Ed Scarpo's Blog, page 46

Thanks to "Gossip Extra" for Crediting Cosa Nostra News!!!

We wanna give props to Jose Lambiet of Gossip Extra -- finally, someone out there recognized us -- and actually included a live link!!

It was due to our story on Kayo:

BREAKING NEWS — Retired Mob Hit Man Who Bullied Residents in Broward County Assisted Living Dead at 89!: "According to Cosa Nostra News, Konigsberg shot and/or strangled his victims with his bare hands. Many times, the bodies of the people he killed could not be found."

Jose Lambiet is one okay dude in our book!!!!

Gangland Wire: The Night Police Whacked "Frankie Blue"

Frank Cullota warned "Frankie Blue"An interesting story on Tony Spilotro is on Gangland Wire: On June 9, 1980, the night Frank Bluestein, aka “Frankie Blue”, died, Frank Culotta warned him, “These ‘fuckin’ cops here are real cowboys.” Frankie thought somebody was following him with the intent to rob. Frank tried to tell him it was the cops. Frankie Blue replied, “I got a gun if anybody tries to rob me.”

Frank again tried to talk sense, “These fucking cops are nuts, if they think you got a gun, they’ll shoot ya.” This is taken from Frank Culotta, Hole in the Wall Gang. Author Denny Griffin, in collaboration with former Las Vegas Mob enforcer ... Frank Culotta, tells the inside story of Las Vegas Mob activities during the 1970s. This incident was depicted in Scorcese’s Casino. In Casino, the film made it appear that Frankie Blue had a sandwich in his hand, not a gun.




Frank Culotta relates the Las Vegas Metro Intelligence detectives were conducting an ongoing aggressive surveillance of Tony Spilotro and the rest of his Hole in the Wall Gang. The night Frankie Blue was killed, Frank said he and Tony Spilotro were sitting in front of his restaurant,The Upper Crust. Frank noticed two detectives watching them when Frankie Blue drove away.

Culotta reports that Spilotro received a phone call shortly after and he learned that Metro Intelligence detectives had killed Frankie Blue. Tony said, “We gotta do something with these fucking coppers!” Tony continued, “I gotta figure out a way we can get them corked without it coming back to us.” At the coroner’s inquest, Metro detectives presented evidence that a gun was found at the scene and it was linked back to a purchase in Chicago by Ron Bluestein, Frankie Blue’s brother. The shooting was ruled justified... .read rest READ REST



ALSO SEE:  "We're Gonna Kill Everything That Moves, Walks or Crawls..."

Mob Wives Season Five: Is a Set-up in the Works?

Natalie is smokin'...From Enstars:

The new season of VH1 hit reality show Mob Wives should be called World War III because the woman on the show are at war, literally, and the drama doesn't look like it's dying down anytime soon.
Season 5 of the reality series made its debut on Wednesday and by the looks of the show, it's clear that the women may be not be in a jolly mood this holiday season.
During the season 5 premiere of 'Trust No One,' viewers quickly learn that cast mates Angela Raiola (Big Ang) and Drita D'avanzo are now opening up to Natalie Guercio (Renee Graziano's sworn enemy) and of course that wasn't going to sit well with Graziano.
Luckily for Graziano, she didn't cast all of her trust in one basket, and her BFF Karen Gravano is back and the two are not a force to be reckoned with; Guercio is going to learn this lesson the hard way.
In addition to the dynamic duo being the best of friends, their fans have their backs, and after the premiere episode, viewers immediately took to Twitter to support the wives [meaning Gravano and Graziano].

Yes, I agree. World War III is a much, much better name for Mob Wives. Any episode now Big Ang is gonna be driving a tank right up Renee's liposucted ass; Drita and Natalie will cover her flanks with Uzis, but Karen Gravano is gonna zip across the sky in her own Blackhawk -- because, hey, they are "literally" at war!!

And most certainly the drama will live, because without it there is no show.




The "looks of the show" do indeed warrant concern. Whatever the hell that means.

Drita and Big Ang actually started opening up to Natalie for most of season four until..... Natalie tweeted!! Then Big Ang and Drita rejoined Team Psycho in the final minutes of season four. Apparently that's not the preferred storyline so they're back on Team Delicious. (Natalie you are delicious... you're kind and sweet and if I were a rich man, I'd pay you NOT to star in that horror show.)

