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By Ed Scarpo

The stories listed below are based on interviews with mobsters -- and former FBI agent Joaquin "Jack Falcone" Garcia, who worked undercover as one of them.

From Mafia capos to mob associates who worked with some of gangland's most notorious figures, we give you the real deal here.

Also included are "scoops," news this site broke first. (This page is not comprehensive yet, either.)

Michael "Mikie Scars" DiLeonardo

Michael DiLeonardo On the Gotti Reign

Boss Cali Would Bring Gambinos Full Circle
Anastasia Was Whacked on this Day in 1957

Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire

Buy Now: Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire

What Happened to the $6 Million from the Lufthansa Heist? - Cosa ...

Former Mafia Capo Dominick Cicale Answers Your Questions ...
Cicale Forum
Mikey Nose's Letters Kick Off 2nd Cicale Forum
Vinny Gorgeous, Dom Cicale Back in News About "Nose" Murder ...

Frank Gangi
Street Soldiers Die Hard: Frank Gangi Interview

Andrew DiDonato

"It's Always Safer to Send Flowers..." - Cosa Nostra News

Joaquin "Jack Falcone" Garcia

Jack Falcone on Why the Mafia Still Stands Strong
Mafia Pomp and Circumstance Has Its Use s

Interview With "Mob Wives" Cast Member

Cosa Nostra News Exclusives

"Christy Tick" Beats the System, Departs Prison at Age 90
"Punchy" Illiano, Part of Gallo Crew, Died Yesterday

Joe Isgro Pinched in Los Angeles
Exclusive Interview With G. Robert Bl
Bath Ave. Crew Story:"Kill One of Ours, We Kill Two of Yours"

Genovese Boss Who Took Lie Detector Test Dies
FBI 302 Proves John Gotti Junior "Talked"

Defamation Case Settled by "Undercover Cop" Publisher

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Popular Stories

The 1981 Three-Capo Murders: Part One

By Ed Scarpo

Members of the Bonanno family who believed that the meeting set for the night of May 5, 1981*, was just another attempt at peace either were killed—or realized the confirmation of their worst fears. Phil Lucky, left, Sonny Red, Big Trinny. Source: Wikia . A trio of captains helming a dissident faction of the Bonanno family were invited to that meeting in an attempt to make the peace. It wasn't the first meeting that sought to head off possible bloodshed, but the family's loyalist faction made sure it was the last. Alphonse (Sonny Red) Indelicato , Philip Giaccone, and Dominick (Big Trin) Trinchera were not men to be trifled with. The three had together grown increasingly disillusioned with Philip (Rusty) Rastelli's prison house leadership and had begun to make their feelings known. Phil Giaccone, who had been Joe Massino's skipper for six months in 1978, had been targeted first, but the hit was called off, possibly because the decision had been reached that the better

Sicilian Bonanno Soldier Who "Committed Suicide" With Son In 1999 Angered Cohorts When He Pulled Out Of Pizza Connection Drug Deal

By Ed Scarpo

Of the many ways wiseguys have been known to meet death, suicide has got to be among the rarest of the rare. (Also, doing anything to cause Toto Catalano to say the rosery probably wasn't a good idea.) On May 21, 1999, a young woman made a frantic call to a police dispatcher saying that her father, Giovanni Ligammari, 60, and brother, Pietro, 37, had hanged themselves and were dead. Ligammari, second from right, leaves Capri Motel with Joseph (Big Joey) Massino, far right; Vito Rizzuto, second from left; and Sicilian Bonanno capo Gerlando (George from Canada) Sciascia. The father and son were found hanging face to face via separate nooses (made from nylon packing cord) from the basement rafters of the older man's two-family home in an affluent Bergen County suburb. Giovanni Ligammari, a New Jersey contractor as well as a Sicilian member of the Bonanno family (his son also became a Bonanno soldier), was captured on May 6,1981, the day after the murders of three Bonanno capos, in

RIP Tough Tony: Sources Say Elusive Genovese Family Powerhouse Was Official Consiglieri

By Ed Scarpo

Longtime Genovese family powerhouse Anthony (Tough Tony) Federici, who ran a landmark Queens-based Italian restaurant, died this morning of natural causes, sources tell Cosa Nostra News . Still from YouTube interview with Tough Tony Federici. While the elusive Federici long claimed he was retired from the position of capo in the nation's most powerful Mafia clan, the Genovese crime family, sources say Tough Tony, aka Tony Park Side, was part of the Genovese crime family's formal hierarchy, holding the position of official consiglieri, at the time of his death. Prior, he'd been acting underboss of the crime family. Federici, who remarkably appeared in several YouTube video interviews about six years ago (three of which are posted below), was the longtime owner of Park Side Restaurant, a popular Italian restaurant located in the heart of Corona, Queens that his parents opened in 1960 under a different name. And, despite the incessant denials, Federici was a power in the Genov

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 Je

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All Time Popular Stories

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 Je

Wanna Know Each Mob Wife's Net Worth? Read On

By Ed Scarpo

CelebrityNetWorth.com, founded in October 2009 in Los Angeles, claims it has grown into "one of the most popular and influential celebrity finance outlets on the Internet." "Whether you're looking for the latest net worth and salary of your favorite celebrity or you want to stay up to date on all the most expensive products and gizmos in the world, Celebritynetworth has you covered," the site declares. Drita D'Avanzo is up there but Big Ang is the wealthiest of all... All its figures and articles are thoroughly researched, scrutinized and fact checked by writers and financial analysts, the site notes, adding that the figures are acquired from publicly available information, including salaries, real estate holdings, divorces, record sales, royalties and endorsements. The estimated net worths come from a formula that takes out taxes, manager’s fees, agents’ fees, and lifestyle. So, of course, we immediately checked out what the low-down was,

Court Records Expose D'Avanzo Mob Ties

By Ed Scarpo

Last year, the Miami New Times obtained from a confidential source hundreds of pages of sealed court documents that reveal information provided to the FBI by former infamous South Beach nightclub king Chris Paciello -- and it seems Paciello dished up a lot more details on goodfellas and their crimes than was originally thought. Lee D'Avanzo "Between December 2000 and May 2001, the FBI met with the fallen club king eight times and conducted 15 hours of interviews. During those meetings, Paciello detailed not only his own criminal history but those of dozens of his Mob colleagues," a New Times article notes. Additionally, many secrets in the documents center on Lee D'Avanzo, one of Paciello's early criminal cohorts. In fact, Paciello is a large part of the reason why Lee went away to prison. [We are not sure if this is the sentence Lee is still serving or if it was an earlier conviction.] It adds: "Most significant, Paciello fingered two mad

Lee D'Avanzo Cause of Mob Wives Reboot?

By Ed Scarpo

Karen Gravano may have been on to something when she said someone wanted her off the show. But according to a source who spoke with Cosa Nostra News on condition of anonymity, that someone is Lee D'Avanzo , not Eddie Garofalo. Lee and Drita D'Avanzo. We wrote in a previous post that Alicia DiMichele 's husband, Edward "Tall Guy" Garofalo, is "figuring to be a major star" in the upcoming season. This was based on a Jerry Capeci story in which Karen Gravano was the source (there were two other sources, but only Karen went on record). Karen had a theory about why Jennifer had revamped most of the cast of "Mob Wives" -- supposedly to make DiMichele and Garofalo's former marriage a centerpiece of the show. The Tall Guy has been in jail for three years and will soon head off to prison to serve his seven years sentence . Alicia learns her fate in January, as we noted . According to Karen, it was the Tall Guy who secured his wife a