The Men Who Ruled New York’s Mafia | American Godfathers: The Five Families

Descripción

For decades, the Five Families thrived behind a wall of secrecy known as Omertà, the Mafia's sacred code of silence. But in 1963, one man changed everything. When Genovese soldier Joseph Valachi broke Omertà and testified before the U.S. Senate, he exposed the inner workings of Cosa Nostra to the world for the first time. Suddenly, the Mafia's secret rituals, hierarchy, murders, and leadership structure were no longer hidden. This episode follows the turning points that transformed organized crime in America: Valachi's historic testimony, Vito Genovese's rise to power, Joe Bonanno's narcotics empire, Joe Colombo's media campaign, the assassination of Crazy Joe Gallo, John Gotti's celebrity lifestyle, and the growing pressure from federal investigators. Discover how publicity, greed, narcotics trafficking, informants, and internal rivalries weakened the Five Families from within and ultimately changed the future of organized crime in New York City. Featuring: Joseph Valachi Vito Genovese Joe Bonanno Joe Colombo Crazy Joe Gallo Carlo Gambino John Gotti Joseph Massino Omertà and the Mafia Code The Five Families Cosa Nostra Senate Crime Hearings Organized Crime in New York #Mafia #FiveFamilies #Omerta #JohnGotti #JoeValachi #CosaNostra #OrganizedCrime #MobHistory #CrimeDocumentary #History Subscribe for more from American Godfathers: The Five Families and other great The HISTORY Channel shows: http://histv.co/SubscribeHistoryYT Find out more about the show and watch full episodes on our site: https://www.history.com/shows/american-godfathers-the-five-families Check out exclusive The HISTORY Channel content: History Newsletter - https://histv.co/newsletter Website - https://histv.co/History Facebook - https://histv.co/Facebook Twitter - https://histv.co/Twitter American Godfathers: The Five Families, executive produced and narrated by Emmy Award®-winning actor Michael Imperioli is a three-part, six-hour documentary series exploring the inception, rise, and fall of New York City’s five Mafia families who over a fifty-plus-year period had a hand in every facet of organized crime in America from bootlegging and drug trafficking to extortion and gambling. Based upon Selwyn Raab’s New York Times best-seller “Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires,” “American Godfathers: The Five Families” traces the extensive history of the Mafia beginning with its early ties to Sicily. The history and subsequent breakdown of the “omerta” code coupled with the ever-changing violent power struggles within each of the five families is vividly chronicled throughout each two-hour episode. Through investigative archival images, footage, audio recordings, and recreation as well as new, candid on-camera interviews with authors including Raab himself, historians, experts, law enforcement, witnesses, and former mafia affiliates, viewers will get an inside look at the inner workings of the most powerful criminal organization of the twentieth century."