Cosa Nostra News

We had to delete the pic because of Adsense violations... Initially, we included in our Cosa Nostra News logo the iconic 1979 photograph of Carmine Galante taken by the enterprising news photographer positioned atop a roof that overlooked the outside patio of Joe and Mary's Italian American Restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn. (The restaurant went out of business following the murder on a dreadfully hot New York summer day.) The well-known image. But one image we happened across today gave us lengthy pause. We immediately knew we'd never seen the black-and-white photo before. Yet a familiarity was indeed there, likely due to the barber chair beside which the lifeless, blood-spattered gangster had collapsed after his infamous lunge at the mirror. A fatally shot mob boss, his dying brain's synapses misfiring, had mistakenly perceived his assassins to be standing in front of him. He'd been deceived by a reflection. We knew we were looking at a photograph we'...

Linda Scarpa "Ready or not here i come... ready to share my secrets... my story..." --Linda Scarpa If you smoked pot with this 14-year-old girl back in 1983, you had a major screw loose. That's because the girl in question is Linda Scarpa . Her dad, Gregory Scarpa, was also known as "The Grim Reaper."  One of the most violent mobsters to strut through New York's boroughs, Scarpa was a chief assassin for imprisoned mob boss Carmine Persico during the 1990s Colombo war.

Interesting story about a little-known figure who was around Little Nicky Corozzo. Kenji Gallo's latest  Breakshot Blog column: The Gambino Family is always a fun topic. This week is a story about Vincent “Marbles” Dragonetti, Little Nicky Corozzo’s son in law.

"The Mafia is oppression, arrogance, greed, self-enrichment, power and hegemony above and against all others. It is not an abstract concept, or a state of mind, or a literary term... It is a criminal organization regulated by unwritten but iron and inexorable rules... The myth of a courageous and generous 'man of honor' must be destroyed, because a mafioso is just the opposite." -- Cesare Terranova , Italian Magistrate murdered in 197 9 Gaetano Riina, brother of Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, after he was arrested in Mazara del Vallo Photo: AP An interview with Professor John Dickie Cosa Nostra - rebranding the Mafia : "The mafia, in the strict sense of Cosa Nostra , the hierarchical criminal organization based in Sicily, does not ‘run Italy’ as you sometimes hear people rather glibly say,” explains John Dickie, senior lecturer in Italian at the University of London, and author of Cosa Nostra – a history of the Sicilian Mafia. 

Click image The film “The Wannabe” is "centered around the 1992 John Gotti trial in New York City" but has more to do with the short-lived lukewarm HBO series Boardwalk Empire than any mob boss. The producers don't seem to realize they are remaking a film released only last year called Rob the Mob . Or they found out too late so they added a "twist" to even further distance their cinematic effort from the true account of the married couple who robbed mob social clubs for a few months in the early 1990s. Ultimately the two were brutally murdered in broad daylight by Mafia shooters.

The film The Wannabe, which is available now on Amazon Prime, has a very specific setting: the 1992 John Gotti trial in New York City. Still, despite this leverage of the Gotti name, The Wannabe is much more reminiscent of the former HBO series Boardwalk Empire . Click image Did the filmmakers really not realize they were essentially remaking a film released only last year called Rob the Mob ? We strongly suspect that they found this out too late so they added a "twist" to try to distance the film from the previous year's cinematic account of a married couple who robbed Mafia social clubs for a few months in the early 1990s. Ultimately the two were brutally murdered in broad daylight. "The Wannabe" drew so much of its talent from Boardwalk Empire, it's distracting. (The villainous Gyp Rosetti was our favorite Boardwalk character) Martin Scorsese's name is attached to The Wannabe, but as a producer, which doesn't neces...

Edited The short-format e-book The Mystery of the Lufthansa Airlines Heist:: A Wiseguy Reveals the Untold Story , available now for $3.99, reached number 2 on an Amazon Kindle paid bestseller list. It's still at number two as I write this... and 3 and 4 on other paid lists. That's a damn fine showing -- and it beats our own Cosa Nostra News: The Cicale Files, Volume 1: Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire . We asked Rob Sberna for his take: "I’m pleased but not surprised that the book is a hit. The Lufthansa robbery grabbed the public’s attention, for both its size and also its boldness. And because the crime—and the whereabouts of the missing loot—have remained unsolved for nearly four decades, it has become even more infamous.

