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2024-03-29T07:18:22Z
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WATCH: Gangsters suspected of smuggling nuclear materials arrested in Austria
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/watch-gangsters-suspected-of-smuggling-nuclear-materials-arrested
2019-12-07T16:20:07.000Z
2019-12-07T16:20:07.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/watch-gangsters-suspected-of-smuggling-nuclear-materials-arrested" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237144294,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237144294?profile=original" /></a>By <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a> Editors</p>
<p>Austrian law enforcement together with the General Police Inspectorate of The Republic of Moldova and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Europol" target="_blank">Europol</a>, have jointly investigated and busted an organized crime group suspected of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Smuggling" target="_blank">smuggling</a> nuclear materials.</p>
<p>The cooperation targeted a group of criminals that attempted to sell a nuclear container which contained radiological material. They offered it up for sale to an army for €3 million.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/professional-hitman-wanted-by-police-for-murders-in-three-countri" target="_blank"><strong>Professional hitman wanted by police for murders in three countries</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>During the comprehensive operation three individuals were arrested in Vienna, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Austria" target="_blank">Austria</a>, two of them had criminal records, and one of them had been already convicted for a similar crime in the past.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237144897,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237144897?profile=original" /></a>Europol deployed an expert on-the-spot to support the analysis of the CBRN material and provided analytical and coordination support.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/iran-allegedly-protects-moroccan-dutch-drug-gangsters-it-used-to" target="_blank">Iran allegedly protects Moroccan Dutch drug gangsters it used</a> to murder its “enemies of the state” abroad</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>The likelihood of the illegal movement of nuclear and radiological materials remains due to the increased availability of misappropriated radiological sources from different conflict zones and their further trade.</p>
<p>Europol released a video containing surveillance footage of the gangsters, their arrest, and of the nuclear material they were smuggling.</p>
<p><strong>You can watch it below:</strong></p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YVvY0fSP7u8?wmode=opaque" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></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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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
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“I’m in waste management!” - Genovese Mafia family soldier Frank Giovinco guilty of racketeering
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/i-m-in-waste-management-genovese-mafia-family-soldier-frank-giovi
2019-12-06T10:30:00.000Z
2019-12-06T10:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-m-in-waste-management-genovese-mafia-family-soldier-frank-giovi" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237134681,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237134681?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a></p>
<p>A <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family" target="_blank">Genovese Mafia family</a> mobster was convicted of racketeering on Tuesday. The jury found 52-year-old Frank Giovinco responsible for acts involving <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Extortion" target="_blank">extortion</a>, honest services fraud, and unlawful kickback payments related to the Genovese family’s control of two local chapters of a <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Union" target="_blank">labor union</a>.</p>
<p>“For years, Frank Giovinco, as a member of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family" target="_blank">Genovese crime family</a>, instilled fear in victims and propagated kickback schemes to tighten the Family’s stranglehold over two labor unions,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said. “Now, a jury has held Giovinco accountable for his crimes.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Getting “made”</strong></span></p>
<p>As the nephew of Joe “Joey Carpets” Giovinco, an associate in the crew of Genovese family capo <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-mean-street-in-queens-to-kill-a-cop" target="_blank">Frederico “Fritzie” Giovanelli</a>, Frank had all the right connections. He grew up on Long Island and played football in High School, before putting his physique to work for the mob. As a twenty-some-year-old He was busted for possession of stolen property, but mostly flew under the radar of law enforcement.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s, the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family" target="_blank">Genovese family</a> placed Giovinco in a position to control the waste carting industry in New York City. Within a few years, by the late 1990s, the family made him an official member.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: The Irishman:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-irishman-meet-the-real-mafia-muscle-behind-martin-scorsese-s" target="_blank"><strong>Meet the real Mafia muscle behind Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>His work, according to prosecutors, consisted of a wide range of crimes to enrich not only himself, but other members and leaders of the Genovese crime family. These included multiple acts of extortion, honest services fraud, and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Bribe" target="_blank">bribery</a>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Labor racketeering: Threats & extortion</strong></span></p>
<p>Giovinco’s focus was on two local chapters of a labor union. He participated in a host of schemes designed to manipulate and siphon money from the unions for the benefit of the Genovese family. Among other things, he extorted a financial adviser and a labor union official for a cut of commissions made from union investments.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/keeping-the-new-york-docks-in-the-mafia-family-from-the-gigantes" target="_blank">Keeping the New York docks in the (Mafia) family</a>: The Gigantes to the daughter of Donnie Brasco's “Lefty”</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Audio recordings captured Giovinco planning to “rattle the cage” of a victim, and to have another victim’s “feet held to the fire.” When the union official failed to pay the commissions demanded by the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a>, his life was threatened by Giovinco and other gangsters.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Kickbacks</strong></span></p>
<p>Giovinco further plotted to profit from union investments by paying kickbacks to the union official and others, in exchange for a cut of future commissions. He also participated in the long-running extortion of a union president for annual tribute payments of more than $10,000, and sought a job at the union for the purpose of exerting control over the union official on the Genovese family’s behalf, and threatening to replace him if he didn’t comply.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/genovese-mafia-family-made-man-and-underlings-plead-guilty-to-rol" target="_blank">Genovese Mafia family made man and underlings plead guilty</a> to role in sophisticated multi-million-dollar scheme</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>The charges of which Giovinco was found guilty carry a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison, but things didn't turn out to be severe. On June 22, 2020, Giovinco was <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/genovese-mafia-family-s-union-muscle-sentenced-to-4-years-in-pris" target="_blank">sentenced</a> to 4 years behind bars.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-genovese-crime-family">Genovese crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
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<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Former Bonanno Mafia family consigliere Anthony Graziano dead at 78, his “Mob Wives” daughter reports
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/former-bonanno-mafia-family-consigliere-anthony-graziano-dead-at
2019-05-25T08:25:33.000Z
2019-05-25T08:25:33.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/former-bonanno-mafia-family-consigliere-anthony-graziano-dead-at" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236994064,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236994064?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Longtime Bonanno crime family mobster Anthony “T.G.” Graziano passed away on Friday, his daughter Renee reported. He was 78. Graziano was a powerhouse in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-bonanno-crime-family" target="_blank">Bonanno family</a> and a trusted consigliere of boss Joseph Massino. Unlike his leader, however, Graziano stood tall and remained loyal to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Omerta" target="_blank">omerta</a>.</p>
<p>“I can’t believe you’re gone,” his daughter Renee Graziano wrote on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reneegraziano/" target="_blank">her Instagram</a>. “Life will never be the same without you, my hero, my protector, my rock, my dad, and the best man in the world. Thank you for loving me the way I am and for helping guide my son. We are sure gonna miss you. Rest in peace, daddy.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Mob Wives</strong></span></p>
<p>Renee Graziano got her father in a bit of trouble with his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a> colleagues when she starred in the reality series Mob Wives, which followed several daughters and wives of gangsters and mobsters. Jennifer Graziano, another daughter of Anthony, had created the series.</p>
<p>Luckily for him – and them – he had enough clout within the New York Mafia to keep the television dollars flowing. Though he didn’t speak to his daughters for several years as a result, they eventually set aside their differences.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Friends in high places</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-consigliere-anthony" target="_blank">Graziano</a> had quite the reputation within the underworld. Known as a moneymaker capable of deadly violence, he became a capo in the Bonanno family in the 1980s, authorities listed him as one in 1990.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237124897,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237124897?profile=original" /></a>His close friendship with boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-boss-joseph-massino" target="_blank">Joseph Massino</a> enabled him to rise even higher up the ladder. He became a consigliere to Massino as the 1990s progressed. But his rank did not keep him safe from the law. He served several years for tax evasion in the early 1990s and pleaded guilty to loansharking, cocaine distribution and a murder conspiracy in 2002 for which he went back inside prison walls for 9 years.</p>
<p>Around that same time, he was hit with other charges in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Florida" target="_blank">South Florida</a>. This time for his role in illegal gambling, loan-sharking and boiler room operations. The boiler room operation was a phony tele-marketing scheme that swindled $11.7 million from investors. Graziano pleaded guilty again and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“Man and a half”</strong></span></p>
<p>At one of his trials an associate of Graziano was asked by a reporter whether Graziano would cooperate with authorities. He responded: “Are you nuts? That man is a man and a half.”</p>
<p>He was right. Graziano was as stand up as they come. He was released from prison in 2013 and came out to a new world. One in which his daughters had become rich off a show discussing and honoring the life he went to prison for. He needed some time, but he adjusted. He lived by a code based on family first. He just had to find a way to accept the way his daughters had done things.</p>
<p>“T.G.” Graziano was a stone-cold gangster who did the crime and served his time. He loved his family and was loyal to the very end. To both his blood family and the one he pledged his blood to. These types of qualities are rare nowadays.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-bonanno-crime-family">Bonanno crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/about-gangsters-inc">About Gangsters Inc.</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Copyright © Gangsters Inc.</strong></p>
<p> </p></div>
Yakuza gangsters arrested after assaulting men who told them to stop urinating in public
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/yakuza-gangsters-arrested-after-assaulting-men-who-told-them-to-s
2019-05-24T15:07:22.000Z
2019-05-24T15:07:22.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/yakuza-gangsters-arrested-after-assaulting-men-who-told-them-to-s" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237124083,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237124083?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>A wiseguy is always right. And so is a member of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/yakuza-overview" target="_blank">Yakuza</a>, Japan’s Mafia. So what do you do when you see one of them urinating in public on the sidewalk? Two pedestrians in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Tokyo" target="_blank">Tokyo</a> decided to speak up and warn the gangster to stop. Big mistake.</p>
<p>Around 1 a.m. on May 17, two Yakuza mobsters were enjoying a drink or two, or three, or… well fuck, who’s counting? 58-year-old Tadataka Horiguchi (photo above) and 52-year-old Takayuki Tanaka were enjoying a night out on the city, drinking wine like water. At one point, Horiguchi had to take a leak and went outside to piss.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/yakuza-bosses-held-liable-for-crime-committed-by-underling-as-jap" target="_blank">Yakuza bosses held liable for crime</a> committed by underling as Japan gets tough on organized crime</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>There, on a road in the Taihei area of Sumida Ward, Tokyo, two pedestrians walked by as Horiguchi was urinating. They told him to stop this disgusting act. Annoyed, Horiguchi went back inside and told his drinking buddy what had happened.</p>
<p>This prompted Tanaka to pick up a wine bottle and use it on the two civilians, hitting both of them in the head with it. The two hard-drinking <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/yakuza-overview" target="_blank">Yakuza</a> gangsters were arrested this week and admitted their guilt.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-real-john-wick-separating-fact-from-fiction-in-hollywood-s-vi" target="_blank">The Real John Wick</a>: Separating fact from fiction in Hollywood’s violent gangster vengeance blockbuster</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Like most gangsters, members of the Yakuza live by their own rules. They are outlaws. But they are not above the law. Something they find out pretty fast after trying to live as an outlaw.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/yakuza-overview">Yakuza 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>
Salvatore Scoppa, brother of Montreal Mafia leader, shot to death at Sheraton Hotel in Laval, Quebec
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/salvatore-scoppa-brother-of-montreal-mafia-leader-shot-to-death-a
2019-05-06T13:30:00.000Z
2019-05-06T13:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/salvatore-scoppa-brother-of-montreal-mafia-leader-shot-to-death-a" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237122082,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237122082?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>The Mafia war in the underworld of Montreal, Canada, has claimed another victim. 49-year-old Salvatore Scoppa (photo above) died after being shot Saturday night at the Sheraton Hotel in Laval. He is the brother of a high-ranking member of the Montreal Mafia.</p>
<p>Time finally ran out for Scoppa after having survived multiple dangerous situations. In February of 2017, he was shot at as he exited a restaurant in Terrebonne. For that failed hit, 38-year-old Frédérick Silva, an alleged <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Hitman" target="_blank">hitman</a>, was arrested in February as a suspect in that murder attempt and two other slayings. He was featured on <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Canada" target="_blank">Canada</a>’s most wanted fugitives list.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237122492,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237122492?profile=original" /></a>“People were trying to kill him for a while”</strong></span></p>
<p>“At the time, police investigators suspected Scoppa had also recently been assaulted after noticing he had a cast on his arm,” the <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/man-with-mafia-ties-fatally-shot-saturday-at-laval-hotel" target="_blank">Montreal Gazette</a> reported. “People have been trying to kill him for a while, the police warned him a few times,” retired police officer John Galianos told <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5241805/salvatore-scoppa-man-linked-to-mafia-gunned-down-at-sheraton-hotel-in-laval/" target="_blank">Global News</a>. Adding that, “He was well connected and some people believe he might have been involved in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drug trafficking</a>.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>No saint</strong></span></p>
<p>Scoppa himself was indeed no saint. According to the <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/man-with-mafia-ties-fatally-shot-saturday-at-laval-hotel" target="_blank">Montreal Gazette</a>, “He was being investigated for the disappearance of two men who were reported missing in 2013 and are since presumed dead.”</p>
<p>In the life violence and death are part of doing business. Scoppa knew this all too well, or should have known from his years of experience with such things. He continued on his path and met his demise at a hotel. Shot to death by mob hitmen. Police said two suspects were seen fleeing the scene. As of yet, no arrests have been made.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in-canada-from-the-mafia-to-outlaw-bikers-and-dru">Organized Crime in Canada section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out our <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/blog/gangsters-inc-on-social-media">social media channels</a></strong></li>
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Sicilian Mafia snitch shot dead in parking lot – Testified against Catania’s notorious Santapaola Clan in 1990s
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/sicilian-mafia-snitch-shot-dead-in-parking-lot-testified-against
2019-04-24T14:24:21.000Z
2019-04-24T14:24:21.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sicilian-mafia-snitch-shot-dead-in-parking-lot-testified-against" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237131873,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237131873?profile=original" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>A Sicilian Mafioso, who in the 1990s decided to testify against his Cosa Nostra colleagues, was shot to death on Tuesday evening in a parking lot in Chiavari, a city in Northern Italy. 70-year-old Pino Orazio was allegedly killed by a bullet to the neck fired from close range.</p>
<p>Orazio was known to park his car there frequently, which leads authorities to believe his killer was waiting for him. The spot is near Orazio’s jewelry business Isola Preziosa, which he ran with his wife and daughters and started in 2009 after he decided to leave the witness protection program.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>A Mafia war and testifying about it</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/GangstersInc" target="_blank"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236979466,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9236979466?profile=original" /></a>He had enjoyed the program’s protection ever since he had become a witness against the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sicilian-cosa-nostra-overview" target="_blank">Mafia</a> in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Catania" target="_blank">Catania</a>, Sicily, in the 1990s. The area was under the control of infamous mob boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-benedetto" target="_blank">Benedetto “Nitto” Santapaola</a> (right), who had forged close ties to the Corleonesi run by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/sicilian-mafia-boss-toto-riina-dead-at-87" target="_blank">Toto Riina</a> and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cosa-nostra-boss-of-bosses-bernardo-provenzano-dead-at-83" target="_blank">Bernardo Provenzano</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/in-search-of-the-corleonesi-how-the-mafia-changed-forever" target="_blank"><strong>In search of the Corleonesi: How the Mafia changed forever</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Santapaola was arrested in 1993 after 11 years as a fugitive and was sentenced to life for a long list of crime, which included the murders of General Dalla Chiesa, and anti-Mafia judges <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/three-good-men-and-their-fight-to-the-death-against-the-sicilian" target="_blank">Giovanni Falcone</a> and Paolo Borsellino. In his absence, his family fought a violent war for control of the area against the Cappello and Mazzeo clans, causing hundreds to die.</p>
