When it came to infiltrating the Nevada gaming industry, no American Italian mob was more resilient or resourceful than Detroit’s Tocco-Zerilli crime family. Over a three-decade period, the Detroit mafia was busted for maintaining hidden ownership in and skimming tens of millions of dollars from three separate glitzy Nevada hotel and casinos. The Las Vegas Strip was first on the agenda. In the 1960s, it was The Frontier. In the 1970s, it was The Aladdin.

Newly-released FBI records pertaining to former Motown mob boss Giacomo (Black Jack) Tocco shed fresh light on the organization’s final go-around in the casino business – the early-1980s infiltration of The Edgewater in Laughlin, Nevada, which yielded Tocco and his gangland buddies $10,000,000 in pilfered cash in just two years (1981–1983). Laughlin is located 90 miles southeast of Las Vegas on the banks of the Colorado River.

One member of the conspiracy at The Edgewater was caught on an FBI bug lamenting the fact that they were “stealing too much, too fast,” and weren’t thinking “long term” enough in the way they were bilking the casino. Considering the lion’s share of the loot went into Tocco’s pockets, it’s doubtful he shared such sentiments.

Black Jack Tocco was the son of the Detroit mafia’s first don Vito (Black Bill) Tocco and the nephew of legendary Motor City Godfather Joe Zerilli, a member of the mob’s National Commission. Polished and college educated, he was the consummate boardroom gangster, always considerably more concerned with corporate diversification and staying out of the headlines than traditional rackets and street corner squabbles.

“Jack was a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said retired U.S. Prosecutor Keith Corbett of the biggest target of his career. “He was one of the smartest mob leaders in America and really the anti-John Gotti. He shunned and avoided a lot of the trappings responsible for tripping up many of his contemporaries. The image he cultivated was one of a businessman, a titan of industry, rather than that of a hoodlum. The casino investments were a no brainer for him.”

The Michigan crime syndicate’s initial foray into Vegas came with Zerilli’s son and Black Jack’s first cousin, Anthony (Tony Z) Zerilli, taking control of The Frontier. His bust in 1967 for hidden ownership in the casino and skimming $6,000,000 led to Black Jack assuming the role of heir apparent to the throne, Tony Z doing several years in federal prison and Tocco’s subsequent takeover of The Aladdin through a new series of front men.

Longtime Detroit mob associate James (Jimmy Eyes) Tamer ran The Aladdin on a day-to-day basis as the property’s entertainment director. Jimmy Tamer and Jack Tocco co-owned Hillcrest Golf & Country Club in suburban Detroit. Tamer and others, but not Tocco nor any of his mob lieutenants, were nailed for their affairs at The Aladdin in 1978, leaving a void needing to be filled in the Tocco-Zerilli clan’s holdings portfolio.

Enter Bill Pompili, a tall, well-dressed Detroit mob associate from Toledo, Ohio and a “box man” at The Aladdin. Pompili envisioned a new gambling palace to build and then plunder away from the fast action and heavy heat of the Vegas Strip. He sold Tocco on the idea of constructing a luxury casino and hotel in Laughlin, a planned community and burgeoning boom town seemingly an hour-and-a-half drive away from prying eyes in the Mohave Desert.

Mob activity in Toledo has been run by the Tocco-Zerilli clan in Detroit, since Michigan mafiosi linked to Black Bill Tocco and Joe Zerilli planted a flag for the Borgata at the tail end of Prohibition. Known for being quiet and crafty, Pompili made a name for himself in Toledo as a top-rate bookie and backdoor casino man, operating games and taking bets at his Roman Gardens restaurant, the Sunningdale Country Club and a strip-mall storefront.

FBI agents noted Pompili’s meetings with Detroit mob capo Vito (Billy Jack) Giacalone, who was responsible for the Toledo area on behalf of the Toccos and Zerillis, however, made little mention of his move west to work at The Aladdin in Vegas in 1975. Joe Zerilli died of heart failure in the fall of 1977 after serving 41 years as boss of the Detroit mafia. Black Jack Tocco officially took over the crime family in a June 1979 inauguration ceremony held at an upscale hunting lodge near Ann Arbor, Michigan where all the syndicate’s capos gathered and voted Tocco in as don.

The day Tocco became boss was memorialized with photos snapped by FBI agents surveilling the top-secret affair from the outskirts of the Timberland Game Ranch property, located just outside Ann Arbor in a sleepy town called Dexter. How did the FBI get tipped off to what was going on at the Timberland Game Ranch? Well, as it turned out, the feds had a mole planted in Tocco’s inner circle: his driver, bodyguard and cousin Anthony (Fat Tony) Zito.

So, when the Detroit mob got booted from The Aladdin and started to look around for another investment in Nevada, finally settling on The Edgewater in the months directly following Tocco assuming the reins, Fat Tony Zito keyed the FBI into what was going on.

Like the Tocco coronation in the summer of 1979, FBI agents were on hand to document the litany of meetings Tocco and his men had throughout 1980 to discuss the details and financing of The Edgewater deal. During the first few months of 1980, Black Jack Tocco focused on cementing his ties in mob circles outside Michigan, traveling to a half-dozen major American cities in that time conducting introductory sit-downs with mafia dons in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, New Orleans, Providence and Florida (further intelligence gleaned from Zito).

Once his foreign affairs were in order, Tocco turned his attention to his domestic agenda, namely getting The Edgewater deal off the ground. On the morning of April 17, 1980, an FBI surveillance squad tracked Bill Pompili on a flight from Las Vegas to Detroit and then followed him on a rental-car ride home to Toledo. That very same evening, another FBI unit in Michigan followed Jack Tocco and an oversized captain of his named Anthony (Tony the Bull) Corrado on the hour-long drive to Toledo to meet with Pompili, first in a room at the Holiday Inn and afterwards for a dinner at an Italian restaurant called El Grecos, about The Edgewater. Pompili brought with him a series of construction blue prints and a number of copies of an investment prospectus.

Tony Corrado, a cousin of Tocco’s known for his substantial girth and good-natured personality, accompanied Tocco on his east coast and sun-belt swing for facetime with his fellow mob bosses. One of those meetings took place in Miami in the weeks before the meeting with Pmpili in Ohio where Pittsburgh mafia don Sebastian (Big John) LaRocca brokered an introduction for Tocco to Buffalo mob boss Joseph (Lead Pipe Joe) Todaro.

Among the topics discussed were the Detroit and Buffalo crime families potentially investing in an Atlantic City casino (The Golden Nugget) and Buffalo’s interest in possibly coming on as silent investors in The Edgewater deal. Tocco also reached out to the Chicago mob for investment capital. The relationship between the Detroit mafia and its counterpart in the Windy City had been strong since the days of Al Capone and the booze wars of the 1920s. The “Outfit” assigned its west coast crew boss, Las Vegas crime lord Tony (The Ant) Spilotro, who’s power-hungry antics and violent tendencies were already well-established in the Nevada desert, to handle the details of the transaction – Spilotro would be brutally slain gangland style in a suburban Chicago basement in the summer of 1986.

On June 4, 1980, FBI agents in Detroit watched on as local wiseguy Pat (Parts) Carlini scooped up Spilotro crew rep Sidney (Sid Hudson) Hudash from the airport and drove him to a dinner meeting at the Roma Café in Detroit’s historically mobbed-up Eastern Market district with Tocco and his consigliere Raffaele (Jimmy the Goon) Quasarano. Hudash was of Lebanese descent and ran a large sports book out of a chain of dry-cleaners in Las Vegas. Carlini was one of Billy Giacalone’s guys and owned an auto transmission and carburetor shop on the Eastside of Detroit where members of the Giacalone crew frequently hung out.

Two weeks later, on the afternoon of June 20, 1980, an FBI surveillance team in Buffalo observed Sid Hudson having lunch with Lead Pipe Joe Todaro and his son Joseph (Big Joe) Todaro, Jr. An informant in the Buffalo mafia told the FBI that Hudson came to town to talk “point distribution” for the Edgewater investment.

In the first week of July, Hudson flew from Vegas to Detroit, was once again picked up by Pat Carlini at the airport and chauffeured to a dinner meeting with Tocco and Quasarano where the final particulars of the silent investments from Chicago and Buffalo were locked down. On July 21, 1980, Lead Pipe Joe Todaro, flanked by his son and Leonard (Lenny the Calzone) Falzone, a top lieutenant and trusted advisor of his, arrived in Detroit to cement the deal and FBI agents tracked the Todaros from the airport to a meeting with Tocco and Quasarano at Larco’s, a popular Italian restaurant in the Northwest part of the city. According to Tocco’s driver and cousin Fat Tony Zito, Buffalo was in for six points on the deal and Chicago got two points on its end.

