What Is The Rise Of The Cleveland Mafia?

The group’s success was due to their discreet business practice. While other large elements of the Cleveland Mafia ostentatiously engaged in mob warfare and infighting, the Cleveland Syndicate managed to work behind the scenes and cooperate with each other. Indeed, the Syndicate is remarkable in that they remained on friendly terms with each other until their deaths several decades later, a feat almost unheard of among criminal organizations. Apart from working well among themselves, the Cleveland Syndicate also began making alliances with factions of the greater Cleveland Mafia.
Shortly after arriving in Cleveland Moe Dalitz made the acquaintance of Frank Milano, a Sicilian and one of the most powerful gangsters in the Little Italy neighborhood.
Sutton’s files further elucidate the hierarchy within the Cleveland Mafia, and it appears that several Jewish gangsters were right at the top, and owned multiple illegal casinos, which often non-Jewish underlings would operate. One example of this can be seen through the owners of the Frokics club, which was notorious for hosting games like bingo, craps, and roulette and was owned by a mixture of Jewish and non-Jewish men. However, in his papers Sutton notes that the non-Jewish owners were clearly front men for some of the higher level Jewish Mafiosi. He also notes that these men owned several other gambling houses in Cleveland and Cincinnati including the Island Club. Sutton further notes that another famous Cleveland casino operator, who I’ll refer to here as Person A, was also a subordinate of top tier Jewish Mafiosi. In relation to Person A, Sutton wrote the following “[He] became active in the gambling and slot machine business and the gambling casino business. As late as 1944 he had an interest in The Yorkshire in Northern Kentucky with the Person K-Person R group.” There are also a few direct mentions of top Jewish Mafiosi and their relation to gambling both in Cleveland and across the country. In one reference to some Jewish mobsters the files indicate, “Police have reported Person K and Person R are key slots figures in Portage County.” In every file among the Sutton papers related to casinos and gambling the establishment can always be traced back to top tier Jewish Mafiosi. The connection can almost never be proven in court, but like a good pyramid scheme it’s clear that the profits of the gambling ventures are ending up in the hands of men like Dalitz and Rothkopf even if they are not operating the casinos on a day to day management