It's not just Philadelphia, Scarfo just followed suit.

He and Gotti were cut from the same cloth, both very flashy and megalomaniacal. Throw in greed, and soldiers on everything from cocaine to steroids. Add in government surveillance, technology, and the newly enforced RICO law, and it was the beginning of the end for everyone, not just the Philadelphia family.

What's ironic about Philly was that the family was so low key and old school under Angelo Bruno, who much like Paul Castellano, didn't really believe that his capos posed that big a threat.

Boy, were they wrong.

A shotgun blast to the back of the head would suggest that. I live in Philadelphia and have always been interested in the Mafia history of it. As of now, the Irish control most of the narcotics, loansharking, etc. They're called the K&A Gang if you're not familiar with them. Pretty tough guys, Scarfo used them for hitmen for some hits and never tried to upset them.

K&A stands for Kennsington & Alleghaeny. In 2002 a mobster named Ray Matorano, upon his release from prison, had a plan to take over the Philadelphia Mafia. He requested backing from the Five New York Families. The K&A Gang got wind of this and he was killed on the way to his docotr's office. Motorano planned to finally rid Philly of K&A. Surprisingly, the Mafia Commission did nothing about the hit, since Philly has been a mess for quite some time.

As for Scarfo, the guy was a Psychopath. As a Boss he would go out with his guys on hits because he enjoyed the experience. Apparently during a hit, he grabbed a gun from a soldier started shooting the target and shouted, "I love killing people".

Yeah, I read that story about Scarfo in one of George Anastasia's books. He's to Philly what Capeci is to New York.

Scarfo reaching out to the Irish gang parallels Big Paul reaching out to the Westies in the early 80s.

Talk about crazy ? Read THE WESTIES by T.J. English, it's one of the great true crime books ever written.

The Westies was a fantastic book, and George Anatasia (spelling?) is a great mob author. A good Irish mob book is "Paddywhacked", chronicals the history of the Irish, some great stuff of Whitey Bulger, Mad Dog Coll, and Owney Madden.

They used to call Albert Anasasia "the Mad Hatter." Albert A was a model of sanity and reason compared with Scarfo--and Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso.

"Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso"

Who was he? Not familiar with the name....

Casso was once the underboss to Victor Amuso of the Luchesse family. He got the nickname "Gaspipe" because he used to use a piece of pipe to threaten his victims.

Casso & Vincent "The Chin" Gigante were the ones who conspired to have John Gotti killed for not getting "commission approval" for killing Paul Castellano by having a bomb placed under a car that Gotti was supposed to get into. (Whether or not that was the real reason for their conspiring to kill Gotti is another story and in my opinion it probably wasn't). But Gotti never got into that car and instead his underboss, Frank DeCicco, who did get into that car, was killed.

After Amuso was sent to prison in 1991, it was alledged that Casso became the acting boss of the family. During this crackdown on the mob, several gangsters began to turn rat, and Casso was named in several indictments and one of them included the charge of murder. So Casso went on the lam for several years. And when he was finally caught, he himself turned rat and agreed to testified on behalf of the federal government and was placed into the witness protection program. It turned out the the government felt that a lot of what Casso had told them was BS and would never stand up in a court of law. So Casso was removed from the witness protection program and sent back to prison where he is serving a life sentence.

At the time of his going into the witness protection program, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso tried to convince the government that two cops named Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa were dirty cops working for the mob, but the government felt that he was BSing them and would not be a believable witness in a court of law.

Ironically a few years ago the same two cops, Eppolito and Caracappa, were aressted and convicted for their involvment with organized crime.


Don Cardi

Theres a few chapters on "Gaspipe" in the Five Familes very interesting read

Thanks Don Cardi, I remember hearing about those two dirty cops in news a while ago. Pretty interesting stuff, surprised Casso wasn't whacked in jail.

This has been mentioned many times but i think both or one of the dirty cops had a small role in Goodfellas

Casso was so unpredictable that one prosecutor likened the idea of using him on the stand to using Charles Manson as a defense witness.

It's ironic that just about everything he said about the "mob cops" turned out to be true.

