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How does the Mafia make money? Historically, the businesses that were the most stable and reliable for organized crime were prostitution and gambling, as well as liquor during Prohibition.

How did the mafia make so much money? | Yahoo Answers

This was because average people tolerated them and so cops and judges were willing to take bribes not to go after them. To some extent loan sharks were also tolerated, typically as a side business on top of gambling since the gamblers were often in need of money, but the violence of loan sharks made it shadier. But instead of directly running businesses like this, stronger gangsters would force weaker ones to pay them "protection" money.

In theory, paying protection money meant that the gangster you paid would protect you from other gangsters, which might be necessary because you're a criminal and you can't go to the cops without incriminating yourself. In reality, you paid them or they would burn your business down, beat you or your employees up, and maybe kill you if you kept refusing.

And if other gangsters did try to get money from you, they might not even protect you then: They might use it as an excuse to demand even more money, or to make you sell out to them completely.

This is under the general heading of an "extortion racket. They would also steal cars; hijack cargo trucks and sell the goods on the street; conduct armed robberies of banks and other businesses; and also burglaries. But they would do it far enough away from the neighborhoods they controlled to avoid suspicion, to maintain relationships with the community, and because they sometimes would protect the people who paid them by driving out smaller-time crooks.

21st Century Mob: How the Mafia learned to adapt for the future - NY Daily News

The big ticket became drug trafficking in the midth century, and a lot of sources credit this change with destabilizing organized crime, making it a lot more violent and chaotic. Because of all the violence and law enforcement attention, some avoided it, and some split the difference by just making drug dealers pay them protection.

They would also take over legitimate businesses like night clubs to launder money from their criminal businesses, and sometimes made them profitable in their own right. Some of them became places to retire for old members who didn't want to take risks anymore. In modern times they've been involved in credit card fraud, phishing scams, stock fraud, and more complicated electronic things.

Basically they just do anything illegal that makes money, plus anything legal that makes money as long as someone else does the work because even smart criminals are incredibly lazy people. Lots of things, but the main sources have changed over the years, as the 20s - 50s more involved union extortion and other types of racketeering.

Today I'd say the majority of the money they make comes from drugs and that money is used towards forms of extortion and other markets like prostitution. Primarily racketeering, gambling and selling drugs.

It's a common misconception that mafia families abstain from the drug trade, a lot of preprohibition new york crime families would sell drugs like heroin after it was made illegal ex: Prostitution used to be a big earner for mafia in the early 20th century, but once the feds started cracking down on organized crime, many mafia bosses dropped their brothels because of how big of a liability they were.

Also, the modern Mafia is a lot smaller, and does a lot of lower profile stuff than the historical vice markets they are associated with. In the early s, they were heavily into penny stock scams, and lately they've been involved in the oh-so-sexy but apparently very profitable olive oil adulteration market. Isn't it from extortion?

Mostly from providing protection for being in the territory that they took. That's atleast superficially, they obviously make money from prostition and drugs too. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy.

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