Calabrian mafia mobster linked to hit

Vincent Paul Latorre (on the right

A MURDER suspect who revelled in his reputation as a feared Calabrian mafia mobster has been convicted of blackmailing and standing over fellow Italians.

Prominent Victorian fruiterer Vincent Paul Latorre's violent reign of terror included running a profitable extortion ring for years. He is due to be sentenced. read Full Story

Mafia boss appears in court amid tight security

Palermo, 11 Dec. (AKI) - The Sicilian mafia's alleged second-in-command, Giovanni Nicchi, appeared in court in Palermo for the first time on Friday since his highly publicised arrest last week. Nicchi appeared at an appeals court where hearings are taking place in two trials in which he was sentenced in absentia to a total 18 years in jail for extortion and mafia links read Full Story

Chicago outfit Rudy Fratto Jr

Rudy Fratto Jr. Courtesy the Chicago Sun Times.

December 2, 2009 (CHICAGO) BY: Chuck Goudie and Barb Markoff (WLS) — An admitted tax cheat and reputed boss of the Outfit’s feared Elmwood Park crew won’t have quite as much time as he thought to pack for his upcoming stay in the Crossbar Hotel.
The attorney for Rudolph C. “Rudy” Fratto of Darien had filed a motion to put off his Fratto’s sentencing until February read full story

Drug smuggler arrested with kilo of cocaine in stomach

Customs officials at a Moscow airport have arrested a Columbian man accused of smuggling a record amount of cocaine inside his stomach.The man was reportedly transporting over a kilo of cocaine to Hong Kong via Russia’s Sheremetievo-2 airport. The Columbian approached a customs officer and told him he was not feeling well and asked for medical help read with video

Italian news agency says Naples killer has been identified

(CNN) -- Police have identified the man whose shooting of another man outside a store in Naples, Italy, was captured by a surveillance camera, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Saturday.
The announcement came two days after police released the video of the brazen daylight shooting in hopes it would lead someone to come forward. Police did not release the man's name.
The video, shot May 11, shows a man wearing jeans, a dark jersey and a baseball cap, walking into the store and looking around, turning and walking back out.
Passersby appear unfazed. One woman tries to lift up the victim's head in an apparent attempt to see if she knew him; a man steps over the body.
Police said they had been without any clues before the release of the video. A source who was not identified publicly said the killer was a man in his 30s from Naples' northern Sanita district who had recently left the city.
A third man seen in the video was thought to have been an accomplice, but he told Il Mattino newspaper that he had nothing to do with the killing.
"I am the man of the film, but I have never been a lookout, and now I am afraid," the 39-year-old man said. "I was taking a breath of air, waiting for my daughter to go shopping."
The man said he had been living "in terror" since acquaintances called him from Germany to tell him they had seen him on the video.
Police said they knew of no motive for the killing, which took place in the poor neighborhood of Rione Sanita, where Camorra, the name for organized crime in Naples, is strong.
The victim was a bank robber, the spokesman said.
A police spokesman said Camorra has been blamed for about 60 killings this year in Naples and its surrounding

John “Junior” Gotti's Mob trial

Talk about a get-out-of-jail-free card.
A defense witness for John “Junior” Gotti testified yesterday that an FBI agent offered to help spring him from the slammer in exchange for evidence against the mob scion.
Joseph O’Kane said Special Agent Ted Otto appeared unexpectedly last year at the Canaan federal pen in Waymart, Pa., where O’Kane is serving life plus 15 years for racketeering charges including murder.
O’Kane, 42, said the fed told him: “I understand you’re doing a life sentence and we want to give you a number,” meaning a reduced-sentence offer.
The admitted killer and drug dealer said, “I’d probably be home with my wife and family right now” if he’d coughed up information on the Gambino boss.
But O’Kane insisted he didn’t have any dirt, and never learned the details of Otto’s offer because “I told him to go ‘eff’ himself

Jeffrey Castardi,Guilty plea in Gin Rummy club illegal gambling case

Jeffrey Castardi

A man who ran a high-stakes poker business in Denver catering to Denver media figures and sports personalities and allegedly had ties to the New York mob, has pleaded guilty to violating Colorado's Organized Crime Control Act, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced today.

The man, Jeffrey Castardi, 48, who ran the Gin Rummy Club, 2380 South Broadway, faces up to 24 years in prison when sentenced on Dec. 14 in Jefferson County district court

According to an indictment returned by the state grand jury, Castardi was the ringleader of an organization that involved gambling, bookmaking and loan sharking - all of which Castardi learned during his youth and early adult years when he lived in the New York City area

Investigators said that Castardi told people who engaged in Castardi's high stakes poker and sports-betting or bookmaking activities that the Gin Rummy Club was a Mafia or mob-affiliated establishment.

Castardi's use of this tactic was designed to strengthen the intimidating influence of Gin Rummy Club and also to further the success of the club's illicit business methods, according to investigators.

Among the people who frequented the club were former Broncos fullback Reggie Rivers; former Broncos running back Rod Bernstine; Francois Safieddine, president of the Monarck nightclub in Denver; and John Sacha, a pain medicine doctor who teaches poker strategy on a "Dr. Poker" instructional video.
In announcing Castardi's guilty plea, Suthers said that Castardi's operation allegedly collected significant amounts of money between May 2003 and late 2008 through a "complex, persistent and intimidating system of individual debt collectors, front businesses and various bank accounts."

Castardi and his associates were suspected of violating numerous laws including running an illegal professional gambling and bookmaking business, loan-sharking, money laundering, tax evasion, theft and unlawful debt collection.

A key to the enterprise, said the grand jury, was a system established at the Gin Rummy Club where poker players and those betting on sports played on credit.
The system was referred to as playing on the "book."

The existence of the book often led players to accrue significant financial debt to the Gin Rummy Club and Castardi. Some players and others then felt it was necessary to take out "street loans" that were usually orchestrated and financed by Castardi.
Ralph Gagliardi , an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, said the club would take in as much as $750,000 in a single year.

In 1988, Castardi was arrested on Long Island for promoting gambling. Also involved in the gambling operation was Richard Giordonello, a member of Gambino captain Nicholas "Little Nicky" Corozzo's crew

Sammy Gravano may testify for Junior Gotti in racketeering, murder trial

His testimony put former Gambino boss John "Dapper Don" Gotti behind bars for the rest of his life, but Sammy "Bull" Gravano could emerge as the star witness in the defense of John "Junior" Gotti.
The former mob turncoat testified for the feds against Gotti in 1991 -- finally sinking the Teflon Don, who was sentenced to life behind bars where he died in 2002.
In an ironic twist, Junior's defense team, led by lawyer Charles Carnesi, said today that it is looking to use Gravano to the younger Gotti's advantage.
Carnesi said he plans to interview Gravano about the murder of soldier Louis DiBono -- a gangland slaying the feds claim Junior was involved in -- and how he has testified at past trial about it without ever mentioning the younger Gotti's involvement. "I'll interview him and I'll see what we do," said Carnesi.
The move was revealed by the judge during the course of Gotti's trial.
Gravano, who testified during the John Gotti trial that he was involved in 19 murders, is currently in Arizona state prison after opting out of the federal Witness Protection Program in 1995. Since 2002, Gravano, now 64, has been serving a 19-year sentence for his role in a drug-trafficking ring.
Gravano has testified in the past that his last murder was the whacking of DiBono in October 1990.
The feds claim Junior helped put together the hit while working as a captain for the Gambinos.
Gotti is on trial for a fourth time in Manhattan federal court on racketeering charges and for his involvement in five murders. The other three ended in either a mistrial or hung jury

