No one knows whether the top Italian hoodlums like Capone, Luciano and Costello took over the Mafia, or whether the Mafia took them over. That is an academic conjecture, as they are now one and the same thing, with the worldwide facilities of the Unione Siciliano the nucleus on which all organized vice, crime and corruption, not only in the United States but all over the world, has been built.
In Chicago Confidential, we stated in passing that since the exile of Luciano in Italy the American “president” or executive head of the Unione Siciliano is Frank Costello, and the vice-president is Capone’s cousin, Charles Fischetti, in Chicago.
The worldwide Mafia is composed of a supreme head in Palermo, Sicily, a Grand Council consisting of high-ranking executives, subordinate officers, and a global membership.
Luciano, following his deportation in 1947, has been installed as the Supreme Head of the International Mafia. Members are divided into two distinct groups, inner circle and outer circle. The latter includes members of ordinary rank and standards. The former consists of those who command wealth, influence or proven underworld power. Membership in this group is kept at a minimum, since it derives a major portion of all proceeds from its general diverse illegal enterprises.
Members of the elite few are almost invariably, through ancestry or direct birth, from Palermo and its adjoining areas. A very few non-Italians have been taken into the ruling circle. According to the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, American members of the Mafia are necessarily members of the over-all group, which therefore has continued to include former American gangsters who left the U.S. by deportation or voluntary flight. Prominently mentioned among these are John Schillochi (International List 298); Dominic Petrelli (International List 259); and Nicola Gentile (International List 133), all of whom were in Italy when last heard of, though informants tell us they have since been seen around New York again.
Other important members of the Mafia, such as Francisco Paolo Coppola and Sylvestro Carrolla, found their way to Mexico, where they took over the local Mafia. Other lesser figures represent the fearsome fraternity in Canada, Argentina, Brazil, France, and England.
The Bureau of Narcotics has compiled what is believed to be the only master list of the inner circle of the Mafia. It is based on documentary evidence in the form of address books, papers, interstate telephone calls, police records, screened informants, etc. During the recent Kefauver Committee hearings, Commissioner Anslinger supplied the document under oath to the committee. Extracts from this list are printed in the back of the book.
Even before the Mafia had organized the entire American underworld, it had strong communication lines into Washington. These were first built up during Prohibition, when the boys passed money back to the capital for their own protection. They also made liberal contributions to the campaign funds of dry Congressmen, without whose votes, for whatever cause, the racket was worthless. During the insane days of Prohibition, the underworld began the process of undermining the honesty and probity of federal officials, which has since been carried to an extreme.
Until the 18th Amendment, law-breakers feared Uncle Whiskers. There were few federal criminal laws. Most criminals didn’t want to tangle with Washington. Only nuts got themselves mixed up with the postal inspectors or the Secret Service. After the wholesale bribery and corruption of the 1920s, all respect for national law enforcement had gone into the ashcan.
Now, due largely to the example of the F.B.I., the Bureau of Narcotics and the Treasury Intelligence, the public’s faith in federal law-enforcement and investigative agencies has been revived, but the prosecuting and judicial ends have never come back. Most felons would rather be arrested by federal than state or city cops, because they know they can make a better deal with the prosecutors, and if everything fails, federal sentences are light and the prisons are soft.