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Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205301
06/05/06 03:14 PM
06/05/06 03:14 PM
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 318
Highway 61
hova4ever9 Offline
Capo
hova4ever9  Offline
Capo
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 318
Highway 61
I read the article but was he a lobbiest bribing people??? and he looked rediculous in that trench coat.


Travis Bickle: Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man. -Taxi Driver
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205302
06/05/06 04:29 PM
06/05/06 04:29 PM
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 276
Walter Mosca Offline
Capo
Walter Mosca  Offline
Capo
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 276
I don't know but it's not effecting me much.


"Jonny Tightlips... you're shot!
- whered' they get you?"
"I ain't sayin' nutin'."
"But what'll I tell the Doc?!"
"Tell'um to suck a lemon."
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205303
06/07/06 09:18 AM
06/07/06 09:18 AM
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 229
Chicago, IL
Donatello Noboddi Offline
Made Member
Donatello Noboddi  Offline
Made Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 229
Chicago, IL
The first I have heard of a formal ceremony for Outfit members....

Tapes reveal mob's secrets
June 7, 2006

BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter

In secretly tape-recorded conversations, alleged mob hitman Frank Calabrese Sr. talks about having his finger cut for a mob oath, spreading lime to dispose of a corpse and how shotgun ammo tore up the body of another victim, according to newly released transcripts.

"Them will f------ tear half your body apart," Calabrese Sr. allegedly said in a 1999 conversation secretly tape-recorded by his son.

Transcripts of the conversations came to light Tuesday as prosecutors filed a motion to keep the 69-year-old Calabrese Sr. behind bars as he awaits charges with other reputed mobsters in one of the most significant cases ever against the Chicago Outfit. Calabrese Sr.'s attorney, Joseph Lopez, wants Calabrese Sr. out of jail, saying he presents no risk. Lopez likely will argue in front of a federal judge next week that the recorded conversations are taken out of context.

Calabrese Sr. is charged with killing 13 people for the mob. The feds say he's a danger to the community, especially for the witnesses against him, which include his brother, Nick, who allegedly participated in some of the killings with him, and his son, Frank Jr., who sources said no longer has anything to do with the Outfit.

Nick Calabrese was spurred in part to cooperate with the feds after he learned that his brother had been secretly tape-recorded allegedly giving the go-ahead to have him killed if he cooperated with the feds.

Frank Calabrese Sr. said he "would send my blessing" to Outfit members, so they would know there would be no retaliation for Nick Calabrese's death, according to the transcripts.

Frank Calabrese Jr., who is not charged in the current case involving his father, put his life on the line by secretly recording the elder Calabrese in the prison yard where they both were, on another case in 1999. Frank Calabrese Jr. wore earphones and a tape-player which the FBI secretly equipped with a bug. The younger Calabrese apparently decided to cooperate to ensure his father remained in prison for the rest of his life because the son received nothing from the government for his help, law enforcement sources have said.

On the tapes, Calabrese Sr. allegedly talks of participating in several killings.

Frank Calabrese Sr. "has been a serial murderer for the Chicago Outfit," stated the government filing by prosecutors Mitchell A. Mars, John J. Scully and T. Markus Funk.

The 'Dahmer of Elmwood Park'?


Lopez scoffed at the prosecution line.

"That's the most ridiculous characterization I've ever heard of my client," Lopez said.

"Is he the Jeffrey Dahmer of Elmwood Park?" Lopez said.

Referring to one murder, the 1970 slaying of mob associate Michael Albergo, Calabrese Sr. talks to his son about putting lime on the body to help it disintegrate, the transcripts say.

"We put lime that eats," Calabrese Sr. allegedly said. "There was no clothes on the person."

The feds contend Calabrese Sr. worried that Albergo could implicate him in loan-sharking, and lured him to the murder site where Calabrese Sr. and two other men strangled him to death. Albergo was stripped, then buried in a Chinatown construction site, which later became a White Sox parking lot.

In another conversation, Calabrese Sr. allegedly admits to being in the lookout car during the murders of William Dauber and Dauber's wife, Charlotte.

The couple was killed in 1980 because mobsters believed that William Dauber was cooperating with law enforcement, authorities said. His wife was killed simply because she was at the "wrong place at the wrong time," Calabrese Sr. allegedly said on tape.

Another man in the wrong place at the wrong time was Arthur Morawski, who was murdered along with Richard Ortiz in 1983 outside a bar in Cicero, officials said. The feds contend Ortiz was killed by Calabrese Sr. and other mobsters because Ortiz had committed a murder not sanctioned by the Outfit. Ortiz's family has long argued he was never involved in any crimes.

Allegedly talks of mob induction


Calabrese Sr. allegedly describes how he blocked Ortiz's car while his brother Nick and another accomplice fired shotguns at Ortiz and Morawski.

Calabrese Sr. describes how he instructed the two killers to do the job and how the ammunition tore up the bodies of the victims, according to the transcripts.

"Oh, yeah," Calabrese Sr. said. "Tore 'em up bad. Them'll tear your body up. They're called double-oughts. And you want me to tell you something? The Polish guy that was with him was a nice guy. Okay? But he happened to be at the wrong place. . . . It was said, no matter who's with him, want it done. Now if you back away and you have that opportunity and you don't, then you look like a f------ a------."

By allegedly talking about the murders, Calabrese Sr. violated a strict Outfit code of never speaking of killings after they were done.

In another violation of the code, Calabrese Sr. allegedly describes how he was inducted into the mob.

"Their fingers get cut and everybody puts the fingers together and all the blood running down, then they take pictures. Put them in your hand. Burn them," Calabrese Sr. says, according to the feds.

"Pictures of?" his son asks.

"Holy pictures," Calabrese Sr. explains.

As they burn, you don't want to move your hand, Calabrese Sr. says.

If you move, "then it shows your fear," he says.


MOB TALK Allegedly talks of mob induction Allegedly talks of mob induction

Here are excerpts from transcripts of secretly recorded statements in 1999 of alleged mob hitman Frank Calabrese Sr.

On urging two reluctant mob assassins to get out of the car to go kill two victims in Cicero in 1983:


"I was the one talkin' to them . . . 'All right, guys, here's what you gotta do here. Okay now out. Out. Out. Get out . . .' [He laughs.] Yeah, they were like hesitant for a minute. 'Out. Now, now, now, now.' "


On what the shotgun ammo did to the bodies of the two men:


"Bigger ones . . . Big, big bearings. So them, them will f------ tear half your body apart. Oh yeah. Tore 'em up bad. Them'll tear your body up. They're called double-oughts."


On his pride of getting his fellow mobsters to talk in code:


"You know who started all that rigga-ma-talk-talk? I did. They never talked like that. They didn't know about talkin' like that."


I came, I saw, I had no idea what was going on, I left.
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205304
06/08/06 09:39 AM
06/08/06 09:39 AM
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 229
Chicago, IL
Donatello Noboddi Offline
Made Member
Donatello Noboddi  Offline
Made Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 229
Chicago, IL
Mob's Eto dies long after surviving hit

By Jeff Coen and Rudolph Bush, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporter Matt O'Connor contributed to this report
Published June 8, 2006


A noted Chicago mob figure who ran gambling operations for the Outfit, survived a botched hit and turned government informant and witness has died after a long stint in the federal witness-protection program, a federal official confirmed.

Ken Eto turned on the mob after he survived being shot in the head in a Northwest Side parking lot in 1983 and went on to testify against mob boss Ernest Rocco Infelice in 1991. After a news report Wednesday on WLS-TV Ch. 7 that said Eto died in Atlanta in 2004 in his 80s, federal officials in Chicago said they had been aware of his death, which had not been reported by the media before Wednesday.

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Gary Shapiro, who for years headed the U.S. Justice Department's Chicago Organized Crime Strike Force, said Wednesday that he knew of Eto's death, but he did not know when he had died.

Eto, known as "Tokyo Joe," survived three gunshots in the head in February 1983 in an attempted assassination that came after he was convicted of a gambling charge and the mob feared he would become a turncoat.

Former FBI agent Jack O'Rourke said Wednesday that Eto was a gambling expert who for decades ran games and books for the mob's North Side crew.

Eto learned gambling in the service while riding a troop train to Alaska during World War II. After returning to Chicago, he took up with the mob and handled not only their games and books, but also paid bribes to police, O'Rourke said.

In 1983, the mob turned on Eto and ordered him killed.

Inside a car parked along Harlem Avenue on the North Side, two men fired three shots into Eto's skull. The men, whom Eto later identified to federal agents as mob soldiers John Gattuso and Jasper Campise, then left him for dead, O'Rourke said.

But Eto didn't die, and after awaking from unconsciousness, dragged himself to a nearby pharmacy, where he called 911, O'Rourke said.

FBI agents and then-Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeremy Margolis rushed to the hospital where Eto was taken, O'Rourke said.

During his recovery, Eto agreed to "flip" for the feds, O'Rourke said.

"He really had nowhere else to go," O'Rourke said

Eto not only fingered Gattuso, a Cook County sheriff's officer, and Campise, as the gunmen, but he also provided intelligence about mob activity to the FBI.

O'Rourke said he learned that soon after the shooting, the mob planned to murder Gattuso and Campise. O'Rourke said he and then-U.S. Atty. Dan Webb tried to persuade the men to cooperate with the government, but they refused.

On July 14, 1983, their bodies were found in the trunk of car in Naperville. Eto, meanwhile, was placed in the witness-protection program, O'Rourke said.

In 1989, Eto testified against a state legislator implicated in the Operation Greylord investigation. Eto was 72 when he testified in 1991, telling the court he had spent 40 years in the Chicago Outfit.

"I've never seen a witness like him," Shapiro said. "Completely unflappable."


I came, I saw, I had no idea what was going on, I left.
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205305
06/20/06 10:12 PM
06/20/06 10:12 PM
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 5,453
California
X
XDCX Offline
XDCX  Offline
X

Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 5,453
California
CNN.com - \'Mafia cops\' say their lawyers blew it

Quote:
NEW YORK (AP) -- Wearing sharply tailored suits and sharing "Godfather"-style kisses in the courtroom, attorneys Bruce Cutler and Edward Hayes appeared a formidable defense team for two ex-NYPD detectives accused of moonlighting as hit men for the mob.

Now, two months after Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were convicted of eight slayings, the former cops are charging that their lawyers botched the case -- and asking a federal judge to throw out the verdict.

Both Cutler and Hayes were disappointed by the allegations from their one-time clients, saying Eppolito and Caracappa were desperate men motivated by the life sentences awaiting them if their appeal fails.

"I was just so personally offended," Cutler said. "One day you're begged to come in, and the next day you're knocked by the client, who to me is delusional in a certain respect. He's certainly ungrateful and shameless."

The defendants' new lawyers were unsparing in their assessment of their predecessors.