Karen has so much free time she flies right into New York to protect Renee, because, hey, Natalie tweeted!!!! It's not like Karen left her husband and kids behind, abandoned them.... wait a sec. That's actually what she did, right?

Renee is the boss though!!! Why would she need backup? Certainly the tough as nails Renee doesn't need any backup! (Actually she does; she is all talk (all bullshit, I mean) but it doesn't matter.) Karen is simply giddy -- and ripe with fury at Natalie, a person who couldn't care less about her, Karen, or Renee -- and Karen's giddiness is real because she's just grooving that the bitch is back!! Her lawsuit blew up on her because the videogame company used the truth to defend itself. "She really is fat," they noted in court papers. So... the bitch is back!!!

We're always wary of women who cackle like witches....

NOTE: Who the fuck goes to work and gets 50 calls in a row from their kids,  begging them to come home? Drita can't though!! She's TOO BUSY!!! She has to race all over Staten Island to be in her stores so the cameras can film her walking around and talking on the phone!! She's too damn busy for that shit!!!!!

So she hangs up and makes a beeline out the front door, probably for a smoke. Why didn't she just run home????

I know, I know -- you're not supposed to take a reality show seriously. Silly me!!

NOTE: We believe Renee did so badly in testing that she's been going out to promote herself (it also certainly helps if your sister is, like, the show creator), and that the fifth season will be devoted to repairing Renee's image as a raving drug addicted psychotic....

NOTE: Victoria Gotti? Really???  





One final observation about that blog post quoted above...  it sounds a bit biased. It'd be fun to see who owns that site... Read the last part of the last sentence of the second to last paragraph again.

Guercio is going to learn this lesson the hard way.
Natalie, watch your back...Not "it looks like" or "it appears that".... Rather, the simple declarative statement that Guercio is going to learn this lesson the hard way. Does anyone get it?
We don't know how far into filming they are so we'll just put it this way:   Natalie Guercio, it would appear that the blog Enstars has some kind of an "in" -- and that you're being set up!
Or it's just bad writing....

But also notice all the fan's tweets are pro Renee/Karen.... that blog has an agenda!!!

Okay, one more final note: anyone notice Karen's storyline?
RumorFix: "The VH1 star also reveals she’s starting a medical marijuana business and her struggles will play out on the reality TV show."

Mob Wives Season Five: Is Natalie Being Set Up?

Natalie is smokin'...From Enstars:

The new season of VH1 hit reality show Mob Wives should be called World War III because the woman on the show are at war, literally, and the drama doesn't look like it's dying down anytime soon.
Season 5 of the reality series made its debut on Wednesday and by the looks of the show, it's clear that the women may be not be in a jolly mood this holiday season.
During the season 5 premiere of 'Trust No One,' viewers quickly learn that cast mates Angela Raiola (Big Ang) and Drita D'avanzo are now opening up to Natalie Guercio (Renee Graziano's sworn enemy) and of course that wasn't going to sit well with Graziano.
Luckily for Graziano, she didn't cast all of her trust in one basket, and her BFF Karen Gravano is back and the two are not a force to be reckoned with; Guercio is going to learn this lesson the hard way.
In addition to the dynamic duo being the best of friends, their fans have their backs, and after the premiere episode, viewers immediately took to Twitter to support the wives [meaning Gravano and Graziano].

Yes, I agree. World War III is a much, much better name for Mob Wives. After all, any episode now, Big Ang is gonna be driving a tank right up Renee's liposucted ass; Drita and the delectable Natalie will cover her flanks with uzis, because, hey, they are "literally" at war!!

And most certainly the drama will live, because without it there is no show.




The "looks of the show" do indeed warrant concern. Whatever the hell that means.

Drita and Big Ang actually started opening up to Natalie for most of season four until..... Natalie tweeted!! Then Big Ang and Drita rejoined Team Psycho in the final minutes of season four. Apparently that's not the preferred storyline so they're back on Team Delicious. (Natalie you are delicious... you're kind and sweet and if I were a rich man, I'd pay you NOT to star in that horror show.)

