Jun
10
2008

A not-so-bright wiseguy faces the music in the school-bus scandal
You’d want to believe that the schemers who kept New York City’s school-bus industry under the Mafia’s thumb for more than 30 years would be a pretty tough bunch. Who else could keep mayors, bureaucrats, and prosecutors at bay for decades while feeding like voracious bedbugs off the city’s most vital enterprise? Continue Reading »
Jun
07
2008
NEW YORK — The reputed consigliere of the Gambino crime family has pleaded guilty to extortion charges, part of a wide-ranging mob case involving dozens of people and a decades-long roster of crimes. Continue Reading »
Jun
05
2008

NEW YORK — Victoria Gotti, a newspaper columnist and the daughter of late Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, was sued on Thursday by HarperCollins Publishers for the return of a $70,000 advance on a memoir that was never written. Continue Reading »
Jun
05
2008
SAN DIEGO –- A member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang, already in federal prison for trafficking drugs on behalf of the Arellano Felix cartel, faces new charges – this time for orchestrating a methamphetamine deal from behind bars. Continue Reading »
Jun
04
2008
NEW YORK — A reputed acting mob boss is being held without bail in New York City after being arrested with eight other suspected gangsters for alleged Mafia crimes. Continue Reading »
Jun
02
2008
The Albanian organized crime groups, operating largely in New York City, are carrying out serious criminal offenses, Manhattan Attorney Michael Garcia said. Continue Reading »
Jun
01
2008

The body of Carmine Galante was found in Brooklyn in 1979.
The headline in The New York Times that morning in 1984 was macabre, if unintentionally hilarious: “Unknown Arm of Sicilian Mafia Is Uncovered in the United States.”
The arm in question was not a body part but rather an overseas cell of the Italian criminal underworld operating alongside its better-known American counterpart — the Bonanno family in Brooklyn. Through neighborhood fronts around the country, the Italians had been masterminding the billion-dollar heroin pipeline that became known as the Pizza Connection. Continue Reading »
May
31
2008
Two Japanese mafia dons who jumped a long queue to get liver transplants in the United States each made donations of £50,000 to the Californian hospital that operated on them. Continue Reading »
May
30
2008
Washington — U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday imposed sanctions on Kurdish rebels and an Italian organized crime group in an attempt to cut off their access to the U.S. financial system and their funding.
Using a U.S. anti-drug trafficking law, Bush designated the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and the ‘Ndrangheta Organization subject to the sanctions, which prevent U.S. companies and individuals from engaging in trade and transactions with them. Continue Reading »
May
08
2008
Cheeseman seeks a larger bathroom

Reputed New England Mafia underboss Carmen “The Cheeseman” DiNunzio. Photo by Stuart Cahill
Boston’s once legendary La Cosa Nostra - which for years struck fear in Hub hearts as its hit men painted the town red with blood - sank to a sorry new low yesterday with the Mob’s 400-pound reputed underboss’ pathetic plea for a jail cell with a super-sized toilet.
That bizarre request came to light yesterday amid a hearing in federal court on alleged New England Mafia underboss Carmen “The Cheeseman” DiNunzio. Continue Reading »