Mafia & Waste Hauling

The Cosa Nostra (or the Italian Mafia) is probably the longest lasting western criminal organization in existence.  There are Eastern groups like the Japanese Yakuza and the Chinese Triads that have been around much longer.

Last week in Palermo the Italian Police gave us insight into the world of the Cosa Nostra.  They had a wire up and caught a member of a local mafia clan bragging about how his father’s uncle was the first mafia member to kill an anti-mafia cop.  That was 105 years ago and the NYPD Detective Giuseppe Joe Petrosino was one of the first US Mafia busters. He worked hard against the black hand in New York and he went to Palermo on a mission to find out if the mafia in Italy was working with the mafia in America.  The media caught wind of his mission and made it public.  Joe thought he was safe because in America the Mafia did not kill cops.   What Joe did not know was that Paolo Palazzotto was waiting to ambush him when he was to meet with an informant.

I get asked all the time if there is still a mafia. The answer is yes and as long as there is money to be made illegally, they will continue to flourish.  The fact that the FBI cut down their mafia squads and are now going after terrorists instead, helps.  A lot of people thought the mafia was out of the carting or waste hauling business. They are far from out, as demonstrated by the recent case against a number of mobsters.

Three mafia families were involved in the scheme: Genovese, Lucchese and Gambino.  The waste disposal scheme went like this: most of these guys had been banned for life from the waste trade, so they they had what are called “controlled owners” stand in for them.  They controlled waste disposal in New Jersey and New York in this manner.  They would take up to 90% of the profit from the “controlled owner” and divide it up amongst the crime families.  They would also give these controlled owners shylock loans and then bleed them dry.  They stole thousands of pounds of cardboard from other waste haulers and then resold the cardboard at a 100% profit, because it cost them nothing.  They controlled the waste business by claiming what they called a "property rights" system.  That meant that every member of the waste enterprise from their family would always own the stop if they serviced it.  That means no other mafia family could bid on it lower or offer a better service because this would result in a sitdown that would go to the company that first serviced the stop.  If another non-members waste hauler came in and tried to service a stop they would be threatened, beaten or worse.  

Carmine Franco, also known as “Papa Smurf” even had containers stolen from competitors.  They would re-orientate them and paint them in their own colors.

The FBI used an informant, Charles Hughes, who ran a waste disposal company named M&C.  He recorded 530 days of conversations including Papa Smurf extorting him for payments.  The only problem?  Charles Hughes was arrested for soliciting sex from a girl he thought was 15. So in other words, the FBI used a guy like those you see arrested on the TV show, “To Catch a Predator,”  a pedophile, a low life. It is one thing when they are making a deal with a bad guy who kills another bad guy, but its a different story when they are working with a kiddy raper.  So they have now dropped the charges of 10 of the 29 people arrested because they know they can't put that terrible witness in front of a jury.

Nicholas Santora & Bonanno Family

Nicholas Santora is a second generation mobster, who continued in his father’s footsteps, like so many others have done. Modesto Santora was a soldier in the Colombo Family, and his son has far out shone his father when it comes to the Mafia. Nicholas was inducted into the Bonanno Family in the mid 1970s by then-boss Philip Rastelli and he was placed in Capo Mike Sabella's crew.

The Bonanno Family at the time was in a state of turmoil because boss Rusty Rastelli was away in prison and powerful Capo Carmine Galante had been released.  Carmine Galante began to make moves for the top spot in the family.  He also started to consolidate the Heroin business with the Sicilians. The other families including the Gambino family did not like this so they went to the Commission who handed down the order to kill Galante.  Nicholas was the messenger between the Capos loyal to Rusty setting up the hit.

On July 12th 1979 they blasted Carmine Galante as he was finishing up his lunch.   It ended up being an iconic killing because a reporter snapped a picture of his sprawled out body with a cigar still clenched in his teeth.

