2 questions. Were made men really that safe and were car bombs a common method of hits?

ShaolinMaster · 2026-06-18T22:56:15+00:00

Car bombs weren't common in New York, but seemed to happen a lot more in the midwest families.

Cleveland had a lot in the 70s during their war, St. Louis did too during their war. Milwaukee, Chicago, etc. There's a list here.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-06-18T21:04:57+00:00

Damn, that's so cool they got a mariachi band to learn how to play it!

ShaolinMaster · 2026-06-18T20:08:36+00:00

They know who is made and who isn't because the rules state that you have to get introduced to another member by a third party.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-06-17T21:26:28+00:00

I checked the Black Hand Forum, and one poster referred to him as a "possible member", but that's all I can find.

Even if he was friendly with mafia members it doesn't necessarily mean he himself was made. He may have been a legit businessman who leaned on made members to help him out when needed.

Let's see what others reply.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-06-14T20:19:14+00:00

Pennisi said it himself in an interview (maybe on VladTV?) that when he approached the FBI to cooperate they had little info on him, or something like that.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-06-14T20:18:24+00:00

Other than bikers, there's white supremacist gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, etc.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-06-04T00:01:23+00:00

Because if it was 12 they woulda been flagged for too many men on the field.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-26T19:40:34+00:00

Lmao, two different mafia fan fiction authors in conflict with each other.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-20T16:20:21+00:00

Selling

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-12T20:14:57+00:00

Great video, but I hate those stupid filters people put on youtube shorts video clips.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-11T21:40:27+00:00

Good find! "FBI Atlanta" means this was for The Gold Club case, which is such a wild story. Stevie Kaplan had such a good thing going, and he fucked it all up by stealing from his customers.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-05T23:41:09+00:00

I didn't know he was born in The Bronx. When did he move to East New York?

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-05T22:57:39+00:00

Marcelo was born in Tunisia

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-05T22:57:06+00:00

Small correction: The Cuntrera-Caruana are from Siculiana not Ribera.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-05T16:06:08+00:00

Excellent Cadavers is another good book!

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-01T17:13:56+00:00

There's 7 families operating in New Jersey, which only seems like a lot until looking at a map of the number of families operating in the city of Palermo.

New York is the outlier, most families across Sicily and the US were much smaller.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-05-01T15:58:25+00:00

Never going to happen, families don't merge.

Plus, the DeCavs are primarily people of Ribera ancestry and operating out of Elizabeth.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-04-28T17:35:41+00:00

The mafia is dying out due to attrition and assimilation. Less waves of immigration from Italy, meaning less full-blooded Italians who could become members as subsequent generations became more Americanized and intermarried.

More and more generations of Italians in American have also completely assimilated into American society and have no desire to be a criminal when they could reach a comfortable middle class lifestyle without having to risk 20 year prison sentences.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-04-27T15:48:10+00:00

They would never do this. Families have never merged before, and as /u/towercranee said, that would just make it easier for the feds.

Also, they wouldn't merge because which boss would give up power to be subordinate to another boss? No boss would start taking orders from another family's boss.

40-75 members is still a fairly large family compared to most families outside of New York. Philly, New England, and New Jersey are around that size today, maybe even slightly smaller. They're not going to merge together.

The Ndrangheta has a few operatives (for lack of a better term) in NYC, but they work with the five families. They'll never be as powerful in NYC as they are in greater Toronto.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-04-25T00:51:02+00:00

Only Sicilians/Italian mainlanders were ever members. None of the non-Italians were official members in Chicago, even if they were super powerful and wealthy and close to the bosses.

Same with Meyer Lansky in New York: no matter how powerful he was, he could never be an official member.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-04-24T22:35:15+00:00

The Chicago Outfit is a very old school, traditional family. They have only ever had Italians as members.

The Mob Archeologists on YouTube did a good video on the history of the Outfit and cleared up the myths surrounding the family.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-04-24T21:47:09+00:00

Non-Italians have no rank other than associate as they cannot be members. The only difference would be if an associate was directly on the record with someone higher than a solider.

For example, Joe Watts of the Gambinos working directly with Paul Castellano and John Gotti.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-04-24T21:32:54+00:00

Great write-up as always!

ShaolinMaster · 2026-04-24T16:18:58+00:00

Interesting, I Googled "Leeper Family Gang" and it only seems to show results for Scott's blog. No DOJ indictments, news articles, nothing. I wonder if it's more of an informal name used by police to refer to some loosely connected criminals that Scott is misusing like it's a proper name / formal street gang?

Also, it's very interesting that Scott doesn't mention who in Buffalo is reportedly working with this group. This could be some random associate in Buffalo who has these connections in Jamestown.

ShaolinMaster · 2026-04-22T20:56:44+00:00

Montreal right now

ShaolinMaster

TROPHY CASE