What’s up fellas?! I’m back with another quite long story, and the main reason for that is the quite interesting subject which is the “all mighty’ narcotics racket but this time, the main “suspect” is again, the Chicago Outfit. It is also quite debatable subject and so my point is that I’am opened to any kind of different opinions and disagreements from you guys. So for now, relax and enjoy the story.


High level criminals, who belong to already existing organized crime groups, make money by doing illegal activities but they operate under certain rules which are transferred from member to member. For example, America's “Cosa Nostra” or the Italian Mafia always cares some sort of rules, just to keep the members in line. Rules such as don’t screw your “colleague’s” wife or girlfriend or don’t speak to the police, or in general, no spilling secrets and no killing bosses. The problem is that most of these rules are allegedly meant for the organization’s structure, obedience towards the high level members, mutual respect between the midlevel and lower level members etc. Now, you would ask yourself on what’s the problem here? Well, during my research on the U.S. Mob I came to a conclusion that the problem is that these rules sometimes meant only for certain members, or for certain situations and even certain operations, meaning they were quite broken. For example, if two guys had a problem between each other and if the one guy was wrong and the other one right, sometimes the one who was right was going to get killed. The reason is simple, and that’s money. If the guy, who is wrong, kicks up more cash to the boss, well usually he gets a pass.


These types of individuals are born for breaking the rules and they love doing it, so what’s the point of giving these guys the list of rules, right?! In other words, if these individuals followed some rules and regulations, I believe that all of them would’ve ended up been legitimate businessmen instead of bloodthirsty criminals. Now, some of these guys who made a lot of money, besides their prime schemes, they also dealt in everything and kept money on the side. By “everything” I also meant including the “dirty” business. Yes, the Mafia allegedly used to have its own “clean” and “dirty” businesses. Under “clean” there was extortion, prostitution, illegal gambling, political corruption, loan sharking, forgery, burglary etc. and as for the so-called “dirty” business, mostly considered were narcotics and white slavery of underage girls. My point here is that back in the old days, these guys allegedly had rules on which illegal racket was “operative” and which was not. Story goes that some of the top crime bosses wanted to keep their public image “clean”, meaning they didn’t want themselves or any of their underlings being caught in the act of doing the “dirty” business. In reality, there was no “clean” or “dirty” business, since everything they did was considered illegal and so every opportunity for the gangsters was opened. The problem was between the crime bosses, meaning the corruptors and gamblers against the so-called “street” guys.


The first group didn’t want to disrupt their quite lucrative rackets which were the main financial fuel for the organization and above all, their private pockets, but the problem was that in those days the “street guys” or the more violent types were usually on the top of the hill and they wanted everything. They were the ones who used to pull dirty jobs and they were the ones who were in constant contact with their street level members, obviously because of their same level of criminal mentality. In plane words, they didn’t care much about getting respect from individuals from higher circles of society because first of all, they never belonged in those circles and some of them grew up while hating those same circles. So the point is that the Mafia families supported every single illegal business to a certain level, meaning they invested more or less cash in various operations but still they had their fingers in every pot because that is their sole point of doing everything illegal and controlling the underworld.


The time period which I’m talking about is the late 1950’s, or to be exact, the year of ’57 when the U.S. Mafia allegedly decided to include one more rule to their list of “Ten Commandments” and that was “no dealing in narcotics”, which was allegedly one of the subjects. This was allegedly concluded during the infamous “Apalachin meeting” which occurred in Apalachin, New York, where more than 50 Mafia big shots gathered to talk business and in the end, got caught by few country policemen. My point is not the disaster which occurred that day, but instead the time period and the organization’s actions which occurred right after that “faithful” meeting. I really don’t know if someone broke the rule, but the records show quite different statistics, meaning the narcotics business suddenly exploded through out the country. The so-called east coast Mafia imported heroin from every possible smuggling route, in every possible way and sold it on the streets through all kinds of criminal associates, and despite the alleged punishments for drug dealing, including death in many cases, the racket still continued to flourish among the members and their bosses, for many decades to come.


According to numerous Mob-researchers and general opinion goes that during this quite “tempting” period, one crime family, which was the Chicago Outfit, allegedly truly stood by the rules and by their given word, meaning “no dealing junk”. Well at first if we look at it clearly, if one crime family suddenly decided to not get involved in narcotics, the whole chain or point of Cosa Nostra was going to be broken, right?! Because during this period, the Chicago crime family used to have its own territory which was almost the whole Midwest and so strategically, they were quite relevant for the so-called east coast faction of the organization in at least transporting their product, right?! In other words, it was expected from them, meaning the Chicago boys, to help out with the distribution of the product. My point is that if they said no, one of the top guys from their organization was going to get “whacked”, which in reality never really happened. Could’ve been that all the talk about Chicago’s old Prohibition days, their gambling or union operations and countless murders suddenly made the narcotics racket almost invisible? Well this is a story in which only you can decide if the Chicago boys really avoided the narcotics rackets, or is it just another “The Godfather” type of myth.


For centuries, traffickers based all around the world had been involved in the production and smuggling of all kinds of drugs. My personal belief is that the sale of narcotics started at the same time when the world trade became more prominent. During the XIV century, European ships started sailing to China thus creating new major trade routes which were established all the way to India. Also Spanish and Italian expeditions ended up in Central America and after that, the continent became ripe for development. During the process, the most traded products were under the agriculture section, which included everything, such as beans, coffee, clothing materials and of course, narcotic plants. For the ones who travelled around the world, they discovered the drugs that kept the locals going, especially cocaine and opium, which were first touted as a wonder cures for all ailments. I remember some of my ancestors used to tell me that back in the old days, women used to put quite small dosage of opium on the mouths of their babies just to make them sleep, so the mothers can do their everyday choirs while the men were out at work. But the so-called healing side of the narcotics trade soon was followed by another side which was more like recreational and lucrative.





The people from Chicago, like all other humans from around the world, have long favoured the “forbidden fruits” of nature, whenever they wished to experience the so-called “high”. Whiskey or alcohol in general, always was and still is the first choice for intoxication and it’s quite easy to find it or buy it or even easy to transport. It’s also cheap and that is why it remained Chicago's most popular choice for fun during the 19th and early 20th century. Booze was available in all shapes and sizes, and was found in grocery stores, in saloons and the early department stores. Every ethnicity presented its own “product”, like for example the Germans introduced lager beer to the “Windy City” in the mid 1850s and by the 1860s, and the Irish people presented their whiskey. After that, mass production distillers made inexpensive and popular drinks for the working-class men and women, who in turn filled the local saloons and always bought some beer or brandy to be later consumed in workshops and tenement households. And on the higher scale of the social “pyramid”, the lavish dinner parties of Chicago's cultural elite featured a different kind of booze such as expensive wines, champagne and cognac.





But this wasn’t the same case with narcotics, since the main rule is if you have the right amount of money, which is usually manageable by every class of people, and contacts then you’ll get it. In the old days there were not any dealers on the streets selling their product but instead the drugs were usually acquired with the help of doctors or pharmacists. The first so-called “drug epidemic” occurred during the American Civil War which lasted from 1861 until 1865. One of the “best” medications during the conflict was morphine which is produced from poppy straw of the opium poppy and was used as pain medication of the opiate type. The drug was usually injected with the help of the recently developed hypodermic syringe, but for those who did not care, the so-called surgeons devised an even speedier sick call method by performing diagnosis from the top of their heads, while dispensing
morphine powder by pouring it into the patient’s hand and letting him lick it. Obviously the trick was in relieving the pain of bullet wounds or during surgery, but in time, the strong desire for that relief caused many injured soldiers to become opiate addicts. Also, the drugs were not meant just for the soldiers, but instead they were also meant for some of the high-ranking officers too. They mostly took the drugs to relax their nerves after some bloody conflict, thus slowly becoming addicts and so my point is that almost everyone on both sides of the line was “high” on opiates. The surgeon’s job was only to put his hand into his medicine bag so he can satisfy the request of the officer or general who in turn could’ve easily helped himself from the open stock, which usually arrayed on shelves in the unit's medical quarters. According to some statistics, over 10 million morphine dosages and 3 million ounces of other opiates were administered during that bloody five-year period.


So after the war, morphine usage and opium smoking became almost a normal thing among Chicago’s citizens and the city became one of those wide-open towns when it came to that kind of activity. The whole thing “blew up” during the 1870s, when the Chinese immigrants started opening the so-called opium dens in areas such as the Levee, which was the main vice district clustered around State Street south of the Loop. To be honest, these places were not so nice to have a relaxing “trip” because they were dirty and crowded with all kinds of people, who laid down while being wasted on opiates. So if anyone wanted to get wasted by “Chasing the Dragon”, they only needed to visit one of these dens which again, were located around Chinatown and across the Levee. But by the early 1890’s, the so-called “street dealers” started showing up, who in turn supplied many customers with different varieties of narcotics, including cocaine and different kinds of narcotic powders. Sometimes these dealers were known as "voodoo witch doctors" among the ordinary citizens who in turn bought their “love potions” and small doses of opium and cocaine.


But the thing was that sometimes these strong drugs were used for evil purposes rather than for pleasure. As I previously stated in one of my stories that during this period the infamous Levee was filled with various bars and brothels who supplied the citizens with booze and sexual favours. For example, during the late 1890’s, one of the most notorious and infamous saloon-keepers in Chicago’s Loop was Mickey Finn. Now, this guy was a pure criminal who somehow managed to create a “legend” which lasts even today. Story goes that Finn was an Irishman who operated two saloons, one was the Lone Star and the other was the Palm Garden. Finn’s bars were populated by resident prostitutes or as they called themselves in those days "house girls", and their job was to encourage the costumers to drink as much as they can from Mickey’s booze, and after that to offer their services which might be requested of them for a certain price. Finn always served the strongest and most expensive drinks which got every costumer easily drunk, thus making him an easy target to get robbed by Finn’s prostitutes, who in turn were professionals in their job. But in 1896, everything changed when one day Finn was visited by one so-called "voodoo doctor" named Dr. Hall, who in turn presented Finn with all kinds of new “love potions” and even cocaine. The Irish bar owner wasn’t much interested in cocaine or any other stuff but instead he became quite interested in one “secret ingredient” known as chloral hydrate, which produced quick unconsciousness. In fact, Finn had a quite evil idea on his mind by mixing his drinks with the “secret powder”, thus knocking down every potential target in his bars. With that, Finn became one of the first street criminals involved in narcotics but not for distribution, but instead he used them for more sinister purposes.


And that’s what really happened. Finn became quite famous for his “magical” drinks which he sold in his saloon, and one of them was the infamous "Mickey Finn Special." Two or three shots of that mixed drink would put the costumer in an unconscious state, thus giving Finn’s house girls an opportunity to empty his pockets. When the victim woke up the next day, he usually had almost no memory of what has happened and how he ended up in some dirty alley with no clothes on. In reality, this was a quite lucrative operation for the Irish criminal who in turn filled his pockets with stolen money and jewellery. But the problem was that Finn forgot about one thing and that was the human organism which was different in every individual, meaning one day his “Mickey Finn Special” did not have the same effect on one costumer. Once, Finn tried to drug a fellow Irishman who worked as a trainman because previously that same fella managed to clean out Finn for his money during a card game. So after the game, Finn wanted to celebrate the trainman’s victory with few shots of his “magical” drink. After that the poor fella fell unconscious and was quickly robbed by Finn out of his money. Later, when the trainman recovered, he remembered every detail regarding the robbing and went straight back to Finn’s joint and demanded his money back, or he would go to the police. The problem was Finn had already been gone and so the victim decided to take the info to the cops. On his way to the police station, the trainman disappeared and one day later, his dead body was found along the railroad tracks with his head cut off. Now, this shows that Finn was one quite dark individual who wanted to make an example for every other future victim to keep his mouth shut or else.


The thing was that Finn felt invincible and possibly had a “God-like” feeling because he paid protection money to the boss of the Democratic machine known as “King” Mike McDonald and the First Ward Aldermen and at the same time vice lords, Michael Kenna and John Coughlin. These were the people who “invented” organized crime in Chicago or in plane words these were the ones who introduced politics to crime. But the problem was that these fellas tolerated violence to a certain matter, but getting too many people doped up or heads being cut off around the city was just too much. In those days when somebody mentioned narcotics, it didn’t sound bad because of the addiction or such, but instead it represented a threat because somebody might take an advantage of you. High profile individuals such as “King” Mike did not want the word “narcotics” near them because it was considered a dirty habit and it was also bad for their public image. So the deal was off and the police started to investigate Finn’s saloons more closely.


Finn did not take the “warnings” very seriously and just to make things worse, he started terrorizing his “workers” meaning the prostitutes who worked at his joints. So many of the so-called “house girls” began to fear for their lives and their earnings because one day, Finn decided to steal their hard-earned savings by doping them with his “cocktails”. Since everyone who worked for the Irish gangster was scared to death, “King” Mike and his organization had a hard time in getting the crazy criminal exposed. So the “big guys” decided to give some amount of money to one of Finn’s girls, in return to testify against her boss and one day, one of the girls decided to testify before an aldermanic committee about the effects of Finn’s drinks and on December 16, 1903, Mayor Carter Harrison ordered the closure of the Lone Star Saloon, and Mickey Finn was wisely advised to leave town shortly thereafter.


But the problem was that the damage was already done. Legend goes that before he left town, Finn allegedly sold the “formula” for his famous drink to a number of other Southside saloons, who marketed it as a "Mickey Finn," or even just a "Mickey". I don’t know if this is true because during Finn’s heyday, there also other reports of doping and at the same time robbing people in numerous saloons. Whatever’s the truth, during the 1910’s, the name eventually came into use as a generic term for any knockout drink, and to "slip a Mickey" into someone's drink now means to secretly drug an unsuspecting victim. This so-called “practise” became famous during this period and it received a whole new meaning which almost went out of control. For example, during the mid 1910’s there were these so-called “waiter groups” who were involved in doping costumers in restaurants by placing a dose of a “Mickey Finn” in their drinks or meals. The drug used by the waiters was tasteless and odorless, but it was strong, emetic and left the victim in a nerve racked condition. Now the first answer that comes on my mind, regarding the question on why the hell these crazy fellas would do such a crazy thing, is to pay the waiters’ personal grudges against some costumers who had incurred their displeasure. So a lot fear spread among the ordinary citizens regarding the doping cases in restaurants and bars, and so many of them started having a lot of respect for the bartenders or waiters, who in turn became looked upon as potential dangerous criminals. But the reality was that this wasn’t the case since there was a whole darker side of the story.


The whole doping thing was in fact a huge criminal ring which was formed by a number of waiters, bartenders, cooks, doorkeepers and waitresses who worked in a large number of hotels, restaurants and bars. They were “backed” by the Waiters’ Union which in turn with the use of the powders and the help of the waiters, they somehow forced the owners of hotels and restaurants to unionize their places of business. It was a beautiful scheme, meaning if somebody refused to join the union, people were going to get doped up and the joint instantly was going to receive a bad name. The extortionists purchased the powder from the Meyer Drug and Chemical Company from St. Louis under the name of the Crown Chemical and the Chief Chemical companies. The powder was put up in packages containing twelve doses each and then sold at 20 cents a package to the union. After that, the packages were kept behind bars or receptions at the union’s headquarters and were given to the waiters for their operations and as for outsiders the packages were sold at 35 cents a piece. The real so-called “mastermind” behind this whole operation with the narcotics, unions and waiters was in fact one crime boss known as Maurice “Moss” Enright. During this period this was the guy who extorted and at the same time controlled most of the unions in Chicago and all the schemes that went with it. If somebody started making problems over the doping scheme, Enright already had the police in his pocket and usually there were no charges. Even though this sounded like just another “nickel and dimes” business, still I believe that this generated a lot of money for the labor boss.


Everything went smooth until people started dropping dead from large doses of the powder. The main problem was that during the autopsies of the deceased, the coroners managed to find some type of drug in the victims’ bodies which later it turned out to be chloral hydrate. So the government had enough and few waiters were arrested where some doping cases occurred and they were violently interrogated regarding the situation, thus forcing them to tell about the operation. On June 6, 1918, over 100 waiters, waitresses, bartenders, cooks, restaurant and hotel owners were arrested by the police and were taken into custody. On June 22, other people included on the arrest list were union members such as George McLain, who was a business agent of a bartenders' union, Benjamin Parker, president of the waiters' union and Herbert Gould, business agent for the same union, Lincoln Powers and John Millian, the bartenders at the waiters' union headquarters where the drug was sold and also Stuart Wood, the manufacturer and dispenser of the drug. During the trial, analysis of the drug were made and showed that each envelope contained ten grains of salt of antimony and potassium tartrate and that 6 grains of this has been known to cause a certain death. In the end, 37 individuals were convicted and sentenced to jail but the guy behind the operation, Moss Enright remained untouchable at least for a while, or until 1920 when he was killed by the rising Italian Mafia.


But still, the problem with narcotics in the city of Chicago did not end up there, mostly because previously the government decided to import large quantities of narcotics for medical use, which in turn was obviously taken advantage of by some people. For example, in 1911, 630,000 pounds of opium containing more than 9 percent morphine was imported and in 1913 the amount was 708,000 pounds. In others words, dangerous narcotics were easily found in pharmacies in all kinds of forms. The main problem started back in 1898, when none other than a German chemist known as Heinrich Dreser, treated morphine with an inexpensive and readily available chemical, called acetic anhydride, and somehow managed to produce a powerful chemical which became known as diacetylmorphone. When the chemist tested the new drug on some the volunteers, the individual had a calmed and at the same time powerful feeling which made him feel like a hero or heroine and that is why Dreser named his new product “heroin”. But on the other hand, the physical dependence of the drug is also quite “powerful”, meaning when the organizam is deprived of the alkaloid, it immediatelly reacts by producing abstinence symptoms. States of exalation, manic fits, cramps and serious circulatory disturbances, endanger the life of the addict, thus making the voluntary escape from the clutches of the poison almost immpossibile, once a real addiction has developed.



Bottle of heroin sold in pharamcies


So by 1915, there were more than 50,000 heroin addicts in the Chicago area alone and that is why that same year, the government made the first ban on the domestic distribution of drugs which was known as the Harrison Narcotic Act. This act was presented and passed as a method of regulating the production and distribution of opiate-containing substances under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, but a section of the act was later interpreted by law enforcement officials for the purpose of prosecuting doctors who prescribe opiates to addicts. The first section of the law clearly provided that every person, selling or supplying opium and its derivatives or coca and its leaves, must register with the commissioner of internal revenue. It was made unlawful and punishable for any person not registered to sell or give away either of these drugs. In time, the reports allegedly showed that the act was slowly reducing the use of heroin and cocaine around the country. Even though at first sight the law looked quite effective but it came out to be quite the opposite because there was a considerable alarm over the angers that would ensue when the hundreds of thousands of drug users became unable to obtain their supplies. From this point on, most of the users got their satisfaction from street peddlers, who in turn received their supplies from crooked manufacturers, druggists, and physicians. The situation became so lucrative that many criminals began forming so-called underground groups of physicians, who used their diplomas only to supply the drugs at exorbitant prices. In reality, these people did not belong to any medical society but instead they carried the title of physician so they can do business. The Harrison drug law even increased the smuggling operations which soon were about to became a huge problem for the whole country and that’s when the real underworld started seeing the big picture.


Even though the so-called narcotics racked started seeing its rising days, it really didn’t matter because in 1919 the government decided to make another clearly dumb move by declaring the Prohibition of alcohol. With this, the government somehow managed to produce thousands of gangsters who in turn started making millions of dollars from the new lucrative racket and became Mob leaders while still being in their mid 20’s. The bad thing wasn’t that the gangsters were making a lot of money but instead it was the hundreds of dead bodies which were left on the streets of Chicago on daily basis. So my point is that by now the gangsters didn’t care much about the narcotics racket but they were not out of it. By now they were larger than life and they needed a “sanctuary” from their everyday pressure and so many of them turned to narcotics. I believe that the first contact the gangsters had with narcotics was through the prostitution racket. You see, the guys who were involved in “pimping” prostitutes, they usually gave narcotics to their “workers” so they can be more relaxed with their costumers and at the same time dependable from their masters. For example, the infamous Guzik crime family used to beat and rape the girls and at the same time gave them booze and narcotics and later placed them in their brothels across the South Side. The father Max Guzik together with his sons Harry, Sam and Jake ran a large prostitution racket in partnership with the Italian Mob and some of the brothers had been convicted of kidnapping young girls and forcing them in to lives of prostitution and narcotics. So my point is that the gangsters saw what was the real power behind narcotics and what would people do just to get them.

During the mid 1920’s, the real “star” of Chicago’s underworld was Alphonse “Scarface” Capone and as I previously stated that some of these guys felt they were larger than life, well this was the guy who was the real definition for that statement. It is generally known that this guy made a lot of cash mainly from bootlegging and I mean a lot of cash. Millions of dollars were kicked up through the ranks of his organization and we all know that with money like that comes a lot of responsibilities, meaning everyday pressure such as running away from the government and hiding from enemies. He was a constant target of the Tommy guns which were fired by his rivals and on top of that, he was constantly running away in the last moment during police raids. His boys were in the same situation because they were the ones protecting him and they were the ones who did the dirty work, meaning killing people and getting rid of dead bodies and such. During those days, these guys were like soldiers, constantly fighting around Chicago’s “jungle”. So the point is that these “poor” boys needed something, obviously not only booze, which was going to calm their nerves. And the answer was narcotics. Story goes that Capone snorted cocaine like a vacuum cleaner which was the main “fuel” for his often bizarre behaviour and proof for that is his medical records, from his first few months in prison during 1932. He was suffering from withdrawal symptoms from cocaine addiction, including paranoia, depression, exhaustion, anxiety, itching, mood swings, irritability, fatigue, insomnia, an intense craving for more cocaine, and in some cases nausea and vomiting. Some of his reports say that he even had similar symptoms to schizophrenia such as a feeling of a crawling sensation on the skin also known as "coke bugs". According to some medical researchers, these symptoms can last for weeks or, in some cases, even months. So I really don’t know what really scrambled Capone’s mind, meaning was it the syphilis infection or was it the cocaine addiction.



Cocaine


As I previously stated that some of his guys were also on the same “treatment”, faces such as Vincenzo Gibaldi a.k.a. Jack McGurn or William Heeney. Both guys worked as Capone’s chief enforcers and main logisticians and story goes that they killed a lot of people. Even though he mainly worked as a hitman, McGurn also controlled a huge prostitution ring for his boss in the Cicero area and constantly supplied his girls with heroin and cocaine, but the problem was that McGurn sometimes also gave himself few “hits” in the nose. Besides that, story goes that he was also a heavy drinker and degenerate gambler or in other words, he was a real disaster. So when Capone went to jail, McGurn slowly lost his stature in the newly formed organization and was placed to work under Willie Heeney who in turn became one of the new crime bosses from the Cicero area. Now this guy was a real so-called “junkie” because he was known for injecting heroin and at the same time smoking opium. Back in the old days, while he was still working for Capone, Heeney was known for throwing cans filled with opium out of the windows from his apartment, during police raids. Once, when the agents arrived at his hotel apartment, they found a slight, shrewd-looking, sallow coloured little man in the company of a hot and beautiful blond girl, and so the agents couldn’t believe their eyes because it was the infamous Willie Heeney. During the search of his room, the cops found a dozen of cans filled with opium and when they took him to the station, one of the cops pulled up Heeney's sleeve and trouser leg, thus revealing his skin which was marked by dozens of scars made by the dope addict’s hypodermic needle. One of the G-man asked Heeney "Willie, were you under dope when you killed your first man?" In a flat voice Heeney allegedly replied "Why else would you kill somebody you never saw before?" Than the agent said "You gotta be full of dope. How about the next one?" and then Heeney again replied "After the first one it ain't so hard."


Even though Heeney was a killer and a junkie at the same time, he was also heavily involved in the rackets, especially dope peddling. You see, when McGurn lost his stature, Capone’s brother, Ralph together with one Claude Maddox and Heeney took over his rackets and divided everything between them. So after McGurn, Heeney was one of the first Outfit members, who took the dope peddling business across the South Side, especially around the African-American neighbourhoods. Previously McGurn had a crew of “Negro runners” who later transferred their loyalties to Heeney and so he decided to take McGurn under his wing and gave him another “chance”. Since Prohibition was already finished, McGurn started running the numbers racket for the syndicate and sold dope on the side but still his main problem was his addictions. And we all know how things go in the Mafia when a situation gets too complicated and things go out of control, like for example in 1936, when McGurn was gunned down by his former cohorts Claude Maddox and William White. The Outfit’s top boss Paul Ricca, allegedly once commented regarding the McGurn situation “High and dry, that’s why we left him…sellin’ junk to the moolies”. Ricca was a gangster from the “old country”, who supported almost every racket but hated being in the company of “dirty” people or people with addictions, because obviously they had a weakness which could’ve brought a lot of problems for the organization.


Now you would ask yourself who supplied these fellas with dope and how did they bring it? One story goes that Al Capone and some of his cohorts were supplied with cocaine by their personal dentist who was known as Dr. Frank Brady. But the thing was that Dr. Brady provided the gangsters with limited supply of cocaine, meaning it was mostly for their own use, and on top of that, in 1929 the doctor was shot to death by two assassins in his own office. So I had to do some extensive research regarding the subject and found out that one of their main suppliers was a racketeer, who later became a member of the Capone mob known as Dennis “The Duke” Cooney. He was the one who ran all of the brothels on the city’s South Side and also had high connections in the First Ward. Cooney’s headquarters was a hotel known as “The Rex” which was one of the worst joints in town. His office was constantly visited by all kinds of people, from corrupt policemen to countless dope peddlers. And how did Cooney had himself involved in narcotics? Well the answer is simple and that is the prostitution business, or a female person, who was known as Madam Victoria “Vic” Shaw. She was Chicago’s most fabulous parlor-house madam and vice queen who worked strictly for the Capone Mob. In fact, Shaw inherited everything from her late husband Roy Jones, who in turn previously worked for one of Chicago’s first “big time” Italian crime bosses, known as Jim Colosimo, back in the 1890’s. So when she partnered up with Cooney, she was protected from the law and also rivals and so she easily managed to increase collections from prostitutes, established new bawdy houses, and produced rich profits for the Capone organization. But the thing was that Shaw was also a heavy narcotics user and she often made “company” to her workers in getting “stoned” together. Story goes that she was introduced to the “racket” since young age. And on top of that, many of her costumers were simple pharmacists or doctors, who in turn instead of paying her with cash for the services of her girls, sometimes they simply supplied her with the needed products such as heroin and cocaine, and like everything else, slowly the activity turned into a lucrative racket.


But since the demand was huge, in time, Shaw started ordering larger quantities of narcotics from other cities, thus transforming her establishments into something between an opium den and a brothel, meaning people were having sex while also paying for narcotics just to make the feeling even better. In 1926, she was charged for running a “rooming house” as a gathering place for criminals and also a “clearing house” for a dope peddling ring. Slowly the profits were getting bigger and bigger and Cooney’s pockets were getting tighter and tighter. Besides selling dope in their brothels, Cooney and Shaw decided to use the already existing bootlegging routes to smuggle some of the dope like for example from Canada, through Detroit and then to Chicago. Back in 1927, Shaw was arrested for selling morphine and one year later she was again arrested but this time in Canada on charges for bootlegging and smuggling narcotics and she was quickly deported by the local authorities. Back home, with Cooney’s help, all charges against her were dismissed. I really can’t tell about the individuals that sold the dope to Shaw, but I believe they were the same guys who already had established the whiskey routes. After that, Shaw flew successfully under the government’s radar for more than a decade until 1941, when she was again arrested for selling $10,000 worth of narcotics and was sentenced to 5 years in prison and in 1951, Shaw died at the age of 89.


Now, if we compare guys like Heeney and McGurn with Madam Shaw, they really looked like amateurs in regarding of the narcotics business. In fact, individuals like Shaw were the main “ingredients” for “spicing” one of the most lucrative businesses which was the bootlegging of alcohol. In other words, the smuggling business and routes of the Capone gang became a major selling point for old and new drug traffickers. This so-called “improvement” built a stable future for a faster and more influential crime organization, such as the newly formed Chicago Outfit. When Capone went to jail in 1932, the new top administration which was headed by Paul Ricca and Frank Nitti had a tough job in front of them and that was to maintain the cash flow for the organization. I mentioned “tough” because the lucrative days of Prohibition were gone and now the boys concentrated mostly on gambling, the unions and everything else which brought the big buck, including narcotics.


During the mid 1930s, there was a real concerted effort by the government to get all of the pharmacies and pharmacists actually licensed, because until then, there wasn’t really any accreditation process and pharmacists were selling almost anything and also kept large stash of narcotics such as opium and cocaine. Then in 1939, World War II began and so there was almost a complete ban on the importation of heroin, because everything was military shipping, and the ships were not going to those places, such as the Far East, where the heroin was produced. So during this period of time the addiction rate gradually went down. But the thing was that the fighting also managed to cut off the Allies from other legal sources of drug supplies, which were quite needed for the conflict, and so Mexico became the main source of morphine for the legal market and years later, also for the illegal market. On top of that, the war also created a need for hemp fiber for rope, which led to large-scale cultivation of marijuana in both Mexico and the United States. So until the arrival of the national crime syndicates, by this time there was a very huge drop of the dope peddling business, since the only products available during the war period were the drugs diverted from legal channels. In addition, during this period some members of Jewish criminal element managed to establish some dope peddling operations on Mexican territory for the U.S. syndicates but the thing was that none of those operations ever reached the point of making large profits for the organization.


So some of the more “thoughtful” gangsters quickly realized, why bother to smuggle the product when they can simply take it from next door. I mean, if they managed to rob or extort a dozen of pharmacies, the “spoils” would’ve been huge. Few of those gangsters involved in such a racket were the DeGrazia “crime family”, ex-Capone members, which later one of them became a “capo” for the Chicago Outfit, who in turn largely contributed into the dope business. The group was formed by four brothers, including Rocco, Nick, Joseph and Andrew and they mostly operated around the Melrose Park area and western suburbs. When Rocco DeGrazia got out of prison in 1936 for tax evasion, he quickly took the top spot of the area since the previous crime boss died from natural causes a year earlier. Previously, during the Capone days, he was the leader of the Northwest faction of the organization. Now, the DeGrazia brothers were not the brightest members in the organization but still they knew on how to make fast money. According to some government documents, they were operating more than 20 handbook operations, mainly in Melrose Park, and also placed their slot machines around the western suburbs and allegedly kicked up around $10,000 per month to their bosses.


So as I previously stated, the DeGrazia brothers knew how to make money but they also knew how to be scary and also how to kill. For example, Nick DeGrazia was a known rapist who was charged numerous times for the crime and his brother Andrew was a dope addict and was heavily involved in the business. Once, a doorman to a road house located on Lake Street west of Mannheim Road was killed because the owner of this place would not allow Nick to place his slot machines in the joint. As for Andrew, he was so notorious that once, he was a suspect in the “suicide” of his mistress, 23 year old Miss Lora Stackowicz and years later, his wife allegedly also committed suicide with a gun. Because of his dark background, he was suspected of being somehow involved in the so-called “suicides” of his female partners but he was never charged nor convicted. As for Rocco he was the real “brain” behind the operations by making money almost out of everything. Once, he managed to obtain almost $80,000 fund from church people to complete construction of his infamous gambling palace and legendary mobster hangout known as the Casa Madrid. Of course, the people never saw the money ever again and obviously they never visited his “devilish” establishment. On top of that, all of the brothers were known for visiting Chinatown’s opium dens on daily basis, thus becoming heavy users. Besides that, they managed to create few of their own schemes. Since Rocco was a huge handbook operator, sometimes he rigged the horse races by giving all kinds of narcotics to the poor animals. After World War II, the drugs started arriving from various major pharmaceutical companies and were constantly being used to improve a horse’s performance, and on top of that, they were remarkably effective. Orders from veterinarians poured in and the DeGrazia brothers were there to extort them. The brothers already knew that even though a horse is five or seven times larger than humans, the amount of dope needed to have an effect is so small and quickly gives a spectacular result, which in turn brought them thousands of dollars.



Rocco DeGrazia


The second “scheme” was forcing pharmacy owners to give up their opium stashes. The “deal” was simple, meaning instead of paying for protection, under the threat of death the owner would simply give up a part from his narcotics stash and so the brothers maybe wouldn’t bother him for the next one or two months. So the brothers began extorting thousands of ounces of opium, morphine and cocaine, thus forming a huge narcotics ring which lasted for almost a decade. Rocco DeGrazia had a bunch of enforcers and operators under his rule who collected and later sold the narcotics on daily basis, guys like Mike Stacey and Carmen Taglia. But one day, one Maywood druggist had enough and decided to take his problem to the government and so in March, 1946, the narcotics bureau in Chicago issued so-called secret warrants against Rocco DeGrazia and Mike Stacey, thus charging them with extortion, illegal transportation and concealing of narcotics. The two gangsters were quickly arrested after the druggist charged that he supplied a large opium ring with thousands of ounces of opium and morphine under the fear of death. Rocco’s brother Andrew was also arrested since he was named by the druggist as a member of the ring and later both brothers, including Stacey, were released on $5,000 bond each. When the police searched Andrew’s house, they managed to find 200 grains of opium and few smoking pipes.


So everything about the case went slow but a year later, in his own brother’s style, Rocco again managed to get himself in trouble by getting caught with few ounces of opium and smoking paraphernalia and so he was quickly convicted and sentenced to one year and one day in prison. After that, things were never the same for the old “capo” because when he got out, somehow he started loosing his stature within the criminal organization and according to his brother Joseph, possibly the only “normal” brother, he, meaning Rocco, became penniless. Slowly his criminal empire was taken over by the younger generation within his Outfit, which in turn impatiently waited to get their hands over his territory. And so by the early 1950’s, Sam Battaglia became the “unofficial” boss of the Melrose Park area, who with the help of his cohorts would bring the dope business to another level.



Sam Battaglia


In the old days wars used to destroy drug routes, but now things were different since the mobsters began using the conflicts for creating new routes. According to one confidential informant, during the late 1940’s or after the DeGrazia incident, the Outfit’s top administration, which by now was led by “chief executive” Mr. Tony Accardo, has forbidden to its members to get directly involved in narcotics. Now the keyword here is “directly”, meaning they were still allowed to make money from the racket but from this point on, they should use so-called “middle men” so they can distance themselves from the product and the customers. Guys like Accardo, Ricca or Sam Giancana were quite smart because they devised a plan which would make a lot of money for the next decade. The plan was to form so-called “junk crews” which were going to be controlled by the “middle men”, and the bosses preferred for these individuals to be from Italian descent or at least people who can be trusted. Now, the “middle men” were going to be the only ones with personal contact with the so-called “runners”, who in fact were criminals from all races and statures who sold the product directly on the street, or in other words, they had direct contact with the customers. They formed their own crews with their own leaders but in the eyes of the Outfit, they were considered as ordinary low level workers. And where did the Outfit found all these people? The answer is the everyday minor criminals, mostly non-Italians such as African-American or Latinos, who worked in the policy or prostitution rackets. It was not a coincidence that those two rackets were the “chosen ones” because those two operations acquired a lot of people. And so did the narcotics business. In those days, the average addict in Chicago purchased heroin for $5 a "bag." A "bag” contained one-twentieth of a gram and the number of bags used per day depended upon the tolerance which was built up by the individual user. The next breakdown on heroin was the 16th of an ounce, which was sold for around $15. Any amount over 16th was usually purchased by a person who intended to dilute and resell the product at a profit. The other prices for heroin were for example a "Spoon," which was roughly one fifth of an ounce and was sold from $65 to $125 depending upon the percentage of heroin, and also an ounce of heroin which was sold between $400 and $800, again depending upon the quality of the product.







So literally, hundreds of “runners” were working full time soliciting the narcotics business. The “job” has become an automatic refuge for lower class criminals and ex-convicts, who in turn were often unable to find legitimate work. So as I previously stated, these “junk troops” were in fact counterparts from the various rackets, such as the policy operation, people involved in the auto-theft racket and also people involved in prostitution. The policy operators and pimps, with the help of their runners and hookers, sold the product and the car thieves transported it around the country, since they were known for constantly transporting stolen cars. No matter what they did, by the end of the day they all had the same assignment and that was to “hook” victims. Some of the “middle men” were so progressively ruthless in promoting their ghoulish product that they gave instructions to their “runners” to give several "free samples" of dope to their prospective victims, because they knew that once the “prey” was " hooked ", their investment was soon going to be repaid in a hundredfold in extortionate profits. In fact, just to sustain almost $20-a-day habit, an addict must steal property worth four or five times that amount, thus the narcotic problem effected the entire community in losses through crimes committed by addicts and increased costs in law enforcement. On top of that, many of those criminal addicts were used by the local crime syndicate for doing small time jobs. It was a beautiful scheme but there was one “small secret” which only the Outfit’s bosses and members knew of, and that was “if caught, you die”, meaning if somebody got pinched by the cops for selling drugs, he or she was going to get killed. In other words, the “middle men” and the “runners” were considered expendable because in the bosses’ minds that was the only solution to get disconnected from the operation.


Now, before I proceed I want to state that many Mob historians still believe that these “middle men” or “runners” were in fact a separate organization from the Chicago Outfit and allegedly they acted on their own. I believe that this opinion mainly comes from the many slayings on dope peddlers, which occurred during the next decade but the thing is that the evidences which I’m about to show you, deliver a quite different picture. For me, and for few other researchers and authors, the main proof for the connection between the Outfit and the dope peddling rings, is in fact the involvement of the dope traffickers in other illegal activities which were 100 percent backed by the Outfit, such as loan sharking, burglary and auto-thefts. For example, besides being involved in gambling, counterfeiting and loan sharking, these individuals also killed on the orders of the Outfit. So my point is that the connection was quite real. There’s also another so-called disagreement and that is the general opinion that these individuals were peddling dope without the knowledge of the Outfit’s higher ups. Again, the next evidences will also show you that there was in fact deep involvement by some of the crime bosses in the operation, but I personally believe that the confusion comes mainly because of the disagreement by the opposing factions within the Chicago crime syndicate, which I previously explained at the beginning of this story.