“We knew a big part of Jack’s approach as boss was the infiltration of legitimate businesses, that obviously included the casinos in Las Vegas and then Laughlin,” retired FBI agent Mike Carone said. “There were always a lot of people involved, a lot of buffers, a lot of shifting parts. You saw certain guys jumping around from city to city having meetings. That’s how you put the pieces together from an investigative perspective and start building a case. We were in on the ground floor of that (The Edgewater corruption).”

The Edgewater, designed as a six-story, 160-room structure with a state-of-the-art performance venue attached, was funded in a deal worth almost seven million bucks. Some of the initial investors were forced divest themselves of shares in the casino because of licensing problems, yet still made off like bandits in the amounts they were cashed out for, all but one at least tripling their return.

Tocco then shifted his focus to getting a front man licensed to own the casino on paper – Pompili was out of the question because of his criminal record. First, Tocco put up Emmett Munley, an executive at The Aladdin, and some Detroit-based backers, but Munley and his partners didn’t pass muster with the Nevada Gaming Control Board due to their alleged mob ties.

Next up was a mostly-Canadian ownership group, led by Robert Robinson and Pompili’s pal Jimmy Roberts, who was once employed at The Aladdin. The Canadians were awarded an ownership license and hired Pompili as The Edgewater’s food and beverage director. Despite his meager official title, it was widely-understood that Pompili would be calling all the shots.

As construction on The Edgewater was in full swing, Pompili got into a beef with a New York mobster in Las Vegas named Vincent (Jimmy D) Palmisano, the Gambino crime family’s rep on The Strip at that time. Palmisano had once ran a Gambino crew in Florida and recently re-located to Vegas. When word circulated of Pompili’s action in Laughlin with The Edgewater, Palmisano, unaware of his affiliation to Tocco and the Detroit mob, tried to extort him. At a meeting in a Las Vegas social club that got heated quickly with verbal barbs being heaved in both directions, the pair nearly came to blows. That sit down and future ones conducted regarding the Pompili-Palmisano quarrel were recorded by an undercover FBI agent posing as Palmisano’s driver. The undercover agent eventually worked his way into Pompili’s good graces and chipped in with intelligence in The Edgewater investigation.

In early September 1980, Jack Tocco, Tony Corrado and Jimmy Quasarano met in the backroom of a mobbed-connected Detroit restaurant to discuss the flare-up in Las Vegas and Tocco instructed “Jimmy Q” to contact the Gambinos on his behalf and Corrado to fly out to Las Vegas to mediate a settling of differences. Corrado arrived in Vegas October 3 and held a sit down with Pompili and Palmisano getting the pair to mend fences and move on.

The Edgewater opened on November 24, 1981, the sixth casino and hotel to put up a shingle in Laughlin, Nevada. Pompili immediately employed two relatives in the casino’s main cashier station and he and his mob benefactors in Motown started robbing the place blind. One of Pompili’s most successful techniques to siphon money out of the casino was to have his pit bosses report non-existent slot machine jackpots and take the $5,000-to-$10,000 “winnings” directly to Detroit to be dispersed to Tocco and his pals.

The FBI noted 34 trips made by Pompili from Nevada to Detroit in the next two years. Most of the time, he met with Billy Giacalone. Sometimes they met and exchanged bags of cash in Detroit, sometimes it was in Toledo. Many times, Pompili didn’t even spend the night, returning on a flight to the desert that very same day.

In the late summer of 1982, the feds got word from Fat Tony Zito that Pompili was set to meet with Billy Jack and Tony Corrado at the Holiday Inn in Toledo after Pompili was visited at The Edgewater by a pair of FBI agents and a Gaming Board official. On August 12, 1982, a frazzled Pompili complained to Giacalone and Corrado that they were “stealing too much, too fast,” and it was raising red flags. By 1983, the Detroit mafia had ripped off the joint for a cool 10 million in cash and The Edgewater was $7,000,000 in debt. That was the same year, Tocco decided to get out of the casino business all-together, divesting himself of The Edgewater and selling his final shares of The Aladdin.

While Tocco spent a good deal of time in Vegas getting VIP treatment at The Aladdin, he never set foot in Laughlin or on the grounds of The Edgewater, which has now grown to a 1,000-room, 26-floor, 57-thousand square feet two-tower gambling paradise. The ownership behind the Circus Circus casino and hotel in Las Vegas purchased The Edgewater for $17,000,000. Tocco arranged for the sale of his remaining stock in The Aladdin at a meeting in a Pompano Beach, Florida hotel suite on January 23, 1983 monitored by the FBI and attended by St. Louis mafia boss Mike Trupiano, a former Detroiter and childhood pal of Tocco’s “transferred” to Missouri in the 1960s after it was discovered Trupiano was bedding a Motor City mob administrator’s wife.

A federal grand jury was impaneled in Michigan throughout 1986 to hear testimony on the mob’s involvement in The Edgewater. Jack Tocco, Tony Corrado and Billy Giacalone from Detroit and the Todaros and Lenny Falzone from Buffalo were all served with subpoenas and summoned to appear and each took the fifth. Bill Pompili died of cancer in 1987 living in Las Vegas.

Charges in The Edgewater probe didn’t get brought until Operation Game Tax landed in March 1996, bringing down virtually the entire leadership structure of the Tocco-Zerilli crime family in Detroit and included the misdeeds at The Edgewater as predicate act offenses. The Todaros were unindicted co-conspirators in Operation Game Tax indictment. Tocco, Corrado and Giacalone were all convicted in the Game Tax case. Corrado died behind bars in 2002. Giacalone pleaded guilty in 1998 and did six years in prison. He admitted in open court to being a capo in the Detroit mafia.

Found guilty at a 1998 trial, Tocco was only locked up for two years. His punishment was controversial, raising quite a few eyebrows and drawing harsh criticism from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI. Living to rule on the throne for almost another two decades, Tocco finally succumbed to heart failure in 2014.

The post How Jack Tocco & His Detroit Mob Family Took The Edgewater Casino For A Cool 10 Million appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The Montreal mafia was dealing directly with the world’s biggest drug boss, Mexican crime mogul Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman, during the height of Guzman’s monolithic reign atop the global narcotics game. Rizzuto crime family drug lieutenant Antonio (Tony Suzuki) Pietrantonio had his name surface in testimony at Guzman’s highly-publicized federal trial in New York this past week, being described by a former Guzman confidant as the Sinaloa Cartel’s go-to customer in Canada.

A super villain of sorts, federal authorities dub El Chapo, 61, the most dangerous, feared and ruthless crime lord on the planet. The case he’s facing claims he’s littered American streets with an estimated 500 tons of cocaine. His Sinaloa Cartel is responsible for thousands of deaths in turf battles and blood feuds.

Alex Cifuentes was El Chapo’s right-hand man between 2007 and 2013. Spawning from a Colombian doper pedigree, Cifuentes handled logistics for Sinaloa Cartel distribution hubs in New York and Canada. Cifuentes testified back on Monday that he supplied “Tony Suzuki from Canada” with cocaine, heroin and crystal meth “in bulk” and discussed with him carving out new smuggling routes for their respective crime syndicates using Lake Champlain.

The 58-year old Pietrantonio survived an assassination attempt when he was shot outside a suburban Montreal restaurant in December 2011 in an attack linked to a vicious power struggle within the Quebec crime family. He’s long been aligned with French-Canadian mob figure Raynald Desjardins, who led a revolt in the Rizzuto clan in the late 2000s with don Vito Rizzuto out of the country serving a prison sentence in the United States.

Despite not being Italian, Desjardins, currently imprisoned himself on murder charges tied to the still-raging conflict, had risen to become Rizzuto’s second-in-command. Desjardins joined forces with deported New York mafia boss Salvatore (Sal the Ironworker) Montagna to oppose Rizzuto’s leadership in 2009. The ensuing war has resulted in more than 100 gangland slayings and an endless tear of shootings, drive-bys and fire bombings over the past decade.

Pietrantonio and Desjardins were busted together in 1993 in a cocaine-trafficking case and both did time behind bars. The year before that Pietrantonio had taken a weapons pinch. Tony Suzuki got his nickname for his ownership of a Suzuki automobile dealership on the Eastside of Montreal. He’s heavily involved in the construction industry in Quebec.

Sources say Pietrantonio is a slick, well-liked wiseguy known for his political proficiency in gangland circles, an ability to effortlessly move between various street factions and someone often asked to mediate disputes on behalf of Rizzuto organization administrators. While he’s been investigated in more than one drug conspiracy since he was released from prison in 1998, he’s steered clear of any indictments.

The shooting that put Pietrantonio in the intensive care unit of the hospital during the Christmas holidays eight years ago was part of an uptick in violence in the Montreal mob war in the last few months of 2011. Desjardins was attacked by a jet-ski driving, Uzi-carrying assassin in September, signaling the conclusion of the Desjardins-Montagna alliance. Larry LoPresti, Tony Suzuki’s right-hand man, was slain in October. Sal Montagna met his end in November.