This here is just another example of a supposed tough guy mob boss living under the rules of la cosa nostra. When robbing, stealing and shaking down the average person, he had no fear. This was a guy who supposedly upheld a "commission rule" that a mob boss cannot be killed without prior approval and had no problem in conspiring to kill that person who broke that supposed rule. But when he himself finally faced murder charges and the possibility of getting wacked, he sang like a bird and ratted out anyone and everyone that he could. Now for his own selfish reasons, he threw every supposed mob rule that he ever advocated throughout his criminal life, right out the window!


Don Cardi

A recent book, "The Brotherhoods," by Guy Lawson and William Oldham, although not nearly as good as Selwyn Raab's "The Five Families," does provide a bit more detail about Gaspipe Casso's lunacy, including insane stunts he tried to pull off in prison. Louis Eppolito, one of the two crooked detectives who are the nominal subjects of this book, appeared in "Goodfellas" in a bit part as "Fat Andy," one of the guys Henry introduced in Sonny's restaurant near the beginning (Eppolito's one line was, "Howya doin', guy?").
DC, another story I read about Casso's nickname was that his father had a neighborhood racket of diverting gas pipes from paying customers to others so that they wouldn't have to pay. This story is too ridiculous to believe.

What about the myth of Lansky as this all powerful figure?
How did it start and why does it persist?

Is Hank Messick responsible?

Was Lansky himself partly responsible?
He and Luciano both started to tell tall tales when they
thought writing memoirs would give them some much needed income.

You hit on a good point about Lansky. As some of us here have often posted, mob figures aren't the types to leave their collected papers to colleges and universities so that people like us can study them. Most of what we get about them comes from newspaper accounts whose accuracy was sketchy to begin with, and often highly sensationalized. The few mob biographies published tend to run with the sensationalized stuff--and even one error gets repeated dozens of times.
In Lansky's case, he was reputed to be "the richest gangster who ever lived...worth $300 million." But Lansky was one of the very few gangsters to have a competent biographer. Robert Lacey, his biographer ("Little Man - Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life," a wonderful book!) tracked down the $300 million figure to Hank Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, who admitted he heard it second-hand and printed it because it was a big, impressive figure--and it was picked up dozens of times. Lacey said that, at most, Lansky was worth between $5 and $6 million--not chickenfeed, but hardly the stuff of $300 million. The reason that Lansky lived stp 81 and died peacefully, says Lacey, was that "he was the accountant--never the boss." He never acquired the wealth and power that so often lead to jealousy and murder in the Mob.

lacey maintained that Lansky was worth considerably less than that. Lansky lost everything when Castro closed the casinos. What money he did have, he left to take care of his son Buddy.
The daughter blew that money. Jacob "Yiddy Bloom" Blumenfeld payed all of Buddy's hospital bills that first year after Lansky's death.

The "Bigger Than US Steel" remark came when Lansky repeated what he'd just seen on the David Susskind show.

Lacey said Lansky was worth $5-6M at his peak. He spent his last $50k paying for his son's (unsuccessful) operation.
Lansky did not "lose everything" when Castro nationalized the Havana Riviera and the other casinos. Lansky and a group of his investors put up $5 million, along with Batista's $6 million, to build the hotel. Most of the $5 million was put up by Lansky's partners, not him. He later prospered in Bahamas gambling.

I don't have the book in front of me but I seem to remember he put up 3 million for the Havana casino.
When he came back to the states, he'd lost most of his money.
He'd lost most of his nest egg, Carpet joints were no longer tolerated like they had been in the past and he was too well known to prosper in that business.
Lacey's point in that book was that Lansky had been successful in the Jukebox business(Wurlitzer yanked the distributership
away from him because of his rep)he had famous friends and he was as he said at the Kefauver hearings, a "Gambler."
He was not however, this all powerful mob boss.

The stories about Ben Siegel's murder are a good example
of the Lansky myth.
If anyone had Siegel killed, it was Dave Berman, Gus greenbaum,
Doc Stacher and Moe Sedway.

Here's another "myth vs. reality" entry--a rework of something I posted quite a while ago:

OF COURSE The Mob deals drugs--but don't get caught!

