The mob is not dead.
There is a dominant theory that the Mafia is not active in the same way it was decades ago, but recent news stories show that might not be true.
"A reputed Gambino captain was among two dozen people busted in a sprawling, multimillion-dollar construction kickback scheme that affected several significant high-rise construction projects in Manhattan," Elizabeth Rosner reported for the New York Post.
The Mafia has also been making headlines because of a recent photo of former President Donald J. Trump posing alongside the alleged former boss of the Philadelphia Crime Family, Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino.
"President Trump takes countless photos with people; that does not mean he knows every single person he comes in contact with," an official spokesman for Trump said in a statement to The Guardian.
The Mafia has been making the news across the Atlantic as well because, recently, former Sicilian mob boss, Matteo Dennaro, who had been on the lam for three decades, was apprehended by Italian authorities. He had previously been convicted in absentia of several murders, including the car bombings of two anti-Mafia prosecutors.
Dennaro was not the only Italian mob fugitive apprehended recently. Italian mob boss Edgardo Greco, who is linked to the Calabria, Italy Mafia group referred to as Ndrangheta, was found working in a French pizza shop after 16 years on the lam.
"After the assassinations, terrorist bombings and police crackdown of 1992 and 1993, the Sicilian mafia was considerably weakened. Hundreds of witnesses from the mafia stepped forward and began testifying against their fellow mafiosi. The Sicilians' domination of the heroin trade was broken and their place taken by the Calabrian version known as the 'Ndrangheta.' That said, the Sicilian mafia remains a powerful factor in Sicilian life," Columbia University professor Alexander Stille said.
In more Fleetwood-centric news, the Fleetwood Area High School Film Club hosted a Mafia movie-themed Mini-Movie Marathon.
"It was great! I got to watch some movies I'd been wanting to see for a while but never got around to. It was cool to watch so many films with similar themes and compare them," Film Club President and Fleetwood senior Meghan Emery said regarding the event.
So is the Mafia as powerful as it once was? Fuhgeddaboudit!
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