Why were the italian mafia in america?
There were bound to be a small minority of criminals among the waves of Italian immigrants to the U.S., just as there are a few criminals in any ethinc group. Some had been members of the Mafia or Camorra in Sicily and Italy and formed offshoots of their own in this country. Others joined or formed street gangs which grew into large criminal organizations during Prohibition. For the most part it wasn’t a direct transplant of Mafia-type organizations from Italy to America and these crime families were independent of those in Sicily and Italy. In later years more extensive trans-Atlantic ties were developed, partly through the deportation of Italian-American mobsters and partly through connections made through international operations such as drug trafficking and money laundering. Al Capone was in America because he was born and raised here. The son of immigrants from Naples, Al Capone was born Brooklyn, NY, January 17, 1899. His father was an honest and respectable barber. Frankie Yale
