American Detective: Starting as a Rookie Cop in an American TV Show

Chapter 1423 Mafia (Two chapters in one)

The second call came from Jubal. While the NYPD was keeping an eye on the actions of Leah and his men, the Most Wanted Criminals Squad was also busy working with IRS investigators to investigate the gang accounts under his name.

The FBI used a similar tactic against Al Capone.

After continuous summarization and improvement, in the 70s, Congress passed the "RICO" Act specifically targeting the Mafia, which is the famous "Fraud Prevention and Anti-Mafia Act."

It effectively avoids the routine of gangster crimes where the boss can get away with just sending a few younger brothers to take the blame.

With the addition of supplementary laws such as the Witness Security Reform Act and the Anti-Money Laundering Act introduced in the 80s, the FBI finally had the tools to truly deal with the Mafia.

Strengthening the protection of tainted witnesses and following the clues to destroy secret accounts associated with the Mafia are the only ways for federal and local police to deal with organized crime.

The IRS found a suspicious fund of up to 1200 million US dollars, which belonged to the secret accounts of several investment banks. However, before they could freeze these accounts, the suspicious funds suddenly disappeared.

Jubal and the Most Wanted Criminals Team have been tracking the whereabouts of the funds these days and found that the $1200 has flowed into hundreds of different accounts.

At first they thought that they had accidentally alerted the enemy, causing Lai Ya to realize that something was wrong and start transferring funds, but they soon discovered that this was not the case.

After discovering the identities of the owners of several of the accounts, investigators from both the FBI and the IRS were overjoyed. They had really struck gold this time.

"It's obvious that Laija is going to make a big move soon. This money is used to bribe 'HR'. We checked it with the list provided by Detective Fusco, and all of them match." Jubal said excitedly.

"Of course, these people are not all NYPD, there are also NYSD (New York State Police), the District Attorney's Office, the courts, prisons and detention centers. In theory, we have basically figured out the member network of 'HR'."

Jubal paused, his voice still carrying a hint of regret, "Unfortunately, not all of them. The top executives of HR who are close to the core are not among them, such as the city council member and the director of the Metro Administration whom Detective Fusco met before."

"Killing these people is enough to make 'HR' exist in name only. Although there is a risk of resurgence, at least for a period of time afterwards, some people will have to weigh the risks first even if they want to be a black police officer."

It's not that Jack doesn't understand what it means to eradicate all evil, but the reality is that there is nothing in this world that can be solved once and for all.

After clearing out a "Blue Templar" before, a "HR" popped up. This time, after eliminating "HR", no one knows what will appear next time.

You should know that in California on the west coast, within the LAPD, which is no smaller than the NYPD, there are dozens of police gangs of all sizes.

Frank Reagan is already a very responsible director. At least he did not go along with the corrupt officials and has been working hard to clean up the internal situation. If it were Jack in his previous life, the FBI might have been shocked to find that the final boss was this person after all the investigations.

Therefore, compared to the investigation of "HR", Jack is more concerned about what Lai Ya wants to do.

At least 1200 million US dollars of funds were used to manage all parties. This matter was obviously not a small matter. Jack happened to have some impression of this plot in the original drama.

It seems that Lai Ya started some kind of gang revolution and unified the five major LCN families in New York in one fell swoop. Although there were some twists and turns due to the "POI" during the process, it seems that he almost achieved his goal in the end, at least controlling the entire underground world of New York.

LCN is the general name for the American Mafia. Today, LCN is controlled not by a single godfather, but by a five-member council called the "National Committee."

Many people know or understand the Mafia, basically from the movie series "The Godfather", another famous gangster movie "Once Upon a Time in America", or the American TV series "Boardwalk Empire" and so on.

As a film and television work, it inevitably contains beautified elements, just like the "Young and Dangerous" back then, the gangster aesthetics created made many people unable to distinguish the boundary between reality and exaggeration.

