Cosa Nostra News

FINAL Sicilian and American wiseguys were busted Wednesday as part of coordinated takedown efforts by Italian police and the FBI, which served 19 arrest warrants in Palermo and in the United States, specifically in Staten Island and Philadelphia. The operation, dubbed "New Connection," was an attempt to disrupt efforts by a Sicilian Mafia faction (specifically, Inzerillo family members in Sicily and their New York allies in the Gambino crime family) to take over the leadership of organized crime in Italy. The Inzerillo and Gambino crime families, which have historical ties, were in the process of rebuilding their powerbase in Sicily. Members of slain Gambino crime boss Frank Cali's family were arrested in the takedown Wednesday, as per officials in Anthony DeStefano's Newsday story . Also arrested were Thomas Gambino, 47, of Staten Island; Salvatore Gambino, the mayor of a village outside Palermo; and Tommaso and Francesco Inzerillo, relatives of Salvator...

" There’s nothing new under the sun .”  -- Ecclesiastes 1:9 Agent Harris and Tony sit down at Satriale's. The late-blooming alliance (dare we say friendship ?) between FBI Special Agent Dwight Harris and New Jersey gangster Tony Soprano was one of our favorite parts of The Sopranos. In that now-extinct parallel world, Harris (Matt Servitto) was a member of the FBI's Newark Organized Crime Division Task Force who probed DiMeo crime family boss Tony Soprano. A minor character in the first five seasons, Harris played a pivotal role in the final season as, wonder of wonders, a full ally to Tony in his half-ass war with New York boss Phil Leotardo. What were they fighting over, even? Our favorite character, Paulie Gaultieri, once cautioned, "there's not a bigger c--ks--ker than Phil Leotardo," which was enough of an explanation for us.  Those wanting to rehash the details can  check out  The Chase Lounge , where folks left weighty discussions of su...

"All the police cars had to do was patrol the roads. They had to come out sooner or later. You see a guy in a silk suit and a white fedora, you say, ‘He doesn't belong in the woods!’"  --  Trooper Vincent R. Vasisko, New York State Police, 1957 The luxury cars were a tipoff...  “A meeting of George Rafts." At the hilltop estate at noon on a humid, cloudy November day, dozens of men wearing lush camel hair coats over silk suits and white-on-white shirts stood in gleaming shoes around a barbecue where huge cuts of meat roasted on a roaring flame, and they renewed old acquaintances.  The seemingly convivial atmosphere prevented them from noticing the car with the two police officers and two U.S. Treasury agents as it rolled up the dirt road and then toward the open compound.... Apalachin is  finally coming to the big screen.... David Arquette is playing the role of State Police Bureau sergeant Edgar Croswell in the indie flick  Apalachin , ...

Chicago's new FBI chief issued a wake-up call to the Chicago Outfit during an interview with an ABC affiliate this week. He vowed that the Chicago FBI office will "refocus on organized crime." "The Chicago Outfit? We haven't forgotten about you," Chicago Special-Agent-in-Charge Jeffrey Sallet, pictured, told ABC. Sallet was previously stationed in New Orleans, New York, and Boston; he is considered an expert in mob investigations. He began his career in New York, where his work included the investigation of the Bonanno crime family as part of the 2011 Mafia Takedown effort coordinated by the FBI in which more than 100 mobsters were nabbed. He also worked on the capture of Boston's notorious crime boss and long-time fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger, also in 2011. "Mob guys or Outfit guys—whatever you want to call them—are resilient," Sallet said in an earlier report. "Where there is an opportunity to make money, t...

Looking for a good mob-related read? You might want to check out To Be a King , a novel "based on a Detroit organized crime family," as the author, Alan Gunner Lindbloom, said of it. Lindbloom certainly writes with authority, having been an associate of the Detroit Mafia; specifically, the  Tocco crime family . He's actually a member of the Tocco family via his mother. Lindbloom could kick some serious ass, but he's one of the nicest guys I have ever spoken with. Lindbloom was released from prison last year after serving a 13-year stint for extortion, bank robbery, armed robbery, and several weapons violations. He certainly hit the ground running since then, writing, giving interviews, appearing on television. He even launched " Our Thing"  (Cosa Nostra in Italian) apparel.... Lindbloom has been setting the mob-related blogosphere on fire, with major stories running on many key Mafia-related news sites, including The Gangster Report , G...

