The Cleveland crime family, also known as the Scalish crime family or the Cleveland Mafia, is an Italian American Mafia crime family based in Cleveland, Ohio and throughout the Greater Cleveland area. The organization formed during the 1900s, as leadership turned over frequently due to a series of power grabs and assassinations. In 1930, Frank Milano became boss and was able to bring some stability to the family. Under the control of the family's longest-serving boss, John T. Scalish, who led the organization from 1945 until 1976, the Cleveland Mafia exerted influence over the Teamsters union, profiting from labor racketeering and the skimming of revenue from Las Vegas casinos.

Cleveland, officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in Northeast Ohio along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the U.S. maritime border with Canada and lies approximately 60 miles (97 km) west of Pennsylvania. Cleveland ranks as the most populous city on Lake Erie, the second-most populous city in Ohio, and the 54th-most populous city in the U.S. with a 2020 population of 372,624. The city anchors the Cleveland metropolitan area, the 33rd-largest in the U.S. at 2.18 million residents, as well as the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton combined statistical area, the most populous in Ohio and the 17th-largest in the country with a population of 3.63 million in 2020.