Cosa Nostra News

Chicago's new FBI chief issued a wake-up call to the Chicago Outfit during an interview with an ABC affiliate this week. He vowed that the Chicago FBI office will "refocus on organized crime." "The Chicago Outfit? We haven't forgotten about you," Chicago Special-Agent-in-Charge Jeffrey Sallet, pictured, told ABC. Sallet was previously stationed in New Orleans, New York, and Boston; he is considered an expert in mob investigations. He began his career in New York, where his work included the investigation of the Bonanno crime family as part of the 2011 Mafia Takedown effort coordinated by the FBI in which more than 100 mobsters were nabbed. He also worked on the capture of Boston's notorious crime boss and long-time fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger, also in 2011. "Mob guys or Outfit guys—whatever you want to call them—are resilient," Sallet said in an earlier report. "Where there is an opportunity to make money, t...

UPDATED:  "Everything is a message, everything is full of meaning in the world of Cosa Nostra, no detail is too small to be overlooked.” --Giovanni Falcone Luciano Leggio, Corleonesi leader who took control of the Commission. One of the Sicilian Mafia’s most prolific killers was Giuseppe "Pino" Greco (January 4, 1952 – September 1985), aka The Shoe. Born in Ciaculli, an outlying town in Palermo province, he joined the Sicilian Mafia and by the 1980s, sat on the Commission when it was ruled by his uncle, Michele Greco, the Ciaculli boss. Greco’s Ciaculli family, to use the common American term, was closely allied with Salvatore (Shorty) Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, leaders of the Corleonesi, first as Luciano Leggio's direct underlings, then on their own following Leggio's 1974 arrest. Pino was Riina’s favorite hit man. In fact, Riina manipulated Greco and some of his blood relations in the Mafia to knock out Palermo rivals of the Corleones...

Family members of former Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore (Toto) Riina, who died in a prison hospital on November 17, 2017, and who was allegedly responsible for ordering more than hundreds of murders, received something nobody probably ever saw coming. An apology. Toto Riina died in a prison hospital earlier this month. Trouble began when the social media giant removed messages of condolences posted upon Riina's death.  The posts, on Riina's son-in-law's Facebook feed, "were removed in error, after users complained that they violated Facebook's standards." After a review, Facebook "restored the posts and apologized," an anonymous Facebook spokesperson said recently. The spokesperson didn't elaborate, but Facebook's terms of use prohibit content expressing support for groups involved in violent or criminal behavior, terrorist activity or organized crime. "Supporting or praising leaders of those same organizations, o...

TwoTonys, a mobster from Detroit, served multiple life sentences for murders and violent crimes. He "left bodies from Tucson to Alaska, but claimed all his victims had it coming. " Picture from Gangster Report . Part 1 left off with TwoTonys getting angry at Charlie after Berego (a connection Charlie had vouched for) took Two Tonys’ money to Mexico and didn’t return with the agreed upon cocaine. And as I proceed to have a few drinks with Sal and a few grams of bullshit coke I’m getting fucked up – especially when I keep calling Louie and he tells me no show on Berego, and Charlie’s not around. So the bars close at 1am. Me and Sal go for coffee. Then he drops me off at my rental car (it’s a comp from the lame drunk on the fourth floor). I go back to the hotel. Louie is up in his suite. He’s got some personal blow. So I ask if Charlie is back. He says, “Yeah, he’s in his room down the hall.” He heard him come in. Now we got guns galore. I always pack a lig...

Adrian Humphreys contacted us and helped clarify some confusion we wrote about resulting from our interpretation of two seemingly contradictory news reports. Ken Murdock  assassinated Johnny Pops for pocket change..... The reports, by Humphreys of Canada's National Post and Jerry Capeci of Gang Land News, actually complement each other. The term "undercover agent" apparently is used less formally in Canada than in America. As Humphreys noted: "In Canada, the term police agent means someone who is paid and directed by law enforcement but is not a sworn officer. We don't have a gents  like FBI agents up here, our cops are o fficers , even our federal cops. "So when I refer to an undercover agent or police agent, I mean a non-law enforcement officer acting at the direction of the police -- in other words a fink. So I think Jerry and I are saying the same thing." Thank you, Adrian Humphreys. His latest story details ...

