All Blog Posts Tagged 'Brooklyn' (58)

By James M. LaRossa Jr. for Gangsters Inc.

As I attempt to make sense of my father, legendary Mob attorney Jimmy LaRossa’s blur of a professional life, one day, above all others, stands out.…

By Thom. L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong kind of friend was the worst thing that ever happened to Frank Santora Junior.

As he walked along a street in…

By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.

Two mobsters once praised by Mafia boss John Gotti are among twelve…

By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.

Being in the mob isn't all beer and skittles.

Created in 1970, the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, by 1985, had been used almost one thousand times, to bring criminal and civil cases. RICO…

This is part 2 of Five Minutes to Midnight. Read part 1 here.

By Thom L. Jones for…

By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.

We often hear the phrase: “They don’t pay cops enough.” Some of these guys have to work extra jobs to make ends meet. One NYPD officer even worked as a security guard for the wife of infamous Mexican drug lord…

By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.

This is part 2. To read…

By David Amoruso

Bonanno crime family captain Joseph “Joe Valet” Sabella is a prime example of the persistence of the American Mafia. At age 54, he has held a senior position in the New York mob during the 2010s. In that period, he’s done pretty much the same as what a typical mobster did in the…

By David Amoruso

Lucchese crime family boss Michael “Big Mike” DeSantis got to the top of the hill in an unusual way: A letter from his…

By David Amoruso

Many question how much power an 85-year-old imprisoned-for-life Mafia boss actually has over his crime family. Mob leader Vic Amuso (above) answered with a letter that said: Total power. From behind bars, he orchestrated the complete rearrangement of the Lucchese family’s leadership.…

By David Amoruso

It’s hard to run an honest loansharking business these days. Just ask Colombo Mafia family soldier Jerry Ciauri. Together with several other mobsters he ran gambling and loansharking operations in Brooklyn and Staten Island. He was doing okay until a rat in his crew began nibbling on money and then ran off…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Greed kills more people than cancer, the street saying goes. It is especially true in the murder of Vincent Zito, prosecutors say. They arrested 59-year-old Anthony Pandrella, an alleged associate of the…

By David Amoruso

Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico has passed away. He was 85. The New York Mafia boss was known for his tenacity and ruthlessness. Despite being locked up for life, he maintained an iron grip on his mob family from behind bars. He was a pure survivor. Right up until the moment he sighed his last…

By David Amoruso

The trial of alleged Bonanno crime family boss Joseph “Joe C” Cammarano Jr. began last week and he showed up looking the part. It brought up the question: Does looking like a mobster, make you guilty of being one?

A stupid question, of course, but one that needs to be addressed. With his gray hair,…

By David Amoruso

They were rounded up in a bust said to be “a major disruption of La Costra Nostra’s activities on Long Island”. Now, mobsters John “Johnny Boy” Ambrosio, an acting captain in the Gambino family; Frank “Frankie Boy” Salerno, a soldier in the Bonanno family; and Anthony Saladino, an associate of the Gambinos…

Photo: Albert Anastasia, Abe Reles, and Louis "Lepke" Buchalter

By Christian Cipollini

Murder Incorporated. Catchy name for a bunch of hired killers, isn’t it? So where did such a clever, sinister and aptly-dubbed moniker originate? While there will probably always be some conjecture…

By David Amoruso

They called him “Fresh.” But chances were that after a meeting with him, you were anything but and more likely rotting away in a shallow grave. As a hitman for the Rival Impact street gang, 33-year-old Frank Smith was a cold-blooded killing machine on the streets of New York.

The gang life was all…

By David Amoruso

They don’t call the criminal underworld a jungle for nothing. There are many similarities between the animal kingdom and the world of gangs and the Mafia. There is a food chain, there are specific roles to play, there is a dominant species, and there is a King that rules the land.

But what about…

By David Amoruso

Lucchese crime family soldier Anthony Grado knows how to earn. Whether it’s extortion, loansharking or selling prescription pills he’ll know how to make a buck. One thing he hasn’t learned, however, is staying out of prison for his crimes.

It’s not always Grado’s own fault, mind…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Six individuals have been arrested and charged last month and Tuesday for their roles in a drug ring that distributed kilogram quantities of cocaine each week in New York City, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The investigation centered on Gerardo…