The Art of Manliness - An Insider's Guide to the Rise of the American Mafia

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.000 you're probably familiar with the american mafia at least there's betrayal in popular culture

00:00:15.880 but how did this infamous secret society come to be lewis ferrante traces its origins in the first

00:00:21.800 volume of his slated trilogy on the subject entitled borgata rise of empire the history

00:00:27.240 of the american mafia while there's been plenty written on the mafia ferrante who was incarcerated

00:00:32.440 for being a mobster himself offers the first insider's history of this crime organization

00:00:36.920 today on the show he shares the surprising influences on the formation of the mafia in sicily

00:00:41.840 why louisiana and not new york was actually the mob's american plymouth rock the unexpected

00:00:47.300 collaboration between the government and the mafia during world war ii the real reason j.a.

00:00:51.980 hoover didn't go after the mob why that hands-off approach changed and much more after the show's

00:00:57.540 over check out our show notes at awim.is mafia all right lou ferrante welcome back to the show

00:01:16.260 hey thank you brett thanks for having me back so the last time you were on the show you shared

00:01:21.660 your personal experience in the mafia but for those who haven't heard that episode can you give us a

00:01:26.880 thumbnail sketch of your background sure i started stealing cars when i was a kid probably around 13

00:01:33.400 mostly for joy rides eventually we got into stealing them for parts selling the parts to different

00:01:39.200 collision shops in the area and that morphed into a chop shop i ran a chop shop for a few years

00:01:46.220 all through high school i was running a chop shop i would steal cars after after school sometimes

00:01:51.540 go out at night take them deliver the parts the collision shop owners would arrange for us to

00:01:56.900 deliver them and then at some point or another we opened up uh they would lease buildings for us and

00:02:02.020 we originally we dumped the cars in the woods but then at some point or another we had warehouses we

00:02:06.860 we chop the cars up and then just leave skeletons there it would be under a phony lease back then you

00:02:11.600 could do stuff like that and then i started hijacking trucks when i hijacked trucks i got in with

00:02:16.160 the mob and i eventually ran my own crew within the gambino crime family of heist guys and hijackers

00:02:21.540 and that's what we did every type of heist and hijacking you can imagine we were involved in

00:02:26.480 and we were successful at it unfortunately we at the time i went down we had three indictments

00:02:32.500 but it turned out to be probably the most fortunate event in my life that the the fbi closed in on us and

00:02:38.960 took us down because it changed my life for the better but i didn't know that back then

00:02:42.780 and at some point while i was in prison i faced life in prison with all the accumulation of all

00:02:48.040 the charges if you you racked up all the charges together it was like 150 years so i was facing life

00:02:53.840 and they give you that if you go to trial and you test them and you blow trial the feds will give you

00:02:59.700 those numbers i have friends that are still in prison now 30 years later they're doing 70 80 90 year

00:03:05.020 sentences so you do get it but i was fortunate enough to take a plea with my co-defendants none of us

00:03:09.960 cooperated we never snitched i took a plea and i was able to get 13 years while i was in prison

00:03:15.740 i started to read amongst other things i studied law besides history science i studied law and i was

00:03:22.800 able to reverse one of my cases from prison and get out in eight and a half years by then i was reading

00:03:28.020 a book a day i had written a novel i read hundreds if not thousands of books so i was ready to to just

00:03:33.900 turn over a new leaf in my life and i became a writer and uh when i was going to my last team meeting

00:03:39.820 in prison they asked me what i was going to do with myself when i got out they figured construction

00:03:43.880 or something you know at best and i said i'm going to become an international best-selling author and

00:03:50.140 they were all hysterically laughing and uh as i sit here today speaking with you that's what i am so

00:03:55.940 it worked out thank god well you got a new series of books that's coming out uh the first one is called

00:04:02.540 borgata and in this series of books you are laying out the history of the mafia in the united states

00:04:09.340 i'm curious did you have an interest in mafia history while you're in the mafia or did this

00:04:14.060 interest arise after you left it yeah much later well while you're involved in crime you never

00:04:20.120 you never think about those things you go back as far as like there were beefs on the street there

00:04:25.560 were old timers that you talked to so you get sort of like an oral history of you know your

00:04:30.300 contemporary times but as far as a deep history i don't even think like someone like uh al capone or

00:04:36.600 john gotty had any sense of the history that they were involved in when they were living their lives

00:04:42.080 they were just thinking about how to get money how to make money how to go about their lives they

00:04:45.820 understood the life you know quote unquote the life they understood it like nobody else did and they

00:04:51.580 were able to operate in that world like no one else could but i don't think any of them had a grasp

00:04:57.120 of the history nor did i or anyone around me even when i was in prison i didn't want to read books

00:05:01.960 about the mafia i shied away from them i i was trying to educate myself i thought that stuff

00:05:07.100 like that got me in here it wasn't something i wanted to fill my head with but at some point or

00:05:11.560 another on this side i was in sicily and i met an older gentleman who was a book publisher which i

00:05:18.260 didn't know at first and he wanted to publish uh something by me and he he recommended that i write a

00:05:24.180 book about the history of the mafia and he didn't think that anyone else could do it like i could

00:05:27.620 because i had lived it up until now nobody has really tackled the subject other than scholars

00:05:33.480 people who were educated people who never felt the cold steel of a handcuff a stiletto a gun never shot

00:05:41.260 a gun never went to prison never sat in a clink facing life never understood what it was not to eat

00:05:48.220 if you didn't steal and how that evolves into becoming a mobster as an everyday life when your entire life

00:05:54.720 is a crime in progress so i felt like i could bring things to the table and i hope that i have

00:05:59.580 yeah one thing you point out at the beginning of the book there's a lot of history books about

00:06:03.880 the mafia in the united states but the problem with history books about the mafia is that they're

00:06:09.360 typically based on police records newspaper records and as you point out and we'll talk about this the

00:06:15.360 mafia is a secret society and so there's some stuff unless you have that experience on the inside

00:06:21.000 you're not going to know about and i think that's one thing you try to do you try to use your own

00:06:25.100 experience to add some context to the written record that we do have yeah that's right when when i was

00:06:33.000 in prison i i said i'd never read mafia books while i was away but a lot of people around me did and you

00:06:38.980 would hear a lot of not true bullshit give me a break uh who wrote this crap you'd hear all those

00:06:45.240 people that were reading these books screaming out all the time because they knew instinctively

00:06:50.720 intuitively when they came across something that was not true it could not have been true but the

00:06:56.160 writer doesn't know the writer avi you know as i said is usually some college educated guy or woman

00:07:01.740 and they haven't really lived the experiences so when you live it you know and i had that intuitive

00:07:07.880 sort of take on things when i started reading and plotting through the history from the beginning of the

00:07:12.900 mafia until present times and a bell would go off in my head if i knew it wasn't true if i knew it

00:07:18.740 could have never happened and that's a big part of this trilogy i'm able to debunk a lot of the myths

00:07:23.940 that have been repeated throughout decades usually it's somebody says something the first time and then

00:07:29.180 the next author will you know use that first author as a source and then the third author will use the

00:07:34.540 first two as sources and and the myth continues to just get repeated so i was able to go back to the

