In all the movies and documentaries I see joe and bill Bonanno always say that they have the no drug policy. In Bill's book he talks about it as well. But as much as their family has been involved with the sale of heroin. Carmine galante being the key man. Bill Bonanno never mentions Galantes name once in the book.

Wasn't it true that joe and carmine set up heroin sales between the U.S. and Sicily? Just wondering was it drugs or wasn't it?

This might have been talked about before but new here. Thanks

Well yeah, there's a reason for that. Joe and Bill made a pretty concerted effort in their biographies to make themselves out to be Vito and Michael Corleone and the Bonnano family in to a nostalgic, quirky but yet honorable Sicilian tradition. Mentioning the psychopathic drug dealer they employed would have ruined that image. Galante was in to drugs his whole career and if there was a "no drugs" policy while Bonanno was boss, he wouldn't have gotten to where he was by the 1950s.

Bonanno was up to his eyeballs in heroin. Contrary to the myths surrounding the age, most families at least dabbled in or tolerated drugs as long as made guys didn't get caught with it.

Yea I think it's funny when they deny it. But like they say it's the don't get caught policy not the don't do it policy.

It just seemed to me from all things I watched and read that the Bonanno family was one of the biggest narcotic families out of the five.

Joe Bonanno was heavy in drugs. So heavy in fact, of all the families that were involved in Narcotics, Vito Genovese was Joe's main rival in it. Omaha, San Francisco, and San Diego to name a few cities where the two families made connections in pushing their drugs. By late 1957, the three families that would gain a lot of influence in selling and distribuating drugs in the United States were, Bonanno, Buffalo, and Detroit families. It is also funny how Joe and Bill never mentions Galante in their books, he was the Bonanno underboss before he went to prison.

Exactly my point. That's what makes me wonder how much else was embellished in Bill's book.

But I guess that's the upside of doing your book you can write whatever the hell you want. Galante was a powerhouse in the 70's with the heroin trade. In America and Sicily.

Keep in mind that Bonanno set up the Sicilians who came over to the US to move the drugs around. That started in the mid to late 60's or earlier. The pizza connection was started by him from that 57 meeting in Sicily. plus as a holder in most of the cheese for pizzerias he collected on both ends...

I'm reading the Joe Bonanno: A Man of Honor book right now and it is so funny to see him write this book about honor and tradition and how it is not in his "tradition" to push narcotics yet narcotics couldn't have even been established as a traditional subject matter yet and just the fact that he doesn't think drugs are honorable seems so bogus its pretty far fetched but the book is still good.

Very true statement. Galante was the power house because of what him and joe set up with the Sicilians in the 60's.

The Bonanno's don't talk about carmine in any book and let him be the scapegoat for the narcotics. Just funny to me.

@ Dooley36, it was actually the Bonanno, Buffalo, and Detroit families that help set up the Sicilians to come over to the United States and move the drugs around.

Carmine Galante is credited with bringing over the Zips, but it was actually two soldiers in his crew in the 50's that help set that up. Giuseppe Buccellato who would transfer to the D'Angelo crew in the 1960's and Michaelangelo Vitale who may have been a capo of a crew that broke away from the Consolo crew (Galante crew) in 65'. Buccellato and Vitale hated each other and Vitale was in Sicily making sure the drug supply was flowing smoothly as well as bringing over more Sicilians for the Bonanno faction, before he was murdered in 67' by the Buccellato clan.

So why did they take so long to clip him? I can't remember the answer.
Thnx.

The Detroit family played a major part in the importation of heroin in this country....It was said that even NY got some of their supplies from Detroit...Two of their major trafficker's were Joseph Catalanotte and Francesco Coppola.....If memory serves me correctly i think Catalanotte became a government informer?

Galante was a force to reckon with and had a majority of the Bonanno crime family behind him who would fight the other families if they had killed him. Then Carmine did something stupid and that was treating some powerful members of the Bonanno crime family like shit, and cut them out of profits. They other families had their suspicions about some of his activities, but did nothing until they had the evidence they needed and Rastelli wanting him dead. It is a tricky thing with the Galante-Rastelli feud and I don't think we will ever know all the facts or the whole truth, but I will say that Joe Cerrito of San Jose liked Galante and despised Rastelli, something to do with a sitdown in New York between him, John Aquaro, Rastelli, and a few others at the sitdown, that caused Cerrito to move to San Jose from New York in 1941. Joe was with the Profaci crime family at the time. Galante was a heavy hitter, but his ego got him killed.

