i dont think it was the bath avenue that was running the crack trade in bensonhurst it was a luchesse connected group led by james galione.

Officials Say Mafia Ran Crack Ring In Brooklyn

By RANDY KENNEDY

Published: October 2, 1996


In a case that law enforcement officials said erodes the myth that the Mafia will not stoop to street-level drug dealing, the United States Attorney in Brooklyn announced the arrest yesterday of 40 people believed to be members of a crack-cocaine ring operated by the Lucchese crime family.

The arrests, made before dawn by hundreds of city police officers and Federal agents, were all the more unusual because prosecutors said the dealers found their customers on the streets of Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge, two largely middle-class Brooklyn neighborhoods thought to have escaped the scourge of crack that swept through the city beginning in the 1980's.

Relying on wiretaps, surveillance and the accounts of former drug dealers who cooperated after being arrested, prosecutors said yesterday that the ring -- under the control of James Galione, a ''made'' or inducted member of the Lucchese family -- had assumed control of most crack and powder cocaine dealing in the neighborhoods as early as 1992.

''In the first instance, Galione actually took over existing street-level crack sales through these neighborhoods and inserted his own crack distributors,'' said Eric Friedberg, the chief of narcotics prosecution in the United States Attorney's office. To consolidate the family's control and increase its profits, Mr. Friedberg said, Mr. Galione exacted a ''street tax'' from other dealers not working for him, supposedly to protect them from rivals.

''In reality,'' he said, ''the tax insured the sellers' continued sales would be free from violent retribution by Galione and his managers.''

Mr. Galione's dealers, prosecutors said, were mostly men in their 20's who lived in the neighborhoods and relied on pagers and sophisticated codes to meet customers and deliver cocaine, in plastic bags, envelopes, and in one case, a Styrofoam cup.

Investigators were unable to say how much money the ring took in, but Carlo A. Boccia, the agent in charge of the New York field division of the Drug Enforcement Agency, said that more than $100,000 was passed on each week to Mr. Galione and other captains, including George Conte, who is now in prison awaiting sentencing in an unrelated murder and racketeering case. Mr. Galione's lawyer, Harry C. Batchelder Jr., did not return telephone calls to his office yesterday.

While the Lucchese family has been associated with the drug trade before -- the former head of the family was convicted in 1974 of running a huge heroin ring -- prosecutors said yesterday that its hands-on involvement with street-corner crack sales was unprecedented.

''Normally, one doesn't think of the local crack pusher as being affiliated with organized crime,'' Mr. Friedberg said. ''But in this case, that's what we found.''

Mr. Galione, who was also charged yesterday in an unrelated murder and racketeering case, was arraigned yesterday at the United States Courthouse in Brooklyn along with the 39 other defendants. All were held pending bail hearings next week.