Biography - Blog 2.0 - Gangsters Inc. - www.gangstersinc.org
2024-03-28T20:23:35Z
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/Biography
“The Sopranos… Is that supposed to be us?” – Profile of DeCavalcante Mafia family soldier Joseph Sclafani
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-sopranos-is-that-supposed-to-be-us-profile-of-decavalcante-ma
2020-09-21T15:29:17.000Z
2020-09-21T15:29:17.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-sopranos-is-that-supposed-to-be-us-profile-of-decavalcante-ma" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237159066,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237159066?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>“The Sopranos… Is that supposed to be us?” Joseph “Tin Ear” Sclafani (photo above) was caught saying on tape. Sclafani, a longtime <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-decavalcante-crime-family" target="_blank">DeCavalcante crime family</a> soldier, was surprised to see his own environment portrayed on television. And maybe kind of proud as well. Sclafani was a made man who took pride in his job and the secretive brotherhood he belonged to.</p>
<p>As a young man, Sclafani learned discipline in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Army" target="_blank">United States Army</a>, where he served from 1955 to 1957. He also learned to maintain his fitness there. He continued to do between 100 to 150 pushups a day well into his 50s and 60s.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“Ripped it right off ‘em”</strong></span></p>
<p>After leaving the Army, he got involved in the hustle and bustle of the New York and New Jersey underworld. He began <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Loansharking" target="_blank">loansharking</a> and was involved in some <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gambling" target="_blank">gambling operations</a>. He also did some <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Robbery" target="_blank">robberies</a> and broke into warehouses, making off with a large variety of products.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: “I chopped him up so bad” - Profile of</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-chopped-him-up-so-bad-profile-of-decavalcante-mafia-family-sol" target="_blank"><strong>DeCavalcante Mafia family soldier Anthony Capo</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>“A pallet of this, a pallet of that,” Sclafani was recorded saying to an informant. “I was the score guy. We stole mink coats from Jews in Boro Park. We’d sit in a car, see them walking down the street. You ripped it right off ‘em, jump in the fucking car, and you’re gone.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237159463,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237159463?profile=original" /></a>Twenty murders</strong></span></p>
<p>He became a made member of New Jersey’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-decavalcante-crime-family" target="_blank">DeCavalcante La Cosa Nostra family</a> in 1982. He acted as chauffeur for DeCavalcante family leader John D’Amato (right), who he would drive to meetings with <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">Gambino crime family</a> leader <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gotti" target="_blank">John Gotti</a> at his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Ravenite" target="_blank">Ravenite social club</a>.</p>
<p>Sclafani wasn’t shy about his violent tendencies. He frequently bragged about having 20 gangland killings under his belt. He used his reputation as a capable hitman to make money off labor racketeering and the extortion of businessmen.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>INTERVIEW: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-author-shares-dark-stories-behind-garden-state-gangland-the" target="_blank">Mafia author shares dark stories behind Garden State Gangland</a>: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>But for all his tough guy qualities, he never seemed to rise in the crime family’s rankings. As he got older that began to stung. Like in the 1990s, when he didn’t move up to become a capo. Instead, Joseph Giacobbe was made captain, a man who was forgetting certain things, like who had been whacked and why. But regardless, Sclafani was overheard saying: “He may be older than me, but he ain’t got as much as I got.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Surrounded by rats, but standing tall</strong></span></p>
<p>As he was talking to Ralph Guarino, a person he regarded as a friend – and future friend of his; a made member of La Cosa Nostra – Sclafani was being taped by the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a>. His friend turned out to be a rat. On December 2 of 1999, Sclafani and scores of other <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-decavalcante-crime-family" target="_blank">DeCavalcante family</a> mobsters were arrested.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237159490,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237159490?profile=original" /></a>Sclafani was hit with extortion and gambling charges. Several of his co-defendants decided to flip almost instantly, including his former capo and one of the DeCavalcante family’s leaders, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/turncoat-mobster-once-again" target="_blank">Vincent “Vinny Ocean” Palermo</a> (right).</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: Profile of New Jersey</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/new-jersey-decavalcante-family-boss-john-riggi-dies" target="_blank"><strong>Mafia boss John "The Eagle" Riggi</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>But not Sclafani. He was old school and a stand-up guy. He made his bed and would sleep in it. He pleaded guilty and took his sentence of 8 years behind bars. If anyone still needed convincing of Sclafani’s loyalty to omerta, his lawyer Francisco Celedonio emphasized: “He is not cooperating with anybody about anything.”</p>
<p>He went on to do his time and was released from prison on July 29, 2005.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“The Sopranos… Is that supposed to be us?”</strong></span></p>
<p>While the FBI had their mole recording the DeCavalcante mobsters discussing topics ranging from the mundane to the criminal, they also caught the wiseguys discussing the hit HBO show <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Sopranos" target="_blank">The Sopranos</a>, which had just premiered that year.</p>
<p>“Hey, what's this fucking thing, 'Sopranos'. What the fuck are they... Is that supposed to be us?” Sclafani was taped asking.</p>
<p>“You are in there, they mentioned your name in there,” DeCavalcante family capo Anthony Rotondo answered.</p>
<p>“Yeah? What did they say?” Sclafani replied.</p>
<p>“Watch out for that guy, they said. Watch that guy,” the goodfellas in the car with Sclafani and Rotondo joked.</p>
<p>“Every show you watch, more and more you pick up somebody. Every show,” Rotondo said.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but it's not me,” Sclafani said. “I'm not even existing over there.”</p>
<p>“What characters,” Rotondo concluded. “Great acting.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“Tin Ear”</strong></span></p>
<p>To conclude on a bit of a side note: Sclafani got his nickname because he was deaf in his right ear.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-decavalcante-crime-family">DeCavalcante Crime Family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
“I chopped him up so bad” - Profile of DeCavalcante Mafia family soldier Anthony Capo
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/i-chopped-him-up-so-bad-profile-of-decavalcante-mafia-family-sol
2020-06-08T16:30:00.000Z
2020-06-08T16:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-chopped-him-up-so-bad-profile-of-decavalcante-mafia-family-sol" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237151282,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237151282?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>Every Mafia family has its go-to guy when it comes to violent acts. For New Jersey’s DeCavalcante crime family one of those men was Anthony Capo, a soldier with a hair-trigger temper who relished hurting people and making bones.</p>
<p>Capo (photo above) began using his “muscle” for the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-decavalcante-crime-family" target="_blank">DeCavalcante family</a> as an associate under capo Vincent Rotondo and would later fall under Vincent’s son Anthony. He was involved in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gambling" target="_blank">gambling</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Extortion" target="_blank">extortion</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Loansharking" target="_blank">loansharking</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">narcotics</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Fraud" target="_blank">fraud</a>, armed <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Robbery" target="_blank">robbery</a>, and available whenever the bosses needed someone to “send a message”. He was convicted in 1985 for leaning on a debtor who had borrowed money from Vincent Rotondo.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Wild kid</strong></span></p>
<p>During his criminal career, Capo acquired a reputation for being a wild kid. He would not hesitate to beat you up or shoot you where you stood. To emphasize this, he would frequently share stories about his violent exploits.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mafia-author-shares-dark-stories-behind-garden-state-gangland-the" target="_blank">Mafia author shares dark stories behind Garden State Gangland</a>: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Like the time someone came to Capo’s bar to demand money he was owed. “I handled myself pretty well,” Capo was recorded saying. “I pat myself on the back. I hit him good. He gets up and goes: ‘I got our number and I got your number.’ He didn’t die, he didn’t die. I beat him, I cut him, I chopped him up so bad, then I stick him in the car. I called his brother. I said: ‘Here he is.’ He said: ‘Where’s my brother?’ I said: ‘Your brother is under the car.’ He said: ‘Who did this to him?’ I said: ‘I did this to him. This is why… ba, ba, ba.’” </p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237151861,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237151861?profile=original" /></a>A favor for John Gotti</strong></span></p>
<p>Many members of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-decavalcante-crime-family" target="_blank">DeCavalcante crime family</a> were close to members of New York’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">Gambino crime family</a>. Capo for instance worked with powerful Gambino family associate Joseph Watts and was involved in his multi-million-dollar loansharking racket. <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/new-jersey-decavalcante-family-boss-john-riggi-dies" target="_blank">John Riggi</a> (right), the DeCavalcante family boss, was a good friend of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gotti" target="_blank">John Gotti</a>, boss of the Gambinos. It wasn’t so surprising then, that Gotti asked his friend in Jersey for a favor. He needed someone whacked.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: Profile of</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/new-jersey-decavalcante-family-boss-john-riggi-dies" target="_blank"><strong>DeCavalcante crime family boss John "The Eagle" Riggi</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>That someone was Fred Weiss, a property developer from Staten Island who had earlier been an editor for the Staten Island Advance newspaper. Weiss had gotten involved in a mob-run illegal waste dump and after the whole racket was busted by authorities, the Mafia decided it did not trust Weiss with keeping his mouth shut.</p>
<p>The murder contract was handed to DeCavalcante family capo Anthony Rotondo, who, in turn, recruited <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/turncoat-mobster-once-again" target="_blank">Vincent Palermo</a>, Jimmy Gallo, and Anthony Capo. With Capo behind the steering wheel of the getaway car, which was owned by his wife (Capo was at least smart enough to switch license plates), he could see how Palermo shot Weiss in the face. Killing him gangland style.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237151496,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237151496?profile=original" /></a>“A gay homosexual boss”</strong></span></p>
<p>By 1991, the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-decavalcante-crime-family" target="_blank">DeCavalcante family</a> was run by John D’Amato (right), after Riggi was imprisoned on racketeering charges. D’Amato wasn’t a popular guy – he borrowed money and didn’t pay back. He wasn’t well liked by his underlings, but what were they gonna do?</p>
<p>The problem for D’Amato was that his girlfriend didn’t like him that much either. She began spreading a rumor that he was bisexual and had sex with men. This was an explosive accusation for the Mafiosi in his crime family. Being gay wasn’t something that was acceptable in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a>. As Capo himself said: “Nobody's going to respect us if we have a gay homosexual boss sitting down discussing La Cosa Nostra business.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>INTERVIEW:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/interview-john-gotti-jr-sits-down-with-gangsters-inc" target="_blank"><strong>John Gotti Jr. sits down with Gangsters Inc.</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>D’Amato’s underlings decided they would kill their boss. Capo was designated as the triggerman. Capo and another mobster picked up D’Amato and drove him to a garage in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Brooklyn" target="_blank">Brooklyn</a>, using some bullshit story wiseguys always tell the person they are lulling into safety. Once they arrived, Capo shot D’Amato in the head. His body was put in the trunk of the car and disposed of later.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Hitman turned rat</strong></span></p>