Reputed mob boss D'Elia seeks reduced sentence

SCRANTON - The reputed boss of a northeastern Pennsylvania crime family is asking a federal judge to cut his nine-year sentence by four years, citing ailing health and his cooperation with prosecutors William D'Elia, 63, pleaded guilty last year to witness tampering and conspiracy to launder drug money. He has been in prison since 2006 and could be released as early as next year if the request is granted. Federal prosecutors are already seeking a 21-month reduction in the sentence of D'Elia, citing his help in the prosecutions of former casino owner Louis DeNaples and businessman Robert Kulick.
D'Elia's attorney said in yesterday's motion that his client's health has been poor since hernia surgery this year and he now must use a cane.
Prosecutors this year dropped perjury charges against DeNaples in an agreement that required him to turn over the business to his daughter. Kulick was sentenced last month to 37 months on a weapons charge.

Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli:Prison is hazardous to my health

Thomas (Tommy Shots) Gioeli, alleged acting head of the Colombo crime family, is unhappy with jail and wants out. He says the food is bad and his mattress is uncomfortable.

To hear Tommy Shots tell it, jail is for the birds.No toenail clippers. Too many potatoes. And those mattresses are so hard.

Read The Full Story.

Joseph "Mousie" Massimino

Joseph "Mousie" Massimino, the reputed underboss of the Philadelphia mob, is coming home after serving more than five years of a 10-year sentence on a New Jersey racketeering charge.

Judge Anthony Pugliese reduced Massimino's sentence to time served during a sentence reconsideration hearing today in Camden County Superior Court.

In issuing what amounted to a get out of jail card to the 57-year-old mob leader, Pugliese accepted the arguments of Massimino's lawyer who said "he's done more than enough time considering the nature of the crime." Read The Full Story Read The Full Story

Mob turncoat 'cheated on wife every day'

Former Gambino associate John Alite may have been a member of a mob family -- but he was no family man.

The star witness in the John "Junior" Gotti trial said today he repeatedly cheated on his wife and "wasn't a good guy" as he helped the Gambinos sell drugs and kill people.

The mob turncoat said in Manhattan federal court that he has two kids -- one with his wife and a second with a girlfriend -- and that he only pays them $137.50 each a week in child support payments.

Alite, 46, said his marriage to a woman identified only as Carol fell apart because he "cheated on her every day." That was it," he added.

He said he keeps both families in different houses in New Jersey and that his ex-wife and girlfriend, a woman he later married named Claudia DiPippa, are aware of -- and hate -- each other.

DiPippa is the sister of a Gambino associate.

With Gotti staring straight at him, Alite said he made $1million a year from 1984 to 1994 trafficking drugs for the mob. He said he made another $1 million a year over roughly the same period as a result of 30 home invasions he had committed.

A cool and composed Alite, who avoided eye-contact with Gotti and mostly faced the jury, also said he gave money to his family -- but not always.

Alite said he "very rarely" gave his father any of the illicit cash.

"He was a degenerate gambler," said Alite.

'Junior' Gotti ordered hit on dealer, says mobster

Mob turncoat John Alite testified Wednesday that he shot a Queens cocaine dealer in the head in 1988 on orders from John "Junior" Gotti because the man was bragging about his Gotti family connections, and he was told to make no effort to hide the body because the Gottis wanted to "send a message."
Alite, appearing at Gotti's murder-racketeering trial in federal court in Manhattan, said Gotti was particularly incensed at coke dealer George Grosso not only because the drug business is supposed to be off-limits for the mob, but because Grosso touted a link to "John Gotti" - making people think that Gotti's father, Gambino capo and future boss John J. Gotti, was involved.
"John Gotti Jr. threatened him, told him to stop using his father's name," Alite, a top Gotti lieutenant and friend of his family during the 1980s, said of a meeting he attended with Gotti and Grosso. "He told him if he does it again, he's not going to warn him again."
Gotti, 45, of Oyster Bay, was tried three times in 2005 and 2006 on racketeering charges, with each case ending in a hung jury after Gotti's lawyers claimed that he withdrew from the mob in the 1990s, before the five-year statute of limitations on racketeering.
Alite's testimony could mark a critical departure from the earlier cases, because the former confidante did not begin cooperating with the government until last year, and the slaying to which he tied Gotti is not subject to a statute of limitations or the withdrawal defense. Gotti has been separately charged with the murders of Grosso and a second man, Bruce Gotterup, in 1991.
Testifying for nearly six hours on his 47th birthday as Gotti and Gotti's mother, sisters and two nephews watched, Alite said that while he administered plenty of beatings as part of Gotti's crew and for his own drug business, he never killed anyone before Grosso. But Gotti, he testified, ratcheted up the pressure in the fall of 1988.
"He pushed the issue. John Gotti Jr. kept saying, 'You didn't kill this kid yet,' trying to say I didn't have enough -- to do it," said Alite, who pleaded guilty to racketeering last year in Florida and is hoping for leniency on his sentence.
"He's telling me it's got to get done. 'I'm telling you to do it now, if you're going to be around.' " he said. "Otherwise, I go if I don't execute his orders."
Alite said he recruited a four-man team to help with the hit, lured Grosso to a bar in late December 1988 and then into a car by feigning friendship - a trick he said he learned from the Gotti family. He pumped "two or three bullets" into Grosso's head, he said, and dumped the body beside the Grand Central Parkway.
The means of disposal was specified by Gotti, Alite testified: "Don't bury him, don't hide him. Put him out on the street so people know what you did. Send a message: Don't use our names."
Alite said the team that helped him included Nicholas Tobia, who became a Suffolk County police officer in 1995. He said Tobia was not in the car where Grosso was shot, but in a trailing car. Tobia, of Wantagh, whose name first surfaced when Alite testified at the trial of mobster Charles Carneglia earlier this year, is on leave from the Suffolk force. Yesterday his lawyer, William Petrillo of Rockville Centre, again denied wrongdoing.
In other testimony Wednesday, Alite gave more details about two deaths that he linked to Gotti. He said Gotti frequently took credit for fatally stabbing a Queens man named Danny Silva in a 1983 bar fight, and said that his father had gotten bodyguard Mark Caputo to take the fall for him. Caputo was charged by police, but the case was dismissed.
He said that Gotti also told him that John Cennamo, a Queens man who fingered Gotti for the Silva stabbing and was found hanged behind a Laundromat in 1984, had been killed by a Gambino family team on the elder Gotti's orders. The death was ruled a suicide at the time, and family and friends said Cennamo had been depressed about losing a job and a girlfriend.

