Racketeering Quotes

Everybody calls me a racketeer. I call myself a business man. When I sell liquor, it's bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lake Shore Drive [in Chicago] it's hospitality.

I spent 33 years ... most of my time being a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short I was a racketeer for capitalism.

And in that fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man.

I'm Dan Gelber. As a federal prosecutor, I helped put away corporate criminals, corrupt politicians and violent gangs.

When you get to political machines that can control a state, then you're really into organized crime - almost. You're fighting a political mafia.

I do a lot of lecturing, at colleges and police schools, and I always get the same questions: 'Do they really kill you? What do they do with the money? How do you become a wiseguy?'

I never put my arms around John Gotti, Al Capone or Lucky Luciano.

I served in all commissioned ranks from a second Lieutenant to a Major General. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.

J. Edgar Hoover very famously denied the existence of organized crime up until the Appalachian Meeting, I think, in 1957. It was interesting to me that he clearly had to know that there was such a thing as organized crime and organized criminals as far back as the '20s.

I don't think it's bribery; I think it's extortion. Bribery, you know, is when the person that's giving the money does it voluntarily. What it is in Washington is extortion because they all ask for the money.

About 25 years ago, I started out as a reporter covering politics. And that sort of just evolved into organized crime, because organized crime and politics were the same thing in Boston.

Mafia is the best example of capitalism we have.

You don't get John Gotti to testify against his driver. You get the driver to testify against John Gotti.

I'm a huge fan of mafia history - mostly the Italian mafia but also their associates, as well as Whitey Bulger and the Winter Hill Gang.

It’s a giant criminal enterprise, but at least it’s a state.

I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long... Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.

To be clear, I don't know whether the fossil fuel industry and its allies engaged in the same kind of racketeering activity as the tobacco industry. We don't have enough information to make that conclusion. Perhaps it's all smoke and no fire. But there's an awful lot of smoke.

Organized crime constitutes nothing less than a guerilla war against society.

I had a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions. l might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents.

The Italian mafia, they're very [into] construction. They're in a whole different way of operating than they did back in the '20s.

Once the state becomes the ultimate beneficiary of crime proceeds, how different is it, really, from being simply the most powerful gang in a battlefield of gangs?

One thing I take great pride in is that my case was the one that started the decline of the Mafia.

It is no secret that organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.

Russia is a mafia state today, and Putin is its top godfather.

Paris in the mid-'50s was a very interesting place. It was only ten years after the Third Reich had left, and the city was awash with guns, and crime, and racketeering, and all sorts of hangovers from a very difficult time in French history. So it's an interesting time to be a policeman.