<p>Still, after all this work, Capo was just a soldier, no matter what his last name might be. He remained one until December 2, 1999, when he was arrested on various racketeering and murder charges. Despite being one of the most feared men of the streets, Capo took little time deciding on his future. Instead of taking his chances in court and prison, he flipped and agreed to testify against his Mafia colleagues.</p>
<p>He then vanished into the Witness Protection Program together with his family. On January 23, 2012, at 52 years old, Capo died of a heart attack.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-decavalcante-crime-family">DeCavalcante Crime Family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
The boss his son – Profile of Gambino Mafia family associate Joseph Gambino
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-boss-his-son-profile-of-gambino-mafia-family-associate-joseph
2020-05-17T11:50:21.000Z
2020-05-17T11:50:21.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-boss-his-son-profile-of-gambino-mafia-family-associate-joseph" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237140660,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237140660?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>As far as Mafia bosses go, Carlo Gambino is one of the most legendary. His name remains notorious as it is still branded on one of New York’s five La Cosa Nostra families. Being the son of such a man, then, came with the inevitable perks. And some drawbacks as well. As his son Joseph found out.</p>
<p>Joseph Gambino grew up differently than his old man. He studied at New York University and had a bright future ahead of him if he kept his mind focused. But why study when he could be out making great money working in a business controlled by his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-boss-carlo-gambino" target="_blank">dad</a>?</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“We don’t call the police”</strong></span></p>
<p>So, by the 1950s, he started working for Consolidated Carriers Corp., a trucking company that went on to become a powerhouse in the Garment District delivering goods. It would make Joseph and his older brother Thomas, who was a capo in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">Gambino family</a>, rich men. But it also made them a target for law enforcement.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-guys-that-do-more-than-killing-gambino-mafia-family-mobsters" target="_blank">The Guys That Do More Than Killing</a>: Gambino Mafia family mobsters busted for large variety of crimes</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>The State Police sent in undercover officers posing as clothing manufacturers and truckers in a sting operation to see how legitimate this business really was. During one job interview, an undercover officer was told by Joseph what would happen if he wronged the company: “We don’t call the police — we take care of it ourselves.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Mob tax</strong></span></p>
<p>Besides Consolidated Carriers, the Gambinos ran over a dozen other trucking companies, including Clothing Carriers, Greenberg's Express and GRG Delivery. New York City garment producers were pressured to take deliveries from a trucking company that was either controlled by the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">Gambino</a> or the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-lucchese-crime-family" target="_blank">Lucchese family</a>. Otherwise they were forced to pay twice. This amounted to a mob tax which added as much as 7 percent to the price of finished garments.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/murder-on-the-dancefloor-the-demise-of-gambino-mafia-family-soldi" target="_blank">Murder on the Dancefloor</a>: The demise of Gambino Mafia family soldier Anthony Mascuzzio</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>In October 1990, the investigation was wrapped up and resulted in the indictment of Joseph and his brother Thomas along with several others on a hefty list of racketeering charges. The two Gambino brothers faced up to 25 years behind bars.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Crime pays… millions</strong></span></p>
<p>After several weeks of trial, on February 26, 1992, Joseph and Thomas made a very lenient plea deal. They pleaded guilty to antitrust charges and were told by prosecutors that if they paid a multi-million-dollar fine and promised to leave the garment district they would not be sentenced to time in prison.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/philly-underboss-crazy-phil-leonetti-talks-about-hanging-out-with" target="_blank">Philly underboss “Crazy Phil” Leonetti talks</a> about hanging out with Meyer Lansky, calls Merlino a “lowlife”</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Joseph and Thomas forked over $12 million dollars and simply walked away from the business. They had to sell all their delivery companies and all of their 400 trucks to individuals with no connections to organized crime before March of 1993. Their $12 million dollar fine could be paid in stages and had to be paid in full by September 1995.</p>
<p>There was some criticism over the deal, of course. Joseph and Thomas Gambino had made a killing while they held the Garment District in a chokehold. “Prosecutors conceded that in addition to leaving the Gambinos free men, it would leave them with a considerable portion of their estimated $70 million to $100 million fortune,” the New York Times reported at the time.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/interview-john-gotti-jr-sits-down-with-gangsters-inc" target="_blank"><strong>INTERVIEW: John Gotti Jr. sits down with Gangsters Inc.</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Who said crime doesn’t pay?</p>
<p>Joseph Gambino lived out the remainder of his life in freedom and away from the mob. The Gambino family was now under firm control of the Gotti clan and had moved on from the days of the Gambinos. Joseph Gambino passed away in March of 2020 at age 83.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview">Gambino crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Stoned to Death - Profile of Jamaican crime boss Wayne “Sandokhan” Smith
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/stoned-to-death-profile-of-jamaican-crime-boss-wayne-sandokhan-sm
2020-04-13T12:34:42.000Z
2020-04-13T12:34:42.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/stoned-to-death-profile-of-jamaican-crime-boss-wayne-sandokhan-sm" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237138487,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237138487?profile=original" /></a></p>
<p>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>A Jamaican street legend. That’s who Wayne “Sandokhan” Smith was. He will forever be known as the man who – after police treated his girlfriend harshly - attacked a police station, killed three officers, stole their guns, and got away – if only temporarily.</p>
<p>Born in 1962, Smith grew up in poverty in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Kingston" target="_blank">Kingston</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Jamaica" target="_blank">Jamaica</a>. The island offered little opportunity for the majority of its inhabitants, who had to make do with what they had. For those who had nothing, it meant turning to a life of violence and crime to get by and put food on the table. It was their only way out.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>From Jamaica to New York and Kansas City</strong></span></p>
<p>School definitely wasn’t, for Smith (photo below) at least. He left and got involved in crime. His first arrest occurred in 1979, for <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Robbery" target="_blank">robbery</a>. Within a few years, he had become the “Don” of a posse bearing his nickname that ruled the Kingston neighborhoods of Olympic Gardens, Waterhouse, Callaloo Bed, and Riverton City, and even had established branches in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=NY" target="_blank">New York City</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Kansas" target="_blank">Kansas City</a> in the United States.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-jamaican-shower-posse-a-family-business" target="_blank">The Jamaican Shower Posse</a>: A Family Business by Dudus Coke</strong></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237138882,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237138882?profile=original" /></a>Smith’s posse smuggled drugs (<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Marijuana" target="_blank">marijuana</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a>) into the United States and had his men traffic money and guns back home. If a war broke out on either side of the ocean, the posse would go to war with its rivals on both sides simultaneously. The Jamaicans took their gangster reputation extremely seriously and would die defending it.</p>
<p>No wonder then, that a man of Smith’s (photo right) stature was wanted by police on several shootings and various other offences. He managed to evade capture, however, hiding out in his heavily guarded neighborhood where police would have to come in heavily armed and ready for war if they would want to arrest him.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Diss my girl and I’ll burn down a police station</strong></span></p>
<p>Then, in November 1986, tension erupted in an explosion of violence and death. Accounts vary, but one thing is certain: in their pursuit of Smith, police officers had mistreated or disrespected Smith’s girlfriend. Upon hearing about this, Smith vowed revenge. The police officers involved were from the Olympic Gardens station so that is where he targeted his murderous rage.</p>
<p>He got together several trusted posse members, devised a plan and began tooling up - making several Molotov cocktails and grabbing M-16 rifles. Around 1:00 a.m. on November 19, the group led by Smith attacked the Olympic Gardens Police Station, a structure comprised of two floors with the upper floor housing the bedrooms for personnel and the ground floor the guardroom, armory, and jail.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fbi-arrests-jamaican-gangster-sought-for-4-murders-day-after-it-p" target="_blank">FBI arrests Jamaican gangster</a> sought for 4 murders day after it placed him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Sergeant Ezra Cummings, Constable Raymond Thomas and District Constable Archibald Robinson were caught completely by surprise. Burning Molotov cocktails flew through the air and engulfed the station in flames as Smith and his posse fired their automatic weapons at the officers. The three aforementioned policemen were murdered in cold blood. The posse looted the armory and made off with an unknown number of weapons, including more M-16s.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Manhunt</strong></span></p>
<p>One officer had managed to hide and alert his colleagues. By then Smith and his crew were nowhere to be seen.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/sandokhan--jungle-justice-for-a-ruthless-killer_11944365---double" target="_blank">attack shocked the nation</a> and every cop in Jamaica had his eyes on this case. Investigators soon discovered a big lead: one of the Molotov cocktails had failed to explode and a fingerprint was lifted from it pointing straight to a man named Kenneth Whorms.</p>
<p>Police found him at a house in Waterhouse in Kingston where they shot and killed him. Inside the house, they found several of the stolen weapons, including one of the missing M-16s.</p>
<p>The next man linked to the case, Nicholas Henry, was caught in Waterhouse as well. More of the weapons were recovered and Henry was eager to share details with investigators in return for his life.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/top-5-drug-lords-killed-while-on-the-run" target="_blank"><strong>Top 5 drug lords killed while on the run</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>After he told them all about the attack and killing of the three police officers, he pointed to Smith as the man who masterminded everything. Henry’s story was corroborated when police raided one of Smith’s safehouses. Inside they found the plan of attack on the police station. But they had just missed the big man himself.</p>
<p>Smith realized there was no way he could remain in Jamaica and booked a flight out of the country. He was at the airport in Montego Bay when his escape plan was thwarted by an immigration officer who discovered his travel documents were false.</p>
<p>Caught and standing in front of police, he allegedly confessed to the murders, saying: “The police [disrespected] my girlfriend and so I decided to retaliate.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Trials and prison breaks</strong></span></p>
<p>Smith was charged with <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Murder" target="_blank">murder</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Arson" target="_blank">arson</a>, and robbery. It looked like the game was over for Smith. He was at a courthouse jail awaiting his trial on September 17, 1987. Then, out of nowhere, he escaped.</p>
<p>Exactly how this happened remains somewhat of a mystery. Smith says a man came and opened his cell door, telling him he was free to go. But once Smith arrived back at his old haunts, his friends and family convinced him that he should turn himself back in. They told him he was being set up by police, who would swoop in with an execution squad and take him out. Smith went to his lawyer and turned himself in.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/drug-kingpin-freeway-rick-ross-moving-tons-of-cocaine-with-a-nod" target="_blank">Drug kingpin “Freeway” Rick Ross</a>: Moving tons of cocaine with a nod of approval from the Reagan White House</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>After a short trial, on March 17, 1988, Smith was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to death.</p>
<p>Authorities weren’t done with him just yet, though. They also charged him with the murder of Eddie Curniffe, who was killed in October 1986 in the midst of a gang war. Again, the verdict was guilty and the sentence death.</p>
