Global Mafia [antikvár]

Introduction Writing about organized crime is a lesson in humility. The underworld values its privacy highly; many groups within this subculture are secret societies whose very existence is threatened by exposure. Much of what goes on is hidden and any clues that float to the surface have to be analyzed in a vacuum. It's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together with most of the pieces missing. Even the most logical analysis can be shot down by the unforeseen appearance of a seemingly minor fact. The writer then must reevaluate the core theory. For example, the relatively recent phenomenon of pentiti, Mafia members who have come forward over the past decade and who have been subsequently debriefed by Italian magistrates, has wreaked havoc with investigators' cherished Mafia theories. In addition to the wealth of information they have provided, these informers have made disclosures that have caused the magistrates to reexamine conclusions drawn from intelligence gathered as much as 30 years ago. Two incidents that occurred in the autumn of 1957 serve to illustrate the point. On November 12, more than 100 top-level American La Cosa Nostra members met at a farm near Apalachin, in upstate New York. Among the attendees were the cream of the underworld: bosses Joe Bonanno, Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Joe Profaci, all among the most powerful gangsters X