I always say that the period during the mid 1960’s was one of the toughest periods for the Outfit’s illegal operations including its top administration. Their prime income, which was the gambling business, was on the downfall and so was the car theft business. But still, one Outfit boss controlled a huge car theft ring which generated a lot of cash for the organization. That car theft ring was headed by none other than Fiore Buccieri, Alleged former 42 gang member and boss of the West Side at the time. He controlled the area extending from the Chicago River west to Harlem and from north of 22nd Street to an area which was in the Cicero territory. This guy was a real deal gangster who made a lot of money by controlling all of the crap games and loan sharking operations in his territory and tortured or killed a lot of people. If Buccieri asked you to kill somebody, you would’ve done it. It was simple as that. Also, every business that this guy touched, he turned it into a pot of gold, such as in this example with the car theft business.



Fiore Buccieri

Four of Buccieri’s main guys in the car theft business were Richard Buonomo, Pasquale Accettura and Carmen Apicella and the fourth guy was an old time bootlegger known as Herman David a.k.a. Motorcycle Mike from the Dolton area. He was called “Motorcycle Mike” because he used such a vehicle to deliver moonshine back in the days of Prohibition. All of these so-called Outfit associates controlled their own people who were involved in the business on daily basis. For example, some of David’s associates in the business were Erwin Hager Jr., Louis Novy and James Cobb, and besides stealing cars they were mostly involved in printing auto titles and counterfeiting plates and controlled interstate counterfeiting scheme that netted more than $1.000.000 per year. According to some government reports, the ring had stolen hundreds of Cadillacs in the Chicago and Indiana areas and with the help of one of the gang’s members, James Cobb who owned the Commercial Printing Company in Griffith, Indiana, they used phoney Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan titles to sell them for an average of $3,500 throughout the country.


But besides his crew, David also had two sons Robert and Orland, who loved stealing cars, mostly Cadillacs and Chevrolets, and were the main operators on the streets. One of their partners was Albert Tocco, a known Outfit enforcer and operator for the Chicago Heights crew, which by now was still led by Mob boss Frank LaPorte. The two brothers and Tocco had few car theft operations in Gary, Indiana and Youngstown, Ohio. In Gary they had one policeman on their payroll known as Kenneth Dash, operator of an auto service center known as Joseph Iatarola and few other fellows to watch the “field” but in Youngstown, their operation mostly depended on shady car dealers such as George and Peter Nasse or Rudy Geidens, who sold stolen cars imported straight from Chicago or any other place around the country. The stolen cars have been referred to as the Nasse cars, since in each case George Nasse obtained an Ohio title before selling the car. Also some of these stolen cars were sold in California, and have been referred to as the Scarcelli cars, from the name of the dealer who took them to that state. According to some government reports, the David brothers were seen meet frequently with Outfit boss Fiore Buccieri, meaning they acted as contact men between their father and the Chicago syndicate.


Even though David’s crew made quite a good amount of cash regarding the circumstances, but they were not the most lucrative faction in the Outfit’s car theft business. The second faction on my list, as I previously stated, were Richard Buonomo, Pasquale Accettura and Carmen Apicella and these guys allegedly made over 2 million dollars a year from this racket alone. Some sources described Accettura and Apicella as Buccieri’s lieutenants in charge of the scheme with Buonomo as their professional thief and ring leader. Buonomo, who had a record for auto theft dating back to 1958, led a gang of at least 20 members which took a part of stealing more than 500 automobiles in only six months around the country and made quite a good illicit income. Many of the stolen vehicles were driven from Illinois and sold in Alabama after their motor numbers were re-stamped by the gangsters to correspond with the serial plates. As usual, the stolen cars were resold by two Alabama used car dealers, Gene Bates and Jarvis Suit.


Everything went well until September, 1965, when the feds arrested 77 year old Herman David, Erwin Hager, Jr., Louis Novy, and James Cobb. This was a huge slap in the face for the Outfit’s car theft business because the feds managed to strike the heart of the operation by closing down their main printing company and car dealers. The feds also managed to find many phoney documents in the basement of old man David's home, along with a bronze 1965 Cadillac which was previously reported stolen in Oak Lawn. In a garage which was attached to David's residence, the cops also discovered an unassembled whiskey still dating from the prohibition era, bearing bullet holes and x marks. The plates and more documents were seized in the print shop, and still more were found in an old panel truck which was parked in a residential driveway in Blue Island. Another thing on which the feds realized was that the gang used bogus credentials for identification and passed over 2,000 counterfeit payroll checks for amounts between $100 and $300 in banks in the Chicago and Gary areas, and later those same checks were drawn on Calumet area oil and steel companies.


