Up next in 10
At three forty-seven in the morning on a Tuesday in January two thousand twenty-four, a man walked into a Brooklyn social club and never walked out. His body has never been found. He was the third Gambino associate to vanish that year. The Five Families are not history. They are current events.
Seventy years after the famous Apalachin meeting exposed the American Mafia to the world, five criminal organizations still control the largest city in America. An estimated twenty-five billion dollars flows through their operations annually. Politicians still answer their calls. Construction projects still pay their tax. And federal prosecutors still cannot destroy what they have been fighting for nearly a century.
This documentary reveals what the Five Families look like in two thousand twenty-five. How the Genovese family became the most powerful by becoming invisible. Why the Bonanno family rose from the ashes of near-destruction. What happened to the Gambino empire after John Gotti's death. The current state of the Lucchese and Colombo organizations. And the new alliances and technologies that make the modern mob more dangerous than ever.
Based on recent federal indictments, FBI surveillance reports, court testimonies from two thousand twenty through two thousand twenty-four, and interviews with organized crime investigators. The power structure is documented. The money is traced. The faces are identified.
Five Families. New York Mafia two thousand twenty-five. Genovese crime family. Gambino crime family. Bonanno family. Lucchese family. Colombo family. Organized crime today. Modern mafia. NYC mob. Italian American mafia. True crime documentary. Current organized crime.
If the shadow government of America's greatest city fascinates you, subscribe now. The next revelation might be the one that changes everything you think you know about who really runs New York.
đ RESEARCH NOTE: Financial estimates in this documentary are drawn from law enforcement assessments, federal indictments, and organized crime researchers. Exact figures for criminal enterprises are inherently difficult to verify. Sources include FBI intelligence reports, DOJ press releases, court testimony, and works by researchers like Selwyn Raab and Jerry Capeci.
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â ď¸ Content Disclaimer
This video is created solely for educational and informational purposes.
We do not glorify, promote, or encourage any kind of criminal behavior or illegal activity.
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0:00
At 3:47 in the morning on a Tuesday in January 2024,
0:07
a man walked into a Brooklyn social club and never walked out. His body has never
0:13
been found. He was the third Gambino crime family associate to vanish that
0:20
year, and no one was charged. The five families in New York are not history.
0:28
They are not nostalgia for a bygone era of Tommy guns and pinstripe suits. They
0:34
are current events. They are happening right now and they are more powerful
0:41
than most people dare to imagine. 70 years after the famous Apple meeting
0:48
exposed the existence of a nationwide criminal conspiracy. 70 years after J.
0:55
Edgar Hoover could no longer deny what every cop on the street already knew.
1:01
Five criminal organizations still control the largest city in America. An
1:07
estimated $25 billion flows through their combined operations
1:13
every year. That is billion with a B, more than the gross domestic product of
1:19
some countries. Politicians still take their meetings.
1:25
Construction projects still pay their tax. Unions still answer their calls.
1:32
And federal prosecutors still cannot destroy what they have been fighting for
1:37
nearly a century. What you are about to hear is drawn from federal indictments
1:43
filed between 2020 and 2024.
1:48
FBI organized crime surveillance reports, testimony from cooperating
1:54
witnesses whose identities remain sealed, and interviews with active law
2:00
enforcement personnel who spoke on condition of anonymity.
2:06
Some conversations have been reconstructed from documented outcomes.
2:11
But the power structure we are about to reveal is not speculation.
2:17
It is current. It is documented. And it is operating in plain sight. This
2:24
is the story of who really runs New York City. To understand how we got here, you
2:31
need to understand what happened in a small town in upstate New York nearly 7
2:37
decades ago. November 14th, 1957.
2:42
The Barbara estate in Appalachian. Joseph Barbara was a legitimate
2:48
businessman. At least that was the story. He owned a
2:54
Canada dry bottling franchise. He had a beautiful stonehouse on 53
3:00
acres. And on that November day, he hosted what he called a barbecue for some business
3:08
associates. 63 men showed up. They came from all
3:14
over the country. They drove Cadillacs and Lincoln.