Junior Gotti's ex-best friend John Alite says Gotti helped in three slays, spoke of four others

John A. (Junior) Gotti once stood up as best man for John Alite, but Tuesday Alite stood against him, tearing down the ex-mob boss as a merciless killer behind seven murders. "John Gotti Jr. was my boss," the turncoat mobster said flatly to open his damning Manhattan Federal Court testimony.

The veteran Gambino family associate, the feds' star witness, testified Gotti collaborated with him on three killings and told him about four others.

The second-generation gangster was one of the drivers when the Gambino family whacked informant Wilfred (Willie Boy) Johnson in August 1988 for ratting on his dad, "Teflon Don" John, Alite testified.

Gotti and ex-brother-in-law Carmine Agnello killed another man and crushed him in a car chopper at Agnello's Queens junkyard, he testified.

And as Gotti stared him down, Alite also told jurors that Junior admitted to him that he killed Daniel Silva in a 1983 barroom brawl and an eyewitness later found hanging from a tree. A pair of drug dealers and another mob murder brought Gotti's total to seven bodies, he said

.
The gruesome testimony was greeted angrily by the Gotti contingent in the courtroom. Alite was once Junior's best friend and asked Gotti to serve as best man at his wedding.

Prosecutors showed photos of the pair at the wedding of Junior's sister Victoria, along with a shot of Gotti holding Alite's 18-month-old son.

Since flipping in 2007, Alite has implicated his buddy and claimed that he had an affair with Victoria Gotti. She, along with sister Angel and mother Victoria, glared at Alite as he recounted a decade of running with Junior - pricey cars, $500 shoes, Rolex watches.

Alite recalled a wild trip in the 1980s to Las Vegas, where he and Junior Gotti lost $30,000 at the craps and blackjack tables and had to play the "nickel slot machines."

"All lies," said a subdued Gotti's mother, her eyes red from crying, outside the courtroom. "Mom, don't even bother," said daughter Victoria, who last year passed a lie-detector test after denying Alite's claim.

Alite, in a gray sweatshirt that bared a neck tattoo, said he had shot about 35 men - mostly on orders from Junior.

Before Alite testified, another prosecution witness took the stand to describe Alite as a heartless hit man who once cursed and spit on the still-warm corpse of one victim.

"Motherf-----," a remorseless Alite snapped after the December 1988 slaying of George Grosso. Corrupt ex-NYPD Detective Philip Baroni, 57, recounted Alite's point-blank execution of the Queens drug dealer. Gotti became a made man four days later.

Grosso was hit for running his mouth about Gotti's drug dealing, the feds charge.Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/30/2009-09-30_junior_exbest_friend_says_gotti_helped_in_3_slays.html#ixzz0Sf6L6pPC

Cops: Witness fingered Junior Gotti and wound up dead

The NYPD didn't question John A. (Junior) Gotti in a barroom slaying despite an identification from a witness who was soon found hanging from a tree, two cops testified Thursday.Within hours of the March 1983 slaying in the Silver Fox, witness John Cennamo was in Jamaica Hospital shouting at police that Gotti fatally stabbed Daniel Silva, retired Detective James McKinley testified. Read More Read The Full Storyhttp://cftaf1234.wordpress.com/prime-time-ratfellas/

Gotti's former pal testifies that he saw Jr. stab a man - and that his dad paid to make case go away

John A. (Junior) Gotti sat placidly in a nearby apartment after brutally stabbing a man to death in a wild 1983 barroom brawl, a drug-dealing ex-pal testified

The knife-wielding killer "showed no emotion at all" after leaving a gorespattered Daniel Silva to die on an Ozone Park barstool, career criminal Kevin Bonner told a Manhattan federal jury.

Gotti avoided prosecution for the vicious slaying in the Silver Fox when his mob boss father paid an NYPD detective $10,000 to make the case disappear, Bonner claimed.

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Kevin Bonner

Dapper don 'bribe' says mob rat Bonner

John "Junior" Gotti fatally stabbed a man during a Queens bar brawl in 1983 -- but his father paid an NYPD detective $10,000 to make the investigation "go away," a former member of Gotti's crew testified yesterday.
Kevin Bonner said the up-and-coming mob scion "went to work" after 24-year-old Danny "Elf" Silva wouldn't stop drunkenly pestering Gotti one night at the Silver Fox Bar in Queens.
Gotti's youthful gangsters surrounded their 19-year-old leader as he savagely beat Silva on March 12, 1983, but all hell broke loose after someone tossed a glass that shattered on Bonner's forehead. It just became a big brawl," Bonner, 45, said during a day of highly detailed testimony at Gotti's racketeering and murder trial in Manhattan federal court. "As I was tussling, I looked over at John and I seen he stabbed this kid."
Other patrons dragged Silva onto a bar stool, where he moaned in pain.
"He had blood all over," Bonner said. "He got stabbed in the belly."
Gotti and his group hightailed it to a woman's apartment in the Lindenwood section of Howard Beach, where Bonner said Gotti showed "no emotion" after washing off Silva's blood in the bathroom.
"It was a little awkward at the table. Nobody said nothing," said Bonner, who then coldly headed off with his girlfriend for a late-night dinner in Manhattan.
But Bonner said neither he nor any other crew members were ever questioned by the cops afterward, with crew member John Gebert explaining that Gotti's father -- at the time a "very feared" captain in the Gambino crime family -- "was taking care of the investigation" by paying off a detective.
"He paid him money to kind of, I guess, make it go away," Bonner said, without naming the rogue cop.
The testimony marked the latest claim of police corruption tied to Junior Gotti's case, following a leaked FBI report last week that detailed allegations from former Gambino thug John Alite about cops in league with the mob.
Bonner -- who turned rat after being hit with a 25-year sentence for a string of armed robberies in Florida -- also pinned a mid-'80s shooting on Gotti, saying he opened fire during a fight that erupted at a Queens disco after a bouncer demanded proof of Gotti's age.
The victim, Bonner said, turned out to be connected to the Bonanno crime family, and everyone present was later summoned to the elder Gotti's Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park to help settle the matter.

John (Junior) Gotti painted as mob killer by prosecution

A young John A. (Junior) Gotti with mob turncoat John Alite (on Gotti's right) in the 1980s.


John A. (Junior) Gotti is a vicious thug who once taunted a man he had stabbed - doing Porky Pig's "th-th-that's all folks!" as the man bled to death, prosecutors charged yesterday. Moments before the Gambino heir's fourth racketeering trial got underway in Manhattan Federal Court, the judge said seven of the 18 jurors and alternates had made a last-minute appeal to be dismissed
read the full story

Former Patriarca mob underboss to be sentenced

Published : Monday, 21 Sep 2009,

Carmen DiNunzio pleaded guilty to bribery

BOSTON (AP) - The former underboss of the New England mob is scheduled to be sentenced this week for bribing an undercover FBI agent posing as a state official in an attempt to win a $6 million contract on the Big Dig highway project.
Carmen "The Cheeseman" DiNunzio, pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges, as well as separate state charges for extorting $500 per month from a Boston bookmaker.
Under the terms of a plea agreement with prosecutors, DiNunzio would serve six years in federal prison. The agreement covers both the state and federal cases.
DiNunzio is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court.
Prosecutors say DiNunzio, who owned a cheese chop in Boston's North End, had been underboss of the New England branch of the Mafia since 2004.