Karen has so much free time she flies right into New York to protect Renee, because, hey, Natalie tweeted!!!! It's not like she left her husband and kids behind, abandoned them.... wait a sec. That's actually what she did, right?

Renee is the boss though!!! Why would she need backup? Certainly the tough as nails Renee doesn't need any backup! (Actually she does; she is all talk (all bullshit, I mean) but it doesn't matter.) Karen is simply giddy -- she's ripe with fury at Natalie, a person who couldn't care less about Karen or Renee -- and the giddiness is real because she's just grooving that the bitch is back!! Her lawsuit blew up on her because the videogame company used the truth to defend itself. "She really is fat," they noted in court papers. So... the bitch is back!!!

One note on Drita: who the fuck goes to work and gets 50 calls in a row from their kids,  begging them to come home? She can't though!! She's TOO BUSY!!! She has to race all over Staten Island to be in her stores so the cameras can film her walking around and talking on the phone!! She's too damn busy for that shit!!!!!

So she hangs up and makes a beeline out the front door, probably for a smoke. Why didn't she just run home????

I know, I know -- you're not supposed to take a reality show seriously. Silly me!!

One final observation about that crappy verbiage called a blog post quoted above...  it sounds a bit biased to me. I think it'd be fun to see who owns that site...

Read the last part of the last sentence of the second to last paragraph again.

Guercio is going to learn this lesson the hard way.
Not "it looks like" or "it appears that".... Rather, the simple declarative statement that Guercio is going to learn this lesson the hard way.
Does anyone get it?

We don't know how far into filming they are so we'll just put it this way: 
Natalie Guercio, it would appear that blog Enstars has some kind of an "in" -- and that you're being set up!

Or it's just bad writing....Natalie, watch your back...

But also notice all the fan's tweets are pro Renee/Karen.... that blog has an agenda!!!

I was surfing the web trying to find some data on how the season five premiere did but can't find any numbers. We have to assume it was a smashing success, as the show was last year. Because PT Barnum was quite correct about the American public.
One other note: anyone notice Karen's storyline?
RumorFix: "The VH1 star also reveals she’s starting a medical marijuana business and her struggles will play out on the reality TV show."

Godfather of Pittsburgh Gets Whacked

He coulda been a contender...By Rob Owen / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Maybe there’s a curse involving A&E and TV programs produced in Pittsburgh.

Or maybe A&E just keeps making lousy shows in Pittsburgh no one wants to watch.

Either way, the cable network’s second Pittsburgh-based series of 2014, "Godfather of Pittsburgh," has been pulled from prime time.


Following in the footsteps of A&E’s scripted “Those Who Kill,” which got yanked in March after two episodes and then bumped to sister-network LMN, reality show “Godfather of Pittsburgh” underperformed ratings-wise and has been pulled from prime time, effectively canceling the series. Fewer than 1 million viewers tuned in for two airings of the series premiere on Nov. 10.

The remaining “Godfather” episodes will be burned off at 12 and 1 p.m. Sunday beginning this weekend.

“Godfather of Pittsburgh” follows Vince Isoldi of Collier, who operates Club Erotica in McKees Rocks, and says, despite the implication of the show’s title, “I’m just a businessman. I’m not mafia.”

Three episodes aired before A&E decided to scrap the series.

Mob Candy Publisher Unveils Memoir About Gallo Crew

Life in the Gallo crewMob Candy publisher Frank DiMatteo has written a memoir -- now available -- about his life in the crew of Joseph "Crazy Joey" Gallo.

Introduction:
"I guess you can say each person has a choice of which road to follow in life, sometimes you don't have the power to make that choice. In my case, life came at me so fast that I never had the opportunity to hit the brakes. I grew up around my father's world, a world that few have ever learned to understand or justify. That world has been termed "The Underworld". You might say, I was bred into the Mafia. It was always around me and I was always around it. I knew the ways of the street as well as I knew my ABC's, in fact, I knew the streets better.


I knew all these men and they all knew me, most of them watched me grow from a baby to the full grown man I am today, Frank DiMatteo. This was the world I grew up in and to me, it was as normal as family life on television, like "Leave It to Beaver". All of these men now only exist as characters in films, books, and as entries on Wikipedia pages but to me, they will always be my neighbors, my friends and my family. So let me give you a little history lesson, even though the history runs through it.