Nicola "Nick" Gentile  was a Sicilian Mafioso who traveled around the United States to witness many pivotal moments in the formation of the American Mafia. He knew firsthand many of men who established the foundation for Sicilian-based organized crime here. Nicola Gentile's memoir about the formation of the American Mafia is unavailable in English.... Born in the southern Sicilian community of Siculiana in 1884, he arrived in the U.S. at age 19. Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri were his chief American home bases. He was a trusted confidant of New York Mafiosi from the early 1900s through the Castellammarese War, and was also called upon to mediate a dispute between the Morello-Lupo clan and boss of bosses Salvatore D'Aquila in the 1920s. He mediated disputes in Chicago and Los Angeles, even in New York City, the Mafia's capitol. Gentile briefly served in leadership roles for the Kansas City, Cleveland and Pittsburgh Mafia families. Pitts...

Gerard “Gerry” Chilli A longtime source told us he found himself recalling a list of suspicious things about the guy we refer to as "the mole" after he read the story. He called it "the worst-kept secret" in the New York Mafia. In particular, he recalled a Bonanno Christmas party at Long Island's Harbor Club in the early 1990s. (It was once owned by "Junior" Gotti but the Bonanno family had taken over, according to the source). The crime family treated the holiday affair with the secrecy of an induction ceremony.

Bobby Lino, left, Russell Mauro, on right. Our source was inducted into Cosa Nostra's Bonanno Family in 1975, when the books were opened for the first time in a long time. He started out under Nicholas Marangello, aka "Little Nicky Glasses," underboss at the time, and became acting capo for Mickey Zaffarano. "In that regime was all the guys that no one wanted," he said. "Anthony Bruno Indelicato, Anthony Rabito, Tony Mirra, Sonny Black Napolitano, James Episcopia, Louis "Louie HaHa" Attanasio and Vinny Asaro. "That crew broke up when Lilo got hit. They took down all Lilo's guys."

We didn't know how to proceed in the face of the reaction to our previous story. Our source cannot be identified and we were getting a lot of flack about him. We shouldn't throw a guy to the wolves -- based on info from a source who may have held a longtime grudge against "The Mole," etc. and so forth.

Bonventre declined a promotion, according to Asaro, caught secretly on tape. In a Daily News Exclusive : Bonanno acting capo Jack Bonventre, arrested last January in what was then considered a major bust related to the storied 1970s Lufthansa heist , turned down an offer to move up in the crime family, according to his lawyer. But the feds aren't impressed, saying the mere offer of the promotion evidenced Bonventre's power and stature within the crime family. Evidence that the promotion was offered apparently was caught on a wiretap. Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro, who was recorded extensively  insulting street boss Thomas DiFiore , among other things, told an associate on March 8, 2013: “[Bonventre] turned it down, he didn’t want it... Jack didn’t want no part of this no more.”

I understand there is frustration out there, as expressed in the comments -- but this is very sensitive material. One source is easily identifiable --- I need to disguise him better to throw you off his trail. (He also advised me I should have used "Mole" instead of "Rat" in the headline.)  I planned to pop this up yesterday -- the story was almost completed when I posted the headline. But the source had concerns and I need to discuss some things further with him. All good things to those who wait... Those who know me know I'd never post a tidbit like this without following through...

Ebook is now available on Amazon. Where is the $6 million that was stolen during the infamous Lufthansa Airlines heist? Make sure you sign up for our CosaNostraNewsletter; I'm sending an exclusive excerpt from The Mystery of the Lufthansa Heist today!! See sign-in form at the end of this story... For 37 years, the FBI has been unable to find the cash and jewels taken from the Lufthansa cargo vault at JFK airport. Now, for the first time, a Mafia insider reveals what happened to the loot. In this short-format e-book , Dominick Cicale , a former high-ranking member of the Bonanno crime family, discloses never-before-told details about the Lufthansa robbery, which was immortalized in the movie "Goodfellas." The Mystery of the Lufthansa Airlines Heist:: A Wiseguy Reveals the Untold Story  is available now for $3.99.

