GANGLAND USA: Philly mob and Chicago Outfit are on the abyss

The Dec. 12, 2012 rubout of Gino DiPietro in South Philly tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the modern American Mafia.

For starters, the 50-year-old mobster was whacked in the middle of the day in the driveway of his home.

Mob soldier Anthony Nicodemo should not be expecting a Mensa nomination.

For the hit, he used his own vehicle and drove several blocks to his house. Cops were waiting for him. He got 25 to 50 years in prison for driving the getaway vehicle.

DiPietro’s departure was the last mob hit in Philly where fratricide turned the streets into roiling rivers of blood following the 1980 hit on longtime boss, Angelo “The Gentle Don” Bruno.

As in New York City, Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit and Boston, the traditional American Mafia is in steep decline. Elsewhere, it no longer exists at all.

Recommended video

“Things are severely diminished from what they were 20 years ago,” legendary Philadelphia Inquirer crime reporter George Anastasia told The Toronto Sun. “There are still, maybe, 20 to 25 made guys in Philly and I can name them all. If I can name them all, so can the cops.”

Now retired, Anastasia covered gangland intrigue for decades. The reason for the death spiral is multi-faceted, he said from his home in New Jersey.

Next to New York City and Chicago, Philadelphia was America’s most mobbed-up town. In Angelo Bruno’s heyday, there were at least 80 made men in the City of Brotherly Love, along with hundreds of associates.

“Casino gambling was coming to Atlantic City and New York wanted to destabilize Philadelphia, who controlled Atlantic City,” Anastasia, author of Doctor Dealer, said. “They got Bruno, and then it careened out of control.”

That’s an understatement. Next up for death was Bruno’s successor, Philip “Chicken Man” Testa, obliterated by a bomb on the front porch of his home a year later.

Enter Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo.

A pint-sized former pugilist turned mobster, Scarfo was a “paranoid psychopath,” Anastasia said. Ten bloody years followed.

Even his underlings were so terrified of Scarfo that they began flipping in droves. But even with a staggering body count and a criminal organization that was imploding, the diminutive demon held on for a decade before the feds got him.

He died in prison. Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino now runs the diminished Philly family from Florida.

But Anastasia believes the Mafia will always exist in Philly.

“Greed-bred violence and Philadelphia just wasn’t big enough to sustain Scarfo the way New York could sustain the Five Families,” he said, adding that RICO laws and demographics quickened its path to irrelevance.

***

Longtime Windy City mob watcher John Binder told the Sun that the diagnosis for the Chicago Outfit is not much better than Philly.

“The Outfit still exists, but it’s very reduced from what it was, and it’s like a lot of other La Cosa Nostra families across America: It’s taken a lot of hits, and it’s in decline,” Binder said.

Once, Chicago epitomized gangland violence. The Windy City was home to Al Capone, whose bloody regime kick-started hundreds of murders.

Recommended video

Binder said the legalization of gambling, marijuana and other vices has taken a big bite out of the mob’s profits and power.

“Hoods are not good at doing legal stuff,” said Binder, whose book, The Chicago Outfit, was a true crime bestseller. “If they have to be scrupulously honest, legit businessmen, they’ll fail.”

He added: “The Outfit hasn’t evolved. Basically, they can’t compete when something is legal.”

According to media reports, the Outfit was responsible for more than 1,100 gangland murders from the 1920s onward. But the most recent hit was the 2006 disappearance of Anthony “Little Tony” Zizzo.

The high-ranking gangster’s body has not been found, but it is believed internal rivals took him off the board.

Recommended video

“There’s a paucity of criminal talent now. We used to say that our ball teams are bad, but our hoods are good,” Binder laughed.

Now, the crime syndicate that once boasted they put John F. Kennedy in the White House is chasing crumbs of degenerate gamblers and dope fiends.

Both Binder and Anastasia agreed that once-lucrative labour racketeering and a myriad other scams are a thing of the past.

Once, a crook couldn’t spit without getting the green light from the Outfit. Violence — that beloved tool that kept people in line for decades — is now also out of fashion.

“Now, they ask themselves: Do we want a shooting war with these guys [street gangs]? They don’t want the attention because they know there would be goddamn bodies everywhere,” the author said.

Binder said that back in the day when the mob-controlled vices like gambling, prostitution and bootlegging, it was seen as harmless adult fun. Something like killer fentanyl? That’s a whole different matter.

“They’re turning the clock back to the ’60s and hijacking trucks now. A load of colour TVs? They’ll steal it,” Binder said. “But, you know, these guys will still do anything if they can get away with it.”

****

Demographics are also working against the American Mafia, slashing the talent pool

“Earlier this century, guys would follow their dads and uncles into the Mafia. Now, those kids are doctors, lawyers and engineers,” Anastasia said.

“Back in the day, a lot of the gangsters were smart guys and for them, it was a way of life. Now, they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

He added: “Those smart guys didn’t want a second generation of wiseguys in their family. They did what they did to get over the hump in America and that’s that.”

Bizarrely, the swan song of the American Mafia may have something to do with hard-working (albeit in criminal enterprises) immigrants boosting their children up the socio-economic ladder.

Anastasia added: “Now it’s psychopaths who just don’t want to work.”

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun