'American Godfathers: The Five Families' probes seven decades of NYC mob life

"American Godfathers: The Five Families," a six-hour History Channel special on the New York mob (Aug. 11-13, 8 p.m.) launches Sunday, which may have some readers wondering: "Why the mob?" Are those (wise) guys still around?

They were indeed over the last century, beginning in 1931, when Charles "Lucky" Luciano formed the "Commission," or five families, that controlled much of New York commerce, not to mention a vivid corner of cinematic culture too, from 1931's "Little Caesar" (based on the life of New York's first mob boss, Sal Maranzano) to "The Sopranos."

"Five Families" — which features on-camera Newsday's veteran law enforcement reporter, Anthony M. DeStefano — concludes Tuesday with "The Last Don." It's a fascinating journey over seven decades but does leave viewers with an impression that Joseph Massino was the end of the line. As head of the Bonanno crime family beginning in 1991, Massino became a Federal witness in 2003 and New York's first crime boss to break the vow of "omertà" — silence.

Also the mob's death knell? I spoke recently with legendary organized crime reporter, Selwyn Raab, 90, who also appears on-camera throughout; the 2018 edition of his bestselling "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires," is the basis for this series.

By my count, this is your fifth TV documentary on the mob — the gift that keeps on giving!

I've lost count because I've been doing them or have been part of them, going back to the '70s when I was in television at WNBC [as a producer and editor] and PBS [WNET/13's '51st State'] and as a newspaper reporter [for the New York World-Telegram and Sun in the '60s and The New York Times from '74 to '00.]

 In fact, as a newspaper reporter, your work exonerated George Whitmore Jr. (which lead to the creation of "Kojak") and the boxer Rubin "Hurricane Carter, both of whom had been wrongfully convicted of murder. How'd a wrongful conviction specialist get tied up with the mob?

It was by accident, really, when I came to the Times as an investigative reporter covering courts and local corruption. No one there took the Mafia seriously for years, and it wasn't the road to a big success — people wanted to become a foreign correspondent or go to Washington — so it was left to the tabloids to cover organized crime. They asked me to do it and I said I would on the proviso that I was not going to write about John Gotti's socks. The economic consequences [of mob control] were enormous and they had a lot more political influence than people realized.

You end these six hours with a compelling observation — that the Five Families live on because capitalism lives on. Meaning?

Whatever worked for capitalism, they did, whether it was Wall Street or the construction industry; whatever made a profit, they were very smart about. The mob is not as powerful as it once was, but it's still involved in shakedowns and unions, construction, the waterfront in New Jersey, no-show jobs . . . And people forget that the big draw [for them] is gambling and loan-sharking — both are twinned because when you get involved with a bookmaker and start owing money, the next thing you know, you're a loan shark victim.

But we never hear or read about the mob anymore. Why?

Because they are very quiet. [Gambino family boss] Frank Cali, who was known as Frankie Boy, gets killed on Staten Island in 2019 but nobody even knew his name until some lunatic had a vision that he was involved with QAnon. [Anthony Comello, 24, who shot Cali outside his home, was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial in 2020.]

 Law enforcement must know what's going on, right?

One thing that saved the mob was 9/11. They were the priority for the FBI which had about 50, 60 agents assigned permanently to each family, but after 9/11 they lost their priority status and dissolved those [units]. In the meantime the mob adapted.

For example?

Before, if a member was an informer, they went for him. Now, if you're involved in any kind of cooperation, it's not just you they go after but your entire family. They've adopted that form of intimidation from Sicily and it's just one way they've kept loyalty in the ranks.

I'd be remiss not to ask the local question: How mobbed up is Long Island?

Oh, they [made men] left the city long ago and moved up in class! You hardly find anybody living on Mulberry Street [in Little Italy] any more. For the most part, they've moved out of the city to the suburbs, and are more entrenched on Long Island.