bronx - Blog - Gangsters Inc. - www.gangstersinc.org
2024-03-28T12:43:30Z
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The Black Mob: Founding boss of New York’s largest Latin Kings set gets 27 years in prison
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/the-black-mob-founding-boss-of-new-york-s-largest-latin-kings-set
2023-06-05T09:43:56.000Z
2023-06-05T09:43:56.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/11414427099?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>One of the highest-ranking bosses of the Latin Kings was sentenced to 27 years in prison last week. 46-year-old Diego “Casa” Mateo founded and led the Black Mob set of the Latin Kings and their distribution of narcotics, including heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine.</p>
<p>Mateo, who resided in the Bronx, New York, pled guilty on February 23, 2022. The Black Mob is a New York-based set, or “tribe,” of the nationwide Latin Kings gang. He founded the gang in 2002 and then grew it into the largest <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/street-gangs" target="_blank">Latin Kings</a> set in the New York area numbering around 300 members. Its power base was built on massive amounts of drug trafficking and a reputation for violence.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Shooting grieving relatives at a funeral</strong></span></p>
<p>The fear and power wielded by the Black Mob amplified Mateo’s own personal reputation, making him, at one point, the highest-ranking Latin King in the entire East Coast. As the leader of the Black Mob, he oversaw the gang’s operations and also ordered and participated in acts of violence and narcotics trafficking.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/a-new-york-mafia-capo-a-member-of-the-yakuza-a-mob-soldier-ex-con" target="_blank"><strong>A New York Mafia capo, a member of the Yakuza, a mob soldier, ex-convicts & an Irish gangster rate crime movies</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>This violence included multiple arsons, including a 2016 arson of a commercial wedding venue in Connecticut, and a November 18, 2012, shooting at a gang rival’s funeral that was ordered by Mateo. Three of the deceased’s family members were shot.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Black Mob busted</strong></span></p>
<p>In December 2019, 17 members and associates of the Black Mob were charged with racketeering offenses, narcotics conspiracy, and firearms offenses. In April 2021, seven additional members and associates of the gang were charged, including Mateo.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/latin-kings-gangster-s-streak-of-bad-luck-targeted-by-undercover" target="_blank"><strong>Latin Kings gangster’s streak of bad luck: targeted by undercover cops, shot by rivals, busted by feds</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>The defendants in this case have included the entire senior leadership of the gang and its most violent members. In addition to Thursday’s sentencing of Mateo, the sentences of the Black Mob leadership have included Carmelo Velez (228 months in prison), Christopher Rodriguez (210 months in prison), Angel Lopez (240 months in prison), Luis Sepulveda (180 months in prison), Emmanuel Bonafe (216 months in prison), Mark Woods (228 months in prison), William Gonzalez (204 months in prison), Alberto Borges (204 months in prison), Ricardo Ricuarte (168 months in prison), Juan Hernandez (192 months in prison), Raul Cuello (168 months in prison), and Paul Cuello (168 months in prison).</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/narco-cat-gang-had-2-000-dollar-tattooed-cat-as-pet-inside-mexica" target="_blank"><strong>Narco Cat: Gang had $2,000-dollar, tattooed cat as pet inside Mexican prison</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>“For two decades, Mateo ran the largest and most violent set of the Latin Kings in the New York area,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “He recruited hundreds of young men into his gang and used them to run a massive drug operation that committed countless acts of violence. Today’s sentencing — along with the other significant sentences that have been imposed in this case — proves that gang life is not glamorous and will lead to years in prison.” </p>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
“I just yelled at people” - Profile: Genovese Mafia family associate Thomas Poli
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/i-just-yelled-at-people-profile-genovese-mafia-family-associate-t
2022-11-22T04:45:27.000Z
2022-11-22T04:45:27.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10889124673?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>Thomas Poli is an associate of New York’s Genovese crime family. A connected guy, one with friends in high places. In today’s day and age, however, that will not shield an alleged mobster from prosecution.</p>
<p>As he passed the age of 60, Poli (photo above) was active in illegal bookmaking and extending and collecting the extortionate loans that frequently accompany such a business. His son Michael allegedly ran the business in the Bronx, New York, while using his father as muscle to collect the debts. All of this was overseen by higher ups in the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family" target="_blank">Genovese family</a>.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size:14pt;">Corrupt politician</span> </strong></p>
