East met west in Motown’s New Millennium narcotics scene. Throw in a little “YBI” and they built themselves a powerhouse.

According to sources, as it rose through the Midwest underworld in the 2000s, Detroit’s Johnson Brothers Gang, the area’s most prominent Westside drug organization of the day, did business with remnants of the Motor City’s murderous Best Friends Gang, the bloodthirsty crack-era drug and enforcement crew founded on the city’s Eastside. The Johnson boys also got a boost through affiliations to certain ex-Young Boys, Incorporated members, per sources. During their reign four decades ago, “YBI” represented the Westside as well.

The Johnson brothers themselves – Jake (The Snake) Johnson and Jason (Twin-Jay) Johnson – have been in the local news as of late, reaching the top of the Detroit FBI’s Most Wanted List. Their gang sprouted up in the early 2000s and was fast to rise to the forefront of the Detroit dope game.

Snake Johnson has been on the run from the law since 2004. Twin-Jay’s fugitive status is going on a year — he was indicted in 2016. The twin 39-year old siblings, per sources, used contacts that were former Best Friends in growing their drug empire.

Started by the four Brown brothers – Terrance (Boogaloo) Brown, Reggie (Rocking Reg) Brown, Gregory (Ghost) Brown and Ezra (Wizard) Brown – in the mid-1980s, the Best Friends organization was dismantled via a federal drug, racketeering and murder indictment that dropped in 1992. Boogaloo, Ghost and Wizard were all killed gangland style. Rocking Reg is doing life in prison. Authorities estimate the Best Friends were responsible for more than 100 homicides.

The more iconic and business-savvy YBI ruled the Detroit heroin market from the late 1970s into the early portion of the 1980s. YBI founder Milton (Butch) Jones is serving a life sentence behind bars for drug and murder activity he engaged in after YBI was extinct. One of Jones’ former lieutenants, Darryl Terrell, is set to go to trial on cocaine-trafficking conspiracy and money laundering charges next month.

The post Detroit’s East-West Drug Connection: Wanted Johnson Brothers Worked With Best Friends & YBI To Get To Mountain Top appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The ATF brought down more than a dozen members of the eastside Baltimore drug crew known as the Trained To Go gang earlier this week with a multi-count federal drug, gun and racketeering indictment. “TTG” leaders Ernest (Rat) McRae and Jack (Juicy Jackie) Bagley, 37 and 38 years old, respectively, were at the center of the bust. The gang has operated in the city’s Biddle Street section, near the prestigious Johns Hopkins University campus and hospital, since 2012, according to authorities.

Wilbur (Man-Man) Forrester, one of McRae and Bagley’s main lieutenants who had ambitions of assuming boss duties over the crew himself, is accused of using the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel, which is connected to the Baltimore Convention Center, as his base of operations. After Rat McRae was arrested in September, Forrester was caught on a wire telling an associate in the gang that the gang now belonged to him, saying “Ain’t nobody else gonna just step in there and be like ‘Oh, now I got the block,’…..(so I’m taking it).” Forrester is employed at the Inner Harbor Hotel.

Federal agents intercepted a conversation between McRae and a low-level lieutenant of his named Stancil (Do Do) McNair in the summer, where McRae requested McNair bring him a firearm to use. McRae and Bagley were acquitted on charges of attempted murder at a 2014 trial tied to a shooting of a rival related to a drug debt.

Man-Man Forrester, also sometimes called “Dreads” for his style of hairdo, is on the run from the law. McRae and Bagley are in custody. All 13 defendants in the case face a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Law enforcement in Baltimore has been busy this year. Back in the winter, the feds in Baltimore arrested reputed westside drug lord Brandon Pride and several members of his Brick City Gang.

The post Eastside Baltimore Dope Crew Down For The Count, ATF Nabs 13 ‘TTGrs’ For Drugs & Guns appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The criminal defense team for former New England mafia don Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme is wondering why it hasn’t received more evidence of government surveillance surrounding the time Salemme allegedly ordered and oversaw the spring 1993 slaying of mob associate and nightclub owner Stevie DiSarro, considering Salemme and his crew were the high-priority targets in an ongoing federal racketeering probe.

Cadillac Frank’s lead counsel, Steve Boozang, asked the U.S. Attorneys Office at a pre-trial hearing this week in Boston where the proverbial beef was in his discovery request that came back surprisingly thin in regards to surveillance records for the week DiSarro was killed almost 25 years ago. U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshak didn’t have the answer Boozang was looking for and insisted to U.S. District Court Magistrate Donald Cabell that was all there was to turn over.

Salemme, 84, has been out of power in the Patriarca crime family for more than two decades, but will face first-degree murder charges at a 2018 trial following DiSarro’s remains being unearthed last year buried underneath a converted textile mill in Providence, Rhode Island. He’s pled not guilty.

“I’m not saying they (the U.S. Attys. Office) have it and they’re not producing it (more specific surveillance records), but I think there out there and maybe it just hasn’t come across their desk,” Boozang remarked to the court at the hearing. “It just seems to be that there has to be other reports (regarding that time period)…..there’s records detailing everything that happened leading up to that (week), but then it goes dark. There’s an unexplained black hole, (right) before, during and (right) after (the crime is committed).”

Taking in account past events, Salemme and his lawyers have reason to be suspicious. The FBI’s tactics in combating organized crime in the New England area has come under scrutiny in recent years, starting with its controversial handling of South Boston’s one-time Irish mob boss, James (Whitey) Bulger, a longtime confidential informant and then with its use of East Boston Italian mob captain Mark Rossetti, also outed as an informant and like Bulger, known to have committed murder on the federal government’s watch.

Bulger, currently doing life in prison after 16 years as a fugitive, and Cadillac Frank Salemme were childhood friends and gangland confidants. They were indicted together in January 1995 under the RICO act. Rossetti, halfway through dozen-year-long stint in the can for various racketeering offenses, was one of Salemme’s top enforcers during his reign.

Upon learning that Bulger was an informant in the late 1990s, Salemme, serving a prison sentence for racketeering at the time, entered the Witness Protection Program. Although he admitted to participating and sanctioning multiple gangland slayings when he flipped in 1999, Cadillac Frank denied responsibility in the DiSarro hit. He was yanked out of witness protection in the summer of 2016 and charged with DiSarro’s execution in the wake of being implicated in the homicide by his former underboss Robert (Bobby the Cigar) DeLuca, has pled guilty to his role in the murder conspiracy last fall.

According to the indictment, on the afternoon of May 10, 1993, DiSarro was lured to the Salemme family home in swanky suburban Sharon, Massachusetts and strangled to death by Cadillac Frank’s son and fellow “made man” Frank (Frankie Boy) Salemme, Jr. as mob associate Paul (Paulie the Plumber) Weadick held his legs and the elder Salemme watched on. The Salemmes were partners with DiSarro in a South Boston bar and music venue and they believed he was cooperating with the FBI and IRS and stealing money from them.

Whitey Bulger’s former right-hand man Stevie (The Rifleman) Flemmi will testify for the government that he accidentally walked in on the DiSarro murder as it was occurring and saw DiSarro being garroted to death by Salemme, Jr. DeLuca will testify that Cadillac Frank told him in April of 1993 that he suspected DiSarro of being a rat and a thief and then tasked him with burying DiSarro’s body weeks later.

Frankie Boy Salemme, Jr. died of AIDS in 1995 at 38. The 62-year old Weadick, already a convicted murderer for a gangland hit he took part in back in the early 1980s, is scheduled to go to trial with Cadillac Frank next year.

