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Do you know anyone who is in the mob or who is mob-adjacent?

Just interested in stories.

by Anonymousreply 57August 16, 2022 3:33 PM

Mom-adjacent just turned me off from Op. hate it.

by Anonymousreply 1August 14, 2022 7:03 PM

I have some stories for you OP! I'll tell you while giving you a foot beauty treatment. Just put your feet in these buckets. I know it looks like cement, but it is really purifying clay.

by Anonymousreply 2August 14, 2022 7:09 PM

I have one muscular, realtor friend who sometimes goes silent for a few days. He does drugs. So, I assume he’s either on a drug binge or doing wet work. I haven’t brought this up to him for obvious reasons. Also, we’re not that close, so I don’t care very much. I’d suck him dry tho, just to be clear.

by Anonymousreply 3August 14, 2022 7:12 PM

My mother's uncle was involved with the 'Irish mob' in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He was a humongously obese teamster truck driver who was sent to prison, I think for being involved in a murder. He died from a heart attack, slowly, in a hospital, because there was so much fat surrounding his heart, the surgeons couldn't get into it to operate.

I don't know many details of his alleged crimes, but he was alienated from the family. Part of my grandmother's family in Pennsylvania were in law enforcement and politics and part were involved in organized crime, or that's the family story, anyway. They're all gone now.

by Anonymousreply 4August 14, 2022 7:15 PM

Yes. He had cleaned up his act and got completely sober and ran a very successful, legit business.

He was like a father to me, & always gave me sound advice and treated me like I his own kid.

Then on his 63rd birthday, he ordered a mail order bride, who came from an impoverished country. She was 20.

It seriously freaked me out and I phased myself out of his life.

I still love him to this day, but I couldn’t deal with the buy a poverty stricken bride concept.

There are other who I met when I got sober, who had been in “the life”, but got out and reinvented their lives in positive ways. Nicest bunch of old timers one can ever meet. I love them all. Eventually, some died of natural cause, bad tickers, or more recently, CoViD.

Almost all of them had done time, and made a decision to keep their noses clean when they got out of the pen.

Most loyal friends ever. Sometimes I feel bad that I phased out of the life of the first one whom I mentioned. I believe I judged him too harshly. Who he married is his business, but I was also much younger myself when this happened, & I didn’t possess the maturity to process or understand that, at the time.

by Anonymousreply 5August 14, 2022 7:18 PM

Used to know a number of people who worked for mob-related businesses (legit businesses that were financed in various ways by the mob and often had other mob-related businesses as clients). Architect for a mob-related mall developer (there were numerous mob-related mall developers---easy place to launder money). Office-manager for a mob-related construction company--they often had trouble collecting from the mall developer where the architect worked. A family friend was the handyman for a mob-related restaurant (one of the best around in its time).

A grad school classmate had a sister married to mobster (sister couldn't get a divorce once she realized what an uncomfortable position she was in--by then she had a kid. Around this time, a work colleague turned out to be the daughter of a mobster--she used her mother's maiden name. It created problems getting a mortgage with her husband. A later colleague had a brother who had gambling debts to the mob---they sent him far away from his family to work off the debt in a Vegas casino.

I had several loose connections to the last of the local Irish mobsters. My cousins lived in the same neighborhood and played in a tavern league softball league where he was a sponsor. A colleague's husband had been one of his lieutenant's in one of the mobster's legitimate operations.

by Anonymousreply 6August 14, 2022 7:19 PM

Is there an event horizon at which a successful mafia lender becomes considered a legit lender?

by Anonymousreply 7August 14, 2022 7:22 PM

One of my college roommates got married in Boston to an Italian-American woman. The wedding was lavish—at the Ritz Carlton. The father of the bride, whose name appeared on the invitation, was missing, and no one on the groom’s side knew why. Nothing was said. We wondered if there was a last minute falling out, a nasty divorce, a sudden illness. No explanation was given.