So some of the Outfit bosses, with the help of their crew members, controlled their own “junk crews” and stayed in their own territories. Also, some of the Outfit members already had histories of drug convictions, meaning they were already experienced in the job. For example, Charles Nicoletti, who was a long time friend of Giancana and current member of Battaglia’s Melrose Park crew, was once arrested for peddling heroin. Back during the early 1940’s, Nicoletti was considered an associate of the syndicate and worked with one ex-Capone member known as Ernest Sansone, who in turn was a former bootlegger and ex-convict and together they ran bookmaking operations, car theft operations and placed vending machines around the West Side. Now this guy was a dope peddler since the days of Prohibition and so in May 10, 1943, Nicoletti and Sansone were arrested by the Chicago police for peddling $15,000 worth of narcotics or in other words heroin. In fact, Nicoletti and Sansone tried to import the heroin from Canada in the U.S. So on May 13, Nicoletti was sent to Midland, Michigan to serve 18 months in custody of the Attorney General. My point is that by the early 1950’s Nicoletti was considered a heavy hitter for the Outfit and I believe that he did not have any problems with somebody who sold narcotics. As for Sansone, after his release he became one of the Outfit’s main players in the bookmaking business. Both gangsters, allegedly continued to support the narcotics trade but from different positions, for which I’ll explain it later during the story.



Charles Nicoletti


Also, all of this re-grouping and formations were not a coincidence at all because during the early 1950’s big things were happening both in the world of narcotics and within the Chicago Outfit. By now the U.S. government, with the help of its new laws and legislations, forced the semi-licit suppliers out of the trade, mainly the wholesalers and pharmacists who had been supplying the illegal trade through legal channels, but somehow managed to create a vacuum that the crime syndicate quickly filled in. In others words, the government unknowingly helped the Mob in taking over the racket, completely. When something is declared illegal, by “simple law of physics” usually the price of the illegal product goes up and the competition goes down. But the problem is that the few competitors who are still on the streets are usually gangsters, who also are trying to control the racket, and that’s how conflicts are born or in some cases, that is how national crime syndicates are born. It is a quite interesting “phenomenon” to see that by creating new laws of prohibiting certain synthetic or natural products and making them illegal, we are instantly creating chances for the formation of illegal enterprises. People who don’t have much or who are greedy can quickly turn the whole situation into a lucrative racket. But if you look at the situation from “across the street”, making almost everything legal might create problems with epidemic proportions. So it’s a “two-way street” situation. For example, back in the 1920’s, in America the law of Prohibition somehow proved that even though booze was illegal, alcoholism among the citizens was statistically higher than ever. So I don’t believe that it was the bootlegger’s complete fault but instead the problem was among the citizens. We are the ones who spend our money on vices and so we are the ones who are constantly looking for it, meaning, we’re the ones who “feed” the “Beast”. So no matter if some product was legal or not, if the ordinary individual liked it and was ready to pay for it, there always be someone to provide it.


My personal belief is that one of the biggest mistakes that U.S. government ever did was the deportation of mobsters in their home countries, which made quite large contribution to the narcotics trade. Some of these fellas were few of the biggest criminal minds such as New York’s Charles Luciano, or Detroit’s Frank Coppola or even Chicago’s Dominic Roberto. I’m not pointing out that these fellas formed the world’s biggest drug trade, but I believe that they largely contributed for the establishment of the network. With their help, large quantities of heroin took a secret voyage from the Middle East, like for example Beirut, Lebanon, or Aleppo, Syria, which were the main production points and from there, opium was smuggled to intermediate transhipment points, usually Turkey where the “product” was further developed. For example, few of the most prominent Mafia contacts in Lebanon were Antoine Araman, Muthar Berk and the so-called “prince of darkness” Mounir Alaouie. Now, Araman was the one who purchased raw opium or morphine base from Aleppo, Syria, and with the protection of Alaouie’s political and international connections, Berk easily transported the shipment to Turkey. Over there, the shipment was welcomed by the Ahmet Soysal narcotics smuggling organization which was capable of converting large quantities of opium to morphine base and then to heroin.


The next stop was Marseille, France, and from there to Naples, Genoa and Palermo, Italy. After that, with the help of Corsican and Sicilian criminals, heroin was shipped to three points, including Canada, Cuba or New York. From those points, the drugs usually ended up in the hands of the New York, Detroit or Florida crime families who in turn transported the product across the country with the help of their “colleagues’ from the Midwest crime groups which by that time were mostly under the thumb of the Chicago criminal syndicate. From this point on, the geography of the Chicago drug trade began to take form in street-corner deals among the crumbling housing stock of the south and west sides. This particular drug route was known as the “French Connection”.

So during this period, “new doors” were opened for the Chicago boys in the world of drug trafficking, thanks to their deported cohorts from the Detroit Mafia such as Serafino Mancuso and Frank Coppola. For the last 10 years, the American boys received most of the heroin from two main sources. The first source went by the name of Salvatore Caneba, a Sicilian Mafioso who came from the Palermo area and in 1950, managed to establish himself in New York and became one of the most prominent narcotics peddlers. Back in Sicily, Caneba had a brother who went by the name of Ugo and was also a Mafioso. So Ugo Caneba’s job was to contact some major Corsican drug traffickers with laboratories in Marseilles, France, such as the Arnaci brothers and Marius Jacques Ansaldi, who in turn supplied the Caneba brothers with the product, which was destined for the U.S. The second source was Francesco Pirico, also from the Palermo area, who in turn was a distributor of large quantities of diverted heroin from the Schapparelli Pharmaceutical Co. which supplied many U.S. costumers. But by the early 1950’s some of the Italian boys started operating their own heroin laboratories, thanks to two of their native gangsters such as Francesco Saverino from Trapani, Sicily, and Enzo Berti from Pisa, Italy. For example, Berti was an individual with a doctor’s degree in philosophy but also had connections in Turkey from where he managed to bring morphine base and with the help of his laboratories, he converted it to heroin. So the so-called deported faction of the Detroit mob such as Mancuso and Coppola, through Saverino, made close contacts with Berti who in turn gladly accepted their “invitation” for making business.



Frank Coppola


Story goes that after establishing the connection, there was a meeting in Italy between various deported representatives for some of the American crime families, such as Mancuso and Coppola for the Detroit faction and also for St. Louis, Charles Luciano for the New York factions, and Dominic Roberto for the Chicago Outfit. And on this particular meeting, the boys decided that every faction should have its own overseer of the narcotics shipments and the bigger cities were going to have jurisdiction over the smaller cities regarding the racket. For example, it was decided that the Chicago faction was going to function as the principal source for narcotics in the Midwestern and Southwestern sectors of the country. According to some reports, Chicago has occupied this position since the early 1030's, during a meeting between Chicago and New York, including Luciano and Meyer Lansky on one side, and Paul Ricca and Rocco Fischetti on the other. So the Outfit was going to be supplied primarily by the New York faction, with exception of some situations where the Florida faction will deliver, and after that the Chicago boys were going to distribute the product to all Midwestern cities, such as Detroit and including New Orleans, and also the ones of secondary importance within the network of the narcotic traffic, such as Omaha, Tulsa, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Iowa, Los Angeles, Houston, Denver and sometimes St. Louis, which in turn all generally depended on Chicago for the illicit narcotic drugs trade.


So the shipment from Sicily was carried by two Italian Mafia “couriers” known as Salvatore Greco and Antonio Sorcio, who in turn delivered it to three major points, one in New York where it was received mainly by the Luciano group, the second in Cuba, which was received by local criminals in connection with U.S. Mob, and the third in Canada which was also received by local Mafia groups such as the Cotroni faction. According to one confidential government informant, the points in Canada and Cuba, where sometimes used as decoys and allegedly the New York point was always the main receiving destination. Also according to some government records, two of the main New York guys who received and at the same time, flooded the city of Chicago and the whole Midwest with heroin, were Joe LoPiccolo and Rocco Mazzie. For example, LoPiccolo was a former Chicagoan who by the mid 1930’s served for the Mangano crime family in New York and in time became close associate of the Tampa crime family in Florida. Later he became one of the biggest heroin traffickers for the U.S. Mafia, mainly from Havana, Cuba and then through the Florida area. Other prominent New York connections for the Chicago boys were also two narcotics traffickers from the Luciano crime family, known as Anthony Pisciotta and Thomas Garibaldi. So from this point on, the main “overseers” of the Midwestern narcotics trafficking were Raphael Quazarano, John Priziola, and Paul Cimino of the Detroit faction, Anthony Giordano of St. Louis and Giacomo Ammirato a.k.a. James Emery from Chicago. In fact, Emery was Roberto’s successor as “capo” of the Chicago Heights faction and right after the European meeting, he was called upon by Roberto and Luciano in Italy possibly to receive further instructions.



Jim Emery, Dominick Roberto and Charles Luciano in Italy (taken from Matthew Luzi's book "The Boys in Chicago Heights")


According to some government reports, the narcotics shipment from New York or Florida, which was destined for the Chicago boys, at first arrived in Lake County, Indiana, where it was welcomed by mobsters who were closely associated with the Outfit. One of those faces was an old time Outfit “capo” known as Tony Pinelli, who back in the late 1930’s was transferred to Sierra Madre, a city in Los Angeles County, where he was considered semi-retired from the Mob, a statement which I hardly believe in since there are many reports where he was associated with the Los Angeles crime family. But in 1953, Chicago racetrack publicist and alleged Outfit associate Jack Doyle who ran everything about gambling in Lake County was indicted because of his testimony during the Kefauver investigations and so Accardo and Giancana took a plane to Los Angeles where they met with Pinelli and gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse. And so Doyle was quickly replaced by Pinelli, who in turn brought his own group of mobsters to fill in the empty space. Some of those guys were Gaetano Morgano, Paul Miccolis, Pinelli’s nephew Tony Gruttadauro, Frank Zizzo and John Formosa. Some government reports say that even though Pinelli was considered of higher stature rather than the rest of the members, still Morgano was the one who was looked upon as the main guy of the Chicago faction in Northern Indiana. As for Formosa, he was a pimp and so-called main liaison between the Outfit’s bosses and the Indiana faction. According to few statements which were made by one confidential informant, during this time the whole Northern Indiana faction actually operated under the auspices of Jim Emery and the Chicago Heights faction.


So this particular crew was mainly involved in three rackets, including bookmaking, prostitution and vending machines but once a month, they were the ones who received the large quantities of heroin which were destined for the Chicago market. And how did they import the product? Simply, their “relatives” in Montreal, Canada; Florida or New York would send the heroin hidden in food cans, cheese or even wine bottles and with the help of Paul Miccolis and Frank Zizzo, who owned few pizzeria businesses in that area, the product safely arrived and was prepared for further distribution. These guys considered themselves legitimate businessmen, like for example Zizzo was the owner of the Pepper Pot Pizza restaurants with locations around Gary and Hammond. But before transporting the larger part of the shipment, the Indiana boys kept some of the product for their part of the deal and distributed it around their own territory.


Proof for that is during that same exact time period, the heroin addiction problem in Northern Indiana went on a higher level which was never seen before. One of the group’s main “runners” in Gary for example, was Weldon “The Bear” Drisselle, who in turn controlled a band of nearly 20 dope peddlers. They mostly sold their product at a local steel plant with the help of some the employees. But by the end of 1955, dozens of deaths from heroin overdose occurred in the same area which quickly brought the attention of law enforcement. The main problem was that some of the more “thirsty” addicts who previously never tried more pure and stronger product such as the current one, and so they usually injected the same dose as the one with regular heroin which obviously was a lethal dose. And so by February, 1956, the government managed to arrest 118 individuals, including 76 residents of Gary and 42 residents of East Chicago. Many of the witnesses were identified as addicts, aged 18 to 28, including husbands and wives, most of them steel plant employees. Among them were Drisselle and his crew of “runners”, which, according to some reports, probably was the main reason for the arrests since one of the members, previously talked to the cops. The informant, who in turn was an ex-employee at the steel plant and later a simple street dealer, said that, on a good day, he earned over $500 from the drug business.


Even though the crew mainly operated in Northern Indiana, since they belonged to the Outfit, some of them also had few operations around the city of Chicago. For example, Gaetano a.k.a. Tommy Morgano was the guy with a loan sharking operation on Chicago’s Near North Side, who also owned a pizzeria business in that same area. His loan sharking enterprise operated behind the twin legitimate facades of a factoring business and frozen pizza pie company, which allegedly served as financial backup for the highly regarded gambling business. Obviously, Miccolis’ and Zizzo’s pizza businesses were closely connected to Morgano’s, which was the easiest way of transporting the heroin from Indiana to Chicago. Part from the shipment which arrived at Morgano’s pizza company on Chicago’s Near North Side, was previously transported to another pizza parlor which was located in Calumet City.


Now, the rest of the shipment, according to the “European deal”, first arrived in the territory of Chicago’s south suburbs, which by now was still controlled by Jim Emery and was considered the most lucrative area for selling heroin, mainly because of the numerous and poor African-American population. Or as Attorney General Robert Kennedy once said: “Organized crime, one of the biggest businesses in America, has many faces. Some are well known, like that of the gambler operating a roulette wheel, and another is that of the narcotics peddler, trading on the misery of the poor.” On top of that, for the last decade Emery controlled a huge lucrative illegal empire which almost resembled like a separate faction from the Outfit. Emery had three main “capos” including George Tuffanelli, Joe Guzzino and Frank LaPorte, the same guys who were appointed as overseers of the narcotics shipment. According to one government informant, since Emery was considered the top boss of the group, he also appointed Guzzino and LaPorte as the main “couriers” between him and Dominic Roberto in Italy, which totally explains the numerous FBI reports regarding the duo’s travels to Italy. So after taking their part of the deal, the rest of the shipment was divided in two separate parts which were destined for Detroit and New Orleans. For example, there are some reports which indicate that Guzzino had numerous and direct contacts in New Orleans with one Julian Lopez, who by the feds was described as the chief narcotics supplier for that area. This particular dope smuggling operation was meant only for the so-called Chicago Heights crew or Emery’s faction of the Outfit, which obviously with the permission from their higher ups, they operated without any problems. In fact the Chicago Heights crew was the first Outfit group which brought the narcotics trade around Chicago’s territory on higher level and also opened the doors for the rest of the “thirsty” factions.


So as you can see, at first, in Chicago the "dope" business was centred mainly on the South Side but later also spread in low-rent hotels on the Near West Side and in East Garfield Park and then all the way through Melrose Park. This was mostly because the Outfit’s top bosses belonged to that territory, such as Giancana, DeGrazia’s successor Sam Battaglia, Fiore Buccieri, and it was the perfect timing for them since they recently took over the policy and numbers operations in those same areas. The thing was that the operators presented the perfect “army” for their narcotics trade. On top of that, during this period the Outfit’s so-called West Side Bloc has become a complete political and economic powerhouse that controlled political corruption in the city, county, and state levels. The West Side Bloc controlled the political machinery of the near West Side wards, some of which were heavily Italian, for nearly 40 years. But the thing was that they had really some problems in spreading the dope business across the whole city, for example on the Near South side and Loop, mostly because some of the top bosses there did not approve the racket since they mostly believed in political corruption, gambling and extortion. Yes, there were some mobsters who stayed away from narcotics and the dirtiest racket that they ever touched was prostitution. I’m talking about guys like Murray Humphreys or Gus Alex who truly denied selling drugs but since they weren’t the ones at the top of the organization, they still had to keep their eyes and mouths closed and gave their services whenever they were needed.


So since the New York faction of America’s Cosa Nostra became the main supplier of heroin for the whole country, some Outfit crews quickly decided to exploit their connections from that same area. Now, the first Outfit member who was considered “big time” in the dope business was Joseph Mendino. This nervous fella mainly operated a huge handbook operation on the city’s Near North Side but besides that he belonged to the West Side faction and was direct to his boss Sam Giancana. My personal belief is that Mendino’s New York connections were some high level members from the Bonnano crime family, which I believe were the same people who sometimes were responsible for sending the shipment to his cohorts from the Chicago Heights faction. Mendino received his shipment through a pizzeria business which was located on Taylor Street and was owned by one of Mendino’s associates known as August Deveno. According to some government reports, the pizzeria allegedly handled between 5 and 10 kilos of heroin per month and since Mendino was considered as a member of the organization, he was obliged to use more than few “middle men” and one crew, so he can place the product on the streets for sale. Two of his most prominent associates were Joseph Iacullo and Frank DeMarie, who in turn had direct contact with the product and delivered it to the “runners”. For example, Iacullo had a huge “junk crew” under his auspices which generated, according to the government, over $5,000,000 a year. That’s why all of these guys lived lavishly, like for example Mendino managed to build a $100,000 mansion in the southwest section of Lake Forest. The ranch type structure, made of stone, was built back in 1951 “coincidentally” at the same time when the “junk crews” started providing huge profits. On the front side of the house, there was a huge $3,000 window which was painted with religious pictures. Also, two blocks down from Mendino’s estate, was the $75,000 brick house of 28 year old DeMarie, with a long red flowering hedge along the driveway.


But Iacullo’s runners were not some low level criminals but instead some of them had long time Outfit connections and one of those guys was Tony Pape. Back in the old days, this particular West Side hoodlum used to terrorize the streets together with many Outfit guys, thanks to his older brother Frank Pape who in turn allegedly was a member of the old 42 gang. According to some police records, since 1929 Tony Pape was arrested more than 20 times and top of that, once he served a year and a half in prison on murder charges. Later, he became a major player in the sale and distribution of counterfeit cash and also vending machines and so my point is that this guy was no joke and was known for taking his job quite seriously. Pape also had few runners around him, such as his younger brother James Pape, Frank Coduto, Anthony Ponzi, Tony Sperna, Anthony Schullo and Roy Pinna. I don’t know if you noticed but most of the guys in the crew were from Italian descent and even though they had direct contact with the product, still they were not the ones who often sold it directly on the street but instead the “lowest” job usually belonged to black low level criminals and ex-convicts such as Harold Scales, Samuel Felton and Joseph Burns.


As I previously stated that the Outfit has become the main supplier of heroin for the midwestern and southwestern parts of the country, and so Iacullo’s group was one of the main crews which acted as “transporters” for the product. So even though this particular crew sold their product mainly on the North and West sides, they also had buyers from around the country, such as Abe Aubrey from Dallas, Texas. This fella was mainly connected to the Outfit in receiving stolen goods which were shipped from Chicago to Dallas, but the thing was that Aubrey was also a major wholesaler of heroin, who received his product strictly from the Chicago boys. In fact, according to the government, Aubrey was one of their main distributors of heroin for the whole Southwest. But in September, 1951, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in jail for transportation and selling of a large narcotics shipment. So Aubrey did not actually bought such large drug shipments from the Outfit, but instead the Chicago boys, such as the Iacullo gang, only acted as “transporters” of the shipment which was destined for mainly Texas or even Nebraska. Yes, the boys also had customers from Omaha, Nebraska such as Tony Biase, who in turn was known drug pusher with close criminal contacts from around the Midwest. Biase sometimes received his product straight from New York, but since he was a Midwest guy he mainly received it through Chicago. Another quite important figure in the narcotics trade also from the Texas area, such as Huston, was Vito Giordanello. He mostly took his stash from Chicago, but one day he decided to change his supplier, and that’s when he got arrested and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. With the previous examples we can see that this was a huge drug peddling network in which drugs and money continuously flew back and forth.


The second so-called “junk crew” was controlled by one Outfit member known as Pasquale “Patsy” Clementi, and together with two other syndicate “heavy weights”, Willie Messino and Joe Gagliano, they operated a quite lucrative loan sharking operation around the Elmwood Park territory. But the thing was that Clementi had a brother known as Patrick who was heavily involved in the dope business and with the help of his brother, he also had strong dope connections in the New York area. Patrick Clementi’s dope connection to the “Big Apple” was one of his main runners known as Carlo “Bananas” Urbinati, who in turn was quite active in the policy racket. In fact, Urbinatti was married to the sister of another Outfit duo known as the Inglesia a.k.a. English brothers, Sam and Charles, and he was their most active operator. Now, Urbinati’s main dope peddling associates were John Tanno, Tony Mates and Dominick Argentine, and these guys sold almost everything. Like for example, besides heroin, Tanno was also known for smuggling morphine and Amidone, which was a synthetic drug similar to heroin and was used for treatment of dope addicts. He was also a long time associate of Mendino in the dope business. In other words, these fellas were making money out of selling almost every illegal narcotic drug, which obviously made them quite rich. Even though they weren’t considered as official members of the Chicago crime syndicate, some of these guys owned many clubs and other forms of joints around the Elmwood Park area, which in fact was Tony Accardo’s old territory. Both Urbinati and Argentine owned two clubs known as the Derby Lounge and the Triangle Inn Tavern, two signs for their accumulated wealth from selling dope.



Pasquale “Patsy” Clementi


Carlo Urbinati


The third “junk crew” was allegedly headed by one drug peddler and Outfit associate known as Tony Dichiarinte and his group was also heavily involved in the dope business. In fact, Dichiarinte’s real job was fixing sports games, especially basketball games, with the help of one Outfit associate known as Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. For example, Rosenthal’s job was to line up the players who were willing to cooperate in skimming with points, and Dichiarinte’s assignment was to gather the betting money from Outfit higher ups such as Sam Battaglia, Fiore Buccieri, Phil Alderisio and Chuck Nicoletti, thus slowly becoming one of their most prominent narcotics peddlers. Few of the group’s most active members were Spartico Mastro, the Pisano brothers Sabatine and Salvatore and George Ginnone. Even though Mastro was considered by law enforcement as the “leader of the pack”, mostly because he was the owner of their “headquarters” which was the Eatabite restaurant, still the guy with the so-called Outfit-connection was Dichiarinte. The crew operated mainly on the North/West Side, but they also had “runners” all across the western suburbs. They recruited them mainly from other groups which worked in the numbers racket and were mostly from African descent, such as Amos Jones, James Bowman and Morris Taylor. The individuals who supplied Dichiarinte with heroin were two members from the Lucchese crime family in New York and known drug peddlers, Tony Castaldi and Tony Catoma.


But the crew suffered a great loss when in 1951 Taylor got pinched by the cops for possession of narcotics and also for distribution and in the end received a heavy sentence. While in jail, Taylor decided to spill the beans and told the investigators that he attended on several meetings with Bowman, who in turn drove with him to the West Side where they usually met Pisano or Ginnone. The imprisoned informant later added that the two dope peddlers would give Bowman a large quantity of heroin, and after that Bowman would divide the stash between him and Taylor for further distribution. After selling the last package of heroin, the same process repeated itself over and over. From that point on, everyone got arrested while on duty, including Pisano and Ginnone who received 5 years in prison each and Bowman who received 10 years prison sentence for sale, possession and transportation of narcotics.


Now this is a good example where you can see on how the Outfit’s “system” for dealing narcotics really worked, meaning almost everyone got arrested but the group’s leadership and the members from the Outfit remained untouched by the law, thanks to the faithful “middle men”. Even though they were sent to jail, they still kept their mouths shut because they knew if they talked, their relatives and associates would’ve been killed instantly. So the government’s “domino effect” was broken with the help of the “code of silence” and nobody got hurt and above all, Accardo and Giancana remained immune from the whole situation. But I cannot say the same thing for Iacullo and Pape and their lucrative band of drug peddlers.


During this period, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics upgraded its organization by bringing about 200 skilled agents to combat illicit dealers and traffickers in narcotic drugs and they even started using “new” methods by infiltrating their own undercover agents into the “junk crews”. One of those undercover cops, who successfully managed to infiltrate Iacullo’s gang, was agent Harry Mattera. At first, the agent somehow managed to get close to Frank Coduto and had a chance to witness the whole operation, first hand. In time, Mattera started buying packages of heroin from Coduto for prices between $800 and $1,000, which financed by the FBN. On July 23, 1953, he met Coduto and told him that he desired to purchase two ounces of heroin and that he had $800, which Coduto said was necessary to pay for it. He also told Mattera to accompany him to the corner drug store, known as the College Pharmacy, where Coduto said, "I'll have to give the fellows a call." Mattera gave Coduto the $800, whereupon Coduto went to the rear of the store and made a telephone call. After that, Coduto told Mattera that the delivery would be made about 8:30 p. m. Mattera decided to wait in a tavern until that time and then rejoined Coduto in his car. Suddenly, a 1949 Plymouth car approached them and pulled up parallel to their Cadillac. The driver of the car was in fact Sperna and Iacullo was seated next to him, who in turn threw a package into Coduto’s lap. After that, Iacullo and Sperna drove off into an unknown direction, and as for Coduto, he gave the packages to Mattera, which in turn contained heroin. On August 13, 1953, Mattera again told Coduto that he desired to purchase two more ounces of heroin, but this time Coduto said that the order could not be filled because the fellows were out of town. Mattera asked what fellows he meant and Coduto said, "The fellows that were in the car the other day, the other time", meaning Iacullo and Sperna. On September 18, Mattera had another conversation regarding a heroin purchase with Coduto in the same drug store1 and right there he gave Coduto $800. After that, Mattera went to a restaurant at Ogden Avenue and Madison Street where he saw Tony Schullo having a conversation with Coduto. Later, entered the restaurant and gave Mattera a wrapped newspaper in which an envelope containing heroin was placed.


But the problem was that Coduto was only a “runner” and so Mattera decided to go up the ladder and try to make a contact with a member of the gang of higher stature such as Pape or Iacullo. So on October 13, 1953, Mattera was seated in a booth in the College Pharmacy with Coduto and Schullo. During their conversation, Mattera played it smart by telling Coduto that he was very dissatisfied with his methods of transacting business and that he refused to do any further business with him. Suddenly Schullo “took the stage” and said to Mattera "Well, don't bother, from here on in, I will take care of you, and I will take care of your needs." Mattera knew that Schullo was closer to Pape rather than Coduto and so he told him that he, meaning Mattera, wished to purchase some good quality narcotics and Schullo made a telephone call from the rear of the store, whereupon he returned and told Mattera that "his connection" would be there about 9 o'clock. That was the first time when Mattera spoke with Pape and at the same time personally received a package containing narcotics from Pape and gave him $1,650. But one day, Pape stopped selling dope to Mattera for no particular reason and suddenly the whole situation became quite frightening. Mattera became suspicious that the gang might’ve detected him and so he gave another try, but this time he asked Coduto to sell him counterfeit money, an illegal operation in which the whole gang was also involved in. And again, Coduto also refused and told Mattera to stop bothering him. In that same moment, Mattera phoned to his superiors in the agency and informed them about the situation and for this reason, the bureau quickly decided to make the arrests.

On March 16 and 17, 1954, FBN agents arrested eleven members of the crew on narcotics charges, including Iacullo, Coduto and Pape and quickly took them into custody. Now, this is a quite “interesting” or different situation, where the “middle men” such as the three main defendants had direct contacts, not only with some members of the Outfit, but also with some of the top level guys such as Accardo and Giancana. Both bosses knew that all three middle men were stand up guys, with no kind of ideas to say even a word to the cops, and that they were going to take their prison sentences like a real future “Mafiosi”. But there was one problem and that was the making of a fatal mistake by bringing an undercover agent into their crew and that kind of a mistake in the eyes of the bosses was punishable by death. In fact, Accardo was the one who was knee deep in shit, because in a matter of months before the arrests, Iacullo was seen going in and out of Accardo’s home for more than 20 times. So naturally the Mob boss was scared from the bad publicity given by the narcotics trade and avoided any government heat that might jeopardize his vast gambling operations, meaning Accardo was ready to eliminate anyone at anytime if things went out of control, like in the current situation.


And that’s when Accardo and Giancana quickly disconnected themselves from the operation by giving the thumbs down. Immediately, “somebody” posted the $25,000 bonds for all seven members and they were released and the trial was set for April 22, 1954. On the day of their release, April 10, 1954, Tony Pape together with his brother James got into their car and drove home. While driving down Flournoy Street, suddenly another car with two masked men blocked their path. James Pape, who drove the car, apparently made a wild effort to elude the hit squad by turning his car around. During the car chase, the hit squad managed to get near their target and that’s when one of the assassins managed to fire few shotgun blasts, thus hitting James in the head and also fatally wounding his brother Tony in the head and shoulder. Their car went out of control, struck the corner of a building and crashed on the sidewalk. James’ body was found sprawled face down in mud with his brain missing and with his legs still under the steering wheel, while Tony was quickly taken to the Garfield Park hospital in a critical condition and died two days later.


The deaths of the Pape brothers were a scary reminder of what can happen if someone brings a cop to the “party”. Both Accardo and Giancana loved making examples of their “soldiers” and they also loved sending death threats. Whoever received their threats, he or she knew that these guys were always serious and anyone, including women, had the chance to become their victim. So the trial was postponed because of the recent murders and during that period, the Outfit placed a lot pressure over Mendino’s junk crew. All of the remaining members, including Mendino himself, DeMarie and Coduto, started receiving death threats from “unknown” sources and every one of them started living their lives in constant panic and fear. The first death threat occurred way even before the arrests or in other words, the moment when Mattera was pulled of the streets. The so-called “death threat” was in a form of a bomb which exploded right in front of the Mendino’s huge residence and shattered his attractive house window. Some of the guys became so frightened that some of them were forced to complain to the feds. But the problem was that everybody from the crew knew that the only way that they would receive help from the feds, was by spilling the beans. So Coduto and the gang started pushing for their imprisonment because they knew if they stayed out too long, it was going to be the end for them. And to tell you the truth I believe that Coduto was right because on May 14, 1954, while parking his car near his house, suddenly Coduto was shot three times in the back of the head and once in the shoulder. According to his wife Antionette, who was waiting for her husband at the window, there was another man on the back seat of Coduto’s car and after the shooting, a black sedan came behind Coduto’s car, picked up the alleged assassin and sped off into unknown direction.


So after the Coduto murder, in June, 1954, the government finally decided to take the remaining defendants to trial. As expected, the “star witness” was undercover agent Mattera who gave the jury every possible situation in which he was involved in, all in clear details. He testified before the grand jury that he received heroin packages from the late Coduto and Pape, who in turn gave certain amount of money to Pinna, Schullo or Iacullo. Here’s a portion of his testimony:

"Q. Tell the Court in your own words what transpired from the time you first saw the defendant Iacullo that evening.

“A. The car in which they were riding pulled up parallel to my automobile, which was parked on the lot. I commenced walking across the street. The car backed up and began pulling out of the lot. At that time, the car stopped momentarily to permit pedestrians to cross.

"Q. How far were you from the car at that point?

A. Approximately ten feet.

"Q. Did you observe the Defendant Joseph Iacullo?

“A. Yes, I did.

"Q. He is the same Joseph Iacullo that you have pointed out here in court this morning?

“A. Yes, he is.

"Q. What, if anything, next occurred?

“A. I went to my automobile.

"Q. Tell the Court in your own words what, if anything, happened?

“A. I examined the interior of my automobile, came out of the automobile, picked up a package from the ground, placed it in my pocket, started my car, and drove out of the locality.

“Q. Where was the package picked up?

"A. Outside of my car, your Honour.

"Q. You mean on the ground?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. Was it next to your car?

"A. Yes, sir."


On top of that, William Sheehan, who was a special investigator for the government, found one fingerprint on one of the many newspapers which were used during the heroin transactions and that particular fingerprint belonged to Iacullo. In his own defence, Iacullo testified that he asked why he was under arrest and stated that he did not want his "prints" taken. He was told that "it is customary when you are under arrest." He said that the United States marshal read the charge to him the next morning. Government witnesses testified that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Iacullo but that it was not in the possession of the agents when the arrest was made. There was also no physical force used to procure Iacullo's fingerprints, since Sheehan testified that Iacullo made no objection when asked to come to the stand for fingerprinting. Agent Cass testified that when brought in to have his fingerprints taken, Iacullo did not object and was not handcuffed. In the end, Schullo received 60 years, Ponzi and Pinna received 15 years separately and since he was considered the top level member of the whole gang, Iacullo was sentenced to 30 years in prison. So again the Outfit bosses succeeded in protecting themselves by “silencing” the only people who had the chance to connect them with one of the dirtiest business in the underworld. After the deaths of Frank Coduto, the Pape brothers and the imprisonment of Iacullo, the crew was succeeded by two of their associates known as Joe Bruno and Freddy Coduto, brother of the late Frank Coduto.


The “undercover” tactic of the feds proved to be quite useful in catching the drug peddlers on the city’s streets. Just one month after the infamous narcotics trial, another one of the Outfit’s runners was arrested by the cops, again with the help of an undercover agent. The guy’s name was Albert Roviaro and this fella was real so-called street dealer, who mostly operated around the South suburbs, under the jurisdiction of the Chicago Heights crew. Roviaro had a very “interesting” way of selling his product usually by leaving the package with heroin next to a tree or some bush, where he would wait nearby and if a costumer came, Roviaro would simply proceed to the tree, stoop down, pick up a package, take it to the costumer, and throw it in his car. And that’s how he also managed to sell few packages of heroin to an undercover agent. In August, 1954, Roviaro was taken to court and his was represented by none other than Mob attorney Carl Walsh, who by “coincidence” was a personal friend of Outfit boss Tony Accardo. Although the prosecutors argued for a 6-year prison term, in the end Roviaro received only two years in prison, thanks to his quite experienced criminal lawyer.


The federal “saga” continued for the next three years and many dope peddlers from various nationalities were arrested and placed in jail. During this period the U.S. government fought a real war against the narcotics trade, and by “real war” I mean bullets flying around and people getting hurt. For example in June, 1957, four federal narcotics agents led by two other agents John Ripa and Jack Love were conducting an undercover operation on Carlo Urbinati in a roadhouse known as Triangle Inn Tavern, which was in fact Urbinati’s headquarters. The deal was for the two undercover agents to buy $9000 worth of heroin from Urbinati, and after the transaction, the plan was for one of the agents to alert the rest of the group and stage a raid. As for the four agents, they sat on one of the tables and ordered sandwiches, but the problem was that the bartender and co-owner, Dominic Argentine, apparently recognized them. So as agent Ripa proceed to talk business, he failed to notice that he was spotted by Argentine, who in turn slowly crept behind him, pulled out his gun and fired one shot in the agent’s back. Agent Love quickly rushed to aid his partner, but he was also shot in the abdomen by Urbinati, who in turn continued to fire his gun at the rest of the agents. In a matter of seconds the whole place turned into a living hell and in all that chaos with bullets flying all around, both Urbinati and Argentine managed to exit the tavern and started fleeing towards their cars. But while entering his car, Urbinati was wounded in the head by one of the agents who somehow managed to stay close to the assailants and take a shot from his pistol. After that the rest of the agents called for aid and some 100 state, county and suburban policemen rushed to the scene. The police strafed the building in the belief that Argentine might still be inside but later he was arrested without resistance at his home.


All of the wounded men were rushed in the Bridewell Hospital for treatment since all of them were in critical conditions. Federal agents later charged that the gangsters were using "dum-dum" bullets, which were doctored to make them splash on contact, thus causing gaping wounds on their targets, but somehow, or should I say miraculously, both agents managed to survive. But later one quite interesting and at the same time, funny situation occurred when Urbinati, who also survived the “head-shot”, together with his buddies was taken to trial but he managed to defend himself by refusing to take out the bullet which was still stuck in his head and kept him in critical condition. That same bullet was very important for Urbinati’s conviction since it was the only proof that he was shot by the agents because he claimed that he wasn’t present at the tavern and that he was allegedly shot outside by one of the gangsters during the shootout. So the bullet was the only evidence for Urbinati’s presence inside the tavern, but the problem was that he also had a doctor’s agreement that if the bullet was taken out, he might loose his life. So when his attorney asked for the defendant to be transferred into a private hospital, the agents felt suspicious that Urbinati’s was planning to make a private operation without anyone’s knowledge and to get rid of the bullet. His request was denied and in no time, he was placed under constant guard. As time passed by, Urbinati’s clock was slowly ticking and so he had no choice but to make an operation, under the watchful eye of the feds, and to remove the bullet. In May, 1958, Urbinati, Argentine and another associate Tommy Matas, each received 5 years in federal penitentiary.


So even though Mendino was a close friend of Giancana, still after all of these incidents the “poor” guy was in a tough situation which might’ve ended with fatal consequences. The main problem for Mendino wasn’t his fellow members within the organization but instead the people from whom he or the organization in general received the dope. As I previously stated that the Mendino group received its shipment straight from New York or from Montreal, Canada, and since they were the main distributors, they were the ones held responsible for the problems. According to one Mob informant, by the end of 1958, one of New York’s main representatives in the dope business and at the same time, member of the Bonnano crime family, Carmine Galante visited Chicago regarding few unknown problems. Story goes that Galante first visited Calumet City, an area under control of the Chicago Heights faction, which by now was led by one of Jim Emery’s protégés known as Frank LaPorte. And again, according to the informant, after that Galante went to Cicero for another meeting and later went straight back to the east coast. Now I don’t want to indicate on anything and also I don’t want to say that Galante visited Chicago strictly regarding the Mendino problem but I’ll only use the word “possibly”.


The so-called informant was an alleged killer for the east coast Mob known as Harold Konigsberg who was close to many members from the New York crime families and according to his story, he was the one who allegedly drove Galante to Chicago. And so according to him, besides Galante and members from the Outfit, other individuals present on that meeting were also members from the Genovese crime family, long time allies of the Midwest Mob. Konigsberg also claimed that during the meeting, the Genovese faction strongly defended the Chicago “family” on some unknown subject and so in the end, the sit down between Galante and whoever sat on the other side of the table from the Chicago boys, ended in favour of the Outfit. Even though he did not attend the meeting, obviously because he wasn’t Italian, Konigsberg also claimed that later Galante allegedly revealed some of the details of the meeting but too bad since Konigsberg did not want to share that particular information with the federal agents.


So I can only guess on what was the subject during the Mafia meeting but as I previously stated, that “possibly” the subject was narcotics because of various reasons. First of all, most of the Mob-researchers know that Galante was huge in the dope business and also had close connections in Canada, which I believe had his own crew over there at the time. And that particular year, which was 1958, after being indicted on drug conspiracy charges, Galante went into hiding and my point is that, it was quite possible for him, since he was considered quite a lunatic, to visit Chicago during that time period. And it was “only” a coincidence for him to visit the “Windy City” at the same time when all the problems regarding the narcotics trade were going on. Another “coincidence”, were the many urgent travels and meetings which occurred right after or before the Galante meeting, which included some high profile Outfit members and also indicates that there was obviously some kind of problem. For example, Accardo and one of his long-time buddies and also Police lieutenant, Anthony DeGrazio took a an alleged European trip, which quickly ended in Rome, Italy, where they met with Dominic Roberto to allegedly discuss the narcotics problem. Proof for their meeting were the names of the hotel rooms in which they stayed, and right across Accardo’s room, was the apartment of “Dominic Roberts” which was Roberto’s alias. Shortly after Accardo’s visit, Guzzino and LaPorte again travelled to Italy, but this time they took a flight from New York, instead of Chicago. Next thing you know Galante got arrested and in 1960 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.


