Organized Crime An Offer They Can't Refuse

Weakened by turncoats and convictions, Mob families are considering a strategic solution: the merger

Omerta. The code of silence for a sacred brotherhood. Well, fuhgedaboudit. Every time you turn around lately, a member of the Mafia is turning around: testifying at a trial, wearing a bug, writing a book. Whatever life omerta had left in its blood-drained body ebbed away last week with the stunning disclosure that Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano, the most trusted adviser to reputed Gambino boss John Gotti, has become the Federal Government's latest protected flipster. If juries find him believable, Gravano could obliterate the entire hierarchy of the Gambinos, New York City's largest crime family with more than 400 members and...

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