Black Hand (extortion)

"La Mano Nera" redirects here. For other uses, see Black Hand (disambiguation).

Black Hand (Italian: Mano Nera) was a type of organized extortion, active primarily in the eastern United States from the early 20th century to the 1920s in Italian-American ghettos or neighborhoods and committed mainly by criminal immigrants from southern Italy. The term "Black Hand" was reportedly first used in New York City, in 1903. The practice gradually began to decline around 1915 and ceased to exist during the 1920s, when the first Mafia families in the U.S.—more organized and structured—began to emerge.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.