<p>Sitting on death row, facing a certain ending, Smith tried every trick in the book and pulled off another prison break on June 15. By now, he was the most wanted man in Jamaica and his behavior came to reflect it. Several weeks after his escape he got in a shootout with police. He was wounded but got away again.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Murder spree</strong></span></p>
<p>Ten days later, he shot and killed Moses “Bredda” Bent in Riverton City. Four days after that, on July 31, Smith and several members of his posse took 16-year-old Robert Wynter from his house and accused him of being a snitch. They tied the young teenager to a car and literally stoned him to death.</p>
<p>Smith was spinning out of control, living from hour to hour, getting more violent with each passing day. He remained the Don, but was making life hell for every gangster operating in the area, especially members of his own posse. Police constantly raided neighborhoods and came down hard on everyone in their hunt for “Sandokhan”.</p>
<p>Enough was enough, someone decided. The big “Bad Man” needed to go. On September 8, 1988, Smith’s bullet-riddled corpse was found lying in the bushes. The bullets were fired by one of the M-16s stolen in the attack on the Olympic Gardens Police Station.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/black-organized-crime">Black organized crime</a> section on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Profile of Spanish drug boss Sito Miñanco, who can’t stop smuggling tons of cocaine despite his fame
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-of-spanish-drug-boss-sito-minanco-who-can-t-stop-smugglin
2019-05-19T17:19:09.000Z
2019-05-19T17:19:09.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><strong><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-of-spanish-drug-boss-sito-minanco-who-can-t-stop-smugglin" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237120673,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237120673?profile=original" /></a></strong>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Sito Miñanco is one of Spain’s most infamous drug bosses, with international contacts from the Medellin cartel to Panamanian dictator Noriega. His exploits were turned into a Netflix tv show while he himself was still actively smuggling thousands of kilos of cocaine.</p>
<p>José Ramón Prado Bugallo was born on September 23, 1955, in Pontevedra in the Galician region of Spain. He became known as Sito Miñanco and started out smuggling <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Tobacco" target="_blank">tobacco</a>. The Spanish coastline offered fishermen in the towns that dotted the area multiple opportunities to add to their meager income and trafficking cigarettes was a golden ticket for many of them. Even though, officially, it was a crime.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Smoking</strong></span></p>
<p>But back in those days, the 1970s, everyone smoked. Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, teachers and priests. People even smoked indoors! Ashtrays were just as standard as a salt and pepper set on a dinner table. If you were among the men helping to smuggle this product across the border so it could be sold at a cheaper price, then you weren’t viewed as a criminal, no, you were just as beloved by the community as the thing you trafficked in. Miñanco was no exception and could count on the support of many of the area’s inhabitants.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237121063,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237121063?profile=original" /></a><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Meeting the Medellin Cartel</strong></span></p>
<p>Though he had the support of most of the people, authorities were trying their hardest to bring him down. In the early 1980s, they succeeded, and Miñanco was sent to prison for tobacco smuggling. Inside a penitentiary in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Spain" target="_blank">Spain</a>’s capital <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Madrid" target="_blank">Madrid</a>, he met a man that would change his life: Colombian drug lord <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Ochoa" target="_blank">Jorge Luis Ochoa</a>, a man that wasted no time on cigarettes, but made it snow around the world as he and the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Medellin" target="_blank">Medellin cartel</a> showered the globe with <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/pablo-escobars-war-on-colombia" target="_blank"><strong>Pablo Escobar's War on Colombia</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>The main force behind the Medellin cartel was <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Escobar" target="_blank">Pablo Escobar</a>. In those days he was already fast becoming a household name that stood synonymous for death, violence, and drug addiction. Ochoa was one of Escobar’s most trusted and respected partners and as such offered Miñanco a direct connection to the biggest cocaine source in the world.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Dating the niece of a dictator</strong></span></p>
<p>Miñanco, however, found more ways into the coke boom. He traveled to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Panama" target="_blank">Panama</a> and fell in love with Odalys Rivera, the niece of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Noriega" target="_blank">Manuel Noriega</a>, the country’s dictator. Panama was used by Escobar and other Colombian drug lords as a place where they could stash their illicit income. Noriega was paid handsomely to turn a blind eye towards any of the activities the narco kingpins explored in his nation.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-real-dea-agents-of-narcos-javier-pena-and-steve-murphy-talk-a" target="_blank"><strong>The Real DEA Agents of Narcos Talk Fact & Fiction</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Dating the niece of Panama’s dictator and having done time with one of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Colombia" target="_blank">Colombia</a>’s biggest drug lords, Miñanco established a firm place in a global cocaine pipeline that saw drugs flow from South America and Panama into Spain’s Galician coastal region.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237121478,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237121478?profile=original" /></a>Buying a football club</strong></span></p>
<p>He made millions and began acting in much the same way Pablo Escobar did in Colombia. In 1986, he bought Pontevedra football (soccer) club Juventud Cambados and helped them climb from the bottom leagues up to the Segunda División B. To celebrate the club’s promotion, Miñanco treated all the players and staff to a tour through Panama and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Venezuela" target="_blank">Venezuela</a>. When the club’s old and dilapidated stadium needed a renovation, Miñanco stepped in with cash and built a new stand that could hold 2,000 fans.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Smuggle, bust and rewind</strong></span></p>
<p>Spending money like water on his own football club, big yachts and luxurious cars and mansions annoyed those in law enforcement. In 1990, he was busted smuggling 2.5 tons of cocaine and sentenced to 20 years in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Prison" target="_blank">prison</a>. He got out early and was arrested again in 1997, this time for smuggling 6,000 kilos of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Hashish" target="_blank">hashish</a>. He was also indicted for his role in smuggling 5,000 kilos of cocaine. That shipment earned him a prison sentence of almost 17 years in 2004. He was also fined nearly €400 million euros.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gangster-pets-animal-tales-from-the-american-mafia-to-pablo-escob" target="_blank"><strong>Pablo Escobar and his personal zoo</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Each time he was sentenced, Miñanco kept his mouth shut and did his time. Each time, he was released early and went right back into the world of fast money. In February of 2018, he was arrested again. Authorities allege that he ran an international <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drug organization</a> - with members from <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Italy" target="_blank">Italy</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Albania" target="_blank">Albania</a>, and the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Netherlands" target="_blank">Netherlands</a> - from his prison cell.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237121881,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237121881?profile=original" /></a>Prison bars could not stop Miñanco’s influence. In 2011 it became known he had bribed the warden at Huelva prison where he was locked up. Director Francisco Sanz had received two Mercedes-Benz cars in exchange for favorable treatment inside his penitentiary.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Fame</strong></span></p>
<p>Such exploits intrigued producers of Netflix television series <em>Fariña</em>. They wrote a screenplay which they sent to the imprisoned drug boss. Police agents discovered the play inside his cell during a search. <em>Fariña</em> aired in 2018 on <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Netflix" target="_blank">Netflix</a>, starring Javier Rey as Miñanco. The series was released under the English title <em>Cocaine Coast</em>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/norman-s-cay-from-notorious-cocaine-pipeline-of-the-medellin-cart" target="_blank">Norman’s Cay</a>: From cocaine pipeline of the Medellin Cartel to a fraudulent festival for rich millennials</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Despite the Hollywood fame, Miñanco continued his criminal activities. He’s operating on an international level and has a brand name built on decades of experience and a solid reputation carved in stone. Whether he will be able to undertake such activities while breathing fresh air as a free man is an outcome that is a lot less certain.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
A friend of Vito’s - Profile of Genovese crime family mobster Salvatore “Sally Burns” Granello
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/a-friend-of-vito-s-profile-of-genovese-crime-family-mobster-salva
2018-11-08T14:58:06.000Z
2018-11-08T14:58:06.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-friend-of-vito-s-profile-of-genovese-crime-family-mobster-salva" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237105276,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237105276?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>It helps to have friends in high places. It enables one to have more opportunities, but also to get away with mistakes or grave crimes even. If one’s friend is powerful enough, one could get away with anything. Until that friend is gone, of course. Like in the case of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family" target="_blank">Genovese family</a> mobster Salvatore Granello (photo above).</p>
<p>Granello made his bones working for <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/get-the-right-man-how-the-fbn" target="_blank">Vito Genovese</a>, a man who was feared as the embodiment of evil by men who feared little to nothing. Genovese and Granello built reputations as stone-cold killers in decades that were filled with such men. Their deadly capabilities enabled them to rise in the world of organized crime and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=LCN" target="_blank">La Cosa Nostra</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: A Man Alone:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-man-alone-the-story-of-genovese-family-mobster-david-petillo" target="_blank"><strong>The Story of Genovese Family Hitman David Petillo</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Known as “Sally Burns” or “Solly”, Granello had his finger in many pies. Union racketeering, hijackings, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Extortion" target="_blank">extortion</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gambling" target="_blank">gambling</a>, you name it. He even had the Oriente Park Race Track and the casino and restaurant and bar in Hotel Sevilla Biltmore in Havana, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cuba" target="_blank">Cuba</a> before Fidel Castro seized power and kicked the American gangsters out of the country.</p>
<p>In the United States, Granello ran a huge loansharking operation and owned tons of nightclubs, inheriting most of them from <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family" target="_blank">Genovese family</a> capo <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Strollo" target="_blank">Anthony “Tony Bender” Strollo</a>, who disappeared without a trace in 1962. It is presumed he was whacked on orders of the family’s boss and namesake Vito Genovese.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/when-the-american-government-asked-the-mafia-for-a-favor-the-assa" target="_blank">When the American government asked the Mafia for a favor</a>:The assassination of Fidel Castro</strong></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237105875,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237105875?profile=original" /></a><em>Photo: Vito Genovese mugshot</em></p>
<p>Throughout Granello’s mob career, he and Genovese remained close. The Cosa Nostra chief’s office was nearby Granello’s apartment and he would frequently come by for a visit. Genovese wasn’t Granello’s only (in)famous friend. Boxing legend Rocky Graziano was godfather to his youngest daughter.</p>
