Cosa Nostra News

FINAL Just in time for the upcoming debut of the Many Saints of Newark, the theatrical prequel to the Sopranos television series, comes a new book about New Jersey’s only homegrown Mafia family, the DeCavalcantes, which many (including some DeCavalcante wiseguys) believe inspired David Chase’s acclaimed HBO series. Charlie the Hat Stango and son "Whitey." Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos w as written by Giovanni Rocco (the name is a pseudonym) and Douglas Schofield, a criminal trial lawyer and author. The G-man worked undercover as Giovanni Gatto, a pinky ring-wearing outlaw biker-turned-wannabe wiseguy who cozied up to an assortment of unsavory underworld characters during his three-year infiltration of the New Jersey crime family. During the probe, he made extensive surveillance recordings, including catching on tape a capo ordering the murder of a rival.  By the end of it, 10 mobsters and associates were pinched for multiple crimes in 2015. The key target ...

"90 percent of [The Sopranos] is made up (and the rest is) patterned after this [crime family]..." -- David Chase If you’ve ever wondered w here David Chase got all those fantastical ideas  for “ The Sopranos ,” maybe he, like the feds, had his own mob informants. Or maybe the feds were his informants. Tonight’s special episode of “ American Greed ,” titled “ Mob Money ,” is the story of the rise and fall of  New Jersey’s DeCavalcante crime family , New Jersey gangsters who bear more than a passing resemblance to “The Sops.”  The DeCavalcantes were always, by mob standards anyway, minor players in the estimated $50 to 90-billion-a-year, ah (what the hell do you call it?), industry. In fact, the five families of New York called them “the farmers” and thought of them as country bumpkins..... The Sopranos is based on New Jersey's DeCavalcante crime family  has been written so many times, most viewers would probably agree. We've written things like: "Many crime fa...