Mafia in the 1920s

The Mafia has been noted to exist since Sicily's middle ages, and from then, they have wielded economic and political clout.
Members of the organization were required to take an oath which includes five basic principles, among them, silence, and obedience.
It was January 17, 1920; the states have just ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, banning the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages in the US.
What those in favor of the prohibition thought was that the implementation of the ban would be easy and inexpensive.
They were wrong.
Outsmarting the prohibition became a national hobby to thirsty Americans.
Gangs which were gamblers and thieves turned into "bootleggers," distributing liquor into the country and selling them for a price.
The gangsters became instant millionaires.
Among them, Alphonse "Al" Capone, became a legend.
His estimated income was a staggering sum-more than a $100 million annually.
Towards the end of the 1920s, the gangs had become very structured and met at a national convention on December 5, 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio.
There were 23 bosses in that convention, all of them of Sicilian descent, and they all came from different parts of the US.
There they discussed common concerns and entertained the idea of having a nationwide crime syndicate.
At another convention, they divided up the US and staked their claim on the different territories.
In 1933, the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, and the bootlegging ended with it.
The syndicates once more revisited old occupations of gambling, loan sharking prostitution, drug distribution and labor racketeering.