A durable myth of the Mafia is that that they "ban" drug trafficking, and decree the "death penalty" for dealers. Wrong! The Mafia has been dealing drugs since Day One. Don Vito Cascio Ferro came to NYC in the early years of the last century in part to establish a drugs pipeline between Europe and the US. Charlie Luciano dealt drugs as a young man, and is reputed to have ratted out a partner in return for getting a pass from the cops. Joe Bonanno's "vacation" in Italy in 1957 was really a meeting with Luciano and some Sicilians to make Bonanno the top drugs guy in America. The aborted Apalachin NY meeting that year was, in part, an attempt by Vito Genovese to outflank Bonanno as the top drugs guy. He and Joe Valachi went to prison on drug charges. John Gotti was the top earner in Neil Dellacroce's empire becauase he and his crew dealt drugs...and on and on.

Drug-dealing puts Mafia bosses in a quandary: They know that heavy penalties are a threat to them. But they love the money that drugs bring in. They also know that a “ban” on drug trafficking in their families would be unenforceable—there is too much money and greed to stop it. They’d be in the position of the Federal Government during Prohibition: passing a law that nobody obeyed and everyone disrespected—and a Mafia boss can’t afford any disrespect. They wouldn’t be able to effectively police their families: how could they know everything that every street guy was doing every hour of every day? They might be in the position of having to kill the wrong guy, or worse (from their viewpoint), a good earner. Finally, a real “ban” would simply drive the trafficking totally underground—meaning that they wouldn’t get their cut.

So the Mafia Dons fall back on the common denominator of Mob life: hypocrisy. They declare a "ban" on anyone caught selling drugs, with a death penalty for violators--and promptly look the other way. They figure that the threat will discourage the weaker soldiers, who are more likely to get caught. The more capable, ambitious guys are be willing to take the risks—and are less likely to get caught. The money continues to flow upward, which is all the bosses care about.

Now let’s look at how this might work in real life:

Vinny is an up-and-coming made guy in a NY family that officially “bans” drug trafficking. He’s a good earner, so he’s been given a slice of territory in Spanish Harlem, where he has some gambling, sports betting and loan shark action. One day, Jose, a neighborhood guy who’s an occasional borrower, asks Vinny to lend him $8k for two weeks. Whoa, says Vinny, that’s a lot—what do I get as surety for my loan (other than your kneecaps)? Not to worry, says Jose: I know a guy who knows a guy who’s a crewman on a freighter coming to NY from Lebanon. He’s bringing in a kilo of heroin. By the time we finish cutting the stuff and selling it, we’ll make $80k. Vinny says yes. Two weeks later, Jose (looking real dapper in new threads and gold chains) pays him his $8k plus $960 vig (6%/week for two weeks). Technically, Vinny didn’t violate the Family’s ban on drug dealing—he didn’t sell drugs. But he financed a drug deal that put a key of H on the street.

Like every other Mob guy, Vinny’s greedy: why should he make only $960 on a deal that netted a nobody like Jose more than $70k? Jose comes to him a month later and says he wants to borrow $40k because the sailor’s coming in again, this time with five keys of H. Vinny says that, for such a big loan, he’ll have to meet the guy. He tells Jose to bring the sailor, and his five keys, to a Mobbed-up bar near the waterfront. As soon as they meet, Vinny pushes Jose aside and tells the guy that he’ll buy the five keys, directly. He tells him he wants a “volume discount”: Since he’s buying such a big quantity, he’ll pay $5k per key, not the $8k that Jose was going to pay. The sailor starts to protest but Vinny replies: “Hey, you’re still makin’ a pile of money on s**t that didn’t cost you more’n a coupla grand in Syria or wherever you got it. You don’t like it, you can leave—feet first.” The guy catches the drift, takes Vinny’s $25k and hands over the five kilos of heroin. Vinny smiles: “Hey, I’ll take all the s**t you wanna bring in, anytime you come to NY. Just let Jose know when you’re gonna be here.”

