Buzz
Although I may be a decade behind, I’ve just finished watching the entire series of The Sopranos. Throughout the show, Tony and his crew engage in various money-making ventures, but one recurring theme is their involvement in the garbage industry. What draws mobsters to trash collection?
The criminal enterprises that thrive on steady streams of income—like drugs, stolen goods, gambling, and protection rackets—are built on simplicity and profitability. They’re easy to enter, require little capital to start, and can generate significant returns. Garbage collection offers these same advantages, plus the added benefit of being fully legal. Mobsters can rake in substantial profits from this legitimate industry, all while using it to clean up money from their illegal activities.
The mob’s involvement in trash business grew significantly in the mid-1900s, when many cities stopped collecting commercial waste and left businesses to hire private waste haulers.
Mobsters from New York to Chicago spotted an opportunity and either started or took control of waste hauling businesses through money, intimidation, or outright violence. Within cities, criminal crews would divide routes, manipulate contract bids, and threaten or extort non-mob haulers and their customers to eliminate competition and keep their prices high.
Before long, gangsters, primarily from Italian- and Irish-American crime families, had cornered the trash collection market across the Northeast and upper Midwest. The so-called “garbage mobsters” who controlled these operations would often forge documents and tamper with waste scales, sometimes to pocket additional profits, and other times to conceal illicit money. Crew leaders and members frequently received no-work, no-show “consulting” roles at the companies, providing them with legitimate jobs to list on their tax returns to justify their income.
The Cleanup Effort
In the past two decades, mobsters began to lose their hold on the garbage industry as it became more corporatized. Large firms like Browning-Ferris Industries and Waste Management entered mob-dominated territories, providing enough competition to drive the criminals out. In New York, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the city government completed what market forces had started, launching an undercover investigation led by NYPD detective Rick Cowan into the mob’s trash cartel and establishing the Trade Waste Commission to regulate trash haulers.
In some areas, however, the mob still maintains control over trash routes. Last year, the New Jersey Commission of Investigation released a report revealing that, despite law enforcement’s awareness and years of attempts to block their influence, mobsters continue to dominate the waste business. This persistence is largely due to the state and local governments failing to allocate the necessary resources, funding, and manpower to close legal loopholes, enforce laws, and push them out.
The same report also highlights that the situation isn't much different across the Delaware River, noting that reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joe Ligambi was on the payroll of a Philadelphia waste management company from 2003 to 2010. He was paid $1,000 per week and received health benefits for the majority of that time, seemingly without actually performing any work.