<p>But with friends in high places comes a high profile. By the 1960s, Attorney General <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Kennedy" target="_blank">Robert Kennedy</a> had Granello in his crosshairs and got him sent to prison on tax evasion charges. It was the beginning of his downfall.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-life-and-death-of-mafia-capo-anthony-carfano" target="_blank"><strong>The Life and Death of Mafia Capo Anthony Carfano</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>While in prison in 1968, Granello got news no parent ever wants to hear: his son Michael had been murdered. It couldn’t have been a surprise. 19-year-old Michael was a drug addict who earned his money by playing Russian roulette: He robbed members of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a>. Taking after his father’s violent streak, Michael once beat a mobster half to death with a baseball bat during a robbery.</p>
<p>The mob wasn’t having it and shot-gunned young Michael to death while he was sitting in his car.</p>
<p>Granello vowed to avenge his son’s murder. A vow that no doubt made several men feel extremely uncomfortable.</p>
<p>By then rumors were circulating that Granello’s own time was up as well. Upon his release from prison in 1970, the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a> knocked on the mobster’s door to inform him that he was marked for death. Granello closed the door on them and went on with his life.</p>
<p>A life that was increasingly more difficult. He faced serious charges stemming from a federal sting operation set up by lawyer Herbert Itkin, who convinced Granello he could get him access to the Teamsters pension fund. An enthused Granello brought several high-ranking mob friends of his into the scheme only to see everyone end up in handcuffs when it turned out Itkin was cooperating with the FBI.</p>
<p>According to former <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-lucchese-crime-family" target="_blank">Lucchese crime family</a> acting boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lucchese-acting-boss-alphonse" target="_blank">Alphonse D’Arco</a>, several mob leaders were very angry with Granello for introducing Itkin to them and bringing them in on this caper.</p>
<p>Normally, with this much heat on him, Granello would talk to his dear old friend. His blood brother. Vito Genovese. The big boss man. The Mafioso with all the right connections and the power of a god. But Vito had passed away in 1969 while doing time on federal narcotics charges and Sally Burns was without his protector.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-humble-origins-of-joe-masseria-and-lucky-luciano" target="_blank"><strong>The Humble Origins of Joe Masseria and Lucky Luciano</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>He probably didn’t think it mattered. He was a killing machine and would continue to do what he did best. If he could just beat the charges, it would be business as usual and he’d get his revenge. On September 24, 1970, 47-year-old Granello met with associates of his in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Manhattan" target="_blank">Manhattan</a>’s Little Italy. He told them he had another meeting set up and left.</p>
<p>It was the last time he was seen alive.</p>
<p>On October 6, Granello was found in the trunk of an automobile on New York’s Lower East Side. He was shot to death and had four .22-caliber bullet wounds in his head.</p>
<p>After police found his dead body there were several theories as to why he was killed. It was because he threatened to avenge his son, went one theory. It was because he brought in an informant and caused the arrest of several other mobsters, said Al D’Arco. It was because they feared he would become a snitch himself, went another.</p>
<p>They whacked him because he was vying for the top spot in the Genovese family, several reports claimed. Then there were some anonymous sources who claimed Granello had taken advantage of several young girls, even raping some of them, and that the Mafia was fed up with his despicable behavior.</p>
<p>Whatever the motive, one thing is clear. Without his pal Vito’s powerful hand above Granello’s head, the Mafia wasted little time in shooting it off.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family">Genovese crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
A deadly weasel moving tons of cocaine – Profile of Montreal’s West End mob boss Allan Ross
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/a-deadly-weasel-moving-tons-of-cocaine-profile-of-montreal-s-west
2018-08-25T07:30:00.000Z
2018-08-25T07:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-deadly-weasel-moving-tons-of-cocaine-profile-of-montreal-s-west" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237105855,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237105855?profile=original" width="600" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Allan “The Weasel” Ross was one of North America’s biggest drug bosses. He shipped weed and blow from Colombia to the United States, Canada, and even into Europe. As leader of the West End Gang, Montreal’s Irish mob, he oversaw a violent organization in partnership with the Italian Mafia and Hells Angels.</p>
<p>Like most criminal powerhouses, Ross too started out small. He dealt a bit of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drugs</a> and stole some things. One would qualify him either as the life of the party or a loser with no future, depending on your love of dope.</p>
<p>By the 1970s, Ross showed he was destined for more than just those two things. Thanks to international connections, he began moving serious amounts of narcotics, weed, hashish and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a> mostly, first into <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Montreal" target="_blank">Montreal</a> and later into other parts of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in" target="_blank">North America</a>. One such contact was Jairo “El Mocho” Garcia, a Colombian who lived in Montreal in the 1980s. He was a major distributor for the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-cali-cartel-the-takedown-of-history-s-biggest-drug-mafia" target="_blank">Cali Cartel</a> and a good friend of Ross.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-irishman-teamsters-boss-jimmy-hoffa-s-friend-and-the-man-who" target="_blank">The Irishman</a>: Jimmy Hoffa's friend and the man who put two bullets in the back of his skull</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Despite his successes in the criminal underworld, he received the less than honorable nickname “The Weasel” by his brothers-in-crime because, author D’Arcy O’Connor wrote in <em>Montreal’s Irish Mafia</em>, “of his ferret-like features and his ability to weasel out of being busted for many years. The <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=RCMP" target="_blank">RCMP</a> and the Montreal drug and homicide squads had been trying to get hard evidence on him since 1976, as did the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a> and [<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA" target="_blank">DEA</a>] in later years. He proved to be frustratingly elusive.”</p>
<p>As a member of Montreal’s West End gang, a combination of gangsters of Irish and Anglo descent, Ross held much sway in the Canadian city. The West End gang was one of three groups with a seat on the committee overseeing the region’s underworld – the other two being <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-mafia-of-montreal-a-short" target="_blank">Montreal’s Italian Mafia</a> and the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bikers-amp-outlaw-motorcycle" target="_blank">Hells Angels</a>. These groups pooled their resources and manpower when it came to enforcement work, like contract killings, and drug trafficking, setting a fixed price for narcotics dealt in the city.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-canadian-connection-flooding-the-u-s-with-dope" target="_blank"><strong>The Canadian Connection: Flooding the U.S. with dope</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>The organization was run by Frank “Dunie” Ryan, a crime boss estimated to be worth up to $100 million. As a steady source of much of Montreal’s drugs, Ryan tended to thumb his nose at the Italians and bikers. Never a smart move. Other West End gang members sensed weakness and decided to capitalize.</p>
<p>On November 13, 1984, they lured Ryan to a hotel room where they tried to tie up the crime boss in hopes of interrogating him about the whereabouts of some of riches. During the subsequent struggle things took a different turn and Ryan was assassinated by a shotgun blast to the chest.</p>
<p>Ross was thrusted into the top spot and, together with the other West End gangsters loyal to Ryan, quickly avenged their slain leader. At the same time, Ross established his dominance by showing his deadly capabilities.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/we-were-elite-and-acted-like-it-former-hells-angels-boss-george-c" target="_blank">"We were elite and acted like it."</a> - Hells Angels boss talks to Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>“A television packed with 30 pounds of explosives was delivered November 25, 1984 to a Montreal apartment where Paul April, the hit man believed to have been behind Ryan’s murder, was staying. The blast killed April and three other men and knocked a massive hole in the building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. According to court documents […] Ross ordered [the bombing] and paid for [it] by erasing huge cocaine debts that members of the now-defunct Laval chapter of the Hells Angels owed to the West End Gang,” journalist Paul Cherry writes in the <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/the-notorious-west-end-gang-leader-allan-the-weasel-ross-has-died" target="_blank">Montreal Gazette</a>.</p>
<p>In the years that follow, Ross’ influence only increased as he became one of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in" target="_blank">North America</a>’s premier drug traffickers. His cocaine flowed from <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/drug-cartels" target="_blank">Colombia</a> into the United States and Canada. The West End gang had a crew operating in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Florida" target="_blank">Florida</a> to oversee distribution there. He even sent shipments as far away as <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=UK" target="_blank">Great Britain</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Netherlands" target="_blank">The Netherlands</a>.</p>
<p>Ross frequently used Bertram Gordon to fly drug loads across the various borders. Gordon hit a snag when he was arrested in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Amsterdam" target="_blank">Amsterdam</a>, the Netherlands, on cocaine trafficking charges in February of 1989. Rather than do the time, Ross’ trusted pilot decided to cooperate with authorities and testify about Ross’ illicit business.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/king-of-the-bootleggers-profile-of-hamilton-mob-boss-rocco-perri" target="_blank">King of the Bootleggers</a>: Profile of Hamilton mob boss Rocco Perri</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Armed with several other informants and countless wiretapped phone calls, prosecutors in Florida indicted the West End mob boss. His trial began on April 6, 1992. On May 15, Ross was found guilty of trafficking thousands of kilos of cocaine and marijuana and sentenced to life in prison.</p>
<p>If that wasn’t enough, prosecutors also convicted Ross in another case in which he was found guilty of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and conspiracy in the murder of David Singer, who had witnessed a murder committed by the West End gang. That conviction added 30 more years to his sentence.</p>
<p>He died at age 74 on Tuesday, August 21, 2018, at a prison hospital in North Carolina.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in-canada-from-the-mafia-to-outlaw-bikers-and-dru">Organized Crime in Canada section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Blacklisted: Albanian mob boss Naser Kelmendi built a criminal business empire on white heroin and ecstasy
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/blacklisted-albanian-mob-boss-naser-kelmendi-built-a-criminal-bus
2018-02-03T15:33:39.000Z
2018-02-03T15:33:39.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/blacklisted-albanian-mob-boss-naser-kelmendi-built-a-criminal-bus" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237098093,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237098093?profile=original" width="600" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Authorities have Naser Kelmendi’s number. The United States government blacklisted him under the Kingpin Act in 2012 because, it claims, he heads a crime family responsible for trafficking drugs through Afghanistan to Turkey and into Europe. Still, moving throughout Eastern Europe, Kelmendi proved an elusive target as he expanded his Mafia empire in the Balkans.</p>
<p>Born on February 15, 1957, in Peja, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Kosovo" target="_blank">Kosovo</a>, Kelmendi, an ethnic Albanian, is alleged to be running one of the most powerful crime families in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Balkans" target="_blank">Balkans</a>, a region that stretches from the Serbian-Bulgarian border to the Black Sea and is known for its ancient smuggling routes. He began his career in Sarajevo in the early 1990s and would later use his sons Elvis, Liridon, and Besnik as loyal henchmen.</p>
<p>According to Bosnia's State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) and Interpol records, he runs a large criminal network that is involved in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Extortion" target="_blank">extortion</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Loansharking" target="_blank">loan sharking</a> and lots of smuggling through the Balkans, trafficking <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Heroin" target="_blank">heroin</a>, weapons, and cigarettes from countries like <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Afghanistan" target="_blank">Afghanistan</a> and Turkey into <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/europe-overview" target="_blank">Europe</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-turkish-drug-boss-cetin-goren" target="_blank">Profile of Turkish drug boss Cetin Gören</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>His ill-gotten gains were invested in countless legitimate businesses. He owns hotels, a trucking business. You can buy a lot of property when you traffic narcotics across Europe. Authorities say that from at least 2000 through 2012, Kelmendi, as the head of his mob clan “managed and directed the purchase, preparation, transport, sale and distribution, of large amounts of heroin, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Ecstasy" target="_blank">ecstasy</a>, speed, and other <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drugs</a>, as well as drug precursors such as acetic anhydride acid, through a well-established organized criminal network.”</p>
