Cosa Nostra News

"You don’t know how mean this guy is, Donnie. Lilo is a mean son of a bitch. A tyrant. ... Lot of people hate him. They feel he’s only out for himself. He’s the only one making any money. There’s only a few people that he’s close to. And mainly that’s the Zips... There’s a lot of people out there who would like to see him get whacked." —Benjamin (Lefty Two-Guns) Ruggiero to undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco Carmine Galante Read Part One: Carmine Galante, Godfather Of Heroin Trafficking The Montreal pipeline pumped vast quantities of heroin into the US for years, but was only one of New York City’s countless sources of narcotics. Not even Carmine Galante relied solely on the Montreal crew. About a year after the notorious Apalachin summit in 1957 (Galante attended but successfully evaded law enforcement by concealing himself somewhere on Joe Barbara’s estate), he was nailed. The indictment alleged a narcotics conspiracy that involved the smuggling of 160 kilo...

You know what today is, right? One of the only Thursdays you won't find a new Gang Land News column because J.C. takes Thanksgiving off....  Montagna beside the Assomption River after shooting.   Well,  Gang Land more than earned a Thursday off when it reported last week  that Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso⸺the former Luchese crime family underboss serving the life sentence slapped on him in 1998 for 14 of the more than 30 murders he admitted to⸺had his attorneys file a longshot motion seeking a compassionate release from prison. Casso, 78, whom we recently profiled , is seeking to use the First Step Act of 2018, which allows certain elderly and sick inmates serving life sentences to win release for "extraordinary and compelling reasons." Casso's lawyers asked Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block to reduce Casso's prison term to "time served" and allow him to spend what life he has left "under home confinement." So far, Block ignored a request to...

We post here the first part of a story, which we dedicate to a great man who we can't name but will refer to as a personal benefactor (because he is)....  How Joe Bonanno survived his alleged Machiavellian plotting is a mystery. In March 1983, the Feds hid an electronic eavesdropping device in Gambino boss Paul Castellano's kitchen alcove, kicking into high gear a massive probe that resulted in 600 hours of recordings that fueled eight Mafia-related trials. Castellano didn't live to see one of those trials, of course, but he was in the process of facing another jury (for the massive car-theft operation formerly overseen by Murder Machine Roy DeMeo) when he and underboss Thomas Bilotti were gunned down in December 1985 in front of Sparks Steakhouse on East 46th Street near Third Avenue shortly before 5:30 pm.  Because of the FBI's penetration of Big Paul's Todt Hill White House on Staten Island, we have transcripts of some of  his private dis...

A funeral home with known links to the Rizzuto family was hit by an arson attack yesterday. Picture of Loreto Funeral Complex when Nicolo Rizzuto was waked. No one was injured, and the damage to the Loreto Funeral Complex on Grandes Prairies Blvd., in St-Léonard, Montreal, appears to be minimal. A gasoline can was discovered behind the building. Such an open attack would've been unthinkable only a few short years ago.

Rocco Sollecito was formerly part of Vito Rizzuto's inner circle. Montreal Mafia Rizzuto loyalist Rocco Sollecito, seen above, was killed last Friday in a daring daytime shooting near Montreal's Laval police headquarters. The suspected shooter, based on police evidence, was described as in his 30s and wearing black clothes . He apparently waited at a bus stop beside a stop sign. Around 8:30 am he fired several shots through the passenger-side window of Sollecito's white BMW SUV as it halted at the stop sign. Sollecito was alone in the SUV during the attack and was declared dead at the hospital.

Law enforcement investigates presumed gangland hit. A shooting this week in Terrebonne, a Montreal suburb in western Quebec, Canada, has "all the markings of an organized crime hit" and is not far from the location of the Lorenzo Giordano shooting in southwestern Quebec, north of Montreal, three weeks ago. The victim, Yannick LaRose, is "believed to have links to the Hells Angels," The Journal de Montreal and La Presse reported . (This likely means it was a move by 'Ndrangheta factions against what is left of the Rizzuto organization in Montreal.) Unlike typical gangland shootings, however, this one had a twist. The target survived the initial barrage and sought to escape the shooters inside a pool equipment storefront. The two masked gunmen, however, found him and shot him up some more.

Police used a Canadian comedian to infiltrate Vito Rizzuto's Montreal Mafia organization , the Montreal Journal reported tonight. The effort occurred in Cuba. Though the comedian, Michel Courtemanche , was allegedly unaware of the role he'd played, Fidel Castro 's Communist regime eagerly participated in the operation. In 2003, members of the New York-based Bonanno crime family phoned Rizzuto and told him that the crime family's boss, Joseph Massino , had flipped (two calls were placed; the first apparently told Rizzuto to go to a restaurant on Montreal's South Shore, where he got the news).  Rizzuto and his wife promptly hopped on a flight to Cuba. Rizzuto knew he was facing serious trouble; he'd participated in a triple homicide in Brooklyn, New York, in 1981 that Massino had direct knowledge of. As a rising star in New York's Bonanno crime family, Massino had actually orchestrated the hit on three dissident Bonanno capos. The form...