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Pledge Loyalty Or Else: When Straying Colombo Wiseguys Got An Offer They Couldn't Refuse

By Ed Scarpo
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The biggest one-day Mafia bust in US history took place in January 2011 when more than 120 wiseguys were arrested in coordinated raids across New York, New Jersey, and New England.




The investigation spawned 16 indictments involving members and associates of all of New York’s Five Families—the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Luchese crime organizations—in addition to the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante family and the New England Mafia. Those Indictments detailed stories of mob mayhem encompassing murder, drug trafficking, arson, loan sharking, illegal gambling, witness tampering, labor racketeering, and extortion.

Among the Colombos, acting boss Andrew (Mush) Russo was a key target.The Feds didn’t hesitate to paint him as among the most violent wiseguys on the streets, and he was held without bail. (Among the indicted with Russo in the Colombo family was acting underboss Benjamin “The Claw” Castellazzo, consigliere Richard “Richie” Fusco, captain Dennis “Fat Dennis” DeLucia and a…
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Details Lacking In Recent "Contract Killer" Arrest

By Ed Scarpo
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NOTE ADDED AT END OF THIS STORY
A man conspiring with others to kill someone has been plucked off the streets before a single shot could be fired.



A Harlem murder plot was stopped in its tracks when the NYPD arrested the alleged trigger-man before he could pull the trigger, police sources recently told the Daily News.

Francisco Colon, 41, was arrested for his role in a murder conspiracy after police raided his W.135th St. apartment near Amsterdam Avenue last Thursday. Drugs and several firearms were recovered from the scene.

Investigators learned that Colon was conspiring with others to kill someone. And that's about all that's known.

The identity of his intended victim was not immediately disclosed.

“He’s a contract killer,” a police source told the News regarding Colon.

Colon has been charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and drug and weapons possession.

In May 2002, Colon was arrested for attempted murder for shooting someone. He wound up convicted for…
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Those Two Wiseguys Who Attacked That Brooklyn Doctor For Prescriptions Back in April Got Sentenced

By Ed Scarpo
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The two mobsters who stabbed and threatened a doctor in Brooklyn in order to obtain oxycodone prescriptions were sentenced last week, on December 6, in Brooklyn federal court.


 Anthony Grado, a member of the Luchese organized crime family, and Lawrence Tranese, an associate of the Colombo organized crime family, were sentenced by United States District Judge Carol B. Amon to 12 years and 40 months in prison respectively for conspiring to distribute oxycodone that they obtained through fraudulent prescriptions. Grado also must fork over $70,000 in forfeiture and Tranese $12,000.

“Today’s sentence punishes the defendants for ruthlessly endangering our community through their organized crime-backed distribution of highly-addictive opioid drugs,” stated Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “This Office, working together with our law enforcement partners, will continue our relentless efforts against those responsible for the opioid epidemic.”

“…
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Bonanno Wiseguy Franky Boy, The Last Defendant in Long Island-Based Mafia Indictment, Gets 5 Years

By Ed Scarpo
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Yesterday, in federal court in Central Islip, Frank (Frankie Boy) Salerno, a soldier in the Bonanno crime family, was sentenced to five years in prison for racketeering conspiracy.


And last week, acting Gambino capo John (Johnny Boy) Ambrosio and Gambino associate Anthony Saladino were sentenced to five years and six years, respectively, for the same charge. (They also stuck Ambrosio with a hefty $100,000 forfeiture, including the $66,116 in cash that the Feds snatched from his Huntington, Long Island, home.)


Ambrosio, Saladino and Salerno are the last of seven defendants to be sentenced on a superseding indictment that charged Gambino and Bonanno members and associates with racketeering charges that included loansharking, illegal gambling, and drug trafficking on Long Island from January of 2014 until December 2017, when the 13-count indictment was filed.

Ambrosio, who goes directly back to the John Gotti days, and underling Anthony Rodolico were also hit with obstruction of justice …
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REPORT: Luchese Wiseguy Stevie Crea The Son Has Good Shot At Beating Mob Murder Wrap

By Ed Scarpo
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What does the son of reputed Luchese family underboss Steven Crea have in common with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who recently accused now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of attempted  rape in the 1980s?


Both passed a polygraph exam administered by retired FBI veteran Jeremiah Hanafin.

The younger Crea’s polygraph responses were “not indicative of deception” to questions about his involvement in two cases, including a reputed mob murder up in the Bronx. Hanafin reportedly has performed more than 2,500 polygraph exams during his 24-yearlong FBI career.




So reported New York Daily News journo Larry McShane in a breaking news story in which he also noted that this is “the latest bit of good news” for Crea, 46, who was released on $1 million bond in August after a White Plains federal judge blasted prosecutors for not having the goods to back up some of their claims regarding what is considered the last mob hit. Crea has been under house arrest since getting out. He’d serv…
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Whitey Bulger Attorney Tells Feds: This Ain't Over

By Ed Scarpo
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Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger’s attorney, Hank Brennan, told the WSJ that he intends to sue the government for wrongful death and negligence.



The lawsuit is part of his effort to uncover why the authorities sent the notorious gangster to the U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia and placed him in with the general population.

Brennan will file the lawsuit on behalf of Bulger’s estate.

“It’s important for the family and the public to know why the prisons decided to wheel an 89-year-old man with a history of heart attacks into one of the most dangerous prisons in the country,” Brennan told the WSJ.





Brennan has represented Bulger since 2011, when he was captured after 16 years on the lam. He defended the longtime FBI informant at the 2013 trial that found the Irish mob boss guilty of committing a range of crimes, including multiple murders, extortion, money-laundering and drug-dealing from the 1970s to the mid-1990s.

A BOP spokesperson said that Bulger has been transferred i…
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From Boss Of Bosses To The Commission: Optimizing The Mafia

By Ed Scarpo
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How do you get inherent lawbreakers to follow laws....


That was the question that confronted Charles (Lucky) Luciano and others at the dawn of the American Mafia, the 1931 reorganization of organized crime, when the men running America's Mafia decided to once and for all optimize their "thing" for efficient plunder.

Each member of the "board of directors" had one vote, and the majority determined the decrees that were issued forth.





By putting in place such a construct, Luciano effectively did away with the entity that previously served as the mob's top governing body. The capo di tutti i capi or capo dei capi, the "boss of all bosses" or "boss of [the] bosses," was no longer, though if Luciano had wanted to hold that position, he likely would've met with little dissent. (One almost can't help recalling a sliver of basic American history here that uncannily aligns Luciano with the ultimate American patriot: George Washington, afte…
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The Commission Lives? Wiretap Evidence Suggests Mob's Top Governing Body Is Active

By Ed Scarpo
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Court room proceedings in Hamilton, Ontario, involve wiretap recordings that make some startling revelations, including that the Mafia Commission is calling the shots again ...



Domenico Violi, 52, was caught in an investigation that went high and deep and featured a wire-wearing turncoat getting inducted into a New York Mafia family.




As Adrian Humphreys reports for The National Post, "(t)he wiretaps, although untested in court, suggest a re-evaluation of some of what is publicly known about the current state of legendary Mafia families in the U.S., often referred to as La Cosa Nostra.

"Violi, for instance, allegedly claimed on wiretap recordings that he had been made the Underboss of the Buffalo Mafia, the second-highest position in American Mafia families. If the claim is true, he would be the only person in Canada to ever be named to one of the top leadership positions in any U.S.-based Mafia clan.

"It is shocking for several reasons, not the least of which is that th…
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