The Mob ‘still rules’ in Chicago

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32703, 4 September 1971, Page 17

The Mob ‘still rules’ in Chicago

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) CHICAGO, September 3. Mobsters own or control as many as 500 businesses in Chicago and the crime syndicate continues to corrupt and conspire with politicians, Government, business and labour officials, according to a year-long study of organised crime in Illinois.

The crime syndicate’s top money-earner in the state, bringing in an estimated annual gross turnover of between s34om and s7som, was illegal offtrack gambling, the study by the Chicago Crime Commission and the research institute of the Illinois Institute of Technology reported yesterday. It was also estimated that crimes committed by heroin addicts in the state were responsible for an annual loss to Illinois of as much as s4sBm.

Mr Kerineth Block, president of the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission, which financed the $lOO,OOO study, told a press conference that organised crime flourished because it had succeeded in corrupting “a significant number of influential politicians and criminal justice system officials, to maintain its protected status.” “Demand for services” Mr Block asserted that too many people apparently wanted and used “services” offered by organised crime, even though “the vast majority of these citizens deplore its presence.” Evidence gathered for the study had been based on clandestine interviews with criminals as well as with hundreds of Illinois resi-

dents, ranging from housewives to clergymen, law officials and newspaper reporters. Many people interviewed in the Chicago metropolitan area felt that organised crime would be hard-hit, if not completely stopped, by incorruptible police, prosecutors and judges.

Sydney sewage strike Sydney Water Board engineers have estimated that more than 84m gallons of untreated sewage is being pumped into the sea at North Sydney residential beaches each day, and may soon become a health hazard. The sewage is not being treated because of a strike by 2000 employees of the board, now in its third day.—Sydney, September 3.