Based out of Boston, Cadillac Frank ruled the New England mafia from 1990 until his incarceration in August 1995. Bobby DeLuca acted as his eyes and ears on the street in Providence. DeLuca, 72, went into witness protection in 2011.

Both Salemme and Weadick are behind bars awaiting their day in court, having been denied bail for risk of flight. Weadick is part of the Gemini Social Club crew in Boston’s North End run by current reputed Patriarca clan boss Carmen (The Big Cheese) DiNunzio.

The post Where’s The Beef? Boston Mob Boss of The 1990s Wants To Know Who Was Keeping Tabs On Who Around ’93 Murder appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Detroit hit man Vincent (Vito) Smothers ended his murder spree ten years ago, bringing the curtain down on a short, yet incredibly bloody and prolific career in the murder-for-hire game. The slender and unassuming-looking Smothers, a former high school honor student, admitted to killing a dozen people in less than two years in the mid-2000s, most of the murders believed by police to have been contract slayings on behalf of the Adarus Black drug organization. Black, 46, was found guilty in a drug conspiracy case in 2009 and is doing life in federal prison. Smothers is doing 50 years-to-life in state prison after copping to all 12 slayings.

The Vito Smothers Hit List

July 1, 2006 – Detroit drug world figure Willis (Black Willie) Watson is gunned down on his porch in Northwest section of the Motor City

August 16, 2006 – Detroit drug world figure Adrian (All Day) Thornton is slain walking out of one of his dope houses on Motown’s eastside by a double-pistol carrying Smothers. Thornton’s right hand man, Kenny (Motorhead) McKennedy, survived the shooting attack

January 17, 2007 – Detroit drug world figure Carl (Half Day) Thornton, “AD” Thornton’s baby brother and successor as head of his narcotics operation, is shot to death exiting his car in front of an eastside dope spot in close proximity to where his older sibling was slain

May 24, 2007 – Chicago bus drivers and suspected drug couriers employed by the Black organization Johnny Marshall and Marshall White are shot to death when they show up for a meeting on Detroit’s eastside in an automobile that stalls.

June 21, 2007 – Detroit drug world figure Clarence Cherry and his teenage girlfriend Gaudrielle Webster are gunned down inside Cherry’s home in front of his two young children. A friend of Webster’ named Karsia Rice is shot and left blind in one eye from the assault.

September 17, 2007: The Monday Night Football Massacre – Detroit drug world figure Michael (Porch Smoke Mike) Robinson and three friends of his, D’Angelo McNoriell, Brian Dixon and Nicole Chapman are slain in Robinson’s living room as they watched the Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Redskins. Besides Smothers, a juvenile named Davontae Sanford confessed to the quadruple murder.

December 26 – 2007 – Rose Cobb, the wife of Detroit Police officer David Cobb, is killed inside her house, executed by Smothers on a contract placed on her head by her husband.

The post Vincent Smothers’ Murder March Of The Mid-2000s: Detroit Gun-For-Hire Shot His Way Into Motown Gangland Infamy appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The 2005 murder of Canadian mobster Johnny Bertolo set off the epic Montreal mob war that continues to rage to this very day. One of his best friends recently went missing, bringing the Bertolo hit back into the spotlight.

The 46-year old Bertolo was a close ally of powerful Rizzuto crime family lieutenant Raynald Desjardins and his brother Jacques, who he was busted with in a narcotics conspiracy case back in the 1990s. Jacques Desjardins, 68, disappeared last week, most likely the latest casualty in the bloody conflict which has a body count approaching, if not exceeding, triple figures.

Raynald Desjardins had been then-Quebec Godfather Vito Rizzuto’s right-hand man until, according to two RCMP detectives speaking exclusively to Gangster Report, an imprisoned Rizzuto ordered Bertolo’s killing from behind bars for an unknown-slight years prior. That murder contract sent Desjardins into a fit of anger that resulted in him turning on his former boss, per the detectives, and chaos enveloping the streets of Montreal for the foreseeable future.

Rizzuto was jailed a year before the Bertolo hit in 2004 for his role in the infamous 1981 “Three Capos Murders” in New York. Desjardins had just been released from prison for his role in a cocaine smuggling ring.

Just months removed from his own stint locked up on a drug charge (he did seven years), Bertolo was slain by three gunmen as he left the Metropolis Gym in Riviere des Prairies on August 11, 2005 after a workout. He was felled as he walked towards his black-colored BMW in the parking lot of the gym and died at the hospital hours later. Police found the getaway car, a Mazda Protégé, abandoned and on fire several blocks away.

Per RCMP records, Bertolo, 46, was a racketeer with ties to labor unions and the construction industry. Desjardins, 65, is currently doing 14 years in prison for orchestrating the November 2011 murder of his one-time partner in the palace coup targeting the Rizzuto regime, Salvatore (Sal the Iron Worker) Montagna, a transplanted New York mob boss deported to Canada in the late 2000s.

Montagna and Desjardins had joined forces to oppose an incarcerated Rizzuto before they had their own falling out and began stalking each other. The dapper and stately Montreal don died of cancer in 2013, a little over a year following his release from an American prison and in the wake of him losing his son, father and brother-in-law to the carnage-filled feud.

Desjardins survived a September 2011 assassination attempt when a gunman dispatched by the overly-ambitious 40-year old Montagna opened fire on him in the same neighborhood Bertolo was killed six years earlier. In the hours after the attack, Desjardins was seen meeting with Bertolo’s brother, Joe, at a nearby construction site. Joe Bertolo represented Desjardins that same day at a meeting with Montagna inside a Montreal area Tim Horton’s doughnut shop.

Vito Rizzuto (L) & Jacques Desjardins (R) in better days

The post Bertolo Murder Kicked Off Canadian Mafia War, Mayhem In Montreal Underworld Keeps Going W/ Desjardins Disappearance appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Albert Calvanese was a target in the FBI investigation that brought down a number of Springfield, Massachusetts mobsters last year but was able to slip away from any legal harm, according to resident Western Mass mob scribe Stephanie Barry of MassLive.com in an article she penned on a pair of guilty pleas in the case this week. The 54-year old Calvanese has been the reputed Springfield crew chief the last few years, yet wasn’t one of the five local wiseguys busted for extortion and collecting gambling and loansharking debts in 2016. The Springfield mob contingent reports to New York’s Genovese crime family.

Both Ralph (Ralphie Sant) Santaniello and Giovanni (Johnny Cal) Calabrese entered guilty pleas Monday in the federal courthouse in Worcester, Massachusetts. The plea deals call for a maximum of six and five year prison terms, respectively. In one incident, Santaniello, 50, and Calabrese, 54, threatened to kill and behead an area tow truck company owner if he didn’t pay current and retroactive street tax on his business to the tune of over $50,000.

Santaniello, a repeat felon, pled guilty to financing juice loans in another case out of New York back in the summer. He was caught on FBI wires in each case. Calabrese has no previous criminal record.

Albert Calvanese

Calvanese is Santaneillo’s cousin and was released from a prison sentence for extortion in 2011. An FBI wire intercepted the sounds of Calvanese beating a debtor in broad daylight in his 2006 case which alleged he was one of the area’s biggest loansharks. Per Barry’s report from Monday night, the feds were hot on Calvanese’s trail again in recent years, however, living up to his longtime reputation for being street smart, he was too slick to get caught, frequently losing his surveillance detail in traffic and refusing to talk business on the phone and with government plants sent in his direction.

