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2024-03-29T02:34:05Z
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The Black Cobra: Profile of Dutch crime boss Henk Orlando Rommy
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/dutch-boss-henk-orlando-rommy
2021-01-26T16:56:37.000Z
2021-01-26T16:56:37.000Z
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<div><p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976455,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a><br /> Posted on November 1, 2008 - Updated January 26, 2021<br /> <br /> Henk Orlando Rommy is born in Paramaribo, Suriname on March 4, 1951. Suriname is a former colony of The Netherlands and the two nations still have strong links. Many Suriname citizens decide to move to The Netherlands in search of a better life. Rommy's parents made the move when he was 3 years old. The family settles in Utrecht, Netherlands' fourth largest city. Rommy attends a Catholic boys school, and does very well. His grades are excellent and Rommy shows his skills as an athlete by coming in second during the 1966 Olympiade 400 meter sprint.<br /> <br /> After finishing his school Rommy begins working at an airplane factory in Switzerland. The job turns out to be a disappointment, put in simpler terms: it didn't pay very well. He decides to go back to The Netherlands and make a lot of money, and if not a lot then definitely easy money.<br /> <br /> By the late 1970s Rommy is involved in used cars and stolen antiques. In 1977 he is arrested and convicted for trying to fence stolen art which included a Rembrandt and sentenced to three and a half years in prison.<br /> <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976876,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976876,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236976876?profile=original" width="152" height="187" /></a>Prison is a great school for smalltime crooks. Men with interesting connections meet other men who also have interesting connections. The moment Rommy was released from prison he became heavily involved in trafficking hashish. Through a contact in Morocco Rommy manages to smuggle large amounts of hashish to The Netherlands and Belgium. At one point he is arrested in Morocco and is put on death row for 18 months before getting pardoned because of the birthday of Moroccan King Hassan. After this scare he has time to think about the bullet he dodged by sitting in a Belgian cell where he has to serve another sentence for drug smuggling.<br /> <br /> Rommy does his time and when he gets out, he goes right back to his lucrative crime business. Working closely with crime boss Johan Verhoek he becomes one of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Europe" target="_blank">Europe</a>'s most powerful drug dealers. By the beginning of the 1990s he is involved in trafficking both hard and soft <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drugs</a>. In 1992 his Moroccan hashish connection dries up, but he quickly finds a new contact in Pakistan, and business continues as usual.<br /> <br /> Rommy's organization is smuggling drugs to Canada and Britain and is making hundreds of millions. In 1993 Dutch justice estimated his organization had a turnover of 120 million dollars. Rommy has become a very wealthy man, his mansions throughout The Netherlands and Spain prove it. And as his nickname "The Black Cobra" suggests, he is also very deadly.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976685,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236976685?profile=original" width="155" height="180" /></a>Rommy has never been convicted of ordering or committing a murder, but has been a suspect in several unsolved murders. Among those are the murders of fellow drug traffickers Ton de Bruin, Charly Wong, and Jaap van der Heijden (who was blown away by a bomb which was detonated when he opened his front door).<br /> <br /> At the beginning of the new millennium Rommy was enjoying the good life in the south of Spain. He is involved in lucrative real estate deals and has some other ventures going as well, some legal, others not so. On April 4, 2003 he is arrested and charged with importing 1000 kilos of hashish from Spain. Rommy says he doesn't need to import hashish to The Netherlands because there is enough home grown hashish to supply the market. But to no avail, Rommy is found guilty and sentenced to an amazing one year sentence. Thanks to a shortage of cells Rommy is released three months early.<br /> <br /> Luck runs out at one point and it was no different for Rommy. On November 12, 2003 he is arrested in Malaga, Spain. This time he faces a very different opponent: the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA" target="_blank">DEA</a>. After losing his fight against extradition to the US, Rommy faces a very tough time. Awaiting his trial in New York he is housed in the Metropolitan Correctional Center where he shares a cell with mob boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gotti" target="_blank">John "Junior" Gotti</a>. Junior Gotti advises him to take a plea deal, because eventhough the case is weak, the prosecution usually wins. But Rommy is defiant and takes his chances in court.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236978253,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236978253?profile=original" width="165" height="220" /></a>During the trial it becomes known Rommy was lured to the Bermuda Islands by a friend who was working for the DEA. At the Sonesta Beach Resort Rommy, his friend, and another man who claims to represent an Israeli gang from New York discuss setting up an ecstacy pipeline from The Netherlands to the US. Rommy is also asked if he can deliver MDMA (an important ingredient in ecstacy). On September 30, 2006 Rommy is found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>UPDATE: January 26, 2021</strong></span> - On Friday, January 22, 2021, Rommy (right) arrived in the Netherlands, after finishing his 20-year sentence. He was released two years early. The 69-year-old crime boss was immediately placed under arrest by Dutch authorities. He is charged with ordering the double murder of drug boss and jeweler Hennie Shamel and his girlfriend Anne de Witte, who were shot to death in May of 1993 in the center of Antwerp, Belgium. At that time, Rommy owed Shamel €1 million euros. </p>
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The demise of Chicago mobster Tony Spilotro’s Hole in the Wall gang
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-demise-of-chicago-mobster-tony-spilotro-s-hole-in-the-wall-ga
2020-03-08T17:33:03.000Z
2020-03-08T17:33:03.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-demise-of-chicago-mobster-tony-spilotro-s-hole-in-the-wall-ga" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237156864,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237156864?profile=original" /></a>By Gary Jenkins for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-chicago-outfit-overview" target="_blank">Chicago mobster</a> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Spilotro" target="_blank">Anthony Spilotro</a> had it made. He was sent to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Vegas" target="_blank">Las Vegas</a> to oversee the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a>’s operations there and was treated as a king. He also had a very lucrative side hustle going as the leader of his Hole in the Wall gang. But things were quickly taking a turn for the worse, in this third and final installment on Tony Spilotro and his crew the reader will learn how Spilotro’s den of thieves met its demise.</p>
<p><em>“Bertha’s? This was the greatest night of my FBI career.”</em> - <strong>FBI Agent Emmett Michaels</strong></p>
<p>By 1981, Spilotro knew he was in for a series of legal challenges. He was facing a RICO indictment for conspiracy to skim money from Las Vegas casinos. He knew the government had dedicated many resources toward him. He knew his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-chicago-outfit-overview" target="_blank">Chicago Outfit</a> bosses, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/chicago-boss-joseph-joey-doves" target="_blank">Joey Aiuppa</a>, Jackie Cerone and Angelo LaPietra were all facing these same charges. He needed money and a lot of it. <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Goodman" target="_blank">Oscar Goodman</a>, his Las Vegas lawyer, did not work cheap, plus if he went away to prison for a long stretch, he must provide for his family.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Las Vegas Metro partners with the FBI</strong></span></p>
<p>Las Vegas Metro Intelligence Commander Kent Clifford and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a> agent Emmett Michaels focused on the Spilotro burglary crew for several reasons. First because of the bad publicity from the Frankie Bluestein killing, second because of the threats against Metro Intelligence officers, Sgt. Gene Smith and Det. David Groover of Metro and thirdly because of Commander Clifford’s trip to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Chicago" target="_blank">Chicago</a>. They needed a win. The FBI and Las Vegas Metro formed a working relationship with the specific intent to bring down Spilotro and his crew.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: The Hook: Life and bloody crimes of feared</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-hook-life-and-bloody-crimes-of-feared-chicago-mafia-enforcer" target="_blank"><strong>Chicago Mafia enforcer Harry Aleman</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Because of the former Sheriff, Ralph Lamb, and his corrupt Intelligence Unit detectives, the FBI had been hiding what they are doing from local law enforcement. In 1981, David Helfry, the USA Attorney in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Kansas" target="_blank">Kansas City</a>, and his staff were working with FBI Agent Bill Ouseley and agents in Chicago, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cleveland" target="_blank">Cleveland</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Milwaukee" target="_blank">Milwaukee</a>, and Las Vegas to put together the skimming cases. They called many parties into a grand jury trying to get somebody to turn and explain how the skimming worked. Even though Metro Intelligence cleaned up its act, the FBI is still distrustful and vice versa. Since much of the FBI information is coming from a Federal Grand Jury, they cannot share that intelligence with the local cops. The FBI had a Top Echelon Informant (Lefty Rosenthal, pictured below next to Spilotro) in Las Vegas, and they cannot share this information. During this time a couple of Chicago agents turn a guy who will make all the difference. Resultingly, the FBI required a lot of local cooperation to pull off what they believe will be the blow that brings down Spilotro and his Hole in the Wall Gang.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="https://st1.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/993715516?profile=RESIZE_710x" alt="993715516?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>When the government decides to take down a crew and forms a partnership with the local cops, the target does not have a chance. By this time, the Spilotro task force was very familiar with all the usual Hole in the Wall Gang hangouts. Unless there is a specific operation going, the Intelligence guys merely drove around watching the known spots like clubs, casinos, apartments or homes to see who their targets meet, they may follow the unknown parties to identify them and any other businesses they go into or to see what other connections they make. Many people think this is a waste of time and the officers themselves may not realize or understand exactly what they observe during this kind of surveillance. In his case, they were finding Tony Spilotro meeting with <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cullotta" target="_blank">Frank Cullotta</a>, Ernie Davino, Larry Newman, Wayne Mateki, Leo Guardino and Joe Blasko quite a lot. They knew these were all career criminals and had done high-end burglaries or <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Robbery" target="_blank">robberies</a> in the past. From their observations, they knew these men all socialized together. The cops suspected they might be the famous Hole in the Wall Gang, but they were unable to catch them in the act. </p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>The Big Score</strong></span></p>
<p>In the Spring of 1981, Frank and his crew started planning their most ambitious job to date, Bertha’s Gifts and Furnishings located just west of Sarah on Maryland Parkway, 896 E Sahara Ave. The surveillance officers started seeing a new guy they identified as Sal Romano hanging out with the gang. The surveillance officers did not have to research this new player because they knew something about Romano. Chicago cops had popped Sal at Chicago’s O’Hare airfield with some stolen furs. They turned him over to the F.B.I, and they turned him into an operative. They even set him up in an apartment in Las Vegas with a fake girlfriend (undercover FBI agent) who was supposed to be an airline attendant to explain why Cullotta and the others rarely saw her. The Bureau wired up this apartment for sound and video. Sal worked to get crew members over to his new place and talk about their jobs. Sal later testified he was recruited into the gang because he had electronic skills to deal with sophisticated burglar alarms. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: “Nothing gets my juices flowing like putting a gun to someone's head” –</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/nothing-gets-my-juices-flowing-like-putting-a-gun-to-someone-s-he" target="_blank"><strong>Profile: Chicago mobster Charles Russell</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="https://st5.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3441920467?profile=RESIZE_710x" alt="3441920467?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>Frank Cullotta (right) claims that two Chicago cops came to see him at the Upper Crust. He believes the corrupt Chicago police commander William Hanhardt sent these officers. Frank said these guys told him that they grabbed Sal Romano with a load of stolen furs at O’Hare airport. They turned the case over to the Feds because it involved interstate transportation. Later, they checked on the progress of this case and found no record of the arrest. Frank said he thanked them, offered to get them casino show or meal “comps” and they refused. Frank said the cops didn’t want anything; they just thought they should tell him about Romano. Frank said he went to Spilotro with this information and Tony brushed it off, telling Frank to put the guy with Larry Newman during the burglary and if Romano “did anything funny” have Newman kill Romano. Frank remembered that in retrospect, he did notice that when he went to Romano’s new apartment, it looked like a set or that the occupants had placed the toiletries, furniture, clothes and kitchen items, so it just appeared that Romano lived there with his new girlfriend. He noticed that whenever he engaged her in conversation, she was nervous and refused to look him in the eye.</p>
<p>Despite Frank’s information, Tony insisted Romano stay with the score. Frank said that Tony probably had a plan to kill Romano after the score was over. He never thought that Sal was actively helping law enforcement and figured the worst-case scenario would be that he would become a cooperating witness after the score was taken down. Tony and Frank did not know that the Feds and Metro Intelligence were all over Romano and he was briefing them about the gang’s plans and activities. Tony and Frank chose the 4th of July weekend to give them more time because Bertha Ragland closed the store an extra day, and the fireworks would cover any noise. As a bonus, the cops would be busy on the strip and in the residential areas that weekend.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sometimes-the-most-obvious-is-the-best-way-the-kansas-city-mob-an" target="_blank"><strong>The Kansas City Mob and the skimming of Las Vegas casinos</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>The fateful night arrives. It is July 4, 1981. Like the profitable 1957 burglary Frank and Tony did back in Chicago, a long weekend. Frank was crazy with suspicion over Sal Romano. The tension ran high in the burglary crew. The burglars’ eyes flash around checking review mirrors for tails. </p>
<p>The cops and agents drove by Bertha’s on their last moving surveillance close to the target and established assignments to fixed positions surrounding Bertha’s. They alerted the FBI surveillance plane so the pilot would circle overhead. FBI Agents and Metro officers formed into 2-man teams for the moving surveillance in a loose perimeter around Bertha’s. Agent Michaels and Commander Clifford set up a command post in a nearby building. They issued instructions that all moving surveillance crews will maintain a respectable distance and to not alert any of the suspects. They assign each two-person team to a gang member to monitor and report when they see any movement toward the target. Once they report gang members to driving in the direction of Bertha’s, the commanders notified surveillance to back off and wait. The moving surveillance teams know the Hole in the Wall Gang members will meet at Bertha’s. The command post assigns a ground crew to hide behind air conditioners on other buildings, inside a couple of empty storefronts and to watch from a nearby bank roof. Once the FBI rooftop surveillance observes Ernie Davino, Leo Guardino and Wayne Mateki walking in the vicinity, the moving surveillance officers moved in closer and parked. The airplane circled and reported the ground movements. Joe Blasko had provided each of the burglars with 2-way radios. He is sitting outside in a van with police monitors. Soon, one of the rooftop crews reported that they see men on Bertha’s roof. The surveillance officers tensed, their heart rate and breathing became more rapid.</p>
<p>Sal Romano tried to lay back and radioed Frank that his car is in a nearby parking lot and the battery is dead. Frank responded and pushed Sal’s car a short distance away and ordered him to ride with Larry Newman. Sal slipped away during this time. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: Untouchable "Little Jimmy" -</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/untouchable-little-jimmy-profile-of-chicago-mafia-boss-james-marc" target="_blank"><strong>Profile of Chicago Mafia boss James Marcello</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Once the rooftop lookout saw the men on the roof drop inside, they notified the command post. Agent Dennis Arnoldy remembered he saw some dark figures drop out of sight on the roof. In the command post, Agent Michaels and Commander Clifford waited a short time to let them start moving stuff around and setting up to open the safe. The officers must find evidence that the burglars move property inside the target business to upgrade a trespass charge to burglary. Burglary to most people is the forcible entry into a building; the officer must show an intention to steal to complete the elements of a commercial burglary. Several agents are assigned to follow the burglars inside Bertha’s. The mobile crews know the car descriptions of Larry Newman and Frank Cullotta.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“Cops were all over the place”</strong></span></p>
<p>Upon orders from the Command Post, the Surveillance crews move in. They secured the outside of the store with officers stationed at each store exit and window to prevent escape. Agents entered with some uniformed officers. Davino and Guardino quickly gave up. Ernie Davino said, “Me and Leo got inside the place, and we never saw anybody and the next thing we know cops were all over the place.” Mobile crews stopped and arrested Blasko, Newman, and Mateki with no drama. Frank Cullotta made his arrest into a short car chase, and he later claimed he wanted to get into a well-lit populated area because he was afraid the cops would kill him out of revenge over the Spilotro response to the killing of Frankie Blue. As they transported the crew to jail, the agents and officers casually mentioned that somebody got away. These men were seasoned criminals, and they immediately suspicioned that Sal had set them up for the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a>.</p>