00:07:40.460 original story where it came from why it may have come about and why it couldn't have been true

00:07:46.020 and i i love this book it was really interesting because as we'll see here i hope people see it by

00:07:50.900 this conversation the mob in america it's entwined with american history we'll see the mob

00:07:55.600 influencing you know immigration we'll see the mob influencing the great depression we'll see the

00:08:01.340 mob influence in world war ii so not only do you learn about the the history of the mob you learn

00:08:05.800 about the history of the united states in the process but you begin your history of the american

00:08:10.740 mafia in sicily and one argument you make is that sicily's millennia-long history as a hub for foreign

00:08:18.180 invaders and conquerors laid the groundwork for the culture of the mob how so with all the conquerors

00:08:26.180 that came throughout history in and out of sicily the spanish the arabs the normans the greeks the romans

00:08:32.220 before them etc the french there was always this sense of let's leave the sicilian people alone

00:08:39.260 it was weak central governments that really really allowed the mafia later on to thrive but this

00:08:44.920 originally this just family structure this family unit to thrive the local leader was the all-powerful

00:08:50.860 person we don't want central governments telling us what to do and each government because their desire

00:08:56.300 for taking over sicily was the you know was called the roman republic's granary they wanted the materials

00:09:03.200 the wheat all the different things that they could get out of sicily the fruit the mining the sulfur

00:09:08.440 so each time the conqueror took over sicily they just wanted to rape it and they left the people to

00:09:14.480 themselves and because they left the people to themselves and there was always a weak central government

00:09:18.600 the people had to govern themselves and they said well the hell would all these governments we'll just

00:09:23.420 rely on ourselves and our family unit and that's where i feel the foundation of the mafia was laid

00:09:27.940 in sicily i mean you also talk about you know i didn't know this about sicily but there's a heavy

00:09:32.560 arab and spanish influence on the island how have those cultures influenced sicilian culture and then

00:09:39.500 consequently mob culture yeah so the arabs and the spanish were i would say that they were probably

00:09:47.460 two of the best rulers that sicily had because they had almost completely hands-off approach for

00:09:53.680 most of their time there uh they left the people to themselves so if you want a conqueror if you're

00:09:59.160 going to have to get stuck with a conqueror you want one that leaves you alone and for the most part

00:10:03.060 the arabs and the spanish did do that and their influence is i mean incredible if you just look at

00:10:08.560 the landscape of sicily you see all these churches that were mosques at one point so the arab influence

00:10:14.620 across the island is prevalent everywhere you look as is the spanish influence even the word don

00:10:19.920 came from the spanish language you know the don like a lord of a manna the don the don of a mafia

00:10:25.500 family it's directly from the spanish language my own roots the spanish were also in southern italy

00:10:31.760 and my own roots there was a king ferrante who was originally from spain who ruled naples

00:10:36.340 and my last name is ferrante so i mean i would think that somewhere my family is from that same region

00:10:42.700 somewhere you know obviously we were peasants by time we came to the united states we lost the

00:10:47.240 fortune i guess but at somewhere we must have been connected to the original ferrantes who were in

00:10:51.560 southern italy who were originally from spain so there's a huge influence arab and spanish influence

00:10:56.580 on the island and i believe the arabs were the mafia's founding fathers at some point or another the

00:11:02.520 arab burbers most which are the arabs from mostly north africa they were in sicily and they were pushed

00:11:08.440 into the western regions of sicily by the success of governments there and they were cautiously

00:11:14.360 treated and they were very tough and they sort of picked up their their lives and their families

00:11:20.280 in the regions of agrigento and palermo where is two of the mafia capitals of the world you know two

00:11:26.760 of the biggest mafia influenced cities in the world were agrigento and palermo at one point and palermo

00:11:32.180 still is to to some extent and that's where the arabs were and i feel that the arabs did have a

00:11:38.380 huge influence and i believe they were the mafia's founding fathers the arab burbers of sicilian descent

00:11:43.640 obviously who came to sicily rather yeah one thing you talk about the arabs had and that the mafia has

00:11:49.180 is this sense of honor omerta i mean a lot of cultures in that time period um had a very highly

00:11:55.160 developed sense of honor code of honor but i know in arab culture it's really a high-pitched and yeah

00:12:01.600 you can you see it there yeah you do and uh i did trace there was sort of like the arab bedouin

00:12:08.220 lifestyle where the patriarch is the arbiter of all things that became the genesis of a mafia family

00:12:15.640 where the mafia godfather is the final say he's the law what he says goes if someone's going to live or

00:12:21.960 die it's his word that decides that that was the same as in uh the arab bedouin culture you know

00:12:27.920 the the patriarch was the all you know the almighty and so a lot of that came from that and a lot of

00:12:33.340 the different traits that were seen as respectable in the arab culture were directly related to what

00:12:39.700 became respectable in the uh italian slash sicilian slash mafia culture which was really interesting

00:12:45.860 there's a book written about the arabs by rafael patay and i will patay the pronunciation may be but i

00:12:52.480 read it and i i was just floored by how many comparisons there are between mafia culture and

00:12:58.820 arab culture which also brings us back to the arabs as being the founding fathers of the mafia in western

00:13:04.240 sicily where did the word mafia come from yeah so that's it i found that to be another something of

00:13:11.940 arab root most historians do agree that it is of arab origin and they traced it to words like

00:13:19.220 mahas mahias mafal mafaz which mean different things like cave dwellers a proud horse translated

00:13:27.680 to be a proud person who acts like a proud horse and all these different arab meanings and i was able

00:13:33.720 to find something that was interesting that nobody had touched on yet and i i dug and dug and dug and

00:13:38.980 made tremendous connections to this word as being the origin of the word mafia and it comes from

00:13:44.300 mahdi most of us in western society might be um familiar with general gordon pasha the english general

00:13:50.860 who was sent to uh to defend khartoum against the siege from muhammad akhmand and he died there doing

00:13:58.020 it but muhammad akhmand was considered the mahdi of his time which was sort of like the guy who was going

00:14:04.220 to defend the people the islamic people from you know outsiders and that's sort of what happened after

00:14:11.440 after unification after italy was unified and sicily was sucked into the italian sort of idea

00:14:17.540 of italian unification something most sicilians did not want to be part of they thought that they

00:14:22.100 would get their independence after the unification of italy and they did not receive that and then

00:14:27.120 there was a vote that they felt was fixed so there was a lot of problems in sicily having you know

00:14:32.760 these bitter feelings toward italy as their latest overlord and at this point or another that's when all of

00:14:39.380 these arabs this as this arab section of western sicily start to become upstarts and this word

00:14:45.520 mahdi fits absolutely perfect with what was happening there where these people were defying the government

00:14:52.220 behalf of the people and the word mahdi stems now to modest regime which was the mahdi's regime the

00:14:59.080 modest regime known as the madia which is a single letter away from the mafia which is mafia so i think

00:15:08.100 that that was the uh etymological root of the word i i leave it to future historians to debate but that

00:15:13.040 was my best shot at where the word mafia came from okay so sicily since ancient times and we're going

00:15:19.720 back we're talking like 2 000 years ago was subject to a lot of conquering and those who ruled sicily

