{"id":49451,"date":"2024-03-29T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.11onze.cat\/?p=49451"},"modified":"2024-04-02T08:26:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T06:26:33","slug":"banking-mafia-marriage-convenience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.11onze.cat\/en\/magazine\/banking-mafia-marriage-convenience\/","title":{"rendered":"Banking and the mafia: a marriage of convenience"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The close relationship between organised crime and the banking sector goes back almost as far as the origins of these two concepts, yet it was in the early 20th century that the contemporary understanding of banking and the mafia was consolidated and spread throughout the world.<\/b><\/h3>\n

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Throughout history, <\/span>organised crime has taken advantage of the promiscuous relationship between politics, business and the financial system<\/b> to weave a complex web of power and corruption not only to serve its interests but from which all these actors have benefited.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mafia and banking share the same taste for wealth, risk and easy money,<\/b> while both have close connections with corrupt governments. Their collaboration was especially evident during the expansion of organised crime families from Italy’s Sicily region into the United States in the early 20th century, and during the politics of gangsterism in Nationalist China throughout the final stages of the opium trade.<\/span><\/p>\n

These alliances provided the mafia with <\/span>access to financial resources and a semblance of legitimisation in its expansion into new markets <\/b>through illicit business, while at the same time banking economic benefits from financing illegal operations, facilitating money transactions and money laundering.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The alcohol gangsters<\/b><\/h3>\n

During the thirteen years of Prohibition in the United States, <\/span>organised crime and alcohol flooded the black market, leaving a trail of bullet-riddled corpses.<\/b> Underground distilleries serving liquor were controlled by gangsters such as Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Dutch Schultz and Al Capone, who bribed police, politicians, and judges.<\/span><\/p>\n

The profit margins from the illegal importation and sale of alcohol were equivalent to what the drug market was years later. <\/span>Millions of cases of alcohol entered the US every week, which had to be processed and distributed throughout the country. <\/b>This required the collaboration of several actors, including the banking sector.<\/span><\/p>\n

New York was the entry point for most of the alcohol contraband coming into the country, but it was also the convergence point for financial capital and political influence in the United States. <\/span>Collaboration in the laundering of money from the illegal sale of alcohol continued until the prosecution of Al Capone <\/b>for tax evasion and the end of the prohibition period.<\/span><\/p>\n