Cosa Nostra News

Anthony Comello, 24, has been in custody in New Jersey  since he was arrested yesterday morning on the Jersey Shore. As things now stand, he faces charges on Staten Island, where he will be extradited (most likely tomorrow) for the murder of Gambino acting boss Francesco (Franky Boy) Cali. Frank Cali There's no official word about the motive for the murder, which was widely thought to be a gangland hit . However, as we reported earlier, Comello killed Cali because Cali wouldn't let him date his niece.  Our sources say the young man was troubled, with drug and mental health issues. And we report again that Comello admitted to asking President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for "permission" to shoot Cali. The murder of Frank Cali leaves a hole at the top of the Gambino crime family, said someone who knew Frank. "Frank (Cali) kept things stable since he took over as boss," said former Gambino capo Michael (Mikie Scars) DiLeonardo . ...

It's with deep regret that I write the following announcement. It's something I never conceived would happen, and yet here we are.... All good things must come to end.... right? I want it known that this is not a result of any decision made by me; it's simply an inevitable result of capitalism. It's actually physically painful to make this kind of announcement, I'm realizing now, as I write this. It's been years since we launched, but as the saying goes, All good things must come to an end...

Happy 50th, Frank! It's an understatement to say that Frank Smith went through difficult times. He served prison time for a drug-related crime that the world knows he had nothing to do with. But later he copped to crimes -- which I am not going to detail here.

"Little Anthony" Anthony “Little Anthony” Pipitone was initially given a two-year sentence, twice as much time as his two pals got for violating the terms of their parole by attending the Bonanno crime family's holiday shindig last December. The reason his time was doubled apparently was due to his "stupidity," though newspaper reports don't clarify whether the judge meant that Pipitone alone was stupid or if he was simply twice as stupid as the other two. On March 30, news reports noted that a Brooklyn federal judge agreed to re-sentence one of the three Bonanno mobsters violated for attending the holiday bash.

Today is a day of miracles.....We Christians believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead. (Which reminds me, to all my readers (and supporters): Happy Easter! Enjoy this or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year.) I'm absolutely flabbergasted by something I read this morning. I  John A. Gotti, aka "Junior" Gotti, the former mob boss said something of interest -- finally. He discussed associates, sitdowns and Mafia protocol.

Blood, from Friday early morning shooting, all over car's interior console.... REVISED The NYPD was probing the Bulls Head shooting of a 30-year-old man that occurred early last Friday morning. A confidential source said this was mob-related, although there's no confirmation. The victim is not cooperating with law enforcement. And considering what else has happened on Staten Island the past few days -- the fatal stabbings and supposed suicides -- the would-be mob-hit victim appears to be the lucky one. The man (his name hasn't been disclosed) had been shot in the shoulder but reportedly is in stable condition. He privately made his way to Staten Island University Hospital around 1 a.m. Friday, said an NYPD spokesman.

John A. Gotti aka Junior is lending Travolta his father's personal items for a film about John Gotti Senior. John Gotti, former Gambino crime family boss, died in prison of cancer in 2002 at the age of 61. His son, former Gambino crime family boss John A. Gotti (aka "Junior"), says he left Cosa Nostra life in the dust many years ago. If John Junior is eyeing any kind of mob these days, it's the one based on the West Coast, aka Hollywood. High-caliber star John Travolta will play the Dapper Don in the upcoming production based on Junior's self-published book  Shadow of My Father . Junior claims he wrote the manuscript in response to the release of another book, George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules , based on the life and prodigious crimes of former Gambino enforcer John Alite .

Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire... Thanks to NCS for interviewing me and linking to my book. I'm going to include first part here but you should visit the website for the full interview (if you're interested).... "Joining us in the hot seat today is the journalist and author Ed Scarpo who runs  Cosa Nostra News and also has a book available called Inside the Last Great Mafia Empire in which former Mafia Capo Dominick Cicale makes a contribution. "Ed also runs a Facebook page called Cosa Nostra News which is dedicated to covering the Mafia in America as well as the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, Calabrian Ndrangheta and Neapolitan Camorra."

Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano won his freedom... from Colorado's Supermax prison, that is. He's not moving far. His new digs are located within a high-security facility on the same compound as the Administrative Maximum Security or ADX, according to an exclusive New York Post report. "Better than the hellhole Supermax prison in Colorado... where ex-Bonanno crime boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano had been rotting since 2011 after he was convicted of racketeering and murder. Basciano, 55, was recently sprung from the most infamous jail in the nation to a high-security facility located on the same 31-acre compound in Florence, Colo., the Daily News has learned. The exact date of the transfer is unclear," the Post noted.

Whimsical story to go with this bizarre pic.... I have never ever seen this image before, of Joseph Goebbels looking like he's ready to do something comical for the photographer, something for which Hitler probably would've ordered his execution.... I was going to delete this story but revised and expanded it instead. This blog's Alexa ranking shot up to 136,000, 107,761 103,627 (it's  79,965  today, but has been hovering around 80k for a while) in the U.S.. The lower the number, the better the ranking. What the hell is Alexa ? Well, it offers insights into a website's popularity. You visit Alexa.com, paste an http address in the included search box -- and then view estimates of that site's ranking in both the site's native country and the world.

