The relationship between the old Curry Brothers Gang led by 1980s-era Detroit drug kingpin Johnny Curry and deceased Detroit Mayor Coleman Young gets a deep dive in Episodes 6 and 7 of the critically-lauded podcast Crimetown. Curry ran the Eastside dope game in Motown at the peak of the government’s War on Crack with Young’s beautiful niece on his arm. Young served five terms as Mayor of the Motor City (1974-1994), hounded by accusations of corruption his entire time in office but never charged with a single crime. He died of emphysema in 1997.

Produced by award-winning Gimlet Media out of New York and co-created by Oscar-nominated documentarian Marc Smerling, Crimetown explores the convergence of politics, culture and crime in a different metropolis each season. Detroit is the subject of Season 2 after the hit podcast put the spotlight on Providence in Season 1, procuring a scripted-television option from FX.

Season 2 premiered last month. The first episode focus on Young’s rise to power and him becoming the first African-American Mayor of a major American city. Episodes 3 and 4 center on Motown heroin czar Eddie Jackson, a gentleman gangster of the mid 1970s, while Episode 6 touches on the emergence of the infamous and deadly Young Boys, Incorporated gang on the Westside of the city in the early 1980s. Listen to the podcast here.

Coleman Young

Johnny Curry, known simply as “Lil’ Man” to those closest to him, has an underworld legacy that spans multiple eras. He got his start as one of the founders of the Black Killers street gang in the 1970s. Then along with his twin sibling Leo (“Big Man”) and baby bro Rudell (“Boo”), he began slinging marijuana and heroin out of a gas station they owned. They were soon recognized in the area’s underworld pecking order, referred to across the city as the “Curry Boys.”

When cocaine reached the mainstream in the 1980s, the Curry Boys transitioned to the crack game and became major players in the city’s criminal landscape. Johnny’s marriage to Cathy Volsan, Mayor Young’s sister’s daughter, helped his cause tremendously. It also raised his status on the streets. Cathy’s love brought Johnny the Mayor’s protection and a whole slew of connections in the police department. Years later, court testimony in a police-corruption trial revealed Young’s appointing of an entire DPD security detail to watch Cathy’s back on a 24-hour basis. For all intents and purposes, the security detail, known as the “Black Bag Squad” was being paid to watch Johnny’s back too.

Young was no stranger to street activity. His FBI file notes that he ran numbers for local policy lottery bosses in his youth. Crimetown talked with one-time members of YBI in Episode 5 who claimed the gang had a line into the Mayor’s Office through Young’s YBI-affiliated barber. Episode 6 quotes a former Detroit Police Chief who personally witnessed drugs being sold out of Young’s restaurant by Young’s brother-in-law Willie Volsan, Cathy’s father.

Cathy & Willie Volsan

The protection afforded to Johnny and Cathy by the Mayor’s office and the police department appears to have shielded the Curry Brothers Gang from being implicated in a murder: the unsolved 1985 homicide of 13-year old Damion Lucas, the nephew of Curry Brothers Gang affiliate Leon Lucas, who at the time of Damion’s accidental killing was feuding with Lil’ Man and Big Man over money and drugs confiscated by law enforcement in a February 1985 raid. The elder Lucas failed to come through with pro boxing tickets and fight and hotel reservations in Las Vegas in April of that year as a means of repayment and Curry Brothers Gang enforcers are alleged to have peppered his house with a barrage of bullets in a drive-by shooting on the evening of April 29, 1985. Leon was out for the night. His nephew was slain in the attack.

According to informants, Johnny Curry delivered a payment of $10,000 to high-profile DPD Homicide Commander Gil Hill and the investigation steered away from the Curry Brothers Gang. Another Lucas rival named LaKeas Davis was arrested for the Damion Lucas murder, but the FBI interjected, letting the judge know of the Curry Brothers Gang involvement and the case against Davis was dropped. The case remains open today.

Curry denies any involvement in ordering the Lucas drive-by. He’s admitted in the past though to delivering cash to Hill for favors, including in the days following the murder of Damion Lucas. Hill, famous for his acting in the Beverly Hills Cop movie trilogy, always steadfastly denied covering up the Lucas homicide probe or taking any bribe of any kind. He died of natural causes in 2016.

Johnny Curry, 60, and his entire organization went down in a federal drug and racketeering case in the spring of 1987. Curry served 12 years in prison and was released in 1999. Cathy and him divorced during the time Curry was away behind bars. The Curry Brothers Gang and the Damion Lucas murder were depicted in the recent Hollywood film White Boy Rick, chronicling the strange but true story of Curry’s one-time teenage protégé Richard (White Boy Rick) Wershe, the youngest informant to ever work for the FBI and the longest-serving non-violent juvenile offender in the nation’s prison system. Actor Jonathan Majors played Curry, actress Taylour Paige played Cathy Volsan and newcomer Richie Merritt played Wershe (the 49-year old Wershe has been locked up since 1988 and is set to finally be released in 2020).

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Drug gang boss Rudolph (Rudy Pooty) Coles had his 2017 narcotics trafficking conviction tossed out by the North Carolina Court of Appeals this week and will get a new trial. Coles, 62, is one of the leaders of the Detroit Boys Gang, a criminal organization from Michigan that relocated down south, setting up satellites in North Carolina, West Virginia and Tennessee in the 1990s. He was indicted in 2013, found guilty at an April 2017 trial and sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

On Tuesday, the appellate court vacated Coles’ conviction, ruling that state court Judge Todd Burke failed to give the jury proper instructions at Coles’ trial. Coles and his younger brother Terrance ran the Winston-Salem wing of the Detroit Boys. The higher court wrote in its opinion that Burke neglected informing jurors that Coles needed to have knowledge of the heroin he was transporting in order to render a guilty verdict.

The DEA began eying the Detroit Boys’ North Carolina crew in 2012 because of an informant’s tip. Rudy Coles landed in the government’s crosshairs when a cell-phone conversation his baby bro was having regarding the gang’s supply of heroin running low got intercepted on a wire.

“Pooty is planning a trip up north (to Detroit) for the re-up,” Terrance Coles, 57, was heard telling a Detroit Boys Gang lieutenant.

Learning from the informant that “Pooty” was Rudy Coles, the DEA attached a tracking device to Coles’ beige-colored Ford Explorer and followed him to Michigan and then back to Winston-Salem before pulling him over. A search of the vehicle on Coles’ return to North Carolina on October 28, 2013 revealed 12 ounces of heroin in a secret compartment in the Explorer’s ceiling. The next day, the DEA in Detroit raided a house in Southfield, Michigan which Coles had visited for his “re-up” and seized three pounds of uncut heroin and $35,000 in cash.

The post Holidays Come Early For “Rudy Pooty,” Detroit Boys Gang Leader In North Carolina Gifted New Trial appeared first on The Gangster Report.

New plot details have emerged into the public consumption sphere about the much-anticipated prequel film to The Sopranos, the groundbreaking HBO television show of the 2000s which followed the mob and family life of fictional New Jersey gangster Tony Soprano played in career and genre-defining fashion by James Gandolfini. The Tony Soprano character will be portrayed as a young boy and a teenager in the prequel, per reports. Gandolfini died suddenly of a heart attack in June 2013.

The movie, titled The Many Saints of Newark, was penned by Sopranos creator David Chase and sold earlier this year. Directed by Alan Taylor (The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones), the project begins shooting in March and is expected to arrive on HBO in late 2019.

At first, it was announced that the film would center around Newark’s 1967 race riots and the tensions boiling between multiple ethnic mob factions in the area, including The Soprano’s DiMeo crime family. Now, it appears if the timeline of the movie has been stretched and will deal with a period spanning from ’67 into the mid-1970s. Casting calls have gone out for a 9-year old and 16-year old Tony Soprano.

Further casting news included producers looking for a “Johnny Boy” and Livia Soprano, Tony’s parents, Dickie Moltisanti, his mentor in the mafia, and a newly-unveiled character named Aldo Moltisanti, a 60-year old “elegant” wiseguy who might be Tony’s grandfather on his mother’s side. Emmy Award-winner Nancy Marchand played Tony’s mom on the series for the first two seasons. Johnny Boy Soprano, Tony’s mob captain dad, was shown in flashback sequences and played by Joe Siravo. Dickie Moltisanti, the father of Tony’s protégé Christopher (Michael Imperioli) is referenced throughout the original TV series, however never seen because his character was slain when Christopher was a baby.

The murder of Dickie Moltisanti was a central storyline in The Sopranos’ Season 4 premiere in 2002. In the episode, Tony tells Christopher that retiring police detective Barry Haydu (Tom Mason) killed his dad on a contract from a rival mobster. Upon learning this, Christopher breaks into the dirty cop’s house and shoots him to death.

The Sopranos was massively popular and a critical darling, sparking the current golden era of
TV and the rise of the anti-hero in both television and film, as well as gave birth to the concept of prestige programming across the industry. The show ended in June 2007 after six seasons and 21 Emmy Awards.

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The young buck on his hip could be joining Philadelphia mob boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino in prison. Peter Tuccio, the 25-year old Gambino crime family wiseguy spotted driving and accompanying Merlino on recent trips to court in New York and visits to South Philly, was indicted by the feds this week for extortion and arson related to a car torching in Brooklyn three years ago.