Desjardins eventually pleaded guilty to heading the conspiracy to murder Montagna. Vito Rizzuto came out of prison in 2012, sought and found retribution for the Desjardins-led insurgence and the killings of his father, son and brother-in-law and then died, supposedly of natural causes (said to be an aggressive form of lung cancer) in late 2013. Rizzuto’s passing didn’t halt tensions though and the war has more recently expanded into Ontario.

The post El Chapo & Montreal’s Rizzuto Crime Family: “Tony Suzuki” Bought His Drugs Directly From Mexican Crime Baron appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Original Black Mafia Family member Dexter (Sosa) Hussey did his time for his crime and now he has a story to tell. The 53-year old Hussey, a native of Detroit and four years removed from a prison stint stemming from his involvement in the historic Operation Motor City Mafia case, has released a memoir focusing on the early-days of “BMF.” Co-authored with Kal Williams, Blueprint to Conspiracy – The Untold Story of the Black Mafia Family, dropped as a kindle download on Amazon.com last week.

Brothers Demetrius (Big Meech) Flenory and Terry (Southwest T) Flenory founded what became known around the world as BMF in the early 1990s on Motown’s Southwest side in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge, eventually expanding outside of Michigan and building a transcontinental narcotics-trafficking organization the likes of which, both in scope and cultural impact, had never been witnessed before and hasn’t since. Big Meech relocated to Atlanta. His brother moved out west to Los Angeles. Hussey stayed behind in Detroit and helped head BMF operations at Ground Zero.

According to Hussey’s memoir, the group was first called the Rushtown Crew and then The 50 Boys prior to settling on the BMF moniker. Authorities estimated the organization at its peak in the mid 2000s was roughly 1,000 men strong scattered across 17 different states. The Flenorys and dozens of their lieutenants and associates were brought down in 2005’s crippling Operation Motor City Mafia indictment. Hussey was arrested in 2007 in a superseding indictment.

The iconic Big Meech, 50, and his lesser-known baby brother Southwest T, 47, both pleaded guilty in the case and are doing 30-year prison terms. Rapper and actor 50 Cent is currently putting together a scripted television series about the Flenory brothers’ rise and fall for the cable network Starz as a follow up to his smash hit Power. Oscar nominee and former female rap star Queen Latifah has reportedly been trying to develop a feature film property based on BMF in recent years.

Hussey’s nickname “Sosa” is a nod to the Bolivian cocaine baron character Alejandro Sosa in the 1983 film Scarface. He got out of prison in February 2015 and owns the BMF logo and trademark.

The post New BMF Book Hits The Market, “Sosa” From The D Drops Knowledge On Crew’s Early Days appeared first on The Gangster Report.

For the second time in less than a month, one of the final suspected direct links to the storied Jimmy Hoffa kidnapping and murder has died. Long-retired New Jersey mobster Tommy Andretta passed away this week in Nevada. The “Godfather” of Hoffa case research and reporting, award-winning journalist Dan Moldea broke the news of Andretta’s death on his blog and social media accounts.

The 82-year old wiseguy had been living quietly in Las Vegas for the last two decades, far removed from his younger days immersed in the murder and mayhem of the old-time Provenzano crew in Jersey. Authorities suspected Andretta was part of the clean up and disposal crew in the Hoffa hit. His death may finally sever any direct ties left to the historic unsolved murder.

Another reputed Hoffa-slaying participant, Detroit mob consigliere Anthony (Tony Pal) Palazzolo died of cancer on January 4. Palazzolo, 78, boasted on an FBI wire in 1992 of stuffing Hoffa’s body into a sausage auger. In 2012, deposed Detroit mob underboss Anthony (Tony Z) Zerilli told authorities that Tony Pal was the man who killed Hoffa. Zerilli died of natural causes in 2015.

“Father Time is undefeated, I don’t care how tough you are, how many guys you put in the ground yourself,” said retired FBI agent Mike Carone. “All the players in the Hoffa saga are probably gone. We know who they were, we have a pretty good idea what went down, we just didn’t have enough hard evidence to bring a case. We’re getting further and further away from the crime itself said that it’s reasonable to think everybody who had first-hand knowledge of it isn’t with us anymore. If that’s not the case right now, it will be soon enough.”

Jimmy Hoffa, the world-famous firebrand of a Teamsters union boss, vanished without a trace from a Bloomfield Township, Michigan restaurant parking lot on the afternoon of July 30, 1975. No body has ever been found and the questions surrounding what actually happened to him have become firmly ensconced in American mythology and the pop-culture zeitgeist of the 44 years since.

Most experts and historians believe the Hoffa murder conspiracy was hatched by a combination of mob crews representing crime syndicates in both Detroit and New York. Hoffa “belonged” to the Detroit mob being that he made his residence and name in labor circles there.

According to FBI informants, Tommy Andretta was part of a hit team sent to the Detroit area by Genovese crime family captain Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano in the summer of 1975 tasked with making Hoffa disappear. Provenzano ran a Genovese crew in Union City, New Jersey out of Teamsters Local 560. Andretta and his brother Stevie, also implicated in the Hoffa murder conspiracy, were business agents for Local 560 and protégés of Tony Pro’s. Tommy Andretta had taken pinches for loan sharking, extortion, truck hijacking and counterfeiting and spent 1972 and 1973 in federal lock-up.

Provenzano was cousins with the wife of menacing Detroit mob street boss Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone. Hoffa was on his way to have lunch with Giacalone and Provenzano when he went missing. He had butted heads with his former benefactors in the mafia over his desire to reclaim the Teamsters presidency he had relinquished years earlier in order to get out of prison via a Nixon White House pardon.

While behind bars together in the late 1960s, Hoffa and Provenzano, at one-time fiercely-loyal allies, openly feuded because of union insurance benefits being paid out to Hoffa’s family but not Provenzano’s and Hoffa thinking Provenzano blocked a pension fund loan he had applied for in retaliation. Hoffa had put Provenzano in power in the union and Tony Pro rose to be the most influential Teamsters shot caller on the whole east coast.

Per FBI informant and Provenzano’s driver, Ralph (Little Ralphie) Picardo, Tony Pro dispatched the Andrettas, Provenzano crew enforcer Salvatore (Sally Bugs) Briguglio and his brother Gabe to Michigan to help Tony Giacalone and his crew carry out Hoffa’s execution. Picardo claimed Tommy Andretta visited him in jail in the days that followed and confessed. Andretta, his brother Stevie, the Briguglios, Tony Pro and Tony Jack were all hauled in front of a grand jury in Detroit and each pleaded the fifth when asked about their knowledge of Hoffa’s disappearance.

The entire Provenzano crew was indicted in a racketeering case out of New Jersey right after the Hoffa hit. Sally Bugs was slain in 1978, the same year Tony Pro was convicted of murder. Gabe Briguglio and the Andrettas were found guilty of union wrongdoing and multiple racketeering offenses at a 1979 trial alongside Provenzano and smacked with stiff prison sentences.

Tommy Andretta was released in 1994 and soon relocated to Las Vegas, leaving his life in the rackets behind him in the Garden State. Stevie Andretta died of cancer in 2002. Tony Pro kicked behind bars in 1988 and Tony Jack succumbed to kidney failure in 2001 facing a racketeering trial.

The Andretta Brothers will be minor characters in the upcoming Martin Scorsese helmed film The Irishman which will chronicle the kidnapping and murder of Jimmy Hoffa as told through the eyes of a Delaware Teamsters hit man purporting to be the man responsible for ending Hoffa’s life and played by Robert DeNito. Oscar-winner Al Pacino plays Hoffa in the Netflix blockbuster slated for release later this year.

One possible remaining connection to the Hoffa hit is Detroit mobster Antonino (Tony Cigars) Ruggirello, Jr. Considered an elder statesman and trusted advisor in the Tocco-Zerilli crime family today, Ruggirello, 85, had the reputation as a killer in the 1960s and 1970s. Propery he once owned in Dexter, Michigan (Timberland Game Ranch) was probed by the FBI at the time Hoffa disappeared as a place Hoffa might have been buried at. Top secret mob functions were known to take place at the sprawling hunting lodge before and after Hoffa vanished, however investigators were never able to obtain a search warrant.

The post Hoffa Murder Suspect Tommy Andretta Dead, N.J. Mafia Figure May Have Been Last Link To Iconic Mystery appeared first on The Gangster Report.

According to sources in law enforcement, Philadelphia mob skipper Phil Narducci did himself in back in the fall when he allegedly laid his hands on a man who he had loaned money to. That man, who Uncle Sam was already eying in another investigation, went scurrying to the feds, per the source, and wired up for subsequent meetings regarding his debt with a Narducci underling named Jimmy Gallo.

The 56-year old Narducci, a burly, always neatly-groomed reputed faction leader in the Bruno-Scarfo crime family, and Gallo, 44, were federally indicted this week on extortion and loan sharking charges and face a maximum of 20 years behind bars if convicted. Narducci owns a gastropub called Chick’s and has his hands in a number of legitimate business ventures including real estate investments and staking pro fighters.