3:19
They wore suits that cost more than most workers earned in a month. And a state
3:26
trooper named Edgar Cwell noticed. What happened next would change the American
3:33
understanding of organized crime forever. Cwell set up a roadblock.
3:40
When the men saw the police, they panicked. Some ran into the woods. Some
3:46
tried to drive through. 58 were detained. In their pockets, police found more than
3:55
$300,000 in cash. The Appalachin meeting was the
4:00
moment America could no longer pretend that the mafia did not exist. J. Edgar
4:07
Hoover, who had spent decades denying any organized criminal conspiracy, was
4:13
forced to acknowledge reality. The FBI began investigating in earnest. But here
4:20
is what nobody talks about anymore. That was 67 years ago, and the five families
4:28
are still here. Genevies, Gambino, Lucesi, Columbbo, Onano. Five names,
4:39
five organizations, one city. An unbroken chain of command
4:46
stretching back to the 1930s when Lucky Luciano and his generation
4:52
built the modern American mafia from the chaos of prohibition. The question is
4:58
not whether they still exist. Every federal prosecutor in the eastern and
5:04
southern districts of New York will confirm that they do. The question is
5:10
how they have survived when every other major criminal organization in America
5:16
has been dismantled. That question has an answer. And it
5:21
starts with the family that law enforcement considers the most dangerous of all. The Genevese crime family does
5:30
not want you to know they exist. While the Gambino family produced John Gotti
5:36
who held press conferences in waved cameras, the Genevese family perfected
5:43
the art of invisibility. They understood something that Gotti never did. Fame is the enemy of criminal
5:51
enterprise. The Genevese family is currently led by a man whose name most Americans have
5:59
never heard. And that is exactly how he wants it. According to FBI intelligence
6:06
assessments, the family has somewhere between 250 and 300 made members with
6:14
perhaps 10 times that number of associates. They generate an estimated $3 billion
6:22
annually through construction, garbage hauling, labor racketeering,
6:28
lone sharking, and what law enforcement delicately calls other enterprises.
6:35
Their power in the construction industry is so complete that FBI sources estimate
6:42
no major project in the New York metropolitan area proceeds without their
6:48
involvement. every concrete core, every steel
6:53
delivery, every union contract. The meme mob tax on construction has
7:01
been estimated at between 2 and 4% of total project costs
7:06
on a billion project. That is 20 to $40 million
7:13
for doing nothing except not causing problems. But the Genevese family's true genius
7:20
lies elsewhere. They have survived because they learned the lesson that
7:26
would define the modern mafia. When the federal government began using
7:31
the RICO Act in the 1980s to dismantle organized crime, when bosses started
7:38
receiving 100-year sentences, the Genevies family adapted. They created
7:44
insulation, layers upon layers of it. The official
7:50
boss does not give orders directly. He speaks to an un boss who speaks to a
7:56
messenger who speaks to a captain who speaks to a soldier who speaks to an
8:03
associate who actually commits the crime. By the time anything illegal
8:09
happens, the connection to leadership has passed through so many hands that
8:14
proving it in court becomes nearly impossible. According to a 2022 federal assessment,
8:23
the Genevie family has not had a cooperating witness of significant rank
8:28
in over two decades. Two decades. In an era when former bosses write memoirs and
8:35
do podcast interviews, the Genevese family has maintained something that
8:41
seems almost impossible in modern America: silence. But their greatest innovation
8:48
came in understanding the legitimate economy. In 2023,
8:55
federal investigators identified Genevese connected entities in
9:00
construction firms, garbage hauling companies, food distribution networks,
9:07
labor unions, and what one prosecutor described as an astonishing array of
9:13
seemingly legitimate businesses. The family does not just infiltrate
9:19
industries. They own pieces of them. Legal pieces. Pieces that generate
9:26
income that can be deposited in banks and reported on tax returns. The old
9:33
mafia stole money and hid it. The new mafia earns money and declares it. This
9:41
is the evolution that law enforcement did not anticipate.