<p>While running his gambling biz, Poli had a connection to Bronx County Clerk Luis Diaz. He decided to use this to his advantage when he had some legal troubles in 2019. After being convicted, according to <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/genovese-crime-family-wiseguy-who-doomed-bronx-pol-pleads-guilty-to-racketeering/" target="_blank">the New York Post</a>, he “asked Diaz, [a former state assemblyman] who had deep ties to the Bronx Democratic Party establishment, to submit a letter to the court falsely claiming that he’d performed volunteer work for a now-defunct homeless services provider.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-genovese-crime-family-boss-liborio-bellomo" target="_blank"><strong>The man who runs New York: Profile of Genovese crime family boss Liborio Bellomo</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>He did so to prove to the judge that he’d satisfied the conditions of his plea deal. To get Diaz to go along, he gave him a little something extra in the form of a cash payment.</p>
<p>The lie did not hold. An investigation by Attorney General Letitia James into the bribery brought him down. He pleaded guilty in July of 2022 to “<a href="https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/genovese-crime-family-wiseguy-who-doomed-bronx-pol-pleads-guilty-to-racketeering/" target="_blank">defrauding</a> the Bronx state court by telling a judge that Poli had fulfilled a community service requirement in exchange for cash.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>More legal troubles</strong></span></p>
<p>Now under scrutiny, Poli’s legal troubles only got worse. In April of 2022, he and his son were <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/six-genovese-mafia-family-wiseguys-hit-with-gambling-and-extortio" target="_blank">indicted alongside Genovese family captains</a> Nicholas Calisi and Ralph Balsamo and soldiers Michael Messina and John Campanella and charged with illicit gambling and loansharking.</p>
<p>On September 29, 2022, 69-year-old Poli admitted threatening debtors to pay up as part of the Genovese family’s gambling operation. Once, he traveled to Pennsylvania threaten a man who owed money.</p>
<p>“I just yelled at people and threatened them,” Poli told the judge during his guilty plea.</p>
<ul>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
50 pounds of fentanyl/heroin seized at drug stash apartment in the Bronx – Hidden inside coffee table
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/50-pounds-of-fentanyl-heroin-seized-at-drug-stash-apartment-in-th
2022-11-17T07:57:46.000Z
2022-11-17T07:57:46.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10885721855?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>A Bronx man was arrested in connection with the seizure of approximately 23 kilograms of heroin/fentanyl (50 pounds) from an apartment located near Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The narcotics carry an estimated street value of $7 million.</p>
<p>Samuel Rojas-Camacho was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first and third degrees and criminally using drug paraphernalia in the second degree. Rojas-Camacho was arrested the night of Monday, November 7, 2022 and arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on the night of Tuesday, November 8, 2022.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Green Jaguar sedan</strong></span></p>
<p>Agents and officers stopped a green Jaguar sedan at the southwest corner of Jerome Avenue and East 233rd Street at approximately 9 p.m. on Monday, November 7, 2022. Rojas-Camacho was a passenger in the vehicle. The investigation revealed that he had travelled out of state that same day. Rojas-Camacho had previously been observed on video surveillance entering and exiting the lobby of an apartment building located at 3535 Dekalb Avenue on approximately three prior occasions.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/snatched-list-of-drug-seizures-around-the-world" target="_blank"><strong>Snatched! List of drug seizures around the world</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>At approximately 10 p.m., members of NYDETF Group T-21 arrived at 3535 Dekalb Avenue, Apt. 5B, and conducted a search, recovering approximately 11 brick-shaped packages of heroin/fentanyl containing approximately one kilogram of narcotics each, 5 hockey puck-shaped packages containing heroin/fentanyl, and a large plastic bag containing heroin/fentanyl. The packages and large bag of narcotics were found inside a concealed compartment in a coffee table.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>"Skull Crusher" brand</strong></span></p>
<p>A shoebox in the bedroom contained an additional quantity of heroin/fentanyl. Street ready glassine envelopes stamped with the brand name “Skull Crusher,” empty glassines and plastic bags of heroin/fentanyl were also recovered from the bedroom closet.</p>
<p>A subsequent field test on some of the narcotics yielded positive results for fentanyl and heroin. Further analysis is pending.</p>
<p>All of the equipment and paraphernalia necessary for packaging narcotics was present in the apartment, such as coffee grinders, rubber gloves, an air purifier and a scale. Bank receipts and medicine bottles in Rojas-Camacho’s name were also recovered.</p>
<p>“This case illustrates how narcotics flow from state to state, with large amounts of fentanyl and heroin continuing to flood New York City. Traffickers take great pains to conceal drug shipments that sell for millions of dollars, in this case inside a table outfitted with a hidden trap compartment,” said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan. “Overdose rates remain at record-high levels, with the majority of deaths attributed to fentanyl.”</p>
<ul>
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New York drug boss tricked by feds: Convicted of plot to import 150 kilograms of cocaine into U.S.