At the time Joseph "Crazy Joe" Gallo was gunned down in a hail of bullets at Umberto's Clam Bar on April 7, 1972. Crazy Joe, his brothers and their crew were among the most feared and ruthless gangs in the history of the American Mafia. Assassinated in front of his wife and young daughter in that restaurant on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, Joe Gallo was only 43 years old. My baptism into La Cosa Nostra began a decade earlier. Brooklyn in the 1960's when my father, Richard "Ricky"DiMatteo, was a bodyguard for Larry Gallo, Joey's brother. Larry, Joe and their brother, Albert "Kid Blast" Gallo were defiant gangsters who ran their own crew. They were a group of urban outlaws who broke the laws set forth by the Mob's Commission, basically playing "the game" by their own rules. The Gallo brothers were a new breed of gangster with their own style, their own way of operating and constantly challenging the norm of La Cosa Nostra.

Lion In The Basement
Frank Dimatteo's life story growing up in the Gallo crime family
look inside


However, their rebellious actions eventually led to an all out war with the "old school" Don's, who disapproved of this new way of doing business. I'm going to tell you the story of the Gallo brothers and their men, known as "The President Street" Crew, from the inside, by someone who was there and lived to tell about it. I'm going to blow your mind away on how the Gallo-Profaci War and how it shaped the other New York Crime Families for decades to come. Unlike any Mafia story you ever heard, this one will be part history lesson and part memoir, from the eyes of an insider with first- hand experience on numerous, legendary Mafia meetings, harrowing crimes, violent confrontations, grotesque murders and bedside confessions to famous "hits" that have remained a mystery, until now. You will learn the who's who of the American Mafia in the second half of the 20th century, including dealings with bosses, capos, soldiers, as well as business men and celebrities from all walks of life, including the sleazy world of pornography. Lion in the Basement /The President Street Boys is a first- hand account of what it was like to grow up around some of the most dangerous criminals the Mafia has ever known. What you are going to read is a personal story, as I seen it and lived it, my story. Details on how by working beside my father, I interacted with some of the most notorious gangsters of our time and how I would unwittingly bear witness to some of the most infamous moments in gangland history."

Mob Life in New York's Five Families Circa 1997

Feeling nostalgic -- and working on several stories -- I decided to run this not-so-oldie but still very goodie; an interview with former Gambino associate Andrew DiDonato. Those really hankering for a fix of "the life" as it was, read Andrew's book (see below).
It depicts a very different picture of the American Mafia from less than 20 years ago.

Former Gambino associate Andrew DiDonato.Andrew DiDonato's downfall was well under way before he finally realized his boss and cohorts were sizing him for a body bag.

Andrew was a shrewd character and his experience taught him how to find the traps. This was a skill acquired quickly by Mafia associates who plan on living a long life -- or at least associates who took to the life with DiDonato's vigor. He was a cowboy: an earner and a shooter.

It is only by the grace of God he never killed anyone. Andrew is very much aware of this and thanks God to this day that he never crossed that line.



Andrew's book (written with noted true-crime writer Dennis N. Griffin, Surviving the Mob: A Street Soldier's Life in the Gambino Crime Family) is dense with details of his many years on the street as a Gambino associate in the crew run by capo Nicholas "Little Nick" Corozzo.

DiDonato made enemies out of major leaders in two crime families (in the end, three, including his own) during his years on the street.

He once shot another man point blank in the head. The man stumbled onto the ground, surviving the first shot. He would not have survived the next shot, which DiDonato crouched down to administer. He pressed the gun's muzzle to the wounded man's head and was set to squeeze the trigger -- when he noticed a witness staring at him. DiDonato dashed into the night and his target lived to see another day.

Another time Andrew and his crew were looking for somebody else on the hit list (this person had killed one of Corozzo's crew); they hunted him, tried to decipher his daily schedule, drove around in the Brooklyn night looking.... hunting...  The target was affiliated with a Luchese crew that operated in proximity to Andrew's own Gambino crew. With Five Families in the city, wiseguys tended to trip over each other. Such skirmishes were the norm; they usually were fixed via a sitdown -- or not fixed and led to bodies found on the street.

