Patriarca Family

The New England Family is referred to by the FBI as NELCN (New England La Cosa Nostra).   I still call it the Patriarca Family after its long time boss Raymond Patriarca.  

The New England Family started as two distinct families in the early 1900’s: one in Boston centered around the North End, and the other in Providence Rhode Island.  Gaspare Messina became the boss of the Boston LCN in 1916 and in 1917 Frank Morelli became boss of the Providence LCN.  Filippo Buccola became the boss of Boston in the early 1930’s but it was a family at war.  He would battle Irish gangs and others for dominance and after he killed the Irish leader Frank Morelli and merged his Providence family into the Boston family.  Buccola would retire in 1952 giving control of the family to Raymond Patriarca.

Raymond would make a lot of changes to the family beginning with moving the seat of power to Rhode Island.  He would run the family from the Coin-o-Matic vending machine office on Atwells Ave in Federal Hill. It would be known as The Office to members of the family.  Federal Hill is still a small neighborhood today and you can see why Raymond chose it as his base of operations.

Raymond was close to the Colombo and Genovese Family in New York and he was a member of the Commission.  The Genovese would have a crew in Springfield Mass that is still there today.  He had ties with the Los Angeles Family and his guys would head to the West Coast when things got hot.  One of the guys who would become boss stabbed a guy on Hollywood blvd when he was hiding out.  The current Underboss Carmen DiNunzio was hiding out in California and worked with Joe Sica and his brothers.   

Raymond brought 30 years of stability and prosperity to the family.  In Boston there was an Italian bookmaker named Jerry Angiulo who was running a large book and other games from the North End. Jerry was being shaken down by other hoods because he was not a made man.  The story is he went to Raymond and offered up a sizeable cash gift if he was made.  No matter because Jerry and his brothers would bring in huge amounts of cash and in 1968 he was made underboss.

The family would suffer after Raymond passed away in 1984.  The FBI was able to penetrate Jerry Angiulo’s office and plant a bug which would bring him down.  

The Commission decided that Raymond Jr would be boss of the family and they hoped it would stop the factions from fighting.  The Family then decided to induct some new members including Vincent Ferrara who was in prison and had to be released on a furlough. What they did not know was the FBI was watching, they had gotten word from an informant that a ceremony was in the works.  Vincent had used the address of the home they were going to use for the ceremony as the place he would be at during his furlough.  They FBI bugged the home and the basement where a large table was set up.  They recorded the whole event and that would forever debunk the myth that there was no Mafia.  The tape is online and if you are interested you should give it a listen.  

The FBI took down the acting boss of the family last week. Anthony Spagnolo, the acting boss, and Pryce Quintina, a made man in the family, were busted for extorting a video poker machine company.  The case actually shows a couple of things about the NELCN and the FBI.

The Poker machines were placed in the Revere Moose Lodge and they came from a company named Constitution Vending Company which broke both State and Federal law by placing the machines in bars and social clubs.  A new owner took over in 1984 and they quickly found out that they had to pay cash to the local mafioso in order for their machines to stay in places like the Moose Lodge.  The old owners paid and they started paying $600 a month to Anthony Spagnolo. When he became acting boss he had Pryce pick up the cash.  It is not much money but it is just one small portion of what gets picked up every month.  Another company wanted to put their machines into the Moose lodge and they even offered a better split with the lodge but they were not paying so Constitutions machines were there to stay.  The FBI got the owners of Constitution and the guys at the Moose Lodge to flip on Spagnolo and Quintina.

It is funny because the FBI uses the fact that the Moose Lodge and the illegal vending company do business across state lines as the violation of federal law to make the case.  It really shows how much the FBI does not want the family to revamp itself and make themselves whole.

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.