So right after the alleged meetings, according to some government reports, Mendino was pushed to a lower level within the organization, almost like an associate. Story goes that by 1959 his health also suffered from the consequences and started having a lot of heart problems, which was the main reason for his demise two years later. So now Accardo and Giancana had to fill up the empty position, which previously belonged to Mendino, with more serious member. By “position” I do not mean such as the one as “capo” or area boss, but instead the position of a narcotics overlord for the organization, which was directly connected to Giancana. It occurs to me that Giancana needed a trusted but at the same time, more experienced criminal on that position since the whole operation was very “sensitive” out various reasons. According to one confidential government informant, the crime boss has decided to divide the crews to few of his main confidants at the time, including Fiore Buccieri and Sam Battaglia. These two fellas controlled almost the whole West Side area with additional territories in Cicero, South Side and the North Side. On top of that, Battaglia already had quite “good” experience with the dope peddling business since the days when he used work with Rocco DeGrazia, and as for Buccieri, well this dangerous fella was also a long time hoodlum from the West Side who was one of the most lucrative loan sharks in the state of Illinois.



Fioravante Buccieri


Even though he inherited one or two of Mendino’s remaining “junk crews” such as the one which was led by Dichiarinte and Mastro, still the problem was that Buccieri needed more people for the job. Two of his main overseers of the dope racket were Angelo LaPietra and James Torello, known enforcers and also collectors for Buccieri’s loan sharking business. But the main problem was that he couldn’t “transform” all of his ruthless collectors into drug peddlers. I mean, how the hell a murderous tough guy was going to handle a situation with a harmless and at the same time, mindless junkie? So, Buccieri quickly found a solution to the problem by mobilizing some of his robbery crews, such as the ones led by two quite different thieves known as Carl Fiorito and Nick Guido. I stated “different” mostly because Fiorito was a professional burglar and killer with a crew who always managed to hit the big scores and on top of that he was considered a high level associate of the Outfit, or particularly Giancana and Buccieri. And as for Gudio, he controlled a huge gang of reckless criminals who loved to torture their victims during home invasions or bank robberies, and on top of that they loved killing people. But the best thing was that both gangs operated in the same area where Mendino previously peddled drugs and so it was easy for them to connect because they already knew and worked with the same individuals.


As I previously stated that Carl Fiorito was one of the most professional burglars in Chicago’s criminal history but the thing was that he also controlled his own drug peddling crew. Some of the best “middle men” in the drug business were his long time partner in the burglary business Ted DeRose and William “The Saint” Skally, ex-bootlegger and personal friend of both Giancana and Accardo mostly because he controlled a multi-million dollar counterfeit ring for the Outfit. Also, by now Tony Dichiarinte, Mastro and Pisano all worked as “runners” under Skally and DeRose. One of their main suppliers was one Jewish gangster known as Jacob Klein, who in turn received the dope shipment from members of the Genovese and Lucchese crime families in New York. Now you would ask yourself who the hell is this guy? Well Jacob Klein was a long time associate of the Mob who was born in 1903 in Brooklyn, New York and by the mid 1930’s, arrived on Chicago’s North Side with “preferences” from Luciano crime family members on the east coast. And from day one, he was involved in narcotics, which was the main reason for his 8 year long prison sentence in 1938 for peddling dope. He controlled a small but very lucrative drug peddling crew which was formed mostly by Jewish gangsters such as Harry Lerner, Hyman Rubin and Irving Kushner. And so with the help of the Jewish criminal element, Klein became one of the most important syndicate drug dealers on the city’s streets and in time, he also became close associate of both Fiorito and Skally. In fact, Klein has worked with almost every previously mentioned narcotics trafficker from the Chicago and New York areas. During this period, Klein provided heroin from New York mobsters John Ormento, the guy who previously supplied Joe Bruno’s crew, and also Tony Mugavero, big time narcotics trafficker and member of the Luciano a.k.a. Genovese crime family. After receiving the dope, Fiorito usually divided the stash between DeRose and Skally, who in turn later re-sold it on the streets, either by them or by some of their “runners” such as the ones from the Dichiarinte crew. So in other words, this was another quite powerful group, with many underworld connections and also workers on the streets. In addition, according to one FBI document, by this time Klein was allegedly the so-called “overseer” for all purchases and payoffs for the Outfit regarding the narcotics business.


The interesting thing was that this group did not receive their heroin shipments only with the help of the New York crime families, but instead they also received it directly from the crime group which was based in Florida and was known as the Trafficante crime family. The connection was established with the help of another Jewish mobster and member of the Outfit known as Dave Yaras. During that period, Yaras and Fiorito pulled a lot of jobs in the Florida area and on top of that, Yaras was closely associated with the boss Santo Trafficante Jr. One of Trafficante’s guys was William Dentamaro who frequently travelled back and forth to Chicago and was closely associated with Fiorito in the burglary business. Another guy who constantly travelled between Tampa and Chicago was Louis Coticchia a.k.a. Lou Brady, a “mysterious” Mob courier for many high profile criminals around the country, especially between Giancana and Trafficante. In fact, Dentamaro was in charge for transporting the product and and Coticchia was the main individual who made the money transactions between Chicago and Tampa regarding the narcotics traffic. Now, this is quite proven and my personal belief is that this particular connection was in fact a newly formed so-called narcotics “channel” between Chicago and Tampa, because during Trafficante’s reign, Florida became known as the nation’s major entry point for illicit drugs, which also supplied Dallas, Kansas City, St Louis and Milwaukee.



Santo Trafficante and Dave Yaras


As for the Guido gang, they received their stash through a “different channel”, meaning through Torello and LaPietra. For example, LaPietra’s connection was one member from the Anastasia a.k.a. Gambino crime family known as Frank Pasqua and as for Torello, besides having various connections through his peers, he mostly extorted drug peddlers around the Chicago area and sometimes even stole their stash and later re-sold it. It was easy for him since he was considered a very scary and dangerous individual. Torello and one other Outfit associate and known dope peddler Ernest Infelice were once arrested with $100,000 worth of allegedly stolen narcotics and later the case went nowhere. As for LaPietra, he was more organized, meaning he was connected to a large dope peddling ring, including Joey Pacella, James Cordovano, Joseph DiCaro, Anthony Annerino and Frank Panatera, who flooded the city’s streets with “misery”. For example, Panatera was LaPietra’s main go-between guy, between him and the Gambinos in New York. Story goes that one day Panatera allegedly has “shortened” LaPietra and the Gambinos on some dope deal, so he was savagely beaten personally by LaPietra himself. As for Cordovano, same as LaPietra, he was also considered high level associate of the Outfit, with lots of connections on the South Side, such as DiCaro and Annerino, who in turn controlled a large group of African-American runners through one Marvin Moses. In fact, this particular crew might’ve been the strongest evidence for the Outfit’s role in the national dope smuggling ring.



So after receiving the dope shipment, the main “players” for the Guido gang were two of Nick’s brothers known as Louis and Don, who in fact besides being robbers they were also professional killers, and also Louis Vasselli, one of Nick Guido’s best sadistic torturers and robbers and another low level criminal known as Joseph Gaynor. The obvious connection between individuals such as Torello and the Guidos was the mindless torture games over their victims. So the Guido gang also had their own “runners” who usually received and directly re-sold the product on the streets. For example, Gaynor or Vasselli would sell large quantities of heroin to one Stanley Miller who in turn would divide the stash to two of his close associates Albert Sakal a.k.a. Al Sacko and Tommy McGarry so they can sell it on the streets. Since they received sometimes stolen stash of drugs, which possibly was already mixed, these guys were known for selling almost every kind of heroin, meaning in quality, and other various drugs.

The so-called top administration of the Chicago Outfit also oversaw another quite lucrative dope peddling ring from the Near North Side, which was formed by two crews, one being Italian and the other was one huge non-Italian group with dope runners all around the Midwest. The leaders of the Italian faction were two known Outfit associates and prominent dope peddlers known as John Dispensa and Sam Seritella. The whole story begins with Seritella who became involved in the dope business way back in the early 1940’s, when he used buy ounces of heroin from one notorious criminal in those days, known as Benny Morreale, who in turn controlled a huge crew of young robbers, killers and dope peddlers, who robbed or killed pharmacy owners for their stashes of opium. According to some reports, at the time Serritella also worked as a runner for one old time Outfit member and killer for the organization, known as Leonard Calamia. So by the late 1940’s, Serritella managed to form his own dope peddling ring and also directed his own crew of dope peddlers such as Dispensa, James Russo, Nathan Chiarelli, Salvatore Nugara, Phil Vittoria and Victor Zingarelli. With the help of Calamia, the crew made connections with Mafia members from the Brooklyn area in New York, including Nicholas Esposito, Sam Schifano and Dominick Gentile. But back in 1951, Serritella got pinched for selling narcotics and was sentenced to prison to four years. Story goes, when Serritella went to jail, he left his “empire” to Dispensa, who in turn became one of the biggest narcotics traffickers in Chicago’s underworld history. In 1956, Serritella was released from prison and continued his “ventures” with Dispensa.



Leonard Calamia (thanks to Stroccos for the photo)


His headquarters was a pizzeria in Evergreen Park, known as "Connie's Pizza Pie", from where he dictated his narcotics network. Dispenza’s main courier was James Chiaro, who in turn made numerous trips to New York, during which he always carried a brief case filled with cash, and then he would hand the brief case to Schifano, Gentile or Esposito, sometimes individually, sometimes together, and then on return, Chiaro’s briefcase would contain kilos of heroin. On return from New York, on Dispensa's instructions, or with Dispensa, the crew would measure out the shipment, and then they would mix the pure heroin with milk or sugar powder, or even with Quinine which was a medication used to treat malaria. After that, they would pack the stash into small, tinfoil wrapped packages, which would be distributed to the runners. According to some reports, Dispensa placed his old man at his pizzeria, so he can receive orders from runners such as Lawrence Lemons and Morris Rosenguard. In fact, Rosenguard was the main distributor because his real profession was being a pharmacist, who operated a drug store at 3037 Wentworth av. on Chicago’s South Side, which was the gang’s main outlet for selling narcotics.


Now this huge drug peddling network around Chicago’s territory, needed a good protection, right?! And from where did the guys receive that kind of protection? The answer is simple, and that is from the police bureau for narcotics. The three corrupt officers and Outfit associates were Miles Cooperman, Richard Austin and the so-called “leader of the pack” detective Sheldon Teller, and these fellas protected a narcotics ring which stretched from coast to coast and top of that, sometimes they were the ones who were also involved in selling dope. The main connection between the corrupt detectives and the drug peddling crew was Edward Gayles, a former narcotics agent and later a defence attorney who mostly specialized in narcotics cases. On the Outfit’s behalf, Gayles “fixed” narcotics cases with the help of one of his lawyers known as Joe Clayton, who in turn through a planned payoff system to Chicago judges and narcotics officers, made the operation look very easy and smooth. This is the situation where we can see that the African-American criminal element of Chicago’s underworld almost without their political and police connections, mostly because of the Outfit’s influence and almost became dependable from the Italian syndicate.


The interesting thing was that even though the corrupted detectives mostly acted as protectors of the huge dope peddling ring, they also acted as “go-betweens” or middlemen for the Mob but sometimes they even acted as runners in distributing the product. For example detective Teller’s “greatness” was not because of his corruptness, but instead it was because of his connection to one quite lucrative group, which distributed a large portion of the massive dope shipment in no time. The leader of the dope ring was one prominent black gangster and long time Outfit associate of the South Side faction, known as Jeremiah Pullings who was mainly involved in all kinds of gambling operations and also in the sale of illicit alcohol. In fact, Pullings was the main guy who provided all of the Outfit-owned clubs in that territory with cheap booze and that is why he was considered an important associate, and because of that, he demanded huge respect among his African-American or non-Italian cohorts in Chicago’s underworld. One of Pullings’ most prominent co-operators was Nathaniel Spurlark, the guy with the national connections, and also the main contact to the drug peddling Italian gangs, since he mostly lurked around the West Side and Chinatown. The truth was that Spurlark was not a “runner” for Pullings but instead he operated on the same level, under the “umbrella” of detective Teller. For example, Nathaniel Spurlak was connected to dozen “junk crews” from different cities such as St. Louis, Huston, Los Angeles, Iowa, Indianapolis, and even Cleveland and Detroit. Even though the Detroit Mafia faction already had its own drug peddling sources, still some crews of the African-American criminal element of that city received their shipments straight from Chicago or in other words, the Pullings crew. Some of the most prominent members from the Detroit crew were William Rouzer, Gladys Davis, Woodrow Wilson and Elaine Wilson. There was another dope peddling crew, but this time from the St. Louis area, which was also supplied by Pullings or Spurlak, and few of the most prominent members were Earl Williams, Sam Mays, Waddell Buchanan, Willie Foster and Ollie Jackson. These two so-called “out of town” crews largely contributed to Pullings’ national drug peddling network and even though he was mostly supplied by the Outfit’s dope connections such as Armando Piemonte and Joe Bruno, by now Pullings also managed to form his own connection in the New York area. The new contact and supplier for this particular dope ring was one prominent Genovese member and close associate of the Lucchese crime family from the New York area, known as Harry Tantillo.


So even though the Outfit’s “narcotics empire” looked quite organized and even untouchable, the government still somehow managed at least to keep some of these top Outfit guys under hard pressure, of course again with the help of informants, undercover agents and above all, hard work. For example, in 1957, Raymond Velasquez, a deputy sheriff of Los Angeles County, was brought to Chicago and posed as a narcotics peddler, and managed to obtain heroin from Joe Bruno’s crew. By now Bruno, the guy who inherited Iacullo’s crew, was heavily involved in the dope business especially around the Southwest Side and he managed to gather a large crew of African-American criminals or “runners” who sold large quantities of heroin per day. Bruno was connected to the crew through one of his own “middle men” known as Frank Cellino, who in turn was connected to the leader of the “runners”, a known non-Italian gangster Jessie Alexander. The so called South Side crew included Archie Robinson, Marvin Moses, Charles Venton, Thomas Matas, Pete Gushi and Melvin Harris and they all “reported” to Alexander. And on the other hand, Bruno also controlled his own and quite large crew of West Side Italian criminals, including Cellino, Fred Coduto, Arthur Gasparro, Charlie LaPaglia, Anthony Maenza, Armando Piemonte, Carlo Urbinati, who by now joined forces with Bruno, and also Tony Dichiarinte, who also had his own group of drug peddlers.



Joseph Bruno (thanks to Stroccos for the photo)


During this period, Bruno, mostly with the help of Dichiarinte, had several New York contacts for heroin shipments, such as Ettore “Eddie” Coco, Frank Carbo and John Ormento, all members of the Lucchese crime family, which indicates that the former Iacullo group continued to cooperate with the Luccheses. Even though they mostly distributed their product around the Chicago area, Bruno together with Dichiarinte and one of their associates Arthur Gasparro, also had their own contacts in other cities, like for example Kansas City. Over there, they had a whole crew of drug peddlers which was led by one narcotics trafficker known as Samuel Carrolla. In fact, the main link between Dichiarinte and Carrolla, was Art Gasparro. The interesting thing about Carrolla was that he had an associate known as Jack Clayton, who in turn owned a private airplane to transport narcotics from Chicago to Kansas City. By using this means of transportation, the crew transported somewhere between 5 or 7 kilograms of heroin per trip, which were somewhere around a dozen trips per year. Other prominent heroin peddlers from the KC area with Outfit connections were Patsy Ventola, Ralph Goldstein, Robert Cox and Tony Marcella, the guy who later transferred to the Chicago drug peddling faction. In plane words, Bruno was quite a “catch” for undercover agent Velasquez because if we look at all of the numerous names, this crew might’ve been one of the largest and most lucrative of all drug peddling crews around the Chicago area, during that particular time period. In fact, this was the main drug peddling crew which the help of Clayton’s fast transportation, they managed to supply heroin to crime groups in California, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas, Tennessee and Wisconsin.


Just to look even more convincing, agent Velasquez took one of his parole violators known as Bob Urley who in turn also posed as his partner and in time, both became close to Bruno. From that point on, Bruno unknowingly made several mistakes by selling heroin to the agents, like for example during October and November of that same year, the undercover agent managed to buy heroin on at least four occasions. On one occasion, Velasquez came to Bruno and asked for some heroin, and Bruno asked "How much do you want to pick up?" and the agent replied that he needed an ounce and then Bruno replied "Well, I could probably get you an ounce but it would take some time. I have some grams that I can sell you for $20 apiece." These were bought by Velasquez and the same purchase was repeated in three other meetings. And so on June 28, 1957, Bruno managed to sell 12 ounces of pure heroin for the last time in his criminal career because that’s when he got arrested by federal agents and was placed in custody. To go in further details, that same day the feds planned to arrest both Bruno and Cellino but it was not easy. Bruno was arrested at his home at 4530 N. Newcastle av., but several hours later, the agents placed a “trap” at 103d St. and Dauphin av. for Cellino from which he managed to shoot his way out but was later arrested. In 1958, Bruno was sentenced to 8 years and Cellano received 5 years prison term, but according to some sources, while in prison, Bruno allegedly decided to “spill the beans” and from that point on, many high level dope peddlers continued falling into the government’s hands.


The first group which received the government’s “treatment” was Dispensa’s crew, which according to Bruno’s testimony, they were the most lucrative ones. So in the “old fashioned way”, in June, 1958, narcotics agents managed to arrest one of Dispenza’s runners, while selling narcotics to an undercover agent. The unlucky soul was James Chiaro, who in turn was “forced” by the feds to wear a microphone wire so he can record all of the narcotics transactions with his buddies. On more than few occasions, Chiaro engaged in conversations with various members, including Dispensa, Serritella, Vittoria and Rosenguard, while carrying electronic equipment to increase the audibility of those conversations and to record them on tape. In November, every member of the dope peddling ring which crossed paths with Chiaro, got arrested by the feds, including the New York contacts, and were placed in custody. During the trial, besides the electronic evidences, the perfect details of Chiaro's testimony were in large part corroborated by such evidence as aeroplane tickets, hotel and motel registration records, and the record of his arrest and fine while travelling in Dispensa's automobile on one of the trips. There was substantial evidence to support the finding that a conspiracy existed to buy heroin in New York City and package and distribute it in Chicago and later, with the help of another crew, around the Midwest. In February, 1960, all three “contacts” from the New York area, including Schifano, Esposito and Gentile received prison sentences to 10, 20, and 7 years, respectively. In March, the Chicago faction also received their sentences, including Dispensa and Vittoria both sentenced to 12 years, and Rosenguard was sentenced to 5 years in jail. One quite interesting thing occurred during the investigations on the Dispensa crew, and that was, during the house searches of all convicts, they all had the name “Jacob Klein” written in their notebooks. When the feds saw the name, they became quite angered and they had a good reason for being like that. Since their bond was denied, suddenly Klein showed up and allegedly tried to bribe the police guards with $500 who guarded Serritella and Dispensa while they were in custody. Klein was arrested but the next day he was released.


Next on the government’s list was Sal Pisano a.k.a. “One-eyed Sally” who by the late 1950’s operated a fruit stand on the northwest corner of Pulaski Road and 47th street, and from there he sold packages of heroin on daily basis. Pisano also had a buddy “runner” known as Wesley Lewis, who in turn was one of Pisano’s best costumers because he always bought large quantities of narcotics. But there was one problem for which Pisano wasn’t aware of and that was Lewis’ role as undercover agent. Yes, Lewis worked for the bureau and acted as Pisano’s costumer for the last couple of months, thanks to Joe Bruno’s “big mouth”. In fact, Pisano trusted Lewis so much that he once told the undercover agent that in the future it would be all right for Lewis to handle the money and the merchandise and that Pisano would make arrangements through a friend for this to be done. In other words, Pisano prepared for Lewis to become his “runner” but for now, Pisano’s boss was Tony Dichiarinte. On August 8, 1959, Lewis contacted Pisano and informed him that he wanted to buy heroin for $15.000, which was a huge deal in those days and was quickly financed by the bureau for narcotics. Since it was no big deal for Pisano, he quickly took the bait and informed Lewis to come by at the fruit stand. Lewis arrived at the store somewhere around 10:30 p.m. and about 10:50 p. m. a black 1957 Oldsmobile, occupied only by Dichiarinte, arrived in front of the fruit stand and almost out of nowhere Mastro showed up, who in turn received the package from Dichiarinte, and after that he gave it to Pisano. While inside the store, Pisano handed the package to Lewis, who in turn handed the money to Pisano. In fact, the package was later found to contain a pound of heroin. Even though Lewis was the so-called “inside man” to witness the whole situation from first hand, another squad of agents from right across the street also observed the “action”.



Salvatore Pisano


Pisano


That same year, one of Dichiarinte’s main guys for the Kansas City dope channel Tony Marcella was arrested in Los Angeles for transportation and selling of narcotics and later was sentenced to imprisonment for 40 years. The next “victim” of the government’s wrath was Jack Clayton, who in turn made a terrible mistake by selling $2,000 worth of heroin to an undercover agent in Gurdon, Arkansas. In other words, too many people fell into the government’s hands and so on March 9, 1960, all of members from the “junk crew”, including Dichiarinte, Mastro and Pisano, were originally indicted by narcotics agents and were charged with the sale and transportation of illicit drugs. Now, their suppliers such as Skally and DeRose probably knew that none of these guys were going to talk, since everyone of them were considered as “stand up” guys. But the pressure was on, meaning some of the guys like Pisano might’ve been more stressed than usual regarding the whole situation and that’s when in 1962, Pisano died of a sudden heart attack, who in turn was followed by the “star witness” and undercover agent Lewis, who also suddenly died in the same style. Even though the whole thing looked quite tragic for the prosecutors, since the Gods were on their side, the two remaining defendants Dichiarinte and Mastro felt relief, mainly because the main witness against them was gone and also the main connection which was Pisano was also gone. So during the trial, the prosecutors tried in every way to ensure a conviction for the remaining two defendants by constantly brining agents who previously made surveillance over the junk crew. But the problem was that the agents were “second-hand” witnesses and during the cross-examination of Dichiarinte and Mastro, the agent’s testimonies were destroyed since both defendants openly claimed that they knew each other for a very long time and they continued to hang around. The court “battle” continued for three years and in 1965 the two defendants were dismissed from all charges.


But there was another problem and that was during the research of Dichiarinte’s house for narcotics, the agents managed to find a number of receipts and documents bearing aliases and variations of the defendant's name which had come to the agents' attention in the course of the conspiracy investigation culminating in the defendant's indictment. According to the report, when Dichiarinte saw the agent seize the currency exchange receipts, he said, "Does that look like narcotics if that is what you want to search for?" and the agent replied, "Sorry, Pal, we are here now and this is what we are going to do." Shortly thereafter, Dichiarinte announced, "The search is over. I am calling off the search." However, the agents continued their search for about ten more minutes. After that, Dichiarinte was convicted on tax evasion charges and was sentenced to 6 years in jail. And so again, “middle men” such as Skally and high level associates of the Outfit such as Fiorito managed to getaway clean by not having any trouble with informants. The agents did not stand a chance in connecting Fiorito and Skally to the defendants but still, at the beginning of the trial the prosecutors mentioned that the two defendants in fact worked for the previous two, who in turn worked for Sam Giancana. And of course, from that point on many government officials and newspaper reporters became interested in the connection, thus forcing some of the main “middle men” to make mistakes which in the end, proved to be quite fatal for their health.


Since his main crew was behind bars, Skally needed a quick solution so he could continue selling heroin and that’s when he made one of the dumbest and unprofessional moves in his whole lucrative criminal career, by getting himself involved directly with the product and customers. The thing with most street runners is that they already known most of the dealers and addicts and they also know their families, so my point is that, since he did not have the “street knowledge” regarding the dope peddling activity, Skally made the “usual” mistake by unknowingly bringing an undercover agent on few sales. As usual the agent waited for the “big hit” and after few sales, he requested for $15,000 worth of pure heroin from Skally, who in turn quickly provided it but got himself arrested along the way. Now, he was in a very tough situation, meaning he had to choose between his pals in the Outfit or the government. I believe that Skally was quite aware that he made one fatal mistake which bought him one-way ticket to the graveyard, and on the other hand, he was looking at 5 to 6 years in prison with no guarantee that he was going to remain safe in his jail cell. He also knew that Giancana wasn’t going to risk his future plans and he considered everybody expendable and since he, meaning Skally, vouched for an undercover agent, the consequences were already known. So in his own mind, Skally did not saw any other way out of the problem but to start informing for the government and when he talked, he talked a lot. He gave up everybody, including members from Mastro’s crew, which by now were fighting another narcotics case, also Fiorito and he even talked about the Outfit, but the sweetest information for the feds was about Giancana and also Jacob Klein. In fact, Klein represented a huge target for the feds, who in turn probably had a “hard-on” for catching the gangster but the problem was that he wasn’t an easy prey. The first time when he managed to swindle the feds, was back in 1954, when one undercover informant managed to get close to Klein and bought few kilos of heroin in a period of two months. The thing was that the feds were too greedy and pushed their informant to get even closer to Klein and to try and arrange a meeting with his New York contacts. That’s when Klein got suspicious and arranged a meeting but the thing was he never showed up. From that point on, Klein somehow managed to constantly sell heroin under the government’s radar, like for example supplying Fiorito, Skally and DeRose.



William Skally


The problem was that by now the Outfit managed to corrupt many of Chicago’s politicians and government officials, to the highest level, meaning sometimes they received “top secret” information regarding possible informants. And it didn’t matter if the info was true or false in the end the bosses always gave away the murder “contracts” since they very rarely took a risk such as this one. So the information regarding Skally’s decision to “rat” was placed on the table by one of the Outfit’s most infamous Mob lawyers known as Mike Brodkin, who in turn was a very close with the syndicate’s top hierarchy and was also considered one of the best political corruptors for the organization. In other words, Brodkin knew that Skally and Giancana knew each other and so he sent word directly to Giancana, who in turn sent for Carl Fiorito. Since Skally worked under Fiorito, in Giancana’s eyes it was Fiorito’s problem. So according to a wiretapped conversation between Brodkin and the so-called “King of Fixers” Murray Humphreys, the Mob lawyer told the “Hump” that one day he took Fiorito to see “Moon”, which was a reference for Giancana, and during the meeting the boss personally authorized Fiorito to take care of the Skally problem, or in other words, Fiorito received the “murder contract”. In the world of the Mafia the one who is sent to kill you, is usually someone close to you or someone you trust, and the point is that Skally very much trusted Fiorito, or maybe too much.


While being free on bond, on January 5, 1960, 50-year old Skally returned from one of his business trips in Las Vegas, Nevada, and immediately received a phone call from Fiorito, who in turn assured him that he, meaning Fiorito, already talked to the “boys” and allegedly had the case “fixed” and so they decided to have a chat regarding the situation. Even though Fiorito thought that Skally had no idea on what was going on, still “The Saint” came a long way and was quite experienced criminal, meaning by now he even had eyes at the back of his head. So Skally came to Fiorito’s house, picked him up and drove off to River Forest, where they parked their car at some parking lot to have the alleged chat. As he sat on the passenger seat, Fiorito started acting a little bit nervous obviously because he had to kill his old friend and got noticed by Skally, who in turn immediately felt suspicious since he also was in a constant alert. In other words, both men began panicking and suddenly, Fiorito pulled out a revolver and they started struggling in the car, but somehow Fiorito managed to grab Skally with his one hand and with the other he placed the gun over the top of Skally’s skull and pulled the trigger, thus instantly blowing the victim’s brain.


Again, the Outfit managed to disconnect itself from the “dangerous” situation by emotionlessly killing its associates, but not for long. The problem was that right after the cops discovered Skally’s body, they went straight to his house where they were greeted by his wife. The agents started asking questions and poor woman gave answers while being in tears regarding her late husband. When they asked her about Skally’s latest criminal activities, his wife “suddenly remembered” that the night before her late husband disappeared, he allegedly told her that he was going to meet his buddy Carl Fiorito. With this, the investigators were 100% positive that Skally’s stories regarding the drug peddling crew were true and they also realized that Fiorito was behind Skally’s murder and was also the “main guy” between the product and Giancana, the boss of the Outfit. So now the agents played the same “trick” because they knew that all of Fiorito’s “runners” were arrested or killed, and so he was forced to be in direct contact with the product, same as his late buddy Skally.


In fact, Fiorito had another problem and that was the indictment regarding a burglary charge and he was facing from five to ten years in jail. But the thing was that Fiorito was one of Giancana’s boys and so somebody had to “take care of him”, in a good way. As usual, Giancana gave the job to Murray Humphreys who in turn hated burglars and hated Fiorito but still he had to obey his boss. In a record time, Humphreys assured Giancana, through Brodkin, that they can consider the case already “fixed”. So Fiorito was out on bond and was contacted by Brodkin who in turn informed him to “cool off”, meaning not to get involved in anything illegal until the “heat” goes away. But like any other real criminal, Fiorito hardly obeyed orders and continued selling “junk”. When the feds saw this, they played it really smart by not playing ball on the burglary or the murder case, but instead they waited for him to “slip”, meaning to arrest him while dealing heroin. So as expected, in a matter of few days, Fiorito managed to sell $6,000 worth of heroin to an undercover agent and quickly found himself in custody. So now many of the Outfit’s higher ups, such as Humphreys and Giancana, were quite mad at Fiorito for doing the wrong move at the wrong time. As I previously stated that some of the First Ward crime bosses, such as Humphreys, stayed far away from the narcotics business, especially from the people who were directly involved in. So the point is that nobody from the main “fixers” wanted to help regarding Fiorito’s narcotics case.


In the end, Carl Fiorito received 10 years on the burglary charge and additional 10 years for the narcotics charge, which became a 20 years prison term. Suddenly, stories started spreading that Fiorito was “singing” in jail but Brodkin always stood in his defence and denied the rumours by stating that he knew the “kid” from way back and vouched for him. And to tell you the truth he was right, because Fiorito was really a stand up guy who served time and kept his mouth shut and when he got out he wasn’t changed a bit but we’ll come to that later. As for Jake Klein, one of the master minds behind the whole operation, from that point on, I can’t find any other info regarding his dope peddling activities but all I know is that he got away “clean” and like any other Jewish criminal from that era he started investing his “hard earned” cash in legitimate enterprises such as the Flamingo Hotel in Wheeling, Illinois.

The government’s hunt continued with the arrest of one of the so-called “dope receivers” Augie Deveno. In March, 1961, Deveno together with one of his associates and also a cook at his pizzeria known as Sam Lamargo, also managed to sell heroin to an undercover agent. In fact, in just two months the boys made six sales of narcotics to the federal agent, and each sale was valued at $2,000, which is a total of $12,000. According to government reports, Deveno’s pizzeria handled $500,000 a year dope distribution for Chicago’s crime syndicate. In April, both defendants were sentenced to 10 years in prison. After the trial, Deveno’s brother Tommy threatened the federal agent who in turn testified against his older brother. Outside the courtroom, Tommy Deveno approached narcotics agent Joseph Arpaio and allegedly said, "We're going to kill you yet, Arpaio." The hoodlum was later arrested and placed in custody. You see, all of these low level criminals who were connected to Outfit, felt like they owned the world and they could kill anyone at anytime. Obviously this was a huge mistake since every one of them ended up in prison.


The last remaining group from the so-called old North/West Side drug peddling ring was the notorious Guido crew. The Guido brothers, Louis and Don, together with Louis Vasselli still “hustled” on the streets and by now their crew became even bigger and more lucrative. In fact, Louis Guido and Vasselli formed a new and larger crew of drug peddling “runners” because by now they started associating with many different crews from all around the Chicago area, which later some of them were taken under the Outfit’s rule. For example, new members in the crew which came from the South Side were Alex Micele, John Pellegrini, Anthony D'Agostino and Frank Milazzo, all known drug peddlers. The guys who usually had direct contact with the costumers were Pellegrini and Micele, but from time to time they gave an opportunity to Milazzo to get the job done. After the “business transaction” with the costumer was over, one of the three “runners” would visit one small nigh club which was located on the city’s North Side and leave the drug money for the Guido brothers. The crew was riding high but there was one old problem and that was some members of the crew were too reckless or crazy to be involved in the drug business, especially if it was controlled by the Outfit. But guys like Buccieri and Giancana were not stupid because as I previously stated, they were connected to the crew only through associates such as Torello and Infelice. They did not use members of the organization, obviously because they did not want to place their organization’s name again in the newspapers’ headlines. In other words, if something ever happened to the crew, the boys were left on their own. Guys like the leader Nick Guido or Vasselli were too crazy to go into war with, meaning a conflict would bring too much of an unwanted attention. If they made money, it all was good, and if they didn’t, again it all was good.


And somewhere along the way, the “looney” boys managed the screw things up. So one day, at the end of October, 1962, Vasselli and Gaynor went to Al Sacko’s apartment to make a business deal. In reality, Sacko’s apartment was used by many dope addicts, who in turn were his main market for the distribution of the product. In fact, the business deal was for Vasselli to get a piece from Sacko’s operation, and while talking, they tested the drugs that they had in front of them. You see, most of these guys were addicts and so they didn’t pay attention because their minds were too much influenced by narcotics. That same day, McGarry called the apartment asked for Vasselli to leave him one package of heroin “at the usual place”. That “place” was a window sill, on which before leaving Vasselli placed the package and later on, McGarry passed by to pick it up and left some money. The problem was that the package wasn’t meant for McGarry but instead it was meant for one of his “friends” who was an undercover agent. The next day, Pellegrini and Milazzo were arrested in the apartment building where Louis Guido lived as they were returning narcotics which customers claimed were of poor quality. In one week all of the defendants where arrested including Guido, McGarry, D'Agostino, Pellegrini and Milazzo, except for Vasselli, who in turn fled town and became one of the FBI’s Most Wanted.


During the trial, Louis Guido and the rest of the gang were stunned from all of the “surprises” that the prosecutors had prepared for them. The first “surprise” was Stanley Miller, a “runner” for the gang and also one of the defendants, who in turn decided to switch sides and testified for the government against his fellow criminals. Miller told the jury that he sold narcotics to Sacko and McGarry, two of the five on trial for conspiracy to deal in narcotics and that he also bought the dope from Vasselli and Gaynor. The next “surprise” was Patricia Guido, the wife of Nick Guido, who recently was sentenced to prison on burglary charges because of his wife’s testimony. Miss Guido testified that she saw and also heard Nick’s brother, Louis Guido talking or being involved in narcotics deals. In the end, all of the defendants were found guilty and received sentences between 10 and 12 years in prison. As for Vaselli, he was convicted in absentia from 25 to 50 years regarding the narcotics charges. During a nationwide search for Vasselli, in June, 1964, the feds unknowingly stumbled upon him in San Francisco but his real identity was established much later, after he had paid a $65 fine for drunkenness under his real name. And so on September 1, the feds managed to locate Vasselli and arrested him in some Calumet City motel and quickly placed him in prison. As I previously stated that the Guido gang was the last faction of the old North/West Side dope peddling ring, which lasted for more than a decade.


Also the so-called “protectors” of this huge drug peddling ring were not spared a bit by the whole situation. The problem occurred when the three greedy narcotics detectives or the “three dirty piggies”, Teller, Cooperman and Austin, managed to sell one quarter of a kilogram heroin to one dope peddler known as Otis Sears. The problem was that they sold the product directly to Sears, who in turn managed to get himself arrested by the feds and started talking about everything, obviously to get a lighter sentence. He mainly talked about the three corrupt detectives and their close associates such as Pullings and Spurlak and their alleged dope peddling connections in New York and around the Midwest. So in less than a week, the whole dope peddling ring was arrested and brought in custody. In October, 1960, 13 defendants stood trial including the three detectives and they all pleaded not guilty. The three policemen were charged with conspiracy to violate narcotics laws by buying, selling, and aiding in the transportation of the same narcotics and the same story went for the rest of the crew. The whole thing became spectacular which was followed by a series of clashes between Chicago’s police and federal narcotics agents. But the interesting thing was that during the trial, which occurred before Judge Julius H. Miner in the federal District court, Teller and Cooperman gave testimony which conflicted with that given by federal agents on the arrest of a dope peddler. And so Judge Miner quickly decided that the testimony of Teller, Cooperman, and Austin, made the federal agents' testimony false. Now, I don’t know if they were protected by their own boys, meaning their colleagues from Chicago P.D., or maybe their other “colleagues” from the Outfit, but this became an unbelievable “twist” in the whole situation, which made the three defendants look not guilty. And so in April, 1961, all three detectives and two of their associates also from the police force were acquitted on all charges, and as for Pullings, Spurlak and the rest of the gang, or the so-called “sacrificial lambs”, all received heavy sentences between 5 and 12 years in jail. The only individual who got out of the whole situation “clean” was Armando Piemonte, mostly because he was not positively identified by the government witnesses.


Even the Indiana faction suffered a huge blow by loosing few of its most prominent members. In 1963, the feds heavily attacked Northern Indiana’s gambling operations, thus arresting both Morgano and Zizzo on gambling charges. Zizzo was sentenced to three years in jail, while Morgano was deported back to his native Enna, Sicily, which automatically made Zizzo the next boss of the Indiana faction. Many government reports show that even though he was deported, Morgano still received proceedings in the form of checks from his illegal operations back in the U.S. Also, Morgano’s deportation will soon prove to be quite instrumental for making new routes in the narcotics trade around the country.


But during the same period or should I say, during the early 1960’s, “big things” were happening both in Chicago’s underworld and the world of narcotics. By now, the Outfit’s oldest boss Paul Ricca was again fresh out of jail and at the same time, the so-called “number two guy” Tony Accardo also had many legal problems which almost got him in prison. So my point is that during that troubled time period, Giancana literally had the whole criminal organization in his own hands. After the tax evasion trial, which came out to be quite threatening for Accardo’s personal freedom, the old boss also became the victim of the so-called “new world”. In fact, according to one Chicago Tribune Article, one of his sons joined the recently “invented” hippie movement and became a user of marijuana and LSD. So my personal belief is that all of those government cases regarding the narcotics racket, plus his son’s life style and addiction, contributed heavily over Accardo’s decision to go against narcotics. Maybe there was another reason, which further convinced the crime boss regarding his decision on drugs, and that was the infamous 1963 testimony of Mafia informer Joe Valachi, member of the Genovese crime family in New York, the same group which was closely connected to the Chicago Outfit. During his testimony, the former Mafioso gave one quite interesting and at the same time debatable information, regarding the Outfit’s attitude on narcotics. Valachi said that the Outfit made a rule for its members to get paid $200 a week to not get involved in the “dirty” business. He even added that during his last stay in prison, word got around that the price went to $250. I really don’t know if Valachi’s testimony is 100% accurate, but all I know is that after all of these occurrences, there were different opinions among the crime bosses regarding the dope racket. I’ve read many wiretapped conversations between some of the Outfit’s members for this particular period, and almost every one of them were against Giancana’s decisions, mostly because of his lifestyle, absence and his involvement in the dope business. Story goes that they almost divided in two groups with Giancana, Buccieri, Battaglia and Nicoletti on one side and Accardo, Humphreys, Frank Ferraro, Pat Marcy and Gus Alex on the other.