<p>It was Orazio who at this time decided to become a pentito, a government witness, and help police piece together the puzzle of violence and destruction brought on by the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=War" target="_blank">Mafia war</a>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Questions about motive</strong></span></p>
<p>Though his murder on Tuesday evening has all the earmarks of a Mafia hit, investigators feel there could be other motives behind the killing. As the owner of a jewelry shop this could’ve been a robbery gone bad. Resentment within his own family could also be a reasoning for his death, they say. Then there is the business angle as well. In March of 2018, a former business partner accused him of stealing jewelry from him.</p>
<p>Further complicating things, is that no shell casings were found. Police can thus not exclude the use of another murder weapon, like a knife or an ice pick. To know more they are currently watching footage of security cameras nearby.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Mafia turncoats under deadly threat</strong></span><br /> <br /> The fact remains that a Mafia snitch was killed. And in recent years more and more have been found dead. Last year on Christmas Day, the brother of a ‘<a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Ndrangheta" target="_blank">Ndrangheta</a> turncoat was <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/brother-of-mafia-snitch-was-murdered-after-he-had-asked-to-be-rem" target="_blank">riddled with bullets</a> by hitmen.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/ndrangheta-rat-recants-testimony-then-disappears" target="_blank"><strong>‘Ndrangheta Rat Recants Testimony, Then Disappears</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Italy’s witness protection program is facing increasing problems. With the country’s economy going through hard times, far-right deputy prime minister and interior minister Matteo Salvini said in March that his ministry would review the budget and spending on police protection for those threatened by the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a>.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“We are dead men walking”</strong></span></p>
<p>“Ignazio Cutrò, a Sicilian businessman and president of the National Association of State Witnesses, received numerous threats, including torched cars and packages containing bullets, after agreeing to testify against suspected extortionists and entering witness protection. Despite the intimidation, last year protection for him and his family was revoked,” journalist Lorenzo Tondo wrote in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/17/italian-state-betrayed-me-life-after-turning-mafia-informant-witnesses-protection" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> about the damage budget cuts are doing to Italy’s witness protection program.</p>
<p>“Italy is pushing people to rebel against the mafia,” Cutrò <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/17/italian-state-betrayed-me-life-after-turning-mafia-informant-witnesses-protection" target="_blank">tells him</a>. “But when the state gets what it wants, it abandons them. We are a bunch of dead men walking.”</p>
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<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/sicilian-cosa-nostra-overview">Sicilian Mafia section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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Trafficking drugs and dismembering bodies with the Graewe brothers, associates of the Cleveland Mafia
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/trafficking-drugs-and-dismembering-bodies-with-the-graewe-brother
2019-03-21T18:55:56.000Z
2019-03-21T18:55:56.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/trafficking-drugs-and-dismembering-bodies-with-the-graewe-brother" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237122300,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237122300?profile=original" /></a>By Robert Sberna</p>
<p>The recent death of Frederick “Fritz” Graewe (photo above), a feared mob associate in Cleveland, Ohio, shows that it’s possible to live by the sword but not die by the sword. Graewe, 66, seemingly enjoyed a peaceful suburban lifestyle until passing away of natural causes in February. He had been at home since 1992, when he was released from prison after serving 10 years of a 42-year sentence for mob-related activities. </p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Making a killing</strong></span></p>
<p>Frederick, along with his brother, Hartmut, were key figures in a $15 million-a-year drug ring during the 1970s and early 1980s. As enforcers for the ring, the Graewes doggedly protected and expanded their high-stakes business. According to law enforcement documents, they were responsible for the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Murder" target="_blank">murders</a> of a half-dozen mobster rivals and police informers.</p>
<p>In his post-prison years, Frederick had eschewed crime, turning his attention instead to more mundane pursuits. According to his Cleveland Plain Dealer obituary, he was an artist and he enjoyed hunting, fishing, gardening and spending time with his family. </p>
<p>Despite the tranquility of Frederick’s golden years, it would be difficult to overlook his colorful past.</p>
<p>Frederick and Hartmut (known as “Hans the Surgeon” for his affinity for dismembering his victims) were known as merciless killers, whether in protection of their drug turf or as hired guns. As testament to their skills, efficiency and discretion, the German-born <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Graewes" target="_blank">Graewes</a> were closely associated with both the Italian and Irish mob factions in Cleveland--two groups that were locked in a bitter fight over <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cleveland" target="_blank">Cleveland</a>’s rackets.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>War profiteers</strong></span></p>
<p>From 1976 to 1982, Cleveland’s underworld was in turmoil, trigged by the unexpected death of long-time <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a> boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Scalish" target="_blank">John Scalish</a>. Because he hadn’t formally named a successor, Scalish left a leadership void that triggered a bloody war between the established Mafia, led by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Licavoli" target="_blank">James “Jack White” Licavoli</a>; and the Irish gang, headed by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Greene" target="_blank">Danny Greene</a>, a cocky former longshoreman.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: </strong><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-uneasy-accord-of-a-mobster-and-a-cop-in-cleveland-ohio-in-the" target="_blank"><strong>The Uneasy Accord of Mobster Danny Greene and a Cop</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Greene began his career on the docks as a worker and a tenacious labor organizer. Eventually, he muscled his way into the presidency of the local longshoremen’s union. Intensely proud of his Celtic heritage, he wore green jackets, drove a green Cadillac and often handed out green pens to strangers. Shortly after Green was elected longshoremen president, he had the union office painted green and he installed plush green carpeting.</p>
<p>Dozens of underworld figures were killed during the Italian-Irish mob war, oftentimes by car bombing. In fact, the deadly explosions were so prevalent that federal authorities nicknamed Cleveland <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-uneasy-accord-of-a-mobster-and-a-cop-in-cleveland-ohio-in-the" target="_blank">“Bomb City, U.S.A.”</a> in 1976.</p>
<p>The gangland conflict ended on Oct. 6, 1977 when Greene was killed by a car bomb after leaving his dentist’s office. The <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Mafia" target="_blank">Mafia</a>-orchestrated explosion tore Greene’s clothing from his body, except for his brown zip-up boots. According to a police report, his left arm was ripped off and thrown 90 feet from the blast. A gold ring with five green stones remained on his finger.</p>
<p>The brothers Graewe not only survived the Italian-Irish conflict, they thrived—primarily by maintaining neutrality and also by earning millions in profits for their various gangland colleagues. The Graewes’ main criminal enterprises were drug trafficking and freelance killings. At some point, they combined those interests and focused their activities on bumping off drug dealers and stealing their stashes. </p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Falling down</strong></span></p>
<p>The Graewes crime spree came to an end in 1982 when they were indicted for murder, narcotics distribution and gambling. Indicted with them were Kevin McTaggart, who was a nephew and lieutenant of Danny Greene; Cleveland Mafia capo Joseph Gallo; and Mafia acting boss Angelo “Big Ange” Lonardo, who financed the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drug ring</a>.</p>
<p>At their 1983 federal trial, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Zagaria" target="_blank">Carmen Zagaria</a>, a close associate of the Graewes who had turned government witness, provided chilling testimony about the brothers to the spellbound jury. Zagaria, who coordinated the drug ring and served as an intermediary between the Mafia and the Graewes, noted that the drug operation at one time supplied 40 percent of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Cocaine" target="_blank">cocaine</a> distributed in Cleveland.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-italian-mafia-irish-gangs-chinese-tongs-bootleggers-gamblers" target="_blank">The Italian Mafia, Irish gangs, Chinese Tongs</a>: Welcome to Gangland Boston</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Murders became commonplace for Zagaria and his cohorts. At first, they killed to avenge wrongdoings and to silence suspected rats. Other murders were motivated by greed: If they believed a fellow drug dealer was vulnerable, it’s likely he would be bumped off.</p>
<p>In one situation, Zagaria heard that a competitor named David Hardwicke was trying to sell a kilogram of cocaine in the Cleveland area. At a meeting between Zagaria, the Graewes and McTaggart, the crew decided to steal the kilogram (worth about $40,000 in today’s dollars) and kill Hardwicke. He was lured into a car where Frederick Graewe used a coathanger to strangle him. Hardwicke’s cocaine was sold and the proceeds split among the murder participants. Later, one of Hardwicke’s former drug partners gave Zagaria a $5000 discount on a kilo of cocaine for his service in disposing of Hardwicke.</p>
<p>By 1980, the Graewes and Zagaria had become so emboldened that they were unafraid to rip off and murder their principal drug suppliers—even men who had strong Mafia connections. One of those victims, Florida-based Joseph Giaimo, supplied large amounts of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Marijuana" target="_blank">marijuana</a>, cocaine and Quaaludes to Zagaria’s crew and other distributors. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/don-king-from-street-thug-to-street-name" target="_blank"><strong>Don King: From street thug to street name?</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p> In early January 1981, they arranged to purchase a ton of marijuana from Giaimo. Runners were sent to <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Florida" target="_blank">Florida</a> to pick up the drugs. Two weeks later, Giaimo traveled to Cleveland to get his money. He was instructed to meet Zagaria and the Graewes at Zagaria’s pet fish store on Cleveland’s west side.</p>
<p>At the store, he was shot twice in the back of the head by Frederick Graewe. His body was bricked into a basement wall of the pet store, then later dumped in a quarry pond.</p>
<p>After Giaimo was missing for a week, representatives of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Miami" target="_blank">Miami</a>, New York and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-chicago-outfit-overview" target="_blank">Chicago Mafia</a> came to Cleveland to talk to local mob leaders. Because Giaimo was one of the mob’s largest narcotics conduits in the Southern U.S., his disappearance was a serious concern. The out-of-towners also talked to Zagaria, who was able to convince them that Giaimo had not been seen in Cleveland.</p>
<p>The Giaimo rip-off netted $500,000 ($1.5 million in current dollars) for Zagaria, the Graewes, and their associates.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>“Bring me my surgical tools”</strong></span></p>
<p>At one point in the Graewes’ trial, Zagaria’s testimony brought horrified gasps from the courtroom when he revealed gruesome details of the murder of William Bostic, a mob affiliate.</p>
<p>Bostic, who was suspected of stealing from a gambling operation run by Zagaria and the Graewes, was lured to Zagaria’s pet store in June 1980. He was then shot twice in the head by McTaggart and taken to the store’s basement. Later, Zagaria said he saw Hartmut bending over Bostic’s body.</p>
<p>In testimony recounted by the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, Zagaria said that Hartmut told Frederick to bring him his “surgical tools,” a meat cleaver 18 to 20 inches long and a knife with a 20-inch blade. Hartmut used the cleaver to chop off Bostic’s left hand. He then went upstairs where the other men were gathered and asked, “You guys want to see a turkey? I took off his helmet and gloves” (meaning his head and hands). Hartmut then said, “I learned you can’t chop off a man’s head from the back, you have to flip him over and slit his throat.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mobster-and-brother-of-youngstown-mafia-boss-dies" target="_blank"><strong>Ohio mobster and brother of Youngstown Mafia boss dies</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>While Hartmut joked about being sued for malpractice, the men loaded Bostic’s headless body into the Graewes’ Volkswagen, dubbed the “Ambulance.” Zagaria then testified: “Hans grabbed my hand, stuck it in a bucket (which contained Bostic’s hands) and said, ‘Carmen, why don’t you shake hands with your friend before he leaves.’”</p>
<p>Zagaria recalled that his hand touched one of Bostic’s hands and he quickly drew his own hand out of the bucket. Bostic’s body was dumped in a rural area, and his head and hands were thrown in a swamp.</p>
<p>Several days after Bostic’s murder, his family notified police that he was missing. Police searched Hartmut Graewe’s residence and found a ring and watch worn by Bostic on the last day he was seen.</p>
<p>Two years later, the Graewes and their confederates would be arrested, bringing an end to an immensely profitable criminal enterprise. Frederick is now gone, as is Angelo Lonardo, who died in 2006. In 1985, Lonardo flipped, becoming the first sitting Mafia boss to cooperate with the government. Gallo died in prison in 2013. Harmut Graewe and Kevin McTaggart are serving life sentences, with Graewe in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, and McTaggart in a federal facility in Milan, Michigan. </p>
<p><em><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Sberna" target="_blank">Robert Sberna</a> is a Cleveland-based journalist who contributes to several national publications. His first book, House of Horrors: The Shocking True Story of Anthony Sowell, was named 2012 True Crime “Book of the Year” by Foreword Reviews. His most recent book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Badge-387-Simone-Americas-Decorated/dp/1726605639/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=J8M6HWK4QZSYTMGVM50K" target="_blank">Badge 387</a>: The Jim Simone Story, was released in August 2016. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.robertsberna.com" target="_blank">www.robertsberna.com</a><br /> </em></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in">Organized Crime in North America section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
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Gambino family mobster charged with treacherous murder and robbery of his dear 78-year-old friend
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gambino-family-mobster-charged-with-treacherous-murder-and-robber
2019-03-16T02:30:00.000Z
2019-03-16T02:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-family-mobster-charged-with-treacherous-murder-and-robber" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237112491,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237112491?profile=original" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Greed kills more people than cancer, the street saying goes. It is especially true in the murder of Vincent Zito, prosecutors say. They arrested 59-year-old Anthony Pandrella, an alleged associate of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview" target="_blank">Gambino crime family</a> in New York, on Wednesday and charged him with the robbery and murder of his 78-year-old friend.</p>
<p>Prosecutors claim that Pandrella met with Zito, a friend of many years, in Zito’s home on October 26, 2018. While there, he shot Zito in the back of the head at close range, and stole the assets of Zito’s <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Loansharking" target="_blank">loansharking</a> business. Pandrella then cleaned up evidence that might link him to the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Murder" target="_blank">murder</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ: Gambino Mafia family boss</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-mafia-family-boss-frank-cali-shot-dead-in-front-of-his-st" target="_blank"><strong>Frank Cali shot dead in front of his Staten Island mansion</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Astonishingly, later that same day, Pandrella returned to Zito’s home and met with his family, friends and relatives. In between the crying and sorrow, he tried to learn the status of law enforcement’s investigation.</p>
<p>Security camera footage caught Pandrella coming to and going from Zito’s residence at the time of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Robbery" target="_blank">robbery</a> and murder. Additionally, investigators recovered his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=DNA" target="_blank">DNA</a> from the trigger of the murder weapon.</p>
<p>“An associate of the Gambino crime family allegedly shoots his friend in the back of the head, returns to the home to visit with the family and then thinks he can dispose of the evidence of the crime,” <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=FBI" target="_blank">FBI</a> Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney told reporters. “It takes a certain type of evil to murder a friend in their own home, and then console the grieving relatives.”</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Back to the <a href="https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gambino-crime-family-overview">Gambino crime family section</a> on Gangsters Inc.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Check out the latest news on organized crime and the Mafia at our <a href="https://gangstersinc.ning.com/blog/list/tag/news">news section</a></strong></li>
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<p> </p></div>
“Good jobs, boys!” fugitive Liverpool gangster tells cops when they arrest him
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/good-jobs-boys-fugitive-liverpool-gangster-tells-cops-when-they-a
2018-10-03T12:30:00.000Z
2018-10-03T12:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/good-jobs-boys-fugitive-liverpool-gangster-tells-cops-when-they-a" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237116858,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237116858?profile=original" width="556" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>Dark humor. What else can you do when you’re facing over three decades behind bars? That’s what fugitive Liverpool gangster Shaun Walmsley must’ve thought when cops slapped handcuffs on him after he spent 18 months on the run after breaking out of prison with the help of some of his machine gun-wielding friends.</p>
