The Everything Mafia Book (36 page)

Sports gambling is a multibillion-dollar a year business. Despite ever-increasing avenues for legal betting, the Mafia and its network of bookies still see more action that they can handle. In 2007 New Jersey authorities busted a mob-backed gambling ring that they estimate took in more than $1 billion. That’s a lot of point spreads and over/unders. But be careful if you bet with a bookie. Low-level bookies, even Mafia-affiliated ones, have been known to welsh on winning bets. And it’s not like you can go to the police and complain!

The Mafia has long been associated with funny business at horse tracks. The races have been known as places where big-time gamblers place loads of bets on a contest that can easily be fixed. But even with the seedy underbelly past, the races are still popular. Back in the day, mobsters like Meyer Lansky owned not only horses but had money invested in the tracks themselves. Saratoga Springs, Hallandale, and Aqueduct were some of the racetracks owned at least partially by the Mafia. The gangsters fixed races, beat up jockeys who didn’t go along with their plans, and made sure that the horses they wanted to win came in first. In short, it was just as crooked as any other Mafia racket.

Paying the Sharks

When you are a compulsive gambler, it’s not easy to go to the bank for a loan. If you are a business owner with no history of credit and you need a quick influx of cash, who do you call? In both cases your local neighborhood loan shark is more than willing to help out. For a higher-than-usual interest rate, they’ll lend you money without any question. Watch out if you are late paying it back.

The Vig

The “vig” or “vigorish” is the interest or amount paid to get a loan. The vig can range from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands. By keeping money on the street at all times, the loan shark is maximizing his profit base. “Points” above the vig are usually increments of interest due each week. Since the interest compounds rather quickly, it doesn’t take too long for the initial loan amount to balloon way out of proportion. This is when a little talking to or a leg breaking might be needed to keep the loan recipient in line and make sure he’ll pay.

Bars are very popular businesses for mobsters to own. In addition to serving as a ready-made hangout, most of the bar’s business is done in cash, making it an attractive business to launder money through. Also the bar clientele often buy ancillary products like drugs and prostitutes.

Your New Partner

If a debtor can’t pay back the loan to the loan shark, this is one way in which the Mafia butts into legitimate businesses. Instead of taking payment of the loan, the Mafia takes a piece of the debtor’s business. More often than not the Mafia would bleed the business dry, laundering money through it or using it as a de facto headquarters. Many a criminal act was planned in a “busted out” business.

Shakedown

In the Mafia’s infancy, the modus operandi was to shake down local merchants for “protection.” This code word simply meant that if the shopkeeper refused to pay the mobster, the mobster would have the shop trashed . . . or worse. The early Mustache Pete’s preyed solely on their own fellow immigrants, rarely venturing outside the area to shakedown other groups. But as their influence expanded the extortion racket was brought to other neighborhoods.

The Mafia makes a lot of its money from imposing a “street tax” on independent criminals operating in its territory. Drug dealers have long been a favorite target. Why deal the drugs yourself when you can simply shakedown a dealer? It’s less work and less risk. The street tax is usually applied to bookmakers, pimps, con men, and thieves, but can also include other criminals, as well as up and coming mob associates.

The term that the Mafia used to get money from local neighborhood merchants was “a little to wet my beak.” That was enough to let the shopkeepers know that if they didn’t kick up some of their hard-earned money, then retribution would be harsh.

Moving in Respectable Circles

In order to keep the flow of illegal money away from the prying eyes of the law, many mobsters own businesses to wash their cash through. While some own bars and lounges, others own restaurants and coin laundries— all cash businesses. But an increasing number of underworld figures are getting into legitimate businesses, blurring the lines between their illicit take and their business acumen. In fact, some alleged mobsters are far more successful in their legitimate endeavors than their street rackets. Car dealerships, manufacturing plants, car title loan companies, and construction companies are just a few of the myriad legitimate businesses currently owned by reputed Mafiosi.

High-Tech Rackets

While the Mafia still relies on the tried and true bookmaking and loanshark-ing rackets, they have been able to capitalize on other ventures, some even high-tech. Not too shabby for a street-level tough with barely a high school education! In recent years the Mafia has been involved in sophisticated stock scams, money laundering operations, prepaid cell phone distribution, computer crimes, and insurance scams.

