Cosa Nostra News

Intriguing bits of New York Mafia history came to light recently via a New York Daily News report by Larry McShane that details how in 1976, members of the Mafia Commission banded together to thwart Carlo Gambino's efforts to keep the books closed. FBI memo from New York Daily News Gambino didn't want any new members to be made because of his concerns about informants in his midst. He reportedly had even considered absorbing the four other New York families into one big Gambino family. Gambino mulled such things in the aftermath of his arrest in 1970, which resulted from information provided to the Feds by Boston-based informant John J. (Red) Kelley, who that very year was putting New England mob boss Raymond LS Patriarca and others in mob murders and other crimes via his courtroom testimony. The Mafia closed the books in 1957 -- after the disastrous Apalachin meeting that sent wiseguys scurrying through the woods in their silk suits and gleaming shoes -- but by the ...

This was supposed to be a straightforward story about Jake Russo, but of course I can never not plunge headfirst down whatever rabbit hole catches my eye.... Can't ignore what intrigues me.... Rochester acting boss Jake Russo disappeared in September 1964, and nearly 55 years later, his body has never been found. Jake Russo may have disappeared because of Stefano Magaddino's greed. Recently surfaced videotaped interviews with a former Russo cohort may finally reveal what really happened all those years ago. In interviews conducted and videotaped several years prior to his 2014 death, Rene Piccarreto Sr., the former consigliere of the Rochester crime family, said that Russo was strangled in the basement of a downtown Rochester restaurant that later became a popular area pizzeria called the Pizza Stop. But back in 1964, the restaurant was owned by Frank Valenti, the man who succeeded Russo atop the Mafia family there. Actually, Russo had only been put in charge w...

Carlo Gambino, the Gambino crime family boss whom the FBI identified as the "boss of bosses" of the entire American Mafia , was cuffed and hauled to court in March 1970. Gambino was arrested in 1970 by the FBI. He'd been driving with his wife, Catherine, when the couple was pulled over at 14th Ave. and 48th Street in Brooklyn. Gambino was "bagged by federal agents... on charges of masterminding a daring plot to pull off a multimillion-dollar armored car robbery," the Daily News reported in a story  originally published on Tuesday, March 24, 1970, written by Edward Kirkman and Harry Schlegel. The agents first brought Gambino to FBI headquarters at 201 E. 69th St. for questioning. Next, he was taken to Federal Court in Foley Square for the arraignment. Gambino's specific charge was conspiracy to violate a federal statute against the interstate transportation of stolen goods. We next learn that Gambino allegedly was already sitting on $3 m...

“Carl wants to swallow up everybody." -- Unnamed Mafia boss via surveillance recording At the end of 1972, Carlo Gambino, boss of the Gambino crime family, was working on a "dramatic reorganization" of New York's Five Families, the likes of which had not been seen since 1931. As radical as this sounds, it is not unbelievable considering some events leading up to it. Gambino Gambino wanted to rid New York of hundreds of Mafia members, then rebuild by inducting only select men who'd proved their loyalty. (He was preparing to open the books in 1973.) Gambino, 70 at the time, believed the "Mafia must retreat to the past in order to survive," law enforcement officials said. The first two crime families on the block were to be the Luchese and Colombo crime families. Then the Bonanno crime family. "Twenty percent of known Mafia members in New York are currently under indictment in cases developed by the Federal Bureau of In...

Jerry Capeci nailed the "what the hell?" story about James McBratney and Henry Sentner in a column titled Ralph The Wig Pulled The Trigger; Gotti Got The Glory that ran back in September 2011.... McBratney and Sentner were separate incidents..... Sentner's bio would be interesting..... We did make an interesting discovery, however, a transcript of an interview with an FBI agent who was part of the Manny Gambino kidnapping investigation.

"One time Carlo Gambino’s nephew was kidnapped and held for ransom. I had heard the details later on.  Sentner in the old days.  My father had been sent for by Neil Dellacroce, who brought him to Carlo Gambino’s home in Massapequa, Long Island. He had met Carlo two times before with Neil in Manhattan. On the way over, my father was filled in on the details of what Carlo wanted. The five Families had search and destroy teams out looking for the guys who had been kidnapping members of their Family. Neil had chosen my father to lead the Gambino team.

Henry Sentner, of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was pulled over on Interstate 80 in southeast Wyoming by a state trooper for speeding. Henry Sentner served 15 years for the murder. He would've been lucky to get off with a speeding ticket, turns out. Ol' Sentner wasn't alone in the vehicle. He was hauling 35 pounds of marijuana. Why do I write about this, you ask? The article -- attributed to the Associated Press -- makes the following claim about Senter: He was convicted in the 1970s killing of a nephew o f notorious mob boss Carlo Gambino -- and this week he was arrested in Wyoming on drug charges.

Many, many wiseguys were born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn -- or resided there or conducted business there (or where murdered there), especially along Bath Avenue, just south of 86th Street’s bustling shopping district, where the social clubs once stood one beside the other. The list includes mobsters such as OG Carlo Gambino (he was Sicilian born, but lived in Bensonhurst in his later New York years); former Luchese underboss Anthony Casso; Gambino boss Paul Castellano, who was Carlo Gambino's brother-in-law); former Gambino capo under John Gotti Michael (Mike Scars) DiLeonardo; notorious Gambino capo/Roy DeMeo mentor Anthony Gaggi; Jimmy Moran, aka Sammy "The Bull" Gravano; capo/snitch Gregory Scarpa; and Colombo turncoat Carmine Sessa. While the Bensonhurst wiseguys are all gone today, dead or in prison or in Witness Protection, once in a great while, something happens that conjures up specters of the past. There was the Cafe Caserta thing (the place sold more...

Even an outlawed, unnamed secret society must observe certain formalities. It must perpetuate itself, and its members must know one another in order to create an infrastructure to assist them as they embark on their life of crime. "Jack Falcone" aka Joaquin Garcia (Big Jack to his friends.) Mobsters don't operate in a vacuum, and the Mafia, in addition to being a criminal brotherhood, also provides a milieu where members can share one another's company. If you can't break bread with another man who understands the world you live in, you will probably go insane. Mob guys tend to want to operate and prosper.