New lawyers critical

"Hayes' indifference to Mr. Caracappa's defense, both in terms of preparation and understanding, was apparent throughout the case," Daniel Nobel, who now represents Caracappa, said in court papers.

Joseph Bondy, the new attorney for Eppolito, said Cutler "spent the majority of Mr. Eppolito's closing argument speaking about himself, including that he lost over 14 pounds during trial, loved Brooklyn as a borough of bridges and tunnels, and was an admirer of the great Indian Chief Crazy Horse."

A hearing is set for June 23 on the defendants' allegations of ineffective counsel.

The allegations against Cutler and Hayes are at odds with their reputations.

Cutler, a burly, swaggering figure, is best known for defending Mafia boss John Gotti, employing a loud and merciless style of cross-examination known as "Brucifixion." And Hayes, author of the recent memoir "Mouthpiece," had a client list that included Sean "Diddy" Combs and Robert De Niro; he was the model for the impeccably tailored, street-smart defense attorney in Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities."

When the two decorated former detectives were convicted April 6, Hayes shared a tearful courtroom hug with Caracappa. Their rapport has since vanished.

Cutler 'rankled and angry'

"He's desperate -- who else can he attack?" Hayes said. "I am surprised, however, since I didn't think he was like that."

"They started off blaming the government and the prosecutors, blaming this and that," Cutler said. "Who's left? Us. I am rankled and angry."

Eppolito, 57, and Caracappa, 64, were found guilty of committing or facilitating eight killings while on the payroll of both the NYPD and Luchese family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.

Their new lawyers charged that Cutler and Hayes failed to attack a possible flaw in the government case: That the alleged racketeering enterprise did not continue once the defendants retired and moved to Las Vegas. That would mean the five-year statute of limitations had expired and the convictions would be invalid.

The court filings also included complaints that Cutler and Hayes ignored their clients, that Eppolito was denied his right to testify, and that cross-examination of prosecution witnesses was improperly handled.

Neither Eppolito or Caracappa took the witness stand, though Cutler probably will at the hearing this month.

"I don't want to hurt Lou, and I certainly don't want to hurt Steve," Cutler said. "But I will be heard."


"Growing up my dad was like 'You have a great last name, Galifianakis. Galifianakis...begins with a gal...and ends with a kiss...' I'm like that's great dad, can we get it changed to 'Galifianafuck' please?" -- Zach Galifianakis



Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205306
07/03/06 01:45 PM
07/03/06 01:45 PM
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,485
AZ
Turnbull Offline
Turnbull  Offline

Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,485
AZ
Well, here's a story about the "traditional" vs. "new" Mafia from today's NYTimes:
Story covers yet another :rolleyes: Bonanno Family trial triggered by informants. On trial is the "old Mafia" guy, Baldassare Amato, 54, born in Castellemmare del Golfo, Sicily--a stone killer described by the Times as "hard-eyed." One witness, after experiencing one of Amato's stares, stated: "I ain't testifyin'." Amato sits "impassively" next to his lawyer, "saying little."

Contrast him to "new Mafia" guy Anthony Basile, 36, one of the defendants. Here's how the Times portrayed him:

But it was Mr. Basile's case that seemed to present the most stunning departure from the old-world Mafia mores. His lawyer, Ms. Laser, sought to portray him in her opening statement as a young man swept away by the romance of the gangsters he saw in his Bensonhurst neighborhood, men with money, cars, women and respect. As a result, she said, he made a mistake and associated with the wrong people.

Perhaps because she did not want the jury to confuse her client with a tough guy, let alone a killer, she painted a picture of him that must have rankled the traditional Mr. Amato.

"He is terrified," she told the jury, "that he finds himself in this enormous, intimidating courtroom with all of these lawyers, with these F.B.I. agents, with the court and, of course, all of you, judging him, as he sits here, fighting for his life, for what will be for him the rest of his life."


Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu,
E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu...
E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu
Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205307
07/24/06 04:06 PM
07/24/06 04:06 PM
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 229
Chicago, IL
Donatello Noboddi Offline
Made Member
Donatello Noboddi  Offline
Made Member
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 229
Chicago, IL
Calabrese wants his trial to be 'family affair'

July 22, 2006

BY STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporter



Reputed Outfit killer Frank Calabrese Sr. calls the government's criminal case against him involving 13 murders a family affair.

After all, the two star witnesses at trial will be his son and brother.

That's why Frank Calabrese Sr. wants to be tried alone and not with the 11 other defendants in what's been called the most important federal prosecution of the mob in Chicago history.

"This case is really a family affair rather than a multi-defendant prosecution," Calabrese Sr.'s attorney, Joseph Lopez, wrote in court papers filed Friday. The trial is set for May.

"The Calabrese Trio should be able to battle out in their own arena," Lopez wrote.

The filing makes clear that part of the Calabrese Sr. defense strategy will be, in effect, to put his own family on trial.

In the motion, Calabrese Sr. calls his son, Frank Jr., a lowlife, "a social misfit" and contends he broke into the family vacation home.

Sources familiar with the Calabrese family, though, point to the father as the malignant influence, contending he brought the same brutality he used on the streets into his family home.

The accusations from Calabrese Sr. come in sharp contrast to the expressions of love he expressed for his son just last month when Calabrese Sr. was trying to get a federal judge to set a bond so he could get out of jail.

'Strictly business'


Federal prosecutors had warned trial witnesses would be in jeopardy if Calabrese Sr. were released. But the elder Calabrese, through his attorney, expressed nothing but love and adoration for his son.

The judge kept Calabrese Sr. in jail.

On Friday, Lopez saw no contradiction between the statements of love and such phrases as lowlife.

"Love's got nothing to do with it," Lopez said. "It's business. It's strictly business in the courtroom."

Frank Calabrese Jr. is not charged in the current case but is providing key evidence for prosecutors.

He secretly recorded his father while both were in prison in 1999 on another matter in Milan, Mich., catching his father allegedly talking about mob murders and other Outfit business. The son made the recordings at risk to his life, law enforcement sources have said.

Calabrese Sr. also wants to be tried separately because he expects to come under attack from the other defendants.

"The one's family who is causing the problems is the one who gets the brunt of the finger-pointing," Lopez argued.


I came, I saw, I had no idea what was going on, I left.
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205308
08/25/06 12:12 AM
08/25/06 12:12 AM
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 2,414
Bar Vitelli, Queens, NY
Signor Vitelli Offline
Underboss
Signor Vitelli  Offline
Underboss
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 2,414
Bar Vitelli, Queens, NY
Due to the Weekend Sitdown in Philadelphia, I was a little lax in going through my newspapers.

This was in the NY Daily News on Friday, August 18, 2006:

*************************

Mobster cops to '84 slay of capo

By Jose Martinez, Daily News Staff Writer

A former Bonanno crime family underboss pleaded guilty yesterday to the 1984 killing of a Sicilian-born capo whose remains were found inside oil drums at a New Jersey glue factory.

In a brief appearance in Brooklyn Federal Court, Louis (Ha Ha) Attanasio, 62, copped to killing Cesare Bonventre, who was Carmine Galante's bodyguard when the Bonanno boss was gunned down in 1979. Attanasio was arrested in December 2004.

*************************

Those among us who have read Donnie Brasco will immediately recognize the name of Cesare/Caesar Bonventre as one of the "zips" (assassins) imported from Sicily.

Signor V.


"For me, there's only my wife..."

"Sure I cook with wine - sometimes I even add it to the food!"

"When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?"

"It was a grass harp... And we listened."

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"

"No. Saints and poets, maybe... they do some."


Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205309
09/02/06 10:46 PM
09/02/06 10:46 PM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi Offline OP
Caporegime
Don Cardi  Offline OP
Caporegime

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
'Son for a son'

Dapper Don threatened to kill Gravano's kid - witness

BY THOMAS ZAMBITO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Dapper Don John Gotti made a deal with his personal devil.
As long as mob snitch Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano agreed not to squeal about son John A. (Junior) Gotti's mob doings, the Dapper Don vowed not to kill Gravano's only son, Gerard.

"It was a son for a son," mob informant Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo testified yesterday at the mob scion's racketeering trial in Manhattan Federal Court.

"Leave my son out," DiLeonardo paraphrased the Dapper Don as saying. "Don't get him pinched, leave my son alone, and we won't kill your son or hurt your family."

It's unclear whether the pact between the don of the Gambino crime family and his underboss was struck before Gravano turned on Gotti in 1991 or after.

DiLeonardo said Junior Gotti told him the story when they were still friends, before the Gambino capo became the highest-ranking member of the crime family since Gravano to betray his fellow wiseguys.

The Dapper Don kept up his end of the bargain.

Gerard Gravano, 28, is still alive and serving a 15-year federal prison stretch for his role in a Phoenix-based drug ring he ran with his father's help.

But assuming DiLeonardo's account is true, Gravano broke his promise in Peter Maas' 1997 biography, "Underboss," in which he outs Junior Gotti as a mobster by recalling a sitdown between the Dapper Don and the Colombo family boss, Vincent (Chin) Gigante.

"One thing I'll never forget from that meeting was John telling Chin in sort of a proud way that his son John Junior had just been made," Gravano says. "Instead of congratulating him, Chin said, 'Jeez, I'm sorry to hear that.'"

Gotti, 42, was inducted into the Mafia on Christmas Eve 1988 - the same night DiLeonardo was inducted. Gravano also failed to live up to his promise of keeping his son away from the life of crime he led.

"I wanted my son to be legitimate, to have nothing to do with what I did," he says in the book.

Prosecutors expect to wrap up their case against Gotti by early next week.

Gotti is accused in a wide-ranging conspiracy that includes ordering thugs to silence radio host Curtis Sliwa for his repeated on-air attacks on the Gotti clan following the Dapper Don's 1992 racketeering conviction.

DiLeonardo said that Gravano, while admitting to 19 murders, failed to implicate members of his own crew in crimes and suggested that federal prosecutors let him get away with it because they wanted to convict the Dapper Don.

"John was the golden goose," DiLeonardo testified.

Originally published on September 2, 2006


============================================================

If this is true, then I'd have to believe that the deal was made between Gotti and Gravano immedeatly AFTER Gravano turned rat. What reason would Gotti have to make a deal like that and threaten the life of Gravano's son while Gravano was still in the good graces of Gotti?

To me it just wouldn't make sense for Gotti to even bring up that kind of a deal before Sammy turned rat.


Don Cardi



Don Cardi cool

Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.




Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205310
09/06/06 07:10 PM
09/06/06 07:10 PM
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 18
Oswego, IL, USA
Struck By the Thunderbolt Offline
Wiseguy
Struck By the Thunderbolt  Offline
Wiseguy
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 18
Oswego, IL, USA
Nod to founding godfathers
Las Vegas' mayor gained fame and fortune defending mob titans. Now he wants a museum celebrating their role in building Sin City.