00:15:25.420 they did so from far away and in the absence of a strong central government the people of sicily

00:15:31.580 developed its own kind of unofficial rule through a system of strong families headed by a patriarch and

00:15:39.260 they call these families uh borgatas and it's it's these families that really control and manage

00:15:44.620 things on the island and then feudalism comes in to italy and sicily during the middle ages how did

00:15:52.180 feudalism shape what would eventually become the mafia so feudalism was uh it started out as the roman

00:15:58.360 latifundia which turned into feudalism in the middle ages it was this idea of tracts of land

00:16:04.120 would be controlled by a lord of a manor and he would have vassals or soldiers under him and that

00:16:10.460 particular system of government very very private government it was all privatized there was no

00:16:15.800 central institutionalized government so all private matters were dealt with between lords on their own

00:16:20.980 and they had their little armies to go out there and fight if they had a problem

00:16:24.600 and a lot of people i saw historians would give a word or two about well the mafia came from feudalism

00:16:30.440 and then they would never go into how so i dug deep into the books on feudalism and the middle ages to

00:16:37.360 find out are there real comparisons here and i found stunning comparisons that i outlined in the book

00:16:43.320 between an overlord a lord of a manor and a mafia don and his vassals and soldiers be it the oath that

00:16:50.180 they took to each other be it the uh the relationship that they continued to have with each

00:16:54.800 other the requirements the responsibilities etc etc and i lay them all out so there was a direct

00:17:00.040 relationship between feudalism and the mafia as we know it today contemporary time contemporary mafia

00:17:05.800 not even 1860 mafia i'm talking feudalism and today's mafia in 2024 is exactly the same so the next step

00:17:14.760 was well then why did they salvage this this sort of like rotting structure that the rest of the world

00:17:20.540 considered obsolete well they felt comfortable with it the sicilians felt like feudalism was what they

00:17:26.440 knew and when feudalism was done away with in the 1800s a lot of sicilians said well you know what this

00:17:33.560 is the government we like and we're going to keep it we're just going to transform it into something a

00:17:37.840 little more local and a little more family oriented and the lord of the matter became a mafia don

00:17:43.500 or the patriarchal extended family and the vassals became mafia soldiers that came from feudalism

00:17:49.100 directly yeah one thing that feudalism had that i can see these sicilian families like about it

00:17:55.480 feudalism it's it's very paternalistic right like there's the lord of the manor and he treated the

00:18:00.700 people in his manner they were like family you had to take care of them and as society became more

00:18:06.940 modernized things became more individualized like well you're just kind of on your own right well you

00:18:12.320 get raised by your dad and your mom and then you got to go off and start your own family

00:18:17.060 these sicilian families didn't they didn't like that because i can see why these strong families

00:18:21.960 would adopt the feudal aspect because it's all about connections definitely even when i was a kid

00:18:29.140 brett you know i'm talking about the 70s and 80s right i'm a young kid i came from a big italian family

00:18:35.440 my father had seven brothers and sisters so we had dozens of cousins my mother's side you know they were

00:18:40.880 always at the house we always shared dinner together all of us the holidays there were we

00:18:45.700 had table on top you know lined up after table after table after table across the basement

00:18:50.300 upstairs downstairs because we couldn't you know just to fit you know for a holiday and it was such

00:18:56.780 a tight unit where if something happened to one family member you know if a one if if we looked

00:19:02.220 outside and you know somebody drove by in a car and accidentally bumped into one family member

00:19:06.200 there were a hundred of us out there you know aunts uncles you know cousins screaming and yelling

00:19:11.100 attacking somebody you know because we were so close at that point so no matter what the case was

00:19:16.360 i mean i'm giving an extreme example but no matter what we were close and it's so different today

00:19:21.420 we're all scattered you know what are you doing for christmas what are you doing for new year's we

00:19:25.700 call each other we say hello you know it's it's we're americans now and it's completely different

00:19:30.840 and that family structure as opposed to the one i once knew is so different so different every sunday

00:19:37.800 we were all together for dinner you know i remember i used to hijack trucks and i'd hijack a truck and

00:19:43.400 i'd say to like my friend ronnie years later reminded me he goes you remember you used to used we used to

00:19:48.960 hijack a truck and you know we'd have the guy tied up in the truck and you'd say i gotta go home for

00:19:52.240 dinner and we go what yeah my mother wants us home at 5 30 for dinner all of us and he goes we'd literally

00:19:57.940 drop you off you know for dinner and you'd meet up with us later so i mean that's how i was raised

00:20:03.220 so you know i mean to to think that family could play such a part where i'm leaving a hijacked truck

00:20:08.860 to go home for dinner because my mother wants us home for dinner i mean that says it all and and now

00:20:14.260 i think you know most kids my niece and nephews just miss dinner you know they don't even call you

00:20:19.500 know if the seats are you know empty you figure they got involved in something else they didn't come home

00:20:23.980 so things are different okay so the mafia these strong families started imitating feudalism the

00:20:30.280 setup the arrangement of it and you know the the don like he was in charge of everything he mediated

00:20:36.480 disputes within the family he mediated disputes with other dons and i think it's something people

00:20:42.220 understand like the mafia it's like it's a government outside of state government i think that's the big

00:20:48.460 takeaway there so you have this setup and then in the 19th century you see the rise of male only

00:20:55.700 secret societies you're talking like freemasonry the odd fellows and that started influence the mafia

00:21:01.740 what was the influence there yeah that's really interesting so feudalism dies and then there's the

00:21:07.000 rise of these secret societies and this is at the same time you know the sicilians the sicilians are

00:21:12.440 going through this really really catastrophic change on the island because there's the unification of

00:21:17.580 italy and people are fighting for that the italians wanted to free themselves from the austrians

00:21:22.680 controlled a lot of the north of italy and the french controlled a lot of the south and the secret

00:21:27.420 societies across europe were they're targeting the ancient regimes they want to overthrow them

00:21:32.380 so whether it be the uh you know the old you know they were targeting the old ottomans or the old

00:21:38.280 hapsburgs or the old you know whatever ancient regimes were across europe they were being targeted by

00:21:44.200 these new secret societies that had all kinds of codes this sense of honor this sense of duty they

00:21:51.120 treated each other in a certain way they had secret handshakes they had secret oaths they took in secret

00:21:57.080 places and they had capos they even had capo a capo de tutti capo they had a you know a big boss of all of

00:22:05.060 them and then they had a capo regime capos who were in charge of regimes of 10 or 100 people

00:22:10.440 this structure that the secret societies of europe had the mafia almost to the t adopted a lot of those

00:22:19.580 things and it's it's it's incredible and when you read uh giuseppe mazzini was is considered today as

00:22:25.920 one of the founding fathers of italy he's sort of like the george washington of italy and he goes

00:22:32.000 through an oath he took when he joined the secret society of young italy and that oath i put

00:22:38.000 juxtaposed with joe villacci's oath an informant in the 1960s in the american mafia and it's identical

00:22:46.420 the oath that joe villacci said he took and that mobsters take today but i had that one in writing

00:22:52.600 so i could show the the reader you know this is the exact oath that joe villacci dictated in front