Tony Accardo


But even though Accardo allegedly changed his mind and voted against narcotics and on top of that he was still considered quite powerful member of the national syndicate, during this period his mentor Ricca was still alive and Giancana was still considered the chief executive, and since Giancana had his own number two guy, Accardo became something between them, a position which did not gave him the needed authority over the whole organization so he can stop the “decease”. On top of that, Giancana’s administration was still in full effect and so Accardo was powerless. In other words, Giancana still had “untied hands” in choosing in which illegal venture his organization will be involved in, mostly thanks to Ricca’s “open mind”. Don’t get me wrong, Ricca also supported his old friend Accardo but he always kept the “peace” between the members since he was considered a long-time representative for the Chicago faction of America’s Cosa Nostra, who in the past was constantly pressured by the old time bosses to keep his “animals” in line. In other words, Ricca was always the guy in the middle. Story goes that there was a meeting between the Outfit’s top bosses regarding the problem and allegedly they decided to stay away from the dope business, at least for awhile, mostly because of the constant government “heat” and on that particular meeting Giancana allegedly also agreed and supported the “anti- drug movement”.


The thing was that this so-called “pact” stood only for the West Side faction, which was divided between Accardo and Giancana, and allegedly the rest of deal was that the dope trade should be transferred mainly on the South Side of the city, meaning the black population, and should be also very tightly controlled. The crew which was chosen for overseeing the racket was again the Chicago Heights faction which by now was led by Frank LaPorte since his predecessor Jim Emery died back in 1957. It was not a coincidence that during this period more than one half of the dope addicts in Chicago belonged to the African-American element from that area. The main point of the so-called “transfer” of the dope racket mainly on the South Side was mostly because of Ricca’s and Accardo’s close and daily associations with members from the West Side faction and so they wanted for them to stay “clean”. Many of these West Side members were involved in highly lucrative rackets, and that is why the old bosses did not want for them to be labeled as dope peddlers by the government, since the whole point of organized crime individuals is to portrait themselves as legitimate businessmen. On top of that, neither Ricca nor Accardo wanted to be labeled as associates of dope peddlers and drug addicts. It was highly unacceptable for them, since it was going to ruin for them their alleged images as legitimate tycoons.


But still, I believe that the main problem was the presence of a huge difference between bosses such as Ricca, Accardo and Giancana, meaning in their life styles. For example, Ricca was an old timer who loved to dress well, not too flashy, and also loved visiting parties but he was more of a family type of a guy, or at least that’s how he portrayed himself. The same story goes for Accardo, who according to some “mob lore”, he never had a mistress. But Giancana on the other hand, was more of an “orgy” type of a guy, meaning he had women all around the country and also loved to visit parties, but sometimes on those same parties two or three guys had sex with only one female at the same time. Also, both Ricca and Accardo spoke Italian and respected the old ways, as for Giancana, according to some reports, he knew only few words of the Italian language. In other words, Giancana was more open minded regarding the “new world” and lived the “American Dream”, including flashy dressing, swing and jazz music, booze and above all, narcotics, I’m not stating that Giancana did drugs, but during that period many young or rich persons around the city did, and the Mob boss was there to supply it. Same as the old days, like during Prohibition, when Al Capone was “only” there to satisfy the citizen’s demand for booze. So my point is that Ricca was smart enough to realize that by now Giancana had the whole top administration loyal to him and going against a man like that, was pure suicide. And so Giancana managed to bring back the old “Al Capone days” by going out in public with famous girls or famous actors and singers but at the same time satisfied the generation’s “thirst” and brought the Outfit’s income on much higher level, like for example still forcing Chicago’s dope business to become one of the prime rackets for the organization.


Even though by now Chicago’s narcotics network looked like it was almost destroyed by the government, the truth was that it was far from finished. Since a big portion of the West Side crews were under the attack of the federal government, the top administration has decided to spread their operations with the help of different sources. As I previously stated that the deal was for the dope operations to be transferred mainly on the South Side, and so Giancana decided to exploit the situation with the help of some of his “new age” capos. One of those guys was Frank Caruso, the boss of Chinatown and Near South Side. He inherited the position back in 1957, when the old time crime boss of that area Bruno Roti Sr. died of natural causes. In fact, Caruso wasn’t even nearly as powerful as his predecessor and at the same time father-in-law, and during my research on the Outfit, I personally always wondered on how this guy managed to get in the top administration during Giancana’s reign as boss. There are reports that he mostly controlled floating dice games and handbook operations in his area and had some shares in few of the many gambling joints around the city and also controlled one or two small unions. On top of that, he had few Italian and non-Italian members from different crews in the same territory such as Jimmy Catuara, Gus Alex and Murray Humphreys who also had their own operations. But the reality was that Caruso had a much more “darker secret” and that was his deep involvement in the narcotics racket which quickly got the attention and likes of Giancana.



Frank Caruso


Caruso’s so-called “success” in the narcotics business was again owed to his connections to African-American gangsters which were located all around the South Side. The term “Black Belt” was commonly used to identify the predominately African American community in that area and so as I previously stated that many African-American criminals were involved in the policy or numbers operations, which were their main illegal income, even before the days of Prohibition. In fact, their operations allegedly jumpstarted the criminal careers of many Italian crime bosses such as Giancana or Battaglia and during this period, many of these so-called policy operators and runners were under the Outfit’s thumb. Until now, the African-American crime groups had their own and separate operations around the South Side, including gambling, prostitution and narcotics, but soon all of that was about to be changed. During the mid 1950’s, the so-called undisputed king of the policy operations around the South Side was an African-American gangster know as James Irving. And I really don’t know if he had any Outfit connections, but by the end of the decade, he was in conflict with the younger generation of black gangsters who in turn were backed by the Outfit. In fact, we already know that the narcotics business and the policy racket were the only things which connected these young black gangsters to members from the Outfit. The problem was that the old timers such as Irving were only interested in the policy racket since the operation alone brought them millions of dollars a year and they didn’t need any more complications such as the dope peddling business, which in turn was highly regarded by the younger generation. Some of the up and coming black criminals saw the Italian mobsters as their role models and on top of that, they saw future criminal success, something which they did not receive from their black superiors. In reality, everything was because of greed.


One of those younger and quite ambitious black criminals was Nolan Mack, a known enforcer, policy operator and above all, narcotics peddler, who worked closely with Outfit capo Frank Caruso. And since during this period the Italian-American Mafia was one of the main importers of heroin in the country, the interest was great and also went both ways, meaning Mack was the muscle and distributor and Caruso was the importer and also had the protection such as political or police connections. Mack had an arrest record with over 20 arrests and during the 1940’s he twice served time for burglary and bank robbery and later became known as “savage criminal”. Don’t get confused that Caruso was Mack’s boss because that wasn’t the case, but the reality was that these two high profile gangsters only worked together and the reasons for that were Mack’s “short fuse” or in other words, high temper and killer urge. He was arrested numerous times for beating up people for just looking at him the wrong way. Mack’s first narcotics violation occurred back in 1955 and from that point on, he was arrested 10 more times for peddling narcotics until he was imprisoned in 1957 and was sentenced to 5 years but served only 4. Story goes that during his stay in prison he caught the eyes of some Outfit associates who in turn recommended him to Caruso’s people. My personal belief that those two associates were the two corrupt Police Detectives Sheldon Teller and Miles Cooperman, the individuals who in fact arrested the whole drug peddling gang including Mack and later his wife Helen and one of his associates Solomon Smalls. The problem for Mack was that during this period, he did not have any “protection” or in other words, he had no Outfit connections.



Nolan Mack


Guys like Mack don’t have bosses because they see themselves as the only bosses around, like for example, when he got out first thing which he has done was the murder of his ex-partner in the dope business Shelby Faulk, who was found shot to death in his white Cadillac in an alley in the rear of 7304 Union av. in June, 1961. Story goes that Faulk tried to take over Mack’s business while he was absent, and the problem was that Faulk totally forgot that Mack was in fact a total psychopath. But “Mafia-type” or should I say organized criminals such as Caruso knew how to exploit individuals like that and make the whole relationship quite lucrative. Even though he was considered the boss of Chinatown, Caruso’s dope peddling ring was formed by a group of “middle men” or Outfit associates which were placed between him and Mack, and most of them belonged to the North/West Side junk crews, such as Ted DeRose, the guy who previously worked with the imprisoned Carl Fiorito and the late William Skally, or Americo DePietto who belonged to the Melrose Park faction and by now was considered a high level associate and leading member of the dope peddling ring, and also Joe Battiato, Frank Carioscia, Angelo Passinni and Mike DeMaro. In fact, both Caruso and DePietto controlled this crew, as the first one being connected to Mack and his South Side crew, and the latter being connected to the West Side group of middle men and also being Giancana’s “inside man” in this whole operation. The whole point was to maintain the deal, meaning it was for the Westsiders to distribute their product around the South Side. Usually, Battiato was the one who handled the dope from his apartment at Belden Avenue and every time when Mack visited the location, the two exchanged two brown paper bags, which obviously contained money and heroin. As for Mack, he had a large crew of his own “runners” which most of them worked at food stands, barber shops or even worked as janitors or taxi drivers and few of the most prominent ones were the “lovely” couple Opal and Charles Cole, Louis Pierce, Charles Armstrong, Charles Brooks, LaFauncie Johnson and Eddie Clark. According to some government records, this “junk crew” supposedly made somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 on a good day.


So like any other drug peddling story, everything went smooth until two of Mack’s runners have been arrested by the cops. The problem was that Mack did not have any police or political connections but his friends in the Outfit did and this is where Caruso and the boys acted as “protectors” for their runners. Once, the cops found 2 pounds of pure heroin worth $100,000 in Mack's apartment but later the narcotics charges were quickly dismissed on the grounds that the arrest and confiscations were made without a search warrant. During the arrest, Mack allegedly said to one of the agents that he would kill the next officer who attempted to arrest him. Also with the help of corrupt officials, sometimes the Outfit was able to receive info if anyone from the organization was giving up Mob secrets, or in other words Caruso and later Mack received info on who got pinched and who was planning to talk. For example, in January, 1963, one of Mack’s runners Louis Pierce was constantly “harassed” by the cops, by always searching his home and stopping him in public places, while searching him for any narcotics and after that they would usually take him to the station. So with a “practice” like that, the government managed to stir the thoughts of suspicion among the crew members and forced them to take few measures. That same month, 48 years old Pierce was found shot to death in his car in front of his home at 4115 Vincennes Av. Several months later, the body of 30 years old Charles Brooks was found in the Fox River, after experiencing the same government’s “practise”. In reality, Caruso and Mack were not in any position to take risk, because as I previously stated that these were small time criminals and they were looked upon as expendable and replaceable.


So the government had enough and placed 24/7 surveillance over the black gangster and some of agents constantly wondered around the “Black Belt” with hope to find anyone who was willing to talk. The reality was that a guy like Mack had a lot of enemies and there was always someone quite angry with a relative who was killed or hooked on drugs by the gang or Mack himself. So on October 25, 1963, two federal agents received info that Mack was about to drive 2 kilos of heroin with his car from one point to another. The reports say that Mack was being tailed by narcotics agent Wayne Valentino and as they approached State Street, Mack suddenly curbed Valentino's car, thus forcing him to smash into a lamp post. Valentino quickly radioed agent Gayle Ruhl, who in turn took up the pursuit on the expressway. Mack weaved in and out of traffic with his car but with Ruhl close behind and suddenly, just west of the Loop on the expressway, Mack slammed on his brakes and stopped the car. So agent Ruhl pulled his car in front of Mack's but before Ruhl could jump out, Mack hit the gas and smashed his car from behind and sped northward. Ruhl quickly took up the chase again and at California Avenue on the Northwest expressway, Mack stopped again and so did agent Ruhl with his auto. The gangster quickly jumped from his car as Ruhl got out of his and showed his badge, thus announcing he was a narcotics agent but the problem was that Mack ducked behind his car and fired three shots at Ruhl, who in turn dropped beside his auto and returned fire as traffic sped by on the expressway. Windows of both cars were shattered by the bullets and Ruhl felt glass splattering across his face as he fired his gun. The federal agent threw aside his empty gun and pulled out another, while his own blood constantly blinded him as he was unable to see for several seconds. He cautiously made his way alongside his car and approached the rear of Mack's auto. Then, the agent saw Mack's foot sticking out from behind his car and as Ruhl approached the rear of Mack's car, the agent yelled “Raise your hand any higher and I'll kill you!" Mack continued to raise the revolver and Ruhl suddenly fired his gun thus forcing the gangster to slump back on the pavement as other agents and police pulled up. Shortly after that, Nolan Mack was pronounced dead at Belmont hospital.

As I previously stated that Nolan Mack was gangster who made fast action and in return received “fast reaction” or I other words, he was shot like a dog on the streets by the cops. But the Outfit’s problem did not end up, as the usual, with one of the “middle man’s” death but instead it continued with the arrests of the rest of the crew’s members. The thing was that during the agents’ surveillance over the late Nolan Mack that faithful day, before the speed chase occurred, they observed Mack buying dope from Battiato and from that point on, the agents realized that behind this whole drug peddling operation stood the Chicago syndicate. In fact, from this point on the main individual who “took care” of the narcotics business on the West, North and South sides for Outfit, was Americo DePietto. This guy entered in the dope trade somewhere around the mid 1950’s, or to be exact in 1956, allegedly when one African-American dope peddler known as William Wright decided to go to Brooklyn, New York and spread his dope peddling operations in that area. The problem was that a year later, Wright got arrested and so DePietto allegedly took over his operations and became somewhat of an “overseer” of the dope peddling ring in certain territories. And since Wright dope dealing territory spread across the South and West sides, as high level associate of the organization, DePietto managed to break the “deal”.


Story goes that DePietto was connected to some individuals from the Gambino and Genovese crime families in New York, mostly through the fur stealing racket, and allegedly they were the ones who supplied DePietto with heroin but also other reports show that some of the heroin came straight from Canada. According to some government reports, DePietto’s crew of dope peddlers allegedly handled 10 million dollar a year dope ring that controlled over 80% of the drug trafficking in Chicago. The crew used the already made dope connections to drug traffickers from St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City and Los Angeles but the feds also reported that during this period, one of the drug routes which came from New York, first passed through Pittsburgh and Cleveland, which were cities with their own Italian crime families, and then to Chicago. By now DePietto’s so-called bosses were Phil Alderisio and Charles Nicoletti, “gang-stars” of the so-called Melrose Park faction under Sam Battaglia. During this period, all three were suspected by Chicago’s bureau of narcotics, for secretly controlling the heroin traffic for the Outfit, but the thing is that there were no hard evidences for Alderisio’s or Nicoletti’s involvement since they were probably so well isolated.


As for DePietto, he kept his trusted friends from the old crew such as Battiato, Carioscia, Passinni and DeMaro, since by now every one of them proved to be a stand up guy. In fact, that was the only thing which DePietto needed so far since the next few years were about to be quite complicated. As I previously stated, the government’s surveillance of the late Nolan Mack and picturing Battiato as the supplier, was the “key” moment for the beginning of the end for DePietto’s crew. In a matter of one month, the government managed to collect a dozen of witnesses, who in fact most of them were addicts, ready to testify against the crew in return for their freedom. The first individuals who got arrested were Opal Cole and LaFauncie Johnson and incidental to their arrest, during search if the apartment, many notebooks were seized with names and phone numbers of many of the suspects. Quickly after that, Charles Johnson was also arrested and few days later, in a record time, he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison on narcotics charges. Also, the agents managed to gather evidence which supported the theory that DePietto, DeMaro, DeRose, Battiato and Passini were suppliers of heroin who made available to their distributors such as Cole or Johnson or even Jesse Cowan and Charles Sparkman. The government also indicated that some of the suspects were connected to the Italian Mafia which was based in the Chicago area and was known as the Outfit. The government knew that suppliers such as DePietto and DeRose allocated territories, consigned quantities of the drug, packaged wholesale amounts, collected money from the distributors and shared the proceedings with higher level criminals from the organization in which they belonged to.


In October, 1963, some 50 government agents arrested 19 persons in Chicago on charges for peddling narcotics and 6 more individuals from other cities such as Cleveland and St. Louis. The newspapers called it a massive crackdown on a $30-million Cosa Nostra narcotics operation and DePietto received the title as the "narcotics officer" for the Chicago chapter of the U.S. Mafia and that he allegedly answered only to” Momo Salvatore “Moe” Giancana”. Now I don’t know if the newspaper men only wanted to bring the attention of their readers by making up stories or maybe they received word from some of the federal agents, but “with the speed of light” they somehow managed to connect DePietto to Sam Giancana, the current “star” of America’s “gangster show”. In fact, the real connection was established through DePietto’s operations at the North Avenue Steak House, in Melrose Park, where he and Ernest Infelice were meeting with and supplying heroin to three of their main runners such as Armando and Ben Pennachio and Frank Carioscia. The problem was that the steak house was actually owned by Giancana, which was later burned to the ground. Also another government informant, and former runner for the crew, gave the same info regarding DePietto’s and Giancana’s dope dealings.



Americo DePietto (left)


So even though Giancana really cared about publicity, and since he obviously loved it, still he became quite nervous when his name was linked to narcotics. He knew that once his name was publicly linked to the “dirty” business, from that point on he could never wash the “dirt” away. As I previously stated that even though Giancana agreed to keep his West Side members away from the dope business, many researchers believe that he mostly ignored the advices from the First Ward faction of the Outfit and Tony Accardo, and because of that there are many wiretapped conversations where they continued to trash his name because of the DePietto scandal and because of not keeping his word. On top of all things, the government also declared that they had one witness known as Andrew Snyder who was ready to testify regarding Giancana’s and DePietto’s dope dealings. This guy used to work in one of Giancana’s burglary crews and was a close friend of DePietto, and to tell you the truth, I made a little research regarding Snyder’s knowledge about the syndicate and the reports show that he knew enough, especially regarding the Outfit’s hierarchy and who was going to succeed Giancana as boss if something ever happened to him.


One of Giancana’s “right-hand man” Charles Inglesia a.k.a. English was the one who constantly defended his boss by going from member to member and trying to convince them that DePietto had no dope dealings whatsoever with Giancana and that the boss had no knowledge of his underling’s “secret” activities. I also have to admit that this statement was also given by many alleged high level and confidential informants, who probably believed Giancana on his agreement to stay away from the dope business. But I’ll stick mostly to English since there was this problem, which was that English was a known “loudmouth” among his fellow Outfit members, and in fact he was much hated by Murray Humphreys because of the many incidents where he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. In other words, even if English was telling the truth, nobody really believed him because of his and his boss’ personalities. Proof for that is one interesting conversation between English and Martin Accardo, Tony Accardo’s brother, where Giancana’s liaison constantly tried to convince the other boss’ brother that in fact nobody from the Outfit was involved in narcotics, especially Giancana, but by the end of the “monologue”, Martin calmly reminded English that his brother Tony was 100% against drugs. It was not a coincidence that Giancana’s guy brought that particular conversation with Accardo’s guy, obviously because Giancana knew Accardo’s attitude towards the subject and possibly wanted to check if there were any problems. This means that there were obviously politics even within the Chicago Outfit. I also consider English as possible associate in Giancana’s national dope ring, since he was related to a big time narcotics peddler and on top of that, he and his brother Sam English controlled their own crew in Arizona but that’s something which I’ll talk about later.



Charles English


So problems or no, in June, 1964, after a nine-week trial De Pietto was sentenced to a 20-year prison term on charges for conspiring to sell narcotics and the other 20-year prison terms were given out to Mike De Maro and Charles Cole. Other members from the crew who received jail sentences were Opal Cole 10 years, Jesse Cowan also 10 years, Johnson received 10 years and Passini received 5 years in jail. After the sentence was pronounced, DePietto allegedly proclaimed his innocence be saying "I never had anything to do with narcotics in my life." He was out on $40,000 bond and like any other mindless drug dealer, DePietto managed to make a mistake in the most unpleasant time. While he was out, the feds received info that DePietto allegedly was planning to flee the country for Central America or Europe. So in July, 1964, the feds again arrested DePietto but this time, two agents got the “best” of him. It was reported that during the arrest he has knocked down two federal agents in his motel hotel room in the Cross Roads motel, at 4201 Mannheim rd. in Schiller Park. In a matter of seconds, he was quickly subdued by five other agents. Even though his main job was peddling dope, DePietto also used to work as enforcer for Alderisio and Nicoletti, who in turn were ruthless killers themselves, and so he knew how to handle himself in a tough situation. After that the Federal District Court quickly cancelled DePietto’s bond and was ordered to immediately begin to serve his prison sentence.


The reality was that DePietto had a real problem and it wasn’t the feds or the prison sentence but instead it was the alleged murder “contract” which was placed on his head. Yes, Giancana allegedly has placed a “contract” on DePietto obviously just to “wash away” his hands from the whole situation. When the feds informed DePietto about the alleged planned “hit”, in true gangster style he replied “Well you can’t live forever.” The thing was that one newspaper declared at the time, that DePietto was giving away information to the feds while being free and in the eyes of the bosses DePietto immediately became a “walking dead man”. And that is why, when the feds searched DePietto’s motel room, they found two big suitcases filled with clothes and 20 suits in the closet. In fact, DePietto was hiding at the motel for nearly two months and lived under the name “Americo Peters”. Story goes that DePietto tried to avoid harassment by some Outfit people who constantly drove past his home, bothered his children, and left death notes in his mailbox. True or not, DePietto continued to fight against his narcotics conviction but there were too many other cases in which he was again prosecuted and so his whole situation became very complicated. In 1965, obviously because of the DePietto incident, the government subpoenaed Giancana, Battaglia, English, Nicoletti, and two of DePietto associates James Mirro and Ernest Infelice, including DePietto, regarding the narcotics racket. During their testimonies, all of them took the fifth, again including DePietto, but the damage has already been done. Giancana was sentenced to a year in jail for contempt and from that point on, the newspapermen constantly wrote about the situation since the whole story was so spectacular and that really bothered the Outfit, meaning Ricca, Accardo and the rest of the gang. Since Giancana’s head was filled with problems and he was constantly absent from the every day operations, the so-called “new” criminal administration took over, which according to many reports started to disrespect Giancana, and so the “contract” on DePietto’s life was removed.


By that time, even though he didn’t want it, Sam Battaglia climbed at the number one spot and when Giancana wasn’t around, which happened a lot, “unofficially” Battaglia took the position as acting boss of the Chicago Outfit, or in other words, if the First Ward bosses thought that with Giancana out of the way the drug racket was going to be finished, well they thought wrong. Previously, we saw that Battaglia came through the ranks under a narcotics vice lord and later, he worked on the top administration while the narcotics racket was on its highest level, and now he’s next to the boss and it was expected from him to continue and support the racket. In other words, even though there was an alleged “pack” for members from the West Side faction to not get involved in the “junk” business, still Giancana’s administration functioned by the “old rules”, meaning “You get caught, you might get hurt. You start talking about it, you die for sure”. So during this period, one of Battaglia’s prime operators in the dope peddling business was again another corrupt cop, who went by the name of Tommy Durso. As we previously saw in one of the cases with detective Sheldon Teller, a situation in which some government officials moonlighted for the crime syndicate as protectors, procurers, collectors and even dope peddlers, but in Durso’s case you will see all of the previously mentioned activities, including murder.


Believe it or not, Thomas Durso was one of Battaglia’s main compatriots, who played a vital role in the making of his criminal “machine”. First of all, he was a cop and second, he peddled narcotics. In fact, Durso was the same individual as any other corrupt cop, who didn’t care about a human’s life and was hypnotized by the old mighty dollar. In plane words, he was a gangster who was associated to many West Side hoodlums, especially dope peddlers. One of Durso’s main partners was Mike Gargano, a known Outfit enforcer, who in turn re-sold large quantities of heroin which were previously acquired from Durso. This fella was a hardcore criminal with a quite large history of arrests and convictions, including a sentence to Joliet state prison in July 22, 1949, to two four-year terms for armed robbery. After that he was paroled on June 6, 1951, and again on June 13, 1957, he was sentenced to serve 10 years in the state prison at Fort Madison, for breaking and entering but he was again paroled in 1959.


Now, the main Outfit member who was placed between Battaglia and Durso’s drug peddling ring was one quite demented and notorious individual known as Sam DeStefano. This guy was one quite lucrative syndicate member from the West Side and personal friend of both Battaglia and Giancana, who was mostly involved in loan sharking and counterfeiting activities, two business which by that time were on the lowest scale of the FBI’s list. Also, DeStefano was known for having whole crews of corrupt policemen on his payroll for doing his dirty work. According to some reports, DeStefano largely financed Durso’s drug peddling operations and they were seen many times together in some of the city’s locals. But the “funny” thing was that back in 1955 Sam DeStefano killed his younger brother Michael on the orders from his boss Sam Giancana, allegedly because the younger criminal became a heroin addict and the problem was that he knew too much regarding some illegal operations and became unrealible.



Michael DeStefano found shot to death in the trunk of his car


So Durso repeatedly purchased narcotics finacied by higher ups in the racket such as DeStefano, and then sold the dope at a profit to addicts through his large network of pushers. So after receiving the dope Durso usually informed Gargano regarding the arrival of the shipment, who in turn called some of his runners to come and collect the product. The actual runners for the operation were Tony Moschiano, John Generella, Pete Fabbri and Leonard Fiorenzo, all from the West Side area. The crew usually operated by renting a hotel room, in which they kept the stash of drugs which was previously packed in numerous little packages, ready for sale. After making the transaction, the crew visited Green’s Tavern which was located on the West Side and was owned by one of Durso’s associates known as James Green, where they would leave the money for a pick up, usually by Moschiano since he was one of Durso’s main runners. In fact, Green had a long history of narcotics trafficking, first with the late Nolan Mack and later with Nathaniel Spurlark and then with the imprisoned DePietto.


Everything went smooth, until some kind of a “bad blood” occurred between Durso and his prime runner Tony Moschiano. Story goes that Durso developed a huge paranoia and started blaming his runners for being possible informers and always threatened them with death. The cause for Durso’s alleged paranoia were the profiles of his runners, meaning most of them were petty criminals and rapists and top of that, they were heroin addicts. In fact, these guys were the main proof for the presence of narcotics on Chicago’s city streets for such a long period. So it was natural for Durso to be constantly worried since some of these guys were not quite reliable. According to some reports, there were three incidents between Durso and Moschiano, like for example the first one occurred when the duo went on sale which in turn was never realized. The problem was that the purchaser of heroin, which was one of Moschiano’s associates, did not have the money and on top of that, he became quite suspicious of Durso's car, since it contained a plaque which indicated some connection with the Chicago Police Department. Suddenly a heated argument occurred between Durso and Moschiano, in which Durso has threatened his younger associate that if he, meaning Moschiano, did not get rid of the stash in two weeks, he might end up dead. I believe that Moschiano quickly got the picture because he realized that with people such as Durso there was no “this” or “that”, but instead it was expected from him to just nod with his head and get the job done or else.



Durso and Moschiano


The second incident occurred after a month, when Durso became quite angry at Moschiano for not appearing with the money from the sale or with the product. Thereafter, Durso called for Lenny Fiorenzo and advised him that he knew that he, meaning Fiorenzo and Moschiano had been together for the last several days, and that Fiorenzo was in trouble and his life depended on finding Moschiano. This was a classic Outfit move by pushing one of the victim’s friends against his fellow associate. All cornered, Fiorenzo told Durso that the only place that he knew of, regarding Moschiano’s whereabouts, was his home. After failing to find him there, Durso lost his nerves and drove to a restaurant where they were joined by Gargano. This time Fiorenzo was cornered by Gargano who in turn gave him another chance to think about where Mochiano might’ve been, and if not, he was going to kill the poor guy. Suddenly Fiorenzo told Durso and Gargano another possible place, which was the apartment of one of Moschiano’s girlfriends Lupe Costabile.


The three of them then proceeded to Lupe's rooming house, where they were greeted by Lupe's landlady Nancy Bourne. They entered violently, and Gargano remained downstairs holding a pistol on Fiorenzo head and also a man who roomed in the building, while Durso and Mrs. Bourne went upstairs to Lupe's room. When Durso saw that the room was empty, he knocked Mrs. Bourne down, whereupon he drew a pistol and screamed at her to get up. The poor woman said that she had recently broken her back and couldn't get up, whereupon Durso swore that he would break her back again and would blow her head off if she didn't get up. He then forced Mrs. Bourne downstairs and forced her to phone Moschiano and when someone answered the call, Durso grabbed the phone from Mrs. Bourne and told whoever was on the other side to have Moschiano on the street within ten minutes or someone would be hurt. The person on the other side arranged for them to meet and so Durso sent for Gargano to get Moschiano. After their arrival, Moschiano and Fiorenzo were handcuffed together and taken from the Bourne home. After a dozen of kicks, cuts and cigarette burnings, both were released with the understanding that Moschiano was given a second chance to sell the remaining heroin within two weeks and deliver the proceeds to Durso. Now, don’t get fooled by Durso’s “forgiveness” because he really cared about the money, instead of his relationship with Moschiano. The reality was that if he killed Moschiano right there on the spot, he was never going to see his money ever again.


But the situation got worse when few days later both Fiorenzo and Moschiano were arrested by narcotics agents and were taken into custody. They were kept for six days until both of them broke and spilled the beans. Both runners started talking regarding their illegal activities and their association with Durso and during that same period, Moschiano led officers to the hotel room where the narcotics were seized. So now, the two informants, together with the feds, devised a plan to get Durso into a trap. So on January 21, 1964, shortly after Mochiano’s and Fiorenzo's release from custody, they contacted Durso and arranged a meeting at some local restaurant. An hour later, Durso only met with Fiorenzo, who in turn explained to him that he and Moschiano were arrested for some alleged petty theft and were confined for six days. Suddenly the temperature in the joint went very high when Fiorenzo also informed Durso about the alleged robbery of the hotel room where the narcotics were kept, while they were in custody. Strangely, Durso looked very calmed and told Fiorenzo to go and pick up Moschiano and later to stop by at Durso’s suburban home.


When the duo arrived at the place, they parked their car in the garage where they were greeted both by Durso and Gargano. During their conversation, Moschiano assured Durso that he still had the money, along with other money from sales of narcotics, which he would’ve deliver to him but the thing was that he, meaning Mosciano had the opportunity to make a kilogram sale of heroin and that he would make up for the missing money and missing narcotics from the proceeds of the previous sale. Durso stated that he was not going to fall for that and suddenly, fuelled by murderous rage, he pulled out a hunting knife and started stabbing Moschiano to death right there in the garage. With his hands covered in blood, Durso turned to Fiorenzo, who by now was peeing in his pants, and told him "I want you to look at this. This is what happens to stool pigeons and people that short me." In other words, Durso was imposing his brand of punishment as a deterrent to future potential informers. It was not a crime of passion spawned by hot and angry blood, but instead it was a crime for profit with the help of the cold, deliberate execution of a human being just to protect the investment which was represented by a crime syndicate narcotics ring. He then told Fiorenzo that he would give him the break of his life and let him go, and if any one in the neighbourhood asked him about his having picked up Moschiano he was to say that he did pick him up but that he dropped him off two or three blocks from the point where he had picked him up. Gargano then drove Fiorenzo to an elevated train station and the latter took a train back to Chicago's West Side. In a state of panic, Fiorenzo quickly reported the incident to the police.


On February 2, 1964, both Durso and Gargano were arrested on charges for transporting and selling narcotics, but not for the murder of Moschiano since there was no body or any other evidence regarding the slaying. But more than two months later, Moschiano’s dead body popped up in the Des Plaines River, with his hand handcuffed, rags stuffed in his mouth, his throat cut from ear to ear, and with numerous stabbings in the stomach. Besides that, it was then when the feds caught a real break. In no time, both Durso and Gargano were taken to trial, and during the “show”, the defence was destroyed by the testimonies of Fiorenzo and the rest of the runners, including Mrs. Bourne and Miss. Costabile. In the end, in November, 1964, both defendants were sentenced from 100 to 150 years in prison. One police captain who attended the trial, told the newsmen that this was the first syndicate-related murder conviction in Chicago in his memory. According to some of the attendees at the trial, both Durso and Gargano have shown no remorse after hearing their sentences and were calmly escorted to their prison cells. Justice is so sweet but in the city of Chicago it lasts very shortly, meaning five years later broth convicts were paroled and released from prison.



Durso and Gargano

This is another proof that during this period, the Outfit was still deeply involved in the government system, by very easily receiving information on who was talking and who was not, which was the main reason for the many unprotected government informers being hunted by the Mob all around the city. Remember Joe Bruno and his huge dope peddling ring? Well it came out that it was true about his contacts with government agents and instead of serving 16 years in jail, he served only six and was released on January 10, 1964. Bruno reported to his probation officer on January 13 and was supposed to have reported again on February 5, but failed to appear. In other words, no ever heard or saw of Bruno, ever again. A lot of these so-called mysterious disappearances occurred and also many deaths under strange circumstances, like for example the death of Leo Fiorenzo. That same year, after he testified against the imprisoned Durso and Gargano, he was taken to an “unknown” location in Dallas, Texas, where he lived for more than 5 years until one day when he was found dead, allegedly from a heroin overdose. The agents and the people around him swore that Fiorenzo has quit his drug addiction even since the Durso case. Many people don’t believe in the “myth” that the Mafia sometimes used so-called fatal shots of dope in killing their victims. Well the truth is that they did, and they have done it many times but the problem is that it’s too hard to prove it, especially if the victim was a former addict. According to two close associates of Sam Giancana and also top Genovese crime family members, Angelo DeCarlo and Tony Boiardo, the “best” way to do it is: DeCarlo: “Tony boy wants to shoot you in the head and leave you on the street or would you rather take this (the dope shot), we put you behind your wheel (the victim’s car), we don’t have to embarrass your family or nothing.”


So for the second time, after the many incidents on the West Side, by the mid 1960’s, the narcotics trafficking in Chicago was mainly headed by two Outfit crews, one on the North Side and the other on the South Side. Again, both crews had middle men and runners which again, mostly came from their numbers and policy operations but the different thing was that back in the late 1950’s, the Outfit was getting heavily involved in the so-called Bolita operations, which was a sort of a numbers game that was mostly controlled by the Latin population such as Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. They also had their own independent crime groups, with many connections back home which during this period came quite handy for the Outfit because by the early1960’s most of their lucrative rackets such as the Bolita or policy operations were on the downfall because of the constant police raids, and so they did not have much choice but to get involved in the narcotics trade.


Parallel from the Chicago Heights connection, which imported mostly European heroin, there was another “door” opened again for the Outfit and that was Mexico, thanks to the syndicate’s partnership with the Latin gangs. Because of the constant government arrests of black criminals, during this period the use and distribution of the drug by persons of Mexican descent began. While the Mexican government was bending every effort to try to eradicate the opium poppy, still there was a huge illicit production of opium and heroin in the mountainous regions of Mexico, which much of it found its way into the U.S. The problem was that raising poppies was a family affair in the thousands of fields scattered through the crevices and slopes of mountain ranges in the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, Nayarit, and Zacatecas. And unfortunately for the drug enforcement officials, these large areas of the Mexican terrain are ideal for poppy production, since the plants were cultivated in craggy and almost impenetrable mountains at attitudes of 4,000 to 10,000 feet, with temperatures between 60 and 70 degrees, and on top of that, the soil is rich and moist. Mainly women and children tended the fields, while men handled the processing and marketing. It was totally and completely controlled by the traffickers and tot even the army could’ve gotten in there. Every damned villager from the newborn children to the grandmothers and grandfathers were involved in processing opium gum and they sold it and then it went to the labs. Inside the unripened seed pod of the poppy, which is a rubbery substance called opium, was heated, dried, crushed, and mixed with common industrial chemicals such as acetic anhydride. In turn, the dope barons had their cut out their own airstrips, since they owned private trucks, planes, and virtual armies to fight.



Opium poppy


The objectives of the Mexican anti-drug campaign were not easy to achieve mostly because the territory was large and there were illegal plantations in many isolated places. Destruction by hand, even with the military’s help, did not make much difference in the amount of drug smuggled. So during this period, the Mexican government acquired airplanes, jeeps, weapons, helicopters and trainers from the U.S. The main problem was that there was no sinister "Mr. Big" who controlled the supply, demand, price, and quality from his mountain hideaway because anybody with an automobile could’ve become a narcotics peddler by driving to Mexico and purchasing any quantity which he desired from any farmer around the area. In other words there was no need for a complex organization. It was so easy to buy the stuff that it took no talent, no organizational ability, no brokers, and no middle men to drive to Mexico and to arrange for a purchase of drugs. With automobiles crossing the border bumper to bumper, day and night, it was no problem for the smuggler to escape detection since the law enforcement officer's only tools were his sources of information for an alleged dope shipment which were placed only on the opposite side of the Mexican border. In no time there was more heroin, more potent product, and the best thing was that it was cheaper than ever before.


As I previously stated that the groups which oversaw this operation were the North Side faction which by now was still led by one old time crime boss known as Ross Prio and two of his capos Dominic DiBella and Joseph DiVarco and also, the South Side faction with Ralph Pierce and the DiCaro brothers at the top. The dope shipment mostly came from a small place in Mexico known as Telesforo, which was the home-base of a dope peddling gang led by one narcotics trafficker, known only as Parra Lopez. This guy had a huge laboratory which produced large quantities of heroin and was operated by his right-hand man Soto Baldemar who by that time was the principal distributor of heroin into the U.S. through Mexico. The drug route mainly passed through Los Angeles or Tucson, Arizona and ended up directly in Chicago and in most cases, the product was carried by two Mexican drug peddlers, Bernardo Paballelo Reyes and Alfonso Trevino Ramon. These guys previously operated around the New York area but later transferred their operations in Chicago and around the Midwest and became the biggest narcotics traffickers south of the border, thanks to the Outfit. And since the so-called “Northsiders” were closely connected to the Spanish element of Chicago’s North Side, possibly they were the ones who received the shipment and later distributed it across the South and West sides.