By Michael Martinez
Tribune national correspondent
Published September 5, 2006


LAS VEGAS -- Mayor Oscar Goodman, the flamboyant, gin-sipping, sports-gambling, showgirl-squiring executive of Sin City, is caught in a contradiction.

For years he had told the world, "There is no mob." That was when he was a defense lawyer who represented mobsters and even had a cameo playing himself in Martin Scorsese's "Casino." Goodman said there were no mobsters--just alleged mobsters.

Now, as mayor, he wants to take a National Historic Landmark, the old federal courthouse where he tried his first case, and turn it into a mob museum--and there's no alleged about it.

Many of Goodman's constituents and some former FBI agents are appalled by the idea, but Goodman insists he's just recognizing Vegas' founding fathers. Or godfathers.

"The mob founded us, and I never apologized for them because I represented them, and they made me a rich man," he said.

Goodman, 67, who recalled representing an alleged mobster at Chicago's criminal courts complex known as "26th and Cal," is winning all verdicts in the political arena these days. He was re-elected in 2003 to a second term as mayor of Las Vegas with more than 85 percent of the vote.

If Goodman wants it, he gets it. And he wants a mob museum.

"As long as I'm mayor," Goodman asserted, "we're going to keep on smiling at ourselves at how the mob founded us."

One of the most prominent founders was Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, a maverick underworld mastermind who was the boss of West Coast gambling for the crime syndicate and who opened the Flamingo hotel in 1946 on a forlorn patch of highway that eventually became known famously as the Strip.

Some wonder whether the museum will end up as a monument to Goodman's legal career and his extensive list of old clients: Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro of Chicago, Jimmy Chagra, Nick Civella, Vinny Ferrara, Frank Rosenthal, Meyer Lansky, Natale Richichi and Nicky Scarfo.

That compilation was made by author and Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith, who wrote a book about Goodman, including how he despised mob snitches, in "Of Rats and Men: Oscar Goodman's Life from Mob Mouthpiece to Mayor of Las Vegas."


Notorious client list

"Oscar's client list would fill any mob museum," said Smith, 46. "You know, he has represented members of various organized crime families literally from coast to coast. He's most known locally and in Chicago, of course, for his representation of Tony Spilotro."

Spilotro allegedly crushed the skull of one victim in a vise and later turned up dead in an Indiana cornfield in 1986.

"Most locals here know him as a killer, but [Goodman] says he was a gentleman. . . . Of course Oscar never went on any long rides with Tony Spilotro, or he wouldn't have come back," Smith said.

The notion of a mob museum annoys the FBI agents who were Goodman's legal adversaries.

"In my estimation, his purpose would be to glorify them," said Joe Yablonsky, 77, who retired as agent in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas office in 1984. "The only reason that he gets away with this is that he's in Vegas. If he was in some normal American city, he'd never make it."

Yablonsky, who spent the last four years of his FBI career in Las Vegas and now lives in Lady Lake, Fla., said many Vegas residents don't remember the violent days of mob-influenced casinos because most of them weren't living there then. The population of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County is 1.8million, four times what it was in 1980.

"If it were told truthfully, it would be OK, how we ridded the place of them and what they were really like," Yablonsky said. "They milked the place for all these dollars they took in the skim and . . . Spilotro was a hit guy, and we figured him for 22 whacks and that was supposed to be his role as enforcer. How is [Goodman] going to make him look good?"

The museum, which doesn't have a formal name yet, would be housed downtown across the street from City Hall in the old federal courthouse and post office, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, said Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell.

The city awarded a $7.5 million contract this month for an architect to design temporary and permanent galleries. The museum and cultural center is expected to cost $30 million.


Entertaining venue envisioned


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City officials have yet to decide how the museum, which would open in 2008, will depict the Mafia, but Fretwell said it will be entertaining enough to hold its own against the stiff competition for which Vegas attractions are renowned.

City officials now refer to the building as the POST Modern, a word play on how they want a modern use for the old post office, which opened in 1933.

The building's sole courtroom is perhaps best known as one of the sites used in 1950 for the U.S. Senate's televised Kefauver hearings, in which suspected crime figures were interrogated.

Because the museum is to address the history of organized crime in Las Vegas, exhibits could very well bear upon the mayor's career as a defense lawyer.

"The mayor has a rich history as an attorney and may have things to contribute in terms of collections or oral history," Fretwell said.

An advisory board including local media members, a former chief of the Las Vegas FBI office and tourism officials has been formed, and a panel of historians also is being assembled, Fretwell said.

While a recent city-commissioned survey showed that out-of-town visitors preferred a mob museum in the old courthouse, locals more often preferred a museum devoted to "vintage Vegas," its architecture and entertainment evolution.

One resident, Wayne Haag, 45, a garbage collection driver, thought the mayor's idea cast a negative light on Las Vegas.

"A Mafia museum--in a way, he's related to it. It's an old post office. Why [a Mafia museum]? To me, it's m-o-n-e-y," Haag said.

----------

mjmartinez@tribune.com

- - -

Who might be included?

Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro

Known as the Chicago mob's overseer in Las Vegas, Spilotro, 48, was brutally slain in 1986 along with his brother, Michael. Their bodies were found in an Indiana cornfield and the slayings were part of the movie "Casino."


Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel

The boss of West Coast gambling for the crime syndicate and an original member of Murder Inc., he came to Las Vegas in 1945. A year later, Siegel opened the Flamingo hotel on a dusty stretch of highway that soon would become known as the Strip. A shrewd businessman with an explosive temper, Siegel was executed in 1947 in Beverly Hills before he could see his Las Vegas dream come to fruition. More than 40 years later, Warren Beatty brought the gangster back to life in "Bugsy."


Anthony "Big Tuna" Accardo

Accardo rose from Al Capone's bodyguard to become the reputed boss of the Chicago crime syndicate. Under his leadership, the Chicago mob was the secret power behind Las Vegas casinos, skimming millions. He also was known as "Joe Batters," apparently a reference to his prowess as a mob enforcer. Though he had a long arrest record, he was never convicted of a felony and boasted that he had never spent a night in jail. Accardo died in 1992 at age 86.


-- Chicago Tribune and news services


Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news immediately.
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205311
09/07/06 11:54 AM
09/07/06 11:54 AM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi Offline OP
Caporegime
Don Cardi  Offline OP
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As much as I may enjoy reading about the mob, watching movies about the mob, talking the mob and learning all that I could about the mob, the thought of paying tribute to these people, who are really nothing more than murderers and criminals, by giving them a museum, seems outrageous.


Don Cardi



Don Cardi cool

Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.




Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205312
09/07/06 11:40 PM
09/07/06 11:40 PM
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Posts: 2,414
Bar Vitelli, Queens, NY
Signor Vitelli Offline
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Bar Vitelli, Queens, NY
From today's NY Daily News:

********************

11 Years For Gambino Big

By Tom Zambito

The No. 2 man in the Gambino crime family was sentenced yesterday to 11 years and three months in prison on racketeering charges that included the shakedown of a Connecticut restaurant owner.

Anthony (The Genius) Megale pleaded guilty in April to extorting the owner of Valbella, an Italian eatery in Greenwich that attracts a celebrity clientele, as well as a New Jersey trucking company and a Westchester County construction firm.

Prosecutors say Megale served as acting underboss from 2002 to 2004.

********************

The Genius?? Insert your own jokes here, folks; I've got nothing further to say.

Signor V.

--------------------
"He's not in dis stove!!"


"For me, there's only my wife..."

"Sure I cook with wine - sometimes I even add it to the food!"

"When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?"

"It was a grass harp... And we listened."

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"

"No. Saints and poets, maybe... they do some."


Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205313
09/08/06 12:16 AM
09/08/06 12:16 AM
Joined: Oct 2001
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AZ
Turnbull Offline
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AZ
" 'The Genius'...hah-hah...yeah, Senatah, da Gambino Family had a lotta geniuses..."
--Junior


Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu,
E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu...
E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu
Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News #205314
09/19/06 01:05 PM
09/19/06 01:05 PM
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 229
Chicago, IL
Donatello Noboddi Offline
Made Member
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Posted today on CNN.com -

Gotti tapes: Modern mob full of punks, rats and weasels
POSTED: 12:04 p.m. EDT, September 18, 2006
NEW YORK (AP) -- As he languished in a federal prison in 2003, John "Junior" Gotti had plenty to worry about.

The jail, he told visitors, was crawling with informants. He had money problems. Old friends were getting indicted. Other members of the Gotti clan were stealing his money.

But at the root of his troubles was this: The modern mob, he lamented, was losing its manliness.

"Now are we men? Or are we punks or rats or weasels? You tell me," he angrily asked one friend while serving a racketeering sentence.

Gotti's conversations were routinely recorded before his release from prison last year, and the tapes have played a central role in his current racketeering trial in Manhattan. A jury was to begin deliberating the case Monday.

Among other things, the son of the legendary mafia boss "Dapper Don" John Gotti is accused of ordering an attack on Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who was shot twice by would-be kidnappers in 1992.

Prosecutors contend that "Junior" Gotti was involved in mob affairs even after he was imprisoned in 1999.

The defense says the recordings, made at the federal prison at Ray Brook, New York, show that Gotti had developed a distaste for mob life and retired.

In any case, the tapes provide an inside look at the gangster's code, particularly its obsession with "being a man" at all costs.

Lesson No. 1: Men fight.

"If a guy wants to get all fancy and prancy, if he picks his hands up to you, you pick your hands up back. You're not a punk," Gotti explained in one recorded discussion.

"No hiding behind fences," he said during another conversation. "Take our coats off like gentlemen. Now, let's see. Let's see who the tough guy is. No knives. No guns. Like gentleman. ... Let's see who the real man really is."

Lesson No. 2: Men tolerate no assault on their character.

Gotti is firm on this point when he discusses two uncles who diminished his leadership role in the gang by badmouthing him to his father in 2001, a year before the elder Gotti's death from cancer in prison.

"If any of them ever come here, I'm telling you, I swear it to you, on my dead brother and my dead father, I swear to you, I will meet them by that (prison) door, with two padlocks in my hands and I will crack their skulls, I promise you that. I promise you that. This I take as a solemn oath as a man."

Lesson No. 3: Manliness is in the blood.

"You're a real man," he told longtime friend John Ruggiero. "You wanna know why, John? Not only for who you are. But for who your father was. You got his genes, you're a man."

A person who isn't a man, he added, can't simply become one by acting tough.

"These ain't men you're dealing with, you're dealing with frauds," he said. "It's like a kid who gets (unintelligible) all his life ... and he gets his milk money taken. What does he grow up to be? A cop. He's got a gun and a badge. That's, that's his equalizer. Got a gun and a badge, now he's a man. Well, that's how all these guys are, John, they're no different."