The 56-year old mafia slickster Merlino is headed to federal prison next month to serve a two-year term for a gambling conviction out of New York. He’s made his home base in Boca Raton, Florida since 2011 and his release from a prior federal prison term. Merlino pleaded guilty in the so-called “East Coast LCN Enterprise” conspiracy earlier this fall after the jury hung at a trial last winter. The baby-faced Tuccio appeared in television news clips reporting on Merlino’s court dates and photos posted to social media accounts during the proceedings.

On December 3, 2015, Tuccio and two other Gambino affiliates (Gino Gabrielli & Jonny Gurino) accosted an unnamed businessman who had stopped paying shakedown money to an unnamed Gambino capo outside a Queens pizza parlor and Tuccio specifically asked the businessman about the debt and the Mercedes he was driving. Hours later, the Mercedes was set ablaze outside his Howard Beach home. Security video showed an individual matching Gabrielli’s description pouring accelerant on the vehicle in the pizza joint’s parking lot and throwing a match to ignite the fire.

Gabrielli, flanked by Tuccio, sought treatment at a local hospital for third-degree burns in the early hours of December 4 — he eventually pleaded guilty to arson charges. Tuccio and Gurino both pleaded not guilty to the indictment back on Friday. If Tuccio and Gurino are convicted, they are looking at 15 years in prison apiece. Despite prosecutors seeking to keep them locked up pending trial, they were released by their judge on a $700,000 bond.

Merlino was indicted alongside Genovese crime family captains Patsy Parrello and Eugene (Rooster) Onofrio in August 2016 on a racketeering conspiracy. The three celebrated the holidays together at a 2015 Christmas party in the Bronx. Like Merlino, Parrello and Onofrio copped pleas. One of Parrello’s guys, John (J.R.) Rubeo was wearing a wire on Merlino and others. Merlino is known to be close to the Perna crew in the Lucchese crime family as well.

The post The NYC-To-South Philly Connection: Skinny Joey’s Pal Popped By Feds, Might Join Philly Mob Boss Behind Bars appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Slain Boston Irish mob boss James (Whitey) Bulger was supposed to share a cell with one of his alleged killers, another Massachusetts wiseguy named Paul (Little Paulie) DeCologero in the West Virginia federal correctional facility where he was snuffed out mere hours after arriving via a suspicious transfer order, according to newly published reports on the investigation into Bulger’s murder. Despite the initial assignment for Bulger and DeCologero to be “cellies,” Felix Wilson, a New Hampshire felon with no apparent organized crime ties, was a last-minute replacement for DeCologero. The sleeping arrangement only lasted a single night.

The 89-year old gangland icon exposed following his reign as a confidential informant for the FBI was beaten to death inside his cell in the early hours of October 30. He had just arrived at the facility the night before from a Florida prison.

Multiple law enforcement agencies are probing the details of the transfer and a possible high-reaching conspiracy that might have played a role in the vicious mob figure’s grisly demise. Bulger’s last-minute change in medical-status classification, which sent him to Hazelton, West Virginia penitentiary instead of a prison medical center and the decision to place him in general population instead of a protection unit raised a lot of eyebrows in the wake of his fatal beat down that grabbed news headlines across the world.

Wilson, DeCologero, Springfield, Massachusetts mobster Freddy Geas, a convicted murderer, and Geas’ cellmate Sean McKinnion from Vermont, are the prime suspects in the Bulger hit. Geas and DeCologero were seen on security cameras entering and exiting Bulger’s cell around the time he was heinously slaughtered with a metal lock in a sock.

In 2003, Geas helped execute the Genovese crime family’s Massachusetts capo, Adolfo (Big Al) Bruno. Geas reportedly doesn’t deny his role in killing Bulger to prison authorities. All four suspects were whisked away to solitary confinement the same day Bulger was found unresponsive in his cell, his bloodied and battered body wrapped in blankets on his bed.

Little Paulie DeCologero

DeCologero, 44, is serving a 25-year prison term for racketeering related to being part of a mafia-affiliated drug-dealing and robbery crew led by his uncle Paul (Big Paulie) DeCologero out of Boston’s North Shore suburbs in the 1990s. Bulger is one of the most infamous mob figures of all-time and lorded over the South Boston underworld from the 1970s until he went on the run from the law in 1995. Revealed to be an longtime FBI informant during his years as a fugitive, Bulger was apprehended in 2011 and found guilty at a 2013 trial of personally committing or ordering 11 gangland slayings.

Big Paulie DeCologero, 56, will most likely die behind bars. He was found guilty in the 2000s of ordering the murder and dismemberment of the teenage girlfriend of one of his crew members who the crew believed was on the verge of cooperating with police. Little Paulie DeCologero is currently scheduled for release in 2026.

According to the DeCologero family, Bulger put a murder contract on Big Paulie’s head in the early 1990s for refusing to pay Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang a percentage of his rackets as tribute. At that time, the DeCologero crew was aligned against Bulger’s ally in New England’s Italian mafia, Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme, in a power struggle for control of the Patriarca crime family. The half-Irish Salemme turned witness for the government in 1999, but was convicted back in the summer for his role in the 1993 murder of his partner in a nightclub, a killing he neglected to tell the FBI about when he flipped.

The post White As A Ghost: Whitey Bulger Was Assigned To Share Cell With One Of His Alleged Murderers, Per Reports appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The No. 1 Cocaine Cowboy, notorious Miami drug kingpin Willy Falcon, was deported to the Dominican Republic this month, more than a year following being released from federal prison on a money laundering conviction. The native Cuban fought returning to his homeland because of his participation in a CIA-funded plot in the 1990s to overthrow communist dictator Fidel Castro. Falcon’s minor role in the plot was recently made public via court documents related to his immigration case. Castro died in 2016 after over a half-century in power and dodging numerous assassination efforts.

The 64-year old Falcon was scooped up by U.S. Immigration and Customs officials the day he walked free in 2017 from nearly two decades behind bars. Back in the spring, a judge denied his motion to be allowed to stay in the country.

In the 1980s, Falcon and his boyhood buddy and partner in crime Sal Magluta were the nation’s largest smugglers of Colombian cocaine, bringing in billions of dollars worth of powder into South Florida and saturating American streets with it at the apex of the crack epidemic. Throughout underworlds foreign and domestic, Falcon and Magluta were known as “Los Muchachos” and their criminal organization was called “The Company.”

Both Falcon and Magluta came to America as young children and were classmates together as teenagers at Miami Senior High School. They began selling marijuana together in the school’s parking lot and eventually transitioned into moving coke once they left campus.

Willy Falcon circa 1980s

Los Muchachos and a several of their henchmen were indicted in a giant 1991 federal drug conspiracy case, but Falcon and Magluta were acquitted at a 1996 trial where they bought off the jury foreman. The feds indicted Falcon and Magluta again in 1999 for tax evasion and murder in a case Falcon copped a plea to and Magluta rolled the dice at another trial and lost. Magluta was sentenced to life in prison.

According to their 1999 indictment, Falcon and Magluta hired three hitmen to kill a former lawyer of theirs. Criminal defense attorney Juan Acosta was gunned down in the days before he was supposed to testify in front of a grand jury in the fall of 1989.

Besides their exploits in the dangerous, fast-paced drug world, Falcon and Magluta were world-class and globally-ranked powerboat racers. ESPN would frequently broadcast their races. Authorities think the Acosta slaying was one of three executions and five shootings connected to Falcon and Magluta during their reign.

The post Historic Miami Drug Baron Of The ’80s Broomed Out Of The Country, Deported To Dominican Republic appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Michigan biker boss Jeff (Fat Dog) Smith was recently sentenced to life in federal prison for a drug and racketeering conviction from three years ago. The 63-year old Smith is the former national president of the Devils Diciples Motorcycle Club. He was indicted in 2012 along with more than 50 other gang members and associates. The Devils Diciples (intentionally misspelled) were founded out of California, but Fat Dog headquartered out of the Detroit suburbs.

The club’s national warlord and sergeant at arms Cary (Gun Control) Van Diver was also hit with a life sentence this month. Patrick (Mr. Magoo) McKeoun and Michael (Mikey Tattoos) Rich were both smacked with 30-year terms. McKeoun was the “mix master” for the club’s Alabama chapter, responsible for cooking crystal meth. Rich was the president of the Alabama chapter. West coast boss Vincent (Vinnie Holiday) Witort of California and Fat Dog’s vice president and right-hand man in Michigan, Paul (Paulie D) Darrah are still awaiting sentencing.

Smith, Van Diver, Rich and McKeoun and three others were all found guilty at a 2015 federal trial in Detroit that took four months to complete. The case against the club was jumpstarted in 2003 when Detroit Westside chapter boss William (Billy Wadd) Smith — no relation to Fat Dog — became an informant for the government upon Fat Dog putting a murder contract on his head after Billy Wadd turned his nephew into local police for robbing and murdering an innocent family. Billy Wadd let the ATF and DEA wire his bar, a well-known biker world hangout in Detroit’s rough Brightmoor neighborhood.