No stranger to street violence or the Big House, Narducci is a suspect in at least two gangland slayings from the 1980s and served 25 years on a federal racketeering conviction from his days in the carnage-soaked, gangster-film inspired Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo regime of the Reagan era. Gallo told the unidentified victim from the current indictment that Narducci had “killed fucking 8 people” and then raised the number to 14 in another recorded conversation two months down the road. Chick’s is named after Narducci’s dad, Frank (Chickie) Narducci, a mob capo gunned down in 1982 amid a Scarfo-ordered housecleaning.

Per Thursday’s indictment, Narducci loaned the unidentified victim $125,000 last January and when he missed a number of weekly payments in October 2018, Narducci physically assaulted the victim by throwing him against a wall and pushing his head into a car windshield on October 25. Weeks prior Narducci allegedly made a gun signal with his right hand while telling him, “This is what happens if you don’t pay.”

Two days later, the victim gave Gallo money for Narducci and Gallo warned him to be scared of Narducci. “He’s a killer you fucking idiot, he’s fucking killed 8 people,” Gallo chided. Between his final interaction with Narducci ending in him tasting windshield glass and forking over cash to Gallo on October 27, the victim visited the FBI and got fitted for a recording device, per sources.

By December, the victim was falling behind again on his payments and Gallo unleashed a beauty of a damning diatribe caught on tape:

“Stop playing games, (stop) playing with this guy (Narducci)….Ya know when you’re going to care about this? When this guy (Narducci) shows up at your place with a fucking ski mask, you’re going to say ‘Oh, no’ and that’s going to be the last thing you ever fucking say. And you know what? I don’t care. It’s not my problem. That’s what this guy (Narducci) does. He’s mentioned in 14 fucking murders. I mean, like what’s your problem here? What don’t you understand about this?”

During his younger days as a lieutenant of Nicky Scarfo’s, Narducci was investigated for his role in the mob hits of Sammy Tamburrino in 1983 and Frank (Frankie Flowers) D’Alfonso in 1985. He was also believed to have shot and attempted to kill the father of a witness against Scarfo in a murder trial. Originally, Narducci was found guilty of D’Alfonso’s homicide at his 1989 racketeering trial but had the verdict tossed on appeal.

Upon being sprung from the clink in 2012, he returned to South Philly and per sources, joined forces with a group of young mob aspirants and the independent 10th & O Gang to create a formidable power base. Recognized as a capo by Bruno-Scarfo clan boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino, Narducci is pretty much allowed to “do his own thing,” these sources claim. Merlino, based in Boca Raton, Florida these days, is in prison for the next two years on a gambling conviction out of New York.

The post Sources: Narducci’s Actions Sent Debtor Darting To Team America In Latest Philly Mafia Saga appeared first on The Gangster Report.

With a murder probe hanging over his head, New England mafia captain Edward (Little Eddie) Lato was released from prison this week and into a halfway house in his home state of Rhode Island. Award-winning investigative television reporter Tim White at WPRI broke the news of Lato’s move from a federal penitentiary in New Jersey to the re-entry facility in Pawtucket. Having served eight years behind bars, he will work for the same construction company he was employed by before he was incarcerated.

Lato, 71, served nine years on extortion and bookmaking charges. The short, stocky career criminal (32 arrests, 18 convictions dating back a half-century) has been a capo in the Patriarca crime family’s Providence wing for the past 20 years and is currently under the microscope for his alleged role in the murder of a rogue syndicate enforcer in 1992.

Lato was busted by the feds in 2011 for shaking down Rhode Island strip clubs. While in prison, he was slapped with a state case for running an illegal gambling operation.

In a 2016 debriefing with the FBI, former Providence mob skipper Robert (Bobby the Cigar) DeLuca implicated Lato as a key participant in the gangland slaying of “off the reservation” hit man Kevin Hanrahan on the night of September 18, 1992 in the city’s Federal Hill neighborhood. Lato was one of two triggermen in the murder, according to DeLuca, who was yanked out of the Witness Protection Program three years ago and has pleaded guilty to his role in two homicide conspiracies, the Hanrahan hit and the May 1993 murder of Boston nightclub owner Stevie DiSarro.

DeLuca wore a wire on Lato and others in the late 2000s and helped the feds build the strip club extortion case, which ensnared Lato and retired Patriarca don Luigi (Baby Shacks) Manocchio. He claims Manocchio’s predecessor as boss, Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme, tapped him to help Manocchio in coordinating details for the Hanrahan execution in 1992 and made him responsible for the burial of DiSarro’s body eight months later in 1993.

A grand jury has been impaneled hearing testimony in the Hanrahan case going on two years. DeLuca named Lato and Manocchio’s future consigliere, Rocco (Shaky) Argenti as the pair of masked assailants who gunned down Hanrahan outside The Arch steakhouse after Hanrahan had dined with DeLuca’s best friend Ronnie Coppola. Lato was seen huddling with DeLuca and Coppola at a nearby bar and restaurant in the minutes following Hanrahan getting banged out on Atwells Avenue in the heart of Federal Hill. Argenti died of cancer in 2002, serving as Baby Shacks Manocchio’s consigliere from 1998 until he passed. Coppola was killed in a fight at a card game in 1994.

Hanrahan was trying to extort bookmakers under Salemme’s protection and planning on killing Salemme and Manocchio, who at that point in time was Salemme’s underboss, per DeLuca’s grand jury testimony. DiSarro and Salemme were partners in a nightclub-turned-strip club in South Boston and Salemme worried DiSarro was going to give him up to the feds in exchange for a free pass on a real estate fraud indictment.

DeLuca was the star witness at Salemme’s trial for the DiSarro hit in the summer of 2018 where Cadillac Frank was found guilty of ordering his now-deceased son to strangle DiSarro to death in the family’s suburban Boston home. DiSarro’s remains were unearthed in the spring of 2016 outside a converted Providence textile mill owned by one of DeLuca’s former crew members. Like DeLuca, Salemme had been in witness protection when DiSarro’s body popped up and he was arrested three years ago.

The post Providence Mobster Little Eddie Lato Let Out Of The Joint, For How Long Remains To Be Seen appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Rumors of New Jersey mobster Stevie Andretta’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Long believed dead, Andretta, one of the suspects in the disappearance and murder of iconic labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa, was revealed to still be alive by the preeminent Hoffa case-expert Dan Moldea in recent weeks on a Fox News broadcast segment focusing on the historic unsolved mafia hit. That most likely leaves no more than four people left on earth who might have first-hand knowledge of what happened to Hoffa and could shed light – to varying degrees – on the most speculated-upon American murder mystery of all-time.

Stevie Andretta, 82, and his younger brother Tommy were members of a Genovese crime family crew run out of a New Jersey Teamsters hall by east coast mob power Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano, another prime suspect in the still-ongoing Hoffa murder probe. Authorities believe Tony Pro’s crew worked with a mob crew in Detroit to plan and carry out Hoffa’s execution.

Cancer took a suspected member of the Detroit contingent involved when Tocco-Zerilli crime family consigliere Anthony (Tony Pal) Palazzolo cashed in his chips January 4. The 81-year old Tommy Andretta died on January 25 of natural causes in Las Vegas. Provenzano died in prison on an unrelated homicide conviction in 1988.

The Andrettas and Tony Pro were brought down in a sweeping federal racketeering and union corruption indictment in the years after they skated in the Hoffa case. Stevie Andretta did 13 years in prison while his baby bro Tommy did 15. They came out of the can in the early 1990s and pretty much retired from the rackets, per sources.

For the past 45 years, Dan Moldea has been one of the world’s premier investigative journalists, contributing groundbreaking books on the Hoffa killing, the O.J. Simpson trial, the Robert Kennedy assassination, the confluence of politics, Hollywood and President Ronald Reagan, the Clinton political dynasty and the mob’s influence in professional football. His research on Hoffa is the most seminal in the entire expansive labyrinth of work chronicling the case.

Hoffa, the widely-popular and deeply mafia-connected Teamsters boss, went missing from a Bloomfield Township, Michigan restaurant parking lot on the afternoon of July 30, 1975. In the years leading up to his kidnapping and slaying, he had been squabbling with his one-time allies in the mob, including Provenzano and Detroit mafia street boss Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone, over his desire to take back the union presidency he relinquished while behind bars five years before.

Hoffa was on his way to have lunch with Giacalone and Provenzano when he went missing. Back then, the Andretta brothers were in Tony Pro’s crew and according to some prominent theories, were part of the hit team that clipped Hoffa, more specifically, the clean-up and disposal unit. The Briguglio brothers, another pair of Tony Pro lieutenants, are also believed to have possibly been present. Salvatore (Sally Bugs) Briguglio, one of Provenzano’s most trusted enforcers, was slain himself in 1978. Gabe Briguglio, 79, on the other hand is reportedly still around.

