Is the Genovese family back to using front bosses?

The Genovese family has a knack of fooling the FBI and the NYPD by placing top wiseguys/capos in the boss's throne to think that they are the boss (hence the term front/puppet boss), but in actuality, someone else is running the show. Since the Chin's death in 2005, it seems that they have not had an official boss; I do not know if Barney Bellomo is the new boss as reported by Gangland News but he could be and may have been the de facto boss as early as 2006. The question is - are they pulling off the same stunt they did in the 1970s and 1980s?

If there is a guy with enough juice to make Bellomo his front boss after spending a decade behind bars I can't wait to read about him.

Gangland's source flat out said they couldn't confirm Bellomo has even been part of a single crime since he got out of jail.

I got no clue if he is the boss or not, Ill pull a wiseguy and wsit for what the feds have to say, but I'm pretty sure Barney learned his lesson about being a acting/front/whatever name you want to give it. He was cruising till Chin named him acting boss.

This.

I first heard about Bellomo when they saved his head looking for drugs to pass the lie detector and have waited years for this article to come out. Just because of the lineage of that family basically.

Considering its Capeci, and he had both law enforcement and underworld sources saying Bellomo is the boss, I'm content to take that at face value. It doesn't hold as much weight as if Bellomo was indicted as the boss tomorrow but it's close.

I should add that I find it funny how for years people weren't satisfied with there being no official guy on the throne. More than a few insisted there had to be somebody and Bellomo was usually the name that came up. Now that we have confirmation that there is an official boss that's actually suceeded the Chin, we're now going to start speculating it's not really Bellomo but someone else?

@ Ivey
You can see how a guy gets confused by the arguments made here sometimes, I mentioned this awhile back. Do we respect Capeci as a credible source, THE credible source, or is he a hack who has people writing for him if he contradicts what we think?



Same sorta thing happened with Cefalu and Cali, I get confused a lot lol....

I got no problem calling the boss, but I hope for Ivy's sake the feds don't say different.

If we believe everything LE and other sources state then that means Francesco Palmeri is the gambino underboss

Man i need your backup on other threads

That was italian law enforcement that labeled him underboss and some media outlets here repeated it, but then it was ultimately capeci who set the record straight about him, that he wasnt even made let alone underboss. So your not really making the point you think you are.

i know all that and it was a joke hence the at the end

It was sneaky then informants told it to the feds so what's the point. Just keep your self off of wiretaps and use the people you've known forever I said it before you think he gives his friend tom cafaro his button if he's boss no one can say no. Guys dad flipped but he did a ton of time for the family.

Capeci has proven himself to be one of the most informed and consistent mob journalists out there. Right up there with Raab or Robbins. Does that mean he's infallible? No. But he's more well informed and still has better resources than anyone on these forums. I don't care who they are.

Both the Amuso/Crea and Cefalu/Cali things were rather unusual. But it just goes to show that, once in a while, his sources may say different things and he's not afraid to point that out. That gives him more credibility in my book. And it really shouldn't be used as an excuse by every armchair expert on the forum to float their own theories, which they usually pull out of their ass.

There is no more fooling the FBI in 2016. The FBI would just go to gangsterbb and find out who the real boss is.
Heck, if the FBI wanted a complete list of ALL Philly members, just look at Joey's Twitter account pictures.

If the Feds were to say different I'd go with them. But that would be surprising since it seems Capeci has both law enforcement and underworld sources saying Bellomo is the boss.

gangland is respected by everyone even mobsters according to capeci alot of these guys have gangland article printed of then deleveried to them because the know hi articles are good and for guys in prison they are able to keep up with news from the street geogre borgesi is a well known example of this

here is a old article from 2013 not full thing


Gang Land A Must Read For Feds and Wiseguys

Testimony at the mob trial in Philadelphia has also led to several shout-outs for Gang Land, which is apparently must reading for both mobsters and the agents who track them.

Joaquin (Big Jack) Garcia, the retired FBI agent who worked undercover for years building a case against Greg DePalma and the acting hierarchy of the Gambino crime family a decade ago, discussed the phenomenon on the witness stand.

Garcia, who was called as an expert witness to provide details about mob structure and protocol, testified about a key piece of evidence against Ligambi — a secretly recorded conversation of a four-hour lunch meeting at LaGriglia, a popular North Jersey restaurant in Kenilworth. The tape was made by the late Nicholas (Nicky Skins) Stefanelli (see below), a Gambino soldier.

Prosecutors have called the session a meeting of the "board of directors" of organized crime. Ligambi and three other Philadelphia mobsters met with six members of the Gambino organization, including John Gambino who was described as a capo and part of the "administration" then running the family.

During his cross-examination, Garcia said that Domenico (Italian Dom) Cefalu is now the Gambino boss, but at the time of the meeting, in May 2010, the Gambinos were being directed by a panel that included John Gambino.

Cefalu's ascension in 2011 was well documented, he said, and under cross-examination said one of the first public disclosures of the change was by Gang Land.

"Capeci is pretty knowledgeable," Garcia said about the regular author of the column.

"Isn't it true guys in prison read Gang Land News to keep up?" asked defense attorney Christopher Warren.

"Absolutely," said Garcia. "A lot of it is good information."

But the Bureau of Prisons does its best to keep inmates from being as tuned into Gang Land as their federal pursuers .

Later in the trial it was disclosed that Warren's client, George Borgesi, routinely had his wife print out and mail the Gang Land column to him since he could not subscribe from behind bars. But a prison official testified that for undisclosed "security reasons,"Borgesi's jailers, who routinely read all incoming mail inmates receive, stopped Borgesi from receiving the weekly column.

At the time, according to trial testimony, Borgesi was an "inmate of concern" who was under investigation by the FBI and all his incoming and outgoing mail was read, copied, and forwarded to the FBI.

A BOP spokesman declined to discuss the "security" issues that Gang Land posed during the Borgesi investigation, but as a general rule, he said, the wardens of all BOP facilities make those determinations "on a case by case basis."