All Blog Posts Tagged 'Extortion' (107)

By David Amoruso

Reputed DeCavalcante crime family mob boss Francesco Guarraci passed away on April 14, 2016, at home surrounded by his loving family. He was 61. Guarraci became acting boss of the New Jersey mob around 2006.

Guarraci was born in Ribera, Sicily, and came to New Jersey in 1967, where he settled in Elizabeth. According to his …

By David Amoruso

Gennaro “Jerry” Bruno’s criminal career began when he joined a violent Ozone Park, Queens, street gang called the Young Guns. Surrounded by a group of young, wannabe thugs, Bruno began establishing his credentials as a gangster. His end goal was clear: La Cosa Nostra.

Throughout its history, the …

By Gangsters Inc. Editors (cover photo courtesy of Gorilla Convict)

It was 1989 and Asian street gangs in New York were battling for control of Chinatown rackets. As higher-ups stayed in the shadows, teenagers roamed the streets and violently fought to the bitter end…

By David Amoruso

Bonanno family mobster Joseph Sammartino Sr. was born in the Marion section of Jersey City. It was a part of town that was the typical blue-collar Italian neighborhood that has always been a preferred recruiting ground for the Mafia.

Growing up in Marion section, Sammartino Sr. quickly adapted to the tough streets. As one…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

The Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office arrested seven alleged members of a Chechen organized crime group in Vienna and Hohenems, Europol reported today. This group was involved in a number of criminal activities, including extortion, arms trafficking and illegal gambling.

“In the early morning of 22 March,…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Denis Nikolla (35) pleaded guilty to extortion and firearm charges, Wednesday. His two partners in crime were a police officer in the New York City Police Department and the brother of one of Albania's most wanted…

By David Amoruso

Eight members and associates of the Zheng Organization were charged with crimes including racketeering, narcotics trafficking, extortion offenses, illegal gambling, and soliciting assaults on Tuesday. Qian “Cash” Zheng, the gang’s leader, faces a maximum sentence of 164 years in prison if convicted.

Zheng’s organization…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

The “Negro Policy Racket” in the 1940s-1960s in Rockford was not unlike the one in Chicago, only on a smaller scale. The policy racket gave some hope to poor blacks at the time that they would “hit it big” if they bet as little as a penny on this gambling operation. But odds were always in favor of the “house.”

There…

By David Amoruso

Palermo businessmen have had enough. For years they’ve been extorted by local Mafia clans who came to collect the “pizzo,” but today, ANSA reports, 36 of them made a firm statement by helping police bust 22 Mafiosi who were terrorizing their shops and lives.

Thanks to the businessmen police were able to identify and…

By David Amoruso

A large table with men seated around it in silence. One man does all the talking. “You can work in everything - extortion, cocaine, heroin,” he says. That man is mob boss Antonio Nesci, and every word he utters is captured on video giving it the feel of a Hollywood movie. Only this is real life. Swiss police just caught a meeting of the…

PRESS RELEASE

Central Region “Inca,” or leader, of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation (Latin Kings), and 60 of his fellow members and associates are in custody facing charges for their roles in a racketeering and drug distribution scheme in the Austin, San Antonio, and Uvalde areas.

As a result of this investigation, federal grand juries sitting in Del Rio and San Antonio have indicted 37…

By David Amoruso

London gangster Patrick Adams (59) was arrested by Dutch police in Amsterdam on Friday. He is now awaiting his extradition back to the United Kingdom where he is wanted in connection with a shooting in London two years ago.

Adams is one of the leading members of what is known as “the A-Team” or Adams Family, one of London’s…

By David Amoruso

Never a dull moment in the Boston underworld. After barely surviving an internecine war and the beatings Whitey Bulger and the FBI dished out, the New England La Cosa Nostra family has been working hard to rebuild. This year, several top mobsters will hit the streets, raising the ever-pertinent question: Who’s the boss?

The most…

By David Amoruso

Ever since they came on the scene in the 1950s, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, known as the Kray twins, have dominated the London crime scene and the public’s fascination as well. And they continue to do so. This year, actor Tom Hardy will play both brothers in the epic gangster flick Legend.

Based on John Pearson's book…

By David Amoruso

It ain’t easy being a gangster in Los Angeles. The City of Angels is known as the birthplace of many notorious gangs like the Crips, Bloods, and La Eme. African-Americans and Latinos rule the streets where gang shootings are an everyday occurrence. Surprisingly it was this hostile environment that gave birth to Armenian Power, a gang…

By David Amoruso

No matter how hard Tong Sang Lai (photo above) ran, his past eventually caught up with him. As a leader of the Shui Fong Triad in Macau he fled to North America after a violent war over the island’s gambling riches drew too much heat. Yesterday, the Federal Court of Appeal in Canada upheld a ruling that he was a Triad boss and therefore…

By Angelo Carmelo Gallitto



Italian organized crime, divided in Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita, is a rich and powerful criminal enterprise…

By David Amoruso

Authorities and the media alike tend to focus on the bosses and captains of mob families, and deservingly so. But it isn’t until we take a look at the young up-and-coming mobsters that we get a sense of what’s in store for the future of La Cosa Nostra in the United States.

Take 36-year-old Giuseppe Destefano (photo above). He…

By David Amoruso

Antonio Madafferi, an honest and successful businessman or senior leader of the ‘Ndrangheta crime clan in Melbourne, Australia? It depends on who you ask, but police are quite certain that Madafferi runs one of the country’s most powerful criminal organizations, one that moves record-breaking amounts of drugs and has connections…

By David Amoruso

It’s a bad time to be a secretive criminal organization. Today, Italian authorities released video of a ‘Ndrangheta elite swearing-in ceremony after concluding a two year investigation resulting in the arrest of forty suspected members of the criminal brotherhood from Calabria.  

“It's the first time that the swearing in, with the…