Cosa Nostra News

Anthony Colombo died on January 6 in San Diego of complications from diabetes. Anthony was Joseph Colombo's son. Joseph Colombo, ready to take on all comers. Joseph Bonanno ordered his top gun, Joseph Colombo, to kill two bosses. Colombo, seemingly appalled at the move,  showed fealty to the two bosses, Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese. The Commission took care of Bonanno (though he certainly retaliated decades later, perhaps unintentionally) and as a reward for Colombo's loyalty, they named him, only 41 years old at the time, boss of one of New York's Five Families -- the Profaci family, which was re-christened t he Colombo crime family . It still carries his name to this day. Anthony Colombo recently took the time to answer some questions for the following Q&A. We connected via a mutual friend. Colombo: The Unsolved Murder  by Don Capria and Anthony Colombo is available now, priced at $4.99 for the Kindle version and $16.95 for the paperback.

John Gotti's namesake and grandson is considering a plea deal, his attorney said, after the 23-year-old appeared in court this past Wednesday. ( See video at end of story with NYPD Police Chief. ) "We’re just ironing out some details," lawyer Gerard Marrone told The New York Post.  Gotti grandson and girlfriend; we blurred her face. ( Source ) John Gotti "plans to remain behind bars as a “good faith” gesture," the Post reported as well. In a previous hearing the judge had ordered bail of $2 million.

In December 2006, a jury found Anthony (Tony Muscles) Guardino, boss of New York City’s Brooklyn-based Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers Local 8, guilty of enterprise corruption crimes. Tony Muscles, loverboy.... Guardino, connected to the Genovese family, was part of the union's corrupt leadership, which shook down contractors all over New York City to the tune of more than $2 million. Prosecutors used Guardino's Mafia links as a lynchpin of the case against him. Brooklyn-based Local 8 represents about 700 roofing and waterproofing workers in New York City. The 2004 indictment that named Guardino was the second time ever that a union itself was charged with racketeering under New York's Organized Crime Control Act of 1986. It was the first labor union in US history to plead guilty to racketeering and corruption charges -- though let's be perfectly clear here; the crimes were committed by the leadership, not the union's rank and file, who wer

UPDATED JAN. 26 A person of interest in the double murders on Staten Island is being grilled by police, according to an NYPD spokesman, who declined to provide further details. The suspect, questioned at the 69th Precinct stationhouse, has not yet been charged, according to published reports. Community advocate Tony Herbert is offering a $2,500 reward. Photograph of where the double homicide was committed. The double murders committed this past Tuesday evening on Staten Island at Universal Merchant Funding's storefront initially was reported to have been the work of a "disgruntled ex-employee,"  according to the New York Post , which noted that the suspect was taken into custody on another charge, violating his supervised release from federal prison. Sources revealed that the shooter walked into the storefront on Buel Ave. near Zoe St., after closing hours and entered a rear office at that location where he killed both the owner and an employee who is  kno

In December 2006, a jury found Anthony “Tony Muscles” Guardino, boss of New York City’s Brooklyn-based Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers Local 8, guilty of enterprise corruption crimes. Labor racketeering made the Mafia; when it was the Italians' turn, massive money was available in the labor rackets, making Cosa Nostra an institution. The 2004 indictment that named Guardino was historical; it was only the second time ever that a union itself was charged with racketeering under New York's Organized Crime Control Act of 1986. While Federal RICO laws typically target larger operations spanning multiple states, state versions typically target regional criminal enterprises. New York's law specifically criminalizes "enterprise corruption," and is described as New York's version of the federal RICO Act. Read more about federal and state RICO laws. The Local 8 indictment included 54 counts and charged eight with labor racketeering involvi

One evening in November 1994, mob associate Michael (Cookie) Durso  stopped by the San Giuseppe Social Club in Brooklyn's Williamsburg -- and quite literally all hell broke loose. A ticking time bomb also was set in motion that night , and while the detonation wasn't as deadly, the reverberations were extensive enough to knock down more than 70 Genovese wiseguys, and for the first time, substantially wound the crime family's boss. The San Guiseppe, which no longer stands, previously may have been Sonny Black's Motion Lounge. ( Source ) The San Giuseppe, located on Graham Ave., was frequented by Genovese crime family members, associates and knock-around guys. ( The San Giuseppe seems to have been located where the Motion Lounge once stood. The Motion Lounge was formerly owned by Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano, a Bonanno crime family capo killed decades ago over the Donnie Brasco case .)

Louis DiVita , author of A Wiser Guy and good friend, is slated to appear on Crime Beat , a web show hosted by award-winning crime writer Ron Chepesiuk and journalist Will Hryb. Louis P DiVita, the grandson and great nephew of two of the American Mafia's founders, was also close to and or related to New Jersey-based Genovese crime family members, released his memoir last year, A Wiser Guy, which is among the top titles we've been promoting on Amazon.com. On the air since Jan.  28, 2011, Crime Beat is a weekly hour-long radio program that airs every Thursday at 8 p.m. EST. It averages 180,000 listeners in 130-plus countries. (Shows are archived at  www.artistfirst.com/crimebeat.htm  for 24-7 listening.)

The following, based on information gathered by New Jersey's State Commission of Investigation, is part of an ongoing series about Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo, former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss notorious for his violence. Scarfo died last Friday.   Phil Testa, left, Angelo Bruno After the Philadelphia crime family's longtime boss, Angelo Bruno, was killed on March 21, 1980, in a grisly gangland hit, the Commission wanted answers. A boss had been killed "illegally." Whoever was behind it was going to die. Examples needed to be made to send a loud and clear message about what happened when members defied the Commission. But before anything, the Commission needed to learn the identities of the assassins.