Stevie Andretta was reported dead of cancer in the 2004 New York Times Best-Selling book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charlie Brandt about Teamsters hit man Frank (The Irishman) Sheeran, who claimed to be the triggerman in Hoffa’s execution on his deathbed in 2003. Sheeran’s confession is viewed with extreme speculation by law enforcement and most case researchers. Nonetheless, Martin Scorsese is adapting the book into his next film, titled The Irishman and starring Robert DeNiro as Sheeran and Al Pacino as Hoffa.

Late last year, Moldea found Andretta and was able to debunk the report that he had died. Moldea is at the forefront of the movement trying to discredit Sheeran’s account. Besides Andretta and Gabe Briguglio, Hoffa’s surrogate son Chuckie O’Brien, 84, and Detroit mob elder statesman Antonino (Tony Cigars) Ruggirello, Jr., 85, could still possibly have critical knowledge regarding the Hoffa hit.

O’Brien wasn’t on speaking terms with Hoffa at the time he went missing and had possession of the car investigators are certain Hoffa was kidnapped in on the afternoon he disappeared. That vehicle (a maroon-colored Mercury Marquis) owned by Tony Giacalone’s son, Joey – a reputed modern-day Detroit mob capo) was seized by the FBI and remains the only piece of physical evidence obtained by investigators in the case to this very day. Hoffa’s DNA was traced to the Mercury Marquis’ backseat and trunk. O’Brien and Hoffa had fallen out over Hoffa’s refusal to support O’Brien’s bid for a high-ranking union post.

Tony Ruggirello was a reputed Detroit mafia hit man and crew boss in the 1970s. His Timberland Game Ranch near Ann Arbor, Michigan was looked at by the FBI as a possible burial spot for Hoffa when the case was still hot, but investigators were never able to secure a search warrant for the property. Ruggirello was partners with Tony Giacalone, the day to day chieftain in the Detroit mob from the late 1950s until his death of kidney failure in 2001 and the man the FBI think organized logistics in the Hoffa hit, in a pest extermination company.

Today, Ruggirello splits his time between Michigan and Florida. After getting eyed in the Hoffa probe, he was jailed for car bombing a rival in the policy lottery business in 1977.

Shunned by Hoffa’s family for their belief that he had something to do with Hoffa’s death, O’Brien moved to Tennessee in the days following Hoffa going missing. He currently resides in Florida.

Just prior to his passing, Genovese crime family member Ralph (Brother) Moscato confessed to Dan Moldea that he allowed the Provenzano crew to dispose of Hoffa’s body at his waste dump in Jersey City and that Provenzano was actually in Detroit in the hours leading up to his murder. Moscato died of natural causes in 2014.

The post Stevie Andretta Remains Alive Despite Reports To The Contrary, Hoffa Case Still Has Suspects Alive appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Old-school Pittsburgh mob figure Robert (Bobby I) Iannelli, 88, was indicted this week in state court on charges of running a large sports bookmaking operation out of Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties. Iannelli’s son, Rodney (aka “Rusty”) was also nailed in the case.

The indictment named 13 co-defendants. According to the indictment, the investigation into the Iannelli gambling enterprise lasted almost four years and estimated the enterprise was clearing upwards of $50,000-to-$100,000 per week.

Pittsburgh’s LaRocca crime family, the once-powerful Steel Town mafia, pretty much died when longtime boss Mike Genovese passed away peacefully in his own bed on October 31, 2006, though remnants of the syndicate have refused to go dormant. Bobby I is one of those remnants

Iannelli took a bookmaking pinch in 1991 and did a short prison stint. He has over a half-dozen arrests, all gambling related, in his career working in the Pittsburgh mob. Under Genovese, Iannelli ran a robust sports book and a lucrative policy lottery.

Rusty Iannelli, 58, went down in a 2013 state gambling bust targeting a crew led by Ron (Porky) Melocchi and Jeff (The Biscuit) Risha, one-time right-hand man to Pittsburgh mafia lieutenant Thomas (Sonny) Ciancutti, the last true gangland juggernaut left in the region said to be in semi retirement at the ripe old age of 89. The younger Iannelli was named in his dad’s 1991 indictment as well. Risha died of natural causes in 2016.

The post The “I” Of The Storm: Steel Town Mobster “Bobby I” Busted For Sports Book appeared first on The Gangster Report.

As big as a player as there has been in the world of gambling on the east coast of the United States the past 40 years, aging Pittsburgh mobster Robert (Bobby I) Iannelli is smoking it to the filter. The seasoned 88-year old Steel Town gambling-boss titan was indicted this week on charges of overseeing a giant sports book and numbers lottery business out of Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties, alleged to be still running his rackets from his old homestead, Chub’s Place restaurant in North Park.

Iannelli came up in the mob under Tony Grosso, Pittsburgh’s longtime policy czar, who went to prison in 1986. Upon Grosso’s incarceration, Iannelli took over most of illegal gambling in Western Pennsylvania on behalf of the LaRocca crime family and mafia don Michael Genovese. Partnering with the Williams brothers, Iannelli controlled massive swaths of numbers territory once belonging to Grosso – Grosso’s illegal lottery generated $30,000,000 per year in net profits.

Closely aligning himself with Pittsburgh mob capos Anthony (Wango) Capizzi and Frank (Sonny) Amato, Jr., Bobby I grew his bookmaking business to be one of the largest in the country. He did collections for the savvy Capizzi and the mob prince Sonny Amato and has long acted as a layoff bank for other high-end bookies reaching from Pittsburgh to New York to Boston.

Iannelli’s arrest record dates back to the 1950s. He took a federal bookmaking pinch in the 1970s and did three years behind bars. In 1991, he was popped in a state gambling case and had to do some more time. People who know him describe him as a “gentleman gangster.”

Bobby I’s son, Rodney (aka “Rusty”) was busted with him in the 1991 state case as well as the most recent one. Family gambling affairs were based out of Chub’s Place in 1991 just like prosecutors allege they are being today. Rusty Iannelli, 59, was nailed in 2013 for running gambling rackets with Pittsburgh mob figures Ron (Porky) Melocchi and Jeff (Biscuit) Risha and pleaded guilty.

The Pittsburgh mafia, in the form of a functioning crime family, is defunct. When Genovese died of natural causes in 2006, the hierarchy fell apart. Links to Genovese, like the ones the Iannellis carry, are few and far between these days, although scattered activity still occasionally occurs. Amato passed away in 2003. Wango Capizzi, for years the LaRocca syndicate’s liaison to the Las Vegas gaming industry, followed shortly after Genovese, and checked out in 2007.

The post Who Is Bobby Iannelli?: Pittsburgh Mob Power Goes Under The Microscope Amid Another Gambling Pinch appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Last week, a voice from the grave went on-record about a cold-case mob hit from upstate New York when The Democrat & Republic newspaper printed excerpts from a 2009 video-taped interview with retired Rochester mob consigliere Rene (The Painter) Piccarreto about what happened to Jake Russo, the city’s mafia don in the early 1960s who disappeared in 1964.

The debonair Piccarreto died of natural causes in 2014, living in California. In the years before he passed, he was recorded telling a filmmaker that Russo was strangled to death in the basement of a Rochester restaurant and lounge on September 12, 1964, killed because he clashed with Buffalo mob chief Stefano (The Undertaker) Magaddino over a street tax Magaddino was trying to levy on the rackets in Rochester. Russo’s body has never been unearthed

Russo’s grisly demise foreshadowed the violent unrest that would go on to plague the city’s mob in the coming decades. The Alphabet Wars of the 1970s and early 1980s dominated the headlines and decimated the syndicate to the core. Equally well liked and well groomed, Piccarreto was the Rochester mob’s consigliere from 1964 until he was jailed in 1984.

Below is a blow-by-blow account of all the city’s biggest mob murders:

Rochester Mob Murder Timeline (1964-1983)

September 12, 1964 – Rochester mafia boss Jake Russo disappears on his way to a meeting at Frank Valenti’s restaurant The Quill Room. Valenti consolidated mob interests in Rochester in the 1950s before being booted from the state for legal problems and then returning to assume the throne in Russo’s absence. Russo had refused to pay a tribute to Buffalo mob don Stefano (The Undertaker) Magaddino and offended Magaddino by threatening to go over his head to resolve the issue.

February 23, 1965 – Rochester mob enforcer Dominic (The Deacon) Alloco is shot in the back of the head, hogtied and tossed in a field in Walworth, New York after accruing substantial gambling debts.

September 21, 1967 – Rochester mob soldier John (Johnny Broadway) Cavagrotti vanishes. He is last seen getting into a car with local gangland rising star Salvatore (Sammy G) Gingello. Cavagrotti was feuding with Valenti over how much money from Cavagrotti’s bookmaking business Valenti was entitled to as boss.

