Cosa Nostra News

Kirkus  describes  it as "a  straightforward update to the notorious 1978 Lufthansa Airlines heist. Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Anthony DeStefano understands the difficulty of opening new aspects of a crime immortalized in journalism, memoirs, and the film Goodfellas. James Burke, aka Jimmy the Gent. “Of all the Mafia heists, rip-offs, scores, and plunders, none has been more iconic a part of American popular culture than the brazen [Lufthansa] robbery.” Vincent Asaro, who now faces 20 years in prison on charges related to arson, was charged with (and acquitted of) co-masterminding the infamous $6 million Lufthansa heist with James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke; Asaro also was charged with (and acquitted of) murdering Paul Katz, a suspected mob snitch strangled to death with a dog leash.

It's one of gangland's most high-profile, enigmatic hits -- and the identity of the killer has been debated for decades. Joe Pesci immortalized a vicious killer in Goodfellas. Thomas "Tommy Two-Guns" DeSimone killed a made member of  the Mafia  -- and for that, among other things, he was killed in what's been described as a classic setup. The truth is, we know very little about this murder, including who pulled the trigger. (Or fired up the chainsaw, depending on who you believe). DeSimone disappeared, meaning there's zero evidence as to how he was killed; in fact, it can't be said with absolute certainty that he was killed. Still, he was killed . Guys like him don't just disappear into thin air.  They'd never leave New York because everything they want -- a certain lifestyle, basically -- is in New York and cannot be duplicated anywhere else.  At the same time, there's no shortage of answers as to who and the why. Answers sell books an...

This guy is 57 years old and still afraid of an 80 year old man. what a pu** A nearly unrecognizable Vinny Asaro walks home triumphantly with his daughters lawyers..... I first heard the term "jury nullification" Monday morning in conversation with a federal prosecution source regarding the Vinny Asaro verdict. I'd actually known what it meant, I just didn't know there was a term for it. Asaro departed Eastern District Federal Court in Brooklyn on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015, after being found not guilty of masterminding the infamous $6 million Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport in 1978. The anonymous jury of six men and six women also found Asaro, 80, not guilty in the killing of mob associate Paul Katz in the 1960s as well as various extortion, robbery and gambling charges. His attorneys, Elizabeth Macedonio and Diane Ferrone walked with Asaro who no doubt was thinking about home-cooked food, the comforts of home.

Peter "Bud" Zuccaro Bud Zuccaro must've had a heart attack that day when he heard pounding on his front door and opened it up, only to see Jimmy the Gent standing there, along with Tommy Two-Guns and others. They were fuming over something, but Bud probably had no idea over what or why. He was probably more concerned with impending death staring him in the eye. James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke killed enough people to fill a cemetery under a boccie court (according to Henry Hill, who was probably exaggerating somewhat.). 

Model of Lufthansa cargo terminal at JFK in 1978, exhibited in court.  A former Lufthansa Airlines worker described what happened on that night in 1978, when masked gunmen infiltrated the Lufthansa cargo area at JFK, committing what was then called the largest robbery in American history.  The witness took the stand today in Bonanno member Vincent Asaro's trial in Brooklyn Federal Court. The charges Asaro faces include co-masterminding the infamous $6 million Lufthansa heist with James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke. Asaro also is charged with the murder of Paul Katz, a suspected mob snitch strangled with a dog leash.  Early in the a.m. in 1978, Rolf Rebmann was among the staffers grinding out the hours at the Kennedy Airport terminal targeted by mobsters using inside information, including blueprints.

Vinny Asaro, last man standing, on trial risking a life sentence at 80. Vincent Asaro sat in a car with James Burke, about a mile away from the Lufthansa cargo terminal on a December night in 1978, when eight mobbed-up gunmen were stealing a haul expected to be around $2 million, only to discover -- first to their joy, then to their horror -- that the crime had netted them three times that amount. This story has been told before of course, initially in the iconic book  Wiseguy , followed by an equally iconic cinematic adaptation, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas , not to mention the library of articles and additional books about the vaunted robbery. Once the largest heist in American history, it has been eclipsed. The 1990 Boston Museum robbery , valued at $300 million, currently is considered the largest. Still, there remains information about the Lufthansa Heist  that only now is being revealed. That is if you believe Gaspare Valenti who claims he flipped in 200...

Vincent Asaro at Brooklyn Federal Court in 1966. In a Brooklyn courtroom this week commenced the trial of an 80-year-old Bonanno family gangster, Vincent Asaro, who allegedly was involved in the notorious 1978 Lufthansa Heist . Not only was he supposedly the Bonanno family's overseer at JFK airport, the prosecution charged, noting that Asaro himself played a direct role in the heist. Ex-underboss Salvatore Vitale testified yesterday, providing a window into events surrounding the notorious robbery at JFK airport. Asaro supposedly was heard muttering "motherfucker" constantly under his breath during testimony, trying all the while to stare Vitale in the eye. Asaro personally handed off a case stuffed with jewelry from the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist to future Bonanno boss Joseph Massino , Vitale said Monday at the first ever mob-related trial over the historic "unsolved" crime. Massino himself also is slated to testify, among others.

Ebook is now available on Amazon. Where is the $6 million that was stolen during the infamous Lufthansa Airlines heist? Make sure you sign up for our CosaNostraNewsletter; I'm sending an exclusive excerpt from The Mystery of the Lufthansa Heist today!! See sign-in form at the end of this story... For 37 years, the FBI has been unable to find the cash and jewels taken from the Lufthansa cargo vault at JFK airport. Now, for the first time, a Mafia insider reveals what happened to the loot. In this short-format e-book , Dominick Cicale , a former high-ranking member of the Bonanno crime family, discloses never-before-told details about the Lufthansa robbery, which was immortalized in the movie "Goodfellas." The Mystery of the Lufthansa Airlines Heist:: A Wiseguy Reveals the Untold Story  is available now for $3.99.

