Your Life as Every Rank in the Italian Mafia

Level one, the hangaround. You're a local kid. You grew up watching the cool guys in the neighborhood.

You see the jewelry, the cars, and the respect. You want that life. You start hanging around.

You fetch coffee. You wash the Cadillac. You run to the deli to [music] get sandwiches for the card game in the back room.

You are invisible. The maid men barely look at you. To them, you are free labor.

You are a gopher. You go for coffee and go for cigarettes. Your job is to listen and keep your mouth shut.

You are being watched every second. They are testing your discipline. If you talk too much, you're gone.

You aren't making money yet. In fact, you are taking all the risk for none of the reward. If the cops raid the club, you're the one they throw in the car while the bosses walk out the back.

How do you get promoted? You make yourself useful. You spot a cop car two blocks away and warn them.

Level two, the associate. You pass the test. Now you're an associate.

You are not a member of the family, but you work with [music] the family. Your life is a hustle. You hijack trucks coming out of the airport.

You run a sports betting book. [music] But here's the catch. You don't get to keep all the money.

You have to kick up. Every week you take a fat envelope of cash and you hand it to your sponsor, [music] the soldier who brought you in. If you steal $10,000, you [music] better hand over 3,000 of it to him.

If you hold out on him, [music] you are stealing from the family. That gets you disappeared. The risk here is high.

You are the one doing the dirty work. You are the one breaking the legs and hijacking the cargo. The FBI is watching you because you are sloppy and hungry.

If you get pinched, the family owes you nothing. [music] You do your time. You keep your mouth shut.

That is the only way to prove you are worthy of the next level. Level three, the senior associate. You have been earning for years.

You kept your mouth shut during a three-year stint in state prison. You proved you can generate cash and you don't crack under pressure. Now you are on record with a captain.

This means you belong to him. No other crew can touch you. If a guy from another family tries to shake you down, your captain steps in and says, "Back off.

He's with me. " This is the most dangerous time of your career. The bosses are vetting you.

They are looking into your bloodline. You must be 100% Italian on your father's side. They are digging into your past to see if you have any rats in your family.

One mistake here ends you. If you get into a bar fight and embarrass the family, you are done. Then one day you are told to dress up.

You are told you are going to get made. Level five, the sold. You walk into a basement or a back room.

There are men sitting around a table. There is a piece and a picture of a saint. They prick your trigger finger.

They drip your blood onto the image of the saint. Congratulations. You are a made man.

You are untouchable. A civilian can't touch you. An associate can't touch you.

Even a boss from another family cannot end you without permission from [music] the commission. If someone hits you, they hit the entire organization. You are now inside the circle of trust.

You have a crew of associates working for you. [music] They kick up to you and you kick up to your captain. Your job is to supervise the rackets.

You make sure the construction sites are paying. You make sure the union votes go the right way. You don't have to break the windows yourself anymore.

[music] You send an associate to do it. But you are still a soldier. When the boss says someone needs to go, you go.

You grab your work bag and you handle it. Refusal is not an option. Level six, the enforcer.

Some guys are good at earning. Turns out you're good at violence. When a debt needs to be collected and the guy isn't paying, they send you.

You are the terror mechanism that keeps the money flowing. Or maybe you are a specialist in disposal. You know how to make a body disappear.

You know which chemical plants have acid vats or which construction foundations are being poured on Tuesday morning. You are feared by everyone, even the guys in your own crew. But this is a lonely spot.

They need you, but they don't like being around you. Level seven, the acting capo. Your captain has a problem.

Maybe he got indicted on a RICO charge. Maybe he had a heart attack. Maybe he's under too much surveillance to leave his house.

He points to you. You are now the acting capo. You are the substitute teacher, but with life and death power.

You are running the crew, but everyone knows the seat isn't really yours. This is a test of your loyalty and your management. You have to keep the envelopes full for the captain while he is away.

You have to keep the soldiers in line. If you do a bad job, the money stops [music] and the captain gets angry. If you do too good of a job, the captain might get jealous.

He might think you are [music] trying to steal his crew. You have to walk a razor edge. You have to be the boss while looking like you don't want to be the boss.

Level eight, the captain. The acting title is gone. You are the skipper.

You are a capo. You run a crew of 10 soldiers and hundreds of associates. You control a territory, maybe a section of Brooklyn.

You are a mid-level executive. You don't touch the drugs. You don't touch the guns.

You manage people. Your primary job is to buffer the boss. You meet with your soldiers in safe places, malls, parks, walk-in talks.

They give you the envelopes. You give them orders. You are responsible for the income of your entire crew.

If the economy is bad, you still have to pay the boss. If the FBI raids your gambling parlor, you have to find a new way to earn by next week. You [music] are also the judge.

When two soldiers have a beef over money, they come to you. You settle it. Your word is law within the crew.

But you have a quota. You have to deliver a fat package to the boss every week. If you stop earning, you are replaced.

And in this business, replaced means executed. Level nine, the messenger. This is a niche position, but a powerful one.

You are the diplomat. The families need to talk to each other, but the bosses can't meet. It's too risky.

The FBI is watching every handshake, so they send you. You travel between the five families. You carry messages that can never be written down or spoken on a phone.

You prevent wars. If a soldier from one family sleeps with the wife of a soldier from another family, you are the one who negotiates the solution before bullets start flying. You need to be charming, calm, and incredibly careful.

Level 10, the conciglier. You are now the third man in the big room. You are the counselor.

You generally don't have a crew. You don't have a territory. You have the boss's ear.

You are the only person in the hierarchy allowed to tell the boss he is wrong. When the boss wants to end a captain [music] in a rage, you are the one who says, "Wait, think about the business. Think about the heat.

You are often a lawyer, or at least you think like one. You know the intricacies of the law. You advise on how to structure the scams to avoid RICO charges.

You are the mediator. When the captains are fighting and the underboss can't fix it, they come to you. You are safe.

Usually, you aren't a threat to the throne. You are a toll for the throne. Level 11, the under boss.

You are the VP of operations. You are second in command. The boss is the CEO.

He sets the vision. You are like the COO. You make it happen.

You handle the dayto-day. All the copos report to you. You collect the master envelopes from all [music] the crews.

You settle the disputes that are too big for the captains but too small for the boss. If the feds build a case, they usually hit you first. You are the layer of insulation that keeps the boss out of jail.

You are also the air apparent. If the boss dies or goes to prison, the crown usually falls to you, but everyone knows it. That makes you the number one target for every ambitious captain who thinks he can do a better job.

You have to be strong enough to run the family, [music] but submissive enough not to scare the boss. Level 12. The boss.

Capo Familia. the commission. You made it.

You survived the street wars, the prison sentences, [music] and the treachery. You are the father. You sit at the head of the table.

You are a ghost. You never touch a gun. You never touch a dollar bill from a racket.

You have layers of people between you and the crime. You whisper an order to your underboss. And 3 days later, a rival [music] disappears.

You deal with the commission. This is the board of directors for organized crime. You sit with the bosses of the other families and divide the country.

You decide who can be made. You decide who dies. You have total power, but you have no peace.

Your best friend wants your job. The FBI has a squad dedicated solely to destroying you. There is no retirement.

There is no walking away. You stay on the throne until you die in a hospital bed. a prison cell or on the pavement outside a steakhouse.

This is the life you chose.