Los Angeles crime family
Italian-American organized crime group / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Los Angeles crime family, also known as the L.A. Mafia or the Southern California crime family,[5] is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate based in Los Angeles as part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. Since its inception in the early 20th century, it has spread throughout Southern California. Like most Mafia families in the United States, the Los Angeles crime family gained power bootlegging alcohol during the Prohibition era. The L.A. family reached its peak strength in the 1940s and early 1950s under Jack Dragna, although the family was never larger than the New York or Chicago families. The Los Angeles crime family itself has been on a gradual decline, with the Chicago Outfit representing them on The Commission since the death of boss Jack Dragna in 1956.[6]
 Joseph Ardizzone, the first boss of the Los Angeles family | |
| Founded | c. 1900s |
|---|---|
| Founder | Joseph Ardizzone |
| Founding location | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Years active | c. 1900s–present |
| Territory | Southern California and Las Vegas |
| Ethnicity | Italians as "made men" Arbereshe and other ethnicities as associates |
| Membership (est.) | 20 made members (2003)[1] |
| Activities | Racketeering, loansharking, money laundering, murder, extortion, gambling, drug trafficking, fencing, and fraud |
| Allies | Five Families Chicago Outfit Buffalo crime family San Jose crime family Cleveland crime family Kansas City crime family New Orleans crime family Armenian Power[2] Mexican Mafia[3][4] |
| Rivals | Cohen crime family |
The sources for much of the current information on the history of the Los Angeles Cosa Nostra family is the courtroom testimony and the published biographies of Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno, who in the late 1970s became the second member – and the first acting boss – in American Mafia history to testify against Mafia members,[7] and The Last Mafioso (1981), a biography of Fratianno by Ovid Demaris. Since the 1980s, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act) has been effective in convicting mobsters and shrinking the American Mafia; like all families in the United States, the L.A. Mafia now only holds a fraction of its former power.[8] Not having a strong concentration of Italian-Americans in the region leaves the family to contend with the many street gangs of other ethnicities in the city. The Los Angeles crime family is the last Mafia family left in the state of California.[9]