Art, obsession, and identity
In the '50s through the '80s, the business was strongly suspected of helping to import heroin, though nobody was ever charged.
The Milwaukee gang owned Del Chemical, which sold chemicals to various municipalities across the US. However, it was a simple scam.
Mobs have even had their hands on the dairy industry! The Milwaukee crime family owned Grande Cheese, a national cheese producer and distributor, which was used for laundering money.
In 1990, the five Mafia families in New York were up on federal charges for receiving kickbacks and fixing bids on a US$150 million job with the New York City Housing Authority. And even if times have changed, they still have a strong hold over the industry.
The mobsters overcharged by 10%, and then Del paid this 10% back to the mayor as a kickback. Not only illegal, but it encouraged mayors to buy more chemicals than a city needed.
The Genovese crime family seized the opportunity to make money, bribing law enforcement to ignore the happenings in their establishments, such as at the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.
Margaret L was the world’s largest tuna fishing boat in the 1970s, which was purchased with stolen union money from the Teamsters Union.
Similar to its waste-management strategy, the Mafia made its way into the building business through unions. Typically, construction companies would make bids for jobs that include union crews. Mafia-run construction would then include union rates in the bids, win the contracts, and then pay far less to their workers.
Infamous mobster Meyer Lansky had some unlikely businesses in his day. One of them were jukeboxes, which he dabbled with in the '40s.
In probably one of the most innovative moves in organized crime, the Milwaukee Mafia once owned the fishing boat Margaret L.
Real estate provided a base for activities such as gambling. Plus, there was no regulatory authority overseeing it, and properties could be rented out or used for legal businesses.
One thing is for sure, the Mafia loves to get involved in real estate. A 2015 study of Italian mobs, published in the British Journal of Criminology, highlighted that it was an attractive Mafia venture for a number of reasons.
Some of the mobsters behind the casino were Bugsy Siegel (pictured), Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano. You could say that Las Vegas is what it is today because of the Mafia.
In 1943, the Outfit was caught trying to extort the movie industry, and several of its members, including boss Paul "The Waiter" Ricca (pictured), were sent to jail. However, he was released after serving just three years.
Since the '60s and '70s, the Mafia has been connected to adult content. The Colombo family reportedly ran coin-operated machines during these decades, which showed 8mm adult films in New York’s Times Square.
One of the first major casinos was the Flamingo Hotel and Casino, which opened in Las Vegas in 1946. It was the perfect place for mobsters to make a major profit.
Chicago’s Mafia, best known as the Outfit, had a lot of power in Hollywood. They became partial owners of movie studios and even got into motion picture labor unions.
The Bonanno crime family’s Michael "Mickey Z" Zaffarano started a nationwide chain, Pussycat Cinemas. The chain was successful until the FBI caught him in 1979.
Lansky also found himself in the record business, as they supplied the LPs for the machines.
Anyone who has eaten at Umberto's Clam House in lower New York City, or Rao's in the Bronx, highly suspects, to say the least, that the Mafia is connected to some delicious restaurants.
However, Lansky wasn’t the only mafioso involved in the biz. In the '80s, a group of Mafia members were found purchasing record-pressing plants. They would then use them to make copies of recordings and sell them at cheap prices.
This was one of the first businesses that the Mafia got involved with in the US, in the '50s. They found themselves in the industry thanks to the Teamsters Union, by gaining influence and keeping competition away.
Jimmy Hoffa played a major role in helping the Mob infiltrate this sector, and in 1957 he eventually became president of the union.
Lansky (pictured) ran a Wurlitzer distributing business in New York City. And for a year, he would distribute all over different neighborhoods.
The Mob has been a legitimate force behind some of the best recording artists. The Genovese crime family’s Moishe "Morris" Levy (pictured) was known as the Godfather of Rock and Roll, and produced classic hits like 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love?'. He was convicted for extortion in 1990.
Another man connected to the Genovese crime family was Willie Moretti. He had a hand in building the career of Frank Sinatra.
In 2010, Italy seized Mafia-linked assets of US$1.9 billion in an operation that revealed the crime group was trying to launder money through alternative energy companies.
In some countries in Europe, the Mafia are investing in wind farms and other types of green energy as a way to launder dirty money.
In the '80s, the Sicilian Mafia relied on their "pizza connection" to ship cocaine and heroin to Mob-run pizzerias across the US. They used cans of San Marzano tomatoes to export the drugs.
In the '60s, the Mafia had a lock on New York City’s gay bars. At the time, an establishment serving LGBTQ+ guests was deemed a "disorderly house," and the State Liquor Authority refused licenses to gay bars and revoked those of any place that served gay customers.
Businesses you didn’t know were controlled by the Mafia
The Mob has its fingers in many pies!
LIFESTYLE Crime
Organized criminals have a long history of investing in legitimate businesses as both a base of operations and a means of laundering money from illegal activities. However, the businesses they've gotten involved in are far from what people might imagine. From the tuna fishing industry to gay bars, click on to discover some of the most surprising industries that are controlled by the Mafia.