Los Angeles crime family
Joseph Ardizzone was the first Boss of the Los Angeles family
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| Founded by | Joseph Ardizzone |
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| Founding location | Los Angeles, California |
| Years active | c. 1900–present |
| Territory | Southern California, Las Vegas |
| Ethnicity | "Made man" are of Italian descent, other ethnicities employed as associates |
| Criminal activities | Racketeering, conspiracy, loansharking, money laundering, murder, extortion, gambling, skimming, drug trafficking, fencing, and fraud. |
| Allies | Five Families, Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland and Kansas City crime family, and Nazi Low Riders |
| Rivals | Cohen crime family, Crips, Bloods, Norteños, Fresno Bulldogs, MS-13, 18th Street gang |
The Los Angeles crime family is an Italian American criminal organization based in California, as part of the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra). Since its inception in the early 20th century, it has spread throughout Southern California. Like most Mafia families in the United States, the L.A. crime family gained power bootlegging during the Prohibition Era. The L.A. family reached its peak in the 1940s and early 1950s under Jack Dragna, who was on The Commission, although the L.A. family was never bigger than the New York or Chicago families. Since his death the crime family has been on a gradual decline, with the Chicago Outfit representing them on The Commission.
The sources for a lot of information on the history of the family are the testimony of Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno, who in the late 1970s became the second member in American Mafia history to testify against it, and The Last Mafioso (1981), a biography of Fratianno by Ovid Demaris. Since the 1980s, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act) has been effective in convicting mobsters and shrinking the American Mafia; like all families in the United States, the L.A. Mafia now only holds a fraction of its former power. Not having a strong concentration of Italian-Americans in the region leaves the family to contend with the many street gangs of other ethnicities in a city known as the "Gang Capital of America". The Los Angeles crime family was the last Mafia family left in the state of California.
The early years of organized crime in California were marked by the division of various Italian street gangs such as the Black Hand organizations in the early 20th century. The most prominent of these was the Matranga family, a gang run by relatives of Charles Matranga, founder of the New Orleans crime family. Their legitimate business was fruit vending. Otherwise they used threats, violence, arson, and extortion to control the Plaza area, which was the heart of the Italian American community of Los Angeles at the time. Its first leader was Orsario "Sam" Matranga, who started leading the family in 1905. Sam's relatives Salvatore Matranga, Pietro "Peter" Matranga, and Antonio "Tony" Matranga were other members of the gang.
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