<p>His network included someone who worked as a drug manager and mixer, a person who was a manager directing shipments between <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Turkey" target="_blank">Turkey</a>, the Balkan region, and the Netherlands, and an individual who was a distributor in Serbia. All three would later turn against Kelmendi and testify about the crimes they committed on his orders. </p>
<p>Before that happened, they worked alongside Kelmendi’s son Liridon, who was a distribution manager of drugs to Serbia and other European countries, Mehanovic Haris, who functioned as driver and bodyguard, Sead Akelic was another driver, Zeljko Bozic was an auto mechanic who created hidden car compartments for narcotics, Hakija Krlic and Ilijier Jastrati were the group’s contacts in Turkey, and Asmir Kalac coordinated drug shipments.</p>
<p>Much of the smuggling was done using hidden car compartments such as specially modified chambers in gas tanks, hollowed-out furniture, false bottom trucks, hidden in fruits or in clothing, and by using a variety of other methods.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/albanian-organized-crime-gangs-are-taking-increasing-control-over" target="_blank">Albanian gangs taking increasing control over Europe's drug markets</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Through well-coordinated drug trafficking routes, large shipments of ecstasy pills were picked up in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Netherlands" target="_blank">the Netherlands</a> and transported to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, where they were repackaged and transported onwards to the city of Istanbul in Turkey where the ecstasy was exchanged for heroin and other <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drugs</a>. The drugs received in Istanbul were then transported back through Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo and then delivered and sold to dealers and distributors throughout Europe.</p>
<p>As his success grew so did the stature of his connections. He is alleged to have close ties to some of Kosovo's leading politicians and several powerful businessmen, including Fahrudin Radoncic, who owns Bosnia's largest newspaper.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237098858,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237098858?profile=original" width="600" /></a>At that point, a simple mob boss turns into something much more dangerous: A player in the world of global business and politics. It is no wonder then that the United States Department of Treasury added Kelmendi (photo above) to its Kingpin list in 2012.</p>
<p>Shortly thereafter, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued a warrant for Kelmendi’s arrest. The indictment charged him with drug trafficking and the 2007 murder of Bosnian crime boss Ramiz “Celo” Delalic, who was beefing with Kelmendi and other members of the nation’s underworld.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-greek-crime-boss-alexandros-angelopoulos" target="_blank">Profile of Greek crime boss Alexandros Angelopoulos</a>, nicknamed "The Greek Escobar"</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Delalic was a Bosnian Muslim warlord who started a career in organized crime after the wars in the Balkans. Prosecutors say Delalic was interfering with Kelmendi’s international drug trafficking operations in Sarajevo and throughout the region by giving Bosnian law enforcement authorities information about Kelmendi’s criminal activities. Kelmendi also held Delalic responsible for the murder of close associate Sever Lekic.</p>
<p>If that wasn’t enough, Delalic allegedly used old war resentments and events to publicly discredit other crime groups, led by gangsters of other ethnicities such as the one led by Darko Elez. Despite all the ethnic tensions and violence during the Balkan wars, the areas mob clans always managed to function. War is bad for business and, business, is what everyone is there for. With Delalic trying to stir up old beefs based on ethnicity, everyone agreed he had to be eliminated.</p>
<p>According to the indictment, in 2006 Kelmendi hired two notorious Serbian hitmen, Strahinja Raseta and Nebojsa Vukomanovic, to murder Delalic. He and several other crime figures paid them €100,000 euro. To make sure things went according to plan, Kelmendi personally travelled to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Serbia" target="_blank">Serbia</a> to hand over the money to a middle-man who was to forward it to the assassins once the job had been completed.</p>
<p>It was almost certain the execution would go according to plan. How could it not? Raseta and Vukomanovic were stone-cold killers and part of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Raseta" target="_blank">Raseta crime family</a>. They belonged to a crew led by Milan “Sandokan” Ostojic operating out of the town of Sabac in Serbia. Murdering people was their core business, informants told police. Raseta usually was the man who pulled the trigger, with Vukamanovic close by assisting when necessarily. Ostojic would take requests and hand out the assignments.</p>
<p>Experienced and cold blooded, the men fulfilled their contractual obligations. On a summer night in June 2007, at around 23:30, Raseta fired 27 bullets into Delalic with his Heckler & Koch. To make sure, he walked over and fired several more bullets into the fallen crime boss’ head.</p>
<p>It took several years, but in late 2012 authorities had hit Kelmendi with charges that he was behind this brutal gangland slaying. They had him. Of course, with an influential man like Kelmendi things are never that easy.</p>
<p>When authorities went looking for him, they found out their target had already fled the country. They issued an international arrest warrant, which resulted in the capture of Kelmendi on May 6, 2013, by police in Pristina, Kosovo. Because the two countries don’t have an extradition agreement, however, Kelmendi was out on the streets the next day. Yet another warrant was issued, this time finally leading to Kelmendi’s imprisonment while awaiting his trial.</p>
<p>The 61-year-old mob boss strenuously denied all charges against him. In court he found people who believed him. They acquitted him of organized crime and murder charges. Still, they found him guilty of narcotics trafficking. How could they not, seeing the mountain of evidence? On Thursday February 1, 2018, he was sentenced to 6 years in a Kosovar prison.</p>
<p>It is highly doubtful that his story ends here.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Profile: Belgian crime boss Marcel “Le Grande Marcel” Habran
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-belgian-crime-boss-marcel-le-grande-marcel-habran
2016-12-29T10:23:39.000Z
2016-12-29T10:23:39.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-belgian-crime-boss-marcel-le-grande-marcel-habran"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237079865,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237079865?profile=original" width="510" /></a>By Milko</p>
<p>Marcel Habran was born on June 5, 1933. Nicknamed “Le Grand Marcel,” which means “The Big Marcel,” he was known as the godfather of the underworld in the Belgian city of Liège. His first arrest came at the age of 18, after he stole some copper. During those early years, Habran worked in bars in Liège’s red light district. Besides his work tending bar, he also got involved in criminal activities such as theft and assault. While in his early twenties he is also alleged to have had several girls working for him as <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Prostitution">prostitutes</a>. Later, Habran got involved in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Robbery">armed robbery</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Extortion">extortion</a>.</p>
<p>On December 18, 1972, Habran was arrested on suspicion of his involvement in a robbery on a warehouse in Schaarbeek. In an underground garage of the warehouse, robbers awaited an armored truck that came in to pick up the day’s earnings. One man was killed during the heist. Several minutes after the deadly robbery, police arrested Habran and another man. During his arrest, Habran received four broken ribs and a broken nose. In December of 1974, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.</p>
<p>While in prison, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Habran">Habran</a> studied law and learned to speak Spanish and Portuguese. In 1976 he was one of the leaders of an uprising in the prison located in Leuven. After serving six years of his 18-year sentence, he was released. A free man, he started his own garage and got back to committing armed robberies.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237080068,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237080068?profile=original" width="520" /></a>On September 3, 2008, he was back in court to face his biggest legal battle yet. Authorities suspected him of eight murders, several armed robberies, and leading a criminal organization. Prosecutors suspected Habran was involved in the robbery of a cash transport in Borgworm on January 12, 1998, in which two were killed.</p>
<p>After the robbery, several witnesses and gang members were said to have given statements to police, this ended up costing a bunch of them their lives, among them a lieutenant of Habran, Leopold Marèchal, who was assassinated.</p>
<p>He wasn’t the only one with ties to Habran to end up killed. Gangsters Sam Bouille, Calogero Scerra, Franco Vella, Onofrio Cacciatore, Robert Bovenisti, Georges Hardy and Mario Tomasi were all whacked. Even Jean Brison, who for years was a loyal underling of Habran, was found brutally murdered. One of his arms was said to have been cut off. Police found blood of Brison in a van owned by Habran, but he claimed he loaned his van to friends at that time.</p>
<p>Regarding the robbery in Borgworm, Habran also claimed to have an alibi: At exactly that time he was filling in his lottery form at a newspaper store in Florenville. He had even saved a copy of the form, which he conveniently had at the ready upon his arrest in October of 2002.</p>
<p>On March 9, 2009, a court in Liège found Habran guilty of the robbery in Borgworm and sentenced him to 15 years behind bars. According to the court, Habran did not himself partake physically in the robberies, but he was the mastermind that did the reconnaissance and planning. He then let younger criminals carry out the actual heist. </p>
<p>Back behind bars, Habran went on a hunger strike in April of 2010, protesting the prison regime in Vorst. After talking to the warden, he quit his strike. He allegedly made a deal with them that he could keep his typewriter and coffeemaker in his cell.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237080653,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237080653?profile=original" width="332" /></a>A Belgian police commissioner who had interrogated Habran for hours in the 1970s and 1980s, said Habran was a pleasant person with whom you could discuss any topic, except his business. Pleasant or not, there was a rumor going around in Liège in 2006 that a €25,000 euro contract had been put on Habran’s life.</p>
<p>On February 9, 2016, a Belgian court decided that the 82-year-old Habran could serve out the remainder of his sentence at home to care for his sick wife. He would be monitored via an ankle bracelet. He had been released on furlough successfully several times before the court’s order.</p>
<p>Two days later, he was a free man once more. Outside the prison walls, he told (right) the assembled press that he “remained innocent of the crimes he was convicted of” and that he planned to “run a 10K.”</p>
<p><em><strong>Milko (a pseudonym) is a Dutchman who has studied organized crime in the Netherlands, its history, and its offshoots in foreign countries for over two decades. He is also very knowledgeable about crime in other European countries and is eager to share his information.</strong></em></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/europe-overview">European organized crime section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
All In The Game: Two men who went from fighting organized crime and gangsters to refereeing star athletes
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/all-in-the-game-two-men-who-went-from-fighting-organized-crime-an
2016-10-07T06:00:00.000Z
2016-10-07T06:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/all-in-the-game-two-men-who-went-from-fighting-organized-crime-an"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237066059,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237066059?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Two men. Both referee. Different sports. Different rules. But with a very similar past. Though both John McCarthy and Bob Delaney are now refereeing sports matches, they began their career stopping people from committing crimes or busting them after the fact. One thing all men – be they athletes or mobsters – learned the hard way: You don’t mess with these two fellas.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong>“Big John” McCarthy: Bossing around real G’s since the 1980s</strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237066652,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237066652?profile=original" width="500" /></a></strong></span>John McCarthy is known by fight fans around the world simply as “Big John.” He’s the big dude standing in the center of the cage – better known as the octagon - right before two fighters go at it during a Mixed Martial Arts (<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=MMA">MMA</a>) fight and the man watching their safety as they throw punches and kicks with reckless abandon.</p>
