Galante Hit Question

Group,

Besides Whack Whack, who were the other two shooters at the Galante hit? For some reason, that info is not usually mentioned in most retellings of that event.

Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato, Dominick Trinchera, Dominick Napolitano and Louis Giongetti are listed as shooters and are sure. If you want to believe to their books also Kuklinski and Sheeran said that killed Galante.

Ah yes. Thanks Furio.

I read some guy russell mauro. He was a bonanno soldier who massino had whacked in 1991 cause he was a threat think the cosa blog had wrote something on gim and guys said he was the real deal and didnt deserve to get killed. His brother shlwed up at asoros trial and was screaming at one of the witnesses who set his brother up for the hit.

That's interesting pmac.

Furio, I actually did hear/read all the names you mentioned, just coundn't recall them or locate them.

In many retellings of the event, right before Galante is hit, one of the hitmen yell "Get em Sal!"

Could it be that one of the above mentioned hitmen was nicknamed Sal? Or maybe Salvatore was a middle name? Witnesses heard the Get him Sal statement, but that could have been to throw off the audience, since everyone had a mask on.

Furio Sheeran did not claim to have been involved in the Carmine Galante hit.. You're confusing that hit with I believe Joey Gallo.. Check your sources pal... The Iceman did claim credit for this hit I believe, but no one obv buys that he was one of the 4 involved...!

Alfa- Whack Whack was Bruno Indelicato's nickname correct?

Yes Sir.

Mikey I wrote because I don't believe to it,I shortly ended the iceman book and maybe made a mistake with sheeran anyway whack whack is with bruno the nicknames of anthony indelicato.

Right i know you said that Furio, but thats not correct Sheerans book didnt mention him being involved with the Galante hit, i think you were mixing his book up with Kuklinski's book.. The iceman did claim to be involved in the Carmine Galante hit....Frank Sheerans book mentioned him being involved in Joey Gallos hit as the lone gunman.. Thats all i was saying.

Appreciate the clarification on Brunos nick name i thought so its so similar to Ang Ruggieros nickname

Mikey you re right I confused the 2 books. The Galante hit is like the gallo murder, everyone say that was the shooters.

I don't believe very much of what "Iceman" says. As I recall, Cesar Benventre and one other man were dining with Galante and were the ones who set him up for the kill. Caesar was supposed to have gotten up and walked out of the courtyard and maybe waved the other 3 in. Is this correct, or is my ancient memory failing me.

I know Trinchera is often credited with this hit, what evidence is there that supports this? Informers? If so, does anyone have a link to the source? I just have a hard time believing a 42 year old, 350+lbs. capo was part of the hit team, something about that doesn't ring true. Any information would be appreciated.

That might have crossed my mind also.

The accounts given of that day say that the three hitmen jogged into the restaurant. I can see Whack Whack jogging. Not "Big Trin".

Some account I read somewhere said he was standing guard as the other 2 shooters entered the courtyard. As far as who shot who, there are plenty of recent Bonanno turncoats, you think there would be some more information out there.

There really doesn't appear to be much convicting Bruno. Trinchera is listed in one court doc as a member of the conspiracy. "Big Trin" isn't described as a shooter outright. His role isn't really clarified.

According to Selwyn Raab's definitive "Five Families," the Zips Baldo Amato and Cesare Bonventre, who were sitting with Galante at the time, also participated in the assassination. He also says that Joe Massino was stationed outside in a car, to act as a backup shooter.

Think it was in a capeci article massino new it was gonna happen but had no participation with it. Was sonny black and sonny reds. Either sal vitale or massink brought up that guy big trin as a shooter when they killed him and sonny red saying they were making a move against the family like they did galante. Also would guess russell mauro was in the phil lucky camp and another reason massino wanted him dead.

The court doc I read did in fact say that evidence showed that Bonventre joined in on the shooting. I am assuming this was ballistic evidence.

So far from the little I have seen, it seems like there is more to convict the bodyguard Bonventre of the shooting than there is to convict anyone else.



Massino had to know. He was too close to the top. The principal players had to pick a side before the cigar was smoked.

The Cigar was too dangerous. It probably took as long as it did to hit him because the Commission had to find out who was with who.

Therefore all the captains' positions had to be known. I was just wanted to know more about the three masked killers. Most mob hits don't involve men running through the street carrying heavy machinery in broad daylight. The Galante hit was bolder than the Anastasia hit by far.

Massino said on the stand he knew but had no role. Think he said he was bumped to capo after galantes hit. Why would galante have had him as a capo when he was rustys guy. I remeber massino said when he first got made he was directly under galante then phil lucky. Probaly why he didnt have a role. It was sonny reds blacks and that guy phils shooters. Massino said asoro personly gave him money and jewels from the luth. Heist in dec78 but maybe he gave it to him after galantes death and phil rusty re arranged the whole family. He must have broke all galantes capo and put all these younger guys up. Bruno massino and the big trin. Think spero became a capo to.

Surprised galante didnt see it coming. He got the wool pulled rite over his eyes. I read the feds kept telling him his life was n danger. That guy caesar was bumped to capo to.

I think the main reason he got whacked was because he didn't want to share his Sicilian heroin pipeline with the other families. "Follow the money" is always a good bet when diagnosing Mob hits.

Absolutely. He thought his pipeline was his personal property because he was probably one of the main principals who set it up, if not the main principal. Now why he thought he was stronger than the other four families could be chalked up to mental instability, or treachery. Maybe he had secret backing from some bosses who then pretended to know nothing of him when he became persona non grata.

Someone pretended to be on his side behind the scenes. Obviously the Sicilians did. I suspect some from New York also.

In the end he came off looking like a psychopath who flipped off the entire Commission and thought the Sicilians would side with him against all of New York. That makes no sense and I highly doubt that scenario.

pmac, that's just more circumstantial proof to me that Galante had friends on the Commission, friends who disowned him when the going got rough.

If he was going head to head against the entire Commission, he should have been rolling in full military formation at all times. Heavily armed guards, bullet proof cars, maybe even vests, you name it.

This was a good thread on topic......




http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...4861#Post884861

Thank you for that Cabrini.

I read through it. I saw the opinion there that Galante thought that some subsidiaries of the Bonanno family up in Canada were enough to give him the muscle needed to bully his way in NY. I can't say that sums it up for me.

You know Cabrini, Galante's situation reminded me of the Caponigro fella who took out Angelo Bruno after being misled by Funzi Tieri who pledged false support for Caponigro's ambitions. I did a routine check of who were the bosses at the time of Galante's elimination....Tieri was the boss of the Genovese.

Could Galante have been misled by Tieri?

I'm not sure, but from Ive read they were rivals, and Tieri wasn't really threatened by him at all, some obscure article, I'll try to dig around for it....

With the amount of time Galante bullied the Bonnanos into submission (5 years), one could almost get the idea he was being used as a chess piece by another family to take over their heroin pipeline, meaning, Galante's intention might not actually have been to hog everything for himself.

I just don't buy the lunatic theme. This guy spoke several languages and was internationally sophisticated.

@Alfa

Aaah, I get where you are going, but there's a couple things you gotta remember;


The heroin trade was controlled from the other side of the Atlantic, from Sicilian mafia families. Tieri was Neapolitan, plus the Genovese, and heroin, at this point in time? I'm not sure about that, it was kinda the Bonnanos out front, Gambinos close behind, you had Gas and Vic in the Luchesses running narcotics. But I've always read Casso had his own direct connect to the French connection, as well as importing his own weed.

Also that thread wasn't about Galante counting on Bonnano muscle or Canadian muscle. Guys were confused as to WHY he was able to muscle them, as well as how large a crew he MUST HAVE HAD to be able to pull it off.


What I countered with is that he wasn't so much as feared as he was TOLERATED, until he wasn't needed anymore. The families, I think feared losing access to the heroin market. He was too easy to kill. He had no super large army of killers. His source of power was his link in the heroin chain, I don't think the Sicilian families wanted their business disrupted.

That was also my other main point, I don't think it was the Bonnano families heroin operation, so much as the Sicilian mafias heroin operation, in PARTNERSHIPS with the NY families. Kinda like what is most likely occurring now with the NY families and the Calabrians....

@ Alfa

You might like The Sixth Family, or Business or Blood, they pretty much cover all this, including the Galante shooters, Napolitano, and Indelicato (they got his palm print right? Only non- boss locked up on Commision case right?)


It explains how the heroin trade in the 80s was kinda a Sicilian thing, 50s, yeah that's all American LCN.

@Cabrini, I'll definitely be reading 6th Family. How could I resist?

I get the idea that Galante may have been merely tolerated, because somehow he kept his business networks exclusive. Tolerated until his business networks could be stolen out from underneath him. But I still am not quite buying the idea he was profiting from his H pipeline all by himself. That's as bad as declaring yourself Capo Dei Capi. Is there any record that Lilo Galante demanded all bosses pay him tribute? And let's face it, if he was actually bucking the entire Commission, he might as well demanded tribute from them too. I'm not buying it. His narcotics ambitions are directly at odds with the purported suicide mission he was supposed on to buck the entire Commission.

I know this is an unscientific thing to say: but I am going to suspect treachery and duplicity on Funzi Tieri's part until he is proven innocent.

Let me add this: For Galante to try and disrupt the order that was the Commission before he took over the Bonannos meant that he had to have strong backing he could trust in. The Bonnanos were/are one of the smaller families. So are the Luccheses and Colombos. Backing from those families would have meant little. Carmine had to have been falsely assured that he was backed by either 1. Paul Castellano (who in the words of Sal Gravano was a "massive guy with massive connections", someone connected to Sicilian mafia) or 2. Funzi Tieri. I doubt it was Paul because Paul had his own zip connections and obviously they differed from the zips who assisted Galante, or so it seems. Paul's zips just could not have been Galante's zips. The Sicilian mafia families connected to Paul could not have been the same clans assisting Galante.

Even look at who whacked the Cigar, or who was was accused of whacking him. Bonannos, Bonannos being congratulated in front of the Ravenite by Gambinos. Where is the Genovese (Tieri) presence?

Funzi definitely was not scared of him, he killed some guys that were working with Galante and afterwards had Tommy Casina tell Little Moe to let Galante know that if he thought that Funzi owed him anything, that he should could come see him. As expected, Galante never followed up with Funzi. Galante was never going to hit another boss, he just wanted to keep what was a good thing going. At most he had kind of a cold war thing going with the Gambinos with regard to the drugs and the pizza shops. There is a good article on gangsters inc. that was done some years ago that sets it out pretty clearly.

As for who set up the hit, I tend to think that the Gambinos were the family most directly involved with the Rastelli loyalists given the fact that after the hit went down Bruno Indelicato and some other guys including Stevie Beefs were observed meeting with Neil Dellacroce at his club.

I just read an excerpt from Joe Coffey's book that said Rastelli was being visited by Gambino captains while in the hospital. That's also part of the puzzle that helped LE connect the dots. But again, where are the Genovese in all of this?

Rusty the boss is locked up in late 75 to 83 on extortion charges. He must have made galante his acting boss and the other bosses must have been okay with it. Galante according to fbi files and a couple turncoats inducted my guess 50 guys into the family. The old fbi file says he inducts tony mirra sonny black and al walker and others in the family dec 75. In 77 massino says he was inducted in a queens barroom with spero and the chillis. Frank lino says he inducted on his bday in october 77 with 10 others. Frank coppa was made at a different ceremony. Some guy joey damico was also made that year. So other bosses are not letting galante make all these guys if its not ok with them. I wonder what galante did to piss off traffcante that he was in on the hits. I read somewhere neil dellctoce and him hated one another and like weve seen the pics of him hugging the shooters at bis club. Maybe tony ducks had something to say or probaly that guy funzi.