Don't have pics of TwoTonys, but here's other Detroit guys. Anyone know who? A lowlife scumbag gets his due when he finally scams the wrong guy and gets his head blown off. That's the whole story, in a nutshell. There are a few twists however. First off, who is the wrong guy of which we speak? In this case, he was an Irish-Italian associate of the Detroit crime family "whose wit could upstage Rodney Dangerfield's," as noted on Jon's Jail Journal. Called TwoTonys, he's told us about this piece of work in his own words, decades later while dying in prison after his conviction for this very murder. He tells us via Shaun Attwood , the "Jon" of the jail journal, who spent years in one of America’s toughest jails, Maricopa County, which generates lots of media attention on a regular basis. (As did Sheriff Joe Arpaio himself,  especially when he was freed from his own legal entanglement for civil rights violations and other...

Based on a recent bust involving members of the Gambino and Bonanno crime families in which more than a dozen alleged members and associates of organized crime were arrested as part of a sweeping investigation into the fentanyl trade in Canada and New York, it seems the Buffalo crew is alive and well. Or was.... Source: Gang Land News Update: it appears our note about a discrepancy in news reports was incorrect See story for Adrian Humphreys clarification. The following information was sent from a source. In indicates that the Buffalo crime family is definitely larger and more organized than many have believed. Last week's bust no doubt has taken a toll on the crime family. Yet who'd have guessed its heft? And if  could be big, who else is thriving in the US, off the radar....? Boss Frank BiFulco Underboss Joe Violi (Canada Faction) Consigliere Victor Sansanese Capos Frank Falzone-  Buffalo,  Six soldiers, ...

John Paul Getty III in Lagonegro, Italy, in Dec. 1973, after kidnappers freed him. Part 1 J. Paul Getty III, a grandson of the oil baron once considered the richest man in the world, gained tragic infamy when he was kidnapped in Rome in 1973 by Italian gangsters. "Italian gangsters" means little to anyone who knows about Italy and gangsters. ("Calabrian bandits," as per initial news reports, is more revealing, as only one crime ring hails from that region in southern Italy. Still, it's important to remember that the kidnapping was initially and widely believed to be a prank pulled by the grandson to get fast cash from granddad. That's partly why the kidnappers had to slice off an ear and put it in the mail.) After all, Italy is the birthplace of several major organized crime groups with "global footprints" today, all of which are known generally as the Mafia. Mafia is an overarching term and includes the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, an offshoot ...

Giuseppe (Joe) Violi, right, Domenico (Dom) Violi, sons of Paolo Violi. Early last Thursday morning, following coordinated raids in New York City and within and beyond the GTA, 13 alleged members of organized crime were arrested as part of "a sweeping investigation into the fentanyl trade," the RCMP said. Four mobsters tied to the Gambino and Bonanno families were arrested. Seventeen (identified below) were named in the indictment altogether; five escaped the predawn raids in Canada and are lamming it in the Great White North. They face Canada-wide warrants and one of the five "in the wind" is a descendant of a notorious Ndrangheta family based in Hamilton . His father and grandfather were both bosses. The arrested in Canada include members of the Todaro crime family, established by the now-deceased Joseph (Lead Pipe Joe) Todaro, Sr., who took over after the death of Stefano (The Undertaker) Magaddino. It would seem probable that the probe...

Ralph Santaniello, 50, and Giovanni Calabrese, 54, both pleaded guilty yesterday in Worcester federal court. They faced extortion and other charges, including threatening to behead someone, await sentencing. Santaniello and Calabrese are among about four dozen Mafia members and associates accused in a federal indictment last August of participating in a racketeering conspiracy that involved five crime families and was based primarily in the Northeast. Now the Hartford Courant reports that, on Monday, Genovese crime family capo Eugene “Rooster” Onofrio, 75, and Joseph “Skinny Joe” Merlino, 55, were both charged in a revised indictment. The New York-based Genovese crime family expanded its influence in Connecticut and western Massachusetts over the years, growing in strength as federal law enforcement (with a little inside help) steadily reduced the presence of the region's once dominate Patriarca crime family. Five reputed members of the Genovese crime family...