Sonny Black was upped to Capo and Nicholas was placed in his crew with a few notables like Lefty Ruggierro and Donnie Brasco. The crew was based in Brooklyn out of the Motion Lounge. Nicholas would head down to Florida to work with Donnie Brasco and with the worsening internal family problems, things would soon blow up.

It soon came out that fellow crew member Donnie Brasco was an FBI Agent.  Sonny Black would be executed and Nichalas was promoted to Capo of his crew.  He did not last long because he was given time for the whole Donnie Brasco Operation.

He was locked up until the 1990s, and when he was released he got right back to work.  Nicholas started working his gambling business and soon he was back on the rise.  Nicholas worked closely with Sal Vitale and Joey Massino.   The Massino family did not work out like they planned and Sal Vitale flipped after two Capos flipped on him.  Then Joey Massino flipped in order to save his assets and a death penalty trial.  Vinnie Basciano became boss and Nicholas was bumped up to underboss.

When Massino was still boss, a guy took me down to Bamonte's in Brooklyn on a Saturday afternoon.  There were a lot of Bonanno guys in the place and I even saw a Lucchese associate named Jerry Degerolamo, who didn't want me to tell anyone he was there.  We went out in the parking lot and Nicholas opened up his SUV gave us some NFL Jerseys.  I recorded the whole thing and later the FBI told me not to worry.  A few weeks later they took down everyone.  I left the jersey when I left New York - not a big loss since it was free.

Nicholas did a few years and came out as a Capo running his crew out of Brooklyn. He then worked with a man named Nicholas Bernhard who just happened to be the President of Local 917 of the Teamsters.  Santora and friends actively campaigned for him in 2010 and when he won he used his position to enrich himself and the Bonanno family.  He had a shop steward help the crew get players for their sportsbook from the Union and he also pushed shylock loans to them.  The Bookmaking took in 7 million in one year and they were selling Viagra and Cyalis, along with heavy pain killers.  A few years ago the NYPD Joint Taskforce took him down, and the case is currently still going on.  Somethings never change.

Harrelson, a judge and JFK

Woody Harrelson has made a name for himself as a great actor, but few people know about his father Charles Voyde Harrelson.  Charles V. Harrelson was a hitman, the first person to kill a sitting federal judge in the 20th century.  

Our story begins with Jimmy Chagra, a struggling rug salesman.  His family went bust and he turned to gambling and drug smuggling to make his cash.  He was hugely successful as a drug trafficker and became a fixture in Las Vegas.  He lived at Caesars Palace while he was having his mansion built.  He gambled a million a week in the casinos and once lost 500k on a golf game.  He was indicted and arrested twice for drug dealing.  When he drew Judge John Wood, better known as “Maximum John” because he handed down the maximum sentence to drug dealers, he was advised by his brother Joe Chagra, a lawyer, to kill the Judge rather than receive a long sentence.  So he reached out for a hitman.  Charles V. Harrelson was well known as a gun-for-hire, a guy who would do whatever it took to get a job done.   They met in a Las Vegas Casino.  

Charles V. Harrelson Mugshot

Charles was paid an astronomical amount of cash to kill the judge, 250K. This amount is high even in today’s dollars.  Anyone who watches Discovery ID Channel will know that people are killed for much less all the time.   Just look at what those who killed Fat Herbie Blitzstien were paid.  Charles was paid based based on the word that he was on the grassy knoll and fired the famous fatal head shot.   Whether you believe that or not, he did kill the judge with a single shot fired from .240 Wetherby Mark V rifle, killing him from a distance.   He waited for the judge to come home to his San Antomio, Texas townhome.  When he arrived in the parking lot, Charles fired a single shot from a rifle into his body, killing him.  When he was arrested, high on cocaine on the highway in Texas, he was ranting about killing Kennedy. When they searched him they found a card from R.D. Matthews in Dallas.   The FBI launched the biggest investigation in modern history in 1979, interviewing more than 30,000 people and collecting more than 500,000 pieces of evidence, at a cost of 11 million dollars.  

