The FBI and the press claim that Domenico Cefalu is the boss of the Gambino Family.
Domenico was born in Palermo, Sicily, a traditional Mafia stronghold and he was involved in the importation of heroin in the 1980’s. He did his 6 years for the heroin beef and went right back to work. John Gotti inducted him into the family in 1991 and he was placed in the “Sicilian Faction” based in Queens and Brooklyn headed by Pasquale Conte. He kept his head down but took a few hits because he refused to testify during some grand jury inquiries.
Most people hear the Gambino Family and they think of John Gotti parading around in his $2,000 suits in Midtown Manhattan. Meeting at the Ravenite Social club in Little Italy and taking walk talks around the block. John Gotti was everything that Gambino Family's namesake Carlo Gambino hated. He was loud, flamboyant and brought a ton of heat down on ALL the Families.
John Gotti made the FBI’s job easy because the Mafia is supposed to be secret. If any of you want a look inside the family read or listen to some of the stuff he said in the apartment above the Ravenite. John Gotti was in love himself and his image that the public saw in the papers.
This is not Domenico Cefalu, who lives with his mother and works at a bakery as a salesman.
The family is now much more secretive and more family oriented as seen by the FBI that was looking into Domenico’s family. Domenico has a first cousin who is a Capo in the family named Dominic and could bring in the cash because the FBI picked up some key conversations on its bugs about his shylock business.
Dominic and his brother Joseph gave out a loan to guy for 150k at a rate of 1k a week in interest. The guy then borrowed another 250k bringing his weekly payments or Vig up to 3k a week. This is something I've never understood and I might never get. The guy came to them for a loan, he got the loan and agreed to the terms. So why do the FBI and other Government agencies get involved? These payday loan places and pawn shops are much more predatory. They take from the poorest of the poor, working people who get in way over their heads. In many States the Government has private companies collecting its fines and even probation fees and they have the power to lock people up. So much for no debtors prison.
The fact is the Government says these Shylocks break the Usury Laws so it can be included in a RICO case.
Dominic also had two large bookies paying him for protection. The same borrower also had a bad gambling problem and he ended up owing the bookies another 500k. This is the bookie’s fault for not putting a limit within reason on their customer. They all bled the customer and made him sell some of his property to pay down the loan that they had collected interest on for over a year. He paid a lump sum of 75k in order to bring down some of the principal amount. The debtor still had a hard time paying the loan down so they resorted to threats.
The two bookies ran a sports book where they took bets in person and on the web. A player could call in or login to www.betswi.com. They had a lot of runners and others working for them and they brought in more than 2k a day in bets.
It is not just his two cousins but also their father Ricardo Cefalu is a made guy in the Gambino family and they were all involved in the heroin business at one time.
Domenico still had his hands in other Gambino business like the Concrete industry. The Gambinos still control the industry in the New York area and when a guy wanted to start a business there was a number of sit downs that gave the guy a right to open a cement business.
He agreed that after a one year grace period his company would pay the Gambinos 15% or a dollar a yard on every job. They collected over 60k in a year collected by Nicky Corrozzo and Lenny DiMaria. In the spring of 2007 another company wanted to buy this company so the Gambino’s “allowed” the man to sell his company as long as he paid 100k to the Gambino’s.
Lenny got the cash and he was in charge of dispersing it to the Gambino administration.
Recine Trucking was one of the companies that Domenico controlled on Staten Island and he was able to negotiate some great jobs because of his position.
The Gambino Family is moving along fine without the Gottis and now that the Sicilians are running it, it maybe be a secret organization once again.
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