Originally Posted By: BarrettM
Hey guys. I'm going to keep this pretty short and simple. Tonight I went to find out who the St Louis Crime Family bosses were before Tony Giordano took over. Plenty reputable sources say that at some point, Thomas Buffa was the Boss, while they were still answering to Kansas City. Same thing, over and over again, not really up for debate. However, I also knew (and read again) that Buffa was murdered in Lodi, California for taking the witness stand against Kansas City gangsters.

To make things short wouldn't this make him the first made informant to become a government witness? And Valachi the second? Thanks.


I am not familiar with Thomas Buffa. Do you know when (what year) he took the witness stand against the Kansas City gangsters? And what year was he killed?

Valachi is generally attributed as being the first turncoat. Yes, he was the first to tell it all, named all NY bosses, identified many made members, he talked about Mafia structure, mafia related events going back more than 30 years etc and he did this in front of TV cameras and in front of a Committee of Senators. So his testimony was huge! This had never been done before. And that is why Valachi was described as being the first. Valachi and his testimony was being used for political intentions. FBI, who had turned Valachi, had for a long time been runners up to rival FBN in regards to knowledge and awareness of the Mafia and was now in the driving seat in the war against organized crime. And also, Valachi´s testimony paved the way for leading politicians to later pass laws against the Mafia.
However, to my knowledge, the first testimony against the Mafia (provided by an "insider") was from Bartolomeo Fontano in 1921. Fontano gave evidence and testified against a gang the press had dubbed "The Good Killers". This group was clearly a crew within the early Bonanno Family and included Stefano Magaddino, Mariano Galante, Vito Bonventre and other Castellammarese mafiosi.

http://www.onewal.com/a014/f_goodkillers.html

In 1918, Ralph Daniello testified against his superiors in the underworld which cleared up several murders. But note that this case was not against the Mafia, but against Camorra gangs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Daniello

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