Lesson No. 4: A man spends time with family.

"Listen, I love my brother," Gotti said. "But my brother's a bum. That's all he is. No more, no less. He doesn't spend a moment with his own children. I have a hard time respecting any man who doesn't spend any time with his wife and kids."

Lesson No. 5: Men can do prison time.

"Some guys are made for this. Some guys just aren't," Gotti said of his life behind bars.

"Gravano was an example," he said, speaking of Gambino crime family turncoat Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano. "I mean he was a legendary soldier in the street. Brooklyn, he was a legend in Brooklyn. He got to jail, he fell to pieces."

Lesson No. 6: Real men don't snitch, but if they do, they don't make stuff up.

"Bottom line is, if you're gonna become a rat, become a rat: Tell the f------ truth. Don't go out of your way to hurt people," he said.

This is Gotti's third trial on the latest racketeering charges. The first two ended when jurors deadlocked on the charges, in part because of the defense argument that he became disenchanted with the mafia and retired long enough ago that the legal deadline for prosecuting him for old crimes had expired.

Which brings us to Gotti's Lesson No. 7: Mafia life stinks.

"So much treachery ... My father couldn't have loved me, to push me into this life," he lamented to friend Steve Kaplan.

"Oh ... I'd rather be a Latin King than be what I am," he said, referring to the Hispanic street gang. "I swear to you, Steve, and I, I mean it on my father's grave. I'm so ashamed. I am so ashamed."

In jail in 2003, John 'Junior' Gotti was taped lamenting that the modern mob was losing its manliness.


I came, I saw, I had no idea what was going on, I left.
Real Life Organized Crime News #457126
12/11/07 11:33 PM
12/11/07 11:33 PM
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The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi Offline OP
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Plan to open Las Vegas 'mob museum' gains FBI support

December 11, 2007

By KEN RITTER
Associated Press Writer


LAS VEGAS (AP) - The town that has always had a wink and a nod relationship with founding fathers like Bugsy, Lefty and Meyer plans to open a mob museum to capitalize on its early ties with organized crime.

"Let's be brutally honest, warts and all. This is more than legend. It's fact," said Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former defense attorney whose clients once included mobsters Meyer Lansky and Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro. "This is something that differentiates us from other cities."

The project has gained the support of the FBI and is guided by a retired FBI special agent. They say they are involved because you can't tell the stories of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, his ally, Lansky, casino boss Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal and others without telling the story of the lawmen who pursued them.

"This is a way to connect with the public and show the results of our work," said Dan McCarron, a spokesman for the FBI in Washington.

Ellen Knowlton, who retired in 2006 as FBI agent in charge in Las Vegas and now chairs the not-for-profit museum organization, said FBI officials have offered to share photographs, transcripts of wiretaps and histories of efforts to contain and eradicate organized crime in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

"Despite the sort of edgy theme, this museum will be historically accurate and it will tell the true story of organized crime," Knowlton said. "The plan is to give people a kind of gritty taste of what it would have been like to be not only a person involved or affiliated with organized crime, but also what it would have been like to be in law enforcement."

Organizers know visitors will arrive with experiences of their own and Hollywood images from movies like "Bugsy," "The Godfather" and "Casino." They also realize documenting the mob's history sometimes requires a leap of faith.

"If anybody out there finds a memo saying: 'To the boys, from Meyer. Re: Bugsy. Kill him,' We'd love to have it," said Michael Green, a College of Southern Nevada history professor who is researching exhibits for the museum. "But we doubt it's there."

"Because of that, you have to do a lot of reconstructing, inferring and implying," he said. "There's a lot of winking we're going to have to do."

Lansky, who Green characterized as "the banker for organized crime" in the post-bootlegging years of the 1930s and 40s, was said to have partnered with Siegel in the El Cortez hotel before investing in Siegel's grand plan to build the Flamingo hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

"Lansky and Siegel got organized crime interests to invest in Las Vegas," Green said. Siegel spent $6 million before opening the vastly over-budget Flamingo in December 1946. His legend grew following his unsolved slaying in June 1947 in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Spilotro and Rosenthal were associates in the 1970s, when Rosenthal ran several casinos including the Stardust. Spilotro was banned from casinos by Nevada gambling regulators in 1979, and faced several indictments stemming from FBI investigations before he was killed in 1986 and buried in an Indiana cornfield.

"What really cracked the mob was they got to the point they thought they were untouchable," Green said, adding that organized crime was shoved out by FBI prosecutions, state crackdowns and casino purchases by corporate interests.

"The old timers were behind-the scenes guys. They wanted to fit into the town," Green said, pointing to stories about Moe Dalitz, a Cleveland businessman who rescued the Desert Inn and Stardust casinos in the 1950s and 60s and built a hospital, golf courses and shopping centers.

"Was he tied to the mob or involved with the mob? Yes," Green said. "A mobster? Harder to explain."

Dennis Barrie, who directed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the popular International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., said he will design the as yet unnamed Las Vegas museum to show how organized crime and the fight against it shaped modern life.

"Whether it's running the casinos in Las Vegas, or controlling cigarette sales or numbers or trash collection in any city, organized crime is part of the American culture," Barrie said. "Everybody has a mob story or a brush with the mob world. Or they at least say they do."

Officials expect to open the museum by 2010 in a postcard brick federal building that was the centerpiece of a dusty town of 5,100 residents when it opened in 1933.

Seventeen years later, in November 1950, the three-story combination courthouse-post office hosted a one-day hearing by Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver's traveling Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce.

The committee came to the city where gambling was legal to question Flamingo casino executive Moe Sedway about his ties to Siegel and Lansky, Green said, and state officials Bill Moore and Cliff Jones about whether they should also own casinos.

"The courtroom is one of the central focuses of the museum," Barrie said, outlining plans to recall "the sensation that it created with a national audience when television brought organized crime into people's living rooms."

Organizers say paying visitors might be asked to decide as they arrive which side of the law they want to be on, and then be given a story line tracing the life of a famous lawman or mobster or a street cop or numbers runner.

"Were you a hit man? Were you a prosecutor? What choices do you have to make?" Green said. "We're telling a story of things that are multisided."

Organizers hope to have an area where visitors "can sit down in front of a camera and say, 'I knew Bugsy,' or 'I saw Meyer,' or whatever," he said.

Goodman has pushed the idea of a mob museum since was elected in 1999. He brokered a deal for the city to buy the building in 2000 for $1, with the understanding it would be restored and renovated as a cultural center. Officials expect the final cost including renovations and retrofitting to reach almost $50 million.

About $15 million has been raised through grants, city funds, contributions and the sale of commemorative license plates that marked Las Vegas' centennial in 2005.

Barrie said he thought about half the 40,000 square feet of floor space could be devoted to exhibits - about the same size as the Spy Museum, which opened in 2002 and draws about 750,000 people a year.

Knowlton compared the Las Vegas museum with the Black Museum of Scotland Yard in London and the New York City Police Museum.

"There are crime museums and various kinds of collections that departments have," Knowlton said, "but I have not seen or heard of anything of this nature."





Don Cardi cool

Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.




Re: Las Vegas Mob Museum [Re: Don Cardi] #457236
12/12/07 01:29 PM
12/12/07 01:29 PM
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,485
AZ
Turnbull Offline
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AZ
Interesting story, DC. Thanks for posting it! \:\)

The museum would fit right in with the wackiness of Vegas. Only Vegas would elect as mayor the lawyer who defended Lefty Rosenthal and The Ant--and played himself doing so in "Casino." And only Vegas would enthusiastically host a museum of the Mob. Fits right in. ;\)

The lesson I take away from legalized gambling in Nevada is a familiar one in America: money washes away all sins. The Robber Barons like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and E.H. Harriman were despised in their day for their plundering of America. But the charities, foundations and universities they created and funded cleansed their family names. It's the same in Vegas: Where else could Moe Dalitz, former leader of the Mayfield Road Gang and the biggest Midwestern rum runner during Prohibition, be named "Man of the Year" for building a hospital that his construction company profited from? Where else could Little Moe Sedway, who took over the Flamingo within an hour of Bugsy Siegel's assassination, become the first chair of the United Jewish Appeal?

A couple of years ago we visited the Liberace Museum in Vegas (well worth the visit, BTW: a 10,000-calorie slice of Americana). They had a small exhibit on Vegas's gangster years. One of the exhibits was the 1956 Las Vegas High School yearbook. The book was open to the spread on that year's Homecoming Queen: none other than Terry Siegel, Bugsy's daughter.


Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu,
E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu...
E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu
Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
Re: Las Vegas Mob Museum [Re: Turnbull] #457253
12/12/07 01:57 PM
12/12/07 01:57 PM
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 19,066
OH, VA, KY
Mignon Offline
Mama Mig
Mignon  Offline
Mama Mig

Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 19,066
OH, VA, KY
I have to wait till 2010 to see this? That sucks.


Dylan Matthew Moran born 10/30/12


The Real Mafia Thrives #457315
12/12/07 06:32 PM
12/12/07 06:32 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
What do you think?


There was a time when the capture of a major mafia leader in Sicily with ties to the American Cosa Nostra would have prompted considerable media attention. Old-fashioned criminal terrorism, however, has been downgraded by Islamic jihadism. Nonetheless, life goes on apace for the oldest continuing terror organization in the West.

Unfortunately for the Sicilian mafia, they now have to work on a new compromise candidate to be a unifying leader among their "families." Until that is accomplished, the deadly struggle for ascendancy among the dominant clans will return to what it was prior to the relatively peaceful period of Pax Mafiosa of the last capo di tutti capi, Bernardo Provenzano.

Provenzano, now aged 74, was finally found and arrested in April 2006, having taken over from the legendary Salvatore Riina in 1993. Provenzano had hid for many years in his home farming region of the town of Corleone, a community well known to fans of The Godfather. Provenzano had been instrumental in bringing about a relatively peaceful period during which Sicilian criminal enterprises returned to profitability after the bloody terrorist years of "Toto" Riina. Riina's murderous regime had resulted in the deaths of top-ranked anti-mafia police officers and judicial magistrates in Rome, Milan and Florence -- and brought down the wrath of an outraged Italian public.

With the steadying hand of Provenzano gone from the scene, the struggle for supremacy quickly grew as Palermo and Corleone groupings battled for control of Palermo's metropolitan area. Salvatore Lo Piccolo headed the indigenous Palermo faction and Nino Rotolo had taken over as the principal Corleone family boss. What followed was a return to the sanguinary days before Provenzano's successful peace making. A key mafia boss of Corleone connection was assassinated in June 2007 and all sides "went to the mattresses." The traditional gang violence had returned.