<p>Most mob fans have seen the famous photo (below) taken of the entire crew, except <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Spilotro" target="_blank">Tony Spilotro</a>. They are all standing in front of a jail door and what I noticed was that Frank was standing off to the side with a disgusted look. He tried to tell Spilotro. I can only imagine what he was thinking.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237156696,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237156696?profile=original" /></a><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>The Purge</strong></span></p>
<p>Over the next few days, Tony Spilotro pays bail to get his team out of jail. Then the purge started. Tony ordered Frank to kill Sal Romano. Frank applied a little reasoning to this plan when he asked, “How we gonna do this Tony, the guy is in witness protection, he’ll be surrounded by agents?” Tony replied, “I know a guy that can poison his food.” Frank said, “Yeah but, where is he?”</p>
<p>Spilotro’s irrational behavior scared Frank Cullotta because he talked about killing every member of the crew at one time or another. FBI agents approached Frank with a tape from a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Chicago" target="_blank">Chicago</a> wiretap. They played this tape, and he heard a voice telling Tony Spilotro that he must clean his dirty laundry. From that tape, Frank believed that he would be on the hit list. Agent Dennis Arnoldy convinced Frank to become a government witness. Frank once said, “I had 37 friends killed by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-chicago-outfit-overview" target="_blank">the Outfit</a> and did not want to be number 38.” Over the next few years, Frank Cullotta testified at numerous Chicago Outfit trials. He proved to be invaluable in many ongoing Outfit investigations.</p>
<p>With Cullotta’s testimony and the physical evidence, Larry Newman and Wayne Mateki were convicted un the machete murder of the Chicago jeweler Bob Brown. McHenry County authorities never charged Newman for killing bar owner Ron Scharff. Newman died in prison. I guess that Wayne Mateki is dead. Leo Guardino will be convicted, and I believe he is deceased. Ernie Davino was a standup guy to the end. He was convicted and sentenced to many years. He testified for Tony Spilotro trying to refute the testimony of Sal Romano. He testified that nobody planned these burglaries and Spilotro was not part of the Hole in the Wall Gang. The jury returned a not guilty for Spilotro in that trial. During his time in prison, Davino will find redemption in a rosary. He said, “I noticed this rosary on my bunk when I first arrived, and I asked this kid if it was his and he said no it must be yours. “Ernie said he could not quit thinking about this rosary and one day he started praying the rosary prayer. At that, Ernie Davino, career criminal developed faith in a higher power and worked in a prison ministry after release. He is living back in New Jersey.</p>
<p>Sal Romano testified in many Outfit trials, and the last one was the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/chicagos-family-secrets" target="_blank">Family Secrets</a> trial in 2007. I believe he is deceased. In the 2007 Family Secrets trial, Nick Calabrese testifies that <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-chicago-outfit-overview" target="_blank">Chicago Outfit</a> boss Joey Aiuppa ordered him and a team out to Las Vegas to kill Tony Spilotro. They had a plan that involved using explosives and automatic weapons. The hit team abandoned that plan, and a scheme was hatched to lure Tony Spilotro and his brother Michael to a meeting in a Bensenville Illinois house with the promise of a mob promotion for Tony and that Michael would become a "made" member of the Outfit.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: Longtime <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/longtime-chicago-mob-boss-john-no-nose-difronzo-dead-at-89" target="_blank">Chicago mob boss John “No Nose” DiFronzo</a> dead at 89</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Calabrese testified he and around ten other outfit killers, including James LaPietra, John Fecarotta, John DiFronzo, Sam Carlisi, Louie "The Mooch" Eboli, James Marcello, Louis Marino, Joseph Ferriola, and Ernest "Rocky" Infelice were waiting as the two brothers entered the basement. Calabrese said he tackled Michael Spilotro and held his legs while another mobster strangled him with a rope. He said he heard Tony Spilotro ask his executioners, "Can I say a prayer?" There was no reply.</p>
<p>An Indiana farmer will find the decomposed beaten and bloodied bodies of the Spilotro brothers a few weeks later in a shallow grave in his cornfield.</p>
<p>For a decade, the men of Spilotro’s Vegas-based Hole in the Wall Gang ruled in Las Vegas and cut a swath of high-end burglaries and thefts throughout the Southwest. They had money, women, drugs and all the action they could handle. By 1982, their string of luck ran out, and the only gang members who grew old are Ernie Davino who found God and Frank Cullotta who found Hollywood.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>Also read:</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-beginnings-of-tony-spilotro-s-infamous-hole-in-the-wall-gang" target="_blank">The beginnings of Tony Spilotro's infamous Hole in the Wall gang</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>The lucrative and violent years of Las Vegas mobster</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-lucrative-and-violent-years-of-las-vegas-mobster-tony-spilotr" target="_blank"><strong>Tony Spilotro’s infamous Hole in the Wall gang</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p><em>Frank Cullotta provided much of the material for this series on the Hole in the Wall Gang. You can find Frank and take his mob tour of Las Vegas.</em></p>
<p><em>For further reading I suggest the below books:</em></p>
<p><em>Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness by Dennis Griffin and Frank Cullotta</em></p>
<p><em>The Hole in the Wall Gang by Frank Cullotta and Dennis Griffin</em></p>
<p><em>The Rise And Fall Of A 'Casino' Mobster: The Tony Spilotro Story Through A Hitman's Eyes by Frank Cullotta and Dennis Griffin</em>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>About the author:</strong></span></p>
<p>Gary Jenkins retired from the Kansas City Police Department in 1996 after a 25-year career. Gary attended the UMKC School of Law and graduated in 2000. He was admitted to the Missouri Bar, and he continues to practice law today. He is a Board member of the Kansas City Police Pension System and The Jackson County Historical Society. During the past ten years, Gary produced three documentary films. The first two were <a href="http://undergroundrailroadkansas.com/">Negroes To Hire: Slave Life in Antebellum Missouri</a> and <a href="http://undergroundrailroadkansas.com/">Freedom Seekers: Stories From the Western Underground Railroad</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://ganglandwire.com/about-2/">Gangland Wire</a> is Gary's third documentary film. During Gary's KCPD career, he was assigned to the KCPD Intelligence Unit, investigating organized crime. In the 1970s, a grassroots development in the City Market area became known as the River Quay. A Mafia dispute over parking rights and strip clubs would destroy the area. The resulting investigation will allow FBI Agents to convict La Cosa Nostra leaders in Kansas City, Chicago, Cleveland and Milwaukee. Filmmaker Gary Jenkins takes the viewer on an insider’s journey into the heart of the Kansas City crime family, using excerpts from wiretaps and interviews with participants. </p>
<p>Additionally, Gary created a Smartphone app titled <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kansas-city-mob-tour/id958652599?mt=8">Kansas City Mob Tour.</a> This app utilizing maps, text, photos, and video conducts the user on a tour of famous Kansas City mob sites.</p>
<p>Gary produces and co-hosts a podcast titled <a href="https://ganglandwire.com/">Gangland Wire Crime Stories.</a> Using the audio podcast format, Gary tells true crime stories from his experience and obtains guests who have either committed crimes, investigated crimes or reported on criminals. </p>
<p>Gary's most recent project is his book documenting the investigation into Las Vegas skimming activities. Gary uses actual wiretap transcripts to tell the story of this investigation. The book is titled <a href="https://ganglandwire.com/store/">Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How the F.B.I. Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-chicago-outfit-overview">Chicago Outfit section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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Operation Goodfellas busts $19 million drug trafficking conspiracy from Mexico to Virginia
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/operation-goodfellas-busts-19-million-drug-trafficking-conspiracy
2018-10-17T19:00:00.000Z
2018-10-17T19:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/operation-goodfellas-busts-19-million-drug-trafficking-conspiracy" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237119863,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237119863?profile=original" width="600" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>The drug game is played with lots of players and without borders. Something police discovered once more during Operation Goodfellas when they took down several members of an international narcotics pipeline stretching from Mexico to Virginia.</p>
<p>Nearly 150 law enforcement officers from the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA" target="_blank">DEA</a>, Norfolk Police, and the U.S. Marshals participated in the operation on Tuesday morning in Norfolk, executing arrest warrants on five Hampton Roads men for their alleged participation in a $19 million drug trafficking conspiracy. One man remains a fugitive.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: “Corey Hamlet is as smart as any CEO we’ve prosecuted” -</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/corey-hamlet-is-as-smart-as-any-ceo-we-ve-prosecuted-profile-of-g" target="_blank"><strong>Profile: Grape Street Crips leader Corey Hamlet</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>According to allegations in the indictment, from approximately 2009 to present, several significant drug traffickers from the Ingleside section of Norfolk have been involved in distributing large quantities of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Heroin" target="_blank">heroin</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Crack" target="_blank">crack cocaine</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Marijuana" target="_blank">marijuana</a>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Controlled buys to source</strong></span></p>
<p>Police began making controlled buys of cocaine in September 2016 from 38-year-old Reginald Sam Beale and continued making controlled purchases of cocaine, heroin, and crack cocaine from Beale’s co-conspirators, including 36-year-old Maurice Antonio Barnes (photo above, right), 37-year-old Brandon Jaami Williams (photo above, left), 39-year-old Breon Lashawn Dixon, and 34-year-old Johnell Deshawn Stepney.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/prison-bars-couldn-t-stop-powerful-godfathers-of-united-blood-nat" target="_blank"><strong>Prison bars couldn’t stop powerful Bloods Godfathers</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Through June of 2018, law enforcement made a total of 29 controlled purchases from the defendants. Evidence obtained in the Summer of 2018 established that Barnes’ local source of supply was obtaining large amounts of cocaine and heroin from a Los Angeles based source of supply.</p>
<p>The cocaine was being trucked to Virginia and off-loaded at a public storage facility in Virginia Beach in 10 and 20-kilo loads. In June 2018, Williams was arrested with 13 kilograms of cocaine (with a street value over $500,000) when he tried to transfer the cocaine from an apartment in the luxury ICON apartments in downtown Norfolk to another luxury apartment on Granby Street.</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 approval from the Reagan White House</strong></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Mexico connection</strong></span></p>
<p>Additional evidence led to the arrest of two members of the California and Mexico-based drug trafficking organization, 20-year-old Jose Moices Luna-Abrego, of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=LA" target="_blank">Los Angeles</a>, and 39-year-old Ulises Abel Garcia-Razo, of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mexico" target="_blank">Mexico</a>, after they flew to Virginia to attempt to retrieve some of the cocaine previously shipped and collect over $500,000 in proceeds. Luna-Abrego and Garcia-Razo were arrested in July 2018 in a successful hotel sting operation conducted by FBI, DEA and Norfolk Police.</p>
<p>Investigators estimate the amount of narcotics this drug trafficking organization is responsible for distributing is 11 1/2 kilos of crack, 436 kilos of cocaine, 54 kilos of heroin, 1 ounce of fentanyl and over 20 pounds of marijuana, with a street value over $19 million.</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>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
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“Feed you to the fuckin’ lions” – Profile of Lucchese family soldier Anthony Grado
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/feed-you-to-the-fuckin-lions-profile-of-lucchese-family-soldier-a
2018-04-11T05:29:16.000Z
2018-04-11T05:29:16.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><strong><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/feed-you-to-the-fuckin-lions-profile-of-lucchese-family-soldier-a" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237057281,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237057281?profile=original" width="256" /></a></strong>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Lucchese crime family soldier Anthony Grado knows how to earn. Whether it’s extortion, loansharking or selling prescription pills he’ll know how to make a buck. One thing he hasn’t learned, however, is staying out of prison for his crimes.</p>
<p>It’s not always Grado’s own fault, mind you. Like when Robert Molini, his cousin was busted by the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA" target="_blank">DEA</a> on September 9, 1992, for his role in a drug ring and decided to become an informant. A year earlier, Molini had come to Grado to borrow money so he could pay for a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Marijuana" target="_blank">marijuana</a> shipment.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Deadbeat</strong></span></p>
<p>Grado introduced his cousin to fellow mobster Thomas Anzeulotto, who loaned him a total of $40,000. Molini was to pay back the principal and 20% interest, which amounted to $4,000 for each loan within ten days. When he was unable to even pay back $3,500 things began getting stressful. Even more so when he missed subsequent payments.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/new-york-s-lucchese-mafia-family-deadly-as-ever-in-2017-prosecuto" target="_blank">New York's Lucchese Mafia family as deadly as ever in 2017</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>To get his cousin to honor his debts, Grado called Molini up and gave him an earful. He threatened him with what would happen if he didn’t pay back what he owed. His calls worked and pretty soon Molini came up with about $5,000.</p>
<p>Anzeulotto wasn’t satisfied of course. On June 8, 1992, Molini was ordered to come to Stella's pharmacy in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Brooklyn" target="_blank">Brooklyn</a>. He gave Grado $1,000 after which Anzeulotto approached, who demanded the rest of the sum in one installment.</p>
<p>He also wanted to know Molini’s home address, but Molini refused to give it. Wrong move. Confronted with the refusal, Anzeulotto punched him in the face and neck and smashed two of the windows of the car he borrowed to get to Brooklyn. He then took Molini to an abandoned park, pointed his gun at him and asked him again for his address.</p>
<p>Still refusing to budge, but recognizing his predicament, Molini gave a false address.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Prison</strong></span></p>
<p>By the time Molini began cooperating, the DEA was already hot on the crew’s tail. They had wiretapped the telephones of all those involved, intercepting multiple calls between the men. Prosecutors brought them to trial after which a jury convicted them on January 25, 1995.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lucchese-family-mobster-planned-to-escape-from-metropolitan-deten" target="_blank"><strong>Lucchese mobster planned to escape from Detention Center in Brooklyn</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Anzeulotto and Grado were found guilty of conspiring to make extortionate extensions of credit and to use extortionate means to collect extensions of credit. Anzeulotto was also convicted of the substantive loansharking offenses of making extortionate extensions of credit and using extortionate means to collect extensions of credit. Grado was acquitted of these <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Loansharking" target="_blank">loansharking</a> charges.</p>
<p>Grado was sentenced to over 5 years in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release, while Anzeulotto got 8 years behind bars.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Opioid opportunities</strong></span></p>
<p>After his release from prison, Grado went right back to work. These were new times offering new rackets. Prescription <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drugs</a> were all the rage and Grado immediately seized on the opportunity.</p>
<p>He provided a Brooklyn doctor with the names of people for whom he should write prescriptions. The doctor would then write said prescriptions in those names for medications containing <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Oxy" target="_blank">oxycodone</a>, usually without conducting any examination. Grado and his associates then filled the prescriptions and sold the pills. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-lucchese-crime-family-boss-vittorio-vic-amuso" target="_blank"><strong>Profile of Lucchese crime family boss Vittorio Amuso</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Sometimes, Grado would hold the doctor’s prescription pads himself and either had the doctor write the fraudulent prescriptions at his direction or completed the prescriptions and later advised the doctor of the details. In total, the man wrote prescriptions for over 230,000 oxycodone pills.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size:14pt;">“I’ll put a bullet right in your head” </span></strong></p>
<p>Before you curse at the doctor for his unprofessional behavior, keep in mind that he was facing Grado and his goons. In one conversation Grado told the doctor that he would make him write “a thousand scripts a day and fuckin’ feed you to the fuckin’ lions” if he wrote prescriptions without his approval. </p>
<p>In that same conversation, Grado also told the doctor that if his newly ordered prescription pads “go in anybody’s hands” besides the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Lucchese" target="_blank">Lucchese</a> mobster’s, that “I’ll put a bullet right in your head.” </p>
<p>These weren’t idle threats, either. Unsatisfied with the doctor, Grado ordered one of his associates to stab him. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/lucchese-family-sold-oxy-from" target="_blank"><strong>Lucchese family sold "oxy" from ice cream truck</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>As happened with the loansharking scheme in the early 1990s, this opioid racket was crushed by authorities as well. On April 5, 2018, 54-year-old Grado pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone. Upon sentencing, he faces up to 20 years in prison, as well as forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million.</p>
