The Buffalo crime family is a long-standing criminal organization based in western New York. It is considered a part of the Mafia, otherwise known as La Cosa Nostra, the leading criminal organization within the National Crime Syndicate or "The Mob."
The Buffalo crime family, also called the Magaddino crime family or "The Arm," was a dominant underworld power within North America from the 1920s well into the 1970s and 1980s. Much of the group's history centers around the reign of its most powerful and famous boss, Stefano Magaddino, known to his friends and underworld associates as "Don Stefano" but to the media "The Undertaker."
The Buffalo crime family's base of power has been the Queen City of Buffalo, New York for the last century, but the group has also had criminal interests and satellite groups, or "crews," in other areas of upstate New York, such as Rochester and Utica; eastern Pennsylvania; Youngstown, Ohio; and the southern Ontario cities of Niagara Falls, Hamilton and Toronto. The Buffalo crime family remains active to this day, but law enforcement and the media have estimated the crime family's current underworld presence at anywhere from "One of the most powerful crime families in La Cosa Nostra" to being on the verge of extinction.