Gambino soldier Charles Carneglia, former hitman for John Gotti, sentenced to life in prison

John Gotti's most vicious hitman was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for racketeering and four murders.

Following in the footsteps of his former Gambino crime family boss, convicted killer Charles Carneglia, is likely to die in prison.

Defiant and remorseless to the end, Carneglia slouched in his chair and smirked throughout seven wrenching statements from relatives of his victims.

Charles Carneglia (l.) is taken into custody in Brooklyn in 1969 Full Story

Antonio Coluccio, brother of Mafia boss sues Canada over immigration request

The brother of a powerful Mafia boss who was recently deported from Canada to Italy -- and who himself has been suspected of organized criminality -- is suing the government for not processing his application to live in Canada with his wife and four children.
From his pleasant, toy-strewn home in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto, Antonio Coluccio claims he is "at wit's end" after waiting five years for immigration officials to approve his permanent residency application.
While he has waited, however, he has seen one of his brothers arrested in Toronto at the request of Italian authorities, who called him one of the country's most dangerous fugitives, and another brother arrested in Italy after being found hiding in a secret bunker.
Both brothers were charged for a vast drug trafficking network and billed as leaders of a powerful clan of the 'Ndrangheta, the name of the Mafia in the southern Italian region of Calabria.
"His brother is very famous -- infamous -- and I understand the concern of the government," said Antonio Coluccio's immigration lawyer, Mendel Green.
"But [Antonio] has never been arrested. He is not a criminal. He is totally innocent of everything. Is someone responsible for his family's conduct? Not in this country," he said. Read Full Story

OJ still hopeful about appeal despite bail setback

LAS VEGAS -- O.J. Simpson's hopes of being let out of prison while the Nevada Supreme Court considers his appeal have been dashed.
His lawyer say there's not much to be made of the decision that followed a rare hearing before the state high court, and the former football star remains optimistic about getting his conviction in a gunpoint hotel room heist overturned.
Other veteran defense lawyers not connected to the case said the court did not tip its hand on how it might rule on the appeal but predicted the justices would continue to give the case special treatment because of Simpson's celebrity.
"The shocking thing is that they gave a hearing on bail at all," said Howard Brooks, the Clark County public defender who handles appeals for the busiest court in the state. It was more than eight years since the Nevada Supreme Court heard such an argument. Read More Full Story

Mob-tied building inspectors in bribe & drug scandal

AT LEAST six city building inspectors -- some with ties to a powerful crime family -- were videotaped taking bribes at construction sites, and some were seen dealing cocaine and prescription pills while on duty, The Post has learned.
The corrupt Department of Buildings workers -- who lined their pockets by ignoring violations or expediting construction and building work permits -- will be arrested later this month, along with about two dozen Luchese crime-family captains, soldiers and associates, sources said

"This is going to be big," a well-placed source said.
Among the other startling revelations:
* Two of the crooked city employees are known by law enforcement as full-blown Luchese associates.
* The investigation included several landlords who own buildings in Manhattan and The Bronx -- with at least one facing certain arrest, sources say.
* About 50 search warrants were executed in city offices, mob-run social clubs, wire rooms and wiseguys' homes.
The nearly two-year probe grew out of a 2007 New Jersey case involving a Luchese faction that ran a staggering $2 billion-a-year gambling operation and supplied drugs and cellphones to Bloods gang members in state prisons.
That probe -- which netted 32 wiseguys -- soon spread across the Hudson River into the family's Big Apple hierarchy, prompting surveillance and wiretapping by the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office, the sources said.
The probers, who made hundreds of hours of recordings, quickly found mobsters taking bets and conducting loan-sharking operations worth tens of millions of dollars.
On one of the recordings, their targets discussed a normally forbidden topic -- the names of people selected to become made members of the mob.
The eavesdroppers had hoped to discover where an induction might occur so they could take the unprecedented step of bugging the location and recording the fabled omerta oath of undying allegiance.
Instead, something more sinister emerged -- a thug said he knew a corrupt building inspector who could help with "violations" dogging an undisclosed construction site.
"I know a guy over here who can take care of it," the hood said.
Probers soon began following inspectors on their rounds and eavesdropping on their conversations with building representatives and hoods.
As the weeks passed, they captured crooked city workers taking mere $50 and $100 payoffs to ignore violations that had the potential to halt construction at several sites, most of them in The Bronx.
"They were compromising the city and their jobs for nickels and dimes," said one source familiar with the case.
Probers also watched in amazement as several inspectors brazenly sold the prescription drugs OxyContin and Vicadin -- along with small amounts of cocaine -- while on duty.
Two of the inspectors are now said to be cooperating in the investigation, the sources said.
This will be the latest scandal to rock the city's Department of Buildings, which is still reeling from its failures at the doomed Deutsche Bank tower that contributed to the deaths of two city firefighters in August 2007.

Who's Who Now In The Philly Mob

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PHILADELPHIA - A newly released organizational chart made headlines in an Atlantic City courtroom this week, providing a who's who on Philadelphia's organized crime family.
As Fox 29's Dave Schratwieser and the Inquirer's George Anastasia report, there are a few surprises in the details.

This rooster never ratted

I never understood why the Mafia didn’t whack Whitey Bulger before he went on the lam.

Didn’t they notice that while Whitey and so much of the Irish mob skated, the feds led procession after procession of guys with vowels on the end of their names off to jail?
Then it dawned on me: Those Mafia guys weren’t rocket scientists.
Besides, the Italians were probably ratting as much as the Irish. They just didn’t get as good a deal.
Not everybody was a rat. Jerry Angiulo didn’t rat on anybody, and he spent 24 years as a guest of the nation to prove it.
Jerry died Saturday at Mass. General. Cause of death was old age and just plain meanness.
Jerry considered the fact that he got to spend the last two years of his life at home in Nahant, surrounded by his ever-patient wife, Barbara,and long-suffering son, Jason, a major coup, a flip of his fingers under his chin to a government that used more than one corrupt FBI agent to lock him up.
If Ted Kennedy was the last lion of the Senate, Jerry Angiulo was the last rooster of the Mafia. Everybody who followed him was a pretender to the throne. Raymond Patriarca - the father, not the goofy kid who ran the family business into the ground - made Jerry underboss without Jerry having the requisite hit under his belt because Jerry did something Patriarca considered far more important than producing corpses: Jerry sent lots of cash down I-95 to Providence.
That doesn’t mean Jerry didn’t have people murdered. Jerry would whack you in a heartbeat if he thought you wouldn’t stand up before a grand jury, or, like the late if not especially lamented Angelo Patrizzi, you went around town saying you were going to kill Jerry’s friends.
Murder aside, Jerry was king of the bookmakers in a day and age when everybody played The Number, when the Record-American printed the daily handle from Hialeah racetrack in Florida because that’s what the mob based The Number on.
I was a cub reporter at the Herald in 1983, when I first met Jerry Angiulo. The feds had lugged him out of Francesco’s before he could take a bite of his pork chops the night before. He had slept in a cell at the police station on New Sudbury Street, his clothes were rumpled, his white hair a disheveled mop of bedhead, he needed a shower, and he wasn’t too happy. He apparently had been allowed to read the papers because as he waited for his arraignment in federal court to begin he asked aloud, “Is there a Mr. Cullen from the Herald here?’’
Sitting right behind him, I put up my hand and said, “That would be me, sir.’’
He turned around, looked me up and down, thrust out his chin with that Mussolini pout of his, and said, with dismissive contempt, “Useless.’’
A few weeks later, he was standing at the elevators in the old Post Office Square courthouse, on his way to the Marshals lockup during a recess, and as I walked by he asked, “Your mother still living on Linden Avenue in Malden?’’
It wasn’t a threat. He just wanted me to know he knew.
Jerry didn’t like the government. The feds took away his freedom, and the Lottery took away his business.
I sent him a letter in the can once, asking if he’d like to talk about the way the FBI spent millions taking down the Angiulo brothers while Whitey and the Winter Hill Gang murdered with impunity. Jerry was no dummy. He saw through my obsequiousness, offering a two-word reply, the second word of which was “you,’’ the first word being unprintable.
Of all those Angiulo brothers, only Frankie is left. Frankie had the unenviable task of collecting from the bookies, and being berated long and loudly by Jerry if he didn’t get all the money. He lives alone in the building at 98 Prince St. where, 28 years ago, Jerry Angiulo boasted of murder and mayhem and money within earshot of FBI bugs.
Prince Street is a mausoleum now. A mausoleum for the mob.