Now, the prime Outfit member who possibly oversaw the racket back in Chicago was one of Prio’s main operators known as Ken Eto. There no government documents for this claim, except for one newspaper article from the Chicago Tribune which connects Eto to the narcotics trade. I believe that the main reason for that was the fact that this guy was a Japanese gangster who by that time was one of the most lucrative individuals in the whole criminal organization, mostly because of his Bolita operations and close connections to the Latin community. So the product was spread, again with the help of several crews which belonged to different territories. For example one of those was the infamous African-American duo which included James “Kid Riviera” Williams and Thomas “Shaky Tom” Anderson. These two fellas were the prime operators in the policy business and also in the crap games operations, under the auspices of the Chicago Outfit. They did not belong to any particular crew but they worked with almost every top criminal from around the city such as Prio, Eto, Gus Alex, Frank Caruso, Lenny Patrick, the English brothers and Ralph Pierce. In fact, Anderson was connected to the Outfit since the late 1940’s, when he used to work as a bookkeeper and the thing was that he held a university degree in accounting. According to some reports, Anderson received his accounting training at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, for which he was nicknamed by some of his “street colleagues” as “Tennessee”. As for Williams, he was one 300-pound African-American Mob enforcer who never finished 4th grade and even though he was charted as associate of the West Side faction, this scary fella also had connections all around Chicago, mostly on the South and North Side, like for example being pictured on several meetings both with Eto and Prio.


So the gangster duo was considered highly lucrative and of high importance by the Outfit’s administration and that is why they were kept out of the dope racket, until now since they controlled hundreds of runners for their illegal operations. According to one confidential informant, he heard a story from one former dope pusher, who used to work for a guy nicknamed “Tennessee”, who in turn operated a grocery store on Chicago’s South Side from where the product was usually sold. Now, as I previously stated that “Tennessee” was Anderson’s nickname and he also owned a grocery store in that same area, so in other words, the informant unknowingly received information on Anderson’s secret dope dealings. The thing was that the informant also gave another quite interesting and almost unbelievable info regarding Anderson’s activities in the dope business and the murder of Alderman Benjamin Lewis. So again according to the informant, Anderson and Alderman Lewis, who back in 1958 became the first black alderman to represent the 24th Ward, together were involved in narcotics dealings, mainly heroin, and frequently exchanged loans or investment money to purchase big amounts of the product.



Alderman Benjamin Lewis


Now, to have an Alderman as financier in dope dealings was a huge thing and if the story is true, then Anderson managed to make something quite rare in the world of dope peddling. The problem was that when you’re dealing with high profile criminals, somewhere along the way you’ll be forced to become dependable by these individuals, and that’s what happened to Lewis. Story goes that he became in high debt of Anderson by loaning a large sum of cash. I assume that the alleged cash came from the Outfit, since Anderson was guy who made somewhere between 5 and 10 grand a week and story goes that he was a heavy spender. And so in the old days if you took cash from the Outfit, it was naturally expected from you to return the money, no matter who you were. One thing led to another, and so back in 1963, Lewis was found shot in the back of his head three times, while being handcuffed to a chair in his office. Anderson and Williams were quickly questioned because they reportedly had threatened Lewis’ life shortly before the murder. The cops also interrogated hundreds of other suspects who had had connections with Lewis's personal life, his failing business ventures, and his political career, including the English brothers and Lenny Patrick since it was their territory but the problem was that every lead petered out. The police file remained to be about three feet thick, and so the case remains unsolved.



James “Kid Riviera” Williams


Story goes that after the assassination of Alderman Lewis, the gangster duo completely took over the policy and narcotics operations in the 24th Ward. I say completely because at the same time Lenny Patrick, who was the real crime boss of that area, transferred most of his operations around the North suburbs and on top of that, most of the bookmaking operations of the English brothers were also closed down. So as I previously stated that the whole territory was in Anderson’s hands, who in turn gave the full authority to Williams to operate in the same area as his enforcer. So from this point on, Williams controlled an army of crap game operators, and also had a bunch of apartments where most of the games occurred. At the front of every building, they had a look-out equipped with a walkie-talkie radio, with the other half of the two-way radio set in the apartment above. The apartments were usually equipped with well-stocked bars, with a bartender and bar maids, who furnished relaxation for those who became tense while handling the dice. The thing was that besides gamblers, these gambling establishments were very often visited by narcotics users and addicts since many of the operators or bartenders were in fact runners for Williams in his dope peddling business. Williams also had a sort of a “commission” of enforcers and operators such as Vernon Bailey who operated on the West Side, Sammy Bell on the South Side and Sandy Wilborn on the North.


Another “crew” which also received the same product and sold it in large quantities was led by non other than Police detective Sheldon Teller, the corrupt cop who previously acted as protector for some of the biggest dope peddling rings in the Chicago area. Even though his career was going smooth because he managed to solve few murders, Teller still never learned his lesson since he almost ended up in prison for the same reason which was narcotics, and so by 1963, he still sold large quantities of heroin on the city’s streets. This time his main co-operators were his wife Joyce and narcotics detective John Sullivan, and besides heroin, they also sold marihuana and cocaine, which was the main proof for the shipment’s origin. Since he once managed to elude the feds, Teller’s ego went through the roof and felt untouchable, like for example selling drugs straight from his house. Sometimes when Teller or Sullivan weren’t able to deliver the “goods”, the costumers went straight to Teller’s home where they were usually greeted by his wife Joyce, who in turn sold them whatever was needed. When he and his partner were out of duty, they would usually tell the costumer to wait next to some particular phone post where they would simply throw the package and drive away. And because of his “hard work”, Teller, his wife and two kids lived in a $60,000 home in Longwood dr., equipped with a swimming pool and a tennis court, and in his garage, Teller has “stashed” three cars. In other words, the famous detective was riding high.


As you can see, even though the federal government was fighting fearlessly against these dope peddling rings, still the syndicate somehow always found new ways of importing narcotics and maintained the illicit drug network around the Midwest, almost with the help of the same individuals. It was just like a leakage, meaning no matter what you do, the water always finds its way out. By this time, the “newborn” connection from Central America was just getting warmed up, but the old European connection was still in full effect, by bringing loads of heroin through the New York port or through Canada. As I previously mentioned that the Chicago Heights faction, still under the auspices of Mob boss Frank LaPorte, maintained the “European deal” with the help of some of their “old” associates in the dope business. One of those old connections was Albert Roviaro, the “street dealer” who was previously convicted on narcotics charges and served only two years instead of four. Well by now, Roviaro no longer had to hide his stash in bushes and trees, but instead he opened up his own soft drink business on Chicago’s South Side, from where he distributed his product. He was out of the reach of the federal “radar” by living like a king on a 160 acre farm in Cedar Lake, Indiana, from where he oversaw his drug peddling network.


During this period, Roviaro might’ve been the strongest and maybe, the last Chicago connection in the whole European drug peddling network or the French connection. I really don’t know if he was considered by this time as member of the Outfit, particularly the Chicago Heights faction, but all I know is that he became quite close with many top members of that group. Also, since he transferred his “headquarters” in Indiana, Roviaro might’ve also belonged to the Indiana faction which by now was led by Frank Zizzo. Whatever was his position within the crime syndicate, one thing was for sure, and that is, his position as the new “operator” of the dope shipment which was destined for the “Windy City”. This shows that after a whole decade, the old “European deal” was still in full effect, and Roviaro became the new link. In fact, according to some reports, Rovario was the main source for a river of heroin shipments from Montreal, Canada, and after that to Indiana and then to Chicago, or the other way around. The dope was transported by one female Mafia courier known as Eva Neforos, who in turn delivered the package to Indiana or Chicago, as it was ordered. As I previously stated that Rovario operated a soft drink business on the city’s South Side which was known as the Swanel Beverage Dispensers and was very often used for his dope shipments. The crew who mixed, packed and distributed the product included Orville and Fred Drake, John Capko and Walter Anderson. For example, the Drake duo and Anderson operated in the Indiana area and as for Capko, he was a known Chicago tavern owner. So the runners which mostly frequented the Indiana area, also came to Chicago whenever they were needed and they had so much dope, that sometimes they were known for paying their checks in small packages of heroin. When Orville Drake died back in 1961, he left to his kid Fred a large box full of heroin, which contained enough dope for his son to sell it for the next few years.


But by the beginning of 1966, the Outfit’s good times were about to be finished forever. For example, in April that same year, the feds managed to hit one of the main gambling and at the same time, dope peddling places for James Williams and Tom Anderson. That “faithful day”, 15 policemen entered on the first-floor of a ten story building at 2118 Warren blvd. and arrested almost 50 men and women, which some of them were and gamblers, and others were simple junkies. They also managed to arrest the main operator Vernon Bailey, who in turn tried to hide half-a-pound of heroin but failed. Also, detective Sheldon Teller, who by now sold the Mexican product around the city’s North Side, managed to screw things up, all by himself. This occurred back in 1965, when one Teller’s runners known as John D. Cage was arrested for possession of large quantities of marijuana and heroin and was to go on trial. The guy was quite loyal and so detective Teller decided to write a letter to the assistant state’s attorney Lawrence Genesen, and in it he asked him to consider that in the past Cage had allegedly given police valuable information for a series of burglaries. In return, Genesen replied that he already had considered asking the judge to dismiss the charges because Teller had such an outstanding reputation as a police officer. But the problem was when Cornelius Casey, head of the narcotics detail, recommended that nothing be done at the time and that the police was to be given a chance to investigate the statements made in the letter by Teller. After the investigation, it turned out that Teller was lying since Cage was already in prison at the time when Teller had said that he was a police informant on the city’s streets. So after making such a stupid mistake, all of the attention was now turned on detective Teller and his partner John Sullivan.



Detective John Sullivan


So the feds decided to use the same old tactic by arresting all of the runners and hoping that someone will decide to talk. And they were right again. Another of Teller’s personal African-American runners Samuel Washington got arrested and was forced to telephone the detective numerous times, while the feds were listening on an extension phone. During their conversations, the two were mostly talking about narcotics deals and the feds somehow realized that Teller was keeping his stash at home. In no time, the agents obtained federal arrest and search warrants for Teller’s residence and during the search, the agents recovered large quantities of heroin, cocaine and marijuana, another rolled black sock containing narcotics, which all valued at $150,000, together with narcotics-making apparatus and more than $45,000 in currency. At the same time, detective Sullivan's apartment was also searched and agents there found several cards on which were recorded six automobile license numbers which had been assigned to narcotics agents. Immediately Teller, his wife Leah Joyce and his partner Sullivan were indicted for the sale and possession of narcotics and bonds were set at $5,000 for Teller, $1,500 for the wife and $2,500 for Sullivan. While out on bond, Teller’s wife suffered greatly by constantly having panic attacks, thus non-stop visiting the hospital. Panic attacks or no panic attacks, on November 6, 1966, all three defendants where destroyed by the testimony of Washington and so they all received long prison sentences, including Teller 18 years, Sullivan 9 years, and Teller’s poor wife received 5 years in prison.


At the same time, with the help of the good collaboration between the U.S. authorities and Mexican officials, the so-called Mexican connection was further disturbed by arresting many of the Mexican drug dealers on their own turf and placing them in prison for a very long time. Even the so-called European deal finally suffered its final blow in the Chicago area with the fall of Albert Roviaro. The kind of problem was the usual, meaning one of Roviaro’s runners such as Fred Drake got arrested by narcotics agents and became an informer in no time. So one thing led to another and Roviaro got arrested next thing you know, in March, 1966, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Before he was escorted by the U.S. marshals, Judge Hubert Will in the end added that “As I listened to the evidence in this case, it became apparent that Roviaro was the kingpin in this substantial narcotics operation and a peddler of misery.”



Albert Roviaro


After the Roviaro conviction, the Mafiosi in Europe received word about the problem and during this time period the main Outfit guy in Italy was deported mobster Tommy Morgano, who in turn became one of the most important go-between guys for the Italian Mafia and U.S. Cosa Nostra. You see, even by now almost every faction of the U.S. Mob still had its own deported representative in Europe and this time the Chicago boys had Morgano. So the only plan for Morgano was to travel to the nearest and safest point to the U.S. border, such as Canada, Cuba or Mexico, and meet with any of the Mob’s couriers. One of the Outfit’s main “travelling guys” at the time was Ernest Sansone, the Outfit member with narcotics record, who in turn constantly travelled to the three previously mentioned countries and received or gave messages regarding many international Mob-connected operations. In plane words, Sansone was a liaison man between his local bosses and their deported pals. So there was this meeting in Mexico City between Sansone and Morgano, who in fact were family related, meaning Morgano was the uncle of Sansone’s wife. So my personal opinion is that by now the Outfit had few small gambling operations in Rome and Milan in Italy, and the rest of the operations were mostly regarding narcotics, which mainly came from that same country. As I previously stated, that Morgano was exiled to a place known as Enna, in Sicily, which was located in the “heart” of the Mafia, and was probably under the auspices of one local Italian Mafioso, known as Angelo Mongiovi. So according to some reports, during this period the Sicilian Mafia was in chaos by going through an internal war and plus, the Italian government managed to successfully built cases against many Mafiosi in the narcotics trade. In other words, the infamous “French Connection” was getting diminished and the Sicilian heroin laboratories were getting closed down. But my personal belief is that one of the main subjects of the meeting between Sansone and Morgano was the current Vietnam War, and the formation of new drug routes, which in fact were not much in favour of their European cohorts.


To tell you the truth, as I’m writing this story, I’m starting to realize that maybe Tony Accardo was right on his decision regarding the dope peddling problem. I mean these guys were falling like flies and the presence of danger for the actual Outfit members to get arrested was quite real and on top of that, they were constantly changing new sources, thus continuously making new and suspicious connections. From all of the dozens previously mentioned names who were involved in narcotics business, maybe two or three individuals tops, managed to getaway clean. So I’ll say it again that maybe the old man was right, and the only thing that he advised his closest underlings was to be patient, meaning Accardo truly believed that the government “heat” will one day vanish. In fact, there are numerous reports made by informants who in turn said that during this period, both Ricca and Accardo advised their “soldiers” to be patient, meaning to stay out of trouble for a while. But guys such as Sam Giancana, who just got fresh out of jail, were far from being patient.


Even though Giancana was only a year behind bars, still when he got out, his criminal organization was completely falling apart. Many of his allies were imprisoned and the rest were hunted by the feds on the city’s streets and during the process, they managed to close down many of his illegal and legal operations. On top of that, many of the runners in the Bolita, policy and numbers operations, which were mostly from African-American and Latin descent, slowly began separating themselves from the Italian criminal organization or the Outfit. In fact, Giancana was loosing his main lucrative “base” for his narcotics operation, meaning his providers, which were the Mexicans, and his distributors, which were obviously the black criminals. For example one of the main problems was, regarding the African-American element, that the black criminals were simply pushed by society with the help of massive unemployment, and many of them began forming their own criminal gangs, in the Outfit’s image, meaning they smarten up and began organizing themselves for their own purposes. In some cases the black criminals even showed the Italian criminal element that they cannot be messed around anymore by anyone, meaning some Outfit members or associates were intimidated or even beaten senseless. In fact, these newly formed African-American criminal gangs were mostly led by former runners for the Outfit.


The same story went with the Latin gangs which started functioning independently in obtaining heroin, cocaine, and marihuana from their home land for distribution only to their own people in the U.S. Meaning they no longer acted only as transporters of the product but instead, now they were the ones who sold it, first hand, and they received the cash, with no street tax included. On top of that, while some Outfit members were buying and selling low quality Mexican heroin, other street gangs brought better product and started taking over the market. For example, during this period, one Latin gangster known as Albert “Hitler” Hernandez formed the so-called “Latin Disciples” from an older gang, which was known as the “Latin Scorpions” and they operated mainly around the Humboldt Park area. But the thing was that by now the Chicago Outfit was still considered to be an organization of enormous illegal proportions, which was dominant for the last 40 years and Giancana, believe it or not, was a criminal with a “vision”. There was no way for him to accept the idea to start buying large dope quantities from local gangs and the reason was simple since he always looked himself as international criminal, obviously because he belonged to an international crime syndicate which was Cosa Nostra. So in reality, Giancana and the Outfit were still one step ahead of the rest of the newly formed local dope gangs by having the already established criminal contacts in various countries around the world. So again, Giancana had a new idea for forming a new drug route which will further “pollute” the U.S. with high quality heroin.

According to some reports, during his stay in prison, Giancana allegedly opened up to one of his fellow inmates and said that there was no more “action” for him left in Chicago and when he gets out, he will take his money and flee the country. And that’s what really happened. In May, 1966, Giancana was released from jail and after that he allegedly had a short meeting with Paul Ricca, on which the two bosses agreed for him to spend some time alone, far away from Chicago. So Giancana managed to gather a team of attorneys, who in turn were employed to conduct a research and to determine which country was preferable for the crime boss where he could reside and not be susceptible to extradition and also not to be served by U.S. agents with a subpoena. Their eyes were obviously turned on Latin America, especially Mexico and Panama, since the Outfit already had established their strongest connections in those countries. So Giancana was advised to relocate to Panama, and to avoid Mexico, since the local authorities were easily corrupted, meaning they can quickly turn on him, and on top of that, the Mexican government was constantly pressured by the U.S. not to receive any of their hoodlums. But the problem was that Giancana had invested more trust in his Mob cohorts, rather than his highly paid attorneys, meaning he took the word of Richard Cain about Mexico being the “real thing”, and so almost a year later Giancana allegedly took three million dollars in cash, and then packed his bags and went straight down south, to Cuernavaca, Mexico, an area which was considered as the “Beverly Hills” and is 55 miles of Mexico City. He established himself in a $200,000 villa on one of the hills, and used the name “DePalma”, which was obviously taken from his newly acquired son-in-law Jerome DePalma. The main individual, who had everything previously arranged for the crime boss, was one of Giancana’s couriers and also made member of Cosa Nostra, known as Richard Cain a.k.a. Scalzetti, the guy who in fact brought him to Mexico. Proof for that is the villa which was placed under the name of “Scalzetti”, since by now Cain was still considered a legitimate individual because he had a job at the Sheriff’s Office as his main detective. Cain knew how to speak Spanish quite fluently and he already had a lot of experience with the Outfit since the late 1950’s or should I say, since the days of the so-called “Cuban conflict” when he used to work as one of their “agents” in controlling their interests. In fact, besides being a member of the Mob, Cain was also a member of one of Giancana’s personal units known as the “Combine”.


The whole point of this “unit” was spreading the Mob’s international operations, both legal and illegal, in various countries around the world and was formed by members from the Chicago Outfit such as Cain, Les Kruse, Hyman Larner, John Drew, Ernest Sansone and James Tortoriello and also the boss of Tampa and the Outfit’s long time ally, Santo Trafficante. According to the FBI, by now the “Combine” had its foothold in Costa Rica and Guatemala, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador , Mexico and across the Atlantic ocean, in England, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and even further in Lebanon, Syria and Beirut and in the end in China and Japan. They had contacts with people from every kind, meaning honest and dishonest. In other words, by now the U.S. Mob almost had the whole world in its grip and they smuggled everything, from all kinds of vending machines and slots, to prostitutes and weapons. They even opened up hotels and casinos which were also filled with their own products, so by the end of the day, every penny from these international operations went into the Mob’s pockets. This is another proof where you can see that the U.S. Cosa Nostra operated as one single “organism”, meaning there was no stronger or weaker faction, since every link in the chain, such as the Chicago Outfit, had a significant purpose of its own.


Now, if you look at some of the above mentioned countries such as China, you also might remember that same country was previously mentioned, in different time period, as the main production point for the world wide narcotics trade. So the idea for opening “new” drug routes came since the first step of U.S. marine troops in Vietnam back in 1965 and during the conflict, many American criminals found their way to the Far East and established many new contacts. So my point is that there was no real obstacle for Giancana in transporting heroin from the Far East, since he already had established his contacts and transportation methods. Thanks to Tampa crime boss Santo Trafficante, who sometimes went by himself on the Far East or sent some of his couriers, the U.S. Mob slowly began forming a new drug channel. At the same time, Giancana also had his men in the same territory such as John Drew, who was there mainly as Trafficante’s backing. So the new and main production point for the gang became one place known as Yunnan, which is a province in southwestern China with a varied landscape, perfect for growing opium poppies. The contact was made allegedly with the help of members from China’s long time organized crime syndicate known as the Triads, who by now were under the protection of Chiang Kai-shek, the Republic’s current military leader.


The plan was for local cultivators from the Yunnan area, with the help of their mules, to transport opium to the Shan frontier that is Burma. The caravans were formed by 80 or even 100 mules, which transported over 4 tons of opium respectively, or two sealed tins of 20 kilograms being carried by each mule. There, the product was welcomed by trucks and was transported to a trading company at Rangoon, Burma. So there was direct evidence about the opium smuggling out of Yunnan into Burma, and then into Thailand, where was converted into heroin. In fact this time, the main clandestine laboratories for conversion of opium to morphine base and then to heroin, mainly occurred around the Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore and Macao areas. According to some government reports, this product was labelled by the drug traffickers as “999”. From there, the product was smuggled into Japan, where obviously was welcomed by local gangsters, who in turn smuggled it into Canada and in the end, into the U.S. Story goes that during this period the Detroit point was avoided, since the New York docks were the main receiving point, which was still controlled by the Gambino and Genovese crime families, through one Tony Scotto. Plus, I don’t know if you noticed but this drug route did not include the Italian criminal organization from Europe, which began to worry some of the crime bosses on both sides of the ocean.


So even though I personally believe that this new smuggling route was sanctioned by the national Mafia commission and almost everyone got a piece of it, still this wasn’t Giancana’s main and only source for dope supply. As I previously stated that Giancana was a gangster with a vision and also possessed a huge ego, which always gave him the same idea of bringing something only for his organization and above all his own pockets, but the problem was that he did not invent anything new, but instead he used the production points which were more preferable destinations but were mainly “untouched” territories. I believe that Giancana’s idea for making a drug route, which was about to be only under the Outfit’s jurisdiction, was a desperate move in trying to maintain his leadership abilities among his fellow members.


The whole thing started when in September, 1968, Giancana’s main liaison Richard Cain was arrested on robbery charges and was sentenced to 4 years in prison and the worst thing for him was that he was also uncovered as member of Chicago’s crime syndicate. So Giancana quickly needed a replacement for the “empty spot” which in no time was filled in by Hyman Larner. This shadowy individual was allegedly involved in almost every “secret operation” which involved the Mob and the government and on top of that, he was heavily involved in highly lucrative smuggling operations. In other words, Larner was the perfect and maybe even better replacement for Cain as being Giancana’s main courier. So with Larner’s help, the Outfit managed to make close contacts with opium smugglers from the Philippines, since he previously smuggled tobacco and prostitutes from the same area. According to some reports, the connection was established with the help of several underworld Chinese syndicates from Macao and Hong Kong areas who operated independently from the Triads. In fact, these smaller Oriental syndicates were waiting for the right moment to establish their U.S. connections, such as Larner and the Chicago boys. Although, my personal belief is that Tampa crime boss Santo Trafficante might’ve been again the key individual who introduced the Outfit to this new connection.


Now, the plan was for smugglers from the Philippines to ship raw opium to a small island on the Pacific Ocean known as Guam, which in fact it’s an island on U.S. territory in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific. In no time, tons of opium arrived on the island which later was processed into heroin with the help of freshly opened laboratories which were financed directly by the Outfit. All kinds of narcotics flew through the island and tempting flow of dollars easily led to a massive corruption among Guam’s police and public officials and on top of that, a huge heroin epidemic among the local citizens, which was about to last for whole the next decade. The transportation process was carried out mainly by individuals who were paid by the Asian crime syndicates, until they brought it in Mexico, where it was usually welcomed by local gangs who were on Giancana’s payroll. His “voice” in the Mexico area was his main attorney know as Jorge Castillo who in turn also worked as Giancana’s front man and contact with local Mexican authorities and criminal gangs.


According to one Chicago Tribune news report, during this period a band of Chicago mobsters, with previous overseas interests in Australia, were reported zeroing in on this largest land mass between the Philippines and the U.S., while expecting riches the likes of which the Spaniard Magellan never dreamed. So my personal belief that the main Outfit guy who had gambling and real estate interests in Australia was none other than Hyman Larner. Even though he was considered an international gangster, still Larner’s main “headquarters” was Panama. He settled in a big house on a top of a hill outside of Panama City and operated the Juliano International, S.A., a corporation which was only engaged in importing vending and slot machines and also all kinds of gambling equipment from Chicago, of course all exported to Panama by Outfit owned firms. For example, Ross Scheer operated the Bally Manufacturing Firm in Chicago and in just few months the firm sold and shipped more than $500,000 worth of slot machines to Juliano Imports in Panama. So somewhere between all that gambling and vending equipments, loads of narcotics were hidden, which was the main goal of the operation. So Larner began investing in airplane companies so he wouldn’t leave any traces of his travels behind him. The thing was that at the time, Panama had nearly 100 remote World War II landing strips and somewhere around 20 to 30 Larner’s airplanes usually arrived once in few months in Mexico or the U.S. from South American countries via Panama’s Tocumen International Airport, where they had been easy cleared through without any inspection. Proof for that is when in 1969, one of those “cleared” planes was tracked by U.S. narcotics agents and when they searched the plane, inside they found all kinds of vending machines but the main thing was that they also found 10 kilos of heroin. The problem was that the agents suspected that both the equipment and the plane might’ve belonged to one of Larner’s firms but there was no way to prove it since none of the merchandise or transportation was labelled.


The main South American countries from where Larner’s organization smuggled its drugs, such as cocaine and marihuana, were Bolivia, Peru and Chile. The people in all three countries have long chewed the coca leaf or smoked the marihuana “roaches” for pleasure, and so it was quite easy for them to produce their products in large quantities and sell it for cash. Also the most lucrative thing was that during this period both products were becoming more popular than ever and the problem was that all three countries, meaning their governments, were not giving any significant cooperation to the U.S. in fighting the drug problem. So it didn’t matter from where the dope shipment came, but instead the main and most important thing was for it to arrive safely in Mexico. This “landing” point was obviously chosen mainly because of the constant raids on U.S. soil and because of that, now the main smuggling route extended along the Arizona-Mexico border and was mainly controlled by members of Cosa Nostra in alliance with some of the Mexican criminal factions. Even though there were thousands of unaffiliated smugglers in the trade, still according to the feds, there were actually 23 major smuggling rings which operated through the corridor and five of those were wholly or partially controlled by Cosa Nostra crime families from New York City, such as the Gambinos and Bonannos, and also Tampa, Detroit and Chicago. In addition, these Mob-connected dope rings mainly smuggled Oriental heroin which was previously smuggled from the Philippines and allegedly possessed higher quality rather than the Mexican product. The problem was that the Mexican kind of heroin was not as pure or desirable as the one from Asia's Golden Triangle.


According to the feds, the main New York guys who frequented the 360- mile Arizona-Mexico border and were suspected of being involved in the dope business were Antonio Gambino, younger brother of Mafia boss Carlo Gambino, and Joe Bonanno, former crime boss who was later exiled by his own organization to the Arizona area, along with an “army” of other exiled members and old associates such as Peter Notaro and Peter Maggadino. For example, Antonio Gambino was known for constantly frequenting the Arizona-Mexico border along with a suitcase, which almost never contained less then $50,000. Gambino usually used one of the hundreds of flying pilots in Arizona, who made their living by transporting drugs across the border, and as a precaution, Gambino always identified himself as “Pete Patterson”. In addition, Gambino was very closely connected to one Chicago mobster known as Lou Rosanova. The Detroit faction was “represented” by another old time crime boss known as Pete Licavoli Sr., who by now resided in Tucson, Arizona, and was closely affiliated with the Outfit. Sources say that Licavoli was behind the movement of large quantities of cocaine and heroin to Anchorage, Alaska, and other parts of the country. And as for the Chicago boys, their “overseer” of the dope shipment in the same area was Tony “The Ant” Spilotro. Before becoming the Outfit’s main enforcer in Las Vegas, and since Chicago became “too hot” for him, Spilotro’s first job as national mobster was being one of the main overseers of the narcotics shipment which went through the Arizona area and then straight to Chicago. According to the FBI, the full extent of the operation was not known, but some government investigators had documents that the gang supplied a major portion of hard drugs for the Chicago market and possibly for some of the smaller Midwest cities. In fact, Spilotro’s job was the same as the one on which the Indiana faction was previously obliged, but this time the dope did not come from Italy, instead it came from Mexico. Spilotro’s partner in Arizona was another member of the Outfit known as Paul Schiro and before shipping the dope back home, they kept few kilos for the local market and because of that, together they controlled a huge lucrative band of dope peddlers. Some reports say that the ring was responsible for bringing in $8 million worth of Mexican brown heroin into the United States each year.


Now, the main dope smuggling contact between Mexico and Arizona was one Chinese born criminal known as Hector Mar Wong. In fact, Wong was the main guy for the Macao and Hong Kong crime syndicates around the Mexico and Arizona areas, and at the same time, he was the main contact between the Asian, American and Mexican gangs. Wong also had a son who owned a small Chinese restaurant in one overcrowded Mexican border town known as Nogales, and from there he oversaw his father’s drug shipments. Since the Oriental product went through Mexican territory, the local big time crime bosses also had their fingers in the pot. At the time, Mexico’s top crime lords and dope pushers were the Savela brothers, Jorge and Victor, who came from the Culiacan area and were closely connected to American crime bosses such as Bonanno and Giancana. To tell you the truth, I found the idea of both Bonanno and Giancana having the same “supplier” and protector at the same time quite interesting, since in the old days, or during the infamous “Banana Wars”, the Chicago crime boss many times called for Bonanno’s life. In fact, the Savela brothers were the ones who gave a pass on what went over the border and was about to stay for ever, meaning if you paid them, it was all good. They controlled all of the large dope peddling routes which came from the Mexico area and they also controlled all the runners who smuggled the dope over the border in Arizona. In addition, the Savela brothers, especially Jorge, were the main protection for Giancana’s stay in Mexico.


Once the shipment has reached Arizona’s territory, the whole operation was overtaken by one of Spilotro’s main dope runners known as Frank Pedote, who in turn oversaw his own Phoenix-based dope peddling crew, including Frank Moreno and Arden Smith, two heavy dope dealers who fled to Mexico to escape a jail terms, and also Brian Ho, a weapons expert who worked in a Phoenix service station. Pedote also oversaw the transportation to Chicago, from where the product was distributed to local dealers by one of Pedote’s associates known as Mike DeMaro, the guy who previously and as a matter of fact, still worked for Frank Caruso and the imprisoned Americo DePietto. With this, you can see that the dope shipment, which was brought by the Outfit, still was distributed mainly on the West and South Side. By now the whole South Side and south suburbs were still under the jurisdiction of Frank LaPorte and Frank Caruso, who in turn still had obligations of making sure that the shipment was distributed to the last small package. Since the African-American and Latin elements were no longer under the Outfit’s control, my personal belief is that the guy who personally took care of that problem was James Catuara, member of the Chicago Heights crew and close associate of both First Ward and Chinatown factions. Catuara was connected to a nationwide auto-theft ring and chop shop network, which in turn was his “recruitment camp” for runners in the dope peddling operations. It was a huge army formed by car thieves, killers, street-tax collectors and chop shop owners, and the thing was that some of these guy peddled dope on the side. According to some reports, some of the local chop shops around the Chicago area were in fact the main “receiving points” for the dope shipments, which were connected to other chop shops in different areas such as Indiana, Milwaukee, Kansas City, St. Louis and Iowa. The dope was simply stashed in the stolen cars or stolen auto parts and after that it was easily transported to wherever the destination point was located.



James Catuara


Besides Giancana, Larner and Spilotro, other Outfit members who circled around the Mexico area and at the same time were involved in illegal operations were the Circella brothers, Nick and August. In fact, August only acted as a bagman between Chicago and Mexico City, and as for his brother Nick, he was previously exiled from the U.S. and deported to Argentina, which was his original birthplace, and later established himself in Mexico. Nick Circella was an old time member of the Outfit who back in the days was imprisoned together with the top criminal echelon such as Paul Ricca and Louis Campagna, but by now he still had few interests on Chicago’s North Side through his brother and also controlled few illegal and legitimate operations around the Mexican territory. In reality, Circella was another desperate gangster who desperately wanted to return to the states and so he was always opened for “new adventures” such as the current one, meaning transporting narcotics. The useful thing was that Circella controlled a large shrimp boat business along the Pacific Coast and his boats were often overloaded and barely seaworthy, slipping through the darkness and hidden from the watchful radar of the American patrols. Sometimes, the boats didn’t even have to hide in the night since Circella was already legally exporting shrimps into the U.S., and so the product was easily being moved by sea off the San Diego coast, and later was welcomed by factions of the California crime families, who in turn transported the product mainly on Chicago’s North Side and around the Midwest.



Nick Circella


Even though the Outfit was slowly becoming independent in the dope business, still the New York Mob never really stopped pumping the “Windy City” with heroin. Since by now the old “French Connection” was quite on the downfall because many heroin laboratories in Corsica or Sicily were getting closed down and on top of that, rumours started spreading around that Turkey was about to declare a ban on growing opium poppies. Under huge international pressure, Turkey reduced the number of provinces where poppies could be grown, before introducing a total ban. So maybe this might’ve been one of the first and quite short time periods where the Chicago Outfit and the Tampa crime family were one step ahead of the New York Mafia regarding the dope business, thanks to their contacts in Central and South America and also on the Far East. But during 1970, Europe was facing drug problems on new territories such as Spain.


During that time period, the youth movement, which advocated drug abuse as part of the search for socio-cultural alternatives, spread over much of Europe, introducing new cultural beliefs, life-style behaviours, and contemporary art and music currents, while the phenomenon itself only began to take place in Spain. Then, for each drug, the evolutionary process of its use differed depending largely on the role a given drug played in the youth culture and on its availability. Other factors, such as a high proportion of unemployed youth and increased amounts of leisure time, also played a role in the occurrence of drug use. As a consequence of the slow dismantling of the so-called "French connection" and the destruction of illicit heroin laboratories in France and Italy, many American, Corsican and Italian crime syndicates again joined forces and decided to exploit this new territory by opening laboratories around Spain. In addition, that same year, U.S. President Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals from Vietnam, thus slowly destroying the Philippine connection and smuggling route, which became the main reason for the search of new suppliers and drug routes around southwestern Europe.


Again, the main criminal faces in this operation were Santo Trafficante, who looked for smuggling connections around the new territory, possibly some members of the Gambino and Bonanno crime families who in turn also represented the Italian element, and also Sam Giancana together with one of his associates and current “Godfather” of the largest Corsican criminal clan, known as Marcel Francisci. Both Giancana and Francisci had gambling interests in newly opened casinos and hotels in England, Germany and even Lebanon and since previously the Turkish smugglers almost cut off the Lebanese production of opium, this became quite lucrative situation for both sides. So again, morphine base was smuggled through Italy or France and then was illegally imported into Spain from where it was produced into heroin. Trafficante’s main guy who oversaw the operation was one gangster from the Madrid area known as Vincente Armada, a local crime boss and long time trafficker of heroin. His operation stretched mainly around the tourist Costa del Sol area, in Southern Spain and his main activity was consisted of laundering the money generated in businesses such as drug trafficking, arm trafficking, extortion and kidnapping. The international smuggling groups, which by now were under Armada’s rule, were the oldest criminal groups in Spain. They were principally Arabs, who had a long history in the Costa del Sol region, from which they managed their business throughout the world. So the U.S. Mob easily found a new secure territory for dope trafficking, like also using the Galicia area which was in Northwest Spain and was used as another bridge point between America and Europe. Besides these gangster's well-known relations with Galician smugglers, they have also established contacts in other coastal regions around Spain. So from there, the shipment was transported across the Atlantic Ocean, again, straight to New York or Florida.


By now, many of the old dope peddlers back home in Chicago, such as Carl Fiorito, Frank Carioscia, Fred Coduto, and Louis Guido somehow won their appeals and they were released from prison and in no time, all of them were back in business. Most of these guys were previously connected, or in other words, supplied with narcotics from various factions of the New York Mafia and they continued the “tradition”, which was obviously a good thing for the business relationship between the Chicago Outfit and their cohorts on the east coast. By now, the so-called “chain of action” started with one dope peddler known as Tony Legato, who in turn was a close associate of the Ernest Infelice, the dope peddler who previously worked with Outfit member Turk Torello and also the imprisoned dope ring leader Americo DePietto. In fact, during this period Infelice’s and Fiorito’s guys were the ones who allegedly oversaw the dope business in the Chicago area, since by now they were still considered high level associates, allegedly because they were directly involved with the product, which obviously blocked them from becoming full fledged members. So Legato’s job was quite simple, meaning he or one of his close associates Abe Migdall, had to hop on a commercial plane to New York or Florida once a month, and bring back between 5 or 10 kilos of pure heroin. In addition, during the same time period, one of Giancana’s crew members from the “Combine”, known as James Tortoriello was allegedly “exiled” from the Chicago area by his former cohorts and fled down to Florida, from where, according to the feds, he continued to deal with narcotics. But other reports say that Tortoriello in reality became the main South Florida overseer of the dope transportation for the Chicago faction.

There was also another so-called “direct line” to Chicago, but this time it came straight from London, England, and was overseen by the European faction. Their main smugglers were two elderly women from Barcelona, Spain, identified as the Munoz sisters, Catalina and Rafaela, and one Corsican Mob associate known as Antonio De La Cruz. In fact, the Munoz sisters worked for the Armada clan and as for De La Cruz, he obviously worked for Giancana’s new business partner Francisci. Their route usually started from Barcelona to London and from there with a direct flight to O’Hare International Airport. These so-called European smugglers were known for transporting over 20 pounds of heroin, which was destined for the Chicago market, during one trip. This is also a proof that the market or the number of addicts was getting larger, which explains the larger amount of shipment during this period, rather than the previous years. But the problem was that the European smuggling squad did not last long, since one day they were “welcomed” by the federal agents after their arrival on Chicago’s airport and during the search, the feds managed to find 22 pounds of pure Spanish heroin, which was estimated around 10 million dollars. According to the report, they carried the 22 pounds in packets strapped to their waists beneath their underclothing. The most important thing for the Chicago Outfit was that the feds had no chance in determining if the smugglers had any syndicate connections and thanks to their loyalty, the receiving destination in Chicago was never learned. This shows that during this period the New York or Florida points were not the only solution to the smuggling problem but instead this time, they used almost every city which they felt was secure enough as a receiving point.


So no matter who transported the stuff, after the arrival, the most important thing was for the dope to be easily spread around the North, West and South suburbs with the help of Infelice, Coduto and Fiorito, who in turn divided the crew in two groups. The first dope ring was controlled by Infelice and included runners such as Mario and Chester Garelli, Frank Sarris, Ernest Brown, James McGarry and Robert Burks, and they mainly operated around the western suburbs and also around Chinatown and the South Side. The second dope ring was under Fiorito and Coduto and was formed by his wife Lucille Coduto and his nephew Joseph Coduto Jr., Louis Guido, Chris Cardi, Albert Sarno, Mike and Frank Carioscia and Frank Micelli. Since DePietto was still behind bars, his “replacement” slowly became Infelice, who in turn inherited all of the New York connections, including the Gambinos. So just like the old days, the boys were back in business and again started making millions of dollars out of the new European deal. In addition, this dope peddling group was another proof for the Outfit’s connection in this whole thing, by just looking at some of the members’ profiles. For example, Chris Cardi was an ex-policeman and together with his constant companion Al Sarno worked as musclemen and loan sharks for one recently deceased Outfit member known as Joe Gagliano who belonged to the Elmwood Park faction, which was believed to be still under the “watchful eye” of Tony Accardo.


