De: "The Mafia" is not a single organization. It's akin to "Organized Crime."
Good question/ observation. But I want to point out that The Mafia actually WAS "an organization", complete with rules of conduct, JOINT OPERATIONS, agreements on territory, areas of crime which were acceptable...and which were not, and "penalties" (justice?) for violating the agreements.
THAT is what made it "The" Mafia, and considerably distinct from any other criminal "organization" I know of in US history. I consider it VERY much akin to the Federation of US states which actually self-organized into the totality we consider now consider "The US government".
Any mobster upstarts, or other opportunities, which challenged The Mafia, was subject to enforcement actions by The Mafia, at a top-down level. It was quite structured.
And THAT ORGANIZATION is what made it amenable to application of the pre-existing RICO laws!
http://themobmuseum.org/blog/the-bosses-of-the-mafia-commission-were-indicted-40-years-ago/
"United States v. Salerno aimed to fell all of New York City’s Cosa Nostra leaders with a single stroke. The indictment charged the bosses of New York City’s Cosa Nostra crime families and several of their subordinates with constituting and operating a ‘commission’ that served as a board of directors and supreme court for the Mob. … In a real sense, the case was about whether it is a crime, meriting life imprisonment, to be a Cosa Nostra boss.”
So, it was actually a QUITE formal organization, with its own 'laws', to which only select "families" had membership.
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