De Niro as Burke, left, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill. No Vinny Asaro character was in Goodfellas, though he certainly was mentioned in the book. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.... Prosecutors blasted reputed Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro , 79, with new charges based on a superseding indictment, as reported last week . The charges have not been revealed yet because evidence recorded on tape needs to be digitized, prosecutors said. Described as looking gaunt, Asaro seemed to be suffering from involuntary shivering at the proceeding last week in which his lawyer attempted to push back the date of Asaro's racketeering trial slated for July in Brooklyn Federal Court..

TheCrimeBeat.com : On Dec. 11, 1978, a crew led by mob associate Jimmy Burke pulled off a daring stunning heist at JFK Airport that netted $5 million in cash and $1 million in precious stones. The case, which was immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s movie “Goodfellas,” has puzzled authorities for 36 years. Only one robber was ever convicted for the crime and the whereabouts of the loot has remained a secret…until now.

Jimmy the Gent chose killing over sharing  the bulk of the Lufthansa heist proceeds. TheCrimeBeat.com  has an interesting story posted regarding what happened to most of the cash and and jewels taken from the infamous Lufthansa heist masterminded by James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke . This Dominick Cicale guy was a capo in the Bonanno family and apparently he gave a big scoop to my friend Rob. Check it out: "The Jan. 23 arrest of Bonanno crime family member Vincent Asaro  in connection with the Lufthansa Airlines robbery has sparked renewed interest in the daring heist, which was dramatized in the Martin Scorsese movie “Goodfellas.” "The unsolved caper, which occurred at New York’s JFK airport, netted $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewelry. At the time, it was the biggest cash robbery in U.S. history. In today’s dollars, the take would be worth about $21 million.

Tommy D, Bonanno acting boss. Prosecutors are asking the judge for an anonymous and partially sequestered jury for the trial involving reputed Bonanno acting boss Tommy "Tommy D" DiFiore , capo Vincent Asaro and other crime family members. This is revealed in a court filing made last month by Loretta E. Lynch, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Specifically, the prosecutors requested that jurors' names, addresses and employment information not be revealed to the defendants or their attorneys. Also, it was requested that each juror be escorted by U.S. Marshals to and from court each day, and "at all times during recess."

With the Mafia Maps app, you can visit many of the mob's most famous haunts in New York City. For .99 cents, it's a hell of a deal... You can find the exact place this wiseguy got the hard goodbye. Among the sites Mafia Maps will help you find: the place where Don Umberto (Albert Anastasia) was brutally slain -- the hit forever linked the Mafia and barbershops, as well as the steakhouse in front of which Gambino boss "Big Paul" Castellano was gunned down, along with his driver and underboss, Tommy Bilotti. They were killed in front of Sparks and died in the street, Big Paul splayed out on the sidewalk, eyes wide open in death. Bilotti was supine, in the street on top of a huge puddle of his own blood.

The Bonanno capo of JFK airport during heist: Vincent Asaro in an undated mugshot. “We never got our right money, what we were supposed to get, we got fucked all around. Got fucked around. That ­fucking Jimmy [Burke] kept everything.” --Vincent Asaro, as recorded by cooperator Yesterday's Bonanno bust was not solely related to the infamous Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy Airport in 1978. However, the legendary "unsolved" caper that informed a pivotal moment in the Martin Scorsese film " Goodfellas " has been the media's primary focus, to the extent that the fact that the crime family's acting boss,  Thomas “Tommy D” DiFiore , was also caught in the net has been largely overlooked. Only mobster Vincent Asaro , 72, who has fallen in and out of favor with the Bonanno hierarchy over the years, primarily due to greed, is linked to Lufthansa. Heretofore, only a Lufthansa cargo agent, described as the “inside man” in the robbery...

Vincent Asaro was arrested this morning; he was allegedly the capo who ran JFK for the Bonanno family back in 1978. Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro was arrested for murder, racketeering, extortion, arson, robbery and other charges--some of which are linked to the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He was one of five alleged members of the crime family rounded up by Federal agents in a series of pre-dawn raids this morning in the New York area. Also arrested were Bonanno acting boss/underboss Thomas “Tommy D” DiFiore of Commack, the highest-ranking Bonanno family member not behind bars; soldier John “Bazoo” Ragano; soldier and acting captain Jack Bonventre; and Asaro's son, Jerome. See the indictment here , courtesy of CBS News. Only Vincent Asaro was charged in the Dec. 11, 1978 JFK robbery itself; both Asaros face life in prison for the murder of a suspected police informant. High-profile informant Henry Hill long ag...

James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke (July 5, 1931 – April 13, 1996), an Irish-American gangster with ties to the Lucchese family through his association with Lucchese capo Paul Vario, is probably better known as “Jimmy Conway.” That was the fictional name he was given in Martin Scorcese’s cinematic masterpiece Goodfellas, in which award-winning thespian Robert DeNiro took on the role of Burke.  Rumor has it, Burke was so pleased that DeNiro was playing him that he phoned the actor from prison to give him a few pointers. Author and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi has denied this, although the scribe did admit that men who had known all of the key mobsters portrayed in the film spent time on the set.  Jimmy Burke gets taken away. Burke needed much help on the publicity front. Burke was an interesting, colorful personality, a master criminal of a bygone age, when cops and businessmen could easily be bought off. Burke was also a sociopath, and probably a psychopath, who pulled...