When people conjure up images of organized crime and the Mafia in their head, they most often think of bloody gangland killings and the “dese and dose” bent nose-type hoodlums who commit crimes like crude strong-arm extortion, narcotics, and other unsavory rough stuff that has become synonymous with the mob. And while all that may still be true, today’s Cosa Nostra is far more sophisticated than just its superficial outer layer of the uneducated, unsophisticated, enforcer-type member.
Today, there are those soldiers and associates among its rank-and-file who have a tremendous knack for creating and then organizing, highly sophisticated and complex white-collar types of rackets that generate untold millions into organized crime’s coffers annually. It’s been that way for many decades already, since at least the 1950s era.
This has become especially true in the last three or four decades where many racketeers, despite having decided upon organized crime as their chosen “profession,” have gone on to achieve a higher education at colleges and graduate schools and received their diplomas. Having been educated about the streets by their grandfathers, fathers, and uncles, and now fully educated scholastically with their sheepskins in hand, these more modern mafiosi have become a double-edged threat to federal law enforcement across the country and the international law enforcement community as well.