The Mafia’s pump and dump scams on Wall Street were big moneymakers, but the mob also ran sophisticated stock scams out of Boca Raton, Florida. The community became so notorious for its stock rackets that it became a target for organized crime groups from around the world.

In June of 2000, the Justice Department announced the indictment of 120 people, many tied to the five families of New York. It was one of the largest busts of its kind, and it showed that some members of the Mafia were equally at home on Wall Street as they were in Brooklyn. Throughout the 1990s, gangsters were setting up fake brokerage houses and marketing worthless stocks to unwitting investors. The wise guys bribed brokers, threatened security personnel, and stole millions. It was money for the taking. And even though the busts brought their operations to a screeching halt, the gangsters only went away for a couple years.

CHAPTER 18
Fuhgeddaboudit!

The Mafia has its own unique “slanguage.” Some words might be easy to catch on to, like using “whack” to mean killing someone. There’s a whole host of terms that the mobsters use to talk about their illegal activities that won’t appear in any dictionary. In many cases, however, these words and phrases have become part of the vernacular, especially in parts of the country where gangsters are or have been prevalent. And there is, of course, the influence of pop culture and its image of the all-American mobster, an image that some real gangsters have adopted for themselves!

What Are Youse Lookin At?

Why would a close-knit and insular organization also develop a language all its own, full of unique and colorful turns of phrase to describe brutal and barbaric actions? There are several reasons. Since what they do for a living is almost always illegal, the Mafia began to employ code words to describe many of their activities. This was designed to fool law enforcement officers that may be listening either within earshot or using sophisticated listening devices.

Warm and Fuzzy Hoodlums?

Perhaps members of the Mafia sometimes feel guilt or pangs of conscience about their unsavory lifestyle. They are known to be the masters of rationalizations and have the ability to put “spins” on their doings and dealings that rival any elected official. Maybe the clever language can psychologically blunt the harsh reality of their misdeeds.

The Italian and Italian-American Mafia are not the only organized crime outfits that have a vernacular all their own. Ethnic gangs from the Chinese triads to the Russian Mafia have words, phrases, and code names to keep outsiders from knowing too much.

The Neighborhood

Another source of the unique mob slang is rooted in the accents of places where the mobsters came from. New York City, being the main epicenter of Mafia activity for so long, has contributed the most, starting with the stereotypical New York Italian accent. “Youse” instead of “you” or “you all,” “dem” instead of “them,” or “tree” instead of “three” are just a few examples of how accents have become so associated with the mobster mystique.

Mobsters also have a broad sense of humor. They are the ones committing the crimes and inflicting the pain. They are the ones breaking the bones, corrupting the souls, and putting the bodies in “cement shoes.” But many are also natural-born storytellers, embellishing their mishaps, conquests, and everyday struggles to make a buck. For every stoic mobster there is an equally flamboyant over-the-top character, like Bonanno capo Jerry Chili, regularly cited for his jokes, exaggerated mannerisms, and ruthless leadership.

The ironic part of the Mafia developing its own language is that many of the rank-and-file gangsters, especially in the early years of the mob, were barely literate. Even now, it’s generally not the students at the top of the class who decide to turn to a life of crime as a viable career choice. To be sure, there are exceptions, but most mobsters have a hard enough time speaking English let alone in code.

How Can I Kill Thee . . .

There are many ways to kill a person in the Mafia handbook, and even more ways to describe it. Nowadays, with the numerous Mafia movies and the television hit
The Sopranos
, the secret is out. The general populace and the FBI wiretappers are not fooled by these once-cryptic code words and phrases.

The main phrase, one that has become an everyday part of the American vernacular, is “whacked.” It’s not clear where this term originated, but it has become the premier mobspeak term for the general populace. The popularity of the term is related to its prevalence on movies and television shows.

But a victim can also be hit, iced, clipped, offed, burned, rubbed out, or popped. The hit man can break an egg or give his quarry a serious headache. They could be fitted with cement shoes, a cement jacket, or put in a cement coffin. This type of murder is specifically for burials at sea, when the body, sometimes alive and sometimes not, is weighted for deposit in the deep blue, where the incriminating evidence will never be found. Such a victim is said to be sleeping with the fishes.