My name is John Pennisi. I'm a former made member of
the Lucchese crime family. This is how crime works. We were involved in a Range Rover scam where the Range Rovers were purchased or financed from the United States, here, and shipped to countries like China, where they had a specific Range Rover that didn't have all
the bells and whistles that the Range Rovers in
the United States had. And they were sold almost
for four times the amount. And there was a stipulation that if you purchased a Range
Rover from the United States, you would sign paperwork saying that you weren't going to export the car. They were buying them maybe
for $100,000 $120,000, and it was being sold in China for about up to $400,000. A lot of members of organized crime went into legitimate businesses, whether they opened up
pizzerias, restaurants, construction companies,
and things like that. One of the legitimate businesses was in the Fulton Fish Market, which is where most of the fish that goes to the restaurants
in New York City comes from. Rudolph Giuliani came into
the Fulton Fish Market and seen that there were members of organized crime planted there with
businesses that were legit, and he took them all out. So that was one example of ways that which they tried
to slip into legitimacy, but because of who they were, law enforcement got them out. So, the food industry
was always a big earn for organized crime in the past, and it is present today. As earning capability's been taken away from Cosa Nostra because of the government and the FBI, they went a little more in the legitimate way of doing things, creating companies that supply food, but what they would do is
they would go to restaurants and insist that they
have to use their product and their companies. So the specific companies
that they would create would be the companies which
supply the restaurants, whether it be pasta, sauce, cheese, water, and even imported food
from Italy and Sicily. A lot of members of organized crime have purchased their own restaurants and went into that legitimate business. They have took control
of restaurants as well that weren't theirs. They'll come in as partners. So they would create companies that become vendors for food, which supply the restaurant industry. As far as Hollywood, in years past, organized crime had a big
hold on the unions there. And that's how they
were able to manipulate and control what went on in Hollywood with the movies and music business. The sanitation was bigger years ago, and they brought a big case on them. Years ago, there was a big arrest of the private sanitation companies. They were charging so much money towards local businesses
to pick up their garbage. But even presently, today, members of organized crime own companies that are private sanitation. So there's still a big presence in the sanitation industry. Tax evasion or tax fraud
and money laundering is something that always went on in Cosa Nostra in the past and still to this present day. Illegal money that's being
made in the street today is not being claimed on taxes. That's tax evasion or
tax fraud right there. Money laundering happens
when organized crime, they're making money and they're buying legitimate businesses, restaurants and companies, so they're washing the
money, illegal money, through these legitimate businesses. Insider trading was bigger years ago where Cosa Nostra went
into the financial center and created companies, and they were finding out information. The SEC came down on them. There was a lot of
people who were indicted and went to prison as a result of that. And they kind of pushed them out. So, counterfeiting went on more years ago. There was always
counterfeit bills, 10s, 20s, where people were pushing
this counterfeit money back into society. Today, it's a little more difficult, because the way the bills are made, you know, the bills have
specific emblems on it and wires in the bills. So the government made it harder for members of organized crime to counterfeit their bills. In Sicily and Italy,
they use cryptocurrency, especially to buy narcotics. And I believe that in New York, the same thing's happening. A lot more criminals
are using cryptocurrency to do scams and as a means to pay for things to
do criminal activities. Cryptocurrency would
come into effect again, where the loan shark could get paid back in cryptocurrency today. Loan-sharking is a way
in which Cosa Nostra made money years ago and makes money up to the present day, where they loan somebody money at a rate or where there's vig involved. The vig is the interest that they're making off
the principal of the money. A lot of times, people in the street life can't walk into a bank for
whatever reason and get a loan. They'll go to a loan shark. Gambling is always going to
be an earn for Cosa Nostra. It was done on a much larger scale. They had casinos, illegal casinos, a lot of card games. Today, there's not a lot of that going on, as it did years ago. But you're always going
to have your bookmaker take an action to make some money. So a lot of times, gambling and loan-sharking
go hand in hand. There's gambling going on; maybe somebody runs out of money; there's a loan shark, somebody that's lending money; they borrow the money from the loan shark. And gamblers are always
going to be owing money. So in turn, they go to the loan shark. So those two specific ways to make money go hand in hand for Cosa Nostra. So, gambling's been taken to
a new level in present times, where now there is online gambling. So Cosa Nostra has people who have online gambling, mostly in Costa Rica,
they'll build websites, and they'll have their
customers go online, and they gamble through the website. Years ago, it was all done through paper, people writing things down. There was none of that online activity. As far as gun trafficking
and arms trafficking, obviously it was bigger years ago, but every family has a member or certain members that
are involved in guns. And you're going to see
a little gun trafficking where somebody's leaving the state or maybe getting guns from another state and bringing it back into New York for sale or for use. So there's always some
kind of gun activity going on within organized crime. Drug dealing and drug trafficking was done on a much larger scale years ago. It is a big earn for Cosa Nostra, but I think it's done on
a much, much lower scale than it was years ago. At one time, prostitution
was a big, big earn for organized crime, as well as the whole sex industry, pornography and all of that. Today, that no longer exists as a moneymaking opportunity for them. Years ago, organized
crime made a ton of money through the 1-800 sex calls, where you would call up and talk sexual with a woman on the phone. It was a big, big earn for them. So that's no longer available to them. Extortion is another means
in which to make money where, years ago, it would be maybe pushing up on local
businesses, restaurants, and have them pay extortion money. It's harder to do today. People are not afraid
to pick up and call 911 and call the cops on these people. They're not afraid of
repercussions from them. So, today, it's mostly where one business is owed money by another business. They would try to go
about getting their money in any other way, and
then as a last resort they would come to one of us and we would collect the money, if we could collect the money, and we would sometimes take half or take whatever percentage
we felt that we wanted and give them the rest. Most of the business
that we got involved in to collect money was the
construction business, whether it was a supplier
of construction material or people that were doing
construction themselves. And one company owed another company, and one company wasn't paying, and we would get involved. Another way in which organized crime got involved in construction
was bid rigging, where a certain contractor would be given a job without going for bid. And that no longer takes place today, because the government doesn't allow it. You know, the government monitors what goes on with these
construction activities. So bid rigging is something
that really was lost today. Another means in present times which to make money was fiber optics. Myself, I was specifically involved with a bunch of guys in our family. We were installing fiber
optics for a big company, and we would get
subcontractors to do the work for the company that we had. The companies did not
have to put it up for bid. They just were given the job to do and told what they should charge and what they should not charge. And so that's where the
crime comes involved in that. So, presently, Cosa Nostra is making money through the old methods,
and some are new methods, like bookmaking, gambling, extortion, labor racketeering, the construction industry, the carting industry,
the garbage industry. And those are always going to go on. Some of the newer ways
in which they make money is through restaurant vendors and restaurants and legitimate businesses. They are even inducting members now that are legitimate people that have businesses and have money. So some of the ways in which they lost earning capabilities is the unions. And the reason being is that the government monitors the unions now. So the government kicked out
members of organized crime and companies that were
involved with organized crime out of the construction industry, the fish market, and even the garbage industry. Cosa Nostra, to me, is like an amoeba. And it's always changing shapes and forms, and they're always trying to come up with new schemes and new
scams in which to make money. And this will always continue, because without scams or scores to make money, money equals power, and without power, there is no more Cosa Nostra.