December 22, 1967 – Rochester mob collector Norman (Big Norm) Huck is slain after disrespecting Valenti and several of his men at a restaurant by taking a bottle of wine off their table and smashing it.

March 11, 1969 – Rochester mob figure Ricky Visconte is killed after getting into a beef with Rochester mafia hit man Vincent (Jimmy the Hammer) Massaro over a woman.

February 18, 1970 – Rochester mob captain Billy (The Wolf) Lupo is found shot to death slumped behind the wheel of his car. Lupo had once served as Frank Valenti’s bodyguard and driver. Sammy Gingello is named a capo and assumes control of Lupo’s crew.

December 14, 1970 – Rochester wiseguy Billy Constable is killed for trying to muscle in on mob rackets.

June 5, 1972 – Rochester mob soldier Dominic Chirico, Valenti’s most trusted lieutenant and enforcer is shot-gunned to death outside his girlfriend’s apartment building. Valenti flees the state and Sam (Red) Russotti takes his place in the wake of Valenti getting exposed for stealing from the organization.

April 3, 1973 — African-American Rochester mob associate Ernie White is killed, his body dumped under a local bridge, the day after he was part of an armed-robbery crew that knocked off a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Irondequoit, New York.

November 23, 1973 – Heavily-feared Rochester mob enforcer Vincent (Jimmy the Hammer) Massaro, a Valenti loyalist, is killed and stuffed in the trunk of his car after bucking under the thumb of the city’s new mafia regime.

April 23, 1978 – High-profile Rochester mob underboss Salvatore (Sammy G) Gingello is killed in a car bombing in front of Ben’s Café Society Social Club, setting off the Alphabet Wars. The Russotti and Gingello faction of the organization became known as the A Team. Their former acting boss Tommy Didio, who opposed their leadership, was dubbed the B Team. Gingello’s bodyguards, Tommy Torpey and Tommy Taylor, would go on to start the so-called C Team.

July 6, 1978 – Renegade Rochester mob chief and B Team boss Tommy Didio is machine-gunned to death inside a room at the Exit 45 Motel in Victor, New York.

December 17, 1981 – Rochester mob capo and labor union leader John (Johnny Flowers) Fiorino is shot-gunned to death outside the Blue Gardenia restaurant by John (Mad Dog) Sullivan, on orders of the C Team. The Blue Gardenia was a favorite area mob haunt of that era. Fiorino was a Teamsters vice-president.

May 25, 1982 – Rochester mobster and C Team member Nick Mastrodonato is slain allegedly by an A Team gunmen.

August 26, 1982 – Rochester mobster and C Team member Gerry Pelusio is killed in a hail of shot-gun fire in an attack on him and his brother and fellow C Team affiliate Tommy Pelusio.

April 2, 1983 – Rochester mobster and C Team member Dino Tortarice is killed outside his home.

The post Rochester Mafia Murder Timeline: New Info On Cold-Case Hit Sheds Light On Boss’ Slaying appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The FBI investigated world-famous Studio 54 for mob ties due to the historic nightclub’s founder Ian Schrager having a father who was a powerful New York mob figure. Louis (Max the Jew) Schrager was a gambling boss in Brooklyn linked to legendary Jewish wiseguy Meyer Lansky. Studio 54 was the epicenter of New York City nightlife when Schrager owned it from 1977 until 1980 and redefined the club scene.

The feds never uncovered any connections between the mafia and the definitive disco playground and pop-culture phenomenon of the late 1970s, however, did blow the lid on a sophisticated, large-scale skimming operation. Schrager and his more well-known business partner and Studio 54 co-founder, Steve Rubell, siphoned millions in untaxed cash from the club by cooking the books in every way imaginable.

Schrager and Rubell were convicted of tax evasion and both did 18 months in prison. They sold Studio 54 for $5,000,000 in 1980 from behind bars. Upon their release, they opened another trendy nightclub in Manhattan called Palladium, and invented the concept of the boutique hotel. Rubell died of AIDS in 1989.

Austin Powers himself, actor and comedian Mike Myers, portrayed the flamboyant and self-promotion obsessed Rubell on the big screen in the 1998 film 54. The movie didn’t have a character based on the more reserved Schrager, but Schrager did participate in a well-received 2018 documentary on the club.

For decades, “Max the Jew” Schrager was the policy lottery boss of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg section, a trusted lieutenant to Meyer Lansky, the most-revered Italian mob associate of all-time. Lansky and his partner, Jewish hit man and racketeer, Benjamin (Bugsy) Siegel, played pivotal roles in the formation of the modern American mafia and the conceiving of Las Vegas as casino paradise.

The elder Schrager was part of the “Bugs & Meyer” bootlegging gang during Prohibition and helped Lansky plow into Cuba in the pre-Castro years. One FBI document describes Schrager as a sometimes driver for Siegel in the years prior to Siegel departing New York for Las Vegas and the owner of a Fort Branch, New Jersey garment factory. An informant told the FBI in 1955, that Max the Jew was one of the biggest bookmakers and numbers kingpins in Brooklyn and had direct access to Lansky. He died in 1967 when Ian was still in college at Syracuse University, a decade away from his son’s decadent glory days as owner of the galaxy’s hippest club.

Siegel was slain in Beverly Hills in the summer of 1947. Lansky died of natural causes in 1983 while living in retirement in Florida, having never done so much as a single night in jail.

The post Studio 54 & The Mafia: Club Owner’s Dad Was Major Player In Brooklyn Mob Rackets appeared first on The Gangster Report.

A pair of Pagan’s Motorcycle Club leaders pleaded guilty to federal narcotics conspiracy charges this week stemming from a crystal-meth ring being run out of Central Florida. The August 2018 bust included more than a dozen members of the club’s Daytona Beach chapter, headlined by chapter brass Brian (Sledgehammer) Burt and Michael (Clutch) Andrews.

Burt sits on an advisory council responsible for overseeing Pagan’s affairs nationwide and Andrews is the Daytona Beach chapter’s Sergeant-at-Arms. They both copped pleas Monday avoiding maximum sentences of life imprisonment.

The 47-year old Burt and the 33-year old Andrews took separate weapons-possession pinches in the weeks before they were tagged in the drug case. Sources with knowledge of the plea negotiations say the U.S. Attorney’s Office out of the Middle District of Florida has agreed to request 10-to-15 year prison terms. During the summer of 2018 alone, Burt was arrested three times.

The Pagan’s Daytona Beach chapter is currently being investigated for playing a role in the April 2017 murder of Outlaws Motorcycle Club member Christopher (Louie the Lip) Keating in a fight at the city’s Crook’s Den tavern. Keating, 59, was stabbed to death.

Witnesses have told authorities that Keating was arguing with men wearing Pagan’s paraphernalia before the attack. The Outlaws are the biggest biker gang in the Midwest, while The Pagan’s have a foothold in much of the country’s East Coast biker battleground. The two clubs have clashed in Florida, traditionally neutral biker turf, in the past.

The post Florida Pagan’s Pick Up Plea Deals In Fed Drug Case, Biker Boss “Sledgehammer” Burt Bound For Decade In The Can appeared first on The Gangster Report.

A low-level gambler from Uniontown, Pennsylvania already in trouble with the law gave up Pittsburgh mobster Robert (Bobby I) Iannelli and his multi-million dollar bookmaking and numbers business to the state police 30 years ago, resulting in the legendary Iannelli’s last criminal conviction. The next one could be coming soon.

The renowned 88-year old Steel Town gambling chief, for decades the LaRocca crime family’s point man in Western Pennsylvania, was arraigned this week in state court on charges of running a lucrative sports-betting and policy racket out of his longtime headquarters, Chub’s Place, a greasy-spoon diner located in Allegheny County‘s North Park neighborhood. Bobby I has the reputation as one of the country’s biggest bookies, numbers bosses and layoff banks.

Back in March 1989, the state police wired-up a small-time hustler from Uniontown in Fayette County and sent him at a minor player in the Iannelli gambling empire named Joe Georgianna. Through future phone taps, the staties were able to link Georgianna to the Romano brothers, Patsy and Ralph, a pair of bookies working directly for Bobby I.

Throughout the rest of 1989 and into the early portion of 1990, authorities monitored communications between Ralph Romano and Iannelli and built their case. The indictment finally dropped in June 1990, ensnaring Bobby I, Romano and almost two dozen associates. The operation was estimated to have cleared $7,000,000. Bobby I did a year behind bars on the case. He served two years of federal prison time in the 1970s for gambling offenses (1973-1975).

Iannelli’s criminal rap sheet dates back to 1959. Notorious numbers boss Tony Grosso, the Pittsburgh underworld’s “30-Million Dollar Man,” mentored Bobby I as a young, eager racketeer in the mid-20th Century. Iannelli eventually took over Grosso’s portfolio of gambling rackets when Grosso was incarcerated in 1986. He was at the forefront of the illegal sports gambling industry’s movement from landlines to cell phones in the 1980s, requiring his employees to carry at least two on them at all times.

