This is another sample of my upcoming new weekly North American mob column. Always love feedback-questions. Here ya go, another complimentary edition...site where I will house this column will launch in the next couple weeks

SCOTT BURNSTEIN'S 'MOB INSIDER' July 29, 2014

Authorities release new info on 2013 Toronto mob hit, asking for help from public


A year removed from the brazen gangland slaying of notorious Canadian mob hit man, Salvatore (Young Gun Sam) Calautti, detectives in Toronto have released surveillance video from a nearby business that shows a white van driving past the vehicle that Caluatti and his bodyguard Jimmy Tusek were killed in during the early-morning hours of July 12, 2013 before police arrived on the scene.

Toronto police are looking for help from the community to identify the vehicle and its’ driver and/or owner. It’s not being revealed if authorities in the investigation believe the white van was carrying a potential witness to the murder or the actual murderer or murderers themselves.

Calautti, 40 years old and a suspect in a half-dozen mafia-connected murders at the time of his death, was a major player in a gore-ridden mob war that has ripped across Canada’s underworld the past five years, leaving at least 15 bodies in its wake.

The trigger-happy enforcer sided with Raynald Desjardins and deported New York Godfather Salvatore (Sal the Ironworker) Montagna in the bloody dispute against longtime Montreal don Vito Rizzuto, who was imprisoned when several of his top lieutenants joined forces with the young and power-hungry Montagna, opposed his reign and took aim at his inner-circle.

Rizzuto’s father, son, best friend and brother-in-law were all murdered while he sat helpless behind bars in an American prison for his role in the infamous 1981 “Three Capos” hit in New York, where the Bonanno Crime Family used him to help settle internal turmoil that still existed after the assassination of boss Carmine (The Cigar) Galante two years before.

Investigators peg Young Gun Sam as the prime suspect in the 2010 sniper-slaying of Nicolo (Uncle Nick) Rizzuto, Vito’s father and an internationally-respected mob czar himself, gunned down inside his kitchen as he sat down for dinner with his wife. Informants told police that Caluatti frequently bragged about shooting the elder Rizzuto with a sniper’s rifle from the backyard of Rizzuto’s Montreal mansion.

Upon Vito Rizzuto’s release from prison in December 2012, he became hell-bent on revenge and went on a rampage avenging the deaths of his family members – Caluatti was at the forefront of his hit list.

Attending the bachelor party of a friend of his at Terrance Banquet Centre in the Toronto suburb of Vaughan on the evening of June 11, 2013, Young Gun Sam and Tusek excused themselves from the festivities after midnight to smoke cigars in Caluatti’s car. As they sat in the front seat of the vehicle puffing away on their stogies, they were both shot to death around 1:00 a.m. June 12.

In a press release last week, Toronto’s York Police Department requested to speak to the driver of the white van. It’s not known for sure if authorities believe the person was merely a witness to the crime or the possible “doer.”

Groomed by Toronto mobster and convicted killer, Jimmy DeMaria, the man that nicknamed the fearless fast-riser “Young Gun Sam,” per a Canadian organized crime report, due to his quick ascent and even quicker trigger-finger, Caluatti took over as the Rizzuto syndicate’s main muscle in Toronto after the murder of Gaetano (Guy) Panepinto in October 2000. Panepinto was gunned down by a shooter in a passing van on Highway 27 as he drove in his maroon Cadillac. Caluatti was the top suspect in the Panepinto hit and then assumed Panepinto’s job.

Two years prior to Panepinto’s slaying, Caluatti was acquitted at trial on charges that he killed Joe Congiusta instead of repaying a debt on September 5, 1996, outside a Toronto social club Congiusta was known to spend time at.

Caluatti was the owner and operator of a pizzeria and gelato shop when he died.

Desjardins goes on trial in January on charges that he engineered the 40-year old Montagna’s murder in November 2011, two months removed from Montagna ordering an unsuccessful attempt on Desjardins’ life.

Outfit mob lawyer possibly implicated in murder plot, big fish Chitown attorney comes under scrutiny


Chicago mafia associate Jeff Hollinghead has caused his former superior in the mob Bobby Panozzo some serious legal headaches lately.

Famous and flamboyant Illinois criminal defense attorney Joe (The Shark) Lopez, a mouthpiece and litigator for numerous high-profile Chicago mobsters and underworld characters, alike, over the past 25 years, could be in for a doozy of a migraine via Hollinghead in the near future, too.

Hollinghead began cooperating with the government in November 2013, after pleading guilty to kidnapping a wheelchair-bound street gang member and holding him for ransom and getting bit with a 15-year prison bit in return. Once he flipped, Hollinghead, 48 and a former trucker and Teamster, spilled the beans on Outfit Grand Avenue crew veteran Panozzo and the vicious robbery ring he was allegedly in charge of with his buddy and fellow Chicago underworld stalwart Paul Koroluk.