00:22:58.080 of congress and here's the exact oath that mazzini took when he joined the secret society of young

00:23:03.640 italy and with the exception of a few words they're identical and then you take again the the capo

00:23:09.840 regimes the structure of the uh a lot of people thought that that came from roman times the mafia

00:23:14.980 copied it from roman times but maybe i think the secret societies of europe copied it from roman times

00:23:21.000 and the mafia had it readily on hand when they needed it and copied it from the secret societies

00:23:26.880 of europe which was so successful in overthrowing the old regimes we're gonna take a quick break for

00:23:32.120 word from our sponsors and now back to the show okay so by the 19th century you have what we now

00:23:42.220 call the mafia basically you had these local strongmen who were patriarchs of large families

00:23:48.020 that began they began to emerge and assume the roles once reserved for feudal barons and they started

00:23:55.000 replicating the feudal structure in their organization so they had you know private armies they engaged in

00:24:00.980 their own type of taxation it was basically extortion they did other illicit activities to make money

00:24:07.060 and then these feudal like families they took inspiration from 19th century secret societies and

00:24:12.800 they had oaths and secret handshakes and the like and then these mafia families they were causing the

00:24:18.260 italian government problems in the middle of the 19th century they were killing each other

00:24:21.780 kidnapping people for ransom engaging in gambling and prostitution and the like and then you had some of the

00:24:28.700 italian mafia they started immigrating to the united states and so then you take the story in your book

00:24:35.080 over to the u.s and i think when most people think about the mob in the united states they typically think of

00:24:41.300 new york and new jersey but you start off the history of the sicilian mafia in america in new orleans and i didn't

00:24:50.400 see that coming so why did why start things off there it's very interesting because i didn't see it coming

00:24:56.040 either when i was on the street we dealt with other mobs we dealt with guys in philly we dealt with guys

00:25:00.260 in new england we dealt with a couple of guys from louisiana but i we always considered them much

00:25:05.000 smaller outfits than our own new york has five mafia families so it's the biggest concentration of

00:25:11.380 gangsters in the world so these other smaller places when you know they never impressed me as

00:25:16.440 anything huge when i was on the street and when i started to read and dig deep into the research

00:25:21.500 i realized that a lot of italians from southern italy and sicily when they first landed in america

00:25:27.160 they sought out first of all the climate that they understood and liked their like their own

00:25:32.560 and louisiana was much warmer than new york i mean you knew new york you have freezing winters

00:25:38.400 then and now they weren't used to you know cold freezing winters from people from sicily and southern

00:25:43.800 italy so they liked louisiana they were drawn to it because of their climate and the other thing was

00:25:48.880 after the abolition of slavery when slave labor was abolished the united states was a growing nation

00:25:55.200 agrarian and industrial and they needed people to take over those those jobs so the italians in many

00:26:02.140 ways picked up a lot of the work that the the african americans were freed from but they were paid very

00:26:07.100 very low wages but they were happy to find work even if it was for a low income and anywhere they could

00:26:13.720 find work they went throughout the south and louisiana became the hub of this really large

00:26:19.580 working industry of sicilians and that's where the mafia also planted themselves the mafia almost always

00:26:26.400 traveled with italian immigrants so if italian immigrants poured into let's say louisiana the

00:26:33.180 mafia came with them because they felt like well if we organize the workforce here and we control let's

00:26:38.340 say the vegetable market a lot of citrus and vegetables came through louisiana and spread out across the

00:26:43.420 united states if we control this entry point we could have tremendous power and they did so the

00:26:49.100 mafia always ended up where the immigrants went and that's why a lot of immigrants ended up italian

00:26:54.020 immigrants ended up in new york and new jersey and that's why the mafia was strong there as well

00:26:57.840 but the climate was the biggest magnet in the very beginning and the idea of having work there was a lot

00:27:03.980 of work in the south when they lost the african americans as slaves and they needed to hire quick

00:27:09.140 they needed to hire people who were willing to do dirty work for them down there and on a lot of

00:27:13.980 those estates and they did and they hired sicilians and a lot of other southern italians and so how did

00:27:18.720 the mafia make money in new orleans what was the opportunity that they saw there is they can get a

00:27:24.080 corner on a particular trade or business that's where they saw the money well like typical predators

00:27:29.760 any any opportunities for money they were they were there so for example there were a lot of uh

00:27:34.420 louisiana was known as a very crime-ridden place always from the time we purchased it during the

00:27:40.160 louisiana purchase we purchased it from napoleon it was always considered a very lawless place to be

00:27:45.800 and it went through sort of uh successive empires you know the spanish had it the french had it

00:27:51.420 louisiana for a while until the united states purchased it as i said during the louisiana purchase so it was

00:27:56.700 always this sort of very lawless place and so that was sort of a welcoming thing for the mafia

00:28:01.580 gee we have a lawless place already with very corrupt policemen this is great and very corrupt

00:28:06.600 politicians that we could buy so they got into things like they owned houses of prostitution

00:28:11.980 they partnered with a lot of people they owned gambling dens but the main thing was as i said

00:28:17.520 the citrus and vegetables coming into louisiana the stevedores if you could control the stevedores

00:28:22.540 the people who unloaded the ships you could control then also to what was what was called the french

00:28:28.220 market but was run and taken over by sicilians which was the big retail wholesale vegetable and

00:28:34.120 fruit market so they controlled that as well and then they controlled all the fanning out of this

00:28:39.320 fruit and vegetables throughout the country so the mafia was able to really really not only take over

00:28:45.360 the the lower sort of criminal conduct like gambling dens and and and houses of prostitution

00:28:51.820 but also to the fruit and vegetable market and then they obviously they're always ready to do

00:28:56.960 loan sharking and get involved in any other rackets that come their way and they did and that that's they

00:29:03.020 became extremely strong in louisiana but at some point or another they sort of they laid either learn

00:29:09.040 to lay low or they became a little low key or they became less powerful and they surface again in the

00:29:16.320 beginning of volume two of this trilogy when louisiana is front and center takes the stage first

00:29:22.340 in on what becomes this feud with the kennedy brothers but louisiana once again very strong

00:29:28.940 concentration of mafiosos from the very beginning it turned out to be the uh the mafia's plymouth rock

00:29:35.400 in the sense of their first the first place they planted a flag in the united states and you know

00:29:40.320 earlier i said that when you read this history the mafia you see how the mafia is entwined with american

00:29:46.020 history and one thing i learned from this book was that the largest mass lynching in u.s history

00:29:53.300 happened in new orleans and italians were the victims of this lynching but the mob had a connection can

00:29:59.400 you talk about this 1891 new orleans lynching sure there was a lot of discrimination in louisiana

00:30:05.520 against italians and a lot of it came from they came there poor and they were considered they were

00:30:10.540 considered less than white they were considered darker than white and they also lived in the

00:30:15.820 african-american quarters so they were definitely grouped with african-americans at the time and

00:30:20.900 there was a lot of disparaging names that they were called and italian americans now when i grew up

00:30:25.900 i remember my parents telling me that they were discriminated against when they were young and i didn't

00:30:31.320 see a lot of that as i was young growing up myself but i trusted that they saw it when they were young

