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Buffalo
15 September 1983 were 18 kilos of heroin found in tile crates headed for Andrea Aiello's warehouse in Niagara Falls, the feds replaced the heroin and let him ship it to Filippo Ragusa, a soldier from Rochester. Lorenzo Scaduto arranged with savatore Bartolotta to have Pietro Graffeo and Domenico LoGalbo to fly to Buffalo. Police then busted the operation and seized in total 24 kilos of heroin (including the first 18 kilos) and arrested Filippo Ragusa and Mannino`s man Paola La Porta in Buffalo and Aiello was replaced as Buffalo's drug importer by Todaro's associate John Anticoli. His main men were Sam Amoia jr and Carmen Gallo, they sold the drugs to dealers from the west and the east side who sold it to the hispanics and the blacks. Gallo was killed by Dwayne Miles and Jeff Culbreath from the Winslow Avenue Gang from the west side. Gallo's stepfather was Frank BiFulco. Filippo Ragusa’s daughter Francesca Ragusa got 5 years, her husband Salvatore Bartolotta 15 years and Filippo Ragusa’s son in law Lorenzo scaduto also got 15 years.

THE BUFFALO NEWS
14 SUSPECTS IN DRUG RING ARE SOUGHT CANADIAN ARRESTS TIED TO LOCAL MOB
By Dan Herbeck | Published September 7, 1990

Canadian police late Thursday began a roundup of 14 suspects in a drug ring with alleged connections to organized crime in Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

The suspects -- many of them businessmen in Niagara Falls, Ont., Hamilton and St. Catharines -- are being charged with running a cocaine and marijuana importing network that was uncovered by Ontario Provincial Police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and several U.S. law enforcement agencies. Authorities said the ring was responsible for importing cocaine and marijuana worth $2.2 million from the United States into Canada.

No Americans were arrested, although several Americans suspected of being narcotics dealers are being watched, police said. Several suspects were described by police sources as former drug-dealing associates of John Anticoli, a Niagara Falls, N.Y., businessman now serving a 10-year term in federal prison.

"This is a major drug operation involving large shipments of cocaine and marijuana that came through Buffalo to Ontario," one official said. "The suspects are businessmen, most of them tied to organized crime in Buffalo and Ontario."

Two of the suspects are considered high-ranking members of a Hamilton organized-crime family under the indirect control of the Buffalo mob, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Any drug activity or any organized-
crime activity in St. Catharines, Hamilton and Niagara Falls must be approved by the Buffalo family," one lawman said. "The mob families in those cities, and in Toronto, answer to Buffalo."

A restaurant and a motel in Niagara Falls, Ont., are among $14 million worth of property that could be seized by police as alleged profits of the ring, law enforcement officials said.

Authorities said the arrests began late Thursday and continued through this morning.

More than 200 police officers, including investigators from the Buffalo FBI office, the Buffalo office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Customs Service, assisted in surveillances conducted on both sides of the border.

An electronic "bug" planted in a parking meter outside a Niagara Falls, Ont., restaurant used as a hangout for drug dealers provided some of the information used to make the arrests.

Anticoli was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John T. Elfvin last year after pleading guilty to possession of 270 pounds of marijuana.

Identified by the FBI as one of the biggest drug dealers ever arrested in Western New York, Anticoli, 51, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine, tax evasion and failure to pay taxes on cocaine profits.

Anticoli was arrested after a team of FBI and DEA agents, using cars and airplane surveillance, followed the 270-pound marijuana shipment from Florida to Niagara Falls in April 1987. Information gathered from surveillances on Anticoli helped lead investigators to the Canadian drug ring, police said.

Drugs were carried to Canada over bridges at Buffalo and Niagara Falls and in small pleasure boats that crossed the Niagara River, mostly at night, investigators said.

As of late this morning, eight suspects were in custody, and authorities were looking for six others.

Police identified the suspects as: Carmen Barillaro, 46, of 6155 Corwin Crescent; Nicodemo Bruzzese, 40, of Tanbark Road; Dominic Vaccaro, 44, of 6740 Crawford St.; Frank J. Spadafora, 36, of 6404 Jupiter Boulevard; Nicodemo Scali, 37, of 6424 January Drive; John T. Cleary, 47, of 6105 McLeod Road; Frederick Campisano, 42, of 6353 Franklin Ave., and Joseph F. DeCaria, 28, of 5729 McGrail Road. All the suspects live in Niagara Falls, Ont., except Bruzzese, who lives in St. Davids. Barillaro was identified as the ringleader of the drug operation by Special Agent Robert Ulmer, chief of the organized crime and narcotics section of the Buffalo FBI office.

Barillaro, Bruzzese and Vaccaro are all "made members" of a Hamilton-based Mafia family that reports to Buffalo organized-crime leaders, Ulmer said.

Ulmer said that Vaccaro has extensive contacts with Buffalo mob members and also supplies drugs to Western New York.

