Do you think there is Mafia still around?

Question

Okay being from Michigan and my best friends dad telling me about growing up in detroit and knowing Hoffa it makes me wonder if the Mafia is still big? Do you think they are? Do you think they are just on the down low? I am not talking about gangs i mean the real Mafia.

Answer 1

There is. However the Mafia isn't nearly as powerful or as influencial as it once was in American society At one point in the early to mid 1900s most major metropolitan areas had their own fairly large organized crime families. However as time has gone on and laws such as RICO have been enacted to break them apart the number of large scale organized crime groups has dropped substancially.

Right now there's really only two large Mafia organizations operating on a large scale in the United States.

The first and most famous La Cosa Nostra who operate predominantly out of the Northeast particularly the New York and Philadelphia areas but in other areas as well. They have ties going back to the Sicilian Mafia and their rules and customs are heavily based off of Sicilian Mafia traditions. This organization has five sub-groups or families which are The Bonanno Family, The Colombo Family, The Genovese Family, The Gambino Family and The Lucchese Family.

The second large Mafia organization is the Chicago Outfit who operate out of Chicago but also have a presense throughout the Great Lakes region, Las Vegas and Florida. Though originally (around the late 1800s and early 1900s) an offshoot of La Cosa Nostra the Chicago outfit operates completely independently and has its own rules and traditions that differ greatly from those of La Cosa Nostra including having high ranking non-Italian members and leaders.

Additionally there are foreign mafia's that continue to operate in the US like the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia). The Russian Mafia and others but in the United States they aren't operating on as big of a scale as the two primary organized crime groups mentioned above.

The link below lists the history of a lot of mafia groups in the US. You might find it useful.

Answer 2

In the United States, murders of state officials have been rare. In several Mafia families, killing a state authority is strictly forbidden, and even conspiring to commit such a murder is punishable by death. The mobster Dutch Schultz was reportedly killed by his peers out of fear that he would carry out a plan to kill New York City prosecutor Thomas Dewey.

The Mafia began a steep decline in the late-1970s and early 1980s due in part to laws such as the RICO Act, which made it a crime to belong to an organization that performed illegal acts, and to programs such as the witness protection program, followed by a resurgence in the late 1980's, into the 1990's as the Mafia sought out new avenues of revenue. These factors combined with the modest dissolution of the distinct Italian-American community through death, intermarriage, the lack of continued Italian migration, and cultural assimilation, provide for the appearance of a reduced Mafia presence in the United States.

In the mid-20th century, the Mafia was reputed to have infiltrated many labor unions in the United States, notably the Teamsters, whose president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared and is widely rumored to have been killed by the Mafia. In the 1980s, the United States federal government made a determined effort to remove Mafia influence from labor unions.

Today, the Mafia is still the dominant organized crime group in the United States, but its power and influence continues to decline due to aggressive FBI investigations which has led to mob informants, violation of mob rules, family infighting, and death or imprisonment of its top leaders. Recent setbacks include relentless prosecution of the Five Families and arrests of the Chicago Outfit's hierarchy.

According to Selwyn Raab, author of "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires", after 9/11 the FBI has redirected most of its attention to finding terrorists, which led to a resurgence of Mafia in the U.S

Answer 3

hell yeah girl. Over in Russia and the have them over here as well (Russian Mafia) Over here we more so have the Cripts, Bloods, Vice Lords, The New Black Panter, GDs, and many more but those are the bigest ones!! But on top of that, you have the strongest and the most powerful, and the most inlighted, this gang is not evil. Who am I talkinig about, you ask!?? I'm talking about the Kings!

Answer 4

I'm Italian and we still have a full on Mafia in Italy. I don't know about your country though.

Answer 5

The Mafia is still around. Maybe not as powerful as they were in their heyday, but still around none the less.

Answer 6

Yes. I'm not sure on here in the U.S. but the most notorious mafias are the Japanese Mafia's. They don't play around. They would make even the U.S. mafias looks like sissy's.

Answer 7

sure they are around, they have a lot more competition from gangs for the illegal dollars they make but the are still in business and doing very well for themselves.

Answer 8

oh, yes there is mafia still...they just take a much more private stance nowadays

Answer 9

I think they are still around. Scary

Answer 10

ix-nay on the afia-may talk. They're everywhere.