{"id":1507316,"date":"2022-06-08T08:05:22","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T12:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1507316"},"modified":"2022-06-08T08:06:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T12:06:13","slug":"american-mafia-with-lurid-headlines-fading-ex-mobsters-weigh-in-on-resurgence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/american-mafia-with-lurid-headlines-fading-ex-mobsters-weigh-in-on-resurgence\/","title":{"rendered":"American Mafia: With Lurid Headlines Fading, Ex-Mobsters Weigh In On Resurgence"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Famerican-mafia-with-lurid-headlines-fading-ex-mobsters-weigh-in-on-resurgence%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1507316&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><em>For much of the last century, the American mafia controlled industries, kept police, judges, and politicians on its payroll and literally got away with murder. But somewhere in between Don Corleone\u2019s version of La Cosa Nostra and Tony Soprano\u2019s, the once-powerful organized crime syndicate lost its grip on power. In a three-part investigation, The Daily Wire looks at what the mob once was, how it was brought down, and how it may soon be back on the rise.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In a quiet, affluent Staten Island neighborhood just a mile from Vito Corleone\u2019s home in \u201cThe Godfather,\u201d a horrifying scene was unfolding outside a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/what-happened-to-the-mafia-rats-revenge-and-rico-ex-mobsters-talk-the-downfall-of-an-empire\">mafia don<\/a>\u2018s mansion. Gambino boss Francesco \u201cFranky Boy\u201d Cali had just been lured outside, gunned down, and run over in his own driveway, his wife and young children just feet away inside the house.<\/p>\n<p>On that evening three years ago in March, New York City was suddenly transported back several decades to a time when old-school mobsters settled family business on the streets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGAMBINO BOSS WHACKED\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/cover\/covers-for-thursday-march-14-2019\/\">blared<\/a> the New York Post cover the next day. The headline smacked of the tabloid\u2019s cover more than 30 years prior when another Gambino boss, Paul Castellano, was shot dead in midtown Manhattan, the last mob boss to be publicly whacked. Castellano had lived less than a mile away from Cali on Staten Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTHE BOSS IS DEAD,\u201d the December, 1985 Post cover had announced.<\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-392770\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone in \u201cThe Godfather\u201d (CBS via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, Cali had not been rubbed out by another family or an ambitious underling. Police would learn that he was <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2019\/03\/18\/suspected-mob-boss-killer-tried-to-make-a-citizens-arrest-of-de-blasio\/\">killed<\/a> by a\u00a0deranged lone wolf not connected with organized crime. Nevertheless, his assassination piqued the imagination of the American public.<\/p>\n<p>Could the mafia rise again? Was a La Cost Nostra renaissance underway?<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/rpwhat-happened-to-the-mafia-as-a-rusty-barrel-reveals-a-body-ex-mobsters-recall-blood-soaked-glory-days\">AS A RUSTY BARREL REVALS A BODY, EX-MOBSTERS RECALL BLOOD-SOAKED GLORY DAYS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Many experts are skeptical that the American mafia will ever ascend again to the staggering and often deadly levels of political and social power it wielded during most of the 20th century.<\/p>\n<p>But one former \u201cmade man\u201d warns: Don\u2019t count it out.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Franzese was once a powerful caporegime in the Colombo family. He was a pre-med student but joined the mob in 1971, four years after his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison for bank robbery. Franzese knew John Gotti in the 1970s and became fluent in sophisticated fraud schemes, estimating he earned $8 million a week in his prime. In 1986, he went to prison on conspiracy charges. He was released in 1994 and has renounced the mafia.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-392761\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-392761\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Franzesetrial-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Michael Franzese on trial\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/06\/Franzesetrial-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/06\/Franzesetrial.jpg 320w\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-392761\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael Franzese on trial (Courtesy of Michael Franzese)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-392762\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-392762\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Franzesewife-300x171.jpg\" alt=\"Young Michael Franzese with his wife\" width=\"300\" height=\"171\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/06\/Franzesewife-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Franzesewife.jpg 612w\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-392762\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Young Michael Franzese with his wife (Courtesy of Michael Franzese)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see what\u2019s happening in the FBI. They seem to be more susceptible to corruption now than they were in the past,\u201d Franzese told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\">The Daily Wire<\/a>. \u201cWhen you\u2019re partisan in the FBI, that means you\u2019re susceptible to corruption on the street. Because let me tell you this: Guys in that life know how to get around people. I mean, that was one of our biggest assets was that we knew how to maneuver people. We knew how to manipulate. We knew how to get them on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur government is acting very Machiavellian, very mob-like. There are tremendous similarities, and that\u2019s very, very dangerous,\u201d Franzese said, noting that he goes into more detail on this issue in his recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mafia-Democracy-Republic-Became-Racket\/dp\/1544530811\/ref=pd_lpo_1?pd_rd_i=1544530811&#038;psc=1\">book<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cMafia Democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-392763\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-392763\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/mikeyahh-300x300.png\" alt=\"Michael Franzese then and now\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/mikeyahh-300x300-1.png 300w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/mikeyahh-576x576-1.png 576w, https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/06\/mikeyahh-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/mikeyahh-768x768-1.png 768w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/mikeyahh.png 1080w\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-392763\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael Franzese then and now (Courtesy of Michael Franzese)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo it seems that there is a breakdown in morality in our government officials, and if that happens, guys on the street will take advantage of that and you\u2019ll see a rise in power again,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t count that out at all. I really don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other ex-mobsters say they don\u2019t see it happening.<\/p>\n<p>Bobby Luisi was a made man, or <em>capo<\/em>, in the Philadelphia mafia. He grew up in Boston\u2019s Little Italy and was eventually tapped to lead the Boston crew of the City of Brotherly Love\u2019s Bruno-Scarfo family. In 1999, Luisi was arrested and charged with cocaine distribution and served 14 years in federal prison. He has since renounced the mobster life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just don\u2019t see a resurgence of La Cosa Nostra, and I just see it dying,\u201d Luisi told The Daily Wire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-cmdiie e1ttcx5v0\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/what-happened-to-the-mafia-rats-revenge-and-rico-ex-mobsters-talk-the-downfall-of-an-empire\">RATS, REVENGE, AND RICO: EX-MOBSTERS TALK THE DOWNFALL OF AN EMPIRE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Luisi explained that in the \u201cwar time\u201d of the \u201890s, members of some of the New York families, the Patriarca family in Boston, and his own Bruno-Scarfo family in Philadelphia were \u201cfighting for power, jockeying for position\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For much of the last century, the American mafia controlled industries, kept police, judges, and politicians on its payroll and literally got away with murder. But somewhere in between Don Corleone\u2019s version of La Cosa Nostra and Tony Soprano\u2019s, the once-powerful organized crime syndicate lost its grip on power. In a three-part investigation, The Daily &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":1898510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1507316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1507316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1898510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1507316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1507316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1507316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}