Mafia

             At this time the most common form of extortion was the practice of handing out Black Hand notes, which had started in the 1700's. These notes, handed to wealthy citizens, were polite requests for an amount of money in return for protection. Of course, the only people that these victims need protection against were the same criminals who handed them these notes. If the victims did not comply with these requests, they and their family could usually expect violence, kidnapping, bombings, and murder to be used against them as convincing arguments.
             Strict family code of the Mafia was kept intact throughout the United Stated in the great metropolitan cities of New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City and anywhere sizeable of Italian-Sicilian population. The Mafia as it does today, preys on it's own people for money. In Sicily the Mafia survives on quite possibly its biggest entity, the protection racket.
             The Sicilian government taxes, but the Mafia also taxes. When paid to the Mafia by a former or merchant, this tax assures that if you are a farmer of merchant nothing will be stolen from you. This protection racket flourished in the U.S., practiced by the Black Hand, until more profitable rackets presented themselves. Black Hand extortionist Iganzio Saitta, known as Lupo the Wolf, handled the Mafia in New York in the first two decades of the twentieth century until he was sent to prison. The Black Hand was not an organization, but a system employed by the Mafia.
             In the 1800's, New Orleans was the largest Mafia site in the United States. According to Garrison (1998), "The First boss of the New Orleans outfit of La Cosa Nostra was Corrado Giacana, who was in power from the organization's formation until his death in 1944. Grank Todaro succeeded him but was killed less than six months later in a move that said to be orchestrated by Silvesto Carrollo, who ruled from 1944-1947".