The following is based on Gambino crime family boss  Carlo Gambino 's FBI files. The Apalachin Meeting marked a major turning point in FBI history. America’s premiere law enforcement agency could no longer bury its head in the sand about organized crime. With the raid in upstate New York, it was clear that a national crime syndicate operated inside the United States. Carlo Gambino, around the time of his coup into power. J. Edgar Hoover realized that the Mafia not only existed but posed a national security threat of inconceivable proportions. This was due largely to its ability to corrupt America’s duly elected officials. Immediately, the FBI sought to gain intelligence on who exactly made up this criminal entity. Luckily, they had state and city crime files to examine. Additionally, the FBN, the now-defunct Federal Bureau of Narcotics, had been investigating the Mafia for decades. The Feds coopted the FBN’s files as well. A top target was Carlo Gambino, bo...

VH!'s reality show is in the block EXPANDED Mob Wive s will have a new owner -- and it's ITV, the same broadcaster that aired the recent Mafia with Trevor McDonald two-part series, one of the most watched non-scripted shows in Britain. It featured John Alite , the topic of George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia , among other former mobsters. What a sale means for Mob Wives and its viewers is open to debate, as The Weinstein Company will continue to manage its television division though it is "in the process of selling [it] to ITV, the British broadcaster that has been on a buying spree of late," as  The Hollywood Reporter  revealed today. The deal's value could be worth $950 million. It involves an up-front payment of around $400 million with "an escalating package of compensation and bonuses that would nearly triple the initial purchase price," sources told THR.

Lisa hosts Reality Mob* She is young and looks it -- but she certainly sounds like she can handle herself. Lisa -- that's right, just "Lisa" -- kicked off her Reality Mob podcast last week, and tonight (April 14) at 9pm she's holding her second, with John Alite, -- hit this link . Yeah, yeah. I know, I know -- you wanna know about the high-level mole in the Bonanno crime family. I'm working on it. It's out of my hands to an extent -- and it's completely out of Lisa's hands, so giver her a chance here....

The rise of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and other notorious gangsters. As noted in January , AMC announced today that “The Making of The Mob: New York” will premiere on Monday, June 15th at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT, and be narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Ray Liotta. Kicking off “Mob Mondays,” the eight-part series begins in 1905 and spans over 50 years to trace the rise of Charles “Lucky” Luciano , Meyer Lansky , Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and other notorious gangsters from their beginnings as a neighborhood gang of teenagers to murderous entrepreneurs and bootleggers who organized the criminal underworld,  turning the Mafia into an American institution.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. Breitbart News reported that an investigation of the home exercise accident story told by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appears basically "to discredit his version of events surrounding a New Year’s Day incident that left him with gruesome injuries to his eye, face and ribs." On January 22, three weeks following the accident, Reid told his version of how he obtained his injuries to the assembled Washington DC press: "I know there are a lot of rumors as to what happened, but that’s very simple. My wife and I were in our new home. I was doing exercises that I’ve been doing for many years with those large rubber bands and, uh, one of them broke and spun me around and I crashed into these cabinets and injured my eye."

The Mafia and the Gays by Phillip Crawford Jr., the Friends of Ours blogger , is available at Amazon either as a Kindle e-book for $2.99 or a trade paperback for $9.95. The Friends of Our blog is a must-read for anyone interested in crime -- it offers a comprehensive focus on criminal activity impacting America, including but not limited to traditional organized crime, including the various Mafia grows that expanded beyond Italy. Since 2009, Philip has blogged about organized crime at Friends of Ours . He is the leading authority on the Mafia's historical role in gay bars and has been cited as a major resource in numerous books, foremost among them Alex Horts's The Mob and the City and John Strausbaugh's The Village.