The face of organized crime has changed

Back in 1985, after his office indicted organized crime's big bosses in New York, then-federal prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani predicted on "Face The Nation" that the mob could be destroyed within five years. He wasn't alone in making such an assessment.

Twenty-six years later, the members of La Cosa Nostra could say, to paraphrase Mark Twain, that reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated. But they are an endangered species.

Battered by decades of criminal convictions, deaths, defections and demographic changes, the mob has become a shadow of the mythic and powerful institution it once was in New York City and its environs. For a time protected by political clout and firmly rooted in businesses such as the garment industry, construction and waterfront operations, organized crime is hard to recognize from its heyday.

"I think from when I started in 1969, it is remarkably different," said Ronald Goldstock, head of the Waterfront Commission, which was involved in Thursday's arrests of more than 120 alleged mobsters and associates in New York City, on Long Island, in New Jersey and Rhode Island. "The mob is something totally unrecognizable."

Back in the 1950s and into the 1980s, law enforcement was hobbled by a lack of legal weapons and informants, Goldstock said.

"Today, there are more informants than agents working them," he wryly observed, noting that harsh sentences and surveillance technology readily persuade gangsters to switch sides.

In the 1930s, family relationships strengthened ties among immigrant mobsters who respected the code of silence known as "Omerta." The late Gambino boss John J. Gotti and Genovese boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante went to their graves without helping the FBI.

But now becoming a cooperating witness seems an acceptable mob career path. Former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino made a bid to cooperate within minutes of his conviction in 2004 and is expected to testify in March in a federal death penalty case against loyal captain Vincent Basciano.

Thursday, former FBI supervisory agent Bruce Mouw, who captured Gotti in 1990, said the agency has trimmed back resources used against the mob to fight terrorism. Another ex-supervisor agreed.

"The last few years the FBI has cut considerable resources on the organized crime squad," said Mouw, adding he was gratified by the new arrests.

"This will not eradicate it, but it is an important step," Mouw said.

A spokesman for the FBI in Washington did not return a request for comment.