00:30:36.720 well it got better in the united states but at some point or another and schools don't teach this

00:30:42.260 the academic silence on this is you know just to me is startling that this is not taught in schools

00:30:48.780 but italians were the second biggest group lynched in the south uh second to african-americans who

00:30:54.780 obviously bore the brunt of that but italian americans were regularly lynched in the south anytime

00:30:59.760 they did something stepped out of line they were lynched and at some point or another there was a chief

00:31:05.780 hennessy chief hennessy was the uh the head of the police department in louisiana and he was partnered

00:31:11.020 with one of the mafiosos in louisiana they shared this bordello called the red lantern and they had a

00:31:17.220 few other things going on with each other and at some point or another hennessy wanted to intervene in

00:31:23.280 this fight between two mafia dons who was going to rule louisiana and hennessy took the side of one of

00:31:29.040 the mafia dons so i do believe that the other mafia don was instrumental in killing him however i do also

00:31:37.360 believe that a lot of innocent italians were grouped with him and thrown on the indictment because they

00:31:43.400 didn't know where to begin they didn't have the police did not have the investigative skills that

00:31:48.780 they have today so they went in there and they just started rounding up italians like crazy and then

00:31:53.200 in at the end they put together an indictment of a handful of italians a dozen or so

00:31:57.660 and they tried them and there was probably only two or three mafiosos on the indictment real mafiosos

00:32:03.120 the rest seemed to be just innocent guys who were thrown in who knew the wrong guy who was seen in

00:32:07.620 the wrong place and at some point or another the jury who were there were no italians on the jury

00:32:13.780 and the jury acquitted the italians of this and the prosecutor was livid that they were acquitted

00:32:21.380 and he blamed the jury for being bribed without any evidence and the judge ordered them all back

00:32:27.100 to the local prison and he shouldn't know if he should have allowed them to leave and even if there

00:32:32.340 were any being held on other charges he should have gave them bail but he should have allowed them to

00:32:36.380 leave but he ordered them back to the prison and the warden of the prison immediately prepared for a

00:32:41.320 siege because the talk of the town was that this uh chief of police was murdered by these italians

00:32:47.260 and if justice was not served in court then it would have to be served by a lynch mob

00:32:52.620 and they converged on the prison they literally ran newspaper advertisements uh calling for justice

00:33:00.080 you know basically calling for murder cold-blooded murder and they met the next morning they gathered

00:33:06.060 together converged on the prison stormed the pigeon prison broken and they murdered the italians

00:33:11.840 some of them were hung up some of them their brains were blown out and it was the biggest mass lynching

00:33:16.440 in u.s history something i was never taught in school yeah 11 italian americans were killed and

00:33:23.020 there were 15 000 people involved in the mob that lynched them so i mean this was a huge deal

00:33:29.680 and then the other thing you talk about in this history of the mafia is the connection between

00:33:36.060 jewish gangsters in the sicilian mafia when did these two groups start working together during prohibition

00:33:43.160 there was this need for alcohol the country was was not ready to be dry it was a very small minority

00:33:49.280 that had gathered up a tremendous uh lobby and got this thing passed and next thing you know

00:33:55.240 everybody's deprived of alcohol so now you have you know italian immigrants german immigrants irish

00:34:00.620 immigrants who are saying i don't understand why we're not allowed to drink what kind of country is

00:34:04.240 and the mafia starts producing you know this bathtub gin rock gut they called it uh basically like

00:34:11.940 you know an italian version of moonshine and they're producing it as best they can and they're

00:34:16.920 sending it out to the people and selling it in bottles etc and all the ethnic gangs were doing this

00:34:22.020 at the time have you whether it be african-american gangs jewish american gangs polish american gangs

00:34:27.360 everybody was bootlegging but the italians had this organization because they had the mafia

00:34:31.980 they could sort of stand out as the most organized underworld establishment so they really really

00:34:37.960 controlled a lot of this but the jews came along and in the face of arnold rothstein and arnold

00:34:43.920 rothstein was able to strike a deal with distilleries in england and then make deals with canadian

00:34:48.960 merchants and start to bring in real alcohol you know the good stuff and he became sort of like this guy

00:34:56.980 who also had reared a lot of mobsters in the life a lot of young mobsters attributed

00:35:01.680 their tutoring to arnold rothstein frank costello lucky luciano and with their own words they say

00:35:08.400 arnold rothstein taught me this arnold rothstein taught me that and at some point or another rothstein's

00:35:14.020 bringing in his top liquor and he took a very big liking to my lansky who was a fellow jew like him

00:35:21.200 and lucky luciano who was lansky's best friend and luciano and lansky as best friends then had

00:35:27.740 the opportunity to inherit rothstein's liquor empire when lots when rothstein felt it was too

00:35:33.980 violent and wanted to bow out of it rothstein was never a violent guy so he said you know what i

00:35:38.380 started this i made a ton of money with it but i'm gonna bow out and he left it to lansky and luciano

00:35:43.760 who took over and then lansky and luciano sort of was seen by a lot of the other italian mobsters

00:35:49.460 is like well what's what up what's up with this you know this this hybrid gang of jews and italians

00:35:54.420 you know they're not like us we're italians you know we're italians first and foremost and luciano

00:36:00.060 wanted to take rothstein's advice with his consulier frank costello who was also tutored by rothstein

00:36:06.360 and partner with the jews and at some point or another luciano overthrew the old old mobsters the

00:36:13.440 old regimes the old dons i should say and he he then established this this ironclad relationship

00:36:20.500 with the jews which continued throughout you know for decades to come but that's where it all began

00:36:25.440 during prohibition and it began most prominently with lansky and luciano being best friends and

00:36:32.160 insisting that there was a great partnership to be had between the italians and the jews and when

00:36:36.840 luciano took over the mob took over one family but then had a great say in all five families in new

00:36:42.460 york and across the country he really really pushed this idea of partnering with the jews they were

00:36:47.240 equal to us he said and we could do everything with them and he did you know one thing you talk

00:36:51.720 about i thought was really interesting the relationship between lansky and luciano because

00:36:55.160 they really they were the guys in that first half of the 20th century in the american mafia and it's funny

00:37:03.360 how they worked together lansky did a lot to help luciano take over the italian mafia so like as you

00:37:10.180 said luciano wasn't in charge but through some political and you know other means he was able

00:37:18.340 to attain power but he did with lansky's help that's correct uh so lansky was always there by

00:37:23.300 his side they were together from they met his kids uh lansky might have been 12 or 13 luciano was

00:37:28.420 maybe 16 or 17 when they first met but they were very young i forget the exact age but they met his

00:37:34.340 kids and they always continued to stay close with each other and as luciano came up in the mob

00:37:41.900 lansky was always there advising him and also too that luciano had this sort of like secret hybrid crew

00:37:48.880 of jews and italians he had not only italian torpedoes hitmen for him like vito genovese and

00:37:55.600 joe adonis and frank costello but he had also two jews like ben siegel who was a friend of

00:38:01.460 benjamin bugsy siegel who was a friend of lansky red levine who up until almost like when i was

00:38:08.020 around as a kid red levine was still knocking around you know he was a major hitter for luciano

00:38:14.360 so luciano could call on this sort of like secret assassins this jewish element in his gang

00:38:19.680 who the italians were unaware of so that helped him a lot and also to lansky's genius lansky was able to

00:38:26.820 put together incredible schemes and eventually you know got involved in bringing the italians

00:38:33.320 with him with casinos and gambling and and uh invited the italians to take part when he took

00:38:38.760 over cuba as sort of like this mecca of gambling and then when bugsy siegel got involved in las

00:38:44.700 vegas lansky went out there and brought the italians as well so lansky was always at the forefront of

00:38:49.760 these brilliant schemes that you know the italians just like loved and and they followed his lead in a

00:38:55.600 lot of ways but lansky also guided luciano's career in so many ways when luciano you know

00:39:00.860 there's time and again uh luciano's in this quandary when he's making his way up and he's

00:39:05.960 trying to take over the mazzeria family there was an old borgata controlled by this guy lupo the wolf

00:39:11.080 it was taken over by giuseppe mazzeria and then eventually luciano wants to take over this family

00:39:15.940 and each time he's in a quandary time and again you find them slurping down matzo ball soup with lansky

00:39:21.720 at some jewish delicatessen you know and that's where they're trying to figure out their next move

00:39:26.260 which is interesting you know even in my time i had this really great heist crew heist and hijackings

00:39:32.500 we had two jews in my crew they were two of the toughest guys in my crew you know they wouldn't

00:39:36.700 take from anybody you know and and uh you know at a time when most jews today are considered you know

00:39:42.380 doctors dentists and you know they they usually lean towards education and following a legitimate

00:39:47.960 you know uh trajectory in life i had two of those leftovers who were the toughest guys and most

00:39:53.640 honorable guys around and uh so you know that continued through even my day so prohibition played

00:39:59.500 a big role in the rise of the mafia in the united states because that was an opportunity they can make

00:40:05.320 a lot of money because there was a demand for it and they're able to work in the black market so that

00:40:10.340 was from 1920 and prohibition ended in 1933 what did the mafia do at the end of prohibition where did

00:40:17.840 they see they can make money they walked out of prohibition with this great big windfall of cash

00:40:24.060 that they made and not only this cash that they were looking to invest so they're looking for

00:40:29.220 opportunities but also too they established tremendous connections in the overworld by bribing

00:40:35.860 prohibition agents by bribing local ward leaders by bribing mayors and governors and congressmen

00:40:41.860 they walked out of prohibition with all these corrupt relationships with the overworld

00:40:46.780 because you know congressmen didn't think it was such a bad thing to maybe you know partner with

00:40:52.240 a gangster who was only supplying what the people wanted supplying demand or the local mayor or the

00:40:57.520 ward leader etc so a lot of times a lot of these relationships rather they carried with them after

00:41:03.460 prohibition and they're looking around for things to do with these big pockets full of money

00:41:07.640 and they started to invest in lansky thought it was the next the next big thing was casinos he said

00:41:14.760 gambling would be to americans like liquor was now that liquor is legal again americans still want to

00:41:22.260 drink but they also want to gamble and we could provide gambling opportunities for them where gambling is

00:41:28.720 illegal so lansky said let's dump a lot of money into casinos and that was the next big thing there was

00:41:35.000 also the stock market crash it was in 1929 and you know when the banks all failed and banks were no

00:41:42.400 longer dishing out money to private businesses you know if you had a business and you needed cash you

00:41:48.200 couldn't go to a bank anymore so easily because so many banks failed and the few that were remaining

00:41:52.320 were very very you know critical of who they were lending money to so here's the mafia with pockets

00:41:57.980 full of cash and they're going hey you got a garment company we'll lend you money we just want a piece

00:42:03.340 of the shares and that's how the mafia dumped all of this money that they took from prohibition

00:42:07.760 into a lot of these legitimate industries semi-legitimate industries and put that money

00:42:12.720 into a lot of the businesses they remain into in today so it was incredible that they were able to

00:42:18.140 pull that off so another place we see mob history connect with american history was the mafia had a role

00:42:25.780 in world war ii what role did they play during world war ii when world war ii broke out i don't think

00:42:31.540 the mafia had any idea of how big a role they would play in the war effort obviously a lot of mobsters

00:42:38.080 were patriotic americans and they you know they put down their guns in their stilettos and put on an

00:42:43.600 army uniform and fought for this country there's a guy maddie the horse ianello who was around in my

00:42:49.640 time who was a rear gunner for a bomber squad there were other people like anastasia who joined the army

00:42:55.840 albert anastasia there were a ton of italian americans who joined the war effort but back on the home front

00:43:00.900 what happened was there was a ship and this ship was burned in new york it was the normandy

00:43:08.200 rechristened the uss lafayette and it was destined to be a transport ship for u.s troops and at some

00:43:14.080 point or another this burns in the harbor in new york and a lot of people thought it was sabotage

00:43:19.080 and they ruled that it wasn't sabotage but the u.s navy at the time said well it could just as

00:43:26.740 as easily have been sabotage and there were a lot of these uh german u-boats were spotting here and

00:43:32.540 there one one came ashore in long island another one was seen off the coast of jersey so a lot of

00:43:38.640 these u-boats they feared would interrupt the transports of troops and and ammunitions to europe

00:43:44.700 and we were obviously uh united states was the arsenal of the democracies and we had to keep that flow

00:43:50.000 going and the mafia controlled the waterfront so at some point the navy said let's reach out to the

00:43:56.060 mafia and they started to try to you know walk around the waterfront talking out of the sides of

00:44:00.900 their mouth like they saw in movies and try to find out who the mob leaders were and everybody was

00:44:06.180 keeping quiet nobody talks to these naval agents and at some point the navy approached the u.s

00:44:11.260 attorney's office in manhattan and said to the prosecutors hey can you tell us who we could talk to who

00:44:17.820 would be a good mob guy we could talk to we want to see who we could reach out to on the waterfront

00:44:22.820 that could help us secure the waterfront and they said well joe socks lanza he controls the waterfront

00:44:28.360 go speak to him so the u.s navy arranges a meeting with this joe socks lanza and joe socks says you know

00:44:35.720 i'll help you i'm a patriotic american i'm happy to help you against these nazis and fascists but the

00:44:41.380 problem is i got a boss and if this isn't on record and okayed by the boss a lot of people could see

00:44:48.760 you know maybe someone's eye on me and says i want to control the waterfront maybe they'll make an

00:44:52.380 accusation and say hey socks is dealing with the feds and then i'm dead so if you get it approved by

00:44:59.360 my boss who's in right now in clinton danamora prison a place i personally was in me being myself

00:45:05.720 go see him in clinton and if you get it okay by him i'll work with you so at that point they said

00:45:11.680 well how do we reach out to luciano and he said well lansky speaks with luciano's tongue my lansky

00:45:16.700 socks lanza tells them this go speak to my lansky so they went to my lansky and lansky says i'll

00:45:23.100 definitely help you and so will luciano i'll go speak with them but you got to bring him closer to

00:45:27.760 me he's you you guys stuck him all the way up after he was convicted of something luciano you stuck

00:45:33.240 him all the way up and by clinton danamora which is near the canadian border bring him closer to the