<p>“<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-lucchese-crime-family" target="_blank">Lucchese family</a> member Grado imperiled our community, threatening a doctor to force him to write prescriptions for oxycodone and then trafficking in the addictive drugs,” United States Attorney Richard Donoghue stated.</p>
<p>“Violent threats to a doctor by Mafia defendants, combined with their trafficking of oxycodone pills, posed an especially serious danger to our community,” he went on. “As demonstrated by today’s guilty pleas, this Office together with our law enforcement partners will be relentless in the prosecution of organized crime and those who contribute to the opioid epidemic.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-lucchese-crime-family">Lucchese 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>
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250 kilos of drugs seized in major international operation dismantling Balkan Cartel and Colombian source
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/250-kilos-of-drugs-seized-in-major-international-operation-disman
2018-03-09T01:00:00.000Z
2018-03-09T01:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/250-kilos-of-drugs-seized-in-major-international-operation-disman" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237097697,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237097697?profile=original" width="600" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>A joint cooperation by the DEA and Europol has dismantled a drug pipeline between Colombia and Europe. Nine suspected drug traffickers were arrested today and charged with their role in transporting multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine from Colombia, Ecuador and Panama to Europe.</p>
<p>A container ship legally carrying scrap metal from <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Panama" target="_blank">Panama</a> to the port of Rijeka, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Croatia" target="_blank">Croatia</a>, was found to be transporting more than 100 kilograms of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a> and 150 kilograms of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Marijuana" target="_blank">marijuana</a> destined for the Croatian drug market. Investigators concluded that part of the group was also involved in tobacco trafficking and in March 2017 seized more than 69,000 packets of cigarettes worth €350,000 euros.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: Blacklisted: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/blacklisted-albanian-mob-boss-naser-kelmendi-built-a-criminal-bus" target="_blank">How Albanian crime boss Naser Kelmendi built a drugs empire</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Over the course of the year-long investigation titled Operation Nana, several major European-based drug traffickers were identified as well as a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Colombia" target="_blank">Colombian</a> supplier. The nine suspects were arrested simultaneously in Croatia, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Germany" target="_blank">Germany</a>, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Netherlands" target="_blank">the Netherlands</a> and Slovenia.</p>
<p>Among them were a high-ranking Croatian drug boss and a representative of a Colombian drug trafficking organization responsible for coordinating cocaine shipments to criminals based in Europe. Names of the defendants were not released by authorities.</p>
<p>Law enforcement agencies also set up a specialized task force which identified and targeted Europe and South America-based suspects and shipping companies involved in the cocaine trafficking operation.</p>
<p>Operation NANA was led by the Croatian Police and the Rijeka State Prosecutor’s Office and jointly conducted by police in Colombia, Germany, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Italy" target="_blank">Italy</a>, the Netherlands, Panama, Slovenia, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Spain" target="_blank">Spain</a>, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA" target="_blank">DEA</a>) and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Europol" target="_blank">Europol</a>.</p>
<p>It is part of a broader strategy driven by Croatia and supported by European law enforcement authorities, the DEA and Europol, to combat the Western Balkan organized crime network known as “The Balkan Cartel.”</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>
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</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Drug kingpin “Freeway” Rick Ross: Moving tons of cocaine with a nod of approval from the Reagan White House
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/drug-kingpin-freeway-rick-ross-moving-tons-of-cocaine-with-a-nod
2018-03-04T13:30:00.000Z
2018-03-04T13:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/drug-kingpin-freeway-rick-ross-moving-tons-of-cocaine-with-a-nod" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237101055,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237101055?profile=original" width="467" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>California drug kingpin “Freeway” Rick Ross shows that you can play the game and survive. His story shows the hypocrisy of the government’s war on drugs, while also shining a light on the struggles of growing up in the ghetto. Above all, it’s about learning from mistakes and bettering yourself. “I used to think that I was born to be a drug dealer.”</p>
<p>Life isn’t fair, but some lives are more unfair than others. Born in Troup, Texas, on January 26, 1960, Rick Ross quickly found out about the fairness of life. When he was 5 years old, he and his mother moved to South Central, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=LA" target="_blank">Los Angeles</a>, where they lived from day to day. She was his entire world and he grew up wanting nothing more than to be able to take care of her.</p>
<p>Her brother could get violent and crazy at times. Even with young Ross in the house. The screaming and fighting got to him, but it was the sounds of gunfire that hit him the hardest. Still only 5 years old, he witnessed his mom shoot and kill her brother in self-defense. The bloody scene caused him to dislike violence.</p>
<p>Though he went to school, Ross, like most future crime bosses, had difficulty paying attention. It didn’t help that he went through his entire school career without being able to read or write. Luckily for him he found an outlet at Susan Miller Dorsey High School’s tennis team. No matter what reputation tennis might have on the streets, he enjoyed it.</p>
<p>If only that was enough. His illiteracy made him ineligible for a college scholarship so he was forced to find another route to get by.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“I’m gonna be running L.A.”</strong></span></p>
<p>“They say that everyone has a purpose in life,” Ross says in the documentary <em>Freeway: Crack in the System</em>. “At one point I thought that selling cocaine was my purpose. I used to think that I was born to be a drug dealer. I thought it was my job to keep everybody high. And get as many people high as I could.”</p>
<p>In the end, it was all about finding an identity. When he went to the movie theater and watched <em>Super Fly</em>, he began seriously thinking about dealing drugs. He had never seen such a successful black man. Hanging around Figueroa in Los Angeles, he knew a lot of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Pimp" target="_blank">pimps</a> and hustlers and began making plans.</p>
<p>Ross heard about <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a> and bought $50 bucks’ worth of the potent drug. It sold immediately. He then got his friends together to convince them of the lucrative business. They pooled their money and got a bag worth $300 dollars to sell on the corner. Again, it sold like water on a scorching hot summer day in the middle of the desert.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-shook-up-the-world-how-muhammad-ali-took-the-heavyweight-boxing" target="_blank">How Muhammad Ali took the heavyweight boxing title from the Mafia</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>One day, he discussed his blossoming coke operation with his tennis teacher, who hooked him up with some of his own drug connections – these were the 1980s after all. His connections were people from <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Nicaragua" target="_blank">Nicaragua</a>, a war-torn country in Central America, who had access to copious high-quality quantities of the white powder.</p>
<p>Powder which by now had evolved into a rock. It was called <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Crack" target="_blank">crack</a> and more potent than powder cocaine. You smoked it and away you went. Ross’ crew called it “Ready Rock” and it, as they themselves said, put them “on a whole different level.”</p>
<p>“I’m gonna be running Los Angeles,” Ross remembers telling his associates back then. “I wanna be powerful, be strong, be respected. I want people to say: ‘Man, that dude makes things happen.’ I’m on a fast track. I ain’t getting high, I don’t smoke. And I just kept moving up the ladder. Until I got to Blandòn.”</p>
<p>Danilo Blandòn was a high-level drug lord from Nicaragua who handled business in the United States. Once Ross and his crew linked up with Blandòn, the price of a brick of cocaine went down substantially. He also schooled them in the business, teaching them about the product, guns, and security.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Supporting the Contras</strong></span></p>
<p>Unbeknownst to Ross at that time, Blandòn wasn’t just a drug boss. He was much more. He was a financier of a covert war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. This contra-revolution was fought by several groups of rebels who joined forces. They were labeled Contras and were supported by the United States government led by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Reagan" target="_blank">President Ronald Reagan</a>.</p>
<p>He authorized the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=CIA" target="_blank">CIA</a> to help the Contras with funding, weapons, and training. During the campaign to win back their country, they violated many human rights. Around 30,000 people were killed during this civil war. After word of the gruesome acts reached the United States, by 1985, congress cut off funding and military support for the Contras.</p>
<p>This did not sit well with the contras. Nor did it with President Reagan. His administration began illegally funding them by covertly selling weapons to Iran. It was a huge scandal which became known as the Iran-Contra affair and resulted in felony convictions for several members of President Reagan’s administration.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/black-caesar-the-rise-of-america-s-biggest-kingpin" target="_blank">Black Caesar: The Rise of America's Biggest Kingpin</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>In November 1986, one month after the Iran-Contra scandal broke, Blandòn walked on drug charges against him and applied for permanent residence in the United States. Meanwhile, he continued his cocaine trafficking and sent the money he made back to Nicaragua where it was used by the Contras to wage their vicious war.</p>
<p>Ross was doing his part, selling a million dollars’ worth of cocaine a day. “My only goal in life was get as rich as I could, as fast as I could, so I could get out the game,” he says about that time.</p>
<p>The reasons for this are obvious. Drug bosses never have a happy ending. It’s prison or death. When <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Corruption" target="_blank">corrupt cops</a> tried to catch Ross by planting drugs on him, he decided he needed a break. Not from the drug business. Just a different scenery perhaps. He left Los Angeles and moved to Cincinnati, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Ohio" target="_blank">Ohio</a>, from where he set up franchises of his crack cocaine empire in cities across America.</p>
<p>He did not discriminate, if you put up money, he sold you product. He sold to everyone, anywhere. From the Bloods to the Crips. Ross made it snow and rain for everyone. From the United States to Nicaragua.</p>
<p>But as his success grew, so did his profile. He became a well-known kingpin. Authorities turned up the heat. Other gangsters opted to become an informant and share intel about “Freeway Ricky.” By the fall of 1988, Ross was standing at a construction site overseeing one of his properties when he noticed police. He made a run for it as bullets flew by.</p>
<p>Police caught him hiding in a closet in a house. Their dog bit him in his leg. When he kicked the dog, the cops beat him to a pulp. The high life had come to an official end.</p>
<p>It would’ve been a fitting end for a life of crime, but life isn’t fair or balanced. It’s crooked. As Ross already knew. He also knew about a bunch of crooked cops and was willing to testify to help send those fellas off to prison. His testimony helped his own case as well. From photos of the injuries he sustained during his arrest to the story about drugs being planted, it all managed to sow doubt in jurors’ minds. His case ended in a hung jury. He would only serve 4 years in prison and was released in 1992.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>The sting</strong></span></p>
<p>Once out, he returned to the streets to do community work. He’s a changed man, he claimed. Until one day he got a phone call from his old pal Blandòn. He’s in trouble and needs help. Could Ross help him move 100 kilos of cocaine?</p>
<p>It’s the ultimate dilemma. Like <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Corleone" target="_blank">Michael Corleone</a> said: “Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in.” To quote another line from that movie trilogy: “They made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”</p>
<p>Confronted with a friend in need and the prospect of an extremely profitable drug deal – Blandòn offered Ross cocaine at $10,000 per kilo – Ross contacted a friend to discuss the offer. Months went by. Ross and his friend were unsure. Both had left that life and weren’t eager to get back in. Until they finally decided it was too good an offer to turn down.</p>
<p>They got together $300,000 and set up the meet with Blandòn. As the pair handed over the money, they were quickly surrounded by federal agents. Blandòn had made a deal with the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA" target="_blank">DEA</a>. In return for a sentence reduction, the Nicaraguan would lure his old pal into a deal so authorities could lock him up and throw away the key.</p>
<p>In 1996, a jury found Ross guilty. He was sentenced to life without parole.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Learning</strong></span></p>
<p>Though he got life without parole and found himself surrounded by steel bars and concrete, in his mind Ross remained free. He got life, but he didn’t accept life. Inside, he cleaned cells for $7 bucks. Inmates got a kick out of seeing the drug kingpin do that. Ross could care less. He had bigger things in mind. He studied. Beginning with the alphabet. Now in his late 20s, he was finally learning to read and write.</p>
<p>All day he read and studied. He started reading faster. Then it became fun. “Why was I afraid?” he later recounts about his fear of picking up a book and learning to read. Sure, young kids can be ridiculed by others for their love of books or reading, but what does that do? How can things change if you keep your mind small?</p>
<p>“Going with the flow can be dangerous,” Ross explains. Older drug dealers would tell him: ‘Oh homie, you shouldn’t be playing tennis. That’s for sissies. This is what you should be doing.’ Ross: “Yeah, I made a lot of money. I made more money than I thought I could spend. But they didn’t tell my I’d do 20 years in prison. Didn’t tell me I’d be away from my family. That my kids would grow up without a father. I didn’t know about all that. I didn’t know that in order for me to drive a big car with big wheels on it that somebody else’s kid had to go hungry.”</p>
<p>He realized this too late. But he kept on reading, kept on studying. Then he read three magical words that set him free: Continuous criminal spree. He was handed a life sentence under the infamous “three strikes” law, but according to the court, the judge could not count Ross’ previous convictions in Ohio and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Texas" target="_blank">Texas</a> as separate crimes instead of a single conspiracy.</p>
<p>Ross challenged the use of the “three strikes” law in his case and the court agreed. His sentence was overturned and reduced from life without parole to 20 years. On September 29, 2009, he was released on federal parole.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>"My name is my name!"</strong></span></p>
<p>Outside, he came home to a changed world. One in which someone else had gotten rich off his name and reputation. A former prison guard by the name of William Leonard Roberts II had made it big as a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Rapper" target="_blank">rapper</a> under the name “Rick Ross” and presented himself as a Florida cocaine kingpin.</p>
<p>“Freeway” Ross filed a suit against the hip hop artist in 2010, demanding $10 million for appropriating his name. The court battle lasted three years, until in 2014 a judge ruled in favor of William Leonard Roberts II. The rapper’s action is protected under the First Amendment, the verdict read.</p>
<p>In the underworld your name is everything. Ross worked hard and risked a lot to build his name. Not just in a world filled with killers and drug lords, but simply in a neighborhood filled with other boys named Rick.</p>
<p>“Growing up in South Central there were a lot of Ricks so I stayed by the freeway and they started saying Rick that stays by the freeway,” Ross said during a radio interview. Later police and media gave another spin to it, claiming it was derived from his high-priced real estate investments along the Los Angeles Harbor Freeway. “But at first, when it started, it was just the guys in the neighborhood. You know there was a Fat Rick, a Skinny Rick, and a Rick stay by the Freeway.”</p>
<p>A man’s name is not just his name. It’s his legacy. “Freeway” Rick Ross continues building that legacy with new legitimate business ventures and speaking engagements at schools and prisons about the dangers of the drug world.</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>
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Three alleged drug gangsters charged with murder of ex-NFL player in Detroit
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/three-alleged-drug-gangsters-charged-with-murder-of-ex-nfl-player
2018-02-24T06:24:34.000Z
2018-02-24T06:24:34.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/three-alleged-drug-gangsters-charged-with-murder-of-ex-nfl-player" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237098865,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237098865?profile=original" width="600" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Thee drug gangsters were charged in a six-count indictment, Thursday, which alleges heroin and cocaine distribution, firearm offenses, and the double murder of a 28-year-old ex-<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=NFL" target="_blank">NFL</a> player and his friend who were found in the basement of his Detroit home on December 20, 2016.</p>
<p>Former Buffalo Bills defensive end Robert Eddins was found dead alongside 32-year-old Ricardo McFarlin. Both men had been executed gangland style, receiving “multiple gunshot wounds.”</p>
<p>According to the indictment 34-year-old Michael DeAngelo Griffin, 30-year-old Clifton Dennis Epps, and 47-year-old Mariano Lozoya Garcia were behind the double homicide. Prosecutors say they traveled from Birmingham, Alabama to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Detroit" target="_blank">Detroit</a>, Michigan with the intent to harm Eddins, and in the course of carrying out that purpose, him and Ricardo McFarlin were murdered.</p>
<p>The three men are also charged with trafficking <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Heroin" target="_blank">heroin</a>.</p>
