Most feared crews

The Demeo crew and the Vario crew get a lot of recognition as two of the most feared crews in lcn history. Is there any other crews over the years that have been just as feared? If so who was there family, capo and members?

I suppose the chicago outfit crew of de stefano and spioltro would have had a fearsome reputation too?

But De Stefano and Spilotro were never formally bosses of their own crews I think. About De Stefano, people disagree even about whether he was a made member at all, and Spilotro was a soldier, even though an important one; he was lured to death with a promise to promote him to capo.
The Ferriola crew (later the Infelice crew after Ferriola's death) was pretty tough. The others weren't softies either though.
I read though that the mafiosi considered the most sadistic and fearsome ones were those who did the William Jackson torture/murder that lasted for 3 days: Fiore Buccieri, Sam De Stefano, Dave Yaras, James Torello and Jackie Cerone.
I also read Willie Daddano was the same type of sadistic psycho, although didn't participate in this specific crime.

hard to top the demeo crew, but if any, it would have to be the Chicago animals.

they burned a woman to death in the 40s. that's pretty brutal.

this is all in the past and has been talked about numerous times...what is the most feared crew(s) THESE days?

The Westies were feared for sure..

The Ozone Park Boys with the Trucchios.

Obviously DeMeo crew, one I don't see mentioned too often is Greg Scarpa and his goons. They killed alot of people over 4 decades.

Murder Inc.

Agree with Walkner - How do you top the Gemini crew ??? There are, I'm sure a ton of homicides that haven't yet been lnked to those guys.

After the 80s has become more difficult to kill someone both because of the DNA, both of the different surveillance systems and the Mafia no longer leaves the corpses on the street preferring to make them disappear.

So first the 80s:

Murder Inc.
Forty-Two Gangs (Chicago)
East Harlem Purple Gang
DeMeo Crew

To 80s to now

Scarpa Crew
Tommy Karate Gang
The Ozone Park Boys

Yes, definitely the Wimpy boys. Scarpa's older son was feared, the younger one was not, and he wasn't well thought of either. No surprise he didn't outlive his father by too long.

edit: AG

were the ozone park boys, the same as "the bath beach boys"?

I do not know enough about the history and if they ever merged, but those are different boroughs.

thank you. mightyhealthy

Just to look at recent crew around 2000-2008tommy shots crew of Colombo killers must have been really feared threw out the bk long island queens people.

Okay I get that the Vario Crew was huge, had a lot of enforcers and some of the old Brownsville boys who had been active in Anastasia's days (Murder, Inc) but were they really THAT feared and why?
No doubt Paulie himself was a stone cold killer too, but there's plenty of capos who were more feared than him... and they don't even begin to compare to the DeMeo crew, whether as earners, efficiency in killing or just pure brutality and ruthlessness. Roy was a monster earner always cooking up some new scheme, international stuff too.. and yeah the Lufthansa heist was legendary too, I get it.
He had the Burke crew working for him sorta like how Gaggi had Roy, Chris, etc but other than Burke who were Vario's most feared guys?

Gotti (Bergin Crew), DeMeo Crew, Anthony "Tony" Mirra (Before and after getting his own crew) + Thomas "Tommy Karate" Pitera (Essentially a one-man wrecking crew)

The Demeo crews murder count is exaggerated in my opinion. C'mon, 200 people!!! Really ???? Did DeMeo have a concentration camp in his back yard...
As far as being feared, any crew could of snapped a finger and had both Testa and Senter killed, give me a break. They were in the early to mid 20's for gods sakes. Look how easy it was to have DeMeo killed. They kept him around because they needed him at the time. Fear had nothing to do with it. Tony Salerno could of snapped a finger from up in Harlem and that whole DeMeo crew would of been wiped out in a few seconds if he wanted to. believe me, castellano would of listened.
You guys get too caught up in the " most feared crew or toughest mobster" questions. Its a myth. These guys want to make money and if " the most feared crew" is affecting their profits, the " feared crew" gets killed. End of story.

I understand what you are saying, the only reason that jimmy burke was tolerated was like demeo, he was a huge earner, when they quit earning, and have used up their usefulness, then they get dealt with.

its all about money, no matter how bad-ass you are, you can always be put in the truck of a car.

