Cosa Nostra News

When last identified by the Fed's, Liborio (Barney) Bellomo's street boss, Michael Ragusa , was notched as a soldier in the Genovese family's East Harlem/Bronx crew. Pasquale Falcetti Some of the Genovese family's most storied and powerful wiseguys also are/were from the East Harlem/Bronx crew, and many of them were nabbed around the same time in 2001-2002 in a complex, multifaceted case involving rackets and frauds and schemings revolving around the International Longshoremen’s Association, which controlled the docks on the East Coast. The case itself was only a part of law enforcement's ongoing (for decades) efforts to wrest control of the New York-area ports the hell away from the gangsters. Genovese Turncoats The case saw the emergence of landmark testimony from hardcore wiseguy George Barone, who flipped. Barone was an "aging, ailing, battle-weary Hell's Kitchen gangster" who "was a powerful waterfront racketeer in the days when ...

COSA NOSTRA NEWS   EXCLUSIVE  The Genovese family has tapped a longtime, largely unknown veteran to "service" (or assist in various capacities) the official boss of the organization, which has been described as the most powerful Mafia family in the United States. Chin Gigante died in December 2005. Michael (Mickey) Ragusa, 54--a longtime confidant of boss Liborio (Barney) Bellomo , who has built an extremely low profile over the years (we found no photos of him)  -- is the Genovese family's new street boss, Cosa Nostra News has learned. Genovese street bosses have been known to relay the boss's orders to family capos and soldiers, as well as personally divert away from the boss any incoming fire (figuratively and literally) from the likes of law enforcement, potential enemies, and the unforgiving, relentless New York City media. Hailing from Pleasantville, Ragusa was promoted recently (though the formal appointment may have been largely ceremonia...

"Very nice people... Just don’t owe them money." How President Donald Trump  referred to the Mafia. Italy's interior minister Luciana Lamorgese recently issued a sharp warning about the Mafia. The three major  Italian Mafias (there are other, minor ones , including in Sicily itself ) have lowered their profiles in recent years; at the same time, they have expanded their reach into new sectors and are just as dangerous as ever. That's what Italy's interior minister Luciana Lamorgese, who was appointed in September, said during a recent hearing of the Italian parliament’s anti-mafia commission.  “Criminal organisations are ever more sophisticated as they manage to infiltrate important economic sectors in order to clean up illicitly accumulated money,” said Lamorgese. “The mafia continues to weigh heavily on our institutions and economic system.” The ’Ndrangheta, which emerged in the southern region of Calabria , continues to be Italy’s mo...

A brief message from the guy who writes this blog: Regular readers may have noticed that this blog went dark after we posted our October 20 story about the YouTube interview with Sammy Gravano . No, nobody "tried to get to (us)!” to borrow  Frank Costello' s  May 2, 1957  exhorta tion .  A short unintended break from blogging turned into something else entirely when we caught some kind of bug last week. It totally knocked us on our ass, and only today, after a couple of false calls (in which we thought we were better, but each "recovery" was illusory), we were able to finally throw off the covers and successfully reach the desk.... We were having a really good streak last week, too, with one of our recent stories generating more than 30,000 page views in a single 24-hour period.  Anyway, we deleted a couple of rambling paragraphs (they only lived minutes, actually; those now-deceased paragraphs died very young) --  and only want to tell you...