9:46
When you own a legitimate business that generates legitimate profit and you use
9:52
your illegitimate connections to ensure that business wins contracts and avoids
9:58
competition, you have created something remarkably difficult to prosecute. You have created
10:05
power that sustains itself. But the Genevese family is only one piece of the
10:12
puzzle. And as powerful as they are, they operate within a system that
10:17
requires balance. A system with four other poles of power. A system that has
10:24
been remarkably stable for decades precisely because everyone understands
10:30
the rules. What happened in 2019 changed those rules forever. And the
10:37
ripple effects are still being felt today because that was the year Abos
10:44
made a decision that nobody saw coming. A decision that violated the most sacred
10:50
rule of the modern mafia. A decision that according to law
10:56
enforcement sources has created a crisis that remains unresolved.
11:02
And the man who made that decision is now serving a life sentence. But the
11:08
chaos he created is very much alive. We revealed that the five families still
11:15
control New York City in 2025, generating an estimated $25 billion
11:23
annually. The Genevies family emerged as the most powerful to their mastery of
11:30
invisibility and legitimate business infiltration. But in 2019,
11:37
a boss made a decision that violated the most sacred rule of the modern mafi and
11:44
the chaos he created remains unresolved. The man's name was Frank Collie. And on
11:52
the night of March 13th, 2019, he was standing in the driveway of his
11:58
Staten Island home when a blue pickup truck pulled up. What happened next
12:05
shocked the entire organized crime world. A young man stepped out of the
12:11
truck. He had no known connection to any of the five families. He was not a rival
12:18
gangster. He was not a law enforcement agent. He was a 24year-old
12:25
who had become obsessed with Kie's niece after meeting her online.
12:30
He shot Frank Collie 10 times. Then he ran him over with the truck. the
12:37
boss of the Gambino crime family and most famous of all the five families,
12:44
the organization that had once been led by Carlo Gambino himself, was dead.
12:50
Killed not by a rival or the FBI, but by what prosecutors would later
12:57
describe as a delusional young man with a romantic fixation.
13:02
But here is what most people do not understand about that night. Frank Collie was not just any boss. He
13:11
represented a specific vision for the Gambino family's future. A vision of
13:17
silence and legitimate business modeled on what the Genevese family had
13:22
achieved. Under his leadership, the Gambino family had retreated from the
13:28
spotlight that John Gotti had loved so much. They had gone quiet.
13:35
They had gone corporate. His death created a vacuum. And in the criminal
13:41
underworld, vacuums do not stay empty for long.
13:46
According to law enforcement sources, the Gambino family's current leadership
13:52
structure remains in flux 5 years after Khali's murder. Multiple factions exist.
14:01
Multiple captains have expanded their power. The traditional hierarchy has
14:07
become, in the words of one FBI analyst, more decentralized than at any point in
14:14
the family's history. This is not weakness. This is evolution.
14:20
The old model of mafia leadership concentrated power in one man. One boss,
14:27
one target, one phone to tap, one schedule to surveil, one throat to cut
14:35
if rivals wanted to take over. The new model distributes power across multiple
14:42
power centers. No single leader whose arrest can decapitate the organization.
14:49
No single target for ambitious rivals. No single point of failure. Whether this
14:56
evolution was intentional or emerged from the chaos of Kali's death remains
15:02
unclear, but the result is a Gambino family that according to a 2023 FBI
15:11
assessment continues to operate at significant capacity despite leadership disruption.
15:19
They still control territory. They still collect tribute. They still influence
15:25
unions. The business continues. But the Gambino family's troubles
15:32
created an opportunity and another family was ready to seize it. The Bonano family should not exist.
15:41
In the 1980s, they were expelled from the commission, cast out of the
15:47
brotherhood of the five families. The reason was a single name that would
15:53
become infamous in mafia history. Donnie Brasco.
15:59
Joseph Piston was an FBI agent who spent 6 years undercover inside the Bonano
16:06
family. 6 years. He was so deeply embedded that he was about to be made to
16:14
become an official member. His exposure in 1981
16:19
did not just embarrass the Bonanos, it humiliated them. It proved that their
16:25
security was worthless. It resulted in over 200 convictions.