Little Nicky supported his crew, wanted the Luchese member dead. To get around attempts by a Luchese capo (Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso) to save the guy in a sit down, the word was put out that whoever the Luchese gunman had killed, he had not been associated with Little Nicky and his crew.

Corozzo, who had a lot on his plate, kept his eye on how his crew handled this particular piece of work.

"If this happened to a friend of Lenny [DiMaria] and me, the guy that did it would be dead already,"Little Nicky told Andrew one night when he was annoyed the hit was taking too long.

The "mark" was finally shot down, but as fate would have it, Andrew wasn't with the crew on the night they got him.

That killing was part of a larger ongoing battle between Little Nicky's crew and the Luchese family crew. But the hit was more significant in that it sent a message to other crews and crime families: Little Nicky had a crew of killers under his auspices.

Corozzo had the mindset of a boss.
It's Always Safer to Send Flowers...
Andrew knew his time was up -- that soon or later he would be killed -- when he was asked to do something he never should have been asked to do, something that violated a basic Mafia code.

"They started asking me to bring in off-the-record people. Drug dealers, the ones I was shaking down," he told me over the phone. I was in New York, not far from his old stomping grounds. His voice reached my ear from somewhere in that vast rural and suburban swath of the U.S. known as "Middle America."

It was then that the tripwire in Andrew's mind detonated.

A lot was happening at the time, around 1996-97, but with that request, Andrew was finally able to see, for the first time probably, with complete clarity.

Little Nicky was aware of a pending pinch. In so many words, he let his crew know that while he was away, a lot of work -- he made the universal sign of the pistol with his hand, pointing outward his thumb and index finger -- a lot of work was going to need to be done. "Baby Huey" was to be whacked first. That was Nicky's pet name for John Junior Gotti.

In the larger context, the flashy dapper Senior Gotti was already away (in prison). Little Nicky, for reasons he never divulged to Andrew, wanted his crew to clean up for him, which included whacking Junior and a lot of other people he didn't then name, while he was in jail following his expected upcoming arrest.

(Little Nicky Corozzo knew he was going to be arrested but didn't realize how long he'd be in prison. In August 1997, the media crowned him the new boss of the Gambino family; within a month, Corozzo had pled guilty to racketeering charges in Florida and was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison. After Corozzo's 2004 release from prison he kept a low profile as capo due to intense law enforcement attention. In 2006, Corozzo and Jackie D'Amico supposedly were part of a panel leading the family. But then, in 2009 Corozzo, was again arrested and (after lamming it for a while) was sentenced to around 13 years in prison for ordering a gangland hit that left an innocent bystander dead. Now incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Loretto, his projected release date is March 2, 2020.)

Andrew had been told to bring his drug dealers in and put them on record, which was strange, if not bizarre, to Andrew. "They never asked me to do this for them before," he said.

Made guys and associates are not allowed to deal drugs directly, though this "rule" -- probably more of a guideline, rule of thumb? -- is broadly interpreted. Many guys like Andrew shook down drug dealers, slews of them. Andrew reaped a fortune off dealers affiliated with him, in fact. (Others employed different methods of earning off drug dealers; the Bonanno family's Tommy "Karate" Pitera was known for killing and robbing them.)

The Gambino family asking DiDonato to put his dealers on record woke him to some startling possibilities. "I started to realize this could be them putting me to sleep and liquidating my assets. The only thing that kept me alive was that they thought they had more time. They were counting my money. You don’t want to believe this is happening to you. It woke me up and I realized..."

He told me of an expression often used in the Mafia: “It's always safer to send flowers." Meaning that it is better to kill a guy if there's a chance of him doing anything that could incriminate you.

"If a guy can hurt you with information, you make sure you take them out. I was in a life or death situation. All my life they were like brothers to me. For them it was all business. I realized I was expendable and that they were gonna hurt me. Once the boss knows that there's a jail sentence waiting for him because of you...

"Imagine if your old friends were powerful enough to kill you. The only thing I could do was beat them with the truth... That was my only weapon.

"I am not proud of how things played out. And I have regrets. But becoming a government witness is not one of them."