Jose’s been too scared to say anything, so Vinny throws him a bone. He puts his arm around him and says, “Hey, ya done good tonite, Jose. I’m gonna let you have that H. It’ll cost you $20k per key—that’s my fee for hosting the sitdown and for protection. Don’t worry about sellin’ it—if the s**t’s as good as you said, you can cut it down more.” Where’s Jose going to get $20k/kilo? He can borrow it from Vinny! Now Vinny’s got two sources of profit: he quadrupled what he paid for the heroin—and he’s getting vig from the guy he cheated. He could make even more if he sold it on the street, but Vinny’s too smart to take that risk, and too busy to spend his time mixing milk sugar with the drug and selling dime bags to a bunch of lowlifes. He’ll let Jose do it.

Now, Jose’s really got to hustle to make his payments to Vinny. So he recruits some members of a local street gang to sell the dime bags. But those guys are ruthless—they’re not going to settle for making a dollar on every dime bag. Their leader kills Jose, takes the remaining dime bags, cuts them further, and sells them. This is just what Vinny was expecting. He lets a couple of weeks go by, then grabs the gang leader off the street. Vinny tells the gang-banger forcefully that he assumed Jose’s debt when he appropriated Jose’s stash—and he’s now two weeks behind in the vig. He smacks him around to reinforce his point. Then he smiles: “You can make up the vig, and make yourself more money, if you buy the rest of the s**t and distribute it. I’ll even make sure nobody interferes with your operation in this neighborhood.” The gang-banger, grateful for his life, accepts.

Vinny’s now making even more money. He kicks a nice piece of it upstairs to his crew chief. In turn, the crew chief passes a cut to his capo, who shares his piece with the Don. Pretty soon, that whole East Harlem operation, and everyone in it, is looking very good to the Don. But the Don’s not dumb—he has a good idea where the money originates. He hears about a drug bust that netted some members of a Jamaican posse in Brooklyn. He mentions to his capos, “Hey, it’s a real good thing that we have a ban on selling drugs in our borgata, and a death penalty for violators. Otherwise we’d wind up like them no-good, undisciplined mulinians over there.” The capos pass the word on down. Vinny’s crew chief, who knows what’s going on, says to Vinny, “Uh, by the way, you ain’t sellin’ drugs, are you?” “Me?” replies Vinny, indignantly. “Sellin’ f*****’ s**t to a buncha lowlifes on the street? Not on your f*****’ life!” Vinny told the literal truth: he’s not actually selling drugs on the street—he’s just wholesaling drugs to the guys who are selling them. As far as he’s concerned, he’s not violating the family’s ban on “selling drugs.” His crew chief is satisfied—and so’s everyone over him. They’re all getting their piece of Vinny’s action. As long as Vinny’s producing money, they’re content to look the other way. If he gets caught, he knows they’ll try to kill him before he can rat them out. Everyone knows the score.

The Irish mafia is similar, yes.

turnbull great explanation on how the drugs game would work and this thread is a very interesting read keep up the good work

Thanks!
Here’s another in the series:
DOES THE MOB CONTROL ALL RACKETS?

No…but they’ll try if they find out about your racket:

The Mafia (and other organized crime gangs), like the Robber Barons of a century ago, believes fervently that competition is bad, monopoly is good. While they guard their territories zealously, they also want to avoid costly, destructive wars. So, they often resort to “cartelization” such as divvying up territories with other mobs families or working out arrangements with other ethnic gangs. But they don’t tolerate freelance operations—if they find freelancers operating in or near their territories.

Let’s say you decide to open a racket that’s in or near Mob territory—gambling, loan sharking, distributing stolen goods, basically any criminal activity that’s not the occasional car theft or burglary. The local Mob guy, who watches his territory like a hawk, will spot you immediately. He’ll give you a couple of months to build up your business. Then he’ll descend on you, and, in menacing (but not yet overtly violent) terms, explain that you’ve committed a mortal sin for which the penalty is death. But, he can see that you didn’t realize the enormity of your crime. So, out of the goodness his heart, he’ll let you continue in business. But you have to pay him a “fine” of $50k for having violated his territory, and you need to come up with a “nut” of $5k/week as your “license” to operate. In return, he’ll “protect” you from interlopers and will keep the cops at bay.