Later, we learned that he was in prison and was reputed to be The Godfather of Western Massachusetts. My friend and his wife insisted he was just a falsely accused bookie.

I would have enjoyed the wedding so much more if I had known the truth.

by Anonymousreply 8August 14, 2022 7:22 PM

I worked as an overnight mental health crisis assessor for a private hospital in the mid south many years ago. At least once every other month an Italian fellow from NYC would come in; insomnia, paranoia, ' just need to talk'. He'd relay that he was in the witness protection program after testifying against his former mob colleagues, that our town was a major center for this kind of relocation, and that he was still active in the life...but had to be more low key now that he was living in the south.

I'd question: "if there are a whole bunch of ex-mob guys here and you all know each other-- who aren't you all dead?" The reply was something to the effect: none of us were that big and you dont tell all the truth to the feds if it will kill you. I never totally believed him however he easily flipped from affable/charming/flirty to menacing and alarming. Always had the security guard close by when he came in.

by Anonymousreply 9August 14, 2022 7:23 PM

Aren't they really involved in the construction industry?

by Anonymousreply 10August 14, 2022 7:25 PM

Many were, R10.

by Anonymousreply 11August 14, 2022 7:27 PM

Columbus, GA r9?

by Anonymousreply 12August 14, 2022 7:35 PM

My pot dealer in junior college! Got to be friends and occasional fuck buddies and then found out he was the regional distributor of weed for several counties. Got invited to go home with him over break.

Three large Lincoln town cars with Illinois plates in the drive plus a half dozen pick ups/ATV's etc. . Hoards of big men in suits talking in low whispers. The living room was a sea of gold and red velvet chairs, gaudy lamps, and jesus pictures. Found out his dad held the 'contract' to supply Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. Quite the weekend. My friend related that he had killed a man by punching him in the face after the guy called his sister a whore (she was). He was So proud that he was able to kill someone with one punch but was pissed as hell he had to spend ONE night in jail until his father had time to pay off the sherrif.

We were riding around on his motorcycle and he wanted more beer. Simply walked into a liquor store and grabbed a twelve pack, cursed the clerk, and walked out. Later, drunk as hell, he saw the car of an old enemy. Unlocked he just pulled his cock out (beer can) and pissed all over the front seat. good times?

by Anonymousreply 13August 14, 2022 7:39 PM

R12 Since it's been 30 years. Asheville NC

by Anonymousreply 14August 14, 2022 7:40 PM

I heard that Jimmy Cagney and that Edward G. Robinson fellow might be a couple of nogoodniks.

by Anonymousreply 15August 14, 2022 7:41 PM

Asheville! I should have known the Vanderbilts were involved lol

by Anonymousreply 16August 14, 2022 7:47 PM

I was at a house party in college with a friend, and some friends of hers I didn’t know so well. We were talking about parents’ professions and one of the other people in the circle was quiet; the people there who knew her kind of chuckled, started making in-jokes, and tried to prompt her to talk. Her father and uncles were involved in the waste management business in New Jersey, and she wouldn’t elaborate further.

by Anonymousreply 17August 14, 2022 7:47 PM

^LOTS of "organized crime" activity in Columbus, GA from at least back in the time of WWII: proximity to Fort Benning, the major southern staging base for the army in WWII (and continuing all the way up to Vietnam, via Hawaii, for that matter), and so "The Phenix City Story..." PC is right across the river (the state line), in Alabama. All the GIs at Ft. Benning created the huge market for beer and booze, whores, slot machines, and other forms of gambling. I grew up there and there is a lot of "lore" about what when on there, at least on up until the mid-'80s.

by Anonymousreply 18August 14, 2022 7:51 PM

My grandmother grew up in a large Italian family in Brooklyn (13 kids); both of her parents sailed from Naples in the 1880s. One of her younger brothers was thrown out of the house at age 20 because of his business dealings. Vincenzo (the father) refused to let his son Tony to set foot in his house for the remainder of his life. Just knowing NY Italian family dynamics, for an unmarried son to be thrown out before he got married (and never allowed back to see his mother) it had to be very heavy shit. I'm not sure what mob family he was a part of, or his role, but his name was rarely discussed among his genetic family. It was just assumed he was dealing with the Sicilians.