A street guy lives in many different worlds at once. In one world, he is a thief, a criminal developing complicated webs of revenue-generating rackets; he continues spinning new webs as old ones grow or shrink. At the same time, he has to deal with other people who also live in that world. He forms alliances with some, maybe makes enemies out of others. This represents another world of the life of a Mafia associate, a political world, where in the mob there is a whole slew of rules that go counter to the rules the ordinary citizen follows.

At one point, Andrew, trying to protect a friend, was arguing with William "Wild Bill" Cutolo over money. The arguing grew quite loud and threatened to verge into physical aggression.

How could an associate act that way toward a man like Wild Bill, a heavyweight Colombo capo who many believe was Victor "Little Vic" Orena's chief enforcer during the inter-family war of the early 1990s?

"I knew he was a dangerous man, but I was a street guy too. If you're in organized crime you have to carry yourself a certain way. You can't let anyone back you up because that’s considered to be weakness," he said.

Didn't Wild Bill know that you couldn't back down at that point?

"Yeah, but he looks at me and he sees a young kid. There is a long history of respect there. I have nothing negative to say about [any of the Cutolo family]. Very few guys who dealt with Carmine Persico came out with their life in tact."

He added: "With that other person there [meaning Wild Bill; Andrew doesn't like to say names, I noticed] it could have been handled differently. I thought about that for a long while afterward, especially after what happened to him." (Cutolo disappeared in 1999; his body was found in October 2008, in a field in East Farmingdale, New York.)

As for mobsters like John Gotti and Gaspipe Casso, Andrew said: "There are guys in the street 10-times more deadlier than John Gotti. And Gaspipe wasn't known [outside the mob world] at the time. He was considered a serious, dangerous guy."

"Hey, kid, how ya doin?"[Andrew never had any direct dealings with Gaspipe, although Casso had, in fact, tried to get Andrew killed during a sit down with Little Nicky. At the table, Little Nicky let Gaspipe stew on and on about Andrew until finally Corozzo showed his hand, informing Casso that, he, Little Nicky himself, had been in a car talking to Andrew one night when one of Gaspipe's shooters opened up, cracking the windshield in front of Little Nicky. Corozzo told Gaspipe, what about that? "What about your guy shooting at me?" Gaspipe had no choice but to walk away from the sit down, beaten.

Apparently, despite all this, Gaspipe had never actually seen Andrew. "Only time I remember meeting him, we were in bakery on Avenue A," Andrew recalled. "He said, 'Hey, kid, how ya doin'?' 'I’m doing good, how are you?' I wonder if he knew who I was," DiDonato told me.]

I asked about Corozzo, who saved Andrew from Gaspipe Casso, but in the end, wanted him dead.

"Nicky was a really big earner," DiDonato said. "He had the mindset of the boss."

"Nicky was a natural leader... Knew how to get the best out of you. He knew how to split the ranks, divide and conquer... He was a real shrewd operator, brother."

I asked him for specifics on the supposed plot to murder Junior.

"[Nicky] could have been blowing smoke. There was never another conversation [about killing Junior]. [Nicky] wasn’t happy about some kind of business thing they had going on, I think with phone cards," Andrew said.

"Nicky was in the street 24/7; at 3 in the morning we’d be driving back from a robbery or whatever and see Nicky in another car, coming from the other way.

"He was in the trenches. Nicky lived it, he was it, he talked it, he backed it up."


You may also be interested in this story recently written for this blog.

Genovese East Coast Gambling Ring Busted Up

Genovese capo Daniel Pagano, last August.The Rockland DA's Office took down an alleged Mafia-linked sports-betting ring today, with more than a dozen arrests this morning.

Fourteen suspects are charged with multiple felony counts following a 16-month probe into a multimillion-dollar monthly sports-betting ring that allegedly operated in Rockland, New York City, Bergen County in New Jersey, and Florida, according to law enforcement officials.

All those arrested were arraigned and released without bail today.

The ring took bets on professional football, basketball, baseball and college sports, Rockland District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said.


"The defendants are accused of operating an incredibly lucrative gambling operation – taking in millions of dollars a month," Zugibe said. "Such unlawfully earned profits are commonly diverted to more insidious criminal enterprises.

"In fact, the investigation uncovered evidence that the enterprise had links to organized crime."

