KIDS ARE OUT OF ‘WHACK’
Mob shuns millennials
The yutes ain’t all right. Seasoned New York mob bosses are reluctant to make made men out of millennials, worrying they lack the street smarts and ruthlessness of their predecessors — and are too obsessed with their cellphones.
The five families fear handing over the reins to the new generation of Mafiosi because they’re softer and dumber, having grown up in the suburbs rather than on city streets — and are too attached to technology, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
“Everything is on the phones with them,” a former made member of the Colombo family said.
Court records even show one Colombo associate completely eschewing the code of silence while threatening a union official over extortion collections — all via easy-to-prove cellphone text messages, the Journal said.
“Hey this is the 2nd text, there isn’t going to be a 3rd,” the associate wrote, according to court records.
“I am sure that is frowned upon in mob circles,” former FBI agent Richard Frankel said of the apparently incriminating texts.
In September, alleged Colombo consigliere Ralph DiMatteo, 66, was forced to turn himself in on a federal racketeering case a day after his son tweeted a photo of him relaxing in a Florida pool.
These fears of incompetence have led to elderly big bosses clinging to power and putting the mob at risk, former FBI agent Scott Curtis said.
The ex-fed said the aging leadership was a factor in alleged Colombo boss Andrew “Mush” Russo’s downfall.
The wiseguy — who was arrested last month amid accusations of labor racketeering, extortion and money laundering — had been micromanaging the feared Mafia faction at the age of 87, according to Curtis, who investigated the family operation for years.
In one FBI recording, Russo admitted secretly to an associate, “I can’t walk away. I can’t rest.”
Crime-family soldiers were apparently aware of the problem, with one alleged member heard in a recording pushing for Russo to be replaced, saying, “The problem is, that old man, he wanted to be boss his whole life.”
The situation is so bad, the families’ futures are more threatened by mismanagement and resistance to replacing the top guys than by gang wars or rats.
“That’s why you see some of these guys getting arrested repeatedly,” Curtis said of the bosses.
“They have to have their hands on all these minute details of the scheme,” he explained, leaving many in prison and the families in crisis.