Cosa Nostra News

" Freddy was extremely mild mannered. Every morning (we) would pick up the three of them for trial (Freddy and Ty Geas, and Arthur Nigro).... I always patted down and shackled Freddy. He always walked out of the cell first, followed by Ty, and Nigro lagging behind last. They walked out in the same order every day for four months. That stuck in my mind because I knew Nigro was a “boss” but to me, Freddy seemed to take on that role ." That was one of the things we learned during a recent chat with a former deputy marshal who spent considerable time on the job getting to know numerous members and associates of organized crime in New York, including former Genovese family acting boss Arthur Nigro and brothers Ty and Freddy Geas, both former members of the Genovese family's Springfield Crew.  Fotios, left, and brother Ty, who got life sentences for the slaying of mob boss Big Al Bruno. Freddy Geas also is the number one suspect in the brutal murder of James (Whitey) Bulger , ...

Former Philadelphia mob boss Ralph Natale is writing his memoir, the Hollywood Reporter revealed. Lost Lives and Forgotten Vows, which Thomas Dunne Books is slated to publish, is due to hit bookstores in the fall of 2016. Natale will work on his tome with producer Dan Pearson (of "I Married a Mobster") and New York Daily News reporter Larry McShane, Former Philly boss who flipped inked deal to write book. Natale "becomes only the second Mafia Godfather to tell his own life story, following New York’s Joe Bonanno," THR reported.

Phil Leonetti is one of our favorite former gangsters.  His inherent talent for being unintentionally hilarious we deem as legendary. And despite all the years he's spent out of his former life, he still doesn't seem to appreciate the magnitude of some crimes. Like murder. Phil Leonetti Did you see the interview where the newscaster asked him if he, Phil, thought it odd that he had married the widow of a man he himself had murdered?

Crime families opportunistically form and break alliances. Shortly before the third shooting war began, Colombo leaders including Carmine Sessa met at the Persico family estate in Saugerties, New York, to plot the murder of Vittorio "Little Vic" Orena. Chin Gigante When the other crime families learned of the pending war, leaders of the Luchese, Genovese and Gambino families tried to resolve the problem before the shooting began by meeting with Colombo leaders. (Notice one family is missing?) Alfonso "Little Al" D'Arco, former acting boss of the Luchese family, discussed this series of meetings meant to stop the third Colombo war at Orena's trial. The talks only postponed the shooting, which formally broke out in late 1991. D'Arco said the four-family meetings had been held in apartments and hotel rooms around New York City.

Vincenzo Reda of Franklin Square. Authorities busted an online enterprise that used an offshore website for sports betting, the Rockland County District Attorney said this past Thursday. Eight were arrested on charges of gambling and loansharking in a probe named " Operation Rock Bottom ." The arrests follow a search-and-seizure operation in April, when law enforcement hit a dozen properties, seizing gambling records and more than $750,000 in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida.

The following is based on Gambino crime family boss  Carlo Gambino 's FBI files. The Apalachin Meeting marked a major turning point in FBI history. America’s premiere law enforcement agency could no longer bury its head in the sand about organized crime. With the raid in upstate New York, it was clear that a national crime syndicate operated inside the United States. Carlo Gambino, around the time of his coup into power. J. Edgar Hoover realized that the Mafia not only existed but posed a national security threat of inconceivable proportions. This was due largely to its ability to corrupt America’s duly elected officials. Immediately, the FBI sought to gain intelligence on who exactly made up this criminal entity. Luckily, they had state and city crime files to examine. Additionally, the FBN, the now-defunct Federal Bureau of Narcotics, had been investigating the Mafia for decades. The Feds coopted the FBN’s files as well. A top target was Carlo Gambino, bo...

