Just finished a book about a guy, Donny Brusco, FBI agent who infiltrated organized crime in the US. It was a fascinating peek at the structure of this group, or I should say , these groups. I see now whey they are referred to as the Families, not the Family. I am guessing that it would also be a pretty accurate description of the structure of the Mexican cartels and their interrelationships. Not homogeneous with a verticle structure among the groups. Organized around illegal activities for cash. Many family connections among members. Each group is independent but cooperates for cash. Resort to violence to settle within group and between group disagreements and control issues. Disfiguring bodies to send messages common. Total loyalty to the group required. Corruption of public officials common. Lots of support from ordinary people in their territory and reciprocated by some protection. Everybody is happy if they are getting a 'fair share' of the money flow, everyone gets a bite as the money passes by. A pyramidal hierarchial structure of power within sub groups, many at the bottom, few at the top.
As I understand it the influence and power of the Sicilian mob was broken up by attacking the top echelon and money. Isn't that what Calderon is doing?
I grew up around the Sicilian stuff, although I was never real close to any serious guys. Because it's a popular subject, there's an enormous amount of good material out there, some of it written by former law enforcement officers such as Donnie Brasco (whose book I did not read, but I saw the excellent movie.) Between my personal experience with the Sicilian community and all the reading I've done, I understand US-style Cosa Nostra very well, but I don't know enough about the Mexican gangs to make a good comparative analysis. Obviously there are similarities, but there are key differences as well. For one thing, the social and legal environments in which each operates are different as night and day.
Sicilians in the US are a minority. As such, they tended historically to feel shut out from some routes to the American dream. I don't know wheher that's operating with the Mexicans doing the smuggling and killing.
Italian-Americans who were up to no good lived in plain view and usually kept things from getting out of hand so as not antagonize the authorities or outrage the public. By contrast, top Mexican bad guys stay in hiding but feel confident enough to take on the army, the navy, the federal police force and each other with body counts that US citizens can barely imagine. Italian mobsters in the US intimidate individuals. Mexican criminal gangs intimidate governments.
Although I haven't followed it closely, the Cammora in Italy's mainland and La Cosa Nostra in Sicily seem to be more like the Mexican gangs, but less successful at over-powering authorities. In recent years Italy has seen some big shootouts between criminal gangs and authorities, although not on the scale that's been seen in Mexico, and the modern Italians also torture and have tried to dominate governments and citizens through terror.
Italian-American organized crime was taken down in stages starting around 1960. First, the FBI acknowledged its existence, something J. Edgar Hoover had been loathe to do for reasons we can speculate about. Governments went after their income sources in various ways. The numbers racket that had provided steady income was destroyed by state lotteries. Trafficking in stolen goods became less profitable as America became more of a throw-away society and nobody wanted used stuff, and it became harder to pilfer at airports and warehouses due to improved inventory tracking techniques. Surveillance technology improved to the point that mob families were essentially living in glass houses, and then there was the RICO Act which made it much easier to go after the top echelon. Prior to Joe Valachi, Mafiosi who were caught never even considered spilling their guts, but by the 1990s it seemed like every mobster facing a long prison stretch was not only talking to authorities but considering a book deal.
In the old days, Italian mobsters who were in that life didn't know anything else and refused to turn against the only institution that meant anything to them. It was both family and friends, and they were held together by a sense of their minority status. It was like Anthony Spilotro (portrayed by Joe Pesci in Casino) said: If they call you (to come in and be killed), you go in. That's because there's no place else to go." But starting around the 1960s there were in fact other places for Italian-Americans to go, as they began sensing much greater acceptance from the non-Italian public. Going into a witness-protection program, and leaving family and friends in the neighborhoods they grew up in, had become thinkable by the 1970s and afterward. That meant the code of silence that had helped protect the mob in the US for nearly a century was beginning to crumble. Italians, for better or for worse, have become Americanized and are now willing to rat out fellow mobsters to avoid life imprisonment. At one time this was viewed as turning against one's own and was the lowest thing a mob guy could do. Today it just makes sense.
I suppose Calderone could start offering witness-protection programs and get a RICO Act passed, but I doubt it would do much good. I believe what Calderone is dealing with is closer to a revolution, except that the aim of the revolution is not to overthrow the government but merely to make it irrelevant, and to subject the people to rule by warlords.