This audio episode examines the small New Orleans Family and the near-total lack of organizational information available on them. Despite boss Carlos Marcello being a household name and the looming presence of the New Orleans mafia going back to at least the 1860s, the Family is essentially a known unknown. The FBI gained rapid insight into most American Families during the 1960s and they were able to obtain valuable inside intelligence on many of them but aside from Marcello's prominence, the 100-year-old Lousiana group was known only in passing by members outside of New Orleans and investigators failed to cultivate member informants within the organization. Even well-connected member informants in other cities knew relatively little about the first American Family, past or present, and most research relies on general information about the rare public excursions of the organization's members and associates rather anything substantial about the structure, membership, and formal practices of the organization itself.
Rather than providing a comprehensive history of the New Orleans mafia's known existence or a run-down of all their affiliates and activities, this episode places New Orleans in a bigger picture context with other American and Sicilian Families, analyzes how formal information was obtained and reported about New Orleans, and looks into what was actually known about the inner-workings of the organization from both investigative and anecdotal points of view. The episode also highlights some confirmed and suspected members and the fascinating connections they had, one of these New Orleans-based mafiosi being a remote member of a Midwest Family who associated closely with Carlos Marcello and had roots in one of the most powerful mafia clans of New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Of course many other angles and tangents emerge during this 2.5 hour monologue, the goal being to expand our understanding of the group even though we still struggle to piece together the finer details.
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