Sicilian Mafia Moving in on America's Cosa Nostra?

Nature abhors a vacuum. So does organized crime.

Scholars will tell you, correctly, that the U.S. Mafia was always independent of its Sicilian/Southern Italian counterpart, although the U.S. version did borrow some of the old country's trappings, such as the concept of "omerta," which basically means, don't talk, ever.

But like rats fleeing a sinking ship (where do these rats go, by the way? I mean, a sinking ship is out at sea, isn't it?), made guys, including management, and associates have "flipped" and continue to "flip" on anyone and everyone. It is safe to say the U.S. mob has been decimated.





It was only 60 years ago that the mob was almost like a shadow government, with friends everywhere. In 1950, Tommy "Three-fingers Brown" Lucchese engineered the election of the mayor of New York (albeit one of the crummiest mayors this city ever had, "Impy" Impellitteri). The five huge New York borgatas were part of a gigantic network that spread its tentacles up to New England, west to Los Angeles and south to Florida.

Where are they now? Even in New York, the five families have shrunk so much that the Feds cut their five Mafia squads to three. It seems like the moment a boss is named, he is indicted, with a line of rats waiting to testify. The Feds have it down to a science, and even if Mafiosi don't get a life sentence they end up serving life on the installment plan.

I have never been a conspiracy buff, but I am wondering if the Sicilian Mafia, seeing weakness in their American brethren, have started to inflitrate the U.S. Mafia -- to eventually take it over?

Here's a fact, reported today in the Daily News: "Italian police were part of the historic roundup of more than 100 mobsters in the U.S. in January 2011 and the takedown of 62 members and associates of the Gambino crime family in 2008."

Furthermore "The Feds and Italian law enforcement officials convened a summit in Rome and Palermo last week targeting Mafia families on both sides of the Atlantic, the Daily News has learned.

"A U.S. contingent — led by Janice Fedarcyk, the FBI’s assistant director who heads the New York office, and Belle Chen, the head of the office’s organized crime section — held five days of meetings with their counterparts in Italy.

"Four agents and three federal prosecutors from the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office also participated.

"'Authorities from both countries are mindful that there are business relations between members of organized crime groups in Italy and New York City,' said FBI spokesman James Margolin.

"There were discussions about ongoing investigations and 'operational' matters at the high-level sitdowns, two other sources told The News."

The article adds that Sicilian-born gangster Domenico "Dom from 18th Ave" Cefalu is the current boss of the Gambino family. Two Gambino capos, Bartolomeo "Baboots" Vernace and Frank Cali also have "roots" in Sicily. Cali is related by marriage to members of the Inzerillo crime family in Palermo.

All five New York crime families have ties to the old country, "but the Gambinos currently have the strongest."

This is just a theory, but time was, Sicilians were called "zips," and were originally brought over here to start dealing narcotics and doing certain hits so the New York families could keep their hands' clean. We all know how that worked out. It seems the Sicilians and American Mafias are in the process of blending, but whose to say the Sicilians won't one day take over the whole thing from their weaker cousins. Sicilians kill police and judges, prefer bombs and don't lose sleep over the death of women and children. And they don't talk.

Then there will be an American Mafia, but not our American Mafia.