According to the 2012 indictment, Fat Dog Smith assumed control of the Devils Diciples in 1993 and moved the club’s headquarters from California to the Motor City. Smith lived ten miles north of Detroit in Mount Clemens. In addition to Michigan, California and Alabama, club maintains chapters in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Arizona. Court records allege he ordered Witord to massacre the entire Arizona chapter in the summer of 2003 for insubordination — Vinnie Holiday and his California crew kidnapped, assaulted and robbed chapter members instead.

Under Smith’s leadership, the Devils Diciples operated cross-country narcotics and weapons trafficking networks and ran gambling and extortion rackets. Smith shot a club member in the leg at a 2007 club meeting while Darrah held him still as a punishment for an infraction. In 2008, Smith beat up a club member’s girlfriend for placing club colors on the floor.

Back in the late 1990s, Smith shot and almost killed a rival, however, a generous plea deal in state court landed him only a short stint behind bars. The lenient sentence set off a federal inquiry to Smith’s connections in the judicial system. Smith openly boasted about his ties to a local judge he grew up with and his ability to acquire sensitive government documents detailing law enforcement intelligence on club affairs.

The post The Devil Is In The Details: Devils Diciples MC Boss Saddled With Life Prison Sentence appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Actor Allesandro Nivola, best known for co-starring in Face-Off with Nicolas Cage and American Hustle with Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence, will play Dickey Moltisanti in The Sopranos movie being produced jointly by Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema. Moltisanti was never seen on screen, only referenced in the landmark HBO drama which ran from 1999 to 2007 and chronicled the life of fictional suburban middle-aged New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano portrayed brilliantly by James Gandolfini in career and genre-defining fashion.

Nivola is the first actor cast in the heavily-hyped prequel project announced earlier this year. Gandolfini died suddenly of a heart attack in 2013.

Titled The Many Saints of Newark, the film was penned by Sopranos creator David Chase. It will be directed by Alan Taylor (The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones), responsible for helming a number of classic episodes of the original series and is slated to begin production in March eying a late 2019 release.

The much-anticipated movie’s timeline will cover the late 1960s and 1970s. The Tony Soprano character is a young boy and then a teenager juggling high school football and mob ambitions simultaneously. With his mafia capo dad “Johnny Boy” behind bars in the mid-1970s, Dickey Moltisanti steps into the picture to groom him as a wiseguy. During the original series, Tony mentored Dickey’s son, drug-addled Christopher (Michael Imperioli) and the two would often talk about Tony’s memories of Dickey, who was killed when Christopher was an infant.

A new character named Aldo Moltisanti will also be introduced in the film. According to the casting call, he is an “elegant wiseguy in his 60s” and possibly Tony’s grandfather. Aldo Moltisanti is Dickey’s dad and Dickey covets his father’s new Italian bride.

The murder of Dickie Moltisanti was a central storyline in The Sopranos’ Season 4 premiere in 2002. In the episode, Tony told Christopher that retiring police detective Barry Haydu (Tom Mason) killed his dad on a contract from a rival mobster. Upon learning this, Christopher breaks into the dirty cop’s house and shoots him to death.

The Sopranos was massively popular and a critical darling, sparking the current golden era of
TV and the rise of the anti-hero in both television and film, as well as gave birth to the concept of prestige programming across the industry. The show ended in June 2007 after six seasons and 21 Emmy Awards with a polarizing conclusion. The final episode fades to black as Tony and his family enjoy a meal at a local diner in the wake of a mob war claiming his brother-in-law and putting his best friend on his death bed in the hospital.

The post A Marching Saint: Dickey Moltisanti Role Cast In Sopranos Movie, Nivola Receives Nod appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The Devils Diciples biker gang in Detroit was done in a decade before the indictment hit. As soon as the club’s Westside Detroit chapter boss William (Billy Wadd) Smith flipped in early 2003, the highest level of the Devils Diciples were on borrowed time. Billy Wadd joined Team America after learning “DD” national president and Michigan overlord Jeff (Fat Dog) Smith — no relation — had ordered his murder for turning in his crazy-eyed felon of a nephew John (Solo) Wolfenbarger to police for the senseless December 2002 massacre of the Pesce family.

The 64-year old Fat Dog Smith was smacked with a life prison sentence in federal court last week for a 2015 conviction on drug and racketeering charges. Because of Billy Wadd’s cooperation, the DEA and ATF were able to bug his bar, The Copa, in Detroit’s Brightmoor section, which served as a frequent gathering spot for DDs in the Motor City and other biker gangs as well, getting the reputation of being a no-man’s land location where bosses from different gangs could hold sit downs and conduct business on neutral ground. The bugging of The Copa proved the catalyst for three separate federal racketeering investigations launched at highly-feared Michigan biker contingents.

The Outlaws MC went down in a 2007 bust. The Highwaymen MC followed in 2009. Finally, Fat Dog Smith and 50 DD members and associates were indicted in 2012. Billy Wadd testified at a number of gang leaders’ trials and is currently tucked away in the Witness Protection Program.

The Devils Diciples MC (intentionally misspelled) were founded in Fontana, California in 1967 and soon spread east. Fat Dog Smith grabbed the club’s presidency in 1993 and moved the national headquarters from out west in San Bernardino County to Detroit. Other chapters reside in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma.

Billy Wadd joined the DDs in the 1990s. He had risen through the ranks of the rugged Motown underworld as a member of the Seven Mile Dawgs, a mostly African-American drug and street gang on the city’s Westside, getting the reputation as an earner, someone who could generate money from a diverse array of illegal income streams. His nickname Billy Wadd came from the stacks of cash he was known to flash, the wad of hundred-dollar bills he always had on him. Shortly after “patching in” with the Devils Diciples, Fat Dog named him the president of the DDs’ Westside Detroit chapter.

William “Billy Wadd” Smith

In the spring of 2002, Billy Wadd’s nephew, his sister’s son, “Johnny Solo” Wolfenbarger got out of state prison from an 8-year stint for armed robbery. Wolfenbarger held the rep of a cowboy, a reckless criminal eager to act before thinking. Billy Wadd hooked up Wolfenbarger with a job working in a collection agency owned by Anthony (Mad Anthony) Clark, a Westside Detroit boss of The Highwaymen. By the fall, Wolfenbarger was back to his old tricks and doing home invasions.

That December, Wolfenbarger recruited his prison cellmate, Dennis Lincoln, a safe-cracking specialist, to pull a job. On the afternoon of December 21, 2002, the pair stalked Metro Detroit jeweler Mario Pesce from his store to his home in suburban Livonia, Michigan, where they took him, his elderly mother and three young children hostage, robbed the place of tens of thousands of dollars in cash and valuables and then finally cold-bloodedly kill them all execution style.

An ecstatic Wolfenbarger showed up at his uncle Billy Wadd’s house in the early-morning hours of December 22 to brag of his dirty deeds and hide some of the loot. Hanging around The Copa in the days that followed, Wolfenbarger told at least a dozen more people of his heinous act, boasting of his prowess as a thug and how the murders he committed were getting coverage on CNN.

Billy Wadd was disgusted and dropped a dime on his nephew, he contacted a local cop he knew to tip him off that Wolfenbarger had mastered minded the Pesce family massacre. When Fat Dog Smith found out that Billy Wadd was the reason Wolfenbarger was arrested, he declared him a rat and put a murder contract on his head. After letting the feds put audio and video surveillance equipment inside his bar, The Copa, for six months, Billy Wadd left the Devil’s Diciples, went into the Witness Protection Program and eventually testified at Wolfenbarger’s trial. Wolfenbarger, 48, was convicted and sentenced to five life terms.

Billy Wadd talks about the situation:

“Johnny came out of prison talking that ‘I want clean up my life’ business, but come on, who are you kidding, game recognize game, The kid had been stealing since the time he was five, ten years old. He’s been locked up since before he was 21 and become totally institutionalized. Life on the outside is hard for a convict. He didn’t want to put in a day’s work, he couldn’t cope, so he went back doing what he knew how to do, breaking into peoples’ houses and stealing. It never surprised me that he went back and turned crooked again. But I never saw him going off and starting to murder old ladies and little kids.”

Discussing the night of the murders when Wolfenbarger came to his house in Dearborn, Michigan:

“I walked down the stairs and opened the door and he’s grinning, he comes in and throws all this jewelry and all of these bags of money on to my living room floor. He looks at me and says ‘Five dead’ and laughs. I thought he was bullshitting me. Then, a few hours later, I see it on the news.”

Discussing the reaction of Fat Dog and the DDs:

“Those guys smelled blood and saw the whole situation as an excuse to move on me,” said Smith. “They wanted to knock me off my pedestal because they were jealous. I had money and businesses on the street they wanted for themselves. It was that simple. Brotherhood meant nothing to them. I wasn’t telling on them, I was helping solve the murders of three little kids and a man and an elderly woman who never had any reason to have their lives taken from them whatsoever. But when you start threatening me and my family, then it’s on and I don’t care what I have to do to set things straight.”

Discussing life today:

“I’m just trying to live my new life in peace and quiet and keep making changes for the better. I can’t change the past and I don’t live with regrets. I did things on my own terms and when I made the decision to leave the “Life,” I left it for good and have never looked back.”