In Italy, Godmothers taking over from Godfathers

The Italian-American Mafia continues to dominate organized crime. Anti-Mafia police in Italy say women in the underworld crime scene are rising in rank as Godmothers in a break from its male-dominant past. Godmothers are gradually replacing Godfathers as mob leaders in the Camorra, a crime organization that controls Naples, much like the Mafia in Sicily. Camorra has been the target of police crackdowns recently. "There is a growing number of women who hold executive roles [in the Camorra]," Gaetano Maruccia, commander of the Carabinieri paramilitary police in the Naples area told The Associated Press. The paramilitary police say these women are filling in places left vacant by the leaders, who are often their husbands. Anti-Mafia raids have seen a large number of Mafia bosses arrested. It is believed that these women are as deadly as their spouses and take part in all kinds of activities ranging from blackmail to murder, according to a BBC correspondent in Italy. Eleven women were arrested in a drug bust by police last month, but officers say it is impossible to guess how many women are involved in the organized crime rings as they often take on roles such as preparing and packaging cocaine and heroine. Detained Maria Licciardi is one the most powerful female Mafia leaders in Naples. Police believe she is still controlling the crime cell from behind bars.

Dominick Dunne, Hollywood crime author

Crime author Dominick Dunne, who told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his magazine articles and best-selling books including "Another City, Not My Own," about O.J. Simpson's murder trial, died Wednesday in his home at age 83.Dunne's son, Griffin Dunne, said in a statement released by Vanity Fair magazine that his father had been battling bladder cancer. But the cancer had not prevented Dunne from working and socializing, his twin passions, The Associated Press reports.

In September 2008, against his doctor's orders and his family's wishes, Dunne flew to Las Vegas to attend Simpson's kidnap-robbery trial, a postscript to his coverage of the football great's 1995 murder In the past year, Dunne had traveled to Germany and the Dominican Republic for experimental stem cell treatments to fight his cancer. Afrim Kupa, Albert (Albee) Crisci, Anthony "the Animal" Fiato, Anthony Fiato, anthony Fiato-hollywood goodfella, anthony tony the Animal Fiato, bank robbers, banks, Brookly bank robber, Brooklyn, Chris Paciello, crime, federal charges, gambino crime family, hollywood goodfellla, home invasion, law and justice, Lulzim kupa, Mafia, mob, mob rats, mobsters, new york, New York crime, New York crime family, new york news, organized crime, Richmond, Staten Island
Afrim Kupa,He wrote that he and actress Farrah Fawcett were in the same clinic in Bavaria but didn't see each other. Fawcett, a 1970s sex symbol and TV star of "Charlie's Angels," died in June at age 62, CNS News informstrial, which spiked Dunne's considerable fame. Read More

Edward Maiani aka Eddie Miami

associate of the Winter Hill Gang. In the early 1970’s, a new FBI agent in Boston named John Morris decided to recruit Eddie Miami as an informant – by planting a fake bomb under his car and then phoning in an anonymous tip to the local cops. After the cops removed the “bomb,” Morris approached Eddie Miami and told him his fellow members of the Winter Hill Gang was trying to kill him. Eddie Miami suspected skullduggery, and told Morris to bleep off. A few years later, Eddie Miami was sent away on drug charges. Morris, meanwhile, went on Whitey’s payroll, eventually collecting $7,000 for his services on behalf of organized crime.

GOTTI BID NIXED

John "Junior" Gotti yesterday lost a bid to delay his racketeering retrial over new murder charges the feds added to his indictment earlier this month.
Manhattan federal Judge Kevin Castel said the additional counts -- which cover two drug-related slayings in Queens in 1988 and 1991 -- required only a minor change in "defense strategy " because they were already mentioned in Gotti's indictment.

STEVEN SEAGAL AND THE MOB

It could have been a scene from The Sopranos except that it was for real. It took place on February 2, 2001, and the feds caught it all on audio tape. Two made members of the Mafia and an associate had met to discuss the shakedown of a Hollywood movie star. The actor was a martial artist who specialized in playing tough-guy heroes on the big screen. Throughout his career, the star had made several claims of real-life heroics, including black-ops jobs for the CIA and encounters with organized crime figures around the world. The actor also apparently had a fixation with urban Italian-Americans, claiming at one time to be half-Italian when in reality his mother was Irish and his father Jewish. In one of his films, he played an Italian-American detective with close ties to the old neighborhood and the hoods who infested it. In one scene, the hero sits down for espresso with the local boss, showing him the same respect that any of his soldiers would.

Perhaps this is why the real mobsters at the wiretapped meeting were having a good chuckle as they recounted a visit that a couple of them had paid on action-star Steven Seagal. On the FBI tape, they say that the tough-guy actor was "petrified." At this meeting Anthony "Sonny" Ciccone, an alleged capo in New York's Gambino organized-crime family, and his "right-hand man," Primo Cassarino, joked with Vincent Nasso about Seagal's less than heroic reactions to their shakedown attempts. The whole situation brought out the "Paulie Walnuts" in Cassarino. "I wish we had a gun on us," he says on the tape, "that would have been funny

READ MORE True Tv

JOSEPH MASSINO--Bonanno crime family

--Massino became the first sitting boss in Mafia history to turn informant. The longtime head of the Bonnano family, Massino was notoriously security conscious, instructing his subordinates to refer to him merely by tugging on their earlobe.
Things started to go bad for Joe when his brother-in-law and underboss, Salvatore “Good Looking Sal” Vitale, testified against him. Shortly after his 2004 conviction on racketeering charges that would have put him in prison for life, Massino decided to become an informant. He taped his underlings in prison threatening to kill a prosecutor.Read more:

Mobster Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano is threatening to play lawyer at his own death penalty murder trial - possibly cross-

Hollywood actor, Tony Sirico

Sirico was born in Midwood, Brooklyn to Sicilian parents. Sirico has played gangsters in a number of films, including Mob Queen, Gangsters, Love and Money, Fingers,

The Last Fight, Goodfellas, Innocent Blood, Bullets Over Broadway, The Pick-up Artist, Mighty Aphrodite, Gotti, Cop Land, and Mickey Blue Eyes. He also played policemen in the films Dead Presidents and Deconstructing Harry.in goodfellas, as ray liotta's henry hill sees his future wife (lorraine bracco) charging at him



Before turning to acting, Sirico was reportedly a mob associate of the Colombo crime family serving under Carmine "Junior" Persico and had been arrested twenty-eight times.

