“The Mafia put out a $500,000 contract on Pistone and kicked the Bonanno family off the Commission. FBI agents visited Mafia bosses in New York and advised them not to murder Pistone. The contract was dropped by Paul Castellano, who headed the Commission, because he thought killing a federal agent would "attract too much attention""
Got this quote directly from Wiki based on Joseph "Donnie Brasco" Pistone. My quesstion is, isn't mafia job a crime? Yet the FBI knew the ones involved (they certainly knew if they visited them) and didn't do anything about it (like arresting them, surely mafias did crimes right?), only going to persuade them from killing Joseph.
You can see Paul Castellano, named cleanly and clearly, yet I dont find any charges against him (at least, for putting a bounty on someone's head). It's as if maybe they had a treaty with the Police at the time.. Or the police had lack of substantial evidence of their activities to prosecute? I'm not an American so I'm still lacking much info on this, please help me out. Thanks!
Bing bing bing.
This is why it's such a big deal when someone in the mafia snitches. If you can't get a boss talking on a recording, you need a witness. The mafia is structured so that bosses are so far removed from the action that prosecution is very difficult.
On top of the lack of evidence the mafia had the best lawyers. So the FBI had to make their cases 110% air tight.
Another thing and this was a mission I was involved w/ before the war on terror. There we so many leaks in the DOJ/FBI/DEA that my company was tasked to make remote camera's that utilized the Trojan Spirit platform so agents could get verbal warrants for massive drug movers.
The link was the camera, to a Sat van, to a satellite, to another van and into judges chambers. All encrypted and only the surveillance team and the team at the justice dept new about the transmission. Well I did to but it was always last second and you have no idea where they are uplinking in the US.
So another reason why the DOJ had a hell of a time w/ RICO cases against the mob when they know its coming and what the DOJ is looking for.
And even if someone is caught in the act they have no reason to cooperate with the police. They know they are getting the best lawyers, and even if they go to jail they'll have a comfortable time inside and their wife and kids will be taken care of.
Oh yeah. It makes more sense why its called Organised crime. Thanks for the clarification.
Check out The Sopranos. It goes a bit more in detail on how the sausage is made.