The post Billy Wadd’s Revenge: Devils Diciples’ Detroit Empire Fell Apart When MC Turned On Boss With Conscience appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The Giacalone brothers (“Tony Jack” & “Billy Jack”) were the Detroit mafia’s street bosses in the second half of the 20th Century, the proverbial “faces of the franchise” for the mob in Motown from the 1950s into the 2000s. Below are snippets of FBI wire transcripts from the bug at their Home Juice Company headquarters in the 1960s. The wiring operation wasn’t court authorized, so the damning evidence — hundreds of hours worth of incriminating statements and conversations regarding a multitude of illegal affairs — never made it into any indictments. Tony Jack died of kidney failure in 2001. Billy Jack passed away of natural causes in 2012.

The Home Juice Wire Job

Billy Giacalone – I’ve got the same blue Ford following me the last ten fucking days. The day they ain’t trailing me anymore is the day I’ll know they’re coming with the cuffs. That’s when I’ll know something’s up.

Billy Giacalone – The kid’s a helluva singer, he’s a gambling degenerate though and he owes us $25k. He owes our guy Johnny four, five thousand, he’s into the Melrose Linen people (the Tocco brothers) for four, five large, he owes the Outfit in Chicago close to 45 grand ‘cause he always out there doing shows. He’s paying the Chicago boys off, but we haven’t seen a cent yet, so we cut him off. I’ve been vouching for this kid, keeping Chicago from chopping his head off and he needs to make a dent in his debt here before we’re taking his action again. I brought him down here the other day, I said either you or your dad is giving me 10k next week. His dad owes Chicago $3,500. Like father, like son these two. He tells me his dad was going to send him on vacation to Vegas, I said the fuck he is. So you can go there and spend my money, throw it away at the tables? That ain’t happening. I told him if I hear he’s in Vegas, I’m feeding him to the wolves. I call his dad in, I say what the fuck are you thinking? You want to get your kid in more trouble than he already is? You’re enabling this behavior. You’ve got a good kid, he’s going to get hurt if you don’t rein him in. The dad says, we’ll give you a piece of his singing career. I said, I don’t want to be in the music business. That’s not my thing. Just get this thing fixed.

Tony Giacalone — This cocksucker is looking to send me to jail. That mother fucker is coming after me and you’re having him over to swim in your pool, you’re sitting with him, you’re breaking bread with him, you’re palling around with him? Go ahead, deny it. Tell me I’m wrong. That’s what I thought. You just ruined my whole fucking night. Get the fuck out of my office.

Tony Giacalone — We’re talking about $200,000 to spread around. We take ours. The one guy gets 15 percent of that. The other guy gets 10 percent. He loses five for what he already owes us from before. This guy was making money hand over fist for years and we don’t see a motherfucking dime? Where did all the money go, Billy? Do you even know how much we’re talking about? Your head would fucking swim. We’re talking millions. Seven, eight years of stealing, booking, shy, everything. He don’t have to share? Since when are we giving passes out?

The post Getting Juiced In: The Detroit Mob’s Giacalone Brothers Burned On Fed Wire In Their HQ Back In 1960s appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The Quebec Biker War ripped through Canada in the 1990s and early 2000s, claiming more than 100 bodies when the Hells Angels MC and the Rock Machine MC clashed in a battle for drug, gambling, prostitution and extortion turf in Montreal and beyond. The Hells Angels, the gold-standard for biker crews in America, landed in Montreal in 1977. The Canadian Godfather of the Hells Angels was Maurice (Mom) Boucher, an enigmatic and bloodthirsty mobster who gained folk legend status in Quebec at the peak of his volatile reign.

The Rock Machine was founded in 1985 by Sam Cazzetta, a one-time friend and ally of Boucher’s. When Cazzetta got locked up in 1994, the war erupted. It didn’t end for another eight years, racking up a catastrophic 125 gangland slayings and 80 bombings.

QUEBEC BIKER WAR (1994-2002):

October 19, 1994 – Montreal drug dealer Maurice Lavoi who changed allegiances from the Rock Machine to the Hells Angels is gunned down behind the wheel of his car.

October 28, 1994 – Sylvain Pelletier, the boss of a French-Canadian mob and drug crew aligned with the Rock Machine, is slain.

November 1994 – Hells Angels member Daniel (Danny Boy) Kane becomes an informant. Kane is the driver and bodyguard for Canadian Hells Angels powerhouse David (The Wolf) Carroll, boss of the Halifax chapter and becomes the Royal Canadian Police’s top source for insider intelligence on the war for the next six years.

May 6, 1995 — Hells Angels Montreal chapter leader Denis (Unreliable D) Houle survives an assassination attempt from Rock Machine gunmen in a car shooting at him inside a prison yard.

June 24, 1995 – Hells Angels Montreal boss Maurice (Mom) Boucher announces at a “church” meeting the creation of a subunit of the club to be called “The Nomads,” an elite faction of killers qualifying for special privileges within the club and awarded a “Filthy Few” patch.

August 9, 1995 – Montreal drug dealer and Hells Angels affiliate Mark Dube is blown up in a car bomb outside the Hells Angels headquarters.

August 9, 1995 – Daniel Desrochers, an innocent 11-year old bystander, is killed by the shrapnel from the bomb used to kill Dube.

September 15, 1995 – Hells Angel member Richard (The Crow) Edmond is gunned down in the parking lot of a Montreal restaurant. He is the first “full patch” Hells Angels to fall in the war.

October 19, 1995 – Royal Canadian Mounted Police hold a press conference on the one-year anniversary of the start of the war (the Maurice Lavoi hit) and claim the power struggle has already racked up 30 bodies.

October 21, 1995 – Montreal drug gang leader Harrold Pelletier, Sylvain’s brother and successor, turns himself into the RCMP and cuts a deal, admitting to his role in 17 murders and clueing the cops in on some of the inner-workings of the raging biker war.

May 14, 1996 – Los Bravos MC boss David Boyko is killed by Hells Angels enforcer Donald (Bam Bam) Magnussen in a fight at a Hells Angels party hosted by the Halifax chapter. The Los Bravos club was based in Winnipeg, an area of the country the Hells Angels were eager to assert its dominance, and was in talks about patching over.

March 28, 1997 – Rock Machine member Jean-Marc Caissy is gunned down as he enters a Montreal ice arena to play in a beer league hockey game. The murder was ordered by Gregory (Picasso) Wooley, a Haitian gangster and founder of the Crack Down Posse Gang (CDP) who was also one of Mom Boucher’s protégés, coming up through the underworld as Boucher’s bodyguard. Wooley was tapped by Boucher to lead The Rockers, a Hells Angel-controlled “support club.”

June 1997 – A convoy of Rock Machine brass, led by Freddy Faucher and Johnny Plescio, travel to Sweden to consult with a European wing of The Banditos, a major American MC with chapters around the world. The Rock Machine contingent is kicked out of the country within 48 hours.

June 26, 1997 – Prison guard Diane Lavigne is killed in a drive-by shooting on orders of Mom Boucher.

September 8, 1997 – Prison guard Pierre Rondeau is killed by Hells Angels assassins opening fire with assault rifles on the prison van shuttling prisoners to court.

October 28, 1997 – Banditos boss George Wegers travels from the club’s homebase in Houston, Texas to meet with Freddy Faucher and Johnny Plescio, but is detained by RCMP while dining with the Rock Machine skippers at an upscale Montreal restaurant and placed on a plane back to the U.S.

November 4, 1997 – Hells Angels renegades Scotty Steinert and “Bam Bam” Magnussen are found dead floating in the St. Lawrence River. They were last seen on their way to a sit down with Mom Boucher and were viciously beaten to death, dumped into the river bound and badly battered.

December 5, 1997 – Hells Angels enforcer Stephane (Old Shoe) Gagne is arrested and flips. Gagne was on the Lavigne and Rondeau hit teams.

December 7, 1997 – Hells Angels enforcer Andre (Toots) Tousignant is killed. Tousignant was the triggerman in the Diane Lavigne slaying and last seen on his way to meet Mom Boucher. His body was found on February 27, 1998 – he had been shot at point-blank range in the back of the head twice.

December 18, 1997 – Mom Boucher is indicted for the murders of the two prison guards.

Maurice “Mom” Boucher

August 23, 1998 – Montreal Italian mobster Paolo Cotroni is killed in a drive-by shooting by Rock Machine gunmen in his driveway.

September 8, 1998 – Rock Machine co-founder Johnny Plescio is machine gunned to death inside his living room watching television by shooters standing on his back porch.

September 25, 1998 – Jean Rose, a member of the Dark Circle, a group of businessmen and professionals secretly funding the war for the Rock Machine, is shot to death behind the wheel of his car in his driveway.

October 22, 1998 – Dark Circle member Pierre Bastien is shot to death in his driveway in front of his 8-year old daughter.

November 27, 1998 – Mom Boucher is acquitted at trial for ordering the murder of prison guards Diane Lavigne and Pierre Rondeau.

August 26, 1999 – Car rental agency employee Serge Hervieux is killed in a case of mistaken identity, as Hells Angels-sent gunmen thought he was Dark Circle leader Serge Brunneau.

October 1, 1999 – Rock Machine leader Tony Plescio is gunned down in a Montreal McDonald’s parking lot. Tony Plescio was Johnny Plescio’s younger brother.