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/new-york-drug-boss-tricked-by-feds-convicted-of-plot-to-import-15
2022-08-06T15:55:08.000Z
2022-08-06T15:55:08.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10752468271?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>The high-ranking member of a drug trafficking organization operating in New York and New Jersey was convicted on Thursday of conspiring to import 150 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. Vicente “El Bori” Esteves thought he had found a Colombian connection. In reality, he walked right into a trap.</p>
<p>49-year-old Esteves belonged to a drug trafficking organization that attempted to purchase 150 kilograms of cocaine from purported Colombian suppliers, who were in fact undercover law enforcement agents.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Suitcases stuffed with millions in cash</strong></span></p>
<p>The organization negotiated for the delivery of the cocaine in Puerto Rico, with the delivery of the purchase money in the Bronx, New York. On December 4, 2020, the day of the exchange, Esteves and his crew members arrived in the Bronx to complete the transaction with two suitcases stuffed with more than $1.3 million cash, which was intended as a payment for part of the overall 150-kilogram transaction.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/el-abusador-profile-of-dominican-drug-lord-cesar-emilio-peralta-a" target="_blank">Profile of Dominican drug lord Cesar Emilio Peralta-Adamez</a>, who allegedly ordered hit on Major League Baseball star David Ortiz</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Esteves supervised the collection and delivery of the $1.3 million and carried a ledger for the transaction in his wallet. A third suitcase, containing over $644,000 in additional cash, was later recovered in a stash house that Esteves and coconspirators met at in preparation for the transaction.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/there-is-no-hiding-place-for-such-a-man-profile-of-mexican-drug-l" target="_blank"><strong>“There is no hiding place for such a man” - Profile of Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Esteves was convicted on one count of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine, which carries a mandatory minimum prison term of ten years and a maximum prison term of life. He is scheduled to be sentenced on November 17, 2022.</p>
<p>“Esteves was a ‘boss’ of a drug trafficking crew that conspired to import 150 kilograms of cocaine into the United States,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “Today, Esteves’s drug trafficking operation has been disrupted, and he stands convicted of his crime and faces the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence.”</p>
<ul>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Former Godfather of Black Stone Gorilla gang pleads guilty to racketeering charges
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/former-godfather-of-black-stone-gorilla-gang-pleads-guilty-to-rac
2022-02-19T15:22:38.000Z
2022-02-19T15:22:38.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10135489500?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Alexander “Reckless” Arguedas, one of the Godfathers of the Black Stone Gorilla gang, pleaded guilty on Thursday to racketeering, drug, and firearm charges.</p>
<p>The Black Stone Gorilla gang is a violent Bloods street gang whose members and associates had engaged in murders, assaults, robberies, narcotics trafficking, fraud, and witness tampering.</p>
<p>The group operates primarily in the New York City metropolitan area and in the jails and prisons of New York City and the State of New York. </p>
<p>32-year-old Arguedas also admitted that he shot and killed Gary Rodriguez in the vicinity of 3089 Decatur Avenue in the Bronx, New York, on December 9, 2012.</p>
<p>He faces life in prison when he is sentenced later this year.</p>
<ul>
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Bronx gang boss gets 21 years in prison for ordering 2009 murder
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/bronx-gang-boss-gets-21-years-in-prison-for-ordering-2009-murder
2021-12-27T16:15:01.000Z
2021-12-27T16:15:01.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9949260857?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Gang boss Steven “BI” Brown was sentenced to over 21 years in prison on Wednesday for participating in the August 2, 2009, murder of Derrick Moore in the Bronx. The 42-year-old had pleaded guilty and had already been handed a 9-year sentence for drug crimes.</p>
<p>As leader of the Taylor Avenue Crew, Brown wielded significant power. The <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/street-gangs" target="_blank">Taylor Avenue Crew</a> operated principally in and around the Bronx from at least 2007 until 2015. Its members sold cocaine base, commonly known as “crack cocaine,” primarily in and around Taylor Avenue in the Bronx.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/sex-money-murder-the-violent-rise-and-fall-of-deadly-bronx-gang-i" target="_blank">Sex Money Murder</a>: The violent rise and fall of Bronx gang ingrained in New York underworld’s history</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>They protected their territory by prohibiting and preventing non-members, outsiders, and rival narcotics dealers from distributing crack cocaine in the area. If anyone took a step in the wrong direction, gang members reacted with violence. Sometimes this turned deadly.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Alliance with the Creston Avenue Crew</strong></span></p>
