First of all, I never thought I’d be saying this in a million years! In fact, I never even imagined that I could think it let alone contemplate it – that “traditional organized crime” in the United States, better known as the infamous Mafia or Cosa Nostra, is a far cry from what it was just a few decades back.
But it is!
Unbelievably, nowadays, what now passes for “traditional organized crime,” as the FBI likes to refer to the Italian-American Mafia, is almost unrecognizable from the entity it once was.
Button Guys thought it would be interesting and very informative to pull back the curtain and take a peek at the awesome power the Mafia once had in this country and what little remains of that power today.
We decided to break the mob’s once monolithic “Octopus-like” power down into several sub-categories.
First, was the near ironclad control they once exhibited over wide swaths of legitimate businesses and industries. Next, was their deep penetration and pivotal control over much of the national labor movement. And lastly, the near-total control the mob exhibited over most major illicit underworld rackets throughout the United States.
Today, Cosa Nostra is but a mere shell of its former self. Its once all-consuming power and deadly reputation for enforcing that power have mostly gone the way of Jesse James and Ma Barker and her gang.
“The Mob” is quickly becoming ancient history and the stuff of American folklore. So let’s take a good look, shall we?
