Cosa Nostra News

We left off with Aniello "Neil" Dellacroce facing allegations for attempting to unseat his crime family's namesake: Carlo Gambino . The charge was levied at Dellacroce by the Joint Legislative Committee on Crime in a public forum seemingly designed after an earlier, national inquiry into organized crime, the McClellan Hearings. Where Dellacroce was arrested in 1966 for alleged plotting. To advance the story, we next turn to Dellacroce's obituary. The Gambino underboss (and historical mentor to John Gotti ) died on Dec. 2, 1985, of cancer at age 71. The mobster's New York Times obituary, written by Ralph Blumenthal (author of the important but somwhat overlooked Last Days of the Sicilians ), point-blank stated : In 1966, Mr. Dellacroce was arrested in a police raid of the La Stella restaurant in Queens, where, the Joint Legislative Committee on Crime later charged, he and other Mafia leaders were plotting to depose Mr. Gambino... ( The La  (?) S...

In 2003, New York-based Bonanno crime family members called Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto and told him the worst possible news. The Bonanno crime family's boss, Joseph Massino , had flipped, they told Rizzuto. Rizzuto faced serious trouble. Massino could implicate him in a triple homicide in New York City, in 1981. Massino had actually orchestrated the hit on three dissident Bonanno capos. Alerted to a pending arrest for three homicides, Rizzuto and his wife promptly flew to Cuba, taking a flight the very next day to the Melia Las Americas, a resort in Varadero, Cuba. There, the Rizzutos bided time in the five-star resort's tropical-style rooms, each of which offers a beach-side view via a balcony; they could dine in any one of its seven restaurants (ranging from casual, poolside snacks to fine dining), as well as pay a visit to the hotel's three bars and one nightclub. Meyer Lansky represented the mob in Cuba . Santo Trafficante Jr. hated him. "...