So when ridiculous amounts of cash began to arrive in Giancana’s pockets, the Mob boss quickly began to feel just like in the good old days. Besides his huge residence in Cuernevaca, Mexico, he also bought two more lavish apartments in Mexico City and also lased few more on a long time periods at the most famous hotels in that same area, such as the Acapulco Towers. He even reportedly bought another huge and expensive residence in one quite exclusive area known as Colonia Las Delicas, which was located near Cuernevaca. He also bought or leased residences all around Southwest Europe, including Nice, Cote D’Azur, France and also in Majorca on the island of Palma, and on top of that, he constantly travelled all around the world together with one of his long time criminal associates Louis Lederer. Even though he reportedly said that he would never return to the U.S., according to some reports, during this period Giancana was seen a couple of times in Chicago, Los Angeles, Huston, Arizona and New York City. This indicates that Giancana still held a lot of influence, obviously because of his huge wealth, which I personally believe it was not accumulated only from his international gambling operations but instead it was the dope business which formed a huge part of that same wealth. In other words, Giancana lived like a true drug lord and also lived the life of his dreams, and the proof for his power were the constant visits from all kinds of people, including relatives, lawyers, businessmen, actors and mobsters, who often came for an advice or some business propositions. Besides his old pals from his own criminal organization, Giancana was also very often visited by members from other American crime families, such as Detriot, Philadelphia and New York. According to one Mob informant, in 1971, Giancana allegedly arranged for a meeting between him, also the infamous Jewish mobster from the New York area, Meyer Lansky, and Tony Caponigro, high level member of the Philly crime family and also close associate of the Genovese group. Regarding the topics of this alleged meeting, the informant stated that something “big” was going on but did not furnish any particular information on what was the subject. So I can only guess on what was the deal on that meeting, but I can only add that all three individuals, during different time periods, were suspects of being highly involved in the narcotics trade.



Sam Giancana with the love of his life Phyllis McGuire


But like any other highly lucrative dope peddling “game”, somewhere down the line, somebody always manages to screw things up for everybody around, obviously because of greed. Even though during this period Carl Fiorito was looked upon as a “veteran” gangster, who “made his bones” and once shared the same space with the Outfit’s top echelon, still according to some reports, allegedly he was considered by some of his associates such as Coduto, as very illiterate and “slow” individual, which became the main reason for many back-stabbings. For example, now I’m going to show you one recorded conversation between Fiorito and Cudo, where the latter tries to convince his “boss” that there was allegedly too much “heat” and things were going pretty slow…

CODUTO: Hello.

FIORITO: What do you say, Diavolo?

CODUTO: What's happening?

CARL FIORITO: Not much.

CODUTO: Yah.

FIORITO: Did you do any good, like the last time?

CODUTO: No, i, Madonna-- I saw you Saturday.

FIORITO: Yah, I know.

CODUTO: You know, over there.

FIORITO: Yah.

CODUTO: And, uh, well that guy did he tell you.

FIORITO: No, he told me there's a lot of trouble.

CODUTO: Well, ah, their just looking for me, ah, I had to go into court a couple of weeks ago.

FIORITO: Yah you?

CODUTO: Yah.

FIORITO: For what?

CODUTO: Ah. They nailed me-- they wanted to nail me for that fine again. And I had to hire a lawyer to go in, and . . . we got it all straightened out. We got the time straightened out, everything.

FIORITO: Hmm, huh.

CODUTO: They wanted to add four hundred and, ah seventeen more days. They wanted to hire, ah, they wanted to nail me for the fine.

FIORITO: I didn't know that. I know that's the first time I heard that?

CODUTO: Yah.

FIORITO: How about that other thing. The one, you know that, the last time I saw you.

CODUTO: Nothing, I, I, doing, I know nothing. Carl, they're like bees. (According to the government, this may refer to narcotics agents.)

FIORITO: Huh?

CODUTO: They're like a bunch of bees.

FIORITO: Yah?

CODUTO: Yah.

FIORITO: You can avoid that.

CODUTO: Might as well just cool it and leave it. You know. About that, but that other guy ain't got nothing anyway. Nobody's got nothing.

FIORITO: No just, huh?

CODUTO: No, if, ah, anything happens I'll get in touch with ya.

FIORITO: Alright.

CODUTO: It should be about a week or ten days. I don't know.

FIORITO: Okay, take it easy.

CODUTO: Okay.

FIORITO: Alright, I'll see you then, Hey.'


As I previously stated that Coduto has told Fiorito that because of the constant federal raids, the operation was on the downfall and that he was nabbed for something and he might “cool out” for a bit. But in reality, Coduto was stealing Fiorito’s customers behind his back by convincing them that his product was the best. Here’s one conversation between Coduto and one of Fiorito’s runners known as Paul Moore…

CODUTO: How do you like my stuff? I said, '

MOORE: It's good. No doubt about it. It is the best we've ever bought.

CODUTO: You are making more off of mine than Fiorito's aren't you?

MOORE: I never said I was dealing with him.

CODUTO: Yeah, Carl on the North Side.

MOORE: Well, it is true that we are making more off of your stuff than anybody else's.

CODUTO: Well, it is not all Fiorito's fault. He cuts the stuff with sugar and screws it up a lot of times, but we actually got the same source, the same guy.

MOORE: And sometimes if our guy doesn't have stuff I will duke (supply) him myself.

CODUTO: Sometimes the source will screw Fiorito because he is not too sharp. He doesn't know what he is getting. But when we go into buy our stuff we go in with $150,000 to $200,000 at a crack. So, our guy wouldn't screw us. Besides, we would go over and pick him up and bring him over here and chop his head off if he did that to us. He can't do that to us.


So by judging this previous conversation, besides taking over his operations, Coduto also badmouthed Fiorito in front of his underling. But the thing was that Moore was loyal to Fiorito and later during another conversation he told Coduto…

MOORE: It is not a very good idea with all this heat for you to be duking Carl on the North Side.

CODUTO: Who? Me?

MOORE: Yeah. Last week you said you were duking him.

CODUTO: Only small stuff.


But there was one huge problem, and that was neither Fiorito nor Coduto could’ve possibly predicted the upcoming trouble. The main problem was Coduto’s greed, meaning he gave too much information to one simple associate who in turn was about to become a government informant. So one thing led to another and by the beginning of 1971, Moore got pinched by the feds and he started “singing” big time, and because of Coduto’s “big mouth”, the informant had more than few “aces up in his sleeve” for the government. On February 22 and 23, 1971, the top ring leaders such as Fred Coduto, Frank Carioscia and Louis Guido were arrested by federal agents and charged with violations of the federal narcotics laws. One week later, Fiorito was also arrested by the feds, mostly because of the constant mentioning of his name during the conversations between Coduto and the informant and also his own recorded conversations.


They were all indicted by a federal grand jury and held in custody until they were able, in mid-March, to post bond. Later that month, separate warrant applications were made to the Parole Board requesting the arrest of the defendants on the ground that they had violated the terms of their mandatory releases in that they had violated the federal narcotics laws and associated with persons having criminal records. In plane words, some of the guys made the same old mistake by dealing heroin while being free on bond, which again shows that these fellas were straight dope dealers. I mean all of them worked under the auspices of the Outfit as burglars, loan sharks, gamblers, or even murderers but by the end of the day, they were “addicted” to selling dope. I’ll say it again that Accardo might’ve been right in staying out of the dope business because this was another example where you can see that most of these dope peddlers were not thinking straight. For example, Fred Coduto’s brother was previously killed over the dope business and now he was about to implicate even his nephew or in other words, his late brother’s kid Joseph Jr. My personal opinion is that the most dangerous thing that they did was jeopardizing their own lives, since they were highly connected to members of the Chicago’s main crime syndicate which was still the Outfit. In the end, since he was considered the leader of the operation, Fiorito received 12 years in prison, and as for Coduto and the rest of the gang, they all received 10 years sentences. On April 20, 21, and 23, 1971, the court held mandatory release revocation hearings in Chicago for the petitioners Coduto, Guido, and Carioscia, respectively, but on May 3, 1971, the board of parole revoked the mandatory releases of all three petitioners.


Thanks to Paul Moore, the government again managed to create a so-called “domino effect” by slowly dismantling the whole dope peddling ring. In other words, Moore gave up every possible individual which he had contact with regarding the dope racket and the feds simply used their undercover agents. The problem was that Moore knew too much about the operation of the dope ring, including their main courier Tony Legato, who in turn quickly became the government’s next main target. On August 11, 1971 the FBI in Miami, Florida received a tip from their cohorts at the Chicago offices that two fellas with an orange shopping bag would attempt to board an airplane leaving for Chicago that afternoon at 4:00 p. m. from either the Miami or Fort Lauderdale airport. The information was quickly relayed to officials of Delta Airlines who in turn alerted all ticket agents and other personnel. At approximately 3:30 p. m., Legato together with his associate Abe Migdall appeared at the Delta Airlines ticket counter in the Fort Lauderdale airport where they validated return tickets to Chicago under different names. The problem for the feds was that neither of the suspects had an orange shopping bag and so the whole operation went on hold. After few minutes, the two suspects went to the man’s room and came out walking past the agents, while carrying a bright orange shopping bag in which a gift wrapped package was visible and that’s when they got arrested and were taken into custody. After entering not guilty pleas, the two defendants were tried by a jury and found guilty as charged and so both received concurrent 10 year sentences under each count and, in addition, were fined $10,000.


In fact, during this period Paul Moore might’ve been one of the most important informers regarding the dope racket in the Chicago area. In other words, he single handedly brought down the old dope peddling ring by slowly bringing the feds up the ladder. As I previously said that even though some of these dope peddlers such as Chris Cardi and Ernest Infelice were not considered as legit members of the Chicago Outfit but still, they were in everyday contact with “made” members of Cosa Nostra. My point is that they were the last line of defence for the actual members of the organization, who in turn with the help of their code of silence, they managed to successfully distance themselves from the product and whole operation. For example, in September, 1971, Cardi and one of his associates Virgil Cimmino were arrested for selling a pound of heroin in three transactions to an undercover agent but previously the agents had a quite rough time in catching these two felons. The problem was that Cimmino had been slow to deal with, meaning the undercover agents were "burned" a couple of times by selling them flour or sugar rather than heroin. So the undercover agents were forced to complain directly to Cardi, who in turn assured them that they would get their stuff and so the heroin was delivered shortly thereafter. The next month both dope peddlers, meaning Cardi and Cimmino, together with their close associate Albert Sarno, were taken to trial and sentenced to 10 years in prison, each.



Albert Sarno and Chris Cardi


As you can see, it did not matter on who took over the dope business on the Outfit’s behalf, by the end of the day everyone got arrested. Even though they were considered an international criminal organization, still the Outfit’s special system for dealing narcotics began to destabilize, which was the main reason for the many arrests. The “middle men” began to suspect their runners for being informants, or the other way around, and to tell you the truth I don’t blame them at all. Also, many of their dope connections on the east coast or even around Europe were being hunted down by the police and so for the gangsters to purchase a kilo of heroin, was getting tougher and tougher. So since the whole situation became too “hot”, many of the high level Outfit associates began to acquire the product by themselves or some even began to sell it directly on the streets. In fact, it was a desperate move to maintain the old dope peddling ring, which by now it still lasted for more than two decades. For example, in 1972, Ernest Infelice and the Garelli brothers at the same time went to New York and Florida to “cop”, or in other words, to purchase narcotics but failed on a couple of occasions. There are many reports during this period where various undercover agents were continuously being swindled by the dope peddlers by constantly receiving flour, sugar, or even brick and ground glass, which clearly indicates that the gangsters were having trouble in receiving their dope shipments. Even if they really received a package of heroin, it was probably mixed and the quality of the product was on its lowest level.


For example, one of Infelice’s runners Robert Burks was previously arrested by the feds for selling dope to an undercover agent and in no time, he began informing on his own crew. In January, 1972, Burks arranged a deal with the Garelli brothers to purchase a half a pound of heroin, which was financed by the feds, but all he got was bag filled with ground glass. So Burks immediately complained to Infelice that the Garellis had given him glass but Infelice played dumb by saying that he couldn't understand it and that he knew the brothers wouldn't give "bad stuff." But by April, Infelice somehow managed to receive heroin from some of his sources and so he unknowingly made a huge mistake by informing Burks about the shipment. The next transaction, which occurred the next month, was also a disaster since Burks received two packages of heroin alright but the problem was that the dope was mixed almost down to nothing. So Burks again complained to Infelice, who in turn again tried to play dumb by saying “You know that we wouldn't do you like that, that we wouldn't give you no bad stuff”. So the feds clearly had a problem in catching these fellas while dealing the good stuff, so they’ve decided to “pull the plug” of the operation, by arresting all suspects, including Infelice, the Garelli brothers, and few of their main runners such as Frank Sarris, Ernest Brown and James McGarry. The government already had enough evidences, meaning they had Burks as their “star witness” and on top of that they had recorded conversations since Burks also wore a wire during the meetings. During the trial, the defence had a good argument mainly because Burks’ testimony was uncorroborated and on certain occasions when he was equipped with a "Kel-set" the machine malfunctioned, and so the court found the tapes to be very poor in quality, with long periods of hissing and silence. But in the end, the Judge took the justice in his own hands and said “I believe him”, regarding Burks testimony and was persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the defendants. In other words, the trial judge was determined that Burks' testimony was credible in spite of his difficulties in recollection upon cross-examination and so every defendant was sentenced to jail including Infelice who in turn received 10 years imprisonment, and also the rest of the crew who’s sentences ranged between 5 and 10 years.


The undercover tactics of the feds even transferred right inside the federal prisons, where many dope peddlers served their sentences but in a true “Mafia-style”, they still somehow oversaw their main racket. For example, imprisoned dope ring leader and murderer Louis Gudio still oversaw his dope business with the help of his new wife Mary Guido, since his previous one testified for the government against him and his crew. So this time, Louis Guido managed to “hit the jackpot” by picking the “right” woman in his life, meaning the one who was about to resume his heroin business, while he wasted his own life in prison. Another individual that helped in continuing Guido’s operation was his brother-in-law John Skeva, who in turn was connected to another street dealer and old associate of the Guido gang, known as Joe Russo. This guy also came from a long line of blood-related dope peddlers, with his own network for distribution of the product. Russo’s connections were one state employee was identified as Frank G. Duran, who in turn was a veteran inspector of licenses issued to physicians and other professionals for the Illinois Department of Registration and Education, George Halpin, deputy regional director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and also Charles Petracek, who worked in a Cicero club as a bartender and was the crew’s main “runner”. As you can see, the crew was quite organized and according to some reports, they managed to distribute between 30 and 40 kilos of heroin a month. Even though they operated quite carefully and “under the radar”, still the crew’s main problem was at the start of this “new venture’, which was Louis Guido. Somewhere down the road, the feds realized that the “head” of this whole operation was in fact the imprisoned Guido. So they quickly devised a plan by infiltrating one of their own undercover agents as a prison inmate, so he can get closer to their target. While in prison, Louis Guido unknowingly approached the DEA agent and proposed the purchase of white heroin from his wife Mary and his brother-in-law John Skeva. In a matter of days, the whole crew was arrested and later convicted for conspiracy, transportation and selling of narcotics.


So usually when there are too many problems or complications within one highly organized criminal organization, the situation might get quite dangerous since their main goal, which is money, is about to be stopped. That same year, or 1972, was quite interesting for the Chicago Outfit, in every possible meaning, since a lot of situations occurred, which almost completely destabilized the whole Italian dope peddling ring. The two main problems were the near end of the Vietnamese War, which clearly disrupted the Far East drug route, and also that same year, under diplomatic pressure from the United States, Turkey completely banned opium production and so the infamous “French Connection” finally collapsed. The next thing which occurred was the death of the so-called “peacemaker” and top boss of the syndicate Paul Ricca, who in turn was quickly followed by the main overseer of the dope racket on the south suburbs Frank LaPorte. On top of that almost every high level member of the Melrose Park or Taylor Street areas was in jail or dead. For example, Phil Alderisio was dead, Sam Battaglia was literally rotting in jail, and as for Fiore Buccieri, he was gravely ill from cancer. So it was obvious on who was going to inherit the “throne” which was Tony Accardo and his remaining cohorts from the First Ward faction, such as Gus Alex and Pat Marcy, who in turn quickly reinstalled his own associates in the empty positions such as Joseph Aiuppa, Al Pilotto and Jack Cerone. In other words, Accardo was quickly taking control over the whole organization and there was no space for any “old problems” such as Richard Cain and other similar faces.


Back in 1971, Cain was released from prison and story goes that he was not welcomed back with opened arms by some of his peers. Story goes that Cain was placed under Marcy and Alex, the two crime bosses who previously had some use from him before he screwed up his job at the Sheriff’s Office. So Cain decided to join his old boss Sam Giancana down to Mexico in 1972, who in turn quickly gave his old associate an overseas job as his main representative in Madrid, Spain, and also gave him the financials to open up a front, something like a casino, for their dope peddling and prostitution rackets. But the problem was that both Giancana and Cain did not realize that things were changed back home, meaning from this point on more and more members from the Chicago syndicate were forbidden to deal with narcotics. In other words, Giancana was slowly getting blocked from selling his product with the help of his organization. Proof for that were the recent murders of Outfit-related dope peddlers such as Robert Pronger, a known chop shop operator, and also Guido Fidanzi, another Outfit enforcer, loan shark and alleged dope peddler, who planned to get involved in the narcotics business, on the orders of Richard Cain, with the help of the car theft out-of-state transportation business. If the story is true, than this was a pure “slap in the face” to Giancana and Cain, sincerely from their cohorts back home. So the next year became quite “colourful” for the Outfit’s “hit list”, many members who were allegedly involved in narcotics or were doing any kind of problems for that matter, were getting “clipped” one by one.

By October, 1973, Cain was back home in Chicago and quickly became involved, again, in the burglary business with the help of one small burglary crew. Story goes that the feds quickly received a lead on Cain and decided to pay him a visit. During their meeting, Cain allegedly informed on the burglary gang and many of his associates were arrested. So from that point on Cain was suspected by his peers for being an informant but since he was considered a “made” member of Cosa Nostra and gave up only minor criminals, he was spared but was forbidden to get involved in any further illegal activities. But like any other stubborn criminal, Cain refused and presented his new ideas which in turn got himself killed on December 30, 1973, allegedly on the orders of Gus Alex, who by now was one of the leading top crime bosses for the Chicago faction and strongly opposed dope peddling. With the murder of Richard Cain, the Outfit’s international dope peddling operations began to loose its presence, meaning one of Giancana’s main couriers was dead and the other, which was Hyman Larner, allegedly turned his back and joined the new administration. Story goes that by 1974, Larner was ordered to slowly cut-off Giancana from every international contact and to continue the operation under the new “rule list”. Also, my personal belief is that the New York Mafia was also glad for witnessing the demise of Giancana’s international dope peddling operations, mainly because previously it brought them a lot of low profits, since they weren’t the only distributors for the Midwest. So since his money flow was ended, Giancana managed to spent his cash in less than a year, thus loosing his protection and under the pressure from the U.S., the old crime boss was quickly deported back home. To tell you the truth I feel sorry a little bit for Giancana since he found himself alone between America’s three most powerful organizations at the time, which was the federal government, the secret agency and the Mafia. So in 1975, the several bullet wounds under Giancana’s chin and the one in his mouth, marked the end of the old dope peddling ring and also marked the start of a new “venture” for America’s Cosa Nostra, which in turn was about to compare the new rising dope peddling syndicates on the same turf.


From this point, drug trafficking from Mexico expanded and the cultivation of opium poppy fields increased and the so-called “Mexican mud” or “Mexican brown” was suddenly in great demand. From 1975, criminal groups from Mexico dominated the heroin trade and supplied an ever-increasing demand for marijuana, thus controlling three fourths of the U.S. narcotics market. Also, even though the war on the Far East was over, still Chinese heroin or “China White”, as it was called, found its way on America’s soil. At this point, most of the Asian narcotics found its way to the U.S. through Belgium or the Netherlands, which made the city of Amsterdam the main shipping point for Asian heroin. But the problem was that the narcotics from Mexico and China, which arrived annually, a little of it found its way into the hands of America’s Cosa Nostra members, since most of it ended up in the storages of the newly formed African-American and Latin criminal organizations. But during the same period, the Sicilian Mafia in Italy “suffered” some changes on their “commission table” and from now on, the main players were the Corleonesi clan and Gaetano Badalamenti, representative for the Cinisi “mandamento”. The thing was that Badalamenti was one of the main cigarette traffickers for the Sicilian faction with close connections both in South and North America and he managed to use those same routes for smuggling Afghanistan-based heroin or South American cocaine. Also, a number of members of the Sicilian Mafia immigrated to the United States and established themselves in restaurants and pizza parlors under the auspices of the American Cosa Nostra, especially the Bonanno crime family. In fact, some of these guys were absorbed into the American Mob which allegedly brought great dissatisfaction between some of the already Americanized gangsters. In addition, the use of these pizza parlors for smuggling drugs was nothing new since previously we saw that the Indiana and Chicago Heights factions already used the same methods, 20 years earlier.


To tell you the truth, I really don’t have a clue if the Chicago Outfit ever fully supported the so-called “Pizza Connection”, but all I know is that Badalamenti placed few of his nephews around the state of Illinois, in small places such as Oregon, Paris and Olney and from there, they oversaw a huge dope peddling ring which was destined for the Midwest and the main crime family which supported the “movement” was the Detroit faction and possibly the Rockford crime family, through one Mafia big shot known as Frank Buscemi, who in turn was close ally of the Outfit. According to one Chicago Mafia attorney who later turned informer for the government Robert Cooley, during this period the Outfit also managed to place some of their members in places such as Rockford so they can easily direct their dope deals. So maybe these two Midwest factions of U.S. Cosa Nostra somehow managed to convince the Outfit’s top administration for a pass to deal dope on their turf. As you can see, none of the so-called dope peddling pizza parlors was placed directly in the Chicago area and as a matter of fact, the only place which they visited near the “Windy City” was O’Hare Airport. So my point is that this confirms my previous statement regarding the Outfit’s ban on narcotics, which was pushed forward by Accardo and his protégé Gus Alex. And my personal belief is that this new Sicilian faction had the approval from the Outfit’s top administration to deal their narcotics on Chicago’s territory, as long as they stayed away from their sight and it didn’t involve any of their members or associates. But still according to some reports, like any other greedy criminal machine, the Outfit always had its own “outlaws”.


After Giancana’s death, the so-called ruling panel was dismantled and the Outfit again received its official boss and under boss. The top administration was taken over by Joseph Aiuppa and Jack Cerone, who in turn were allegedly still under the auspices of Tony Accardo. And again, the “cursed” dope peddling racket managed to divide the Chicago crime syndicate in two factions, including one with Accardo, Cerone and Alex on one side and on the other, Chuck Nicoletti, Frank Caruso, James Catuara and possibly Dominick DiBellla, the current crime boss of the North Side. So this time, the guy in the middle was Aiuppa, who in turn had the final word on everything. But according to the feds, Aiuppa had close connections to Hyman Larner who in turn inherited every possible international operation, which the late Sam Giancana previously started. So story goes that Aiuppa stayed “open minded” in regarding the dope racket, and I believe that the main reason for that was obviously the drastic diminished income from bookmaking and loan sharking in the Chicago area.


Since during this period Aiuppa suffered from some health problems and while everyone waited for him to finally make up his mind, one old member from the Bonanno crime family decided to visit Chicago for the second time, regarding the same agenda. In January, 1974, New York mobster Carmine Galante was released from prison and according to some sources, he was the main player in bringing all those Sicilian Mafiosi into the U.S. and importing loads of Italian heroin. So according to one Chicago Tribune article, Galante arranged two meetings, one in Chicago and one in Florida, with the Outfit’s “junk” opposing faction such as Jack Cerone and Tony Accardo. Im not sure what was discussed during those particular meetings or to tell you the truth I’m not even sure that the whole thing ever occurred, but I’ll presume, mostly according to the next events, that the Outfit was again used as “transportation link” of the product and nothing more. As I previously stated at the beginning of this long story, that even though they acted as a simple organized crime syndicate, still the Chicago Outfit was considered as one of the most important links in the whole Cosa Nostra “chain” across the U.S. And so if the New York faction asked for some support from their Midwest cohorts such as the Chicago boys, they expected to get it. According to numerous government reports, samples of the so-called Sicilian heroin showed that it was processed in the Middle East from opium sources in Asia, and were smuggled into Chicago for inspection, much-in the same way as legitimate businesses display merchandise to potential buyers. Also laboratory analysis later found that the Sicilian heroin had purity level of 90 per cent, far higher than the Mexican or "Brown Mud" heroin, which was now saturating the market.


In no time, some members of the old Melrose Park crew, which by now I believe was led by Nicoletti and probably by one of Aiuppa’s underlings Sam Carlisi, and also associates of the Chicago Heights crew and the North Side faction, continued supporting the dope business in full effect. One of Nicoletti’s and DiBella’s old associates from the North Side was Salvatore “Sam” Canzoneri, a former officer of Chicago’s Police Department, magazine publisher and close friend of the late Giancana. His father John Canzoneri was a Cosa Nostra member, with roots from the Corleone village back in Sicily, and belonged to the Los Angeles crime family but was also very close connected to former Outfit heavyweights such as the Fischetti brothers. The dope connection also goes way back to the mid 1960’s when Sam Canzoenri still worked as a cop and was closely associated with Sheldon Teller, the previously mentioned corrupt officer who was involved in high level dope peddling operations. Back in those days, both Teller and Canzoneri owned a joint known as the Rivoli Club which in fact was a rock and roll spot on the city’s North Side. In fact, Canzoneri managed to loose his job as a cop when he was identified as half-owner of the infamous joint which was connected to large scales of narcotics and prostitution operations. After the imprisonment of his partner in crime, Canzoneri’s new associate became Dominic Santarelli, another wealthy builder-developer and also dope dealer, who spent considerable time in Miami, Florida. In reality, Santarelli was the main overseer of the Florida port for thee new smuggling ring. Even though they operated mainly on the North Side, still Canzoenri and Santarelli were also close associates of the Melrose Park faction, including Nicoletti and one Irving Weiner. Months before the forming of the new drug route, there are numerous reports of airplane flights between Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and New York’s LaGuardia or Miami, Florida, of both Canzoneri and Weiner, and also alleged reports of meetings with “unknown individuals” closely connected to the Bonanno crime family, which I personally believe were Sicilian dope smugglers. For example, the main connection between the Sicilians and the Outfit in the Florida area was one of Carmine Galante’s close associates known as Tito Carinci, who in turn was a Miami-based mobster. So the main thing which connected Canzioneri to the newly formed dope racket was his criminal history and above all, his ownership of a pizzeria business known as the Pizza Crisp International and Panhandle Pizza Inc., which obviously was one of the fronts for the national “Pizza Connection”.


During this period, again the main runners or distributors of the Sicilian product around the Chicago area were Outfit members and associates from across the South Side and south suburbs. In fact, during this period the auto-theft racket was on the top of the Outfit’s “food chain” and many of these fellas sold dope on the side. As I previously stated that the guy who was in charge of the same racket was Jimmy Catuara and his job was to extort every single chop shop operator or car thief in that same area. So somewhere down the line, Catuara began using some of these individuals for all kinds of illegal activities such as loan sharking, murder and in this case, dope peddling. The thing was that Catuara did not force these individuals in doing something in which they did not want to get involved with, but instead these guys were already involved in everything that Catuara could’ve possibly imagined, including narcotics. So during this period, one of Catuara’s main overseers of the dope racket was Sam Annerino, whose real job was to extort chop shop owners and to kill people. But since his older brother Anthony was previously involved in the dope trade together with Angelo LaPietra, who by now was slowly taking over Caruso’s territory, and also the DiCaro brothers, especially Joseph, possibly he was the one who introduced his younger brother Sam into the business. Now, the whole operation started from one pizza parlor in Paris, Illinois, from where the shipment was sent by one of the Sicilian dope peddlers, or “Zips” as they were called, straight to Chicago’s North Side at one of Canzioneri’s pizza establishments., who in turn transported the shipment to one salvage yard, which was located in Calumet City and was owned one of Annerino’s main operators in the chop shop business and also main “middle man” Richard Ferraro.


So Ferraro had a whole network of auto-thieves and drug traffickers, who smuggled their product mainly with the help of the transportation of the stolen vehicles, which in turn contained sophisticated hiding areas for the narcotics. It was quite easy for the chop shop operators to hide the drugs since they previously chopped up the whole vehicle and later put it together again. The drugs were usually hidden under the driver's seat and the passenger seat, under a panel which was placed on the floor. The panel opened up automatically which uncovered a void underneath the floor board and the bottom of the car, filled up with dope. Or according to one report, sometimes these dope smugglers managed to hide over 100 kilograms of heroin in just one automobile, with the help of dummy gas tank, or in body posts, under fenders, and in the frame. For example, the original gas tank was supplemented by a small auxiliary tank so the main tank could be used to store the narcotics. But the problem was that it was necessary for the smugglers to refuel the car often, which in turn heightened police suspicion. Now, with the help of Ferraro a dozen of cars would’ve been sent to various salvage yards or chop shops in Palos Park, Illinois, or Munster, Indiana, from where the product was sold in nearby towns or cities. His main “runner” in one of those areas was Harry Holzer, who in turn had a dope smuggling route from Palos Park and all the way to Fennville, Michigan.


The whole dope peddling operation went quite smooth and many of the new generation mobsters were hoping for the return of their old dope market in the Chicago area and around the Midwest. But as I previously stated that by now times have changed and also many of the rules regarding the dope racket were also changed. And the biggest problem was that the Outfit’s top hierarchy were not some dumb fools since they always had their “eyes and ears” on the city’s streets. The problem with some of the top Outfit bosses was that during this period, collecting street tax from the chop shop operators was one of their most lucrative schemes and the last thing they wanted, was for their main operators to get caught for dealing dope. By now some of the chop shop operators, such as Ferraro, were considered high level associates of the Outfit, which was a kind of rank almost as same as the “soldier” level in the rest of the crime families around the U.S. Meaning, the guy already knew too much and getting caught with dope, presented a huge danger for the whole organization, simply because the guy might “squeal”. On top of that, since the chop shop racket was quite lucrative, many high level mobsters decided to take over the racket from their cohorts, of course in a violent way. So all that paranoia from the crime bosses, mixed with greed and betrayal which was presented by some of the younger and rising members, made the second half of the 1970’s one of the most bloodiest chapters in Chicago’s underworld history. The first guy who was made an example of was Holzer together with his poor wife, and the whole murder spree of Outfit members and associates, such as Sam Annerino, Chuck Nicoletti and Richard Ferraro, ended with the killing of James Catuara. According to some reports, previously Nicoletti had a feud with Alex regarding the dope business and also story goes that Aiuppa and DiBella took Accardo’s and Alex’s side, thus leaving Nicoletti alone.


So knowingly or unknowingly, along the bloody road, the crime bosses managed to exterminate almost the whole drug peddling network and for me personally, I really don’t know if Bonanno crime family “capo” Carmine Galante again had any problems with the numerous killings of dope peddlers around the Chicago area, but if he had any plans for visiting the “Windy City” for the third time regarding the same agenda, well probably everything went down the toilet since a year later in 1979, he was also riddled with bullets in a Brooklyn restaurant together with two of his Mafia cohorts. The infamous “Pizza Connection” did not end with the murder of Galante, but my personal opinion is that his demise might’ve ended the involvement of Outfit members in dealing dope. This claim can be supported with the reports of Chicago’s police intelligence analysts who agreed that Galante’s death might’ve altered the plans of some of the Outfit’s “outlaws” to expand the Italian white heroin, instead of the Mexican, which by now arrived all around the country, smuggled in plastic bags and sewn inside the bodies of animals or concealed in the heads of tiger skins or even stashed inside television picture tubes. So my point is that from now on if some member or associate of the Outfit wanted to get involved in dealing dope, he had to travel all the way to New York City or simply buy the product from the local Latin or African-American gangs.


No matter how hard the top administration tried to distance their members from the dope trade, still they were powerless against the constant new waves of drug addiction such the current one which was in the form of cocaine. The main advantage of the cocaine drug is that it’s not physically addictive such as heroin or “crack” for that matter, which in fact is a free base from the cocaine product, but instead it is intensively habit forming. Also, the drug can be sniffed, injected, swallowed and even smoked, thus making the users happy, self-confident, sexually aroused, all followed by a powerful feeling. The problem was that by the late 1970’s, these alluring qualities have left many people addicted on cocaine, thus, again making the profits too attractive for a large part of the Outfit’s lower criminal structure and the Mafia in general. During this period Cuba already has become a problem in this respect, and because of the 24/7 smuggling of this drug by Cuban nationals, considerable quantities of cocaine found its way into the United States, particularly Miami and New York City. Also, as you previously saw that the U.S. Mob was already importing smaller quantities of cocaine from Peru or Bolivia but by now, the drug route was slowly turning to Columbia, mostly because of the shorter distance and above all, because of the better quality of the product and larger distribution, which also made the price cheaper. Because of that reason, Latin America cocaine exports to the United States escalated, thus producing a pandemic of narcotics abuse and the surge of exports was directed by a consortium of Colombian cocaine brokers known as the Medellin cartel, which probably controlled over 60 percent of U.S. cocaine market. In no time, Colombia has become the leading nation in Latin America for producing and smuggling cocaine around the world and because of that, it was no longer considered just a glamorous “toy” of the affluent, mostly because it became also available for housewives and hotel clerks in ordinary suburbs, poor residents of the ghettos, and even teenagers in suburban and city high schools. The whole situation became so big that even the cocaine enthusiasts had their own paraphernalia available in shops such as spoons, straws, mirrors, kits, Benzodrex inhalers, and even dealers' supplies like scales, one-gram packet papers and mannitol, a popular cutting agent.


Even though during this period they were considered one of the last links in the dope peddling chain, still the Outfit was considered to be the top criminal organization in the city of Chicago, mostly because they still had their claws in the unions, around many politicians and on top of that, in Las Vegas, Nevada. But even that wasn’t enough for the whole organization, especially for the lower class of members and associates. They saw none of the profits from the casinos or the unions and since the dope peddling business was off limits, they needed a new plan for taking at least a small part from that so-called easy narcotics cash. In fact, there was no real plan but instead it was pure and simple to avoid being caught by the cops while peddling dope.


By the early 1980’s, Tony Accardo still commanded a huge respect among his fellow members but the problem was that at the time, he had many legal problems for extorting millions of dollars, thus turning his attention from the organization. According to some government reports, during this period Chicago was still considered to be “heroin type” of a city, or in other words, the cocaine market was still in development. So Accardo again somehow managed to stay free, while his “captains” were constantly being hunted down by the government and were quickly being replaced by their “second in command”. During this period the boss of the Chicago Heights faction Al Pilotto was having legal problems and was slowly replaced by one quite powerful Outfit member known as Albert Tocco. This guy was considered to be also an open minded individual when it came to narcotics but he also never hesitated to kill anyone who got caught by the cops or was about to. So by putting one “blind eye” on the narcotics trade, Tocco managed to continue the long tradition of his faction which was financing dope deals for almost four decades. The main duo which oversaw Tocco’s dope business was the D’Andrea brothers, Nick and Mario. These fellas were not considered by law enforcement as members of the Outfit but instead they were high level associates, a stature which was easily achieved with the help of their recently deceased brother and also member of the Chicago Mafia, known as Armand D’Andrea. In fact, Nick and Mario were members of a family of five brothers, including the late Armand, who in turn represented the main guy for the Outfit in the Joliet area. Armand D'Andrea was considered very close to the mayor of Joliet, and when Francis Curry, the previous big local kingpin of the Outfit has died, D'Andrea allegedly was said to have stepped in as the top contact man, and he was considered by Illinois authorities to be the heir-apparent to the organized crime leadership of that area.


The main thing was that the late Armand D’Andrea previously had huge business interests in construction and investments, such as a carrot farm in Prescott, Arizona, and also buildings and real estate in Phoenix and Tucson. Because of that, he also controlled his own crews in those areas, mainly formed by distant relatives such as Frank Mancini, who in fact many of them were responsible for Nick’s and Mario’s connections to Columbian and Mexican dope peddlers from that area. The thing was that the brothers were involved in several illegal schemes, including the chop shop racket or in other words, it was quite easy for the duo to acquire high grade cocaine for distribution around the south suburbs, with the help of the old transporting method of stolen parts or whole cars between Arizona and Illinois. But somewhere along the way, Nick D’Andrea managed to make few more connections with other chop shop operators with international connections, which in turn made D’Andrea one of the most important dope peddlers for the Outfit. One of those lucrative connections was guy known as Ora Curry, who in fact was the “top general” for the south suburban chop shop racket, which was under the auspices of Al Tocco.



Ora Curry


Now, Curry’s connection to the dope business goes way back to the late 1960’s and early 70’s, when he used to work for the previously mentioned and also deceased drug dealer and chop shop operator Robert Pronger, who in turn worked for Catuara’s and Cain’s dope peddling operation and allegedly was killed because of that. After that, Curry continued to operate with the help of Pronger’s brother, John who in fact remained to be a huge player in Chicago’s chop shop and above all, narcotics business. The interesting thing was that both Curry and Pronger had business relations all the way to the Middle East, for example Lebanon, from where they constantly brought or shipped cars or auto-parts, which sometimes were filled with narcotics, probably heroin. So this particular crew had two main receiving points, including one direct to Chicago from Europe or New York, which was rarely used mainly because of their second point which was located in Florida, where at the time two main Colombian drug cartels constantly flooded America with cocaine. When the shipment reached its destination point, such as the “Windy City”, the stash was divided in two parts, one for the local market and the other part was destined for some of the nearest Midwest cities, such as Hammond, Indiana, and also St. Louis. To tell you the truth, I really don’t believe that the Outfit still acted mainly as transporting point of the narcotics shipment, but as you can see, they still operated according to the old “recipe”.