The Pittsburgh mafia of that era was headed by the subdued, yet cagey Mike Genovese. Sly, slender and bespectacled, Iannelli reported to LaRocca crime family capo Anthony (Wango) Capizzi and his territory encompassed mainly Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties. Capizzi also had Bobby I handle collections from bookies in Erie County. The current gambling bust Iannelli faces once again covers activity in Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties.

Genovese’s death from natural causes in 2006 at the age of 87 brought an end to any significant formal structure in Pittsburgh mob affairs. Capizzi, 79, died peacefully in 2007 after a distinguished gangland career as the Pittsburgh mob’s “Las Vegas guy,” and liaison to the state’s two other crime families, the Bufalino borgata out of Scranton and the Bruno-Scarfo clan out of Philadelphia.

The post The Domino Effect: Last Bobby I Bust In Pittsburgh Started From The Bottom Up appeared first on The Gangster Report.

For the past decade, a mob war in Montreal has engulfed the Canadian underworld. The rampant violence is continuing into 2019, as there have been a trio of gangland related slayings in recent weeks tied to the conflict. In Quebec, Montreal mob figure and construction mogul Tony Magi along with drug boss Ray Khano were clipped and in Ontario, Hamilton mafia Scion Cece Luppino was rubbed out.

Below is an updated timeline of the bloodshed in the Rizzuto crime family the past 15 years. The ongoing mob war got underway in 2009 when Godfather Vito Rizzuto was in prison in the United States and several of his top lieutenants and a deported American mob don joined forces to oppose his leadership. Chaos has ensued.

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.

January 24, 2019 — Montreal mob associate and construction mogul Tony Magi is gunned down on a construction site. The 50-year old Magi did business with the Rizzutos and was suspected of possibly being the setup man in the Ritzy Nick Rizzuto hit. He had averted a number of attempts on his life before finally being felled.

January 30, 2019 — Hamilton mob prince CeCe Luppino is shot to death in his parents driveway. The 43-year old’s dad Rocco is a heavyweight in the Hamilton mafia scene as was his grandfather Giacomo.

February 14, 2019 — Mob connected drug dealer Ray Khano is shot dead on a suburban Montreal street corner. Khano, 43, was linked to Rizzuto crime family leader Francesco (Compare Frank) Arcadi.

The post Another Three Bite The Dust: More Mob Murders In Canada Add To Ever-Growing Hit Parade appeared first on The Gangster Report.

After taking power in 1981, bloodthirsty Philadelphia mafia boss Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo went to war with the rogue Riccobene crew, led by pint-sized Philly mob figure Harry (The Hunchback) Riccobene, a veteran of the city’s rackets dating back to his teen years during Prohibition. Riccobene refused to recognize or pay tribute to Scarfo and in turn Scarfo assigned his top capo, the strapping and handsome Salvatore (Salvie) Testa, to lead the hostile takeover of Harry the Hunchback and his merry band of mafia misfits.

Below is a timeline of events tied to the friction on the streets in South Philly in 1982 and 1983 when Little Nicky and Harry the Hunchback clashed for control of the Bruno-Scarfo crime family:

*Both Scarfo and Riccobene died behind bars,

The Scarfo-Riccobene Mob War Timeline (March 1982-December 1983)

March 1982 – Mob Don Little Nicky Scarfo declares war on rival rackets boss Harry Riccobene and his faction of the Philly mob.

May 13, 1982 – Philadelphia mob consigliere Frank Monte, a Scarfo confidant, is killed at a gas station by Riccobene hit men in a preemptive strike launched on the sitting administration.

June 8, 1982 – Harry Riccobene survives an assassination attempt when he is ambushed by a Scarfo assassin in a telephone booth.

July 31, 1982 – Philadelphia mob captain Salvie Testa, the commander of Little Nicky’s war on the Riccobenes, survives an assassination attempt when he is ambushed in the city’s historic Italian Market and sustains bullet wounds to the chest and shoulder.

August 21, 1982 – Harry Riccobene survives another assassination attempt when a Scarfo gunman open fires on him behind the wheel of his car while stopped at a street corner in South Philly.

April 29, 1983 – Philadelphia mob soldier Pasquale (Pat the Cat) Spirito is killed on Scarfo’s orders, gunned down behind the wheel of his car for failing to carry out murder contracts on members of the Riccobene crew as instructed.

November 3, 1983 – Riccobene Crew lieutenant Sammy Tamburrino is shot to death behind the counter of his variety store.

December 6, 1983 – Philly mobster Bobby Riccobene, Harry’s brother and right hand man, is gunned down outside his mother’s house.

The post The Scarfo-Riccobene War Timeline: Philly Mob Blood Feud Brewed In Early Years Of Little Nicky’s Reign appeared first on The Gangster Report.

One-time Philadelphia mafia captain Vincent (Al Pajamas) Pagano died of natural causes this week after spending the last quarter century of his life behind bars. The 89-year old and had been locked up since 1994. He was found guilty at a 1995 federal racketeering trial alongside Bruno-Scarfo crime family boss John Stanfa.

Al Pajamas was a bit player in the Philly underworld for most of his criminal career until Stanfa rose to power in the 1990s. Under Stanfa, he was tapped for a capo’s post and became one of the don’s top advisors during a time when he engaged in a bloody struggle for control of the crime family with current Philly mob boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino, then an upstart just in his early 30s

In January 1994, Pagano was involved in one of the area’s most infamous botched murder attempts when he and Stanfa’s underboss Frank (Spanish Frank) Martines failed to complete a hit on enforcer John (John-John) Veasey in a small apartment above a mob-connected butcher’s shop in South Philly. Veasey, who weeks earlier had signed a cooperation agreement with the FBI, was shot three times in the head and stabbed once in the chest by Martines, but managed to escape alive by fighting his way out of the apartment. As Veasey fled, Pagano screamed at him, ”You better not tell the cops or we’ll kill your entire family.”

The following year, Veasey was the star witness at the trial that put Pagano, Martines and Stanfa away for life. On Veasey’s first day of scheduled testimony, his brother Billy was slain gangland style by the Merlino faction for John-John’s slaying of Merlino’s best friend and right-hand man, Michael (Mikey Chang) Ciangaglini in August 1993 at the height of the mob war. The flashbulb friendly Merlino was wounded in the attack, however survived to ascend to the throne upon the Sicilian-born Stanfa’s incarceration.

Pagano came up in Philly mob circles in a crew run by Frank (The Barracuda) Sindone where he was a bookie and numbers writer. According to underworld lore, Pagano gave himself the nickname “Al Pajamas” (in reference to the bedroom garb) as a nod to his self-proclaimed reputation for putting people to sleep.

Sindone was executed in 1980 after being part of a failed palace coup which also involved Stanfa. Due to his ties to the Sicilian mafia and the Gambino crime family out of New York, Stanfa was spared reprisals. Once Sindone was dead, Pagano made himself scarce on the streets during the 1980s. Stanfa’s rise to the throne with backing from the Gambinos brought Pagano out of the shadows and back into the picture.

The post The Pajama Party Is Over: Fmr. Philly Mob Capo “Al Pajamas” Taps Out, Dies In Prison At 89 appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Windy City wiseguy John (Pudgy) Matassa, Jr. copped a plea this week and will do a year and a half in the joint for embezzling funds from Local 711 of the Independent Union of Amalgamated Workers. The corpulent and congenial 67-year old Matassa., a valued advisor to a number of top bosses in the Chicago mob and a seasoned labor racketeer, was indicted in federal court in May 2017 on ten counts of fraud for putting his wife in a “no-show” job at the IUAW and lying to receive insurance benefits from an early-retirement plan. He’s set to plead guilty to two counts of fraud and will do 14-to-21 months behind bars, per his agreement with prosecutors.

Despite being booted from the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) for his extensive mafia ties in 1999, Matassa finagled his way into the IUAW and rose to become Local 711’s Secretary-Treasurer before retiring in 2015. He was personally writing his wife checks from union coffers and depositing them directly into the couple’s bank account.

Matassa has held “Outfit” leadership posts in the past, having served as a captain in the 1990s and acting consigliere more recently. According to the Chicago Crime Commission, Matassa was the final capo of the Chicago mob’s historic Northside crew before it was absorbed by the Grand Avenue crew at the dawning of the New Millennium. Earlier this decade, in his capacity as consigliere he helped guide the crime family through a transition of power on the street from Michael (Fat Mike) Sarno to Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis. Sarno was convicted of extortion in 2010 and jailed.

DeLaurentis, 80, and Matassa were “made” together in the same Father’s Day 1989 induction ceremony. Matassa’s dad, John Matassa, Sr., was a Chicago policeman and driver and bodyguard for slain Outfit boss Sam (Momo) Giancana in the 1950s and 1960s. Giancana, one of America’s most well-known mafia dons of his era, was killed in 1975.