I met Uncle Tony once (at a family funeral well after his parents had passed) when I was 10yo. My grandmother had not seen him in 3 decades at this point. I wanted to hear the stories from this black sheep of the family, but the children were not allowed to get close to him. He lasted no more than an hour at the reception after the funeral.

by Anonymousreply 19August 14, 2022 7:51 PM

My friend dated a guy for years who was a Crip from LA who was sent to the Midwest to sell drugs. He was also on the run from some murder charges. She had no idea just how double his double life was and he was always very kind to her.

by Anonymousreply 20August 14, 2022 7:58 PM

I have an uncle who is a shady lawyer. No visible means of support but claims to be a solo practitioner.

Also claims to be sent on mysterious “missions” to places like Cuba and Russia. I think he wants us to think he’s CIA or something, but I think he’s more likely crazy, mobbed up, or both.

by Anonymousreply 21August 14, 2022 8:03 PM

I was doing some research on the bride’s father. He also had a daughter from his first marriage. His first son-in-law had an affair with another mobster’s wife. The father-in-law dropped him off at work one day in 1972 and he was never seen alive again. His bullet ridden body was later found in the Connecticut River.

I wonder if my roommate was aware of this before he married the man’s second daughter. Anyway, the marriage ended in an amicable divorce and my roommate lived.

by Anonymousreply 22August 14, 2022 8:04 PM

A neighbor in the 1970s was in “construction” yet somehow hosted famous entertainers and athletes including a heavyweight champion. Hmmm

by Anonymousreply 23August 14, 2022 8:06 PM

“Volunteer Firefighter” w/an Italian surname meant Mafia in Fairfield County CT

by Anonymousreply 24August 14, 2022 8:11 PM

Way back in the dark ages when I was slinging some cocaine in Miami I met these 3 Italian brothers whose family were notorious mobsters. All 3 were gorgeous . One weekend I was staying at this hotel and partying like a rockstar (while selling coke) and I ran across them. Long story short,before the weekend was over I ended up blowing 2 of them and getting railed by one. My god those boys had some big cocks. It was a wild weekend ,Im so surprised my heart didnt explode from all the drugs. Fast forward 40+ years and one is long dead,one is serving life in prison and the one with the biggest cock did some time,got out and straightened up his life and owns a car dealership in Chicago. I just remembered that while the boys were gorgeous ,their sisters looked like men in dresses!

by Anonymousreply 25August 14, 2022 8:22 PM

When I was a kid I built up a lawn mowing business. Before I left for college I gave it over to a kid in the neighborhood who was a few years younger than me and helped me out when I had too many lawns to mow. He built it up into a very successful landscaping business and I truly believe had mafia help and influence. He is also a real estate developer. Today he lives in a mansion with an amazing wine cellar, a bowling alley, and he has a plane.

by Anonymousreply 26August 14, 2022 8:31 PM

I went to high school with the son of a high profile local mafia guy. He would make a joke of any restaurant fire - "baby needs new shoes". There were plenty of bar / pizza place fired in the four years I knew him. He was picked up for a couple DUIs. His punishment was driving around with a "Vote for Judge XXX" sign on the roof of his car for a month. The fix was always in for this kid.

by Anonymousreply 27August 14, 2022 8:43 PM

^His own bowling alley? Gee whiz...Something I've DREAMED ABOUT all my life...

by Anonymousreply 28August 14, 2022 8:48 PM

R27 Obviously, R28 is a jealous cunt.

by Anonymousreply 29August 14, 2022 9:02 PM

My grandfather was a barber in Detroit who knew the Purple Gang.

by Anonymousreply 30August 14, 2022 9:45 PM

A hundred years ago, I had a junior high classmate who had been in the Boston mob and killed. I think there were something like 5 children left behind.

by Anonymousreply 31August 14, 2022 9:49 PM

Oops-it was my classmate’s father who was in the mob, not her.

by Anonymousreply 32August 14, 2022 9:50 PM

R25 and r26 are quality posts.

by Anonymousreply 33August 14, 2022 10:31 PM

Excuse me?............