April 2000 – Salvatore Gervasi, the son of Italian mob figure Paolo Gervasi, is shot to death and his body is left in a car parked in his dad’s driveway. Paolo Gervasi had thrown his support behind the Rock Machine and it angered the Rizzuto crime family, longtime allies of the Hells Angels. The elder Gervasi survived an assassination attempt shortly after his son was slain. He was eventually killed in the epic Montreal Mob War 14 years later.

April 17, 2000 – Hells Angels leader and Nomad “captain” Normand (Biff) Hamel is shot to death in the parking lot of a doctor’s office while taking his son to an appointment for a check-up. Hamel was the highest-ranking Hells Angel killed to date.

April 27, 2000 – Andre (Dede) Desjardins, a powerful racketeer and construction union boss aligned with Mom Boucher and the Hells Angels, is shot to death in the parking lot of Shawn’s, a popular Montreal restaurant.

May 1, 2000 – Drug dealer and Rock Machine loyalist Patrick Turcotte is shot dead leaving an adult bookstore by Hells Angels assassins.

July 7, 2000 – Loan shark Bobby Savard, a business partner of Mom Boucher’s, is slain inside a Montreal eatery.

August 6, 2000 – “Danny Boy” Kane, the RCMP’s inside man and a driver and bodyguard for many Hells Angels administrators, commits suicide.

August 29, 2000 – Drug wholesaler Raymond Craig, the Hells Angels point man with the Colombian cocaine cartels is killed in the resort town of St. Adele on a family vacation.

September 13, 2000 – Journalist Michel Auger, who had been chronicling the biker war for a Montreal newspaper, was shot five times by the Hells Angels. The attack served as a tipping point in the conflict, enraging the public and press and laying the groundwork for a truce.

September 26, 2000 & October 8, 2000 – Montreal mafia boss Vito Rizzuto mediates a pair of peace conference for leaders from both the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine and a truce is brokered. It doesn’t last more than a month.

October 21, 2000 – Mom Boucher is indicted again for ordering the murder of the two prison guards, prosecutors claiming he fixed his first trial three years earlier.

January 6, 2001 – The Rock Machine officially patches over to The Banditos in a formal ceremony held in Kingston, Ontario.

March 28, 2001 – Almost 200 bikers on both sides of the war are indicted for racketeering and murder. Mom Bouche’s second-in-command during the war David (The Wolf) Carroll fled and has avoided arrest ever since. He’s currently one of the world’s most-wanted criminals.

May 6, 2002 – Mom Boucher is found guilty of ordering the murder of prison guards Diane Lavigne and Pierre Rondeau.

The post The Quebec Biker War Timeline: Murder & Mayhem In Montreal In Fight For Biker Kingdom appeared first on The Gangster Report.

According to court documents in a drug-trafficking case out of Canada, Joseph (Big Joe) Todaro, Jr. replaced Leonard (Lennie Calzones) Falzone as boss of the Buffalo mob two years ago upon Falzone’s death of natural causes. The Western New York crime family’s underboss Dom Violi, 52, was sentenced to eight years in prison by a judge in Hamilton, Ontario this week in a case where his crew was infiltrated by an FBI agent and nailed for a myriad of narcotics offenses.

The news puts Big Joe Todaro, Jr. back under the public spotlight after more than a decade seemingly on the sidelines of gangland activity in Buffalo running his family’s booming pizza-and-wing franchise, La Nova, off in wiseguy retirement. The 71-year old Todaro allegedly ran the Buffalo mob on an acting basis in the late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s for his dad, Joseph (Lead Pipe Joe) Todaro, the Godfather of the mafia in Western New York from 1984 until he voluntarily stepped aside in 2006. The elder Todaro named his consigliere Lennie Falzone as his successor.

Lead Pipe Joe died peacefully in 2012 at 89 years old. Falzone cashed in his chips in 2016 at 81. Because of his retirement proclamations, Big Joe wasn’t mentioned much in speculation by mob watchers following Falzone’s passing about who was going to replace him on the throne of what appeared at that time to be a dwindling organized crime syndicate.

The Violi prosecution proves otherwise.

Dom Violi was caught on an FBI wire last year claiming there were at least 30 guys in the organization. He was “made” in 2015 and upped to underboss by Todaro, Jr. at a meeting in Florida in the fall of 2017, according to his sentencing memo. Violi, the son of slain Montreal mob don Paolo Violi, is the first Canadian Mafioso to be named underboss of an American mob family. Todaro, Jr. was in communication with three of the Five Families in New York (Bonanno, Genovese and Colombo) in relation to his choice to tap Violi for the post, per filings in Violi’s case — one filing notes Bonanno mob consigliere John (Porky) Zancocchio being tasked with delivering the news to Bonanno boss Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso.

The investigation into Violi’s affairs in hardscrabble Hamilton, a factory town right across the border from Buffalo, included video and audio evidence of a Buffalo mafia induction ceremony. Violi’s uncle, Rocco Luppino, is the crime family’s reputed captain in Hamilton. The court records filed in connection with Dom Violi’s sentencing refer to an active mob “Commission,” the American mafia’s board of directors thought to be long defunct.

Lead Pipe Joe Todaro rose through the ranks of the mafia in Buffalo, at least partially, by forging strong ties to the syndicate’s Canadian wing. He helped stabilize a careening out-of-control situation in Montreal in the late 1970s when the Rizzuto mob crew knocked off Paolo Violi and his brothers in a palace coup. Todaro arranged for Paolo’s two then adolescent sons, Dom and Joey, to move to Hamilton and live under the protection of their mom’s family, the powerful Luppino mob clan.

Dom (L) & Joey Violi (R)

Joey Violi was arrested with his brother last year. He was sentenced to 16 years behind bars back in the summer. The Rizzuto crime family in Montreal has been under siege for the past decade, a fierce and widespread insurgence sending the entire Canadian underworld into upheaval. Hamilton mobster Angelo Musitano was gunned down in the spring of 2017.

Once known for his sway in labor union circles, Big Joe Todaro was booted out of the LIUNA in 1990 for his mob links. But like his father before him, Big Joe has never been convicted of any racketeering-related offenses. Lead Pipe Joe Todaro was a suspect in multiple Buffalo mob murders however never charged in any of the homicides. The younger Todaro became his dad’s underboss in the 1980s and in the 1990s transitioned to his acting boss, per sources.

The post Hey, Joe, Welcome Back, Boss: Buffalo Mobster Big Joe Todaro Might Not Be Retired After All appeared first on The Gangster Report.

This month is the 40th anniversary of the infamous Lufthansa Airport Terminal Heist in New York City, which along with its bloody fallout was depicted in gritty detail in the Oscar-nominated film and mob flick classic Goodfellas.

The robbery was the biggest in U.S. history, netting a Luchese crime family crew led by notorious high-end mafia associate and legendary Irish gangster James (Jimmy the Gent) Burke a cool six million bucks in cash and valuables. In the early hours of December 11, 1978, Burke’s crew stuck up the Lufthansa terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, the borough where Burke and his band of hoodlums, thieves and hit men headquartered their activities out of.

Within days, Burke decided to kill most of the men that pulled off the job in order to cut his ties to the robbery and hoard a majority of the loot for himself. Robert DeNiro played Burke in Goodfellas.

Below is a list of the murders linked to the heist.

The Lufthansa Heist Hit List (1978-1984)

December 18, 1978 – Burke crew member and aspiring African-American blues musician Parnell (Stacks) Edwards is killed in his apartment a week following the Lufthansa heist after botching his role in the job and not properly disposing of the getaway vehicle. Edwards, an expert in credit card fraud, got the Hollywood treatment in Goodfellas and was played by Samuel L. Jackson.

December 30, 1978 – Burke crew member and Jimmy the Gent protégé Thomas (Two GunTommy) DeSimone disappears on his way to what he thought was a mafia induction ceremony but is murdered instead. DeSimone had been one of the stick up men in the heist and was most likely the triggerman in the Stacks Edwards homicide. He had angered mob powers in the Gambino crime family with the unsanctioned murders of William (Billy Bats) Bentvena and Ron (Foxy) Jerothe years earlier. The hit on “Billy Bats” was depicted in Goodfellas, with Joe Pesce playing Two Gun Tommy and character actor Frank Vincent portraying Bentvena.

January 6, 1979 – Burke crew member, male wig shop owner-hair salon proprietor and Jewish mob associate Marty (The Rug) Krugman is killed after being too demanding for his cut of the proceeds from the heist. It was the loud and brash Krugman’s tip about the lax security and his inside access at JFK’s Lufthansa cargo terminal that jumpstarted the conspiracy to rob the airport. Krugman was played by actor Chuck Low in Goodfellas and the movie showed him being murdered.

Jan 17, 1979 – Burke crew associate and con man Richie Eaton is slain and left hanging on a hook in a meat locker after trying to scam Jimmy the Gent out of $250,000 of the heist proceeds Burke had trusted him with laundering in Florida. Eaton’s murder itself wasn’t shown in Goodfellas, but his discovery in the meat locker was.

Feb 10, 1979 – Tommy DeSimone’s girlfriend Theresa Ferrara, who worked with Richie Eaton in Ft. Lauderdale and suspected of both being an FBI informant and helping Eaton skim off the top of the laundered heist cash, is murdered. Her body is never found.

