Originally Posted by Dwalin2011
Originally Posted by Revis_Knicks
Originally Posted by pmac
mexico and colombia was flooding the usa in the 70tys it just didnt make for great press like a few old guys smuggling dope from italy across a ocean, i mean they were smuggling but read the pizza connection book sometimes the boss baldamenti was sending 2 to 5 kilos of dope a month thats not that big. then the guys were caught complaining the product was weak or no good and while this was happening up im the northeast around 1970tys 80ty miami is builing there city on drugs


It’s good that you say that about Badalementi. I have always seen people say that he was a “Heroin King” and he made so much money but when I read online that he couldn’t pay his or his son’s multi million dollar bail then I started to think that people were grossly over exaggerating his kingpin status. I think he might have oversaw a lot of heroin dealings but I don’t think that it’s evident that he was making as much as someone like Frank Matthews.

Badalamenti was kicked out of the Sicilian mafia commission already by 1978. When he was arrested in the Pizza Connection case in the 80s, he was far from being at the peak of his power; some people were still loyal to him, but it was a joke compared to the 70s, when he was the representative of the whole Palermo province on the regional commission.


With drugs being a major cash business, how did he manage to lose so much even after he was kicked out of the commission? Do you think he spent a lot trying to escape and hide or did his rivals take a good chunk of his cash from him?