Stephen Newell  was a low-level mob associate. He was born and bred in  Bushwick , Brooklyn. From the age of 10 he lived in Queens and much later moved to Staten Island. His uncle, Saverio "Sammy" Galosso, was a member of the  Genovese crime family  under  Vincent "The Chin" Gigante . He died in 1986. Stevie Newell Stevie, earlier in his life, worked under John Gotti's son-in-law, Carmine Agnello, after Carmine became a member of the Gambino crime family. (Carmine is living somewhere in Ohio today, we've heard.) Agnello was married to Victoria Gotti at the time. Newell does not fit the cliched definition of the opportunistic street guy as is usually portrayed in movies, books and newspapers. He was arrested, held without bail and formally charged with the murder of Bruce Gotterup, who himself had been convicted by the mob of not using common sense and repeatedly disrupting the business of a Mafia-connected bar in Queens. In 1991, Gotteru...

COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE Alleged Genovese crime family acting capo Victor Colletti was indicted in 2005 for running a massive Queens-based gambling operation . He was poised to serve his first stretch behind prison bars at the age of 74. He won on appeal, however, and never served a day. Victor Colletti The state had gone after Colletti, filing a 24-count enterprise corruption indictment in the Supreme Court in Queens County . They missed. Now the Feds are sizing him up for a prison cell.

What is this.... Nothing really, just a weird-looking picture that doesn't give away anything about the story I've been working on for the past eight hours. UPDATE: Well, we didn't make our self-imposed deadline; we need to formally contact someone. We doubt they'll comment, but we need to provide them with an opportunity.  We've been working on this one for two days and hope to post today.  We promise this breaking news exclusive includes a lot of new historical information about the organization of one of the five crime families in New York.

In January 2010 a flurry of news reports wrote about a fire in the Middletown restaurant Enzo's. One of them read:  Faulty Fry-O-Later sparks restaurant fire : "A single-alarm fire started by a faulty Fry-O-Lator inflicted an estimated $250,000 worth of damages at Enzo's Restaurant & Lounge early Sunday morning. One person was injured in the blaze, fire officials said." The "one person" we now know was the co-owner of the restaurant; he was drunk and somehow got locked inside the place after the other owner started the fire at midnight, according to prosecutors. Earlier in the day, he'd sprayed cooking oil around the kitchen's deep fryer. A professional arsonist had advised the two men earlier that that was the best way to set Enzo's ablaze without getting caught. The arsonist was wrong, as it turns out.

Alleged Gambino associate Scott Fappiano. Todt Hill mobster  Scott Fappiano, 53, who spent 21 years behind bars until DNA evidence cleared him, lost his "malicious prosecution" case this past week. On Wednesday, Jan. 7, a Brooklyn judge issued a summary ruling against him. See Scott Fappiano decision --  click here for PDF .

DOMINICK CICALE, A FORMER CAPO IN THE BONANNO CRIME FAMILY, ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS  Dominick Cicale In 1999, Bronx-based Dominick Cicale finished his second years-long bit and hooked up with Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano, then an up-and-coming member of the Bronx faction of the Bonanno crime family. Initially he'd been closely affiliated with "Big Ernie" in the Genovese family.

The week before Christmas 2014, three North New Jersey-based Genovese crime family mobsters pleaded guilty to waterfront racketeering in a case going on for years -- since January 2011's Mafia Takedown Day . The guy who owned the “Godfather’s Garden.” But the Genovese family's control of the New Jersey waterfront goes back decades and includes many storied mobsters of the past who killed and were killed for control of the lucrative waterfront rackets of the Garden State. The Genovese family even ran its own hit squad, which focused on murdering FBI informants, among others. The bloodless indictment by comparison likely will end with three men serving three-year prison sentences. The key count in the indictment is conspiracy to extort members of the International Longshoremen’s Association for Christmastime tribute payments, according to New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman and Eastern District of New York U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch . Genovese s...

Some of you may have already heard or read this story. I assume many of you have not... From the MailOnline, which published this in April 2011 : It is a Mafia murder mystery that has remained unsolved for years. But investigators finally believe they might have got to the bottom of what happened to family mobster Nicholas Cirillo, who vanished seven years ago and has not been seen since - his death may have been ordered by his own father. Genovese gangster Nicholas disappeared on Mothers' Day 2004, two weeks after an altercation in the Bronx with fellow mob man Vincent Jr. Basciano and Dominick Cicale, part of the infamous Bonanno family.