To make things even worse, in November that same year, in their second indictment the feds also arrested Buonomo, Accettura, Apicella and their dealers in Alabama Bates and Suit. Others named in the indictment were the David brothers, Gary policeman Kenneth Nash, James Cobb, Albert Tocco, Rudy Geidens and Joseph Iatarola. The conspiracy was said to include stealing motor vehicles, stealing serial plates from other motor vehicles and attaching them to the stolen vehicles, altering the identification numbers on the frames of the stolen ones so as to agree, preparing counterfeit state titles for use in selling and re-titling the vehicles, and transporting the stolen vehicles to other states for sale. The conspiracy was alleged to have existed from April, 1962 to November, 1965, when the indictment was returned.


George Steger, who lived in Illinois, testified that in the spring of 1964 he agreed to buy a 1964 Cadillac from Tocco, proprietor of the Club Domino. Tocco delivered it on May 9, together with an Indiana title, and received payment. Ervin Hager Jr. also testified that he, Tocco, and one William Dauber stole a 1964 Cadillac in Blue Island, Illinois. This was the car delivered by Tocco to Steger. It does not appear to have been transported in interstate commerce after the theft and was not named in any count. The incident was, however, relevant to show intent and pattern. A short while later, Steger negotiated with Tocco to purchase a Cadillac for one Mrs. Logan, Steger's secretary. Hager testified that Tocco, Dauber and Hager met in Chicago Heights and Tocco said that he had a sale for another car and wanted Hager to pick it up. Hager, Dauber, and another stole a Cadillac from a dealer in Elkhart, Indiana and brought it back to Tocco's Club Domino in Illinois. Hager received a title from Herman and it was shown that the payment received by Hager came from Tocco. This car was delivered on June 6, to Mrs. Logan in Illinois and the Indiana title which was turned over to her was made out in the name of an apparently fictitious person, and came from the same source as the Indiana titles for three Nasse cars and five Iatarola cars. Tocco later procured another stolen car for a friend of Steger. Steger was interviewed by the FBI in June, 1964 and later he was asked by Tocco what the FBI had said and told him that "they" had heard the radio from the FBI car when Steger was in it, coming back from the police station in Harvey. Tocco said "they haven't got anything on anybody if you don't say anything.” So with the help of the testimony, Tocco was charged and convicted with the interstate transportation of the Logan car. There was proof from which the jury could find he induced Hager and Dauber to transport it and the proof became sufficed to show participation in the conspiracy.



William Dauber


In 1966, the feds described the racketeers as a nation-wide car theft ring leaders and so they were charged for using phoney registration papers, which were usually stolen from legitimate dealer, and stolen auto serial plates to dispose of the stolen cars at prices below their market value. Richard Buonomo was also taken quickly into custody and his bond was immediately cancelled after the assistant United States attorney Richard Sikes expressed fear that because of his underworld connections, Buonomo might attempt to flee the state. The defendants pleaded guilty to two of the 10 counts with which they were charged and some of them were sentenced to 10 years in prison, as for Outfit boss Fiore Buccieri, he remained untouched. But the main thing that the cops failed to notice was that Buccieri’s operation transferred in the South suburbs with the help of William Dauber and the now imprisoned Al Tocco.


After the dismantling of Buccieri’s car theft crew, the guys who worked with Albert Tocco from the Chicago Heights area continued to thrive in the business thus making this next time period, the bloodiest chapter not only in the car-theft business, but also since the formation of the Chicago Outfit. Besides the government’s continuous struggle against organized auto-theft, during the late 1960’s, the racket became more lucrative than ever and since main Chicago Heights car theft operator Albert Tocco was constantly in and out of jail, another member from that same crew decided to have it all for himself.