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 34August 14, 2022 10:33 PM

I think my stepfather ran numbers. Not sure. It would be kept from the kids but I remember my mother talking to him about stopping something that sounded like that.

Numbers runners are the lowest level of mob involvement. More like mob adjacent.

by Anonymousreply 35August 14, 2022 10:39 PM

My grandpa's uncle got his start as a teenager holding up trucks that transported moonshine during Prohibition. Eventually he found a niche as an arsonist during a time when insurance scams were rampant. His father was a successful, and legitimate, businessman, who could've gotten him a cush job, but he was a born degenerate.

by Anonymousreply 36August 14, 2022 10:48 PM

R36 was he also a whorehopper? I mention because I was shocked as a young man hearing my grandfather refer to his brother as a whorehopper.

by Anonymousreply 37August 14, 2022 10:51 PM

A hot old friend was friendly with John Gotti. I also suspect his grandfather was involved in the mob.

by Anonymousreply 38August 14, 2022 11:39 PM

I went to Catholic elementary school with the daughter of Harlan Blackburn the numbers/gambling king of central and northern Florida with tentacles up into southern Georgia. Blackburn worked with the Trafficante families though he was never officially part of the Mafia. He ran a type of Latin American lottery called Bolita or Cuba. I just found a Florida court case where some cop she was dating got fired for dating her. He alleged his First Amendment right was violated as well as due process int he firing. The city claimed they fired him for having had dinner with her father twice (when he was not in prison) but it was determined that the firing was really over his dating her and he won substantial damages. I'm not sure how I knew who her father was - maybe my mother told me. She was very beautiful and exotic looking. She was actually adopted.

by Anonymousreply 39August 15, 2022 12:17 AM

A friend's uncle was in the mob. His wife made the most amazing spaghetti that i will never forget.

by Anonymousreply 40August 15, 2022 12:21 AM

I heard whispers of stories about cousins when I was a kid, but I never got the details.

by Anonymousreply 41August 15, 2022 12:24 AM

Great, now I want pasta.

by Anonymousreply 42August 15, 2022 12:32 AM

Yes I actually do and that is all I'll say about it.

by Anonymousreply 43August 15, 2022 12:33 AM

A family friend’s daughter ended up marrying a “great guy” who was perfect on paper that she met at college. Coming from a big Philly family they had an immensely splashy Italian wedding. Fast forward 9 months, after many nights of her husband not coming home at night, having meetings with business partners in their basement in the middle of the night and telling her not to ask questions about things she doesn’t need to know, it dawned on her he was from a mafia family. My parents who were at the wedding were completely shocked when this came out. She divorced him and moved back In with her parents. Not sure if she was dumb or naive.

by Anonymousreply 44August 15, 2022 12:53 AM

^ Speaking of Philadelphia - I don’t know anyone but I’ve walked past the Philly boss twice, he lives in Florida so the first time I was surprised. I moved to Philadelphia in 2013 so the first time had to have been during one of his early visits after his 2011 release, some time between 2013-2014. The second time was right before he went away again in November 2018. He had a leathery tan and was wearing a track suit, white sneakers, a cap and aviators despite it being early evening on a cloudy day. He also had pretty bad teeth. In recent pictures it looks like he got veneers. He’s pocket sized.