March 8, 1979 – Burke crew member Louis (Louie Roast Beef) Cafora and his wife Joanna disappear and are murdered for Louie Roast Beef’s careless behavior in the direct aftermath of the heist. Cafora was Jimmy the Gent’s cellmate during a prison stint and one of the stick up men in the job. Like you saw in Goodfellas, days following boosting the Lufthansa terminal, Louie Roast Beef (called “Johnny Roast Beef” in the film) bought a brand new pink-colored Cadillac Fleetwood and was going around town showing it off, raising eyebrows from law enforcement and drawing Burke’s ire.

March 22, 1979 – Burke associate and Florida bar owner Tommy Monteleone is killed for being suspected of being in on the plan by Richie Eaton and Theresa Ferrara to steal money given to them by Jimmy the Gent, specifically earmarked to be washed through his Player’s Lounge nightclub in Ft. Lauderdale as well as a bogus drug deal the team of grifters came up with in an unsuccessful attempt to throw Burke off the scent of their intention to rip him off.

May 16, 1979 – Burke crew members and JFK Airport “inside men” Joseph (Joe Buddha) Manri & Robert (Frenchy) McMahon are murdered side-by-side execution style in a car found in a New York parking garage. Both Manri and McMahon worked at the airport in the Air France terminal.

June 13, 1979 – Gambino crime family Lufthansa Airport lieutenant Paolo LiCastri is slain, set on fire and thrown in a trash dump in a further attempt by Burke to eliminate any links between him and the heist.

July 18, 1984 – Burke crew member Angelo Sepe & his girlfriend Joanna Lombardo are killed in Sepe’s apartment after Sepe angered Lucchese crime family administrators by his brazen robbery of mob-backed drug dealers. Sepe was one of the stick up men in the heist and had been on the frontlines of Burke’s wipeout of his co-conspirators in the Lufthansa job.

The post Lufthansa Heist Hits 40-Year Anniversary: A “Goodfellas” Murder Timeline appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The second time historic east coast mafia dons John Gotti and Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo met face to face it was to settle a beef between soldiers in their respective crime families, according to New Jersey state records. One of those soldiers was current Philadelphia restauranteur and reputed mob heavy Phil Narducci.

Gotti and Scarfo both died behind bars but were gangland icons of their era. Little Nicky Scarfo led the Philly mafia for a majority of the 1980s. Gotti ran New York’s Gambino crime family in the late 1980s and early 1990s, becoming an underworld celebrity the likes of which hadn’t been seen in America since Al (Scarface) Capone during Prohibition.

The 57-year old Narducci was indicted with Scarfo in a federal racketeering and murder case in 1987 and did two and a half decades in prison. He was released in 2012 and last year he opened a slickly-designed bar and restaurant called “Chick’s,” named in honor of his father, slain Philly mob capo Frank (Chickie) Narducci, killed “cowboy style” in 1982.

The younger Narducci is pegged by some as a faction leader in the modern day Philadelphia mafia. In 1986, Narducci was an ambitious and highly-capable young soldier in the Philly mob, having allegedly just “made his bones” by taking part in the gangland assassination of local mafia figure Frank (Frankie Flowers) D’Alfonso – years earlier he shot the father of a witness against Scarfo in the head. A bar fight between Narducci and Cherry Hill, New Jersey mobster Matty Gambino over a girl resulted in Gambino pulling a gun and threatening to kill him and Scarfo calling for a sit down with newly-enshrined New York don John Gotti, who grabbed power months before by orchestrating the execution of his predecessor as boss of the Gambino syndicate, Paul Castellano.

The notoriously bloodthirsty Scarfo had been at the top of the Philadelphia mafia since 1981. He and Gotti first met at an introductory sit down in January 1986. Less than two months later, Scarfo was summoning Gotti to the negotiating table. The topic? Bargaining for Matty Gambino’s life. Little Nicky wanted him clipped for his unruly behavior.

Gambino was a native Sicilian and a cousin to the crime family’s departed longtime boss and namesake Carlo Gambino (d. 1976). Matty Gambino was part of the “Chery Hill Gambinos,” a group of Sicilian cousins to Carlo Gambino stationed in New Jersey and had a reputation for acting out and ruffling feathers.

Scarfo tapped his nephew and underboss Philip (Crazy Phil) Leonetti to make arrangements for the Gotti sit down. Leonetti reached out to his liaison in the Gambino clan, Joseph (Pal Joey) Farinella and Farinella arranged for Scarfo and Gotti to meet at the house of Gotti underboss Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano’s brother in law in Staten Island (Gravano and Leonetti would both end up joining the Witness Protection Program).

While Scarfo only brought Leonetti, Gotti arrived flanked by an entourage of Gambino administrators, including Gravano, Farinella and Gotti’s consigliere Joe Gallo. Gotti wound up apologizing for Gambino’s actions, explained he was still in the process of getting his “house in order” after assuming leadership at the end of the previous year and that if Gambino disrespected anyone in Scarfo’s Borgata again, he would okay Scarfo issuing a murder contract. Per sources, Gambino personally apologized to Phil Narducci in the weeks following the Staten Island sit down.

Little Nicky Scarfo died of natural causes in 2017. Gotti was locked up in December 1990 and died of cancer behind bars in 2002.

The post NY & Philly Mob Bosses Held Sit Down To Resolve Dispute Between Phil Narducci And Cherry Hill Gambinos appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Aaron (A.J.) Jones founded the Philadelphia Junior Black Mafia in 1985. As a young boy in the 1970s, Jones had been an errand boy for original Philly Black Mafia chief Robert (Nudie) Mims. The “JBM” went on to dominate the crack cocaine trade in North and West Philadelphia for the better part of a decade. They became famous for telling competitors to “get down or lay down,” meaning either join them or risk death in opposing them.

Bodies dropped frequently in the 1980s, as Jones and JBM fought wars against rival organization’s led by Albert Ragen and Craig Haynes and experienced internal strife with some members turning informant and others taking aim for the crown themselves. Between 1988 and 1990, more than a dozen gangland slayings were attributed to JBM affairs.

The Junior Black Mafia Murder Timeline (1988-1990)

March 26, 1988 – Drug gang boss Albert Ragen is gunned down.

April 2, 1988 – Ragen crew member Dennis Caldwell is killed.

April 9, 1988 – Ragen crew member Brock White is slain.

April 16, 1988 –Ragen crew member James Tate is murdered.

July 12, 1988 – Philly drug world figure Mark Lisby is shot to death by JBM enforcer Anthony (Big Tone) Reid in front of his home over a $100 debt.

January 2, 1989 – JBM lieutenant Timmy (King Aquil) Kite is killed.

February 2, 1989 –JBM member James (Suss Dog) Susswell is gunned down by Haynes crew hitmen.

March 13, 1989 – JBM soldier Neil (Phil Fresh) Wilkinson is shot to death by Big Tone Reid for the belief that Wilkinson was a confidential informant for the DEA. Wilkinson’s JBM running buddy, Darryl (Hickey Mo) Woods was paralyzed in the attack.

March 18, 1989 – Teenager Michael Waters is shot to death by Big Tone Reid after Waters hit Reid’s car with a snowball.

March 26, 1989 – JBM West Philadelphia lieutenant Reggie (Rolls Royce Reg) Rittenburg is killed following being caught stealing from drug proceeds.

June 29, 1989 –JBM lieutenant Eric (E-Money) Hurst is killed by Haynes crew hitmen.

July 11, 1989 – Innocent bystander Willie Bowman is killed when JBM enforcer Christopher (Dirty Black) Laster opens fire on a South Philly street corner aiming at a crew of dope boys refusing to pay JBM rent on their turf.

August 10, 1989 – JBM lieutenant Donnie (D-Bone) Branch, who acted as one of Aaron Jones’ bodyguard, is killed in a failed assassination of Jones when Haynes crew gunmen open fire on Jones’ entourage.

September 16, 1989 – Haynes crew member Anthony Anderson, one of the suspected shooters in Branch’s murder, is found slain.

May 14, 1990 – JBM acting boss LeRoy (Bucky) Davis is shot to death on the front porch of a row house in West Philly by his successor Brian (Moochie) Thornton because an imprisoned Jones learned of Bucky Davis’ plans for a palace coup.

June 10, 1990 – Motorist Greg Jackson is pistol whipped and killed execution style in front of his wife by Eric (Little Hawk) Watkins, Moochie Thornton’s driver and bodyguard, in a road rage altercation which takes place in broad daylight in North Philly.

August 18, 1990 – JBM lieutenant Bruce Kennedy is shot to death behind the counter of his market in West Philadelphia for allegedly romancing Aaron Jones’ girlfriend while he was behind bars.

The post The Philadelphia Junior Black Mafia Murder List: Aaron Jones & JBM Killed The Comp In Late ’80s appeared first on The Gangster Report.

New England mob soldier Darin (Nino) Bufalino recently walked free from a state prison sentence in Massachusetts for armed robbery and extortion. The 57-year old wiseguy was groomed in the mafia by former Patriarca crime family don Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme, the New England region’s Godfather in the early 1990s who was convicted in a cold-case murder back in the summer. Bufalino was Salemme’s driver and bodyguard.