Charles was rumored to be one of the three tramps arrested by the Dallas Police immediately after the Kennedy assassination. There was no official record of ever arresting three tramps, and it would never even be known about except for a series of pictures taken by a reporter in Dealy Plaza immediately after the assassination.   The tramps were trying to board a train very close to the grassy knoll and stockade fence when they were arrested.  They appear very clean shaved with new shoes on their feet, so them actually being real tramps is suspect.   One looks a lot like Charles V. Harrelson.  

The Three Tramps

R. D. Matthews, the man whose card was found on Charles when he was arrested, was a shadowy Dallas gambling figure who was a highly decorated World War II Veteran.  He returned  back home and became part of a large Dallas gang.  He worked with Benny Benion of Horseshoe Casino fame and even had places in Cuba.  Jack Ruby made a 13 minute call to RD's wife's home in Las Vegas a few days before the Kennedy assassination. Jack Ruby saw Dallas Mafia boss Joseph Campisi and RD Matthews after killing Lee H Oswald.  RD had a permanent room at the Horseshoe and that was where Charles Harrelson was paid the 250k to kill the judge.

There is so much to this story and that is why I kept studying the files and getting into contact with Charles Harrelson.  He wrote me back to say that he was going to tell his story, the REAL story.  Unfortunately, that book will never come because he died on March 15, 2007 and his cell was cleaned out.    

A few years back, casino magnate Bob Stupak was roughed up by a then-88 year old RD Matthews.  I called up Las Vegas Reporter Scoop Smith and asked him if he knew who RD was, and he didn’t know. So I filled him in and there was a nice piece in the next paper.

RD Matthews, like Charles, has passed on. On July 21, 2013 he died like he lived, quietly.

The White Dragon

This is a story made for Hollywood. It has a white man known as Bac Guai John (in Chinese) which translates to  "White Devil John."

John Willis - White Dragon

John Willis lost his family at the age of 14 when his older brother who took care of his family died in a car accident.  At 15, his mother had her legs amputated and died soon after as a result of diabetes.  Young John Willis was homeless, living on the streets with pennies in his pockets.  His two drug addict sisters had no interest in raising him.

He was a tough kid, and he got a job as a bouncer at a nightclub in Boston.  One night, a young Chinese man known as Woping or "John Jo" got into a bad spot.  Woping was going to be seriously hurt until Willis intervened. Woping was so greatful, he took Willis home to his family, where he lived for the next few years.  It was with this family that Willis learned how to speak a several dialects of Chinese and also Vietnamese.  

Willis was soon running around Chinatown with a large violent street gang called Ping On Gang, which was a farm team for the 14kTriad.  He would soon become an enforcer for the gang during the 80's and the 90's, while they were expanding.  He was known as the White Dragon and The White Ghost because of his ability to commit violence and move on.

The Ping On Gang was headed by Dai Lo or "Big Brother."  Stephan Tse, also known as "Sky Dragon" was a member of the 14k Triad in Hong Kong who came to America to spread the 14k Triads reign.  He controlled all Chinatown crime until the 1990's when young Vietnamese and other Triads started to move in on his action.It all came to a head when 6 men were gunned down by three young gangsters in a Tyler Street Gambling den on January 11, 1991.  One man lived and one escaped the massacre, but it was the worst the Boston Police had ever seen.  

The FBI and everyone else soon cracked down on Boston's Chinatown.  By the mid 1990's Sky Dragon was locked up on racketeering charges.   Willis would be arrested for dealing heroin and sentenced to 8 years, but he would get out early on parole which he violated so often it took him 10 years to complete.

Willis soon started his own drug gang and was soon slinging oxycodone to a man in Cape Cod.  He then expanded his operation into Florida where he moved over 260,000 pills plus huge amounts of marijuana over a 4 year period.  He was still a force in Chinatown criminal circles.  He was used as an enforcer for Ming Jai, a man who now controlled gambling in Chinatown and had connections all over the world.  He also worked with Wei Chen who ran brothels and was another Triad player.

