Does the Mafia Still Exist?

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00:00:12 Hey everybody. Welcome back. It’s the Milwaukee Mafia podcast. I’m Eric Wulterkens. I’m Gavin Schmitt. And Gavin. Take ‘er away with the next topic. The “Does the Milwaukee Mafia still exist?” episode. Oooh. All right. So, does the Milwaukee Mafia still exist? No. No? End of the episode. No, it’s a little bit longer than that. Okay. So this episode I really I kind of want to run through what we know what we don't know and really kind of explain to people how I do what I do. Not, I mean, not completely. That would take forever, but at least as far as this question is concerned. So as far as “Does the Milwaukee Mafia still exist?”, the last mob murder in Milwaukee that we know for certain was a mob murder in Milwaukee was way back in 1989.

00:01:12 That’s not that long ago though. It’s kind of long. Well. We’re getting old. Yeah, I guess we are getting old. Way to rub it in. Just remember, you're still older than I am. Yep. The last major Mafia boss, not saying the last one, but the last major one died in 1993. So the biggest boss died, almost thirty years ago now, okay, so just to put this in context, like we haven't had like a huge named boss or a major murder in 30 years now. The FBI went through their tally of known mob members throughout the country on November 30th, 1993. Very convenient, since this wasn't long after the major boss died. It's not why they did it, but it's helpful. They said that at that time Milwaukee had only fourteen mafia members still alive.

00:02:12 So now when you say “fourteen mafia members still alive”, these could just be 80 year old guys that are really not doing anything anymore, but they just happened to be a mafia member say in their seventies or something? Correct. I even noted on here, “most of these guys are elderly.” They listed Peter Balistrieri, who is the brother of Frank Balistrieri, the last major mob boss. They listed him as the quote-unquote acting boss, which means they didn't think there really was a boss anymore. This is just the kind of the guy filling the spot. They listed Joseph Caminiti, also known as Joe Camel as the consiglieri, the counselor and everybody else was just listed as a soldier. There was nobody, there were no Captains looking over the soldiers. There was no underboss. I mean, this was all that they thought was left in 1993.

00:03:12 My speculation, based on that, was at this point you guys were just kind of riding it out. You know, they're mostly retired. When they died there weren't going to be many guys left.

00:03:23 So is the FBI wrong? Were there more guys I didn’t know about? Possible. I mean, it's always possible. But I tend to think their information was pretty reliable. So now in 1993 these people that were still well, these were all the elderly people, more or less that you're talking about. Mostly yes. So they weren't out there doing anything. This was, in theory more or less just, hey there used to be a mafia and we're still going to give each other roles, but we're not really doing Mafia type things? That is my understanding. Now in comparison to these 14 guys in Milwaukee, the biggest family, mafia family, in the United States at this time, was the Gambinos, who are one of the families in New York. They have 206 members. So that's, they're doing great. 206 is a very good sized group.

00:04:23 The smallest group was actually a tie between New Orleans and Tucson, Arizona. And they each only had two.

00:04:29 Which isn't really probably very helpful. Interesting to note is that Milwaukee was actually bigger than New Orleans. All the major families were in the east by now. Buffalo had 49. And Chicago only had 48. So even Buffalo is a more powerful mob city than Chicago by the 90s. Just kinda see that, that's how, according to the FBI, that’s how things were sitting at that point. At this point, the FBI was focused primarily on drugs. They noted there were some hangouts for drug dealers in the Italian Community. They followed what they called the Cinisi Carini faction of the Sicilian Mafia, which weren’t even local Milwaukee guys. These were guys from Sicily, like, in the United States, or in Wisconsin, in this case who were involved in these networks.

00:05:26 So it's not even like a Milwaukee specific thing.The mob still had some control over the international boxing organization, the IBO, at this point and there was still some corruption in the Hotel and Restaurant Union, which the FBI broke up in the 80s, but apparently it was still going on in the 90s. That's about it as far as what they were following as far as crime. Nothing too majorly scary there. So, the hotel, the hotel and restaurant Union. What is that? What is a hotel and restaurant Union like? Why was the mob involved in this? Oh. Different things. Same as any other union. You can skim money out of it. You know, that there would be like Pension funds, you can take money out of. But one thing they did in this case, in Milwaukee specifically, is they would sign people up, waiters, waitresses, cooks,

00:06:26 things like this up for the, the hotel and restaurant Union, but they didn't tell them that they were being signed up. Okay. So they would be taking money out of their paychecks and putting it into the funds for the union, but then they didn't bother to tell them that, you know, if they look at the paycheck, they figure it out. But a lot of people didn't let you look at the breakdown. So this money would go in this fund and that was was a mob controlled fund and the people wouldn't get it back because they don't know that they're eventually going to get a pension in or they've got you know, health insurance, or whatever it is that they're paying for. This was just this extra money that they were stealing from waiters, waitresses, and cooks. At this point in time, it seems like the crimes they’re involved in are a little more, less hands-on, less risky types of? Sure.