<p>Despite the underworld being a treacherous place, one needs allies. Members and associates of the Taylor Avenue Crew also allied themselves with crews from nearby areas of the Bronx. One such crew included the Creston Avenue Crew, that also operated in and around the Bronx, New York. Its members sold cocaine and marijuana primarily in and around Creston Avenue in the Bronx.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-governor-of-tennessee-gangster-disciples-boss-byron-montrail" target="_blank">The Governor of Tennessee</a>: Gangster Disciples boss Byron Montrail Purdy ruled state’s underworld</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Members of the Taylor and Creston Avenue Crews associated with each other and assisted each other by, among other things, carrying out acts of violence on each other’s behalf upon request by the leaders of the respective crews.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Murder</strong></span></p>
<p>One such act of violence was the murder of 22-year-old Derrick Moore. In August 2009, after escalating violence between the Taylor Avenue Crew and a rival crew, Brown, who was the head of the Taylor Avenue Crew, ordered the murder of Moore. To carry out the murder, he requested the assistance of the Creston Avenue Crew, whose members then shot and killed Moore.</p>
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Drug deal gone bad: Buyer gets scammed, shoots and kills swindler, now faces life in prison
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/drug-deal-gone-bad-buyer-gets-scammed-shoots-and-kills-swindler-n
2021-11-24T18:20:58.000Z
2021-11-24T18:20:58.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9841742695?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>The drug trade isn’t like selling hamburgers or iPhones. It’s a business filled with deceit and death. Whether buying or selling, in the drug game you never know if you end up flush with cash or six feet under. Like this case in the Bronx illustrates.</p>
<p>Yesterday, 27-year-old Humberto Rodriguez pleaded guilty to killing Jorge Miguel Cabrera. It happened on the early morning of April 18, 2020. Rodriguez and other members of a Bronx-based drug trafficking organization attempted to buy 1 kilogram of cocaine on East 175th Street in the Bronx. </p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Bad review with a bullet</strong></span></p>
<p>After obtaining Rodriguez and his crew’s money, the sellers, including Cabrera, did something not unheard of in the criminal underworld: they bolted and tried to flee the scene. No drugs were sold, but they had no issue with leaving behind some sad customers.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/latin-kings-gangster-s-streak-of-bad-luck-targeted-by-undercover" target="_blank">Latin Kings gangster’s streak of bad luck</a>: targeted by undercover cops, shot by rivals, busted by feds</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>If only a bad review was the end of it. This is a different business, of course. As the scammers ran off to their cars, Rodriguez fired a gun at their vehicles, striking Cabrera in the spine. He would die from the gunshot wound.</p>
<p>Rodriguez, nicknamed “El Bori”, now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory term of 5 years. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 9, 2022.</p>
<p>Two codefendants of Rodriguez had previously pleaded guilty to drug and gun charges.</p>
<ul>
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The Little King of Garbage: New York mobster Vincent Squillante
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/the-little-king-of-garbage-new-york-mobster-vincent-squillante
2021-10-03T10:24:10.000Z
2021-10-03T10:24:10.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9638302056?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By Thom L. Jones for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>Vincent Squillante and his part in the Mafia underworld of New York is a snapshot of a time long gone and unlikely to be repeated. As he came into adulthood, Cosa Nostra was reaching its zenith.</p>
<p>There is little written about significant events occurring in Italian-American organized crime after 1931 until the Kefauver Hearings, a United States Special Committee on Organized Crime that carried out its investigation during 1951. It produced an 11000 page report and introduced millions of Americans to real gangsters, not the ones they had watched in movies and on their black and white television sets.</p>
<p>Assuming the five Mafia crime families that came to dominate New York were emerging in the early 1900s, the 1950s was not only a midway point in the 20th Century but also a half-way point in the growth and development of this criminal organization that had essentially remained hidden from the public until the senator, Estes Kefauver, from Tennessee, faced up to the gangsters in cities across the country.</p>
<p>By the time Squillante fell in with Cosa Nostra, joining a <em>regina</em> or crew in The Bronx, his crime family had already gone through three leaders at least, and there would be three more in his short lifetime. One would be murdered, one bring him wealth and power and the other would kill him.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9638302095,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9638302095?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a><strong><em>Photo: Vincent Squillante <br /></em></strong></p>
<p>Luigi Squillante and Bedelia Alberti, who had settled in The Bronx, had at least ten children, seven girls and three boys. What happened to the sisters is unknown. One brother, Nunzio, lived until he died of natural causes, cancer, aged sixty-seven in 1990, in a hospital in Catskill, New York.</p>
<p>One disappeared, assumed dead. That was Vincent. William, the third brother, ran The Bluebird Pizzeria on Burke Avenue in The Bronx that was a suspected hangout for drug traffickers and mobsters.</p>