Panozzo, 54, and Koroluk, 55, were indicted on federal racketeering charges related to the burglary operation that primarily targeted drug houses in and around the Chicagoland area earlier this month, caught in the act on July 16, apprehended while walking away from a police sting that set-up a fake narcotics stash to rob and ensnare the “P-K Crew.”

The indictment, which refers to Hollinghead only as “Individual H” (Hollinghead’s identity was confirmed by the Chicago Tribune), cites an incident last year while he was out on bond awaiting trial on his kidnapping charges when Panozzo and Hollinghead planned to murder a witness in Hollinghead’s case. The murder never came to fruition because the witness had gone into hiding and couldn’t be found by Panozzo, Hollinghead and others members of the P-Ks. However, in the midst of trying to locate him, Panozzo and Hollinghead got a pretty good lead on where their attempted target might be discovered.

According to the indictment, Hollinghead met with his lawyer, identified as, “Individual K,” at a coffee shop on Maxwell and Halstead, just outside the city’s Little Italy neighborhood, once known as “The Patch,” and was passed a printout of the witness’ home address.

“Give this to Bob, he’ll know what to do with it,” said the lawyer. “This is your only problem.”

Court records show Hollinghead’s attorney at that point in time to be none other than Joe Lopez.

Reached for comment by the Chicago Tribune this week, Lopez admitted meeting Hollinghead at a Caribou Coffee last July and giving him a copy of an investigative report his firm’s private detective compiled that contained outdated contact information for that particular witness. Lopez told the Trib that it’s a normal pre-trial course of action and that they were trying to locate that witness, as well as all the others, but solely, to his knowledge, for interview purposes leading up to trial.

“No matter what the situation was, it doesn’t look good,” said one colleague of Lopez’s in Chicago’s criminal-defense world that wished to go unidentified. “Joe is treading on some very thin ice here, he could be in some real trouble down the line as this Panozzo case plays out in the future.”

Nicknamed the Shark for his aggressive courtroom tactics, Lopez, 58, has recently represented Drew Peterson, the Chicago cop convicted of killing his wife in 2012 and repped notorious Outfit mob hit man Frank (Frankie the Breeze) Calabrese in the epic Family Secrets trial in 2007 that brought down a number of leaders of the Windy City mafia and solved the infamous “Casino Murders” (the double-homicide of mobster Tony Spilotro and his younger brother and protégé Michael depicted at the conclusion of the Martin Scorsese movie, Casino, with Joe Pesci playing the Spilotro role).

Lopez has a reputation for often being flashier than his gangster clients. He frequently dresses in expensive, loud-colored suits, tightly coordinating ensembles that usually includes matching sock and tie hues. During the Peterson trial, Joe the Shark and his attractive, younger wife, law partner and co-counsel, Lisa, 36, dressed in matching colors, occasionally of the neon variety. Lisa Lopez took a felony theft arrest as a teenager in 1997.

Big Easy Mafioso nabbed in “Kill car” bust, New Orleans mob showing signs of life?


Suburban New Orleans police got much more than they were expecting this past spring when they pulled over high-ranking New Orleans mafia member, Joe Gagliano and his suspected mobster-associate pal, Dominick Gullo, for having stolen license tabs on the van they were driving in.

On the side of the road bordering Gullo’s house in Metairie, Louisiana, the posh suburb directly north of New Orleans, Jefferson Parish Sherriff’s Department officers came across a somewhat spooky and shocking discovery: a vehicle equipped to kill. The white-colored Chrysler van was outfitted with gun turrets and a scope-fastened sniper’s rifle with an accompanying silencer and 80 feet of cannon fuse, used to light explosive devices.

Gagliano, 55, was the passenger in the van, which was being driven by Gullo, 75 and the owner of a business that stages poker tournaments around the country. Gullo claimed that he bought the van for $300 in the hours prior to getting stopped from a woman at a nearby coffee shop and that he was unware of the fire arm and fuse wire inside and shooting portals built into the side of the van.

The FBI entered the picture last month and charged the pair with a series of federal firearm offenses and Gullo with possession of stolen property. Acting on a tip, police officers pulled up behind the van as Gullo came to a stop in front of his residence on Old Metairie Road, leading Gagliano to departing the vehicle and walking onto Gullo’s porch.

Both are being held without bond.

The question most gangland experts and mob-watchers across the country are asking themselves is what does this arrest mean about the state of La Cosa Nostra in the Big Easy, a region long thought to be absent any significant mafia activity?

One thing known for sure is that Gagliano, 55, is a well-versed racketeer in the area, a “made” member of the New Orleans mafia and someone who hails from a lineage rich with Louisiana underworld ties.