00:07:14 Way more conservative type crime. Is, is there something is there a time that you know of in history where they kind of made that transition or do you think that just the mafia kind of died off and then now they're older and they're just, they're not really looking to go around and shoot people anymore, or whatever. They're just looking or rough people up. They just want to find easy ways to make easy money. Well, I mean that's that really is the bottom line is, is there there to make money. I mean, I think we've talked about that in the past that, you know, despite the fact they're all these murderers in Milwaukee and in any mob city, really. In any mob city history.

00:07:57 You don't gain anything from killing a person. Generally speaking. When really all you want to do is make money. So later on, you know, as time goes on, especially by the 60s and 70s, you can make more money as being a shady lawyer, were a shady accountant than you can going around breaking into someone's house and stealing their silverware or something. And so, it's just sort of how it goes, and I've never seen this in Milwaukee. So I can't speak to that, but like in New York, I mean, some of these mob guys are very sophisticated. They’re running Wall Street scams. And crap like that. So, I mean, it's more and more of that kind of thing is because the bottom line is, they want money. That's what they're there for. And I guess it's probably like they’re a long-running crime syndicate. Yes. So it’s bound to happen that they’re just going to get smarter about the way they commit their crimes than, than

00:08:54 you know somebody that just kind of comes out of nowhere and says, hey I'm going to go start robbing people. Right. And even that person, even after they’ve done it so many times, gotten in trouble for it, gone to jail, they're eventually going to get out and if they continue to do it, they're going to do it smarter, they're not going to make the same mistakes over and over again. Sure. These Old-Timers, these 14 guys they’re dying off. They're getting old. And as of now, I don't necessarily know who all fourteen of those guys are. I could probably figure it out if I went back and looked, but I do know that two of those 14 are still alive as of this moment, but I don't think either one of them is really all that dangerous and I'm not sure if they ever really were. One of them was named as a mob member just because he was related to other mob members. And I'm not entirely convinced that he ever really was involved in much of anything.

00:09:54 And the other guy got named because he inherited a corrupt business from his family, which I can't, I'm not going to say anybody's name because I don't want to get sued by the people who are still alive. But I will say, I will say this, it's a cheese factory in Fond du Lac.

00:10:17 So you can figure out what that is. So, yeah, I don't even think these two guys that I know are still alive or even like a thing, like, there's no reason to be a least bit concerned about them. There’s a few other guys who were minor gamblers.I’ve even heard stories in the last few years. They are still seeing some stuff go on at the bars, but I can't. It's like it's gambling. Nobody takes that seriously anymore, you know, everybody does that, like, you go to a bar now, you do shake of the day or you do a Packer pool or whatever, and technically, that's illegal, but nobody enforces that. So like if that's what it's come down to where the mafia is running gambling out of bars. That's not, nobody cares. Now they’re just running a legitimate business that might be a little bit on the F=fray of legality, but it's pretty much pretty harmless. Yeah.

00:11:17 There's one guy right now who lives in Milton, which is kind of by Janesville, he was a major player in the heroin trade in the 1980s. He's still alive, but I’m pretty sure he's retired. So I don't know. Is there still a mafia in Milwaukee? My gut says no. This is where I have to explain why I cannot say 100% no. Okay. The majority of my information, I mean, the vast majority of my information comes from FBI Files. The problem with relying on FBI Files is I could only get FBI files of people who have passed. Dead people. What happens is is the files from the 1960s are very good. I mean, anybody who appears in those files who is dead. I can see those. In the seventies, anybody who is in those who is dead, I can see those. But more people aren't dead. But more people aren't dead.

00:12:15 And then by the 80s, there's a lot of people who, you know, were in their twenties or thirties in the 80s doing questionable stuff. They’re still very much with us. The 90s, you know, I've gotten bits and pieces of 90s files, but the majority of those I can't get. I'm pretty firm on my belief. But at the same time I'm relying on files where I see less and less as time goes on so it could be in 50 years from now, I request files from the 90s, in fifty years if I'm even still alive in 50 years, but if I did, I could be very wrong. I mean there could have been a really major scam going on in the 90s that none of us ever knew about. Maybe I just completely missed this but, so you're talking with the files, you can get a file once somebody dies? Yes.

