Cosa Nostra News

The FBI didn't exactly hit a home run when it opened a social club in Florida as part of Operation Coldwater, which ran from 1979 to 1981 and was an attempt to infiltrate Santo Trafficante's reach into Florida's Gulf Coast. The Portofino "social club" that opened in Brooklyn in the 1990s. While the book Donnie Brasco portrays it as a success that resulted in the 1986 indictment of Trafficant, the FBI's long-simmering effort ultimately came up short: the longtime Godfather of the Sunshine State was acquitted after Frank Ragano, the Mafioso's crafty lawyer, found a gap in the FBI's case. The Feds had better luck when they pulled a similar sting in New York in the 1990s. Code-named Second Gear, the elaborate four-year operation by the FBI's New York Hijacking Squad included a bona fide social club (secretly owned and operated -- and wired for audio -- by the FBI) and focused on disrupting the Gambino family's Northeast hijacking operat...

The short, stocky, balding man stepped out of the air-conditioned chill of the brown Lincoln limousine and into the scorching July afternoon in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Wearing a white short-sleeved knit shirt open at the neck and blue slacks (in which $860 in cash and Medicare and social security cards had been shoved), the man waved goodbye to the driver, who was his nephew. Then, sucking on his customary large Churchill cigar, the man strolled toward the nondescript eatery set between a law office and a pizza parlor on Knickerbocker Avenue. Dingy yellow curtains hung over the long front windows. A simple rectangular sign on top declared the place an Italian-American Restaurant and touted its takeout fare. Joe and Mary’s Italian-American Restaurant reportedly offered good food and was family-run, both of which appealed to the man, who was related to the owner. Bushwick, once a prosperous enclave, was a fading Bonanno stronghold at the time. The neighborhood, nestled bet...

UPDATED A 77-year-old loan shark with ties to the Luchese crime family was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in his Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, home on Friday. Vincent Zito lived here with son and grandson. ( NYDN ) Vincent Zito had been shot in the back of the head execution style, and was found inside his three-story Sheepshead Bay home at about 3:15 p.m. on Friday. Earlier this month, Sylvester Zottola, 71, a Bonanno crime family associate, was shot to death while waiting in his SUV for a cup of coffee at a McDonald's drive-through window in the Bronx. Zito's grandson Joseph, who lives at the address with Zito and Zito’s son, found the body after he came home from school. Zito was found face up on the floor next to the firearm that was used to kill him. Zito is survived by his older brother Anthony, 82 - who was locked up for extortion in 1971. Initially, it was believed Zito may have taken his own life, but the entry wound was in the...

John Carneglia, who on December 16, 1985, allegedly fired the fatal shots that ended Paul Castellano's reign and paved the way for John Gotti's rise to the top of the Gambino crime family, will be released from a Residential Reentry management Field Office at 100 20th Street tomorrow. John Carneglia back in his heyday. That's according to the BOP locator site.  He'd served 28 years in federal prison for heroin trafficking. And despite his role in the hit in front of Sparks Steakhouse, Carneglia was never charged in the midtown Manhattan assassination, despite the fact that Gambino turncoat (and former underboss) Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano fingered Carnigs in 1991 for shooting Big Paul. Sammy also fingered Gotti's brother, Gene, who also is due to depart prison, on September 5 of this year. Carneglia and Gene Gotti were found guilty of drug dealing in 1989. Prosecutors opted not to indict either of them for Castellano's murder, after both we...

EXPANDED Louis and Vincent Iacono, twin brothers, were charged this week with the murder of a Luchese mobster found floating in an inlet tied to a cinder block. The Iacono twin brothers. They were actually arrested months back, on Sept. 6 while driving through Indiana and leading local police on a high-speed chase. Local police discovered prescription pills and heroin in the car, as well as the potential murder weapon. The brothers, 36, were extradited to New York this week. Carini Jr., 35, the son of a Gambino crime family associate by the same name, was found on Sept. 2 floating in the Mill Basin Inlet off E. 58th St. and Avenue U, a few blocks from his apartment. The body showed signs of massive head trauma, with both the skull and jaw broken. Police now say that on or around Aug. 30, Louie Iacono allegedly beat Carini’s head in with a hammer in an attempt to rob him inside an apartment on East 64th St. Brother Vincent is alleged to have helped dispose of the bo...

