All Blog Posts Tagged 'Brooklyn' (50)

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…

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…

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…

By David Amoruso - Updated January 13, 2018

Joseph Cammarano Jr., the street boss of New York’s Bonanno crime family, was hit with racketeering charges today. He was arrested along with nine other…

By David Amoruso

Seven New York mobsters were charged yesterday with racketeering conspiracy, including loan sharking, illegal gambling, drug trafficking and obstruction of justice conspiracy. The bust represents “a major disruption of La Costra Nostra’s activities on Long Island,” stated Acting United States Attorney for…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Becoming a gang member isn’t easy. And most gangsters are forced into the gang life because of poverty and a troublesome situation at home. They take to the streets to find a new family and find it in the older guys wearing colors that identify them as part of something bigger.

VICE…

By David Amoruso

Brooklyn mobster Salvatore “Sallie” DeMeo (above, aging through his mugshots) is another great example that when it comes to the Mafia: You don’t retire. In his late seventies, he is still scheming and making millions in the process. But these riches come at a price, one that the government insists he pay.

You could call him a…

By David Amoruso

He’s a wiseguy who took his flossing seriously. Christopher Londonio, an alleged soldier in New York’s Lucchese crime family, was charged Wednesday with planning to escape from the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in…

By David Amoruso

A leader of the Eight Trey Crips gang in New York was charged with murder in-aid-of racketeering on Monday. 37-year-old Larry Pagett, photo above, also known as “Biz,” “Biz Loc,” and “Molotovbizzz” faces life in prison if…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Shondell “M-Dot” Walker, a member of the Brooklyn-based Murderous Maddawg Bloods, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday for narcotics trafficking and his role as an enforcer for Bloods gang leader…

By Barbara Casey

On May 2, 1973, around 12:45 a.m., Assata Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Bryon), the godmother and step-aunt of slain rap star Tupac Shakur, along with Zayd Malik Shakur (born James F. Costan) and Sundiata Acoli (born Clark Squire), were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick by State Trooper James Harper for…