Five Families

Five Families is the American term for the five Italian-American Mafia families based in New York City: Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese. The term is not a formal legal or governmental category, but an investigative and criminological designation used by the FBI and federal prosecutors to identify and map the central hierarchies within organized crime in the United States. Each family is built on a hierarchical principle with a boss at the top, followed by an underboss and an adviser (consigliere), and below them captains (capos) as well as rank-and-file members and associates.

The authorities regard the families as the core structures of La Cosa Nostra, the organized criminal network of Italian-American origin that through the 20th century dominated criminal activities such as racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling and labor racketeering in New York. The term acquired particular legal significance in connection with the Mafia Commission Trial (United States v. Salerno et al.), heard before a federal court in New York in 1985–1986. In that case, federal prosecutors used the RICO statute (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) to prosecute senior leaders from several of the five families for their participation in a common criminal enterprise, the so-called Commission, which functioned as a coordinating body for the families' activities. The case resulted in the conviction of a number of centrally placed Mafia bosses.

In a true crime context, Five Families is an established frame of reference that gives structure to the understanding of the New York Mafia's history, power relations and internal conflicts. The term appears consistently in journalism, court documents and intelligence reports as a collective description of the five families' joint presence in the organized crime landscape in the United States.