Cosa Nostra News

See Manhattan skyline Kenny "Kenji" Gallo is back with a reissued updated version of  Breakshot: A Life in the 21st Century American Mafia , his story about serving as a Colombo crime family  associate. (He also had ties to the Luchese and Los Angeles crime families, when the latter still existed.) Seeing the dead-end nature of "the life" he was living, Gallo, an Asian-American, flipped, wore a wire and testified against all three crime families, which resulted in him writing and publishing what  easily is among the top must-reads  in the American-Mafia nonfiction genre. Kenji's story didn't end there, however. He still wore a wire, for years.

Kenji in Sweden.... Social media is a fantastic way to cultivate sources. I've made quite a few by simply contacting them with a private message. (I'm always privately -- and silently -- thrilled when some of them, especially journalists, say, " yeah, I've heard of you .") Anyway, I met Kenji Gallo via Facebook (I'd read his book Breakshot , which I highly recommend.) We've spoken many times and I occasionally link to his blog posts .  He knows his stuff; I know that for a fact. And he has firsthand experience. Kenji was a mobster, an associate of the ultra-violent Colombo crime family . He's half-Asian. That mixing of ethnicities, an Asian guy in the Italian Mafia, is the kind of setup that makes for a good film.

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.

Kenji Gallo, blogger, asskicker, author of "Breakshot," one of the best books about the Mafia available. From this week's  Breakshot Blog  by friend Kenji Gallo  (a onetime associate of the Colombo family who became a turncoat charged with running a radio show for the feds. Kenji also wrote a great book about life in the mob -- particularly in the crazy madhouse known as the Colombo family. We wrote a little about Kenji and his book  back in this post .) some interesting info on how the mob communicates... "The Colombo’s were aware that the FBI and others were always watching or listening to them so they adopted some new tactics. A thumb across the cheek was how they referred to a made guy and a thumb across the back was their way of indicating a Capo. All the families used methods close to this, in Los Angeles they would point to the chest for a soldier, the shoulder for a Capo and the sky for Pete Milano the Boss.

Kenji Gallo, Colombo turncoat who  wrote Breakshot. “Alicia has chosen to humiliate my nephew Edward and our entire family in the name of my brother who she never even knew. The show’s stupid. I think it’s disgraceful. It’s blood money. It’s my brother’s blood.” That's what Emmanuel "Manny" Garofalo had to say about Alicia DiMichele and "Mob Wives" in an interview with the New York Daily News . Manny added that he is so sickened by this "exploitation" of the murder of his brother, Eddie "The Chink," that he's thinking of selling his home and moving to a place where he won't be recognized.