There is a Sopranos reference to this fact when Paulie says "I made it through the seventies by the skin of my balls when the Colombos were goin' at it."[2] In 1967, he was sent to prison for robbing a Brooklyn after hours club, but was released after serving thirteen months.

In 1971, he pled guilty to felony weapons possession and was sentenced to an "indeterminate" prison term of up to four years, of which Sirico ended up serving twenty months. According to a court transcript, at the time of his sentencing, he also had pending charges for drug possession.
He currently lives alone in Brooklyn, New York. His mother died in 2003. Sirico's brother, Robert Sirico, is a priest and co-founder of the free-market Acton Institute. But looking back I realize that because it made sense for it to win, it should have come in with “Goodfellas.” Hollywood has ...

Louis Tuzzio, Bonanno Crime Family

Bonnano crime family associate, Louis Tuzzio, lies slumped in the driver's seat of his Chevrolet Camero. He was murdered by the Bonanno family on January 3,

Bonanno Crime Family associate Louis Tuzzio, set out to suck up to his boss by whacking mobster Gus Farace -- a Prince's Bay gangster hunted by all five New York crime families and federal investigators for killing federal drug enforcement agent Everett Hatcher in Charleston during an undercover drug buy. But Tuzzio and his cohorts made the grave mistake of wounding the son of a Gambino soldier in the process.

Anthony DiLapi , Lucchese crime family

The late Anthony DiLapi was found in the garage of his apartment building outside Los Angeles on February 4, 1990. The Lucchese family soldier had moved out to the West Coast to get away from the mob, but was found and murdered on the orders of Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
Mob cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa obtained information of DiLapi's whereabouts from California police.Lucchese crime family will be merged with am Eastern crime investigative police with the Gambino and Genovese crews

Anthony Fiato , Los Angeles Crime Family,

Anthony Fiato aka “The Animal” aka “Tony Rome.” Anthony fiato was a feared and vicious street boss in the Los Angeles Crime Family. Fiato’s crew was the enforcing arm of the Family.

Anthony Fiato was a predominant force in the Los Angeles Underworld. Fiato had strong ties to Patriarca Crime Family leaders, Nick Bianco, and JR Russo.

Fiato’s wealthy Jewish partner Puggy Zeichick bankrolled a seven figure juice loan operation that was backed by Anthony Fiato’s Mafia muscle. Fiato flipped to FBI informant, and wore a wire on many of his close Mafia Cohorts..

Ralph Natale Philly Mob

Philadelphia Crime Family boss Ralph Natale, was the highest ranking American Mafia figure to become a mob rat. . Natale took the stand for 14 grueling days. He gave testimony against other high ranking Mobster Skinny Joey Merlino and crew. Natale was a dismal failure as a witness He got hammered on tough cross examination and folded under the pressure.

Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi Mobster

- The transcripts read like the script from a mob movie, but today the testimony in a Boston courtroom was very real, and a chilling reminder of the city's once violent underworld.
Convicted killer Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi spent a second day on the stand in a Boston wrongful death lawsuit.
75-year-old Flemmi showed no emotion as he described the 1981 killing of Debra Davis, who he had previously dated.
Flemmi testified Thursday that James "Whitey" Bulger, the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, wanted to kill Davis after he learned Flemmi had told her that they were both working as FBI informants. He also said Bulger resented the amount of time Flemmi was spending with her.
He said he agreed to lure Davis to a vacant home he owned in South Boston, where Bulger was waiting. Bulger, he said, "grabbed her by the throat and strangled her."
Flemmi said he watched and did nothing as Bulger killed Davis.
"This happened very quickly, a very traumatic moment in my life," Flemmi said.
He said Bulger carried her down the stairs while continuing to strangle her.
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Joseph Valachi, Genovese Crime Family

JOE VALACHI--The first major Mafia turncoat, this drug-dealing soldier in the family of Vito Genovese introduced the term ‘la cosa nostra’ (meaning ‘this thing of ours’) to the English lexicon. He turned informant after learning that his boss had decided he had to go, and signaled his decision with an infamous “kiss of death” in the federal pen in Atlanta, Georgia.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy called his testimony “the biggest intelligence breakthrough yet in combating organized crime.” His evidence never directly convicted a single mobster, but his 1963 televised appearance at a Senate committee investigating organized crime lifted the veil on the Mafia in America.
He tried but failed to hang himself in his cell and ultimately died of a heart attack in 1971, at the age of 67

. Genovese Soldier: The subject of Hollywood Mafia movies on rats. George Barone. ... Goodfellas, the Godfather, Donnie Brasco, The Sopranos-

.http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/galleries/rats_mob_informants/rats_mob_informants.html#ph8#ixzz0KeKWehMn&D

Mafia Son, Greg Scarpa jr.

