Holder put the Five Families on ice.

[Tinker]

The DOJ arrested 127 made men and known accomplices, gutting the top ranks of the Northeast Cosa Nostra. There is still a vast network in this country. They made a huge arrest like this a year ago or so. It it is the end of an era.

I imagine there was a lot of celebrating in Brighton Beach.

[Demon of Undoing]

Yes, they have hunted the last of the dodos. Guinea mobsters have always been a joke , just that they were generally to stupid to be in on it and acted like terrors ( see : Jersey Shore).

When they beat the Mexicans , let me know. Good for thecops and prosecutors. A few more pounds of gold jewelry and over a hundred track suits off the street. I expect sales of Sinatra to plummet.

[Tinker]

[Demon of Undoing]

Just to defend the standpoint of the Machine for a change , yes , if good governance steps in , there is no reason why this or any other environ should inherently be a den of thieves. They just need to get the biggest gang in there ( ie the civil government) to regulate. These arrests are the kinder gentler version of gang wars. No footsoldiers needed except the Bronze.

Well , good. Get rid of the two- bit hoods and put in the pros.

[~]

What makes you think that jail even slows these guys down? They are allied with the EMEs, The AB, the HAs and Banditos, etc. The Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and New Orleans branches of La Cosa Nostra will pick up the slack until these guys either get out or get replaced by their own underlings.

Prediction: These guys will clip more of their own membership playing "Who's The Rat" than the cops ever will, and the organization will probably be stronger for it.

[Rhapsody]

Thin ice for me, but isn't it effective to let these gangs fight their wars and kill each other off Mexican style, except for the one sole Rulah? Then go after Rulah.

[Tinker]

[Torchwood]

You don't choose a criminal life if there are easier legitimate ways to earn status and respect. The Cosa Nostra is going under not because of clever policing, but because it has been dying from within for a long time, because Italian-Americans (yes, even Sicilians) are now respectable and mostly bourgeois. The same thing happened to Irish-Americans a while back (no more Gangs of New York).

There are a lot of Mexicans for whom such a status is still a million miles away.

[~]

A repost, but worth it in light of what Torchy just said...

[Azrael]

[Tinker]

Those Menschen in Brighton Beach might not have access to the Longshoremen. It's a cultural thing, it depends on the saturation of their particular ethnicity within that union. Not every union is mobbed up. There are some traditional areas where they have specific power that might be affected. I don't know how this impacts organizations like Waste Management. It could be that Waste Management is run with...less waste...if the people on the ground drawing salaries but not showing up to work are in prison.

[noddy]

[Torchwood]

[noddy]

[Tinker]

That sounds like the biker gangs in Northern California.

[Ibrahim]

[Tinker]