Sam DeStefano did have his own crew; Peter Paul Cappalletti, Al Zaccagnini, Sam Gallo, Tony Spilotro, Mario DeStefano, Art Pascucci.

Tony Spilotro also had his own crew in Vegas but was still ultimately answerable to Lombardo and the Outfit bosses back home.

Since someone brought up that psycho DeStefano I thought I'd make this point.



Some of the Chicago stories, like this one, just seem like fantasy when not verified with an old document or autopsy report. I have no doubt that guys like Buccieri, Daddano, and Prio tortured people, but I don't feel like Daddano left every victim blowtorched and LaPietra meathooked many debtors.

The stuff we can prove is really fucking awful (especially what happened to William Jackson and the guy Spilotro vised) but I think standard Outfit "torture" was more like what happened to that bookie Hal Smith, nonfatal cuts on the neck and a broken arm.

I would be really interested to know if any Outfit expert can point to some really bad, Action Jackson-like slayings. I'm guessing there could have been a few incidents in the Giancana era. The 42 gang was pretty fucked.

in gus russos "the outfit" theres a case where a mob hit man burned a woman alive, the suspect was marshall caifano, also the men who robbed accardo home for jewelry, their throats were slit, and at least one had their face burned off with a blow torch.

these are documented. Chicago hoods practiced torture routinely,

Hard to know where that ranks in the roll of honor:

Threatening to kill prosecutors (Basciano)
Killing judges (Cacace, Colombo admin)
Killing garbage carters (Lucchese admin)
Dissolving neighbors in acid (Gotti)
Attempting to murder radio host who "dissed" your pa (Gotti Jr.)
Killing women (De Meo crew, Pitera etc...)
Attempted cop murder (Gaggi)
Killing innocent kids & recklessly wounding people in the street (Colombos)
Threats to harm jurors families (Gambino admin)
Going after families (Chiodo's sister)
Bosses ratting (Massino)
Raping women (Lucchese consig, Tick Furnari)

etc etc..

yeah, moe, you're right, they are all butchers,

Belmont, who claimed otherwise? Did I say the DeMeos were immortal? Anybody (yes, even those in the upper admin of a family) can get killed at any moment if they screw up badly. Fat Tony could have Senter and Testa killed? Who's disagreeing? Just like Paul could probably have any low Genovese associate killed in a moment. However reputation is very important out in the streets, and with a crew like Roy's, fewer and fewer people are likely to fuck with you, not to mention he was a monster earner.

I'm thinking of a story in Murder Machine where the crew got into a beef and were pissed at a Lucchese soldier and Roy just went to Nino to ask him about clipping him. Nino's words? "Just go do it, but make it look like something else."
And the guys made it look like a robbery gone wrong at his auto dealership which left like 2 people dead including the target. At the time Roy was just an associate and Nino was a soldier himself, even though very close to Paul.

This is not a Chicago Outfit murder but still its very gruesome.In 1961 Buffalo member Alberto Agueci was found in a field near Rochester NY.Over thirty pounds of flesh were missing from his body, his limbs and jaw broken, and his teeth were also knocked out. His neck and hands were bound behind the back with barbed wire and also his genitals had been hacked off and stuffed into his mouth.This fatal torture lasted for over a number of days. Later the killers poured his body with gasoline and set it on fire.

Also i dont know if you ever heard the story about one of Paul Ricca's most gruesome slaying?! When he became a rising star within the Capone gang,he acted as Al’s “emissary” or “messenger” to the New York crime families.Theres a story that once Ricca had a violent argument in New York with a made man from some of the crime families,and that man insulted Paul by calling him “The Waiter”,on and on.Story goes that this crazy gangster would taunt Ricca by laughingly ordering him to pour him some more wine, calling him “waiter man.”Shortly after the cops found the nude torso of this gangster in a suitcase,dumped by a train station.The head,arms and legs had been cut off from the torso with a very sharp knife.The murder was never pinned on Ricca.

Heard about that one, Toodoped.

The Agueci, Action Jackson and Turatello murders are among the most barbaric that we know of.