<p>“Good jobs, boys” 29-year-old Walmsley told the arresting officers after they tasered him and dragged him out of the car he was in. Necessary violence for a very violent man. A man who was kicking and screaming the entire time as agents tried to subdue him, as a video posted by British tabloid <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/733747/shaun-walmsley-hmp-liverpool-escape-capture-machine-guns" target="_blank">The Daily Star</a> shows. </p>
<ul>
<li><strong>READ:</strong> <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fugitive-liverpool-drug-boss-robert-gerrard-turns-himself-in" target="_blank"><strong>Liverpool drug boss Robert Gerrard turns himself in</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>Back in June of 2015, Walmsley and three other men were sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 33-year-old Anthony Duffy, a rival <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drug dealer</a> who was stabbed 28 times in May of 2014.</p>
<p>Facing such serious time spooked Walmsley and he decided to plot his escape. He lost weight and told prison authorities he had bowel issues. He was allowed to go to the hospital under an escort of armed guards on February 8 of last year and was told to return on February 21 to undergo a minor endoscopy procedure.</p>
<p>Upon exiting the hospital, two men - one armed with an Uzi submachine gun, the other with a knife and a gas canister - threatened the guards and ensured Walmsley’s successful escape. It took police 18 months before they located the fugitive killer in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Leeds" target="_blank">Leeds</a> and arrested him.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, October 2, he pleaded guilty to a single count of escape from custody. As a result of his prison break, the Judge tacked on another eight years to his sentence.</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>
Gangster Disciple who held repo men at gunpoint as he took his car back sentenced to over 17 years in prison
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gangster-disciple-who-held-repo-men-at-gunpoint-as-he-took-his-ca
2018-02-17T18:00:02.000Z
2018-02-17T18:00:02.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gangster-disciple-who-held-repo-men-at-gunpoint-as-he-took-his-ca" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237099085,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237099085?profile=original" width="545" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Perhaps that is why the public has a love for outlaws and gangsters who stick it to the man. Are you being sucked dry by banks and credit card companies? Are repo men hounding you? Gangster Disciples member Marvin Meux knows the feeling, and he was having none of it.</p>
<p>When repo men, also known as repossession employees, were attempting to hook up Meux’s car on October 21, 2015 in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Memphis" target="_blank">West Memphis</a>, Meux, himself a known gang member with several convictions for <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Drugs" target="_blank">drugs</a> and violence, did something plenty of honest, hardworking, law abiding citizens thought about doing: He said “Fuck this.”</p>
<p>He jumped into the driver’s seat and drove off in the vehicle with one of the employees still in the passenger seat. After fleeing a short distance, Meux drove back to his residence. One of the repo men exited the vehicle, as he did so he saw Meux running towards him with a small black gun.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-governor-of-tennessee-gangster-disciples-boss-byron-montrail" target="_blank">The Governor of Tennessee</a>: Gangster Disciple boss Byron Purdy</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Shocked and in utter terror, the two repo men forgot about repossessing the car and quickly got into their truck. They drove off while Meux pointed his gun at them, making certain they left. Of course, one might hate their deeds, these repo men were just doing their job. Can't fault them for that.</p>
<p>West Memphis police officers were dispatched to the area shortly thereafter, arresting Meux and searching his residence. There, they found an SKS assault rifle and a .38 caliber revolver. Meux was immediately identified as a member of the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=GD" target="_blank">Gangster Disciples</a> in West Memphis.</p>
<p>Faced with two witnesses and overwhelming evidence, the hot-headed Meux pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Because of his previous convictions, the Judge threw the book at the 45-year-old Gangster Disciple on Thursday, sentencing him to 17 and a half years in federal prison.</p>
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President Obama reduces Gangster Disciples boss' sentence
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/president-obama-gives-gangster-disciples-leader-a-sentence-reduct
2017-01-19T16:00:00.000Z
2017-01-19T16:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/president-obama-gives-gangster-disciples-leader-a-sentence-reduct"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237081881,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237081881?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Eric “Fat Eric” Wilson, a former leader in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=GD">Gangster Disciples</a>, was given a sentence reduction by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Wilson (photo above, left) was serving a life sentence for drug trafficking, but that has been reduced to 35 years, which means he’ll be eligible for release in 7 years.</p>
<p>The former gang boss can thank U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush for sending a letter to Obama in which he wrote that Wilson deserved a break in his sentence because of his “extraordinary rehabilitative efforts,” the <a href="http://chicago.suntimes.com" target="_blank">Chicago Sun Times</a> reported. “Wilson earned a 4.0 grade average in college in prison while working in the prison steel factory as a skilled welder,” Rush wrote, adding that he did not believe Wilson would’ve gotten the same life sentence had he been subjected to current laws.</p>
<p>As a “governor” in the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/black-organized-crime">Gangster Disciples organization</a>, Wilson reported directly to supreme leader Larry Hoover and himself ruled over large areas of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Chicago">Chicago</a>, commanding hundreds of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/street-gangs">gang members</a>. In the late 1990s, Hoover, Wilson, and several others were busted and convicted of participating in a drug conspiracy. In 1998, Wilson was sentenced to life behind bars.</p>
<p>Not far from Chicago, in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Rockford">Rockford</a>, a leader of the Black Gangster Disciples also received a sentence reduction. <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/profile-rockford-s-black-gangster-disciples-boss-karl-fort">Karl Fort’s life sentence was reduced</a> to 35 years as well. He’ll be out in 2019. Though no one can predict how both these men will behave once outside, they might play a role in the community, telling kids to stay away from the gang life and perhaps mediating between various groups currently at war with each other.</p>
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FBI arrests Jamaican gangster sought for 4 murders day after it placed him on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/fbi-arrests-jamaican-gangster-sought-for-4-murders-day-after-it-p
2016-12-03T09:27:50.000Z
2016-12-03T09:27:50.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fbi-arrests-jamaican-gangster-sought-for-4-murders-day-after-it-p"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237089490,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237089490?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Just one day after the FBI placed Jamaican gangster Marlon Jones on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, he is in custody. He is charged with involvement in the shooting murder of four individuals in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Jones has a violent criminal history in the United States, where the FBI believes he is residing illegally. Authorities allege he is a member of an East Coast <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Jamaica">Jamaican organized crime</a> group involved in the illegal distribution of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Marijuana">marijuana</a>.</p>
<p>While attending a birthday party on October 15, 2016, Jones allegedly shot and killed a rival Jamaican gang member. The party was being held at a crowded home in the West Adams District of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=LA">Los Angeles</a> that had been temporarily converted into a restaurant.</p>
<p>According to detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Criminal Gangs Homicide Division, an exchange of gunfire took place between rival gang members, leaving four dead and ten others wounded. They believe Jones was deliberately sent to the party to settle a disagreement with the rival gang.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-jamaican-shower-posse-a-family-business">The Jamaican Shower Posse: A Family Business</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<p>On October 21, 2016, a local arrest warrant was obtained by the Los Angeles Police Department for Jones after he was charged with four counts of murder by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.</p>
<p>“The crimes allegedly committed by Marlon Jones are extremely violent, earning him a place on the FBI’s Top Ten list,” said Deirdre L. Fike, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The publicity the Top Ten list affords investigators cannot be overstated, as its continued success has shown. Our Fugitive Task Force is highly capable at finding dangerous fugitives and will use their expertise, coupled with the public’s assistance and a large reward offer, to locate and capture Marlon Jones.”</p>
<p>Indeed, they did. A $100,000 reward was enough incentive. Acting on a tip from the public, the FBI’s fugitive task force arrested Jones yesterday after a freeway pursuit.</p>
<p>His arrest brings to end a difficult search by <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=LAPD">LAPD</a> detectives investigating the case. They received information that Jones had been visiting from New York and staying with associates in Los Angeles, but were unable to locate him.</p>
<p>As an internationally operating gangster with ties to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, Tennessee, the Virgin Islands, and Jamaica, Jones had plenty of options for escape. Furthermore, he was very savvy by using multiple identities, all with different dates of birth between 1970 and 1981.</p>
<p>In the end, though, the heat that comes with being one of America’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives proved too much.</p>
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Fugitive Russian mobster caught in Pattaya, Thailand
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/fugitive-russian-mobster-caught-in-pattaya-thailand
2016-03-26T12:05:12.000Z
2016-03-26T12:05:12.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/fugitive-russian-mobster-caught-in-pattaya-thailand"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237061484,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237061484?profile=original" width="228" /></a>By Gangsters Inc. Editors</p>
<p>Vladislav Yudichev (photo above) thought he was safe from the long reach of law enforcement when he settled in the coastal city of Pattaya in Thailand, but he underestimated Interpol, the organization that was looking for the gangster for his alleged acts of fraud and corruption.</p>
<p>Last week, the Chonburi Immigration Office deported 44-year-old Yudichev after the Russian embassy in <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-mob-boss-arrested-in-thailand">Bangkok</a> informed the Jomtien Beach immigration office that it had revoked the passport of the wanted fugitive and asked for their help in locating and repatriating him.</p>
<p>Immigration police contacted Yudichev and lured him to their office by telling the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/russian-mafia-overview">mobster</a> that his visa had changed and that he needed to sign some documents. Upon arrival he was placed in handcuffs and arrested.</p>
<p>He now faces fraud and corruption charges back in his home country of Russia. Yudichev denies having committed any crimes, but did say he was in debt about a million baht and recently sold property in Russia for sixty times that amount. Flush with cash, he doesn’t understand what the charges are related to.</p>
<p>Maybe authorities in Russia can explain it to him.</p>
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Profile: Bonanno crime family boss Michael Mancuso
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/bonanno-family-boss-michael-mancuso
2013-07-10T06:30:00.000Z
2013-07-10T06:30:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-family-boss-michael-mancuso"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237025293,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237025293?profile=original" width="510" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>The Bonanno crime family has a new boss. And he’s already behind bars. Michael “The Nose” Mancuso won’t see the streets of New York until his scheduled release in 2019, but he has been chosen as boss nonetheless. Some would argue the Bonannos have gone bananas once again.</p>
<p>While many of America’s twenty-plus La Cosa Nostra families have faced a steady decline, the Bonanno family has definitely decided to jump off of one cliff onto the next until it hit rock bottom. The first sign things weren’t going as planned for the family was when a war broke out between their namesake and leader Joseph Bonanno and a rival faction eventually resulting in his exile. Living in Arizona, away from the mob, he wrote a book about his life titled <a href="http://amzn.to/187NRjl" target="_blank">A Man of Honor</a>: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno.</p>
<p>Though he was forced into retirement and had little or no dealings with the mob, the book was considered a slap in the face of omerta, the code of silence. It also gave folks in the Justice Department some extra motivation and a little bit of evidence to crack down on the mob even faster and harder. When asked to testify about organized crime, Bonanno refused and as a result spent fourteen months in a federal medical facility for prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. For Joe Bonanno there was a distinct difference between writing a book that vaguely described crimes and sharing information with the government.</p>
<p>With Bonanno on the sidelines his <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-bonanno-crime-family">family</a> moved on and tried to find a new competent leader. Dope trafficking czar Carmine Galante thought he was boss for a while. Until they <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/death-in-the-afternoon-the">gunned him down</a>. The real power lay with the imprisoned Philip “Rusty” Rastelli and his loyal men on the streets. Men like “Sonny Black” Napolitano and Joseph Massino. If Sonny Black sounds familiar, you’re correct. He was featured prominently in the movie <a href="http://amzn.to/14yAt3w" target="_blank">Donnie Brasco</a> about FBI agent Joseph Pistone who infiltrated the Bonanno mob and came close to its inner circle of power. Between Bonanno’s antics, Brasco’s <a href="http://amzn.to/12XNbZ8" target="_blank">infiltration</a>, and the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-the-sicilian-mafia-flooded">Sicilian dope trafficking</a>, the other families decided they had enough and threw the Bonannos off the Commission and into isolation.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237025457,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237025457,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237025457?profile=original" width="166" /></a>At this point the story reaches a point that will repeat itself every few years. It’s a story of a crime family being at the brink of extinction, rebuilding, coming back, and falling from grace yet again. This is where we now find 59-year-old Michael “The Nose” Mancuso (right). In a <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/bonanno-family-names-nose-new-boss-article-1.1380609" target="_blank">New York Daily News</a> piece in June of 2013, he is being hailed as the man to bring back the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-family-leadership-busted">beleaguered</a> mob family to the days of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-boss-joseph-massino">Joseph Massino</a>. The article claims that in the last eighteen months the family has made ten new members. Ten may sound like a lot, but not when you take into account that over sixty Bonanno mobsters were taken off the streets in the past decade. Among them the newly crowned boss Michael Mancuso.</p>
<p>Mancuso is no stranger to prison. He can do his time. More importantly, it looks like he not only can do his time but that he actually will do his time. In 1984 Mancuso fatally shot his wife. According to his defense lawyer it was a freak accident. “His wife's death was an absolute tragedy. They had an argument and she got shot,” he said. Like a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwuGf7EGOxA" target="_blank">scene</a> between Janice Soprano and Richie Aprile in which they switched roles, Mancuso fired a bullet to her head and then left her body on a bench in front of Jacobi Hospital. He was caught and sentenced to ten years in prison. With that incident he proved that he would stand up when it came to doing his time. No matter how stupid, cold-hearted, and senseless his crime.</p>
<p>Bonanno wiseguys, especially, are looking for that <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/top-5-of-true-stand-up-wiseguys">particular trait</a> in their new leaders after their former boss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-boss-joseph-massino">Joseph Massino</a> became the first New York mob boss to become a cooperating witness. When Mancuso was released in 1994, he came back to a family which was ruled with an iron fist by Massino. He even dictated the family would be renamed the Massino family because of Bonanno’s “tell-all” book. For a long time it seemed Massino had found a successful recipe for being boss and staying out of jail. His secretive and low-key manner made surveillance difficult. With zero informants willing to rat out the one free mafia boss in New York things looked like they could go on for decades. But ‘the life’ is no fairytale and pretty soon rats were flooding the courtrooms ready to testify about Bonanno crimes. Eventually the rats gnawed their way to “Mikey Nose”.</p>
<p>The mob doesn’t like people who talk too much. That is why Randolph Pizzolo had to die. The Bonanno associate was blabbing his mouth about stuff he was supposed to keep secret and the bosses decided enough was enough. With Massino in prison, Vincent Basciano took over as acting boss. First order of business was Randolph Pizzolo. With charges and rats piling up to the ceiling, the mob could not risk leaving a blabbermouth to continue bragging and yapping. Basciano felt so strongly about killing Pizzolo that he did not ask Massino for permission. When Basciano himself was arrested on November 19, 2004, his orders to kill remained active.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237025867,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237025867,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237025867?profile=original" width="300" /></a>The contract was given to acting capo Dominick Cicale (photo right with Basciano on the left) to take care of business. Cicale told Mancuso to handle it. Mancuso, having learned the ropes in the 1980s as a member of the vicious Purple Gang (of which Genovese boss Daniel Leo was also a member), had developed a reputation for violence. As a member of the Bonanno family he showed he was a reliable triggerman as well. Now his bosses asked him to work his magic. It was to be enchanting.</p>
<p>Together with fellow soldier Anthony Aiello Mancuso lured Pizzolo to an industrial section of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. When Pizzolo arrived at the meeting he was wearing a rhinestone belt buckle with the initials “RP.” Even when he didn’t open his mouth, he seemed to scream for attention. As Pizzolo got out of his car Aiello was eager to oblige him as he shot the loudmouth wiseguy seven times, hitting him in his lower back, his neck, and the back of his head. When police arrived at the scene they found Pizzolo face down in a puddle with a roll of over $1000 dollars still in his pocket. His killers had vanished in the night.</p>
<p>At the time of the meeting, Dominick Cicale was enjoying a home game of the New Jersey Nets. His courtside seat put him in full view of the television cameras and provided him with an alibi for the murder he had ordered.</p>