16:31
The other families viewed the Bonanos as compromised, dangerous to associate with, toxic. For
16:40
years, they were treated as outcasts. Their territory was vulnerable. Their
16:46
rackets were poached. Other families moved into areas that the Bonanos had
16:53
once controlled. But something remarkable happened. The Bonano family
16:59
survived. They rebuilt. And according to current FBI
17:04
assessments, they have returned to full power within the five family structure.
17:11
How does an organization recover from that level of damage? The answer lies in
17:17
what law enforcement calls the Canadian connection. While the Bonano family was
17:22
struggling in New York, their affiliate in Montreal, the Ritsuto family, was
17:28
thriving. The Ritsudos controlled drug trafficking roots. It moved billions of
17:35
dollars in cocaine and heroin through Canada and into the American market. The
17:42
relationship between the New York Ponanos and the Montreal Ritsuto became
17:48
symbiotic. Montreal provided money. New York
17:53
provided legitimacy. Together they created a pipeline that
18:00
according to a 2020 federal assessment remains one of the most significant drug
18:06
trafficking corridors in North American organized crime. But there is something
18:12
else that explains the Bonano resurgence. Something that law enforcement only
18:19
began to understand in the past decade. The Bonanos learned from their
18:24
humiliation. After Donnie Brasco, they became paranoid.
18:30
Obsessively paranoid. The vetting process for new associates became so
18:37
rigorous that FBI sources describe it as virtually impossible to penetrate.
18:44
They began requiring years, sometimes decades of proven loyalty before
18:50
advancement. They instituted counter surveillance protocols that rivals
18:56
adopted and law enforcement grudgingly respected. A family that had been
19:02
exposed because of insufficient caution became the family most difficult to
19:08
infiltrate. There is a lesson in that. Organizations that survive catastrophic
19:14
failure often emerge stronger than those that never failed at all. The Bananos
19:21
learned what the cost of complacency looked like. They never forgot. Today,
19:29
according to law enforcement intelligence, the Bonano family operates
19:34
significant interests in drug trafficking, gambling, lone sharking,
19:40
and labor racketeering. Their estimated annual revenue has
19:45
recovered to somewhere between$1 and2 billion.
19:50
The family that was expelled from the commission in disgrace is back at the table. But not all the families have
19:58
adapted equally well to the modern era. And the story of the Columbbo family
20:05
reveals what happens when old hatreds refuse to die. The Columbbo family has
20:11
been at war with itself for three decades. It began in 1991
20:18
when a faction loyal to Carmine Piko clashed with a faction led by Victor
20:24
Orena. The violence was extraordinary. 12 people died. Dozens were wounded. The
20:33
war lasted 3 years, but wars like that do not truly end. They go dormant.
20:42
They wait. In 2011, the killing started again. This time, the factions had
20:50
different names, different faces, but the underlying
20:55
division remained the same. Percolo loyalists versus everyone else.
21:01
According to FBI sources, the Columbbo family remains the most internally
21:08
unstable of the five families. Leadership transitions are contested.
21:14
Captains compete for territory. The profits that should flow upward to the
21:20
administration instead disappear into factional conflicts.
21:25
This instability has cost them. Other families have encroached on Columbbo
21:31
territory. Their influence in traditionally Columbbo controlled industries has
21:37
declined. Law enforcement has found the family easier to prosecute because internal
21:44
conflicts produce more cooperating witnesses. But here is what makes the Columbbo
21:51
situation particularly dangerous. Unstable organizations are unpredictable
21:57
organizations. A family at peace follows rules. A
22:03
family at war makes desperate decisions. The Columbbo family's internal conflicts
22:10
have, according to law enforcement sources, created conditions where
22:16
violence can erupt with minimal warning. The other families watch the Columbos
22:21
carefully. They limit contact. They avoid entanglements
22:27
because everyone understands that Columbbo problems have a way of becoming
22:33
everyone's problems. Which brings us to the family that sits
22:38
between the extremes. Neither as invisible as the Genevies nor
22:44
as chaotic as the Columbbo. The family that has mastered the art of
22:49
survival through adaptability. The Lucazi crime family has always been
22:55
underestimated. While journalists focused on the Gambino family celebrity bosses and the Genevese
23:03
family's construction dominance, the Luces family quietly built something
23:08
remarkable. They specialized. In the 1980s, the Luces family
23:16
identified an opportunity that other families had overlooked. The garment
23:21
industry, New York's fashion district. Billions of dollars in legitimate
23:27
commerce flowing through a concentrated geographic area with high labor costs
23:34
and thin margins. The Lucazi family moved in. They took control of the
23:41
trucking, the labor unions, the shipping. Every piece of clothing that
23:47
moved in or out of the garment district paid tribute. Not through obvious
23:54
extortion but through control of the logistics infrastructure.
