US, Italian Mafia raids will not be a fatal blow: experts By Luis Torres de la Llosa A huge roundup of suspected mobsters in New York and Sicily may have hurt the Mafia, but with organized crime continually adapting and able to tap into a deep well of willing recruits, the sweep is unlikely to deal a fatal blow to the Cosa Nostra, experts say. Antonio Nicaso, who has written 17 books about organized crime, said that while Thursday's raids were one of the largest ever operations against Mafiosi on both sides of the Atlantic, the organization would doubtless recover. "The Mafia is like the grass, the more you cut, the more it grows," he told AFP. "I wouldn't sign any obituary yet. The Mafia is changing, this is a different type of Mafia," he added. "The Mafia always has had difficult times, but always had the capability to recruit new members." The Mafia of today is a far cry from the gangsters who ran liquor in cities like Chicago and New York during prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s. It is no longer capable of infiltrating unions, corrupting politicians or working side by side with the CIA and the US government in the way it did in World War II, when it was enlisted to help out with the Sicily landings. "It is not that type of Mafia any more, a Mafia capable of building political and financial connections with the brother society," Nicaso said. "Today it is an organization that is not capable of finding charismatic bosses like in the old days." Government crackdowns such as Thursday's raids, which netted more than 80 suspected mobsters including several top members of the Gambino family, had an effect on the five families that run the Mafia in New York, he said. "It is true that in the US the Mafia faces difficult times," he said. "All the major Mafia bosses are behind bars thanks to the FBI who was able to dismantle many of the families with continuity." The organization was also facing the challenge of a generational divide, he said. "The children of the mobsters sometimes go to school, college or universities and don't want to continue the activities of their fathers." New York's mob families faced a recruitment problem in the 1970s and the 1980s, when some of them turned to Sicilian gangsters for help. For Rick Porrello, a police officer who has written several books about organized crime, the Mafia's secret to survival was constant change. "The Cosa Nostra adapts. They have been adapting since prohibition. After prohibition they got into gambling," he said. The Mafia has increasingly been diversifying into industries such as illegal online gambling, while still maintaining its foothold in the lucrative drugs trade and its traditional activities of extortion and racketeering. "They are an organization that has an almost endless supply of young men interested in joining the ranks and they have a spirit of adaptation," meaning that raids such as Thursday's sweep would therefore only have a temporary effect on the families, he said. "Some men may well certainly go to prison, some of the bosses will go to prison, but they will be filled in by new people who will do things a little bit smarter, who will continue to learn a little bit." "Especially the Gotti family, they are learning after John Gotti," the infamous and flamboyant Gambino family boss known as both the Teflon and the Dapper Don. "They've learned to do things quieter," said Porrello. "The federal authorities did a fantastic job with their investigation infiltrating the mob, and this is one of the biggest roundups of mob figures in history New York, but it doesn't mean the end of the organization," he said. "There are so many young men out there that will take advantage of this," he added. "It is not the end of an organization as powerful as the Gambino Mafia family." "There is too much at stake to lose, too much money to lose. It is all about greed." AFP – February 8