Alleged Gambino crime family mobster Anthony Pandrella was found guilty by a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday of murdering and robbing 77-year-old Vincent Zito, a man he called his friend.
Read more…
The Mafia, it’s claimed, were all over it like a rash. But were they? A story with more slack ends and dangling threads than Joseph’s Coat of Many Colours. Zelda Fitzgerald said, “It’s the loose ends with which men hang themselves.” After fifty-three
Read more…
A Philadelphia Mafia family associate was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy and drug dealing. 68-year-old Daniel Castelli had made the guilty plea in January of this year.
Read more…
Mobsters and payphones formed a decades long lucrative partnership. Conducting business on one of those things was part of their modus operandi. It was a way of avoiding wiretaps, while still getting to talk to associates far and wide. Unfortunately,
Read more…
He had not reached thirty when he died, and although he crammed a lot into his brief life, it was all the wrong stuff. In a playhouse of madness where all the players outdid themselves in their levels of depravity, he had a starring role that lasted
Read more…
Six Genovese crime family mobsters were charged with racketeering conspiracy involving illegal gambling and extortion on Tuesday. Among them are alleged captains Nicholas Calisi and Ralph Balsamo (photo above) and alleged soldiers Michael Messina and
Read more…
Anthony “Tony Pep” Trentacosta had a quiet, but very successful career in La Cosa Nostra. He rose to a leadership position within the Gambino crime family and made a ton of money in the process. Moving from New York to Atlanta to Florida, he always t
Read more…
U.S. Marshals arrested fugitive Rochester crime family hitman Dominic Taddeo on Monday one week after he had fled federal custody. The 64-year-old convicted killer was apprehended in Hialeah in Miami-Dade County and surrendered without any problems.
Read more…
If you want to make sure you don’t sleep with the fishes, you live by the rules. In November 2007 when anti-Mafia forces tracked Salvatore Lo Piccolo to his lair in a villa near Giardinello, about twenty kilometres west of Palermo the one thing they
Read more…
Philadelphia Mafia family associate Victor DeLuca will spend his golden years in the slammer. 57-year-old “Big Vic” was sentenced this week to a decade behind bars for racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.
Read more…
A deadly Mafia hitman for the Rochester crime family escaped from federal custody in Florida on Monday. 64-year-old Dominic Taddeo was recently moved to a residential halfway house after doing time in a medium-security prison. He admitted killing thr
Read more…
Mafia boss Al Capone is known for many things. Bootlegging, a massacre or two, and his hatred for taxes, of course. But did you know he also enjoyed capturing his home life on film? In 1929, Capone made a 13-minute home movie of his life in and aroun
Read more…
Benjamin “The Claw” Castellazzo is the reputed underboss of New York’s Colombo crime family. He is another example of an elderly mobster who refuses to quit the life. Despite being well into his 80s, he continues to stack up criminal charges.
Read more…
Gambino crime family associate Peter Tuccio will have to do 10 years in prison for setting a Mercedes Benz on fire to pressure a businessman into continuing to pay extortion money to the Gambino family. He was sentenced yesterday.
Read more…
Historians describe the Mafia underworld of Gotham as fraught with complexities, uncertainties, frustrations and terrors. In 1951, there were 243 recorded homicides in the city of New York. One of them was Philip Mangano. What makes his violent death
Read more…
Being smart is no guarantee to stay out of prison. Especially when you’re a captain in New York’s infamous Gambino crime family, like Andrew Campos. Once praised by none other than mob boss John Gotti for his intelligence and sophisticated crimes, Ca
Read more…
What do numbers tell us? In 1928, the boss of what we now know as the Gambino Crime Family is murdered in New York. Two years later, his successor is gunned down. Twenty-one years afterwards, the current boss of the family disappears, assumed murdere
Read more…
An alleged Genovese crime family mobster from Yonkers was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison on Monday. John Tortora pleaded guilty to obstruction and gambling charges in 2020. He had been charged with ordering a 1997 murder, but prosecutors coul
Read more…
Europol launched its EU Most Wanted campaign 2021 last week hoping to find and arrest some of Europe’s most dangerous fugitives. The list features 61 criminals from all over the world and includes prominent names of the ‘Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra.
Read more…
Scientists tell us we are made out of atoms. Maybe they are wrong, and we are made out of stories. This is one of them.
It wasn’t really a war. Hardly a skirmish, more like an incident that stretched out over several months. The number of dead vari
Read more…