James Catuara was an old time mobster who came up the ranks with the help of some of the most ruthless Outfit members from the old days. He started up as an enforcer for James Belcastro and Bruno Roti Sr., Outfit big shots from the Near South Side, but later ended up as member of Frank LaPorte’s unit. Catuara was quite an earner with many extortion, loan sharking and gambling operations around the Chicago Heights area, Calumet City and Chinatown. But he also had a big ego because he considered himself above some of the members of the organization because of his long time criminal history. So when Tocco went to jail again in 1969, Catuara was allegedly “asked” by the bosses to take over his car theft operation, thus absorbing almost every member from Tocco’s theft crew. In pure Chicago Outfit style, the crew was formed from the partnership between Italian and non-Italian members and according to numerous reports they were a very tough crew with monstrous reputation. These guys were not your ordinary car-theft crew, no sir, but instead some of them also worked as hired killers, collectors and extortionists. For example, few of the most prominent members of the crew were Sam Annerino, Mike Antonelli, Guido Fidanzi, Richard Ferraro, William Dauber and Steve Ostrowsky. Now, guys like Ferraro were more like business type of individuals and as for Annerino, Fidanzi and Dauber, these guys were natural born killers and because of their fearless reputation, they mostly extorted car thieves and “chop shop” owners.



Jimmy Catuara


The term “chop shop” is generally used for all kinds of independent car thieves that usually strip stolen cars and than sell the stripped parts or sell whole cars which are previously built with those same stolen parts. It is a branch of the car theft business and this operation usually occurs in certain mob-favourite auto repair shops and such. The “chop shop” business wasn’t something new because it existed since the day when the car theft was “invented”, as we previously saw in some of the given examples. Here’s how car chopping was done: At the beginning they unbolted the front end, which is the entire front section of the car including the fenders and the hood. This is the most valuable part of the car because it is the section most frequently damaged in accidents. The windshield was then cut out and the doors unbolted and removed. Next, the seats were removed. Then, with a torch, they cut the posts which connect the roof to the dashboard and cut through the floor width-wise in the front seat area, enabling them to remove the entire cowl. This left the mechanic with the roof section of the car connected to the back end which is often referred to in the salvage business as a rear clip. Once the car was dismantled, the usable parts were taken to he salvage yards, while the marked frame, engine, transmission, and other components were carted to a crusher to be recycled as scrap iron.



Chop shop


So this extremely lucrative illicit market for vehicle replacement parts has mushroomed in the 1970’s and it was formed for two major reasons. First, replacement parts ordered direct from the manufacturers were extremely expensive, as much as 400 percent above the pro rata price of the same parts as they originally came off the assembly line in a new car. For example, during that period an astonishing $20,000 were needed at least just to purchase all the parts separately for a standard 1979 automobile with a sticker price of $5,000. As for the chop shops, they supplied parts and plus repair work for only one third of the cost of the new replacement parts without repair work. Say you were in an accident and you need to have the front cap of your Lincoln, everything from the windshield forward replaced. It would run about $4,000 for the unpainted parts through a car dealer while on the “black market” it would be about $2,500 the most.


Second, lengthy delays in the delivery of new replacement parts discouraged many legal repair shops from ordering new car parts. In some cases, repair shops had to wait for weeks or even months, before receiving customized parts such as front ends or doors from the manufacturers. So in an effort to reduce the waiting period, many repair shops have contacted legal salvage yards for used parts but the problem was that these salvage yards didn’t always had the needed parts in their stock. Now, this is the main point where the car thieves and the Chicago Outfit came in. With one phone call to an illegal salvage yard that dealt with chop shop owners, shortened the time delivery to only one day. That is why this was a great deal for the average buyer, seller and the “average” gangster, meaning the thieves, chop shop owners, illegal repair shops and the gangsters all made quite a good amount of cash, as for the buyer, at first he saved cash and time, because when the word gets out on the street that you can pick up the repair or replacement parts that you need for your car for $250 less than anywhere else in town, you don't ask questions about where the parts came from. But later, as usual, some of the chop shop owners and repair shops became greedy and started selling the stolen parts as legitimate articles provided from their manufacturer and so the main difference between the car theft business and the chop shop operation was that the car theft only hurt the insurance companies. The greed was inevitable because the gangsters started pushing the chop shop and repair shop owners to pay their much larger “debts” or street taxes, thus forcing them to place much higher prices on the stolen parts.


The problem with the gangsters was that during the early 1970’s, the Chicago Outfit was recovering from an “earth-shaking era” which was caused by all of the previous attacks made by the FBI and so the bad boys mostly concentrated on their operations in Las Vegas, Nevada. But back home, they still maintained their connections in politics, labor field, gambling and loan sharking and obviously not all of the members from the crime organization had their shares in casinos around the country but instead they had to find a way to make more money with the help of “new” lucrative schemes such as the chop shop business. So, with the help of the unusual high prices of auto parts and repairs, made the dealing in stolen parts quite profitable for the Chicago Outfit. According to some reports, from the time period between 1968 and 1973, over 120,000 stolen cars went through these so-called Outfit chop shops.