I get you pmac. According to the rules, you couldn't even make a guy if the Commission disapproved.

http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/death-in-the-afternoon-the

This may be the article you speak of.

OK so I purchased the Sixth Family. I have read up to chapter 14 so far. The Galante hit is covered, and the informant is one Frank Lino.

This Lino says the actual killer of Galante was Russel Mauro. Bruno Indelicato supposedly shot Turano and Coppola, the first a cousin and made man, the second a captain, both Bonannos. Big Trin was in the restaurant keeping everyone seated. Outside of the restaurant was Massino, Phillip Giacone, JB Indelicato, and Sonny Red.

This account is a little hard to believe. According to this account of the Galante hit, you have two obese mobsters in Big Trin and Massino, with Philip Giacone, JB Indelicato, Sonny Red, Bruno Indelicato, as well as Russell Mauro all arriving by automobile.

Now while a Mercury Montego is an awfully mean looking automobile...it could probably scare the sh-t out of Cristine, it is absolutely not holding all of those people. But supposedly another car was present to block off traffic to Knickerbocker Avenue while the hit went down. All seven people could have fit into two cars.

Why did Sal Catalano lam it to Italy for a few months right after the Galante hit? He was king of the zips on Knickerbocker. What is up with the witness account of the Galante hit where someone recalled one of the shooters yelling "Get em Sal!"?

Could Catalano have been one of the shooters?

Both of Galante's bodyguards, who joined in on the shooting, Bonventre and Amato, were both Castellammarese. This links Joe Bonnano in with Galante's financial ambitions. Joe Bonnano, Carmine Galante, and Carmine Persico attempting to form an alliance.

Alpha massino said on the stand he knew but wasnt there think vitale co signed him on it or they would have caught him in lies. You figure the guy russel was a queens guy with phil lucky. Sonny red puts his kid there. Big trin is there he becomes a capo after theres probaly a stolen crash car with a driver on the street and galantes 2 body guards who never lifted theres guns. 3 shooters run in plus the 2 body guards and a get away driver would be anuff. Theres alot of linos testimony in that book i think thats were i read he said it was his bday and some zips who were inducted with him in a apartment in little italy was all in Sicilian.

Thanks pmac. Only one thing: Bonventre is positively confirmed as a shooter due to ballistics.

Also, no one mentions Santo Giordano the zip. His prints were also lifted from the blue Mercury Montego, but from the drivers side. So he is suspected of being the real driver. Because Whack Whack's prints didn't come from the drivers side, he is considered a shooter. That now makes 8 assassins. Very problematic.

I know this next question could be a new thread, but I need to ask it:

How were the Bonannos inducting Sicilian mafia men? Some say that a man of honor can only have one allegiance. That might be true, but I don't think it was/is that simple. Bonventre and Amato were both Castellammarese. Then they swore allegiance to the Castellammarese clan in NY, aka the Bonannos. What it looks like at first glance, and I know this sounds crazy, but what it looks like is that Joe Bonanno merged his family into the Sicilian mafia. Maybe Carlo [Gambino] did also. How else to resolve the divided loyalty question?

Simple. They weren't made before coming to America and so free to be inducted into the Bonannos.

Theres a good article about some old colombo soldier nick rizzo in gangland says caesar and baldo came to the us in early 70tys and worked as brick layers for him as a favor to someone in the bonannos. Then they probaly seen the guys in the life and said thats what we want like most kids. After sal toto kills that capo licata i think he takes over probaly inducted by galante then opens the floodgates to all them young zips on that ave. What did galante do in 1978 to have rusty and all the other bosses turn on him. They allowed him to induct abunch of new guys into his family 76 77 what changed after that? I think the bosses found out he was talking to old man joe in arizona partly. He went to jail for i think 1 yr on paroe violation between 7879.after his death all the loyal capos to him got broken down. Thats why massino got bumped up that guy casear big trin the young guy bruno.

@Alfa

You aren't combining the three capos hit with the Galante one are you? I ask cause you mention Massino and Giordano? I thought that was the three capo hit...

Also the 8 shooters? Did you combine em? Also Bonaventre and Amato were there already right? Guarding Galante?

Edit: I looked it up, they were all there, except the two zips were with Galante. Two cars would be enough for 6 guys right?

Also, you gotta keep reading, they address the whole divided loyalty thing in the book..

Also Alfa, from what I can gather, it took so long to hit Galante cause they needed permission from Sicily, that they weren't about to give if it upset their narcotics network.


You gotta understand, like when In the book, it says Sonny Red took a consignment and didn't feel obligated to pay. See he thought that cause he felt he outranked the Sicilians over here, and he was right,he did. But what he didn't get was that when it came to narcotics, that didn't count for shit. If it were a matter of screwing one mobster, or a small group of guys, that's one thing. But half of Palermo might have been invested in these drug shipments. To think of this as AMERICAN MAFIA PROPERTY is a fatal miscalculation of the situation.
Also, I think in D'Arcos book he said they used TWENTY-SEVEN blockers to make sure the shooters got away. And in the follow up three capo murders, they took the extraordinary step of subcontracting the burial work to a crew in another family (Gottis crew), so a lot of guys involved isn't exactly unheard of.

The thing about the merging of the families, you are preaching to the choir my man. Look at the Partnership/Partinicos, the Bonnano/Castallamarese, the Gambino/Palermo families, same god damn structure, but no one sees it it seems. And today you have the Gambinos trying to duplicate this with Calabrese gangsters. And the common denominator is narcotics. It's hard to see if you follow the MAFIA, but if you follow the narcotics industry, you start to see repeating patterns, repeating structures, regardless of ethnicity or whatever.

That would certainly have to be the case. I considered that. It just seems like there is something more going on there, a merger of sorts. Just wanted to mention that.

Here's another thing. The Zips were in many cases....illegal aliens. They were brought in to move contraband for the bosses back in Europe and in New York. Their deportation was anticipated. Therefore, why make them Bonanno men? What you end up with is a bunch of Bonanno soldiers, and in some cases captains, deported to Italy. When there, they join back up with the mafia there. It had to be anticipated, that they'd eventually be deported and have to answer to a Sicilian, not the New York Bonannos. It's like one organization, one family.

Joe Bonanno I believe was present when the meeting was called to form the Cupola. Could he have been a member is all I am saying. I know no one really knows, so I won't keep going on about it.

If Sonny Red really did that, that was crazy. But a lot of times what it seems like is they come up with excuses for why they hit someone after the fact. Like Anastasia. I don't for one second believe he was whacked for selling memberships. That's an excuse. It might be a made up accusation that he stole a Sicilian consignment. As a matter of fact, it makes no sense, because weren't the three capos killed over drugs? This means the three capos wanted to be the masters of their own Sicilian connections. Stealing from those connections would be counterproductive.

The only people that are really connected to the Galante hit, evidence wise are who? Santo Giordano, Bruno, and Bonventre. And we know Salvatore Catalano lammed it back to Italy for a few months after the hit.

Licata apparently wasn't aware of what the Bonanno leadership had decided to do in partnership with Sicilian mafia and the Zips. It looks like he got bumped off when he somehow got in the way. captain or no captain, he wasn't told.

Galante earned his enemies. He was whacking Gambinos. That'll do it.

In my opinion it is very likely Galante was in league with Joe Bonanno. Joe Bonanno might have even been the one who put Galante up to it, to take over the Canadian to US heroin trade. As a matter of fact, Joe Bonanno being run out of New York...was probably trying to get Montreal back. When Joe got run out on a rail, he was probably kicked out of the Canadian-US border heroin racket too. Obviously Galante would be an in for him to return through a back door.

Galante's ally, Persico, was boss of the same family Bonanno aligned himself with...the Profacis. Just an observation. Galante likely was antagonistic to all of Joe Bonannos old enemies. Problem was, Galante was outnumbered on the Commission the same way Joe Bonanno was.

Alpha that guy santo was a shooter in the 3 capo hit. Hes the won the accendtly got shot and crippled then died like 20yrs later in a plane crash in montreal i think i read. He was a avid small plane flight guy. Guess your legs dont work and you put in some many hits for the family they buy you a small plane. Sixth family was a good book i read that at myrtle beach when i first joined the board probaly 5yrs ago. But how the Canadian author thought all rizzuto family and guys jn the book were untouchable. Like everyone has been killed. Thats not organized crime up there thats a clusterfuck they were doing 1000times better under the bonanno family before massino fliped. I still think the whole enigma of them being a satellite of the 5familys helped them. Today thats gone correct?

For sure P. They must've lost their leadership in Canada when the Bonannos partially collapsed. No choice but to go it alone.

Santo Giordano is definitely listed in The Sixth Family as the owner of one of the fingerprints on the shooters getaway car from the Galante hit. I double checked it after Cabrini asked about it. What it clearly looks like is: Santo was the driver of the blue Mercury Montego.

If Giordano was a pilot, he probably was pulling a Barry Seal using his plane for transport of you know what.

@ pmac
I get what you mean, but this is the thing, I think it's shortsighted to say they aren't organized crime. Outside of a blood oath and burning Saint card, I can't see what exactly you think they CANT do. Run a sports book? Corrupt politicians? Secure public works contracts, white collar type corruption? If you are talking about just a codified hierarchy, I mean, sometimes I don't get you guys on here.


I could give you guys a street gang with a hierarchy, and 3000 members, but I guarantee you will say, no, it's not organized crime. I give you a family clan with 30- 40 core members moving a thousand kids a month, laundering untold millions, corrupting all kinds of politicians, and it's like, no it's not organized crime. And this is solely based off a comparison with NY Cosa Nostra, you can't seriously believe it's the ONLY CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION IN THE WORLD, right?

The Mexican cartels aren't OC. Doesn't that sound silly? See I've said before these Italian groups from Italy more resemble Latin American crime syndicates more than American Cosa Nostra. They are more drug cartel first, extortion syndicate second, just like the prohibition era gangs were liquor merchants first, gambling and all that came after they got the funds. The prohibition era gangs LOOK LIKE THE DRUG CARTELS, key difference, no family members.( And actually, consider the Genna family....)

Did you take a look at the Map of Italian families strax put up? Sicily has like 161 families? Sicily is tiny. Every family can't have 150 members and 1500 associates. I would bet you a VAST MAJORITY of them don't fit your definition of OC. Same for most Calabrian clans, and probably Naples clans too. Ditto for the gangs of Rome. Hell, the Russians too. Now, we aren't going to sit here and say there is no ORGANIZED CRIME IN ITALY CAUSE THE SYNDICATES DONT LOOK LIKE THE FIVE FAMILIES? Italy might be the FUCKIN CAPITOL OF ORGANIZED CRIME LOL


For me American LCN is most comparable to like, the Japanese Yakuza. Large organization, with a codified hierarchy, initiation rituals, integrated into the mainstream business and corporate structure, largely out in the open, accepted by society. Most their income from gambling and extortion, infiltration of public works and such, sound familiar?



It's like saying Luciano NEEDED the mafia structure to be successful, or move liquor. Like he couldn't charter shipments from Europe, get the the stuff ashore. Keep a tight trucking schedule to get the stuff to his distributors. Like Costello couldn't bribe anyone without the mafia telling him how, or run a gambling operation. They were doing all this stuff, BEFORE they joined the mafia, with a small core group of key gangsters, I am so serious, if you do a comparison they look like these drug clans, again just no family members. (I think this came later, as they began to understand that they needed product and trust, nothing else) In fact, the fact that they were SO organized was what made em attractive to the Cosa Nostra.

