Think America has a problem with Mexican drug cartels, Chinese fentanyl, random street violence, computer hacking, and scam artists fleecing the feds for billions? Think again. The NYTimes recently did half a page on “Nine Charged in Scheme Tied to Mafia Gambling And Money Laundering.”
You gotta hand it to the new “mafia”. They can still make money the old fashion way. Imagine, now that there are gambling apps and state governments encouraging anyone with a pulse to lose their shirts gambling online, the Five Families are still able to put together an illicit poker game. And they make it obvious, running the gigs at places like the Gran Caffe` and Sal’s Shoe Repair on Long Island and La Nazionale Soccer Club in Queens. Will Three-card Monte make a comeback?
It’s reassuring that the FBI still has agents assigned to “Mafia” duty after all these years, especially when raiding the homes of “semi-Fascist” Republicans siphons away 30 agents at a time. U.S. Attorney Breon Peace says the arrests “demonstrate that the Mafia continues to pollute our communities…” Clearly, the goombahs should open marijuana shops instead. When appointed to his job last March, Peace pledged “to pursue ‘systemic change’ while drawing on his experience as a Black man who grew up in Brooklyn” [Reuters]. None of that “change” will affect the usual government magnifying of Italian American crime.
I am not defending or excusing the gamblers but this story deserved about as much publicity as the Hunter Biden laptop has been given by the FBI – they’ve had that bombshell since 2019 and are still “investigating.”
Like 99% of Italian Americans I’m ashamed of these goombahs. But their arrest story didn’t mention drugs, human trafficking, murder, rape, or fleecing taxpayers. Nor were the perps released without bail like many minority criminals are these days. Busts like these are a rite of passage for FBI agents and DAs – guaranteed to attract media notice and DC bosses while riding the Goodfellas/Godfather perpetual motion wave. Yes, every day in every way the news media strives to bring to life the cinematic “Mafia”.
It wasn’t always that way. The TCM cable station recently featured the 1955 crime drama The Naked Street with Ann Bancroft (nee` Anna Italiano) and Anthony Quinn. Eddie Muller of TCM introduced the film by saying Italian American criminals were the big story in the 1950s but the non-Italic filmmakers took pains not to make any of the characters Italian. The gangster’s surname was Royalzyk and his doting overweight mother an immigrant, apparently Hungarian – she made goulash every Sunday, not sauce. Hollywood studios didn’t master the “mafia” genre until Puzo and Coppola showed them how in 1972. Now, of course, the industry is on autopilot.
How many wonderful ethnic crime stories have gone missing because Hollywood dares not trifle with non-Italic stereotypes? I read the other day that the victims of the Madoff Scheme (aka Ponzi Scheme) have recouped 88% of their money. The scam of the century – in billions of dollars – only inspired a couple of cheap TV movies that portrayed just one Jewish bad guy (Madoff) and a couple of back office Italian American accomplices: CFO Frank DiPascali and personal secretary Annette Bongiorno. (Bongiorno got DiPascali his job with Madoff in 1975 – unfortunate networking!)
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan has been clawing back money for Madoff’s mostly Jewish investors since 2008. So far they have recouped $4 billion (while U.S. Attorney Peace in Brooklyn has been raiding Sal’s Shoe Repair for goombah card sharps.) This is separate from bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard who has clawed back $14.5 billion. Total $18.5 billion recovered!
The news is full of other massive fleecings of Medicare, Medicaid, Covid Relief, the Payroll Protection Program (part of Covid remediation) by identifiable ethnic groups throughout the country and over the decades. No racial or ethnic group has been absent from these criminal acts. Anything the “mafia” or Five Families has done pales in comparison to these other groups. Even Al Capone and John Gotti were making chump change compared to the sophisticated hauls being made these days by hackers and Nigerian scammers over the internet. A 2017 report estimated that Americans lost almost $58 million to the “Nigerian 419” scam that year – a Nigerian “prince” sends an email asking help in retrieving his fortune from a bank, yadda yadda. Any movies about Nigerian crooks? Another protected minority.
My advice to the “mafia” goombahs these days: learn to use a computer. -JLM
The only big gaffe in the story is the media’s continuing use of the word “mafia.” This term is supposed to specifically refer to a criminal terrorist gang in Palermo, Sicily, yet it’s now used to tarnish ANYONE with an Italian surname, no matter on which continent they live.
It’s also obvious that this Hollywood/Media Axis (which now includes law enforcement) is used to deflect any attention or embarrassment caused by criminals of other racial, ethnic, or religious minorities. Greaseball gamblers are almost tame compared to the truly violent criminals who inflict mayhem in our society on a daily basis, directly or indirectly. The media reports it, but very gingerly. References to race/ethnicity are elided.
Unless, of course, when Frankie Fat Pants or Louie Linguini get busted in a card game.
It is a disease and has spread over the decades and no cure has been found. Truth, compassion, common sense, facts don’t work either. We can’t give up, let us hope for a cure soon. We have suffered enough from that image!
Those Italians will probably receive very harsh sentences.
Look at what happened to Italian-American Richard Delisi. He received the longest sentence ever for a non-violent conviction (90 years for selling marijuana). Delisi stated that “he was targeted with the lengthy sentence because the judge mistakenly thought he was part of organized crime because he was an Italian from New York”.
Also, look at the cases of Chico Forti and Carlo Parlanti, two Italians convicted in Florida and California for murder and rape. Both of them claimed that nasty stereotypes were brought up during the proceedings.