If you’re smart, you’ll apologize profusely, eagerly agree to the terms—and pack your stuff, change your name and move to another state immediately. If you’re greedy and stupid (as are most criminals), you’ll think this is a pretty good deal. Woe is you! You now have to come up with his “nut” every week or, like his loan shark victims, pay 6% vig per week. You also become a potential patsy for his schemes with his police contacts, which all Mob guys maintain. So, your Mob “protector” will, perhaps, murder someone who owes him money and didn’t pay. He knows that the cops he deals with love to close big cases fast—they get glory, promotions, etc. So he’ll go to his friendly police contact and tell him that you did the crime, providing just enough detail to make it convincing without implicating himself. The cops will arrest you and charge you with the crime. You might hire a good lawyer and, after immense time and expense, be cleared. But by that time, your Mob “protector” will already have taken over the business you worked so hard to build up, and couldn’t look after while you were in jail awaiting trial.

Mobsters also regard anyone operating a racket that comes to their attention as fair game—and that applies even if you’re not in or near Mob territory. Suppose you operate a stock-fraud “boiler room” on Wall Street or in a suburban shopping mall. Sooner or later, you’ll defraud someone who knows someone who’s in the Mob—and asks his/her Mob contact for help. The Mob guy, under the guise of “helping” his friend whom you’ve victimized, will call on you and announce that you have a new partner. What are you going to do—call the police? Nope: pay or die.

However, Mob guys want to avoid wars. And they’re not very internationally minded—they are wary of ethnic gangs that they don’t understand and can’t muscle easily. So, if you’re a member of a recent immigrant group (Asian, African, West Indian, Eastern European), and you establish a racket within that ethnic neighborhood, you’d be wise to either recruit a gang of thugs from the neighborhood, or ally yourself with other gangs of your ethnic background. The first time a neighboring Mob guy comes calling, just “show your colors”—muster the troops. He’ll retreat gracefully, or return with a higher-up and negotiate a business deal that might actually work to your advantage--as long as you keep both eyes wide open.

I want to try a different tack in this series:
WAS JOE BONANNO REALLY KIDNAPPED IN 1964?

Not likely.

In one of the most bizarre and widely publicized events in Mob history, Joe Bonanno, one of the most powerful of the Five Family Dons, was kidnapped on a busy New York City street by two thugs who fired a warning shot at his lawyer. He disappeared completely, and was widely rumored to be dead. Then, 19 months later, Bonanno, apparently none the worse for wear, strolled into a Federal courtroom in New York and blandly announced to the judge: “Your Honor, my name is Joseph Bonanno. I hear that you are looking for me.”

Bonanno did not reveal any details of his disappearance until the 1983 publication of his autobiography, “A Man of Honor.” Here’s how he tells the story:
His cousin, Stefano Magaddino, the Don of Buffalo, NY, grew jealous and resentful of Bonanno’s success and popularity in the NYC Mob. Magaddino convinced the Commission that Joe was complicit in a plot by Joe Magliocco, the Profaci Family Don and an ally of Bonanno’s, to whack Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese. The Commission summoned Bonanno to explain himself. When he refused, the Commission ordered him to step down as Don of his family, replacing him with Gaspar DiGregorio, Magaddino’s brother in law. This set off an internal war in the Bonanno Family between those loyal to Joe, and those who bolted to DiGregorio. To avoid potential assassins, Joe took to staying at various secret locations in and around NYC. Meanwhile, he was ordered to appear before a Federal grand jury investigating organized crime.

On October 20, 1964, the eve of his grand jury appearance, Bonanno had dinner in a NYC restaurant with his lawyers. William Maloney, his chief lawyer, invited Joe to spend the night at his Park Avenue apartment so he wouldn’t have to commute back and forth from Long Island. While strolling up Park Avenue, a car roared to the curb and two thugs grabbed Bonanno and forced him into the car. They pegged a warning shot at Maloney when he protested. The kidnapping and the shot drew the police, and the incident got page-one headlines in New York and elsewhere.

