From gangland news
Bonanno Mobster Who Conducted A Videotaped Induction Ceremony In Canada Has Been A Secret Government Snitch For Five Years
More than five years after an acting Bonanno capo was arrested on kingpin drug charges and accused of conducting a much ballyhooed videotaped induction ceremony in Canada, he has spent a scant two months behind bars and is a cooperating witness who has done quite well for himself and his family since his arrest in November of 2017, Gang Land has learned.
Sources say Damiano (Danny) Zummo, and the snitch he inducted into the Bonanno clan back in November of 2015, have each tape recorded conversations with Bonanno and Genovese crime family gangsters who were charged last year with running a "lucrative illegal gambling operation" out of a Lynbrook ice cream parlor for 10 years.
Zummo, who was released on bail in January of 2018 two months after his arrest, can be seen conducting the induction ceremony in a Hamilton Ontario hotel room that could pass for a morning-after a wild Spring Break snapshot in an official Royal Canadian Mounted Police photo that was obtained by Gang Land.
The face of the inducted RCMP informer, Vincent (Enzo) Morena, is blocked out, but you can see the balding Zummo's left hand on Morena's shoulder and the forehead of the mysterious Bonanno soldier named "John" facing Zummo as he administers the oath of omerta in the decidedly no-frills ceremony that took place on November 21, 2015, according to court filings.
Sources say that at thet time, Zummo was serving as an acting capo for Anthony (Little Anthony) Pipitone. His name was blacked out of the brief transcript of the session that was included in the detention memo that prosecutors filed in seeking to jail Zummo without bail as a danger to the community. Gang Land has included Pipitone in the excerpt below:
"The reason why we're here is from this day forward," Zummo told Morena, is that "you’re gonna be an official member of the Bonanno family. It's already (decided and approved) from this guy, this guy, this guy, everybody approved it, so from this day forward, you're a member of the Bonanno family. Congratulations."
Morena: "Thank you."
Zummo: And now I want to introduce you to John. John, friend of ours with the Bonanno. John, (Vincenzo) friend of ours with the Bonanno. Now, your captain is (Anthony Pipitone.)
Morena: Okay.
Zummo: He's our skipper.
Morena: Okay.
Zummo: You're gonna be in our regime.
Morena: Okay.
Zummo: Official is (Anthony.) You only answer to the Bonanno family.
According to Stephen Metelsky, a former Halton, Ontario cop who worked with the RCMP during the investigation that led to arrests of Zummo and three other gangsters in New York, and more than a dozen in Canada, Morena was "greeted with hugs and a ceremonial kiss on each cheek" from Zummo and John LNU (Last Name Unknown) when they entered the room about 12:40 PM on November 21, 2015.
Following the brief no-frills ceremony — there was no pin pricking or burning of a holy card, Metelsky told Gang Land — the two New York "mobsters shook (Morena's) hand, kissed him on each cheek and promptly returned to New York," Metelsky wrote in an account of the induction that appeared on the Inside Halton website last week.
"For two guys to drive eight or nine hours non stop from New York for a 15 minute session to take care of business and get it done and then drive back to New York was viewed here as a very critical and significant event," said Metelsky.
"He became the eyes and ears of the RCMP for a couple of years and helped them arrest quite a few guys who all pleaded guilty," said Metelsky, who is a professor in the Business School at Mohawk College in Hamilton.
That is similar to what happened in Brooklyn, where Zummo and his cousin, Salvatore Russo, were arrested and pleaded guilty to major drug trafficking charge, and Gambino mobster Paul Semplice and mob associate Paul Ragusa each pleaded guilty, and completed their prison terms, Semplice for loansharking and Ragusa for weapons charges.
As a bonus to the guilty pleas by all four defendants indicted in 2017, albeit a limited one that hasn't reaped any convictions or major indictments, the sources say that in addition to Morena, Zummo, as well as Russo, agreed to cooperate with the feds.
Zummo and Russo, each copped plea deals to kingpin drug charges carrying maximum prison terms of 40 years in prison for conspiring to distribute multi-kilogram loads of cocaine in New York between July and October of 2017, according to their publicly filed plea agreements.
Russo's agreement, signed by his lawyer and federal prosecutors Tanja Hajjar and Drew Rolle and supervising AUSA Nadia Shihata in September of 2019 calls for sentencing guidelines between 87 and 108 months and a mandatory minimum prison term of five years. Zummo's plea agreement signed by his lawyer and the same two prosecutors, and approved by supervising AUSA Kristin Mace in December of 2018, calls for a fixed prison term of five years in prison. Both are awaiting sentencing according to court filings in their case. Gang land expects that those plea agreements will be superseded by later ones, if they haven't been already.
Lawyers for Zummo, who was released on a $2 million bond, and his cousin Salvatore, who was released on a $500,000, as well as the government, declined to discuss their cases with Gang Land.
But they are each doing quite well for themselves as they await sentencing for drug trafficking and money laundering charges before Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Eric Vitaliano, according to court filings in case, especially Zummo.
With the agreement of the government, he no longer wears an ankle bracelet monitor and last year, Judge Vitaliano granted Zummo, who has long been involved in the construction industry, permission to travel to Florida "for the purpose of investing in and developing property" in the Sunshine State.
Sources say that both Morena and Zummo have each provided intelligence and tape recorded conversation with several of the nine defendants who were arrested and charged a year ago with racketeering and running gambling rings run by two crime families at the Gran Caffe in Lynbrook between 2012 and 2022.
The indicted mobsters include Bonanno capo Anthony Pipitone, whom Zummo identified as Morena's skipper during the induction ceremony and his brother Vito Pipitone, who are charged with an associate of running four illegal gambling businesses, including the one they shared with the Genoveses in Lynbrook. A former Nassau County detective is charged with obstruction of justice for agreeing to arrange police raid on competing gambling operations.
In a separate indictment, Genovese wiseguys Carmelo (Carmine Pizza) Polito and Joseph (Joe Fish) Macario and three associates are charged with operating four gambling rings, including the one they shared with the Bonannos at the Gran Caffe.
Plea negotiations are ongoing in both cases, although at the last status confernce, the attorney for Polito and Macario has asked Judge Vitaliano, who is handling both Gran Caffe cases, to schedule a trial date in the year old case. Vitaliano declined, ruling that the case was not ready for trial.
