10 Things the Mafia Somehow Still Controls

Gambling has always been the financial cornerstone of the Mafia. While lotteries have cut into the numbers racket and horse racing, boxing, and baseball have waned in popularity, other sports like professional football and college football and basketball have added huge potential revenue streams. While the corner bookmaker is also a thing of the past, the Mafia has adapted to new technologies and the internet to facilitate multi-million dollar sports-betting operations.

In 2012, a high-ranking member of the Genovese crime family and several associates were arrested and brought up on racketeering charges related to an illegal betting website.

Narcotics - specifically heroin - have been a Mafia profit center for as long as any substance has been classified as illegal. Some high-level mobsters initially decreed that any soldier involved in drug trafficking would be killed, but this edict was not out of any code of honor. Instead, the fear was that legal penalties were so severe that any mobster arrested for trafficking would certainly turn into an informant rather than serve decades behind bars. But those same powerful mobsters couldn't resist the cash flow and eventually got involved in the drug trade. 

Heroin trafficking is still a major element of the Mafia's profit portfolio. Domenico Cefalu, the reputed current head of the Gambino crime family, has a long history of narcotics trafficking and was even convicted of heroin smuggling in the early 1980s. In 2008, nearly 80 members of the Gambino crime family were indicted on charges including drug trafficking and murder. 

The Mafia dominated what is politely called the sanitation industry throughout the 20th century. Even in 1993, when Houston-based sanitation company Browning-Ferris attempted to expand into New York City, the wife of a company executive found the severed head of a German Shepherd on her lawn. In the animal's mouth was a note that read, "Welcome to New York." Although New York specifically has addressed many of the problems historically associated with crooked garbage hauling, the Mob is by no means out of the garbage business. 

If arrests indicate a prevalence in any particular industry, then a 2013 crackdown on the Genovese, Gambino, and Lucchese crime families indicates that garbage can still be a very dirty business.

Cigarette tax scams are another surefire Mafia moneymaker because the scheme is so lucrative and simple. Because each state regulates and collects cigarette taxes, these taxes can vary widely. Missouri has one of the lowest taxes, while New York has one of the highest. Because taxes are typically the highest in urban areas where the mob operates, it is a given that fraud will occur.

Even a small-time criminal can fill up a truck with thousands of cheap cigarettes bought in a state like Virginia, transport them to New York, stamp them with a fake tax stamp, and sell them at a huge profit. Cigarette tax scams are still very much alive and well in America and even abroad.

Another scheme notable for its simplicity was the gasoline tax fraud employed by one mobster in the '80s and '90s. It was so lucrative it has been copied by other criminal syndicates throughout the US. By law, gasoline wholesalers must charge sales tax to retailers up front. These funds are then turned over to the US Government. But one enterprising mobster formed his own distribution entity, sold the gas wholesale, and then pocketed the tax.

Sex work another bedrock operation at the core of organized crime activity.  But, unlike the sex work operations run in the days of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, the Mafia has adapted to the modern world. Recent arrests of gang-connected individuals indicate an involvement with high-end sex work cases, with customers and even employees being solicited via the internet. 

One such individual, who was arrested in 2016, controlled more than 58 active domain names and had been in business for 10 years. Even Craigslist has not been immune to Mafia-run sex work operations, occasionally even involving underage girls. Criminals would book the appointments through the website, drive the women to their liaisons, and then pocket half the proceeds. 

Just like the sanitation business, the Mafia gained control of the construction industry through its infiltration of labor unions. A mob-run construction company will bid on business and include union rates in these contracts. Once successful, the company will then pay its workers far less and intimidate anyone who complains. Cement and building materials companies are still controlled by mob influence and will tack on additional costs to any project with inflated prices. Mob-controlled businesses were even involved in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center.