00:13:07 And then you can read that file. But if somebody that's related in that file is still alive, they black it out. Correct. The people who go through the file before they release it to me, they don’t just go oh this guy's dead. Here's the file. They go through it page by page and they mark the hell out of it. So if they, if they know somebody still alive they cross it out. So I can't read it. And if they don't know if someone's alive or dead, they cross it out. So a lot of times they over cross it out, which is really annoying, but they have to do it, you know. Right. Because if they start releasing things about people who are alive and the people who are alive find out that the FBI was bugging their phone, they're going to get themselves in trouble. So they don't want that know. Do you got more to go through? A little bit. Because I’ve got lots of questions. Yeah, bring the questions. My biggest question is,

00:14:03 So, we see the mafia members get older and older, so it almost seems like the people aged and then just kind of gradually died. Yeah. Do you have any evidence to share or do you have any theories on obviously, throughout the life of the mafia, people got old. Sure, yeah. But it kept going because their kids or whatever kind of picked up the slack and took on the roles that as the previous members got older they would come in and take over. Do you have any theories or evidence of at what point did that stop happening in that it was a group of mafia members just getting old? I don't know if this is exactly the answer you're looking for, but I would say that it was probably like at its biggest in maybe the forties and fifties.

00:15:02 And then starting in the 1960s, it decreased. Again. This may just be a reflection of the records. But that's my impression based on the fact that the records that I do have they still mention like when there's going to be a ceremony to make new members, you know, they might cross out who it is, but they'll still say there's a ceremony and they really just kind of stopped like after the sixties the ceremonies just kind of stopped. They don't take in new guys really anymore. So that's when, if you're not getting new guys in, you're going to slowly run out of guys and there's a few reasons for that. One, the main guy running the show again, Frank Balistrieri. I don't think he really cared about adding new guys.

00:15:58 Because the old bosses were very conscious of this being an organization and they were like, we got to always add new guys. We got to keep this up and running, you know, so if one guy goes down, we got another guy and I don't think Frank cared about that. I think Frank cared about getting rich and so it didn't matter to, like after he was gone. I don't think he gave a crap. That's really interesting. So the theory behind it is that it was kind of poorly ran? Yeah. Towards the end. Like Frank Balistrieri did a very poor job. I mean, depending on how you look at it. If your goal as boss is making a strong organization. Yeah. I think he failed. if your goal is to get rich then he did a great job. But yeah if it was his responsibility to keep it going, he failed.

00:16:52 Interesting. And also the other thing is just it's kind of what you're dealing with as far as the population. I mean, it's Milwaukee. It's not a major city. When you’re in the mafia and you can only rely on people who are Italian to be members, you're automatically limiting yourself as opposed to New York. I mean New York, first of all the population is significantly larger, but the Italian population is significantly larger. So they've got a bigger pool to draw from and they’ve got a culture. I mean, when you think about the mob, I mean, when I think about Milwaukee I think about them because that’s what I’m familiar with,but the average person thinks about New York and New Jersey. That’s what they picture as the mob. And do you think that even around the sixties, maybe it wasn't even Frank Balistrieri’s fault that this happened?

00:17:49 Do you think that at a period in time the Italian population, just kind of decreased in Milwaukee? And I mean if I'm not mistaken, but I forget the ward you called it. The Third Ward. That’s what I thought it was.It's not, you go to the Third Ward today, it's not a huge Italian Community? Not at all. It’s more a neighborhood more of less. Right. The Italian Community Center is there like the building where they have their activities. But that's just more to kind of mark where the neighborhood was. I don't know that there's almost anybody left there. Now, it's all condos and stuff. So, do you know when that community kind of started breaking up? Would that have been around? It would be similar. Because as you might recall from the little pink church episode, they put the freeway through there and that wasn't necessarily like the defining moment.

00:18:49 It did push people out, and a lot of people already by that point had moved out because the Third Ward is not, I mean, a lot of people Old-Timers will look back fondly. It was such a great neighborhood to grow up in. And do hear that a lot. By our standards today, it was kind of a ghetto. So, you know, once families started doing well for themselves they got out. So that’s what I wonder is a huge part of it was just the dispersal of that tight-knit Community, just kind of didn't make the mafia work the way it should. That's a very good point as well. That's a very good point because yeah, you didn't. I mean, obviously also not everyone is going around speaking Sicilian. They all speak English. Yeah. They’re basically Americans completely. Not that they weren’t Americans before, but you know, the culture. So now you talked about it, the last known for sure Mafia murder was in 1989, correct?

00:19:49 Yep. Is that murder attached to clearly attached to the mafia doing something illegal or or do you want to cover that murder in a different episode?

00:19:57 That would definitely get it’s own episode. Absolutely. I don't know how long it'll take us to get there cuz I'm working forward but if someone specifically asks, I'll do it sooner. But yeah, no that's definitely its own episode. Any murder should be it’s own episode, really. Well then we’ll leave that question for that episode. A couple more things to go through? Yeah, a little, a little bit, a little bit. So when you look at what options, there are for there to be a mob, the drugs, a lot of times you see those now Latino gangs are involved in drugs or the bikers are involved in drugs.

