It is currently unknown when the Dixie Mafia were formed.

They have been reported in:

• Atlanta, Georgia
• Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Biloxi, Mississippi
• Hattiesburg, Miss
• Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola)
• Oklahoma State Penitentiary (McAlester, OK)
• Tulsa, OK

Allegedly, the Dixie Mafia were geared towards high-profit burglaries and contract killings. They reportedly controlled illegal gambling in Biloxi during the 1970s.

Slogan of "Thou Shalt Not Snitch to the Cops"

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the gang was notorious for violence and corruption in "go-go joints and gambling clubs" across the Gulf Coast.

Originally, the Dixie Mafia dealt in whiskey and bootlegging, then moved to illegal gambling, and finally went on to drug smuggling. In recent years, however, their numbers have been severely damaged by law enforcement.

Their organization is one of a "loosely knit group of traveling criminals," not specifically described as a sophisticated criminal organization.

According to a gang expert quoted in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Dixie Mafia "wasn't a familial group like the real Mafioso, where you had a pecking order. In the Dixie Mafia, the guy that had the bankroll was the one that led the pack." According to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement official quoted in the same article, members were simply "cowboys riding up and down the roads looking for someone to steal from or kill." They were, and are, a lawless, reckless bunch living hair-trigger lifestyles that can be set off by women, money, or alcohol. Informants are quickly and effectively dispensed with.

In the 1990s, their numbers ran in the hundreds, but many would be hard-pressed today to give an accurate estimation of their strength, with some officials even denying the gang actually exists, in the first place, instead calling the gang a description for certain like-minded characters that may or may not have any personal connections with each other, or an "invisible confederacy."