His father is deceased New Orleans mob underboss, Francis (Muffaletta Frank) Gagliano (d. 2006). Two decades ago, in 1994 the father and son gangster team, along with New Orleans’ then-don, Anthony Corrollo and New York mafia figure, Joseph (Jo Jo) Corrozzo, currently the consigliere of the Gambino Crime Family, were indicted and subsequently convicted on federal racketeering charges related to their bilking of a Louisiana poker-machine manufacturer connected to the Bally’s casino franchise out of nearly 20 million dollars.

The younger Gagliano, according to FBI records, inducted into the mafia in a 1990 ceremony, was caught talking for hours on wiretaps related to the investigation that were placed in his father’s restaurant, Frank’s Deli, in the city’s world-famous French Quarter. The year after getting busted with his father, Gagliano was collared by the Feds for overseeing a mob crew that stole more than a half-million dollars from a Mississippi casino, utilizing paid-off pit bosses and illegal card-manipulating.

Serving close to a total of six years in prison for both busts, he was released in 1999. As of last year, Gagliano still owed a large portion of the $250,000 restitution fee levied in his first sentence. Common sentiment following the convictions in the 1990s was that they proved a deathblow to the New Orleans mob, considered by historians the first-ever American Italian mafia family, setting up shop in the Big Easy in the late 19th Century.

At the peak of the mafia’s power and prestige in the United States during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the New Orleans crime family was extremely formidable, headed by boss Carlos Marcello, one of the most revered mob dons in American history.

Marcello died of natural causes in 1993. Although the Family has gone on in some form or another since the universally respected Godfather - said to have bragged of helping arrange the JFK assassination in 1963 - , passed away, it has never been the same.

When Anthony Corollo (d. 2007) and Muffaletta Frank Gagliano took over the syndicate after Marcello died they were so desperate for an infusion of goomba street talent that they reached out to Jo Jo Corrozzo and the Gambinos in New York for help.

The city of New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission categorizes the local LCN family “active, but significantly marginalized.”

New Orleans FBI agent John Selleck and Louisiana ATF agent Kevin Moran each acknowledge the mob’s current presence, although at a lesser state of functionality than in the past, in and around the Big Easy.

“We still get tips about the mob here……….we take them seriously,” Selleck said. “Those guys aren’t being ignored.”

Moran points to the region’s changing gangland landscape in the New Millennium as a reason you don’t hear as much about the New Orleans mafia and why they aren’t as influential as they once were.

“The mafia still exists here, in some form,” he said. “As a group, they’ve had to go underground a bit more and don’t have the clout they used to because there are a lot more criminal elements to deal with compared to their heyday.”

Although neither named a boss of the current organization (probably more like a loose-knit clique of Italian mobsters, scamsters and racketeers with blood ties to the original Marcello and then-Corrollo regimes), they acknowledge that Gagliano has been called a “leader” of the group.

Up until his May arrest, Gullo, a longtime friend of Gagliano’s, didn’t have a criminal record. Gullo has been the recipient of a gambling license in both Louisiana and Nevada.

Louisiana state records show Gagliano’s employment to be as a grocer and gaming entrepreneur. His brother Frank Jr, runs Frank’s Deli, famous for Muffaletta sandwiches, a regional delicacy and the origin of Frank Sr.’s nickname. Frank Gagliano, Jr. was denied a gambling license to put poker machines inside the eatery due to his family’s LCN affiliations.

Not to be nitpicky, but Maxwell & Halsted is near the Taylor Street Neighborhood. Quite far from the Patch.

Old jewtown.

Not sure about a few of your facts. As I understand things, Panepinto was Vito Rizzuto's representative in Toronto. He was allegedly killed by the Calabrians for murdering 2 cousins associated with their Siderno group. (Calautti may have done the hit as was the the Calabrian designated hitter!) Vito then replaced Panepinto with Joe Bravo. I don't see how Calautti could have replaced Panepinto as he was on the other side.

Thanks guys, yeah I was mixing up the Patch and Taylor St, not sure why, since I lived down by there for a few years (LOL).

I was alluding to Caluatti replacing Panepinto as the area's "top muscle", not leader of the region , like Joe Bravo, but I should have been more clear. I incorrectly id'd Caluatti working for Rizzuto though. my bad, fellas.

I think I'm gonna do a "error & corrections" section each week; kinda like they do on PTI on ESPN.

Whatever he's nitpicking...its really not that far. Only a few miles.

Joe Lopez grew up in Little Italy - Taylor Street - that's where he got his nickname. He was a major body builder at one point - and is tight with guys from the neighborhood like Jimmy I. I believe one of his first clients was none other than Anthony Chiarmonte.

He was/is living down there in one of the new subdivisions - near Maxwell & Halstead (On Emerald I think). I would assume Joe is half Italian. He is big into real estate.

^^^incredible how interconnected all these guys always seem to be.