New Jersey is notorious for its history of organized crime. Positioned in between New York and Pennsylvania with miles of coastline, the state was ideal for moving illegal hooch and other spirits during Prohibition. Areas including Monmouth and Ocean counties saw rapid growth in the 1960s and 1970s, which created business opportunities for mob families.
The crackdown on crime in urban northern New Jersey areas also encouraged organized crime to relocate near oceanside neighborhoods with relatively small police forces. By the early 1960s, organized crime families, many of European descent, made their way across the Jersey Shore.
During the 1970s, large-scale gambling and loan-sharking operations began to take place, particularly in northern Ocean County, and organized crime members and families became well established. Among them are the DeCavalcante crime family, Bruno-Scarfo family and the Genovese crime family. Around the 1980s, crime families from countries in South America, Asia, and Africa established themselves in the United States, with many setting up operations from New Jersey.
It is believed the hit HBO drama series The Sopranos, which follows a New Jersey fictional Italian American mob boss, Tony Soprano, was based on a handful of notorious New Jersey mob families, among them the DeCavalcante crime family. The series, which aired from 1999 to 2007, was shot at hundreds of iconic locations in New York and New Jersey including Asbury Park boardwalk, Newark Penn Station and the Borgata casino in Atlantic City.
New Jersey – Colonel History, Industrialization & Organized Crime – HISTORY