23:59
You could not do business without using Lucazy connected services
24:04
and those services charged premium rates. This model infrastructure control
24:11
rather than traditional racketeering became the template for the modern Lucesi operation.
24:18
Today, according to federal assessments, the Lucazi family maintains significant
24:26
influence in private sanitation, construction, food distribution, and what prosecutors
24:33
describe as a diverse portfolio of legitimate and illegitimate enterprises.
24:41
Their current estimated annual revenue is between$1 and $1.5 billion.
24:49
Not the largest of the five families, but perhaps the most stable because the
24:55
Lucazi family understood something crucial. In the modern economy, the most
25:03
profitable position is not the one that takes the most. It is the one that takes
25:09
consistently. A smaller percentage of a larger and more stable operation
25:15
generates more wealth over time than aggressive extraction that kills the
25:21
host. The Lucazi family does not strangle industries.
25:27
They tax them just enough to be profitable, not enough to be worth fighting. The
25:34
businesses they influence often do not even realize they are paying mom
25:40
tribute. They just know that certain vendors are required. Certain labor
25:45
contracts are mandatory. Certain consulting fees are
25:51
non-negotiable. And this brings us to the question that
25:58
federal prosecutors, FBI analysts, and organized crime
26:04
scholars have struggled to answer for decades. Why can't they be destroyed?
26:10
The resources committed to fighting organized crime are immense.
26:16
Thousands of agents, billions of dollars. The most sophisticated
26:22
surveillance technology ever developed. RICO prosecutions that can deliver life
26:29
sentences. Witness protection programs that have turned hundreds of mobsters into
26:35
cooperators. And yet the five families still exist.
26:41
They still operate. They still profit. The answer lies in understanding what
26:48
the mafia actually is. in 2025. It is not a criminal gang. Gangs are
26:56
destroyed by decapitation. Arrest the leaders and the organization
27:01
collapses. It is not a terrorist network. Networks
27:07
are destroyed by disrupting communication and funding. It is
27:12
something else entirely. The five families are an economic system. They
27:19
exist because they provide services that the legitimate economy cannot or will
27:25
not provide. They exist because they have embedded themselves so deeply into
27:31
certain industries that removing them would cause more disruption than
27:36
tolerating them. They exist because they have accumulated so much capital, both
27:43
financial and political, that the cost of destroying them exceeds the benefit.
27:50
This is the uncomfortable truth that law enforcement understands but cannot
27:56
publicly acknowledge. The mafia is a permanent feature of the American economy. It can be managed. It
28:05
can be contained. Its violence can be minimized. Its most egregious activities can be
28:12
prosecuted, but it cannot be eliminated because too many people benefit from its
28:19
continued existence. The contractor who wins jobs because his
28:24
labor costs are managed by mob connected unions. The politician who receives
28:31
campaign contributions from businesses that pay mob tribute. the legitimate
28:37
investor whose returns are enhanced by companies that use mob muscle to
28:42
eliminate competition. These people do not consider themselves criminals.
28:49
They are simply operating within a system that happens to include organized
28:54
crime as one of its components. And this is where the modern five
28:59
families have evolved beyond anything Lucky Luciano could have imagined. They
29:06
are no longer just criminals. They are capitalists. They have investment portfolios.