<p>In a fight things happen fast. One second the guy in the blue corner is winning, his opponent wobbly, the next second he himself is laying on the floor knocked out cold. In a sport where seconds matter, McCarthy has proven himself to be the best. He keeps his cool throughout the match and his calm presence ensures a safe environment for the fighters and a correct foul-free fight for the audience.</p>
<p>It’s not a huge surprise then to realize that before he became a full-time MMA referee, he was a cop patrolling the mean streets of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=LA">Los Angeles</a>, graduating from the police academy in 1986. Working the L.A. beat is no joke, but then again, neither is “Big John” McCarthy.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/ufc-champion-conor-mcgregor-s-fascination-with-gangsters" target="_blank"><strong>UFC champion Conor McGregor’s fascination with gangsters</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>On his second day on the job working in the Hollywood division, he chased a suspect through the nighttime streets, while his partner chased a second culprit in his car. After cornering his prey behind a run-down apartment building, McCarthy cuffed him and dragged him back to where he had seen him dump a bag.</p>
<p>He had hit the jackpot. Inside the bag was eleven pounds of fifty-dollar rocks of cocaine worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. His partner hit the lottery as well after finally nailing the car he was chasing and arresting the driver. The car was loaded with guns.</p>
<p>Not satisfied working his beat, McCarthy joined CRASH, the <em>Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums</em> program. Where he busted heads with the city’s most notorious <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gangs">street gangs</a>. “For a long time, I was assigned to the 18<sup>th</sup> street gang, one of the biggest Hispanic gangs throughout Los Angeles and eventually the world,” McCarthy writes in his autobiography <em>Let’s Get It On</em>. “I was also assigned to the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=MS13">Mara Salvatrucha</a>, a ruthless Salvadoran gang. The School Yard Crips was another one I had. There was a turf war on the Venice boardwalk between the Venice Shoreline Crips and the Playboy Gangster Crips out of West Los Angeles in the Cadillac-Guthrie area.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/drug-dealer-who-impersonated-mma-champion-conor-mcgregor-jailed" target="_blank"><strong>Drug dealer who impersonated MMA champion Conor McGregor jailed</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>The gang violence never bothered him. “Because they chose this life, I never had a problem with gang members shooting other gang members,” he writes. “To me, that was part of natural selection, like animals in the wild. It was survival of the fittest.”</p>
<p>Much like two men standing in front of each other in a cage, ready to go to war in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=UFC">UFC</a>, while “Big John” enforces the rule of law.</p>
<p>In 2018, he decided to retire from refereeing. He currently works as a commentator for fighting organization Bellator.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong>Bob Delaney: Hanging in New Jersey with big bad truckers and the Mafia</strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237066671,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237066671?profile=original" width="500" /></a></strong></span>You might know Bob Delaney as one of the NBA’s star referees. But before he stood on the basketball court getting yelled at by tall, muscular athletes, he almost got his head blown off by New Jersey mobsters after he infiltrated their illegal rackets and busted dozens of them.</p>
<p>It all begin in the 1970s after he had graduated college and joined the New Jersey State Police where he began working as an undercover agent, involved in “Project Alpha, one of the nation’s first major undercover investigations of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mob">mob</a>,” he writes in his autobiography <em>Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob</em>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/mob-boss-john-gotti-s-grandson-is-introducing-the-world-of-mixed" target="_blank">Mob boss John Gotti’s grandson</a> is introducing the world of Mixed Martial Arts to the family’s fighting spirit</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>“I was a young trooper who wanted to take on the bad guys,” he writes. When a mob associate flipped and offered his services to the State Police, they gave Delaney a call and paired the two men up. “[Patrick Kelly] was a slick mob associate. […] And there we were, dealing every day with what they call ‘<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gangsters-inc-s-mafia-speak">capable</a>’ guys, meaning guys that are capable of putting a bullet in your head if you make one small slip.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237067255,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237067255?profile=original" width="290" /></a>Under his new identity Robert Covert, Delaney began his career as president of Alamo Trucking, a company set up by law enforcement to lure greedy mobsters into coming inside to perhaps say some illegal things, make some illicit deals or simply extort some funds, all the while tape and video recorders were running, capturing the whole thing for use in court.</p>
<p>It worked like clockwork. Bobby Covert and Alamo Trucking were too good to resist and members of the New Jersey branches of New York’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family">Genovese crime family</a> and Philadelphia’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-bruno-crime-family">Bruno crime family</a>. Every day, Delaney was confronted by men who inspired fear in everyone they met and had a reputation as stone cold killers. Men like <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/genovese-capo-tino-fiumara">Tino Fiumara</a> (photo right) and John DiGilio, high-ranking wiseguys of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Genovese">Genovese crime family</a>, and the DiNorscios of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Lucchese">Lucchese</a>’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-lucchese-new-jersey">New Jersey branch</a>, who were at that time affiliated with Philadelphia’s Bruno crime family.</p>
<p>For three years, Delaney remained undercover. Sweet talking gangsters into an ever-expanding puddle of quicksand as they discussed mob rackets and future projects. After all was said and done, over thirty mobsters were sent to prison, seriously hampering their criminal activities.</p>
<p>What should’ve been a huge success, also left Delaney with headaches. By now, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had to make the difficult decision to quit the New Jersey State Police and find a new career.</p>
<p>He found one in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=NBA">NBA</a>. In 1987, he joined the basketball league as a referee and found a new life purpose laying down the law to the world’s best players, including the best of all time: Michael Jordan. Doing it all out in the open, under his own name, with a packed stadium and millions of viewers at home.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-4"><strong>Josh Rosenthal: The Black Sheep</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237067486,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237067486?profile=original" width="350" /></a>Life is all about choices. These choices determine the path of your life. Josh Rosenthal seemed to be doing great as far as choices went. He was a passionate martial artist who shined in the octagon as a referee. Renowned MMA website Sherdog listed him at number 7 among the ten best refs in the business.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: Profile of </strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gangster-turned-cage-fighter-lee-murray" target="_blank"><strong>Gangster-turned-Cage Fighter Lee Murray</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>But his success in the cage was eclipsed by his downfall outside it. Bad choices coupled with illegal behavior will do that to a man.</p>
<p>In 2012, federal agents raided a warehouse in Oakland, California, owned by Rosenthal and found 1,356 <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Marijuana">marijuana</a> plants inside. The plants had an estimated street value of more than $6 million. Caught red-handed and with little options, Rosenthal pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana and possession with intent to distribute and was sentenced to 37 months in prison.</p>
<p>While we at <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/">Gangsters Inc.</a> are diving into the sports side of our underworld, let us end this story about the ‘foul’ referee with a quote from Rocky:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!”</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/street-gangs">Street Gangs section</a> or <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gangsters-inc-s-showbiz">Showbiz section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
“This is for you, Frank!” – Profile of Mafia boss Frank Costello
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/this-is-for-you-frank-profile-of-mafia-boss-frank-costello
2016-07-16T10:30:00.000Z
2016-07-16T10:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/this-is-for-you-frank-profile-of-mafia-boss-frank-costello"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237070070,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237070070?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>“What have you done for your country as a good citizen?”</p>
<p>“Well…. I don’t know what you… what you mean by that?”</p>
<p>“When you’re looking back over the years now till that time when you became a citizen, and now standing twenty odd years after that, you must have in your mind some things that you have done that you can speak of to your credit as an American citizen, if so: What are they?”</p>
<p>“Paid my taxes!”</p>
<p>The date is March 13, 1951, and with his witty answer mob boss Frank Costello just caused an entire courtroom packed with reporters, lawyers, and politicians to erupt with roaring laughter. Though it was funny, Costello was not trying to be the class clown. This was Costello defending himself, taking a stand against the men on the other side of the room asking him all these pointed questions about his character, his criminal record, his friends, his businesses. Each question dripping with contempt. By 1951, Costello was involved in so many enterprises – both illegitimate and legitimate – that he could have named several things that spoke to his “credit as an American citizen,” but he chose not to. Instead, he picked as an answer one of two certainties in the life of an American citizen. Pay your taxes, and you’re a good citizen. Don’t pay your taxes, and you’re <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Capone">Al Capone</a>. It’s a fine line. With his snappy comeback Costello made that crystal clear to the men opposite of him.</p>
<p>Those men were part of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Kefauver">Kefauver Committee</a> on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. In 1949, the American Municipal Association, which represented over 10,000 cities, petitioned the federal government to combat the growing influence of organized crime. Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee headed the special committee which, during the course of 15 months, met in fourteen major U.S. cities and interviewed hundreds of witnesses in order to investigate organized crime in America.</p>
<p>As the committee hit the Federal Courthouse in Foley Square, New York, in March of 1951, the American public had become very intrigued by the whole spectacle. The proceedings were aired live on television and it gave many upstanding citizens their first look at actual gangsters and crime bosses. As Frank Costello sat down to answer questions put to him by the committee an estimated 30 million people tuned in to watch.</p>
<p>Costello, wearing an expensive tailor-made suit, with his slick hair combed back, and gruff voice with a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=NY">New York</a> accent, gave viewers a glimpse at what would become the stereotypical American mobster. However, he wanted no part of the cameras, his lawyer demanded that reporters could not film his face. The committee obliged and the cameramen zoomed in on the mob boss’ hands instead. For the next three days, Costello was questioned and grilled, while people at home watched his hands twist and clench, clasp and unclasp, his fingers drumming on the table as his horse voice grew tired and annoyed.</p>
<p>He didn’t have to sit down and answer any questions. He could’ve pleaded the fifth as protection against self-incrimination and make it a short and boring appearance, just like his fellow mobsters <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-lucchese-crime-family">Thomas Lucchese</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family">Vito Genovese</a>, and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview">Albert Anastasia</a> had done. But Costello didn’t want to prove the committee’s investigators correct in their allegations that he was a criminal overlord. So, he sat down and grumbled his way through the proceedings coming across as every bit the hoodlum the Kefauver Committee claimed him to be.</p>
<p>It wasn’t the first time Costello’s plans to mislead an official in court failed. On March 11, 1915, he was arrested and charged with being in possession of a gun without written permit. As he appeared before the judge, Costello’s lawyer did his utmost best to portray his 24-year-old client as a respectable citizen who only had the gun because he worked in a neighborhood which had men of “bad character” roaming around against whom he had to defend himself.</p>
