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How The New York Mafia Actually Works | How Crime Works - YouTube
Channel: Insider
[0]
My name is John Pennisi.
[1]
I'm a former made member
of Lucchese crime family.
[4]
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[5]
This is "How Crime Works."
[7]
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[9]
The biggest misconception
about Cosa Nostra
[12]
and the people that are
involved in that life
[14]
are people really believe
that there is honor,
[18]
loyalty, and respect.
[20]
These three principles, which
Cosa Nostra is based on,
[25]
it no longer exists.
[27]
Honor, loyalty, and
respect have been replaced
[31]
by selfishness and greed.
[32]
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[38]
The rules for a member is
the rules of the family
[41]
and the rules of Cosa Nostra.
[44]
And those particular rules are:
[46]
You're not to put your hand
on another made member.
[49]
You're not to go with
another made member's wife,
[54]
or even girl, for that matter.
[56]
You would need to be
fully blooded Italian,
[59]
your mother and your
father need to be Italian,
[62]
your bloodline needs to be all Italian.
[64]
But with every rule, there's an exception,
[68]
and there has been people
[69]
who slipped through the
cracks, so to speak.
[72]
One of the rules is you shouldn't
get involved in lawsuits,
[75]
you should not sue people.
[78]
And I know that there was a rule
[81]
where you're not to get
involved in stocks and bonds.
[84]
I'm not 100% sure if that's
still in effect today.
[88]
Specifically in New York,
[90]
you were not to kill women and children
[93]
or family members in the Mob.
[95]
They were not allowed to
use explosive devices,
[98]
such as bombs, because on the other side,
[102]
in Italy and Sicily,
[104]
they were known to use explosives
[106]
to take out members during a war,
[109]
or just to take a member out.
[111]
They didn't want that kind
of attention in New York.
[113]
So there's an exception to every rule.
[116]
Frankie DeCicco, who was the underboss
[118]
for the Gambino family,
had an explosive device
[121]
put under his car, and he was blown up
[124]
as a result of that.
[126]
The "no drug dealing" rule applies
[128]
to all the Five Families,
but all the Five Families
[131]
have drug-dealing
activities going on in it.
[134]
Every family is going
to have certain members
[136]
that are involved in the drug business
[139]
and kind of turn a blind eye to it
[142]
because it brings in so much money.
[144]
Cosa Nostra members today have no problem
[147]
breaking the rules on a daily basis,
[150]
whereas in Carlo Gambino's era,
[153]
you couldn't break the rules.
[154]
Breaking the rules meant
getting yourself killed.
[157]
So all these rules that were put in place
[159]
for reasons are now being broken.
[162]
So when you have an organization
[165]
that no longer follows its own rules,
[168]
it weakens the organization.
[170]
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[176]
Before they created the Five Families,
[179]
the head of each family
was called a father.
[182]
So that's where they would
get the name godfather.
[185]
And at some point, they broke
it down to five fathers,
[192]
and there was Five Families.
[194]
So the Five Families in New York
[195]
are the Genovese family,
which, in the street,
[199]
they were known as the Westside.
[201]
That's how we refer to them.
[203]
There's the Gambino family.
There's Lucchese family.
[207]
There's the Colombo family
and the Bonanno family.
[209]
And they're like the nucleus
[212]
of Cosa Nostra for the United States.
[214]
So as far as the Five Families
all being in New York,
[218]
they controlled the
entire state of New York.
[221]
It wasn't only New York City.
[222]
And then you have the
creation of the Commission,
[226]
which was the idea,
basically, of Meyer Lansky,
[229]
who looked at it as a board of directors.
[232]
The Commission consisted of the head
[235]
of each of the families,
those Five Families,
[238]
and they would basically make decisions
[241]
on anything that went on between them.
[244]
Territories were divided, obviously,
[246]
by what family represented
which part of New York City.
[251]
It's kind of — they
cut their own turf out.
[254]
But if it overlapped,
that's where a Commission
[258]
would come in and make a ruling.
[260]
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[267]
So when they created the
structure of the Five Families,
[270]
they set it up more like a military.
[274]
From the bottom of that pecking order,
[276]
you have the associates, who
are considered civilians.
[280]
Anybody that's not a
made member of that life
[282]
is considered a civilian.
[284]
Above them are the made
members of the family,
[288]
which are called friends.
[289]
We call them friends in that life.
[291]
Above them are captains.
[293]
As we say, caporegimes.
[295]
They're the head of the crews.
[297]
The family is represented by all the crews
[303]
that are in that family.
[304]
And then above them are the
administration of the family.
[308]
The top of the administration is the boss,
[311]
the underboss, and the consigliere.
