This is a question that many people have been asking about Las Vegas for a long time. It may be 22 years since the Stardust became the last casino in town to lose its license due to the uncovering of a major skimming operation, but the association with the mob lives on in people's imaginations -- especially with a Las Vegas mayor in office whose claims to fame include not only defending many infamous mobsters, but even playing himself in the Hollywood-movie version of those glamorous but bad old days, Casino, the extremely violent and only slightly fictionalized account of Tony "the Ant" Spilotro and his bookmaking friend Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. And for the whole Oscar Goodman story, check out our book Of Rats and Men: Oscar Goodman's Life from Mob Mouthpiece to Mayor of Las Vegas by John L. Smith.
Of course, it's impossible to know for sure whether the influence lives on and, if so, where and how much. But a well-placed source in senior law enforcement (who requested to remain anonymous) assured us that it’s both ongoing and prevalent. However, it has nowhere near the presence it did in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and even into the ‘70s and ’80s, when gangsters owned parts of or entire casinos and legitimate profits -- along with skimmed cash in brown-paper bags -- made their way to mob bosses in Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, New York, Miami, New Orleans, and elsewhere. These days, the involvement tends to be concentrated in businesses like construction, food and beverage, the sex industry, and various forms of vending. (The Italian Mafia was linked specifically to the taxi business in Reno but no such ties have been uncovered in Las Vegas.)
This theory echoes a column on the subject that appeared recently in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Penned by Jane Ann Morrison, the longtime political writer for the R-J, it quotes Las Vegas Sheriff Bill Young, recalling his days running the vice squad back in the 1990s: "I saw a lot of the Kansas City mob try to get into the sex businesses and legitimize themselves." He goes on to describe how, after Spilotro's gruesome murder in '86, there was speculation about who would fill his shoes as the Chicago mob's enforcer. "I don't think anyone did," states Young, explaining how this high-profile "termination" helped contribute to the casinos' growing image as a less-than-attractive gig. "Fertilizer in a cornfield is not the first job a lot of these guys aspire to." Thanks to this, and even more to decades of pressure from law enforcement, especially federal, the influence of the Italian Mafia throughout the country, but especially Las Vegas, has been greatly diminished.
That said, and even though extensive administrative and legal checks and balances are now in place to deter the encroachment of organized crime into the casino industry, as recently as the late 1990s, the Kansas City branch of the Italian Mafia tried to make a classic move on Las Vegas by attempting to compromise (financially) various senior executives within the industry. But Vegas has changed a lot since the '70s and with the casinos' full cooperation, a Gaming Control Board investigation led to the placement of alleged front man Peter Ribaste and reputed Kansas City head honcho William Cammisano Jr., on the state of Nevada's Exclusion/Ejection List (known colloquially as the Black Book). This bans them from ever entering or doing any business with Las Vegas casinos again. (You can view their and other entries in the Book online at www.gaming.nv.gov/loep_main.htm)
But as Young goes on to state in Morrison's article, while the Italian mob may have moved on to other areas, different criminal elements have filled the void on the streets and are now active in southern Nevada, including Mexicans, Russians and other Eastern Europeans, Asians, even Israelis.
For example, in an August 2004 article by Jane Ann Morrison’s counterpart at the Las Vegas Sun, Jeff German wrote the following about the Israeli Mafia: "The Israeli syndicates are involved in traditional rackets, such as loan sharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, and illegal gambling. And they're just as violent as the Mafia. Two of the biggest families, one based in Jerusalem and the other in Tel Aviv, currently are involved in a bloody war over control of street rackets in Israel.
"The Israeli crime groups make most of their money importing cocaine and the club drug Ecstasy from Europe into the United States. Las Vegas has been the site of some Ecstasy deals, drug task force affidavits revealed." German writes that the Drug Enforcement Administration has "taken the lead in gaining a handle on the Israeli mob's growing influence" in Las Vegas.
And while the Israelis' current spheres of operation in Las Vegas may principally be limited to the rackets outlined in German's article, they have already already been caught testing the waters in the casino industry, not here, but in Reno. Six to seven years ago, Gaming Control uncovered an attempt by the Israeli mob to obtain a casino license for one of their front men. The plot was revealed during the probing background check that accompanies the licensing procedure these days, and which revealed discrepancies and loopholes with regard to the source of funding, which eventually linked back to the Israeli mob.
Another example. In an article in January, the Sun’s Carson City correspondent, Cy Ryan, quoted the director of the state Department of Corrections who says that more than 600 alleged members of the "Mexican Mafia," mainly Hispanic gang members from California, are now serving time in the Nevada prison system for street crimes, from extortion to murder, committed in Nevada, primarily Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, in addition to extensive involvement in credit card fraud and identity theft, the Russian Mafia is also known for extorting money from online gambling sites. Russian gangsters ally with computer hackers who crack Web-based sports books and either disable them or shut them down completely; they then demand money -- serious money, often in the tens of millions -- from the operators to restore service. The Russian Mafia is also known for passing counterfeit $100 bills around Las Vegas casinos. They haven't yet made a move on the casinos themselves, but leading members are known to meet on a weekly basis at an upscale steak house here in town, and are being monitored closely by both the local police and the FBI.
As you can see, although what’s now known as the "Mafia" is not, to be sure, found in the executive offices of the huge casino operations anymore, and is composed essentially of hoodlums of many different nationalities who are mostly involved in small-time street crime and some white-collar business crime, the lure of casino profits means that the various arms of law enforcement can never waiver in their vigilance. The moment their guard is lowered, there are hosts of accomplished criminals only too eager to step in where the classic Italian Mafia of yesteryear has left off.