This is why I recommended The Sixth Family, it explains how all of this rigid hierarchy and rules becomes an impediment to business. And understand, these mafia rules and regulations are a pain for a mafia business man the same as government rules and regulations are a pain for legit businessmen. It's the flip side of the same coin.
Edit: ( This was something else they dramatized on the TV show Gommorah, they had a Calabrese gangster in the second season who was chafing under the Ndrangheta leadership cause he had to get permission for every little thing or move he wanted to make. They wacked him, sorry for the spoiler lol)

My last point made clear in the Sixth Family book, GLOBALIZATION. HUGE RAMIFICATIONS ON NOT JUST OC, but business in general. The lean structure of these gangs reflect a need to be everywhere in the world. These guys do business on the phone and on planes. A single neighborhood, he'll even a single city is just too damn small. Sticking to one ethnic group for business, too damn small for guys like Luciano or Rizzuto.


That TV show Gommorah demonstrated this dramatically during the second season. The kids father is obsessed with controlling his neighborhood stronghold, but the son had a direct connection, and had the capacity to ship cocaine around the world. He was like, basically unconcerned with the territory, indeed, he didn't even need a gang as no one dared touch him for fear of killing the money train. ( similar to the Galante situation) And he was basically above everyone, while they killed each other fighting over the turf, and the right to move his product. His pops was stuck in the past.....

Also, as far as Galante making guys and whatnot, I think that was Nicky Marangelo, the underboss and Mike Sabella who let him get away with playing boss when he wasn't.



They narrowly escaped death and got shelved as a result.


Major difference between the Gambino Sicilian heroin group and the Bonnano group is the Gambinos seemed to have absolutely NO INTERESTS in the Gambino hierarchy, only moving dope and money. There were no senior Gambinos trying to muscle them or skim a piece,they KNEW better. Shit Bruno was a Boss and he knew to just take his cut and shut the fuck up.

Do you guys think Pasquale Contes operation was an independent one? He seemed to answer to Paul, not the Cherry hill guys, or Sicily. I guess he was in charge of American crew of Sicilian guys? He has kinda always been an enigma to me, was he part of the Pizza thing, or something entirely different? I could never figure out....

@ Alfa

I wholeheartedly agree the Anastasia membership thing has always struck me as completely ridiculous. It's one of those cases where I really feel like history got it wrong, it just makes no sense. Like you said' these guys had to get vetted right? You can't even introduce another mobster without a previous association and three people, and they weren't just letting anyone in were they?

How the fuck does anyone SNEAK, like 50 guys past the Commision? Only thing I can think of is that Costello needed him as an Ally so bad that he tolerated it, and ran interference with the other Commision members. He DID after all, overlook mafia rules and ok Manganos murder... And he was of the Luciano school, business before all. Just a thought...

Okay, finally I found the excerpt I've been looking for, it explain why I believe in the 70- mid 80s,the Gambinos were the top family in my opinion, also note the name Vito Ciancimino, there is a documentary up in a thread right now explaining how this guy was THE MAFIA POLITICIAN, like this group was the POWER in Sicily, combined with an American mafia family. What equivalent did the Genovese or any other family have in Sicily like this? If you discount the Sicilian component, you only see half the family.




Heroin trafficking
In the 1970s, like many Sicilian mafiosi, Inzerillo got involved in heroin trafficking. The Inzerillo-clan allied with relatives in Sicily such as the Spatola and Di Maggio families and other Mafia clans like the one ruled by Stefano Bontade.

The Inzerillo-Spatola-Di Maggio-Gambino network and other Sicilian suppliers dominated heroin trafficking since the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s when US and Italian law enforcement were able to significantly reduce the heroin supply of the Sicilian Mafia (the so-called Pizza Connection).

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART HERE, THEY MAKE NO DISTINCTION, THEY TREAT IT LIKE ONE FAMILY...


According to the Palermo prosecuting office: "These four families, living partly in Sicily and partly in New York, form a single clan unlike anything in Italy or the United States � the most potent family in Cosa Nostra.






John Gambino is the converging point in the United States for all of the group�s activities in Italy, and the final destination for its drug shipments. Salvatore Inzerillo has emerged as the Gambino brothers� principal interlocutor, the central personage in Sicily, with myriads interests and heavy capital investments. � Rosario Spatola is just below them in structure."

Salvatore Inzerillo coordinated most of the heroin trafficking to the US for the Mafia families involved. They supplied the Sicilian faction of Gambino Family � the so-called Cherry Hill Gambino�s who were related to the Inzerillo�s � in New York through Inzerillo�s cousins John, Giuseppe and Rosario Gambino with heroin that was refined in laboratories on Sicily from Turkish morphine base. According to Giovanni Falcone, the investigating magistrate who was assigned the investigation into heroin trafficking case, the group had made about US$600 million. The proceeds were re-invested in real estate. Inzerillo's brother-in-law, Rosario Spatola, who in his youth peddled watered milk in the streets of Palermo, became Palermo�s largest building contractor and biggest taxpayer of Sicily, thanks to his close relationship with Christian Democrat politician Vito Ciancimino.

This also helps to explain why I believe they are trying to reactivate this structure today with Calabrian gangsters. An organization that reflects the reality of Globalization in this day and age.....

Couple weeks ago, antimafia had a post about Paulo Gambino meeting with Toronto mobsters in 1970, and one was a man with the surname Adamita. Now read this article closely and look at the connections HISTORICALLY, these are NOT NEW DEVEOLOPMENTS, but a continuation of something they have been doing for DECADES...


http://www.repubblica.it/2008/01/sezioni...oy-english.html

Patsy Conte's an interesting figure. I'm inclined to believe he was part of the Pizza Connection thing. He was charged with being involved in the murder of Pietro Alfano, a defendant in the Pizza Connection trial. The charges were dropped later though.

Must have been worth a lot. DiLeonardo testified that Patsy Conte was an "international heroin dealer, probably one of the biggest in the world at that time" (1989). On top of that he had supermarkets and was involved in construction. Still alive I think.

One family with more than one boss.

Being as Tommy Lucchese and Carlo Gambino's progeny intermarried, you can add the Lucchese family in there too. Lucchese might have been a wannabe in the scheme of the interrelated Gambino clans, but he was a successful wannabe.

You're very right. Just like NY needed to line up interests with bosses in Sicily to take Galante down, the Canadian bosses/captains lost their legitimacy in the eyes of their local competitors when their foreign padrones collapsed.

In other words, the Canadian hot war ran in tandem with a cold war in two other countries and another continent.

Likewise the conflict between Galante/Bonanno/Persico versus the rest of the Commission IE Tieri-Castellano-Corallo was a hot war mirroring whatever cold war that was being waged by the Inzerillo-Di Maggio-Gambino group against the Castellemarese and whatever other clans were with them. I'm making educated guesses here only.

I don't get how they were better off when they cut ties back in like 1999?
After Sciascias murder right?

And why would they be better off? If that's the case why were they so resistant to Montagna in Canada?

They were primarily a narcotics syndicate, I can't really see at that point what Bonnano affiliation would have done for em, or WAS doing for em.

Let me ask this, who were the Montrealers dealing with in NY after Sciascia got killed? Did they still work with the Bonnanos, or not, or another family? I was under the impression that they diversified their narcotics business to be less dependent on NY. ( Prime example is the hashish market) Did they still get a majority of their money in NY, cause I thought it was Montreal and Europe.

If you count Sciascias murder, Massino flipping, and Montagna sticking his nose in, NY was nothing but problems for these people, you could say NY is SOLEY RESPONSIBLE for shit falling apart up there, think about it....

You gotta remember Cabrini, I'm reading 6th Family now. You already finished. I intend to revisit this thread with some interesting analysis, such as the observation that Rusty must have been only an acting Boss to be challenged by both Galante and the 3 Capos. [I actually have a lot of circumstantial fact to back that assertion.] But some of your questions are a little advanced for me right now so please bear with me.

Oh, okay , I got you Alfa. I look forward to hearing your take on all this, I'll keep a look out for your post.

You enjoying the Sixth Family?

Think it was viloi lr cotroni caught on a wiretap talking about going to nyc in 1974 and having a capos vote for rusty to be boss then theres fat tony on wire like 84 saying fine rusty can be boss of that family but he doesnt have a vote on the commission. Cause of the joe pistone thing. Rusty proposed massino and galante inducted the guys rusty put up well he was in jail. Think after 1977 galante started positioning himself for the official chair. Rusty wasnt getting out for 5more years. They say that nicky glasses switched sides on galante and visted rusty in jail so was massino.

You think rusty or galante gave rizzuto the ok to kill violi? I bet it was both but rusty had the final say.

That's right. Paolo Violi was caught on wiretap talking about it. From "Mafia Inc":
"In the fall of 1973...Natale "Joe Diamond" Evola died of cancer and an election was scheduled to choose the new head of the Bonanno family. The captains of the clan were summoned to the Hotel Americana in New York. Since Vic Cotroni was barred from entering the United States, Violi was invited to represent Montreal.

To Violi's delight, the main candidate (and interim boss) Philip "Rusty" Rastelli wanted his vote. Rastelli knew Montreal well: while on the lam, he had taken refuge there in the early 1960s and had benefited from the Cotroni organization's hospitality. Violi backed Rastelli, who became the official head of the Bonanno family in February 1974."

Intensely. It's not an easy read, but you can't look away. Sixth Family fills in a lot of back story to many other gangland tales and legends.

Yes. Even if the OK was after the fact. The Sicilians on both sides of the Atlantic wanted Violi out. They got their wish.

I would think Rusty gave the ok to Rizzuto as it would possibly give him an ally up there that he could cash in on, but I'm probably wrong.

Wasn't it Cotroni and Sciascia that went to that meeting in NYC?

Frank Cotroni Sr was at the meeting. Luigi Greco sent someone as well. Four guys from Montreal were at the meeting, Frank Cotroni, Giorgio Sciascia, Paolo Violi, and another unidentified guy. Sciascia was the lowest ranking member of the Montreal congregation. I have no evidence to back it up, but I had always thought Nicolo Rizzuto Sr was the fourth member.

I'm enjoying it a great deal. I'm about 75% through the book. I don't want to keep you waiting for my conclusions, so I will mention some now:

1. The 6th Family never broke off from the Bonannos. That was just a smoke screen erected by the drug dealers in the NY Bonannos and the Canadian crew to go underground with their activities once Massino was taken down/flipped. [See edit of point 1 in following post]

2. Vito Rizzuto started as just a Bonanno soldier, and that he remained for his entire career. He was just a satellite Boss, like Scarfo. He was a narcotics middleman moving weight for a member of the NY Commission. He was not even self financed in that primary responsibility.

3. Vito never used his own money for narcotics. It was Bonanno money. He just got a cut from whatever deals he help traffic. He was not the OWNER. Even the book states he didn't use his own money, but the author doesn't connect the dots.

4. In the book, a person in the know says that the envelopes were no longer seen coming from Canada to the Bonannos after the Sciascia hit, BUT, they are not sure of anything else. They are VERY clear that the envelopes could still be being sent. They just couldn't name who could be the recipient.

5. The Bonanno group is the OWNER of everything Vito was doing in Canada, including his transcontinental narcotics contacts. You just don't stop sending envelopes and take over a pipeline. That's a Galante move and Vito was too smart for that.

6. Vito Rizzuto had to have been protected by someone in Canadian government. Everyone else took a pinch except him. The Hells Angels, and many many others were indicted, convicted, and jailed, including the Boss of the Caruana C[unt]trera group. But not Vito. This means Vito was an informant of some kind type or variety. The incident in the book were Vito befriends the police officer who stood up to him showed Vito's true colors...blue.

7. Juan Ramon Fernandez Paz aka Joe Bravo aka Paz, was probably not made, no matter what he actually thought or believed. This because Vito never stopped being a satellite Boss of the Bonanno corporation. The memberships for Canadian Bonanno's were capped at 20. That's it. No room for Paz. No room for a Spaniard either. Not impossible, just unlikely. Let me put it that way. For Ramon to be made meant that Vito could make someone without approval from the Bonanno administration. Vito was NOT a boss in relation to Bonanno Inc.