A uniquely American subculture of lifelong outlaws, made members and associates of organized crime are the enemies of society; they kill and steal probably more indiscriminately than citizens believe. But we are a society based on the rule of law -- even the deaths of criminals, if not murderers themselves, is not something a lawful society countenances.  Two recent deaths -- one a homicide, another an overdose with unanswered questions that raise many unresolved issues -- took place in the past year. Based on all our efforts we find law enforcement has made little headway -- at least as per public information. Perhaps the investigations legitimately are stuck -- perhaps Riker's Island officials aren't interested. We write this simply to raise awareness of these deaths.   And the fact one is unsolved, the other unresolved.

REVISED, EXPANDED WITH INFORMATION FROM MIKIE SCARS Longtime Gambino mobster/Gotti confidant John Carneglia, 73, gets out of prison next year, specifically on June 11. John Carneglia and Gene Gotti He already has one foot out the door, though, having been moved to a halfway house in Brooklyn, a source told Cosa Nostra News . The BOP inmate locator site confirms this. His partner in crime, Gene Gotti, 70 ( brother of the one and only ) is slated for release, on September 15, but hasn't been moved yet from P ollock FCI .

Carmine Carini Junior's body had been wrapped in a blue tarp and chained to a cinder block. Then, it was dropped into an inlet off Avenue U and East 58th Street in South Brooklyn. A 5-pound bag of drywall compound had also been tied to the body, though the effort to conceal it was unsuccessful: Carini's body was found Saturday floating near a dock. His father, who has the same name, is a known Gambino mobster who served decades for a murder he didn't commit. With their testimony, storied mob turncoats Frank Smith and Sal Mangiavillano freed the elder Carini from prison for the murder.

CORRECTED:  Press reports incorrectly identified crime families A Brooklyn man was  found Saturday  a few blocks from his Mill Basin home on Avenue U and East 58th street. Wrapped in a blue tarp, Carmine Carini, 35, allegedly an associate of the Luchese crime family, was found chained to a cinder block held underwater. Victim appeared to be brutally slain. His ankles and knees were bound with duct tape. An orange rope, affixed to the cinder block, was apparently used to weigh his body down and was tied to his feet. Since he was found with his head bashed in and stabbed multiple times, cause of death is unknown.

COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE The next installment of our Michael DiLeonardo-Salvatore Romano saga .... The storefronts at 98-04 101st Avenue in Ozone Park, the former home base of the Gambino crime family. The  Corozzos were a faction of the Gambino crime family from Brooklyn's Canarsie. After John Gotti went down courtesy of Sammy the Bull, Peter Gotti was named boss. (Arnold "Zeke" Squitieri would be named acting boss in time). Jo Jo Corozzo was named consiglieri, and with that move it seemed that, for the first time in Mafia history, the power in the Gambino crime family was going to move to Canarsie. Jo Jo was in position to rise to the top. And if he needed a little firepower to help him up, he certainly had it in brother Nicky, who himself had certain aspirations. Corozzo was released from a halfway house last January after spending more than seven years in prison. Corozzo had been indicted back in 2008 as part of Operation Old Bridge...

John Gotti and Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano were spotted in Brooklyn, New York, this past Tuesday chatting like it was 1989... Well, not really... John Travolta and William DeMeo -- who play the former Gambino crime family boss and underboss -- were seen in Brooklyn filming scenes for  The Life And Death of John Gotti. William DeMeo, left, as Sammy, and John Travolta Gotti. Scenes for biopic were filmed Tuesday. Courtesy of The Daily Mail.

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...