00:45:37.940 city where i could meet with him they did the navy arranged for the wardens in the u.s bureau of

00:45:43.220 prisons the new york state bureau of prisons rather to bring him closer to the city and then lansky went

00:45:48.680 with an attorney and he talked to luciano got the okay luciano told socks lanza you tell everybody on

00:45:54.740 the waterfront me lucky luciano said that this relationship is ordained by me and you could work

00:46:02.020 with the navy we have to protect our country and socks lanza went back to work and he told all these

00:46:07.860 mafiosos that line the waterfront in new york and new jersey which was controlling the eastern seaboard

00:46:13.520 and all the shipping to europe do everything you can for the navy all the sea captains were told to

00:46:18.480 report to the people on the docks all the docks were told to tell any of the mafiosos if you see

00:46:23.620 anything at sea tell us report it immediately if you see any anybody walking around the piers walking

00:46:29.860 around the docks tell us if you see anything strange report it to us and we'll report it to the navy

00:46:34.740 and from that moment on the docks were secured and the navy sat back and knew there wasn't going to

00:46:39.660 be a single u-boat near this coast and there wasn't any more so that was a big deal and then when they

00:46:45.260 planned churchill and roosevelt were planning to uh with stalin to eventually open up a second front

00:46:51.880 in europe because you know france fell to the nazis and uh stalin was fighting the the germans and on

00:46:59.940 the eastern front and uh we wanted to open up a second front and before normandy we wanted to start

00:47:05.760 that second front in what churchill considered the soft underbelly of europe being sicily so when we

00:47:11.700 decided the the united states with england decided that we were going to attack sicily and eject the germans

00:47:17.800 from sicily and then eject the uh the germans and the and the uh fascist italians from italy we

00:47:24.420 decided that uh once we decided the attack would be towards sicily we wanted to consult with the

00:47:29.720 sicilians here in america and a lot of the naval intelligence did just that tell us where the uh

00:47:35.040 deep sea ports are tell us where the roads are heading inland tell us what roads could hold heavy

00:47:39.860 machinery and once again the mafia was called into play and would and help them to to sort of like get the

00:47:45.640 whole landscape of sicily before the invasion of sicily led by general george patten and field

00:47:51.240 marshal montgomery of england so yeah the u.s navy made a deal with lucky luciano exactly i didn't know

00:47:57.280 that something that's interesting too is during this time from like you know the early 19th century

00:48:03.980 until you know right here world war ii into the 1950s the federal government like the fbi

00:48:10.380 really wasn't doing much to go after the mafia there were prosecutions going on but usually they

00:48:16.740 were at the state level thomas dewey in new york that's kind of how he rose to fame was he went

00:48:23.160 after the mafia in new york so jadeger hoover was in charge of the fbi at this time why did he mostly

00:48:28.760 ignore the italian mafia it's great question i dug and dug and i researched this endlessly because i

00:48:36.120 really really wanted to know and everything i've gathered is as follows most people do accuse hoover

00:48:44.100 they say well the mafia had him on you know had had bribed him and you know they had pictures of him

00:48:49.200 we all believe today for the most part that uh that hoover was a homosexual and possibly also to a

00:48:56.140 cross-dresser and a lot of the allegations against hoover was that the mob had compromising pictures

00:49:01.980 of him either in in homosexual positions or in drag and i could not find a stitch of evidence to support

00:49:09.800 that only allegations but i was able to find evidence to say that hoover was very very sensitive

00:49:17.760 as far as his fbi looking good we all know that by the way but i found evidence that suggests that

00:49:24.620 he felt prosecuting the mafia would make his fbi look bad and this is how basically if hoover went

00:49:33.080 after the mob they've got great lawyers they bribe judges they bribe juries and the fbi would lose a

00:49:39.180 lot in court so that's the first way the fbi would look bad he doesn't want to lose hoover he wants to

00:49:44.220 win he wants 100 conviction rate if he could get one so that's the first part the second part is he found

00:49:50.680 out that hoover did that the mafia had deep tentacles into politics and they almost swayed the

00:49:57.640 1932 presidential election and they controlled tammany hall in new york the political machine in

00:50:03.700 new york and controlled who would be mayor who would be governor so they were very they had very very very

00:50:08.640 deep control of politicians and these same politicians because the contacts went all the way

00:50:14.720 up to congress these same politicians are the people that hoover congress is where hoover goes to

00:50:20.640 to beg for money every year for the fbi he has to go there and say look i need a new budget

00:50:25.800 and he really didn't want to start going after mobsters when he felt that those relationships

00:50:31.980 went all the way up to people in washington dc who he was friends with so you know there was a big part

00:50:38.240 of it was that so a lot of people later on in hoover's fbi who were just as startled by his his uh

00:50:44.820 either naivety or his hands-off approach to the mafia that nobody could nobody could

00:50:50.380 understand it they to the best of their knowledge they said that it was this hands-off approach

00:50:57.260 because he feared what he might uncover and he feared this bad conviction rate you know the mafia

00:51:02.780 was maybe more powerful in america than even the fbi was at the time and if he you know showed up as

00:51:09.620 second to the mafia he was done and he was very very concerned with his image and the fbi's image at the

00:51:16.040 time so once again i don't feel like it went back to any compromising photos i feel those photos would

00:51:22.240 have surfaced by now and if they didn't there would have been some form of evidence there never was

00:51:27.240 but it looks like you know and also the mob gave him horse racing tips a lot of people said well the

00:51:32.220 mob gave him horse racing tips and that's how they bribed him i don't think hoover was the type of guy

00:51:37.280 to sell out his country for a ten dollar horse racing tip or even a hundred dollar or a thousand

00:51:42.420 dollar horse racing tip i do believe it was what i said i believe that he felt his fbi would show up

00:51:48.420 poorly and a lot of people came forward from within his fbi later on and said that's exactly what it was

00:51:53.820 and these weren't friends of hoover these people hated hoover when they came forward later on so i felt

00:52:00.000 given their hatred of hoover as could be seen in their memoirs i felt that they would immediately tell us

00:52:06.800 if there was something deeper than than uh you know at play here and i couldn't find evidence of it

00:52:12.060 okay so we're up to about the 1950s now and at this point the mafia has got their eyes set on casinos as

00:52:21.180 their next big play they get involved in the rise of las vegas and you talk about how bugsy siegel

00:52:27.740 goes out to las vegas and he's the guy that got the flamingo going right yeah that's correct and again

00:52:35.960 there's also just you know all the intrigue that's involved there siegel ruffled some feathers and it

00:52:43.000 was uh luciano from at this point he's been exiled to sicily but he was still controlling things and

00:52:48.920 siegel he got whacked yeah so yeah siegel opens the door for a lot i mean there were hotels on the

00:52:54.740 strip already in vegas when siegel went out there and decided he wanted to build his own but they

00:52:59.320 weren't as mob infiltrated as siegel's hotel the flamingo siegel desperately needed money he couldn't

00:53:05.600 siegel was a degenerate gambler couldn't hold on to money for nothing and he needed money from

00:53:11.880 lansky first and through lansky once lansky agreed to come in on it then all the mob wanted in every