<p>Vincent was born in June 1917, and at some stage in his late teens or twenties was part of the Mafia in The Bronx, working in a crew under Frank Scalice, who had at one time ruled the Mangano Mafia crime family before stepping down in the early 1930s. Some sources claim Scalice proposed Vincent into the mob, which, if true, would make later events almost like a Greek tragedy.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9638306457,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9638306457?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="175" /></a>In the early 1940s, the underboss of the family was a man called Albert Anastasia (right). He had accepted the role when Scalice stepped aside and handed the leadership of the family over to Vincenzo Mangano. He was from Palermo. Albert from Calabria. They were in a fiercely partisan organization, like fire and water. It would not turn out well for one of them.</p>
<p>The Mafia family we know today as The <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">Gambinos</a> had at least four crews operating in The Bronx and Harlem when Squillante entered their world, or in the years immediately following, led by David Amodeo, Rocco Mazzie, Arthur Leo and Joe Zingaro. Vincent would mix and mingle with a lot of strange men with names like Pasta Fazula, Joey Surprise, Nanny the Geep, Shats, The Sidge, Foongy and Joe Stutz. In the Mafia underworld, men would know each other for years only by their nicknames. In a landscape where no one trusted their own shadow, it made sense from a security angle.</p>
<p>Squillante generated a criminal record from the early 1950s for income-tax evasion, extortion and drug trafficking, although the tax rap was the only one he fell victim to. The 58K fine the courts issued him was paid for its alleged, through levies imposed on cartage companies that came under his control. He euchred his association members into effectively bailing him out of a federal crime.</p>
<p>He was in the sights of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) who registered him as a major target, although his main forte became control and manipulation of labor unions, especially in the field of garbage removal.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: “I’m in waste management!” - </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/i-m-in-waste-management-genovese-mafia-family-soldier-frank-giovi" target="_blank"><strong>Genovese Mafia family soldier Frank Giovinco</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>At the 1957 McClellan senate hearing into organized crime****, FBN agent Joe Amato, a founding member of what was referred to in the bureau as “The Italian Team” a squad of four, based in New York, stated before the committee members that “Squillante and his nephew, Gennaro Mancuso, were the kingpins of a secret society specifically organized for narcotic smuggling.”</p>
<p>Dramatic as it sounded, the agency could never pin a charge on Squillante for peddling drugs.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">Gambino Family</a> throughout their ninety years of changing names and leaderships, have concentrated on three main commercial areas to generate cash revenue through their control of legitimate sources-construction, the waterfront docks and the garbage industry. Vincent Squillante would make his bones for the family not by killing people but by making a lot of money for it, by controlling the trash industry, or at least a significant part of it, especially on Long Island.</p>
<p>He operated from offices in Manhattan and Long Island City and shared the control of Teamsters Local 813 formed in 1951 whose approximately 2000 members were self-employed garbage truckers operating in New York and Long Island, with a crooked Jewish con man called Bernard Adelstein who had been with the union since its inception, manipulating the union for his and the Mafia’s benefit.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9638306675,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9638306675?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="175" /></a>The senate McClellan Committee reported in 1958:</p>
<p>“Bernard Adelstein (left), secretary and treasurer of Local 813, the dominant union in the New York carting industry, served as a tool in all the empire-building activities of Vincent Squillante.......</p>
<p>..... Adelstein was able to put his union at Squillante’s complete disposal in enforcing monopolies, punishing trade association critics of Squillante and engaging Squillante-favored non-union firms. We find that garbage collection industry men banded together in associations which eventually invoked monopoly and restraint of trade arrangements with a system of punishments for nonconforming members.</p>
<p>In Vincent Squillante we have presented the picture of a man who traded on his association with key underworld characters and his ability to “handle” Local 813, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, to parley himself into a position where he was the absolute czar of the private sanitation industry in Greater New York.”</p>
<p>The chairman of the committee’s concluding statement focuses on Squillante, whose “only previous qualifications were in the New York policy rackets and as a pusher of narcotics.... [and who] traded on his associations with the under-world and the union to create a monopoly and the racketeers also set up ‘whip’ companies to discipline nonconforming carters by bidding away their customers with artificially low prices.”</p>
<p>The committee also claimed Squillante traded on his links into the Mafia to establish himself as executive director of Grand Sanitation Company, Corsair Carting Company and Carters Landfill Company. That he forced people into various associations and Local 813, and created a monopoly in the collection of cartage in the greater New York area.</p>