Willis was soon pulling down the big bucks because his organization brought in 3.9 million in a very short time.  He then invested some of his cash in a Liquor store to launder some of his cash. He bought a boat, Bentley and other luxury cars.  He then decided to buy a night club in Florida so he could clean much more of his cash but the FBI was closing in on him.  The DEA had caught a courier on a plane to Florida, they had wires up and he was soon taken down.

A white guy in Chinese Organized Crime! A Hollywood dream, as they can cast a superstar white guy as the lead and surround him with Asian bit players.

I am sure that John Willis, who is now doing 20 year in a Federal Prison, will get a kick out of it even if he gets nothing from Warner Brothers - who are set to film the movie titled "White Devil."  Let's see if they can take a good story, not mess it up, and make it somewhat true to life.  If so, they will have a great movie.

Recent Take Downs

“Colombo capo gets 12 years for ordering murder while attending grandmother’s wake.”

These were the headlines about Teddy Persico Jr in the New York Newspapers last week.  He really wanted Joe Scopo dead because the guys led by Joe Scopo had tried to kill his father.  So now, Teddy gets his "Do Over," only this time he will be going back home to prison, which has become his home over the years.  I liked Teddy the best out of all those guys, but with friends like Eddie Garofalo, Teddy never had a chance of a real life when he was released.   He will be 62 and still have a 3 year tail after he gets out.  He will have put in 33 plus years!  That means if his family has held onto power until he gets out, he has a chance of becoming Boss.  Maybe he can get a 5 year run before he goes back to his home at an FCI.  Teddy would have had a much better life if he would have just driven a truck.  Teddy just finished a 17 year sentence when he was released.  From the minute he was released he was going back.  He got 4 1/2 more years first, and now, he got another 12 years.  He can thank his buddy Eddie.  

A long time ago I had told the FBI about a place in the Bronx off Pelham called Balsamo's Funeral home.  They took it down and filed it away.  Later they told me they thought some Lucchese used it as a meeting place.  I told them it was a Genovese place, but they said I was wrong.  One guy liked what I told him.  This guy was an investigator from the Orange County California Organized crime squad.  When he went to NY on business, he had some guys drive him by it.  He took some pics with the guys standing around outside near a Social Club and Bodega, they were Genovese.

It took the FBI until February of 2006 to crack that place, but they ended up taking a lot of the Genovese guys down.  The indictment states that they used the funeral home for meetings.  They rolled it up into a large RICO case, which included the murder of Ralph Coppola, for which the FBI blamed Liborio "Barney" Bellomo, the acting boss of the Genovese family.  It was to be a death penalty case, but it fell apart like so many have in recent years.  They had no proof that the crooked lawyer they flipped had ever met Barney, so he took a plea deal and was given one more year.  

Ralph Balsamo was not as lucky.  He was involved in a massive bookmaking operation in Hunts Point Market and the Terminal Produce Market.  They took in over a million in bets.  He was also involved in a large scale drug operation with a group known as the Tanglewood Boys.

When State troopers tried to arrest one of the ring leaders, Michael Londonio, they had a no knock warrant so they kicked the door in and charged inside.

The bedroom door was closed but Londonio opened fire, striking one trooper in the leg and hitting another in his ballistic vest and helmet.  He was killed when they returned fire.  Michael Londonio had made over a million dollars in drug sales in that same month before he was killed.

When Ralph Balsamo was arrested, he admitted to the FBI he knew Londonio and he was surprised they knew about him.  He would later take a plea and get 92 months, which is not a bad deal.  He had a lot of letters from all the charitable work he has done in his pre-sentencing report and he claimed to have bought another funeral home in Mount Carmel where he was going to relocate when he was released.  

We shall see how that plan works out.  You come in alive and leave dead: that is the Cosa Nostra.