Per sources, Matassa provides frequent counsel to both DeLaurentis, in his dad’s old stomping grounds of Cicero, as well as Solly D’s reputed street boss, Albert (Albie the Falcon) Vena, stationed on Grand Avenue. Matassa was groomed in area mob affairs by Northside crew skippers Vincent (Innocent Vince) Solano and Michael (Mikey the Fireplug) Glitta, both deceased. Vena got his start in the Northside crew too

Glitta called Matassa his “nephew” even though in reality Matassa was his cousin. Matassa learned the inner workings of the mafia chauffeuring Glitta around town when he was a young-pup Goodfella in the 1970s and “made his bones” aiding him in a takeover of large swaths of the Windy City pornography racket in the 1980s. He eventually succeeded Vince Solano as Northside crew chief.

A few years back, Matassa’s name surfaced in the probe of a murder plot connected to the Outfit’s unsuccessful attempt to locate turncoat, Nick (Nicky Slim) Calabrese, a former hit man, in the Witness Protection Program and kill him before he could testify at the 2007 Operation Family Secrets trial. Matassa was allegedly the go-between for high-ranking Chicago mobsters getting inside information on Calabrese’s whereabouts from a U.S. Marshal.

The post Chicago Mobster “Pudgy” Matassa Cuts Deal With Feds, Pleads Guilty To Labor Fraud appeared first on The Gangster Report.

The quintessential D.C. drug don, Rayful Edmond, might receive a reprieve from his life prison sentence, his reward for cooperating with authorities for the last two decades. Prosecutors in Washington D.C.’s U.S. Attorneys’ Office filed motions in federal court last week for Edmond’s sentence to be reduced and him to be paroled.

The 54-year old Edmond ruled the D.C. dope game in the “Wild West” 1980s, his reputation rising to practically mythical status on the streets at the height of the crack era in the nation’s capital, as he maintained a chokehold on the region’s wholesale and retail drug markets with unfettered flash and panache. Using a west coast “plug” based in Los Angeles, Edmond flooded the D.C. area with Colombian cocaine and reveled in his infamy.

Making a million dollars a week and spending and living equally lavishly, he was frequently seen sitting courtside at Georgetown University basketball games (the hottest ticket in town at the time) and going on shopping sprees at trendy Georgetown malls and boutiques. His wining and dining of Georgetown basketball players, like future NBA star Alonso Mourning, then an All-American center for the Hoyas, draw the ire of Georgetown’s Hall of Fame coach, John Thompson, who as lore has it, angrily confronted the feared kingpin in a much-fabled meeting in his office in which Thompson made it clear to Edmond that he was to have no further contact with players in the Hoyas program.

Edmond was finally indicted and jailed in April 1989 when he was 24. He was found guilty at a heavily-publicized trial the following year. According to testimony at the trial, the enforcement unit of Edmond’s organization was linked to upwards of 30 gangland homicides.

His business in the drug trade continued while he was incarcerated. In 1996, Edmond was indicted again and eventually convicted for heading another drug conspiracy from behind bars – this time the Colombians he was doing business with had direct ties to the legendary Griselda (The Godmother) Blanco, the female drug baron representing cartel interests in the United States, first in Florida and then in California.

Smacked with an additional 30 years for a case where he was intercepted on literally hundreds of hours of phone calls wheeling and dealing in narcotics from a prison pay phone, Edmond began cooperating and entered the Witness Protection Program. Best selling rappers Jay-Z, Rick Ross and Meek Mill have all name-checked Edmond in their lyrics, proving the D.C. crime lord’s legend has long transcended the Beltway and the era in which he reigned, given that Jay-Z is from Brooklyn, Rick Ross from Miami and Meek Mill from Philadelphia.

The post A Ray Of Light For Rayful: Legendary Washington D.C. Drug Boss Dapped By Feds, Could Be Free Soon appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Midwest biker baron Harry (Taco) Bowman died behind bars of natural causes over the weekend at 69. The legendary Outlaws Motorcycle Club President ran his biker empire from Detroit and brought the Outlaws to prominence nationwide, presenting a formidable challenger to Hells Angels founder Ralph (Sonny) Barger as America’s most powerful biker boss at the apex of his reign in the 1990s.

Called “Taco” for his dark complexion and resemblance to someone of Hispanic heritage, Bowman was serving a life prison sentence in a federal correctional facility for racketeering and murder. He was found guilty at a 2001 trial in Florida, many of the offenses charged being connected to the Outlaws ongoing war with Barger’s West Coast-based Hells Angels.

Bowman was a gangland chameleon and the consummate underworld politician. He forged strong ties to Detroit’s Italian mafia and would often shed his long hair and Outlaws “rocker” for a businessman’s cut and three-piece suit in order to build valuable relationships in the white collar world. Living in a mansion on “Mafia Row” in posh Grosse Pointe, Michigan, he was often chauffeured around town in a custom-built Rolls Royce and sent his children to an exclusive private school.

When he was elected International President of the Outlaws in 1984, Bowman moved the club’s headquarters from Chicago, where the club was established, to his hometown of Detroit and spearheaded a campaign to take over all of Florida, previously and somewhat currently considered a biker’s no-man’s land, a place where everybody can operate free of territory disputes. Bowman also pushed for diversification of street rackets, expanding from an investment structure based primarily on narcotics to a portfolio boasting gambling, loansharking and extortion to augment the drug proceeds.

Upon being indicted in 1997, Bowman went on the run. With the help of the Detroit and Chicago mobs, he avoided arrest for two years. Making it on to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, he was eventually apprehended in a suburb outside Detroit in the summer of 1999. Years earlier, he had beefed with the Detroit mafia over gambling turf but finessed his way out of a murder contract placed on his head.

The post The Ultimate Outlaw: Iconic Biker Boss Taco Bowman Dies At 69, Took Outlaws MC To Next Level appeared first on The Gangster Report.

Retired Cleveland mobster Frederick (Fritz) Graewe died of natural causes last week, having been on the sidelines of underworld activity since his release from prison in the early 1990s. The German-born Graewe who had links to both Italian and Irish mafia powers of the past was 66 years old and survived the Cleveland mob war of the late 1970s only to be nabbed for racketeering a few years later. His brother, Hartmut (Hans the Surgeon) Graewe, a sadistic mob hit man known for taking pleasure in his craft, is currently serving a life prison sentence for a series of murders tied to the unrest of the era.

The Graewe brothers were indicted in 1982 alongside Italian mafia leaders Angelo (Big Ange) Lonardo, Tommy (The Chinaman) Sinito and Joe Gallo in a massive drug, racketeering and murder case. Lonardo was the boss of the Cleveland mob and Sinito and Gallo were captains. Just five years prior, the Graewes were aligned with Irish mob boss Danny Greene when he went to war with Lonardo’s predecessor, mafia don, James (Jack White) Licavoli, for control of the city’s rackets.

Greene was killed in a car bombing attack in October 1977 and the remnants of Greene’s “Celtic Club” Irish crime syndicate, including the Graewe brothers, made peace with the Italians, agreeing to come under Licavoli’s banner. It was Lonardo and his protégés Sinito and Gallo who brokered the cease fire and arranged for a joining of forces.

Licavoli died behind bars of a heart attack in 1985. Lonardo became the first U.S. mob boss to ever turn informant and enter the Witness Protection Program. He passed away peacefully in 2006 at 95. The Cleveland mafia never recovered from his cooperation and today is a small-time unit of loosely affiliated criminals, gamblers and grifters with no substantial structure.

Fritz Graewe and his older brother were enforcers for Cleveland wiseguy Carmen Zagaria, who ran gambling and drug rings for Licavoli. Headquartering out of a tropical fish store on the city’s Westside, Zagaria’s narcotics operation grew to be the biggest in all of Northeast Ohio, churning out 15-to-20 million dollars a year in profits.

Zagaria was the star witness against the Graewes, Lonardo and the others at a 1983 trial. According to Zagaria’s testimony, Fritz Graewe shot mob-connected Florida drug dealer Joey Giamo to death in 1981 after Giamo burned the Zagaria crew in a previous wholesale marijuana purchase. An FBI bug picked up Fritz discussing his desire to strangle a rival with a coat hanger.

The Zagaria crew was moving weed, cocaine, pills and LSD. Prosecutors estimated almost half of the cocaine consumed in Cuyahoga County between 1978 and 1982 was provided by Zagaria’s distribution network.

While Hans Graewe, 74, was found guilty of playing a central role in several of the half-dozen gangland slayings charged in the case, Fritz Graewe was only convicted of drug offenses (eight counts). The younger, less bloodthirsty Graewe walked free in 1992 and left his life of crime behind him.

The post After Living Quietly Away From The Mob For Decades, Fmr. Cleveland Mafia Associate Fritz Graewe Dies At 66 appeared first on The Gangster Report.