Thank you.

i hear your explanation but still the question is not ASWERED ... why and who had the final say in his death ???? if carlo gambino could not have bonnano wacked , you mean to tell me rusty wacked galante... no way so say goverment officials were involved ? I say he should have cut paul in , they both had SICILIAN root's

The Commission decided it. They had the finale say on it. Carmine Persico even voted against it, but he was out voted. There was already four votes for it, Chicago did not matter, and Rastelli could not vote on it, only bring it to the commission to decide. They did not want another Joe Bonanno incident on their hands again.

Yeah ok, the commission gave the order ...but he knew Paul from Brooklyn. he knew all those Genovese guy's ( Funzi , Gigante and he knew tony duck's from the garment center and from east Harlem . that should have been enough . i still say if he cuts one of those guy's in he live's

True. I heard that the Bonanno family was nicknamed "the heroin mafia" during that time by some of the press.

I'm curious, did the heroin importation in Montreal begin under Vic Cotroni or Nick Rizzuto? If it was under Vic, it makes Joe Bananno's claim a little ridiculous considering the Montreal family's bread and butter was /is the heroin trade, specifically smuggling heroin across the border into the US for American LCN to distribute to their street level dealers.

During Vic's leadership the Montreal family was (allegedly) a crew under the Bonanno banner. Even the Rizzutos paid lip service to the Bonannos until (I'm hypothesizing here, I may be getting some of my facts skewed, so.. You know, don't take this as scripture or anything) the George Sciascia hit.

It began with Lilo Galante already in the 1950s. He was sent to Montreal to organize gambling but ended up organizing heroin shipments instead (in addition to the gambling). For some reason, Montreal and its ports were suited for it, probably because Lilo and the ones who ended up under him had that port (or portions of it) under control. Did he do this on the sneak? I believe so. Anybody who is familiar with A man of honor and who has studied it as carefully as I have, can easily see that Joe Bonanno was clearly against drug dealing. The problem is that his Family was not. Now, you may ask yourself why didn´t Bonanno punish the members who were involved with the drug trade for breaking his rules? Well, then you need to ask yourself also, what does a boss do when finding out half of his Family is dealing in drugs?

That's awesome, thanks, I really don't know anything about the pre-Cotroni days. Most books on Montreal seem to begin at Vic Cotroni, as though he was the genesis of Italian OC in Canada. I wonder how things would be had Galante not been deported back to the US. Maybe not much different, but it's an interesting question to think about.

If memory serves, Galante had plans of moving to Montreal permanently. After he was deported, the Cotroni brothers were the top Bonanno dogs there. But the brothers were already pretty big in Montreal pre Galante. They simply allowed themselves to fall under his wing. This went smoothly. Becoming made men in a major US Family, probably had everything to do with it.

I found this the other day.
This is the author of Joe's book...he basically says that not only is it biased, as we all knew, but mostly made up too...
Changing events to make him sound "Brando" esq.

http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue2/2002/05/20/80275-joe-bonanno-1905-2002/

I think Joe set up the pipeline through Lilo, and the Sicilians to keep deniability, and his family out of it.

don’t forget another most loyal capo and usher at his wedding Natale Evola was arrested for drugs as well...

Yeah, I´m sure a non mob expert like Lalli would know if the book is biased. To know if something is biased, one would need to know also the other side of the story. And where the heck in that article says the book is mostly made up?

The article and Lalli´s disappointment can be summed up here:

"What kind of a Godfather was he, anyway, if he couldn’t do this small favor?"

He seems to want to believe that Bonanno was a godfather with power in 1983.

What I got out of it was the re telling of stories until he found one version he liked, like the kidnapping piece.
Or how Bonanno re told the anecdote in the written version but not how it actually happened. Or his "version" of what happened to Maranzano.

At first some might not have wanted to get into selling drugs; but then they realized how they could hypothetically make a large amount of money. Then they all very quickly got into selling drugs like cocaine, morphine/opium, cannabis, and alcohol during prohibition.

If I'm not mistaken, Joe Bonanno was given a pass because he was a founding member of the Commission. Otherwise he'd been been killed without a second thought for what he tried to pull.

Also, didn't Galante boast that he'd force Gambino to blow him in public for forcing Bonanno into retirement? Then there was the pizza parlor wars as well.

I thought he boasted about making Gambino shit his pants in Times Square when he gets out of the joint or something along those lines....He also had Costellos doors blown off their hinges on his mausoleum....That was a sick pup right there, signed his own death warrant.

What was up with Galante's bombing of Costello's tomb? What was the beef about?

There was no beef with them he was just sending out the message that the old way of doing things was dead...He was basically a loose cannon with brass balls...lol

something about he thought frank set him up in 58" with that drug bust... And he was close to Vito