29:14
They have pension obligations to retired members. They have business development
29:21
strategies and market analysis. A 2021 federal report noted that MOG
29:29
connected entities had been identified in private equity investments,
29:35
real estate development partnerships, and what one investigator described as
29:41
legitimate wealth management structures that would be indistinguishable from any
29:46
other high-n networth family office. The sons and grandsons of made men do not
29:53
all follow their fathers into crime. Some go to business school, law school.
30:00
Some become doctors and lawyers and hedge fund managers.
30:06
But they remember who they are. They remember where the family money came from. And when the family needs a favor,
30:14
a connection, a recommendation, a door opened, they provide it. This is
30:22
the multi-generational integration that makes the modern mafia so difficult to
30:29
combat. The criminal and the legitimate have become so intertwined that
30:35
separating them would require investigations lasting decades and resources. and no prosecutor's office
30:43
possesses. And so the system continues, but the system is not static. It is
30:51
evolving. And the evolution happening right now may be the most significant
30:57
since Luciano created the commission in 1931.
31:03
Because the five families have discovered something, something that is changing how organized crime operates.
31:11
something that law enforcement is only beginning to understand, the digital
31:17
underground. And what they have built there is more sophisticated than anyone outside law
31:24
enforcement imagines. We examined how each of the five families has evolved in the modern era.
31:33
The Gambino family's decentralization after Frank Khali's assassination.
31:39
The Bonano family's remarkable resurrection from the Dani Brasco
31:44
humiliation. The Columbbo family's destructive internal wars, the Lucesi family's
31:52
mastery of infrastructure control, and we revealed the uncomfortable truth. The
31:59
mafia has become so integrated into the legitimate economy that eliminating it
32:04
may be impossible. But something new is emerging. The five
32:10
families have discovered the digital underground.
32:17
Servers, encrypted communication terminals, cryptocurrency wallets containing
32:24
millions of dollars. a digital operation that would have been sophisticated by
32:31
any standard. According to court documents filed in
32:38
the subsequent prosecution, the operation was connected to the Genevese crime family. It facilitated online
32:47
gambling, cryptocurrency laundering, and what prosecutors described as digital
32:53
lone sharking platforms that operated across state and international
32:59
boundaries. This was not a case of old criminals hiring young hackers. This was a case of
33:07
the organization itself evolving, integrating digital capabilities into
33:13
its core operations, building infrastructure that could move
33:18
money invisibly across borders, and the queen's operation was not unique.
33:25
According to FBI sources, all five families have developed digital
33:31
capabilities to varying degrees. The Genevies and Luces families are
33:38
considered the most advanced. The Gambino family is rapidly developing
33:44
capacity. The Banano family leverages its Canadian connections for
33:50
international digital operations. Even the troubled Colbo family has
33:56
established digital revenue streams. The implications are profound.
34:02
Traditional law enforcement techniques were developed for a physical world.
34:08
Following suspects, tapping phones, flipping witnesses,
34:14
serving subpoenas on banks. The digital world operates by different rules.
34:21
Cryptocurrency transactions are synonymous. Encrypted communications
34:28
cannot be intercepted without access to the devices themselves.
34:33
Servers can be located in jurisdictions that do not cooperate with American law
34:39
enforcement. Money can move from New York to Moscow to Singapore to the Cayman Islands in
34:47
seconds. The five families did not invent these technologies,
34:53
but they understood their potential before law enforcement understood the
34:58
threat. A 2023 Department of Justice assessment noted that organized crime
35:06
groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of technology
35:11
to evade detection and facilitate criminal activity.
35:16
The report specifically mentioned traditional organized crimes adoption of
35:22
encrypted communications, cryptocurrency, and what it called dark web marketplace
35:30
participation. The old mafia met in social clubs and spoke in coded language. The new mafia
35:38
meets on encrypted platforms and speaks in cryptocurrency addresses.
35:44
But the digital evolution is only one element of how the five families are
35:50
adapting to the modern era. The other element is perhaps more surprising. They
35:56
are getting younger. For decades, the stereotype of the maid member was a man
36:02
in his 50s or 60s, weathered, old school, resistant to
36:09
change. someone who grew up in the neighborhood, proved himself over
36:14
decades, and rose slowly through the ranks. That profile is changing.
