# Why wouldn't the Mafia invest in a crematorium? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2004, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308 "2004-08-04T16:23:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2004, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/1 "2004-08-04T16:23:50Z")
Instead of having bodies float to the surface, or having to move them from one hole to another everytime a condo goes up annoyingly, why not just vaporize them and remove all traces? I’m sure that they could afford to do this. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/2 "2004-08-04T16:37:11Z")
All they need is either influence, or money, to “persuade” an existing company to do this. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2004, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/3 "2004-08-04T16:48:31Z")
Forget persuasion. Just buy a funeral home, put a mafia guy in charge, and arrange for some late-night cremations. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2004, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/4 "2004-08-04T16:49:54Z")
The “Mafia” is not a centralized entity. It is run by a number of competing families depending on the area. Much of the killing is done by “grunts” (drug dealers, loan shark enforcers, hit men etc.) that are not very close to the top at all and may not even be aware exactly where their orders are coming from. Having a centralized crematorium would be too risky and possibly attract too much attention to Mafia activities if it were ever found. Even with an active Mafia organization, the volume of killing is not high enough to justify having the physical infrastructure to cremate bodies. It is simply easier to have grunts do most of the killing and just be very diligent if a high level hit ever needs to be covered up. A body tied with chains and cement blocks and dropped in the ocean will almost certainly never be found. Likewise, a body buried deep and carefully in the desert will not be found. Those are mistakes that amateur killers make. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2004, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/5 "2004-08-04T19:30:19Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Having a centralized crematorium would be too risky and possibly attract too much attention to Mafia activities if it were ever found. Like for example, giving the Feds a central location for their surveillance. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2004, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/6 "2004-08-04T19:36:56Z")
Not just any crematorium would do; it would have to be a modern one, fitted for the big & tall types more prevalent today than in previous generations. A mortuary worker once told me that some older crematoria have actually burned down because they took on more than they could safely chew, so to speak. [Older facilities in the U.K.](http://www.buryfreepress.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=843&ArticleID=828306) [often too small for today’s caskets, bodies](http://www.funeralwire.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13657) Slight hijack – here’s [an industry newsletter](http://www.abbottandhast.com/index.html) with an international “news of the weird”-type compendium in each month’s issue (click on “Mortuary Management,” and skip down to “News Briefs”). :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/7 "2004-08-11T04:32:52Z")
It appears that the mob can and does. In a letter in the August 15 _New York Times Book Review_ (subscribers get their issues before the Sunday paper date), Charles Brandt talks about his book _“I Heard You Paint Houses”_, about Frank (the Irishman) Sheeran, confessed killer of Jimmy Hoffa. Brandt writes: > [@](#): > > Just before the hit took place, the mob boss ordering it, Russell Bufalino, told Sheeran: “There won’t be a body… Dust to dust.” > > [snip] > > At the Vesuvio meeting Bufalino told Sheeran that after Sheeran shot the labor leader twice behind his right ear, Hoffa’s body was taken to a funeral parlor in Detroit for cremation… Sheeran did say that all the other ideas floating around in the news media - like the notion that Hoffa was buried in the end zone at Giants Stadium - were invented by people who never had a body on their hands to dispose of. This was back in 1975, so the idea is hardly new. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/8 "2004-08-11T04:55:21Z")
It seems, also, that they’d sometimes want the body to be found. What’s more intimidating - never hearing from Uncle Charlie again or finding his bullet-hole riddled body on your front stoop (or even actually witnessing the riddling)? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/9 "2004-08-11T12:06:52Z")
According to the late Vincent Theresa, he favorite Mafia disposal method was the junked car…the remains would be placed in the trunk of an old car, which would be driven to a junkyard. The car would then be crushed, and the crushed car sent to a steelmill for melting and recycling. No muss, no fuss! ---
**Author:** ![Jake4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@Jake4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake4)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/10 "2004-08-11T15:14:15Z")
Because it would be too obvious. And, as has been said, you can always burn a body in somebody else’s crematorium/boiler room/inside of a car doused with gasoline. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/11 "2004-08-11T16:21:33Z")
How about using a cement plant? I am not expert, but I understand the temperature used in these plants will take a body down to nothing pretty darn quick. ---
**Author:** ![Survey1215](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Survey1215](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Survey1215)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/12 "2004-08-11T16:21:52Z")
I also thought of cremation when Christopher and Tony were chopping up Ralph’s body last year on the Sopranos. You’d think mob types would have a crematorium under the family’s ‘protection,’ though such a place would doubtless draw survellience from the Feds. As far as running their own crematorium, how about naming it 'Honest Vito’s House of Incineration?" ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wouldnt-the-mafia-invest-in-a-crematorium/258308/13 "2004-08-11T17:53:04Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > How about using a cement plant? I am not expert, but I understand the temperature used in these plants will take a body down to nothing pretty darn quick. Dig a hole and use lime powder and water, it will dissolve the flesh very quickly and the bones not quite so quickly. Some farmers use lime powder in a slurry to dispose of dead animals. It is a common ingredient in stucco and other construction so it would not be traceable.