[314]
And that's the structure
of the whole family.
[318]
The word Cosa Nostra means "Our Thing."
[320]
And that basically
means that the structure
[324]
of the Mob, or, as people
would call it, Mafia,
[330]
belongs to them, the members of that life.
[333]
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[340]
The Mob picks you.
[341]
That life, Cosa Nostra, picks you.
[343]
You don't pick that life.
[345]
So before someone becomes
an inducted member
[347]
of a family, they become an associate.
[351]
And usually how they become an associate
[353]
is they're associated to someone
[357]
who's already an inducted member.
[358]
In order for an associate to be proposed,
[362]
I think several factors take place.
[365]
One is how good they get along
[368]
with whoever it is that they're with,
[369]
the soldier that they're with, you know,
[371]
that they do what they're told to do.
[375]
They keep their mouth closed.
[376]
Once you're proposed,
a ceremony takes place.
[380]
Who's conducting that
ceremony is going to be
[382]
a member or members of the administration.
[385]
Along with them is going to be, obviously,
[388]
the captain that's going
to propose you that day.
[390]
A pistol and a knife are on
the table during this ceremony,
[395]
and it's mostly there
for symbolic reasons.
[398]
Your trigger finger,
[400]
whether you are a righty
or a lefty, is pricked.
[403]
Your blood is dropped on a
saint, a picture of a saint.
[408]
It just symbolizes that
the oath that you're taking
[412]
the oath that you're about to take,
[414]
you're taking it holding
that saint in your hand.
[418]
And they ultimately
light that saint on fire,
[421]
and you're moving that
saint from hand to hand,
[424]
and you're repeating after
[425]
whoever's conducting the ceremony.
[429]
After which he is explaining
the rules of that life to you.
[435]
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[441]
My position within the Lucchese
family was as a soldier,
[445]
but there was times that
I acted for my captain
[449]
in the capacity of an acting captain,
[451]
specifically for a sit-down.
[453]
The administration would pick
the captains of the family.
[457]
The requirement to be a captain,
[459]
obviously, would be good leadership,
[461]
so they would have to see
something in that person
[463]
to feel that he could lead the crew.
[466]
That captain is
responsible for each member
[469]
of the crew, but he's also responsible
[472]
for all the associates that
are associated to that crew.
[475]
A consigliere position
is that of a counselor.
[480]
So, he is specifically handling
[484]
not only internal what we would call beefs
[488]
or struggles inside of the
family, but external as well.
[493]
The difference between
a boss and an underboss,
[495]
there's not a whole big difference
[497]
with the exception of the title.
[499]
Obviously, the boss is
the head of the family,
[502]
but the underboss holds
just as much weight
[505]
in that family as the boss.
[508]
Overall, a boss's position
is to oversee the family.
[513]
He's really in charge
[514]
of everything that goes on underneath him,
[516]
which goes through the administration,
[519]
all his captains, all the
soldiers in the family,
[523]
all the way down to the associates.
[525]
The way the life is structured,
[526]
the boss is supposed to
abide by the same rules
[530]
that the captains, his administration,
[534]
the soldiers, and everyone
else in that life abide by.
[539]
A boss of a family or family together
[543]
could bring in hundreds of
millions of dollars per year.
[547]
There's many reasons to
fill a boss position.
[550]
One, obviously, would be a
boss is arrested, incarcerated.
[556]
One would be a boss passes away
[559]
through health reasons, and, you know,
[561]
there is a void in the position.
[563]
But then, there's also reasons
[565]
like in the Paul Castellano situation,
[569]
a boss that they felt was being greedy
[572]
and the family turned on the boss.
[575]
There's different scenarios where a boss
[578]
can be taken out, replaced
or ultimately killed
[582]
for that matter.
[583]
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[589]
I think years ago, when
it was first created,
[592]
the Five Families, there
was a lot more corruption
[596]
with having law enforcement on the payroll
[598]
than as it is today.
[600]
I think there's less of that going on,
[602]
but that doesn't mean
that it doesn't go on.
[605]
As far as political influence,
[607]
obviously it would go
through putting money
[610]
in people's pockets for political favors.
[613]
In present times, I don't
think that they have
[616]
the political power that they once had.
[618]
I don't think they're able to corrupt
[621]
the politicians as they were years ago.
[624]
Initially, the Mob took
control of the unions by force.
[629]
They would put people in.
[631]
Those people would corrupt the union,
[633]
take over the unions,
[635]
and that's how they were able to control
[637]
most of the unions,
specifically in New York City.
[640]
But today, they have their
hand in it, you know,
[643]
in little areas,
[645]
but they don't control the
unions like they did in the past.
