loan-sharking, extortion and gambling have largely given way to stock scams, money-laundering and white-collar fraud.

Organized Crime | South Florida is 'open territory' for organized crime - Los Angeles Times:

'via Blog this'

OMETOWN: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Mobsters have long gravitated to the area, though the players and their crimes have changed over the years.

March 27, 2010|By Peter Franceschina and Jon BursteinEver since Al Capone bought a mansion on Miami's Palm Island in 1928, South Florida has been a destination for organized-crime figures who want to relax and do a little business.

The rackets have evolved over the years -- loan-sharking, extortion and gambling have largely given way to stock scams, money-laundering and white-collar fraud.

And the gangsters of yore have been joined by rivals from Russia, Israel and South America. But the culture of greed and violence has remained constant.ow profile here, but La Cosa Nostra -- the Sicilian Mafia, whose name means "our thing" -- is once more in the headlines, this time connected with Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein.

Upon his return from Morocco in November, Rothstein reportedly went to work for the FBI, even as agents were dismantling his $1.2-billion investment fraud.

Roberto Settineri, whom authorities believe is a Sicilian mobster and whom Rothstein is credited with bringing down this month, appears to have the same short fuse and propensity for violence that has marked mob behavior for a century.

Federal prosecutors say Settineri, 41, was a key intermediary between a crime family in Sicily and the Gambino crime family in New York City.

Settineri and two others were indicted March 10 on federal charges of money-laundering and obstruction of justice on allegations that they shredded two boxes of documents at Rothstein's request and laundered $79,000 for him.

The Mafia's traditions in South Florida date to the 1930s gambling heyday in Broward County, when Meyer Lansky and his associates came south to claim a piece of the action in dozens of "carpet joints" -- classy casinos operating under the beneficial eye of a crooked sheriff.

"It goes back to the 1920s and Al Capone. Capone had a house on Palm Island . . . and that was his alibi for the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre," said Richard Mangan, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who teaches a class called "Organized Crime and the Business of Drugs" at Florida Atlantic University's School of Criminology & Criminal Justice.

New York's five organized-crime syndicates -- the Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, Colombo and Lucchese families -- have always considered Florida to be "open," with no family claiming exclusive rights to operate.

"This is open territory for anyone with the mob for whatever they want to do," said Nick Navarro, a 30-year law enforcement official who was Broward's sheriff from 1984 to 1993.

Mobsters still get involved in gambling, loan-sharking, strip clubs, prostitution, drug-dealing and extortion, but have gravitated toward more sophisticated crimes -- such as stock and Medicare fraud -- that don't carry the same risks.

They have faced increased competition from Israeli organized crime and Russian mobsters.

"The biggest change has been the Russian mafia," Mangan said. "The Russians started moving in after the fall of communism. . . . They started opening banks in Antigua and Aruba."