Now back to Catuara’s crew. One of the main extortionists Sam Annerino started his criminal career from former boxer to loan shark collector and ended up as a professional hitman for Catuara and the Outfit. Under Catuara’s rule, he was also involved in extortion and fencing stolen merchandise. Once, Annerino administrated a heavy beating on an Oak Park trucking executive, with the intention to extort $5,000 from him and later a federal appeals court overturned Annerino's conviction for assault. In private life Annerino had a very bad temper and was known to be a very violent individual, meaning if some people didn’t pay up, they usually ended up with a bullet in their legs or arms. According to one story, this guy was known for always carrying a hitman‘s “emergency tool kit” in his car trunk because he never knew when he might needed. Things like surgical gloves, gun with a fingerprint resistant tape, knife, wire, knuckle brass etc. So when guy like Annerino showed up in front of some chop shop operator or car thief, there were no doubts, everybody instantly paid up.


Annerino also had a partner in crime known as Mike Antonelli, who was also known as hothead and a feared hitman because he always carried a gun with a silencer. He was known for shooting people just for looking at him the wrong way. Antonelli’s other job was transporting stolen cars from Indiana to Chicago for example, usually filled with car titles, thus filling Catuara’s pockets with huge amounts of cash. There was also another guy known as Richard Chiarenga who constantly accompanied Antonelli and who also transported stolen cars and car titles. Secretly or allegedly without Catuara’s knowledge but with Annerino’s approval, Antonelli and Chiarenga used and also sold narcotics on the side.


Next was Guido Fidanzi, another ruthless enforcer for the crew but with a little sense for business. If Fidanzi stood in front of you, it was the appearance of a short and stocky guy, always wearing a black short-sleeve sports shirt, black slacks, and black shoes, with flashes from the big diamond that he wore on his left pinkie. He owned a gas station known as Malizia Service which was fronted by his brother-in-law Tony Renzetti. But even though he tried to portrait himself as clean businessman, by the end of the day Fidanzi was a real scumbag. Once, there was this guy who gave him $7,500 with a promise of a $50,000 loan from Fidanzi himself but in the end, the poor guy never saw his $7,500 again, nor the alleged loan. Back in 1968, Fidanzi was convicted for income tax evasion and was sentenced to 5 years in prison but before the trial, according to news reports, Fidanzi threatened some of the witnesses by saying that he was going to shoot them in the head if found guilty. But according to numerous sources, the jurors weren’t the only ones who received threats, but also Fidanzi sent a message to Catuara and the Outfit that his wife and family should be taken care of while he’s in prison. After all, that’s how things go in the Mob right? If not, he might start talking. Catuara held to his promise and in the end Fidanzi was found guilty and served only 3 years because he was paroled in 1971. Fidnazi owned a fraudulent mortgage company and also worked as collector and extortionist in the chop shop business, but he was considered “the last line of defence” because as I previously stated, he was too much of an unstable, loudmouth, nervous and trigger happy individual or in other words he told everything to anyone, stole everything from anyone and killed anyone and everything.


Next in line, according to level of violent urge within the crew, was William Dauber. This guy was also a nut and killed every possible living thing which has done only a little bit to hurt him and so during his criminal career, he was a suspect in over 25 killings. By now he worked for Catuara but Dauber started his criminal career like every other bully on the streets by beating people for cash and later graduated in the car theft business alongside Albert Tocco. Together they were arrested with Buonomo and Accettura in the previous car theft ring case but since his old pal was in jail, his allegiance belonged to Catuara, for now. But all of these Outfit companions knew Dauber’s darker side and so they started using him as collector and hitman for the organization before his involvement in the chop shop racket. Dauber loved the action of stealing a car but he also owned few chop shops around the south suburbs. With the help of his two main chop shop operators Bob Brecka and Bob Ostrander, they managed to distribute a high volume of stolen parts in Indiana, Kentucky and Florida. The problem was that Dauber was a serial killer and so many times when he and few of his guys went to “work”, usually the owner of the car was left with a bullet in his groin. Once, Dauber and three of his cohorts transported a stolen car from Indiana to Chicago after pumping few bullets in the owner’s chest. Dauber was the guy who would’ve good- naturedly approach you, then put one arm around you in a friendly gesture, and in the end pull out a gun and shoot you with his free hand.


