Cosa Nostra News

In November 2013, a low-profile Luchese associate was murdered in the Bronx -- and many stories in the media blitz that followed referenced the Purple Gang, an obscure 1970s street gang with reputed Mafia links. Police probe Meldish shooting in the Bronx in 2013. The  Purple Gang roamed the South Bronx and Harlem where members were involved in the large‐scale distribution of heroin. They also whacked people -- and in many cases, dismembered their victims, of which there reportedly were 17 by December 1977. (Many of the 17 had been active informants for law enforcement when slain.) Purple Gang members essentially cut their teeth as glorified coffee boys in decade-long apprenticeships.  They stepped up their game when the competition was wiped out -- meaning, they filled a huge niche after law enforcement cleared away many local narcotics trafficking rings, including the one known as the French Connection. The Purple Gang  entered the contract killing busines...

UPDATED Vincent D’Onofrio has signed on to play—hold onto your hats, folks—Vincent (The Chin) Gigante in a forthcoming series called the Godfather of Harlem, slated to run on Epix, the premium cable network, it was exclusively reported this week. Vincent Chin Gigante when he wasn't feigning insanity. We always wanted Chazz Palminteri for the role of Chin. Godfather of Harlem purports to tell the true story of drug lord Bumpy Johnson (played by Forest Whitaker), who in the early 1960s returned from prison to find his old neighborhood fiefdom under the thumb of the Italian Mafia, specifically, the Genovese crime family whom Bumpy takes on to regain control.He allies himself with radical preacher Malcolm X, “catching his political rise in the cross-hairs of social upheaval and a mob war that threatens to tear the city apart.” The show's larger theme is the juxtaposition of the underworld against the civil rights movement during one of the most tumultuous times in A...

Powerful Luchese mobster Matthew "Matty" Madonna, 80, ordered the 2013 Michael Meldish murder, one of the only "sanctioned" mob hits in recent years (that we know of). For Madonna, drawing law enforcement's scrutiny is among the numerous occupational hazards of wiseguy life. He certainly knows that. Madonna's mob ties run back to 1970s Harlem. While New York's Purple Gang was murdering and dismembering anyone that got in its way, Madonna was Nicky Barnes' drug courier. A low-level gangster charged with making a dangerous drive to Harlem with a mega-load of dope stuffed in the rocker panel (or wherever, anyone see French Connection?) Matty Madonna's roots go back to 1970s Harlem-based drug kingpin  Nicky Barnes. The alleged murderers of Meldish have been arrested. Madonna copped to 2010's Operation Heat case involving a gambling ring and prison-smuggling operation, then to another case, and is slated to serve five years . M...