Excerpted from I Pity the Poor Immigrant: A Novel  by Zachary Lazar (Fiction; April 8, 2014). The Bomb magazine published this first proof. Lazar is the author of three books, most recently the novel Sway , about the Rolling Stones' early days, and the memoir Evening’s Empire: The Story of My Father’s Murder , which may be of interest to regular readers.  When he was just six years old, Zachary Lazar's father, Edward, was shot dead by hit men in a Phoenix, Arizona parking garage. The year was 1975, a time when, according to the Arizona Republic, "land-fraud artists roamed the state in sharp suits, gouging money from buyers and investors." How did his father fit into this world and how could his son ever truly understand the man, his time and place, and his motivations? In Evening's Empire, Zachary Lazar brilliantly attempts to reconstruct the sequence of events that led to his father's murder. Lazar's writing has appeared in t...

Bobby Lino, left, Russell Mauro, on right. Our source was inducted into Cosa Nostra's Bonanno Family in 1975, when the books were opened for the first time in a long time. He started out under Nicholas Marangello, aka "Little Nicky Glasses," underboss at the time, and became acting capo for Mickey Zaffarano. "In that regime was all the guys that no one wanted," he said. "Anthony Bruno Indelicato, Anthony Rabito, Tony Mirra, Sonny Black Napolitano, James Episcopia, Louis "Louie HaHa" Attanasio and Vinny Asaro. "That crew broke up when Lilo got hit. They took down all Lilo's guys."

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. Breitbart News reported that an investigation of the home exercise accident story told by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appears basically "to discredit his version of events surrounding a New Year’s Day incident that left him with gruesome injuries to his eye, face and ribs." On January 22, three weeks following the accident, Reid told his version of how he obtained his injuries to the assembled Washington DC press: "I know there are a lot of rumors as to what happened, but that’s very simple. My wife and I were in our new home. I was doing exercises that I’ve been doing for many years with those large rubber bands and, uh, one of them broke and spun me around and I crashed into these cabinets and injured my eye."

Jerry Capeci's GanglandNews  today reports that "25 inmates — including five mobsters and two Albanian hoods whose names Gang Land has obtained," engaged in a "bloody jailhouse brawl"during leisure time in the rec room of the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, on Saturday, March 14. Danbury, the article noted, is a low-security facility that houses 750 sentenced inmates. Alex Rudaj,of Albanian Mafia. Following the violent confrontation, everyone involved was "thrown into "the hole" after receiving stitches or treated for cuts, bloody noses and other non-life-threatening injuries." Prison officials and the FBI are investigating but declined to confirm or deny the fight, the website reported. Sources say the suspected mob pugilists included Colombo soldier Vito Guzzo, 50, Gambino mobsters Michael (Mikey Y) Yannotti, 51, Michael Roccaforte, 38, and Neil Lombardo, 59, and Bonanno wiseguy Robert Lino, 48. Their primary vict...

Click below link for videos John Junior Gotti says he never watched “The Sopranos,” and that the real truth of “the life" resides between “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas." He said this as a guest, along with Peter Lance, on Coast to Coast AM , which aired on March 10th. To access all segments of Junior's Michael Smerconish interview on CNN, during which he discussed the film adaptation of “Shadow of My Father ," see Peter Lance's website.

We don't believe the Sicilian Mafia controls any of the Five Families (or any American Mafia family, period) as  the author posits in the following story. H e never replied to our query for clarification. The Death of the Mafia? Harvard Political Review : In mid-1950s, the Italian-American criminal organization known as Cosa Nostra was enjoying the peak of its political influence and economic success. At the time, many questioned the organization’s presence.  J. Edgar Hoover completely denied its existence for years. And unfortunately for the criminals describing themselves as “businessmen,” their reign atop the criminal underworld was swiftly coming to a close. Why did the power of Cosa Nostra begin to decline? Is this decline indicative of the death of the mob? And what does today’s mob look like?

Mob Niece starting to cast new show called "Mob Wives." Who'd have thunk it'd be this easy? From Boston.com : Are you a woman with a personality that pops and a connection to Boston’s criminal underworld? Boston Mob Wives, a new reality show in production, could be your big break. The first casting call is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m. on Sunday, February 22 at the Four Points Sheraton in Revere. Henry “Nacho” Laun, Jenna DeRose, and Timothy Baker are looking to cast the new Boston-based reality show. Laun is a former member of Mark Wahlberg’s original real-life entourage. He has had bit parts in numerous Wahlberg films, including The Departed, The Fighter, Ted, and Ted 2. He plays himself on Wahlburgers.

George Anastasia writes a column for  JerseyMan Magazine  called appropriately enough  Mob Scene . Anthony Nicodemo could have an everlasting impact on the Cosa Nostra crews in Philadelphia. On Dec. 18, the Philadelphia crime journalist offered a kind of overview of key happenings using a sort of sports story format, only the game was the ongoing battle between the Philly mob and the feds.

Luigi Grasso,  Cousin of ‘Mob Wives’ Big Ang saves suicidal inmate - NY Daily News : He may be a “killer,” but he’s also a lifesaver.  Luigi Grasso, cousin of “Mob Wives” star Angela (Big Ang) Raiola, was lauded by a Manhattan judge for helping to save a suicidal inmate in a courthouse holding cell before Grasso’s appearance on a weapons rap, the Daily News has learned.  The distressed inmate, who was not identified by officials, had fashioned a noose from an oversized T-shirt and was hanging from the top bar in the pens of the Manhattan Criminal Court at 111 Centre St. on Oct. 7 when sources said the brawny jailbird jumped up to save him.

John Alite talks to Cosa Nostra News on the record. I am working on the story now. Some of what he told us is in the interview above. We will try not to duplicate too much of the information. I am trying to reach a couple of people for comment; I doubt I'll get very far.