1. Mafia, What Mafia

The first of a four-part series on the American mafia reveals how the FBI ignored their existence until a meeting in a sleepy upstate New York hollow showed them something they couldn't deny. In the 1950s, America was booming. The economy was flourishing and the population was basking in post-war prosperity. Capitalising on all this prosperity was organized crime, run by Italian mobsters known as the Mafia. Run from the top by a board of directors, it had its fingers in many pies - including the unions, gambling, prostitution, the building industry and the waterside. ...