<p>“The murders of Eddin and McFarlin is just another example of how violence is intertwined with drug trafficking,” stated Timothy Plancon, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Detroit Field Office of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA" target="_blank">DEA</a>. This case was investigated by agents and officers of the Detroit Police Department’s Homicide Task Force which consists of Special Agents and law enforcement officers with the Detroit Police Department; FBI Detroit, DEA Detroit; and the Michigan State Police.</p>
<p>United States Attorney Matthew Schneider said, “Combatting the scourge of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drug trafficking</a> and the violence that comes with it is a major priority of the metro Detroit law enforcement community. The collaborative efforts and excellent work of DPD, FBI, MSP, and DEA have culminated in this indictment today. We hope to bring justice for the families of the deceased men and dismantle all organizations that spread these deadly poisons in our neighborhoods.”</p>
<p>We have learned in law enforcement that crime has no boundaries.” stated Capt. Thomas Deasy, Michigan State Police, Second District Commander. “It is through working with our local and federal partners that we are able to take violent criminals off the street and protect not only the citizens of Michigan, but across the county.”</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>
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Crips and Bloods hit by major law enforcement offensive in Little Rock, Arkansas
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/crips-and-bloods-hit-by-major-law-enforcement-offensive-in-little
2018-02-23T20:30:00.000Z
2018-02-23T20:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/crips-and-bloods-hit-by-major-law-enforcement-offensive-in-little" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237097094,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237097094?profile=original" width="600" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Multiple members of the Bloods and Crips street gangs are among the dozens of individuals arrested early Thursday morning in a major law enforcement operation targeting violent criminals in central Arkansas. The takedown highlights the coordinated work of federal, state, and local agencies to combat drug and gun crime in Little Rock.</p>
<p>Cody Hiland, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Stephen G. Azzam, Special Agent in Charge of the New Orleans Field Office of the Drug Enforcement Administration (<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA" target="_blank">DEA</a>), announced the arrests, as well the unsealing of thirteen indictments and two complaints charging 49 individuals with dozens of federal gun and drug trafficking crimes.</p>
<p>Agents also executed 11 search warrants, which resulted in the seizure of 21 illegally possessed <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gun" target="_blank">guns</a>, body armor, 9.6 pounds of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a>, 4 ounces of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Meth" target="_blank">methamphetamine</a>, 7.2 ounces of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Crack" target="_blank">crack cocaine</a> 12 ounces of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Marijuana" target="_blank">marijuana</a>, 5 grams of heroin, 293 ecstasy pills, and 93 pint bottles of promethazine cough syrup. Furthermore, they seized approximately $50,000 in drug proceeds, 4 cars, and 1 motorcycle.</p>
<p>“A team of over 250 agents and officers from law enforcement agencies across our state came together this morning to begin the process of dismantling <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/street-gangs" target="_blank">violent gangs</a> and removing dangerous people from the streets, with the goal of making our community a safer place,” Hiland said. “These agents also took drugs and violent people off the street today—people we believe endanger the lives of law-abiding citizens and endanger the future of our children with their toxic influence. Today’s operation is a victory over gang, gun, and drug violence, but is just the start of what the combined resources of these law enforcement agencies can do.”</p>
<p>“These arrests should serve as a warning and send a clear message—we will relentlessly pursue these violent criminals and drug traffickers plaguing our communities and bring them to justice,” Special Agent in Charge Azzam said. “Our neighborhoods deserve to exist without fear and intimidation inflicted by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/street-gangs" target="_blank">violent drug gangs</a>.”</p>
<p>The DEA served as lead agency while working in conjunction with GET (Gang Enforcement Task Force) Rock during the operation. GET Rock is comprised of nine central Arkansas law enforcement agencies—the U.S. Attorney’s office, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a>, DEA, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=ATF" target="_blank">ATF</a>), U.S. Marshal’s Service, Little Rock Police Department (LRPD), Pulaski County Sherriff’s Office (PCSO), Arkansas State Police (ASP), and Arkansas Community Correction.</p>
<p>It was formed at the request of Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson in response to the escalation in gang and gun violence in Little Rock, highlighted by the July 1, 2017, mass shooting at the Power Ultra Lounge in Little Rock that injured 28 people.</p>
<p>This mass shooting was precipitated by the rivalry between Real Hustlers Incorporated (RHI), a local <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Bloods" target="_blank">Bloods</a>-affiliated gang, and the Wolfe Street Crips, a local <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Crips" target="_blank">Crips</a>-affiliated gang in Little Rock. Police identified various RHI members as having participated in the Power Ultra Lounge shooting, and in subsequent retaliatory shootings involving Dewquan Johns, James Langford, Rodney Scott, Damien Young, and Edmond Blue (all of whom are indicted as part of this operation), among several others.</p>
<p>In 2017, law enforcement identified Clifton Thomas and Marvin Collins as founders of the Real Hustlers Incorporated. The gang, known to frequent the area of Monroe and Brown Streets in Little Rock, started as the Monroe Street Hustlers and changed its name to RHI due to mounting and unwanted attention from the LRPD. RHI, which promotes itself as an organization for rap artists, utilizes 5108 31st Street in Little Rock as a music studio, and as a location for distribution of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, oxycodone, and other controlled substances.</p>
<p>The DEA, using court-authorized wiretaps of various phones, identified gang members and the drug and gun crimes the gang was committing. Charges in the Thomas indictment include conspiracies to distribute cocaine, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Heroin" target="_blank">heroin</a>, and marijuana, felon in possession of firearms, and possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking. Included among the defendants is Bilal Johns Muhammad, identified as a long-time leader in RHI, and formerly the Monroe Street Hustlers. Two of Bilal Johns Muhammad’s sons—Bilal Sean Muhammad and Kain Jordan—were also indicted in the case.</p>
<p>The DEA and GET Rock also identified another 18 defendants as part of a drug trafficking organization headed by Robert Turpin III. The investigation revealed that Turpin was distributing ounce quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, as well as thousands of oxycodone and alprazolam (<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Xanax" target="_blank">Xanax</a>) pills in the central Arkansas area. Turpin was found to be importing pharmaceutical drugs from India for illicit distribution, and during the course of the conspiracy more than 150,000 pills were obtained and distributed.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Turpin organization was responsible for the transportation and distribution of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, pharmaceutical controlled substances and money to and from Texas, Massachusetts, and North Carolina using personal and commercial vehicles, the United States Postal Service and FedEx. This organization also trafficked in firearms and has engaged in firearm-related violence in the Little Rock area. Law enforcement agents carried out the operation that resulted in the arrests of 15 of the 18 indicted members of the Turpin organization on February 14, 2018.</p>
<p>Also arrested Thursday morning was Chris Alexander, a member of the Wolfe Street Crips and purported community activist who has promoted anti-gang and violence programs in Little Rock in the past. Alexander, along with fellow gang member Kenya Davis, who is still a fugitive, was indicted on marijuana conspiracy and distribution charges. Alexander was also charged with being a felon in possession of firearms and possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking.</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>
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The sun was shining: The hit on New York Mafia underboss Frank Scalice
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-sun-was-shining-the-hit-on-new-york-mafia-underboss-frank-sca
2017-10-22T13:52:11.000Z
2017-10-22T13:52:11.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-sun-was-shining-the-hit-on-new-york-mafia-underboss-frank-sca" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237101081,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237101081?profile=original" width="564" /></a>By Thom L. Jones</p>
<p>In the only borough of New York to begin with the indefinite article, it was not unusual at end of day to watch “fathers trundling home with a monumental sadness on their shoulders”. * It was a hard place to live for the working man and his family. A good place for organized crime.</p>
<p>Frank Scalice lived at 211 Kirby Street in the outlier enclave of City Island. An unassuming, three-bedroom weatherboard-house built in 1940. In the Bronx. It was his domain. Nothing went down there of any consequence unless he sanctioned it. At least as far as it concerned the Anastasia Mafia crime family. He held a job as Vice President in a plastering company called Mario and Di Bono, in Corona, in the borough of Queens, since at least 1954, or earlier, and had a lock on the construction industries that was so tight, not even bags of cement could be moved in his borough unless he approved it. The company carried out substantial construction work at Idlewild Airport (now JFK) a hospital in the Bronx, and on many city-owned housing projects. Scalice turned up one day at the company, and somehow, he became one of the owners. </p>
<p>He was Cosa Nostra and everybody knew it. He was sometimes referred to in his older age as “Cheech or Ciccio,” often used as a diminutive of Frank, especially in Italian neighborhoods.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237100892,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237100892?profile=original" width="130" /></a>Francesco Scalici ** (right) was born in Palermo, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Sicily" target="_blank">Sicily</a>, on March 31st, 1893. He and his brothers came to America, settling in The Bronx, and by 1919, Frank was a United States citizen. There were at least six brothers and a sister, Rosa. The FBI claimed that in addition to Frank, four brothers-Salvatore, Giacomo, Giuseppe and Giovanni-were members of the mob. Frank, by 1919, also had his first criminal record on file for Grand Larceny-- burglary in New Rochelle. He married his first cousin, and one of their children was a mentally retarded deaf mute.</p>
<p>Twelve years after he arrived in America, he was the boss of a New York Mafia family. He had listed a butcher shop in the Bronx as a legitimate business enterprise. It was an area of commerce that seemed to appeal to his biological family members. His brother-in-law, on his wife’s side, Mafia capo David Amodeo, operated one in the Bronx and another crew boss, Michele Giacomo Scarpulla, Rosa’s husband, ran one, in Brooklyn. His sons, Angelo (another butcher) and Philip, were also part of the crime family.</p>
<p>Frank Scalice was possibly involved in bootlegging during the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Prohibition" target="_blank">Prohibition Years</a>, working with Vincenzo “Jimmy Marino” LePore, who lived on St Peter’s Avenue in the Bronx, and sometime in the 1920s, Frank had become a member of a Mafia family run by Salvatore D’Aquila who also lived in the Bronx and was murdered in 1928.</p>
<p>Between 1930 and 1931 an underworld war broke out in New York between factions headed by Giuseppe Masseria and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/american-mafia-s-boss-of-bosses-whacked-at-his-office" target="_blank">Salvatore Maranzano</a> over control of Cosa Nostra (the name the mob used to describe itself). Maranzano had the support of Scalice, and after the murder of his crime family head, Alfredo Mineo, in November 1930, Frank was then bumped up to head the family. When Maranzano ordered him to murder Vincent Mangano, a member of his group, and a close friend, he refused and brokered peace with Charlie Luciano (real name Salvatore Lucania,) who was Masseria’s right-hand man.</p>
<p>Maranzano was subsequently <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/american-mafia-s-boss-of-bosses-whacked-at-his-office" target="_blank">killed</a>, and it was agreed that Frank, because of his links to him, would step down as head of the family, and Mangano would replace him. Then as now, the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a> lives and dies by its politics.</p>
<p>Everything ran smoothly until 1951 when Vincent and his brother Philip were both murdered and the family was taken over by Albert Anastasia, the underboss at that time, who made “Cheech” his number two.*** Frank had gone from soldier to capo (crew chief) to boss, then back to capo and then up again in the rankings, all in twenty years.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237100700,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237100700?profile=original" width="191" /></a><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/deadly-bizarre-and-morbid-murder-inc-comes-to-the-mob-museum-in-l" target="_blank">Albert Anastasia</a> (right) replaced Vincenzo Mangano who replaced Frank Scalice who had replaced Al Mineo who had replaced Salvatore D’Aquila and who knows whom before him. Back to the turn of the 20th century when the family, like a primeval microcosm, had emerged from the underworld swamp of New York’s cluttered and swarming streets to metastasize into what would be a powerful underworld force in a city of millions. One that exists to this day, now known as <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">The Gambino Crime Family</a>.</p>
<p>Anastasia was the first non-Sicilian to head this Mafia clan, and maybe his choice of Scalice was as much mob politics as anything.</p>
<p>Among the hundreds of “made” men under Anastasia’s control was one called Vincent J. Squillante, who would become a powerful capo with a meteoric rise within the family and the criminal underworld.</p>
<p>And the bad-news guy for Frank.</p>
<p>Born in East Harlem in 1917, there is little known of his early life. Married twice, with three children, he operated at one time as a commission fruit merchant. Jockey-size-- 5’2” and 122 lbs-- like many small men, he had an overbearing and forceful personality. In 1950, he became associated with the garbage removal industry and was somehow, with no background or experience, elected a director of the Greater New York City Cartmen’s Association, on a salary of $10,000 a year. Over $500,000 in today’s currency. He had no criminal record until 1953 when he pleaded guilty to failing to file tax returns. Through his control of Local 813 of The Teamsters Union working with its corrupt and unscrupulous head, Bernard Adlestein, Squillante, and his brother Nunzio became a dominant force in the garbage removal business which it was reported generated over $50 million annually. That’s the equivalent now of $500,000,000!</p>
<p>By the 1950s the Mafia families of New York were operating as well-oiled machines, driving their illegal endeavors: loan-sharking, illegal gambling, numbers, construction manipulation and above all drug trafficking. Frank was into this, boots and all, according to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.</p>
<p>Joe Amato, one of the bureau’s four agents in their New York office, the so-called “Italian Squad,” had been tracking him since 1946 and confirmed at a Senate hearing, The McClellan Committee, in November 1957, that Scalice worked in partnership with Harry Stromberg, a notorious Jewish criminal who worked as a banker for many criminals, especially those in the drug trade. Scalice was also being monitored visiting Italy and in particular, one well-known ex American gangster-<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-humble-origins-of-joe-masseria-and-lucky-luciano" target="_blank">Charlie “Lucky” Luciano</a>.</p>
<p>Frank had traveled to Italy during the winter of 1948 and 1949, and visited Luciano. There is a photograph (below) of them both, along with Charlie’s girlfriend of the time, taken on the terrace of the Excelsior, a five star hotel on Via Partenope, set in a five acres, lemon-scented garden, overlooking the Bay of Naples. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237101286,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237101286?profile=original" width="355" /></a>Since his release from prison in the USA and enforced deportation in January 1946, the Feds had been watching Luciano closely through agents based in their Rome office.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/luckys-luck-how-charlie" target="_blank">Lucky’s Luck</a>: How Charlie Luciano got out of jail and passed go</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Transported originally to Sicily, Luciano had re-located to Naples and the American and Italian law enforcement agencies suspected he was working, as he always had, on the wrong side of the track. He lived in the penthouse of a small, multi-story apartment building at Via Tasso 464, which he had purchased for $150,000, and ran a restaurant near the port, called “The San Francisco Bar and Grill.”</p>
<p>He had been one of the participants at a Mafia meeting held in Sicily in a hotel in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Palermo" target="_blank">Palermo</a> for four days in October 1957. Mafiosi from America and Sicily had gathered to sort out among other things, the best way to organize the rapidly growing <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drug trafficking</a> trade between the two countries.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-phantom-of-the-grand-hotel-sicily-the-mafia-a-mystery" target="_blank">The Phantom of The Grand Hotel</a>: Sicily, the Mafia, and a Mystery</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (now the DEA) believed, “Luciano was the guiding genius behind the expansion of the international dope traffic.” Maybe he was, although there is little to no hard evidence to support this. The Feds linked Luciano to almost every narcotic connection between Italy and America whether there was evidence or not. He was never prosecuted for anything connected to drugs. Maybe the agency simply wanted to neuter Luciano, and make him untouchable to traffickers. Whether he and Scalice ever worked together in the drug field is also open to speculation.</p>
<p>The major drug operations in Italy between 1948 and 1952 concerned the illicit trade in narcotics from legitimate wholesale chemists, over 1100 kilos, and this was taking place in Milan, Turin and Genoa, in Northern Italy. Just how much of this found its way into America is unknown, and through what sources, although Scalise along with another major drug trafficker, New York mobster, Jo Di Palermo, considered by law enforcement agencies to be “the dean of dope dealers,” may well have been involved.</p>