According to Bonanno, the thugs were Magaddino’s brother and son. They drove him to an upstate New York farmhouse, where Magaddino held him prisoner. The two cousins daily communed (there is no other word for it) via gestures and riddles in ways that Bonanno describes in such vague terms as to suggest surrealism. Finally, after six weeks, Magaddino set Bonanno free. He even ordered his son and brother to drive Joe anywhere he wanted to be. Bonanno says he ordered them to drop him off in El Paso, TX, the better to plant a hint that he might hole up in Mexico. Instead, he called an ally, who drove him to his home in Tucson, AZ. There Joe hid, grew a beard, bought old clothes and a cane, and shuffled around like a homeless man, eventually returning to NYC, where he did the same. He finally emerged, clean shaven and well dressed, in the Federal courtroom on May 17, 1966—19 months after the “kidnapping.”

In a word: this story stinks. If Bonanno had been hiding out at various NYC locales to avoid assassins, why would he suddenly decide to have a very public dinner in a very public restaurant with his lawyers, then take a very public stroll up a very busy street? How did Magaddino find out about his itinerary? If Magaddino had the wherewithal to get his brother and son close enough to “kidnap” Bonanno, whey didn’t they just shoot him in the street—thereby instantly solving Magaddino’s, DiGregorio’s and the Commission’s problem, and sending an unmistakable message to the remaining Bonanno loyalists: “The king is dead, long live the king”? What possible benefit could Magaddino have derived from kidnapping his cousin, holding him for six weeks—and then letting him go, presumably to cause him yet more trouble?

And, how very convenient that Magaddino, Bonanno’s mortal enemy, managed to “kidnap” him just hours before his scheduled appearance before a grand jury investigation organized crime. Gosh, what a coincidence!

The most likely story is that Bonanno had himself “kidnapped” by two loyalists in order to avoid appearing before the Federal grand jury investigating organized crime. Bonanno undoubtedly would have refused to answer questions, which would have landed him in jail for contempt of court, making him a sitting duck for Mob assassins. The “kidnapping” not only provided him with a ready-made excuse for not appearing before the grand jury, it also allowed him to continue to take it on the lam without appearing cowardly to the bulk of his remaining loyalists. The dinner with the lawyers set him up with an ironclad alibi: the next day, Maloney, his chief lawyer, would be able to face the judge and say, “Your Honor, my client had every intention of appearing before this august body. But, as Your Honor saw in the police report, and read in the newspapers, he was kidnapped by persons unknown and could not be here.” Faced with an eyewitness account from a member of the bar, the judge would be reluctant to issue a bench warrant charging Bonanno with being a fugitive from justice—thus keeping the FBI off Joe’s back and freeing him to wait until the grand jury’s term expired.

Bonanno cleverly won the battle, but he lost the war. His long absence left leadership of what remained of his family in the doubtful hands of his son Salvatore (Bill). The war continued, and murder and attrition whittled down his people. Bill went to prison on a wire fraud conviction (using an associate’s credit card) and Joe never truly regained control of what remained of his family. The Bonannos and their revolving-door leadership declined to the point that they no longer occupied a seat at the Commission’s table, until a measure of stability was restored by Joey Massino in the Nineties. And look where he ended up! Crime doesn’t pay.

Turnbull, I normally agree with everything you say but I must take exception with you saying "doubtful hands" of Bill Bonanno. How could he run a family while having to live up to his fathers expecations, not to mention keeping the secret of JFK's death, being CEO of Microsoft (so it hadn't been started yet, it was still his idea), AND Chief Advising Officer to the President of the United States at the same time. Bill Bonanno was the greatest leader of the family, just read his book, he'll tell you

Its the only book I had to put down and never went back to. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I wonder where he got his lieing ways from...

Funny DMC. Did you know that Bill Bonanno and Joe Pistone collaborated on a fictional mob book a few years back called THE GOOD GUYS ?

How those 2 egos fit in the same room to write the same book, I'll never know.

I did not know that, but both of their real life books were fiction enough......their fiction books must be what? Harry Potter?

You really wanna laugh ? It was the most entertaining book either one of them ever had a hand in. It's set in New York in the summer of 1985 and it's completely fictional. Pretty good.

Entertaining good or entertaining as in how bad it is?

Donnie Brasco was a good book but he got carried away at times, he's Joe Pistone not Ken Shamrock..