Barry identified Calvanese as the Springfield mob crew’s skipper in a 2015 investigative piece. That same year he was reported to have gotten into a physical altercation with fellow Western Mass mob figure Carmine (The Barber) Manzi at Tony’s Famous Barber Shop in Springfield’s South End neighborhood. Back in the summer, Barry reported that Calvanese and Ralphie Santaniello’s father, Amedeo, the crew’s 78-year old de-facto elder statesmen and Calvanese’s “uncle”, were on the outs on the heels of the younger Santaniello’s incarceration.

The post Springfield (MA) Mob Figure Proved Too Smart For The FBI In 2016 Takedown Of Alleged Associates appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The murder of Roofers Union boss and Philadelphia Irish mobster John McCullough will be shown in the much-anticipated Martin Scorsese mob “supergroup” movie, The Irishman, currently in production in New York and New Jersey. Character actor Kevin O’Rourke, best known for roles in popular television shows like Boardwalk Empire and Law & Order, will portray McCullough in the film, which centers around the relationship between iconic former Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa and east coast hit man Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran.

During his days doing his bidding for the mob, Sheeran worked with McCullough on union affairs on behalf of Hoffa and his bosses in the mafia, Pennsylvania dons Russell Bufalino and Angelo Bruno. Sheeran was Bufalino’s right-hand man and main muscle in both union and street activity. He died of natural causes in 2003. Bruno’s headline-grabbing March 1980 assassination left McCullough unprotected.

McCullough was slain gangland style in his own kitchen months later, five years removed from Hoffa’s own gangland disappearance and murder. Both organized labor leaders were killed over disputes related to their respective unions. Hoffa vanished from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot on the afternoon of July 30, 1975. His remains have never been found. He was feuding with the mob regarding his desire to run for re-election for the Teamsters’ top seat following a prison sentence.

The Irishman, slated for a 2018 theatre release and a 2019 Netflix debut, is based on the 2004 New York Times best-selling book I Heard You Paint Houses written by Frank Sheeran’s attorney Charlie Brandt. In the book, Sheeran dubiously claimed he was the triggerman in the Hoffa hit.

Al Pacino will be playing Hoffa in the film and Robert De Niro is cast as Sheeran. Harvey Keitel will portray Angelo Bruno and Joe Pesci will play Russell Bufalino

A key ally of Philly’s “K&A Gang” or Irish mafia, McCullough was shot to death on the evening of December 16, 1980 by Irish mob figure Willard (Junior) Moran, allegedly on orders from Philly Italian mafia lieutenant Raymond (Long John) Martorano. In the months preceding his murder, McCullough had butted heads with the local Italian mafia over his desire to move in on Atlantic City’s then-burgeoning hotel and casino industry.

Long John Martorano

Junior Moran turned witness for the government and testified against Long John in court. For the McCullough homicide, Moran dressed as a deliveryman bringing the McCullough family a Christmas present.

Martorano, one of the east coast’s largest wholesale narcotic traffickers in his heyday, represented the Bruno-Scarfo crime family’s interests with several of Philadelphia’s other street factions, including the Irish mob, the Greek mob, the Black mob and the area’s biker gangs. He was convicted in both a drug case and the McCullough slaying in the 1980s, however, had the murder conviction overturned and was released from prison in the fall of 1999. Once back on the street in the early 2000s, Martorano tried infringing on already spoken for Bruno-Scarfo rackets and wound up getting shot to death in an unsolved 2002 mob execution.

Willard (Junior) Moran in court in 1983

The post Lights, Camera, Killing: Philly Roofers Union President’s Slaying Slated For Big Screen Treatment In New Scorsese Film appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The making ceremony for the Philadelphia mafia’s former Boston crew took place in Beantown in the late 1990s, according to a new episode of Mob Talk from award-winning Philly crime reporters George Anastasia and David Schratwieser discussing the infamous Isabella Gardner Museum heist. Per the episode and multiple sources, the Bruno-Scarfo’s crime family’s then-consigliere George (Georgie Boy) Borgesi, soldier Ron (Big Ronnie) Previte and possibly boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino headed to Boston in 1997 to induct four members into their Borgata from Massachusetts – watch the episode here.

It was previously the common belief that the ceremony had taken place in Philly. Today, Merlino, 55, is allegedly still the don of the Philadelphia mafia, but residing in Florida and is under indictment for racketeering out of New York. Borgesi, 54, is currently a reputed captain in the crime family and reportedly steadily regaining power and stature in east coast gangland circles after a lengthy stint behind bars.

Authorities think at least two members of Philly’s one-time Boston crew either have or had knowledge of the audacious Gardner Museum robbery, which remains unsolved to this day. On March 18, 1990, in the early morning hours of St. Patrick’s Day, two men dressed as police officers forced their way into the private museum located in Boston’s Fenway-Kenmore district and walked away with a half-billion dollars-worth of rare art.

This past spring, the FBI put out a reward of $10,000,000 good to the end of the 2017 calendar year for information leading to the recovery of the 13 pieces of precious art. No arrests can be made since the statute of limitations has run out.

The FBI has been told that at some point in the late 1990s or early 2000s, the stolen art work was brought to Philadelphia where it was unsuccessfully put up for sale on the local black market. The feds believe the Philly mob’s Boston crew brought the art to the City of Brotherly Love.

Via introductions made through prison acquaintances, the Bruno-Scarfo brass formed its now-defunct Boston contingent by “making” Robert (Boston Bobby) Luisi, Jr., Robert (Bobby the Cook) Gentile, Robert (Bobby Boost) Guarente and Shawn Vetere. Less than two years following their induction into the Philly mob, Luisi, Jr., the crew’s captain and Vetere, a known ladies man around Massachusetts in his younger days, were busted in a narcotics conspiracy due to Big Ronnie Previte’s work as an confidential informant. Previte passed away from natural causes earlier this year.

The 56-year old Luisi, Jr. briefly cooperated with the government before being convicted and serving a decade and half in prison. He’s now living in Tennessee under an assumed name and making his living as a pastor. Bobby Guarante died of cancer in 2004, but not before, according to his widow, he handed over some of the pilfered paintings to Bobby Gentile, currently in prison on drug and weapon charges. Gentile is 81 and in bad health.

In the most recent Mob Talk episode from Philly, Schratwieser and Anastasia divulged that upon Skinny Joey Merlino being released from prison in 2011 (after a dozen years served on a racketeering conviction), his parole officer asked him about the Gardner Museum heist, prompting him to send someone to visit Georgie Boy Borgesi, who that time was still locked away on the same case, regarding what he knew in terms of the whereabouts of the paintings. Borgesi was Merlino’s lieutenant tasked with being the liaison to the Boston crew.

According to two sources, Borgesi met with Shawn Vetere in the Boston area at some point in the last year. One of those sources reports Vetere dated Hollywood actress Charlize Theron while she was shooting the 1999 Oscar-nominated film The Cider House Rules on the east coast and Vetere was employed on the set on behalf of a labor union.

The Bruno-Scarfo syndicate’s Boston crew is suspected by the FBI of carrying out the April 1999 gangland slaying of drug pusher Gino Marconi in South Philly. Marconi had been allegedly feuding with Borgesi and Merlino over his refusing to pay a street tax on his narcotics business. FBI surveillance units place members of the Boston crew in South Philly visiting their bosses in the days surrounding the never-solved Marconi hit.

The post Mob Talk: Philly Crime Family Leaders Conducted Mafia Initiation Ritual In Boston In 1990s appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Controversial former Philadelphia Police Commissioner and Mayor Frank Rizzo will get a scene in the much-anticipated Martin Scorsese mob “supergroup” movie, The Irishman, currently in production in New York and New Jersey. Bit-player actor Gino Cafarelli (Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos) is cast as the physically imposing and notoriously brutish politician known for his brash persona and tumultuous relations with minorities during the civil rights movement. The Irishman centers around the relationship between iconic Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa and east coast hit man Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran, who reported to mob dons in Pennsylvania, including Philly Godfather Angelo Bruno.