by Anonymousreply 45August 15, 2022 1:11 AM

When I bought my first place in LA, It was in Van Nuys in a condo complex near Van Nuys and Vesper. My next-door neighbor was the good-looking, well-dressed Hispanic guy, Paco. One day I was getting a drop-off coke from my dealer for the weekend and he saw. He knocked on my door. He said, "give me that shit." He told me to never buy from that guy, that he would hook me up with pure coke. Turned out Paco was a high man in the Mexican mafia and my dealer was one of his guys - and the dealer was so low he didn't even know who Paco was. So Paco sells me pure coke, any time of day I want, for a fucking good price. I was partying with a few dudes I met at Mickey's and they were amazed at how good my coke was. They wanted me to buy for them but Paco said no and never talk about where I get it from. Which I never did until now. He took a liking to me, would invite me over and we would hang out. He told me if anyone ever fucked with me tell him and he would have it taken care of. I laughed, saying I didn't get fucked with, I was pretty low key. I think he wanted to have sex with me but he never did anything. I sold my condo and moved a few years later but kept in touch (of course I fucking would..he got me pure coke). It was starting to become a problem for me so I quit it and I saw him less and less. Then I found out he died of aids.

by Anonymousreply 46August 15, 2022 1:28 AM

Dang!

by Anonymousreply 47August 15, 2022 1:34 AM

My uncle (dad’s brother) was a “member of the club” as he used to call it. He was always the good-natured wild child of the family, and as a Midwest gayling, I was fascinated by the rumors and stories about him. After grad school, I took a job in the city where he lived, so I stayed with his family for a couple months while I got situated. I had only ever met him once before, as a child. Wild ride. I have so many stories about this guy. After we’d hung out for a few weeks, and he started to trust me, I stopped by his office one afternoon (the office is another story) and he tossed me a large, bulging manila envelope, that contained hundreds of thousands of dollars of Traveler’s Checks. (One of his businesses was a commercial printing company). Dozens of similar envelopes had been sent all over the country, and to Canada, and they were all going to be cashed (or used for purchases) at exactly the same time and day. This was prior to the internet, when checks could take a few days to clear. He didn’t really discuss business much, but I’m sure it netted him millions. He was a very generous guy too.

by Anonymousreply 48August 15, 2022 2:21 AM

Just the Gay Mafia.

by Anonymousreply 49August 15, 2022 2:30 AM

I knew, many years ago, a number of people from the mob from Springfield, MA to Buffalo, NY. I managed a surgical practice in Boston in the 1970's and 80's, one of whose patients was the legal front man for a lot of Italian-American gentlemen who worked in various business most often involving wine, olive oil, and trucking in Massachusetts and NY. He sent us everyone with any kind of medical issue - they were all from Springfield, Pittsfield and Albany to Rochester and Syracuse and Buffalo - the whole Northern Tier of New York state. Coupla' things: they all carried. I kept their guns in the office safe when they were admitted to the hospital. They were, for the most part, Damon Runyonesque "dem-dese-dose" characters with a fondness for tranquilizers. They had everyday problems (needed surgery, referrals to a heart doctor or whatever specialists they needed to see, stop smoking, lose weight, shots for the clap, etc) and some unusual ones - one guy's wife found out her "sister" in Syracuse was really her mother (psych consults) and one was a capo's son who had HIV in the mid-80's, so he needed what was then cutting-edge care and no-one to know about it. One I remember was a enforcer nicknamed "Quickie" who was terrified of needles, and the Christmas presents were wonderful: fruit and cheese and candy in baskets the size of steamer trunks, cases of wine, beautiful leather goods, expensive watches, Gucci ties and the like. One year there were four Cadillacs and a Toronado parked downstairs bringing gifts up to the office for the doc and the nurses and secretaries. They were grateful they could get great care with no questions asked, quietly, and a long way from home.

The lawyer knew I liked sports and I just had to ask for tickets for anything. Likewise dinner at nice restaurants - "just tell 'em Tony sent you" actually worked. One time my car was almost totaled in an accident and I found the Blaupunkt stereo missing in the tow yard. He made one phone call and I found a guy waiting for me with the radio boxed up and an apology when I got to work the next day. They all paid, most often in cash, and they were the most compliant patients we had. They took all the pills and got the refills, they came - some a couple of hundred miles - when the appointments were scheduled, and they were always polite, even charming, to the other patients in the waiting room. One tried to "tip" a consultant. One made a $500 contribution to a nun he got into a conversation with as they waited for the doctor. And my boss, the ultimate old-school WASP, loved having them as patients. He'd see anybody, saying they all needed care. The job was over 35 years ago but I still remember those patients fondly.

by Anonymousreply 50August 15, 2022 2:45 AM

Old school, Italian mobsters were everywhere.