<p>So how do we know all these specific details? Because Cicale decided to testify about it after he was facing the death penalty. Once he began talking the dominos rapidly started falling. Mancuso and Aiello were picked up and charged with Pizzolo’s murder. By this time Mancuso had become acting boss after numerous arrests had decimated the family. In the summer of 2008, looking at testimony from their capo Cicale and boss Massino, Mancuso and Aiello pleaded guilty. Aiello was sentenced to 30 years and Mancuso received a sentence of 15 years, which they are currently serving.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237026055,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237026055,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237026055?profile=original" width="366" /></a>And now he has been named the official boss. Allegedly. If Mancuso ever gets out of prison he will be 65 years old. And his crime family will no doubt have suffered some more losses. Not to mention that he will have a bull’s eye on his back the minute he sets foot outside of prison walls. With Bonanno mobster <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bonanno-consigliere-anthony">Anthony Graziano</a>’s daughters flaunting their mafia roots in television viewers’ faces on the show Mob Wives there will be no shortage of interest in the man who leads “their” crime family. Whether Mancuso really is boss or just a figurehead doesn’t matter because with this press release his fate is sealed. A new indictment that will send him away for life will now make the career of an as of yet unknown prosecutor, so it is only a question of when and not if he will be indicted.</p>
<p>With the <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-bonanno-crime-family">Bonanno family</a> electing an imprisoned man as new boss one has to wonder in what kind of shape they are. Are they being smart by choosing a violent man who is able to keep his mouth shut and sit in a cell? Or have they gone bananas by choosing a wife-killer who can only lead his family from behind bars? Only time will tell.</p>
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Senator Declares War On Gangster Disciples
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/senator-declares-war-on-gangster-disciples
2013-05-04T20:00:00.000Z
2013-05-04T20:00:00.000Z
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<div><p><a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/senator-declares-war-on-gangster-disciples"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237013454,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237013454?profile=original" width="520" /></a>By David Amoruso</p>
<p>They don’t call it the underworld for nothing. It's hidden beneath a shadow. Gangsters hate the limelight. It’s bad for business. The less people know about your business, the better. Once your name hits the newspapers you can start counting down the days until the FBI comes knocking down your door. It’s usually not the most vicious, dangerous, or powerful criminals that get caught, but the ones who simply are “known”.</p>
<p>For decades, American law enforcement has focused on the Italian Mafia, <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/organized-crime-in">La Cosa Nostra</a>. After prohibition, the Italian gangs grew into large and influential ‘families’, which had the power to make or break the most prominent politicians in the United States. They were a clear and present danger to the government and were dealt with accordingly. Numerous prosecutions weakened the Mafia until it posed no more danger to leading politicians.</p>
<p>But despite losing much of their power and influence La Cosa Nostra still managed to make or break careers in law enforcement. Thanks to Hollywood productions like The Godfather and <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-time-i-hurt-mobster-henry-hill-s-feelings">Goodfellas</a> and later HBO’s The Sopranos, the mob made plenty of headlines. And headlines make careers. FBI directors and prosecutors alike presented each big bust as being bigger than the one before and the media happily brought its viewers and readers the mob story they have grown accustomed to.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237013478,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237013478,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237013478?profile=original" width="300" /></a>As the mob’s threat diminished, the threat that street gangs, drug cartels, and other organizations posed increased. Law enforcement, it seemed, had little interest in these groups. Their names did not sell newspapers or make careers like the names Gotti and Capone did. Until now.</p>
<p>This past year, the Gangster Disciples have made quite a few headlines. The Chicago street gang has had a very public beef with rapper Rick Ross. Ross used the name of Larry Hoover (right), the founder and imprisoned leader of the Gangster Disciples, in his hit record B.M.F. (Blowing Money Fast) and refused to give back to the gang in any way, shape, or form. This caused them to threaten the rapper in various YouTube videos and resulted in Ross <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/rick-ross-cancels-tour-after-gangster-disciples-threats">canceling</a> two shows of his nationwide tour. Hip hop websites, magazines, and blogs publicized heavily about the beef and it quickly hit the mainstream media as well.</p>
<p>Then there was the murder of 15-year-old honor student Hadiya Pendleton, close to President Obama's South Side home, just one week after she performed at events for Obama’s second inauguration. First Lady Michelle Obama attended Pendleton’s funeral.</p>
<p>The murder shocked the whole country. Pendleton was standing with a group of friends when they were seen as a rival gang by two young men who decided to shoot their guns at them. It is now believed that these men were affiliated with the Gangster Disciples.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9237012896,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9237012896,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9237012896?profile=original" width="251" /></a>Founded by David Barksdale and Larry Hoover in Chicago in the late 1960s, the Gangster Disciples gang has grown into an army of thousands of members across the United States. With these recent incidents the group has finally gotten the attention of the U.S. government.</p>
<p>“I would like to crush them, because they shot Hadiya,” Illinois Senator <a href="http://www.kirk.senate.gov/?p=home" target="_blank">Mark Kirk</a> (right) bluntly told <a href="http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/22147944/kirk-time-for-feds-to-take-down-chicago-street-gangs#ixzz2SFHQZWAo" target="_blank">Fox32 in Chicago</a>. “We have that Al Capone image”, Kirk said as he explained people’s reaction when he told them about being from Chicago. The Senator thinks it is time to clean up the streets. As a member of the Senate’s Appropriations Committee he has the power to shift millions of dollars in funds to Chicago law enforcement in order to do just that.</p>
<p>“My top priority is to arrest the Gangster Disciple gang, which is 18,000 people. I would like to do a mass pickup of them and put them all in the Thomson Correctional Facility,” Kirk told <a href="http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/22147944/kirk-time-for-feds-to-take-down-chicago-street-gangs#ixzz2SFHQZWAo" target="_blank">Fox32</a>. “I will be proposing this to the assembled federal law enforcement: ATF, DEA and FBI.”</p>
<p>As any Italian-American mobster will tell you: “Fuggedaboutit, this is the beginning of the end.”</p>
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Former Drug Kingpin Ike Atkinson Tells All In New Documentary
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/former-drug-kingpin-ike
2011-06-15T10:30:00.000Z
2011-06-15T10:30:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6Xuic5LtoUI?wmode=opaque" width="540" height="337" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In the movie "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EIOOVS/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001EIOOVS&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">American Gangster</a>," Ike Atkinson appears as the minor character "Nate," who is depicted as gangster Frank Lucas's cousin and as the drug trafficker who helped Lucas established the Asian heroin pipeline from Thailand to the U.S. These were two of many of the Lucas' lies exposed in Strategic Media Books LLC’s recently released award-winning book, Sergeant Smack: The Legendary Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson, Kingpin, and His Band of Brothers by Ron Chepesiuk.<br /> <br /> "'The American Gangster' movie is a fairy tale told by Hollywood," Chepesiuk said. "It should have been produced by Walt Disney."<br /> <br /> Since its publication, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0984233318/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0984233318&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">Sergeant Smack</a> has been honored by nine book award competitions. Sergeant Smack has also been optioned for a movie, which is currently in development.<br /> <br /> Last October, Strategic Media Books LLC released the fascinating documentary interview, "Ike Atkinson, Kingpin-- In his Own Words," as a complement to the book. This coming June 25, the documentary will be screened at the prestigious Philadelphia International Film Festival and Market in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The time: 5:10 pm; The place; the African American Museum.<br /> <br /> In the documentary, Atkinson tells own his story and further sets the record straight. The former kingpin, who operated the largest drug smuggling enterprise in the 1970s, talks about growing up in the rural south, his life in the military and as a gambler and a hustler, his rise and fall as a big time drug dealer, his relationship with Frank Lucas, the 32 years he spent in prison and his life since his release. Those who have an appreciation for the truth will want to listen closely and take note, as the real American Gangster at long last speaks out. The production's running time is 63 minutes.<br /> <br /> "It has been really gratifying to get my true story told both in print and on the screen," Atkinson revealed. "The DVD complements the book together they provide a complete picture of my life." <br /> <br /> Atkinson led a remarkable life as an adventurer, gambler and drug trafficker. He never carried a gun, never committed murder and never bowed down to the infamous Italian La Cosa Nostra. Atkinson was the first African American drug kingpin to have a DEA task force set up specifically to bring him down.<br /> <br /> As a former U.S. Army Master Sergeant, he utilized his intellect and charm to smuggle, by conservative estimates, 1000 pounds of heroin annually from Bangkok, Thailand, through U.S. military bases into the United States from 1968 to 1975. Atkinson's legendary enterprise was so complex and profitable it easily rivaled that of modern day hoodlums, the Black Mafia Family.<br /> <br /> Beginning at 1 p.m. on June 25, Ron and Ike will also sign books and DVDs at the African American Museum. Come to the Museum and meet and chat with Ike and Ron. Both Ron Chepesiuk and Ike Atkinson are available for interviews.For further information contact Strategic Media Books LCC by phone at 803-3-66-5440 or e-mail strategicmediabooks@gmail.com<br /> <br /> Note also that prior to the screening of the Ike Atkinson documentary on June 25, another documentary, Superfly: The True Story of Frank Luca, American Gangster will be screened at 4:05 p.m. on June 25. Ron Chepesiuk produced and scripted both Superfly and Ike Atkinson, Kingpin, In his Own Words.<br /> <br /> The DVD, "Ike Atkinson, Kingpin, In His Own Words," and book, "Sergeant Smack: The Legendary Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson, Kingpin, and His Band of Brothers" are available at <a href="http://www.ikeatkinsonkingpin.com">http://www.ikeatkinsonkingpin.com</a>, <a href="http://www.strategicmediabooks.com">http://www.strategicmediabooks.com</a>, <a href="http://www.Amazon.com">www.Amazon.com</a> and Barnes and Noble, and through local book stores.<br /> <br /> See and hear from Ike Atkinson himself at <a href="http://www.IkeAtkinsonKingpin.com">http://www.IkeAtkinsonKingpin.com</a>. For more information about Ron Chepesiuk, go to <a href="http://www.ronchepesiuk.com/">http://www.ronchepesiuk.com/</a> . You can also 'friend' both Ron Chepesiuk and Ike Atkinson on Facebook.com.<br /> <br /> Chepesiuk has penned some 28 books, including "Gangsters of Miami," "Drug Lords, the Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel," "Gangsters of Harlem" and "Gangsters of Chicago," and more than 4000 articles. In all, Chepesiuk’s books have won more than twenty awards.<br /> <br /> And pick up the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0984233318/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0984233318&linkCode=as2&tag=gangstersinc-20" target="_blank">Sergeant Smack</a>: The Legendary Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson, Kingpin, and his Band of Brothers" online or at a bookstore near you!</p>
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The Color Purple: Detroit's Early Mob
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-color-purple-detroits
2010-11-17T14:01:49.000Z
2010-11-17T14:01:49.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p>By Thom L. Jones for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a><br /> <br /> Whatever they amounted to as a bunch of criminals, the derivation of their name is intriguing enough in itself. There seems to be more versions of its origin and meaning, than combinations of a Rubik Cube.<br /> <br /> One story goes that two Hastings Street shopkeepers, whose places had been targets for the gang, said something like:<br /> <br /> 'These kids, they’re tainted, they’re rotten, purple, like the colour of bad meat, they’re the Purple Gang.'<br /> <br /> Detroit Detective Henry Gavin claimed the gang was named after an early leader, Sammy Purple. Another theory that went around suggested that one of the group called Jacob 'Scotty' Silverstein was wearing a purple sweater when they chose the name. One of their more boisterous members, Eddie Fletcher, fought as a featherweight at Harry Harris’s Fairview Club, and he and his seconds wore purple tops, and so this is how the name stuck, or so the legend goes.<br /> <br /> There was a particularly complex explanation that emerged during the Detroit Cleaners and Dyers Wars. Dyers had always been connected to purple dye, since it originated during the Phoenician period, and purple has long been the symbol of dyers. So the 'Purple Gang' became a 'dyers' gang as they operated their protection racket during this 1928 dispute.<br /> <br /> Lou Wertheimer, a gang member, claimed the name originated from a taxi-cab war in Detroit, resulting in attacks and bombings on cabs and depots. One company known as the Purple Line, were successfully protected by a gang of toughs, who became known naturally, as the Purple Line protectors, or the Purple Gang.<br /> <br /> A wag claimed they were called 'Purple' because they were not quite straight, and some gang members even said the name was dubbed on them by the cops. My favourite analogy has to be that some of the men wore purple swimsuits on their week-end breaks away from mugging, hijacking and killing each other. It’s tempting to contemplate where they stashed their .45’s as they frolicked in the swimming baths, or on the shores of Lake St. Clair.<br /> <br /> A group of the gang interviewed in 1929, unanimously agreed to denying the name. Joe 'Honey' Miller told a reporter 'This Purple Gang stuff makes me sick... who got up that name?'<br /> <br /> Probably the same kind of guy who originated 'Murder Inc.' and 'The Good Killers,' a newspaper reporter.<br /> <br /> Whichever way the name came about, that’s what they got tagged with, and it stuck with them until the end. The beginning was somewhere in and around Hastings Street, which lay about six blocks west of where the GM Cadillac Assembly Plant now stands, in Detroit’s lower East Side, and perhaps was sometime around 1915-1917. For some weird reason, this parish became known as 'Paradise Valley.'<br /> <br /> The Detroit News reported that the gang didn’t start up until 1919, but some sources allege origin dating as early as 1908. The Purples came about through an amalgamation of two groups- the Oakland Sugar House Gang, operating out of the Holbrook and Oakland Avenue district and lead by Charles Leiter and Henry Shorr, and a mob under the control of nineteen year old Sammy Coen, who was also listed as George by the DPD, and carried the nickname of Sammy Purple. He, along with Sam 'Sammy K' Kert, subsequently become the overseers of the Purples speakeasies and blind pigs, which numbered over one hundred in and around the city.<br /> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236986074,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> <br /> At their peak they numbered less than a hundred, out of a Jewish citizenry of over 35,000, so could hardly be called a significant demographic profile in the population of Detroit. Oakland Avenue was a run-down thoroughfare near the Eastern Market in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood. Until the Purple Gang came along, nothing of any consequence ever came out of here, an neighbourhood known primarily for its drunks, bums and deadbeats. This Jewish quarter of Detroit, sometimes called, New or Little Jerusalem, or more aptly 'The Ghetto', by the city press, was regarded as so bad, as being unfit to live in. It's not that difficult to comprehend how a gang like this could have developed in the dark, fetid apartments and filthy rubbish strewn streets and alleys that composed this area.<br /> <br /> Irrespective of where they came from, they grew into an extremely effective group. The Detroit police department credited the gang with over 500 killings, a lot more than the Capone mob over in Chicago. Herbert Asbury, the highly respected author of 'Gangs of New York,' called them the most efficiently organized gang of killer in the United States.<br /> <br /> They might easily have left the alleged infamous 'Good Killers Society' for dead. Literally.<br /> <br /> They weren't however invincible. In 1928, a group of them attempted to take over the bootlegging business in Rochester, New York, and were violently repulsed by the current liquor kings- the Staud brothers, Midge, George, Carl and Ed- who allegedly tossed two of them from the seventh story of the Seneca Hotel, and chased the rest of the crew out of town.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236986482,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />There has been much speculation as to the head of the group, but most consensus has it, that if they actually had a leader, it was one of the four Bernstein brothers, Abe (right). He was probably Detroit's first and only Jewish godfather. He was close to Meyer Lansky and Joe Adonis, respectively, two of the biggest hoodlums in America, representing the Jewish and Italian-American fraternities.<br /> <br /> One of the early associates of the Bernstein brothers was Morris Barney Dalitz, best known as 'Moe,' who subsequently moved across to Cleveland and helped organize the Mayfield Road Mob. Dalitz of course, is best known for his Las Vegas connection, and no one every seriously doubted how tough he was. An apocryphal story has it, in 1964, he got into an dispute with Sony Liston at the Beverly Rodeo Hotel, in Hollywood, and told the fighter, 'You better kill me, because if you don’t, I’ll make one phone call and your dead in twenty-four hours.' Liston departed with his tail between his legs.<br /> <br /> Like so many of them, Abe was small, almost dainty in appearance, with soft, feminine-like hands, and delicate features.<br /> <br /> At its peak, in 1932, Detroit Police Department Inspector Charles C. Carmody, had 49 'known' members of the Purples listed on his files. When you look at their mug shots and read the vital statistics, you are struck by the sameness of them all. Most were smallish in stature, hardly any reached six feet, youngish in age, between twenty-three and twenty-eight, and light in weight. Seventy years or more down the track, they stare out on the world with vacant, bleak stares, posing almost like mannequins, for the harsh lights of the police photographer’s bright bulbs.<br /> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236986501,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> <br /> The heaviest was Sam Bernstein, a squat five-five but solid two-twenty five pounds, referred to by the gang, not unnaturally as 'Fat Sammy,' and the smallest was the dainty Sam Davies, 24 years old, barely five feet and a paper weight one hundred pounds, who for some reason was referred to incongruously, as 'The Gorilla.' Sammy was a tough Jew, with a lengthy police record that included robbery, armed extortion and the ubiquitous 'violating the U.S. Codes!' He also murdered one Harry Gold on the evening of February 17th., 1932, and was clearly a lot more violent than he appeared.