Meanwhile, Lo Piccolo's Palermo organization that earlier had had close ties to the Gambino crime family of New York succeeded in rejuvenating these contacts post-Gotti. With the aid of the Americans, Palermo's families, now effectively under the direction of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, expanded their drug operations throughout the U.S., Canada, and the Dominican Republic. Lo Piccolo was on his way to eventually assuming the power once held by the now jailed Bernardo Provenzano. However, Lo Piccolo's strictly Palermo base worked against a consensus in his favor among the other Sicilian families.

It would appear that Lo Piccolo and his Palermo allies had long been laundering their drug profits through various business operations in New York, e.g. real estate, food processing, and other trading mechanisms. The Corleone families wanted to participate in this activity and moved to agree to the return to Sicily of a hated rival family, the Inzerillo's, in exchange for a piece of the new action in the Caribbean and North America. After a few more purposeful deaths, the situation has appeared to be moving toward settlement with the usual theme of "the business of organized crime is business."

The sums involved are enormous. To begin with, it's estimated that the Sicilian mafia employs directly and indirectly through its criminal operations and ancillary commercial activities about 10% of the Sicilian population. Interpol has now reported the spread of mafia operations, along with accompanying violence, from Italy to several European countries, including Germany.

An annual income of about 30 billion euro makes the Sicilian mafia revenue about one third of the bottom line of 90 billion euro estimated for all Italian criminal enterprises as calculated by the Italian business association, Confesercenti. If the income from arms and drug trafficking is included, the National Anti-Mafia Prosecution Office estimates the final sum to be closer to 135 billion euro. This figure constitutes the gross revenue of the Sicilian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta of Calabria, the Camorra of Naples and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita from, among other things: loan sharking, extortion, public works skimming, protection rackets, and...investments in the American and European stock markets.

A few weeks ago on November 5th Salvatore Lo Piccolo and his son, Sandro, were arrested along with two of their top capos in a house on the outskirts of Palermo. The long negotiated promotion to "boss of bosses" of the elder Lo Piccolo, now 65 years old, thus has been canceled and the expectation is for a possible return to the bloody battling to name a new unifying chief.

At this time, the leading candidate is the still-at-large Matteo Messina Denaro, 45, the son of the famous Don Ciccio (Francesco M. Denaro), an ally of the Corleone tribal grouping going back to both Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. Matteo Denaro is said to be in the mold of the late John Gotti in terms of personal flamboyance and a past replete with murder and mayhem.

To the question as to whether or not Italy's organized crime, and the Sicilian mafia in particular, would ever do business with Islamic extremists, their answer is obvious. Business is business and there's nothing personal involved!


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
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Garden State mob #459604
12/25/07 07:26 PM
12/25/07 07:26 PM
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Sheffield UK
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Gaetano Lucchese
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Gaetano Lucchese

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Sheffield UK
The New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice provided the outline for a new Garden State mob saga last week when more than two dozen reputed wiseguys - including three alleged leaders of the Lucchese organized-crime family - were charged in a $2.2 billion gambling, money-laundering and racketeering case.
Based on a 16-month investigation in which hundreds of conversations were secretly recorded, the probe offered an inside look at what authorities allege was one of the biggest gambling operations ever uncovered.

The conversations, from wiretaps on phones and from listening devices planted in homes and cars, also provided a personal view of La Cosa Nostra more typical of New Jersey's best-known, albeit fictitious, mob family, The Sopranos.

Who's in and who's out?

Who can see the boss and who can't?

Whose word can you trust and who will stab you in the back?

That kind of unguarded talk provided a rich backdrop for investigators as they put together a massive case that tied the mob to an international gambling operation with a wire room in Costa Rica, and included what New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram called an "alarming alliance" between traditional wiseguys and a member of the Bloods street gang to smuggle drugs and cell phones into a state prison.

Piles of cash, fancy cars and luxury homes were seized when authorities shut down the high-tech bookmaking ring that allegedly generated tens of thousands of dollars in profits weekly for some crime-family members.

But though passwords, Web sites, and the wire room in Central America defined the new-age gambling operation, old-school intimidation and threats of violence were still part of the collection process.

"Go and find this kid . . . and make an example now . . . bust his head."

That's how one reputed wiseguy suggested they deal with a gambler called "Boo" who was balking at paying a $12,000 debt.

Later, he suggested they lay in wait outside Boo's house.

"I don't give a [expletive] if it's 3 in the morning. . . . I don't care if you gotta break his front [expletive] door down to get this little [expletive]. . . . You get him out of his [expletive] house . . . and you bring him to me."

The conversations were just two of dozens cited in a 195-page affidavit filed by Christopher Donohue, an investigator in the case, to support the arrest warrants.

The affidavit included two Philadelphia references.

One involved mob associate Michael Ramuno, who is charged with providing thousands of dollars in bets per week to the organization, even though he was living in a prison halfway house in Philadelphia in the fall, working off the final months of a 10-year drug sentence.

The other was an account of how Nicky Scarfo Jr., son of jailed mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, was "demoted" within the Lucchese organization because of media reports about his alleged underworld operations at the Jersey Shore.

Scarfo has not been charged in the current case.

Dubbed Operation Heat, the investigation targeted what Milgram termed the "command structure" of the organization.

Those arrested included reputed New York mob leaders Joseph DiNapoli and Matthew Madonna, both 72, who were described as part of the ruling triumvirate of the Lucchese organization.

Also charged was Ralph V. Perna, 61, a capo, or captain, who allegedly supervised the New Jersey branch of the organization.

Perna's three sons, Joseph, 38; Ralph M., 35; and John, 30, also were arrested.

Wiretaps on phones used by the Pernas, bugs placed in one of their homes, and a listening device and global positioning system hidden in Joseph Perna's black Infiniti M35 provided details of the criminal activity alleged in the arrest warrants.

On Nov. 10, authorities were watching and listening when Joseph and John Perna were formally initiated into the crime family during a "making ceremony" at Joseph Perna's home in Toms River, N.J.

Most of the ranking members of the organization, including DiNapoli and Madonna, attended the ceremony, according to the affidavit.

Afterward, investigators heard Joseph and John discussing mob protocol while riding in the car. At one point, Joseph explained that made members refer to one another as amico nostro - "a friend of ours."

Some members, Joseph said, use the English, but DiNapoli "likes it in Italian, so do it that way."

Perna also told his brother not to put too much trust in DiNapoli.

"People have their ways," he said. "Don't ever believe for one second that if it's something serious that Joey will always protect you."

The two brothers then discussed the hierarchy of the organization, their father's position, and the fact that no one in the New Jersey faction could go to see the leaders in New York "without Daddy's knowledge."

Ralph V. Perna's rise to the top spot and Scarfo's demotion were the topic of conversations the brothers had in August, according to the affidavit.

Investigators were watching Aug. 9 when Ralph Perna and his son, Joseph, met at a diner in the Bronx with DiNapoli.

And authorities were listening minutes later when Joseph called his brother John to tell him that their father had been tapped to replace Scarfo as head of the New Jersey branch of the crime family.

"He's the new captain," Joseph Perna told his brother, adding, "Tomorrow I'm going down to tell the other kid he's demoted."

John, laughing, said, "I bet you're all broken up about that."

The brothers then referred to media reports raising the possibility that Scarfo Jr. might make a move against those controlling the Philadelphia crime family his father Nicodemo once headed.

That was part of the reason he was being demoted, they said.

Two days later, investigators used the GPS hidden in Joseph Perna's Infiniti to track him to a meeting on the Garden State Parkway with Scarfo Jr.

During that meeting, according to the affidavit, Scarfo was told he was being demoted.

Asked to comment about the references to his client, Scarfo Jr., lawyer Donald Manno said last week, "Obviously, there is no criminal involvement by him and everything else is just outlandish speculation."

Criminal charges of gambling, extortion, loan-sharking, money-laundering and racketeering were filed against most of those arrested. Those charged in a jail contraband scam also face drug charges.

In addition, authorities moved to seize real estate, freeze bank accounts, and confiscate automobiles owned by several of those charged.

Joseph Perna's finances offered a typical example of a cash flow that appeared to exceed legitimate income, authorities said.

His targeted assets included five bank accounts in which cash deposits totalling $329,531 were made between July 2005 and August 2007.

This, the affidavit noted, was during a period when Perna and his wife claimed income of $63,836.

Authorities placed liens against 16 properties, including Perna's $712,500 house in Wyckoff, N.J., and the Toms River house where the making ceremony allegedly took place.

The cars subject to seizure orders included Perna's Infiniti M35, a 2007 Jaguar, a 2008 Mercedes-Benz SUV, a 1993 Chevrolet Corvette, a 2006 Lincoln Navigator, a 2007 Cadillac STS, and a 2007 Cadillac CTS.

All were allegedly purchased with what authorities called "a torrent of illicit income" from the gambling operation


http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20071224_Probes_detailed_view_of_mob_life.html


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
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Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
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New England Mafia boss #459682
12/26/07 01:11 PM
12/26/07 01:11 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
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Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
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Sheffield UK
Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme’s play to get sprung from prison has been whacked with a lump of coal a federal judge left in the former New England Mafia boss’ Christmas stocking.

Salemme, 74, hoped to dismiss charges he faces for obstruction of justice and making false statements in connection with the unsolved 1993 disappearance of Stephen DiSarro, 43, of Westwood by persuading U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns he was wrongly interrogated by government agents in 1999 without an attorney present.

In a surprise move last August, Stearns granted Salemme an evidentiary hearing on the complaint. But on Friday, Stearns nixed the hearing because Salemme is refusing to provide a sworn affidavit supporting his motion to suppress statements he made without counsel.

“He’s disappointed, but not discouraged,” Salemme’s defense attorney Steven Boozang said yesterday.

Boozang declined to say why Salemme won’t provide the affidavit, but according to a court filing, Salemme is concerned he could face a potential perjury charge should his former attorney, Anthony Cardinale, provide conflicting testimony.

Boozang said the Boston mobster will tell his side of the story at trial. He said Salemme “100 percent denies any involvement whatsoever” in the vanishing of DiSarro, manager of The Channel rock club in South Boston.

“He’s a lot of things,” Boozang said of Salemme, “but he’s not a liar.”

Federal prosecutors, however, have built their case against Salemme on “misrepresentations he made to investigators during a proffer session on Nov. 2, 1999, regarding the disappearance and presumed murder of” DiSarro, according to court documents. It’s the government’s contention that Salemme not only saw DiSarro killed, he helped bury the body.

Prosecutors say Cardinale explained to Salemme what he was walking into during the 1999 confab, and that Cardinale arrived at the meeting in time for the questioning about DiSarro.

Boozang argued yesterday that Salemme was on his own that day for nearly five hours and the feds should have “said, ‘Time out.’ ”

“I’m sure they weren’t asking Frank what his favorite color was,” Boozang said.

