The same large and politically connected gangs from New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans that controlled gambling, prostitution, extortion, thefts and narcotics since the early to mid-19th century, now controlled bootlegging operations across America in the 1920s.
The big city gangs of the United States had always maintained a degree of dominance in the underworld and when Prohibition came along the Irish, Jewish and Italian gangs began to cooperate amongst themselves to a degree and became the most powerful criminal organizations in 1920s America.