36:21
According to law enforcement sources, the average age of newly made members
36:27
has declined significantly since 2010. Captains in their 30s are becoming more
36:35
common. Associates in their 20s are taking on roles that once required
36:41
decades of seniority. This is not happening because the families have abandoned their
36:47
traditions. It is happening because they need skills that older members do not possess.
36:55
digital literacy, comfort with new technologies, the ability to move between the
37:02
legitimate business world and the criminal underworld without drawing attention. These capabilities tend to
37:10
correlate with age. A 28-year-old who can manage a cryptocurrency portfolio,
37:18
run legitimate businesses as fronts, and still maintain the discipline and
37:23
loyalty that the organization demands is more valuable than a 60-year-old who
37:30
knows every captain in the city but cannot use his smartphone securely. The
37:37
five families are adapting. They are recruiting differently. They are
37:43
promoting differently. They are becoming something new while maintaining the core
37:49
of what they have always been. And this evolution points to what law enforcement
37:55
considers the most troubling trend of all. The five families are becoming more
38:01
difficult to identify. In the past, membership in organized crime came with
38:08
visible markers. lifestyle, associates,
38:13
criminal record, neighborhood connections. An experienced investigator could often
38:20
identify likely mob members simply by watching who they spend time with. A
38:27
modern maid member might have a business degree. He might work in a legitimate
38:32
industry. He might live in the suburbs. His criminal record might be
38:38
non-existent because the family has carefully protected him from exposure. According
38:45
to a 2023 FBI intelligence assessment, there are likely significant numbers of
38:53
organized crime associates operating in legitimate industries whose connections
38:58
to traditional families have not been identified. This is the nightmare
39:04
scenario for law enforcement. How do you investigate something you cannot see?
39:10
The answer is that you investigate the money. You follow the financial flows.
39:17
You look for patterns that suggest organized crime influence.
39:22
Even when the people involved appear legitimate. This is why the relationship
39:27
between the five families and the can legitimate economy has become the
39:33
primary focus of federal organized crime investigation. And what that investigation has revealed
39:41
is disturbing. The integration is deeper than anyone publicly acknowledges.
39:48
According to sources familiar with current federal investigations,
39:53
organized crime connected entities have been identified in real estate development, private equity, healthc
40:01
care services, food distribution, entertainment, and what one source
40:08
described as basically every sector of the New York metropolitan economy. The
40:14
presence is not always obvious. A company might not be owned by maid
40:20
members, but it might use contractors who are connected. It might have
40:26
investors whose capital originated in criminal enterprise.
40:32
It might pay consulting fees to firms that are funds for tribute collection.
40:38
The legitimate and illegitimate have become so intertwined that even the
40:44
people involved sometimes do not know which side they are on. A construction executive hires a
40:52
labor consultant because he delivers results. He does not ask where the
40:58
consultant's influence comes from. A real estate developer takes an
41:03
investment from a fund that offers excellent returns. He does not investigate the source of
41:10
the fund's capital. A politician accepts campaign contributions from a business
41:17
owner who has always been a supporter. He does not examine who that business
41:23
owner answers to. This is how organized crime persists in the modern era. not
41:30
through obvious violence and intimidation but through the gradual colonization of legitimate institutions.
41:38
And this brings us to the question that hangs over everything we have discussed.
41:44
What happens next? The optimistic view is that generational change will
41:50
eventually weaken the five families. The great grandchildren of Sicilian
41:55
immigrants do not grow up in ethnic enclaves with the same sense of identity
42:02
and loyalty that their ancestors had. The culture that produced the mafia is
42:08
fading. Eventually, the recruitment pipeline will dry up. The pessimistic
42:15
view is that the five families have evolved beyond their ethnic origins.
42:20
They are no longer primarily ItalianAmerican organizations.
42:26
According to law enforcement sources, associates from Eastern European, Latin
42:32
American, and Asian backgrounds have become increasingly common. The families
42:39
have become brands. Organizational structures that can incorporate anyone
42:45
who brings value. If this evolution continues, the five families could
42:51
persist indefinitely. Different faces, different backgrounds,
42:57
but the same structures, the same methods, the same integration
43:03
into the legitimate economy. The realistic view is somewhere in between.
