How did huge mob bosses that “everybody knew” was a mob boss, or criminal running the place, etc, get away with it?
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A good book on this is [*Smalltime a Story of my family and the Mob* by Russel Shorto.](https://www.russellshorto.com/book/smalltime) It is quite an amazing piece of journalism, the author’s grandfather was a local mob boss of a small city, and he interviewed elderly family members and their friends, and verified everything with court documents, newspaper reports, or multiple witness accounts. I have family in that small city (Johnstown PA), my uncle was a cop, he verified the accuracy.
The simple answer was that *they bribed the mayor and chief of police, and both of them (multiple people who held office) were regular participants in the illegal gambling.* The mob hangout was on the same block as City Hall. Once a year, the police would stop by and give notice that they were going to do a raid the next day. The mobsters would pay a few bums to get arrested, and pay their bail and fines, and the newspaper would publish a front page story about it. It was somewhat wholesome- they only did gambling, never prostitution or drugs, which they considered “dirty”, although there are some oblique hints that they were associated with the people who run those businesses. They roughed people up, but there was only one murder associated with them, and it was a huge scandal that caused their downfall, despite the fact that everyone in town knew they were the mob. They were directly associated with the big crime families of the East Coast, who committed murder regularly.
It is more than a history, it is a very personal look at the Grandfather, who was an emotionally crippled man who lied, cheated, and stole. The author’s own father started his own gang, that did worse crimes, but eventually became a legitimate businessman. (The author’s father supposedly ordered the gang to kill my uncle, but my uncle was cousins with one of the gang members who talked them out of it. Small town.)
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