Today's Mafia

There are about 3,000 Mafia members and affiliates in the U.S., the FBI estimates. In [Gambino family head Paul] Castellano's day there were double that number in the New York City area alone, yet the same five families--Gambino, Bonanno, Columbo, Genovese, and Luchese--have survived since Charles "Lucky" Luciano founded the Commission, the Mafia's governing body, in the early 1930s. Luciano helped establish the family structure, with dons and their captains managing associates who had yet to become "made men." There were 26 families during the mob's heyday in the 1950s, stretching from Boston, Providence, Buffalo, and Philadelphia through Al Capone's Chicago outfit to Hollywood and "Bugsy" Siegel's new frontier in Las Vegas. Today, the mob is concentrated around New York.

Staff, This Week, April 21, 2019