Rizzo was the City of Brotherly Love’s police chief in the late 1960s and mayor of Philadelphia for most of the 1970s. Throughout the 1980s, he became a popular talk-radio host in the region, before dropping dead of a massive heart attack back on the campaign trail in 1991 while running for re-election to the mayor’s seat.

In the 2004 best-selling book, I Heard You Paint Houses, which chronicles Sheeran’s life and serves as the source material for The Irishman, Sheeran dubiously claims to have been the man who killed Hoffa. The strong-willed labor leader disappeared on the afternoon of July 30, 1975 from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot en route to a lunch meeting with a pair of mob captains. At the time of his death, Hoffa was feuding with the mafia over his desire to recapture power in the Teamsters after a stint in prison where he had relinquished control of the union in a bid to gain his freedom. Hoffa’s remains have never been found and nobody has ever been arrested for his murder.

Shortly following his unverified confession, Sheeran died of natural causes in December 2003. Robert De Niro will play Sheeran in The Irishman. Al Pacino will portray the fiery and outspoken Hoffa in his first-ever collaboration with the legendary Scorsese.

Sheeran was the leader of Teamsters Local 326 in Delaware and worked day-to-day as muscle for Northeast Pennsylvania mafia boss Russell Bufalino. The role of Bufalino is being played by Joe Pesci. Philly mob lord Angelo Bruno will be depicted on the big screen by Harvey Keitel.

Bruno was assassinated in 1980, the same year Frank Rizzo left the Mayor’s office. A $100,000,000 Netflix production, The Irishman is slated for a late 2018 theatre run and an early 2019 streaming release.

The post Being Frank On The Big Screen: One-Time Philly Mayor & Top Cop Frank Rizzo Will Be Character In Scorsese’s ‘Irishman’ Movie appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The FBI believes imprisoned Chicago mob associate and former cop Steve Mandell is the No. 1 suspect in the unsolved 2012 murder and robbery of suburban restaurateur Giacomo Ruggirello, according to sources familiar with the investigation. This week, The Chicago Tribune reported that the FBI has video and audio tape of Mandell discussing the crime with a wired-up informant on the day it occurred.

The 61-year old Ruggirello, a native Sicilian, was found dead of smoke inhalation as his Highland Park, Illinois house burned to the ground on September 24, 2012, just hours after his Italian eatery Trattoria Giacomo in nearby Highwood, Illinois was robbed of its safe. Mandell, 66, is doing a life prison sentence for the attempted murder and extortion of two local businessmen, hoping to use a torture chamber he built that he referred to as “Club Med.” He was found guilty at a 2014 trial.

Per Chicago Crime Commission files, Mandell was a part of the Outfit’s Elmwood Park crew. Back in 1983, when he went by the name Steve Manning, he was kicked off the Chicago police force for an insurance-fraud and stolen car scam. In the years after being booted from the force, he was convicted of the 1990 gangland slaying of trucking company owner Jimmy Pellegrino and a separate kidnapping of a drug dealer in Missouri and placed on death row, however, would have the pair of convictions tossed on appeal and freed in 2005.

Steve Mandell

Just hours following Ruggirello’s death, Mandell was intercepted by a video wire installed in the office of Chicagoland real estate mogul George Michael (acting as an informant for the FBI in building a case against Mandell) bragging talking about the fire and bragging of his proficiency as a killer. Michael has reportedly told people, including the FBI and The Chicago Tribune, “Do you think they (the Outfit) respect my work now?”

Ruggirello had altered his will in the weeks preceding his passing. Besides the Jimmy Pellegrino hit, which occurred in the middle of a drug-deal gone wrong 27 years ago, Mandell is suspected of playing a role in a number of murders – one of those being the 1986 slaying of his own father.

FBI surveillance personnel witnessed both Mandell and Michael dining with reputed Chicago mob street boss Albert (Albie the Falcon) Vena, his top lieutenant Robert (Bobby Pinocchio) Panozzo and others at the near-Westside restaurant La Scrola in July 2012. Panozzo is behind bars awaiting trial in state court on racketeering.

Vena, 69, oversees day-to-day Outfit affairs, per sources, from his Westside base. He headquarters his activities out of La Scarola, a longtime Westside crew hangout, and Richard’s Bar next door. According to sources in law enforcement, Vena is the top target of an extensive multi-agency criminal probe and rejected Mandell’s requests for permission to torture and murder associates of his, specifically a Brookfield businessman and a Bridgeview strip club owner.

The post GR SOURCES: Feds Zeroing In On Jailed Chicago Mobster Mandell For 2012 Murder Of Sicilian Restaurant Owner appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Incarcerated Chicago mafia hit man Steve Mandell wasn’t happy with the Outfit’s leadership structure during his final years pounding the pavement for the mob, according to a new Chicago Tribune report related to Mandell’s suspected role in an unsolved 2012 murder. Mandell is a suspect in several gangland slayings dating back decades.

The Trib reported this week that Mandell, already doing a life prison sentence for attempting to torture and murder a pair of Chicagoland businessmen in order to take over their assets, was caught on an FBI video and audio wire talking about the fall 2012 death of Sicilian Highland Park, Illinois restaurateur Giacomo Ruggirello the day he died in an alleged arson fire and his Highwood eatery was robbed. In an intercepted conversation via a bug in federal informant George Michael’s real estate office, Mandell was caught complaining about his bosses in the mob as well, lamenting them for being “weak and ineffective”. According to the article, this venting session including criticizing reputed Outfit street boss and Westside captain Albert (Albie the Falcon) Vena, described by some in recent years as the most feared and dangerous man in Chicago.

Mandell, at one time a Chicago cop who went by the name Steve Manning and was kicked off the police force for running a stolen car and insurance-fraud ring, is a member of the Outfit’s Elmwood Park crew. Michael is a local real estate tycoon. Both were observed by the FBI eating with Vena at his favorite Westside haunt, La Scarola, back in July 2012, a meal in which the 69-year old Vena reportedly rejected sanctioning Mandell’s proposed torture and murder plans.

“I’ll show you what Elmwood Park really looks like…..I can get real nasty,” Mandell was recorded boasting to Michael five years ago, two months after the lunch at La Scarola.

Hours after Giacomo Ruggirello, 61, was found dead from smoke inhalation in his smoldering home on September 24, 2012, Mandell discussed the fire with Michael and uttered ‘Do you think they (the Outfit) will respect my work now?”

Albie Vena, like Mandell, is a person of interest for local and federal authorities in a multitude of murders reaching back years to the Outfit’s heyday. He was acquitted at a jury trial in the 1990s for the killing of a low-level Chicago mob drug operative named Sam (Needles) Taglia. Per court filings tied to Mandell’s case — he was convicted at a 2014 trial — the Outfit’s Elmwood Park crew is directly under Vena’s auspice, despite him not being the daily caretaker of activity in the area.

Vena is also responsible for affairs on the city’s Northside, according to Chicago Crime Commission documents. The Northside rackets is where he cut his teeth as an enforcer and collector in the 1970s and 1980s. The Outfit’s Northside crew was rolled into the Westside regime around the beginning of the New Millennium due to general mob attrition.

Elmwood Park has traditionally been territory controlled by the Di Fronzo family. Ailing 89-year old Chicago mafia don John (Johnny No Nose) Di Fronzo resides there and his younger brother Peter (Greedy Petey) Di Fronzo, was the crew’s capo up until he joined his older sibling in semi-retirement in recent years. According to sources, these days leadership in Elmwood Park is split between crew chiefs Rudy (The Chin) Fratto, a protégé of the Di Fronzos and Anthony (Tony D) Dote, the right-hand man of alleged Outfit consigliere Marco (The Mover) D’Amico, a longtime Di Fronzo brothers’ confidant.