"Kayo was an animal on a leash for [Bonanno capo Joe]  Zicarelli and others.  All they had to do was unsnap the leash and he'd kill for the fun of it."  -- Federal agent "Kayo" Konigsberg struggles with detectives. An 89-year-old mob hitman  who was probably responsible for the murder of Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo, a high ranking Genovese crime family capo, died in late November, about two years after finishing a 50-year prison sentence. Harold "Kayo" Konigsberg died five days after his 89th birthday and was buried in Florida, where he'd been living in a nursing home and terrorizing his fellow residents.

Genovese capo Daniel Pagano, last August. The Rockland DA's Office took down an alleged Mafia-linked sports-betting ring today, with more than a dozen arrests this morning. Fourteen suspects are charged with multiple felony counts following a 16-month probe into a multimillion-dollar monthly sports-betting ring that allegedly operated in Rockland, New York City, Bergen County in New Jersey, and Florida, according to law enforcement officials. All those arrested were arraigned and released without bail today. The ring took bets on professional football, basketball, baseball and college sports, Rockland District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said.

Capo Charles Tuzzo We republished a story about the Genovese crime family from a year ago--and on the same goddamn day the Feds busted a crew headed by one of three key capos mentioned in the re-post. The Genovese crime family, the most powerful Mafia group in America saw a major bust earlier this week that centered on an 80-year-old capo and his New Jersey-based crew, which earned more than $12 million from various rackets, including loansharking, unlicensed check cashing, gambling and a money laundering operation that included drug trafficking proceeds. A large portion of the revenue had been funneled to the New York-based bosses of the crime family, none of whom are part of this indictment . New Jersey law enforcement authorities and the Waterfront Commission named longtime family caporegime Charles "Chuckie" Tuzzo, a resident of Bayside, Queens, as the boss of a 10-member crew that included one soldier who lived near Newark and oversaw the crew's operation...

We occasionally run quotes and little anecdotes in the sidebar, but decided to move these items here and call them "Wiseguy Wisdom," as part of an ongoing series.  We did away with the "Wiseguy Wisdom" part... And apropos of nothing: Why is it that encyclopedias are acceptable sources of information (yes, I know the Encyclopedia is now called "Google" but I am old enough to have a bookcase full of them) in nearly every field except when it comes to Mafia research? Fat Tony “They are really much better for you, Mr. Salerno. Better than all that chocolate," an FBI agent told Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno during the Commission Trial, offering the elderly gangster a nutritious granola bar. “Who the fuck cares. I’m gonna die in the fucking can anyway,” Salerno replied. He did, on July 27, 1992. Salerno had a hell of a run. During the 1980s , he ostensibly became boss of the Genovese family. He had reached the pinnacle of his power-...

Vinny Limo REVISED, MORE DETAILS:  Talk of the Sound reported that Vincent "Vinny Limo" Zarcone, 47, a former social club manager (what??), was arrested by New Rochelle Police on August 28, 2014. He was charged with a misdemeanor: criminal mischief . Some may recall Zarcone from a couple of earlier incidents -- one of which was the 2009 meat clever attack in which Vinny Limo's right hand was hacked off by Christopher Calise, assisted by Maurice Mann, who held Vinny Limo. The vicious attack was believed at the time to be possibly connected to the remnants of a Westchester/Bronx Genovese family-run gambling ring busted up years earlier. The victim, Vinny Limo, had been arrested for his involvement in the operation. In fact, it was reported at the time that the FBI's Organized Crime Task Force was looking into the club in which Zarcone worked. The cleaning lady insisted that he was a "good fellow," telling CBS2, "He works downstairs, the com...

Mike Russell claims credit for bringing down the Chin. By Dan Goldberg | The Star-Ledger As an undercover New Jersey state trooper, Mike Russell says he infiltrated the mob and brought down dozens of wiseguys, all after taking a .32-caliber bullet to the head. It is quite the tale told in “Undercover Cop: How I Brought Down the Real-Life Sopranos,” which was released Aug. 6. Publisher’s Weekly gave it a glowing review, writing, “This tell-all page-turner is all the better for being true.” Except it’s not entirely true. Some important facts are at best stretched, at worst fabricated.