<p>He also refused to answer questions 120 times, quoting his rights under the 5th Amendment, which gives a person a right not to answer questions that may incriminate themselves.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9638311072,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9638311072?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a><em><strong>Photo: Vincent Squillante</strong></em></p>
<p>Chief Counsel Robert Kennedy tried every which way, but could not get Squillante or Adelstein to disclose anything. The little mobster even checked with his lawyer before admitting his name.</p>
<p>So, he was acknowledged as a powerhouse in graft and corruption, controlling a labor union, and the waste disposal industry. But.</p>
<p>Was he a killer?</p>
<p>History has written about him being a hit-man for Anastasia, although it seems more sound than fury.</p>
<p>A tiny man physically. An FBI report lists him as five two, some sources claim below five feet, and weighing, in the shower, wet, about one twenty. About the size of a jockey. Doesn’t mean he could not be deadly. Although the claims made by writers about him being a killer are not born out by any evidence. The law never arrested him in connection with a murder.</p>
<p>Although he was allegedly connected to two notable killing-one in 1951 and the other one that occurred on a hot, sunny day in the summer of 1957.</p>
<p>Vincent Mangano, the boss of the family, was constantly fighting with Albert Anastasia. On one occasion, it’s alleged, they almost came to blows.</p>
<p>In April 1951, Vincent and his brother Philip disappeared. They found his body in a salt-marsh in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, shot repeatability in the face. Vincent was gone forever. Rumors that circulated afterwards claimed he was part of a housing complex foundation on Long Island.</p>
<p>Their murders have been a cold case since day one.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9638312089,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9638312089?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a><em><strong>Photo: Vincent (left) and Philip Mangano</strong></em></p>
<p>In 1968, a man called Jim Carra, in an interview in Parade Magazine, claimed Vincent Mangano was lured to a house somewhere on Long island, killed and his body ground up in a garbage truck and dumped somewhere. The killer, according to Carra, was Vincent Squillante. There has been much debate that Carra was actually Alfonso Attardi, a soldier under the family boss Salvatore D’Aquila, who himself was murdered in 1928.</p>
<p>Jim never told us who killed Philip. Someone did. Badly. Shot repeatedly in the face, his funeral was a closed coffin affair. His nephew, Vincent Greco, helped to organize the send off, ensuring his uncle’s body remained a memory only by his photograph on display in the funeral parlor.</p>
<p>Frank Scalice, the underboss to Anastasia, was killed one afternoon in June 1957, while shopping for peaches in a fruit store on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx. Two men, identically dressed in white shirts and wearing sunglasses, walked up to him and shot him dead. They then left the store, climbed into a waiting car and disappeared into the shimmering heat of a dog-day afternoon.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-sun-was-shining-the-hit-on-new-york-mafia-underboss-frank-sca" target="_blank"><strong>The Hit on New York Mafia Underboss Frank Scalice</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Squillante may have been one of the shooters, we don’t know for sure. If not hefting a gun that afternoon, he probably set up the killing, managing it for Anastasia. Only a family boss could authorize a hit of this magnitude. And he would have used someone close to organize it.</p>
<p>Squillante’s relationship with Anastasia was tight enough that they shared the barbershop on that historic October morning in 1957, when Albert was blasted out of his chair by two gunmen.</p>
<p>Sitting in chair number five, as the bullets flew and ricocheted, according to a manicurist, Jean Weinberger in her statement to detectives from the 18th Precinct, Vincent yelled “I’m outta here.” and was gone in a New York minute.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/mob-meeting-at-apalachin-the" target="_blank"><strong>Mob Meeting at Apalachin</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9638318695,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9638318695?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="143" /></a>Carlo Gambino (right), a long-serving member of the crime family, almost certainly orchestrated Anastasia’s murder. By the time the dust settled and the other family's heads knew what was what, he had taken over the reins and was guiding its destiny for the next twenty years.</p>
<p>While all this was fitting into place, Vince Squillante was nervously preparing for his future. He probably knew fate was sliding around him like a hungry anaconda and a month after the sensational rub-out of his boss, the law came looking for him.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9638327286,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9638327286?profile=RESIZE_400x" width="117" height="183" /></a>On November 19, 20 or 22 (different sources give varying dates), along with brother Nunzio (left) and Adelstein, he was arrested and charged with extortion linked to garbage removal contracts for the U.S. Air Force base on Michael Field, Long Island. Their trial in 1958 at Nassau County Supreme Court found them all guilty, and they received various sentences: Vincent up to 15 years, Nunzio up to 5 years, and Adelstein up to 10 years. They released Vincent on bail of $50,000 while his appeal process wound its way through the judicial system.</p>