[648]
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Cosa Nostra came to be in New York
[658]
sometime in the early 1900s.
[660]
This was an organization and structure
[663]
that came from the other side,
[665]
which means Italy, Sicily.
[666]
When the immigrants from those countries
[669]
came here to this country,
[671]
the Italians were almost
like second-class citizens,
[674]
and they were discriminated
against when they came.
[677]
So in the beginning, it
was to fight oppression.
[681]
But naturally,
[682]
that turned into
committing organized crime
[686]
and criminal acts to gain a profit from.
[691]
So when the average citizen
started to take notice
[695]
of Cosa Nostra here,
[698]
I believe that the first reactions
[700]
were fear and intimidation.
[702]
Because they feared and
they were intimidated
[704]
over this group of Italians,
[706]
they were also fearful
to go to law enforcement.
[710]
They were fearful to
talk out against them.
[713]
In turn, Cosa Nostra gained
its power because of this.
[718]
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[724]
So I joined Cosa Nostra
[726]
because I came from a neighborhood,
[728]
both Ozone Park and Howard Beach,
[731]
which was replete with guys in that life.
[734]
And I believe that I looked up to them
[736]
at that time and wanted
to be just like them.
[739]
If you are around people
that are in that life,
[742]
inducted members, at some
point you become an associate.
[748]
And we were associated, my cousin and I,
[751]
to the Gambino family
through John Gotti Jr.
[754]
And the time I'm talking about,
[755]
I was around 14, 15
years old at that time.
[759]
So sometime around 2012,
I became an associate
[763]
and on record with the
Lucchese crime family.
[766]
By 2013, I was an inducted
member in the family.
[771]
I stayed an inducted member
in the family until 2018.
[777]
I ultimately winded up leaving the life
[780]
because the family that I was a member of
[784]
falsely accused me of being an informant
[787]
when it wasn't true.
[788]
They now were laying on me,
[790]
which meant that they sent
people to lay and get my pattern.
[794]
Usually when that is done,
it's either to A, hurt you
[800]
or B, kill you.
[801]
I made my decision that
I would never go back
[804]
to my former friends who turned on me.
[807]
So obviously, my life has
took a dramatic change.
[810]
I'm no longer able to see my
family as much as I like to.
[814]
I'm not able to live as close
to them as I would like to.
[819]
I have to watch every
place I go, you know,
[822]
and be very careful at what I do.
[825]
And my plans have to be mapped out
[828]
of where I'm going and what I'm doing.
[830]
So my life took a big change.
[832]
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[838]
In my opinion, in 20 years from now,
[840]
Cosa Nostra is hardly
going to exist in New York.
[844]
I don't believe that they're
going to be able to survive.
[847]
Cosa Nostra now, compared to years ago,
[851]
has definitely declined.
[854]
And the reason is these sentences
[857]
that are being handed out,
[858]
the government and specifically the FBI
[861]
have unlimited funds.
[863]
They're able to go after them.
[865]
They're able to take out
bosses with the RICO.
[868]
As far as earning money
by committing crimes
[871]
or doing various criminal
acts, it's limited today
[875]
than it was.
[876]
So now, once you limit moneymaking
[879]
and money earning,
you're taking away power
[881]
because money brings power,
[884]
and the organized crime today
is definitely less powerful
[889]
than it was in years past.
[891]
In the past few years,
there's been an increase
[894]
in arrests, and a large number
of arrests, in Cosa Nostra.
[898]
Specific families are targeted,
[901]
and the reason being
[903]
is that it's hard for
members of Cosa Nostra
[907]
to operate without law enforcement,
[910]
specifically the FBI,
knowing what they're doing.
[914]
There are more people that
are informants, cooperators.
[919]
They have people that are
working inside families
[923]
with the FBI, giving the FBI information.
[927]
That's how they're dismantling families.
[929]
Family by family, they dismantle them.
[931]
Members of law enforcement
from the United States
[935]
now work very closely with members
[938]
of law enforcement from people outside
[940]
of the United States,
like Italy and Sicily.
[944]
They jointly create cases together.
[948]
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[954]
I made the decision to create a blog,
[958]
and I started just writing
from my experiences.
[962]
So the first podcast I created
[965]
is also the name of the blog,
[967]
which is called "Sitdown News,"
[968]
and that's all also the
name of the podcast.
[971]
And I just recently
created a second podcast
[975]
called "Unlimited Substance."
[977]
In the next episode,
we'll talk how Cosa Nostra
[980]
makes money in 2022. Stay tuned.
[1025]
which is the laboratory where
they will process the leaves.
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