Mafia Cops | The New Underworld | 5

0:06From Audible Originals, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American Scandal.

0:30For much of the 20th century, organized crime in the United States was almost synonymous with the mafia. A small number of powerful families dominated cities around the country, and their influence ran through gambling, labor, and local politics. Today, those families still exist, but they are a shadow of what they once were, and the organized crime landscape is far more complex and far more powerful. Criminal activity now moves through gangs that stretch across borders, through cyber operations that never touch a physical street corner and through networks that can sit uncomfortably close to legitimate businesses and even state governments.

1:06My guest today is Jay Albanese. He's a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and one of the country's leading scholars on organized crime, criminal justice, and corruption. He's advised the United Nations on transnational crime and spent decades studying how criminal organizations form, adapt, and survive. Our conversation is next.

1:33I heard a rumour that the CIA poisoned my grandad. Gordon Banks, the world's number one goalkeeper. It happened in Mexico, supposedly, at the World Cup in 1970. Sounds crazy? I'm an investigative journalist on the hunt for evidence. We needed to do some extraordinary things to counter the Soviets. This is Foul Play, an unbelievable tale of sports, spies and family secrets. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts or early and ad-free on Audible.

2:21shatter the rebellion and make George Washington a prisoner. Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Betrayed the American Revolution early and ad-free on Audible.

2:41Jay Albanese, thanks for speaking with me today

2:43Jay Albanese:on American Scandal. Thank you. It's great to be here. Now, the mafia certainly had a heyday, and the creation of RICO laws is often credited as one of the keys to weakening the mafia. But I'm just wondering how much of the credit for the mafia's decline is due to law enforcement action versus maybe economic, technological, or social changes? Yes, it's a very difficult thing to sort out. The mafia clearly is not the force it once was. And the law enforcement effort of the 80s and 90s, which was clearly the most significant law enforcement effort against organized crime in the history of the U.S.

3:21A lot of it was made possible by the racketeering laws, which passed in 1970, but was used for the first time, to my knowledge, in 1980. It's a long, complicated law, but it enabled law enforcement to be much more effective in the way that, rather than going after somebody for illegal gambling or conspiracy and the usual offenses, if the prosecution can prove that they were engaging in, you know, three or more crimes over a period of 10 years, I could prosecute you as a criminal enterprise. And that could dramatically increase the penalties of up to 20 years in prison. So the stakes went up dramatically.

4:00And given all the changes in contemporary society and technology since the year 2000, there is no single group in the modern world in organized crime. And that's due to all the changes that have occurred over the last generation. So you're correct in saying, you know, the mafia is not what it once was, and perhaps will never be what it once was. But, you know, I think, you know, rumors of its demise are premature. Let me just give you a quick example just from the past year in New Jersey, right? A big case, 39 defendants with multiple locations of illegal poker games in the rear of legitimate restaurants.

4:39And there was also an illegal online sports book involved. And of course, it was associated with members of the Lucchese crime family. These are all very traditional organized crime activities. Illegal gambling, extortion by having to, you have to threaten sometimes people to make them pay. And then you have to do something with the illicit proceeds, right? You can't go to a car dealership with$10 ,000 cash and put it down toward a car anymore, all right, because we have money laundering laws. So money laundering has become a separate art in itself to disguise the source of illicit proceeds. So when I see this case, which again happened just a year ago, I said, well, this is about as traditional organized crime as it gets.

5:19So the structure has changed. That is, there's many more legitimate characters and businesses involved in this. So there's fewer mob guys, but more business people in this Jersey case. There was some councilman of some town in New Jersey who was in on it. But the underlying activity is pretty much what it always has been.

5:38Jay Albanese:Let's dive into some of the other changes that might have affected the mafia's, for lack of a better word, effectiveness as an organization. How about recruitment or maybe lack thereof? Are younger people less interested in getting involved in organized crime? Certainly in the popular conception, this was almost a neighborhood job opportunity. Yes, it was. You might recall the opening line of Goodfellas when Henry Hill says, as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a wise guy. Because in many of these working class urban communities, especially in New York and Chicago and the big cities, the people driving the nicest cars, wearing the nicest clothes, who everybody would be very accommodating toward, were the guys who were affiliated with the mob.

6:26And so that became sort of a alternative pathway, you know, to success. And when you look at the history over the 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, you had people who would say, well, okay, I got caught by the cops running an illegal gambling enterprise, maybe some extortion, and I got a sentence of five years. There were lots of people willing to do the five years. I'm a stand-up guy. I'll protect the family, protect the enterprise. Well, as time goes on into the 80s and 90s, there are fewer people willing to do that. That is the younger people saying, hey, look, I'm your friend. We commit crimes together, but I'm not going to do time for you.

7:08And then you combine that with the racketeering laws that had sentences of 20 years. You say, well, maybe I'll do a few years for you, but nobody's doing 20 years for you. So you have many more people saying, well, I'm not going to play this game. So that the hold of that tradition of the mob, we have so many people who are interrelated, aunts, uncles, friends. Even in the mafia cops case, as you know, the two detectives at the center of that case, both of their lives before they became cops involved close associations and sometimes relatives who had strong connections with mafia figures. So all of that is tied together.

