Crime Inc. (Prog.4)- 'Birthright of Gangsters'

The United States of America’s organised crime syndicate is powerful, sophisticated, ruthless and subversive. It has a pervasive influence on American society. In recent years this has been proved beyond doubt as the US Government has diverted more and more resources to federal agencies and police in an effort to stunt the growth of organised crime. Their investigations and the ensuing trials have exposed the extent to which this cancerous phenomenon has spread. It is now clear that its influence reaches far beyond the shores of the United-States. It has become an immensely wealthy multi-national “corporation” and its operations are global. Although there are many criminal ethnic groups involved in OC in America, there can be little doubt that the central core of syndicated crime in the US is the Mafia, or “La Cosa Nostra” as the US authorities prefer to call it. What is “La Cosa Nostra”? How is it structured? Who are the people who belong to it? What sort of people are they? How do they relate to each other, their families, their neighbors, other crime groups, and to the American populace at large? This program investigates the persistent allegation over the decades of organized crime links with illegal gambling operations throughout America, and the gigantic legal gaming palaces in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, now owned, up front, by multi-national hotel and entertainment conglomerates.