Cosa Nostra News

Six members and associates of the Luchese crime family were arrested this past May 26 for running an illegal online gambling operation that allegedly generated $13 million from September 2015 to March 2016. "Boopsie" allegedly ran Luchese gambling operation. The six, who hail from Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, face various charges in a 37-count indictment for running the racket, which enabled bettors to place wages on various professional and collegiate sporting events. All payments were wired to an off-shore location. "These defendants are charged with running a lucrative gambling ring that took in millions of dollars in bets and stretched all the way to Costa Rica," Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said. "We’ve now shut down this illegal enterprise that was controlled by organized crime and will fully prosecute those who have been indicted.”

'Son of Sal' serial killer Sal Perrone    ( JOE MARINO/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS) The NY Daily News reports: "It’s ironic that the accused serial killer came from a Brooklyn neighborhood known for mob killings." The serial killer in question is from Bensonhurst and is named Sal Perrone, aka the "Son of Sal" murderer. “If people [ read: made guys ] knew this lone-wolf wacko was out there whacking people he would have been stopped,” an old Bensonhurst street guy says in the story. “But this Perrone was an empty-suit nobody, a mouse that you knew just by his neighborhood face. You didn’t think he could kill time, never mind three people in cold blood.” The story goes out of its way to separate Sal from mobsters; after all Bensonhurst historically has been ground zero for wiseguys. But nobody who knows would've had any confusion about these murders, or whether the mob or a lone nut committed them.  "He wasn’t a ‘connected’ guy. Just a guy...

Many, many wiseguys were born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn -- or resided there or conducted business there (or where murdered there), especially along Bath Avenue, just south of 86th Street’s bustling shopping district, where the social clubs once stood one beside the other. The list includes mobsters such as OG Carlo Gambino (he was Sicilian born, but lived in Bensonhurst in his later New York years); former Luchese underboss Anthony Casso; Gambino boss Paul Castellano, who was Carlo Gambino's brother-in-law); former Gambino capo under John Gotti Michael (Mike Scars) DiLeonardo; notorious Gambino capo/Roy DeMeo mentor Anthony Gaggi; Jimmy Moran, aka Sammy "The Bull" Gravano; capo/snitch Gregory Scarpa; and Colombo turncoat Carmine Sessa. While the Bensonhurst wiseguys are all gone today, dead or in prison or in Witness Protection, once in a great while, something happens that conjures up specters of the past. There was the Cafe Caserta thing (the place sold more...

UPDATED : A Staten Island man who died at Rikers Island last November under what his family considers questionable circumstances is the son of a powerful chief of the Luchese crime family's Brooklyn faction. John Castelle aka John Castellucci. "He uses two different names. That's his son on the right, Eugene Sonny Castelle." Rikers, New York City's main jail complex, sits on a 413.17-acre island on the East River (between Queens and the Bronx). The jailhouse is one of the world's largest institutions in both the correctional and mental health sectors. Originally only one-fourth its present size, it was artificially expanded via the use of (perhaps fittingly, in this case) ash for landfill. Inmates made up the labor force.

Bensonhurst native Marco Manfre , who marked his 2013 debut on Cosa Nostra News with this story, is the author of two books, Returning to the Lion’s Den: Life in an Organized Crime Family and The Outcast Prophet of Bensonhurst , both of which are set in the Brooklyn borough of his childhood, based on people who defined that place and time for him. At the time of the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination I was glad Marco sent this. I always found it interesting that the mob's involvement in one of the most infamous "hits" in history has always been a given for G. Robert Blakey , the main drafter of the RICO act and self-proclaimed smarty pants who named it after Hollywood gangster  Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello (played by Edward G. Robinson) in "Little Caesar."

FINAL Sicilian and American wiseguys were busted Wednesday as part of coordinated takedown efforts by Italian police and the FBI, which served 19 arrest warrants in Palermo and in the United States, specifically in Staten Island and Philadelphia. The operation, dubbed "New Connection," was an attempt to disrupt efforts by a Sicilian Mafia faction (specifically, Inzerillo family members in Sicily and their New York allies in the Gambino crime family) to take over the leadership of organized crime in Italy. The Inzerillo and Gambino crime families, which have historical ties, were in the process of rebuilding their powerbase in Sicily. Members of slain Gambino crime boss Frank Cali's family were arrested in the takedown Wednesday, as per officials in Anthony DeStefano's Newsday story . Also arrested were Thomas Gambino, 47, of Staten Island; Salvatore Gambino, the mayor of a village outside Palermo; and Tommaso and Francesco Inzerillo, relatives of Salvator...

