@ Scorsese
I wouldn't be so quick to discount that Gambino South American contacts.
I wish I remembered the thread, but there was a map that showed the interest of all the Italian crime syndicates operating in South America. It was mostly Calabrians, I believe only the Licciardis of Naples were for the cammora, there was the Sicilian Badalamenti clan, and most interestingly, a Buscetta organization operating out of BRAZIL. Now there was another thread, about a report on OC in jersey from 83, I think. In it they had Buscettas SON as a made Gambino member. Don't know if anyone's looked into it.....
It's why I see old bridge, new bridge, all this stuff is a continuation of the same thing. See the Sicilian mafia sent representatives over here to deal with Cali. Specifically, he was arranging kilogram loads of coke in the 500-1000 kilo range.
That's enough to basically supply the Palermo families. So there hadto have been some heavyweight connection there. When they got busted' the calabrians basically muscled into that position, as they have positioned themselves to handle ALL coke coming into Europe.
See the Ursino family could just get coke from Canada, right? From a Siderno group family, think about it. Why would they NEED the Gambinos? The Calabrians , historically, dealt directly with Salvatore Mancuso in Colombia, they HAD A DIRECT LINE TO THE COKE. So why use Gambino contacts, when they built up trust with the Colombians over a period of years? think the Gambinos have been trying to reestablish their pre-corleonesi position in the international drug trade. It's why Canada figures so heavily as well. The Rizzutos, kinda took the Gambinos slot as the top Italian American traffickers. With them being knocked down a notch, I saw New Bridge as the Gambinos and Calabrians basically carving it up amongst themselves.
I think only the Siderno group has a lock on coke, everyone else is trying to get their own supply, I wish Sinatra or antimafia were in on this, they know ALL THE PLAYERS, they could explain it better....
I think its more accurate to say that individuals within the gambino crime family have south american contacts or access to drug dealers that do stateside.Its more of an opportunistic thing than an effort by the five families to rekindle a partnership with italians.
Ill give you that operation old bridge showed some concerted effort by higher ups in both the gambino and sicilian mob to rekindle some sort of official relationship. What were the specific drug charges in that case though? From what i have read it seems that frank cali was helping his relatives launder proceeds of crime in america.
In the recent big case you had an associate lupoi who was the driving force behind the ateempted drug deal. Again he happened to have relatives in the ndrangeta or something and also knew drug dealers too who were helping him set up the deal in guyana. It wasnt the gambino crime family administration giving him a rolodex of thier south american contacts, it was just him working with people he had probably met through criminal dealings and relatives of his. As for ursino family not buying their cocaine in canada, unless theirs some rule that says they have to buy drugs in canada theirs nothing stopping them from setting up their own supply route or even doing just one big drug deal.
