This Week in the Underworld...

By Ed Scarpo
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If Uncle Joe Retires What Happens in Philadelphia?

By Ed Scarpo
Joseph (Uncle Joe) Ligambi, who recently got out of prison following two mistrials for what primarily amounted to gambling-related charges, says that he is done, finito, with Cosa Nostra. He wants to drop the harness and relax, to summer in Longport and winter in Florida. In 1980, violence on the streets of Philadelphia rose sharply following boss Angelo Bruno's murder. Does Ligambi mean it? If he’s being sincere, then who will step in and take over?  Too many wiseguys, if history is our guide. The volatility for which the Philadelphia crime family was once well-known can return as swiftly as the time it takes to pull a trigger. Two generations historically at odds with each other have been working together (the old Scarfo gang and the Merlino young turks). The ability to rivet these two enclaves together is among the skills "Uncle Joe" is credited for having. But with or without him, shifts in power are inevitable as the family's composition changes (...
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Kitchen Nightmares Gangster Back In Business (Mob Business, That Is)

By Ed Scarpo
“Nobody is gonna go against them. They’d go head to head with anybody.” Source on Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso and his Administration in the Bonanno crime family. Bonanno mobster Peter (Peter Pasta) Pellegrino, a name you are familiar with if you have been watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and reading Cosa Nostra News , is back in business—the gambling and shylocking business, though, not the restaurant business. Peter Pasta Pellegrino. (From Facebook.) In fact, Peter Pasta was among the Bonannos who benefitted from Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso 's reorganization of the crime family last Christmas, we've learned. Pellegrino was bumped from acting capo to official capo. He’s now overseeing a Bonanno crew in Florida and one allied with Albanians in Ridgewood, Queens. Also part of the Nose's Christmastime shakeup, Anthony (Bruno) Indelicato , the longtime Bonanno wiseguy who was a direct participant—he was one of the shooters—in the 1979 Carmine Galante murders, w...
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Film Tells Story of Married Couple Who Robbed the Mob

By Ed Scarpo
Rob the Mob , directed by Oscar-nominee Raymond de Felitta (City Island, Bronx Cheers) and starring Michael Pitt, Nina Arianda, Andy Garcia and Ray Romano, opens in cinemas next month. The film purports to tell the true-life story of Thomas and Rose Marie Uva , a married couple who made the foolhardy, fatal decision to make quick cash by robbing Mafia social clubs in Little Italy, Queens and Brooklyn, a crime spree that ran from the summer of 1992 to near the end of that year, specifically on Christmas Eve 1992, when the two were killed. Thomas and Rose Marie Uva; the press dubbed the married couple as "Bonnie and Clyde." In nearly every robbery, 21-year-old getaway driver Rose Marie waited in the car while Tommy, hefting an Uzi, would simply walk into the clubs, the doors of which were open.
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The Two Primary Qualitative Variables For Defining Ports Along International Drug Trafficking Routes

By Ed Scarpo
By Andrew Machin Large drug traffickers must make two payments in certain ports. One payment goes to corrupt dockworkers and law enforcement officials who enable drug shipments to pass with much less risk of being seized. The second payment is made to the criminal organization that controls the port. This second payment acts as a form of extortion, and its amount, whether in cash or in kind, is calculated based on the value or weight of each shipment. Typically, the two payments are combined into one total transaction, which is then distributed among the various parties involved. To understand the nature of these expenses and the contexts in which they must be paid, it is necessary to research the dynamics that unfold in ports along international drug trafficking routes. Any explanation must begin with some basic considerations. First, international drug trafficking consists of three successive macro phases: production, transportation, and distribution (money flows fall under each). Th...
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Hoodwinked: Restaurateur on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Was a Mobster

By Ed Scarpo
Peter (Peter Pasta) Pellegrino, formerly of the Babylon, New York restaurant Peter’s Italian Restaurant, really is -- or was -- a gangster. Gordon gives a pep talk. Peter is ready for action..... The once-promising Bonanno crime family member who appeared in Kitchen Nightmares now calls himself a brokester . And the Bonanno crime family, with which he was once affiliated has disowned him. So has the rest of New York's Cosa Nostra, according to FBI documents and Peter Pasta himself. But before all that he appeared on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in which he acted very much like the mobster he allegedly was trying to become around the time of filming. (See Peter's Italian Restaurant menu here .) Back then Peter Pasta was an up-and-coming Bonanno associate who "earned" $15 grand a week from bookmaking. At the time, he also owned two boats that he'd park in a pricey nearby Babylon harbor called Great South Bay. Gang Land News's Jerry  Capec...
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Murdering Louie DiBono: Testimony Of Gambino Underboss Salvatore (Sammy The Bull) Gravano Part 12

By Ed Scarpo
UPDATED   One evening in December 1989, Gambino boss John Gotti and underboss Frank Locascio discussed murdering a troublesome Gambino underling who had failed to show up at a family meeting. Gotti, none too pleased, called out the name of the underling, “Louie DiBono" and added: "You know why he’s dying? He’s gonna die because he refused to come in when I called. He didn’t do nothing else wrong.” Recent pic of Frank Locascio, middle. Locascio replied by offering the then Gambino boss a prediction.  The very next day, DiBono would hand Gotti a fat stack of greenbacks to compensate for things, Locascio said. "But I wouldn’t take nothin',” Gotti replied, then used colorful language to highlight that DiBono was not long for this world. The taped conversation about DiBono, plus Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano's testimony (presented via this ongoing series) were enough to convict Locascio of conspiring to murder DiBono, who met a violent end in a parking garage ab...
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