They did all these more elegant, sophisticated crimes, because they paid more and there was less danger.” The five mob families established or basically took over a lot of different operations. They especially ran gambling and drug trafficking rings, but they also held controlling interest in construction and transportation companies.

The Five Families…Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese, Gambino and Colombo…were immigrants from Italy, particularly Sicily. Some of these were not new to the world of crime. They already had ties to Sicilian crime families, who operated according to a code of honor known as omertà…”a rule or code that prohibits speaking or divulging information about certain activities, particularly those related to criminal organizations. Omertà originated in Italy, specifically Sicily, and is often associated with the Mafia, where it represents a vow of silence regarding criminal activities and cooperation with authorities.” Because of their ties, the Five Families incorporated the concept of omertà into the Commission. That effectively prohibited mobsters from ratting out members of their own family, as well as other families on the Commission…and it worked for a while.

While the Five Families spent time in power, their influence diminished after the United States passed the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act), which gave the government new ways to prosecute organized crime. The effectiveness of the act led mobsters to break omertà and become informants, and it even resulted in one boss flipping on his family. It is a matter of survival I guess, and apparently, while blood is thicker than water, self-preservation tops them both.