Two of the men at the proffer session, assistant U.S. Attorneys Brian Kelly and Fred Wyshak Jr., are now prosecuting Salemme. Salemme is incarcerated in witness protection while he awaits trial.

Salemme pleaded guilty in 1999 to racketeering charges and admitted participating in eight mob hits in the 1960s. In 2003 a judge ordered him released from his 11-year sentence as a reward for his cooperation against corrupt FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. Later that year, he was hit with the latest charges.


http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1062793


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Real Life Organized Crime News #459816
12/27/07 11:07 AM
12/27/07 11:07 AM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi Offline OP
Caporegime
Don Cardi  Offline OP
Caporegime

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Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
 Originally Posted By: chopper
The New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice provided the outline for a new Garden State mob saga last week when more than two dozen reputed wiseguys - including three alleged leaders of the Lucchese organized-crime family - were charged in a $2.2 billion gambling, money-laundering and racketeering case.
Based on a 16-month investigation in which hundreds of conversations were secretly recorded, the probe offered an inside look at what authorities allege was one of the biggest gambling operations ever uncovered.

The conversations, from wiretaps on phones and from listening devices planted in homes and cars, also provided a personal view of La Cosa Nostra more typical of New Jersey's best-known, albeit fictitious, mob family, The Sopranos.

Who's in and who's out?

Who can see the boss and who can't?

Whose word can you trust and who will stab you in the back?

That kind of unguarded talk provided a rich backdrop for investigators as they put together a massive case that tied the mob to an international gambling operation with a wire room in Costa Rica, and included what New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram called an "alarming alliance" between traditional wiseguys and a member of the Bloods street gang to smuggle drugs and cell phones into a state prison.

Piles of cash, fancy cars and luxury homes were seized when authorities shut down the high-tech bookmaking ring that allegedly generated tens of thousands of dollars in profits weekly for some crime-family members.

But though passwords, Web sites, and the wire room in Central America defined the new-age gambling operation, old-school intimidation and threats of violence were still part of the collection process.

"Go and find this kid . . . and make an example now . . . bust his head."

That's how one reputed wiseguy suggested they deal with a gambler called "Boo" who was balking at paying a $12,000 debt.

Later, he suggested they lay in wait outside Boo's house.

"I don't give a [expletive] if it's 3 in the morning. . . . I don't care if you gotta break his front [expletive] door down to get this little [expletive]. . . . You get him out of his [expletive] house . . . and you bring him to me."

The conversations were just two of dozens cited in a 195-page affidavit filed by Christopher Donohue, an investigator in the case, to support the arrest warrants.

The affidavit included two Philadelphia references.

One involved mob associate Michael Ramuno, who is charged with providing thousands of dollars in bets per week to the organization, even though he was living in a prison halfway house in Philadelphia in the fall, working off the final months of a 10-year drug sentence.

The other was an account of how Nicky Scarfo Jr., son of jailed mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, was "demoted" within the Lucchese organization because of media reports about his alleged underworld operations at the Jersey Shore.

Scarfo has not been charged in the current case.

Dubbed Operation Heat, the investigation targeted what Milgram termed the "command structure" of the organization.

Those arrested included reputed New York mob leaders Joseph DiNapoli and Matthew Madonna, both 72, who were described as part of the ruling triumvirate of the Lucchese organization.

Also charged was Ralph V. Perna, 61, a capo, or captain, who allegedly supervised the New Jersey branch of the organization.

Perna's three sons, Joseph, 38; Ralph M., 35; and John, 30, also were arrested.

Wiretaps on phones used by the Pernas, bugs placed in one of their homes, and a listening device and global positioning system hidden in Joseph Perna's black Infiniti M35 provided details of the criminal activity alleged in the arrest warrants.

On Nov. 10, authorities were watching and listening when Joseph and John Perna were formally initiated into the crime family during a "making ceremony" at Joseph Perna's home in Toms River, N.J.

Most of the ranking members of the organization, including DiNapoli and Madonna, attended the ceremony, according to the affidavit.

Afterward, investigators heard Joseph and John discussing mob protocol while riding in the car. At one point, Joseph explained that made members refer to one another as amico nostro - "a friend of ours."

Some members, Joseph said, use the English, but DiNapoli "likes it in Italian, so do it that way."

Perna also told his brother not to put too much trust in DiNapoli.

"People have their ways," he said. "Don't ever believe for one second that if it's something serious that Joey will always protect you."

The two brothers then discussed the hierarchy of the organization, their father's position, and the fact that no one in the New Jersey faction could go to see the leaders in New York "without Daddy's knowledge."

Ralph V. Perna's rise to the top spot and Scarfo's demotion were the topic of conversations the brothers had in August, according to the affidavit.

Investigators were watching Aug. 9 when Ralph Perna and his son, Joseph, met at a diner in the Bronx with DiNapoli.

And authorities were listening minutes later when Joseph called his brother John to tell him that their father had been tapped to replace Scarfo as head of the New Jersey branch of the crime family.

"He's the new captain," Joseph Perna told his brother, adding, "Tomorrow I'm going down to tell the other kid he's demoted."

John, laughing, said, "I bet you're all broken up about that."

The brothers then referred to media reports raising the possibility that Scarfo Jr. might make a move against those controlling the Philadelphia crime family his father Nicodemo once headed.

That was part of the reason he was being demoted, they said.

Two days later, investigators used the GPS hidden in Joseph Perna's Infiniti to track him to a meeting on the Garden State Parkway with Scarfo Jr.

During that meeting, according to the affidavit, Scarfo was told he was being demoted.

Asked to comment about the references to his client, Scarfo Jr., lawyer Donald Manno said last week, "Obviously, there is no criminal involvement by him and everything else is just outlandish speculation."

Criminal charges of gambling, extortion, loan-sharking, money-laundering and racketeering were filed against most of those arrested. Those charged in a jail contraband scam also face drug charges.

In addition, authorities moved to seize real estate, freeze bank accounts, and confiscate automobiles owned by several of those charged.

Joseph Perna's finances offered a typical example of a cash flow that appeared to exceed legitimate income, authorities said.

His targeted assets included five bank accounts in which cash deposits totalling $329,531 were made between July 2005 and August 2007.

This, the affidavit noted, was during a period when Perna and his wife claimed income of $63,836.

Authorities placed liens against 16 properties, including Perna's $712,500 house in Wyckoff, N.J., and the Toms River house where the making ceremony allegedly took place.

The cars subject to seizure orders included Perna's Infiniti M35, a 2007 Jaguar, a 2008 Mercedes-Benz SUV, a 1993 Chevrolet Corvette, a 2006 Lincoln Navigator, a 2007 Cadillac STS, and a 2007 Cadillac CTS.

All were allegedly purchased with what authorities called "a torrent of illicit income" from the gambling operation


http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20071224_Probes_detailed_view_of_mob_life.html



Don Cardi cool

Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.




Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: Don Cardi] #459998
12/28/07 07:33 PM
12/28/07 07:33 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
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Gaetano Lucchese

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Sheffield UK
An Italian mafia boss was gunned down by unknown assailants on Friday, police said.

Francesco Verde, 58, headed the Verde clan which is active in northern Naples and thrives on drug trafficking and extortion like much of the Camorra -- the Neapolitan version of the mafia.

Verde was returning home with his nephew, when at least one motorcycle approached their car and fired more than 30 shots, killing the mafia boss and seriously wounding his nephew.

He had been released from prison in September, but was required to register with the police everyday. Police said it was too early to identify who the assailants might have been.


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #459999
12/28/07 07:35 PM
12/28/07 07:35 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
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Joined: Mar 2007
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Sheffield UK
Europe is fast overtaking the U.S. as the leading destination for the world's cocaine, and a single Italian mafia is largely responsible.

The 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, a ruthless and mysterious network of 155 families born in the rough hills here in southern Italy's Calabria region, now dominates the European drug trade. By establishing direct ties with Colombian producers and building a multibillion-dollar empire that spans five continents, the syndicate has metamorphosed into one of the craftiest criminal gangs in the world, authorities say.

" 'Ndrangheta is king," said Sabas Pretelt de la Vega, a former Colombian interior minister who is his country's ambassador to Rome.

The 'Ndrangheta (pronounced en-DRAHN-geh-tah) peculiarly combines the modern skills of multinational-corporation high finance with a stubborn grip on archaic rural traditions. Some members live in garishly opulent villas outside Madrid and invest in bustling restaurants and hotels in Germany, whereas others, including key bosses, remain in the dreary, closed Calabrian mountain villages of their birth. It is a mafia of businessmen in Dolce & Gabbana, of sheepherders in scruffy woolens.

Its success stems from moving early and unwaveringly into cocaine trafficking while avoiding the kind of public limelight (and police crackdown) focused on its better-known Sicilian counterpart, the Mafia, or "Cosa Nostra."

Working from "the toe of Italy's boot," a region historically neglected and ignored, the 'Ndrangheta maintains a hard-as-stone code of silence that repels most penetration efforts by police and other authorities. And because each family is a cell cooperating only loosely with other families and without a central hierarchy, the capture of a leader here or there does not even dent the organization.

Over the last two decades, the syndicate has deployed its members to strategic locations along trafficking and distribution routes, in Colombia and Venezuela, Canada, Africa, Spain and as far as Australia. It takes orders from buyers in Europe (including other mafiosi) and brokers deals with the suppliers in Colombia.

The 'Ndrangheta gained the confidence of the Colombians, eliminated the middlemen and dealt as readily with the leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as with the right-wing paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, two groups that exercise major control over cocaine production in Colombia.

The personal contact, the guarantee of secrecy and the reliability of the business transactions all have made the 'Ndrangheta mobster an appealing partner for the Colombians.

"He is seen as a man of his word. He pays in cash. He pays immediately," said Renato Cortese, a regional commander of the state anti-mafia police. "And he never talks."



Expanding market

For income, the 'Ndrangheta has chosen a lucrative and expanding market.

By some estimates, including that of Pretelt de la Vega, the Colombian diplomat, the amount of cocaine being shipped to Europe exceeds that going to the United States, a reversal of the historical pattern. Italian authorities give lower figures, saying cocaine shipments are divided half-and-half between Europe and the United States, and U.S. officials cite older statistics that show more cocaine flowing to American shores.

Whatever the amounts, no one disputes that the cocaine market in the United States has stabilized, whereas that of Europe is growing. Seizures of cocaine in Europe have doubled in the last five years, although they remain a small portion of global interceptions, according to the latest report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Usage of cocaine in Europe, meanwhile, has skyrocketed, up by a million users last year, to 4.5 million continent-wide, according to the European Union's drug-monitoring center in Lisbon. Leading the pack are Britain, Spain, Denmark and Italy.

"The decline in the United States is offset by alarming increases in some European countries," the U.N. said.