<p>Frank was not the only New York hood to visit Luciano, according to FBI files. They claim in the spring of 1948, Carlo Gambino and his brother, Paul, met up with Charley in Palermo. Carlo was a long-established capo in the family then run by Vincenzo Mangano. Law enforcement believed the meeting was about heroin, asserting that the Gambino brothers, “were reported to exercise control over the narcotic smuggling activities between the Mafia element in Palermo and the United States on behalf of Salvatore Lucania.”</p>
<p>The law kept their eyes on Scalice over the years. He was observed attending a meeting at a hotel frequented by the mob, in Miami, in March 1953, along with Scarpulla. In June 1955, Frank had been ordered to appear as a witness at a US Senate Committee, but claimed he was too sick following surgery.</p>
<p>By 1957, he was under suspicion by the New York Police in connection to three mob hits-Vincent Macri, Dominic Calicci and a man murdered in the kitchen of a Bronx restaurant, Tami’s Corner.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237100899,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237100899?profile=original" /></a>As the family’s second in charge, Frank led a busy life, traveling across the city to check on and coordinate the family’s criminal activities. Meetings had to be held with the capi who ran the crews that kept the wheels of criminal commerce rolling. He was also a man of predictable habits. One of which would be his downfall.</p>
<p>On June 17th, 1957, Frank drove a blue Cadillac from his island home the short distance into the Belmont area, parking it outside number 625 Crescent Avenue, and made the two-minute walk to his brother’s business. </p>
<p>Every Monday, he had lunch with Giacomo who ran a candy store on Arthur Avenue, the “Little Italy” of this most northern New York borough. Jack used the shop as a base for his criminal activities, as a soldier in Anastasia’s crime family It was less than seven miles from where Frank lived. They would go to Anne and Tony’s on the corner of 187th Street and stuff themselves on mozzarella and roast peppers and baked clams. The family restaurant, opened in 1927, is still serving the kind of food the brothers Scalice loved.</p>
<p>After they had eaten, Frank would often wander down the street, talking to people, as he did this Monday afternoon, pausing to chat to women pushing prams, and old men sitting in the sun, filling in time before they died. The kids would be playing ringolevio or stickball, or flies-are-up, perhaps standing in line at the Good Humor Man’s van to buy an ice cream or Popsicle. The start of the week was always a hectic time: mothers out shopping stocking up on groceries, suppliers delivering fresh produce; the side-walks crowded and busy with pedestrian traffic.</p>
<p>One of Scalice's favorite stops was at Enrico Mazzarae’s fruit and vegetable shop at number 2380, further down the Avenue, on the same side, from the diner where he would lunch with his brother.</p>
<p>The shop was a great spot for a hit. Easy to enter and exit, nowhere for the victim to escape and there were always lots of people around who would panic not understanding what was going on, the way people do when they are confronted with sudden, shocking violence. It would create chaos and plenty of diversion for the killers.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237101862,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237101862?profile=original" width="163" /></a>They would be two young men, <em>cugines</em>, associates of the family, **** anxious to get themselves made, hot to prove their worth. Vincent Squillante, it is alleged, was given the contract to kill Scalice by Anastasia, and most probably used someone he trusted to carry out the arrangements. The killers would know only him as their contact who was working for the man who in turn was setting up the job for Albert Anastasia. The degrees of separation would minimize the risk for the family boss. A classic style Mafia execution.</p>
<p>Vincent Squillante (left) had make a big thing of his relationship with Anastasia, claiming among other things, that he was Albert’s godson. However, his baptismal documents, dated June 7th, 1917, show no mention of Anastasia's name, which is hardly surprising, as he was only fifteen at the time and had just landed in New York as an immigrant from Calabria. Nevertheless, the myth persisted, and as a result, Squillante was much feared by less important racketeers and would be the subject of many police and federal investigations until he disappeared in September 1960.</p>
<p>A story circulated claiming he was shot dead by Anthony Gaggi, who had been close to Frank, who was a blood relative through Gaggi’s father. Nino Gaggi, who would become a capo in the family sometime in the future, told his nephew, Dominick Montiglio, he had shot Squillante, and the body had been dumped into an incinerator in the basement of a building on the lower east side of Manhattan, on 10th Street in what is now called The East Village. </p>
<p>At around one-thirty, Frank came strolling down the street, He was wearing light tan slacks and a yellow sports shirt. It was blindingly hot, the sun’s rays shimmering across the sidewalks, the passing traffic kicking up dust as a dark, old model sedan pulled up and double parked outside the fruit shop.</p>
<p>Scalice walked in and started talking to the owner; he was laughing, joshing the little fat genial storekeeper, before he walked across to a stand and started to choose some fruit. As he was about to pay for it, the two men walked into the store. They were dressed identically, in dark slacks and white shirts, sleeves rolled up. Wearing sunglasses. About the same height and build, wearing the same clothes, designed to confuse witnesses. They walked up to Frank, who stopped and looked at them in surprise. Each of the men pulled out a.38 caliber revolver and started to shoot. They fired five times, two of the bullets ripping into Frank’s throat, one blowing a hole in his right cheek, one shot going wide, and the last one banging into his right shoulder, spinning him around and tossing him in a heap on the floor. The two men stepped over the body, walked past the astonished shop owner, and climbed into the black car, which pulled away and disappeared into the afternoon traffic. It was all over in seconds.</p>
<p>People ran around in circles, shouting and yelling at each other. In a few minutes, a police patrol car came screaming down the street, followed shortly afterward by an ambulance, and then more police cars, and soon the block was crowded with cops and detectives. The body inside the shop, sprawled out on its back, leaking blood, flanked by crates of oranges on one side and heads of spinach on the other. Someone placed a drop-sheet over the body. A patrolman stood near it, writing in his notebook.</p>
<p>Outside, the sun was shining.</p>
<p>Enrico Mazzarae’s fruit and vegetable shop is now a hairdressing salon. Today, people come here to get their hair parted with a comb, not a bullet. Just half a block north was where Vincenzo Le Pore, Frank’s old bootlegging partner, had been shot dead outside a barber shop on Arthur Avenue in September 1931. A residual casualty of the 1930-31 underworld war that had given Frank such a gift. It was to say the least ironic, that he would lose it in the same street.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237101871,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237101871?profile=original" width="400" /></a>On June 18th, investigators from the Bronx’s District Attorney's, Office opened a safe deposit box at The Dollar Saving Bank on The Grand Concourse near Fordham Road. The box actually belonged to Scalice’s wife, although he had permission to access it. It contained $950 in cash, $2000 in Bearer Bonds and some of his wife’s jewelry. Searching the home on City Island, they found $192 in cash, which in addition to the $72 found on his body, was all they came across. He either stashed his wealth somewhere else or like so many mobsters, lived daily or weekly, from one scam to another. For all the efforts they put into it, and the hours they worked, along with the dangers they faced from within their own criminal satellites and the outside forces of law and order, most of the mob seemed to struggle to find enough for the weekly housekeeping bills. Investigators also found dozens of photographs of Charley Luciano and Frank’s loansharking ledger that contained the names of numerous well-known business men and public officials.</p>
<p>The absence of significant amounts of cash in his holdings was inexplicable considering that the Bronx District Attorney, David V. Sullivan referred to Scalice as “A big shot and kingpin in this area.”</p>
<p>Why Frank was murdered has never been confirmed. The Mafia keeps no bills of accounting and the only street information that law enforcement gathers, almost always comes from informants, who may or may not be playing a double game. It was rumored he had welshed on a big drug deal and paid the price. A source suggested that the killing was ordered not by Anastasia but by another New York boss, Vito Genovese, who was making a play to become the boss over all the city’s five clans and wanted Anastasia handicapped by the killing of his number two, so as to make him vulnerable.</p>
<p>Then there was the membership scam story that started to circulate not long after Scalice took the long drop.</p>
<p>Joe Valachi, the Genovese soldier who became a government informant in the early 1960s, becoming a fountain of underworld knowledge or a trickle of lies, depending on where, in the scheme of things, the observer was standing, claimed Frank was killed because he had been selling membership into the Anastasia crime family.</p>
<p>For $40,000 or maybe $50,000, men like Charlie Barcellona and Aniello Mancuso and Arthur Leo and Tony and Mike Sedotto, and Jimmy Massi and many more were earning their “button” a term the mob sometime used about the initiation rite, rather than doing it the traditional way-years of waiting and being watched, rite of passage, i.e. killing someone, recommendation by those who knew the applicant-instead becoming soldiers in the family by simply greasing the palm of the underboss. The “books” as the Mafia referred to its state of grace, had been closed since 1931, and only officially re-opened in 1954, although some mobsters had been made, under the counter, so to speak in the intervening years.</p>
<p>Anastasia was furious when he found out and ordered Frank to be de-franked. Apart from anything else, all these extra hoods in the neighborhood were Frank’s men, which made for sleepless nights for the king sitting uneasily on the throne, which was par for the course in the world of Cosa Nostra. A real cynical observer of the times claimed Frank was really killed because Albert, who had shared 50/50 in the initiation scam, got cold feet and decided to close down, forever, any possible future source of embarrassment that would have made him very vulnerable to the wrath of the other Mafia clans in the city. This kind of Machiavellian gesture seemed well-suited to Anastasia’s psychopathic profile, a man who was as cunning as a shiver of sharks.</p>
<p>Just what is fact and what is myth in all of this is dubious at best. As has been sometimes quoted, “There’s two sides to every story, and then there’s the truth.” </p>
<p>FBI files tell us that following Frank’s murder, some of his mob holdings were handed over to Arthur Leo, and some to “Pappa Dave” as David Amodeo was known on the street. Anastasia no doubt took his share.</p>
<p>Just a three minutes’ walk from where Frank had parked his car the day he died, in the opposite direction to his brothers candy shop, was the Scocozza Funeral Home at 657 Crescent Avenue, where his funeral service was held on June 23rd, and then he was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, which is designated a National Historic Landmark of the Bronx and the nation, not because of all the hoods buried there as in St John Cemetery in Queens, although it has a few, like Jimmy Blue Eyes, and Tommy Gagliano and even Patsy Lo Lordo from The Windy City.</p>
<p>Frank had a grand send-off: 20 cars, eight of them carrying flowers.</p>
<p>They couldn’t bury his brother, Giuseppe, anywhere. After Frank’s murder, he apparently swore vengeance on the killers. When he realized that Albert was not doing anything to support him, he quietly disappeared but came out of hiding some weeks later. He was, it was rumored, invited to the Bronx home of Squillante, where a welcoming party in the basement, killed him, cut up his body, wrapped the bits in rubbish sacks and it was then delivered by one of Squillante’s garbage trucks, to one of his garbage dumps where no doubt the seagulls dined à la carte.</p>
<p>1957 was a less than auspicious year for New York’s Mafia. It was an Annus Horribilis if ever there was one.</p>
<p>Vito Genovese tried to kill Frank Costello the boss of the old Luciano Family and failed. Anastasia probably killed Frank Scalice and was himself killed, four months later, almost certainly by men under the direction of capo Carlo Gambino, who had replaced Scalise in the number two position and then became the family’s new boss in 1960. In November, at Apalachin, upstate New York, there was a major mob upheaval when dozens of Mafiosi from all over America were flushed out of a meeting by a country cop.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mob-meeting-at-apalachin-the" target="_blank">Mob Meeting at Apalachin</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Maybe the Chiefs and the Indians as they sat drinking and socializing in their clubs across New York, enjoying the easy camaraderie that men in the mob had with each other, organizing deals, running scams, comfortable in each other’s presence, consoled themselves with the thought that bad times were in some way like gypsies-they only stayed for a while. </p>
<p><em>* Jerome Charyn: Bitter Bronx: W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2015.</em></p>
<p><em>**Just when his named change occurred I have been unable to document. Most sources refer to him as Scalise, although that his not the name on his tombstone.</em></p>
<p><em>*** As always, when dealing with Mafia history, facts often are fiction and fiction make-believe. There are Mafia chroniclers who believe that the underboss of the Anastasia family at this time was actually Palermo born Salvatore Chiri who stepped down and retired sometime after Anastasia was murdered. Others claim he was simply the leader of the family’s Bergen, New Jersey crew, working under Ruggiero Boiardo aka Richie The Boot. An FBI reports states he was the family consigliere or counselor. Whoever he was, he was important enough in the scheme of things, to attend the infamous Apalachin Conference in 1957. </em></p>
<p><em> **** It’s been claimed the killers were Arthur Leo and Vincent Squillante, although this has never been confirmed. S. Jonathan Bass, a professor at Alabama's Samford University, alleges one of the killers that day was Rudy Pipilo, a 31-year-old, who as a result, made “his bones” into the Anastasia crime family. Pipolo features as one of the characters in HBO’s new TV series “The Deuce.”</em></p>
<p><strong><em>For more of Thom L. Jones stories check out his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/thom-l-jones-mob-corner" target="_blank">Mob Corner</a></em></strong></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>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Thom L. Jones & Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Profile: Greek crime boss Alexandros Angelopoulos
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/profile-greek-crime-boss-alexandros-angelopoulos
2017-02-20T14:01:53.000Z
2017-02-20T14:01:53.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-greek-crime-boss-alexandros-angelopoulos"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237089878,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237089878?profile=original" width="462" /></a>By Milko</p>
<p>Alexandros Angelopoulos (photo above) was born in 1965 in Nea Pori, Greece. By the late 1980s, he was involved in smuggling cigarettes. He then switched to smuggling cocaine from South America to Europe using a network of traffickers spread throughout Europe in Greece, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Going by the nickname “Fat Man,” Angelopoulos now earned a new one: “The Greek Escobar.” He bought two football (soccer) clubs and owned various legitimate companies. Around 2002, he popped up on the DEA’s radar. When a ship, the Africa 1, was seized off the coast of Gibraltar loaded with 5500 kilos of cocaine, the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DEA">DEA</a> began actively hunting the drug baron.</p>
<p>Angelopoulos was believed to be the mastermind behind the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine">cocaine</a> shipment. The Africa 1 traveled under the flag of Belize and – with help from the DEA - was intercepted by Spanish police in June of 2004 around 100 kilometers from the Spanish coast after Greek authorities tipped them off.</p>
<p>The ship was alleged to have been bought by Angelopoulos in May of 2004. Its official routes would take it between Greece and Turkey, but while police were surveilling the ship, they saw it go off course to Brazil, where it was loaded with cocaine.</p>
<p>On August 30, 2004, Angelopoulos was arrested in a hotel near the airport of Stuttgart, Germany, and extradited to Greece. There, on November 9, 2005, the 40-year-old “Greek Escobar” stood trial in a court in Athens. On day one of his trial it became known that Greek police had been watching him since 1999.</p>
<p>The court found him guilty and, on December 22, 2005, sentenced him to life in prison for drug smuggling and money laundering. In 2011, his sentence was reduced to 22 years.</p>
<p>Though behind bars, rumors and allegations about Angelopoulos’ crimes kept coming in, as well as new charges. In 2013, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for laundering 36 million euro via a gambling company owned by the Greek state named OPAP. He was allowed to serve this sentence alongside his 22-year term. Better yet, in 2014, a court found that all of Angelopoulos’ seized possessions and money were to be returned to him.</p>
<p>A year later, in 2015, Angelopoulos was released from prison as part of an amnesty arrangement for notorious gangsters. However, shortly after his release, on September 22 he was arrested again. At age 51, Angelopoulos stood in court again, this time because the Greek supreme court had ruled that his trial had to be done over.</p>
<p>Just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.</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>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Russian mob crew in Brighton Beach busted by DEA, IRS
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/russian-mob-crew-in-brighton-beach-busted-by-dea-irs
2016-11-10T06:42:09.000Z
2016-11-10T06:42:09.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-mob-crew-in-brighton-beach-busted-by-dea-irs"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237073652,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237073652?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By David Amoruso – posted Nov. 9 / updated Nov 10</p>
<p>Nine alleged members of a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-mafia-overview">Russian Mafia</a> crew were charged with racketeering, extortion, loansharking, drug trafficking and illegal gambling. Eight were arrested late last night and early this morning by agents of the DEA, IRS, and NYPD. One defendant remains at large.</p>
<p>The Mafia crew operated extensively in the Brighton Beach and Coney Island neighborhoods of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a> as well as overseas, with mobsters in Brooklyn reporting directly to members of organized crime — known as “thieves in law,” “Thieves” or “<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Vor">Vory</a>”— based in various former states of the Soviet Union. The Vory would, in turn, help the defendants extort money from individuals living abroad and authorize the use of physical force by the defendants in the United States. </p>
<p>Since as early as March 2016, the group collected outstanding debts, worth in the aggregate millions of dollars, and regularly used threats of violence. The syndicate’s reach was international and included extorting payments in the United States and threatening victims and their family members living abroad. </p>
