The new Mafia has moved into the information and business age to gain the rewards that such areas have to offer. Where profits exist the Mob will follow. In the main, pornogra-phy, cigarette bootlegging, even the infiltration of the entertainment busi-ness (through payola and control of nightclubs, music publishing and bookings) are variations on the old-time rackets, using the same techni-ques and even some of the same per-sonnel.
There are, however, other and more modern rackets, which have tended to elude the old-time mobsters with their limited knowledge and so-phistication. That violent breed is dying off and a new kind of gangster is now moving into power. Some, but not all, are the sons and relatives of the old leaders; others have names that now mean nothing to law- enforcement agencies or the public. Some, like Tony DiLorenzo, have gone to jail, but many have never held a gun, knocked over a store, commit-ted a violent crime, or ever seen the inside of a cell. Almost all, like Puzo's fictionalized Michael Corleone, are American-born, raised in the middle class, often college educated and versed in modern business tech-niques. In speech, manner and out-ward appearance, they are indistin-guishable from the sons of the respectable; they could be, and some-times are, young lawyers, bankers, stockbrokers and junior executives climbing the ladder of corporate suc-cess. They leave a suburban home in the morning and commute to the office of a legitimate business. But that office is a front behind which they engage in highly sophisticated crime. Without them, it is doubtful that the plundering of the country's and the world's financial and invest-ment markets over the last decade could have been contemplated or car-ried out so successfully.
Wall Street money has always appealed to the underworld. But Wall Street has always been the stronghold of the very rich who might buy boot-leg Scotch and visit casinos on vaca-tion, but the mobsters were certain, would never do real business with racketeers. Except for a few boiler-room operations designed to bilk gul-lible investors' Wall Street remained virgin territory. It took the new, young and sophisticated racketeers to deflower it. By the mid-Sixties, they had taught the entrenched rulers of the Organization that Wall Street cash was of little importance. The real treasure was those pieces of parchment with the fancy engraved lettering-stock certificates, bonds. letters of credit, certificates of deposit and all the rest.
