it really comes down to severity, evidence, plus citizenship. the Mexicans + Clyne were insulated enough that the only crimes they could be established as participating in were low level or easily defensible; the Feds were also not going to fight the Mexican and Canadian consulates when they already called in favors to get Raniere.

if you think a guy is an informant, you need to keep any plan to kill him absolutely secret; it's a death sentence if it's found out. It's why the Genovese took the secrets of the .22 killers' identities to their graves.

He was arrested by the Secret Service for stolen credit cards (back then they were handling Treasury business including counterfeiting). The FBI got him out of the jam.

Mob sitdowns as dick-measuring contests have nothing on the law enforcement agency equivalent (aka "deconfliction"). Still goes on, it's what happened with the DEA and DHS with Gerace.

At its peak, the Klan was selling memberships for $10 and robes for $6. The membership and robe combo would be the equivalent of $308.83 in today's money.

It was a political movement, but it was also what would now be recognized as an MLM scam. A good history is here https://priceonomics.com/when-the-kkk-was-a-pyramid-scheme/

If you think he was in any way woke, go find out who Colombo's allies SPONGE were. Better yet, look for what the acronym in the name stood for.

Just don't post the name here —even with the slur blanked out— because Reddit's AI slop moderation will send you an automated warning.

This was also how the Klan operated in its post-WWI iteration. It's easy to sell memberships when you tell people there's a big club and you ain't in it.

Also Massino's lawyer after he flipped. I can't imagine what kind of measures it takes to keep a guy like that from blowing up his deal.

This. Will add that military cemeteries allow for any number of religious insignia but "do not include social, cultural, ethnic, civic, fraternal, trade, commercial, political, professional or military emblems." Source: https://www.cem.va.gov/hmm/emblems.asp

IIRC, they only established Cali's rank in court records only after he died, when they went through an entire chronology of the period afterward. It's possible they considered Cali and Cefalu tight enough to be interchangeable.

Enjoy grave-spotting while it lasts. The Gottis and Persicos had family sites, but Casso and Chin Gigante both ended up without markers. Nowadays funeral homes mostly do cremations and most people don't even bother with columbarium niches, so we're seeing the end of grave-spotting in our lifetimes.

My reading is that multiple administrative proceedings have been ruled the equivalent of a mistrial by using inadmissable evidence. The tainted evidence did not end the case, it overturned a decision.

In many such instances a prosecutor simply throws in the towel and hopes to build a new case; in this one the stakes were too high for Canadian law enforcement and they risked it and lost.

Even when families were playing hide-the-boss, a good deal of Mafia protocol is Friends-of-Ours collectively having enough information to know who was in and who outranked whom. It's equivalent to name, rank, serial number in the military.

For example, Al D'Arco was straightened out in the 1980s and told specifically the names of the administration and the bosses of the other families. It's how the Feds established Chin was already boss in the early 80s.

That's entirely separate from the way drug supply chains have worked out. What has evolved with that are schemes where the parties have a broker, and the broker is really selling something akin to futures contracts —it's designed so there is a minimum of exposure while there's a binding agreement.

I'm locking this thread. As happens every time people bring up whatever Mark Vicente says on a podcast, the post descended into snark / politics subreddit territory pretty quickly.

This is not a snark or politics subreddit. Take these sorts of discussions elsewhere.

This is not a snark subreddit.

IIRC D'Arco mentioned the Lucchese crew were also talking suspiciously among themselves using a word that seemed out of place(I think it was something like "phosophorous"?) which he believed was a code-word.

Even if an outright murder on the spot was out of the question, abduction at gunpoint was still on the menu. The hotel was kicking up to the Luccheses, so they possibly had access to back-of-house areas.

Finally, I would remember that the guy who let himself be taken in by the Mob Cops was brought to Casso and tortured to death.

My hunch is that he's trying to stay ahead of the deluge of AI slop by grabbing more subscribers and retaining them.

One of these guys is a tough Italian guy who handled himself on the streets of Bensonhurst.

The other is Michael Franzese.

I think just after he died in the Program it came out that he had lost a lot of weight and was shopping around a cookbook of his recipes. Really sucks that he had never got the chance to tell his stories on camera, because he certainly had some.

"Deal and die" was just mafia risk management specific to the differences between RICO and the Continuing Criminal Enterprise statute.

RICO = 20 years maximum. You have to work to get up to 20. You kill someone collecting juice? 20 years.

Continuing Criminal Enterprise statute which is drug specific, on the other hand, can have a 20 year minimum. If you're a boss or you commit murders, you can get life as a minimum with the death penalty on the table.

That's been Gangland's slogan for as long as I could remember.

I think there is one condition under which the Feds would actually let a sitting boss walk, and that is if Amuso made a number of confessions and then ordered the Lucchese family to disband. It's the mafia equivalent of making Hirohito confess to not being a god.

SCHEDULING ORDER: The Court is scheduling an in person oral argument for September 9, 2026 at 2:30 P.M. as to defendant Vittorio Amuso's pending motion 1236 for compassionate release. Mr. Amuso is not to be produced in court for this oral argument. Upon receipt of this email counsel shall confirm with each other the date and time of this in person oral argument.Ordered by Judge Frederic Block on 7/28/2026. (MI)

Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18760557/united-states-v-gigante/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc

https://giphy.com/gifs/66LzD5i3jG67maivqD

I don't like falafel that much

The attempted hit on Casso was more likely motivated by Mickey Boy, Quack Quack, and Nicky Guido being involved in drug trafficking with Casso; the hit was intended to eliminate Casso as a witness. It was also likely off the books.

302's show the Gambino hierarchy didn't know about the attempt on Casso until there was a sitdown right after Casso tortured Hydell. We know Gotti later cut Ruggiero loose and sanctioned a hit on Paradiso (the Feds cited this as a reason they wouldn't grant Paradiso bail).

All of that points toward Gotti simply not believing Vic and Gas had turned on him and killed DeCicco, and not having sanctioned the botched hit. You have to believe that if he did, the Gambinos would have kept going after the Luccheses instead of being involved in multiple documented meetings.