7:47As time went on, there were fewer young people with that Italian family tradition that you do anything for the family. People increasingly said, hey, I'll do it if it's good for me, but I'm not going to be doing time for somebody else.

8:01Jay Albanese:I'm glad you brought up our two protagonists or antagonists in this story. Louis Eppolito, as you mentioned, did come from a mafia family, but he went on to become a police officer of some ill repute. But why would his ties to organized crime not be a red flag for law enforcement? Great question. I've often thought about that. You know, the two detectives, I mean, Caracapa, right? He was a childhood friend of Tommy Bellotti. Tommy Bellotti was probably the closest person to Paul Castellano. He was Paul Castellano's driver. And Castellano was, of course, head of the Gambino crime family. And at the very end, Castellano was going to make Bellotti his underboss.

8:41So that, to me, that should come up as a major red flag on a background check. I just don't understand that. And then you look at Eppolito, and his ties were even stronger. I mean, his father was an enforcer for the Gambinos. His uncle was a captain in the Gambino family. So you have all of this mixed together, and you say, these guys might have had a career doing something. Maybe they, I don't know, maybe they could have gone to law school and become a mob lawyer or something. I don't know. But a police officer, yeah, it is shocking that somehow they made it to become detectives in the NYPD.

9:18Jay Albanese:I think you could perhaps invent a story in which these individuals with their mafia ties decide to rebel against that tradition and become police officers. But that wasn't the case for these two gentlemen. There were repeated warnings about both detectives' allegiance and behavior, but repeatedly dismissed. Is this unique in this time and place in the New York Police Department? Is there some sort of code that even the fledgling cops get looked after by other cops? Back in that day, I think it was more the case. I mean, look at the case of Frank Serpico, the same kind of thing. And there it was accepting payoffs rather than mafia-related crimes.

9:58But it was the same kind of thing where you said, God, it took a long time for what was clear corruption to come to light. I mean, for a while there, every 20 years, there was a major corruption investigation in New York that has slowed down. I attribute that to the professionalization of policing. But, you know, there are some bad people everywhere. And, you know, that's the way it is. And when you look at the mafia cops, what is shocking was the extent to which they engaged in criminal behavior. I mean, they were actually involved in homicides, which is rare. Most of the other corruption, if you look over the years, has been involved with taking money and payoffs from suspected criminals.

10:51The End

11:12Carrie Coon, Jimmy Fallon, at all. But they were in it, and if you don't listen to them, then I will cut off your tongue, then cut off your head, and then put the tongue in the head hole. Aw, you tried. Listen now exclusively on Audible and Dental of the Audible app today or off with your head! I'm kidding.

11:38As Americans, we're constantly grappling with the fundamental question. Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we strive to create the world as it should be? Our answers tend to ebb and flow through the decades. But once, just after a war that nearly tore us apart, we came as close as we've come to answering it. and it's a story worth a closer look. I'm Michelle Obama, and I'm proud to announce Higher Ground's new podcast, Reconstruction, The Unfinished Promise. Guided by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell and featuring my husband, Barack Obama, this limited series uncovers the untold stories of Reconstruction, what they mean for us today, and how our past can shape the future we choose to build.

12:28Reconstruction, the Unfinished Promise, is available now on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.

12:44Jay Albanese:Let's discuss where the mafia is today. If its dominance has faded, what might have replaced it? Who are the major players in organized crime today, and where are they? For me, the major difference from the days when the mafia controlled things to now has been territory. You control territory. So if I wanted to run some illegal game or a prostitution ring or whatever it was in that area, I better have you on board. And normally you would say no, or you would allow me to do it for some piece of the illegal enterprise. So it's very territorial based. And what has happened now, the nature of organized crime has changed.

13:26For example, now, if somebody said, well, what one word characterizes organized crime? Today, I would say that one word would be trafficking. All right. It's moving stuff around. So whether you're in the human trafficking, sex trafficking, labor trafficking, drug trafficking, trafficking in antiquities, endangered animals, all kinds of stuff. All of that stuff has to move across borders. So it's changed in nature. So that whole territorial part of traditional organized crime is much less important. For example, I asked a university class, I said, okay, how many of you have ever been to New York on a field trip when you were in school?

14:07Everybody's been to New York on a field trip. And I said, okay, when you go there, there's always guys with a blanket on the sidewalk selling fake purses or whatever, stuff like that. Where do those purses come from? This guy on the sidewalk had nothing to do with those purses. So where did they come from? All right. So then you show them the data. And there's been some great empirical studies by academics and NGOs and a few governments showing that the vast majority, and these are like counterfeit Louis Vuittons and all these high-end purses, The vast majority of them are made in Southeast Asia.

14:41Most are made by people working in sweatshop conditions. It's human trafficking. It's underage workers, the whole thing. Those purses are then shipped to countries with money, like North America and Europe especially. Well, how do they get them there? Well, you have counterfeit labeling. You have bribery at the border. You have all the ways to scam it in to get it into the country. Then when it gets into the country, you need people to distribute these. And then there are people around and they find dudes willing to sell stuff on the street and you have a whole distribution network. So the guy selling them on the sidewalk in New York is getting a very small piece of the action.