<p>The judge wasn’t buying it. “I find that in 1908, that is, seven years ago, he was arrested for assault and robbery, and in that case he was discharged,” the judge began. “I find that in 1912 he was again arrested for assault and robbery, and he was discharged in that case. (…) I have looked him up, and I find that while there are a good many letters in regard to him (attesting to his character), nevertheless, I find his reputation is not good. On the contrary it is bad.”</p>
<p>Costello was sentenced to one year in prison. When he was released he kept a low profile, instead of robbing purses from ladies, he stuck to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gambling">gambling</a> and ran a small crap game. But he didn’t find a legitimate job. Nor did he go looking for one. In those days Italians were not in high demand. That was one of the reasons he Americanized his name to “Frank Costello.”</p>
<p>Born in the little town of Cosenza in Calabria, Italy, on January 26, 1891, he came into this world as Francesco Castiglia, the son of Luigi and Ucone. In 1895, his father left Italy to make a better life for his family in the United States. Other relatives, including Francesco, followed a few months later. The family eventually settled in East Harlem’s Little Italy.</p>
<p>While his father ran a grocery store at 232 East 108<sup>th</sup> Street, a 10-year-old Costello did his best to make some money on his own. “He ran errands for saloon keepers, sold papers, and ran a little crap game for the other kids, paying off the Irish cop who strolled the beat,” author Henry Zeiger writes in Frank Costello. “He did some menial work in a piano factory and a notions house. When he was 14 he signed on as a deckhand, and for two years shuttled between New York and Central and South America as an ordinary seaman.”</p>
<p>But all that honest, hard work did not quite pay off as young Costello had hoped. He saw the men walking around the neighborhood. Dressed in fine suits, always loaded with money, they never had to work hard a day in their life, it seemed. At age 17, he had found the job he wanted. He went out and, allegedly, robbed a pocketbook. Police were on him though and charged him accordingly, but thanks to testimony of his family who provided him with an alibi, the case was dismissed. In 1912, Costello was charged with robbing a woman who was on her way to the bank with $1,600. Again, the charges were dismissed. Though he dodged those two arrests, they came back to haunt him when the judge sentenced him to one year in prison in March of 1915 after he was convicted of carrying a concealed gun.</p>
<p>As someone who made a living gambling, it was inevitable that Costello meet <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-big-bankroll-the-rise-and-fall-of-new-york-mob-boss-arnold-ro" target="_blank">Arnold Rothstein</a>, the infamous Jewish crime boss known as “The man who fixed the 1919 World Series.” Learning from the “master” himself, Costello saw that in the underworld using ones brain could get you farther than just a gun. As Rothstein schooled him in the ways of bookmaking and gambling, both men were presented with a far more lucrative business opportunity: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Prohibition">Prohibition</a>.</p>
<p>When you look at organized crime in the United States, there is a distinct difference between the years before prohibition and the years during and following prohibition. It’s night and day. With prohibition, gangsters were given a popular, successful, and, up until that moment, legitimate enterprise all to themselves. Drinking alcoholic beverages was and remains a favorite pastime of many hardworking citizens. But as people tend to do, there were those who abused the beverage in excess and caused quite a ruckus.</p>
<p>In Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, author Daniel Okrent writes: “By 1810 the number of distilleries in the young nation had increased fivefold, to more than fourteen thousand, in less than two decades. By 1830 American adults were guzzling, per capita, a staggering seven gallons of pure alcohol a year. “Staggering” is the appropriate word for the consequences of this sort of drinking. In modern terms those seven gallons are the equivalent of 1.7 bottles of a standard 80-proof liquor per person, per week—nearly 90 bottles a year for every adult in the nation, even with abstainers (and there were millions of them) factored in. Once again figuring per capita, multiply the amount Americans drink today by three and you’ll have an idea of what much of the nineteenth century was like.”</p>
<p>It was a non-stop St. Patrick’s Day topped off with Mardi Grass and a dessert of Spring Break.</p>
<p>Or, to use the language of the time, men and women drank their fill and engaged in lewd behavior. They gambled, whored, and fought. Couples were screaming in the streets while others urinated lying down on the sidewalk. The four year-old United States Brewers’ Association declared in 1866 that hard liquor caused “domestic misery, pauperism, disease and crime.”</p>
<p>By the early 1900s things reached a boiling point and a movement to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol engulfed the nation all the way into the chambers of powerful politicians in Washington. In 1917, the anti-booze movement won over congress resulting in the official start of prohibition on January 16, 1920.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237070460,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237070460?profile=original" width="219" /></a>The modern-day American Mafia had been given its goose with the golden eggs. Rothstein and Costello wasted no time in grabbing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Already having amassed a fortune from gambling and other rackets, Rothstein became a premier financier of bootlegging gangsters looking to smuggle booze into the United States. He did so for Jewish crime bosses Waxey Gordon and Max Greenberg, and he also did it for young up-and-coming hoodlums like Frank Costello and men like <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-meyer-lansky-laundered-the-american-mafia-s-dirty-cash-and-ma">Meyer Lansky</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/very-bad-men-how-jewish-racketeers-beat-the-system">“Lepke” Buchalter</a>, and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/luckys-luck-how-charlie">Charles “Lucky” Luciano</a>. Backed by Rothstein, Costello made a fortune running shipments of Scotch from Canada to the United States.</p>
<p>More importantly than riches, Rothstein provided these young gangsters with a blueprint on how to run a criminal enterprise. He was the perfect role model. With Rothstein it was all about the money, all other nonsense was ignored. He didn’t discriminate, he worked with the Italians and with the Irish. His objective was to run a smooth and extremely profitable operation. Nothing else mattered.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Rothstein, his knack for gambling and his talent for predicting the odds proved insufficient in foreseeing his own demise. On Sunday, November 4, 1928, he was shot multiple times at the Park Central Hotel in Manhattan, New York. At the hospital, he refused to identify his assailant, telling police: “You stick to your trade. I'll stick to mine.” He did, and died two days after being shot.</p>
<p>The death of gambling czar Arnold Rothstein heralded the era of the Italian Mafioso. With prohibition in full swing, the Italians were quick to expand and take over territory from the more established Irish and Jewish gangs. It was business as usual for Frank Costello, even without his mentor and financier. He was now part of the gang led by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-humble-origins-of-joe-masseria-and-lucky-luciano">Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria</a>, a Sicilian-born mobster in his early forties who had immigrated to the United States as a teenager and had taken it upon himself to live up to his nickname and conquer the New York underworld. During the late 1920s, Masseria had established himself as a criminal powerhouse. He surrounded himself with many of Rothstein’s prized pupils, besides Frank Costello there were <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/luckys-luck-how-charlie">Charles Luciano</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/get-the-right-man-how-the-fbn">Vito Genovese</a> as well, and was on his way to becoming America’s undisputed boss of bosses.</p>
<p>But Masseria was not a popular leader and seen as a tyrant by many of the crime families now under his control. A group led by another Sicilian immigrant, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/american-mafia-s-boss-of-bosses-whacked-at-his-office">Salvatore Maranzano</a>, was building a formidable opposition to “Joe the Boss” and his muscle. They began rising up against Masseria’s forces and the stage was set for a bloody showdown that has gone down in history as one of, if not the most important event to shape the modern American Mafia.</p>
<p>It was dubbed the Castellammare War.</p>
<p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/american-mafia-s-boss-of-bosses-whacked-at-his-office">Salvatore Maranzano</a> came to the United States around 1925 after leaving his birth town of Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily. There, he was a “chief warrior” of the local Mafia clan. Now, in New York City, Maranzano was to put his expertise to work as the leader of the revolt against “Joe the Boss.”</p>
<p>And he did.</p>
<p>One by one Masseria’s men were picked off by Maranzano’s hit men. Once it became clear that Masseria was losing the war, many of his underlings jumped ship and sided with Maranzano. Though loyalty is praised unanimously among Mafiosi it is a trait many lack when push comes to shove. Of course, it is nothing personal. Just business. So too for the young <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/luckys-luck-how-charlie">Charles “Lucky” Luciano</a>, who joined the forces of Maranzano and offered his boss up on a silver platter. Of course, he expected some things, some favors, in return.</p>
<p>On April 15, 1931, Masseria had a meeting at the Nuova Villa Tammaro in Coney Island. It was to be a relaxed meet with some of his trusted friends. They’d have lunch, play some cards, and laugh the misery of war away while trash talking each other’s card skills. He could need some distraction from the war. It was all around him now. Visible. As he got to the meet in his armored car with bulletproof windows surrounded by three bodyguards who ushered him inside safely. A while later, those same bodyguards were nowhere to be found as four assassins came through to the door and fired their weapons until “Joe the Boss” lay dead in a pool of his own blood surrounded by playing cards. A newspaper photographer took a photo of the crime scene which showed Masseria clutching the ace of spades, the death card, in his hand, but it is generally believed that photo to have been staged by a reporter looking for more than just the truth.</p>
<p>Now, it was Maranzano’s time. The “chief warrior” had become the new boss of bosses and began acting accordingly. With the war over, several people were promoted to a higher rank, new members were made, and new rules were mandated. Maranzano was a fan of Roman legend Julius Caesar and was modeling his organization after the legions from ancient Rome. At the top there was the boss. Who was helped by his second-in-command, his underboss. There were various streets crews or decani led by a capodecina shortened to capo or captain in English. A crew consisted of soldiers and associates, some of whom were Italian and initiated members of the Mafia while others were on their way to becoming a member. All New York families were to follow this structure.</p>
<p>Despite being the all-powerful boss of bosses of New York City, Maranzano did not feel at ease. He felt there were some loose ends he needed to take care of. Top of the list was <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/luckys-luck-how-charlie">Charles “Lucky” Luciano</a>. He explained to an underling at the time that he couldn’t get along with Luciano and his pal <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/get-the-right-man-how-the-fbn">Vito Genovese</a> and that they had to get rid of them before they could control anything. He also added Frank Costello and many other prominent mobsters like Al Capone to his kill list. Maranzano told his henchman he had one more meeting with Luciano and Genovese the next afternoon at his office in Midtown, Manhattan. After that they would go to the mattresses, mob speak for going to war.</p>
<p>That day, September 10th, 1931, Maranzano was at his office arranging false identification documents, a specialty of his, for some fellow Italians. Later that afternoon, he expected Luciano and Genovese to show up. He would put on a charade and perhaps lay the groundwork for a deathtrap.</p>
<p>Things took a different and unexpected turn though.</p>
<p>Five men claiming to be federal agents entered Maranzano’s office and quickly took control. One man held a couple of people waiting in the anteroom at gunpoint, while the others took Maranzano into his office.</p>
<p>There, he realized these were not the usual federal agents that would raid his business. For one thing, they had knives and were trying to stab him to death. The assassins had picked knives because gunshots would attract a lot of unwanted attention in Midtown, Manhattan, in broad daylight on an afternoon when people were shopping, working, and wandering the streets.</p>
<p>But the killers had underestimated the old mob boss’ tenacity. While they were stabbing him Maranzano fought back ferociously. As Maranzano did everything in his power to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/american-mafia-s-boss-of-bosses-whacked-at-his-office">stay alive</a>, the hit men had had enough and fired several bullets into his body. With the sound of gunshots cracking through Manhattan, they fled the scene of the crime as fast as they could.</p>
<p>With the second boss of bosses murdered by the same men he purported to control, his successors did away with the title and set up a new system for the mob in New York. There were to be five families in the city and its boroughs, each with its own boss who was free to do as he pleased. A national Commission oversaw and settled disputes between the various families. Each family had a seat on the Commission and counted as one single vote. When decisions had to be made all families would vote on the matter with the majority settling it.</p>