CoViD and old age, took many of them out. But trust me when I say they were all over the place.

In Los Angeles, many of them worked in the entertainment industry. They worked as body guards, ran underground bookie services, were in specific entertainment industry unions, ran construction and even operated shit in Las Vegas, such as escorts, money laundering and casinos.

Same shit back East in NYC. There, they owned restaurants, construction companies, worked as head bosses in the faux, brand name fashion industry, where they sold counterfeit goods, and ran numbers through bookie operations and flooded Atlantic City every Spring and summer.

Back East, they also worked as cops, as business owners, firemen, realtors, as car salesmen, and the ones who had entrepreneurial wives, allowed them to run hair salons and nail joints for the mani-pedi loving frauen.

Once the Russians showed up, they were all toast.

I’ve met some Russians with mob connections too. But I never got too close to any of them, even though there was one family in my old neighborhood who really liked me because I had once helped out one of their elderly, when no one else would.

I didn’t trust the Russians. They weren’t as charming as the Italians, and didn’t have at least a little bit of heart like the cosa nostra did.

That being said, there was one particular dude who the Italian mob protected in LA for MANY years. I had an opportunity to get close to him, as all my ex mobster friends knew him well. He was a total piece of shit narcissist, who got away with murdering a member of his family.

I observed him for months, and made a deliberate decision to never get anywhere near him, regardless of who vouched for him.

Old school mob guys aren’t always the bottom of the barrel, however, some genuinely are, and you’re better of steering clear from people who give you a bad vibe.

by Anonymousreply 51August 15, 2022 3:46 AM

Judging from the calls he was getting during our hookup, I think a married Italian bear who came over and pounded my ass was mob. He was security at any rate.

by Anonymousreply 52August 16, 2022 12:30 AM

Your story is great, R50. It reminds me precisely of my much more limited run-ins with guys at the upper edge of Little Italy in NYC, in the early '90's. I lived on Broome St., same block as where Gotti's Ravenite Social Club was located, around the corner on Mulberry. One of the VERY few places in Manhattan that had a screen door on its front. I lived katty-corner to the Broome St. mafia bar, Tony's Nut House, that had had the same bartender since the days when Marilyn Monroe was photographed in the place, flirting with the young, handsome Tony (who was, by the '90s, STILL working there, but scary and deathly-looking, Tony; it was QUITE a shock to realize it was the same guy, and photographed in the same bar). I was walking home from swimming laps in the pool, one Friday evening in the Spring, near dark, and 3 guys were coming towards me. The one in the middle, definitely out in front of the 2 huge goons on either side of him, was wearing a beautiful, expensive suit, and I really noticed his tie, which was a very refined shiny silk, wavering between rose and orange in the dark. I looked up at his face, and was surprised to see it was someone I "knew." Before I could think about it I waved "Hi" to him, and he smiled and nodded back. It was Gotti himself...

by Anonymousreply 53August 16, 2022 2:02 AM

Why do you ask me? Me pleed fifth.

by Anonymousreply 54August 16, 2022 2:06 AM

Speaking of Russian money laundering, I recently went to Myrtle Beach, SC and the whole place is run by the Russian mob. All the souvenier $5.99 shops but also furniture discount stores are all Russian money laundrey spots

by Anonymousreply 55August 16, 2022 3:09 AM

Youngstown, Providence, Cleveland, Chicago---lots of people had deep mob involvement in the business community.

by Anonymousreply 56August 16, 2022 2:50 PM

^ Like Brighton beach?

by Anonymousreply 57August 16, 2022 3:33 PM
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