00:20:44 It's not really. You don't go to the mafia for drugs. Unions, which was like the number one way that they could skim money. Unions aren't really a thing. Union have completely collapsed in this country whether you agree with that or not, as good or bad, for the mob, that really took away a lot of their money, their money source. Gambling, as we mentioned, you're not getting the money. You might own a casino in Vegas and get rich off of it. Not a lot of people go to a bookie to place a bet anymore. It's not, it's not really a thing. Prostitution. Not really organized. Don't see a lot of brothels anymore. I don't know where any are, you know, you might see prostitutes on occasion. I mean, I don't know if you remember. I know I remember going to the Rave in Milwaukee and there was a thing. This completely passed by me..

00:21:44 Was I just completely oblivious to this? Maybe. Maybe you weren’t there for that, but we got propositioned a few times. I don’t think I was ever there for a show like that. Just to let listeners know, I never took them up on that. There really isn't much for the mob to do. All the stuff that they would do isn’t really there any more. Yet almost sounds to a certain extent, like they just never kept up with the times. They kind of let their industries die and then they never looked around and said, hey, what's the next thing? You know? Yeah. I mean that's that's kind of how it is. It's like anything that was a money make. I mean riding a black hand letter to somebody and trying to get money out of it. It's not going to work anymore. I mean, you could try it but most people aren’t going to fall for that. I don’t know, tell the Nigerians that. They’re scamming people left and right. Okay, you proved me wrong. You’re right.

00:22:45 The Nigerians, and then the people who were like I'm in love with you. Send me money so I can move. Yeah, you're right. That's it is still a thing. I'm wrong. You know what? I have a working theory. I think every time I pick up my phone and it says don't hang up. Your car insurance, the warranty on your car is about to expire. I think that's all run by the mafia. That's a current theory. Yeah? Well, okay. You got, you got research to do. Okay, you kicked my butt there. You’re right. Extortion is still very much a real thing. But not in the forms it used to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bottom line. Is there still a mafia in Milwaukee? I'm going to say no. There might be a couple of old guys, maybe even there's some guys in Kenosha who are connected to Chicago. Maybe. But I would say no, I would say there's not. My final line on here Says ask me again next year.

00:23:45 You know, I still continue to get FBI files. I get new files all the time. So one of these days, maybe a file will show up. And that will strongly suggest. Then, I'll go back to the snow. Be like Yep. This was crap, everything I told you today is crap, but I'm fairly confident that it's pretty much just dried up. Are you very, very confident? Like, what makes you so confident that, you know, cuz really the mafia could be running rampant today, but you would have no idea, but there would be crimes happening that you could. And that's the thing, that's a thing. The records have dried up, but it's not in the newspapers. It’s not in the courts which, you know, like I said last November 1989, it's not like they just stop reporting it. If it was a mob murder they would report it. And I should clarify.

00:24:45 This is specifically the mafia. If someone phrased the question differently, is there still organized crime, I would change my answer because heck, yeah. There's The Outlaws motorcycle gang. Still very active. The Bandidos motorcycle gang. There's any number of inner-city gangs in Milwaukee who have connections with Chicago gangs or gangs down in Texas, Louisiana, where, you know, they're funneling cocaine, heroin, whatever else. I mean organized crime is as strong as ever, just not the mafia. Yeah, and there is plenty of you can find a trail of that kind of organized crime whereas there's simply no trail right now that you can see of there being the mafia. Right. Which would probably suggest it doesn't exist. Right. Interesting. It depends on your phrasing. But when I’m speaking specifically mafia, I don’t think it’s around.

00:25:45 But what we’re going to find out in twenty years is that the mafia was running all of these games. Oh. That we have today. Oh. And they had just become, they're like the lizard people that run the government or whatever. Oh, really. And it's completely out of site and out of mind, but they run every thing. That would be the way to do it. It really would. Alright, I feel like I'm going down a rabbit hole of terribleness. So I think we should wrap this episode up. No, that’s good. I think you asked some really great questions and I'm glad that brought them up. Hit everybody up with some contact info. Sure. If you want to go to my website. It's MilwaukeeMafia.com. Very simple. If you want to email me? It's MilwaukeeMafia@gmail.com, very simple. And you can also find me on Facebook. Pretty easy for you to track me down. There's me and there's a volleyball player in Canada, and I am not the Canadian volleyball player. He just wishes he was. I don't even wish I was, but I'm pretty easy to find if you want to get ahold of me.

00:26:41 All right, everybody. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll see you next week. Thank you very much. Thanks for tuning in to the Milwaukee Mafia podcast. Join us next week for another look back at Wisconsin Mafia and True Crime history.