It has proven to be a fairy tale: a slew of other Mafiastyle ethnic gangs and organizations primed to succeed the Mafia as the new bosses of organized crime in America. The fairy tale falls apart for two reasons:
- The Mafia is far from dead and
- except in isolated sections where law enforcement agencies have a particularly vexing problem with certain limited crime activity, most investigative forces tend to shrug off the idea of so-called new Mafias.
In 2003 the The New York Times, some might say belatedly, came to the conclusion that the old Mafia persists while at the same time “other bands of ethnic criminals come and go.”
Many examples of the decline and fall of “other Mafias” are offered in the preface, highlighting the rise and decline of so many of these supposedly “comer” crime families. Suffice it to note here merely a couple: the Cuban Mafia, as offered by Hollywood in the resurrected version of Scarface pointing implicitly to the seeds of that element’s destruction; or to the Russian Mafia, a.k.a. the Russian-Jewish Mafia, which has forever “got no respect” by law enforcement, contrary to the hype these groups of thugs have enjoyed especially in the eastern media.
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For more than a decade and a half the Russian Mafia has been disdained by the Justice Department as less than organized crime, never rising among the activities of thugs, blackmailers, extortionists, and murderers. True, their activities might be said to have it all for the required brutality, but these groups have found it wise to render to the American Mafia what is theirs and be satisfied with the scraps of illegality. To their credit they have indeed found some rewarding activities that invite competition from their own ilk and finally one side will appeal to the mob for aid in solving the conflict.
The boys readily agree and call for a peace meeting of the competing forces. The solution is offered with brutal swiftness and one side is summarily executed on the spot. The “victors” quickly see the wisdom of agreeing with the mob that they are entitled to say 25 percent of the action thereafter, with no further mafiosi convincing required. Such sects of the Russian Mafia continue to operate with mob approval until such time when the mob finds a better, more rewarding approach for itself.
Thus it is hardly surprising that law enforcement agencies have done little to deal with the Russian Mafias, or others, and indeed while some “other Mafias” are accorded much attention by the media many such groupings are found to have their investigative files limited to little more than news clippings about them from the trusty Times.
The main failing of all other Mafias is their inability to impose themselves on the body economy or body politic in general. The Mafia, even in a weakened state, still can gain trust of important elements in the business world and corruption-prone forces of law enforcement or the political world. Hispanic forces or Asian elements can operate in their own community with ease but cannot readily move beyond that.
It is hard for Asian forces, for example, to win great trust with authorities. Simply put, the forces of corruption can trust the Mafia but no other criminal groupings. The Mafia, despite any claims by enthusiastic prosecutors, have successfully insinuated its members in the public’s awareness and won support where it really counts whenever “the heat” lessens ever so slightly. Bluntly but not inaccurately put, the American Mafia continues to survive because of the residues of its power and the fact that it has become, like the fictional TV family, the Sopranos, as American as apple pie.
