'... but we only kill each other’

Press, 11 January 1986, Page 17

'... but we only kill each other’

They don’t look or act like their Hollwood counterparts. But then neither do they look like the senior executives of America’s biggest business — the business that never suffers from recession.

joey Auippa, small, seemingly frail, but at .78, still the boss- of the Chicago Mafia, recently appeared at his trial in Kansas City dressed somewhat incongruously in an outsize cowboy hat and a raincoat several sizes too large. Yet he heads an organisation — known as “The Outfit” — which has justified over and over again its feared reputation for ruthlessness. Carmine Persico has more style. The boss of New York’s Colombo family appears at his “sold right out” court appearances in New York sharply dressed, favouring natty blue suits, and enjoying a break from prison. His under-boss Gennaro “Jerry Lang” Langella favours more conservative brown three-piece suits. Matthew lanniello, a grey-haired hulking sawn-off heavyweight, is more casually dressed as befits his build. He speaks in low, mumbled rough tones, but when he speaks people listen. “Matty the Horse” is a capo in New York’s Genovese family and one of the organised crime’s biggest moneymakers. His

overseas interests have included a now closed London casino and a Mohammed Ali heavy-weight title fight. But no-one can doubt that they all have a way when it comes to .doing business. For the Mafia has an edge no amount of business degrees, expert advice, or imaginative financing packages can beat.

Last month, in a New York courtroom, a building contractor — he began his evidence by taking the Fifth Amendment against self-in-crimination when asked his name — explained the mob’s powers of persuasion.

He received a visit from a union boss linked with the Colombo family who demanded 2 per cent of a $2 million piling sub-contract for a new terminal at New York’s La Guardia airport. He was told that unless he paid up he would have to “go down to Little Italy and sit with three or four guys with thick necks.”

The contractor refused the offer, then received a visit from the head of the company with the terminal contract. "He walked up to me in the mud. He was wearing a threepiece suit. In two seconds he said 'Go deal,’ and then he walked away.”

What happens when the Mafia no longer wants you as a partner in business was graphically described in the Kansas City trial by a casino owner, Allen Glick. The Chicago and two other Mafia families had helped him to become the owner of four Las Vegas casinos in order to “skim” a minimum $2 million' from the takings. ' ■

Glick testified how he was summoned from his dinner table in Las Vegas to fly at once to Kansas City. There he was taken; at night, to a darkened hotel room where a man in dark glasses was seated. This was Mick Civilla, boss of the Kansas City Mafia family and one of Glick’s secret partners in the casinos.

Glick explained: “He (Civilla) told me he found me to be an individual he didn’t care to have anything to do with. He said I should cling to everything he said. He said ‘lt would be my choice that you would never leave this room alive, but because of circumstances you may’.” Civilla told Glick to sell his casinos. Not surprisingly, he did so. More surprisingly, he lived to tell the tale.

Today, organised crime is a vast multinational enterprise second only to General Motors and “Big

Oil” in its revenue. The big difference is that the mob does not pay tax.

The Gambino family is active in the food, entertainment and jewellery businesses. The trial in which “Big Pauli” Castellano was a defendant'involved one of their;diversifications, stolen cars shipped to the East and South America.

The Genovese family is big in waste disposal and on the docks. In addition to its control of the cement business,. the Colombo family favours funeral homes, estate agencies, wine' and liquor distribution, car dealerships, and vending franchises. The Bonanno group are into more traditional activities such as pizza parlours, cafes, and restaurants. The Lucchese family concentrates on the construction and garment industries.

All of this untaxed activity is off the backs of the American consumer. Organised crime’s domination of the waste disposal business in New York is estimated to add at least 50 per cent to the cost of having garbage removed. Some companies have to pay 400 per cent over the top for the service. This puts an extra $lO million to $5O million on the bill

for industry, which the consumer pays. Like the old robber barons of pre-1914 and their latter day multinational imitators, the Mafia dislikes competition arid . prefers monopolies. t . Explaining his businessAactics in the. waste disposal industry;’ one Mafia “executive” declared: “We’re gonna knock everyone, qut, we’re gonna knock everybody out, absorb everybody, eat them up; whoever stays in there is only who we allow to stay in there.” r But the price of failure can be high. There are no golden parachutes for the members of organised crime.

Bugsy Siegel was one of the first organised crime figures to see the benefits of competitive business. He was the pioneer of Las Vegas, building the Flamingo casino. Unfortunately, he took somewhat larger dividends than his partners in New York.

When asked about the mob’s way of settling business disputes Bugsy remarked, prophetically, but in justification: “We only kill each other.” Both he and now Paul Castellano could have that on their 'gravestones.