Harmon's interest was initially sparked by a television programme on the Scarpa dynasty. On a whim, she wrote a letter to Scarpa Jr and was astonished to receive a reply. "It was a nice, sweet letter," she recalls. "He writes with smiley faces on the page. He's not at all tough. He would talk about his children and how much he loved his grandchildren, how much he missed Italian food like lasagne and his mother's cookies."
Harmon went on to become one of Scarpa's most trusted confidantes and yet the two of them have never met. Scarpa lives in a 7ft by 9ft foot cell in a maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado and spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. He is not allowed visitors and is due for release in 2033, by which time he will be 84 years old.
Mafia Son tells the extraordinary story of Scarpa's betrayal at the hands of his father, Gregory Scarpa Sr, a brutal mafioso godfather nicknamed "the Grim Reaper" who led a double life as an FBI informant. Scarpa Sr was an enforcer for the notorious Colombo family, one of five Mafia families that controlled organised crime in New York through the 1970s and 80s. Stockily built and 6ft tall, Scarpa Sr ruled by fear: he took such delight in killing that he once expressed the desire to dig up one of his murder victims "and shoot him again". Yet he was also passing information to federal agents.
"He was a horrible, Machiavellian man who murdered over 50 people," says Harmon. "If anyone got too close, he murdered them. He was vicious."
His eldest son, Greg Jr, was raised in a similar mould. "He didn't know any different," says Harmon. "It was the family business and Greg Jr idolised his father. He loved him so blindly. He told me that he didn't like the violence at first, that it made him feel sick but it was a job he had to do because if he'd wanted out, his father would have killed him.
"When I spoke to his mother, she said Greg Jr used to help her in the kitchen and was a sweet little boy who wanted to make everybody happy."
In 1987, Gregory Sr was tipped off that the authorities were closing in on his expanding narcotics operation. Worried that he would die in prison after having contracted HIV from a blood transfusion the previous year, he persuaded his son to take the rap for him.
"He told him 'You're young, you'll only get a couple of years,'" says Harmon. "Greg Jr told me he didn't want to do it because he had a wife and a baby and was happy with his life, but he couldn't say no to his father. He took the fall and the sentence was 20 years [he later had his sentence increased on racketeering charges]. His father had made it look like his son was the boss and Greg Jr never got over the betrayal. He goes over it in his mind all the time. He remembers how his father used to coach him in Little League and he still can't understand it."
Over the five years of their correspondence Harmon got very close to Scarpa Jr. "Ultimately, I sent him my picture and I think he fell a little in love with me," she admits. "He said he had my photograph on top of his TV."
Does she feel her own objectivity was threatened? "Yes. It was challenged. For a long time, I believed him when he said he'd never killed anyone [it later transpired that Scarpa Jr was responsible for 26 murders]. But he's still a human being. I can't say what he did was evil. He needed to prove he was his father's son."
In jail, Greg Jr's story took an even stranger twist when he found himself in a cell alongside the al-Qaida terrorist Ramzi Yousef and befriended him, believing that any valuable information he gleaned could be passed on to the authorities in the hope of reducing his sentence. Scarpa claims that Yousef told him in 1996 - five years before 9/11 - about an al-Qaida plan "to bring New York to its knees" by blowing up the World Trade Centre. Although there are official FBI memos that confirm Scarpa's intelligence, says Harmon the information was buried. "They chose what was easiest. They said 'He's a scumbag, he's no good. Why would we believe him?'"
Harmon admits that her relationship with Scarpa started to dominate her life. During the writing of Mafia Son, she was subpoenaed in the highly publicised 2007 trial of Lindley DeVecchio, a former FBI agent accused of plotting four gangland murders with Scarpa Sr. "I've got no regrets [about the book]," she says. "But would I do it again? Probably not. These have been very hard years."
Greg Scarpa Jr has not yet seen a copy of the book he helped to write. "But I sent him the cover and some of the reviews." What did he think? Harmon laughs. "Oh, he thought it was dynamite."

nicholas "Nicky Black" Grancio Colombo Crime Family

Crime scene detectives examine Nicholas "Nicky Black" Grancio, a Colombo soldier shot behind the wheel of a car at Avenue U and McDonald Avenue in Gravesend, Brooklyn on January 7, 1992.
Grancio was killed during the Colombo crime family internal war by murderous Greg Scarpa Sr.'s crew in a dispute between two factions vying for control of the family .http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/galleries/ny_mobs_greatest_hits/ny_mobs_greatest_hits.html#ph7#ixzz0KSBQ7xQ7&D

Gambino Crime Family, John "Junior" Gotti

He's gone from the most-wanted list to the dean's list.
Mob scion John "Junior" Gotti racked up an impressive 3.5 grade point average while taking college classes behind bars, court papers reveal. The Gambino family heir excelled in courses from Kaplan's College for Professional Studies while doing five years at the Ray Brook federal prison for a 1999 racketeering conviction, his lawyers wrote.
Attorneys Charles Carnesi and John Meringolo cited the sterling report cards as part of new bid to get the reputed mobster -- who claims he quit the Mafia -- sprung on bail while he awaits his September racketeering retrial.
It wasn't clear what Junior's major was

Patriarca crime family Nick Bianco mafia

Nicky Bianco

Meet Nicholas Bianco aka “Nicky” aka “ Nicky B” Nicky Bianco was a Gallo Gang shooter before he became a member of the Patriarca Crime Family

Nicky was like Joey Gallo, he was a warrior..His ethos was.”I was born a man, I will die a man”. Unlike the flamboyant Crazy Joey, Nicky was low-key, and level headed.
In a finger snap, he would kill for Raymond “RayPat” Patriarca Sr. Raymond loved his composure, and courage, and he moved Nicky up the leader ladder to a spot in the Patriarca high command. Nicky was Raymond’s acting boss while he was in the slammer
.

I knew Nicky and I will go into greater detail in my new book . But here is a tasty tidbit
.
Nicky had a ton of heat on him from a beef he had in Providence.. He went west to Hollywood to hide out until things cooled off back home. Nicky stayed with a friend of mine. .While he was with my pal, he knifed a guy . I had occasion to meet with Nicky years later. . I mentioned this incident to Nicky,
and it knocked him for a loop. Anthony Fiato

Bonanno crime family, Carmine Galante Hit

Carmine "Lilo" Galante, a capo in the Bonanno family shown with a cigar in his mouth, was murdered in the backyard garden of Joe & Mary's Restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn on July 12, 1979. The hit was orchestrated by rival Philip "Rusty" Rastelli. Galente had been fighting for the top spot in the Crime Family

Colombo crime family, CARMINE SESSA Mob Rat

CARMINE SESSA—The one-time consigliere of the Colombo crime family surrendered to the FBI on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1993, giving law enforcement an insider’s look at a raging internal family war that was dropping bodies all over Brooklyn.

Freed from prison after only seven years, Sessa delivered an extraordinary apologia during his 2000 sentencing, deriding the Mafia life he’d led and watched in theaters. “The movie ‘Goodfellas’ explains it well—meaning everybody gets killed by a bunch of animals or so-called friends.” In the witness protection program, he was later arrested for beating up his wife.

Pictured: Carmine Sessa, in black jacket.



Read more:

Rats! Mob informants

SALVATORE 'SAMMY THE BULL' GRAVANO—Underboss of the Gambino crime family, Gravano agreed to cooperate with police in October, 1991, becoming a key to the conviction six months later of his boss, John “Dapper Don” Gotti. He admitted to involvement in 19 murders, but served only 5 years due to his assistance in catching his former boss
After entering the witness protection program, Gravano moved to Phoenix, Arizona and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from this book, “Underboss.” He then started up an Ecstasy ring with his family, was caught, and will likely die in prison.

http://cftaf1234.wordpress.com/prime-time-ratfellas/

'PROTECTION' | 'Sopranos' actor Vincent says 'groups should have a better sense of humor'

Actor Frank Vincent from the former HBO mobster hit "The Sopranos" thinks his fellow Italian-Americans need to lighten up. The same, in his opinion, goes for brewing giant MillerCoors.

Vincent found out that the Miller Lite “Protection” ad campaign in which he stars was being pulled because of complaints from the Italian-American community when he received a Google alert about Wednesday’s exclusive Sun-Times story. He said he had not heard from either MillerCoors or DraftFCB about the decision

The axed Miller Lite campaign features Vincent as a mafioso thug trying to strong-arm a young clerk in a convenience store in one TV spot and do the same to a bartender in a bar in two other TV commercials, as well as in a number of radio spots. Vincent’s character in the commercials embodies many of the stereotypical tough-guy traits familiar from countless mafia portrayals in film and television, though in the Miller Lite commercials Vincent’s performance comes off as more of a spoof.