Dauber had three partners in crime, one was Peter Bresinelli, the other was John Schnadenberg and the last was Steve Ostrowsky. Bresinelli was a car thief and he mostly acted as Dauber’s chauffer and sort of a bodyguard but together they also operated a chop shop in Blue Island. Schnadenberg was another of Dauber’s everyday companions who always helped his mentor in chopping cars and also in executing people. In fact, Schnadenberg was Dauber’s brother-in-law and was always treated, mostly by Dauber, as the dumbest person within the group. For example, one day Schnadenberg was waiting with a semi-truck for his partners Dauber and Ostrowsky, who in turn were delivering a huge stash of stolen car parts. Now, all of the parts were stashed over a huge sheet metal which was about to be transferred from Ostrowsky’s truck into Schnadenberg’s semi-truck. But three was a problem because the floor levels of both trucks were at different heights and now they had to use boards so they can slide the metal sheet up into the semi-truck. So according to some accounts, Dauber told Schnadenberg to find some good boards so they can make the slide. Well the other problem was that the boards which were found by Schnadenberg, were not strong at all, and on halfway up the boards snapped and the whole merchandise fell on the ground. In a matter of seconds, Dauber’s face turned red, his eyes became like the ones of a shark, pulled out his gun and started chasing Schnadenberg around the trucks for nearly an hour while threatening to kill him. In the end, Ostrowsky and another of their associate managed to calm Dauber and managed to convince him to forgive Schnadenberg and let him live his remaining days.


Steve Ostrowsky was different, meaning he operated his own salvage yard known as the South Chicago Auto Parts & Wrecking Co. at 7370 South Chicago Avenue, and he also operated his own car theft ring and chop shop operations. Inside his salvage yard, Ostrowsky had a long line-private party telephone line from which he requested specific car parts from chop shops or illegal salvage yards around the state of Illinois. If somebody requested for an expensive part, Ostrowsky immediately announced over the lines that he had the part in stock, and even though in reality he didn’t, he still would arrange for a quick delivery. Ostrowsky allegedly had costumers calling from repair shops all the way from Missouri, Pennsylvania and Tennessee and delivered stolen auto parts to various body repair shops all around the Midwest. In other words, Ostrowsky had the game locked down by also corrupting the head of the South Side stolen car unit William Basketfield and Police Lieutenant Robert Fischer by paying them from $200 to $300 dollars a week. Later Basketfield was charged for operating a tire-stealing ring but he was not convicted. He was fired from his job and became an Ostrowsky employee at his auto parts store. But the darkest “secret” was that Ostrowsky was also a killer and there were many situations where his people had cut up the cars that alleged informants were previously murdered in. In fact, he was a former biker with a good personality and charisma, and above all killer instinct, something which the other members of the crew could’ve only dreamed of.


Ostrowsky had two main operators or associates, Harry Holzer, a known chop shop operator from the Calumet City area, and Harry Carlson, another experienced car theft operator. Now Harry was the son of James Holzer, the guy who worked with Carl Fiorito in the car theft racket back in the late 1940’s. Because of his family’s history and connections, Holzer knew ever possible car thief on the South and West Side and constantly paid them for their jobs. He usually gave the thieves $100 to steal and deliver a whole car, and $500 if the car was brought chopped up. Each day, Holzer and his partner in crime Ostrowsky would compile a list of the parts they needed and at the end of each work day they would give their “street workers” a list of cars which were to be stolen that evening. The duo was also able to increase their profits by dealing primary with body switch shops, since many of the salvage yards requested only two or three parts while the body switch operator was always interested in purchasing all of the parts from the dismantled car.


Ostrowsky and Holzer both even came up with the same crazy but clever idea by building an exact replica of a Chicago Police Department detective’s car in case they had problems in getting the targeted car from certain location. For example, they would drive down the Gold Coast area and drop their thief near some garage and while he was doing his job, the two “detectives” in the fake police car made it quite apparent to the residents that the city’s finest were there to protect them. In other words, Ostrowsky and Holzer sometimes acted as police protection for their own thieves. Another so-called funny story was when a Cadillac dealership in South Chicago, called upon Ostrowsky and Holzer and asked for four doors from a Cadillac. The other day, one of their car choppers brought the identical doors that came of the same Cadillac and unknowingly those same doors that originally came of that Caddy ended up back on it. Now, the woman had came down for her car and she immediately recognized her doors by opening one of the ashtrays and there were her cigarettes with her lipstick smudges all over them. The poor woman was instantly silenced by not charging her anything or maybe they gave her some money or even maybe they mentioned few underworld names.