Today, there are four main Italian mafia forces around the world, namely:

The Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra), which originally means "our cause", is an old force. Although its main activities are in Sicily, its influence radiates to Europe, North America and South America.

The Camorra from Naples has influence almost all over Europe, but its organizational structure is relatively loose and there are many factions within it.

The 'Ndrangheta, which originated in Calabria, is now the most powerful organization. It is the monopoly of cocaine trade in Europe and is also very good at money laundering. Its influence has almost penetrated the political and business circles of the whole of Europe.

There is also a relatively small force, the Sacra Corona Unita from Puglia, which controls the smuggling routes in the Adriatic Sea. Its main industries are drug trafficking, smuggling and human trafficking.

Of course, it is common knowledge that there are five of the Four Heavenly Kings. Among them, the American Mafia (La Cosa Nostra, LCN for short) is rarely mentioned separately because it is often confused with the Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra).

In fact, the American Mafia (officially known as LCN) has a name that belongs to them alone - American Mob, or MOB for short. This word, which originally means mob, is almost exclusively used to refer to the American Mafia in American English.

Somewhat similar to the development of American history, the development of the American Mafia also has a corresponding independent process.

From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, as a large number of poor immigrants from southern Italy poured into the United States, the prototype of the American Mafia emerged in Italian ethnic communities in cities such as New York and Chicago.

They initially relied on the local Italian mafia system, usually dividing the territory based on blood ties and regions - such as Sicilians and Neapolitans, and controlling the communities where these Italians gathered by collecting protection fees, gambling and usury.

The turning point occurred during the Prohibition period in the 20s, when bootlegging became a highly profitable industry, and second-generation Italian descendants born in the United States (such as Al Capone and Charlie Luciano) made a "decision that went against their ancestors."

They began to absorb Irish and Jewish gangs and established various large and small cross-ethnic gang alliances.

This made the Sicilian traditionalists in Italy unhappy, and Salvatore Maranzano, known as the "Godfather of Godfathers", tried to demonstrate his authority as a patriarch.

It turned out that Al Capone's cousin, Charlie Luciano, nicknamed "Lucky Boy", joined forces with other forces in the United States to carry out the assassination, sending Salvatore Maranzano directly to see God.

"Lucky Boy" Charlie Luciano has a more famous name, "the father of modern organized crime in the United States", also known as the "father of the American Mafia". After killing the "emperor" of Italy, he assembled all 1933 mafia families in the United States at that time in 24 and set up a parliamentary "National Committee".

At the same time, it also announced that the American Mafia was officially independent from the Italian Mafia and became a separate force.

Although LCN still maintained a certain degree of cooperation with the Italian Mafia, such as jointly transporting drugs and sending active members to each other (to escape crime), it no longer accepted instructions from Italy.

There is a saying that the prototype of Vito Corleone played by Marlon Brando in the movie "The Godfather" was Charles Luciano, but in fact the Godfather's experience is even more legendary.

Luciano's presence can even be seen in the rise of Las Vegas, the gambling city. The first casino here, the Flamingo Hotel, was invested by him and built together with his ally Bugs Siegel.

Later, due to the serious overspending of the project - it cost a full 600 million US dollars, remember that it was 1946, and Luciano suspected that Siegel had embezzled public funds, he directly sent someone to assassinate the guy nicknamed "Bug".

The Flamingo Hotel subsequently turned a profit and became a template for Las Vegas casinos, after which casinos invested by various mafia families were built one after another.

It was not until the 90s that the FBI wielded the "RICO" Act to bring down the American Mafia (LCN) and large companies such as MGM acquired major casinos in Las Vegas, which completely expelled the Mafia from the "City of Sin."

Today's LCN has long lost its glory, and its influence has completely shrunk back to the East Coast (there are still a few remnants on the West Coast). Except for the five major families that still control the New York underworld under the name of "National Committee".

The remaining families are mainly based in Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Florida.

