 | | them, so that their "cooperation" with the police may win them amnesty for prior misconduct.
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| | Introducing potential customers to narcotics pushers.
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| | Revealing the identity of a government informant to narcotics criminals.
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| | Kidnapping critical witnesses at the time of trial to prevent them from testifying.
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| | Providing armed protection for narcotics dealers.
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| | Offering to obtain "hit men" to kill potential witnesses.
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Organized crime in short has turned dirty graft from an activity of a few "rotten apples" into a police cottage industry.
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Dons: Mafia big shots
Some newsmen have traced the rise of a particular mobster upward in importance with a crime family until they finally announce he has been made a don. In that sense the don is the most capable leader of a group. Within the divisions of a crime family the soldiers following a particular capo or underboss might refer to him as "Don."
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The title of don derives from Italy; it is a title of respect and honor all over southern Italy and Sicily and, for that matter, Spain. Although comments in the press and by law enforcement officials posit the title of "Don" as a specific position in the Mafia hierarchy, it has nothing to do with the structural makeup of the mob.
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As a matter of personal vanity some mobsters want to be addressed by the title. Thus Vito Genovese was referred to as Don Vito. Joseph Barbara Sr. the host of the notorious Apalachin crime conference, was often called Don Giuseppe, a recognition of the fact that he was for many years an important member of the Buffalo Magaddino family.
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The title don was sometimes cynically applied. In the early years of the syndicate, for instance, Genovese bridled at the increasing number and power of Jewish chieftains, and when Frank Costello suggested the Luciano-Lansky forces bring in the powerful Dutch Schultz, Genovese screamed, "What the hell is this? What're you tryin' to do, load us up with a bunch of Hebes?" Before Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, Costello wheeled on Genovese and said very quietly, "Take it easy, Don Vitone, you nothin' but a fuckin' foreigner yourself." It was the custom thereafter of both Costello and Luciano and occasionally some other important boss, to call Genovese Don Vitone when they wanted to rub his nose in the dirt. Genovese Venever forgot this and his personal vendetta against Costello would extend over some three decades, always obsessed by the Don Vitone affront, until he masterminded the attempt on Costello's life.
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