<br /> <br /> Most of the crew were children of immigrant Russian Jews, with names like Ziggie Selbin, Abe 'Abie the Agent' Zussman, Jacob Willman, Jack Budd, Charles 'The Professor' Auerbach, Hyman 'Two Gun Harry' Altman, Jack Stein, Issac Reisfield, Michael 'One Arm Mike' Gelfand, Isadore 'Uncle Izzy' Kaminski, or Sam Potasink; what a name to conjure around. I wonder if he ever shot out a basin in rage, against the cruel irony of a gangster with a moniker like that?<br /> <br /> You can image Abe the boss telling him, 'Hi Sammy, go shoot out that porcelain basin that’s late with the vig.'<br /> <br /> Starting out as small-time hustlers, thieves and malcontents, the Gang grew into manhood with the emergence of Prohibition, an act of political madness that was the alchemy turning the streets of concrete into pathways of gold for the mobsters of the 1920’s.<br /> <br /> The 18th Amendment was ratified in 1919, to take effect from January 16th, 1920. It had been passed in 1917 through the Senate by a one-sided vote after only thirteen hours debate. A few months later, the House of Representatives debated it for a full, whole day!<br /> <br /> A poem in the New York World newspaper summed up America’s reaction to one of the most pathetic acts of any American federal administration, an bill that would create more damage and dislocation to America than almost any action of any government before or since:<br /> <br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">Prohibition is an awful flop. We like it. It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop. We like it. It’s left a trail of graft and slime, It’s filled our land with vice and crime, It don’t prohibit worth a dime, Nevertheless we’re for it.</span><br /> <br /> The Act closed down Detroit’s 1500 saloons, but by 1925 there were over 15000 speakeasies, or 'blind pigs' as they were called, and many of them came under the control of the Purples.<br /> <br /> According to reporter Malcom Bingay, 'it was absolutely impossible to get a drink in Detroit, unless you walked at least ten feet and told a busy bartender what you wanted in a voice loud enough for him to hear you above the uproar.'<br /> <br /> By 1929, smuggling, making and distributing booze had become Detroit's number two industry, after motor car production. Larry Engleman in his book 'Intemperance,' estimated its gross revenue worth as in excess of $300 million a year. Using the C.P.I as an indicator, that's over $3.5 billion dollars in to-days money!<br /> <br /> Estimates suggest that 75% of all liquor smuggled throughout the United States, during Prohibition, first passed through Detroit. Not only did the gang play a vital part in controlling liquor supplies and prices in Detroit, they became the leading supplier of illegal alcohol to the New York and Chicago underworld. The Purple's principal link man into the Big Apple underworld was Samuel 'Uncle Sam' Garfield.<br /> <br /> An academic study of ethnic groups involved in bootlegging operations in the United States at this time, found 50% were Jewish, 25% Italian, and the remaining 25% split between Irish, Polish and other minority groups. The Italians, although they had a minor percentage compared to the Jews, had the major advantage in that they were evolving into regional organizations based on Mafia affiliations, which would give them enormous power and leverage.<br /> <br /> The FBI reported the Purples as,' a group of choice racketeers and hoodlums who derived the greater part of their income through bootlegging, shakedowns, and hold-ups of gambling house, bookies and places of prostitution.' They also made a lot of money by controlling the malt industry, owning breweries, smuggling whisky from Canada and dope trafficking.<br /> <br /> In all likelihood the Gang was never a structured crime family such as the kinds operated by the Mafia, but more a loose, shifting allegiance of professional, career criminals, who came together and drifted apart when the needs arose. Although primarily Jewish in makeup, there was at least one Gentile in among them, Salvatore Mirogliotta. He'd found his way into the Purples from his association with the Oakland Sugar House Gang. He came originally from Ohio, where he was wanted for the murder of a police officer.<br /> <br /> In January, 1927, the Gang were the prime suspects in the murder of another police officer Vivian Welsh, shot nine times either in, or next to a Chevrolet coupe. Welsh, a crooked cop, had been putting the squeeze on a bootlegger allied to the Purples. Abe and Ray Bernstein were arrested. The Chevrolet belonged to Ray. However the case folded for lack of evidence.<br /> <br /> In March 1927, Eddie Fletcher and Abe Axler, two of the Gang who had joined it from New York, rented a suite at The Milaflores Apartment Building at 106 East Alexandrine Avenue. It was to be a meeting place, convened to settle a dispute between the Gang and three men who had set themselves up in opposition to the Purple’s activities. The men-Frank Wright, Reuben Cohen and Joe Bloom-were ex-members of the famous St. Louis mob, known as 'The Egan’s Rats.' They had moved to Detroit, and started muscling in on the Purple Gang’s local interests, becoming such a pain, that soon, people were referring to them as 'The Third Avenue Terrors.'<br /> <br /> When the three men arrived at the apartment building, they were machine-gunned to death, over 100 shots perforating them and the apartment. Fletcher and Axle, along with Fred 'Killer' Burke, were subsequently arrested, but no charges where ever laid. Burke, also at one time, part of 'Egan’s Rats,' was most likely one of the gunners at the infamous Chicago St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, two years later; it is also quite possible, that the other killers in this Detroit 'massacre,' were Phil and Harry Keywell and George Lewis, all part of the Purple Gang at one time or another. Some sources maintain this was the first time the Thompson sub-machine gun had been used in s gangland killing in Detroit. There may well have been more to the killings that just the settling of business disputes. Three months earlier, in December 1926, Wright had allegedly killed Johnny Reid, a good friend of Abe Bernstein's.<br /> <br /> It was rumoured that the killing of the Moran gang that day in North Clark Street, Chicago, in 1929, was triggered by them hijacking a load of Capone’s Old Log Cabin Canadian whiskey which had been supplied by the Purples. Another version has it that Abe Bernstein set up the hit by telephoning George Moran the day before the killing, and then arranging to deliver a shipment of liquor into the garage that day, hoping Moran would be there himself, to receive the delivery. Some sources contend that Police records confirmed that four members of the Purples, the Fleisher and Keywell brothers stayed at a boarding house at 2119 Clarke Street, directly across from the garage where the killings took place, before, during and after the shooting. They were there for a reason, that's for sure. Assuming of course they were there.<br /> <br /> Helmer and Bilek in their book 'The St. Valentine's Day Massacre claim that only one of the Keywell brothers was 'partially' identified by a witness, from a police photograph, but subsequently, the woman, Mrs. Michael Doody, changed her mind.<br /> <br /> The triple Detroit shooting in March 1927, was incredibly, the first of two such incidents that involved the Purple Gang, helping to create part of the myth about their savagery and lawlessness.<br /> <br /> Fletcher, known also as 'Honey Boy,' ( which always confused the cops, because there was another Gang member called Joe Miller, alias Joe 'Honey' Miller, who was really Sal Mirogliotta,) was one of the most proficient killers found in the Purples. He had served his apprenticeship in New York, and was particularly well known for a killing he supposedly carried out there in 1921. On March 19th., he allegedly stabbed to death one Eddie McFarland in a movie theatre called The Para Court, in Brooklyn.<br /> <br /> 'Honey Boy' had been commissioned for the job by Frankie Uale (Yale,) a leading mob boss in New York's Italian underworld. 'Charleston' Eddie McFarland had been part of a group that had killed five people at a dance hall on Coney Island a few weeks earlier, which in turn was retaliation for a shoot-out at a ballroom on Smith Street, in Brooklyn. It all revolved around in-fighting between Yale’s Italian mob and the Irish toughs led by William 'Wild Boy' Lovett.<br /> <br /> There is a wonderful description handed down about the sartorial elegance of Fletcher, who was described as dressed in a dark gray Chesterfield overcoat, pearl-gray spats over patent leather shoes, wide-brimmed gray fedora and snazzy mauve double-breasted suit, whose lapels where made from pale purple satin. To finish off the outfit, he had a 4 carat diamond stickpin securing a yellow silk ascot in place. And this is what he wore to go to the movies and kill a guy!<br /> <br /> In the what-goes-around-comes-around philosophy, more commonly referred to these days, as degrees-of-separation theory, Fred Burke, who could have shot down the ex Egan Rats at the Milaflores Apartments along with Eddie Fletcher, may well have been the man who gunned down Frankie Yale, (who had once employed Fletcher as a hired killer,) on a Brooklyn street, in July 1928.<br /> <br /> It is indeed, a small world.<br /> <br /> The Purple Gang consolidated its reputation in the late 1920’s with their involvement in what came to be known as 'The Cleaners and Dyers War.' In 1925, Sam Polakoff, president of the Union of Dyers and Cleaners, and another cleaner, Sam Sigman, led a group that wanted to increase their charges. They knew it would only work provided all the other cleaners in Detroit joined in with them. Those that rejected, had their premises attacked, and sometimes bombed, by members of the Purples. The 'War' dragged on for over two years. Polakoff and Sigman were murdered, and after this, the whole thing spluttered out. A number of Gang members, including two of the Bernstein brothers, Irwing Milberg, Harry Keywell, Eddie Fletcher, along with one of the militant cleaners, Charles Jacoby, were indicted and tried in 1928, but acquitted.<br /> <br /> Towards the end of the 1920's, the Purples were steaming.<br /> <br /> From May 3rd., until the 16th., 1929, reports claimed them as being attendees at the Atlantic City Crime Conclave. Along with the top men from Chicago, Kansas City, Cleveland, Boston, Rhode Island and New York, and probably other places as well, they spent hours in discussion with their peers trying to work out some kind of franchise of consent-divvying up liquor and gambling concessions, and trying to work out ways to reduce the inter-gang violence that was causing them all so much aggravation from law and order. Ignoring the Cleveland Meeting of two years earlier, this may well have been the first major meeting of the mob held in America, and The Purple Gang were there in all their finery. They had truly arrived!<br /> <br /> In 1930, Philip Keywell murdered 15 year old Arthur Mixon, an ice-peddler, who they found poking around in one of their 'cutting plants,' buildings where liquor was watered down to produce higher volume. Arrested and indicted, he was possibly the first Purple gang member to be convicted of murder.<br /> <br /> In 1931, an inter-gang dispute resulted in the second triple murder committed by members of the Purple Gang. Three of the gang worked together in a separate clique that associated itself with another group that was known as the 'Little Jewish Navy.' They owned and operated several power boats that they used for rum running across from Canada. They and the three other men, formed a group that went into competition with the Purples, who came to believe that the trio were hijacking shipments of alcohol that was destined for Al Capone in Chicago. They were also selling off bootleg into territory that was claimed by the Purples and in addition, extorting 'blind pigs' and bookmakers that were under the protection of the Purple Gang. The three men were Herman 'Hymie' Paul, Joe 'Nigger Joe' Lebovitz and Isadore Sutker. They had all originated out of Chicago, before linking in to the Purples in 1926.<br /> <br /> Ray Bernstein got a local bookmaker, Solly Levine, a long time acquaintance of the Purples, and the man who originally brought Sutker, Lebovitz and Paul into the gang, to take the three men to Apartment 211 at 1740 Collingwood Avenue, a few blocks from the Gang’s home base on Oakland Avenue. There was a big business convention on in Detroit, and the meeting was seemingly called to discuss liquor supplies. Ray got the guys comfortable. They lit up cigars and were puffing away merrily when three of the Gang present, blew them into eternity. The shooters were Irving Milburn, Harry Fleischer known to the gang as 'H.F.' and young, eighteen year old Harry Keywell. They made sure they missed out on Solly, who made his own way from the apartment at a rapid pace.<br /> <br /> Leaving their victims sprawled in death-- one had tried to crawl under a bed as bullets were pumped into his back, and the other two lay face down in the hall way between the main room and the bedroom—the killers rushed out, down the back stairs, colliding with young Frank Egan and his pal Chick, who were on their way into the building to deliver groceries from the local A&P store. When the two young boys walked down the hallway of the second floor, they came across the open door of room 211, its entrance pooling blood into the passage, and saw the three bodies scrunched over like broken, discarded dolls. When the cops arrived, they found the murder weapons in the apartment kitchen, dumped into a pail of green paint, with the serial numbers filed off, and any finger prints, well and truly erased.<br /> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236987067,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> <br /> Although Bernstein and his boys had been extra careful in getting rid of the guns, they were less than circumspect in their treatment of Solly Levine, the patsy who had set up the hit. For some unknown reason, they let him go. He was soon arrested, and coughed up the quartet as the killers. Little Frank was more than anxious to help the cops and quickly laid the finger on them from police mug shots.<br /> <br /> Bernstein and Keywell were arrested on September 15th., and Irving Milburn was caught four days later. Harry Fleischer disappeared, resurfacing some months later. In November, with Solly Levine as the main prosecution witness, the three Purples were found guilty of the triple homicide and sentenced to life by Judge Donald Van Zile, who commented: 'The crime which you have committed was one of the most sensational that has been committed in Detroit for many years. It was, as has been said, a massacre.' He sentenced them to life. Fleischer was subsequently charged, but never convicted of the Collingwood Avenue shooting.<br /> <br /> The judge had a short memory, or perhaps he was new to Detroit. It was only four years since the Purple Gang had carried out a similar 'massacre,' only three miles to the east of where they had whacked their three latest victims. Six in four wasn’t a bad score by any underworld reckoning.<br /> <br /> In 1932, the Purple Gang were even suggested as a possible link in the infamous March kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby. The baby’s nurse, Betty Gow, was the sister of Scotty Gow who was one of the Gang’s ace fences. In addition, on March 4th., 1932, newspapers announced that the baby had been kidnaped for the purpose of helping in the release from prison of Al Capone, and the Purples were representing Al in the kidnap plot. However the investigators in the crime could not come up with any evidence directly connecting the Purples. The newspaper reports were simply speculation or hot air, no doubt hoping to increase circulation because of the huge interest the baby's disappearance had generated.<br /> <br /> By now however, the mob was starting to implode under the weight of its own momentum.<br /> <br /> Irving 'Little Irv' Shapiro (photo below) had been killed and dumped from a car onto Taylor Avenue. It was thought he was being turned by the police and would become an informer. Another theory had it that he'd threatened some other members of the gang over a a scheme that had turned sour.<br /> <br /> He was only twenty three, but was one of the toughest of the gang. On one occasion, involved in a dispute with a man, he sorted the problem by simply gouging out one of the man's eyes. Small in size, he made up for that with a violence out of all proportion to his build. His forte was 'putting the muscle' on the blind pigs, and he made the gang thousands each year from this. At his death, he had a police record that included twenty-four arrests for almost everything, including murder. He'd extorted construction sites through control of a plumbers union, earning up to $8000 a month from this one scam, alone. He ran a kidnap gang, specializing in seizing businessmen, and a protection racket that was another huge earner for the gang. He may well have been the first Purple to be taken for a one-way ride, getting three behind the ear for aggravating someone.<br /> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236987089,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> <br /> Zigmund 'Ziggie' Selbin, one of the gang's enforcers, was gunned down in the doorway of a blind-pig on 12th Street in April 1929. No one really cared too much about 'Ziggie,' he was over the top even on a good day. He had been drinking one night with a good friend, admiring the man's ring. When he refused to surrender it, Jackie solved the problem by decking the man and simply slashing off the man’s finger with a razor sharp knife he always carried.<br /> <br /> Sid Markman was one of the few Purples who got it from the law. He was executed in New York in 1930 for the murder-robbery of a Jewish merchant, Isadore Frank, in Brooklyn. Moe Raider shot down Earl Passman on Oakland Avenue in July 1931 and went to prison for life.<br /> <br /> Henry Schorr disappeared in December 1933, after having dinner with Harry Fleischer at a restaurant on 12th. Street. He may have been killed by Izzie Swartz and Charlie Leiter as a favour for Harry.<br /> <br /> In 1934, according to the FBI, Tony Frigi, Bill Mylan, Johnny Gallo, Al Paradis and Joe O'Donnel fled to California and set themselves up in business there. They formed the Co-op Dairymen’s Loan Association and a dry-cleaning association, intimidating other cleaners to join them by blowing up the premises of those that refused. A classic example of transferring business skills, interstate. The Los Angeles police kept them under close observation and noticed that they often frequented Al Lang’s Gymnasium where they seemed to spend more time exercising their drinking skills than their muscles.<br /> <br /> Lou and Al Werheimer had also moved west, earlier, in 1930-31, opening up the Clover Club, one of Los Angels’ finest gambling houses, with a branch of their activities in Palm Springs, called 'The Dunes.'<br /> <br /> Harry Fleischer, who had started his career as a driver for George C. Goldberg, one of the leaders of the Oakland Old Sugar House mob, finally got his, along with brother Sam, in 1936. They each got eight years in the slammer for liquor violations. Convicted again in 1944, not long after his release, ( you can’t keep a good dog down,) he eventually came out of prison in 1965, aged sixty-two. The third brother, Louis, went away in 1938, and was paroled in 1957, but was back inside again by 1958, where he died in 1964. He had long been looked upon as the court jester of the Purples. One of his pranks was to drive his car at his friends walking across Twelfth Street, near to where the Purples favourite restaurant was located, pretending to knock them down. If that didn't work, he would career after them, sometimes down the sidewalk.<br /> <br /> Must have been a hoot to watch.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236987865,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Harry Millman was blown all over the place, as he stood drinking with some friends at Boesky’s Deli on Hazlewood and Twelfth, perhaps the gangs favourite drinking place in Detroit, one November night in 1937. It was said that his two killers who strolled in and really shot up the place, perforating not only Harry, but five other people, were the Mutt and Jeff of Murder Inc., Harry Strauss and Happy Maione. According to a report in the Detroit Press, dated November 28th., Harry was clipped, it was rumoured, because he was knocking off whore-houses under the protection of the Detroit Mafia, and they had arranged his removal. <br /> <br /> In fact, the thing that got Harry killed, was a dispute he'd created with Pete Licavoli. He was a hoodlum, who would eventually become a major power in the Italian-American underworld of Detroit. With a record dating back to 1912 for everything and the kitchen sink, he was hardly a man to be trifled with. He was close to a man called Joe 'Scarface Joe' Bomarito and the two got into a beef with Harry who mistakenly thought he was entitled to a piece of their action. Abe Bernstein tried a number of times to smooth things over between the three men, but it all came to a head when Millman sucker punched Bommarito in a bar scuffle, creating a deep gash on the right corner and upper lip of Joe's face, and hence the lifelong knick name. The two Italians got the okay from Abe. They would never had gone ahead without his sanction, and the hit was in.