According to sources, when Chicago mobster Albert (Albie the Falcon) Vena was promoted to Outfit street boss four years ago, he was allowed to staff his own cabinet. These sources say James (Jimmy I) Inendino has acted in the capacity as Vena’s underboss and Joe (The Builder) Andriacchi has served as his consigliere, with the actual position titles being “loose.”
The 70-year old Vena has been the target of a multi-agency racketeering and murder probe since early 2014, per sources in Illinois law enforcement. He has run the Outfit’s Grand Avenue crew for over a decade. Inendino has been in charge of the Chicago mafia’s Cicero crew since coming out of prison in 2008. Elder statesman Joe the Builder, 86, has held a variety of Outfit administrative posts over the past 30 years.
In his younger days, the diminutive and volatile Vena, dubbed by some in the media the most dangerous man in Chicago, reported to Andriacchi in the now-shuttered Northside crew. Vena and Andriacchi are considered suspects in the 2006 slaying of Outfit underboss Anthony (Little Tony) Zizzo. Vena beat a murder rap at trial in the 1990s. Inendino, 76, has never been charged in any homicides, however was reportedly a member of the Cicero crew’s so-called Wild Bunch hit squad in the 1970s and early 1980s. He was busted in 2001 in a racketeering and political corruption scandal involving the Mayor of Cicero, a town notoriously mobbed up dating back to the days of Al Capone during Prohibition.
Andriacchi hasn’t had any run-ins with the law since he finished a stint behind bars for burglary in 1971. Sometimes called “The Sledgehammer” for his not-so-subtle way of safe cracking during his time as a cat burglar in his youth, Andriacchi has long headquartered his affairs on Rush Street in Chicago’s main downtown entertainment district. Little Tony Zizzo, 71, was en route to meet Andriacchi on Rush Street so Andriacchi could mediate a dispute between Zizzo and the Outfit’s then acting boss Michael (Fat Mike) Sarno over video poker machines routes when he disappeared on August 31, 2006.
Zizzo has been declared legally dead. Sarno, 61, is currently in prison doing a 25-year bid for federal extortion tied to the bombing of a Berwyn, Illinois bar.
The overall boss of the Chicago mob today is allegedly cagey 80-year old Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis, said to be in semi-retirement living most of the year in Wisconsin. Elmwood Park crew power Marco (The Mover) D’Amico had been listed as Outfit consigliere. Cicero crew heavy Salvatore (Sammy Cards) Cataudella served as Sarno’s underboss.
The post The Falcon’s Crest: Chicago Mafia Leader Albie Vena Has Surrounded Himself With Old-School Advisors, Per Sources appeared first on The Gangster Report.