Cosa Nostra News

" He no like drugs. He say: no, no no [to heroin] on Knickerbocker Avenue. They say, ‘Okay.’ Then they kill him .” —Luigi Ronsisvalle on Pietro Licata, longtime Bonanno power in Brooklyn. Got it in 1976. (Licata, that is.) Just in time to add to your Christmas shopping list : Former Brooklyn prosecutor Michael F. Vecchione’s third true crime book tells the story of Luigi Ronsisvalle, the “diabolically funny” mob hit man who arrived in New York from Sicily in 1966 to make his mark in the American underworld. He eventually landed in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn on Knickerbocker Avenue as it was evolving into ground zero for the Bonanno's international heroin trafficking business. Ronsisvalle, left, and Ivan Fisher, Sal Catalano's Pizza Connection attorney, when Luigi was recanting. Or attempting to. Homicide Is My Business: Luigi the Zip―A Hitman’s Quest for Honor  is available now. Jerry Schmetterer is co-writer. Ronsisvalle achieved limited success in gangland (none ac...

Making Toto Catalano say the rosary probably wasn't a good idea... On May 21, 1999, a young woman made a frantic call to a police dispatcher saying that her father, Giovanni Ligammari, 60, and brother, Pietro, 37, had hanged themselves and were dead. Ligammari, second from right, leaves Capri Motel with Joseph (Big Joey) Massino, far right; Vito Rizzuto, second from left; and Sicilian Bonanno capo Gerlando (George from Canada) Sciascia. The father and son were found hanging face to face via separate nooses (made from nylon packing cord) from the basement rafters of the older man's two-family home in an affluent Bergen County suburb. Giovanni Ligammari, a New Jersey contractor as well as a Sicilian member of the Bonanno family (his son also became a Bonanno soldier), was captured on May 6,1981, the day after the murders of three Bonanno capos, in photographs by the FBI, which had set up surveillance on the Capri Motel at 555 Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx.  The FBI had sn...

Rosario Gambino, Pizza Connection trafficker, sought pardon from Roger Clinton. This story is from Kenji Gallo's Breakshot Blog -- posted this past Sunday, it's titled Clinton Pay for Play with the Gambinos : S o much is in the news about the presidential race, most of which is blasting Trump. One can easily forget that the Clintons have been enriching themselves at our expense for decades. The big question is how Rosario “Sal” Gambino, a convicted heroin trafficker and a member of La Cosa Nostra - who with his brothers flooded the streets of America with over 600 million dollars in heroin, got on the pardon list in the last days of Bill Clinton's Presidency?

In 1987 a former Mafia killer emerged from the safety of the Federal witness protection program to recant his testimony . Luigi Ronsisvalle, left, and Fisher at motel where an agreement was signed. Said testimony had helped put away one of New York's most ruthless mobsters, a Bonanno member who'd been elevated to "street boss" of the Zips. A burly man with enigmatic links to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra  he was a convicted for playing a major role in a global drug trafficking venture called The Pizza Connection Case. His name was Salvatore "Toto" Catalano, and he'd been sentenced to 45 years in prison for his role in the '' Pizza Connection " case. This witness, Luigi Ronsisvalle, said he had quit the Federal Witness Protection Program and had voluntarily sought out Catalano's lawyer so he could provide a sworn statement that declared as false his Pizza Connection trial testimony against Catalano. Today the name Ronsi...