<br /> <br /> The newspaper also stated that Millman was the last survivor of the Purple Gang. He wasn’t of course.<br /> <br /> Abe Bernstein kept going for years. By 1939, he had a luxury suite at the Book Cadillac Hotel, where he lived until he died peacefully, in March 1968, well into his seventies. He and his brothers, Joe and Izzie, made big dough running a race track wire-service in Detroit.<br /> <br /> Abe was highly regarded by the Italians, they used him as a kind of 'counsellor' within the various Mafia factions, and Joe Zirelli himself, thought so much of Abe, he arranged to have his Cadillac Hotel housing dues and personal effects charges sent to him for payment.<br /> <br /> The fourth boy, Ray, was of course still doing time in Marquette state prison for his part in the Collingwood Massacre. He came out in January 1964, in a wheelchair, and died two years later.<br /> <br /> In March 1950, the FBI interviewed ex Purple, Joe Arbus, who claimed that he was in retirement, but did admit that the gang originally formed around himself, Abe, Ray and Joe Bernstein, Eddie Fletcher, Abe Axler and Irving Willberg.<br /> <br /> Off all the bodies falling down, the killings that fascinate me the most were the murders of Eddie Fletcher and Abe Axler. These two, who had set up and probably committed the 'Detroit Massacre, circa 1927,' both served time, getting two years in 1927 for liquor offenses. They had built up a fearsome reputation doing the crimes together and the jail times together. Fletcher, a New York hoodlum, had left Brooklyn and moved to Detroit in 1923. He had fought as a featherweight boxer at 118 pounds. Axler moved to Detroit in 1925.<br /> <br /> In the Detroit underworld, they were known as 'The Siamese Twins,' and were considered the top hit-men for the Purples.<br /> <br /> Fletcher had been a non-event as a boxer, but developed into a top gunman for the gang. Of the two, Axler was in fact the more vicious, a stone-killer, who could also be handy with his fists as and when it was required. Some reporter in the Detroit Times, described them as 'sawed-off Napoleons with dark, furtive, beady eyes and ears beaten out of shape (Fletcher,) or in Axler's case, overgrown by nature.' They had what was referred to as 'crazy nerve,' in other words, they were probably psychopathic, or more likely by to-days understanding, socio-paths.<br /> <br /> At 3 a.m. on the morning of November 26th., 1933, Fred Lincoln was doing his rounds as the residential policeman of Bloomfield Township, to the north of Detroit. Down a quiet lane in Oakland County, near to the fashionable Bloomfield Hills estates, he came across a motor car parked by the roadside, close to the Quarton and Telegraph Road intersection.<br /> <br /> Flashing his torch, Fred crept up to the vehicle expecting to surprise a couple of 'petters.'<br /> <br /> At least that’s what his report said. Perhaps he got his late night kicks at what he found in the back of autos, down dark rural roads. What he found in this car must have been a major shock. Sprawled on the back seat, clutching each other’s hands, but more in morte than amore, were two men. According to Fred, when he touched the bodies, they were still warm. According to an autopsy, they had been dead maybe 30 minutes at this time.<br /> <br /> They had each been shot numerous times, at close range, mostly straight into their faces, their bodies scattered with powder burns, indicating that they had been killed up close, probably by the driver and front seat passenger. The two men had only been back in the city ten days, after skipping bail on various charges.<br /> <br /> The bodies were identified as Axler and Fletcher, Detroit's Public Enemies numbers one and two. They had spent the previous night drinking in a Pontiac beer garden. As they were leaving, they were joined by two other men and drove off into the night.The car belonged to Abe’s wife, Evelyn, and of course the identity of their killers has never been established, or why the two men died, holding each other in their final embrace, like lovers going off on one big, last adventure. <br /> <br /> Which I guess, in a way they were. Not lovers in the sexual sense, but two gangsters who simply embraced the inevitability of one double cross too many, and held each other tightly into eternity. Friends in life and friends in death. <br /> <br /> It was generally believed that the Detroit Mafia had set up the hit, using Purple friends, because the two men were muscling in on the mob's narcotic business. It's as good an explanation as any.<br /> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236987697,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> <br /> Although the Purple Gang were essentially based in Detroit, some of their members moved around. In August 1935, Louis Fleischer moved to Albion, a small, country town about 90 miles west of Detroit. He rented an apartment at 108 South Monroe Street. He and Sam Bernstein bought a junk yard, called Riverside Iron and Metal Company from a M. Pryor. Sam lived at 803 East Caso Street. Louis’s brother, Sam, also moved to the town, but in April 1936 went down on tax and liquor charges.<br /> <br /> The gang members who came to visit, would hang out at the Streetcar Tavern on Austin Avenue, and two of the Purples, Abe 'Buffalo Harry' Rosenberg and his brother, another Louis, owned the apartment building that the bar was located in. The Purple Gang had been coming to Albion since the advent of Prohibition to buy homemade grog on Austin Avenue and at the Parker Inn. Albion was also a chosen drop off point for mobsters travelling to and from Chicago, a kind of gangster’s truck stop, where they could freshen up, grab some chow and check their side arms, prior to hitting the big city, whichever one they were heading for.<br /> <br /> Sam Fleischer would often visit the local cinema called the Bohm Theatre, with his girl friend, who the locals called 'Flapper Susy,' along with groups of out of town strangers- hard looking guys, with snappy suits and well creased fedoras. The local police believed the Gang used the cinema to conduct business meetings, out of sight and sound of the law.<br /> <br /> Early in the hours of Wednesday, June 3rd., 1936, a massive police raid by 25 officers at the junk yard, resulted in the recovery of a Graham-Paige sedan that had been used extensively by a gang of raiding burglars, roaming across southern lower Michigan. The police arrested Louis Fleischer and his wife Nellie, and Sam and Lillian Bernstein.<br /> <br /> They found the car stacked with house breaking tools and weapons of all kinds and calibres. It also had a dozen bullet holes in it, evidence of running fire-fights with the Michigan police.<br /> <br /> Following the raid, Louis and Nellie were both tried and convicted for various offences and sentenced to 36 years in prison.<br /> <br /> By the end of the 1930’s, the Purple Gang had outlived its usefulness, fragmented and become simply a memory to lawmen and the people whose paths had crossed theirs.<br /> <br /> The memory they evoked, would be rekindled in 1960, with the release of an Allied Artist’s movie about them, called, not surprisingly, 'The Purple Gang.' It starred Barry Sullivan, and Robert Blake, who hit the news in connection with the mysterious killing of his wife, Bonny, in 2001.<br /> <br /> A reference to the gang turned up in one of Ian Fleming's immortal Bond novels. Helmut M. Springer, noted as a member of The Purple Gang of Detroit, is a character in 'Goldfinger,' hired to help with the Fort Knox robbery.<br /> <br /> They even found immortality in of all places, a 1957 rock and roll song by Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber, when Elvis Presley sang:<br /> <br /> …The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang,<br /> <br /> the whole rhythm section was The Purple Gang.<br /> <br /> A so called new Purple Gang emerged in New York in the late 1970’s, involved with large scale drug distribution and extortion in the South Bronx and Harlem. Membership was apparently mainly restricted to young Italian-Americans who came from Pleasant Avenue and its surrounding streets in East Harlem. Originally affiliated with the Luchese crime family, they had links into the Genovese and Bonanno families also, according to the NYPD, and had a membership at their peak, of over one hundred They were so vicious, they even intimidated mainstream Mafia mobs. Among other things, the new Purples became famous for pioneering the use of low calibre .22 pistols as hit weapons, as they went about killing and eliminating their rivals.<br /> <br /> Daniel Leo who reportedly took over the leadership of the Genovese crime family in 2006 was one of its members, as was Vincent Basciano, who assumed the top role in the Bonanno family when Joe Massino was arrested and imprisoned. Arnold "Zeke" Squitieri, a powerful Gambino captain, was also a Purple Gang affiliate in the early 1970's.<br /> <br /> One of its most notorious members was non-Italian, Joseph Meldisch, who police suspected of at least one hundred murders across the eastern seaboard.<br /> <br /> No group ever rose up out of the East Side Detroit Jewish community to take the place of the Purples. Although they had plenty of muscle and weren’t afraid to kill, they lacked the essential organizational and management skills of the Sicilians who would replace them in the Detroit underworld for the next 70 years.<br /> <br /> To-day, Hastings Street where it all began is gone, buried under Interstate-75, along with the memories of Jewish gangsters and their wild women, the scent of rot gut whiskey and the dreams of those who gave a whole new meaning to the colour purple.<br /> <br /> 'Shalom aleichem.’<br /> <br /> Many thanks to Scott M. Burnstein, author and crime historian, for his usual invaluable help into the dark corners of Detroit.<br /> </p>
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Being Ernest: The Life and Hard Times of Ernie 'The Hawk' Rupolo
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/being-ernest-the-life-and-hard
2010-11-17T14:00:00.000Z
2010-11-17T14:00:00.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
https://gangstersinc.org/members/GangstersInc
<div><p>By Thom L. Jones for <a href="http://www.gangstersinc.org" target="_blank">Gangsters Inc.</a><br /> <br /> I think he is one of my favourite mobsters of all time. The one-eyed killer who couldn't shoot straight.<br /> <br /> Most people have never heard of him. He never achieved any immortal status as a big player in the Mafia crime families of New York, although he longed for and lusted after it. He was probably the rule rather than the exception when it came to setting the standard for the street hoodlums that made up the rank and file of organized crime. A grifter, struggling through the interminable days that made up a year in a journeyman crook's life, constantly looking for the perfect score and never finding it. Doing the dirty jobs for a pittance and getting screwed from every angle by whoever was higher up the rank in the mob hierarchy than he was, which was basically everybody. He had a reputation for being a tough guy, but Ernest Rupolo was basically an idiot looking for justification for his very existence. Alan Block in his book East Side, West Side, calls him a dope and a criminal incompetent; Peter Mass, in The Valachi Papers, says, ' Rupolo apparently carried around his own built-in banana peel.' <br /> <br /> I mean he had dreams of being the head of the Mafia, at least according to his de facto wife, Eleanor. She'd said to him how could he tell anybody what to do, he couldn't even tell her what to do. Talk about a ram butting a dam. High hopes indeed. Still, there was something about him that makes me feel he deserved better than the multiple gunshot holes and knife cavities all over the place, and a concrete block to go skateboarding on in Jamaica Bay.<br /> <br /> Whatever you say about 'The Hawk,' he did achieve a certain kind of fame in a way. Because of him, one of the toughest mob bosses in New York, who ran away, with his tail between his legs, and then came back, almost went to prison, which would have dramatically changed the future of organized crime in New York; and in death, he almost got even with a mobster, a guy he really hated, who ultimately spent more time in jail than Willie Sutton. And at the end, he was centre stage in a courtroom drama that was unique for its rareness. So perhaps his life was not completely a wasteland of opportunities lost. Fourty years plus after the event, I'm probably looking at it all with the eyes of a weary cynic, who has searched too long and too hard to find some kind of redemption in a class of unredeemable people.<br /> <br /> The real mob. The Godfather it ain't.<br /> <br /> Being one of the underworld's least charismatic people, or spectacular successes, there is little information about the man, except, a beautifully written section, in a book by an associate editor of Life magazine, called James Mills. That, and an article in the same magazine, plus there's also a bit in Dom Frasca's book about Vito Genovese, the odd, old newspaper report, and that seems to be the best there is to search out the painful history of a man who seemed destined to always be the guy to get the sand kicked into his face, down on the beach.<br /> <br /> It began for the law on a hot, sultry day-- August 24th., 1964-- off Breezy Point, the terminus of the Rockaway peninsular, at the entrance into Jamaica Bay, in Queens, New York. A body was found, floating in the shallow waters by two men, Nicky Caputo and Butch Spyliopolous, and dragged ashore. There is a photograph of this misshapen, bleached white, bloated heap that was once a human being. It lies face down in the sand, washed by the ebb-tide. The hands are lashed together with rope or plastic line, a dirt stained shirt is clinging to the torso. The lower limbs are nude, although it looks as though his trousers have collapsed around the ankles, and there is a large, concrete building block at his feet. The head is bald: presumably the action of the water along with the decomposition of the body, has leached the hair from his head because in life, he had a full head of hair, dark, though greying at the temples. His right eye socket is open, glaring up at the world in indignation at being exposed like this. 'Go away, and leave me alone,' he seems to be saying, 'I'm just having a break between scams.' According to the pathologist's report, the body had probably been water bound for at least three weeks.<br /> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988853,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p> </p>
<div style="text-align:center;font-weight:bold;">Ernie's dead body</div>
<p><br /> The corpse was taken to the 100 Precinct of the Queens, NYPD, on Rockaway Beach Boulevard. There was enough in the way of identity items to make the police believe it was the body of a known criminal, Ernest Rupolo, and his brother Willie was contacted and brought in to try and confirm this. Willie, a mob groupie, and part-time bookie found it hard to be sure.<br /> <br /> 'It was just-like a skeleton with some stuff on it,' he said.<br /> <br /> But he told the cops to check on a mesh in the stomach, a relic from a hernia operation his brother had when young, and that also, when he was just a kid, a punk had shot out his right eye, and the bullet was still in there, somewhere. Willie also identified the clothes on the body as his own. His brother had been so broke, he had loaned him a shirt, pair of pants even some shoes. Being semi-destitute was par for the course for Ernie, the big-time gangster.<br /> <br /> An autopsy carried out by Medical Examiner Milton Helpern, revealed that Ernie had gone down hard. He had been shot in the head and upper chest four times, and stabbed another eighteen. Digging in among the macerated and putrid flesh, the doctor found five misshapen slugs: four .38 calibre and one, a .45. The big one had in fact been inside Ernie's head for at least forty years since the day he had got into an argument with another young tough, who had settled their dispute by clocking him with a .45 automatic. Somehow, Ernie survived that one, although he lost his right eye, and for the rest of his life had to go around with a patch stuck over the empty socket. True to the underworld code, Ernie would not identify his assailant, but promised to even the score in due course. This proved a lot harder said than done, as whenever Ernie was out on the streets, the punk was in jail and vice-versa. Somehow, the dispute never seemed to get resolved. It was Ernie's first encounter with the fickle finger of fate that would dog him for the rest of his life.<br /> <br /> He was born in New York, in Borough Park, in 1908, and grew up in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. There is little concrete evidence about his early life. Dates and places are vague. He claimed he left school at twelve, fudging his birth certificate, making out that he was in fact fifteen. He got his release from school, and started to do what he always wanted to do, a career of crime.<br /> <br /> His first foray, was to organize a gang, and they racked up perhaps as many as 100 burglaries, before he got arrested at thirteen, receiving a three year suspended sentence. He kept going, and eventually was caught and sentenced to 1-3 years in the New York Reformatory. He was out in ten months, and the first thing he did was buy himself a gun.<br /> <br /> Seemingly, it didn’t help, because the law caught up with again, this time allocating him eight months detention. Sometime during this period, he acquired the nickname, 'The Hawk' because when out robbing, he never missed anything of value to steal. Before he turned twenty, he had a record of six juvenile arrests, and had served two terms in the reformatory.<br /> <br /> By the time he was sixteen, he was a well-seasoned street criminal. At some point during this period, he found himself in a west side Manhattan hotel having a barney with a group of his associates that somehow involved a young girl. According to the way Ernie recalled it, when he told this guy to stop bothering the girl, the response was: 'Shut up. Mind your own business or I'll let you have it.' And Ernie says, 'You punk I wouldn’t' care what you did.'<br /> <br /> So the guy, who was called Eddy Green, pulls open a drawer in a desk, takes out a .45 and wham, locks one onto Ernie. As he goes down, he remembers, the radio in the room is playing 'My Blue Heaven.' Somehow, he survives the shooting, but looses the eye. A reasonable trade I guess, under the circumstances. According to brother Willie, after Ernie was shot, and his face was disfigured, he didn't really care anymore, about anything. That's when he went on the mob's payroll and from the age of seventeen, became a hit man.<br /> <br /> By his late teens, he acquired a reputation as a wild cannon, forming a gang of four that specialized in robbing members of the mob, holding up their bookies and terrorizing their numbers runners. Just why the bosses allowed him to get away with this is a bit of a mystery. Ernie claimed he was often called on the carpet and warned by the top men, but somehow, always avoided the obvious fatal consequences of such acts. Brother Willie, claimed that the bosses were afraid of his brother, the kid was good at his job, and if they missed him the first time there would be no second chance, and he did good work for them after all. But he knew it couldn't go on forever. When he got drunk ( which apparently was often,) he would say to his brother, 'You know, Willie, I'm living on borrowed time. How much more do you think I can go around takin' people?'<img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988497,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /><br /> <br /> The events that gave Ernie (right) his moment of fame began sometime in 1932. The huge, underground earthquake that came to be known as 'The Castellammarese War,' was over by then, and the New York Mafia had settled down into five well-defined groups: criminal enterprises that would go on, developing for the next seventy years. <br /> <br /> One of the bigger mobs was led by Charlie Luciano, and his alleged underboss, Vito Genovese. Vito had a good friend, fellow gang member, Anthony Strollo, also known as 'Tony Bender.' He was robbed one day, while attending one of his bootleg liquor stashes at a garage he leased. Two men, Ferdinand 'The Shadow' Boccia and Willie Gallo, relieved Tony of $5800. This was an act of madness by the men, who were basically taking on what could well have been the most powerful organized crime group in America. Genovese decided Ferdinand and Willie had to go, and Ernie Rupolo was approached to handle the hit. 