In Chicago, the product was mostly sold along Rush Street on the city’s North Side, mostly in bars or disco washrooms, which were mostly Mob-connected. So during this period, the main crew which spread the product around that area was obviously the North Side faction, which was steady growing in the dope business. The previous boss of the Northsiders, Dom DiBella died back in 1976, and was succeeded by Vince Solano, who in turn was deeply involved in to union racketeering and the prostitution business. One of his main operators was still Ken Eto, the Japanese guy who previously oversaw the lucrative Bolita operations and had countless connections to Latin drug dealers. By now Eto was entering the food business, together with another Chicago hoodlum known as Sam Sarcinelli, and the duo had a shop which was named Taco-Si, located in Skokie, Illinois. The thing was that Sarcinelli used the food business as front for his huge dope peddling operation. I mean, it did not matter on who brought the cocaine, such as Curry or Pronger or even Sarcinelli himself, the thing was that according to the feds, Sarcinelli was capable of distributing large quantities of narcotics. In fact, he headed a large-scale narcotics trafficking organization, which at its peak moved approximately 200 kilos of cocaine per month, as I previously stated, mainly from the Fort Lauderdale/Miami area.


Now, for someone like Sarcinelli to distribute that kind of amount of drugs, he must’ve possessed contacts all around the country, simply because all that dope cannot be sold only around the Chicago area in just one month, obviously because during this period there was too much competition. So with the help of what has left from the rest of the Midwest crime families, Colombian cocaine was distributed to points such Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, and also the Los Angeles area, where Sarcinelli maintained one of his personal residences. According to the feds, this guy was a real millionaire and obviously the money did not come from the food business and some reports say that his residence in Los Angeles was no coincidence. During that period, Sarcinelli and other high level dope dealers heavily invested in real estate, mainly in the San Diego area, especially along the dusty strip of border land known as Otay Mesa. Many so-called taco or food vendors started circulating through the crowd, thus providing perfect disguise for the bands of Mexican dope peddlers. Since some of the district's biggest land deals were financed by drug money, a decade later this area was going to be the start of the first so-called underground tunnels for smuggling dope, which were about to stretch from Tijuana to the American side. And like any other high level dope peddler, Sarcinelli also began buying luxurious houses and cars, and he even constantly walked around with a bodyguard, one so-called “knuckle dragger” known as Robert Bridges.


Even though he was considered by law enforcement as one of Chicago’s most dangerous dope dealers, still Sarcinelli wasn’t “jail-proof” from the federal government’s old “tricks”. Back in 1979, Sarcinelli made the obvious and usual mistake by unknowingly bringing an undercover agent to a dope deal. The agent’s alias was Ron Segal, who at first sight was a tall, tanned and well-groomed man, with gold chains and rings on his neck and arms, or in other words, he gave the typical picture of a successful drug lord. So Segal’s looks was enough to fool one of Chicago’s most elusive drug peddlers such as Sarcelli. To cut the story short, Segal managed to successfully lure Sarcinelli to a 14 pound cocaine deal, which was valued at one million dollars, and not a cent more. The self-styled undercover operative single-handedly led a band of DEA agents to a motel in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where they managed to arrest Sarcinelli together with the large stash of cocaine and additional cash in his personal attaché case. During the trial, Segal was the chief witness against Sarcinelli, who in turn was sentenced in Florida to 8 years in prison and 3 years special parole on count one, and additional 8 years in prison on count two of an indictment charging him with possession and conspiracy to distribute narcotics. According to some reports, after the imprisonment of Sarcinelli, the Outfit-controlled cocaine business quickly transferred from Rush Street, down to the South Side.

By this time there were two main crews of “runners” for distributing the product, and came from the South and Southwest Side. These groups were mainly supplied by Nick D’Andrea’s organization and above all, they were mostly formed by young and dangerous dope dealers, who were quite “thirsty” for the old mighty dollar. One of the leaders was William Franklin Jr, whose main job was to kill potential informants against the Outfit. The main problem during this period were not the undercover agents, but instead the other street dealers, who re-sold the already bought product. So the problem was that by now many of these dealers were getting “high” out of their own supply, meaning slowly some of them were loosing their minds by not returning a dime to the Outfit-connected distributors, since many of the dealers used the drugs for their own satisfaction, and that’s why Franklin was there to “remind” them about their debts. The thing was that Nick D’Andrea wasn’t one of those Outfit associates, who “reminded” their costumers by breaking their legs and arms, but instead he instantly sought for approval for their murder “contracts” from his boss, which was the murderous Al Tocco. For example, on January 12, 1980, two of Franklin’s costumers Gregory Burgess and Andrew Jackson Jr., both 29, and both of Park Forest South, got the idea not to pay for their cocaine stash, and so both were repeatedly shot to death inside their apartment. When the police arrived on the scene, they found the dead bullet-riddled bodies of the two dealers and a whole lot of drug paraphernalia, which indicates that they were both heavy users. The next–dope-related murder occurred in 1981, when the dead body of 21-year old Darrell Harris appeared in Markham, Illinois and so the feds, with the help of the testimony of one of Franklin’s nephews, managed to arrest the Outfit’s hitman and a year later, Franklin was sentenced to 300-years jail term. According to one FBI report, the feds believed that Franklin was involved in six more drug-related murders.


The interesting thing was that during that period, mainly because of the huge cocaine epidemic, many of the law enforcement officials connected most of the organized crime-related murders with the dope peddling business but in reality, regarding the Outfit’s part, they still killed their own people out of various reasons, which were mostly backed by the old “rule list”, like for example, never kill your own boss. In July, 1981, the Outfit’s Chicago Heights “capo” Al Pilotto was shot several times while playing golf but miraculously managed to survive, thus creating a situation where people simply knew that somebody was going to get killed, and this time that “somebody” was none other than Nick D’Andrea. I really don’t know if he was really involved in Pilotto’s murder attempt scheme, but I’m almost positive know that D’Andrea wasn’t killed because of his drug peddling operations. So in September, 1981, the body of 49-year old D’Andrea appeared in the trunk of his burning Mercedes-Benz near Crete, Illinois. Years later, according to one Outfit informer, it turned out that the so-called “death squad” only wanted to talk to D’Andrea regarding the shooting of Pilotto, but the problem was that one of the gangsters Sam Carlisi used too much force just to scare the guy and probably killed the poor victim. The “death squad” was formed by members of the Melrose Park crew, such as Carlisi, who in turn was the capo of the faction, and his cohort James Marcello, and also from the Chinatown faction, which by now was headed by former dope dealer Angelo LaPietra. According to Nick D’Andrea’s wife, she said that after receiving a phone call from someone, who I personally believe was one Outfit member Sam Guzzino, her husband became very upset and from that point on, the late D’Andrea began carrying a gun and started noting the license plates of cars passing their house. But there was also another problem of which nobody knew except for the feds and that was the selling of cocaine to undercover agents in recent months. So sooner or later, D’Andrea was about to be busted, and later probably killed by his cohorts.



Nick D’Andrea


So 18 days later, after the body disposal of the late Nick D’Andrea, the feds went after his brother Mario and his band of dope peddlers. On October 1, 1981, Mario D’Andrea managed to sell a pound of pure Colombian cocaine to an undercover agent. Shortly before 3 p.m. that day, by prearrangement, the undercover agent met with D'Andrea at the gas station to complete the deal in which the agent was to receive cocaine for $54,000. As the cocaine and cash changed hands, the agent quickly identified himself and tried to arrest D'Andrea, but that’s when all hell broke loose. D’Andrea pulled out a .38 caliber pistol from his waistband and fired three shots, missing the agent each time. As bystanders scattered for cover, the agent fired five shots from a .357 magnum revolver, thus mortally hitting D’Andrea. The other agents, while watching the shooting from concealment, converged on the scene and arrested two D'Andrea's companions, which in fact were his nephew 19-year old Richard D’Andrea, who in turn was the son of the late Nick D’Andrea, and also Mike Skeans, another “runner” for the dope peddling ring. Probably, it was not a nice scene for young Richard who in turn had to watch as his uncle slowly died on the street. After the demise of the D’Andrea brothers, according to the feds, Curry and Pronger again allegedly took over the dope rackets for the Chicago Heights faction under Tocco.


Another interesting situation occurred but this time it was down in Florida. As I previously stated that until now, the main overseer of the dope racket for the Outfit down in South Florida was still Giancana’s old pal James Tortoriello but things were about to change. Before his arrival in the Ft. Lauterdale, Tortoriello belonged to the West Side faction of the Outfit, under the deceased crime bosses such as Giancana, Buccieri and Battaglia but since then, many things obviously has changed. So one night, in 1982, as he relaxed on his front porch at a quiet Deerfield Beach street, suddenly two carloads of gunmen sprayed Tortoriello’s house with bullets like it was the bootlegging days of the 1920’s. Again, few minutes later, the two slow-moving limousines appeared for the second time and fired another round of bullets. The 72 year old mobster remained untouched but obviously, he was scared to death. When the cops questioned Tortoriello on who could’ve been so angry at him, in a classic Cosa Nostra style, at first the old gangster refused to answer the question and later, he said that he doesn’t have an enemy in the world. The next day, Tortoriello packed his bags and went into hiding or simply disappeared. You see, even though he was slowly getting too old, Tortoriello went through a lot, meaning he was a suspect in numerous killings and rubbed elbows with few of the most dangerous criminals in the world. He even had few legends which constantly surrounded him, such as the one when he reportedly knocked out a cow with a single punch, just to win a bet. So my point is that Tortoriello was not some guy who was about to be easly scared or pushed around but in this situation, it was quite the opposite which indicates that he probably knew his attackers and was also probably aware of the problem.


According to the feds, during this period Tortoriello was heavily involved in cocaine and weapons trafficking, which were two of the main illegal activities for some of the high profile criminals in that area. But the problem was that since Southern Florida was regarded as the chief entry point for contraband arms and narcotics from Latin America, the President of the U.S. Ronald Reagan created a special task force which was destined for that same area, thus placing a lot of pressure over the local criminal syndicates. Now I’m only guessing but since Tortoriello was already under federal investigation for smuggling weapons, maybe the boys from back home wanted to send him a “message” or they simply missed their target and made him a lucky guy. I personally believe in the second option, mainly because the hit squad made a second turn so they can give another try on hitting their target. Also, story goes that after the death of Tortoriello’s previous boss Sam Giancana, the old gangster became a quite beefy individual who very often disobeyed the orders from his superiours. So maybe the bosses back home wanted for Tortoriello to step back from the trafficking operation, mainly because of the new problem with the government, but the old man probably refused and made the whole situation too complicated. Whatever was the real reason for the shooting, one this is for sure and that was he no longer was the Outfit’s overseer for any racket in that area. While being on the run, in1983, one of his sons Mark Tortoriello was fatally shot during an alleged cocaine transaction, which obviously went wrong. Story goes that Mark Tortoriello has sold low quality drugs to someone, who in turn returned and shot him to death. In addition, one year later in 1984, James “Mugsy” Tortoriello joined his deceased son, since he was found shot to death in a warehouse near the Fort Lauderdale-Holywood International Airport.


Anyways, by the mid 1980’s, the top echelon of the Chicago Outfit, including Joey Aiuppa, Jack Cerone, Angelo LaPietra and Joey Lombardo were sent to jail regarding the Las Vegas scheme but besides that, the narcotics business was booming like never before. I also believe that the whole situation pushed old man Tony Accardo in a permanent retirement and during this period, the Outfit was led by Jimmy Marcello, Joe Ferriola, James LaPietra, Louis Eboli, John DiFronzo, Al Tocco and Sam Carlisi at the top. So the main Las Vegas scheme was gone, all of their lucrative gambling operations were gone, their political protection was also highly destabilized and so the only lucrative operations which remained for the Chicago boys were loan sharking and the unions. Now my personal belief is that most of these top guys stayed opened to narcotics since I previously stated that the Outfit-related dope business exploded, also most of the other lucrative schemes were gone and above all, some of them such as Ernest Infelice were not strangers to the dope business. For example, Carlisi, Marcello and DiFronzo oversaw all of the Outfit’s factions on the West Side, which by now, according to the feds, were connected to a couple of highly lucrative “junk” crews.


According to government authorities, one of those crews was allegedly connected to one West Side member known as Tony Centracchio, who in turn worked under the auspices of Outfit “capo” for the Grand Avenue crew known as Louis Eboli. Back in the old days, Eboli came up through the ranks of the old Melrose Park crew which was under the auspices of Sam Battaglia and Phil Alderisio, and my point is that he might’ve also been “friendly” with the dope business. Now, there are no real evidences for Centracchio’s direct involvement with the product, but instead there’s hard proof for his brother’s involvement in the dope business. Henry Centracchio was the younger brother of Tony, who before Eboli, he used to work for Joey Lombardo. Even though during this period he was in jail, back in the days Lombardo was also known for having many people around him who were involved in the dope business, such as Dominic DeSantis. So “fearlessly” Henry Centracchio made a connection with one street dealer known as Thomas Guth, who in turn was the main contact to large quantities of cocaine. The thing was that Centracchio and Guth knew each other from back in the days and were involved in all kinds of illegal activities.



Anthony Centracchio


Back in the early 1980’s, Guth served a jail sentence at Sandstone Correctional Facility and over there he met another inmate known as Gary Lewellyn, and the two became close associates. In October, 1986, Guth was released from prison but he maintained regular contact with Lewellyn by phone. One day, Guth informed Lewellyn that he had developed a narcotics operation in Chicago, with the help of Henry Centracchio, who in turn had the men-power to distribute large quantities of cocaine. In the end, Guth asked Lewellyn if he knew anyone who could supply his operation with large quantities of high grade cocaine for distribution on Chicago’s city streets. In a matter of seconds, Lewellyn pronounced the name of one his new fellow inmates known as Jose Martinez, who had close connections with individuals such as Colombian drug lords down in Florida. The plan was for Lewellyn to act as Guth's supplier once he was released from prison. In fact, there was meeting between Lewellyn, Guth and Martinez at federal prison camp at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. After the meeting, Martinez told Lewellyn that he and Guth had discussed the price and quantity of cocaine that Martinez could supply to Guth after Martinez's release from Maxwell. After his release, both Guth and Martinez went to Miami to meet with their drug suppliers, such as Robert Valido and Jorge Silva, the main people with the Columbian contacts.


So the next part of the plan was for the boys to arrange for an El Camino truck, and with Valido’s help, to build a secret compartment in the truck where the cocaine was to be placed in. After the repairing of the truck, once a month, the vehicle left from Miami to Chicago, usually packed with ten kilograms of cocaine, where it was welcomed by Centracchio’s crew. Because of his brother’s street reputation, Henry Centracchio had connections to many high level Italian dope peddlers from the western suburbs, such as James Aquilla who in turn oversaw a band of “runners”, which were perfect for the whole operation. Back in 1981, Aquilla almost lost his life in a car explosion in Florida, in which his relative, millionaire and Outfit associate Joseph Testa was fatally injured by loosing his right leg and one arm. At the time, federal authorities speculated that Testa may have been killed by a hit man known to work for Centracchio’s boss, the imprisoned Joey Lombardo. The Outfit transported the product all around Illinois with the help of their handbook establishments. Like for example, one day the feds raided an illegal gambling establishment in Elk Grove Village and they also found 10 kilograms of cocaine and according to one source, the operation was controlled by another Grand Avenue crew member known as Marco D’Amico. So Aquilla was the middle guy and his main runners were in fact two Outfit hit men, cocaine addicts and 24/7 drug peddlers, known as Joseph Bravieri and his constant companion Richard Zuniga and these dangerous fellas operated mainly around the Near West Side. Bravieri’s Mob connections mainly came through his older brother Arthur, who used to work in the burglary business for one Outfit “capo” William Daddano. And since both of them, meaning Bravieri and Zuniga, were addicts with a lot of cash, they visited many disco clubs and at the same time made connections to other street dealers and addicts, to whom they sold their product. According to the feds, this particular dope ring made profits around 10 million dollars a month only from the cocaine business and that’s why some of them lived quite lavishly to be considered as “simple” dope dealers. Again, according to some reports, during this period Aquilla lived in a $350,000 “fortress” at 420 Lauder Lane, Inverness. In plane words, business was booming and my personal belief is that many “fat envelopes” went into the pockets of the Outfit’s top administration which by now for certain was under the auspices of Sam Carlisi.


The second “junk crew” came also from the western suburbs and again my personal belief, and also the government’s, is that this particular group constantly sent envelopes straight to Carlisi, obviously through his own members from that area, such as Tony Zizzo and Al Tornabene. In fact, the Centracchios and Tornabene were quite close in doing business together and on top of that, Tornabene was considered a blood relative of Carlisi. So this crew was led by two Outfit crew-members and also middle men for the Melrose Park faction, known as Victor Plescia and Frank Bonavalante, the main individuals who distributed their product mainly around the Cicero, Berwyn, Bridgeview and Riverside areas. In fact, according to some sources, Bonavalante was the older brother of Joey Bonavalante, who in turn was an alleged “lieutenant” under Zizzo. So Bonavolante’s main role was financing the cocaine purchases with Outfit money, in return for a share of the resale profits. As for Vic Plescia, according to the feds, he oversaw the wholesale and retail drug operation which was mainly the distribution of cocaine and even though he was headed the conspiracy, his main couriers were Nick Rizzato and Tony Grossi, who in turn travelled many times to Miami, from where they purchased dozens of kilos of the product. According to one report, Plescia acquired his product from the same Columbian source as Centracchio’s crew. The interesting thing was that one of Plescia’s couriers such as Nick Rizzato worked as a Chicago police officer and so it was easy for him to transport the product since usually no one dared to search a man of the law. In addition, Rizzato was the brother of Anthony Rizzato, one of two Chicago police officers who were slain by sniper fire back in 1970.


After the courier’s brought the cocaine to Chicago, Tony Grossi together with his father Canillo distributed the product in street-use quantities, obviously with the help of their runners or street dealers, such as Norman Demma, Lizzio DeSantis, Kevin Geiger and also Plescia’s wife Cora. According to the government, this particular group of runners was capable of distributing up to 50 kilos of cocaine per month, which in fact was a quite lucrative amount. Also, during this period it was the beginning of a new era of everyday communications, such as pagers and mobile phones, which were constantly used by the dope dealers and other kinds of criminals, mainly because they foolishly believed that those devices were untraceable by the electronic surveillance of the feds. For example, when Plescia wanted to call for action, he simply paged his cohorts by using the code number 8, which indicated that the product has arrived. From that point on, of anyone from the crew wanted to purchase cocaine, they simply called for Plescia, who in turn first checked with one of the Grossis for availability, and then called back to whoever it was and set up the whole drug transaction. After the transaction was finished, percentage from the cash went into the pockets of Bonavalante and the rest of the Outfit’s hierarchy.


As you can see, even through the 1980’s, some high level members of the Outfit were still heavily involved in the dope business, which by now the connection lasted for more than three decades. But during this period, neither the Outfit, nor the Columbians were the strongest organization in the “Windy City”, since other gangs from the Latin or African-American element already began to flourish in the underworld. By the mid 1980’s, many Mexican drug cartels were created and they began flooding the United States with all kinds of narcotics and on top of that, during the same time period, the use of cocaine was reaching epidemic proportions in cities large and small across the nation, thus sparking turf wars and escalating drug-related violence. Now, during my research on the Chicago Outfit, I’ve realized that they were not that kind of an organization, I mean yes they killed a lot of people but always avoided internal conflicts and their main goal wasn’t narcotics. As for the new breed of criminals, they just didn’t care about any of the rules and that is why, the Outfit immediately got pushed out from the number one spot, thanks to the endless urge for violence of the new criminal generation, made out of various ethnicities.


One of those new criminal organizations was the Hernandez crime family which was based in Matamoros, Mexico, and through Texas, they managed to send large shipments of cocaine and marihuana all the way to Chicago. According to the feds, the organization was headed by Elio Hernandez and his sons, and these guys were quite dangerous, mostly because they were known for doing ritualistic murders. So besides being drug dealers, they also represented a gruesome cult and sacrificed their victims in such a way, in which they believed was the only way to protect their dope peddling operations and above all, themselves. One of the family’s main representatives in the U.S. was one Mexican drug lord known as Manuel “Poncho” Jaramillo, who settled himself in Mission, Texas, which is a small place near the border. Even though Jaramillo supplied drug dealers around country such as in New York and Miami, according to the government, his main connections were in Chicago. Story goes that Jaramillo’s second job, besides overseeing their dope racket, was money laundering or in other words, he invested drug money in legitimate enterprises. But even for that, he still needed some good underworld connections, and there was no other organization for such “pleasures” if it wasn’t for the Mob.


So one thing led to another and next thing you know, Jaramillo made a close relationship with none other than Chicago Heights capo Al Tocco. As I previously stated, during this period Tocco was considered one of Chicago’s most dangerous criminal overlords around the South suburbs, mainly because he had the garbage business locked down in that territory, and also the union business, loan sharking and obviously, narcotics. Now, the main connection between Tocco and Jaramillo was one dope dealer know as Mike Habiniak from another small town on Texas’ border. To tell you the truth, I really don’t know on how the hell Tocco was connected to Habiniak but all I know is that the a deal was made in which on the supply side of the dope ring were the Mexicans and the people from Texas, and on the distribution end of the ring was the Chicago Outfit, thanks to Tocco. It was just like in the old days, when Tocco’s predecessors used the “welcome” the main drug shipments for the organization. This time there weren’t any made guys of the Outfit involved in the racket but simple, Tocco’s faction acted as a wholesale distributor to mainly two dope peddling gangs which in turn, after the distribution of the shipment, they gave a good percentage from their income to Tocco and the boys. In addition, even though they were connected with the Mexican drug lords, still much of the dope shipment which was meant for the South suburbs came from Florida, or in other words, the Colombians. The main reason for this was that the Hernandez crime family was mostly involved with the Chicago Heights faction in money laundering operations, thus putting the dope business on second place.


According to the feds, one of those South-suburban gangs was headed by one dope dealer known as Sam Mann. In fact, Mann previously did not have any Mob connections but instead he was acquainted with individuals who were obliged for the rest of their lives to pay “street-tax” to their so-called territorial crime lords, such as Tocco. Again, most of these individuals were involved in the auto-theft racket, which by now was still one of Tocco’s most lucrative operations. Back in the old days, Mann was involved in the auto-theft racket together with one Tony Rovy and his associate Robert Hardin. So the main connection to the Mob was in fact Rovy, who in turn also worked as collector and a hit man. Rovy's criminal background can be traced back more than 20 years, which included 26 arrests and numerous convictions for which he served a total of one year and nine months in jail. By the early 1980s, Rovy allegedly headed the auto-theft ring for the late Outfit henchman William Dauber, who also supported the dope racket and on top of that, he was a heavy user of cocaine. Rovy also has been linked to the shooting death of one reputed drug dealer Phil Voss outside a Calumet City tavern back in April 1982, but the problem was that the evidence was not strong enough to bring murder charges against him.


After the murder of Dauber, both Mann and Rovy began paying their “debts” to one of Tocco’s new chief enforcers, Clarence Crockett. And since then, the duo got heavily involved in transporting cocaine from Florida, straight to Calumet City, which in fact was their main territory. But by the mid 1980’s, the crew grew stronger by even having their own protection in the form of a Calumet City police sergeant known as Russell “Rusty” Larson. The thing was that both Larson and Mann grew up together on Chicago’s South Side, and years later they repeatedly travelled from Calumet City to Florida to buy drugs for resale in the south suburbs. The reality was that the 16-year veteran of the Police Department protected Mann’s activities from raids and surveillances by other law enforcement agencies, and sometimes he even acted as security during the transportation of the drug shipment. According to one source, cocaine was being sold and snorted literally under the noses of some Calumet City police officers because Mann was confident that his buddy from the police force would protect him from arrest. But even with that, one day in 1985, Mann was stupid enough to get himself arrested by the feds for possession of cocaine and was sentenced to two years in prison. After Mann’s imprisonment, Rovy allegedly took over as leader of the crew, which by now included Larson, Hardin, and also Mann’s girlfriend Terri Miller and her sister Michelle, along with one Nenad Vidojevic. The interesting thing was that after all of those years, the Chicago Heights faction still managed to hold the same “dope peddling” territory which was the South suburbs and also Lake County, Indiana. During that period, proof for that were Rovy’s vast cocaine and marihuana operations in northern Indiana.


The next crew operated mainly around the Orland Park and Joliet areas and was headed by one notorious Italian dope peddler known as Dante Autullo Jr. Story goes that this guy was big in the business, and owned a $400,000 pizzeria shop south of Orland Park known as 31st Street Pizza Restaurant, where the drugs were imported, and he also owned a $600,000 nightclub known as Rush's 21st Century Lounge from where the product was distributed. Also Autullo was connected to a large crew of runners who were overseen by two of his closest associates, John Cappas and Salvatore Dattulo. Now, Cappas was the main connection to the Outfit through a couple of his “business partners” such as the Messino brothers Chris and Clement. In fact, they were the nephews of another Outfit “heavyweight” known as Willie “The Beast” Messino, and they both were former Chicago police officers who left the department back in 1974 for alleged participation in an auto theft racket from their auto body business Auto Abbey, which was located in Harvey, Illinois. According to the feds, even though his father belonged to the West Side faction, still Chris Messino was considered a member of the Chicago Heights faction under Al Tocco.


The other “interesting” thing with both Cappas and Dattulo was that they were in their early 20’s and so they were connected to many young dope dealers and addicts, who constantly filled their pockets with cash, and the problem was that they looked upon at Autullo as their “Mafia Godfather”, mainly because of his lavish lifestyle. Once, Autullo sold one of his expensive houses for much lesser price to Cappas, so it can make it easy for him to attract rich kids and to transform them into their own runners for their dope peddling operation. He owned a $500,000 worth of property in Homer Township, Will County including his expensive home near Lockport. For example, one of those kids was Daniel Joyce, a dealer, cocaine addict and also the son of the current State Senator at the time, Jeremiah Dorsey. According to one report, the Senator’s son once almost became the shooting target of the same gang in which he belonged to, mainly because of his drug peddling debts, which later were quickly repaid. Many of these young individuals really felt fear in Cappas presence mainly because of his background and also the things which he was capable of committing. Once, two 17-year old graduates from the Marist High School allegedly took their own lives after they said that drug dealers had threatened to torture and kill them for not paying their dope debts. But the federal investigators were trying somehow to determine if the two youths who committed suicide were involved with drug dealers working for Cappas, since he also was a former graduate o the same high school.



John Cappas


In reality, Cappas was the key figure in this whole operation, mainly because he had the street contacts and also, he was the most dangerous individual among his fellow members, which made him the prefect collector and hit man for Autullo and also the Chicago Outfit. One of Cappas main enforcers was Nick Ahrens, who was known for always carrying a gun and was quite known as one very notorious individual. As I previously stated somewhere during this long story, that these fellas were involved in many Outfit-related illegal activities, which ranged from extortion to murder, but the thing is, in this example this wasn’t the deal. Some of the shooting in which these fellas were involved were Outfit-related, but some were simply drug-related. For example, two other young and ruthless enforcers and drug dealers for Cappas were Ray Bonnema and Bryan Bafia. Now, if someone owed money to these two fellas, they were usually known for shooting up the vicitms’ houses or cars. According to the feds, Cappas once bragged that he made $1 million a year from the dope ring, an amount that cannot go unnoticed by the local Italian crime syndicate, which by now still extorted almost every dope peddler in their territories.

Now the problem was that Autullo already had the same connections down in Florida, which I believe were the same people who supplied the West Side faction with cocaine, meaning the Columbians. But since he was Italian and a criminal and also operated around Tocco’s territory, Autullo was also obliged to take his stuff. According to some reports, during this period some big time Italian dope peddlers were pushed around by various members of the Outfit, mainly because of their sources of supply. So sometimes, guys like Autullo Jr. were forced to take their shipments from two different factions who served for the same organization, which was the Outfit and if you look at the situation more clearly, it was just another lucrative scheme. In other words, if the previous crews sold around 50 kilos per month of any kind of narcotic, from this point on, the so-called “new” crews were forced to sell double than that, which in fact was an unbelievable amount for the current Italian gangs. On top of that, bosses like Tocco were connected to more than one dope ring, which obviously tripled their profits from the racket. In fact, this was just one of the reasons for the huge number of dope addicts during this time around the city’s streets. In addition, during this period most of these south suburban dope peddlers still paid their street tax to the Outfit, but they never knew that some drug sources were in fact financed by the same criminal organization, which gave the “made guys” another step ahead in the game by being completely protected from any law enforcement attack. Also according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration at the time, they suspected that the Chicago Outfit reportedly laundered their drug money through one casino-hotel which was located on the Caribbean island of Curaçao and was overseen by one high level member from the West Side area or to be exact, from the Grand Avenue crew, known as Jimmy Cozzo. This fella had a lengthy arrest record which dated from 1954 and includes arrests for robbery, burglary, possession of stolen goods and above all, for peddling narcotics. This was a quite curious investment and was probably financed by the Teamster pension funds, which was also under the auspices of the imprisoned Joey Lombardo. In fact, during this period many members of the Grand Avenue faction were allegedly involved deep into the cocaine business.



Joey Lombardo


But as you saw in countless other examples, no matter how hard they tried to protect themselves by inventing new schemes or paying off cops, still by the end of the day the mobsters were “forced” to wash their hands in the blood of their associates, mainly because of their own mistakes, including getting caught by the feds or the usage of too much narcotics. For example, in August, 1986, Curry and his wife were accused for multiple counts of income tax evasion and mail fraud, which obviously had nothing to do with narcotics. But the problem was that the judge ordered a $50,000 bond for Curry, which in no time got him again free on the city’s streets. Now, the thing I really don’t understand is that most of these “middle men” made the same and boring mistake, by while being free on bond they continued to be involved in illegal scheme. In other words, while he was free on bond awaiting sentencing, drug agents arrested Curry on charges of selling cocaine to an undercover agent. On September 13, 1986, the judge sentenced Curry to 18 years in prison, fined him $10,000 and ordered $174,000 in restitution. As I previously stated in one of my stories, I personally believe that the prison sentence has saved Curry’s life, mainly because of the previous numerous examples were highly lucrative “middle men” were killed for mistakes such as this one. And as usual, when someone got busted for selling drugs, people usually got “clipped” by the Mob. “Coincidentally”, right after the imprisonment of Curry, the next incident occurred the next year, when Sam Mann was released from jail and later was beaten to death outside a Calumet City tavern and the police at the time said the injuries stemmed from quarrel over the affections of Mann's girlfriend Terri Miller. To tell you the truth I personally don’t believe in the story a bit, mainly because of the next event.


Right after the killing of Sam Mann, “somebody” also killed his business partner and long time friend Eugene Bell. He was found strangled down in Florida, which indicated that it was a pure Mob hit. The connection between Mann and Bell goes all the way back in Crete, Illinois, where they stole cars and together started selling drugs. In fact, Bell was Mann’s main connection in Florida with the Columbians and helped in transporting the cocaine shipment all the way to Chicago, of course with the help of their chop shop operation. So maybe in their own style, the Outfit and Tocco cut off their dope connections such as Mann and Bell and they were capable of continuing the slaughter until every possible Outfit-connected drug dealer was buried six feet under the ground. But the problem was that the government continued to hunt down the South suburban dope peddling ring and above all, the Outfit’s Chicago Heights faction, an action which obviously continued the bloodshed. So next on the “arrest list” was the Autullo gang, which quite easily fell into the FBI’s “claws” and was a big “sensation”. At the beginning of 1988, the feds managed to build a case against the crew and so they arrested every possible member, including the Senator’s son. On top of that, the government seized over two million dollars in property of some of the defendants. In the end, Cappas and Autullo and 11 other crew members were charged with conspiracy to distribute drugs, a crime which at the time carried maximum penalty of life in prison. The prosecutors successfully convinced the jury against the defendants and upon the conviction, Cappas also faced 20 million dollar fine and as for Autullo, he received “only” 10 million in fine. And so, the next “hit” occurred on John Pronger, after he got arrested by a whole team of federal agents with a kilo of cocaine and a huge stack of cash. Later he was found guilty but his sentencing hearing was delayed, which was the main reason for his demise that occurred on August 16, 1988, when he got shot from a 357 Magnum handgun, which according to the report, was loaded with dum-dum bullets. This made Pronger the second brother who was killed on the orders of the Chicago Outfit, allegedly because of messing up the dope racket.


Another murder occurred the next year, in November, 1989, on Chicago’s North Side and again, the victim was a suspected dope peddler. This time the “lucky” guy was Sam Canzoneri but to tell you the truth his demise is quite mysterious to me since I totally lost any track of him back in 1985 with the end of the “Pizza Connection”. One day, his wife Karen and their two teenage daughters returned to their quite expensive home after an evening out, and inside they witnessed all of the chairs and tables overturned and some of the windows broken, but when they opened the door to the utility room they faound Canzoneri’s lifeless body. According to the report, there were possibly two killers who opened the front door of the house and they forced their way in and so Canzoneri apparently attempted to run. A chase occurred around the huge house and eventually Canzoneri was able to scramble to the utility room where he shut the door and tried to barricade himself. But the assailants fired with their 38-caliber pistols through the door, thus striking him directly in his chest. The police had no suspects or any kind of motives for Canzoneri’s demise, except for the fact that he owned Pizza Crisp International and Panhandle Pizza Inc both of Highland Park. The investigators examined the firms' books to see if he owed any large amount of money to anyone or if there were disputes over bills, but in the end, everything was clean. The only suspicious thing was Canzioneri’s $800,000 house, which was something that his legitimate business clearly did not provide, according to the books. So I personally suspect that maybe Canzoneri was still involved in “something”, which clearly brought a lot of profits for him, and obviously someone was very angry about it. So maybe he wasn’t sharing his profits with his “business partners” or maybe it was some old “beef” which in time, slowly caught up with Canzoneri.


Besides their constant problems, the next difficult situation for the Outfit, as I previously stated, was the massive narcotics usage among their high level associates. The thing was that these so-called associates were the base of every illegal operation which was overseen by the Italian crime syndicate and so they needed to be sharp and concentrated on their job. I mean there are also countless examples where these people, besides being involved in illegal rackets, the also killed for the Mob. So in other words, it was quite risky situation for the crime bosses to send one of their underlings, filled with cocaine, to execute some particular individual. On top of that, if you look at the situation from psychological perspective, you can see that those same murdering addicts slowly lost their logic and mind, obviously because of the cocaine usage. And that’s what really happened. In December, 1988, Joseph Bravieri and Richard Zuniga, mainly because of their recklessness and violent nature, they managed to open to “doors” for the feds to the Outfit’s “heart” which was the West Side faction.


One day, Bravieri and Zuniga arrived at one of their runner’s apartment and began an early morning game of gin rummy with one of their close associate and also Outfit enforcer Carmen Sarlo. The problem was that both Bravieri and Zuniga were carrying weapons, such as shotgun and a revolver, and so during the game an argument occurred regarding the sales of cocaine. Suddenly, Bravieri, who was heavily under the influence of cocaine, picked up his shotgun and fired one shot at Sarlo’s girlfriend Joanne Gasic, as she lay. The poor woman was killed instantly and in fact, she was the reason for the argument, mostly because she was a good dope dealer and Bravieri wanted her for himself. After that, Bravieri then took a shot at one of Gasic’s female friends, Sandra Ault, who was also present at the scene, but luckily for her, he missed. Then Sarlo leaped to Bravieri’s feet and demanded to know what was going on but Bravieri’s answer was "No, you gotta go, too." And so, Zuniga shot Sarlo with a pistol and Bravieri stabbed him with a knife about 20 times in the back and chest. After the double murder, the boys focused on the allegedly dead woman, Miss Ault, who in turn was only pretending face down on the floor. Suddenly Bravieri used his foot to roll her over and the terrified woman blinked and opened her eyes. “Are you dead?” Bravieri asked, and the woman answered “No but I won’t talk” and so obviously he wasn't buying that line and instead of reloading his shotgun, Bravieri dropped to the floor and with the help of a small knife, he reached under the woman’s blouse and stabbed her in the abdomen. But “miraculously”, the poor woman somehow managed to survive again since it was only a superficial wound, and the moment when Bravieri turned his back on her, the woman quickly jumped up and fled first into bedroom then out the back, straight to the next door neighbour, who in turn called the police. According to one report, Bravieri made the botched hit simply because his reflexes were poor and his vision blurred, mainly because he was high on cocaine. In no time, both suspects were arrested by the police, together with their weapons and bloody clothes. The next year, at the end of the trial, the judge found both Bravieri and Zuniga guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced them to life in prison.


Zuniga and Bravieri


As you can see, during this period the Outfit was facing this new problem, which was the cocaine addiction and obviously quite affected their operations. After the arrest of Bravieri, the feds began to investigate his alleged Mob connections and slowly started completing the whole picture, and who were the main individuals behind the operation. So the feds began using electronic surveillance on the dealers’ communication devices, such as mobile phones and pagers, and as I previously stated, I can’t blame the gangsters for believing that those same devises were untraceable by the feds, mainly because it was a new “thing” and the whole story sounded like just another “myth” but obviously they were wrong. Since Bravieri was connected to Victor Plescia’s crew, in no time, the West Side faction slowly began to feel the pressure from the government’s “fury”. With the aid of a confidential informant, the feds managed to quickly identify Plescia as the leader of the conspiracy. Surveillance agents recorded countless mobile phone and pager conversations between him and the rest of the suspects, and on top of that they even managed to infiltrate their own undercover agent next to Plescia.


Once the conspiracy resumed normal operations, the federal agents recorded a series of phone conversations in which many of the crew’s runners constantly wanted to purchase more cocaine from Plescia. But during one conversation, the agents learned about an alleged drug transaction, which occurred in a parking lot where Plescia and one of his runners parked before entering. Afterward, the agents tried to arrest the duo but just like in the movies, a chase occurred and in which only Plescia’s runner Norman Demma was caught, but the problem was that he already has thrown away his cocaine stash and so the feds had to let him walk away, but the thing was that the agents continued to monitor the sudden burst of communications among the suspects. For example, right after the arrest Demma immediately called Plescia to warn him that the agents followed them and that they may have bugged Plescia's phone or pager. In a matter of minutes, Plescia called Bonavolante and the Grossis to warn them of the attention from drug enforcement officers. The investigation ended in October, 1989, when the feds finally had established the roles and identities of the individuals involved in the conspiracy and had sufficient evidence against them, all of the suspects were arrested, indicted, tried and convicted, including Vic Plescia, Nick Rizzato, Lee Lizzio, Kevin Geiger, Frank Bonavolante, Camillio Grossi, Anthony Grossi, Norman Demma and others. In fact, this was another fatal blow for the Outfit’s dope peddling racket since previously the feds managed to destroy the South suburban dope ring, and now they also managed to hit straight in the heart of the operation. I stated the “heart” mainly because some of these fellas were closely connected to the syndicate’s top administration.


