US Attorney Says: Five Families "Still There"
“The mob is still there,” Bharara said. “The Five Families are still there, they’re still extorting business, they’re still using baseball bats.”
Interestingly, he acknowledges this while fully aware of the fact that the Feds have cut their manpower and resources to combating OC in New York.
As we reported in Why New York's Five Families Have Regained Power, the New York Mafia in fact "has quietly staged a comeback and is now more powerful than it has been in years," said Richard Frankel, special agent in charge of the Criminal Division for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office.
As we reported in Why New York's Five Families Have Regained Power, the New York Mafia in fact "has quietly staged a comeback and is now more powerful than it has been in years," said Richard Frankel, special agent in charge of the Criminal Division for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office.
The fact is, the American Cosa Nostra was organized specifically to perpetuate itself. No matter how many single individuals are knocked out of the box by death or prison, the structured institution itself, currently pegged at about 8,000-strong (including inducted members and associates), continues. And learns.
The key factor now is anti-terrorism, which is benefiting the Mafia in New York the same way Communism helped buffer it for the greater part of the 20th century. While the FBI sacrifices resources on one menace to chase another one, the mob gets back to work.
It's the same story in Italy; while the cops kept the focus on the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Ndrangheta turned itself into a $72 billion a year criminal empire stretching across the globe that kills anyone and digs bunkers in the street in broad daylight.
As for the rest of the Vanity Fair interview:
Bharara also responded to rumors he’s being considered as the replacement for attorney general Eric Holder. Bharara, who earned his “Sheriff of Wall Street” nickname after prosecuting bankers, joked that he wishes his mother would stop “planting questions in the audience.”
“No, she’s very proud of me, and I’ve asked her to stop, but that’s all I’m going to say about that,” he said with a smile.
The answer was a response to a graduate student attendee of Vanity Fair’s inaugural New Establishment Summit, where Bharara was in conversation with Vanity Fair contributing editor Bryan Burrough.
Bharara also spoke candidly on the lack of innovation in government. “Up until a few months ago, we were using a program called WordPerfect,” Bharara said of the Justice Department.
“We’re also some of the only people you see who still use these things,” the attorney added, holding up a BlackBerry phone. Bharara noted that “even the Catholic Church” understands that using new avenues of messaging—like social media—are important in reaching younger audiences.
Aside from his views on the mafia, innovation, and potential job changes, Bharara remains best known for being an aggressive prosecutor of insider traders and other white-collar criminals.
“You have places where people are trying to be as cute as possible . . . and it happens all the time,” Bharara said. “If you have a culture of getting as close to the line as possible, where what you aspire to is getting the bare minimum that the law encounters, you’re going to get in trouble.”
Burrough asked Bharara whether Wall Street attracts an unusually high number of individuals prone to trying to skirt laws. “It’s a dangerous business to get inside people’s heads and figure out why they’re committing crimes,” Bharara said, before acknowledging that finance may lend itself to a particular criminal streak. “Intuitively, if you have a billion dollars, maybe you should stop committing fraud.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he continued. “These people who have gone to the best schools, have the best houses, and have more money that you can spend in a lifetime, and they’re putting everything on the line to make a few million more dollars.”