'The Shadow' was apparently brassed off with Genovese, because a scam he had created and which brought in $116,000 was shared by everyone and his dog, except him. The strike on Bender was something in the way of compensation in lieu. <br /> <br /> Underworld hits are often convoluted, complicated exercises that can drag on for months, and this one was no exception. There was, however, an added ingredient here, and that was the ineptitude of the principal assassin. Numerous meetings held in bars, coffee shops, and dance halls across Brooklyn, all led, finally to a rendezvous in a restaurant on the corner of Mulberry and Kenmare Streets, in Manhattan's Little Italy district. This was in early spring, 1934. The program was delayed by 90 days, when Rupolo was arrested on a vagrancy charge and locked up in jail. While there, he bumped into an old pal, Rosario Palmieri, known also as 'Solly Young,' and offered him time shares in the killing. For $1000, Solly was happy to be in on the hit.<br /> <br /> At the meeting on Mulberry Street, Ernie was promised $5000 for the killing of Gallo, but only received a down payment of $175 from Michele Miranda, an associate of Vito Genovese, and also one of the major beneficiaries of the Boccia scam. It was unfortunately, all he would ever see in the way of a reward. Fortunately for the organizers of the hits, the Shadows' contract was hired out to other killers who turned out to be seriously good at their job.<br /> <br /> It was decided to set up the murder of Boccia at a card game, and that would be orchestrated by one Peter LaTempa also known as Petie Spatz. The killing would go down on September 19th., 1934. At least two, possibly three shooters had been allocated that one. Gallo was to be hit simultaneously by Ernie and his pal, Solly. <br /> <br /> On the day before, Peter DeFeo, apparently the mob's armourer, later to be a powerful capo, or crew chief in the Genovese crime family, and indelibly linked in through a relative to the infamous 'Amityville Horror' case of the 1970s, supplied Ernie with two .32 automatic pistols. He also delivered two guns to George 'Blah Blah' Smurra and Cosmo 'Gus' Frasca who had been earmarked as the killers of Boccia, who was to be hit at his uncle's coffee shop at 533, Metropolitan Avenue, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.<br /> <br /> Ernie stashed his two guns in the cellar of a friend, Louis 'Chip' Greco, who lived on 65th. Street, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Later, he met up with Solly who was chaperoning Gallo, and the three men spent the next twenty four hours eating, drinking and partying from Bensonhurst to Coney Island and back to Williamsburg. Gallo decided he wanted to visit the sister of Boccia, and there, something occurred, something so Kafkaesque in its conception, as to almost defy believe.<br /> <br /> They arrived at the house about seven in the evening, and mixed with the people who were partying there. At some time that night, Gallo, for some reason, decided to try on a suit of Boccia's that was hanging in a closet. Ernie claimed it didn't look right on him, and suggested that he himself try it on. So Ernie takes off his own suit and gives it to Gallo, and then puts on the suit of 'The Shadow.' When Ernie testified some years later in a King's County court, Judge Samuel Leibowitz asked:<br /> <br /> 'You gave Willie Gallo, the man you were going to kill, your suit?'<br /> <br /> 'Yes.'<br /> <br /> 'Was he wearing your suit when he was found on the street full of lead?'<br /> <br /> 'Yes, sir.'<br /> <br /> 'And you were wearing 'The Shadows' suit, the other man who was killed that night?'<br /> <br /> 'Yes, sir.' <br /> <br /> No one ever bothered to find out who was the final recipient of Gallo's original suit.<br /> <br /> Following this grotesque charade party, Rupolo, Gallo and 'Solly Young' and a couple of young ladies, headed off to the movies. Half way through the program, Ernie, the consummate hit-man, suddenly remembers that he has forgotten to bring along the pieces. He slipped out of the theatre, called a cab, raced to 65th. Street, retrieved the guns, and raced back to the cinema.<br /> <br /> Now you can see why I love this guy?<br /> <br /> Dropping off the girls, the three men then began another interminable migration around New York, first across the East River to Hester Street in Manhattan, then back to Coney Island, and then finally, by subway up to 71st. Street in Bensonhurst, the place Ernie had chosen as the killing field. On the way into Little Italy by subway, he slipped his pal, Solly, one of the automatics.<br /> <br /> It was now, about 2 a.m. on the morning of September 20th., 1934. 'The Shadow' was already dead; he had been dispatched with maximum efficiency by Gus Frasca and George Smurra over in Williamsburg, hours before. Although there were eleven witnesses to the shooting, nobody, as usual in a mob hit, knew anything. <br /> <br /> Walking north from the subway station, Ernie’s group reached the corner of Sixty-eight Street and Fourteenth Avenue. At this point, Ernie pulls out his gun, shoves into Gallo's ear and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. Again, zilch. Third time, nada. Gallo, even though drunk, wonders what is going on. 'What the hell you doing?' he asks Ernie. 'Nothing,' says 'The Hawk,' I'm only kidding you, the gun ain't loaded.' It was of course, it just wasn't co-operating. <br /> <br /> Now even drunk, and having a gun stuck in his face, Gallo shows consideration for his friend, telling Ernie with his record, he shouldn't be wandering around with a gat in his belt, what if the cops stop him? So Ernie promises to get rid of it and walks away a few blocks. In fact, he went back to his friend 'Chip' Greco's home, banging on the door, getting his bleary-eyed friend out of bed, and demanding some oil to grease up his weapon.<br /> <br /> 'Hello,' Ernie says, ' get me some gun oil quick, I'm in need of a fix.' Greco obliges, and Ernie douses the weapon, checks the slide and mechanism, and off he goes for try number two.<br /> <br /> He meets up with Solly, and says, 'We'll get the bastard this time, and just don't forget, this is a double-banger.' They walk Greco down to Sixty-sixth street and on the corner of Thirteenth Avenue, out come the pistols, and bang, bang, bang.<br /> <br /> When Judge Leibowitz asked Ernie:<br /> <br /> 'How many times did you fire at Gallo?' Ernie replied ' Oh, about nine times, but we had some misses.'<br /> <br /> Picture the scene: A street corner in Brooklyn, maybe the moonlight reflecting off shop windows, street lamps dimly lighting the shadows, two men shooting vainly at a standing target, weaving in a drunken stupor, from perhaps only inches away, and still they manage to miss with some of the shots. Talk about the gang that couldn't shoot straight!<br /> <br /> Gallo goes down at last, according to Ernie, gasping out the immortal words all good New York hoods part from this mortal coil with, ' Oh, Ma!' just like Jimmy Cagney in the movies. Solly and Ernie drift off, and go and get a few hours well deserved sleep at the home of poor old 'Chip' Greco. The next day, Ernie goes over to Manhattan to collect his reward for a job well-done, and receives the bad news from an understandably irate Miranda. After all that time and energy expended, Gallo is still alive. Genovese arranged for Ernie and Solly to go into hiding, and they were sent up to Springfield, Massachusetts. After a few days, Solly cuts loose and returns to the city. A couple of weeks later, Ernie follows suit. As he gets off the train at Canal Street, the cops are waiting there to pick him up. Gallo has identified him and Solly as the men who shot him.<br /> <br /> Ernie was taken to Gallo's bedside in the King's County Hospital, where he is literally fingered by the wounded man.<br /> <br /> Gallo says to Ernie, ' Why did you shoot me?'<br /> <br /> Ernie's response is, 'Why did you tell on me?'<br /> <br /> Gallo remonstrates, 'But that ain't the question I am asking you?'<br /> <br /> To which Rupolo replies, 'What's the difference what I shot you for? You could get revenge later on, instead of talking, saying I shot you.'<br /> <br /> In gangland, you can do anything but be a rat informer. You can rape and pillage and loot and murder and double-cross, but woe betide anyone who has the temerity to tell the truth to the law, especially about another member of the fraternity. And so, Ernie goes away to prison for eight years and six months. When he comes out in 1942, he is twenty-seven years old. <br /> <br /> In 1944, operating a luncheonette in Borough Park, Brooklyn, which he had somehow found the funds to purchase, he gets involved in another situation this time with a target he later described as 'a real-good looking guy, one of my best friends.' He was Carl Sparacino, and he had got on the wrong side of the mob, holding up and robbing their organized dice games. He led a group of two-bit mobsters, including Louie and Al Leffredo and Dominick Carlucci, who had hit a number of games including one operated by Andy Ercolino, at his home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, on March 28th., 1943. So Ernie gets the contract, which pays him $500, and he and the target go off one night in Sparacino's car, and Ernie shoots him four times. But as usual, in Ernie's case, the heart was willing, but the aim was weak. The victim survived long enough to finger Rupolo, and he is arrested, tried, convicted and it looks like he is going off for another long prison spell again And this is when it gets really interesting. <br /> <br /> In prison, on his second botched shooting, Ernie Rupolo decided to reveal his role in the Gallo shooting and the details behind the killing of Boccia, in the hopes it might work towards mitigating his sentence. Here he was back in jail yet again, leaving his wife behind at their home at 1947 65th. Street, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. No doubt he was broke as usual. As in the Gallo shooting, the mob bosses had assured Ernie that he would only serve short time for the Sparacino hit, and as usual they were wrong. Facing another long session of jail time, forty to eighty years as a second offender, lacking any confidence in the promises of the guys who always seemed to promise but not deliver, Ernie probably thought, what did he have to lose?<br /> <br /> Since in the absence of physical proof, New York State laws required corroborating witnesses in the planning and carrying out of crime, Ernie's statement in itself was not enough, but he came up with the name of Peter LaTempa, who under pressure, reluctantly confirmed Rupolo's story.<br /> <br /> One of the reasons both men may have agreed to testify, was that the prime target of the murder inquiry, Vito Genovese, was no longer in America, and the authorities had no idea where he was.<br /> <br /> In fact, where he was, was Naples, Italy. He had gone there in 1937, hefting a suitcase packed with $750,000, at least according to his wife, Anna. He had decided to disappear when District Attorney Thomas Dewey had started a probe into the murder of Boccia on December 1st., 1937, as part of an intensive investigation into Genovese and his associates. Dewey had successfully prosecuted Luciano, who had been sent to prison for 30 odd years, and the DA's office was now after the second tier management of the crime family. Vito takes a powder until things cool down. The family business is left in the capable hands of Frank Costello, a.k.a. 'The Prime Minister,' and things are cool until 'The Hawk' starts stirring up the pond with his tales of death and deceit.<br /> <br /> Among the various titbits of information that emanated from Ernie, was one concerning the mob itself. According to Turkus and Feder in their book Murder Inc., Rupolo confirmed that Genovese was a national power in what he referred to as the Unione Siciliano, an organization, Ernie claimed that was the self-appointed successor to the Mafia. Ernie had been involved with the crime family of Genovese for at least twelve or thirteen years, so it is interesting to speculate on what he had to say. He also confirmed the legend of the Night of the Italian Vespers, the so-called mass killings of the old moustached Petes of the American Mafia, across America, following the murder of Salvatore Maranzano in 1931, but that one has, I think, been firmly put to bed as an old-wives tale. The other myth about the Unione, continues to be debated to this day, but it seems safe to assume that it's fiction based on fantasy as well. Like most of the guys at his level in gangland, Ernie heard gossip, but rarely the true facts about anything. <br /> <br /> Ernie started talking to the DA's office, initially with A.D.A. Edward A. Hefferman, on June 13th., 1944. He first gave up the three men involved in the dice game stick-up, the Leffredo brothers and Dominick Carlucci, then started verbalizing about the Boccia case. The man who would be largely responsible for trying to put together a case against Genovese and his accomplices in the Boccia killing, was Assistant District Attorney Julius Helfand, the city lawyer who would gain notoriety as one of the leaders in the investigation into the New York Police Department corruption probe involving bookmaker Harry Gross, in 1950.<br /> <br /> It was Helfand's probing that finally surfaced LaTempa as another independent witness to the events that night in the coffee shop on Metropolitan Avenue. It is interesting that the DA's office thought he was a suitable candidate for this role. Under New York Law, in order to obtain a conviction, it is necessary to secure a second witness who had nothing to do with the commission of the crime. Clearly, Petie Spatz did not fall within that category; he was in fact an accessory or accomplice to the crime. There were however, eleven other witness to the murder, but none were ever called to fill that role. Nevertheless, with Ernie's testimony identifying Genovese as the man behind the hits on Gallo and Boccia, and Petie Spatz to back it up, Helfand seemed sure he had a way to go. Subsequently, a Brooklyn Grand Jury indicted Genovese, Miranda and four others, De Feo, Smurra, Frasca and Sal Zappola for the killing of 'The Shadow.' <br /> <br /> The problem was Vito was still incommunicado, and then, wham, like a miracle, two months later, who should come out of the woodwork, but the man himself. On August 22nd ., he was arrested in Naples, Italy, on charges of running a black market ring. It was another nine months before the maze of official red tape could be untangled enough for extradition proceedings to begin, and he was escorted back to New York to face trial. But by then, the case against him had gone out of the window. LaTempa had been taking pain-killers to relieve his distress from gallstone problems. On January 15th., 1945, in his cell at the Brooklyn Civil Prison, he had his usual dose, and dropped dead. An autopsy disclosed he had taken enough poison to kill eight horses. Vito Genovese docked in New York aboard the S.S. James Lykes, on June 1st.<br /> <br /> For him, summer had indeed arrived early.<br /> <br /> When he finally came to trial on Thursday, June 5th. 1946, in the King's County Courthouse, in Brooklyn, it was almost a foregone conclusion he would beat the rap. Four days after the trial opened, a bullet riddled body was found in underbrush off Highway 303, about fifteen miles north of the George Washington bridge. It was identified as Jerry Esposito, a thirty-five year old criminal, recently paroled from Elmira Reformatory, 200 miles north-west of New York City. He was scheduled to appear as a witness in the case against Genovese. For the Mafia boss, it was another loose end safely disposed of. On June 11th., Judge Leibowitz, after having studied the evidence and law governing the area of corroborating testimony, dismissed the case against Genovese. <br /> <br /> In his closing comments, the judge said:<br /> <br /> 'I cannot speak for the jury, but I believe if there were even a shred of corroborating evidence, you would have been condemned to the electric chair. By devious means, among which were the terrorizing of witnesses, kidnapping them, yes, even murdering those who would give evidence against you, you have thwarted justice time and time again.'<br /> <br /> Genovese smirked, and walked out of the courtroom. He must have felt immune from the law by now.<br /> <br /> Earlier, during trial proceedings, Judge Leibowitz questioned Ernie at one time:<br /> <br /> 'What was your occupation?' he asked.<br /> <br /> 'I was a gambler,' Ernie said.<br /> <br /> 'And a killer?' queried the judge.<br /> <br /> 'Oh, sure,' 'The Hawk' confirmed.<br /> <br /> On September 23rd., 1949, Rupolo because of his testimony and cooperation, was released from Dannemora Prison in accordance with the promises made by the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, and went back into the jungle. And for some strange reason, Ernie was allowed to live. One account says that the bosses sat down and agreed that he had given up plenty of years, and for that he got a reprieve, or as they call it in the mob, a pass. Willie Rupoli claimed in later years that Michele Miranda, now a very powerful member of the Genovese family administration, had said to his brother, 'Take care of yourself, kid. Don't worry about nothin. If you need anything, come to me.'<br /> <br /> There is another scenario as reported by newspaper reporter Ed Newman of the New York Journal-American. He claimed that while having a drink with Ernie in a Borough Park tavern one day, he questioned why Ernie was still alive and well. 'Whatta you mean? Ernie asked, 'you mean when I testified against Vito. He beat the rap didn’t he? The other guys got off the hook too, didn’t they?' He looked slyly at the reporter out of his good eye and added: 'Don't you know I did Vito a big favour. A man can't be tried twice for the same murder.'<br /> <br /> And so, Ernie Rupolo, big time gangster who couldn’t shoot straight, faded into the obscurity of the naked city, with its eight million stories. He operated as a shylock and a bookmaker, and made up his income by muscling in on bars and whatever other opportunities presented themselves. Sometime by 1957, he had left his wife and moved in with another woman, a big, brassy, loud-mouthed babe with a hair-trigger temper called Eleanor. His pet name for her, was 'My Heaven.' Maybe she reminded him of the Popsicle he was with the night he became one-eyed Ernie, all those years ago.<br /> <br /> They had a baby girl they called Ellen, and according to Eleanor's later testimony, seemed to spend an awful lot of time moving from one apartment to another across Brooklyn. His relationship with Eleanor was less than placid, and six, seven times a year she would kick him out. Perhaps during this period, Ernie was still carrying out work for the Genovese family, if so he must have either improved his marksmanship, or developed a much more circumspect profile, because as best as I can figure, he did not appear again in any major police investigations, until the final one.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236989083,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />He was last seen alive early in August, 1964 (photo right). Six months before he disappeared he had told his de facto wife that he knew he was going to get killed. 'Honey,' he said, 'there gonna kill me. Eleanor recounted a strange tale about Ernie having papers that another woman was holding in her safe. '<br /> <br /> ‘They will never do anything to me because I've got these papers,' he would say. 'Then all of a sudden, the stuff she's holding for about eight years is gone. And two weeks later, so was Ernie.'<br /> <br /> At the time he was killed, having been kicked out yet again by Eleanor, he was living in an apartment that belonged to his best friend, Roy Roy, on Berkley Place, just off the Grand Army Plaza, west of Prospect Park, Brooklyn. He made his last visit to Eleanor on Friday, the last day in July. He spoke to her by telephone on the Sunday night, and that was the last time she ever heard from him. Both she and Ernie's brother Willie, were convinced that Ernie was set up by his best friend Roy Roy. 'That's what they do,' Willie said, ' they take your best friend, and he has to do what they say, even if he is your best friend. Roy Roy had to be the one.'<br /> <br /> The murder of Ernie 'The Hawk' Rupolo would probably have been just another unsolved gangland killing, one of the hundreds that have littered the New York crime scene since the turn of the twentieth century, except for four men who got themselves arrested in October, 1965 for bank robbery. They would be the focus of a murder inquiry that would take almost two years before it came to trial. The man they would finger as the force behind the hit on Ernie Rupolo, the man they claimed was their boss, was a top echelon mobster in one of the five Mafia crime families that dominated New York's underworld. This group was led by Joseph Colombo, and his right-hand and obvious successor, was one of the toughest gangsters ever, John 'Sonny' Franzese.<br /> <br /> <img style="float:left;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236988694,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />Born in Naples in 1919, he was one of eighteen children, and grew up in Brooklyn, working as a youth for his father, who owned and operated a bakery. ’Carmine the Lion’ Franzese was a feared member of the mob, and legend has it that he disposed of his victims by converting them to dust in his bakery oven. By the time he was thirty, John Franzese (left) was a soldier in the Mafia family, then run by Joseph Profaci. He was sponsored into it by a capo, Sebastian Aloi, and quickly rose to a position of power following the promotion to the boss position of Joe Colombo at the death of Profaci. One of the bank robbers who would later finger Franzese, claimed he was so powerful that an FBI agent had let slip that 'J. Edgar Hoover would give his left nut for Sonny Franzese.'