All Blog Posts Tagged 'Loansharking' (34)

By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.

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

By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.

Bonanno crime family associate Salvatore Russo is considered trustworthy by his peers in the…

By Andrew Machin

On June 2, 2015, with the arrest of 19 people, the two year-long code-named Project OPhoenix closed. The Project, conducted by the Combined Special Forces Enforcement Unit for the Great Toronto Area (GTA), significantly hit, resuming the words, during its presentation, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police…

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

Alleged New York Mafia associate Paul Ragusa was sentenced to 6 years in prison on Tuesday for possessing nine firearms, including three automatic assault rifles and a silencer. 48-year-old Ragusa was busted in Operation OTremens, a joint investigation which unearthed a partnership between Mafia families…

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

As far as powerful Mafia bosses go, Giuseppe Ursino (photo above) is as low-key as they come. So much so that when he was convicted of trafficking cocaine for the ‘Ndrangheta and sentenced to over a decade in prison Thursday, it was the first criminal conviction of his life.

“Pino” Ursino was born…

By David Amoruso

The Chinese Mafia - better known as the Triads - has a complicated history seeped in political conflict that occurred centuries ago, when emperors and dynasties ruled China and monks used kung fu to rise up against their oppressors.

During its long and rich history China has seen a lot of bloodshed. Centuries ago Chinese…

By David Amoruso

As a vor v zakone, mob boss Razhden Shulaya (above) was an official member of a century-old criminal tradition. As such, he was treated as Russian Mafia royalty. He used that position to run a sprawling organization involved in kidnapping, assault, fraud, extortion, and money laundering throughout the…

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…

By David Amoruso

It helps to have friends in high places. It enables one to have more opportunities, but also to get away with mistakes or grave crimes even. If one’s friend is powerful enough, one could get away with anything. Until that friend is gone, of course. Like in the case of…

By David Amoruso

Crime may pay, but the government will try very hard to get that ill-gotten money from you. Not just that, they will send you off to prison for good measure. Just ask Bonanno family capo Ronald “Ronnie G” Giallanzo.

On Wednesday, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for…

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 David Amoruso

Bonanno crime family capo Ronald “Ronnie G” Giallanzo…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Mobster Massimigliano Carfagna was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison on Thursday. He had pleaded guilty to trafficking in cocaine and the opioid drug…

By David Amoruso

Authorities have Naser Kelmendi’s number. The United States government blacklisted him under the Kingpin Act in 2012 because, it claims, he heads a crime family responsible for trafficking drugs through Afghanistan to Turkey and into Europe. Still, moving throughout Eastern Europe, Kelmendi proved an…

By David Amoruso

A criminal mastermind. The man behind the scenes. Mob kingpin. Arnold Rothstein can be described in many ways. Known on the streets as “The Big Bankroll,” he financed countless major criminal schemes and enterprises as he rose to prominence in New York’s gangland. But at heart, he was a gambler. Through…