There are also a few remnants in New England (Boston and Providence), but they have fallen into the miserable situation of competing with Irish gangs for port smuggling rights and engaging in illegal online sports gambling.

However, as the saying goes, even a rotten ship still has three thousand nails. Although LCN is not as good as it used to be, the main business methods of the five major families in New York have mostly shifted to white-collar crimes in the financial field, and even many industries have been whitewashed.

But the more this happens, the more difficult it becomes to deal with. Although the FBI is still working tirelessly to label all local mafia members they find with LCN identity labels and send one boss after another to prison, this is the extent of the effect they can achieve.

After LCN degenerated from a nationwide criminal empire into a regional interest group, its annual illegal income still amounts to tens of billions.

According to the investigation of FBI and NYPD, Leah controls many drug smuggling and money laundering channels between the United States and Canada, which is a great temptation for LCN, which is not doing well nowadays.

But Jack has not figured out for the time being how Lai plans to control such a behemoth as LCN. After all, even "Lucky Boy" Charlie Luciano at the peak of his fame never thought of sitting on the throne of "The Godfather of Godfathers".

But soon a call from Finch in the old library solved his doubts.

When Jack hurried to the old library, he saw Finch and Reese pasting photos on a blackboard, five photos in one go.

Seeing him appear, Finch pointed at the photos and read out the names on them one by one.

"Caparelli, Zambrano, Grifoni, Basile and Gianni Moretti II, numbers I just received today, do these names sound familiar to you?"

"LCN's five major family decision-makers in New York, or five godfather-level figures. Well, now I know what Lai Ya is going to do by using 1200 million US dollars in one go." Jack replied with a sigh.

"What $1200 million?" Finch seemed a little surprised.

Jack briefly explained the results of the FBI and IRS investigations, "It seems that Lai Ya wants to launch a decapitation raid to kill the 'heads' of these five families, take down the five major families in New York in one fell swoop, and take over the 'National Committee' of LCN.

This guy has a big appetite, isn't he afraid of being stuffed to death?"

"That sounds like a good thing. I'll be happy to watch them fight each other." Reese shrugged. "In order to prevent the situation from becoming one-sided, I suggest sending a warning letter to each of the five families. That will be considered as fulfilling our obligations."

Finch coughed lightly, and immediately put on the posture of a boss, "Mr. Reese, I know that when you worked in the CIA, they condoned or even encouraged some not-so-good moral values.

But I think we can raise our moral standards a little bit, understand that gang warfare will bring collateral damage, and we have to consider the interests of those innocent people."

"So what? You're not going to ask me to be a nanny to the most powerful and notorious criminal bosses in New York, are you?" Reese sneered.

"That's why I asked Agent Taverer to come in right away." Finch turned to look at Jack. "From an official perspective, I think the NYPD and the FBI wouldn't want to see a scene where the two sides fight each other until a river of blood flows, right?"

"I'm going to say that I really considered killing Leah and those Mafia bosses."

Seeing Finch's expression as if he was crazy, Jack waved his hand to indicate that he had never said that.

Reese looked calm, after all, he had seen with his own eyes a member of the royal family being cut into pieces by a helicopter rotor. Finch might take this guy's words as a joke, but he wouldn't.

But Jack was just joking. He is not the governor of New York and cannot mobilize the National Guard.

If Manhattan Island really gets into chaos by then, not to mention the FBI's manpower, even the NYPD's more than 20,000 people, including all civilian police officers, probably won't be able to control the situation.

"My suggestion is to wait and see. As long as these big guys are not taken down in one fell swoop, the death of one or two won't be a big problem. If Lai Ya dares to take action, he should be prepared to spend the rest of his life in prison."

Hearing Jack say this, Reese raised his eyebrows in surprise, "Just send him to jail?"

"We have no obligation to clean up the mafia, do we?" Jack didn't have a good impression of Laiia, but he didn't want to help the mafia because his biological father Moretti was even more of a piece of shit.

(End of this chapter)