<p>While being held in prison, Squillante shared a cell with a Russia spy called Rudolf Abel. His real name, which was never disclosed while he was in American custody, was William August Fisher, and he had been born and raised in Benwell, a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, in the north-east of England. America eventually exchanged him for Gary Powers, the famous U-2 spy pilot shot down over Russia.</p>
<p>Squillante protested the cell arrangement as “being cruel and unusual punishment,” claiming it was ruining his good name.</p>
<p>On or about September 30, 1960, he disappeared.</p>
<p>While some claim the mob killed him over his ties to Anastasia, it seems more likely, based on the timing, that Carlo Gambino acted to head off at the pass something that could’ve been a major problem. By taking Squillante out, Gambino eliminated the scenario of a media spotlight on a potential Mafia-linked scandal involving the waste removal industry.</p>
<p>Joseph Valachi the mob informant, claimed when under questioning on September 25, 1963, in a U.S. Senate Investigation into organized crime, “Squillante when he lost Albert, he was not worth a nickel.” The soldier in the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family" target="_blank">Genovese Family</a> also started the rumor that Anastasia had made Squillante his godson. Considering there was a mere fifteen years difference in their ages, Valachi probably meant it in the Italian padrino way rather than a biological one. </p>
<p>There was also the ever possible chance Squillante might turn cop and become an informant to get a lighter sentence. Otherwise, Gambino did not seem to be in a rush to kill a lot of Anastasia’s close associates.</p>
<p>One that went was Armand Rava, who worked with the same crew as Squillante. He had been close to Anastasia and died because of his defiance towards the new family head. According to an FBI informant, someone murdered him sometime in 1959, ironically, in a funeral home in Florida, and his body dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. Sleeping with the fishes, the mob called it.</p>
<p>Another was Johnny Robilotto, who had come in with Anastasia after being rejected as a member of the Genovese Family because his brother was a police officer. His dead body, with multiple gunshots wounds to the head, was found on Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, in the late afternoon, on September 7, 1958. According to different sources, he was either murdered by Rava along with Aniello Dellacroce, or the brothers Eppolito, Ralph and Jimmy.</p>
<p>Years into the future, Dellacroce would become the underboss to the notorious John Gotti, and the Eppolito’s nephew, Louis, will go down in history as one of the most infamous New York cops, ever.</p>
<p>The shifting sands and tortuous maneuverings that always result after a mob boss is murdered, and the vacuum filled triggered both murders. Almost always by the man who orchestrated the coup. The politics of Cosa Nostra make the “Hill” in Washington D.C. a monastery in comparison.</p>
<p>How Squillante died and who killed him remains a mystery, as expected. He disappeared sometime after September 21, 1960. The FBI had an informant they registered as T-174 and he passed on to his handler that the hoodlum was murdered by Frank Troia along with three others, his brother Leo, Nick Rattenni, and Joe Fiorello, aka Joey Surprise, at a garbage dump in Hopewell Junction, New York. The body was compacted and buried in the tip. Or so the snitch claimed.</p>
<p>An apocryphal story that did the rounds for many years claimed Squillante was invited to a party in a house somewhere in New York, where, when suitably drunk and helpless, he was attacked and murdered by a bunch of women who were girlfriends, wives, mothers or sisters of men he had killed.</p>
<p>Stabbing him repeatedly, they then chopped up the body that was carted off to some unknown place.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9638499280,RESIZE_180x180{{/staticFileLink}}" width="163" alt="9638499280?profile=RESIZE_180x180" /></a>Perhaps the closest to the truth which might link into the theory of Gambino approving the hit to ensure no problems with Squillante becoming a liability as his trial loomed, is the version offered by Jerry Capeci, the Mafia expert, in his book, “Murder Machine.”</p>
<p>It’s claimed Antonino Gaggi, a Brooklyn-based criminal, had hated Squillante (right) for years for his alleged part in the murder of Gaggi’s relative, Frank Scalice. He and an associate murdered Squillante somewhere in The Bronx and disposed of the body at a place on 10th Street. All neat and tidy, except there are nine 10th Streets across New York, and none of them in The Bronx. This act of vendetta may have promoted Gaggi into the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">Gambino family</a> as a soldier. Getting a “button” for carrying out a hit would be the ultimate aim for any would-be Mafioso.</p>
<p>Often, when trying to understand the Mafia, the difference between fact and fiction is self-delusion. So much written about it is rumor, heresy or speculation. Even the hard facts have, at times, the consistency of Camembert cheese.</p>
<p>Vincent James Squillante was a hoodlum; a tater-tot one, but still, a bad guy. He lived and died in a society where mistakes almost always resulted in bad stuff. He ended up a particle in the quantum world of something as dazzling as theoretical physics, provided you prefer your crime as noir as it gets.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Acknowledgment:</strong></span></p>
