Anthony Palumbo known as Tony D is a long time Genovese Family Soldier who at times was an acting Capo in the family. Tony D was in the crew of Jimmy “Nap” Napoli who as a Genovese Capo ran the largest numbers game in the country. He also had the biggest sports book, he was a bookie’s bookie. When Jimmy Nap passed away on December 29, 1992 Tony D was tapped to take over the crew. Vincent “The Chin” Gigante made Tony D the acting Capo of the Brooklyn crew. Tony D had inherited a very important crew that was deeply involved in the Gas Tax scam with members of Russian Organized crime. They were extorting millions from the many Russians based in Brooklyn participating in the scam.
This is the way the scam went: everytime you go to a gas station to fill up your tank there is a tax on every gallon of gas. The tax is both state and federal and today in New York it is 63.49 cents.
When the organizations first got involved in the gas tax scam, individual stations would pay the tax for each gallon they sold. So each station started selling their gasoline and keeping the tax. They would sell the stations on paper before the taxman started looking for their tax. This brought in good money but its was small cash transactions. Then the Government decided that they would change the laws and make the gasoline wholesale distributors responsible for the tax. This was great news for the Mafia because now they could steal the taxes on a grand scale much easier than from individual stations. The Mobsters came up with what would be called a, “daisy chain.” They would open up corporations and Company A would sell the gas to Company B who would sell it to Company C but the gas itself would never move. It was all on paper.
So this gas tax scam and the bookmaking brought in a ton of cash to the Genovese Family and the man keeping it flowing was Tony D. Tony D was part of a group made up of members of the Gambino, Genovese, Colombo and Lucchese Family. This group was known as “the association” and they would get their share of the gas tax scam from the Russians and other crime groups. They were an extortion Cartel for the Mafia. A Russian Gangster named Victor Zilbert who was a big player in the Gas Tax scam went to Tony D to have a hitman that worked for him killed. The plan was for Tony D to lure the hitman to a Bronx Social club and murder him. He was never killed because the Feds took everyone down.
A Genovese associate named Angelo Sangiuolo was ripping off the gambling business run by Tony D. Tony D went to the boss Vincent the Chin Gigante and asked for him to be murdered.
The Chin ordered Angelo’s cousin to set him up. Angelo Prisco was a powerful Capo in the family so he had two associates carry out the murder. He told his cousin that the two men were going to settle a beef he was having with someone. Angelo got into the backseat of a van in the Bronx driven by Paul Gaccione. Seated in the passenger seat was a man named John Leto and when the drove under the elevated train track a train rumbled by on the tracks. John Leto turned around and shot Angelo multiple times. Paul then drove to a McDonalds at 1515 Williamsbridge Road in the Bronx and left the van and Angelo’s body.
Sometime later at the the Russian Club Rasputin in Brooklyn, John Leto and Paul Gaccione were introduced by Angelo Prisco to Tony D as the guys who took care of the Angelo Sangiuolo problem.
The feds put together a RICO Case and on May 5 2011 Tony D was sentenced to 10 years behind bars along with three years of supervised release.
No comments:
Post a Comment