Cosa Nostra News

‟ Everybody thinks "Our family is different." And they are, in a lot of ways. Say I gotta do something and I take you with me. That's it. Nobody else knows. The only one that knows anything is the boss. ... We were taught, if it's done --- the old timers tell you, if someone's gotta go, they become a cockroach. What do you do with a cockroach? You kill the cockroach, you step on the cockroach, and you go about your business. You don't go calling people up and say  "Hey, I took on a cockroach last night... ” On Christmas Eve day 2004, while heading to a meeting with the acting boss of his family—the Genovese crime family—capo Angelo Prisco relaxed and spoke candidly to his driver/presumed protégé Jeff Santini. Genovese waterfront capo Angelo Prisco Prisco sounds good natured and easygoing, but the man you hear casually shooting the breeze was, at that very time, helming a violent home invasion crew that tied up its victims and beat them inside thei...

POSTSCRIPT ADDED AT END One cold, snowy night in February 1977, Arthur Milgram, the owner of New York State's biggest lottery ticket vending company, drove to a luxury apartment building in Little Neck, Queens, where he'd been staying the past month. Arthur Milgram was gunned down in 1977. He wasn't living in the swanky Monte Excelsior apartments. Rather, Milgram, who was separated from his wife, had subleased one of its apartments. He was hiding out there in fear for his life. Built in 1964, the 240-unit Monte Excelsior still stands. Among its amenities is an onsite parking lot -- and it was across that snow-covered unlighted parking lot that, on that February night, Milgram drove his rented 1977 Buick Electra 225 and parked in one of the spots. At around 11:45 pm Milgram exited the car and headed towards the building's rear door. As he stepped onto the stretch of concrete between the parking lot and the building, a gunman opened fire. Becau...

In November 2013, a low-profile Luchese associate was murdered in the Bronx -- and many stories in the media blitz that followed referenced the Purple Gang, an obscure 1970s street gang with reputed Mafia links. Police probe Meldish shooting in the Bronx in 2013. The  Purple Gang roamed the South Bronx and Harlem where members were involved in the large‐scale distribution of heroin. They also whacked people -- and in many cases, dismembered their victims, of which there reportedly were 17 by December 1977. (Many of the 17 had been active informants for law enforcement when slain.) Purple Gang members essentially cut their teeth as glorified coffee boys in decade-long apprenticeships.  They stepped up their game when the competition was wiped out -- meaning, they filled a huge niche after law enforcement cleared away many local narcotics trafficking rings, including the one known as the French Connection. The Purple Gang  entered the contract killing busines...

Sylvester (Sally Daz) Zottola, 71, was fatally shot five times while waiting on a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s drive thru in the Bronx on Thursday, October 4. Sally Daz, photo from his daughter ( source ) He was allegedly killed for a Joker Poker business. Five men have been nabbed to date for the murder, though the Albanian gangsters who are reputedly the true driving force behind the shooting have yet to be identified. The alleged Luchese associate was laid to rest at St. Theresa Catholic Church in  the week after the shooting. Reportedly nearly 300 people attended his funeral. A police source told the Daily News that Zottola was “a real old-fashioned mobster” reputedly  involved in gambling and loansharking. Zottola's daughter, Debbie Zottola, shortly after her father's funeral, gave a heartfelt interview in which she said that she'd like to see her father remembrered in a "good and proper light." In an effort to provide a more balan...