<p>The man who led this transition and moved the American Mafia into the modern era was <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/luckys-luck-how-charlie">Charles “Lucky” Luciano</a>. As the one who set in motion the murder of both self-proclaimed <em>boss of bosses</em>, the young Luciano - he was 33 years old when Maranzano was killed - emerged as leader of what used to be known as the Masseria family. The other four New York families were headed by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-bonanno-crime-family">Joseph Bonanno</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-lucchese-crime-family">Tommaso Gagliano</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview">Vincent Mangano</a>, and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-original-new-york-mafia-family-boss-giuseppe-profaci">Joseph Profaci</a>.</p>
<p>As one of Luciano’s early partners, Costello rose with his pal and became part of the upper echelon of the Mafia in New York. In the mob, as in everyday life, it’s all about connections, who you know, who knows you, for Costello being friends with the top boss at that time was his ticket to the throne. Even if he, at that point, had not even considered playing that role yet.</p>
<p>Why would he? There was plenty of money to be made without being in the top position. Costello and his fellow mobsters were still reaping the lucrative benefits of Prohibition and, after a decade of bootlegging, had become richer than they could ever have imagined. The rest of the country, however, did not enjoy the same wealth. The Great Depression had made a serious impact on folks around the country. With alcohol outlawed the U.S. government was unable to tax it, losing a very significant portion of its revenue stream as a result. The mob knew that Prohibition would never last. The goose with the golden eggs would soon be moved to the slaughterhouse and they would need to look for other business ventures to replace it.</p>
<p>When Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933, the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in">American Mafia</a> had already moved on.</p>
<p>In Costello’s case, moving on did not necessarily mean to something new, rather, he stuck to what he knew best: gambling. He had invested his bootlegging riches in his gambling empire, boosting his bookmaking operations and owning thousands of slot machines in New York and, after New York mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia cracked down hard on the local racket, New Orleans in Louisiana. These machines were a goldmine for Costello. As Selwyn Raab writes in Five Families: “LaGuardia’s police raids on slots suppliers uncovered records revealing that in 1932 alone, Costello’s machines brought in $37 million.”</p>
<p>With that much money pouring in – first from Prohibition and throughout from various other rackets - the mob was able to buy its way into the highest rungs of power. Luciano and Costello were treated as royalty by politicians when they attended the 1932 Democratic Party convention in Chicago where Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency. Costello, especially, was legendary for his ability to swoon those in power. “Costello was a suave and diplomatic man,” Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno wrote in his autobiography. “His skill at cultivating friendships among politicians and public officials was such that it earned him the nickname ‘the Prime Minister.’”</p>
<p>As said before, the bootlegger was viewed very differently than the common hoodlum. His money helped get him in the same room as the president, sure, but it was the reputation of having made his fortune by providing an illegal good which never should’ve been illegal in the first place that made it possible for politicians to not only accept money from men like Luciano and Costello, but associate with them out in the open.</p>
<p>Not everyone was willing to play ball. In the 1930s, prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey made a name for himself going after New York’s “beer baron” <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/top-4-stone-cold-gangsters-who-look-like-wimps">Dutch Schultz</a>. The German-born crime boss was so fed up with the prosecutor breathing down his neck that he began plotting his murder. When word of his plans reached the Commission, however, it was not Dewey’s life that was to end, but Dutch Schultz’s. The Mafia bosses were against murdering members of law enforcement and public officials as they were afraid the blowback would be devastating to their operations. As boss Vincent Mangano allegedly put it at one such Commission meeting, “If we all lose our heads, we’ll wind up burning our own foundation.”</p>
<p>On the night of October 23, 1935, Schultz was in the men’s room of the Palace Chop House, a restaurant in downtown Newark, New Jersey, taking a piss when gunmen stormed the restaurant and shot him and three members of his gang. He died the next day.</p>
<p>His Commission-sanctioned murder was another example of business triumphing over personal issues. The days of rowdy outlaws were gone. The Italian-American Mafia had brought law and order to the underworld.</p>
<p>When the German-born crime boss was murdered, Dewey refocused his attention on another gangland chief. His investigators had dug up some leads that “Lucky” Luciano was an enormously powerful gangland figure involved in various illicit activities and that he controlled prostitution in New York City. After flipping several prostitutes and pimps, Luciano found himself in court facing prostitution charges. When the smoke cleared, he was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison. The most powerful Mafia boss in the U.S. had been brought down and was branded a pimp.</p>
<p>The two men closest to Luciano were Frank Costello and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/get-the-right-man-how-the-fbn">Vito Genovese</a>, serving as his consigliere and underboss. After he was convicted, Genovese took over for Luciano as acting boss of the family. It didn’t last long, though. Fearing that he’d be hit with charges connected to the murder of gangster Ferdinand Boccia, Genovese went on the lam to Naples, Italy, with $750,000 in cash.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237069891,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237069891?profile=original" width="150" /></a>With Luciano and Genovese gone, Costello was solely left in charge of a criminal empire that spanned the United States and stretched into countries abroad. The power was his now, but thanks to his predecessors he also knew that this power had limits. He knew he had to play it smart, stay one step ahead of the law and his rivals, and, now, also put on a straight face for the media and public as the mob came under more intense scrutiny from authorities investigating the scope of their operations.</p>
<p>So here he sat. In a courtroom. As cameras filmed him, focused on his hands, and sent the video reels to televisions in living rooms across the country while he tried to put on the appearance of a man who had nothing to hide. He tried, but failed. And he knew it.</p>
<p>Trying to find a way out of this media spectacle, Costello got his doctor to write him a note saying he was “suffering from acute laryngotracheitis,” which gave him an irritated and hoarse voice. (*One said to be the inspiration for Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone character’s voice.) Unfortunately for Costello, senator Kefauver wasn’t having any of it and refused to excuse to sickly mobster from testifying.</p>
<p>After a snappy back-and-forth between Costello and Kefauver, Costello turned to the committee’s chief counsel Rudolph Halley and asked, “Mr. Halley, am I a defendant in this courtroom?"</p>
<p>“No,” Halley answered.</p>
<p>“Am I under arrest?” Costello asked.</p>
<p>“No,” Halley replied.</p>
<p>“Then I am walking out,” Costello said adamantly. “Under no conditions will I testify until I am well.”</p>
<p>Was he really not well? Had the committee gotten under Costello’s skin? Or were there other issues that made the wise street hustler lose his cool? Because though he was not a defendant he did have to abide by some laws, that he must have known of, laws he broke by refusing to testify and walking out of the courtroom. He was held in contempt and sentenced to over a year behind bars.</p>
<p>It was the beginning of the end.</p>
<p>For a man who only showed his hands on national television Costello quickly gained celebrity status among reporters and the public while also becoming an enormous target for law enforcement. In those days the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was a prominent government branch to go after untouchable prohibition kingpins after it took down Chicago boss Al Capone. Now they were sifting through the tax records of Mr. and Mrs. Costello and once again they hit a jackpot. Costello’s wife had spent close to $600,000 dollars over a six-year period. A sum that could not be explained when looking at Costello’s reported income, not by the IRS nor by Costello and his wife. The IRS had succeeded in taking yet another gangland legend off the streets.</p>
<p>Hassled by the law, doing time in prison, Costello was distracted and did not pay full attention to what was happening on the streets. He was losing control of his family and forces in the shadows were mounting a strong offensive to grab power from his hands.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237070900,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237070900?profile=original" width="188" /></a>On the evening of May 2, 1957, around 11pm, 66-year-old Costello arrived in front of his luxurious apartment in Central Park West after a late night dinner. He got out of the car and walked into the building, past the doorman who held open the door for him, towards the elevator. Then out of nowhere, a “fat man” wearing a dark fedora popped up. He yelled “This is for you, Frank!” A loud gunshot rang out and a bullet raged towards Costello’s head knocking him to the ground where he lay bleeding profusely as the “fat” hitman fled the scene in a waiting black Cadillac with getaway driver.</p>
<p>The Prime Minister of the Underworld’s reign had come to a bloody end.</p>
<p>While Costello had gotten accustomed to being top dog, he had underestimated <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/get-the-right-man-how-the-fbn">Vito Genovese</a>’s thirst for power. When <em>Don Vitone</em> had returned from Italy, Costello ignored all the tell-tale signs of a man hungry to take back what he deemed rightfully his.</p>
<p>The bullet to the head helped Costello come to terms with this reality.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, he survived the attempt on his life. But he got the message and retired from the mob. He would still be available for those seeking his advice, but no longer was he of any significance. He died of natural causes on February 18, 1973, at the ripe old age of 82. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family">Genovese crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Nathan Barksdale, inspiration for The Wire, dead at 54
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/nathan-barksdale-inspiration-for-the-wire-dead-at-54
2016-02-17T19:01:21.000Z
2016-02-17T19:01:21.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/nathan-barksdale-inspiration-for-the-wire-dead-at-54"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237055282,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237055282?profile=original" width="451" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Nathan Barksdale, the Baltimore drug boss who inspired one of the best, if not the best, television series, has died in federal prison, the Baltimore Sun confirmed yesterday. He was 54. Barksdale ran a violent heroin trafficking organization in the Murphy Homes public housing complex in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/baltimore-a-gangster-history">Baltimore</a> in the 1980s.</p>
<p>His criminal career caught the eye of David Simon, who tailor-made it for the HBO television series The Wire. “We mangled street and given names throughout <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/baltimore-a-gangster-history">The Wire</a> so that it was a general shout-out to the west-side players,” Simon later said in an interview.</p>
<p>Barksdale met with Simon beforehand and told him, “I said to the man, just don't make me a snitch. Ain't nothing I can do to stop it, just don't do that, and I won't kill your ass.”</p>
<p>Simon didn’t. Avon Barksdale became a television icon and one of the show’s most beloved/hated characters.</p>
<p>Nathan Barksdale’s nickname, however, was “Bodie,” and that was also the name of one of the young Barksdale crew members who eventually did wind up informing on his superiors.</p>
<p>The success of The Wire brought Barksdale plenty of attention and in 2010 he released a DVD about his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/baltimore-a-gangster-history">own life</a>, titled “The Avon Barksdale Story: Legends of the Unwired.” In it, Nathan Barksdale is interviewed by actor Wood Harris, who played the part of Avon Barksdale.</p>
<p>In the documentary, Barksdale talks about growing up in the projects and getting involved in crime. He talks about the time he was shot, saying, “I've been paralyzed, I was temporarily blind. It's horrible being shot.”</p>
<p>But he gave as good as he got. In 1985 he was convicted of torturing three people in an 11th-floor apartment in Murphy Home and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Once out and a minor celebrity thanks to The Wire, he once again got caught up in the drug world and was sentenced to 4 years behind bars.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/street-gangs" target="_blank">Street Gangs section</a> or <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/black-organized-crime" target="_blank">Black organized crime</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>