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This might be the wrong place for this, but I'm really just curious about what cities in America still have an organized crime influence(Beyond street gangs). I thought it would be cool for people who may know more about a certain area to explain what the situation is like there. Personally, I currently like in Columbus, Ohio, and we don't have much history of organized crime. That being said, Cleveland and Youngstown have always been ripe with crime.
Tell us about your city!
Count the number of adult bookstores. Lots of them = organized crime.
And I'm not talking about "Lucky's Drugstore" that has a shelf of paperbacks and some xxx-rated DVDs for sale. I'm talking about the full stores totally dedicated to the xxx stuff with the peep shows in the back.
And, yes, it's there in Columbus (I lived there 17 years before I moved to IA). There is a lot less of it than in the 90s when the economy was better, but there's still illegal gambling and hookers run by the Russian MAFIA.
Here in Fayetteville I don't know that I would call it organized crime...but I mean yeah I guess maybe. There are a bunch of strip clubs/bars, with seedy motels that offer hourly rates right next to them...a bunch of "Asian massage parlors" etc. One of the strip clubs just got busted in a major drug ring. A bunch of employees got arrested. There are prostitutes on the streets every Friday and Saturday night. Like I said idk if I'd call it organized like you're thinking of. But it's annoying.
This might be the wrong place for this, but I'm really just curious about what cities in America still have an organized crime influence(Beyond street gangs). I thought it would be cool for people who may know more about a certain area to explain what the situation is like there. Personally, I currently like in Columbus, Ohio, and we don't have much history of organized crime. That being said, Cleveland and Youngstown have always been ripe with crime.
Tell us about your city!
you live in columbus ohio but never heard of the short north posse or the cut throat committee
There was an article in the local paper about a decade or so ago about Russians buying up barber shops in the Phoenix area. My barber got ticked off because there seemed to be a gentleman's agreement among barber shops that they would be closed on Sundays & Mondays and not advertise via sandwich boards outside the front door. Once the Russians started running some of the barber shops, their shops were open 7 days a week and they advertised haircuts that were $2-$3 less than the going rate.
I started going to a Russian barber shop because Mondays are the easiest day of the week to sneak off for a long lunch for me. Plus saving a few bucks was a good deal as well. One time I was in there it was like a scene out of the Sopranos. Guy pulls into the parking lot in a big Caddy and walks into the shop with his driver. Both were attired in typical gangster clothes, track suits and gold chains. Everyone in the shop got visibly nervous and the manager of the shop had to go outside for quick animated conversation. When he came back in the shop he did not look happy.
We have a long history of the Italian mob in Arizona as well. The Bonnano's and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano spent a bunch of time out here. Was friends with a guy that I found out later his family was related to the Bonnano's. He got arrested and sent to jail for a few years but his mom & sister just acted like it was perfectly normal. Were not embarrassed that Vinnie was "away" for a little bit.
Kansas City had a long history with Italian mafia. Nick Civella was the most prominent leader. You see it referenced briefly in the movie Casino. In real life, Civella's brother Carl was the one caught on tape talking about skimming the profits from the Stardust and Tropicana casinos in Las Vegas. It pretty much went downhill for them after that. Many of those guys are long dead, and their families still have a few businesses, but not nearly the same kind of power.
The Italian families also had an unlikely alliance with the Irish political machine (Tom Pendergast) for a few decades, pre-WWII.
Kansas City's former Little Italy is a mostly Vietnamese neighborhood today.
This might be the wrong place for this, but I'm really just curious about what cities in America still have an organized crime influence(Beyond street gangs). I thought it would be cool for people who may know more about a certain area to explain what the situation is like there. Personally, I currently like in Columbus, Ohio, and we don't have much history of organized crime. That being said, Cleveland and Youngstown have always been ripe with crime.
Tell us about your city!
Washington DC: K Street / Pentagon
New York: Wall Street Banksters
Most big cities former 'organized crime syndicates' are remnants and disorganized as the main Lines of Business have mostly been co-opted at the higher levels by select members of the Military industrial complex. Think about it for a moment, we've had US troops in Afghanistan for 12 years. There's never been a declared end to the "Drug War", yet opium production went up form 158 tons to 5800 tons between 2001 and 2011 and is at all time highs (no pun intended) and we have raging heroin epidemic throughout the good ol' USA. They got to pay for those black ops somehow don't they?
Certain low barrier to entry lines of business different ethnic groups set up shop for a while but they usually are short life cycle.
If Cleveland's organized crime history is of interest you'll enjoy this site
My one anecdote is from my deceased father who grew up on near east side of Cleveland in 20s'-30s. He'd relate how the local newspaper boys would get beat up or 'shake'd down by Jackie Presser for their money. Presser went on to become part of the "Union" crime branch.
While the later history of the New York Mafia has received extensive attention, what has been conspicuously absent until now is an accurate and conversant review of the formative years of Mafia organizational growth. David Critchley examines the Mafia recruitment process, relations with Mafias in Sicily, the role of non-Sicilians in New York’s organized crime Families, kinship connections, the Black Hand, the impact of Prohibition, and allegations that a "new" Mafia was created in 1931. This book will interest historians, criminologists, and anyone fascinated by the American Mafia.
it is rampant in AZ, there is the Federal organized crime ring, the state organized crime ring, the county organized crime ring and the city organized crime rings. All take from the people in the name of improving life, but in reality, they cause more issues than they fix.
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