Source: FBI.gov From Bensonhurst's News Blog : Gary Fama, who held up the Capital One Bank last year has been found guilty of the crime. Fama and his accomplice Jack Mannino, who has been dubbed the “ 7-second bandit ” for his speedy heist jobs, met in prison and decided to rob the bank together on December 29th, according to the  New York Daily News . Both men also have ties to the Gambino crime family. The robbery went wrong after a dye pack exploded and their transmission blew out. They jumped out of the damaged getaway car and left behind Mannino’s wallet and cellphone. After the FBI tracked him down, Mannino made a deal with the police to testify against Fama. He’s waiting on his sentence, according to a  New York Post  article. Fama, an ex-con with previous firearm and drug convictions, now faces up to 17 years in prison on bank robbery and firearms charges.

"When I was in New York for a mission, I got to know, personally, John and Joseph Gambino, both of them as initiates of the American Cosa Nostra. So, I came to know their secret joints, their way of thinking and the slang communication of the Sicilian Mafia. Usually, they communicate with just a look, something that is the norm for us in Palermo who grew up with the warning of “muto devi stare”–you need to shut up. In fact, using this system of communication we could hold a meeting even in silence–using just a look and body language passed down by our ancestors. This preferred way of communication by mafiosi, made it possible for me to figure out their messages ahead of time on occasion, some even intercepted from New York." -- Pippo Giordano, A Policeman’s Reflections on Mafia Organizations That Rule in Southern Italy John Gambino flew to Sicily and met Toto Riina face to face in 1983. After John Gotti became the boss of the Gambino crime family in 1986 after the m...

John Gotti and Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano were spotted in Brooklyn, New York, this past Tuesday chatting like it was 1989... Well, not really... John Travolta and William DeMeo -- who play the former Gambino crime family boss and underboss -- were seen in Brooklyn filming scenes for  The Life And Death of John Gotti. William DeMeo, left, as Sammy, and John Travolta Gotti. Scenes for biopic were filmed Tuesday. Courtesy of The Daily Mail.

RIP author Philip Carlo Philip Carlo appeared on an episode of Mobsters about Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the subject of his book Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss . Carlo died last year, on Nov. 8, never to see the publication of his last book, The Killer Within:In the Company of Monsters , which was released on Jan. 6, 2011. (Read an interview with Carlo.) Although he's made some whopping errors (Ice Man, for example, meaning the entire book), I still recommend his books due to a fascinating intimacy in them that flowed from his relationships with numerous New York organized crime figures. (His wife is the daughter of slain Gambino mobster  Eddie Garofalo ); additionally, Carlo and his family had been close friends with Casso.

July 2018: Robert Donofrio is the current boss of the  Colombo family, we hear ... The Colombo’s are the youngest of the Five Families. Formerly known as the Profaci crime family, for its original boss, it only became the Colombo family in the 1960s when family member Joseph Colombo went to the Commission to spill the beans on plans made by Profaci's short-term sucessor in cahoots with Joseph Bonanno of the Bonanno crime family. Carmine Persico was named "The Snake" by the Gallo brothers. Boss Profaci was involved in the crime family's first war, against the upstart Gallo brothers who felt the upper-echelon bosses were taking more than their fair share from the soldiers.

Francesco (Frank) Cali was the kind of mobster who wasn't  supposed to exist anymore: Old school, shunning even the telephone; not prone to violence, meaning he wasn't buffered by the fear factor created by bosses like John Gotti. Francesco (Frank) Cali In fact, Cali reached capo at such a relatively young age (in his 30s) that it rankled some Gambino wiseguys, and caused at least one to refer to him derisively during a wiretapped phone call. On another wiretapped call, however, a gangster speaking in Italian seemed to pay Cali the ultimate complement by referring to him as " tutto quanto"  or "everything." The New York mobster with Sicilian blood had been arrested and convicted only once. Amazingly, he wasn't brought down after mistakenly allowing a confidential informant into his inner circle. Cali, a reputed leader of the Gambino crime family, was shot to death outside his house in Staten Island in a killing that echoed Mafia murders o...