00:53:18.540 don across the country wanted in once lansky approved it so he gets all this investment money from mobsters

00:53:24.700 and he builds the flamingo and the flamingo is doing phenomenal and his partners even the chicago mob

00:53:30.620 dumped a lot of money into the flamingo and as well as the new york mob so they were partnered with this

00:53:35.660 and siegel was the front man but at some point or another siegel was just like a problem you know he

00:53:42.040 could not run a casino hotel for the life of him time and again he's doing something stupid and he just

00:53:48.300 wasn't the type you know we all have different characters you know i couldn't run a fortune 500 company

00:53:52.940 but i could run a mafia crew you know i could run a heist crew i did and i was damn good at it but if

00:53:58.840 you put me in charge of microsoft tomorrow i would be as bad as bill gates would be running a heist crew

00:54:04.120 so you know there are different people who have different talents and siegel was a great mob guy

00:54:09.480 great mobster he ran the transatlantic wire for for uh for the los angeles mob when he first went out

00:54:15.780 to los angeles which was his first stop when he left new york and he did great at that bringing new

00:54:20.940 people on the wire was a wire service that bookmakers needed for fast information about

00:54:27.580 races and the track so the wire was uh you know the first thing before the internet and all this

00:54:33.140 other stuff it was the wire service so siegel ran the wire service hooked up a lot of bookies with the

00:54:38.620 wire service who would pay a monthly fee for it he was making a ton of money with that with the los

00:54:43.060 angeles mob then he does the flamingo and he's just blowing everything at the flamingo he's making

00:54:48.060 mistake after mistake the place isn't making money and a lot of people start accusing him of

00:54:52.600 stealing the money but i don't think that to be the case either and you'll see why i present a lot

00:54:56.220 of evidence where he was just an f up but not a thief he was loyal to the mob just a real screw up

00:55:02.600 and at some point or another he is taking what he's making with the wire and he's dumping it into

00:55:09.240 the flamingo and he's squeezing the bookmakers with the wire and he keeps squeezing these bookmakers

00:55:14.960 for more and more money every month and the bookmakers at some point you know just launch a

00:55:19.300 revolt and they start complaining to the mob guys who control the wire says siegel squeezing us again

00:55:24.080 so this combined with his atrocious uh presentation at the flamingo finally tipped the scales for the

00:55:30.160 chicago mob to go to frank costello who was acting boss for luciano who was in prison and just ask

00:55:36.620 costello look we need to whack this guy costello and luciano siegel belonged to their family you know

00:55:42.860 they had a claim on him so the chicago mob couldn't just whack them on their own so they went to

00:55:47.560 costello and said look you know he's a problem we got to get rid of him and costello put them off

00:55:51.960 through the war the first time they came to him but the second time they came to him and they called

00:55:56.520 the beef costello was at that point a little vulnerable himself in new york and uh he had no

00:56:01.500 power to resist it at that time and he gave them the okay and they clipped siegel they blew his eye out

00:56:06.240 in los angeles while he was visiting the mansion of his his girlfriend virginia hill and that was it and

00:56:11.840 then you know minutes after siegel was clipped he's laying dead on the couch in a pool of blood

00:56:16.700 his eyes splattered against the wall and literally minutes later before any news of his death even

00:56:22.660 leaks out to any press or anybody these guys march into the flamingo and say we're taking over here

00:56:29.320 and that was obviously pre-planned you know by the mob so you end this part of the history right before

00:56:36.160 the election of john f kennedy and the appointment of robert f kennedy as attorney general why in the

00:56:42.480 first part of your mob history here it's a major pivotal moment and event for the mob and the reason

00:56:49.380 being is as we as we had spoken about there was a massive hands-off approach to the mob uh specifically

00:56:54.780 by the fbi throughout the whole first volume hoover didn't want anything to do with them and there was

00:57:01.200 never any real major massive indictments against the mob they just did not have the will determination

00:57:08.360 to take down the mafia no one did and suddenly robert f kennedy john f kennedy is elected president

00:57:14.880 and the mob believing that the kennedys would be okay with them even helped kennedy get into office

00:57:20.560 and at some point robert f kennedy is appointed attorney general something that everyone saw coming

00:57:26.560 but joe kennedy the kennedy patriarch and father of the kennedy clan wanted bobby as attorney general

00:57:32.560 and some say they he wanted him there to head off any any examination into the election because a lot

00:57:38.080 of people felt that the election was robbed there was a slim margin that went for kennedy in the wards

00:57:44.520 of chicago that were mafia controlled and joe kennedy feared that there might be a close examination of

00:57:51.080 the ballots in illinois and chicago specifically and he didn't want that to happen so he puts bobby

00:57:56.520 kennedy in john kennedy does and bobby kennedy immediately goes after the mob and he already

00:58:02.040 had a grudge with them from different congressional hearings where they defied him and got away with it

00:58:07.000 and now he's attorney general with the complete power all the resources of the united states legal

00:58:12.380 system behind him he's the big head honcho and he's going to take on the mob for the first time

00:58:18.160 ever in the mafia's history bobby kennedy is going to take them down and he swears he's going to eradicate

00:58:24.040 them and destroy the mob in the united states and he thinks that they're the biggest evil in the

00:58:28.800 country and he goes after them with every resource he could muster and he marshals the resources of the

00:58:35.240 treasury department the ins immigration naturalization services to deport any mobsters who aren't here

00:58:40.860 legally the irs the internal revenue service any mobsters he wants all of their tax returns looked at

00:58:47.120 and he goes after them with everything full force of the justice department and he drags hoover into

00:58:52.340 the fray dash kicking in screaming dash but nonetheless into the fray and hoover um begrudgingly

00:59:00.200 starts to go after the mob for the first time too because he's got bobby you know screaming down his

00:59:05.200 neck about you know they need to take down the mafia so it's a perfect place to start the second volume

00:59:11.080 which is the first time the mafia is ever on the run in u.s history well lou this has been a great

00:59:17.040 conversation there's so much more that people can learn this book so where can they go to learn more

00:59:21.080 about it i urge people probably the best place is amazon i urge them to go to amazon.com uh you could

00:59:27.080 find the book the u.s edition is a red cover it's called borgata rise of empire a history of the american

00:59:33.560 mafia the uk edition united kingdom is a blue cover with the same title so i urge you to go to amazon you

00:59:40.280 could always check in also at my website lewisferrante.com l-o-u-i-s f-e-r-r-a-n-t-e.com

00:59:47.500 lewisferrante.com uh and there are links there where you could buy um the book as well fantastic

00:59:52.940 well lou ferrante thanks for your time it's been a pleasure thank you so much brett absolute pleasure

00:59:57.140 to be with you a second time thank you my guest today was lewis ferrante he's the author of the

01:00:01.820 book borgata rise of empire a history of the american mafia it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

01:00:07.100 everywhere you can find more information about his work at his website lewisferrante.com

01:00:11.360 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash mafia where you find links to resources we delve deeper

01:00:16.280 into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our

01:00:27.860 website at art of manliness.com where you find our podcast archives and while you're there make sure to

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01:01:06.900 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

An Insider's Guide to the Rise of the American Mafia

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