8. So far from what I am seeing, Vito was just the acting captain of the other 19 soldiers out there with him. He was not the defacto capo dei capi of every Italian mafia clan in Canada. The book sensationalizes Vito, because, sensationalism helps book sales.

Alfa, are you sure we read the same book, lol

LOL, isn't that something? You take away something different after reading the exact same manuscript.

I just refuse to follow what the author is implying letter for letter. The narration of the book itself is so servile towards Vito Rizzuto, someone called down to New York to do the dirty work of whacking some captains...he had to jump out of a closet and then somebody said "this is a stick up".

I'll correct one point from above, the first one. Gerlando Sciascia aka George from Canada, the Captain of the Canadian crew was probably whacked because he had heat on him, having to cross the border being part of his job description. The book never mentioned why George was hit, and I think it might have been heat. Massino being the diabolical mastermind he is, wanted to probably tie up loose ends. Therefore after George was whacked out, Massino and the Canadian traffickers went underground with their activities. It remained that way after Massino was taken down/flipped. But I still feel that the Bonanno organization is the OWNER of what the Canadian crew is still up to.

First thing on the author, all these guys to a certain extent have an agenda. I just pointed out to Ivey in another thread, an entire report on OC earnings was released and it was basically incomplete. This same Sixth Family author mentions the calabrians in the book like they are just dog shit, but we SEE what it is today. Guys say the same about Naples clans, they aren't organized yadda, yadda....




It wouldn't surprise me at all if the guy was Canadian....




Alfa, Sciascia got hit, one he was asked by Massino, as a test, to provide ghost shooters from Cananda for a hit. But instead of doing that, he told some guy, " Use Baldo", meaning Baldo Amato for the hit. Massino was pissed that Sciascia, " disrespected the guys capo like that..." and started to , rightly, suspect that the Canadians were becoming a little too autonomous. See what he did was circumnavigate the rules, indirectly being insubordinate. Then he went and said Graziano, or Cantarella, somebody, was always stoned, one of Massinos top guys, and kinda subtly questioning Massinos authority, IN NEW YORK. And that is the key piece to remember. I'm sure it was in the book.

Like look at it Alfa. Sciascia was the capo, but he was subservient to Vito. All that guy did was arrange narcotics. And a lot of it went to the Gambinos, not the Bonnanos.

Now after they killed George, Vito was pissed. Sciascia was described as his underboss.

That's when the so called severing of ties happened. Now Sonny said in another post that Montagna a was used as a messenger to Montreal by the Bonnanos, and that's how they kept contact. But this guy didn't make a move until Vito was locked up, and if he was the Rightful Bonnano boss, and they control everything in Montreal, how does the guy end up getting whacked by a French Canadian? That's like Jimmy Burke staging a coup. Why did Nicola refuse to acknowledge him, echoing how he felt about Violi ? Understand, they had NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON UP THERE, so how could they have any REAL control?

Power, is power. Vito was no satellite boss. What kinda satellite operates all over the world? Scarfo was picked to be boss, right. Well Massino sent his UNDERBOSS, TO ASK, THE GUY IF HE WANTED CAPO? Lol let me show you how it works IF YOU HAVE THE POWER. Joe Bonnano sent HIS guy, ( not like, you get all the way up there and be like, hey, would you like to be capo?) he sent Galante to tell em how it was.

Joe Bonnano had connects in Sicily. Joe Bonnano was at the 57 Palermo meeting. Joe Bonnano could reach out to relatives on the other side to access the opium fields. Massino couldn't do any of this. There are no poppy fields in NY. There are no cocoa plantations in NY. The way you ignore the Sicilian component and make it all about NY baffles me.

Couple thing here, what was this contact, and with who? There is no Sal Catalano at this point I believe, who was in charge of distributing all the dope.?

Also, I mean it's kinda funny you say Vito was just a shooter, cause Massino was there too. It's like fat ass Big Trinchera being at the Galante hit. You gotta understand mafia politics. Vito did that hit to make his bones, he HAD TOO DO THAT HIT TO HAVE RESPECT. And it had to be Sicilians in on it. That has nothing to do with anything....

It's similar to when you said there were too many Galante shooters. The Castellano hit had literally TWO whole teams of shooters.

I think you misunderstand Vito's methodology. He never bought a bulk of dope, and like "hoped " it got sold. No, he imported, only after a certain amount of orders came in, so the stuff was sold already. Same methodology with drug syndicates everywhere, from the Secondigliano alliance in Naples, to the Palermo families, to Latin American crime to TV shows, like the wires co-op lol. The entire drug trade operates on credit and trust. The Caruanas got a 5000 kilo load of coke seized, no way it was all the way paid for. I've read about the Flores brothers in Chicago, moving 2000 kilos a month, they never paid up front, lol who does that at that level? When you say it was Bonnano money, I feel like you just kinda made that up. Cause there are whole chapters on the Agrigento mafia in the 50s, and how Guiseppe Settecasi was partners withLucky Luciano. And the Manno family he married into. But you don't connect the Rizzutos connection to Sicily, and their home town of Agrigento at all, only the NY Bonnanos. The Caruanas have been trafficking since the 50s, they control ALL THE MONEY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL ITALIAN DRUG TRADE, or a big percentage of it. Yet you are convinced the money came from Bonnanos like, Sonny Red? Or who? The BOSS of the family, Rastelli was in prison and wasn't nearly that rich. If the three capos PAID for dope, there would have been no hits. Why would they kill em?



It's like when you say the Bonnanos had the contacts. To the Irish West End gang? For hash going to Europe? Nah, can't see it. To the Big Circle boys?
And Lebanese suppliers? I've never HEARD the five families having ANY big link with the Colombian cartels like that, especially in the 80- 90s, Cali was operating in NY then. They didn't need the LCN, and would have been competing with themselves.


Check out this article
https://www.tni.org/en/paper/rothschilds-mafia-aruba



There is so much to say!!! I can't even fit it all in one post...

From the article....



"The difference between the [BadWord]-Caruana clan and other Mafia families is that they have a key-position in the drug trade and money laundering for Cosa Nostra," says Alessandro Pansa, head of the Economic Crime Section of the Servizio centrale operativo (Sco) of the Italian National Police. (21) Pansa is one of Italy's leading experts in international criminal investigations and money laundering. Fifteen years ago, as one of the members of a newly formed crack team of investigators who became the confidants of judge Falcone, Pansa pioneered the use of computers to track the drug proceeds. In his view, the clan is the international transport service and the launderette of Cosa Nostra. It brings together the producers and distributers of narcotics. "Almost all the money of the Sicilian Mafia in North-America to purchase heroin and the resulting proceeds went through their hands." The [BadWord] and Caruanas are necessary and irreplaceable for every other Mafia family. Their services are indispensable. Consequently, "the others are allied with them." (22)

It was Pansa who discovered the clan, almost by accident. One in hundreds of tapped phone conversations alerted him. In 1982 he was investigating the Italian end of a heroin smuggling network to the United States, later known as the Pizza Connection. The Italian police was following the movements of Giuseppe Bono, the middleman between the American buyers of the Gambino and Bonanno Family and the Sicilian clans who organized the heroin traffic to the US, and had tapped his telephone. Most of the time Bono did not say much, but suddenly he became very talkative to an elderly Sicilian woman. Bono respectfully expressed his condolences with the demise of her husband. Pansa wondered why Bono, an arrogant high-ranking boss within Cosa Nostra, "became suddenly so submissive ... that woke us up."

It turned out that Bono was calling a number registered to Pasquale [BadWord] in Ostia Lido, a sea-side resort near Rome. The deceased was Liborio [BadWord], the eldest [BadWord]-brother, who had died in London, where he had settled in 1976. Pansa started to investigate this little known cluster of Mafia men from the distant, ignored south of Sicily. In the event it took him ten years before he finally arrested the [BadWord] brothers at Rome's Fiumicino airport when they were expelled from Venezuela in 1992. "They really look like Godfathers from the movie-screen, with their painted hair, gold watches and white shoes," Pansa says. But he acknowledges that, in spite of their appearance they are not be underestimated as "they are very good entrepreneurs."

Another


Five Decades in the Narcotics Business

When and how the [BadWord]-Caruana clan became involved in drug trafficking is unknown. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) the family was part of heroin-smuggling networks to the US the 1940s onwards. Their names appeared at investigations in such famous cases as the French Connection in the 1970s and the Pizza Connection in the 1980s. (24)

A good guess would be that they were introduced by the notorious Sicilian-American gangster and associate of Lucky Luciano, Nicola Gentile. 'Zu Cola' had also been born in Siculiana, but moved to the US at the turn of the century. In 1937 he was caught red-handed trafficking in narcotics, but – on the order of his American bosses – had jumped bail and returned to Sicily. (25)

In Sicily Gentile rose to a position as 'capo'. After the invasion in 1943, He helped the military set up its civil administration (AMGOT) in the Agrigento province and became involved in intelligence and the Sicilian separatist movement. Later he became a important canvasser for politicians from the Christian-democratic Party, who quarrelled for his support. (26)

When Lucky Luciano was extradited to Italy in 1946 he once again teamed up with Gentile in organizing drug routes to the US. Gentile had very good connections with well-known drug traffickers on Sicily, which he may have organized himself. His son was married to the daughter of Pietro Davì, one of the leading figures in the illegal tobacco and drug trade in Palermo in the 1950s. (27)

Several intertwining Sicilian networks were running heroin to the US. They had the same source – suppliers from the Corsican underworld in Marseilles with their high quality laboratories – and the same destination: the North American consumer market. After the War the US expelled dozens of Italo-American Mafiosi besides Luciano. These so-called 'undesirables' became the inter-oceanic link, and stimulated the metamorphosis of the Sicilian Mafia from a backward rural power-system into a modern protection and smuggling industry.

And lastly.....


From the French to the Pizza Connection

The repression caused by the Ciaculli Massacre disarranged the Sicilian drug trade to the United States. Mafiosi were banned, arrested and incarcerated. Control over the trade fell to the hands of a few fugitives: Pietro Davì, Salvatore Greco 'l'ingegnere', Salvatore Greco 'Cicchiteddu', Tommaso Buscetta and Gaetano Badalamenti. (31) All of them acquainted with [BadWord] and Caruana.

Supergrass Tommaso Buscetta met the clan in the winter of 1969 in Montreal. Buscetta defected from Cosa Nostra in 1984. He was the first high-ranking mafioso to turn state-witness, and enabled Falcone to indict the entire summit of Cosa Nostra. Buscetta stayed at Pasquale [BadWord]'s home recovering from a venereal disease. The [BadWord] were introduced to him as uomini d'onore (men-of-honor). When Buscetta met them they were already very rich. He soon discoverd the source of their affluence. At the Palermo Trial against [BadWord] and Caruana in 1995, Buscetta declared that Pasquale [BadWord] had told him they were dealing in heroin, and that their supplier was Pippo Bono – at that time unknown to the police – who arranged things in Italy. Buscetta says their involvement started after the Ciaculli Massacre, when the heroin routes had been disrupted. (32)


NOW UNDERSTAND, THIS DISRUPTED THE TRADITIONAL LINKS TO HEROIN FOR AMERICAN MOB FAMILIES. LIKE WHATEVER DEAL WAS MADE IN 57 by the Bonnanos got dismantled by this crackdown, see what I'm saying?