<p>For example, wiretap recordings reveal that the defendants tracked down the father of an extortion victim in Russia in order to determine where his son was living. After locating the victim — whom defendants claimed owed syndicate members nearly $200,000 — defendant Leoind Gershman said, the “Thieves have found him . . . in Israel,” and “they were at [his] place today.” </p>
<p>Another extortion victim who struggled to repay his debt was ominously reminded that, “the person who is going to work with you [to repay the debt] … is a boxer with cauliflower ears.” The interest rate being charged this particular victim was 100% per year.</p>
<p>The government’s investigation revealed that the gang ran high-stakes illegal poker games in various locations in Brooklyn, where a single game could involve wagers totaling as much as $150,000.</p>
<p>Never easy to satisfy, the gangsters also pushed drugs, the indictment alleges they trafficked over 100 kilos of marijuana.</p>
<p>During the course of the investigation, the mobsters were thoroughly observed by agents, who used court authorized wiretaps, undercover drug buys, confidential sources, and surveillance. While doing so, investigators found that though many of the suspects do not have legitimate employment, thousands of dollars were flowing into their bank accounts as they were driving around New York in high-end luxury automobiles.</p>
<p>The Eastern European mob crew mainly operated in Brighton Beach and Coney Island. Located in Brooklyn, New York, Brighton Beach has been a notorious center of Russian Mafia activity since the 1970s. The area spawned infamous Russian crime bosses such as <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-boss-evsei-agron">Evsei Agron</a>, Vyacheslav Ivankov, and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-mob-boss-charged-with-extortion-scheme">Boris Nayfeld</a>.</p>
<p>The indictment names the following defendants:</p>
<ul>
<li>33-year-old <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Gershman">Leoind Gershman</a>, also known as “Lenny,” “Lenny G.,” “Lyonchik” and “Lyonya”</li>
<li>38-year-old <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Tsvetkov">Aleksey Tsvetkov</a>, also known as “Pelmin,” “Lesha” and “Lyosha”</li>
<li>38-year-old <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Yusufov">Renat Yusufov</a>, also known as “Ronnie” and “Ronik”</li>
<li>37-year-old <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Krugly">Igor Krugly</a></li>
<li>32-year-old <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Malkeyev">Vyacheslav Malkeyev</a>, also known as “Steve Bart”</li>
<li>32-year-old <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Aronov">Isok Aronov</a></li>
<li>52-year-old <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Pardilov">Yusif Pardilov</a>, also known as “Yosik”</li>
<li>36-year-old <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Rivera">Librado Rivera</a>, also known as “Macho” and “Max”</li>
</ul>
<p>If convicted of all counts, defendants Leonid Gershman, Vyacheslav Malkeyev, and Librado Rivera face mandatory minimum sentences of five years and maximum sentences of 40 years, while defendants Aleksey Tsvetkov, Renat Yusufov, Igor Krugly, and Isok Aronov face maximum sentences of 20 years.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/russian-mafia-overview">Russian Mafia section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p></div>
Right-hand-man of Suriname president's son guilty in U.S. drug case
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/right-hand-man-of-suriname-president-s-son-guilty-in-u-s-drug-cas
2016-03-25T12:17:57.000Z
2016-03-25T12:17:57.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/right-hand-man-of-suriname-president-s-son-guilty-in-u-s-drug-cas"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237058253,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237058253?profile=original" width="400" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Another strike was dealt against the South American country of Suriname on Wednesday when Edmund Muntslag was found guilty by an American court of trying to bring shipments of drugs into the United States.</p>
<p>Muntslag faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life. According to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-suriname-drugs-idUSKCN0WP2G7" target="_blank">Reuters</a>, the 32-year-old intends to appeal the verdict, his lawyer says.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/convicted-drug-trafficker-becomes-head-of-south-american-country-">Surinamese national</a> was busted in the same DEA sting operation that netted U.S. authorities 43-year-old Dino Bouterse, the son of Suriname’s president. Muntslag was seen by prosecutors as Bouterse’s right-hand-man, while the <em>crown heir</em> was head of the country’s counter-terrorism unit.</p>
<p>But their main business was drugs. Even Dino’s father, president Desi Bouterse, has a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/drug-cartels">drug conviction</a> on his record and is wanted for drug crimes in the Netherlands. The DEA was eager to prove their involvement in narcotics trafficking and set up an elaborate operation aimed at bringing them down.</p>
<p>Using informants and undercover agents, the DEA lured the willing narco-traffickers into a web of drugs and guns involving Mexican cartels and terrorist group Hezbollah. Both Dino Bouterse and Edmund Muntslag were arrested and taken to court. Bouterse pleaded guilty and, last year, received over 16 years in prison.</p>
<p>These convictions do not mean their political future back home is finished. At the beginning of this year, president Desi Bouterse named a convicted drug trafficker as the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/convicted-drug-trafficker-becomes-head-of-south-american-country-">head of Suriname's national security service</a>.</p>
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Violent Seven Mile Bloods gangsters indicted in Detroit
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/violent-seven-mile-bloods-gangsters-indicted-in-detroit
2016-03-03T07:00:20.000Z
2016-03-03T07:00:20.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/violent-seven-mile-bloods-gangsters-indicted-in-detroit"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237055852,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237055852?profile=original" width="500" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Twelve more members of the Seven Mile Bloods street gang in Detroit were charged in a superseding indictment Tuesday, adding charges for racketeering, murder in aid of racketeering, firearms violations and related offenses. The previous indictment had charged three other individuals.</p>
<p>The Seven Mile Bloods (SMB) gang operates on the east side of Detroit, between Gratiot Avenue and Kelly Road and between Seven and Eight Mile Roads. Seven Mile Bloods or “SMB” members have claimed this area as their territory and refer to it as the “Red Zone.” The area is in zip code 48205, which SMB members refer to as “4-8-2-0-Die” in some of their rap lyrics.</p>
<p>Gang members regularly use social media sites and apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to post photographs and videos highlighting their affiliation with the SMB. These messages are now used by authorities to prove the criminal charges in the indictment. The gang also has a close relationship with “Hard Work Entertainment,” which enables them to professionally spread their message.</p>
<p>The indictment alleges an ongoing gang war between the Seven Mile Bloods and an alliance of other gangs operating on Detroit’s east side stemming from a murder that occurred in July 2014. During the past 18 months, these rival gangs have been violently attacking one another and have posted respective “hit lists” on social media. This shooting war has led to increased homicides and non-fatal shootings on Detroit’s east side.</p>
<p>The indictment also stems from collaborative law enforcement efforts to dismantle the drug pipeline from Detroit to other states, alleging incidents in which SMB members were arrested in Charleston, West Virginia, in connection with narcotics trafficking. Within their Red Zone, SMB traffics in cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and various prescription pills.</p>
<p>Under the Detroit One Initiative, investigators were able to bring together separate probes into various members of this organization and its criminal activities into one encompassing investigation. Partners include the Detroit Police Department Gang Intelligence Unit, the FBI Violent Gang Task Force, which consists of representatives of Detroit Police Department, U.S. Border Patrol, Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Patrol, Michigan Department of Corrections and Michigan State Police, with the cooperation of the ATF and DEA.</p>
<p>DEA Acting Special Agent in Charge David A. Grant stated, “DEA will continue to work hand in hand with the United States Attorney’s Office and the members of Detroit One in the continuing effort to reduce the violence associated with drug trafficking in all areas of Detroit. Today’s indictment demonstrates solid success in the effort to dismantle the Seven Mile Bloods, and to curtail some of the inevitable violence stemming from their trafficking in drugs on Detroit’s east side.”</p>
<p>“The Detroit One initiative continues to be a valuable partnership for the FBI, and for the city of Detroit,” said David P. Gelios, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Detroit Division. “The dismantling of violent gangs in this city must remain a priority, and we remain fully committed to that end. These gang arrest operations are absolutely necessary in order to make Detroit a more livable, workable, and secure city.”</p>
<p>Charged today are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Billy Arnold, a/k/a “B-Man,” “Berinzo,” “Killa,” 29, of Detroit, with RICO conspiracy and multiple counts of murder in aid of racketeering; attempted murder in aid of racketeering; assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering; use of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence resulting in death; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence; and felon in possession of a firearm;</li>
<li>Steven Arthur, Jr., a/k/a “Steve-O,” 26, of Detroit, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence; and felon in possession of a firearm;</li>
<li>Eugene Fisher, a/k/a “Fist,” 35, of Detroit, with RICO conspiracy; attempted murder in aid of racketeering; assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering; use of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence; and felon in possession of a firearm;</li>
<li>Corey Bailey, a/k/a “Sonny,” “Cocaine Sonny,” 28, of Detroit, with RICO conspiracy; murder in aid of racketeering; attempted murder in aid of racketeering; assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering; use of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence; and possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Quincy Graham, a/k/a “Dub,” “Q,” 32, of Detroit, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence; and felon in possession of a firearm;</li>
<li>Robert Brown II, a/k/a “R.O.,” 33, of Warren, Michigan, with RICO conspiracy and possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Jerome Gooch, a/k/a “Rome,” “Dada,” 30, of Detroit, Michigan and Charleston with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Michael Rogers, a/k/a “Smoke,” “Ace,” 33, of Eastpointe, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Derrick Kennedy, a/k/a “Dip,” 29, of Warren, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Devon Patterson, a/k/a “Duck,” “Sosa,” 30, of Detroit, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Christopher Owens, a/k/a “Baby O,” “Cee,” 29, of Charleston, West Virginia, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Jeffery Adams, a/k/a “Brick,” “Product,” 26, of Detroit, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Arlandis Shy, a/k/a “Grymee,” “VIL,” 26, of Clinton Township with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence;</li>
<li>Anthony Lovejoy, a/k/a “PT,” 33, of Charleston, West Virginia and Buckeye, Arizona, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence; and</li>
<li>Diondre Fitzpatrick, a/k/a “D-Nice,” 26, of Harper Woods, with RICO conspiracy; possession of a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence.</li>
</ul>
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Convicted drug trafficker becomes head of South American country’s National Security Service
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/convicted-drug-trafficker-becomes-head-of-south-american-country
2016-01-04T20:00:00.000Z
2016-01-04T20:00:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/convicted-drug-trafficker-becomes-head-of-south-american-country" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237047478,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237047478?profile=original" width="500" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Suriname is officially being run by a bunch of narcotics traffickers. Today, the South American country <a href="http://www.starnieuws.com/index.php/welcome/index/nieuwsitem/33115" target="_blank">named</a> a former soldier who was sentenced to 8 years in prison for running an ecstasy laboratory as the new head of its national security and intelligence service.</p>
<p>Hans Jannasch was busted in 2003 after police in Suriname discovered his involvement in running an ecstasy lab in the nation’s capital Paramaribo. His lab was the largest of its kind ever found in the Caribbean and produced pills for the U.S. market.</p>
<p>Jannasch earned an early release from prison in 2010 and went straight to work as bodyguard for Suriname’s current president Desi Bouterse (photo above).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237047893,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237047893?profile=original" width="322" /></a>Bouterse, meanwhile, can relate to Jannasch’s trouble with the law. He himself has been convicted in absentia of cocaine smuggling by a court in the Netherlands. His son Dino (photo right) is currently serving 16 years in an American prison after being busted by U.S. authorities for drug and gun trafficking.</p>
<p>We would like to think that all these men have learned from their past mistakes, but then again, we’re not naïve. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Suriname. Will it become like Manuel Noriega’s Panama or will it fly under the radar?</p>
<p>Only time will tell.</p>
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Viktor Bout Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/viktor-bout-sentenced-to-25-years-in-prison
2012-04-06T13:00:00.000Z
2012-04-06T13:00:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/viktor-bout-sentenced-to-25-years-in-prison"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237022273,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237022273?profile=original" width="510" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>International arms dealer Viktor Bout was sentenced yesterday to 25 years in prison for conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons, including hundreds of surface-to-air missiles and over 20,000 AK-47s to the Colombian FARC.</p>
<p>In addition to his prison term, Judge Scheindlin sentenced Bout to five years of supervised released and ordered him to forfeit $15 million.</p>
<p>The sentencing brings an end to the career of the world’s most notorious weapons smuggler. “The crimes <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-boss-viktor-bout">Viktor Bout</a> committed represent the worst case scenario for modern law enforcement--the merger of criminal international narcotics cartels with their terrorism enablers,” DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said.</p>
<p>“But,” Leonhart added, “his sentencing today also reflects the best of modern international law enforcement-- sophisticated, determined, and coordinated. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of criminal investigators and prosecutors in the United States, Thailand, Romania, Curacao and elsewhere, the 'Merchant of Death' has finally been held to account in a court of law for his years of profiteering from death and misery around the world”</p>
<p>According to evidence presented at Bout’s trial, Bout has been an international weapons trafficker since the 1990s. Between November 2007 and March 2008, he agreed to sell millions of dollars' worth of weapons to the FARC, including 700 to 800 surface-to-air missiles ("SAMs"), over 20,000 AK-47 firearms, 10 million rounds of ammunition, five tons of C-4 plastic explosives, "ultralight" airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers, and unmanned aerial vehicles.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976064,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236976064,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236976064?profile=original" /></a>Bout agreed to sell the weapons to two confidential sources working with the DEA, who represented that they were acquiring them for the FARC, with the specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack U.S. helicopters in Colombia.</p>
<p>“We have the same enemy,” Bout told the confidential sources, referring to the United States. He also stated that the FARC's fight against the United States was also his fight and that he had been “fighting the United States for ten to fifteen years.” During the meeting, he also offered to provide people to train the FARC in the use of the arms.</p>
<p>The infamous “Lord of War” was arrested in Thailand in March 2008. He was subsequently charged in a four-count indictment in April 2008 and extradited to New York in November 2010. At trial, he was convicted of conspiring to kill U.S. nationals; conspiring to kill U.S. officers and employees; conspiring to acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles; and conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.</p>
<p><em>This website was among the first online to write about Viktor Bout. You can read the profile of him <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-boss-viktor-bout">here</a>.</em></p>
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Bonanno Family Leadership Busted
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/bonanno-family-leadership-busted
2012-01-27T22:00:00.000Z
2012-01-27T22:00:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-family-leadership-busted"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237009075,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237009075?profile=original" width="501" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>The Bonanno Crime Family has been hit once again. This morning, federal agents of the FBI and DEA arrested several high ranking mobsters on charges of racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling, and conspiring to distribute marijuana. One of those arrested is an alleged associate of the Gambino Crime Family and is charged with loansharking. If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment.</p>
<p>Among those picked up this morning was Vincent Badalamenti (53), the reputed acting boss of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-bonanno-crime-family">Bonannos</a>, who was placed in handcuffs at his luxurious Staten Island home. According to prosecutors, Badalamenti was the highest ranking Bonanno member still on the streets.</p>
<p>“The indictment is the result of a multi-year joint investigation by the DEA and FBI that utilized a variety of techniques to gather evidence, such as consensual recordings of the defendants discussing their charged crimes, cooperating witnesses who were formerly members and associates of organized crime, and surveillance. The evidence revealed a pattern of violence and intimidation employed by the defendants to further the mob family’s economic interests, including Badalamenti allegedly directing the hostile takeover of a bar located on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, as a result of its owner’s failure to repay a debt owed to Badalamenti”, reads the official press release by the FBI.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237009858,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237009858,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237009858?profile=original" width="193" /></a>Besides Badalamenti, the other wiseguys hit with new charges are alleged Bonanno capo Nicholas Santora (69), Bonanno soldiers Anthony Calabrese (44) and Vito Balsamo (55), and Gambino associate James LaForte (35). Bonanno consigliere <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-consigliere-anthony">Anthony “TG” Graziano</a> (71) was already behind bars after he was charged late last year with extortion.</p>