When Mandell made his comments regarding the Outfit hierarchy in 2012, John Di Fronzo was in the process of stepping away and allegedly handing over the reins of the crime family, at least on an acting basis, to Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis. The 78-year old Solly D represents the Chicago mob’s Cicero regime. Vena assumed leadership of the Westside or Grand Avenue crew in the late 2000s, per sources on the street and in law enforcment.

An 1985 mug shot of Outfit thug Steve Mandell

The post Chicago Mob Muscle Bashes Bosses Saying Outfit Leadership ‘Weak & Ineffective,’ Includes Vena In Candid Critique appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The brazen shooting of New York mafia don Joe Colombo in the summer of 1971 was the first scene shot by Martin Scorsese on his high-profile new mob “supergroup” movie, The Irishman. The murder of Chicago mafia boss Sam Giancana in the summer of 1975 will be one of the last.

Character actor John Polce (The Departed) will play Colombo and virtual-unknown Al Linea (Boardwalk Empire) is set to portray Giancana in the much-anticipated film project. Based on the 2004 New York Times Best-Selling book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charlie Brandt, The Irishman is about the relationship between iconic Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa and east coast mob hit man Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran, who dubiously claims to have been the triggerman in Hoffa’s still-unsolved slaying in the weeks after Giancana was killed 42 years ago.

Frank Sheeran died of natural causes in December 2003. Hoffa rode his connections in the underworld to the presidency of the Teamsters, the colossal truckers union he grew into a goliath force in global transportation from his home base in Detroit. He disappeared on June 30, 1975 never to be seen again – nobody has ever been arrested for his kidnapping or murder.

Produced by Netflix with a ballooning $125,000,000 budget, The Irishman is currently shooting in New York and slated for a late 2018 or early 2019 release. Robert De Niro is playing Sheeran, while Al Pacino is cast as Hoffa.

The namesake of New York City’s colorful Colombo crime family, Joe Colombo was the first boss of one of the notorious Five Families to be born in America and launched to power in the wake of the epic Profaci-Gallo war of the early 1960s. He was shot and gravely injured at the Italian Unity Day rally he was instrumental in organizing on June 28, 1971, by Gallo crew hit man named Jerome Johnson, who himself was shot and killed seconds later by Colombo’s bodyguard Phillip (Chubby) Rossillo. Colombo would be bedridden and paralyzed for the next seven years until he died of a heart attack on May 22, 1978 in Newburgh, New York near Albany.

Gallo gang leader Joseph (Crazy Joe) Gallo was slain in New York’s Little Italy in the early hours of April 7, 1972 after a late-night meal where he dined with actor Jerry Orbach (Law & Order). Gallo used African-American hoodlums like Johnson as muscle in his crew.

In addition to taking credit for the Hoffa hit, Frank Sheeran claimed to have been the shooter in the Crazy Joe Gallo slaying. Television actor Bobby Cannavale (Boardwalk Empire, Third Watch) will play Gallo in The Irishman.

Joe Colombo

Jimmy Hoffa wasn’t close to Joe Colombo, but he had a strong friendship with Sam Giancana, the don of the Chicago mob in the late 1950s and most of the 1960s. He rose through the ranks of the Outfit under “Scarface” Al Capone and made his mark in the syndicate by successfully staging a takeover of the region’s African-American policy lottery racket. Giancana was a throwback in the Windy City to the Capone days where the area’s mafia chief was frequently splashed across newspaper headlines and courted the limelight. Hoffa and Giancana worked closely in labor-union affairs and were allegedly involved together, among other organized crime figures, in a CIA plot to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Leaving the country for Mexico in 1967, Giancana built an offshore casino empire that he refused to share with his colleagues in the mafia in Chicago. Following his deportation back to the United States, Giancana wouldn’t budge and cut Outfit brass in on his various gambling palace proceeds despite their insistence. Less than six weeks before Hoffa went missing from a suburban Detroit shopping mall parking lot, Giancana was shot to death at close range inside his Oak Park, Illinois home on June 19, 1975 in the days prior to being scheduled to testify in front of Congressional hearings on the CIA-Castro plot.

The post Roles For Mob Godfathers Sam Giancana & Joe Colombo Cast In Scorsese Flick ‘The Irishman’ appeared first on The Gangster Report.

East coast mafia elder statesman, John Gambino, the Philadelphia mob’s contact in New York’s Gambino crime family, died of natural causes this week at 77 years old. The Sicilian-born Gambino was a cousin of crime family namesake Carlo Gambino (succumbed to heart failure in 1976) and headquartered most of his affairs out of Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

The younger Gambino immigrated to the United States in 1964 along with his two brothers and eventual big city gangland running buddies Rosario and Joe. According to court testimony, “Cherry Hill John”  was inducted into the American mafia in 1975 and promoted to a captain’s post in 1987 by then Gambino-boss John Gotti.

One of Gotti’s top drug lieutenants, Gambino and his siblings based their cocaine and heroin operations out of the Café Valentino (which changed its name to Café Giardino in the 1990s) in Brooklyn. He became the first member of the Gambino clan to ever plead guilty to narcotics trafficking when he copped a plea in 1994 and was sentenced to 15 years behind bars.  Following his parole in 2005, Gambino was upped to the syndicate’s ruling council and in recent years has served as a trusted advisor to his nephew, reputed don Frank (Frankie Boy) Cali.

A more recent photo of John Gambino

Despite being a “Five Family guy”, Gambino played a significant role in some watershed moments in Philadelphia mob history. Per sources and government documents, Gambino helped hide future Bruno-Scarfo crime family boss John Stanfa after he was part of longtime Philly mafia chieftain Angelo Bruno’s assassination in March 1980. Also a native Sicilian, Stanfa was Bruno’s driver and opened the car window for the triggerman in the hit, allowing for Bruno’s brains to be blown out in front of his South Philly row house. Stanfa eventually turned himself into authorities and did a prison stint for contempt of court.

Later in the decade, Gambino and his brothers backed Stanfa’s push to grab the reins of the Philadelphia family and then supported him in his regime’s war against a younger faction of the local mob led by alleged modern-day boss Joseph (Skinny joey) Merlino. The 76-year old Stanfa is doing life in prison from a 1995 conviction. Merlino, 55, is currently under indictment for racketeering out of New York.

In May 2010, Gambino was caught on an FBI wire dining with acting Philadelphia mob boss Joseph (Uncle Joe) Ligambi and the Bruno-Scarfo organization’s New Jersey captain Joseph (Joe Scoops) Licata at La Griglia, a restaurant located just off the Garden State Parkway. Both Ligambi and Licata were busted on racketeering charges shortly thereafter but beat the case at trial.

“We gotta stay with the old rules,” Licata was recorded telling Gambino.

“It’s the only way to survive,” Gambino replied.

The post Losing A Friend Of Theirs: NY-NJ Mob Power John Gambino, Philly Mafia’s ‘Best Friend’ In 5 Families, Passes Away appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Virginia biker boss Timothy (Dr. T) Dye passed away due to natural causes last week. The 59-year old Dye was the president of the Southwest Virginia chapter of The Pagan’s Motorcycle Club based around Roanoke.

Dye worked for the Pulaski County Animal Control Department for more than two decades. He was a volunteer football and baseball coach as well.