Belmont, you might not remember one little detail in Murder Machine. Roy and Co. had someone working for them in sanitation. So whenever they disposed of someone, they would set them out with the rest of the garbage to be picked up outside of the Gemini. These special sanitation workers were instructed to simply pick up the garbage and ask no questions.

If you "automated" something that well back then, you could whack a lot of people.

I find it very credible that they bumped off approximately 200 individuals. I think the original estimate was based on not only missing and presumed whacked mobsters, but also the police estimate of missing persons in the vicinity of Canarsie.

Genovese 116th crew

I've always thought it was highly exaggerated as well.

The demeo crew is only overhyped as much as the mob in general is. What is a crew besides a group of crooks who were violent enough and sleazy enough to be 'a criminals criminal'. The same guy who puts together a big gambling operation will be the same guy who breaks through a store window and steals some goods. They aren't mythical beasts. And it wouldn't be as easy as someone in a previous post said to take them all out. Gotti would have loved to wipe that crew out but who's gonna give their lives to make it happen? People who think that a boss is able to get to anyone at any time have seen that Godfather horse head scene too many times

I agree the number of victims is probably exaggerated but they were still feared. Also Gotti wouldnt have "loved" to wipe them out. The truth was Gotti was scared shitless of the crew and basically begged Paul not to give him the contract, he was able to duck out of it.

That's kinda where I was going with my post. Nobody can make a claim that gotti liked those guys, and hits were discussed, but gotti wouldn't go near it cuz demeo had an army of killers. It's not that he didn't want them dead, it's just that nobody would do it, including gotti himself

I think I've seen a thread on here where someone posted all the murders linked to Demeo's crew (mostly from the car racket) they had plus a few mob murders

It was a legit list and came up to around 50 victims I think it was. But yes no where near 200

Why didn't just Castellano give the order to Demeo's crew to whack him? He's the boss so they have to carry out the hit.

Also makes me wonder if Gotti was actually scared of Demeo's crew, if the order comes from Castellano then he has no fear of repercussion right?

To me as a mob novice the genovese jersey crews headed by Tino and others are the most feared bc they make people disappear and largely got away with it..tho their numbers may be a little less the fact that they had corrupt cops, tons of hitters and people that pissed them off disappear and nothings ever found or done would scare me more..just my humble opinion..but from what I read no one fucked w those crews in their day, people stayed in line or they vanished and they werent flash in the pan crews like the Demeos..they had power and were feared for decades

Well in the end he basically did give the order to is crew. However it was Nino Gaggi who was clsoe to aul and caried it out. Secondly Gotti was in act scared of Demeo it has been pretty much confirmed. Gene Gotti was caught on a big saying that Gtti wanted no part of taking out demeo

Why would he be scared though? Castellano gave the order, so there would be nothing Demeo's crew could do in retaliation to Gotti. Maybe I got my mob politics twisted here I don't know.

Why would he be scared? Because Demeo was one of the biggest kilelrs in NYC a that time and had a bunch of killers around him. Gotti was a tough guy but wasnt a hitman or anything like that

Just because Castellano gave the order, doesn't mean that DeMeo would go down without fighting back. Gotti risked dying himself while doing what he was told.

Well isn't that mob rules? Demeo's own crew or "army of killers" can't do anything as they know that the order comes from upstairs. Proven by the fact that they were the ones who eventually killed Demeo in the end.

Demeo's crew, yeah. But do you think Roy Demeo would just tell John Gotti: "Go ahead, John. Do what you gotta do."

Not a lot of guys are like that, only a few. Many of them would(if they saw it coming) go down in a hail of bullets. At least that's what I think.

Put yourself in Gotti's shoes. Testa and Senter aren't made. They're killers who were brought up by Roy. He can't be sure they will not seek retaliation. And not just them, Borrelio, kids in Canarsie looking to make their name. If you can avoid it and you have no love for Paul why take the risk?

What about the 26th Streew Crew of the Chicago Outfit? Throughout the history one of the major "work crews", often assigned with the heavy stuff.

"The guys from Chinatown have always been heavy hitters, the ones you went to when you needed som serious work done", said former FBI agent Jack O'Rourke according to "Family Affair - Greed, Treachery and betrayal in the Chicago mafia".

Having that reputation even within the Outfit I guess you can say the 26th Street Crew was pretty feared.