<p>Graziano’s (right) name should add a lot of media and public attention to this pretty straight forward mob case as his daughters <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/married_to_the_mob_m5Ur79Y9DWIgfsP0fhsBqJ#ixzz1LlWzRizW" target="_blank">Renee</a> and <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/crime_time_drama_rNl5C50bXdlF57rTsysJdP" target="_blank">Jenn</a> are enjoying time in the spotlight creating and appearing in the hit television show <a href="http://www.vh1.com/shows/mob_wives/season_1/series.jhtml" target="_blank">Mob Wives</a>. Though many members of online discussion boards like <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gangsters-inc-discussion">The Real Deal</a> jokingly claim Anthony Graziano is getting a nice chunk of money as tribute payment from his daughters for making money off of his reputation. The reality seems to be that the show only gives “TG” more headaches and a bulls eye on his back. Seeing all the reports in the media it is clear that this case will not fly under the radar but instead will be followed closely by both the New York tabloids as well as gossip shows and websites. That kind of publicity is something the secretive mafia is not too fond of.</p>
<p>Authorities, meanwhile, are adding this bust to a very long list of blows they dealt to the Bonanno Family. “The charges and arrests announced today are the latest in an ongoing investigation that has resulted in the prosecution of more than 175 members and associates of the Bonanno family in the Eastern District of New York. Since March 2002, more than 10 Bonanno family bosses, acting bosses and administration members have been convicted in this district on racketeering and racketeering-related charges.”</p>
<p>“Members of organized crime continue to exploit their victims the old-fashioned way—through violence, threats, and intimidation. Learning nothing from their incarceration, two of the defendants allegedly sought to regain their money and influence on the street while still under federal supervision. But because they learned nothing, they find themselves back in custody again, along with their co-defendants,” stated United States Attorney Lynch. “We will not rest in this pursuit until the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-bonanno-crime-family">Bonanno crime family</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in">La Cosa Nostra</a> have been completely dismantled.”</p>
<p>FBI Assistant Director in Charge Fedarcyk stated, “Today’s charges confirm that La Cosa Nostra families continue to engage in the bedrock money-making activities like extortion and loansharking, and are not shy about resorting to violence as a method. As long as mobsters continue their predatory ways, the FBI will continue to target the mob.”</p>
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Profile of drug boss Frank Matthews
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/drug-boss-frank-matthews
2010-11-19T17:30:00.000Z
2010-11-19T17:30:00.000Z
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<p>By Seth Ferranti<br /> <br /> In the 1970s the heroin market in the United States was dominated by a black distributor named Frank Matthews who operated out of New York. He was the most notable black figure on the east coast at the time and one of the first major independents who challenged the mob for supremacy in the criminal underworld. The Black Caesar, as he was known, was a new kind of super-criminal ruling a nationwide empire of dope. He was the boss of bosses and the DEA ranks him as one of the Top Ten drug traffickers in United States history. A pivotal figure in the history of the drug trade, Matthews was one of the nation’s largest narcotics dealers from the 1960s through the early 1970s, and he routinely handled multi-million dollar shipments. More importantly, Matthews was the first black man astute and confident enough to control an interstate organization the size and scope of his operation, at a time when the Mob controlled everything, illegal or otherwise. Astonishingly Matthews did it while still in his twenties.<br /> <br /> He became a major dealer in twenty-one states with quality overseas contacts for both heroin and cocaine. Frank was a North Carolina country boy who seized control of the black rackets in New York City. The DEA said that Matthews imported heroin from Turkey by way of processing plants in Marseilles, France and cocaine from Latin America. Street legend has it that his wealth could not be counted. He had Pablo Escobar-type money in the early 1970s. It didn’t go to his head. To him money wasn’t but a thing. He controlled the illegal drug market in the inner-cities from the east coast to the west coast and had contacts with Cuban wholesalers who controlled vast portions of the South American coke trade to the United States. Matthews earned respect in the streets and criminal underworld by holding his own against the Mafia. When his profits became so huge that they took notice he didn’t bow down, he dictated. In essence, Frank was the first black man that had the Mob shook. He was a true trendsetter and set the standard for future street legends who followed in his path and tried to earn the title of American gangster.<br /> <br /> Matthews was Mr. Big. In four years he made an estimated 300 million. By the early 1970s Matthews’ organization was handling multimillion dollar shipments in 21 states. He was running a well-oiled and profitable operation that functioned like a machine. He worked on strict business principles- high grade heroin sold at fair prices with a ruthless attitude toward payment. Dealers could cut Frank’s coke ten times and put an eighty on the heroin. Frank would descend on a town in his Cadillac and give local distributors the benefit of his wisdom. He franchised like McDonald’s.<br /> <br /> A suitable candidate for a Matthews’ dealership would be identified in advance by one of several point men Frank employed to find market opportunities for him and it was almost always an agreeable experience. Matthews probably accounted for the distribution of about one third of all the heroin entering the country. His purchasing power was the kind the Corsicans couldn’t ignore and the deals he brokered showed his stature. In the summer of 1971 Matthews took delivery of 150 kilos at 623 East 37th Street in Brooklyn. Five weeks later he got another 100 kilos. That winter two more shipments of 112 and 152 kilos arrived.<br /> <br /> His biggest problem was securing enough cocaine and heroin to keep his organization running smoothly. He also had to deal with shortages of cutting materials. A five percent bag of heroin was also ninety-five percent quinine, mannite, milk sugar, Epsom salts or some other soluble non-toxic base, so that by the time a 100 kilo shipment of pure reached the streets at five percent strength, it would’ve been cut with over two tons of filler. At three percent it would need about three and a half tons. Quantities of that sort weren’t available over drugstore counters.<br /> <br /> Quinine, the preferred cutting material was hard to come by. After 1971, a license was needed to buy or sell it and many drug dealers diversified into pest control, one of the few businesses left that could use quinine legally on a large scale. Needing it by the truckload Matthews went this route. By the late spring of 1972 his stockpile of cutting materials was so low that he was unable to cut and distribute 50 kilos of heroin he had, though every dealer in his empire was begging for a package. Frank set up a company called Herald Corporation to buy stock in a bank and import mannite from Italy. Walter Rosenbaum was his partner in the venture.<br /> <br /> Not all of Frank's shipments made it. In January 1972, Matthews went down to Miami to supervise the final stage of 175 kilos of pure coming in from Marseilles. The dope cost 1.75 million and Matthews was set to make 2.5 million on the one deal. By the time the heroin hit the street, cut perhaps 30 to 1, it would have generated $150 million. Agents of the BNDD acting on a tip moved in, as the first three couriers were leaving by air for New York and Matthews was hit. It was the biggest bust the government had to date, but by no means the biggest Matthews ever put together. Six months later 400 kilos were seized in the New York harbor, but crooked cops sold Matthews his heroin back, 180 kilos of it. Matthews just paid for it twice. Matthews was knee-deep in money so it didn't matter. A loss was a loss. He just needed the product from whatever source he could get it from.<br /> <br /> The cop, Detective Joseph Nanziatta, a fifteen-year veteran on the force who signed out the 180 kilos, was later found dead in his car, an apparent suicide, in the Greenport section of Brooklyn. He had an appointment to see U.S. Attorney Whitey North Seymour Jr. that day.<br /> <br /> The prosecutor was offering him immunity from prosecution, in return for his cooperation in an investigation of corruption among narcotics agents and police officers. A few hours before the interview Nanziatta apparently drove out to Greenpoint, wound up the windows and shot himself in the left side of the chest with his .38 caliber service revolver. The dirty cop’s death didn’t register for Matthews. He went on about his business as if nothing happened. He was about money, money, money. One associate told how Matthews, “Kept money bundled up in rubber bands, stacked in broad parallel rows, like green brick walls, three to four feet high, from one side of the room to the other, with aisles between them to help make the counting easier.” That was how Frank Matthews got down. To him it was strictly business.<br /> <br /> Frank employed several stewardesses who worked for domestic airlines also, paying them $1,000 a drop. They would pick up packages at an airport locker, pack it in their airline flight bag and leave it in another airport locker upon arrival. Frank worked on multiple levels. Always scheming to make a buck. He had all types of deals going down simultaneously. He was a multitasking drug kingpin. Frank told associates, “When you travel, always get a round trip. Don't matter if you don't use it- one way tickets make them jumpy.” His associate said, “Makes air travel kind of expensive, don't it?” Frank laughed, “Expensive, oh man. That one way ticket of yours damn near cost you a hundred thousand.” For the lawyers fees incurred when or if his associate got busted. Frank didn't take too many precautions other than that. He traveled on a legitimate passport in his own name.<br /> <br /> Frank was involved in every aspect of his smuggling operation. He bought a DC-3 in Caracas for $100,000 and made a deal with Venezuelan secret police for safe passage of his shipments coming in from Marseilles to avoid the usual customs inspection at Marquetia Airport. He did everything he could to make sure his investment made a safe journey. Frank was big on real estate also. Matthews was looking to buy some beachfront property in Port-au-Prince. He saw it as an investment. He wanted to diversify his interests. This international wheeler- dealer was balling in ways that later drug dealers couldn’t even imagine. The type of money and power he had access to was colossal.<br /> <br /> The police had an organizational chart that showed Frank Matthews at the top of the tree, with branches that spread out to include 113 individuals. “Some of whom did not know they were part of his organization.” A detective said. Most of the people on the chart in fact, actually thought they were at the top of the pyramid. But they were only big shots in a small glass. Matthews was the real deal, the puppet master who was pulling all the strings. Dudes like Liddy Jones from Baltimore, who employed seventy-five people, including eighteen baggers, thirty-five bundle dealers and at least two hitmen were literally, little sub-organizations under Frank.<br /> <br /> In 1971, one drug gang alone was buying as much as five kilos of heroin at a time from Matthews at prices of 26 grand a kilo. The gang would then sell 17,500 bags, to as many as 10,000 retail customers, for a gross of about $45,000 daily. That gang, the Dutch Shultz organization in Bedford-Stuyvesant, bought enough to keep an army of Cadillacs. In twelve months they took a hundred kilos from Matthews. In the same twelve month period Ray “Dutch Shultz” Daniels and his partner Donald “Keno” James had expanded their payroll from about forty people serving a Brooklyn/Queens clientele to more than 150 baggers, pushers, street lieutenants and enforcers operating in all five boroughs.<br /> <br /> Keno regularly took delivery of five kilo or larger packages from Matthews himself, often making cash payments of $250,000, but when possible he liked to deal with Micky Beckwith, because he thought Frank was crazy. “One time I took a cab and met Frank in Brooklyn and he gave me a package of like five keys, all wrapped up. He offered to drive me back.” Keno said. “During the ride he was driving extremely fast. We ran across a couple of traffic lights and I got scared. He was driving a green convertible Cadillac and he scared the shit out of me. I said, ‘Maybe I ought to take a cab’ because I had the five keys on me and any minute the cops are going to stop us. He just laughed.”<br /> <br /> Matthews and his crew were real casual when they hit dudes with packages because they knew the cops were in their pockets. They would just walk out on the street, meet dudes at the corner and produce the package from under their coat, handing it over. Since Frank had the cops in Brooklyn on the payroll he never worried. To Frank it was all a trip. He found a lot of shit comical. In the drug game there were all types, which really amused Frank. He got a kick out of the different situations that arose.<br /> <br /> One time, a dude was trying to jump Brother Carter, Frank’s man in B-More, and buy directly from Frank. He told Frank he only wanted to deal with him and offered Frank a 50 grand down payment for his next package. It was street money- creased, dirty and in small denominations. Matthews glanced at it indifferently and told dude he only took money in big clean bills. An hour later dude came back, having somehow changed the 50 grand into $100 bills. Matthews smiled at him lazily, “Man, I got five times that much with me just to lose at the tables. Now you just give that loose change to Brother Carter and he’ll take care of you like always.” Dealers were always trying to get closer to Frank but he trusted his people. Through Carter, Matthews controlled at least 80 percent of the narcotics trade in B-More. That was good enough for Frank.<br /> <br /> Matthews spent his time with wine, women, coke and gambling. Staying in luxury hotels and driving cars like his gold Lincoln Mark III, working his magic on hustlers across the United States to sell his dope. Matthews was suspected by the feds of trafficking heroin in seven or eight regions of the country. He was a marketing expert who flaunted his wealth. He would appear in all his glory- in a full length black sable coat or a black leather safari suit- driving yet another brand new El Dorado to hit the Persian Room on a Saturday night.<br /> <br /> He used to tell people, “You know how it is when you got a hundred thousand things on your mind? The bigger you are in drugs, the more careful you got to be to stay clean. You got to keep away from the stuff. You got to stay off the streets and you got to line other people up to take the fall when there’s trouble.” But Frank didn’t follow his own advice. He was right down there in the mix. Doing everything he didn’t need to be doing and getting his hands dirty. Frank used cocaine, melting it with smack to make speedballs and despite his status, he never carried a gun. His presence was intimidating enough.<br /> <br /> Matthews loved cocaine too. It was not just his business, it was his breakfast, lunch and dinner- a complete life support system. Cocaine imposed such a pattern of its own on Frank’s behavior that normal became abnormal. One day in February 1971 Detective Kowalski saw Matthews looking all around his car like he lost something. After Matthews left in disgust Kowlaski checked the area and found a small aluminum foil package wrapped in wax paper that had an ounce of white powder. By the autumn of 1972 Matthews showed all the classic symptoms of chronic cocaine abuse, shuttling between extremes of euphoria and irritability in an almost continuous macho delusional power trip.<br /> <br /> He was Tony Montana come to life- the black scarface. He seemed possessed by a sense of invincibility and a godlike mastery over his own fate that was not to be shaken by such setbacks as the raid on the OK Corral or the collapse of a 100 kilo deal. What was one heroin mill or heroin source more or less to Black Caesar? The loss was annoying but it taught him nothing. It was an affront, not a lesson. Frank went about his business as blatantly as ever, still putting millions away in preparation for retirement. He was indifferent to the danger despite a kaleidoscope of factors swirling around him. The feds were circling him like vultures, ready to swoop down, while the Mob was watching him like a hawk, looking for any sign weakness, to pay him back for slights to their honor, real or imagined.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236985670,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />The legends and mythology surrounding Matthews are still relevant today, 36 years later. He left behind a trail of unsolved murders, a fleet of luxury cars and a lavishly decorated mansion. His reputation has remained impeccable. He is an icon to all those enamored with gangsters. A master of the drug game. “Frank was freed on a million dollar bail which was required by authorities to be posted collectively by three separate bondsmen so that in the event of his jumping he would have a triple threat on his tail.” Fats says. “Frank still managed to disappear, taking 20 million dollars with him.”<br /> <br /> To dudes in the streets Matthews is a hero. An outlaw of epic proportions. The hustler who did it his way and got away with it. He gave the United States government the big fuck you and blatantly defied them right to their face. He bypassed the Mob, the preeminent criminal structure of the day by importing his heroin directly from Turkey by way of processing plants in Marseilles, France and got his cocaine straight from Latin American long before the Colombian cocaine cartels were in vogue. Locally he eliminated the middleman by handling the narcotics all the way down to the street sales, plus sold weight to big dealers in other cities. He was the original American Gangster- fuck all that other shit- Frank Matthews was the real deal and god's honest truth when it came to this gangster shit. He did it in the dope game like no one else, before or after him.<br /> <br /> Check out the rest of this story and more in Street Legends Vol. 2. Order it today.</p>
<p><em><strong><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gangsters-inc-contributor-seth-ferranti">Seth Ferranti</a> is author of numerous true crime books, Order them online at all bookstores or visit Ferranti’s website <a href="http://www.gorillaconvict.com/" target="_blank">Gorilla Convict</a> to get your copy there. You can also follow Ferranti on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/SethFerranti" target="_blank">@SethFerranti</a></strong></em></p>
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American Gangster Myth
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/american-gangster-myth
2010-11-10T19:00:00.000Z
2010-11-10T19:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">American Gangster Myth:</span><br style="font-weight:bold;" /><br style="font-weight:bold;" /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What's the Real Story Behind Hollywood's Portrayal of Harlem Drug Kingpin Frank Lucas?</span><br /> <br />
