Cosa Nostra News

Of the many Mafia rules publicized over the years, one of the more interesting ones is the well-known ban on the use of explosives. Y ou can strangle, stab, shoot, drown, poison, ice-pick him ...  just don't blow him up... Sam the Plumber's wiretaps are the origins of countless mob revelations. This is one thing about which the American and Sicilian Mafias disagree entirely. Throughout their history, Sicilian gangsters have shown a preference for bombs, using them precisely for the "dramatic mileage" they afford. In fact, bombs are so common over there, they reportedly are sometimes used to cover up the real cause of death. Why the American Mafia would take such a collective step against explosives isn't difficult to imagine. By moving to ban bombs, unlike their Sicilian cohorts, American Cosa Nostra members and affiliates reduced the risk of  collateral damage. And with post-9/11 hindsight, it was a brilliant tactical move that gave the organizati...

"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...

Giovanni Riggi (February 1, 1925 – August 3, 2015), aka John the Eagle, died on Monday of natural causes. He was 90 and outlived what law enforcement officials no doubt considered a life sentence. A member of the New Jersey-based crime family since the 1940s (before it was given its historic name, the DeCavalcante crime family), Riggi served as the Elizabeth crew's captain and was named acting boss in the 1970s. John Riggi, at the height of power. Riggi's rise was slow and deliberate. Simone "Sam the Plumber" DeCavalcante  named Riggi as his successor in 1980. Riggi in fact held the official boss title up until his death a week ago.  He's been described as well-spoken, extremely polite and extremely ruthless. Toward the end of his life he'd been incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Devens, Massachusetts. He was released on November 27, 2012. The funeral at the Corsentino Home for Funerals in Elizabeth, N.J., held on Friday, Aug. 7...

A small-time dice game caused a mob boss's defense attorney to take a huge gamble. He lost. As a result,  on June 10, 1969, 12 volumes (more than 2,000 pages) of conversations between various mobsters and New Jersey crime boss Simone Rizzo DeCavalcante were released to the public. A book was issued as well.  Sam the Plumber: The Real-Life Saga of a Mafia Chieftain  condensed the voluminous disparate recorded discussions and provided context. Sam the Plumber preferred to be called "The Count."

Riggi made Johnny Boy acting boss, then made him dead after D'Amato's mistress began discussing what happened in the bedroom. New Jersey mobster John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato was murdered in 1992 while holding the title of acting boss of the Decavalcantes, a position he supposedly won thanks to some secret maneuvering by Gambino boss John Gotti. D'Amato's gumare, or mistress, told the wrong people that Johnny Boy was a homosexual and they killed him in a hit that supposedly inspired Sopranos creator David Chase to create the Vito Spatafore story line realized towards the end of the series. Described as a member of the fictional DiMeo crime family -- the crime family Tony Soprano was boss of --  Spatafore (played by   Joseph R. Gannascoli) was married with two children and was a closeted homosexual close to the fiction New York mob boss, Phil Leotardo, played by Frank Vincent.