And that is why, slowly but surely, the feds were getting closer to that particular top criminal administration. For example, they had Al Tocco regarding some murder charges but the thing was that the Mob boss allegedly received info about the problem and so he fled the country and went to Europe. During that time, while he was on the run, the feds also managed to connect him to the Jaramillo and Hernandez drug cartel. The next year, the feds arrested Jaramillo and with the help of the Mexican authorities, they also arrested the three sons of Ermilo Hernandez, who in fact were one of the main suppliers of cocaine for the Chicago market. And they even managed to arrest Tocco, who in fact was “vacationing” in Greece and a year later in 1990 he was sentenced to 200 years in prison on murder conviction. Two years later, the feds also managed to bring the Outfit’s top guys to court, such as Gus Alex and Sam Carlisi, and also convict them to long prison sentences. By that time, even Tony Accardo has decided to join his deceased cohorts on the “other side” and from that point on story goes that all bets were off. Also even by now, with most of the political protection gone and their illegal activities quite limited, some Outfit bosses still managed to getaway from conviction and remained free on the city’s streets. In addition, from this point on, the Chicago Outfit was never involved in large scale narcotics business or even peddling narcotics on national level, ever again. Some of the members and associates were still selling few pounds here and there, but never again like in the old days when they used to form their own drug routes and having numerous suppliers, first hand. In fact, the era of criminal masterminds and drug overlords such as Jim Emery or Sam Giancana was long gone, mostly because of the constant changing of the underworld in regards of its ethnicity.


The beginning of the 1990’s was again a new era for the dope peddling business and according to some reports, the federal funding for the war on drugs during this period reached $17.1 billion dollars. The reason for this were the new products or so-called “club drugs” which began to be more and more popular among the younger citizens. For example, “new things” such as ecstasy pills and crystal meth were quite popular in California and also all around the Midwest, but the most consummated narcotic around the country remained to be marihana. There were many reasons for this phenomenon, like for example the new styles of music such as “Hip-Hop” or “Rave”, which I personally believe that it largely contributed to massive usage of the narcotic plant and also synthetic drugs among the younger generation. Many Latin and African-American street-gangs continued flourishing in the marihuana trade and also during this period, 34% of the American population admitted of using marijuana, which obviously made the selling of the product quite lucrative. In addition, even though “crack-cocaine” was still considered one of the most addictive, lethal and also lucrative products, still Chicago the nation's third largest city and one that seemed as ripe as any other for the product, has largely stood by mainly as an observer. In fact, from the beginning, one of the mysteries of the crack epidemic has been why it largely passed Chicago by. I mean don’t get me wrong, crack still existed on the Windy City’s streets, but the main thing is that we've got to distinguish between a crack problem and a crack epidemic, which never really happened in Chicago. And since marihuana became the “new” most lucrative product for the high level dope dealers, the Chicago Outfit was always there to take its own share from the operation.



Marihuana “buds”


As I previously stated that by the early 1990’s, the Outfit’s top hirearchy was again under attack by the government‘s “elite squads” and many of the top syndicate bosses were under federal investigation, including the boss himself Sam Carlisi. So during this period, the Outfit was led by former burglars, loan sharks or extortionists, such as John DiFronzo, Anthony Centracchio and John Monteleone who during their criminal careers more or less had connections with some dope dealers, and so my point and also personal belief is that this particular generation and top Outfit administration did not really care from where the money came from, since the golden days of Las Vegas were long gone. Guys like DiFronzo or Monteleone regulary took envelopes of cash from the narcotics trade and every other illegal racket but story goes that they strongly forbidden for their underlings to “get high out of their own supply” or in other words, the bosses did not want any dope addicts around them, especially within their organization.


One of the most interesting “ventures” during this period involved the so-called DiFronzo “clan”, which by slowly took over the “central command” of Chicago’s oldest crime syndicate and was formed by three brothers, including John, Pete and Joseph. They were still into union racketeering, loan sharking, collecting street tax, legitimate businesses such as garbage collection, money-laundering and above all, financing dope deals. So this next story starts with one “victim” of DiFronzo’s loan sharking operations known as Michael Coffey. This guy was a very flashy individual who drove from Rolls Royce to Corvette, always had many female companions around him and looked like a millionare. But sometimes people like that, just to preserve that kind of style, they make a mistake by going way over their financial limit. So one day Coffey loaned some money from the youngest brother of the “clan” Joseph DiFronzo, with an interest rate of 5 percent a week, and had quickly grown to $18,000 which was the point of no return for Coffey. In other words, because of his huge debt which he could not repay, from now on Coffey literally belonged to the Outfit and Joe DiFronzo. So the two individuals had a sit down on which DiFronzo made an offer to Coffey which he couldn’t refuse by offering a quite “crazy” solution to settle the debt. The idea that DiFronzo had was for Coffey to start growing marihuana in his warehouse which was located in Inverness, Illinois, in the northwest suburbs. In fact, this wasn’t an ordinary warehouse but instead it was a $650,000 15-room colonial-style house, which had the capacity for storing hundreds of marihuana plants. So Coffey had no other choice but accept DiFronzo’s proposal for growing high-grade indoor marijuana for the mob, so he can allegedly erase the debt.


At the beginning of the operation, Coffey was given additional $10,000 by DiFronzo and a plane ticket to Florida allegedly for advice, supplies and marijuana cuttings. Previously, light was the limiting factor to grow high quality marihuana indoors but by now, with the understanding of how a plant uses light, many marihuana growers began using high intensity discharge lamp technology, as well as hydro-ponic equipment, which was a watering system, and also various kinds of fertilizers and insecticides. The marihuana plants were about to be placed in three large basement rooms, equipped with expensive hydroponic irrigation tubes that keep the plants fed with water and nutrients, and also with the extra-bright lights hanging from the ceiling. The guy who was in charge of the electricity was one Mike Fusco, who in fact was a professional electrician and the thing was that at first, Fusco wasn’t informed about Coffey’s intention but later when he found out, he really got scared. The other important “links” in the operation were Bruce Ventura, the guy who helped in harvesting the plants, David Wutzen, the caretaker of the plants, and also Joseph Duenser, the individual who buried garbage from the marijuana operation on his property. In the end, two bedrooms of Coffey`s home were about to be used to dry and package the product.So Coffey and Duenser also began to form their crew or more like so-called network of people to distribute their product and many of those individuals also invested some of their cash in the project. For example, two of the main investors were Anthony Sanello, a known Outfit associate, and Richard Lantini, a private investigator from Park Ridge and former Stone Park police officer. Also Duenser and one Theodore Kotsovos took the roles as the main distributors in the operations by selling their product to numerous street gangs and independent dope dealers. They placed their price between $2,500 and $3,000 for a pound of “weed” and so the stage was set.


At first sight the whole operation looked quite professional but in reality, at beginning it started off as a failure because they mistakenly planted male marihauna plants, which don't produce the needed “high”. The main problem was that none of these guys ever knew anything regarding the marihuana growing business and because of that they already lost three months and time costs money. In the second try, or after additional three months, the operation failed again since somehow the plants turned moldy mainly because the humidity was too high, wrong fertilizer was used and the lighting was inadequate. And in no time, Coffey began to feel the pressure from Joe DiFronzo and the Outfit in general, since everybody began loosing a lot of money instead of generating, and when the crime bosses start loosing cash, somebody might get “clipped”. In other words, Coffey had to find a solution for the problem or else. So he again took a travel down to Florida where he met with some more expirinced individuals in the marihuana growing business for an advice. When he returned to Iverness, this time Coffey covered the cement floor with plastic to keep the moisture in the plants, and also covered the walls with foil to reflect the bright lights. Finally, the operation had produced several successful harvests which ranged between $40,000 and $500,000. Because of the growing profits, the boys began looking to expand their operation by growing marihuana plants inside multiple trailers around Du Page County, which obviously doubled their profits somewhere around one million dollars a year.


Everything went smooth for the next two years, until someone, as always, managed to screw things up for everybody. My personal belief is that the main problem for the marihuana growing or the narcotics business in general, is that it involves too many people, thus making the so-called “secret” impossible to hold. The proof for that is when Tony Sanello bragged about the operation to one of close friends, who at the time served a prison sentence on a cocaine conviction. The problem was that Sanello’s buddy worked as an informant inside the prison and so he immediately tipped the feds regarding the marihuana operation. After several days, an “army” of federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency stormed Coffey’s house on March 20, 1992, thus seizing 1,600 marijuana plants, and everything else inside which was essential for the operation, including the owner. From the confiscated documents, the agents also learned of the existence of an additional 2,200 plants stored in two of three padlocked tractor-trailers reserved for the purpose at a Carol Stream industrial park, and after three days, the trailers were also impounded. While in custody, Coffey decided to plead guilty but the problem was that he also gave up every single individual, which was involved in the whole operation and in no time, arrested were 11 other accomplices, including Joseph Duenser, Mike Fusco, Theodore Kotsovos, Anthony Sanello, Bruce Ventura, David Wutzen, Richard Gelsomino and Richard Lantini. The only guy who is missing from the list and also got away, or in other words went on the lam, was none other than Joseph DiFronzo. Since his brother was on the Outfit’s top administration, he probably received previous of the arrests and managed to pack his bags and disappear into an unknown direction.


Another interesting thing which occurred during the investigation, or should I say during the trial, was when one of the individuals in jury Robert Girardi began “leaking” information to one of the defendants. In fact, Girardi and defendant Richard Gelsomino were close friends from way back, which was the main reason for Girardi’s decision to help with some inside info on the jury’s thinking and decisions. My personal belief regarding Girardi’s decision were his so-called life problems, meaning he had gone through a messy divorce and was carrying enormous gambling debts and child support payments on a grocery clerk's salary. In other words, Girardi began hurting financially and so he saw a way out by helping Gelsomino in return for some cash. So while he was out on bond, during the early summer of 1993, Gelsomino began meeting with Girardi at public places and during those meetings, Girardi discussed the grand jury proceedings involving Gelsomino and other persons who were also of interest to Gelsomino. So later Gelsomino took the coded notes of this information and shared it with his friend and co-defendant, Richard Lantini. But the problem was that there was a big mistrust among the defendants, obviously since Lantini apparently felt that the whole thing was a set up and quickly went to his attorney with the information. In fact, Lantini did the right thing since the whole case was about to erupt.


Eventually, Lantini’s lawyer shared the information with the government and in no time, the feds visited Gelsomino, who in turn also agreed to coopearte in nailing his friend Girardi. So Gelsomino turned over the notes he had taken and agreed to continue his meetings with Girardi while wearing a microphone wire. In a matter of few days, several conversations between Gelsomino and Girardi were recorded, and in those some conversations, Girardi disclosed information about the grand jury proceedings, including the identity of witnesses and the content of their testimony. Up until this point, Girardi had provided Gelsomino with the information gratis, but one day Gelsomino informed Girardi that allegedly some criminal higher-ups were willing to pay for his information. So Gelsomino managed to arrange a meeting between Girardi and one undercover FBI agent who posed as member of the Chicago Outfit, interested in paying for Girardi's information. So during the conversation, the corrupt juror quickly offered to exchange information with the agent in return for $2,500 to $3,000 a month. One of the crucial meetings was held in December 1993, in a McDonald's parking lot on the western suburbs and Girardi told the agent that he did not want to get in trouble, but that he "felt good about helping people, especially Italians." After that the agent offered Girardi $1,000 up front to help Girardi buy Christmas presents for his children and thereafter, he was to receive $500 dollars per week as long as the information he provided merited it. This meeting was also recorded. Soon after, Girardi was arrested and even though he initially denied any wrongdoing, when confronted with the tapes, he quickly admitted talking to Gelsomino. However, he emphatically denied ever approaching any of the other grand jurors about participating in his scheme but Gelsomino said otherwise, claiming that Girardi told him that three other grand jurors were also willing to cooperate in exchange for $10,000 and airplane tickets to Hawaii. He also turned over 39-pages of copious hand-written notes to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The next year, in May, 1994, all of the defendants, including the ones who shared their information with the government, were sent to jail. The main reason for that was the government’s argument that there was no indication that Girardi's conduct affected the grand jury's decision to indict in any way and had no improper influence over the other grand jurors. In other words, there was no need for the rest of the defendants to tell on each other since the irony of the informants’ requests that their indictments should be dismissed because of the conduct they participated in, has not escaped the prosecutors. For example, Mike Coffey was sentenced to 10 years in prison including Joseph Duenser, Mike Fusco, Theodore Kotsovos, Anthony Sanello, Bruce Ventura, and David Wutzen were all expecting about 10 years with no chance for parole. Since the government was quite angry at him since his leaks led to entire different indictments being thrown out of the window, Girardi was sentenced to 8 years and one month to prison. Joe DiFronzo remained as fugitive and the prosecutors stated publicly that he may have vanished as a result of Girardi's possible leak about charges that were to be brought against DiFronzo for involvement with the Inverness drug operation.The only guy, who received lesser sentence because of his cooperation but in a different case, was Richard Lantini. He received only 5 years in return for his testimony against Marco D'Amico, another high level Outfit member, who also had a personal financial investment in the marihuana-growing operation. D’Amico was one of those Outfit guys who rarely took a conviction and was also connected directly to JohnDiFronzo and the rest of the brothers and allegedly headed the Grand Avenue crew. In fact, Lantini belonged to the crew which was under the auspices of D’Amico and worked as one of his loan shark collectors and also as a bookmaker. In less than a year, thanks to the extensive efforts of the feds, D'Amico along with eight other members from his crew were indicted for running an illegal sports bookmaking operation, using extortion to collect gambling debts and juice loans and conspiring to commit racketeering. Others indicted include Tony and Carl Dote, Robert Abbinanti, Roland Borelli, Frank Catapano, Frank Marnato, Robert Scutkowski and William Tenuta. All have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to the federal penitentiary in 1995.



John DiFronzo and Marco D’Amico (behind the guy with the beard)


As you can see, by now the old code of silence was long gone, especially among the syndicate members and their associates. I believe the main reasons for that were the non-existent hierarchy which was previously presented in the past and also the punishments which they used to give to those who disobeyed their orders. Back in the old days, if one of the middle guys brought an undercover agent to a dope deal, he usually kept his mouth shut or in some cases, ended up dead on the street. Also, members or associates went on the lam like it was the 1940’s or 50’s, which obviously tripled the government heat. After the imprisonment of his marihuana growing crew, four years later the feds managed to arrest Joe DiFronzo who in turn enjoyed the sunshine in Boca Raton, Florida, but immediately was sentenced to a 10-year prison term. Now, I don’t believe that the top criminal administration was pissed about the whole situation mainly because his brother John DiFronzo kept his position somewhere at the top and so did the dope business, especially cocaine.


Now don’t get me wrong, during this period many of the top crime bosses still financied the narcotics trade but they also still controlled their primary rackets such as video poker machines, loan sharking, extortion and prostitution. The current crime bosses did not want any more trouble and so they again placed their own trusted guys in charge of the operation. Their cocaine deals were financied mainly through their old associates, who already had quite good and also long experience in the drug trade, such as the Messino brothers. In fact, these guys flew under the radar for over a decade, while dealing dope under the nose of the federal government and the thing was that their whole family, including relatives, were involved in the business. According to the feds, Clement and Chris Messino were dealing Colombian cocaine throughout the 1980’s and early 90’s, with the help of the same old method, meaning transporting their stash from Florida to Chicago with the help of stolen cars or auto parts or even in expensive racing cars and other vehicles. The thing was that Chris Messino was a proud racer and also owned several race cars, including a Pro-Mod 1957 race car which was named "Shake, Rattle and Run" and he also owned few racing boats and a 1991 Harley Davidson motorcycle. And as for Clement, he was the “intelegent side” of the duo, who was mostly involved in trafficking with illegal weapons and also controlled a money laundering scheme by purchasing real estate in Monee, Illinois.



Dope hidden inside an automobile


Now, the so-called Messino “crime family” or dope peddling ring had its own hierarchy with both Chris and Clement at the top and an “army” of middle men and runners under their rule. For example, the next guy in line or their “right hand man” was George Thorpe, who allegedly directly participated with the Messino brothers in financing and overseeing the transportation, storing, distribution and the cash collection. The first link of the chain was Michael Homerding who was the mian "initial broker" of the cocaine transported into the Chicago area, mainly because he had the right contacts with the south Florida Colombian drug cartels. Donald Southern was the main individual who arranged for delivery of the cash and cocaine and in turn received large amounts of cash from the Messino organization. Another of his guys was also Chris Messino's "gofer and houseboy”, Thomas Hauck who allegedly have been directly involved in the transportation of the cocaine from Florida to Illinois. Once the product arrived in Chicago, the next guy was William Underwood, an alleged addict, who had been involved in the storage of the cocaine. They usually stored the stash in few of their joints around the South suburbs, such as a bar or an automobile shop in Harvey, Illinois, and later it was divided between their runners such Chris Messino’s sons, Chris Jr, Blaise and Paul, who in turn were alleged to have been involved as the main distributors and couriers for the dope peddling ring and on top of that, they had the main street peddling contacts such as Lawrence Thomas, Gray Chrystall and Daniel Shoemaker. Story goes that all three of Messino’s sons also used cocaine, which was a quite dangerous situation for them since many Outfit associates in the past were killed because of the addictive activity. So while couriers delivered the cocaine in stolen cars from Florida at great risk, the Messinos flew in comfort in planes on their return to the Chicago area. Also, another interesting story was that if someone did not pay up, Chris Messino was the guy for picking up all drug-related debts, which was something that his “predecesors” in the dope business would’ve never done. According to some reports, he was a very scary individual when he choosed to be and managed to beat up many debtors. In addition, after the imprisonment of Al Tocco, during this period the Chicago Heights faction was overseen by Dominic Palermo until 1991 and later it went allegedly under the rule of Chinatown crew boss James LaPietra or John Monteleone.



James LaPietra


According to the feds, this particular dope ring made between $20,000 and $30,000 per month and sold over 100 kilos of cocaine for a period of 10 years. Even though they were highly organized, according to the numbers you can obviously see that the crew’s main operation wasn’t dealing cocaine, since during that period there were other local crime groups who sold the same amount of cocaine on the streets in a matter of few weeks. Again, this is a good example which shows that the Outfit’s highly lucrative international dope peddling operations were long gone and the whole operation slowly became just a business on the side. In other words, if their loan sharking operations were coming short, they would simply sell few ounces of cocaine here and there so they can send their monthly envelope to their boss. In fact, like in most cases, that same “short cut” was the main start for all troubles to come.


The problem with the Messino group did not occur from within the group, but instead it came from the outside. You see, there was this crew member and enforcer from the Cicero area, known as Joe Granata, who came under the auspices of Joe Ferriola and Ernest “Rocky” Infelise. His father Frank Granata Sr. was allegedly a full fledged member of the Chicago Outfit and his brother was a member of the Elmwoof Park crew. According to one source, before he became a member of the Cicero crew, Joe Granata also worked for the late Charles Nicoletti. But when Infelice got locked up back in 1990, the Cicero crew began to destabilize and the next thing you know, Granata became an informant for the government. One day, Granata wore a wire to a meeting with Chris Messino, who in turn endlessly talked about his dope operations and also about his brother’s dealings. And there you have it, which again was the same old problem, or in other words, the late Tony Accardo was rolling in his grave. So one thing led to another, and Messino managed to sell an Uzi machine gun with a screw-on silencer, a sawed-off shotgun and a pound of cocaine to a government informant, who possed as a gang member. In no time, he somehow managed to flee from federal custody during medical treatment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in July 1992, but the next month he was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, as he tried to ship a car to Costa Rica.


On November 18, 1993, a federal grand jury returned an indictment made up of 13 counts, with count one charging Chris, Clement, Chris Jr., Paul and Blaise Messino, Mike Homerding, Donald Southern, William Underwood, Thomas Hauck, Gray Chrystall, Daniel Shoemaker, and Lawrence Thomas with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine. The government seized the Auto Abbey shop in Harvey and Michelle's Lounge in Crestwood, Chris Messino's home in Oak Forest, $315,000 in drug profits, and also more than 20 pricey vehicles, two offshore racing boats and several motorcycles. During the trial, the “star witness” Joe Granata did not appear personally but instead the prosecutors just played his tapes, which infact were quite enough for a conviction. But just to make things even worse, some of Messino’s “runners” began to “sing” for the prosecutors, including two former girlfriends of Messino's both testified under grants of immunity from the government and both confirmed that they had been enlisted by him to help in the cocaine distribution. In the end, in 1995, both of the Messino brothers were sentenced to the same prison term, such as life without possibility of parole. Also, Christopher Jr. and Paul were convicted and each was sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison and as for the third son, Blaise, he was acquitted. At the finishing of the trial, Clement Messino, in disgust, allegedly commented directly at the prosecutors and said "God help all of you." But the “war” was not over, since two years later, in 1997 a federal appeals court in Chicago threw out the convictions because of a mistake in selecting the jury, thus freeing the two brothers. Even though by now they were out of the illegal business, still the government wasn’t finished with the duo. In the year of 2000, the feds again took the brothers to court on the same old charges, including on narcotics conspiracy, money laundering and tax fraud, and this time, they again managed to sentence Clement Messino to life in prison for dealing narcotics, but failed to convict his brother Chris. According to his attorney Joseph Lopez, his client admitted at the trial that he used and sold cocaine before 1985 but quit the business after coming down with cancer, which in reality was his ticket for getting out of the case. Though unable to reach a verdict on the narcotics conspiracy charge against him, the jury convicted Messino on two tax fraud counts and acquitted him of obstruction of justice for allegedly intimidating a government witness. In addition, by 2009 both brothers were released from prison, including their former dope peddling colleague John Cappas, since they all attended the opening of Cappas’ new legitimate business which was the Johnny’s Wee Nee Wagon.


As I previously stated, that both cases, meaning the marihuana growing operation and the Messino case, were quite lucrative operations and professionally organized but the problem was that the proceedings were too small compared to the ones in the past, for example during the 1960’s or 70’s. To tell you the truth, there was this funny coincidence, meaning right after the death of Tony Accardo and the incarceration of Gus Alex, the alleged prohibitors of the dope racket, people expected for the rest of the members of the Chicago crime family to explode in the business. But as you can see, things were quite the opposite or in other words, the dope racket went on even lower leven rather than before. Obviously, two of the main reasons for this phenomenon were the federal government and the various dope peddling gangs but still, it is funny and at the same time quite interesting situation. And speaking about “funny” situations, by the late 1990’s, again, one Outfit member “tried” to bring the narcotics involvement to main picture. The guy I’m talking about is Joseph Scalise, a known burglar, extortionist and also a killer for the Mob but the thing is, he’s most famous for his “job” in England and stealing of the precious Marlborough Diamond. After serving a decade in English jail for that same job, he returned to Chicago and from that point on, he constantly tried to get back in action. The main problem was that by now Scalise was in his early 60’s and he was no crime boss, but instead he was a simple “soldier” and to be in that position, one must have a lot of violent energy, something which Scalise has lost long time ago. On top of that, it was a different time period with different type of criminals with no honor and no respect. So the old man foolishly took the bait and managed to get himself quickly in trouble.


In 1998, Scalise made a contact with one dope peddler and money launderer known as Ronald Waddy, originally from the Calumet City, but the problem was that Waddy was a very untrustable individual. This guy mainly operated around the Los Angeles and Detriot areas and had connections to all kinds of criminals, from Mexican drug lords to corrupt narcotics agents. Back in the 1980’s, Waddy with the help of few corrupt DEA agents, managed to conduct a secret dope trafficking operation out of Los Angeles throughout the Midwest, including Chicago. So when an old timer such as Scalise met someone like Waddy, the old man’s eyes quickly shined and sign of the old might dollar appeared in a glimpse. You see, even though many of his associates ended up in prison mainly because they were involved in the dope racket, still old man Scalise did not learn the lesson. And really don’t have any idea but somehow the old mobster managed to gather $269,900 in cash in exchange for 44 pounds or almost 20 kilograms of cocaine, which was about to be provided by Waddy personally. Now, I personally do not believe that a low level member such as Scalise can pull out that kind of cash out of his personal “piggy bank”, but instead this might’ve been another Outfit-finacied operation. So Waddy iformed Scalise about one Columbian cocaine dealer who was only known as “Danielo” and operated around the Los Angeles area and allegedly his product was the best. So while being thirsty for cash, this is the point where Scalise made the wrong decision by going back to his superiours, collected the cash, quickly packed his bags and went straight to Los Angeles to make the transaction, personally.


In April, that same year, Scalise, Waddy and two other associates Harvey Woods and Andrew Theodorou met in the “City of Angels” and together they went to meet their Columbian contact. According to the report, “Danielo” knowingly or unknowingly introdued Scalise and the rest of the guys with a government informant who was posing as a drug dealer from that area. After a short time period, Scalise again met the undercover agent in a restaurant parking lot, while carrying 27 bundles of $10,000 each in his car, expecting to pick up 22 kilograms of cocaine. At about the same time, Harvey Woods showed up at a near hotel, also expecting to pick up 20 kilograms of cocaine. Instead, Scalise, Waddy and Woods were all peacefully arrested by a team of federal agents. So again, like any other drug-related case, some of the defendants began to unravel the whole picture, such as Waddy himself. The game was simple, meaning if Waddy did not turn any evidence, he faced life in prison if he had been convicted. So during the trial he testified that he was forced at gunpoint into finding a narcotics supplier for Scalise, allegedly because Scalise blamed Waddy for having his previous cocaine stash stolen and threatened to kill Waddy if he didn't locate a new source of supply. Whatever was the truth, in the end Scalise pleaded guilty to intent to distribute cocaine and for that crime he served six and a half years and got out of prison in 2006, at the age of 69.


So this again shows that the Outfit’s involvement in the dope racket was either very professionally hidden from the government’s radar or things were simply falling apart, meaning the boys did no longer consider the dope racket as one of their prime “getaways” in collecting “easy” money. To tell you the truth, I believe it is the second choice mostly because by now the Chicago faction was making ends meat in the illegal business. Some of the top guys such as the DiFronzo clan were mainly involved in semi-legitimate enterprises and they probably stayed away from the “dirty” business, such as narcotics, mostly because they did not want any disruption of their “legal” money flow. But the problem is that there always be a younger generation who looks upon the world with a different view and the dope racket is always there for making a quick buck. So my point is that if the younger generation of the Outfit decided to get involved in the racket, big time, the doors will always remain open. In fact, nothing has changed since the days of Prohibition and the Capone Mob, when guys like Willie Heeney used to shoot heroin in their veins while killing people on their boss’ orders, and almost a century later, by 2013 some Outfit enforcers still consummated narcotics, especially cocaine. On July 23, that same year, an alleged Outfit enforcer Paul Carparelli was arrested by the feds as he drove up to his home with his son in their car. According to the report, Carparelli had cocaine and also tested positive for it, and the agents also found two guns and $175,000 cash in his home. According to the feds, this guy is a very nervous and violent individual, who love to throw threats and intimidate people and so if this guy was snorting cocaine, there are no doubts that some day, the Outfit might again become big in the dope business, since the opportunity is always right around the corner.


Until heroin, cocaine and marihuana are considered illegal by most of the governments around the world, and also while some countries continue to produce the plants for these illegal narcotics, organized crime will be always there to support the business, mostly because it’s fast and easy cash and the customer flow is endless. These days, the latest evolution of the dope racket doesn’t fall very far from the way of the rest of the business world is evolving, and in fact it’s getting much bigger. The so-called modern day drug trafficking rings are homologous to flexible and agile businesses, and also can adapt quickly to the routine. There’s nothing new in the way of smuggling of the drugs, with couriers constantly overseeing the transportation of drugs and cash by land, air and sea, and financial wizards with an intricate knowledge of how to launder proceeds in the global economy, and on the other side are the hitmen, street gangs, corrupt security forces, and local crime bosses who control their territories by constantly taking out their rivals. For example, today Mexico is still considered one of the world’s largest narcotics producers and also the host of few of the most ruthless organized crime groups which managed to infiltrate even in the highest circles of society, thanks to the huge amounts of cash.


For the last two decades, there are even new rising syndicates in the dope trade such as the Albanian clans, which flood almost whole Southeast Europe with their own products and on top of that, they are highly connected to the Italian crime syndicates such as the Camorra. But the thing is that most of these criminal groups are too violent, and so they constantly bring the attention from both the public and the government and so my personal opinion is that today’s most elusive dope peddling ring is located, again, in Bolivia. According to some reports, the Bolivian crime syndicates lowered their level of violence and murders almost down to nothing, thus making the country’s murder rate of 11 per 100,000 inhabitants, which is quite safe territory by today’s Latin American standards. Right now, these Bolivian sophisticated narcotics clans can put together up to 3000 kilograms of coca base, and deliver them to Brazilian organized crime syndicates, which slowly made Brazil the number one consumer of illegal drugs in the world. Meanwhile, Europe is also experiencing huge drug consumption, particularly cocaine which is usually produced in Latin America, which again is mainly brought by Italian and Spanish crime syndicates. My point is that today’s transnational organized crime likes new opportunities and little resistance and so currently many states around the world provides both and find themselves at the heart of a new criminal dynamic that threatens every citizen. For example, right now Burma remains the world's second largest poppy-crop grower and opium producer after Afghanistan.


As for future drug trends, the UN report suggests that cannabis will remain the most widely used illegal substance, but the biggest increase is likely to be seen in the use of synthetic drugs including "legal highs" and the non-medical use of prescription drugs diverted from legal supplies. But as I previously stated that the main problem is not with the crime syndicates but instead it’s with the everyday citizen. Meaning, until our planet vanishes from the cosmos, people will want to get intoxicated and there will be nothing there to stop them. It doesn’t matter wheter narcotics like marihuana or cocaine are legal or illegal, since the massive epidemic is always there, but few things can change, meaning with legalization, such as the decrease in the crime rate and also a decrease in citizen incarcerations. Slowly we came to end of this long criminal saga, which lasts even today, and it’s carried by many criminal societies from different ethnicities but the reality is that this particular “saga” is far from over. According to some reports, the American “Cosa Nostra”, especially the New York faction such as the Gambino crime family, is allegedly still connected to their cohorts in Italy and they still bring dope to the states. As for the Chicago Outfit, I personally believe that its only a matter of time but until then, we can only kick back and wait for some new reporter’s story or a federal case in which we’re going to see their involvement in some new “dope adventure”, obviously on some higher and more dangerous level.


The End

Thanks for the detailed information! By the way, when I was searching years ago for information about drug dealing in Chicago during Prohibition, in 2 books (specifically "The protectors" by Harry Anslinger and "Blood and power" by Stephen Fox) it was mentioned that in the 20s the main drug pusher in Chicago was an Irish woman named Kitty Gilhooley (with almost no details specified). I found several articles that say she was sent to jail with her husband Willie after a big drug seizure. Do you know whether this was a real "Irish mob" or just some street junkies overblown by the media? Because even in the old newspaper articles I didn't find much...Because, if the Outfit under Capone did deal drugs, but not so much to consider it as one of their main sources of income, and Capone himself was more interested in "using" rather than "dealing"....Then which group was n.1 in that business at the time, if any?

You're welcome Dwalin2011. To tell you the truth I never came across that name but I found several others, but as you previously stated that most of the info on them was regarding one case in which they got caught. So I decided to write on Madam Shaw mainly because she was associated to Chicago's Italian syndicate even before Capone and she was a dope addict her whole life. As for the Capone boys, I personally believe that they were more interested in using rather than selling, mainly because of their highly lucrative bootlegging operations. But the thing was that guys like Heeney knew other addicts who also knew other addicts, and so the whole thing slowly started forming into a new lucrative situation. And since the old days they always targeted the African-American population, which also makes me think that one verse in the Godfather movie was not a coincidence nor fiction. Also I dont believe that there was a number one dope peddling group at the time, not until the mid 1930's which i think was the Jewish crime element. Diring WWII when most of the supplies were being cut off, some Jewish gangsters from all over the states financied large poppy fields around the Mexico area

Toodoped

Well done & informative. I wanted to add that despite the drug trade being moved into the Douglas community, the majority of dope users & addicts were white. The 60s rolled in and the aaddiction in the Bronzeville area started to increase.

Thanks BF,Im glad that you liked my work.

Thats right, as I previously stated, throughout the 1940's some of the Jewish gangsters from the Lawndale area sold their Mexican product mainly to their own people but when the Italians got involved in the numbers and policy rackets, the Outfit changed its distribution territory down to the South suburbs somewhere around the late 1940's and early 50's, thus making the Chicago Heights faction the main overseer of the operation throughout the decade. So finally, when the 1960's began they suceeded in establishing their own "perfect" market, which was their first plan since the beginning of the venture. It was the same time when the Chinatown crew also got involved.

The same tactics are used even today, for example where I live, in the main parts of the city you cannot buy heroin but you can easily find coke, weed, extacy and even acid. The heroin shipments are mostly spreaded around the suburbs, for the gypsies and lower class of muslims, including Turkish and Albanian population. And obviously, the prices of weed and coke are always going up, and as for the H, it always remains the same.

The only thing I thought a little strange, was you got New York supplying Chicago, then Chicago supplying Detroit.

But Detroit had their own connections, and they supplied the Lucheses for all the 40s and into the 50s.

I thought Chicago got it from the Trafficante/Marcello nexus. They were close to Lucky though.....

All that stuff with the Outfit and the Bonnanos and dope and Mexico was fascinating.

In your research, did you come across anything on Virginia Hill and a heroin ring run outta Mexico?

Also, did you come across Nicola Impostato, or Carl Carammusa? They were said to be the Mafias narcotics managers from Kansas City during, I think the 30s - 40s?

Was it true every family was represented at the 57 meeting?

(Or is this a different meeting?)


I thought it was the most " Sicilian" of the Americans and the most "American" of the Sicilians. I've never read Dominic Roberto was there.... Or anyone from the Midwest save for the Partinico group, Coppola and Priziola.....The Detroit guys with the DIRECT connect.... Who actually made the face to face meetings in Sicily and Corsica, or Turkey, wherever they got the dope. Then they had the Teamsters to move it around.....



Rocco Mazzie is a name that's popped up before, he's part of the " Heroin Mafia" I call it. A bunch of made guys, capos, from across the families who were part of the same ring. Carlo made a point to break it up, you had Galante, Mirra, Ormento, Mazzie, Genovese and Gigante, they cut across family lines....

Another thing, you come across the name Saro Mogavero, as far as the New Yorker who was handling heroin shipments? ( He was Genovese)

Whats up Cabrini?! Those are a lot of questions man and so Im going to answer them for you, one by one....

Before i proceed, I want to state that most of my info on the 1950's and early 60's, comes from the 1600 page document on the hearings about Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics which occurred in 1963.

So... regarding your first question, as I previously stated in my text, the shipment from Europe came through three main points, one was Canada, the other was New York, and the last one was Florida, directly or through Cuba. But the problem was that the Canada point and also the one in Floirda, had still too much heat since those two points were very often used since the days of Prohibition and also throughout the 1930's. In other words, they were quite known by the drug agents. So according to the investigators, the NY point was the one which was more often used as receiving point for the dope shipment during that time period. Now, Im not saying that the Canadian faction or the Florida group werent smuggling dope for the whole Midwest, but during that time they did it with a lot of problems. According to some reports, during that period, most of the caught dope shipments occurred at the Canada and Florida points. It was a whole network, there wasnt any "Mr Big", but instead they all worked together and smuggled their products from wherever they found a "free pass".

Regarding the question on Virginia Hill, again as I previously stated that during the 1940's the Jewish criminal element, mostly associated with Cosa Nostra, used Mexico as production and also distribution point for heroin. This was mostly because their routes from Europe were being fucked up because of the war conflict. Although I believe that Vito Genovese might've been involved in some dope smuggling from Europe but Im not quite sure. So my point is that Virgina Hill was closely associated with the Jewish gangsters especially the ones from Chicago. So theres a huge possibility for her being at least a dope courier for these guys but I have to be honest that me personally couldnt find any good info regarding the speculations. If you want to read on the Jewish guys in Mexico you should check out the files on Chicago gangster Paul Roland Jones.

Regarding the question on Impostato, I came across his name and that he allegedly worked closely with Santo Trafficante and the Antorini mob and also with Profaci in NY. Proof for his close Florida connections was when he and another guy from KC did the botched hit on Tampa crime boss Charlie Wall. In 1955, Impostato was deported to Italy. But to tell you the truth I never turned my attention on those guys, since im mostly interested in individuals with the Chicago connections. Maybe Impostato had connections to Chicago but I couldnt find any.

Regarding the fourth question, the meeting or meetings which occurred during the late 1940's, mostly occurred in Europe, which i named it on purpose the "European deal". According to numerous reports, whenever some of the Chicago guys decided to visit Italy, he first went to see Roberto, which indicates that he still had high stature. During that time he was also visited by numerous other gangsters from different cities and he was very close with Luciano and Coppola, which explaines his involvment in the dope trade. This can be backed up by numerous trips made by his cohorts from the Chicago Heights faction, before, during or after numerous dope peddling problems, for example the one with Galante.

As for Mogavero, he was a native Chicagoan who later moved to New York, so it is possible that he was with the Genovese fam, and it is possible that at the time the investigators made a mistake by linking him to the Mangano's.

Toodoped

You currently live in Chicago? If so i didn't know.

Now i wondered which one of those Black racketeers had gang ties and to whom. You can expect the street organizations to plaay a pivotal role even at the wholesale scale too. Frank Matthews had a network in Chicago as well.

My belief is that some of those runners (African-American or Latino) which I previously mentioned in my article, already had their own dope networks around the Midwest and even all the way to New York. At the time, some Black gangsters from the Chi area transfered or fled to Brooklyn NY. If you want I can gather some info on which Chicago Black gangs during the early 1960's had dope connections to NY, Florida or around the Midwest.

Toodoped

If you have the time to look and im thinking it would be interesting to see who develop the connections first. During that early 60s time frame you had more gangs in both Latino & Black communities. The 60s is when large umbrellas emerged and consistence battles over turf and money as well. Alot people continue to overlook is that these umbrellas increase the membership into the thousands back then. Later on is when they would merge into singular organizations.

The Outfit's drug ties are very extensive and what not many people realize is that a lot of Sicilians lived in suburbs like Melrose Park and Addison and neighborhoods like Bridgeport and Grand Avenue even through the 1980s and absolutely ran the cocaine that flooded the city in that period (all of the shit that flew through Rush Street and the nightspots)

Here are two drug crime stories that were never tagged to Outfit heavyweights and thus stayed well under the radar, but were both fucking brutal and showed exactly how these guys operated:

Dino Tintone, Tullio Infelise, Aldo Fratto:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-07-09/news/9807090241_1_killings-trunk-cold-blooded

Carmen Sarlo, Joe Bravieri & Ricky Zuniga:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-...e-drug-slayings

TooDoped great story - also completely skimmed past the part you mentioned Zuniga and Bravieri.

Also here is Dante Autullo:
https://ibb.co/gJL9ak

Thanks ChiTown and also thanks a lot for the Autullo Jr photo and the additional info

Toodoped Get these Two Books