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<p><br /> By Clarence Walker, Investigative Reporter and New Criminologist Journalist, Houston Texas<br /> First published on: 11/5/2007<br /> <br /> American Gangster, considered one of the hottest, blockbuster movies of the year, opened in theaters worldwide on November 2. It is no doubt currently the most talked about gangster movie in America.<br /> <br /> Highly anticipated, American Gangster chronicles the true story of 1970s Harlem drug kingpin Frank "Superfly" Lucas (played by Oscar academy winner Denzel Washington) - who built a multi-million dollar enterprise trafficking drugs in the coffins of Vietnam soldiers - and a police detective, Richie Roberts (played by Russell Crowe) whose bulldog tenacity is to bring down the fearless drug lord.<br /> <br /> <br /> Now that millions of viewers have watched the true-life movie based on "Superfly" Lucas, and the numerous interviews he has given to National newsmedia to promote the movie, controversy is on the horizon.<br /> <br /> Critics have uncovered evidence that Lucas' alleged true-life story, as portrayed on the silver screen, is based on falsehoods and blatant lies.<br /> <br /> Matter of fact, Lucas' true-life criminal history as adapted for the movie is filled with so many falsehoods it's a herculean task determining where they began and end.<br /> <br /> "Frank Lucas, the dope-dealer, portrayed by Denzel Washington in the upcoming movie is a low-down good for nothing liar," says Mayme Johnson, wife of Bumpy Johnson, a former Harlem gangster who Lucas calls his mentor and confidant.<br /> <br /> According to law enforcement authorities, crime historians, former drug barons and gangsters, including a new book written by Ron Chepesiuk and Anthony Gonzalez Superfly: The True, Untold Story Of Frank Lucas, American Gangster <a href="http://www.franklucasamericangangster.com">www.franklucasamericangangster.com</a><br /> <br /> The movie is based on countless misleading and deceptive stories cooked up by Lucas to claim the fame he really doesn't deserve.<br /> <br /> Author Ron Chepesiuk, who has just released the first true account of Lucas life in "The Untold story of Frank Lucas" tells TNC Journalist Clarence Walker that "Hollywood gets away with a lot when it comes to gangster flicks because it uses the disclaimer "based on a true story".<br /> <br /> "But the fact is many aspects of Lucas' story are suspect; the movie complicates the distortions and falsehoods by fictionalizing many of Lucas' claims to fame. Then you have a mega star like Denzel Washington playing Lucas and it becomes quite a challenge for a true crime writer to set history right."<br /> <br /> A research of Lucas' stories, related by him to various reporters over the years, particularly descriptions of events featured in the New York Magazine in 2000 (American Gangster was based on this article) and the events he recalls about his life as a drug lord and murderer that captivated Hollywood, and now proves untrue, are the following:</p>
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<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson (Front) a true Harlem Godfather.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Frank "SuperFly" Lucas.</span></div>
<p><br /> (1) He only ratted on DEA agents and police officers. Sometimes he denies testifying against anyone. Contrary to Lucas', story he only gave up police officers. There are numerous newspaper articles indicating he "rolled over" on at least a hundred drug dealers (no mention of any cops charged or convicted).<br /> <br /> Chepesiuk responds, "What cops did Lucas turn in?" Contrary to what's in the movie, no DEA agent was ever turned in by Lucas. In fact, it was the DEA, not Richie Roberts, who played the biggest role in bringing down Lucas."<br /> <br /> "Roberts," he further explains, "was a minor figure in the Lucas investigation; the idea that Roberts was the the key official in bringing Lucas down is Hollywood's imagination." Chepesiuk should know because he interviewed former DEA agents who nabbed the drug lord.<br /> <br /> "Further to say," Chepesiuk added, "Lucas turned in only corrupt cops is an effort by Tinsel Town to soften Lucas's image as a snitch. Deep down, nobody really likes or respect a snitch; he was not a snitch out of any altrustic motive."<br /> <br /> "He did it to save his skin, facing 70 years in prison".<br /> <br /> (2) Lucas' claim that his cousin was hung and shot to death by KKK for looking at a white woman has not been verified by this author or other sources who researched the event.<br /> <br /> An exhaustive research by author Chepesiuk also failed to turn up evidence that the alleged event happened when Lucas was six, in 1936, and living in North Carolina.<br /> <br /> (3) Gangster Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson died in Lucas' arms. In the American Gangster movie a scene shows Denzel Washington affectionately holding actor Clarence Williams (portrayed as Bumpy) as he is dying from a heart attack.<br /> <br /> Chepesiuk responds, "As stated in my book, there was no record of Lucas being present when Bumpy died in Wells restaurant. Press reports of Bumpy's death in July 1968 do not mention Lucas' name. I talked to some old DEA agents who knew Bumpy well. They could not recall Frank Lucas, let alone him ever being at Bumpy's side when he died or acted as his right hand man."<br /> <br /> Chepesiuk posed this question: "Why has Lucas made a big deal of his relationship with Bumpy? It establishes lineage. If Lucas can claim Bumpy died in his arms and get the the public to believe he was Bumpy's right hand man, then he can make a claim he inherited Bumpy's mantel of being the Godfather of Harlem, which is something to boast about."<br /> <br /> Bumpy's wife backs up Chepesiuk's investigation.<br /> <br /> When Mayme Johnson, the 93-year-old wife of Bumpy Johnson, read the New York Magazine story of Lucas' claim he was Bumpy's right-hand man and that Bumpy died in his arms, the widow became infuriated.<br /> <br /> "Lucas lied!"<br /> <br /> "Now I understand," she said "there's a movie coming out starring Denzel Washington called "American Gangster" which tells the life of Frank Lucas and the movie will perpetrate that lie."<br /> <br /> Johnson characterized Lucas' relationship with her husband this way: "Frank Lucas was little more than a flunky to Bumpy; a flunky he never fully trusted. Frank, Bumpy said, was a liar, and it's easier to trust a thief than a liar."<br /> <br /> "Now why would Frank tell such a lie about being with Bumpy when he died?"<br /> <br /> Mayme answered her own question.<br /> <br /> "Because he figured since Junie Byrd, Nat Pettigre, Finkley Hoskins and Sonny Chance - all of whom were there when Bumpy died are also dead; there's no one alive to reveal the fact that he's lying."<br /> <br /> To set the record straight and expose the lies about her husband, shown in American Gangster, by Lucas, and other falsehoods, Mrs. Johnson has co-authored a book scheduled for publication with Karen E. Quinones titled Harlem Godfather: The Rap on My Husband, Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson.<br /> <br /> Johnson is on record with the media, saying she "thinks it's a shame Lucas was able to fool Hollywood into believing that he's a bigger shot than he really is."<br /> <br /> She points out that if Lucas lied about his relationship with Bumpy "there's no telling what else he lied about thats portrayed in the movie."<br /> <br /> "Everything in the movie is now suspect."<br /> <br /> Informant Role: Why Lucas denied being a 'snitch'?<br /> <br /> Lucas' legendary story about only ratting on cops reeks of hypocrisy and is in truth, a blatant lie. Apparently the aging gangster expects people to believe if he only gave up cops this makes him less of a snitch. Doesn't Lucas realize that even if his story were true, and he gave up nothing but cops, a rat is still in fact, a rat?<br /> <br /> In effect, Frank Lucas is one of the biggest drug dealing turncoats to play the game in the black underworld of organized crime.<br /> <br /> <br /> Who was Lucas really giving up, and why?<br /> <br /> Federal court records archives, aan interview with Ron Chepesiuk, who penned the newly released book about Lucas' life, and extensive research of New York broadsheets, reveal irrefutable evidence that Lucas turned on a veritable conrnucopia of multi-echelon drug dealers.<br /> <br /> U.S. Attorney John Martin Jr. made this glowing statement, "By his cooperation, he placed his life in jeopardy."<br /> <br /> "The cooperation of individuals such as Lucas is vital to the government's effort to combat narcotics traffic."<br /> <br /> In a recent interview (October 25th 2007) with New York Magazine reporter Mark Jacobson, a 77-year-old wheelchair bound Lucas responds to Jacobson after being asked "Frank, I'm saying you can do all kinds of crimes, but a lot of people feel if you snitch, that's worse. What you think about that?"<br /> <br /> Lucas snaps, "I never in my life, not to this day, testified on nobody. Ain't no sonofabitch in the world ever got put in on account of me."<br /> <br /> To justify his helping of authorities to nab police officers, he explains "Bad cops, yes. But rat shit - no, no, no."<br /> <br /> During the interview with Lucas and former heroin dealer Nicky "Mr. Untouchable" Barnes, Barnes admitted to reporter Jacobson that he himself had informed against other gangsters.<br /> <br /> When Jacobson asked lucas, "Do you think there's a time when it's good to cooperate?" Lucas responds, voice rising, "I told you before. I never testified on nobody!"<br /> <br /> Jacobson tried another angle. "Some cases were made Frank."<br /> <br /> "Look," Lucas yelled, "I have remorse about what I did."<br /> <br /> The exchange, with Lucas' denials and then acknowledgement of his cooperation, makes the former gangster into a clear embroiderer of the truth, who apparently thinks a sensible person cannot see through his none too subtle charade of smoke and mirrors.<br /> <br /> In a New York Times article dated August 25th 1984, the headline reads: U.S. Jury Convicts Heroin Informant.<br /> <br /> The brief Times article mentions the fact that when Lucas was sentenced to a total of 70 years in prison, in 1976, on federal and state drug trafficking charges, he began cooperating with authorities and this led the following year to convictions of more than 100 narcotics dealers.<br /> <br /> In reference to Lucas' role as an informant, the Times article further reads that in 1981 Lucas 40 year federal term and 30 year state term were reduced to time served, plus lifetime parole.<br /> <br /> Lucas' role as an informant was valuable enough to earn him a nice haven in the Federal Witness Protection Program.<br /> <br /> His Puerto Rican wife Julie, daughter Francine and a son were also placed in the witness protection program in 1977 after Lucas helped the law to convict other drug dealers.<br /> <br /> *<br /> <br /> While conducting research about Lucas' crime career, the author of this story watched American Gangster from start to finish to see if the movie script rehashed the same details now in dispute - given by Lucas to the New York Magazine reporter.<br /> <br /> In the movie, one memorable scene has actor Denzel Washington singlehandely negotiating a large heroin deal, worth millions, with a major asian drug dealer who questions Washington about who he worked for in the U.S. Washington responds, "I work for nobody but myself."<br /> <br /> News media stories, including the New York magazine profile of Lucas, credited the former gangster with eliminating the middleman (the Italian Mafia) from the heroin distribution in Harlem.<br /> <br /> Steven Zaillian, the chief scriptwriter, told the New York Times: "It wasn't the idea of doing a dope story so much as: What happens when a black businessman takes over an industry? Frank became bigger than the Mafia and took over their business in a way that made it difficult for him to stay in business."<br /> <br /> Somehow, Zaillian ommits major drug players like Nicky Barnes, Frank Matthews, Rob Stepheny, Leon Aiken, Leroy Butler and the superior Harlem Godfather Bumpy Johnson. Bumpy is the man who gave Lucas the dope game; the gangster who Lucas idolized to such an extent that he has lied for years in his attempts to convince people Bumpy died in his arms.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, apparently Zaillian either hadn't heard about, or chose to ignore, the history regarding the Mob's control of the heroin trade throughout Harlem and other parts of New York, beginning in the 1920s.<br /> <br /> If truth be told, Lucas alone could not have dominated the heroin trade in New York. Besides, the Mob and other key players were very deep in the game.<br /> <br /> Evidence of blacks' involvement within organized crime shows that Bumpy Johnson was the first of few original black gangsters. During the 1940s to 1960s which covered some of Lucas' era in the drug trade, Bumpy was the middleman between the black underworld and the Italian mob.<br /> <br /> The mob respected and trusted Bumpy. If a player wanted to do business in Harlem, sell drugs, run rackets, bootleg liquor, front stolen goods, whatever illicit hustle one wanted to operate, you paid Bumpy or you died.<br /> <br /> Everyone paid except Mom and Pop stores. Therefore, "Superfly" Lucas was no exception.<br /> <br /> The U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics issued a report in the 1950s indicating that La Cosa Nostra had been smuggling heroin into the U.S. for several years through a network called the French Connection.<br /> <br /> <br /> And who really dominated the heroin trade in the U.S.?<br /> <br /> A 1986 federal organized crime report stated, "During the French Connection era from the 1950s-1970s the La Cosa Nostra controlled approximately 95 percent of heroin entering the U.S."<br /> <br /> Assuming the government is correct, how could Lucas dominate the majority of heroin in the Big Apple?<br /> <br /> Also, Lucas has often repeated a self-serving mistruth that he broke the Mafia's grip on the importation of heroin into Harlem.<br /> <br /> The only drug player credited for attempting to make this happen was Frank Matthews. In 1972 Matthews held the biggest drug dealing summit, in Atlanta, Georgia, to discuss innovative ways to break mob control on heroin so that blacks could cut the mob services from the middle to earn more profit.<br /> <br /> Who Mastered the Asian Heroin Connection?<br /> <br /> Here is a million dollar question: Which American player among players in the drug trade created the Asian heroin connection into the U.S.?<br /> <br /> In Chepesiuk's book, Frank Lucas' claim that he alone discovered the Asian connection (a from the movie) Chepesiuk's investigation, utilising credible documented sources, identifies drug lord Leslie Ike Atkinson, nicknamed "Sergeant Smack" by the DEA as the first known dealer from America to establish the Asian-U.S. heroin connection.<br /> <br /> Lucas' story, featured in the New York magazine in 2000 attests to the fact that Atkinson was the guy who turned him on to the Asian drug trade.<br /> <br /> He told reporter Mark Jacobson: "Ike knew everyone over there, every black guy in the army, from the cooks on up."<br /> <br /> After Lucas partnered up with Ike to transport heroin into the U.S., Jacobson's story characterized Lucas' drug ring as "this 'army inside an army' that served the Country Boys international distribution of heroin shipments on U.S. military planes."<br /> <br /> Drugs and Dead Men<br /> <br /> Another claim by Lucas, that his associates used the false bottoms of coffins containing the bodies of U.S. soldiers to transport heroin into the U.S., has been contradicted not only by Ike Atkinson but also the Federal government, who nailed Lucas and his drug workers.<br /> <br /> New York newpapers recounted at the time when the feds busted Lucas' drug ring in 1975, that federal prosecutors said the operation had used an Asian connection to move the heroin from the Golden Triangle of Burma, Laos and Thailand to Bangkok, and then smuggled the drugs to military bases in North Carolina where the heroin was distributed to markets throughout the U.S.<br /> <br /> Lucas' lurid stories of hauling drugs on the plane of then U.S. secretary Henry Kissinger, and concealing drugs among the dead might be true but there are no news articles or government investigation reports that any of his shipments of heroin were found in the coffin of deceased U.S. soldiers.<br /> <br /> DEA investigators had heard the rumor about the Atkinson-Lucas coffin connection to transport heroin into the U.S., but no officials confirmed the rumor, even after DEA investigators once searched the coffins on a plane containing dead soldiers bound for the U.S.<br /> <br /> During this highly sensitive search no drugs were found.<br /> <br /> Today, Ike Atkinson denies that drugs were ever shipped in coffins, and where this story came from, we may never know.<br /> <br /> Why Do Gangsters, Outlaws, and Drug Lords Fascinate Us?<br /> <br /> Former heroin dealer and self-proclaimed murderer, Frank Lucas, the prime character in the movie American Gangster might someday join a cast of glorified outlaws hailed as anti-heroes, who Americans, for decades, have embraced in their hearts.<br /> <br /> The film has already wowed many observers and critics, stirring up the atomsphere of an Oscar to crown the best talent on the screen and behind the scene.<br /> <br /> Unlike the Western-style outlaws who focus on the "good guy" whose mission it is to destroy the roots of evil, a gangster movie spotlights the "bad guy", the anti-hero whose passion yearns for power and position.<br /> <br /> Against the backdrop of the 1960s civil rights era, American Gangster takes its place among the pantheon of classic gangster movies - the black Scarface or the Harlem Godfather - the kind of exciting movie destined to become a part of American culture.<br /> <br /> "Gangsterism is capitalism run rampart," says Jon McCarty, author of the gangster movie history Bullets over Hollywood (published by Da Capo Press).<br /> <br /> "It's that old entrepreneurial spirit."<br /> <br /> In American Gangster, director Ridley Scott points out that gangsters "are the guys who dare to do the things we'd love to do, but don't. There's this vicarious fascination that gangsters lead an exciting and threatening existence."<br /> <br /> "Criminal lives are larger than normal lives because they are acting out life on this grand scale, as celebrities do," says director Marc Levin, who made the Nicky Barnes documentary Mr. Touchable<br /> <br /> Levin adds a cultural philosophy: "Every group, it seems, has criminals who enjoy a flashy lifestyle, while others present a sober, businesslike face. For every fashionably tailored Frank Lucas, there's a flamboyant Superfly. For every limelight-loving John Gotti, there's a suburban Tony Soprano."<br /> <br /> Irrespective of the ongoing controversy threatening to reveal a trail of falsehoods about the criminal exploits of Frank Lucas, we must not forget America's love affair with gangster movies, which seems to always seduce our desires with an offer we can't refuse.<br /> <br /> It doesn't really matter if Hollywood blends fiction with fact, as long as the drama captivates and entertains.<br /> <br /> American Gangster works because we admire the wonderful role Washinton plays as drug lord Lucas, a family man with millions made from the drug trade, and we respect and admire cop Richie Roberts, played superbly by Russell Crowe - an honest crime fighter who finally brings the gangster down.<br /> <br /> Its unlikely that the outlaw career of "Superfly" Lucas will earn the superior status of Al Capone, Jesse James, Bonnie & Clyde, and John "The Teflon Don" Gotti, but one thing is for sure; if Hollywood has the ability to make people into real-life heroes then Frank Lucas is indeed, an American Gangster legend.<br /> <br /> Sources (1) New York Magazine (2) New York Times (3) Federal District Court Records(4)Book:The Untold story of Superfly By Ron Chepesiuk and Anthony Gonzalez (5) African American Organized Crime Report.<br /> <br /> Gangster movie history: Google the following information, Top 20 best gangster movies of all times. site: http:listverse.com/entertainment<br /> <br /> Any comments: Give us your thoughts. Contact Journalist Clarence Walker at mafia101@myway.com or cwalker261@excite.com</p>
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