This is a second assault on the Genovese family in about one month. In late October, in Powerful Genovese Capo and His NJ Crew Nabbed This Week, we reported: "The Genovese crime family saw a major bust earlier this week that centered on an 80-year-old capo and his New Jersey-based crew, which earned more than $12 million from various rackets, including loansharking, unlicensed check cashing, gambling and a money laundering operation that included drug trafficking proceeds. "

Law enforcement seems to have targeted the Genovese family, the most powerful Mafia group in America.

Those arrested today range in age from 27 to 74; all are charged with promoting gambling, possession of gambling records, and money laundering, among other offenses, Zugibe said.

Investigators seized more than $3 million dollars in cash and property during the investigation, which included about 60 court-authorized search warrants in New York, New Jersey and Florida, Zugibe said.

Participants used threats and violence to collect debts, officials noted, and also loaned money as sharks.

The arrests came on the heels of an investigation spearheaded by District Attorney's Office Organized Crime Unit that led to a federal indictment in August of reputed Ramapo organized crime figure Daniel Pagano and a Suffern-based associate, Michael Palazzolo.

Pagano, son of late mobster Joseph Pagano, and Palazzolo were charged with loansharking and other gambling-related counts. Pagano was identified as a captain in the Genovese crime family by federal prosecutors. He also has served prison time for mob-related scams.

Both men pleaded not guilty and were also released on bond.

In September, a veteran Haverstraw-based gambler was was arrested on a loansharking charge during a separate investigation. Anthony DePalma, 69, a barbershop owner also known as "Harpo," was charged with criminal usury after more than $60,000 and loan records were seized during a May 29 raid on his business.

The latest crackdown was led by the Organized Crime Unit with the assistance of the New York State Police Special Investigative Unit, the Clarkstown Police Department, the Ramapo Police Department, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, the Queens District Attorney's Organized Crime Division, the NYPD Asset Forfeiture Unit, the Department of Homeland Security, the Broward County Sheriff's Department, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department and the FBI.

Read "Gangsters in Paradise" Series

Courtesy of Wikipedia

"In the 1970s and ’80s, state and federal officials proclaimed Palm Springs a Mafia haven, saying it had been that way since the 1960s...." 
The Desert Sun is running a five-part series that explores how the Mafia established a presence in Southern California's Coachella Valley.

Stories in the series so far (see end for link):
Gangsters in Paradise
Mafia leaders liked to spend their winters in the desert. They didn’t like any dirty business in their backyard, but that didn’t stop them from murdering a PS civic leader in Indiana. 

Mob looks to win big
The Mafia made their entry into the Coachella Valley when an associate of Detroit’s Purple Gang built a casino in Cathedral City.
Part of the family?
Frank Sinatra came of age in an era when many entertainers had to find work in Mafia-run venues. In his later years, a friend said he came to rue his early mob associations.


See the Desert Sun website for stories....

Montreal Mafioso Who Chose Against Rizzuto Family Shot Dead

Montreal police on the scene of the shooting.UPDATED: Tonino Callocchia, member of Italian Mafia, gunned down in Rivière-des-Prairies | Montreal Gazette: "After months of relative peace within Montreal’s Mafia circles, one of its members was fatally shot in a restaurant in Rivière-des-Prairies Monday afternoon.

Police sources have confirmed that the city’s latest homicide was Tonino Callocchia, 53, a man who survived an attempt on his life in February 2013 and has been described in past parole decisions as “an active member of the Italian Mafia.”

He was shot in an eatery by two masked assailants.




Callocchia chose to side against the Rizzuto organization while its now deceased leader, Vito Rizzuto, was imprisoned in the U.S. The Rizzuto family may be responding to last week's arson attack on a restaurant closely linked to the former Montreal Mafia chieftain who died of cancer last December after igniting a Mafia war when a rival faction rose up to claim the lives of his father and son, among others. So far, around 41 have been killed, according to widely published estimates.

"Callocchia was pronounced dead at the scene of the Monday afternoon shooting at Bistro XO Plus on Henri-Bourassa Blvd. E. near the corner of LJ-Forget Ave.

"Callocchia spent most of the 1990s behind bars serving a 21-year aggregate sentence for a series of drug-related offences and money laundering. Last month, a judge at the Montreal courthouse fixed a date in September 2015 for a hearing in a case where Callocchia was charged with extortion."