Business fraud rackets are one of the many ways the mob makes its money. From gasoline tax scams to stock fraud to internet porn, health care, and windows schemes, the mob knows its business.
Some of the most notorious mobsters from the past including Carmine Lombardozzi and Johnny Dio were experts in the field of business fraud. And in more recent times, guys like Larry Iorizzo, Richard Martino, Peter Gotti, Vic Amuso, and many others discovered new and innovative ways to continue the mob business of business fraud in order to turn a buck.
Button Guys takes a closer look at several business fraud rackets perpetrated by the mob over the years.
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.
