Goodfellas Cop Bribery System Explained
In the 19900 movie Goodfellas, based on the real life of mobster Henry Hill, a key part of the story shows how organized crime worked hand in hand with police. One of the most eye opening scenes comes early on, when young Henry gets arrested for the first time. Instead of panicking, he calls his mob friends. They show up with cash envelopes and the cops let him go free. This sets up the whole bribery system that kept the Lucchese crime family running smooth in New York during the 1960s and 1970s.
The system was simple but effective. Mob guys like Jimmy Conway and Paul Cicero paid off cops weekly or monthly. These were not huge sums at first, but regular payoffs built loyalty. A beat cop might get 50 or 100 dollars a week, which was good money back then. Detectives and higher ups got more, sometimes thousands for looking the other way on big jobs like hijackings or drug runs. Henry Hill later explained in his book Wiseguy that the mob had cops on payroll in every precinct from Brooklyn to Queens. They called it the “vig,” short for vigorish, the same term for juice racket interest.
How did it work day to day? Mob soldiers dropped off envelopes at certain bars or diners where crooked cops hung out. No names on the envelopes, just cash inside. In return, the cops tipped off the mob about raids, gave them arrest warnings, or even fixed tickets and cases. One real example from Hill’s crew involved a cop who called ahead before a Lufthansa heist bust attempt, letting them change plans. The movie shows this with quick phone calls and nods, making it feel real because it was based on true events detailed in court testimonies.
This wasn’t just Lucchese family stuff. FBI reports from the era, like those in the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement, pointed out widespread corruption in New York PD. FBI records on the Lufthansa heist mention how inside info from possibly bribed sources helped the crime go down. Henry himself testified in 1986 trials that he paid over 300 cops directly or indirectly over 20 years.
The bribes created a shield. If a mob guy got pinched, a call to the right cop meant release on bail or dropped charges. It kept the rackets going: numbers running, loan sharking, cargo theft from Idlewild Airport. Without this cop network, Goodfellas shows, the mob would have crumbled under arrests.
Henry Hill’s flip in 1980, entering witness protection, blew it all open. His info led to dozens of convictions, including Paul Cicero. The system relied on silence and greed, but when one guy talked, the house of cards fell.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodfellas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiseguy_(book)
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/lufthansa-heist
https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nys/pressreleases/January06/2006hill.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/02/nyregion/mob-informer-details-corruption-in-nypd.html
