Elite Facts Presents
7 crimes the mafia specialized in
7.
Intimidating Voters Well if Donald Trump wins, We know who to
blame.
The mafia have been know to have exercised some control over the American government
by influencing both local and national elections through intimidation.
Obviously if they couldn’t get one of their own into office, They could at least invest
their time into someone who could represent them by having them change laws around to
the mafia’s needs.
The most famous example of the mafia’s influence on some form of election is The 1927 “Pineapple
Primary”.
Al Capone supported mayoral candidate William Hale Thompson, who opposed Prohibition.
The Chicago Outfit hired James Belcastro for his special talent for putting together explosives,
and he rigged various voting stations throughout Chicago for election day.
Belcastro’s bombs resulted in the deaths of 15 people.
They even went out of their way to chase down and kill a voter who voted the opposite of
what they wanted.
6.
Skimming Casinos If you’ve seen Martin Scorsese’s classic
mob film “Casino”, You’ll know exactly where i’m going with this.
Skimming was a common operation that was conducted throughout the development of the Las Vegas
Strip.
This operation was conducted by the Chicago Outfit as they would send out a representative
to visit a casino they had a hand in, Skim cash from the casino’s earnings and funnel
the money back to Chicago.
The reason it took so long for someone to get caught was for the simple reason that
casinos were making cash every day so it didn’t matter all that much if cash went missing
every now and then.
5.
Racketeering So this is probably the most well known crime
that the mafia are known for.
In the early 1900s Infamous Mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Moe Sedway created their own protection
racket by demanding five dollars from street vendors for the service of not setting their
merchandise on fire.
They essentially paid the mafia for nothing as they didn’t even offer a service of actually
protecting the business back in those days.
A similar form of this practice evolved from 19th century Sicily, where the mafia would
actually protect their “patrons” from thievery and competition.
This service kept their customers from going to the authorities.
Italian immigrants then brought the practice to America, where it lost any actual benefit
to its victims and depended purely on intimidation.??
4.
Hijacking Probably the most common crime, Hijacking
is something that is done by almost any form of criminal.
However there is one thing that sets the mafia aside from two-bit thugs.
They have specific money making targets.
Their main target tends to be armoured vans as they most likely contain cash or something
just as valuable that was meant for banks.
One famous example comes from the prohibition era as William “Dinty” Colbeck and his
goons made a routine of robbing banks and hijacking armoured cars all over Illinois
and Missouri.
They struck lucky one day as one of the armoured cars they commandeered happened to contain
over $2 million.
3.
Newspaper Sluggin’ During the early 1900s, It was a common business
strategy to hire “Outside” help to convince store owners to stock their product.
What Newspaper bosses would do is they would hire street thugs and boxers to go out to
whatever newspaper stand they were sent too to kick the crap out of the stall owner for
not stocking their newspapers..
The common terms for this business strategy is “Slugging”.During this time, One of
the top sluggers went by the name of Max Annenberg.
Annenberg was hired by William Randolph Hearst to organize a team of sluggers to make sure
the vendors were distributing his paper on behalf of his publication “The Chicago American”.
Annenberg armed his new recruits with brass knuckles and black jacks.
The ensuing beatings and shootouts were nearly enough to drive the Chicago government to
ban newsstands altogether.
Annenberg also made sure that truckloads of rival newspapers wound up in the river instead
of the newsstands.
Annenberg’s techniques worked — The Chicago American soon became the most widely-read
newspaper in Chicago.??
2.
Safe Cracking So in 1835, The concept of the safe was created
by two english brothers known as Charles and Jeremiah Chubb.
Thought to be an invention that would finally prevent thieves from stealing people’s possessions,
It didn’t take long for burglars to find a way into safes without needing a combination
or key.
This is usually accomplished through either the slow delicate process of lock-picking,
or the clumsy use of explosives on the door.
This eventually became something the chicago mafia specialise in thanks to the teaching
of Charles Reiser, A master lockpick artist.
This skill was taught to Dean O’Banion, who was Al Capone’s main rival in Chicago.
Reiser and his accomplices would actually steal the safe before attempting to crack
it.
Reiser was caught several times but avoided jail time for his activities by murdering
the witnesses whenever he was investigated.
Kind of funny how that ties into the next crime.
1.
Assassinations This crime should come as no surprise considering
the mafia has quite the track record when it comes to “whacking” people.
Their targets could literally be anyone.
It could be witnesses looking to rat them out to the government in court, it could be
the actual judgers who are in charge of the trial they’re apart of.
Witnesses would always tend to disappear whenever a mobster happened to be on trial.
Because of this, The mafia would outsource a contract to hitmen to take care of these
witnesses for them without getting their own hands dirty.
These contracts would usually commission around $1,000 per person.
As said earlier, Assassinations aren’t just limited to judges and witnesses.
If needed, They would put contracts out on their own men if they’re seen as a threat
to their organisation by becoming a rat or joining another crime family, Or they’re
simply killed just for insulting another member of the mafia.
Yes it’s happened before, Just look up what happened to Billy Batts.
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