In 2009, Bufalino was indicted for robbing a landscaper of $1,000 at gun point. The following year he was busted in a racketeering and extortion case alongside East Boston crew capo and FBI informant Mark Rosetti. He pleaded guilty to both cases in 2012 and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Bufalino spent the first half of the 2000s behind bars on a bank-robbing conviction. Back in the 1980s, Bufalino beat a murder case. He was found not guilty in the first-degree homicide of mob associate and drug dealer Vince DeNino in 1984. DeNino allegedly owed Bufalino a $15,000 drug debt and was gunned down in a Massachusetts grocery store parking lot.

A recorded conversation behind prison walls between Bufalino and Boston mob associate Charles (Good Time Charlie) Lightbody caught Lightbody bragging of his silent ownership in a 75-million dollar deal to build a Steve Wynn-backed casino and resort in Everett, Massachusetts. Lightbody, 59, was indicted by the feds for fraud and trying to hide his interest in the lucrative land contract, but acquitted at a spring 2016 trial. Wynn, the premier casino tycoon in Las Vegas, grew up on the east coast and got his start in the hotel and gaming industry from mobsters in Detroit at The Frontier in the 1960s.

The post Boston Mafia Figure Nino Bufalino Back On The Outside, Released From State Lock-Up After 7 Years appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Montreal mob figure Alessandro (Allie Boy) Sucapane was released to a halfway house in the weeks before Christmas after almost eight years in prison on racketeering and drug-trafficking charges stemming from the high-profile Project Clemenza case. Sucapane, 53, was part of the insurrection in the Rizzuto crime family that began in the late 2000s and still rages to this very day.

More than 100 casualties are attributed to the epic mob war stretching from Quebec to Ontario and beyond and still showing no end in sight. Don Vito Rizzuto died of natural causes in 2013 at the age of 67, just over a year removed from a prison stint of his own. A number of his family members and close friends have been slain in the mob war. The television series Bad Blood, currently available for streaming on Netflix, dramatizes the events surrounding the conflict.

Sucapene served as a key lieutenant to one of the palace coup’s leaders, Giuseppe (Ponytail) De Vito, who was killed behind bars via cyanide poisoning five years ago. De Vito had joined with one-time Vito Rizzuto confidant Raynald Desjardins and deported New York mob boss Salvatore (Sal the Ironworker) Montagna to challenge Rizzuto’s power while Rizzuto was locked up. Three of De Vito’s top men, Giuseppe (Joe Closure) Colapelle (2012), Vinnie Scuderi (2013) and Nick Di Marco (2017) have been murdered in the war as well. Joe Closure was De Vito’s liaison to Sal Montagna, clipped in 2011 when he and Desjardins fell out of favor with each other.

With De Vito incarcerated facing narcotics charges from a case that dropped years before Project Clemenza surfaced, Sucapene and Scuderi acted as his main go-betweens with the street. Police surveillance units would often follow Sucapene from prison visits with De Vito directly to meetings with Joe Closure at a series of Montreal coffee shops and cigar bars in which he delivered orders from the boss.

Sucapene also oversaw the De Vito crew’s marijuana grow operations, constructing state-of-the-art greenhouse facilities in multiple locations across the country for use, and a contraband smuggling racket at the prison (Riviere des Prairies Detention Center) where De Vito was doing his time. He headquartered his affairs out of a pair of bars in Montreal owned through De Vito crew front men.

The post Quebec Mobster Made It Out Of Prison For The Holidays, Returns To Mafia Crew Decimated By War appeared first on The Gangster Report.

For the past decade, a mob war in Montreal has engulfed the Canadian underworld. In the late 2000s, Montreal Godfather Vito Rizzuto’s family mafia dynasty came under attack from within when Rizzuto’s right-hand man Raynald Desjardins joined forces with deported New York don Salvatore (Sal the Ironworker) Montagna to challenge Rizzuto’s reign while the mob boss was away serving a prison sentence in America. Rizzuto’s father, son and brother-in-law were all executed with Rizzuto sitting helpless behind bars.

Released from prison in October 2012, Rizzuto returned to Canada and unleashed his wrath on his enemies. He died of natural causes in December 2013, Montagna was killed and Desjardins is locked up for Montagna’s murder, but the bloody conflict continues to this very day, having claimed more than 100 lives so far.

THE MONTREAL MOB WAR MURDER TIMELINE

August 11, 2005 – Montreal mobster Johnny Bertolo, a racketeer, builder and construction union rep aligned with Raynald Desjardins, is killed as he left his gym after a falling out with Vito Rizzuto.

August 30, 2006 – Rizzuto crime family enforcer Domenico Macri is killed in a drive-by shooting as he sat at a traffic light in downtown Montreal.

September 7, 2007 – Montreal mob figure Frank Velenosi, a main lieutenant of Rizzuto crime family underboss, Francesco (Compare Frank) Arcadi, is found stabbed to death in the trunk of his car.

January 15, 2008 – Rizzuto crime family enforcer Constantin (Big Gus) Alevizos is killed.

December 4, 2008 – Rizzuto crime family soldier Mario (Skinny) Marabella is killed as gunmen open fire on him as he exits his vehicle and goes to fill up his tank at a Montreal gas station.

January 16, 2009 – Montreal mobster Sam Fasulo, a top henchman for Compare Frank Arcadi, is murdered.

August 21, 2009 – Montreal mobster Freddy Del Peschio, a Rizzuto confidant, is slain.

December 28, 2009 – Montreal mobster Nicolo (Ritzy Nick) Rizzuto, Jr., Vito’s son and protégé, is shot dead in broad daylight.

March 19, 2010 – Greek mobster Pete Christopulous, a bodyguard for Haitian gangster Ducarme Joseph, is killed in an attempt to assassinate Ducarme inside Ducarme’s women’s clothing boutique located in a Montreal shopping plaza (Joseph, the leader of the 67s Gang, was the suspected shooter in the Ritzy Nick Rizzuto hit).

May 19, 2010 – Rizzuto crime family consigliere Paolo Renda, Vito Rizzuto’s brother-in-law, vanishes and is presumed dead.

June 29, 2010 – Rizzuto crime family acting boss Agostino Cuntrera and his bodyguard Liborio Sciascia are killed in a hail of bullets outside Cuntrera’s office.

September 29, 2010 – Rizzuto clan enforcer Ennio Bruni is killed, gunned down in a crowded Montreal strip mall.

November 10, 2010 – Montreal mafia patriarch, Nicolo (Uncle Nick) Rizzuto, a mafia dignitary on multiple continents, is shot dead in his kitchen by a sniper’s rifle.

January 31, 2011 – Montreal mobster Antonio Salvo, one of Compare Frank Arcadi lieutenants, is killed outside his home.

October 24, 2011 – Rizzuto ally-turned-rival Larry Lopresti, the son of a slain Rizzuto lieutenant, is killed on his home balcony in suburban Montreal while smoking a cigarette.

November 24, 2011 – New York mob don Salvatore (Sal the Ironworker) Montagna is assassinated near a woodsy riverbed as he runs from an ambush in suburban Montreal after his and Desjardins’ palace coup goes awry (Desjardins eventually pleads guilty in the murder plot).

March 1, 2012 – Montreal mobster Giuseppe (Joe Closure) Colapelle, a Rizzuto lieutenant-turned-Desjardins loyalist is slain.

May 4, 2012 – Montreal mobster Joe Renda, a stealthy Rizzuto ally-turned-Montagna-backer, disappears and is presumed dead.

July 16, 2012 – Money-laundering expert Walter Gutierrez, tasked with washing illegal windfall for the Rizzuto crime family, is killed in a barrage of bullets as he walks towards his house in a West End Montreal neighborhood.

August 14, 2012 – Haitian street gang leaders Chenier Dupuy & Lamartine Paul are gunned down within hours of each other, Dupuy is killed as he sat in his truck outside a restaurant, Paul was murdered as he left his apartment. They were suspected of providing muscle for the anti-Rizzuto wing of the Montreal mafia.

November 5, 2012 – Montreal mob capo, Giuseppe (Smiling Joe) Di Maulo, a one-time top Rizzuto crime family power who joined forces with Montagna and Desjardins (Smiling Joe’s brother in-law), is killed outside his home by Rizzuto gunmen.

November 17, 2012 – Montreal mob associate, Mohamed Awad, a top Desjardins associate, is slain.

December 8, 2012 – Rizzuto crime family lieutenant Emilio Cordeleone is killed.

January 22, 2013 – Montreal mob associate Gaetano Gosselin, a Desjardins ally and local builder, is murdered outside his home.

January 31, 2013 – Montreal mobster Vinnie Scuderi, a Desjardins loyalist, is murdered outside his home.

May 8, 2013 – Deported Toronto mob crew boss Juan (Joe Bravo) Fernandez, the Rizzuto crime family’s captain in Ontario, is found dead in Sicily, after being marked for death by Vito Rizzuto himself for staying neutral in the war.

July 8, 2013 – Montreal mob figure and Rizzuto rival, Giuseppe (Ponytail) De Vito, is poisoned to death in his cell in a Quebec prison.

July 12, 2013 – Toronto mob enforcer Sam (The Young Gun) Calautti and his driver Jimmy Tusek, are murdered outside a bachelor party in the Woodbridge neighborhood while a suspect in the slayings of a number of Rizzuto crime family members.

