The Los Angeles crime family is an Italian American criminal organization based in Los Angeles, as part of the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra). It has since spread throughout Southern California. Like most Mafia families in the United States, the L.A. family gained power bootlegging during the Prohibition Era. The L.A. family reached its peak in the 1940s and early 1950s under Jack Dragna, who was on The Commission, although the L.A. family was never bigger than the New York or Chicago families. Since his death the crime family has been on a gradual decline, with the Chicago Outfit representing them on The Commission.
In the late 1970s Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno become the second member in American Mafia history to testify against the Mafia. In 1981 a biography of Fratianno was published, The Last Mafioso by Ovid Demaris, which is the source for a lot of information on the history of the family. In the 1980s, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO act), became a highly effective law in convicting mobsters and shrinking the American Mafia. Like all families in the United States, the L.A. Mafia only holds a fraction of its former power.
The current boss of the family is Peter Milano. The current family is small compared to the families on the East Coast and Chicago and is involved in fraud, extortion, loan sharking, illegal gambling, and legitimate businesses. Although not having to share power with other Mafia families like New York's Five Families, never having a strong Italian-American population in the region leaves the family to contend with the many street gangs in the "Gang Capital of America." The Los Angeles crime family is the last Cosa Nostra family left in the state of California.