<p><em>The American Mafia at <a href="http://mafiahistory.us" target="_blank">mafiahistory.us</a> hosted by Tom Hunt was a source of reference and I acknowledge his website and the invaluable contribution he makes to help researchers understand the complexities of a criminal phenomenon that has puzzled and intrigued so many of us, for so many years.</em></p>
<p><em>Other provenances for this story are various books, newspaper articles, reports from government hearings and FBI records available on-line.</em></p>
<p><em>****The McClellan Committee was formerly titled: United States Congress Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field. Formed on January 30, 1957, it published its final report on March 11, 1960.</em></p>
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Trinitarios gang member charged with shooting to death confidential informant
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/trinitarios-gang-member-charged-with-shooting-to-death-confidenti
2021-09-08T09:28:00.000Z
2021-09-08T09:28:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9545504293?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>A member of the Trinitarios gang was arrested last week, September 2, and charged with the murder of a federal confidential informant. 43-year-old William “Principe” Jones allegedly was joined by other gang members as they drove their victim from the Bronx to Suffolk County where they shot and killed him.</p>
<p>The murder of Frederick Delacruz, who was a member of the Trinitarios and also a confidential informant for law enforcement, occurred on December 28, 2019.</p>
<p>“Those who witness crimes and cooperate with the government to keep our communities safe are vital to our work in arresting criminals and holding them accountable for their criminal acts,” FBI Assistant Director Michael J. Driscoll said.</p>
<p>“Mr. Jones may have allegedly thought murdering an informant would make his problems go away," he continued. "But violence is never the answer. Instead, he’s now facing up to a lifetime in federal prison for allegedly murdering a man who would have testified against him.”</p>
<p>Indeed, Jones now faces grave consequences for his actions. Not just life behind bars, but the death penalty.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Check out the <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/street-gangs" target="_blank">Street Gangs section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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Trinitarios gangster gets 3 years for slashing man in the face for testifying against him
https://gangstersinc.org/blog/trinitarios-gangster-gets-3-years-for-slashing-man-in-the-face-fo
2021-07-29T06:59:29.000Z
2021-07-29T06:59:29.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9327118073?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>A member of the Trinitarios gang was sentenced Tuesday to 3 years in prison for retaliating against a witness who had testified at a previous federal murder trial by slashing the witness across the neck with a blade. Christian “White Boy” Nieves was convicted on April 23, 2021, following an approximately eight-day jury trial.</p>
<p>The Trinitarios is a Dominican gang that operates on the streets and in prison. Authorities consider it to be “a criminal enterprise with written rules, oath, and constitution.” As is universal in the criminal underworld, the gang also has a strict prohibition on cooperation with law enforcement, better known as snitching. Those who violate these rules are subject to violence or death. Which brings us to the core of this story.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Gang rivalry</strong></span></p>
<p>The Trinitarios had an ongoing rivalry with another Dominican gang, Dominicans Don’t Play (“DDPs”). In 2018, a member of the DDPs, Stiven Siri-Reynoso, was convicted of charges including the murder of Jessica White, a Bronx mother who was inadvertently hit during a shooting on a playground as part of the rivalry between the DDPs and the Trinitarios.</p>
<p>Significant evidence at that July 2018 trial focused on the DDP-Trinitario rivalry. Multiple witnesses testified about the inner workings of the Trinitarios gang. In the course of his testimony, one man testified about crimes that he had committed with Nieves, including an incident in 2009 when the witness took a gun from Nieves after a Trinitarios-related shooting that had resulted in the death of Issi Dominguez. The man’s testimony violated the Trinitarios’ longtime prohibition against testifying against members of the gang.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Slashing</strong></span></p>
<p>Following his testimony, around 7:00 p.m. on the evening of February 5, 2019, the witness was walking on Grand Concourse in the Bronx when he saw Nieves and other Trinitarios gang members on the steps of a building near the sidewalk.</p>
<p>As he walked past, one of the group called out to him, and Nieves and at least one other person began following him. Nieves caught up to the man, took out a razor blade, and slashed at his face, cutting him down the jawline. During the attack, Nieves told him: “This is happening to you because you are a snitch.”</p>
<p>The man received prompt medical attention, including stitches to close the wound.</p>
<p>“Christian Nieves’s violent assault of a witness to federal crimes was a naked attempt to subvert the administration of justice, sow fear through the community, and prevent future witnesses from coming forward,” U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said about the crime. “Today’s sentence proves that justice will prevail, and sends a clear signal to other gang members that witness retaliation will not be tolerated.”</p>
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