November 10, 2013 – Montreal mobster Moreno (The Turkey) Gallo, a Rizzuto ally-turned-rival is killed in Acapulco on the three-year anniversary of the murder of Uncle Nick Rizzuto inside his estate.

December 18, 2013 – Montreal mob associate Rogert Valiquette, closely aligned with Moreno Gallo and Smiling Joe Di Maulo loyalist Roger Valiquette is murdered.

April 24, 2014 – Highly-feared Toronto mobster Carmine (The Animal) Verducci is shot dead on the sidewalk outside of his restaurant.

August 1, 2014 – Ducarme Joseph, the powerful Haitian street gang leader, is killed.

March 1, 2016 – Montreal mob figure Lorenzo (Skunk) Giordano, the acting underboss of the Rizzuto crime family, is shot to death outside his health club.

May 27, 2016 – Montreal mob figure, Rocco (Sauce) Sollecito, the acting boss of the Rizzuto crime family, is shot to death as he sat at a stop sign in his luxury SUV within less than 100 yards from a suburban Montreal police station.

June 2, 2016 — Semi-retired Montreal mobster Angelo D’Onofrio is shot to death while sitting outside a suburban Montreal coffee shop (Café Sinatra) drinking an espresso.

October 15, 2016 — Montreal mobster Vince Spagnolo, one of Vito Rizzuto’s most trusted lieutenants, advisors and messengers, is shot to death outside his home.

March 14, 2017 – Mila Barberi, the 28-year old girlfriend of Toronto mobster Saverio Serrano, is killed sitting in Serrano’s car in an attack Serrano survived.

March 18, 2017 – Montreal mobster Nicola (Big Nicky) Di Marco, a top lieutenant of Ponytail De Vito’s, is killed.

May 2, 2017 — Prominent Hamilton, Ontario mobster Angelo (Big Ange) Musitano is shot to death in his driveway bringing the war to Western Ontario.

August 17, 2017 — Montreal mobster Antonio De Blasio, one of Sauce Sollecito’s closest friends, is gunned down outside his son’s football practice.

November 2, 2017 — Montreal mobster Jacques Desjardins, the brother of Raynald Desjardins, disappears and is presumed dead.

February 3, 2018 – Toronto mob figure, Daniel (Dark Danny) Ranieri, the Rizzuto rime family’s Ontario crew boss, is found dead in Mexico, two years after fleeing an indictment out of Canada.

June 28, 2018 — Montreal mob associate Steve (Stevie the Jew) Ovadia is shot to death in the parking lot of a strip mall parking lot.

June 29, 2018 — Toronto mobster Cosimo Commisso, the nephew of Ontario mob boss Cosimo (The Quail) Commisso, and his girlfriend, are killed.

September 13, 2018 – Hamilton mob associate Al Ivarone is gunned down outside his residence in the city’s Scenic Woods neighborhood in payback for his connections to those responsible for the Angelo Musitano hit and his involvement in a feud over gambling territory in Niagara Falls.

The post The Montreal Mob War Murder Timeline: Rizzuto Crime Family Remains At War Into 2019 appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The Butterfly flies no more. Detroit mobster Anthony (Tony Pal) Palazzolo died of natural causes recently, possibly eliminating the last living link to the famed Jimmy Hoffa disappearance and murder four and a half decades ago. Some people called him the “The Butterfly” for his elusive nature on the streets.

Palazzolo, 78, was the longtime capo of the Tocco-Zerilli crime family’s Downriver crew and had been serving as the Detroit mob’s consigliere the past five years. He was known as genial and well-liked by his gangland cohorts. His name surfaced early on in the still un-cracked Hoffa investigation as a potential participant in the conspiracy to bump off the fiery labor leader.

“Tony was savvy in how he did his business, he was always difficult to nail down in terms of surveillance and building cases,” retired FBI agent Mike Carone said. “We heard his name in the Hoffa investigation when he was pretty young and only the most trusted guys (in the mob) would be involved in that, so that shows how highly the old guard thought of him.”

In the 1990s, Tony Pal was caught on an FBI wire bragging of putting Jimmy Hoffa’s body through a sausage auger at his Eastern Market headquarters, the Detroit Sausage Company. Carone and other FBI agents put Palazzolo family-owned property under the microscope as a possible burial spot for Hoffa, however, never got a search warrant. In 2012, deposed Detroit mob underboss Anthony (Tony Z) Zerilli told the FBI that Palazzolo was driving the car that kidnapped Hoffa from a Bloomfield Township, Michigan restaurant parking lot on the afternoon of July 30, 1975 and then was one of the men who killed him.

Tony Zerilli died of natural causes in 2015, but before he passed he pointed authorities to a farm in Oakland Township, Michigan owned by Detroit mafia don Giacomo (Black Jack) Tocco at the time Hoffa disappeared as to where Hoffa was buried. Tocco ran the crime family from 1979 until his death from a heart condition in 2014, with Zerilli as his second-in-command for 26 of those years. Feuding over blame for a 1996 bust and monies owed from the sale of a number of joint business endeavors, Tocco and Zerilli were no longer on speaking terms at the end of their lives.

Tocco demoted Zerilli from his underboss post in the 2000s, a slight which would eventually send Tony Z scurrying to the FBI. The feds searched the former Tocco property for Hoffa’s remains in the spring of 2013 but came up empty. Zerilli was insistent that they dug up the wrong section of the farm.

Hoffa was the boss of the Teamsters from the late 1950s into the early 1970s and ran the goliath labor union from his home base in Detroit using his deep ties in organized crime circles as leverage. His desire to reclaim the Teamsters’ presidency against the wishes of the mafia resulted in his kidnapping and execution. He was on his way to a lunch meeting with Detroit mob street boss Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone when he vanished.

The FBI has always believed that Giacalone was in charge of coordinating the details of the Hoffa hit. According to Zerilli, Giacalone informed him that Palazzolo was part of the hit team. Tocco was the acting boss of the Detroit mafia at that time and was seen meeting with Giacalone by an FBI surveillance unit in the hours following Hoffa going missing at Giacalone’s Southfield Athletic Club. Palazzolo claimed to have been at the Detroit Sausage Co. that day. Giacalone died of kidney failure in 2001.

Palazzolo climbed through the ranks of the Tocco-Zerilli crime family as a driver and bodyguard for old-school capo Peter (Bozzie) Vitale, the syndicate’s caretaker of Detroit’s racket-rich Greektown neighborhood. Zerilli fingered Vitale to the FBI as one of the conspirators in the Hoffa homicide as well. FBI agents in New York watched as Vitale visited mob bosses in Manhattan in the days directly after Hoffa disappeared. Vitale died peacefully in 1998. Palazzolo was once followed by an FBI surveillance team from Detroit to New Orleans in the 1980s to handle a situation with the Big Easy’s Marcello crime family on behalf of Vitale and Tocco.

Per federal documents, Palazzolo handled Detroit mob affairs in Canada. Tony Pal was indicted in 1993 and did almost five years in federal prison for operating a money laundering racket for drug dealers. It was in that case where an undercover Canadian cop working with the FBI got Palazzolo to admit to him his involvement in the Hoffa murder conspiracy by telling him he disposed of Hoffa’s body in a sausage auger as the two sat chatting inside Tony Pal’s office at the Detroit Sausage Co. in the fall of 1992.

The post Detroit Mafia’s Consigliere Tony Pal, Possible Final Tie To Hoffa Mystery, Passes Away At 78 appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Chicago mob soldier Robert (Bobby Pinocchio) Panozzo pleaded guilty in his state racketeering case last week and with time served could hit the Windy City streets again in less than five years. The 59-year old Panozzo has been jailed since a Chicago Police Department sting caught him robbing a drug house in the summer of 2014. He accepted an 18-year prison term for running a Grand Avenue crew burglary and home invasion ring and will be eligible for parole in late 2023.

Sources say Panozzo’s attorney is negotiating a similar plea deal in another federal racketeering charge Panozzo faces where the sentence would run concurrent with his state conviction. The feds nailed him for beating up a McHenry County man while collecting a debt.

State and federal authorities consider Panozzo a valued member of reputed Chicago mafia street boss Albert (Albie the Falcon) Vena’s inner circle. Panozzo was allegedly one of Vena’s top enforcers and his main narcotics lieutenant prior to being locked up according to sources with direct knowledge of the local mob’s power structure. Much of his daily business was conducted at a massage parlor doubling as a brothel. Panozzo’s son also pleaded guilty in the state racketeering case that took down his dear old dad, but spared Vena, called by many the “most dangerous man in Chicago.” Nonetheless, the diminutive and dapper

Vena, 70, is reportedly the prime target in an ongoing federal criminal probe examining a slew of cold-case mob murders. Vena has long held the reputation of a “hitter” in the Outfit dating back to the 1970s when he was a trusted strong-arm and collector for the now-defunct Northside crew. In contrast, Panozzo “made his bones” in the Grand Avenue or “Westside” crew of the 1980s and 90s run by Joey (The Clown) Lombardo, Vena’s predecessor currently living out his final years behind bars for his conviction in the historic 2007 Family Secrets Trial.

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