Ooh, no one said the FIVE FAMILIES were rekindling the drug connection. Just the Gambinos, who since the at least the late sixties-early seventies, were knee deep in the drug trade. The families have stepped up their involvement in NY,I think that's the article Ivey was referring to.

I agree on the opportunistic part, if they have a reliable Italian supplier for coke and dope, the families would most likely be attracted to this, as opposed to buying from Dominicans or Mexicans.




The Gambinos, and Bonnanos were structurally tied into the drug trade, that's why the Ursino case is interesting, because it's a continuation of how the Gambinos have operated in the past, only before it was always with Palermo mafia families.


That Old Bridge case was about much more than them needing a conduit for money laundering. They didn't have to violate the standing pact of the Inzerillos never returning to Sicily in order to launder money in America. How were the Inzerillos going to launder Sicilian money in America from Sicily? Also you gotta consider the rep of some of the indicted, guys like Casamento, and the Inzerillos, historical drug traffickers.

They seemed to present the Ursino thing as ongoing, like it had been happening for awhile. Same deal with the queens thing.

If you look at the Calabrian thing, they set up a cell HERE to operate, whereas the Sicilians sent representatives to negotiate, and then, basically, the Inzerillos tried the reverse, by sending a cell THERE, TO Sicily.

In terms of Old Bridge, Look at all the reports on Sicily in recent years. From people refusing to pay the pizzo, to them tolerating the Spaniard Fernandez for his drug connects, then killing him when he didn't deliver. ( Not going to see Vito sealed his fate) To using Afican immigrants to move drugs on the streets. They have been trying to make up,for the loss of revenue it seems.

I'm honestly a little confused, you don't think Old Bridge was about a reeestablishment of drug routes? I mean in New Bridge it plainly says the Ursinos wanted to launder about 11 million. But the underlying purpose, of course is drugs.

Let me ask you this, do you think this whole show STOPPED with Lupoi? Like after he got arrested, you think both parties stopped trying to move dope back and forth. The Calabrians said they have a base inNY. I don't really think the absence of Lupoi will affect anything. The chain is too big, the ties run too deep.