With varying degrees of enthusiasm, federal, state, and local governments had been investigating and prosecuting gangsters since the late nineteenth century. Despite this relatively long history, the primary interpretation of the Apalachin arrests lay in the belief that the New York State Police had uncovered proof of the existence of organized crime. This essay investigates the reasons why there seemed to be an ongoing need to prove its existence, concluding that organized crime came to be defined within the cultural and political agendas of Cold War America. Drawing on media accounts, government documents, archival sources, and popular non-fiction, this essay argues that rather than the conclusive proof of the mafia, Apalachin is best viewed as an exhibit in an ongoing argument about the existence and meaning of organized crime.