Although Cosa Nostra has dominated international headlines and popular culture for a generation, it has been eclipsed by its Calabrian counterpart in terms of power and wealth, said Nicola Gratteri, the region's top anti-mafia prosecutor.

The 'Ndrangheta, which is thought to have business assets worth at least $50 billion, grew as a protection racket in impoverished southern Italy after World War II and then began to make big money with kidnappings (including the abduction and grisly mutilation of the grandson of oil billionaire J. Paul Getty in 1973). The name comes from a Greek word meaning "virtue" or "heroism."

Eventually the group shifted to drugs and weapons trafficking, and by the '90s was awash in cash, which it began laundering through real estate and other businesses.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a turning point, recalled Piero Grasso, Italy's senior anti-mafia prosecutor. In conversations recorded by police, members of the Calabrian mob plotted a mad buying spree in the newly available former Soviet bloc. "Buy everything!" was the watchword.

"And today they know no borders," Grasso said.

Here in Calabria, they also enjoy access to the Gioia Tauro port, one of the largest and busiest of the Mediterranean. Authorities say it is a transshipment point for unmeasured pounds of cocaine. Of the estimated 3,500 40-foot cargo containers that arrive daily, only about 25 are opened for inspection, so finding drugs is as much luck as skill, police say.

Suspicions were raised recently about a Uruguayan shipment to Greece marked "lemons." Why would a Mediterranean country like Greece need to import lemons from Uruguay? Inside a batch of rotting lemons, inspectors found 220 pounds of cocaine.

"Drugs are burying us," said Col. Francesco Gazzani, regional head of the Italian finance police.

In their investigations, Italian police and prosecutors working with Colombian, Spanish and U.S. authorities have recorded thousands of telephone calls and documented meetings and other communication between the 'Ndrangheta and Colombian traffickers.

In one photographed surveillance stakeout, four people from Latin America and Calabria can be seen sitting in broad daylight at one of Milan's most fashionable outdoor cafes, against a backdrop of rose-colored marble columns and the Duomo cathedral. They discuss a cocaine deal, then one of them casually walks to a nearby pay phone and places the order.

In another surveillance, a suspected 'Ndrangheta gangster telephones a number in Colombia, a person with a Calabrian accent answers and then simply whistles, and the caller says, "I understand." Authorities say it was a signal that a shipment had departed.

One of the strongest links between the 'Ndrangheta and the Colombians, investigators say, was Roberto Pannunzi, an alleged mafia chieftain who was one of the top cocaine brokers in the syndicate when he was arrested in 2004 as part of Operation Zappa, a five-year investigation named after a gangster code word for "gun."

"Every important criminal figure went to him," said Diego Trotta, a member of an elite police squad that captured Pannunzi.

Pannunzi, 59, married his son Alessandro into a notorious family from Colombia's Medellin cartel as a way to cement the bonds. At the height of his activities, authorities say, he was buying 3,300 to 4,400 pounds of cocaine a month. He boasted of the ease and confidence with which he handled his Colombian suppliers.

"The fact is, Barba [a Colombian trafficker] will give us everything without even a lira," Pannunzi told alleged 'Ndrangheta operative Paolo Sergi, the target of another long-running probe, according to a confidential wiretap made available to The Times.

"What do you think -- is the same amount available like the last time, or maybe less?" Pannunzi's interlocutor wonders.

"Barba, at least, told me that he has 3 million [3,000 kilograms, or 6,600 pounds, of cocaine] and I'm thinking 500 or 700," Pannunzi responds, using a numeric code for the price.

A beefy man with dark wavy hair, Pannunzi amassed such an enormous fortune, investigators say, that he at one point simply threw away millions of dollars worth of liras because the bills had been stacked so high and for so long that they became moldy.



Back to ancestral home

Perhaps one of the most surprising features of the 'Ndrangheta is that despite its fortunes, its members always come back to their ancestral home in Calabria, almost as a spiritual touchstone. Though they form clones of their home villages the world over, an internal code obliges them to report back to the mother ship, said Gratteri, the top regional ant-mafia prosecutor.

"You have to look at what this place gives them. Each top 'Ndranghista is an emperor," said Gratteri, whose work has earned him round-the-clock bodyguards and transport in an armored car.

"He has the perverse pleasure to be able to decide the life or death of 3,000, 5,000, maybe 10,000 people. He decides who lives. He decides who is going to be mayor. He decides who is going to win the state contracts. For the perverse mind, this is very gratifying."

Each family assigns a member to a certain criminal enterprise; if a son is good in math, he might get the loan-shark business, whereas an engineer would handle the acquisition of lucrative state building contracts, a major area of corruption.

The tightness of the family network also has thwarted efforts by authorities to infiltrate the crime gang. Several years ago, when the government offered reduced jail time to mafiosi who would inform on their cohorts, hundreds of Cosa Nostra operatives 'fessed up. But only a few people associated with the 'Ndrangheta agreed to become turncoats, and most of these were such minor figures that they had little to offer.

"Every clan is a little Sparta," militarized and willing to fight to the end, often egged on by the women of the family, said anti-mafia prosecutor Alberto Cisterna.

Through the years, most killings by the 'Ndrangheta have been the result of internal feuds or have targeted relatively low-level officials, inspiring little public outrage. That changed last summer with a bloody ambush outside a pizzeria in Duisburg, Germany. At least two gunmen from one 'Ndrangheta family killed six members of a rival clan, shocking Italians and Germans because of the brutality of the attack and the extent to which the mafia had settled in Germany.

The slayings were the latest explosion of a long-running internal feud that had at its root a power struggle over territory and business, investigators say.

In the more than four months since the Duisburg massacre, Italian and German police have arrested about 40 suspected mobsters, men and women. But no one has any illusions that this represents a setback for the Calabrian mafia.

" 'Ndrangheta are the leader in Europe when it comes to trafficking cocaine," Gratteri said, "and their trafficking is getting stronger all the time."


http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition...lines-frontpage


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #460000
12/28/07 07:37 PM
12/28/07 07:37 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

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Sheffield UK
An appeals court in the Sicilian city of Palermo has sentenced Giuseppe Salvatore Riina, youngest son of jailed mafia boss Toto Riina, to eight years and 10 months in prison for mafia association. The court reduced the 14 year jailterm originally handed down to Giuseppe in 2004.

Palermo judges ruled that Giuseppe must serve his sentence behind bars, as must two other convicted mafia members, Antonino Bruno and Illiano Baiamonte, sentenced to 7 years and four months, and 5 years respectively, the Giornale di Sicilia newsaper reports.

Giuseppe Riina was jailed for his leading role in an extortion and money-laundering gang that controlled public works contracts.

His father Toto, nicknamed "the Beast" for his brutality, was arrested in 1993 and has been convicted on more than 100 counts of murder.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Riina and mafia associates from his hometown of Corleone waged a ruthless campaign of violence against both rival mobsters and the Italian state which culminated in the assassination of two anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and his colleague Paolo Borsellino in 1992.

Falcone and Borsellino's murders sparked widespread public revulsion towards the mafia and led to a major crackdown by the authorities, resulting in the capture and imprisonment of Riina and many of his associates.

Mafia arrests are ongoing in Italy. Toto Riina's successor as the mafia 'Godfather', Bernardo Provenzano, was arrested last year after over 40 years on the run.

Provenzano's replacement, Salvatore Lo Piccolo, and his son Sandro, were arrested in early November as they attended a meeting of the Cosa Nostra 'cupola' - or the governing body of the Sicilian mafia - in an isolated villa outside Palermo.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1713353245


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #460228
12/31/07 03:59 AM
12/31/07 03:59 AM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
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Sheffield UK
Just before Christmas, former Colombo crime family father-and-son capos Sonny and Michael Franzese were in Ohio. They didn't get to share any holiday cheer.

Born-again son Michael addressed the Ohio State football team, recounting his life (of crime) story as a warning to the Big Ten champions before their national championship game against LSU.

Jailed-again dad Sonny remained inside the federal penitentiary at Elkton, Ohio, his new home after another of his sons ratted him out.

The Franzeses, once a tightly knit clan with major gangland clout, are as dysfunctional as the 21st century Mafia itself this holiday season.

Sonny can't see his seven grandkids, son John is hiding out, and Michael wonders if his brother will resurface to put their 90-year-old dad behind bars for the rest of his life.

"I know there's talk about that, and it's not pleasant to think about," said Michael Franzese, once ranked by Fortune magazine as No. 18 on its list of the nation's 50 most powerful mobsters. "It's in all of our thoughts. We're waiting to see if the other shoe drops."

Michael - a made man at 24 - and brother John followed their dad into the Colombos, where the old man was known as a standup guy who would always do the time and never drop a dime.

The elder Franzese, a contemporary of family namesake Joe Colombo, was reportedly among the investors in the infamous porno movie "Deep Throat."

Despite his advancing age and years behind bars, the Brooklyn native stayed involved with the mob into the new millennium, the FBI says.

Sonny's legendary Mafia career was interrupted by a 1967 bank robbery conviction and jail term - a crime many believe he didn't commit. He was paroled after doing 11 years.

There's no denying Sonny returned to La Cosa Nostra. He was jailed five times in the past 25 years for parole violations after consorting with mobsters.

When he wasn't doing time, he was a regular fixture at downtown get-togethers to watch Pay-Per-View boxing matches. He was part of a crowd that included - though not necessarily all at the same time - a top police official, a retired FBI agent, a former boxing champion and some great and not-so-great writers.

His most recent parole violation was in May, when Sonny was popped for sharing breakfast pastries with reputed bad guys.

Michael and his father are aware that John was identified as turning Sonny in to the feds. "He knows that's what the word is, but it's a sore subject," said a Long Island neighbor of Sonny.

While his father never left New York, Michael quit the mob and launched a new life: born-again Christian, father of seven, Little League coach living in California. His time as a mob capo collecting up to $9 million a week was in the past.

Michael, whose age and acumen led to his nickname "The Yuppie Don" during his mob days, tells his don't-follow-in-my-footsteps story to athletes, businessmen, church groups. He's spoken to Major League Baseball players, NBA players and colleges from Nebraska to North Carolina.

Those audiences listen.

His pleas for his dad to embrace a new lifestyle fell on deaf ears.

"He says, 'What do you want me to do? I don't know anyone who's not a felon,'" Michael recounts with a rueful laugh. "He told me, 'Even you're a felon.'"

The pair rely on short but frequent phone calls from prison to stay in touch. Michael is in Los Angeles, while Sonny's cell is 45 miles northwest of Youngstown, Ohio, and in the middle of nowhere.

"My kids are kind of broken up," Michael says. "My 9-year-old asks, 'When am I going to see grandpa again?'

"That's tough."

Not that Franzese wants or expects any sympathy for Sonny: "Who's going to feel sorry for my dad? Nobody, unless it's his family."