Buscetta denies having worked with the clan in the heroin business. The only thing he smuggled with them was another white pulverized stuff: powdered milk. In fact Buscetta denies having ever been implicated in the drug trade despite all the evidence to the contrary. At the time he met the [BadWord], Buscetta was known to every law enforcement agency as one of the most notorious worldwide drug traffickers. (33)

One of Buscetta's partners, Pino Catania, ratted on him in much the same way Buscetta himself would do 10 years later. Catania turned state witness when he was arrested in the US in 1973 on heroin charges. He confessed to having been implicated in a heroin smuggling ring that transported 330 kilograms to the US and Canada in 3 years. His partners were Buscetta and a certain Carlo Zippo. (34)

Police investigations had already identified the Zippo-Buscetta network in 1969, later rebaptized as the French Connection. (35) They had also stumbled on a network involving some of the [BadWord] and Caruanas. The networks worked with the same people. A BNDD report summarizing the Zippo-Buscetta network identified Liborio [BadWord], Giovanni Caruana and phone-calls from [BadWord]'s partner Nick Rizzuto to Catania's company in Mexico and Zippo's firm Brasitalia Import-Export Company in New York. (36)


HERE, THE MONEY WOULD HAVE COME FROM THIS VERY WEALTHY CLAN....


Buscetta had met Rizzuto at [BadWord]'s house and both were partners smuggling 'powdered milk'. Buscetta's son Benedetto – who was dragged into the network and arrested – confessed he overheared his father talking to a certain 'Monoco': "Are you interested in 30 pairs of shoes for 14 dollars a pair?" Buscetta had asked, in the typical code-language used for heroin deals. (37)

Benedetto didn't know 'Monoco's' real name, but it could well have been yet another associate of the [BadWord]-Caruana clan, Santo Caldarella. Caldarella was nick-named 'u Monacu' or 'Monoco' ('the monk') because in his younger days he had begged on the streets of Siculiana. During the [BadWord]-Caruana trial Buscetta recalled that he had met Caldarella during his stay at Pasquale [BadWord]'s place.

There are more indications of the close relationship between Buscetta and Pasquale [BadWord], the clan member Buscetta was most intimate with. When Buscetta travelled to Italy in the summer of 1970, he did so on a false passport provided by Pasquale [BadWord]. (38) The Zippo-Buscetta French Connection network was related to an illegal-alien racket. Sicilians were smuggled into Canada and the US and most of them also brought in narcotics.

When the organization of Zippo and Buscetta was dismantled in 1972, the [BadWord]-Caruana network was not. Just like other partners in the network – Giuseppe Bono in Italy and the Eagle Cheese Company of the Casamento brothers – they would all turn up ten years later in de Pizza Connection. In both cases pizza parlours were important distribution centers.




KEY PIECE OF INFO HERE.......SICILIAN MADE MEN, NOT AMERICAN MAFIA MEMBERS.......



The French Connection was a prelude to the Pizza Connection. In both cases the trade was organized by Sicilian men of honor, and not American made-members. Heroin wholesaling in the US was firmly in the hands of a Sicilian network, which supplied American Cosa Nostra Families at the distribution level. The Sicilians had the licence of the American bosses who 'franchised' the import to them. (39) The [BadWord]-Caruana-Bono combination supplied the market in the 1970s and kept on supplying in 1980s.

THEY GAVE NY A PIECE TO OPERATE ON THIER TERRITORY, I MEAN THEY COULDNT JUST SET UP SHOP ANYWHERE, EVEN WITH A MOUNTAIN OF DOPE. THINK SOLLOZO FROM GF1....

Global Operations

The Montreal-New York and Caracas-Miami connections proved to be the gateway for narcotics to the world's biggest consumer-market. From its Venezuelan base the [BadWord]-Caruana clan supplied whatever drug was in demand – heroin, cocaine and cannabis. As their importance grew, however, the clan finally started to get to the attention of law enforcement agencies around the world.

Arrest warrants began to pile up. The 1983 Bono+159 report resulted in the first ones for the [BadWord] brothers and Alfonso Caruana, among others. Buscettas revelations in 1984 resulted in a new one for Pasquale [BadWord], followed by yet another set in 1985. Italian Mafia-prosecutor Giovanni Falcone again indicted the clan in 1989, when two influential clan-members were arrested in Germany.

I DONT THINK MONEY CAME FROM BONNANOS.... NOTICE THEY SAID 500 million was a conservative estimate, and only for a period of seven years....


At the time the family's estimated worth was US$ 500 million. It was estimated by those investigating the clan's activities that it had shipped at least 700 kilo's of heroin and 70 metric tons of hashish with a total value of 700 million US dollars. Already then the Italian press warned Prime Minister Henny Eman of Aruba to remember the name [BadWord] and Caruana. If not, he might find himself a prisoner of Cosa Nostra instead of independent of the Netherlands. (56)


NOTICE, ITS JOHN GAMBINO WHO IS IN CONTROL OF THE AMERICAN PART... ALSO NOTICE, THEY DID NOT PAY UP FRONT....


The investigation only looked at the years 1978-85, and the figures proved to be conservative. Subsequent evidence revealed that the investigators had missed a lot of what was going on. In 1992 pentito Gaspare Mutolo, Cosa Nostra's contact with Thai traffickers, disclosed massive heroin transports at the start of the 1980s. In 1981, Mutolo organized a 400 kilo shipment to the US. The [BadWord]-Caruana clan received half of the load, while John Gambino's crew took care of the other 200 kilos. When the money of the first deal came back, Mutolo immediately started to arrange another similar transport. (57)

AGAIN THIS MONEY WAS NOT BONNANO MONEY....


The shipments were financed by consortium of Sicilian Mafia clans. They had organized a pool to provide the money to buy the merchandise from Thai suppliers. The system in the heroin-business was that every Mafia family could invest in a shipment if it had the money. Each step in the different stages between buying and selling the commodity was payed along the way. The [BadWord] and Caruanas were the trusted buyers who supplied the market in North America.

You write a lot Cabrini, and I enjoy reading it. But I'll try to reply to specific points to try and explain why I stand where I stand...



What the Sixth Family author tried to say, at least how I am reading it, is that all of the Italian OC groups in Canada acted "under the banner of" and "under the auspices of", Vito Rizzuto. I don't believe this. The N'Dranghetta were/are their own people. Panepinto got hit because he crossed them and Vito could do nothing to protect him.




Yes it was. It was also in the book that Massino went to very great lengths to make it look like a drug deal gone bad, instead of taking credit for the hit. Massino had no excuse he felt would satisfy all concerned, so he made a big show making it look like they were hunting for the killers, etc etc etc. The reason you cite above I believe to be one of those excuses used after the fact to justify a murder that took place for other reasons. It could be true. Maybe. Whatever the motivation was, Massino evidently didn't think it would go over very well, with anyone, in New York or Canada. But isn't it also awfully convenient that after George from Canada was taken out, that supposedly no New York Bonanno had any links to the Canadian smuggling. That sounds like great legal strategy is what it sounds like.



The book says he was subservient to Vito. That's a claim I don't see proof for. And if Sciascia was buying narcotics for the Gambinos...he was using their money, not his. These people were just messengers.



Yes, described as his underboss...only by the book. Remember, before George was whacked, there was no disagreement among any quarter about whether the Canadian crew was subservient to the Bonannos or not. Therefore there is no way, under a Bonanno administration, that George could be Underboss to Vito, or even that Vito could be a real boss. Vito was only a boss in Canada and only after George was out of the picture. I'm thinking a boss like Scarfo, Stanfa, or any other small family that answers to a full fledged member of the Commission.



For me to buy that, I'd need to be convinced that Vito Rizzuto pulled a Galante and seized the Canadian pipeline all for himself, as well as the business contacts of the Bonannos that were sending "weight" into Canada for Vito to reroute into the States. I just can't buy it. Ties could not have actually been severed.




No disrespect to Montagna, but I don't really see where he fits in at all. Maybe I just haven't read that far?




You said it yourself...BEFORE Sciascia was hit, Vito was this big gigantic boss and Sciascia was his number two. But the book says that up until George was whacked, envelopes were going down to NY from Canada. Vito was paying tribute. Yes, he was.

Why would he? Because he had like 19 made men, versus what? 150? Fughettabouttit



The book says Massino was upset about that. Supposedly he said something like "you shouldn't have asked. You should have told him he was capo."



Joe Bonanno wasn't the only Sicilian. The book goes deep into Agrigento, specifically, Cattolica Eraclea. Guess who else's family came from Agrigento? That's right, Sonny Red and Whack Whack. And Whack Whack plus Tommy Karate went with a third individual up to Canada once, on Massino's behalf, to line those people up. Look, Joe Bonanno had the Sicilian contacts, but the Commission told him to buzz off. They seized the pipeline....and the contacts. Then he probably tried to get back in through Galante. Old story. Long story short, many people had blood ties on the other side of the Atlantic, not only Joe Bonanno or Vito Rizzuto.



Not sure what you're asking here.



Massino was observed in a supervisory role. Supposedly he was the only one left in the room with the victims after the shooting stopped and the killers lammed it. He wanted to make sure his opponents were truly vanquished. At that time he was probably the strongest capo, and the voice of Rusty.



stop it!




Vito had to jump his ass out that closet or Massino would have had him whacked. That's the real politics of it.




Vito didn't own anything. He didn't own the buying or the selling. He was just a smuggler who was paid a percentage of every deal that successfully completed. The book makes it clear, in one particular paragraph, that Vito never actually used his own money. However it worked out, whether he was importing on credit or whatever, it wasn't his dope he was bringing into the Canadian harbor and moving into the United States. It belonged to Bonanno Enterprises International, a much bigger corporation than he. The right word to use to describe Vito and his role is importer. The book puts it like this...

"Vito never put a dime of his own money into a deal. It was always somebody else's money but he would end up with 60 percent of the product."

Now if you are your own boss, you are using your own money. Period.



Of course not. But the Caruana and C[unt]rera mafia families were independent middlemen. Alfonso Caruana was no Satellite. They used their own financing to move contraband from say South America up into probably Canada. They were owners. They were not being paid a percentage of what they could move for someone else. They bought on one end, owned, and then sold what was owned on the other. All of the major Cosa Nostra families of the United States were customers. Whoever could afford to pay was allowed to buy.




No one. It would be very foolish to have both money and contraband in the same room exchanging hands at the same moment, like in a movie. Very foolish. Foolish for far too many reasons to enumerate.




When you really sit down and question just what the financial relationship between the Canadian crew and the Bonanno family was, back when the Canada crew was inarguably just a satellite, you really can't come to any other conclusion. A soldier is not buying from foreign exporters with his own money and then selling to HIS bosses. He is kicking up, period. If I'm your boss, I am not buying from you. You are selling for me. All profit you make is already mine. You pay tax. So after I buy from you and you make a profit, you gotta pay me tribute out of your cut? How does that work?



Many came from Agrigento. Sonny Red, Whack whack, etc. That doesn't make you automatically a boss.



I read somewhere that the Caruana C[untrera mafias supplied USA mafia families. The Colombians were the producers. The Caruana C[untreras were wholesalers. The mafia families of the USA, imported and distributed down to the retailers. Vito was a high level smuggler that assisted in importation. High level only because he never touched the stuff. Where did the Bonannos get the money to finance someone like Vito Rizzuto's importation operation? Construction? Unions? Gambling? Everyone in the family kicked up to Rastelli...therefore he had plenty of money to invest.




The book gives an anticlimactic explanation actually. It says that someone found out the three capos would be armed for a meeting. That is supposedly when after Massino found out, he went to the Commission for permission. But the weapons were for self defense. Massino made it sound like they had to defend themselves with a preemptive strike against guys who were only arming themselves out of caution. We can only speculate. It could have been fear or greed. Maybe they thought they could vote in a new Boss and replace Rastelli if they had a majority of the Capos voting in their favor. Does any commentary anywhere definitively say if the 3 capos stopped paying tribute? If they were paying tribute, then their rebellion was purely an academic exercise. In such a case that kind of rebellion is like illegally calling a vote for a new boss...which is a far cry from an armed uprising. Now if they stopped paying trubute to a Commission certified boss, there's no more questions left to ask about why they were hit.




