In 1931, four Jewish gangsters hired by Lucky Luciano shot their way through a Park Avenue suite occupied by Mafia chief Salvatore "Boss of Bosses" Maranzano. An ancient-history buff, Maranzano had modeled his reign after that of Caesar's. Luciano and other young mobsters felt the Mafia should be run more like General Motors than the Roman Empire. During the hours following the Boss's murder, about 40 other "Mustache Pete" old-timers were rubbed out. Those who were spared quickly accepted Luciano's proposal to form "The Commission" -- a national underworld syndicate run by 24 "family" bosses. New York, with five chartered families, formed the most powerful bloc on the board. The commission, Joe Valachi revealed 3O years later, referred to its business as La Cosa Nostra -- "our thing."
Their thing, say investigators who have labored for years to crack the New York Mafia commission, has never been in such trouble. Last week, FBI agents fanned out over New York City in one ofthe agency's sweetest dragnets. The reputed commission members who answered their doors that night were immediately taken into custody. The next day, FBI Director William Webster flew to New York to celebrate the racketeering indictment lodged against the commission. Said Webster, "We are now taking out the top players. The ruling body of the most powerful organized-crime elements in the U.S. . . . has been brought to the bar of justice."
Even those who doubted that the entire mob could be broken by arresting five bosses and four underlings had to be impressed by the first wholesale attack ever on commission leaders. Further, a new spirit of interagency cooperation has been coupled with continuing support from the Reagan administration to successfully keep the heat on organized-crime bosses from Boston to Honolulu. "Things will never be the same for the mob," promises Steve Trott, head of the Justice Department's criminal division. "We're going to knock these people down."
Last week's 15-count indictment charges the reputed leaders of the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese, Colombo and Bonanno crime families with regulating such activities as "the Club," a multimillion-dollar extortion scheme allegedly used to control New York's cement industry. The indictments also charge the commission with authorizing six murders, including the 1979 killing of Bonanno boss Carmine Galante. If convicted, all but one of the accused face prison terms of up to 200 years. Shortly before underboss Salatore (Tom Mix) Santoro posted $1.75 million bail, his attorney, Samuel Dawson, grumbled that "the only one not named in the indictment is the Partridge Family."
Tailed: Along the way, investigators were helped by 30 informers who broke the mob's code of silence. However, the bulk of evidence is on 4,000 hours of tape gathered via 171 FBI bugs and wiretaps. In making its case, the government wired almost everything that didn't move in suspected mobsters' homes and hangouts. Other critical evidence came from something that did move -- the bugged Jaguar owned by Salvatore Avellino Jr., a confidant of alleged Lucchese boss Antonio (Tony Ducks) Corallo. Investigators tailed the car for over four months, picking up detailed discussions of commission rackets. According to Ronald Goldstock, head of New York's organized-crime task force, these tapes "in terms of quality and substance [provide] the best insights into the mob since the 1960s."
Authorities credit this emphasis on secret taping with many of their recently successful crackdowns. Until Reagan, the Justice Department -- still mindful of the tape abuses of Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover -- was hesistant to use the wire; in 1980, they placed only about 100 court-authorized bugs and taps. This year, the Justice Department plans to OK more than 600 electronic surveillances. Though federal investigators are playing the wiretap game harder than ever, they are also taking care to play by the rules. "Any time you've got wiretaps that are admissible as evidence, the trial is anticlimactic," explains former federal prosecutor Patrick Healy, now head of the watchdog Chicago Crime Commission. "If prosecutors can get past the defendants' motion to suppress, it's just a matter of time till the yellow bus takes them away."
'Hit the Top': The New York busts can also be partly attributed to increased interagency cooperation. Soon after the Reagan administration declared war on the mob, authorities decided to go after whole crime families instead of individnals. "You have to hit organized crime at the very top, in the very middle and at the very bottom," explains U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani. In 1983, Giuliani, the FBI and the New York City police agreed to fight the commission by pooling their manpower and information. Soon, the 175 FBI agents working on the case were joined by 25 city detectives and 9 U.S. attorneys.
Prosecutors used another powerful weapon against the Mafia -- the 1970 Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt-Organizations statute (RICO). The law allows the government to charge entire criminal "enterprises," seize their booty and jail mobsters for twice the usual prison term. Other legislation of the '70s provided prosecutors with rights to grant immunity and witness protection -- key ingredients in today's assault on the mob. "The laws were on the books," says Steve Trott of the Justice Department, "but nobody knew how to use the tools . . . We just took the throttle and jammed it on the floor."
The government's invigorated effort has plainly worked. During 1984, organized-crime investigations across the country spawned 2,194 convictions and 3,118 indictments -- 65 and 30 percent more than in 1983. Two weeks ago, authorities began an investigation of charges that the local Angiulo crime family used the Bank of Boston to launder millions of dollars. In mid-April, meanwhile, 13 reputed top mobsters from Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Kansas City will face trial in connection with an alleged scheme to skim Las Vegas casino profits. Hawaii's homegrown underworld is also on the run, with boss Henry Huihui and 12 island capi indicted on charges ranging from murder to extortion. And last month in Miami, the President's Commission on Organized Crime held its fifth set of hearings on the Mafia's control of the world heroin trade.
War: Does the flush of new indictments signal the beginning of the end for the bosses? New York's Giuliani believes "that within the next two or three years we can come very close to crushing La Cosa Nostra in the U.S. and Sicily." To that end, the FBI has promised to continue pounding away at the Mafia leadership. However, many doubt efforts like this week's New York boss roundup will fatally wound the mob. "Nobody drives loans or prostitution or gambling or drugs down anybody's throat," says Patrick Healy of the Chicago Crime Commission. "Those services exist because people want them to exist. And there will always be someone ready to step forward and say, 'I'll provide the services'." Unfortunately, that dour sentiment echoes the one delivered almost 20 years ago during another president's heralded inquest on crime. The Mafia, concluded Lyndon Johnson's law-enforcement committee, will remain powerful until the day there is a change in "the hearts and minds of men."