When Mike Genovese took over in January of 1985, he walked in to a well oiled machine as far as revenue is concerned. Pittsburgh had assumed total control of Youngstown and Warren, OH by that time after the fallout of Cleveland. By 1988, Jimmy Prato had died and Joey Naples and Lenny Strollo were co-boss of the area. Both had their own factions, but they split everything down the middle. In Youngstown, there was an illegal casino called the All American Club that the FBI considered the "largest illegal casino" in the country which grossed $20 million per year. The casino alone paid $250k per month to Mike Genovese who split the proceeds between his top 5 guys. Henry "Zebo" Zottola was the conduit between Youngstown and Pittsburgh and he came in every week to meet Bernie "The Jew" Altshuler who gave him the envelopes. This exchange usually took place at the Captain's Table restaurant inside the Ramada Inn Hotel, in which Strollo was the silent owner. On top of the illegal casino money, the monthly cut to Pittsburgh was anywhere between $20-$25k per month. By August of 1991, Joey Naples was gunned down at the construction site of the mansion he was building in Beaver Township, OH and Strollo assumed total control of the Youngstown Rackets. Keep in mind that Strollo was in prison from 1987-1990 and then on federal monitoring from the All American Club casino bust. On top of that, Joey Naples and Lenny Strollo also took a piece of all the drug money that was run in the African American community. By the mid 1980's, crack cocaine was the dominant street drug in the ghetto's and they put Bernie Altshuler in charge of overseeing all the top drug dealers and they took a cut of the proceeds as well. No exact figure was ever given, but the FBI estimated that is was anywhere from $10k-20k per month that went to Naples/Strollo.

One of the biggest moneymakers was bingo games at the local churches. The Youngstown/Pittsburgh faction had a skim in place for over 40 years all credited to one of the top guys in the family, Charles "Charlie Murgie" Imburgia, who was the longtime consigliere in Pittsburgh. Charlie lived in Warren, OH and owned the Sunrise Inn Pizza parlor/restaurant. Charlie's son in law was Frank Nannicola, who owned the largest distributorship of bingo supplies in the nation called, Nannicola Wholesale. Through Charlie's connections, churches and social halls ordered all their supplies from him and Charlie set up the skimming operation in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Western New York and Florida. Their biggest place that they infiltrated was the Pacar Center in New Castle, PA and this game grossed $3.1 million per year. Any church or social hall that had bingo games were skimmed in the tri state area and in Florida. This provided over $10 million per year of cash for the family. Check out a few of these articles:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XIJcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=41YNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1737,2532222&dq=joey+naples+murder&hl=en (Joey Naples Murder)

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19870406&id=C7UqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NWMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3986,4378429 (All AMerican Club Bust)

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19920201&id=YrUcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CGQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1129,15357 (Bingo Skimming Operation)

http://old.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010527ytngraphictextnat9.asp (The Strollo Enterprise-Corrupt officials he had in his pocket)

Last edited by JCB1977; 01/02/14 11:43 AM.