Dye’s older brother Tony (Perk) Dye was The Pagan’s Sergeant at Arms until he died of cancer in 2011. The elder Dye founded The Warlords Motorcycle Club in 1973 and beat a federal racketeering case in the 1990s. The Warlords “patched over” to The Pagan’s organization in the 1980s.

The Pagan’s are a biker world power on the east coast, founded in Maryland in 1959, but currently headquartering national affairs out of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The club maintains chapters in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Florida, New Jersey and North Carolina.

The post What’s Up Doc? The Pagan’s MC Loses Leader In Virginia, Local President ‘Dr. T’ Dead at 59 appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Illinois biker gang member Jeremy (Barber Shop) Boshears has been charged with the murder of a girlfriend of his. The 32-year old Boshears, a member of the Joliet chapter of The Outlaws Motorcycle Club, pled not guilty this week to the slaying of Kaitlyn Kearns, who was recently found shot in the head in the back of her late-model SUV near a barn in Kankakee County.

Boshears is being held in the Will County Detention Center with a $10,000,000 bond. He faces three first-degree murder counts in the case.

Kearns and the married Boshears dated briefly in October. She was a waitress and bartender at Woody’s Bar in Joliet, just a short distance from The Outlaws clubhouse and a popular Outlaws hangout. The Outlaws clubhouse was raided by federal authorities in the wake of her disappearance. The house in Coal City, Illinoise Boshears resides at was also raided, as well as his car being confiscated in an evidence search.

Kearns, 24, was reported missing by her family early last Tuesday and laid to rest in St. John Cemetery in the city of Mokena. Witnesses last saw her alive last Sunday night, November 12, leaving Woody’s Bar following her work shift. Her body was discovered roughly 50 miles from where she was last seen.

The Outlaws were founded in Illinois and currently maintain their international headquarters in the state. Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin are known in club parlance as the organization’s “Red Region.”

The post Outlaws MC Member Hit With Murder Charges In Illinois, Denies Involvement In Waitresses Slaying appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Former Springfield, Massachusetts mob powers Adolfo (Big Al) Bruno and Anthony (Skip) Delevo were both groomed in east coast gangland circles by the notorious Scibelli brothers. Besides their similar upbringing in the area’s mob, the two were a picture of contrasting styles and well-known rivals.

The brash and boisterous Big Al Bruno was gunned down 14 years ago this week on November 23, 2003 outside his Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Social Club. Delevo, a more inconspicuous, understated wiseguy with considerably less thirst for the spotlight, died in prison serving a sentence for racketeering two years later in 2005. Their respective downfalls opened the door for the once-stable Western Mass mafia crew to descend into the depths of despair, deceit and virtual self-destruction. And as a result, today, the Greater Springfield underworld is a mere shell of its former self.

Bruno and Delevo traced their roots in the Springfield mob, an extension of New York’s Genovese crime family, to the last days of old-school don Salvatore (Big Nose Sam) Cufari, who ruled the city’s mafia regime from the end of Prohibition into the 1970s when he retired and turned over the keys of the operation to his longtime No. 2, Frank (Frankie Sky Ball) Scibelli. While Bruno was mentored by the flashy, rough-around-the-edges Frankie Sky Ball, Delevo came up under the direct tutelage of his more refined younger brother, Albert (Baba) Scibelli. Per law enforcement documents, Bruno helped the Scibellis brothers oversee sports gambling, loan sharking and extortion endeavors and Delevo was in charge of the local policy lottery business.

The consummate gangland politician, Bruno traveled across the east coast mafia landscape, hobnobbing with and relaying messages to crime family leaders in New York City, Boston, Providence, Connecticut, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Northeast Pennsylvania. Delevo was more of a homebody and didn’t often venture outside the Springfield area, where he ran a concessions business catering to sporting events, concerts and fairs and had a piece of the successful strip club the Mardi Gras.

Consistent with his larger-than-life persona, Bruno was often out and about at the restaurants, bars and nightclubs he had ownership interests in around the traditionally mobbed-up South End neighborhood. He and Frankie Sky Ball maintained an office where they ran Las Vegas casino junkets out of. On the other end of the spectrum, Delevo would hold meetings with associates at his concessions warehouse in the city’s West End section.

According to informants and court records, despite their differences in public displays of behavior, neither Bruno, nor Delevo were afraid to get their hands dirty with mob “wet work.” Bruno was allegedly the triggerman in the 1979 murder of feared Springfield Goodfella Antonio Facente, a hit he was reported to brag about to associates. In 1991, he was arrested for the attempted murder of upstate New York mobster Joe Maruca of Northeast Pennsylvania’s Bufalino crime family ten years earlier. Delevo was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Maruca case in which Bruno was acquitted of at a 1993 trial.

Anthony Delevo entering a court hearing in the early 2000s

As the aging Frankie Sky Ball neared retirement later in the decade, the assumption on the street and with area mob watchers was that Bruno, his longtime right-hand man, would take the reins of the Springfield crew. However, by 1998, it was Delevo and Baba Scibelli who had ascended to the top of the local underworld food chain. But when they were both busted in a 2000 racketeering case, Big Al took over with the pair hamstrung by their legal problems – Delevo was sent away to prison in 2003, on the same week, Bruno was slain and Baba made a deal with the government sparing himself time behind bars in exchange for a plea admitting his membership in the mafia.

Frankie Sky Ball Scibelli had passed away peacefully in the summer of 2000. He was 87 years old. The 65-year old Delevo died of cancer in the can. Baba Scibelli made it to 91 before dying of natural causes in 2012.

Bruno was soon on shaky ground though and his own protégé Anthony (Bingy) Arillotta was fast to leverage displeasure in the Genovese clan towards Big Al for his own gain. In early 2003, Bruno angered Genovese Family boss Arthur (Little Artie) Nigro by bad mouthing him for siding against him in a dispute over a cigarette importing deal out of Florida, per court testimony. Sources also claim around this same time an unnamed member of Bruno’s inner circle upset Nigro by refusing to abide by another ruling he had made in a New York sitdown related to a separate business deal.

The young and ambitious Arillotta pounced on the acrimony, sidling up to Nigro and greasing the wheels of insurgence. Arillotta began stoking the flames of discontent around Springfield as well, traveling with another one-time Frankie Sky Ball Scibelli lieutenant named Felix Tranghese to New York to show Nigro a presentencing report for Delevo underling Emilio Fusco recounting a loose-lipped Bruno having an off-the-cuff conversation with an FBI agent and confirming Fusco’s mob induction.

By the end of the summer of 2003, Nigro “made” Arillotta in a ceremony held in a Bronx apartment without Bruno’s knowledge and sanctioned Arillotta to murder his mentor and assume control of the Springfield mob crew himself before he had even turned 40 years old. Arillotta farmed out the murder contract to his main muscle the Geas brothers (Ty and Freddy), who in turn assigned Frankie Roche, a prison pal of theirs to do the job.

Roche shot Bruno on the eve of his 58^th birthday, as he left his weekly Sunday night card game at his Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Social Club headquarters and eventually became a witness for the government. So did Arillotta and Tranghese, but not until Arillotta reigned on the throne for six years, “shelving” Tranghese with a beat down delivered by the Geas brothers at a construction site of his in 2005.

Arillotta and Tranghese each testified against Little Artie Nigro and the two Geas, receiving significantly reduced sentences as a reward for their cooperation. Both have quietly returned to Greater Springfield following their prison terms.

Bruno’s driver, Frank (The Shark) Depergola, present when Big Al was killed, is set to plead guilty to extortion charges this month. The FBI believes Depergola is a player in the current Springfield mob orbit and reports to reputed crew boss Alfred (The Animal) Calvanese, who was a target of the 2016 indictment that ensnared Depergola and others, but was able to avoid arrest.

