Who Will Fill The Mafia Void In New York City?

More than 800 law enforcement officers just arrested 127 alleged Cosa Nostra mobsters in the New York City area, in what authorities called the largest raid of its kind in US history. From the AFP:

The suspects included minor associates, “soldiers,” “captains” and a host of high-ranking bosses, wiping out much of the leadership of the Colombo and Gambino families — two of the historic “Five Families” in New York.

Charges included murder, loansharking, arson, drugs, extortion, robbery, labor racketeering.

Those arrested include members of the traditional Five Families plus two more – Surge Desk at AOL has the rundown on all of them.

And here I thought all federal agents were on the Wikileaks case …

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said today that the Italian-American mob had lost most of its national power but remained a serious regional threat. And, let’s face it, the Italian mob is good for the publicity, done in by the Godfather and the Sopranos.

There just won’t be many characters like John “Sonny” Franzese, who was sentenced to jail last week for shaking down strip clubs and a pizzeria … at the age of 93. I mean, the guy knew Sinatra!

You think taking down Russian or Mexican mobsters has the same cache? Hah.

Which begs the question. Who’s next in line for big screen stardom? The Cosa Nostra – born in the shadows of Prohibition (it’s true, I did my 8th grade term paper on this) has captured our attention for going on 90 years now.

But let’s say they are more or less broken now. New York City will always support crime. Who steps up? Who gets both the movie roles and becomes a serious legitimate danger to us all?

Probably no one group. Like everything else, it’s a flat world now, the information age, free trade, all that. A sampling of organized crime groups from the FBI, via the New York Times:

* Russian mobsters who fled to the U.S. in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse;
* Groups from African countries like Nigeria that engage in drug trafficking and financial scams;
* Chinese tongs, Japanese Boryokudan, and other Asian crime rings; and
* Enterprises based in Eastern European nations like Hungary and Romania.

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