Luchese Family Poised to Massacre Albanians in '04

Back in the 1990s, the Albanian Mafia in New York was named the Rudaj Organization, for Alex Rudaj, the boss of the group.

But the members gave their group a formal name: "The Corporation." They started operating in 1993 in Westchester, then spread into the Bronx and Queens, eventually running into mob-affiliated crews.

Alex Rudaj, former Albanian boss.


The Corporation's operations ceased in late October of 2004, when Alex Rudaj and 21 others were hurriedly arrested by the FBI and Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office.

The arrests of the Albanians occurred earlier than the Feds had planned because they had gathered some intel that Luchese family members were arming themselves to the teeth and were planning to shoot it out with the Albanians and kill as many of them as they could.



Cosa Nostra News recently learned this when we interviewed a former federal agent.

"The Luchese were getting ready to whack all of them," the agent said. "[The Lucheses] were just tired of them. They'd gotten too big for their britches." The Feds, literally, scooped up the Albanians right before the Lucheses could strike.

Vinny Gorgeous sent guys armed with a machine gun.


"We really came close that time," the agent noted.
In fact, during a bail hearing following the October arrest, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Treanor said that the Albanian mob had taken over the operations of the Luchese family in Astoria, Queens.

In addition, the AUA noted that Rudaj himself had lead an attack in August 2001 on two Greek associates of the Luchese crime family who ran a gambling racket inside a Greek social club called Soccer Fever at 26-80 30th St.in Queens. Rudaj and at least six other men entered the club with guns, beating one of the men in the head with a pistol and chasing others out of the neighborhood by threatening to destroy the building.
It is interesting that the AUA highlighted the Luchese family, because, based on previous information, the Gambinos and Bonannos seemed more likely to start a shooting war with the Albanians. The Albanians were making moves on several fronts when they expanded from Westchester into the New York burroughs. The Gambinos suffered perhaps the biggest indignity when an Albanian held a gun to the head of the boss of the family.
In those years (2003 to 2009), the Luchese family was run by a ruling panel consisting of Aniello Migliore, Joseph DiNapoli (DiNapoli was a capo in the Bronx; he likely was the Luchese most closely tied to the Albanian effort) and Matthew Madonna. Louis "Bagels" Daidone was acting boss from around 2000, but was arrested in 2003 and sentenced to life in 2004.

According to the agent, the Albanians had, in fact, been working with the Gambinos for a while. It was an Albanian-Gambino stripclub shakedown that put the Jack Falcone investigation into play.

Beginning in the 1990s, the Corporation had established ties with members of the Gambino family, the authorities say. Then, through negotiations or in armed showdowns, the Albanians struck out on their own, daring to battle the Luchese and Gambino families for territory in Queens, the Bronx and Westchester County.

The Albanian groups have for decades been established as a major segment of Europe's organized crime landscape. They are known to traffic in humans and narcotics.

The more sophisticated and daring of the groups go on to more profitable and violent work, often as low-level enforcers for established crime families.
"La Cosa Nostra has used these guys like they used the Westies in the past," Matt Heron, the head of the F.B.I.'s organized crime unit in New York, told the New York Times. "If you're an up-and-coming criminal enterprise and the old hands are using you to facilitate their activities, you're going to learn from watching and adapt your style to what you see in those gangs," he said.

The Albanian groups have also taken advantage of changes in the organized crime world. "One thing the Albanians and the other so-called ethnic organized crime groups have in their favor is the Mafia's decision to shift away from murder and outright violence," Jerry Capeci also told the Times.

The Times further noted that, the rougher stuff has fallen to the Albanian gangs, according to Tom Metz, a senior investigator with the F.B.I. "They are more prone to violence and activities like bookmaking and murder," he said.

Zeke, former Gambino boss 


When the Gambinos worked with Rudaj, he and his thugs did indeed carry out the rough stuff.
As per the scam, the Albanians would sally into a strip club and make their presence known, so that management and the clubs' bouncers would approach them. Wrong move.

"The Albanians beat the hell out of everyone," the agent told us. "Then, the next day, some Gambinos would show up, offering protection, for a fee, which they would split with the Albanians."

At some point, probably when the Albanians started making moves into Mafia territory, the relationship soured.
As we noted in a previous story, Gambino boss Arnold Squitieri sought a meeting to resolve some problems.

Twenty Gambinos, all armed with everything from guns to baseball bats, accompanied Squitieri. Rudaj brought six guys.

According to FBI agent Joaquin Garcia, who had infiltrated the Gambino crime family during this period, Squitieri told Rudaj that it was game over, but that the wily Albanian gangster could keep whatever he'd managed to take up until the sitdown. (They had once been partners; I always wondered about Zeke's "generosity.")

Then one thing leads to another, a gun is pressed against Zeke's head, and nearly 30 armed guys were ready to go at it. The Albanians threatened to blow up the gas station with all of them in it. This ended the sitdown.
The Albanians also had trouble with all the other families. When Rudaj butted heads with a crew of car thieves tied to Vinny Gorgeous Basciano, the gangster who would later serve as an acting boss of the family sent two of his men with machine guns to tell Rudaj that the crew was under the protection of the Bonanno flag.

But in the end, it was Luchese justice that sent Rudaj and his guys to prison.

In 2006 Rudaj was sentenced to 27 years in prison.