My name is John Pennisi.
I'm a former made member of the Lucchese crime family.
This is how crime works.
We were involved in a Range Rover scam
where the Range Rovers were purchased
or financed from the United States, here,
and shipped to countries like China,
where they had a specific Range Rover
that didn't have all the bells and whistles
that the Range Rovers in the United States had.
And they were sold almost for four times the amount.
And there was a stipulation that
if you purchased a Range Rover from the United States,
you would sign paperwork saying
that you weren't going to export the car.
They were buying them maybe for $100,000 $120,000,
and it was being sold in China
for about up to $400,000.
A lot of members of organized crime
went into legitimate businesses,
whether they opened up pizzerias, restaurants,
construction companies, and things like that.
One of the legitimate businesses
was in the Fulton Fish Market,
which is where most of the fish
that goes to the restaurants in New York City comes from.
Rudolph Giuliani came into the Fulton Fish Market
and seen that
there were members of organized crime
planted there with businesses that were legit,
and he took them all out.
So that was one example of
ways that which they tried to slip into legitimacy,
but because of who they were,
law enforcement got them out.
So, the food industry was always a big earn
for organized crime in the past,
and it is present today.
As earning capability's
been taken away from Cosa Nostra
because of the government and the FBI,
they went a little more
in the legitimate way of doing things,
creating companies that supply food,
but what they would do is they would go to restaurants
and insist that they have to use their product
and their companies.
So the specific companies that they would create
would be the companies which supply the restaurants,
whether it be pasta, sauce, cheese, water,
and even imported food from Italy and Sicily.
A lot of members of organized crime
have purchased their own restaurants
and went into that legitimate business.
They have took control of restaurants as well
that weren't theirs.
They'll come in as partners.
So they would create companies
that become vendors for food,
which supply the restaurant industry.
As far as Hollywood, in years past,
organized crime had a big hold on the unions there.
And that's how they were able to manipulate
and control what went on in Hollywood
with the movies and music business.
The sanitation was bigger years ago,
and they brought a big case on them.
Years ago, there was a big arrest
of the private sanitation companies.
They were charging so much money
towards local businesses to pick up their garbage.
But even presently, today,
members of organized crime
own companies that are private sanitation.
So there's still a big presence
in the sanitation industry.
Tax evasion or tax fraud and money laundering
is something that always went on
in Cosa Nostra in the past
and still to this present day.
Illegal money that's being made in the street today
is not being claimed on taxes.
That's tax evasion or tax fraud right there.
Money laundering happens when organized crime,
they're making money
and they're buying legitimate businesses,
restaurants and companies,
so they're washing the money, illegal money,
through these legitimate businesses.
Insider trading was bigger years ago
where Cosa Nostra went into the financial center
and created companies,
and they were finding out information.
The SEC came down on them.
There was a lot of people who were indicted
and went to prison as a result of that.
And they kind of pushed them out.
So, counterfeiting went on more years ago.
There was always counterfeit bills, 10s, 20s,
where people were pushing this counterfeit money
back into society.
Today, it's a little more difficult,
because the way the bills are made,
you know, the bills have specific emblems on it
and wires in the bills.
So the government made it harder
for members of organized crime
to counterfeit their bills.
In Sicily and Italy, they use cryptocurrency,
especially to buy narcotics.
And I believe that in New York,
the same thing's happening.
A lot more criminals are using cryptocurrency
to do scams and as a means
to pay for things to do criminal activities.
Cryptocurrency would come into effect again,
where the loan shark could get paid back
in cryptocurrency today.
Loan-sharking is a way in which Cosa Nostra
made money years ago
and makes money up to the present day,
where they loan somebody money
at a rate or where there's vig involved.
The vig is the interest
that they're making off the principal of the money.
A lot of times, people in the street life
can't walk into a bank for whatever reason and get a loan.
They'll go to a loan shark.
Gambling is always going to be an earn for Cosa Nostra.