“These guys now are wannabes compared to what used to be around here,” said one local mafia insider. “Nobody outside Springfield gives these clowns the time of day. And a lot of guys in Springfield won’t either. It’s a lightweight city these days in term of organized crime and its being run by a bunch of lightweights.”

*A very special thank you to Springfield’s resident ace mobologist and crime reporter Stephanie Barry for help in crafting the narrative of this article.

The post Springfield (MA) Mafia Flashback: Bruno & Delevo Did Business Differently, Both Headed Western Mass Mob In Final Glory Days appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Iconic hippie cult leader Charles Manson, convicted of killing nine people in Los Angeles in a one-month period back in the summer of 1969, died of natural causes last week at 83. He had been in prison for 48 years. His obsession with The Beatles led to him referring to his murderous ways as “Helter Skelter” in a nod to one of the group’s songs. The so-called Family headquartered its activities out of Spahn Ranch in the Simi Hills above Chatsworth, California.

A failed aspiring musician once close to Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Manson achieved global infamy for his two-day murder spree in August 1969 (which came to be known as the “Tate-LaBianca slayings”) when he had several of his followers savagely butcher seven people, including pregnant Hollywood actress Sharon Tate, the wife of Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.

Besides the nine homicides he was found guilty of (the Tate-LaBianca murders and two others in the weeks surrounding them), police in Los Angeles believe he and his followers were responsible for at least a dozen more.

The Manson Family Murder Timeline (1968-1977)

October 13, 1968 – Nancy Warren & Clida Delaney were found beaten and strangled to death near Ukiah, California. Warren was eight months pregnant and Delaney was her grandmother. They were garroted and bound by three dozen leather thongs.

December 27, 1968 – Marina Habe, a 17-year old freshman in college, is kidnapped from her parents drive way following a date (her parents were author Hans Habe and actress Eloise Hardt) and found two days later beaten and stabbed to death in a brushy embankment of Mullholland Drive in Los Angeles. She had been an acquaintance of Manson and The Family in the months leading up to her death

July 1, 1969 – African-American drug dealer Bernard (Lotsapoppa) Crowe is shot by Charles Manson himself inside Crowe’s Hollywood apartment after Crowe was cheated in a dope deal by Tex Watson and threatened to harm Manson and The Family in retaliation. Crowe survived the shooting.

July 17, 1969 – Mark Walts, 16, was found beaten and shot to death, his body dumped on Mullholland Drive. The day prior, Walts, another Manson associate from Walts’ time hanging around Spahn Ranch, disappeared from the Santa Monica Pier following a day of fishing. Walts brothers called Manson at the ranch afterwards, accusing him of the slaying and vowing revenge.

July 27, 1969 – Los Angeles are music teacher and Manson Family associate Gary Hinman is killed inside his Topanga Canyon home by Manson and Family members Bobby Beausoleil, Susan Atkins and Mary Bruner over a drug debt owed to The Family and the belief that he had a $20,000 inheritance he wasn’t willing to share with them. Hinman had been held hostage for two days and Manson had cut off his ear with a sword prior to Beausoleil stabbing him to death on Manson’s orders. The words “political piggy” and a drawn paw print were scrawled in Hinman’s blood on the wall of the residence. Beausoleil, one of Manson’s main male lieutenants and recruiters, was arrested days later and charged with the murder when he was pulled over by police driving Hinman’s car and the murder weapon was found in the vehicle.

August 9, 1969 – The Tate-Polanski House Murders: Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojceich Frykowski & Steven Parent are killed by Manson Family members Tex Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel at the estate in Beverly Hills owned by Tate and her director husband Roman Polanski. Tate was eight months pregnant and Polanski was away in Europe so Sebring, a former boyfriend of Tate’s and renowned male hairdresser, and Folger and Frykowski, a couple Tate and Polanski were friends with, were visiting the estate the night the Manson followers invaded the premises brandishing knives. Watson, Atkins and Krenwinkel proceeded to shoot and stab them to death. The word “pig” was written on the home’s front door in Tate’s blood. Parent was shot and killed by Watson after visiting his friend who was staying in the estate’s guest house.

August 10, 1969 – Grocery store owners Leno & Rosemary LaBianca were stabbed to death inside their Los Felix home by Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel and fellow Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten after returning from a vacation. Unlike the previous night at the Tate-Polanski house, Manson drove with his followers to the murder scene and tied the LaBianca’s up with his leather thongs before the rest came inside and reignited the carnage. The words “helter skelter” and “rise” were written in the couple’s blood on their walls and refrigerator.

August 26, 1969 – Spahn Ranch cowboy Donald (Shorty) Shea, a known Manson rival, was killed in the weeks following the Tate-LaBianca murder spree for helping local police conduct a raid on the ranch 10 days earlier. Manson and Family henchman Bruce Davis and Steve (Clem) Grogan were convicted of the slaying and unearthed Shea’s body once Grogan began cooperating with authorities in 1977.

November 5, 1969 – Manson Family figure John (Zero) Haught was found in his house off Venice Beach with a single gunshot wound to the head. Family members reported to police that Haught died playing Russian roulette, however, he was rumored to have been cooperating with authorities after his arrest the month before.

November 7, 1969 – Teenage Scientologists James Sharp & Doreen Gaul were found brutally stabbed to death in a Los Angeles alleyway down the street from where Leno and Rosemary LaBianca lived and were slain. Manson was connected to the sect of Scientology the 15-year old Sharp and the 19-year old Gaul belonged to called “The Process”

November 16, 1969 – Manson Family hang-around Reet Jurvetson  was found heinously stabbed to death in a brushy embankment bordering Mullholland Drive. Authorities were not able to identify her until conclusively until 2016. She had lived at the ranch with The Family from July 1968 through February 1969.

December 1, 1969 – Manson Family member Joel Pugh, the husband of fervent Manson loyalist Sandra Good was found dead in a London hotel room, his wrists slit and his throat cut. The words “Jack & Jill” were written in blood on the hotel room wall and Manson Family henchman Bruce Davis was in Great Britain in the months after the Tate-LaBiance killings.

November 28, 1970 – Manson Family attorney Ron Hughes vanished in the middle of a camping trip he took to Sespe Hot Springs located in Ventura County while on a one-week recess from the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. Hughes represented co-defendant Leslie Van Houten. His severely decomposed body was found months later by a pair of fisherman.

November 8, 1972 – James Willett & Lauren (Remy) Willett are killed by members of The Manson Family while residing with three Manson loyalists and a group of white supremacists Manson had aligned with behind bars. James Willett was blown away with a shotgun and decapitated, while his wife Remy had been shot in the back of the head. Two Family members (Priscilla Cooper and Nancy Pittman) were convicted of the crime and did five years in prison apiece.

January 26, 1977 – Documentarian Lawrence Merrick, who helmed the 1970 film Manson, which contained a series of interviews with Family members and footage of The Family’s life at Spahn Ranch was shot to death leaving his Hollywood studio office.

The post The Helter Skelter Hit List: A Charles Manson Family Murder Timeline (1968-1977) appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Reputed Detroit mafia captain Giuseppe (Joe the Hood) D’Anna made it home Thanksgiving Weekend from a year-and-a-half stint in prison on a federal extortion conviction. D’Anna is 65 and runs a crew out of the upper suburbs of Macomb County, according to sources. A native Sicilian, he has long overseen the Zerilli-Tocco crime family’s “zip” faction, according to police reports.