Whatever Vito did on his own, he had to pay tax on it. And the Caruana C[untreras were the link between the Five Fmilies and Colombia.

I realize that. I never said the Caruana C[untrera mafia families were a satellite of the Bonannos. The book however, thus far at least, tries to give the hapless reader the false impression that Vito Rizzuto was the defacto Godfather of even the Caruanas and C[untreras. Untrue. Vito's operation was not identical to the Caruana C[untrera operation, nor were the Caruana C[untreras part of "the Sixth Family".

The book is sensational, and really, the truth is far more interesting than the hype.

Alfa, I think you'd like Mafia Inc. more, which is another book about the Rizzutos that was first released in French and later in English and is less sensational. It also expands on Montagna, Desjardins and De Vito. The last edition of The Sixth Family does this too but it's quite limited even though it was released years later. Another more in-depth book about the Montreal mob war is Business or Blood, but it also has a pro Rizzuto sentiment.

They answered to Sicily, and had the same arrangement with Vito as they had with the Egg.

Gerlando was the main contact with Montreal. Joseph Buccellato died in 1990, Baldo was sent to prison in the 80's, Salvatore Catalano was in prison, Anthony Murlli finally officially retired when Massino became boss. Massino and his trusted men did not have clue what went on up in Montreal. They made Vito the official capo, up there cause Nicolo Rizzuto didn't want it any more, Frank Cotroni did not attend the meeting, and another top guy did not attend the meeting.

Thank you Sonny. I am always looking for a new addition to my bibliography.

Alfa, you are confusing some things, it's partly do to how the book is written, it's kinda non-linear....

First off Alfa, the Bonnanos were definitely NOT ON THE COMMISION in the 80s. NOW Bruno got convicted in the Commision case for doing the Galante hit, at the BEHEST of the Commision. So if the Commision got the connects, it had nothing to do with the Bonnanos. In fact the drug thing kept em off, I remember I think it Fat Tony Salerno talking about it with one of his guys. I think it's a wiretapped conversation. They got 80 guys in a crew, all they do is move junk, something like that... I think he was talking specifically about Rastelli, they said get your house in order, he could be boss of the Bonnanos, but not on the Commision.



There is specifically a part in the book, where they say Sonny Red took a consignment and didn't pay. THIS IS WHY THE SICILIAN TOOK PART IN THE MURDERS. THE GAMBINO CREW TOOK PART IN THE CLEANUP BECAUSE they had a vested interest, they were prime buyers. Also, SonnyRed wasn't one of the Bonnanos at the 57 meeting in Palermo. You do know about that right? The Bonnano Family of NY, WASHED ITS HANDS OF HANDLING DRUGS, AND JUST TOOK A FEE FOR ALLOWING THEM TO DEAL ON Bonnano TERRITORY. They didn't BUY ANY DRUGS, where are you getting that?




Alfa, I see you totally skipped everything I posted. You skipped the part about the car bomb in Sicily that disrupted the heroin trade. Whatever contacts Bonnano made were in disarray by 1963, when Mafiosi had to flee abroad. Like its this opening that allowed guys like Ike Atkinson, Nicky Barnes, Frank Lucas to set up their own pipelines from Vietnam. You CAN NOT UNDERSTAND THE ITALIAN HEROIN TRADE IF YOU INSIST ON IGNORING SICILY.

Alfa, NO FUCKIN WAY MASSINO WACKS NICOLA RIZZUTOS SON, come on now, they couldn't even wack HIM, AND HE WAS IN THE WRONG. Violi was the Bonnano official representative, how do you explain HIM BEING THE ONE getting killed? Like how did you miss this in the book? They had meeting after meeting, after sitdown, after meeting to try to resolve things, SICILY NEVER GAVE PERMISSION TO THE BONNANOS.

If you are your own boss, you use your own money. Again, I don't know if you understand THE DRUG TRADE, NOT SO MUCH AS THE MAFIA. The CONNECTION IS WHAT MATTERS. THE FACE TO FACE. THE TRUST. Look, I've been around tons of weed, used to grow, still got like 3k in seeds. Sometimes I would pay, a lot of the time it wasn't even neccesary, but you never really want to owe anyone, so I never really did that. And let me tell you something, super high level producers, NEED THE DISTRIBUTORS AS MUCH AS THE DISTRIBUTORS NEED THEM. ITS HOW THE MEXICANS BECAME WHAT THEY ARE TODAY. DITTO WITH THE IMPORTERS. IVE DETAILED BEFORE THERE ARE THREE AND A HALF WAYS TO DOMINATE THE DRUG TRADE. ONE IS SUPPLY, THE OTHER IS TRANSPORTATION/IMPORTATION, AND FINNALY DISTRIBUTION. I GIVE LAUNDERING THE HALF LOL....

Wholesalers might, pay, big emphasis on MIGHT, pay all at once, until trust is established. Retailers pay, but a guy getting the stuff direct from the source? That's why I mentioned the Flores brothers, they paid when the stuff was sold, and sometimes not even the full agreed upon amount. ( This isn't even a drug thing, it's a retail thing, I worked at a restaurant once and Zanios foods always gave the owner credit)

I explained WHY Sciascia got hit, but you started talking about HIM getting hit. I was talking about Sciascia setting UP a hit, or at least providing the shooters. As a way of explaining WHY he got hit.

Alfa, wack a guy for a legal strategy? That's a stretch to say the least, lol



Alfa, Sonny Red was born in NY. But the Agrigento connection I believe is why he was picked to move the dope.

You don't see how Montagna fits in. Good lord man, he was the deported Bonnano acting boss, SENT TO CANADA, AND GOT KILLED IN A POWER PLAY WITH A FRENCH CANADIAN. AND YOU KNOW WHAT ALFA, THE BONNANOS DID NOTHING.

You gotta read more Alfa, and I don't just mean about NY five families. I don't think you understand how the narcotics trade works at all. Check that article I posted.


When you say envelops, I Dont know if it was for drugs, envelops arnt even big enough. That was probably their share of the traditional Montreal rackets they got tribute from when the Cotronis were running things. Gambling and whatever.

There was no big Colombian/ Bonnano mafia coke operations, that I've ever heard of, for the simple reason the Cali Cartel had the NY market. This is,what I mean when I say you gotta read more.

Like the Agrigento thing, you completely misunderstood what I was saying. You also don't consider the timelines. My whole point of that was that Agrigento mobsters have had 50 years in the drug business, so THATS WHERE THIER CONTACTS COME FROM. Not the NY based Bonnanos. There is no opium in NY, no cocoa in NY. You gotta got to wherever the coke is, wherever the dope is to get a high level connect like that.


I'm starting to think you are confusing this operation with the French Connection. THAT WAS A FIVE FAMILY THING, but only because of Luciano, and maybe
Three Fingers Coppola. That got disrupted in the early sixties. Also the many deported Mafiosi helped in the logistics. Like seriously if ANY family in NY was running the drug trade, it was probably the Gambinos. I don't think anyone sold more than those Cherry Hill guys. And the thing is, a VAST MAJORITY OF THAT MONEY WENT TO SICILIAN FAMILIES. Not NY.



Caruana coke went to Canada and Europe, I'm almost positive. It had nothing to do with NY. Also Vito's contacts? No way the Bonnanos set up the hash thing with the West End Gang. Or the Big Circle boys, or the Lebanese suppliers ( These people have nothing to do with Sicily, or NY even) And his father was in Venuzuela, since getting expelled from Canada. It's kinda like how Afghan heroin feeds the European market, we get the Mexican/Colombian variety. Like you gotta understand how the routes work.

The CARUANAS supply EVERYONE, AND LAUNDER EVERYTHING. Like I actually think the Rizzutos were a CARUANA -[BadWord]-RA subsidiary, like the Escobar to their Ochoa.

This owning the merchandise thing. Alfa, the only OWNERS, are the Colombians, the Mexicans, whatever the Afghani or Thai, whoever is supplying heroin. Also, again read more, they had plenty distributors, and alliances with distributors in Canada. Why the hell would the Bonnanos allow THIER drugs, to go to Canadian distributors. Why not Basciano with his Blue Thunder brand? Read about the Cannabis shipments going To MONTREAL for distribution, not a Bonnano farm team of youngsters in NY. Also, SICILIAN MAFIAMFAMILIES INVESTED IN THESE DRUG SHIPMENTS, AND THEY SENT THEIR CREWS TO MOVE IT.
Honestly I think the Gambinos were just kinda better at it.

Look, I know the guy seems to WANT to believe Vito was the biggest thing in the world, I just ignore all that, like I did with the Calabrian Comments. I've seen this stuff verified by too many other sources. Again I read a TON of shit.

Check this article, and tell me if you still feel the same.


https://www.tni.org/en/paper/rothschilds-mafia-aruba

Tell me about it. Sometimes I have to read a sentence in that book 2 or 3 times to get a gist of what is being said. The author writes in a very convoluted backwards way. You don't know what he's talking about until you get to the very end of the paragraph.



We know this. But we also know that Rusty was backed by the Commission to run his family.

From what it looks like to me, an outsider, each major family of the Commission controlled it's own pipeline(s). So yes, even though the Bonannos weren't on the Commission then, they had their own connects. Absolutely. The other two families roles are more obscure, at least to me, but basically, the Bonannos had the stuff coming down from Canada and being sold in Canada. The Genovese and Gambinos controlled the Manhattan and Brooklyn harbors. Someone had the airports. An educated guess off the top of my head says the Lucchese's were responsible for importing through JFK. Someone else will need to chime in on that, and on the Colombos.



IMHO as outsiders it's hard for us to say. Every major family contained a drug conspiracy, so how did that keep the Bonannos off? Just a wild guess: Maybe Rusty couldn't join the Commission UNTIL he took over the drug crews in his family. In order to do that, he had to bring the three capos down! We DO know, that the Commission was a drug investment club comprised of the major bosses only. That's the money Joe Pistone spoke of that is NOT kicked up. That money starts up and stays up. The Commission has their own money and sources of money. If Rusty wasn't let in, it had to be because he hadn't yet controlled the Bonanno drug pipeline. That would provide backstory to the anecdote we heard about when the Commission told him to gain control of his family to join the Commission as a full voting member.



I'll admit it sounds plausible, but it sounds like an excuse to me. If you read mob books like I do, you begin to notice that every single victim of a hit "deserved" it and broke some sacred rule. But we know that couldn't really be true. People were killed over money, to misappropriate their riches, and to consolidate the power of those ordering the killing.




As you can tell, I'm a little opinionated. I don't believe conspiracies like the Pizza Connection were Sicilians just paying "rent" to American Cosa Nostra to be able to sell junk in the USA. That's a cover story. I think the Commission were investors actually, that outsourced the importation to illegal aliens known as "zips". They were OWNERS.




What I don't respond to means either you made a point I can't refute, or you re just plain right. One or the other. But again, "everybody and their mama" had Sicilian contacts, even the poster here that was named Carmella...probably originated family-wise from Agrigento. Big deal. You know why they were dealing drugs from Sicily? Because they were dirt poor. Sicily had lots and lots of poverty. I don't know about today.



Like I said, I am probably 75% through the book. But Violi is covered early on. It just looks to me like the Rizzutos and their friends wanted Violi out because he had rank and money over them, and they used the fact that he was not Sicilian as the excuse to hit the guy. It was just an excuse. So why was he the one getting hit? He was the only non-Sicilian in the room. Hate to say it, but it's just that simple. And actually, in the United States, the non-Sicilians tended to get a similar raw deal, including Al Capone right after the Commission was formed. They made The Big Guy a "Father", but then they told him to take a hike by doing a stint in prison for the media. Other non Sicilians were simply eliminated, in the United States proper. You can even include Roy Demeo in that group. His ethnicity worked against him.





