Cosa Nostra News

Sal Avellino ran the Luchese family's  interests in carting on Long Island. He ordered a shameful double killing. Organized labor is no longer the cash cow it once was for organized crime.  That was the apparent thrust of a recent  WSJ.com report that noted the mob's infiltration of unions in the U.S. started to steadily weaken in the 1980s when then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani took aggressive measures, putting away many of the mob's legendary bosses, creating opportunities for a whole new generation of wiseguys to move up. As history shows, many weren't up to the task. But considering law  enforcement's evolution in terms of investigating organized crime, it may not have mattered who was in charge. The WSJ article offered two reasons for the cause of the Mafia's decline on the union front: the 1986 Commission Case, during which defendants were charged with membership in the  Concrete Club, followed in 1990 by the...

Frank "Punchy" Illiano, above, a Brooklyn capo with the Genovese crime family, died Monday, January 6, at age 86 of natural causes in New York. Cosa Nostra News learned this directly from a personal friend of the elderly gangster, who noted that Punchy was "very well-respected." We have since learned that Illiano had been ill for the past two years of his life, and had been suffering nerve damage ever since he had been shot by a sniper in 1974 during the second of the two Gallo wars.

Genovese associate Carmine 'Papa Smurf' Franco at yesterday's predawn arrests. And people keep insisting that the American Cosa Nostra is dead... Fort Lee, NJ Patch : A reputed Ramsey mobster known as "Papa Smurf" was charged Wednesday in a widespread federal sweep targeting a mob-run conspiracy to control the trash-hauling industry in New York and New Jersey. [ FBI press release on the bust] Borough resident Carmine Franco, a 77-year-old Genovese Crime Family associate who had two prior convictions in connection with organized crime in the trash removal industry, was allegedly the ring leader of a scheme to control crooked waste management companies, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Franco and a brother formerly owned the Sal Car transfer station in Hillsdale, which they later sold to Waste Management. Also arrested Wednesday was Teaneck resident Jonathan Greene, 47, who faces a charge of interstate transportation of stolen property in t...

2015 American Mafia Crime Family Hierarchy Charts  These charts depict ruling hierarchies and in some instances are outdated. Still, they are a handy guideline for those interested in the American Mafia for whatever reason. Thanks to sehzade_mukremin of Gangster BB. His contact info: sehzade_mukremin@hotmail.com Resolution not the greatest .....still a strong handshake to the man who made them....

In Manhattan federal court, former Genovese crime family acting boss Arthur Nigro and two associates were sentenced to life in prison. They were found guilty of a range of crimes, including two murders, back in April. Nigro and Fotios and Ty Geas, brothers, were found guilty of the 2003 murder of former Genovese boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, who ran the family's Springfield crew.

And you thought getting up this morning for work was tough...just imagine if your alarm clock was beaten by a few hours by the pounding fists of cops and FBI agents ready to pounce on you and drag you out of your life and into jail? In a pre-dawn sweep this morning, more than 100 mobsters and associates were rounded up -- crusty eyed, probably wearing their PJs and itching for a caffeine fix, though the adrenaline rush from all the flashing badges and guns may have sufficed. All they got were a pair of bracelets and a shove into a backseat. (Boy, those mob lawyers must have been pirouetting through their plush offices in utter glee.) Charged with such crimes as murder, racketeering and extortion, based on 16 unrelated indictments handed up in federal courts in four jurisdictions, the targets included small-time bookmakers, associates and six "reputed" senior mob figures from three crime families, including the entire leadership of the Colombo crime family. But also ta...