Police said $106,600 in U.S. funds were seized during the investigation, adding that known transactions involved cocaine and marijuana with a wholesale value of $2.2 million in U.S. money.

RAIDS ON TELEMARKETING FIRMS FIND NUMEROUS TIES TO ORGANIZED CRIME

By MICHAEL BEEBE AND DAN HERBECK | Published June 27, 1993

When the FBI raided the offices of Very Impressive Products, a company affiliated with RFG Enterprises, they found evidence of what they had suspected in Buffalo's telemarketing industry -- ties to the Buffalo mob.

VIP's checking accounts were used for employee payrolls, as well as for paying the company president, Rocco F. Guadagna, and another man, Frank BiFulco, FBI agents were told.

Guadagna had been a bartender at Mulligans Cafe through the mid-1980s, living in a $41,000 two-family home in North Buffalo. Since starting his own telemarketing company in 1988, he now heads an $11 million-a-year business and lives in a $250,000 home in Clarence.

Although Guadagna never has been tied to organized crime, BiFulco is identified by the FBI as a longtime soldier in the Todaro crime family in Buffalo and one of the local mob's wealthiest members.

On a salary of about $60,000 a year as an administrator of Laborers Local 210 health and pension fund, "Butchie BiFocals," as he is known, drives a 1992 Mercedes Benz and a 1987 Jaguar, docks a cabin cruiser on the Niagara River and owns considerable real estate in Buffalo.

BiFulco, 48, has no public connection to the telemarketing business, but a number of checks made out to him from VIP, which are now in the FBI's possession, leaves investigators with the strongest link yet about the mob's involvement.

"Frank BiFulco is not an owner of the company," said Guadagna's attorney, Thomas C. D'Agostino. He refused to discuss why company checks would be made out to BiFulco, other than to say "there is absolutely nothing wrong." Yet sources said BiFulco is not the only member of organized crime in Buffalo involved in telemarketing.

Gaetano "Tommy Chooch" Miceli, 65, named by the FBI as a member of the local mob council as long ago as 1975, is associated with New Life Marketing at 1444 Hertel Ave., law enforcement sources said.

John Catanzaro, 50, is associated with the same company, these sources said. Catanzaro, a former steward for Laborers Local 210, also has been identified as a member of organized crime. He reached a plea agreement in 1989 and admitted he accepted money in a no-show scheme.

Buffalo telemarketing companies also include sons and grandsons of mobsters and others known to associate with organized crime figures:

Joseph Todaro III, the son of the man the FBI identifies as Buffalo's mob boss, Joseph Todaro Jr., was a supervisor at Logik Enterprises, at 496 Elmwood Ave., until four months ago, when the FBI raided other companies.

"He does not hold a position nor does he hold any ownership interest in Logik Enterprises," said Robert L. Boreanaz, Logik's attorney.

Frank Tripi, whose father was acquitted of murder and mob-related gambling charges, is listed in state records as Logik's president.

BiFulco's 15-year-old stepson, Carmen Gallo, a Lafayette High School student who was killed by drug dealers last month, was a salesman at Logik. After his killing, Logik employees flooded the East Side with their business cards and offers of a $20,000 reward in the slaying.

Samuel Amoia Jr., the grandson of former Buffalo mob boss Sam Pieri, is secretary-treasurer of LoMoia Enterprises at 1300 Hertel Ave. Amoia served a prison term for dealing cocaine in 1988. His brother Joseph faces cocaine charges in Las Vegas.

Michael A. Muscarella, the president of New Life Marketing, has been arrested for gambling. Muscarella is best known as the owner of the vehicle that police say was used as a getaway car in the 1978 shooting of mobster Billy Sciolino.

Joseph Mosey Jr., described by Buffalo police as an associate of organized crime figures, was one of the city's first telemarketers and was accused of defrauding customers in New York, California and Vermont through his Allied Publishers Services. Police say he has tutored many of Buffalo's younger telemarketers. Mosey formerly owned Bison Chrysler-Plymouth with Robert Sciolino, Billy Sciolino's brother.

Larry Panaro, vice president of North American Enterprises, at 3673 Delaware Ave., faces trial in Las Vegas on money laundering charges. His cousin, Victor, is serving a life sentence on drug and murder convictions. Las Vegas police said Larry Panaro boasted that he had family connections to the Buffalo mob.

Steve Sacco, a principal in Promotions Unlimited, is the son of former Buffalo police officer Richard Sacco and nephew of the late John Sacco, a mob associate who was briefly an FBI informant against the mob. Steve Sacco was arrested for burglary and drug possession in Las Vegas in 1989 while he was making more than $70,000 a year in telemarketing. He paid a $990 fine. Sacco's father, Richard, was dropped from the Police Department after the FBI recorded him telling his brother John the best ways to perform a contract killing.

Vincent Spano is the manager of North American Enterprises. Spano is a convicted gambler who has been linked to the mob by the FBI. The federal government seized the Washington Square restaurant, owned by Spano's father-in-law, because it was used for gambling.