Sunday, April 24, 2016

The Chicago Outfit: Still Chugging Along in 2016

The Chicago Outfit is most famous for Al Capone, who was only boss for about seven years. The FBI used to called it the Capone Mob.  They thought it died when he went to prison and when they found out it was still active, they called the unit tasked with looking into the Chicago Outfit “the reactivation of the Capone Mob.”

The fact is the Outfit ran smoothly under the watchful eye of Tony Accardo aka Joe Batters for decades without the press of Capone.

Today the Outfit continues to move along just below the surface of respectable business.  The days of controling the city are over, but they still have power and influence.  People hear about some cartel or some gangbangers and they talk about the mafia losing control.  The mafia was never in the same low level businesses as the fly-by-night crime groups.  The mafia is about making money.  Unions, Trucking, Carting, Gambling and Shylock are what they specialize in handling.

Ideal Motors Dealership was what R.J. Serpico and his father called the used car business they opened in Melrose Park, Illinois. The business was started with a 300k loan from Michael "Mickey" Davis.  Mickey Davis was a longtime associate of Outfit Bosses Peter and John DiFronzo so the Serpico’s knew this was no ordinary business loan. They agreed to payback the principle in 3 years and pay 300 dollars a car they sold as interest for the loan.

The problem with the whole car lot was the senior Serpico was a bad gambler.  He owed Outfit Bookies thousands of dollars and he dipped into the car lot money to finance his losing streak.

Micky finally had enough, so he went to speak to R.J. Serpico and he showed him how much his father owed the bookies.  He then asked him to pay the loan back because it was not the deal he lent them the money for when the asked.  

R.J. Serpico fired his father and made Mickey his partner after the meeting.  

R.J. Serpico came up with 60k in cash and a car that he gave Mickey but that was not enough.
One day R.J. Serpico could not take it and he just walked away from the car lot, giving it to Mickey.  Mickey still wanted his cash because that was the deal.

Mickey reached out for some leg breakers and another associate recommended Paul Carparelli who wanted to move up in the Outfit ranks.

The only problem in this whole deal was George Brown, a 300lbs MMA fighter and Union bodyguard who had flipped and was wearing a wire against Paul Carparelli.

The FBI knew when Carparelli met with Mickey.  They had him on tape planning to have George Brown stage a fender bender with R.J. Serpico so he could break his legs.

The FBI stopped the whole thing before they could finish the job.

Paul Carparelli would get 3 ½ years.  Mickey would get 4 ½ years and George Brown the informant that started the investigation got just under 2 years last week.

These were all associates but Mickey Davis was a heavily connected guy.  The Outfit is still alive.

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