On Wednesday afternoon, Vincent said he was “absolutely surprised” by Italian Americans’ strong objections to his portrayal and by MillerCoors’ decision to pull the campaign so quickly.
After complaining to MillerCoors about the ads, Lou Rago, founder of the Italian American Human Relations Foundation of Chicago and Anthony Baratta, the Chicago-based national chairperson for the Commission for Social Justice, on Tuesday threatened to organize a boycott of MillerCoors by Italian Americans. By Tuesday afternoon, MillerCoors agreed to pull the campaign immediately, which would mean all ads will be gone from the air within a week.

“I think both of these groups should have a better sense of humor,” said Vincent, who has played a number of mafia characters over the years. He said he didn’t hesitate at all in taking on the role in the Miller Lite “Protection” campaign.

“The humor is there in the commercials, and a lot of people were enjoying the work,” added Vincent, who also said MillerCoors and its ad agency DraftFCB/Chicago spent “a lot of money” on the television and radio ad campaign that was slated to run at least through the summer.

The “Protection” campaign was the first big Miller Lite campaign to come out of DraftFCB since MillerCoors handed the agency the major account two months ago. DraftFCB also handles advertising for the “competing” Coors Light brand.

Mickey Cohen

Mickey Cohen
birth place: Brownville, New York, USA

Mickey Cohen was Ben “Bugsy” Seigel’s darker half. While Bugsy dined with Hollywood’s royalty and bedded the stars, Mickey emptied their safes and broke their bones.

Mickey was a born hustler. His mother moved the family out of their Brooklyn slum to Los Angeles before Mickey was six years old. The Cohen’s ran a pharmacy and this being the time of Prohibition, Mickey’s brother ran one of the small gin-mills in the district. Mickey’s job was to deliver the moonshine.

Boxing became a practical passion for preteen Mickey, who often needed to defend his deliveries with his fists. At 15 he was a champion and,lying to his mother, he headed east to become a prize fighter.

In New York, Mickey met some of the city’s’ toughest crime bosses and, when he was beaten senseless in the ring and decided to change his career, there were plenty of outfits willing to hire his tough fists.

Mickey moved to Chicago, met Al Capone and worked for the Mafia’s gambling rackets. One day, walking down the street in his favourite camel hair coat, a mob hitman tried to assassinate Mickey. He survived unscathed, as did his coat, though the threat was enough for the ex-boxer to move back to LA to work with Bugsy.

Together, Mickey and Bugsy were an effective extension of the East Coast Syndicate on the West Coast. They changed organised crime in the West from a backwater operation into a multimillion dollar industry, that controlled narcotics, gambling, unions, and politics. After Bugsy was killed, Mickey was the mob's West muscle.

In 1961, Mickey was charged with tax evasion and sentenced to 15 years in Alcatraz. Two years into his sentence an inmate clobbered Mickey with a lead pipe, partially parallelizing the mobster. On his release in 1972, Mickey returned to live a quiet life with his old friends and follow the fights in LA.

Mob-made: Retired FBI agent shares story for Hollywood

NEWTOWN -- Not many people get to meet a mobster in a friendly situation, let alone hear a ranking member of New York City's Gambino crime family, with the title "made man," describe his daily tasks.

But that was one of the surprise perks members of the Newtown Citizen Police Academy got this year.

Standing 6-feet-4 inches tall and weighting almost 400 pounds, 56-year-old Joaquin "Jack" Garcia certainly fits the stereotype of an Italian gangster, which is one of the many reasons he was the undercover agent the FBI chose to infiltrate the family.

Over the 26 years Garcia was an agent, he had more than 100 different identities, but his most intense stint was the three years he spent as Jack Falcone, a third-generation Sicilian, whose parents were buried in Florida.

Starting in 2002, Garcia was able to infiltrate the Gambino family -- one of the top five crime families in New York City. He was made to look like an investor in a strip club that the Gambinos, and Greg DePalma, a family capo, provided security for.

To play the part, he needed a fancy car, Rolex watch, a 3-carat diamond pinky ring, a cross necklace and a few Italian suits.To gain trust, he used watches and other items that had been confiscated by police during drug arrests, telling members of the family he would give them a good price for them. Or he would buy a TV and offer it, claiming it fell off a truck, to gain the respect of the group.

If something's hot, they'd rather get that -- to know they got away with it," he said.

He continued to gain the trust of the higher-ups, and was invited to join La Cosa Nostra and named a "made-man," someone who has mobsters working directly for him.

He maintained this persona, using wiretaps and helping organize video surveillance, until he aroused suspicion by not participating in a gang beating in a Bloomingdale's store.

The FBI pulled him from the job before he was found out. But despite his urgent removal, the agency was able to put 32 members of the Gambino family behind bars on charges of racketeering, extortion and violence.

Now retired, Garcia wrote a book, "Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family," which became a New York Times bestseller soon after it was released in October 2008.

Garcia subsequently appeared on "60 Minutes" and other news broadcasts, as well as many news publications.

What was the scariest part of being an undercover mobster? That is the most common question he gets


He said he hoped if he was found out he "could be made (out as) an agent, because the fate of an informant is a death sentence."

Mobsters know better than to kill an FBI agent, he said.

Garcia explained that in his experience mob families were run exactly as they are portrayed in "The Godfather" movie.

"With the mob you eat 24-7. It's like you're on a cruise ship with the mob," he joked. He gained 80 of his 390 pounds in his three years as a gangster.

But he did not have to kill anyone, or do anything illegal to harm someone.

"(They) used to have people whack someone, to get their hands dirty so they couldn't turn and be a rat, (but) the mob has changed ... You could be called upon to whack someone, but it wasn't a prerequisite.

He said as long as he was making the money for the family, they were happy to have him on board.

Garcia recently sold the rights to his story to a movie producer, and is hopeful someday soon someone impersonating him will tell his story.

mob Busted Suitcase

Tony "Toothless Tony" Sposado started his non -stellar crime career as a whipping boy for a browbeating old-school mobster named Mike Marquese. Mike had Tony lugging coca-cola cases and vending machines off of vending trucks..Nothing criminal about that, if the trucks had belonged to Mike
Marquese but they didn't..

Sposado made crumbs from the capers ---while Marquese made a pretty penny using the stolen swag to stock-up his own vending business. Sposado's downfall came when he met up with a punch-drunk stew bum named Ronnie Rome.

Rome had been in the vending business with Boston's Angiulo mob, but he became a fence jumper when he flaked out on a mob hit.The two flat-tires became fast friends by putting in many nights of booze riddled banter in mob owned barrooms. Rome filled Tony's head with full-of-shit-stories and empty promises that Sposado sucked up like Monica Lewinsky

. Tony then quit on Mike Marquese for what he thought would be a big time vending venture with Ronnie Rome--but it went bust when Ronnie fleeced him like a turnpike sucker at a carnival.Tony started dealing drugs and he got busted and did a long stretch in the can. He came out a broke and useless, toothless, busted suitcase.

Another true Hollywood Story