Cosa Nostra News

The year 1987 was slightly more than a week old when FBI agents nabbed Nicodemo (Little Nicky) Scarfo as he emerged from a plane at the Atlantic City airport.  None of Chin's plots touched Gambino boss John Gotti. The violent, mercurial Philadelphia boss—he was John Gotti's more murderous precursor—and his girlfriend were returning from Fort Lauderdale, where they had spent the New Year’s holiday. Scarfo, sporting a deep winter tan and perfectly coiffed hair and dressed to the nines in an impeccable suit, looked like a million bucks, almost like an old-school Hollywood star showing up at the Oscars. He smiled and nodded as the agents handcuffed him and walked him to the vehicle that would drive him to his well-deserved fate. The Feds had indicted Scarfo and three others earlier that day on charges of conspiracy to commit extortion in the shakedown of Penn’s Landing, an area along the Delaware River that had been targeted for redevelopment. Penn's Landing was named after th...

Was Russell Bufalino ever the boss of the Genovese family in a temporary fashion, we were recently asked via email. The following is our answer ... Russell Bufalino By 1975, Russell Bufalino —the soft-spoken, eight-fingered Sicilian with the lazy eye who was called “McGee” by his closest associates —was at the height of his power in the American Cosa Nostra. According to law enforcement and journalist sources, at around this time he was at the helm of no less than three crime families: In addition to his own crime family in Pittston, Pennsylvania, he had assumed control of (as well as absorbed) the Buffalo crime family after the July 1974 death of longtime boss Stefano Magaddino . Bufalino also reportedly had assumed temporary control of New York’s Genovese family, sometime after the July 1972 murder of front boss Thomas (Tommy Ryan Eboli) and before Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno took over. Bufalino may have been arguably one of the most powerful mobsters in the nation in t...