Back in 2011, D’Anna beat a rival restaurant owner with a baseball bat, as his younger brother Girolamo (Mimmo) D’Anna, stood watch, following the restaurateur operating an eatery next to the D’Annas then-headquarters, Tiramisu Ristorante, for repeatedly refused to pay a street tax. The state of Michigan immediately charged him with aggravated assault and he did five months in the Macomb County Jail while serving the rest of his sentence on house arrest. Unhappy with the result of the state case, the feds came into the picture in 2013 and hit the pair with racketeering charges.

The elder D’Anna agreed to plead guilty in April 2016 under the condition the charges against his baby bro Mimmo were dropped, which they subsequently were. Per sources, 53-year old Mimmo D’Anna looked after his brother’s crew when he was in the joint for the end of 2016 and most of 2017. The D’Annas cousin Salvatore D’Anna is a mafia don in Terrasini, Sicily.

Traditionally, the majority of the Zerilli-Tocco crime family has traced its roots to the town of Terrasini, located in Palermo. Both of the crime family’s founding fathers, Giuseppe (Joe Uno) Zerilli and Vito (Black Bill) Tocco, came to the United States from Terrasini in around 1910.

Joe D’Anna is the second Detroit mob figure to get sprung from the can in the past year. Tocco crew member Tommy Mackey was released from an 18-month term for bookmaking back in the spring. In the 2000s, Mackey was indicted in a federal racketeering case alongside alleged current Detroit mob powers Jack (Jackie the Kid) Giacalone and Peter (Specs) Tocco. Giacalone, said to be the boss of the family these days, was found not guilty at a 2008 trial. Mackey and Tocco, who is said to be Giacalone’s top capo and street boss, pled guilty and did time behind bars.

The post Home For The Holidays: Alleged Detroit Mob Leader Let Out Of Prison In Time For Turkey Day appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Another Detroit rapper is in trouble with the law. Earlier this month, Jerray (Smokecamp Chino) Key and more than a dozen of his Smokecamp brethren were taken down in a federal drug and racketeering case. They all face a maximum of 20 years behind bars if found guilty on all counts, which besides naroctics trafficking, includes extortion, robbery and illegal firearm possession.

The 28-year old Key is signed to Chicago rapper Chief Keef’s Glo Gang label. Chief Keef is a protégé of hip hop superstar Kanye West. Smokecamp, formerly known as the Runyon Avenue Boys and the Original Paid Bosses, headquarters out of the Motor City’s eastside and is the second Southeast Michigan rap group to be swept up in a federal drug and racketeering case this year, following in the footsteps of the westside clique, Young ‘N Scandalous, also members of the Glo Gang camp.

Rodney (Doughboy Roc) Yeargin of the popular Doughboyz Cashout rap crew on the westside, inked with Young Jeezy’s CTE label out of Atlanta and a part of the Dej Jam family, was shot and killed while under investigation by the DEA back in October.

Smokecamp operates on 7 Mile of Albion Street, referred to by the Smokecamp crew as “A-Block.” According to the indictment dropped on November 8, Smokecamp Chino heads the gang along with Korey (No Loan Corleone) Sanders, who was the lead defendant in the case. Members of Smokecamp are accused of traveling to Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia to peddle cocaine, marijuana and pills, per the indictment. The bust was a result of the Detroit One narcotics task force, made up of the DEA, FBI, ATF and the Detroit Police Department’s gang unit.

The Detroit One task force also brought down the Young ‘N Scandalous crew back in the spring. The fact that both reputed drug gangs were signed to Glo Gang spurred the task force’s probing of Smokecamp, which like “YNS” was using social media posts for purposes of bragging, threats to competing sets and allegedly advertising their sale of narcotics. YNS is accused of carrying out murders, but Smokecamp is not.

The post Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire: Detroit Rap Figure ‘Smokecamp Chino’ & Crew Corralled By Feds In Drug Case appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The Queen of Soul, the venerable Aretha Franklin, almost signed a talent contract with deceased Detroit Black mob boss Edward (Fast Eddie) Wingate and his Golden World Records label back in the early years of her remarkable music career, according to Michigan State Police documents from the late 1970s. Instead, Franklin, today 75, inked with Atlantic Records in the fall of 1966 and soon shot to international stardom – she went on to record over 100 songs that charted in the Billboard Top 100 and 17 Top 10 singles. Wingate sold his fledgling R&B empire to Berry Gordy and his iconic Motown label that same year.

Rumors regarding a nefarious relationship between Wingate and Franklin’s dad, the esteemed Reverend C.L. Franklin is alleged to have prevented Aretha from consummating a business relationship with Wingate’s Golden World outfit, per MSP intelligence reports. C.L. Franklin gained nationwide fame in gospel circles as the impassioned pastor of Detroit’s New Bethel Baptist Church, often touring America with his daughter in tow spreading the word of God to massive crowds. Prior to signing to Atlantic in November 1966, Aretha recorded for labels such as J.V.B., Columbia and RCA. She experienced her most financial and mainstream success though with Atlantic and then Arista.

Besides his work as a music-world impresario, Fast Eddie Wingate, ran the Motor City’s policy lottery and gambling rackets in the area’s African-American neighborhoods from the 1950s into the 1980s. Wingate died of natural causes living in retirement in Las Vegas in May 2006 at 85 years old. Per the MSP documents acquired by Gangster Report, Wingate did business in the “numbers” racket with C.L. Franklin, with Franklin allowing Wingate to conduct policy lottery business in the back of his church while receiving a portion of the profits of policy slips written on the premises. C.L. Franklin died in 1984, following five years on life-support after being shot in a home invasion in 1979.

The Reflections, The Manhattans, The Debonaires, The Holidays and The Parliaments (which later became Parliament-Funkadelic) all recorded for Wingate’s Golden World Records. Future Motown acts The Dramatics, Edwin Starr and J.J. Barnes also recorded with Wingate, either on Golden World or his other label, Ric-Tic Records. Berry Gordy bought both labels from Wingate in 1966. The pair had a business and social relationship as well, per the MSP documents.

Eddie Wingate

Wingate owned and headquartered his vast policy kingdom and sports book out of the Twenty Grand Supper Club and the attached 20 Grand Hotel on Detroit’s westside. He owned the hotel outright and according to MSP records silently held a majority ownership interest in the acclaimed restaurant and performance venue. Gordy would use the club to break-in his Motown acts before sending them representing the label across the country on what became known as the “Chitlin Circuit.”

According to a former associate connected to the Motor City music scene in the 1960s, Gordy would often “do the town” with Wingate, hitting local bars and nightclubs and partying late into the night.

“Berry was always running around with Fast Eddie and his man Pretty Ricky, I think he liked being around those type of people for the air of mystery they brought to his business, like he wanted it to be known he wasn’t someone to be trifled with because of who he hung out with and who he knew,” one Motown backup singer recalled.

Arnold (Pretty Ricky) Wright was a top numbers lieutenant under Wingate before branching off into narcotics trafficking on his own. Informants told the FBI and state police in the 1960s that Gordy had taken out a loan from the Detroit Italian mafia to add to the money he borrowed from his father as means of starting up his Motown label the previous decade.

Wingate worked hand-and-hand with the Detroit mob in his policy and gambling rackets. The epicenter of his numbers business was conducted from inside the 20 Grand Hotel in a cluster of rooms referred to as “The Hole.” He was arrested in 1976 for running a large bookmaking operation in tandem with the mafia, specifically the notorious Giacalone crew. The bust, which featured an indictment recounting meetings between Wingate and mob captain Vito (Billy Jack) Giacalone, precipitated the end of the Twenty Grand Supper Club and the 20 Grand Hotel. Both establishments shuttered in the wake of Wingate’s arrest.

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