The government recently unsealed a massive indictment attacking the structure and leadership of the Colombo Crime Family. Not only did the entire administration get taken off the street, but several captains and soldiers were taken off with them. The indictment showed that the Mafia is still out there engaging in its usual activities of loansharking, extortion and drug trafficking. At the heart of the indictment is labour racketeering, the old bread and butter of the mob. Local 621 of the United Construction Trades and Industrial Employees Union was slowly being infiltrated by the Colombo Crime Family to do what they did best: union racketeering. It started by taking a cut of a senior union official’s salary (which can go as high as three hundred thousand for these labour “leaders”) to a more serious and thorough attempt to take over the local. The Colombo Family wanted to place its members and associates in positions of power and steer lucrative contracts to mob-controlled businesses. It also started to pilfer the lucrative Health Fund and receive kick-backs of ten thousand a month. It takes a lot of sophistication to do a scheme like this that separates La Cosa Nostra Families from other gangs and criminal organizations which seem to infatuate people these days. I’ve seen comments calling these guys geriatrics and the government was wasting its time indicting these people. I think people just have a really short memory here of what a scheme like this could yield if the bud is not nipped right away. I loath to agree with u/cigarpaulie here, but some people here really don’t know “shit” about the Mafia. 

Allow me to remind members of this forum about Vincent Esposito, son of the late Godfather Vincent Gigante. In 2018, Esposito and other members of the Genovese Crime Family were nabbed for extorting UFCW Local 2D. When Vincent pled guilty, he admitted to making millions with members of the Genovese Crime Family by extorting payments, demanding kickbacks, committing fraud, and installing fear.  He personally extorted over ten thousand dollars a year from the senior union official leading Local 2D. He had to forfeit over $3.8mn to the government which shows what kind of money you can make with prolonged control of a union local. For all of that, he got 2 years in prison! This is why union racketeering is so lucrative, you can pilfer a lot of money, gain a lot of influence and still only receive a short prison sentence. The Colombo Crime Family would have similarly made millions in ill-gotten gains if the Government didn’t catch on to this scheme quickly. Their big mistake was getting the administration involved in overseeing this scheme as opposed to keeping it more insulated like the Genovese Crime Family and letting the soldiers take the pinch. So yes, this is impressive. It’s beyond the capabilities of any of the more “fashionable” gangs people like to rave about on this forum.  And when they plead out, they are not going to get drug-type sentences too.