The following is based on information gathered by New Jersey's State Commission of Investigation. Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo was formally inducted into the New Jersey Cosa Nostra crime family during the reign of Angelo Bruno's predecessor, Joseph Ida. The event took place in the mid-1950s. Several men were "made" during the same ceremony, which occurred in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, at the Sans Souci restaurant and cocktail lounge. Bruno was crafty when he killed.... So Scarfo told Leonetti, according to Leonetti, who later flipped and recounted the story. Inducted with Little Nicky were Scarfo’s cousin, Anthony (Tony Buck) Piccolo, and two uncles, Michael (Mike Buck) Piccolo and Joseph (Joe Buck) Piccolo. Another uncle, Nicholas (Nicky Buck) Piccolo, was inducted some five years earlier. Nicholas, Joseph and Michael Piccolo are brothers. The Piccolo brothers are Leonetti’s great uncles; Anthony Piccolo and Leonetti are second cousins. Felix

Looks like Nicodemo D. “Little Nicky” Scarfo, known for his reign of violence over the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra in the 1980s, won't walk out of prison one day, as a source had previously surmised . Scarfo died in a federal prison medical facility in Butner, NC, underworld sources have revealed, as  reported by George Anastasia on Big Trial. Little Nicky, right, Phil Leonetti, and Lawrence Merlino; Leonetti and Merlino both flipped. Merlino died in 2001. Anastasia noted in the story, posted around three hours earlier tonight that: "Prison officials could not be reached to confirm the report which began circulating in South Philadelphia this morning. Scarfo had been an inmate at the medical facility for more than a year. Cause of death, which reportedly occurred on Friday, could not be determined, but sources said he had been plagued with several medical problems." Scarfo was 87 and allegedly was doing his best to make it out of prison alive after c

Bad Blood: The Vito Rizzuto Story That's the title of a "limited event" television series debuting on FX this summer. It consists of six 60-minute episodes. "Inspired by reputed mobster Vito Rizzuto," the show stars Anthony LaPaglia (Analyze This sequel Analyze That ) as Vito Rizzuto and Paul Sorvino from Goodfellas as Nico (Nicolo) Rizzuto, Vito's father. Bad Blood was filmed in Montreal and Sudbury, the largest city in Northern Ontario, Canada. The story used as its source the best-selling book  by Antonio Nicaso and Peter Edwards,  Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto’s Last War . ( Business would've benefited from a more-vigorous fact-check; The Sixth Family by Adrian Humphreys and Lee Lamothe is the  book about the Rizzutos, with landmark research. Another good book is Andre Cedillot's  Mafia Inc.: The Long, Bloody Reign of Canada's Sicilian Clan .)

In the classic film On the Waterfront (which I haven't seen and don't intend to, unless someone tells me otherwise), the laborers who worked on New York's docks "were reluctant, even frightened, to talk to the authorities, whether a priest or a detective, because the mob controlled the waterfront," the New York Times noted recently. Longshoremen in 1940s New York REVISED : Most longshoremen were indeed conflicted during much of the 20th century about the notion of revealing what they knew regarding members of a certain secret criminal society. In Brooklyn, that meant informing on a man who had demonstrated he'd go all the way -- meaning, murder you, your wife and your entire family -- if he had even an inkling you were informing on him (or were planning to or were even thinking about the possibility). And considering the wide-scale corruption of police, union officials, politicians, basically all civilization's "managers," if you will,

Around 13 firebombings in Greater Montreal in the past year are believed to be Mafia-related, which is more than double the number said to have occurred in 2015, according to Montreal police. The most recent arson is believed to have happened this past Monday morning targeting a strip mall in Laval's Vimont neighborhood. Police have said that the fire is "suspicious," according to published reports. CBC News recently noted that Montreal's Mafia "has become a shadow of its former self as rival clans battle each other to see which Mob boss will become the city's next godfather." An arson attack is alleged to be related to Mafia business. Caterina Miceli, who is married to Carmelo Cannistraro, saw one of her salons firebombed last week, as well as in the more recent strip mall bombing, during which four businesses were destroyed, including Streakz Coiffure, a hair salon owned by Miceli.

The late John Gotti’s grandson (and namesake) was granted bail of $2 million in a late-December hearing. At the same time, Gotti, whose father is Peter Gotti, brother of former Gambino acting boss John "Junior" Gotti, was hit with additional conspiracy counts. (No details about these new counts were readily available.) John Gotti, the grandson. Queens Supreme Court Justice Charles LoPresto decided that the grandson of the former legendary Gambino crime family boss should be allowed out on bail, though he's not going anywhere until a "bail sufficiency" ✶  hearing is held.

Carlo Gambino's takeover of the crime family rechristened in his name was contested primarily by Aniello Dellacroce and Armand Rava, staunch Anastasia supporters. They had potential allies in men like Anthony “Tough Tony” Anastasio, the dead boss’s brother, a powerful mobster running Brooklyn’s docks, and Vincent James Squillante, a waste management kingpin, drug trafficker and experienced gunsel. Carlo, when he rose to power at the top of what was once called the Mangano crime family. If an attempt were made on Carlo’s life, the order would've originated from, and perhaps also carried out, by those very men. Yet no attempt was ever made. Gambino ascended to the top of the crime family not without firing a shot, but by firing far fewer shots than "Mafia logic" would seem to precipitate. Carlo Gambino was one of the most effective Mafia bosses in the American Cosa Nostra. The FBI routinely referred to Gambino in various documents as the &qu