Inside The American Mob a new six part series by National Geographic is set to premiere on Sunday July 28. This new Mafia series has been put together with first person accounts from former mobsters and the law enforcement officers that worked to take them down along with recenly declassified files. Executive producer Banks Tarver says the series was set in New York because the saga of the American Mafia has happened more dramatically there. The show will document the histories of the five New York mafia famililes (Bonanno,Colombo,Gambino,Genovese,and Lucchese) starting off in 1974. Tarver said each episode will tell a part of an overall bigger story showing how each of the five New York mafia families are very different.
The series will focus in and give special attention to each of the mafia families and their history and moments when they were in a command role of sorts. Tarver says through the history of the New York mafia when one family has been targeted by law enforcement and is damaged it opened up the oppertunity for another mob family to do well giving the other family time to recover and regain its strength. Inside The American Mob will show these ups and downs of each of New Yorks mafia families. The show will have an “upstairs, downstairs” type feel says Tarver featuring both real mobsters and the FBI agents who busted them along with mob rats all sharing their recollections on camera. The series found key figures to focus on which allows it to tell the bigger story while being able to get a very personal point of view of key moments.
The series will begin with “Staying Alive in The 70s” as it recounts the New York mafia’s golden age and a time in which the five families operated with virtual impunity. It will then conclude with “Rise & Fall of Gotti” the infamous Gambino crime family boss who was declared public enemy number 1 by the feds in the 1990s. Tarver says the series will track the ultimate decline of organized crime and how mob traditions such as “omerta” started to break down making it easier for law enforcement to infiltrate the mafia and attack it.
