Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2014; the recent CNBC interview it mentions, Michael Franzese’s activities at the time and his view of the market reflect that period.
There is life after the Mafia, and it seems that mobsters’ qualities and skills can be very useful to business owners. We have already looked at the advice of Louis Ferrante, a former Gambino family capo, on how to succeed in business legally. This time it is Michael Franzese, who advises professional athletes and wealthy clients on bribery and extortion, including extortion in sport.
Franzese has also written a book called I’ll Make You an Offer You Can’t Refuse, a phrase often used in the Mafia world when it comes to “negotiating”, and the favourite line of the fictional Michael Corleone in The Godfather.
Joseph Bono played him in Martin Scorsese‘s 1990 film GoodFellas.
Michael Franzese stood out in the Colombo family for his ability to spot business opportunities. He had a remarkable talent for recognising potential sources of income by diversifying the Mafia’s business into other kinds of legal companies, which were sometimes a front for the mob’s dirtiest dealings.
Had he not been in the Mafia since his teens, his skills might have made him one more of the multimillionaire business owners in the United States today.
At 35, Fortune magazine included him in its ranking of the 50 richest and most powerful Mafia bosses. He was number 8 on the list, with income estimated at 8 million dollars a week.
In a recent interview with CNBC he said his fortune is still intact, but that he is unlikely to ever be able to touch it.
Like Louis Ferrante, Franzese managed a clean exit from the Mafia, which has allowed him to stay alive. The last time he was arrested, he chose to plead guilty to federal racketeering charges and go to prison for 10 years without informing on anyone, so he could leave the Mafia without betraying his own people.
Of the 50 Mafia bosses who shared the Fortune ranking with Franzese, 44 are dead and 3 are serving life in prison with no chance of parole. That makes him one of the few capos who can afford to be a public figure without needing police protection.
When he decided to leave the Mafia and didn’t know what to do with his life after prison, it was the FBI itself that advised him to use his experience and talent to do good, and to advise business owners on a side of business that is never taught in business schools: the dark side, where an entrepreneur can be extorted and receive death threats if he doesn’t meet the obligations imposed by organised crime (sometimes local gangs, and sometimes very dangerous Mafia families).
If a business owner doesn’t handle this well, he can be in serious trouble, and Franzese advises on resolving these kinds of conflicts, as well as on opportunities to expand the business. And, it must be said, he is doing well at it: plenty of companies are eager to hire this former Mafia capo as an adviser.
Michael Franzese now goes much further, though, and also gives investment advice. At the moment, he says, Wall Street is building up a very dangerous bubble.
In his stock market advice, Franzese says he knows the Wall Street crowd very well, because in the past he was involved in some shady dealings with them. So he doesn’t trust them, just as he doesn’t trust putting his money in the hands of funds right now.
In his words, on Wall Street you go to sleep with everyone telling you that everything is fine and wonderful. Then you wake up in the morning and it’s all gone. But they already knew what was going to happen while they were telling you everything was fine.
Read: What the Mafia teaches us about business
Featured image: Jens Astrup/Play the Game, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