Michael spoke of his father's woes to the Buckeye football team. The two couldn't meet before his Columbus appearance because it wasn't visitors' day at Elkton.

Michael is certain of one thing: Sonny Franzese will do his time with his mouth shut. Even if it means Christmas - maybe his last Christmas - behind bars.

"Look, he's strong," Michael says. "You will never ever see Dad cooperating. It's not even in his thought process. But this time of year, it's tough. I can hear it in his voice."


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #460265
12/31/07 09:56 AM
12/31/07 09:56 AM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi Offline OP
Caporegime
Don Cardi  Offline OP
Caporegime

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
Yeah, it's very easy, AFTER making $9 Million a week, to tell people NOT to follow in his footsteps!



Don Cardi cool

Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.




Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: Don Cardi] #460372
12/31/07 02:14 PM
12/31/07 02:14 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
DYKER HEIGHTS — A construction project that was set in freeze-frame mode a few months ago — because the area of the project was rezoned as it was being built — was given a go-ahead to continue by Community Board 10.

Since the end of July, the developers have been trapped in a “twilight zone,” caught between two sets of zoning rules, unable to finish their project.

At issue is a site where a long-abandoned and vacant building, regarded as a neighborhood eyesore, was demolished a year ago at 1270 Bay Ridge Parkway and then purchased by developers Thomas Gambino and Salvatore Schirippa.

When workers were laying a foundation, their work was forced to an abrupt standstill when zoning was changed this past summer. The rezoning left them in a lurch for their three-story high project: a six-unit residential building with medical and commercial community offices on the first floor.

The Dyker Heights rezoning became effective on July 25 when the new R4-1 rule took hold, allowing for no commercial overlays. This bans commercial use in a residential building such the one that was under construction at 1270 Bay Ridge Parkway, between 12th and 13th avenues. The area was previously zoned under the R4 rule, which allows for commercial overlay.

Community Board 10, meeting recently at the Shore Hill Community Room in Bay Ridge, took an unusual and rare action — the board approved the project even though it does not fit in with the new zoning rules that forbid first-floor commercial space in a residential building. The developers were finally freed from their netherworld zoning twilight zone.

‘Common Law Vested Right’
To allow the exception to the new rule, the developers sought what is termed “a common law vested right” which allows for the construction to continue under the previous zoning regulation. Their previous building permit, allowed under the former zoning rule but not the new, would be reinstated after lapsing under the new rezoning. The project remains within the 35-feet height limit under the new zoning rule.

The board’s approval for the project, which easily passed except for two votes, now heads to the Board of Appeals and Standards for a final decision on Jan. 15. If approved, the project can move ahead.

“The project is on a 60- by 100-foot lot,” said Joanne Seminara, chair of the board’s Land Use and Zoning Committee. In her report, she said this was “a first-time project for the developers,” and they were not looking for loopholes but were trying to get unstuck from a circumstance not of their own making.

At the board meeting, attorney Sheldon LoBella spoke on behalf of the developers, Gambino and Schirippa, who were present. An appeal had been made at a previous meeting at the Board 10 offices with the Land Use and Zoning Committee, where an attorney told the committee that the developers would be forced to reconfigure their project and get a lesser return on their investment.

The developers filed an application under the “common law vested right” provision, and the Land Use and Zoning Committee backed their application by a vote of 6 to 1. At the board meeting, the attorney said, the developers had lots of letters from neighbors in the area supporting the project.

Backers include Assemblyman Peter Abbate, Councilman Vincent Gentile and the Dyker Heights Civic Association, led by Fran Vella-Marrone.


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #461099
01/04/08 10:20 AM
01/04/08 10:20 AM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
With lifelong friend and confidant the Rev. Joseph F. Sica facing a felony charge of perjury, the stakes have never been higher for junk man turned billionaire Louis DeNaples.


A Dauphin County grand jury is examining whether DeNaples, owner of Mount Airy Casino Resort, lied to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board when he denied having ties to organized crime. Rumors of such ties have dogged the Dunmore businessman for decades.

In pursuing the case against DeNaples, the Dauphin County district attorney alleges the Roman Catholic priest lied about his own relationship with an alleged mob boss, the late Russell Bufalino.

The prosecutor says others who testified before the grand jury may be charged, leading many to speculate whether Assistant District Attorney Francis Chardo is preparing to charge DeNaples.

Such a charge — even if it didn’t result in a conviction — could to lead to the suspension of the slots license that keeps wagers flowing at Mount Airy, the state’s first free-standing casino. DeNaples staked his reputation and a good chunk of his fortune on the $415 million resort. Even a temporary suspension would seriously disrupt the business.

A license suspension is not automatic, however, said state gaming board spokesman Richard McGarvey. The board has broad latitude in how it might act when a license holder is charged with a crime, including revocation, suspension or setting conditions on the licensee, McGarvey said.

“It is the same process we have with all licensees, who include gaming employees, gaming suppliers and others,” he said.

denaples

from page 4

“The board takes the circumstances into consideration and makes a decision,” McGarvey added.

Rumored, but not charged

It is difficult to pinpoint when DeNaples’ name first became associated with organized crime.

He has never been charged with organized crime activity, but Italian-American business people, regardless of whom they associate with, traditionally have found the mafioso stereotype hard to shake.

Some speculation about DeNaples emerged from the muck and sediment of the Agnes Flood in 1972 and his resulting “no contest” plea to fraud, which carries the same weight as a finding of guilt.

After the flood, DeNaples provided heavy equipment to Lackawanna County for deployment in flood cleanup in Luzerne, Tioga and Bradford counties. The federal government challenged the invoices and hours billed and charged DeNaples and three county employees with fraud.

The first trial ended in a mistrial, with one juror holding out for acquittal — a juror who would later come back to haunt DeNaples.

As Deputy U.S. Attorney Sal Cognetti prepared for a second trial, DeNaples and the defendants pleaded “no contest” and the judge accepted the plea over the protests of prosecutors. The defendants were fined and placed on probation.

But it wasn’t the end of the case. The FBI continued its decade-plus investigation using wiretaps and a grand jury. Eventually, it found that a juror’s husband was bribed — with $1,000, a set of tires and a pocket watch — by James Osticco of Pittston, thought to be a leader in the Bufalino family.

Osticco was found guilty of the jury fix and sentenced to eight years in prison. The juror’s husband was sentenced to five years in prison for perjury.

Much of the information about DeNaples’ alleged association with William D’Elia comes from reports of the now defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission. Critics charged the commission often overreached in its reports, citing casual meetings among figures as evidence of “mob ties” and failing to make specific allegations. The commission was eventually disbanded.

In the late 1980s, Bufalino’s health and influence were fading, according to commission reports. Many associates had died or been put in jail. Organized crime figures from New York and New Jersey began to move into Northeastern Pennsylvania, according to the reports.

A 1987 report described a meeting between DeNaples and Salvatore Avellino Jr., of Long Island, N.Y., a purported member of the Lucchese crime family. At the meeting, Avellino wanted to discuss “problems” with dumping fees DeNaples was charging at Keystone, according to the report.

Avellino and others were looking at opening a landfill in Northeastern Pennsylvania, a move that would have posed a competitive threat to DeNaples. In 1991, Lucchese boss Victor Amuso was arrested in Dickson City as a fugitive from justice.

D’Elia continued to handle the affairs of Bufalino, maintaining contact with other bosses in neighboring states, the report alleged. It also said DeNaples and D’Elia struck a deal — D’Elia would sell space at the Keystone Landfill and receive a commission from DeNaples.

One theory posed in a 2001 federal affidavit from unidentified informants held the Keystone payments amounted to “protection” money to keep the out-of-state bosses at bay as Bufalino’s influence waned and left a vacuum. DeNaples was never charged for such a claim.

D’Elia is in jail awaiting trial for charges of money laundering, witness tampering, kidnapping and solicitation to commit murder. He testified in July before the grand jury investigating DeNaples.

Sica is free on $20,000 bail as he awaits a Jan. 25 preliminary hearing.

Success led to giving

Since his legal troubles in the 1970s, DeNaples has become phenomenally successful — and wealthy.

He is widely believed to be the richest man in the region. In a 2006 interview with Times-Shamrock Newspapers, DeNaples said his assets total more than $1 billion.

With DeNaples’ success came widespread philanthropy, once very quiet and behind-the-scenes but now more public. In recent years, more edifices bear the DeNaples name at the campuses of two of his favorite beneficiaries, Scranton Preparatory School and the University of Scranton, both Jesuit institutions.


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: chopper] #461112
01/04/08 11:28 AM
01/04/08 11:28 AM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi Offline OP
Caporegime
Don Cardi  Offline OP
Caporegime

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
Interesting. Mount Airy Casino & Resort only opened recently and word is that it's doing extremely well so far.


Does anyone remember when it was MOUNT AIRY LODGE, one of the most popular resorts in the eastern region?




Don Cardi cool

Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.




Re: Real Life Organized Crime News [Re: Don Cardi] #461125
01/04/08 12:42 PM
01/04/08 12:42 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
chopper Offline
Gaetano Lucchese
chopper  Offline
Gaetano Lucchese

Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 9,228
Sheffield UK
by Pete Price, Liverpool Echo

SINCE writing my autobiography last year I have been thinking more and more about my biological father.

All I have is a photograph of him. I know he is Sicilian and was a prisoner of war but I would love to find him or any family.

It sounds mad but a friend, who can speak Italian, suggested I write to Sicilian Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano who is in prison in northern Italy to see if he can help me trace him.

He is in his seventies a bit younger than my father who would be in his 80s.

The Mafia must have the best information network in the world so I figure that if Mr Provenzano gives the word the Mafia in Sicily could circulate the picture of my father and someone would be bound to recognise him.

My mother told me for the first time 10 years ago that my father was a Sicilian man who was held in a detention camp near Warrington during World War II. She used to work in the camp and that was how she had an affair with my father.

She could not remember his name and, in fact, her memory is now worse than it was 10 years ago.

I was the result of their affair, but in those days there was so much stigma attached to being an unmarried mother that she went away from home to give birth to me in North Wales.

When I was born I was put up for adoption and taken in by Hilda Price, who I will always think of as my real mother.

I have tried to trace my father through British government departments and the Italian Embassy in London, always without success.

It's an unanswered question and I'd really like to find out who he was.

I've probably got hundreds of blood relatives in Sicily and I'd like to trace them.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views/liv...00252-20309774/


If i come across the table and take your f*****g eyes out ,will you remember

Aniello Dellacroce
__________________________________
TFI 2nd Bday - Dj Topgroove + Mc Domer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wN58sasrpYc

TFI Lucky Star
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-Uw0DUAGo

Happy Hardcore DJ Hixxy
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pv7H4YkFKs
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