15:23But my point and my point to my students and to any regular person is that by buying that purse, you are in fact funding a transnational criminal enterprise that begins in Southeast Asia and ends with you on the streets of New York.

15:41Jay Albanese:So if these more traditional revenue streams for the mafia still exist, gambling and extortion, are they the prominent forms of crime for organized criminals across the world? Or has it moved, like you perhaps mentioned, to newer forms like trafficking? Yeah, absolutely. trafficking in everything has become like a virus around the world. People like banned and stolen property, guns, animals, all kinds of stuff. And then, of course, now we have trafficking in information, whether it's social security numbers, whether it's patient records that a hospital will pay a fortune for me not to release.

16:19And there are sites all over the internet. If you go on the dark web, you can buy almost anything you want. And you see some of these cybercrime cases, some of the people participating in the scheme have never met one another. And then along the way, somebody invented cryptocurrency, which for me is simply a way to hide a transaction. So then you would say, well, why would any regular person need to hide a transaction? Well, you'd only need to do it if you, of course, were doing something illegal. So that enables the dark web, that enables me to pay somebody in some other country through crypto.

16:55I could never do it otherwise without having the bags of cash problem. And this stuff is very hard. A whole new set of enforcement skills is required. This has taken some time to develop, but I think we're better than we were 20 years ago. If you were looking 20, 30 years ago and said, well, I'm going to make money and I don't care how I make it, you would have to have a physical presence somewhere. You have to rob from people, steal from people. I ask students in my university class, I said, how many people here ever carry cash? Not a single hand goes up. They don't carry cash. I said, how many of you carry a wallet?

17:35Almost nobody carries a wallet anymore, right? It's all on their phone and their phone is password protected. This is why pickpocketing has gone out of style because if I grab what's in your pocket, it gets me nowhere. So I would argue people are just disposed to steal as they were a hundred years ago, but the opportunities have changed dramatically. Now, if you're disposed to stealing to get ahead, you can sit in your pajamas at home. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection. So you could do it at the coffee shop and not even have to pay for the Wi-Fi and send spam emails to people, investment schemes, romance schemes, all the things that we all know and hear about.

18:15So the new communications technology that we've been spoiled by has given the criminally-minded people opportunities to exploit, and I never have to leave my house.

18:27Jay Albanese:I never have to get out of my pajamas. Well, let me pose a question to you. If it does seem that it's easier to become a criminal in the modern age, what would you prefer? Would you rather investigate the Gambino family in 1985 or a modern transnational cyber fraud network today? Yeah, it makes you long for the old days. Law enforcement was easier back then because of the physical presence needed. You know, when you think back to, you know, the three Gotti trials and all of the big mob cases of the 80s and 90s, you know, wiretapping and informants were at the center of all of that. Because when you look at major drug trafficking cases, most of them started at the bottom.

19:10Somebody gets grabbed and they inform their way up the chain. Well, now with these transnational schemes, you don't even know who's up the chain. You've never met the person. You know, you've got some contact information, which has, you know, long since expired, and that's the end of it. So it's just much more difficult to make a case now than it was back then. And this is why you need people with cyber skills. You need all kinds of skills that were not relevant back in the day.

20:03hero and admired for his aggressive tactics. But when a war wound, a new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the mags, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander-in-chief General George Washington. And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in US history. Follow the Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Betrayed the American Revolution early and ad-free on Audible.

20:52Jay Albanese:You've called corruption the biggest problem in the world. Why is that? Yeah, that's because it creates every other problem. When the UN and many other groups internationally have ranked the problems of the world, right? We live in a world of limited resources, so we should spend time on the most important problems. And they rank them. They go through them all, whether it's climate or poverty or inequality or disease. And you can give them all metrics and rank them. But when I look at all those, corruption either caused the problem or made the problem much worse. in every single case. And the corruption sometimes is governmental corruption.

21:30Sometimes it was private sector corruption. Sometimes it was malfeasance. Sometimes it was non-feasance, failure to act when action was required. So that's, to me, why corruption is the most important problem and the one that we should be going after proactively all the time. Because corruption rarely results in a complaint to the police, right? These always require proactive investigations involving following the money, following people doing suspicious things. And law enforcement and prosecution agencies have to be very patient because these cases take time to build. And in all the cases, it's people in positions of authority abusing their position for personal gain.

22:12Usually it's money. Sometimes it's power and influence, but the motives are much more similar or then they are different.

22:20Jay Albanese:Now, in the last few years, the Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers have also exposed how global financial systems help hide wealth and enable corruption and organized crime. What do you think these revelations tell us about how the modern illicit economy works? One, it shows that even in quote-unquote non-corrupt locations around the world, there are still people engaging in self-dealing that violates laws against corruption, bribery, nepotism, obstruction of justice, all the offenses in the orbit of corruption. So it just shows it exists everywhere. But when you read about the Panama Papers and the others, to me, the most interesting thing I always look for, what it took for them to get this information.