La Cosa Nostra Research Paper

The American mafia also named American mob or later called the “La Cosa Nostra” is the organized crime from Sicilian origin. “La Cosa Nostra” means thing of ours, because the Mafia didn’t share with others, they had a code of silence called “Omerta” which said you can’t speak about things that you have seen or know about to government authorities. Between 1876 and 1924 almost 9 million Italians emigrated to the United States. At the beginning of the 20th century a lot of Sicilians emigrated to the United states, because of Mussolini and the earthquakes that caused a lot of mess. In New York the Italians crowded together and lived in their own piece of the city called “Little Italy”. They kept their own culture, traditions and bonds with their family. What they also took with them was the organized crime. One of the first gangs was the “La Mano Nera” which means the black hand, they were a Sicilian group of murderers and blackmailers. They kept themselves busy with shop owners that didn’t pay on time and killed them if they didn’t after a warning. People were afraid of “La Mano Nera” and so in for example Chicago other gangs came up. The gangs really made their upswing during the “Prohibition Era”. On the 16th of January 1920 the American government came with the 18th amendment of the American constitution which was withdrawn on the 5th of December 1933, the prohibition of the consumption of alcohol. Due to this amendment the alcohol business moved to the illegal side and the bootlegging began. “Bootlegging is the illegal business of transporting alcohol whilst it is forbidden. – Wikipedia” The Mafia made a lot of profit from the Prohibition Era and gangsters like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano became great and powerful gangsters. In ...

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... the government would owe him one. When Castro came to power not only the mobsters where thrown out of the country also Cubans were thrown out of the country. The CIA also disliked Castro and his communism, the CIA was not able any more to give money to criminals that helped them though the casinos. The CIA together with the Cuban exiles and the mobsters wanted to stop Castro and so they all worked together and the “Invasion of the Bay of Pigs” was born. This plan failed and the mobsters, the CIA and the Cuban exiles believed it was the fault of John F. Kennedy. The Mafia had so much power that the intelligence services needed to keep the Mafia as friends. The Mafia did the job that the CIA could not do, like killing people. Giancana once said that the Mafia and the CIA were the two sides of a coin. They needed each other, to be able to do what they want to do.