All Blog Posts Tagged 'NY' (107)

By David Amoruso

After more than thirty years, Gambino capo Bartolomeo “Pepe” Vernace finally faced the music this past week as he was found guilty of a 1981 murder and various racketeering charges. His victim was an innocent bar owner who had nothing to do with the mob. Vernace on the other hand began rising rapidly through the underworld as he managed to…

“I'm in the waste management business. Everybody immediately assumes you're mobbed up. It's a stereotype. And it's offensive. (…) There is no Mafia.” - Tony Soprano

By David Amoruso

Thirty-two members and associates of the Genovese, Gambino, and Lucchese crime families were hit with various racketeering charges yesterday, all…

The Genovese Crime Family is seen as the most secretive and successful mob group in New York and maybe even the country. Also known as The Westside, today the Genoveses are the largest crime family in the Big Apple and have managed to keep the number of turncoats to a minimum.

The family has a long and bloody history. A history that Puparo has decided to…

By Thom L. Jones

Top end of Cypress Avenue, Ridgewood, right on the Brooklyn-Queens boundary line. Friday evening, November 10th 1967.

It’s a quiet Jewish, Italian community. Like every neighborhood or district in the biggest city in America, it has stories to tell if you listen hard enough. Tongue-numbing Dutch names like Onderdonk jostle for space with simple…

By Thom L. Jones

Early morning Thursday, Christmas Eve, 1992.

A maroon, four door, Mercury Topaz slows to a halt at traffic lights in Ozone Park, a suburb in Queens, New York.

The driver is a slim, dark-haired, dark skinned Italian-American. The passenger, his wife, is a diminutive, chubby, doe-eyed woman. She is thirty-one, three years older than her husband. They…

Crime Beat: Issues, Controversies and Personalities from the dark side on Artist First World Radio Network is pleased to announce its forthcoming schedule for October 18, 2012, through January 3, 2013. Topics covered include the John F. Kennedy Assassination, Marilyn Monroe, Vinnie The Chin Gigante, the New York mafia and more.

Here is the…

By Thom L. Jones

In 1960, Joe and Jack Taliercio opened a restaurant in Forest Hills, Queens, New York. They had worked as chefs in some of the finest restaurants in Europe and in Manhattan, and working as a family, determined to create a historic food locale. They leased premises at 102-11 Queens Boulevard, and began serving food a la Neapolitan style to a rapidly growing and…

By David Amoruso

These last few weeks the news of the death of three mobsters hit the airwaves. All three men died of natural causes. Though they were all members of the Mafia, their stories not only show the different path mobsters take, but also how much La Cosa Nostra influenced various businesses and areas in the United States.

Let’s start with…

By David Amoruso

His death didn’t come as a surprise. Former mob associate-turned rat Henry Hill died in a hospital on June 12 at the age of 69. He leaves behind his fiancée Lisa Caserta and her son Nate. Nate told the Los Angeles Times that Hill died of complications of heart problems related to smoking. Not the cause of death many people would have expected for Hill…

By David Amoruso

Five members and associates of the Gambino Crime Family pleaded guilty in New York yesterday to a host of crimes including racketeering, drug trafficking, extortion, gambling and murder conspiracy. The five Gambinos were part of the big nation wide mob bust that went down in January of 2011.…

By David Amoruso

Never count out the Italian-American Mafia. With each successful prosecution, authorities claim to have rid a particular area of the mob, but, each time, that same mob pops up its ugly head again a few years later. This week, eleven members and associates of the Genovese Crime Family were charged with conspiring to extort street vendors…

By Thom L. Jones

Carmine DiBiase went out on Christmas Day and got drunk. Very drunk. Very, very drunk. And then he shot and killed someone.

Not just any old someone, but a best friend someone. A guy who had stood by Carmine at his wedding, as his chief attendant. Been godfather to one of his children. Was his business partner.

A man who was…

In 1973, Frank Matthews, history’s first African American drug kingpin, jumped bail in New York City with $15 to 20 million and ostensibly a beautiful girlfriend. Nearly four decades later, the fate of Frank Matthews, the money and the girlfriend, Cheryl Brown, remain a complete mystery. “It’s as if Matthews dropped off the face of the earth,” explained…

By David Amoruso

A leader of the Bloods street gang was charged yesterday with three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. Ronald Herron (30), also known as “Ra,” “Ra Diggs,” “Ra Digga” and “Raheem,” was also hit with racketeering, murder in-aid-of racketeering, murder conspiracy, robbery, illegal use and possession of firearms, and…

By Seth Ferranti

Just like Hollywood catapulted the Italian Mafia into the mainstream with the Godfather movies, New Jack City documented the devastating crack epidemic and the drug crews that terrorized and held court in the city’s projects. Nino Brown was a fictional character, as was his crew, but you didn’t have to look far to find their real life counterparts who dominated the…

This story is excerpted from Krajicek’s new e-book, “Gotti and Me: A Crime Reporter’s Close Encounters With the New York Mafia,” available at Amazon.com and other book websites.

By David J. Krajicek

The mugs of the American Mafia once had the quaint custom of keeping their mouths shut. Mobsters took pride in being tight-lipped, even when…

By David Amoruso

The Bonanno Crime Family has been hit once again. This morning, federal agents of the FBI and DEA arrested several high ranking mobsters on charges of racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling, and conspiring to distribute marijuana. One of those arrested is an alleged associate of the Gambino Crime Family and is charged with loansharking. If convicted,…

By David Amoruso

The underworld of Montreal is at war. Several high profile mafia bosses have been murdered and yesterday Bonanno family boss Salvatore Montagna was the latest victim as he was shot to death in a suburb near Montreal.

When paramedics arrived on the scene, they found Montagna laying in a river. They pulled him out of the cold water, into the even…

By Thom L. Jones



‘It is the theory that decides what can be observed.

If the facts don’t fit the theory change the facts.’

Albert Einstein



New York Times April 16th 1931:



It took ten years and a lot of shooting to kill Giuseppe Masseria. He was Joe the Boss to the…