Mafia bosses deliberately present a respectable respectable facade.

Evidence

I’d say about forty guys were sitting at the table, and everybody gets up when I come in… I was led to the other end of the table past them, and the guy with me says “Joe, meet Don Salvatore Maranzano. He is going to be the boss of all of us throughout the whole trouble we are having.” This was the first time I ever saw him. Gee, he looked just like a banker. You’d never guess in a million years that he was a racketeer. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 715

Categorization

• XREF: Maranzano looking like a banker underscores Gambetta’s central thesis that mafiosi trade in protection — the boss signals trustworthiness and legitimacy exactly as a financier does.