New York's traditional organized crime mafia appears to have halted factional wars and entered a phase of cooperation. In the past, they carved up territories and used violence to vie for power, but recently they have formed a structure that collaborates by using advanced technology.
According to Bloomberg on the 27th (local time), the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn said last week it uncovered and filed sweeping charges against an illegal gambling and sports betting ring jointly formed by four of New York's Five Families. The Five Families are the Genovese family, the Lucchese family, the Gambino family, the Bonanno family, and the Colombo family, and it is known that all but the Colombo family took part in the crimes.
Prosecutors said they formed a coalition structure, ran high-stakes gambling dens, and pocketed profits amounting to $7 million (about 1 billion won). It is extremely rare in New York mafia history for four families to be indicted simultaneously in one case, which investigators said suggests large sums of money likely changed hands. New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch added, "For years, they have used technology and violence in tandem to sustain organized corruption."
What stands out is that each family divided roles so thoroughly that they formed a systematic organization reminiscent of a joint corporations. According to authorities, the Bonanno family hosted high-stakes poker games around Lexington Avenue, while the Gambino family did so near Washington Place, and in line with that, the Genovese and Lucchese families handled pot collection and debt enforcement.
They are believed to have used sensors inside automatic card-shuffling machines. By reading in real time the order of cards being shuffled via the sensors and relaying it to an outside party, the outsider calculated win-loss probabilities and passed them back inside, and the insider manipulated the flow to favor a specific player through preset motions such as a wrist touch. Using this method, victims are estimated to have lost at least $1.9 million (about 270 million won) per person.
The case has prompted analysis that New York mafia groups have established a new survival formula to match changing times. In the early 20th century, they fought for regional dominance through the so-called factional structure of "La Cosa Nostra (our thing)," but now they have evolved into a cooperative structure that divides work among factions using technology. Administrator Tisch explained, "They still use threats and violence, but they are dividing revenue much more delicately than before."
This is not the first time the mafia have cooperated. In 2012, the Bonanno and Genovese families ran an illegal gambling ring disguised as coffee shops, shoe-repair stores, and soccer clubs around Queens and Long Island and were indicted in 2022, and in 2021, Colombo family officials were caught trying to extort a certain labor union fund. In particular, in the Bonanno–Genovese gambling operation, it later emerged that local police had leaked enforcement information in exchange for money, causing outrage.
However, violence among mafia organizations has not completely disappeared. In 2018, Sylvester "Sally Daz" Zottola, a Bronx real estate investor known to be affiliated with the Bonanno organization, was found shot to death in a McDonald's drive-thru, and a year earlier, seven top Lucchese family officials were indicted on charges of murder, drug trafficking, and extortion.
Investigators believe the mafia cannot be completely eradicated, but will survive by changing form. Robert Boyce, former chief of detectives at the New York Police Department, said, "Organized crime remains active both domestically and internationally," and added, "This case shows that enforcement agencies are working closely together to confront a technologically evolved mafia."