It was done on a much larger scale.
They had casinos, illegal casinos,
a lot of card games.
Today, there's not a lot of that going on,
as it did years ago.
But you're always going to have your bookmaker
take an action to make some money.
So a lot of times,
gambling and loan-sharking go hand in hand.
There's gambling going on;
maybe somebody runs out of money;
there's a loan shark,
somebody that's lending money;
they borrow the money from the loan shark.
And gamblers are always going to be owing money.
So in turn, they go to the loan shark.
So those two specific ways to make money
go hand in hand for Cosa Nostra.
So, gambling's been taken to a new level in present times,
where now there is online gambling.
So Cosa Nostra has
people who have online gambling,
mostly in Costa Rica, they'll build websites,
and they'll have their customers go online,
and they gamble through the website.
Years ago, it was all done through paper,
people writing things down.
There was none of that online activity.
As far as gun trafficking and arms trafficking,
obviously it was bigger years ago,
but every family has a member
or certain members that are involved in guns.
And you're going to see a little gun trafficking
where somebody's leaving the state
or maybe getting guns from another state
and bringing it back into New York
for sale or for use.
So there's always some kind of gun activity
going on within organized crime.
Drug dealing and drug trafficking
was done on a much larger scale years ago.
It is a big earn for Cosa Nostra,
but I think it's done on a much, much lower scale
than it was years ago.
At one time, prostitution was a big, big earn
for organized crime,
as well as the whole sex industry,
pornography and all of that.
Today, that no longer exists
as a moneymaking opportunity for them.
Years ago, organized crime made a ton of money
through the 1-800 sex calls,
where you would call up
and talk sexual with a woman on the phone.
It was a big, big earn for them.
So that's no longer available to them.
Extortion is another means in which to make money
where, years ago, it would be maybe
pushing up on local businesses, restaurants,
and have them pay extortion money.
It's harder to do today.
People are not afraid to pick up and call 911
and call the cops on these people.
They're not afraid of repercussions from them.
So, today, it's mostly where one business
is owed money by another business.
They would try to go about getting their money
in any other way, and then as a last resort
they would come to one of us
and we would collect the money,
if we could collect the money,
and we would sometimes take half
or take whatever percentage we felt that we wanted
and give them the rest.
Most of the business that we got involved in
to collect money was the construction business,
whether it was a supplier of construction material
or people that were doing construction themselves.
And one company owed another company,
and one company wasn't paying,
and we would get involved.
Another way in which organized crime
got involved in construction was bid rigging,
where a certain contractor would be given
a job without going for bid.
And that no longer takes place today,
because the government doesn't allow it.
You know, the government monitors
what goes on with these construction activities.
So bid rigging is something that really was lost today.
Another means in present times
which to make money was fiber optics.
Myself, I was specifically involved
with a bunch of guys in our family.
We were installing fiber optics for a big company,
and we would get subcontractors to do the work
for the company that we had.
The companies did not have to put it up for bid.
They just were given the job to do
and told what they should charge
and what they should not charge.
And so that's where the crime comes involved in that.
So, presently, Cosa Nostra is making money
through the old methods, and some are new methods,
like bookmaking, gambling,
extortion, labor racketeering,
the construction industry,
the carting industry, the garbage industry.
And those are always going to go on.
Some of the newer ways in which they make money
is through restaurant vendors
and restaurants and legitimate businesses.
They are even inducting members now
that are legitimate people
that have businesses and have money.
So some of the ways in which
they lost earning capabilities
is the unions.
And the reason being is that
the government monitors the unions now.
So the government kicked out members of organized crime
and companies that were involved with organized crime
out of the construction industry,
the fish market,
and even the garbage industry.
Cosa Nostra, to me, is like an amoeba.
And it's always changing shapes and forms,
and they're always trying to come up
with new schemes and new scams in which to make money.
And this will always continue,
because without scams
or scores to make money,
money equals power, and without power,
there is no more Cosa Nostra.