Early in the book we read how the fathers or uncles of Sonny Red and Bruno were already migrating into Canada.

A made man has got to earn. It's up to him to figure out how. The Indelicatos picked themselves to move junk. Someone else approved of it because they saw the mutual benefit.



I'll get back to you on that. I really don't want to proffer a theory until I've researched it a little. One clue however, might be that the guy who whacked Montagna was not Italian. If the hitman was Italian and affiliated in some way, then we could break down an analysis. But Montagna seems to have been killed by an outsider to Cosa Nostra. Desjardins was a suspect in that hit. Desjardins became an open enemy to Vito Rizzuto, yes? So Montagna was not killed by Cosa Nostra. It was someone else.




Everyone from Agrigento that is mobbed up is not part of the same mafia family. Also, there are not poppy fields in Agrigento either. Two of the Agrigento clans, the Caruanas and C[untreras, formed a link between Colombia and everyone in the United States, yes they did. But that is only the pipelines coming from Canada. The big two families, the Luciano and Mangano, otherwise known as Genovese and Gambino, control probably the biggest pipelines, which are transatlantic and not Canadian. The Luciano and Gambino families did not need help from anyone in Canada...maybe not even Agrigento.





I don't have a map with all the routes on it. All I know is that Vito's primary responsibility was moving someone else's property, not his own. Now whatever he was doing on the side, like the things you describe above....he had to pay tax on it.




I think they were separate. I think Giacomo's comment merits a closer look, that the Caruana C[untreras answered to Sicily. Maybe they answered to the Cupola. I don't believe Vito was under Alfonso or vice versa.


Thanks for the article Cabrini.

Right now, I'll agree with everyone else and say that Rusty was an official boss, not an acting boss. He just didn't have his seat on the Commission at first.

Let me try to reply to one of your points again. I think I missed what you were trying to relay...



What I think you were saying here is that the Rizzuto organization had connections to Sicily of their very own, and did not need any Bonanno.

We just don't see this the same way. The Canadian crew didn't suddenly become drug dealers once George from Canada was whacked. They were long before, and again, those connections and pipeline were the property of the Bonanno Corporation. Furthermore, to me, it's just not plausible that once George from Canada was whacked, that those connections and pipeline suddenly became the property of Vito Rizzuto. The part of the book where Vito explains to Massino's emmisary that "We are our own little family", as if he dismissed the Bonanno ownership of his whole operation with a sigh...I just don't buy it.

@ Alfa

It's just some of the stuff you say I don't understand....


Like I am positive, there HAS BEEN NO CONNECTION BETWEEN THE FIVE FAMILIES, and Colombia. Like WHERE DO YOU GET THIS?

The entire time period that the Pizza connection/ Rizzuto pipelines are being put together, the BONNANOS are in like total disarray. The Gambino family basically assumed the position of senior/equal partner in the Sicilian drug trade.

These Bonnano principals you keep talking about, who are they? The originals at the 57 meeting were Joe Bonnano, Carmine Galante, John Bonaventre, I think Frank Garofolo, John Priziola, ( Vito Vitale was there, was a major boss in Partinico, close to the corleonesi, yet lost out in a power struggle with Three Fingers Coppola for control of the Partinico family, gives you a hint at his actual power and where Detroit stood in the trade..) Lucky Luciano, a couple Maggadinos I think. That was the American contingent. THESE ARE THE GUYS THAT MADE THE CONTACT. And it's not like they were representing the whole AMERICAN COSA NOSTRA,they weren't, they were representing their OWN interest in the trade. The FRENCH CONNECTION was a Commision operation, I would agree, but this was because they had their top guy, IN ITALY, WITH A HOST OF DEPORTED AMERICAN MOBSTERS HELPING HIM. You need a point man over there, after Bonnano is ousted and Galante killed, WHO WAS THE POINT MAN?



Remember in the Godfather with Sollozo? HE approached the Corleones for money. It didn't give them " Ownership" of the whole pipeline, cause the people that supplied Sollozo didn't know Vito for shit. Sollozo went to TURKEY to set that up. He was offered a third share interest, you could consider it an opportunity to buy shares in a company from the ground floor. A gangster IPO if you will.

I imagine it's the same with the Gigilioti guy from queens who approached the Genovese. The Gambino thing seems much more involved, that was meant to be a very long term operation.

If the Rizzutos weren't allied with the Caruana clan, I could MAYBE buy the Bonnanos providing financing. But the Caruanas just have more money, and access to more money, than well, probably a lot of banks, lol

Also the timeline for me doesn't add up. Carlo and friends dismantled the biggest US mafia drug ring, when they took down Genovese, Gigante, Galante, Ormento, all those guys. On the other side, you got the car bomb meant for the Grecos that put the police and military on their ass and disrupted the chain of supply. Then on top of that, Bonnano is kicked off the Commision. 62, Luciano dies. 73, Paulo Gambino dies, around the same time Galante gets out, 75 , Three Fingers's wings are clipped by the law in Sicily. ON TOP OF THAT, you had what, 10 years where the Bonnanos were run by the Commision. They didn't even really have a LEADER, until Galante gets out of jail, then it's like, the heroin well is back on. If it's not concentrated in the hands of Galante, if in fact the drug connects were decentralized amongst, let's say a half dozen of the most powerful Bonnano capos, WHY THE FUCK WAS GALANTE EVER EVEN IMPORTANT AFTER GETTING OUT OF JAIL? The pipeline shoulda never stopped? No? If they coulda just went to Sonny Red for example, why was Galante tolerated for even that long?

Alfa, Sicily is close to the Mediterranean nations like Turkey, close enough to send a guy there and actually buy the morphine base. You see Rizzuto went and set up shop in Venezuela, close to the coke.

If they NEEDED the port of NY, I could see the NY mob controlling it.

The chain of actions that set all this place started in like the late 50s, and events on BOTH sides of the Atlantic played a huge part in the eventual makeup of the drug trade.


Maybe I just don't understand the AMERICAN aspect of the Pizza connection, here another question, who was in charge the BONNANOS, OR GAMBINOS? John Gambino, or Salvatore Catalano?

Before I had stated that George from Canada might have been whacked for being under the radar of LE. I partially retract that. After looking into it, yes he was under the radar, bigtime, and Massino is the type to whack witnesses to cover up his comings and goings, but there is also a lot of anecdotal stuff out there that showed Massino was upset with George's insubordination...so I'll give you that.



I don't. That wasn't my point at all. My point was that groups like the Caruanas and C[untreras formed the link between Colombia and the 5 families.



There is always going to be drug dealing captains (aka "principals"). This is because the captains make the boss, and they take him down. Therefore if a boss took over all drug dealing for himself, his captains would kill him right away. This is why certain capos in each family were exempt from the "no drug dealing" rule. So it's only a matter of guessing which captains might be in on it. I guessed the 3 capos for starters. Alphonse Indelicato is a great choice because his ancestors went from Sicily to Canada. So he might have had his own Canadian connections and contacts. Now just because a major family like the Bonannos is temporarily without a boss doesn't mean the captains aren't into junk. They are.

This is what the book states about Alphonse Indelicato's ancestor (either father or uncle, a great or grand I don't know)...

"Gaetano's cousin, Cesare Badalamenti, was arrested for smuggling drugs into America and, when released from prison, moved to Detroit, where he quickly met up with Guiseppe Indelicato. Indelicato, like the Rizzutos, left the Agrigento province to settle in Canada. In the New World he retained his Sixth Family links while settling in Windsor, with an eye on the Detroit skyline across the river...An early smuggling foray, however, did not go well. Stopped when disembarking from a ship arriving from Europe, Indelicato was found with a half-million-dollar load of heroin stiched into the lining of his vest..."

Therefore Sicilian (and Canadian?) heroin connections were right in the blood ties of at least one of the Three Capos. And I think someone somewhere said it was Alphonse Indelicato that actually wanted to replace Rusty himself as boss.



Actually once the heroin trade got started, you don't necessarily need a representative of the American mafia in Italy to keep the spigot flowing. If we go back, again, to the Caruana C[untreras, ("CC clans") you have your middle man right there. Someone in America doesn't care where the CC clans get their stuff, just as long as they can get it maybe into Canada. That's the CC clans problem, to procure from producers.

We just disagree there. The idea of Vito Rizzuto being his own man amuses me. I read in the book about how he sent his own mother to do financial transactions at banks...and she was arrested! You look at some Rizzuto family charts, and his MOTHER is on the chart! LOL. All these mean mugs and faces in little photos, and then in one photo, there is this little old lady.



I think what happened there is that while Galante is in prison, he is wheeling and dealing, scheming and plotting, setting up his own new connections in Canada, for when he gets out. For Galante, Montreal itself, because of its strategic position, was the Holy Grail, not necessarily any existing crew that was moving junk.

Why was he tolerated for so long? Maybe because to hit him meant to hit the Sicilian bodyguards with him...in other words, he had the backing of certain Sicilian mafia families/clans (who I am going to guess are based in Castellemare Del Golfo/Trapani)...and he physically surrounded himself with them. Once the NY Commission got past the diplomatic red tape between their Sicilian clans, and Galante's, it was open season on the guy. The NY families did not want to be seen by Sicily as hitting Sicilian guys. Just my guess here. Cesare Bonventre fired some of the bullets. Cesare could have whacked Galante from his first day on the job as bodyguard...if that is what BOTH the NY Commission and Sicily wanted him to do. Obviously there was red tape and disagreement for a few years.



Vito was paying tribute, period. I personally don't believe the envelopes ever stopped.




Large as they were, I don't think the Gambinos or Genoveses ever wanted to take over the Bonanno's junk operations. What they wanted is for that organization to get its act together.

I don't think the envelopes continued after Massino flipped.

As for Vito's Mom, I think she could be more involved in things than we think, remember that Sal Montagna tried to tell Raynald Desjardins that she ordered the hit on Desjardins.

Fair enough dixie, but if your mom is part of your crime family, doesn't that technically make her your boss? I just find it all humorous.

@ Alfa

See this is why I feel you guys need to read more about Italian oc, cause some of the stuff you are saying is just strange now.



I've explained, the whole family- blood relative structure thing ad nauseum, but you guys INSIST on INSISTING that these clans MUST be organized like NY families to be considered organized crime. And what's silly is that the American LCN is an offshoot of the Italian organizations.


Your logic on the Bonnaos owning the Rizzutos, if that's the case you can almost argue that the Five families are really Sicilian mafia crews that never actually broke away I mean, WTF?


The mother thing I find amusing, cause we just had a post of the HEAD OF THE SICILIAN MAFIAS sister being convicted of being a " Made MAN" lol. That's who he trusted, I think he had a couple of sisters, or an aunt involved as well.
I've explain again AD NAUSEUM, that clans that focus on drug dealing long term, the structure changes to accommodate this. Eventually all they really need is a connect and trust, and the trust comes from Blood Relatives, not some crook whose loyalty is entirely based off his ability to earn with you. These people trust MONEY, their ability to BUY people, not some fuckin Oath and a burning Saint card. It's the Escobar/ Narcos philosophy Plata y Plomo, Silver or Lead. They will bribe you or kill you. And it's all in the family.


There are female bosses all over Naples, and recently the Sicilian clans operations look more like the " DISORGANIZED" Naples clans then the traditional mafia extortion operations. In the show Gommorah the MOTHER is the one who took over the clan, and this is VERY REALISTIC, but I feel like you are stuck in the like 70-80s mindset.

You ever read about Immacolata Capone, Maria Licciardi, Rosetta Cutolo? Or the Greco mafia war in Sicily, between BLOOD RELATIVES. About how a rival was shot, dying in the street, and a MOTHER AND DAUGHTER run into the street and finish the guy off with Kitchen knives? I really feel like you should read MORE.

