Cosa Nostra News

Updated When I began working in Manhattan for General Media (the corporate name of that publishing company always amuses me), I worked for a vice president, a ruthless man who probably would've made a good mobster. As local New York City coverage continues to dissipate, guess who benefits I will call him Don. Considering his age back then, I am certain he's no longer with us. Although I was unable to confirm, I believe he departed this world for whatever is next, if anything... Aside from the fact that he wrote informed stylized stories for one of our titles about the Mafia, he also exhibited certain characteristics that reminded me of wiseguys. Or what I imagined wiseguys were like. He was a tough, tough guy, not very tall but he compensated for his lack of height with glinting, sharp eyes, an aggressive intellect and a swagger to his walk. His grayish-silvery hair was thick, and his weathered, rough-hewn face was not unhandsome, though it belonged more on, say, a ...

Former NYPD officer/Albanian thug Besnik Llakatura during his 2013 arrest. The NYPD Officer who copped to a guilty plea last December over his involvement in an Albanian crime ring focused on shaking down a couple of Queens-based business owners faces sentencing later this month. Besnik Llakatura would have faced life in prison, but federal sentencing guidelines limit his term to anywhere from 12 years and nine months to 14 years and three months. Brooklyn Federal Judge Eric Vitaliano is slated to pronounce the man's fate on Feb. 26. Since his December 2013 arrest on extortion and gun-brandishing charges, Llakatura, 36, has been suspended without pay. "Through his participation in these extortion schemes, Besnik Llakatura turned his back on his badge and his community, choosing [to] break the laws he was sworn to uphold, rather than enforce them, and to thereafter extort members of the community he had sworn to protect," U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said in a st...

In January 2014, Bajram Lajqi was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court to six years in prison; he'd plead guilty on June 27, 2013, to drug trafficking and firearm use. Bajram Lajqi under arrest in 2013. Lajqi was a "member" of an Albanian organized crime group that operated in the United States, Canada, and Europe. On June 4, 2011, Lajqi attempted to murder another member of the gang. “...  Lajqi, in particular,  exemplifies the violence tied to large-scale narcotics trafficking, as his drug-fueled quest for revenge led him to gun down a rival outside a Bronx restaurant,” the U.S. Attorney said in a  press release .  Now the U.S. Attorney is doing an injustice to Lajqi right there, by making him sound, at the very least, like a competent hitman. The truth is, he's not. We love how the gothamist wrote this one up: "What with all the massive busts and small-time stabbings, the mob just ain't what it used to be. Nowadays nobody takes any ...

By Nick Christophers , from the May issue of Saint Red Magazine . People look at him and think 'there goes a good looking man with style'. But when they learn about his checkered past, fear sets in. It is a normal reaction and comes with the territory for someone like him. John Alite was John Gotti Jr.'s bodyguard and did what he was told within the world of the mafia. But those days are over as he begins to build a new life. Coming from an Albanian family the world of crime was not so foreign to him. Albania itself has been pegged as a breeding ground for criminality. Yet not all Albanians follow that lifestyle. John himself attempted to lead a law-abiding life but somehow was side-tracked. He was raised in Jamaica, Queens in the 1970's were it was a strong-hold for the mob.

Greg DePalma was desperate to regain his standing as a capo when he was released from prison in February 2003 after serving a 70-month sentence for racketeering. He was supposedly all washed up. He'd been caught talking on tape, which led to his conviction as well as that of John A. "Junior" Gotti in the Scores strip-club extortion case. (They copped plea deals, actually, at the last minute.) Testimony in a 1999 case related to the Scores case told a violent tale of murders by Albanian gangsters, as well as the Gambino crime family shaking down the premium strip club. Reputed Albanian mobsters (and brothers) Simon and Victor Dedaj were arrested for the 1996 shooting murders of a bouncer and waiter inside the Upper East Side strip club. The New York Post described it as a case "with enough mobsters, loansharks and topless dancers to fill a Martin Scorcese flick." In opening statements, Assistant District Attorney Dan McGillycuddy told jurors how ...

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. "...