REVISED A decade ago, an impetuous real estate mogul was compelled to answer a series of questions under oath, a result of his own legal maneuverings. He had filed a libel lawsuit against a writer for authoring a biography of the mogul. And the wealthy developer who's been part of Manhattan's landscape longer than I have been alive is of course today's President of the United States. The book he filed the lawsuit over was  TrumpNation . Trump lost the case in 2011 -- free speech and all makes winning frivolous libel suits rather cumbersome -- but the deposition remains -- a relic of a dead legal case. Contained within it is an acknowledgment that, in more than 30 instances, Tump lied  extensively and proficiently on a range of issues.

"I'm not afraid of anyone. Only God."    --Israeli crime boss Ze'ev Rosenstein yesterday. Amid heavy security, the bosses of two of the most powerful crime families in Israel met in Tel Aviv District Court yesterday in what was slated to be witness testimony. Rosenstein Incarcerated Israeli crime boss Ze'ev Rosenstein, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence for ecstasy distribution, was there to testify against Yitzhak Abergil, who allegedly attempted to murder Rosenstein "multiple times." Abergil is on trial for murder and global drug smuggling. Rosenstein took the stand Sunday morning and, in what's been termed a stunning twist, he abruptly refused to answer the prosecutor.

A Mafia informant who "flipped" against the FBI and tried to sue them got the judge's thumb's down this week. Ex-Bonanno crime family soldier Joseph Barone Jr., who previously exposed a Mafia plot to murder a Brooklyn federal court judge, has been alleging that the FBI deliberately leaked his informant status and arrested him as "punishment." Joseph Barone. This past Monday, Judge Andrew J. Peck ruled that allegations in a lawsuit filed by Barone Jr., who informed on his criminal cohorts for 18 years, were unfounded.

Fernandez, who was high while arrested,was placed in a hospital. UPDATED FBI agents yesterday arrested the alleged killer of a famous Brooklyn pizzeria's co-owner. The suspect, Andres Fernandez, shot Louis Barbati, 61, five times on June 30. Barbati was an owner of L&B Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn's Gravesend. Fernandez, 41, appeared in Brooklyn federal court to face murder, robbery and weapons charges. He didn't offer a plea. His lawyer didn't comment.

In a previous story, we incorrectly noted that Victoria Gotti's ex-husband,  Carmine Agnello, was is in jail pending a racketeering case . That's not the case, as a Gotti spokesperson icily remarked in a Facebook message. Agnello is out on a $100,000 personal bond, which a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge set. Agnello also was to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet. Agnello is charged with running a $3 million scrap metal scam out of his Cleveland auto body and salvage yard. One report raised the question of whether Agnello was following a common practice in the scrap recycling business. In the story, Cleveland 19 noted that it had submitted to Cuyahoga County video of what may be evidence of another scrap yard doing something similar to what Agnello is accused of doing.

This was published on Aug. 18 by the New Yorker magazine under its  Daily Shouts  rubric with the headline: FBI Report on Mafia Decline Caused by Group Text and E-mail Chains : INTERNAL/CLASSIFIED A fter extensive investigation, our specialized team, the F.B.I. New-Media Task Force, has determined that organized-crime syndicates are being increasingly hampered by an inability to communicate effectively through text messages and e-mails. Agents have found that the Mafia and other large criminal groups are having difficulty planning crimes as a result of overly long strings of messages that are derailed by unrelated jokes and gifs. Our investigators are pleased to report that this pattern has led to a decrease in crime and an increase in criminal organizations’ cellular overage charges. The bulk of this investigation involved the interception and analysis of Mafia members’ text messages. It was observed that poor texting habits led to many issues. For instanc...

NYPD reorganized under a "unified investigations model." First it was the FBI -- and now it seems it's the NYPD that is reducing its focus on organized crime As recently reported , the NYPD unit responsible for investigating the Mafia, the Organized Crime Control Bureau, has been officially gone since March 1.  It disappeared as part of the department’s reorganization, officials told the New York Post. In its place, the NYPD has implemented "a unified investigations model,” the NYPD's Chief of Department, James O’Neill, said in remarks during a briefing at NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza in lower Manhattan.