43:09
The five families of 2050 will not look like the five families of
43:15
2025. They will be smaller, less visible, more
43:22
integrated into legitimate business. Their criminal activities will be more
43:27
sophisticated and harder to prosecute. But they will still exist
43:34
because they have answered the fundamental question that destroys most criminal organizations.
43:41
How do you transfer power between generations? Gangs burn out when their founders age
43:47
or die. Cartels collapse when leadership is arrested or killed. Criminal
43:55
enterprises that depend on individual charisma cannot survive the loss of
44:00
their charismatic leaders. The five families solved this problem almost a
44:06
century ago. They created institutions, hierarchies,
44:12
rules, mechanisms for peaceful succession, ways to resolve disputes
44:18
without violence. They created in essence governments,
44:25
criminal governments, shadow governments, governments that exist alongside the
44:32
legitimate state and provide their own services to those who operate within
44:38
their jurisdiction. protection, dispute resolution,
44:43
contract enforcement, employment, insurance.
44:49
Everything that a legitimate government provides, the mafia provides for those
44:55
inside its system. And governments are very hard to destroy. So the five
45:01
families continue year after year, decade after decade through prosecutions
45:10
and imprisonments and generational change. They adapt and evolve and
45:17
persist. At this very moment, somewhere in New York City, a meeting is taking place.
45:25
Maybe it is in a social club in Brooklyn. Maybe it is in a restaurant in
45:31
Manhattan. Maybe it is on an encrypted video call that leaves no trace. Men are discussing
45:39
business territory, money, problems that need to be solved. They are not wearing
45:46
pinstriped suits and fedoras. They are wearing whatever successful
45:52
businessmen wear in 2025. Some of them have legitimate jobs.
46:00
Some of them have families who do not know what they really do. They are the
46:06
five families. The same organizations that Lucky Luciano organized 94 years ago. Changed
46:15
in every detail, but unchanged in essence. And they will still be here 94
46:22
years from now. Different names, different faces,
46:28
different technologies, different rackets, but the same power,
46:33
the same structure, the same shadow over the same city. You asked who really runs
46:41
New York. Now you know, five families, one city, $25 billion a year and
46:50
counting. The numbers change, the names change, the methods change, but the
46:58
power remains. It was here before you were born. It
47:03
will be here after you die. This is not a crime story. It is an American story.
47:11
The story of how certain organizations become so embedded in the fabric of
47:16
society that removing them becomes impossible. The five families are not a problem to
47:24
be solved. They are a reality to be managed. And that is the truth that
47:30
nobody wants to admit. The next time you see a construction site in Manhattan,
47:37
remember the 2 to 4%. The next time you eat at an upscale
47:43
Italian restaurant, remember who might own a piece of it. The next time you
47:48
hear about a federal organized crime prosecution, remember that it is a
47:54
battle in a war that has been going on for a century. A war that has no end in
48:00
sight. Because the five families are not going anywhere. They were here before
48:07
you knew their names. They will be here long after you forget them. This has
48:14
been the story of who really runs New York City. If this investigation opened
48:20
your eyes to the shadow government of America's greatest city, if you felt the weight of 90 years of history pressing
48:28
against the present moment, then you understand why we tell these stories on
48:34
mafia crime secrets. This is not entertainment. This is education.
48:41
This is bearing witness to the structures of power that operate in plain sight while remaining invisible.
48:49
There are more investigations waiting, more shadow empires to expose,
48:55
more uncomfortable truths to reveal. The five families are just one chapter in
49:02
the global story of organized crime. And we are just getting started.
49:08
Subscribe now because the next revelation might be the one that changes
49:14
how you see everything. Until next time, remember what you learned today. The
49:22
most dangerous criminals are not the ones you see coming. They are the ones
49:27
who have been there all along, hiding in plain sight, running everything. This
49:35
has been Mafia Crime Secrets. And the investigation continues.