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.
