Italian-American organized crime
| Founded | Late 19th century |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Founded in U.S. in New Orleans, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and various East Coast cities |
| Years active | Late 19th century–present |
| Territory | United States; active in many parts of the country during its peak, currently active mainly in the Northeast; Midwestern industrial cities such as Chicago; Las Vegas and Florida; active to a lesser extent in Los Angeles; extensions in Canada, as Italian-Canadian groups are often included as part of the American Mafia. |
| Ethnicity | Full members (made men) are of Italian descent, other criminals of any ethnicity are employed as "associates." |
| Membership (est.) | Around 3000 made men and thousands of associates |
| Criminal activities |
Racketeering, smuggling, fraud, counterfeiting, robbery, bribery, assault, money laundering, illegal gambling, loan sharking, weapons trafficking, drug trafficking, extortion, fencing, murder, prostitution, pornography, theft |
| Allies | Sicilian Mafia, Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, various independent Italian-American street gangs and crime groups (such as South Brooklyn Boys), Chaldean Mafia, Jewish Mafia, Greek Mafia, Corsican Mafia and Unione Corse, occasionally the Albanian Mafia and Russian Mafia, various gangs and organized crime groups |
| Rivals | Various gangs and organized crime groups, historically rivals of the Irish Mob |
Racketeering, smuggling, fraud, counterfeiting, robbery,
The American Mafia (commonly shortened to the Mafia or the Mob, though “the Mob" can refer to other organized crime groups) or Italian-American Mafia, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society. The organization is often referred to by members as Cosa Nostra (Italian pronunciation: [ˈkɔsa ˈnɔstra], our thing) and by the government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original Mafia or Cosa nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, and it originally emerged as an offshoot of the Sicilian Mafia; however, the organization eventually encompassed or absorbed other Italian-American gangsters and Italian-American crime groups (such as the American Camorra) living in the United States and Canada that are not of Sicilian origin. It is often colloquially referred to as the Italian Mafia or Italian Mob, though these terms may also apply to the separate yet related organized crime groups in Italy.
The Mafia in the United States emerged in impoverished Italian immigrant neighborhoods or ghettos in New York's East Harlem (or Italian Harlem), Lower East Side, and Brooklyn. It also emerged in other areas of the East Coast of the United States and several other major metropolitan areas (such as New Orleans and Chicago) during the late 19th century and early 20th century, following waves of Italian immigration especially from Sicily and other regions of Southern Italy. It has its roots in the Sicilian Mafia but is a separate organization in the United States. Neapolitan, Calabrian, and other Italian criminal groups in the U.S., as well as independent Italian-American criminals, eventually merged with Sicilian Mafiosi to create the modern pan-Italian Mafia in North America. Today, the American Mafia cooperates in various criminal activities with Italian organized crime groups, such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra of Naples, and 'Ndrangheta of Calabria. The most important unit of the American Mafia is that of a "family," as the various criminal organizations that make up the Mafia are known. Despite the name of "family" to describe the various units, they are not familial groupings.
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Wikipedia