Cesare Bonventre, Organized Crime Figure.

He as a member of both the Sicilian Mafia and the Bonanno Organized Crime Family operating out of Brooklyn, New York. A bodyguard to Bonanno boss Carmine Galante on the day Galante and three others were murdered. Bonventre survived the massacre and escaped. He was arrested a week later, but told the FBI he saw nothing and was freed. He was a member of the Salvatore Catalano Crew. A main importer and trafficker of heroin from Sicily. He was murdered one month before the "Pizza Connection" arrests brought down Catalano, Giuseppe Ganci and others. The Pizza Connection trial (the name was chosen because the heroin was sold out of pizza parlors though out the U.S.) was the largest narcotics trials in United States history. Bonventre was shot to death, then sawed in half and stuffed into two 55 gallon drums of glue. An informer lead the FBI to the drums and three months later Bonventre was positively identified.

Of all the Zips, or young Sicilian mafiosi, brought into the United States by the likes of Carlo Gambino and Carmine Galante, no one was more hated or feared than Cesare Bonventre, who killed his way up to underboss of the Zips and their faction within the Colombo family.Many American mobsters viewed the Zips as imported "crazies," who were not to be trusted, Cesare least of all. Nonetheless, the Zips became the key factors in the so-called Pizza Connec-
tion, importing millions of dollars of heroin into the country.

The Colombo family boss Galante, recently released from prison, ran the operation. He wanted total control of the heroin trade in America and ultimately meant to take over all five of the New York families. For that he needed the Zips and the unques
tioning loyalty of the swaggering Cesare Bonventre,at 28 one of the youngest of the weird bunch. Galante felt he could trust the Zips; he was making them rich and powerful. What more could they want?

Trusting no one else in the Mafia, Galante kept only a small group of Zips around him, with Cesare always at his side. He used the Zips for all kinds of murderous work and for handling junk deals. Then in 1979 three masked gunmen shot Galante to death in a Brooklyn restaurant. With him at the time as "bodyguards" were Cesare and his cousin Baldo Amato. Both fled after the shooting. It was clear the assassins had no interest in shooting them.

Inside both mob and law enforcement circles there was little doubt that Bonventre was in on the hit. The other crime families in New York and elsewhere had grown so frightened of Galante that they decided he had to die. They followed an old Mafia custom of involving some of the victim's closest associates in the plot. Cesare Bonventre fit the bill perfectly. He probably didn't even consider it an act of betrayal.He could see how the odds had suddenly swung against his mentor. Farewell, Carmine.

As a reward Cesare became a capo within the Bonanno family, honored if hardly trusted. Cesare's own downfall was a bare five years off. The Pizza Connection plot, funneling heroin deals through pizza parlors all over Brooklyn and elsewhere, was unraveling. Higher-ups probably blamed Bonventre for at least part of the chaos. And if Cesare had betrayed Galante, might he not also betray them to the authorities?

As arrests were made in the pizza case, Bonventre and Amato disappeared. Amato later turned up alive and was convicted with many others. Cesare Bonventre was not so fortunate. His body was found hacked in two and stuffed into two glue drums in a warehouse in New Jersey. The body had been located through a tip from an unidentified source who knew there the drums were stored pending shipment to the Midwest. It took weeks to identify the corroded and decomposed remains as Cesare. The task was accomplished using dental records and a gaudy gold chain the victim always wore around his neck and bragged was "indestructible."

No arrests ever resulted even though an informant stated that one of the killers was one Cosmo Aiello, who also turned up dead about five weeks after the discovery of Bonventre's body.
Perhaps Bonventre's murder had been ordered by his Zip superior, Sal Catalano, but there were other suspects. Certain forces in Philadelphia hated Cesare for having cheated them with diluted heroin.And there was an endless number of Bonventre's associates who had long chaffed under his rough
treatment.

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