<br /> <br /> But why would a senior member of the Colombo family get himself involved in the killing of an insignificant artisan like Ernie Rupolo? Surely there were plenty of killers in the Genovese family that could have eliminated 'The Hawk' if that was the wish of Vito Genovese, as he languished in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, serving out a sentence for drug trafficking. Searching for the truth in matters of the mob is often like trying to eat spaghetti with chopsticks, possible, but most times, too exhausting to contemplate. In the case of Ernie's whack-out, perhaps the truth was a lot more simple. Brother Willie probably put the finger on it.<br /> <br /> 'I don't think Genovese had a thing to do with killing my brother,' he said. 'You see, Ernie knew Sonny from when they were kids. And he hated him. The reason, he said, "While I was away doing sixteen years that bastard was out making money." Sonny never did a day, so Ernie figured Sonny was reaping the harvest while he was away doing time. They hated each other. They really, really did. Also, I think Ernie was stepping on Sonny's feet. Ernie couldn’t make money in Brooklyn anymore and he needed money and he figured he'd go out into Queens and start in Queens in whatever Sonny was doing-bookmaking, muscling in on bars, whatever. And Sonny didn’t want that.' <br /> <br /> So rather than an act of revenge on a man who had the temerity to expose a mob boss for what he was, the hit on Ernie Rupolo was simply an act of housekeeping, clearing the streets of an inconvenience. <br /> <br /> On November 2nd., 1967, the trial to determine the guilt or innocence of the men accused of the murder of Ernest Rupolo, began in the Queens County courthouse. It was the first time in twenty years that a murder trial involving the Mafia had come before the courts in New York. The defendants were, John Franzese, Joseph 'Whitey' Florio, William 'Red' Crabbe and Thomas Matteo. There was a fifth defendant, the chauffeur and bodyguard of Franzese, a man called John Matera, but he was not in court, as he was serving time in a Florida jail, for armed robbery.<br /> <br /> The main witnesses for the prosecution were, Charlie Zaher, Richie Parks, Jimmy Smith and John Cordero, all members of a robbery team that specialized in hitting banks in Queens and Brooklyn. Cordero, was now the live-in boyfriend of Eleanor, the ex-de facto wife of Rupolo. It was her hair-trigger temper and rumbustious nature that triggered off the events that led to all these people being gathered in the courtroom on this day in the first place. <br /> <br /> In July 1965, Eleanor went drinking with her new boyfriend, John Cordero, in a bar in Queens called the Kew Motor Inn, frequented by the mob. She started bad-mouthing Joe Florio, who was a soldier in the crew led by Franzese, accusing him of being the murderer of Ernie. Cordero hustled her out, and in the car park, an altercation developed and shots were fired, Florio disappeared, and Eleanor and Cordero were picked up by Charlie Zaher, a friend of Cordero, who drove them away. <br /> <br /> The next night, 'Sony' Franzese called a 'sit-down' at another mob hangout, the Aqueduct Motel. He called into the meeting, Cordero, Zaher and Florio, who testified as to what had happened at the bar. Cordero and Zaher were allegedly part of the gang that Sonny supervised, who specialized in robbing banks. Apparently, during this rendezvous, Franzese made a number of incriminating remarks linking himself to the murder of Rupolo. And that became the heart of the case that the Assistant District Attorney for Queens, James Mosley, began to build, to indict Franzese and his gang of four for the murder of Ernest Rupolo. When Cordero and his group were arrested in connection with the bank robberies, they had not only implicated Franzese in that one, they also dragged him into the killing of 'The Hawk.''<br /> <br /> The four bank robbers had originally offered up as the sacrificial lamb for their cause, one Tony Polisi, who was arrested, tried and convicted. However, that didn't get them quite the reduction in sentence they were looking for, so their next gambit was Franzese. On the basis of their evidence, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit bank robbery. Although every man and his dog was adamant Franzese would never be mixed up in something like this, the government tried the case, the robbers testified and Franzese was found guilty and sentenced by Judge Jacob Mishler to fifty years in prison. Sonny was out on bail, pending an appeal when he was arrested and charged with ordering the hit on Rupolo.<br /> <br /> According to evidence presented at trial, from the chief witness, Ritchie Parks, the four defendants, John Florio et al. arrived at a car park behind the Skyway Motel, in Queens, at about 2 a.m. in a car. They pulled Ernie's body out of the trunk, and as they were transferring it into the rear of another car, this one previously stolen by Parks, Ernie apparently came back to life, screaming 'No!' 'No!'<br /> <br /> Red Crabbe snatched a knife from Florio's hand, knelt over the body and repeatedly stabbed it in the chest. Finally dead, The Hawk was bundled into the stolen car and three of the men, Matera, Crabbe and Thomas Matteo drove off into the night, to dispose of the body.<br /> <br /> The way Willie Ruppoli, Ernie's brother, saw it, the killing was set up by Roy Roy, Ernie's best friend. Roy Roy may have been at this time, part of the Joey Gallo crew, over in Red Hook, along with Kid Blast, Bobby Boriello, Tony Bernardo and Louis Hubela, among others. Ernie had hung around with these guys, off and on for years, and had in fact at one time been arrested along with them. Roy Roy had a cafe on President Street, which was the ‘hang-out‘ spot for Joey Gallo and his crew .<br /> <br /> Willie said his brother was conned into the killing zone. 'That's what they do,' he claimed. 'They take your best friend....and they make him walk you into something.....wine and dine you first, then walk you into it. Roy Roy had to be the one."<br /> <br /> Maybe Willie wasn't such a mob groupie after all. <br /> <br /> More than likely, Roy Roy had driven Ernie to the Aqueduct Motor Inn, in Queens, owned by Polisi, another member of Franzese's crew, and the hit had gone down there, before Ernie's body was transferred to the getaway car. Franzese used this motel for meetings with his men, so it's logical to assume that is where they would take him.<br /> <br /> To paraphrase a saying of a famous New York cop, 'When you live in the sewers, you don't mix with bishops.' Franzese was less than fortunate, not only operating in the sewers, but cohabiting with some of the worse kind of low lives imaginable. Although he would go down on the robbery conviction, entering a federal prison in 1970, he and his co-defendants were acquitted on the Rupolo charge after a four week trial. Sonny would be back with his wife and family in their Long Island home for Christmas. With the best will in the world, D.A. Mosley was pushing it up a hill, trying to convince the jury on the evidence of a bunch of shiftless drug addicts and scum bags that made up the thrust of his case. He was also badly handicapped by a judge who bent over backwards to help the defence.<br /> <br /> I have no idea what became of three of the principal witnesses for the prosecution. On the basis of their backgrounds, they are probably dead or serving time in prison.<br /> <br /> Crabbe, Florio and Matteo have disappeared into oblivion. Johnny Matera was listed as a soldier in the Colombo Family as recently as 1988. However, some sources indicate that Johnny 'Irish' stayed on in Florida following his robbery case, and based himself in Fort Lauderdale. He subsequently became a capo in the Colombo Family, following the death of Nicholas 'Jiggs' Forlano, of a heart attack at a racecourse, in 1977.<br /> <br /> A few years later, goes another scenario, Johnny was possibly killed by the Colombos for a major breach of mob protocol. He had flown up to New York to attend a meeting with the family boss, Carmine Persico, at a house on Long Island, and failed to notice he was being tailed by FBI agents. As a result, Persico was arrested for violation of probation conditions, and imprisoned. Matera disappeared in June 1980, and is presumed dead. The Broward Sheriff's Office claims his body was cut up and buried at sea by Bert Christie, a Jewish bodybuilder and gym owner.<br /> <br /> So as so often in the convoluted world of the hoodlum, there's always money to be paid, and choices to be made.<br /> <br /> John 'Sonny' Franzese is now over ninety, not only still active in mob affairs, but back in prison yet again on another parole violation. He has been in and out of jail a half a dozen times since 1970, but is apparently still fit, and tough and just as dangerous as he was all those years ago.<br /> <br /> If she is still alive, Eleanor Rupolo/Cordero will now be well into her seventies. Perhaps she is holding on to her memories, somewhere in Queens or Brooklyn, of the one-eyed gunman who couldn't shoot straight, or maybe waiting for her latest paramour to return from the lock-up.<br /> <br /> And Ernie, The Hawk?<br /> <br /> In 1931, Ernie was a good looking kid, and the world was his oyster. Then, it all changed with that shot to his eye. From then on, he stumbled through life like a blind roofer. When he died, he was burnt-out, old before his time, and, as usual, so broke, he had to clothe himself in someone else's threads. Maybe he is wandering around in the gangster's afterlife, searching desperately for someone with a roscoe that works, and a target that will just accept the slugs and then lie down like all good victims are supposed to, so Ernie can spend the rest of eternity dreaming of being the boss of the Mafia.<br /> </p>
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The Teflon Don: Profile of Gambino crime family boss John Gotti Sr.
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/gambino-boss-john-gotti-sr
2010-11-06T16:32:05.000Z
2010-11-06T16:32:05.000Z
Gangsters Inc.
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<div><p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236973078,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p><br /> By David Amoruso<br /> Posted in 2001<br /><br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236975292,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />John Gotti was born October 27, 1940 in the Bronx, New York. When Gotti was twelve he and his family move to a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, Gotti took to the streets more and more and he finally dropped out of school in the 8th grade. On the streets Gotti got involved with gangs and committed several small crimes. Gotti would continue his small crimes and eventually started moving up in the underworld. By 1966 Gotti had hooked up with the Gambino Crime Family. Gotti's 'thing' was hijacking trucks, he would make loads of money for the Gambino's, hijacking freight from Kennedy Airport. By now Gotti had moved up in stature inside the Gambino Family. He became close to Gambino Underboss Aneillo Dellacroce and it became clear Gotti was going to get to places but before he started his cilmb he was arrested in 1969 for a hijacking and sentenced to three years in prison.<br /> <br /> When he got out Gotti continued his life of crime and decided it was time to take some steps forward. In 1973 Gotti took on the contract of James McBratney, McBratney had allegedly killed a nephew of <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-boss-carlo-gambino">Carlo Gambino</a>. Allegedly or not, to Gambino it is clear he is guilty and Gotti happily takes the job. After the killing the cops close in on Gotti again, present at the murder were two eyewitnesses. He was arrested. At the trial however he somehow manages to reduce murder to second degree manslaughter and only serves a two year prison sentence. While serving his time inside the prison, outside within the Gambino Family there are some serious changes happening. Carlo Gambino is on his deathbed and appoints his successor: <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-boss-paul-castellano">Paul Castellano</a>. Gotti supported his mentor Neil Dellacroce for the top job and was angered to see the job go to Castellano. That anger would never die down and would be one of the ingredients that would fuel Gotti's drive to power.<br /> <br /> When Gotti got out of prison he went back to work which included drugdealing. Already unhappy with Castellano Gotti would experience real tragedy in 1980 when his son Frank dies in a car accident. Frank was driving his bike when a Gotti neighbor drove his car down the street, didn't notice him and hit the young Gotti. Frank died from the hit and the neighbor was considered a dead man. After receiving several threats via mail and phone and one time being attacked by Gotti's wife with a baseball bat, Gotti's neighbor decided to move but before he could occupy his new home a van filled with Gotti goons pulled him off the street never to be seen again, at the time of this murder Gotti and his wife were in Florida. Gotti was never charged with the murder. Throughout the '80s Gotti moved up within the Gambino crime Family eventually becoming capo. Gotti still only saw one man as the rightful boss of the Gambino Family, Neil Dellacroce. Under the protection of Dellacroce Gotti kept running his narcotics business with his crew. Castellano knew about it and wanted it to stop, he wanted to demote Gotti or have him whacked but Dellacroce always kept the peace. On the other side Gotti wanted Dellacroce to step up and demand his position as boss but Dellacroce again kept the peace and told Gotti to keep quiet.<br /> <br /> In 1985 things came to a boilingpoint, Castelano was indicted in the commission case where wiretap evidence from bugs from within the Castellano mansion was used. And members of Gotti's crew were indicted on narcotics trafficking. All in all you knew, someone had to die. Castellano wanted evidence about the narcotics trafficking so he could have Gotti's crew whacked or disbanded and demoted but Dellacroce kept stalling for time. Gotti on the other hand started saying Castellano might flip under the F.B.I. pressure and thought he should be whacked. Dellacroce kept the two sides from hitting each other, when Dellacroce died in 1985 it became clear the hit on Gotti or Castellano was near. And it was, Gotti acted first. He won the support from the other capos in the Gambino Crime Family and also got support from three of the four other New York Families. Gotti assembled a hitteam and on December 16, 1985 Castellano and his new Underboss Tommy Bilotti were gunned down in front of Sparks Stake House in Manhattan. After this hit Gotti became the new boss of the Gambino Family.<br /> <br /> Running his empire from the Ravenite Social Club Gotti right away made clear he wasn't a low key gangster. At his trials he didn't shun the media, he actually loved them. He loved being a gangster. He would show up wearing flashy $2000 dollar suits and that all important smile for the cameras. After winning several trials (one thanks to a bribe by his Underboss <a href="http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gambino-underboss-salvatore">Salvatore Gravano</a>) Gotti became a media icon. He got nicknamed the Teflon Don and the Dapper Don. He got on the cover of TIME magazine. He felt invincible. While conducting his business out of his social club Gotti wanted all his employees to come by to pay their respects. When asked if that wouldn't bring attention from the feds he answered "what's weird? Just some Italians getting together, it's our tradition". <br /> <br /> <img style="float:right;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9236975461,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" />So it went ahead, people who didn't show ended up getting whacked or had some serious explaining to do and the ones who showed had their picture taken by the F.B.I. After several years of observing and listening (they eventually bugged the whole Ravenite building and taped Gotti's conversations) the feds moved on Gotti for the final blow. He was indicted and told they had him on tape. When Gravano heard Gotti badmouth him on one of the tapes it pushed him towards and eventually made him decide to flip. With the evidence from the bugs, the photos and the testinmony of Gravano Gotti's fate was sealed and on April 2, 1992 Gotti was convicted on charges that included five murders and sentenced to life in prison without parole. <br /> <br /> In prison Gotti did heavy time, he spent over nine years in maximum 23 hour lockdown. To make his life even worse, several years into his sentence he got cancer. Gotti however kept fighting, the cancer, the system and the feds, Gotti wouldn't go down. On June 10, 2002 however Gotti's fight was over and he died of cancer. A big funeral was held in New York attended by around 130 members of the Gambino Crime Family and his personal family and friends. </p>
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Profile of British crime boss Terry Adams
https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/british-boss-terry-adams
2010-11-04T21:00:00.000Z
2010-11-04T21:00:00.000Z
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<p><br /> By David Amoruso<br /> Posted: April 5, 2007<br /> Updated on August 21, 2010<br /><br /> Terrence “Terry” Adams is the head of Britain's most enterprising, and feared, organized crime gang: the Adams family, otherwise known as the A-Team, or the Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate. Terry was the oldest of eleven children, born to a law abiding, working class, Irish Catholic family. He grew up in Islington, north London. Terry was the closest to his younger brothers Patrick (a.k.a. Patsy) and Sean (a.k.a. Tommy) with whom he would go into a life of crime. That life of crime began by extorting money from traders and stallholders at street markets close to their home in the Clerkenwell area, before moving on to armed robberies. Patrick served 7 years in prison for armed robbery in the 1970s.<br /> <br /> Terry was the brains behind their criminal operations, Sean dealt with financial matters, and Patrick was the muscle. A former associate of the Adams brothers said the following: “Terry was always the most level-headed one out of the bunch. His brother Tommy was wild and the other brother, Patsy, could be very wild and crazy. A lot of the people involved in this kind of business don't have a lot going on up top. But Terry and his brothers were different. They were a real class act. Terry was always well dressed and in charge of whatever was going on. When he walked into a room, everyone stood up. He was like royalty.”<br /> <br /> By the 1980s the Adams family moved into the drug trade. There was a huge demand for cocaine and cannabis in the 1980s, and ecstasy during the 1990s. They built up links with Yardie groups and the Colombian cocaine cartels. The money made was laundered through various corrupt financiers, accountants, lawyers and other professionals, and subsequently invested in property and other legitimate businesses.<br /> <br /> Like every criminal group the Adams family ruled through intimidation and violence. They are rumored to have been involved in 30 murders. An accountant, Terry Gooderham, allegedly skimmed £250,000 of drug money from the Adams brothers. He was found dead, alongside his girlfriend, in Epping Forest in 1989.<br /> <br /> A rival Irish family, the Reillys, challenged the Adams family’s dominance of Islington. Patrick Adams and an associate went into a pub controlled by the Reillys. There the Adams associate insulted a Reillys member. The Reillys went away to arm themselves and returned to the pub. It was an ambush, their BMW was fired on repeatedly by members of the Adams gang. No one was killed, but the incident sent out a clear message: the Adams family runs Islington.<br /> <br /> By the late 1990s the heat was on. In 1998 Sean “Tommy” Adams was convicted of organizing an £8 million hashish smuggling operation, and was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment. When a judge ordered that he surrender some of his profits or face a further 5 years, his wife turned up twice to the court, carrying £500,000 in cash inside a briefcase on each occasion.<br /> <br /> In May 2003 Terry Adams was arrested and charged with money laundering, tax evasion and handling stolen goods. He was released on £1 million bail. And in February 2007 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder £1.1million. The Judge said: "Your plea demonstrates that you have a fertile, cunning and imaginative mind capable of sophisticated, complex and dishonest financial manipulation." On March 9 Terry Adams (52) was sentenced to 7 years in prison. After serving over three years in prison, Terry Adams was released in June of 2010. According to English newspapers, Adams was picked up in a "top-of-the-range Porsche Cayenne followed by a £60,000 Range Rover".</p>
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