Jerold Zimmerman and Daniel P. Forrester. Relentless: The Forensics of Mobsters’ Business Practices. Willowcroft, 2020.

The subtitle of Relentless is slightly misleading. It is not so much forensics, as it is simply an economic analysis of four criminal gangs. However, what we can learn from it applies to all kinds of businesses and other organizations as well. I suppose we could call it forensic economics.

If you were to type in relentless.com on your web browser, you would get Amazon. That was one of the original names Jeff Bezos chose for his online book business. Relentless often uses Amazon as an example of a legitimate business that uses many of the same organizational techniques as the four groups it highlights: the Mafia, the Sinaloa Drug Cartel, the Hells Angels, and the Bloods and Crips (with more emphasis on the Crips). For readers not as interested in the ins and outs of these gangs, the last two chapters give some direction to businesses. Certainly anyone in any kind of management position would find this book helpful and even—dare I say—inspiring.

There are some distinct differences. The Mafia and the Sinaloa Cartel are mainly businesses. Yes, they deal in illegal things like gambling, prostitution, and drugs, but they are businesses at their core. In reality so are the street gangs like the Bloods and Crips as drug dealers. The Hells Angels (HAs) is an outlaw motorcycle club (OMC) that promotes violence but is not necessarily organized for the money. Again, except for its immorality, Relentless compares HAs to other kinds of voluntary organizations like other clubs, churches, and charities in terms of what we can learn from it.

Many lawful organizations possess similar cultural values as brotherhood, loyalty, and social engagement as the HAs [Hells Angels]…Like the Angels, the Masons required elaborate initiation rites. People form not for profit theater groups because they seek the fellowship and pleasure of associating with like-minded individuals wishing to promote the arts. Others seek out country clubs and churches with members who share the same values and enjoy the same activities. (130)

One example to illustrate that the Hells Angels club is not a business is that whenever a Mafioso or Sinaloa cartel member is arrested, the organizations provide bail money. They have plenty. When Sonny Barger, the founder of the Angels was arrested, he could not post bail.

The authors cite other sources for their basic approach to business success. First there are four pillars of any successful business or organization: its task, performance measurements, performance rewards and punishments, and its culture. Of all the organizations here, the authors recognize the Mafia as likely the most successful in mounting the four pillars.

In the 1930s the five crime families of New York City organized the Commission. This set certain rules for the families such as killing any “made” member of any family had to be approved by the commission. This insured that there would be few “gangland slayings” to call attention to their criminal activities

Similarly, the Hells Angels are organized through the Oakland, California, chapter with regional groups overseeing local clubs. They also have rules of behavior such as any drugs or guns that members might sell must be of good quality to maintain the reputation of the club.

The other two groups have overall been weaker in this aspect, causing many more conflicts and killings. In the case of the Mexican drug cartels, the numbers murdered are in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands.

The chapters on the Mafia and Hells Angels in this book tend to be stronger, too. That is partly because news accounts are available but also because leaders of each organization wrote autobiographies. Rudy Giuliani, who started out as a public prosecutor, credits Joe Bonnano’s autobiography with showing New York prosecutors how the Mafia was organized and giving them clues on how to best prosecute them.

Similarly, Sonny Barger, one of the founders of the Oakland Hells Angels describes many of the things that he did to promote his brand of outlaw bikers. Indeed, the authors frequently speak of the “brand” of each of the organizations. This includes how people both trust them (e.g., Mafia gambling operations are not rigged) and fear them (all have many members who are murderers). The book does note that the Hells Angels are slightly different because they emphasize motorcycling over money. They are not a criminal organization but an organization that includes criminals.

All four organizations have survived because they have been able to adapt to new circumstances and changes in law enforcement. Both the Mafia and the Hells Angels had problems with police informers. The Mafia then required that any made man would have had to have committed a murder. They figured that no undercover cop would murder someone. Similarly, the Hells Angels began to require a longer probationary period for new members partly to observe them better but also to do more thorough background checks.

The Sinaloa organization has done many different creative things to smuggle drugs. If one part of the American border becomes less penetrable, they go to a different location or maybe dig a tunnel or use submarines. They built meth factories and currently are doing more with manufacturing opioids. Such things reflect a changing illicit drug market. The African-American urban street gangs like the Bloods and the Crips began to flourish when the process for making crack cocaine was developed.

Court records and released communications have given the authors most of the information that they have about the Sinaloa cartel. El Chapo Guzman is currently in prison, but the work goes on.

The chapter on the Bloods and Crips is the vaguest of the chapters. Most of what the authors refer to are sociological studies, so names of the members and even the name of the gangs are not mentioned. One gets the impression that the two gangs are more rivals than enemies, but it is hard to tell. Still, we get an overall idea of how the gangs operate.

In addition to making innovations and adapting to change, there are few other things that any business or organization can learn from these groups. All of them promote great loyalty and identification with their group. For example, Hells Angels do not own their jacket patches. These belong to the organization. If for some reason a member leaves or is kicked out, he has to return the patch and even have any club tattoo removed.

By the way, the authors do note that all four organization are entirely male. One statistic suggests that one of the African-American gangs may have a female enrollment of seven percent of the total membership, but that is it.

In all four instances, the organizations attract boys or men who are looking for respect and have lower moral standards. Identifying with a gang gives them not only identity but respect and a purpose. Even good legitimate businesses and organizations must have people who believe in what the business or organization is doing. Successful organizations have ways of recognizing achievement that goes beyond financial remuneration. Such things as employee of the month or teacher of the year can help them find motivated people and retain them.

Each organization has had problems with people who are not effectively loyal. In most cases such people do something against the rules to get more money, e.g., diluting a drug or skimming money taken in. Legitimate businesses have similar problems. Now, legitimate businesses cannot resort to violence, but they need to come up with ways to insure worker loyalty and respect and to deal with what the book calls “vampire” employees.

There are many more specifics in this book. Although the subtitle suggests this book was about the investigation or prosecution of criminals, it is really about how businesses and organizations survive. The authors note that other books have analyzed different companies to show how successful companies operate, only to have those companies falter and even fail within a decade after the book came out.

As suggested by the title and the book’s introduction (and our second paragraph above), one of the more adaptable companies has been Amazon. Like the effective gangs, they have competed successfully, adapted to new technologies, and put some rivals out of business while buying out others. Relentless contrasts the adaptability of Netflix with the inability of Blockbuster to adapt as a good example we can learn from.

Relentless notes that any organization has to persevere and adapt, be relentless in that sense, the way Amazon has. It notes that the Mafia is not what it used to be because Italian-Americans are not socially marginalized the way they were a hundred years ago. Like Rudy Giuliani, for example, they have earned respect in a moral and socially acceptable way. Will that eventually happen to the successors of the Crips? Will turf wars kill off the best Mexican drug runners? Will the rising price of Harley-Davidson motorcycles keep rebellious youth from even trying to emulate OMCs? Who knows? In the meantime, legitimate businesses and organizations can learn some things from these organizations. Even Jesus in Luke 16:8ff. noted that we can learn from those who earn money unjustly.

One current observation this reviewer could not help make. Mr. Giuliani was fairly successful in combating organized crime in New York. When he tried using the courts to go after the so-called Deep State, he was foiled. Governments are legal or lawful, but corruption of various forms or fear of getting involved can be a temptation for those working in all branches of the government, too.