Structurally, to make the big money, Sicily has ALWAYS NEEDED NEW YORK. It's the Marketplace to move narcotics for them. Their relationships with the Five families is almost always based on that.

I'll say it again, THERE WAS NO LINK BETWEEN THE FIVE FAMILIES AND COLOMBIA!!! CC clan coke went to Canada and Europe. New York was the province of the Cali coke Cartel, period. Ya gotta do the knowledge, the research.
ITS STILL TRUE TODAY THROUGH THE DOMINICANS. The Mexicans would love to have it, but there is no Italian coke cartel in NY, at least, not until those Calabrians and the Gambinos get cooking..... Even the Queens operation showed that was an EXPORT OPERATION, not retail in NY.

Put it this way, who in LCN was bigger in Coke than John Roberts, aka John Riccobono? With the direct plug to the Colombians?

I'll grant you Rizzuto may not have been his own man, but he wasn't OWNED by the Bonnanos. If anyone, it was the CC clan, and the Sicilian mafia clans they did business with. See the CC clan interest encompass ALL the Sicilian mafia, as well as the Siderno group, and quite possibly the strongest of the Naples clans like the Nuvolettas, and Mazzarellas, as these clans were part of some of the original drug pacts with Cosa Nostra....

THIS EXCERPT HERE....


According to Natoli, "the clan is best described as an international holding ... a holding which secures certain services for the Sicilian Cosa Nostra as a whole: drug-trafficking routes and channels for money-laundering." The families [BadWord] and Caruana are the nucleus of the clan. They are relatives; they inter-married like medieval feudal lords to strengthen their criminal alliance. Consequently, the clan is very compact with great cohesion. Natoli describes it as "a very tight knit family group of men-of-honor, not only joined by Mafia bonds, but also byties of blood." The strength of this group – apart from the numbers and solid relationships – is that it moved to the nerve-centres of drug trafficking in North and South America.


Within Cosa Nostra few know who they are, but all know what they are. "Everybody knew that [BadWord]-Caruana were the undisputed controllers of the Canadian and Venezuelan market," says Gaspare Mutolo, a pentito (repentant) who himself was heavily involved in the drug trade, but became a state witness in 1992. (20) "In Cosa Nostra it was generally known that they were involved in drug trafficking at a very high level," says Mutolo. Indeed, the names [BadWord] and Caruana were – and probably still are – a guarantee of a good deal.

Moreover, the clan has scarcely been touched by the Sicilian Cosa Nostra's internal power-struggles, like the one which brought Totò Riina and his Corleonesi to power in the 1980s. One reason is that the [BadWord]-Caruana clan had moved abroad. Another is that it positioned itself at an equal distance to the different factions in the Sicilian Mafia. As Natoli explains: "Their interest is the drug trade, an activity which runs right across different interests and actions. That is why they have to keep a central position and be independent from whatever 'political' wing that rules Cosa Nostra."


The [BadWord]'s and Caruana's were and probably still are leading international drug traffickers, and they control a significant part of the money laundering networks," noted prosecuting judge Gioacchino Natoli from Palermo.


"The difference between the [BadWord]-Caruana clan and other Mafia families is that they have a key-position in the drug trade and money laundering for Cosa Nostra,

In his view, the clan is the international transport service and the launderette of Cosa Nostra. It brings together the producers and distributers of narcotics. "Almost all the money of the Sicilian Mafia in North-America to purchase heroin and the resulting proceeds went through their hands." The [BadWord] and Caruanas are necessary and irreplaceable for every other Mafia family. Their services are indispensable. Consequently, "the others are allied with them."



The French Connection was a prelude to the Pizza Connection. In both cases the trade was organized by Sicilian men of honor, and not American made-members. Heroin wholesaling in the US was firmly in the hands of a Sicilian network, which supplied American Cosa Nostra Families at the distribution level. The Sicilians had the licence of the American bosses who 'franchised' the import to them. (39) The [BadWord]-Caruana-Bono combination supplied the market in the 1970s and kept on supplying in 1980s.

When the clan had to move to Canada half-way through the 1960s they found shelter with the Montreal Cotroni Family, a sub-division of the New York Bonanno Family. The logic of Mafia hierarchy required the clan to be subordinate to the Cotroni bosses. These bosses soon discovered they had lost control over their supposed Sicilian underlings who had set up their own narcotics racket. When Cotroni boss Paolo Violi tried to re-establish his leadership, he was eliminated. (41)



It's astonishing to me. Salvatore Vitale can be Underboss with NO POWER, we know this. He was forbidden from meeting with the capos, nor could he receive tributes from them. So you can be Underboss with no power, but a soldier who operated with complete autonomy, can't be a boss in all but name.

I can read about SOLDIERS WITH JUICE, like a Vic Colletti winning a sit down with Massino, but you think Vito and them are like, shitting bricks for this guy? Why the hell were they even SENDING GUYS up there to talk to him, he shoulda been coming down to NY. That alone shows you the juice he had, the respect they HAD to give the guy.

Again, if Sonny Red had a plug, then Galante isn't even important. In fact he becomes boss, like forget about it. He was supposed to be a DISTRIBUTOR. Your very post shows his Uncle got stopped in his tracks. But he COULD have had a pipeline, but the fact that he's dead leads me to believe he didn't..


I think if you look at it closely, the capos that were exempt from the drug dealing ban, were the guys dealing for Sicilian mafia families. The Catalanos, the Cherry Hill Gambinos, Pasquale Conte. Either that, or they are guys who were importers/ wholesalers themselves like Casso, ( therefore, above the street dealing that gets guys heavy time,) or longtime TRUSTED distributors, real tough guys who they KNEW would NEVER rat. This is your Amusos, DiPalermo bros, (maybe they worked with Casso and Amuso? I never considered this before...) not many I can name though...
The CC clan has more structural business ties to the GAMBINOS, than they do the Bonnano Family. This was illustrated in the article I posted about them,the Rothchilds of the Mafia.



This Excerpt

The most intriguing of the dozens [BadWord]-Caruana enterprises was a cattle-breeding company on an extended ranch in the state of Barinas, close to the Colombian border. It had its own private airstrip. A special task-force of the Venezuelan intelligence-service DISIP looked at this farm called Ganaderia Rio Zapa, established in 1971. (49) The shareholders of the firm represented the creme-de-la-creme of Mafia heroin-movers in those days:

* Salvatore 'Cicchiteddu' Greco, the former head of the overall Commission of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, and one of the pioneers in the international heroin trade (50);
* Nick Rizzuto, a lieutenant in the Montreal-based Cotroni Family, but highly independent and in fact subordinate to the Sicilian Mafia (i.e. [BadWord]-Caruana);
* Antonio Napoli, a high-ranking made member of the New York Gambino Family and 'the biggest mover of junk to the United States' (51);
* John Gambino, a relative of Carlo Gambino and boss of the Sicilian faction of the New York Gambino Family (52);
* Brothers Angelo and Francesco Mongiovì, figure-heads of the [BadWord] in Caracas and Italy's financial centre Milan. According to a DEA report, Angelo's son Nino Mongiovì married Paolo [BadWord]'s daughter and was the 'super manager for drugs of all kinds passing through Miami'. (53)

The DEA spotted them investigating the Napoli brothers of the Gambino Family in New York. Antonio Napoli had moved to Venezuela and was a partner in a [BadWord] business. At the time DEA headquarters figured the trail irrelevant; nevertheless, special agent Tom Tripodi was sent to Caracas. DEA-analyst Mona Ewell told reporter Claire Sterling that Tripodi "came back with the whole thing." (54)

The Bonnanos are NOWHERE, except as distributors in NY, the GAMBINOS ARE THE COMMISION PRINCIPLES YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT.

Even Gerlando Sciascias biggest NY customers were the Gambino distributors, which is why they participated in the three capos murders, cause they were jeopardizing the DISTRIBUTION PART OF THE OPERATION, Sonny Red was no wholesaler, or importer that I can see, the evidence doesn't support it....

Well, I will admit I am a beginner when it comes to the topic of Canadian organized crime. I'm convinced however that you and I can read the exact same book list and come to conclusions that are about 50% different.



Whoever said that the Coscas up in Canada are not organized crime were not propagating a view I subscribe to. Because that's what they are, Coscas and Ndrinas.



It's not comparable. For it to be comparable, Gerlando would have to be a captain or boss appointed by NY who was whacked by the Canadians in an act of rebellion. But he was whacked by NY, so where is the act of revolution? We just disagree.



My whole thing was that if he broke off from NY and became his own boss, why would his mother be in the hierarchy? But it could just be a matter of culture I guess. I just would imagine that if you just declared yourself a boss and stopped sending envelopes, that you would assume battle formations and not have your mom on the front line. But he did have his father making collections, didn't he? And his father was also shot while he was away in prison....so.



No, it's simply that I'm accustomed to digesting information about the American mafia, which normally excludes female participation. But before anyone says the modern Sicilian feminist version of the mafia is the original, remember that the original "maffia" might have been the Fratellanza Di Favara. Fratellanza means brotherhood. It's family, but it's only males. So that's your original mafia. Interestingly, this original or earliest recorded form of the mafia....was based in Agrigento.



Say it, don't spray it. I've already agreed with you at least twice already about that. I also keep repeating, for some reason, that the 5 Families were customers of the CC clans, who in turn DID have a Colombian connection. Good Lord.

You posted earlier that the CC clans didn't supply the 5 families, only Canada. But....that's probably were Vito Rizzuto came in. Remember Galante. Montreal was his Holy Grail because it was strategically situated. The Montreal crew's job was to move junk received THERE down into the States. Let me spell it out in plain English: The Caruana C[untreras were the link to Colombia. The Rizzutos were probably the link between the CC clans and the Bonannos (and maybe other NY families). That's your missing link. That's why you can't envision a NY Bonanno meeting up with a rich member of the Caruanas. There were middlemen between the middlemen.



Separate organization from the Rizzutos.



The above sub-excerpt is the most pertinent to our discussion.




I don't see how a satellite crew of Bonanno made men could hope to control and dominate an international group of jet setting drug dealers like the CCs. I just don't. And I don't think it was even tried. That's more sensationalism IMHO.




Not neccesarily. There is one stark reason to send guys up there and not summon the guy....the border is hot. Anyone crossing the border is recorded. You would never call your point man down to NY across the border with all that heat. Never. They did it with Sciascia, but it's also true that Sciascia had heat on him. A lot. So much so, he even got indicted.




Hey, maybe he didn't, have a plug. Maybe he did. I definitely think the 3 Captains were drug dealers though. Definitely.

I don't believe it personally, but it's very possible she had Vito's ear. Remember her whole family was mobbed up as well and she was no idiot with what the men in her family done.

In the camorra and maybe the south American cartels there were female bosses or at least high-ranking members, but in the Cosa Nostra (both American and Siciian) I never heard about a woman being an official boss (or acting boss) of any family, not even a small one. In Sicily, there were cases when wives or family members of male bosses were involved, but that's usually when their husbands, fathers, brothers, cousins etc are in jail or on the run, so they carry over messages or maybe can take some decisions, but I don't think there has yet been a woman to be officialy promoted to a commanding position in the mafia, NOT as a substitute for a jailed male, but for her own merits and skills. Maybe that will come with time, but for now I think this aspect of the Cosa Nostra is still stuck to tradition.

By the way, have you watched the Italian fictional series "Squadra antimafia" where nearly a half of Cosa Nostra bosses are women and, what's most absurd and unlikely, they are respected and taken seriously even by those male bosses who hate them and want to whack them for business reasons?
To me it seems WAY too fictional...

Thanks for posting that one CabriniGreen. The C-C clan are an interesting bunch that aren't brought up as much as they should be.