| Founded | |
|---|---|
| Founder |
|
| Founding location | New Orleans, Louisiana, United States |
| Years active | c. 1860s–2007[1][2] |
| Territory | Primarily the New Orleans metropolitan area, with additional territory throughout Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as well as Las Vegas and Havana |
| Ethnicity | Italians as "made men" and other ethnicities as associates |
| Membership (est.) | 4–5 made members and 100+ associates (1980s)[3] |
| Activities | Racketeering, extortion, gambling, pimping, drug trade, money laundering, loan sharking,corruption conspiracy,murder, arms trade, cigarette smuggling |
| Allies | |
| Rivals | Various gangs in the New Orleans area |
The New Orleans crime family, also known as the Marcello crime family or the New Orleans Mafia, was an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The family had a history of criminal activity dating back to the late nineteenth century.[6][7] These activities included racketeering, extortion, gambling, prostitution, narcotics distribution, money laundering, loan sharking, fencing of stolen goods, and murder. Operating along the Gulf Coast, with its main criminal activity centered in the New Orleans area, the organization reached its height of influence under bosses Silvestro Carollo and Carlos Marcello.
A series of setbacks during the 1980s, including the imprisonment of Marcello, reduced the family's influence, and law enforcement dismantled most of what remained of the organization shortly after Marcello's death in 1993. Despite the family's apparent downfall, is believed that at least some elements of the American Mafia remain active in New Orleans today.[8][9]
With the upper echelon of the New Orleans Mafia in jail with enormous restitution to repay, it would be an organization struggling to make it into the new millennium. While the FBI has said modern Italian organized crime still exists in some limited capacity in New Orleans, Anthony Carollo, Frank Gagliano, and Philip Rizzuto would all pass away in the early to mid 2000s with little fanfare. It seems like the New Orleans Mafia, the oldest Mafia organization in the United States, would die with these men.
If there are any remnants of the New Orleans Mafia left, and more than likely there is, this incident is probably not an indication of the organization's resurgence.