Mafia Headlines Today - Lufthansa Heist

The Lufthansa Heist!  These headlines graced many newspapers this week.  When you dig deeper into the story, you see that only one man is charged with involvement in the legendary heist. The Feds had 4 informants, one of which is Joey Massino, one his Capo and Boss, and the other is his cousin!  

Vincent Asaro was inducted into the Bonnano Family in 1968.  One of Vincent’s crew mates was Anthony Mirra, who would be killed after the Donnie Brasco undercover investigation of the Bonnano Family.  Vincent was placed in his Uncle Mickey Zaffarano's crew.   Mickey at one time had been with his Brother-in-Law Joseph Asaro.  Let me explain who Mickey was in the Mafia.  Mickey was the man who ran the porn business in the 1970's by controlling the Pussy Cat theatres and other movie houses before video cassette.  I know he backed a few porn guys in California working out of the valley.  Mickey was also a mentor to Robert Dibernardo or “DeBee” who ran the porn business for the Gambino Family until John Gotti had him killed.

The way the new RICO case reads is this: on or about and between January 1, 1968 and June 30, 2013 both dates being approximate and inclusive. These are the words that enable the Government to charge three Made men in the Bonnano Crime family with Racketeering crimes even though the statute of limitations has run out.  The crimes include the staple of the Mafia, Shylocking or Loaning money. They also include the murder of Paul Katz in 1969 (he was buried and moved to a Queens backyard) and the December 11, 1978 theft of 5 million dollars in cash and over a million dollars in gold and jewels. Vincent Asaro and company were also charged with burning down a club known then as “Afters on Rockaway Blvd” because it catered to blacks and the Italian restaurant across the street thought it would be bad for business.

Vincent and his son Jerome (also known as Jerry) robbed a Fed Ex driver of 1.2 Million in gold salts.

The Lufthansa robbery was huge and it has been detailed in at least 3 films. In Goodfellas, Robert De Niro plays Jimmy Burke, the mastermind who they renamed Jimmy Conway.  Henry Hill, who was not part of the robbery crew, was played by Ray Liota, which is a huge improvement over the real-life drunken, drug-addicted Henry Hill.  Jimmy Burke had to include members of three crime families in the robbery because they controlled various parts of the airport.  Paulie Vario, a Luchese Family Capo, controlled the Union at the airport.  Another, who in the past has been misidentified as the Gambino guy in control of the airport, was Vincent Asaro who was really the Bonnano Family man at the airport.  Paulo LiCastri was the Gambino Family man who went on the heist.

Vincent Asaro is being charged as one of the men who kept watch outside, while others carried out the robbery.  Jimmy Burke went crazy with greed and paranoia after he realized how much he really stole.  He participated in and had over 10 people connected with the robbery murdered.  When the time came for the split of the cash, those who were still alive were never given their share of the robbery.  Pauli Variosent’s son Peter was to collect his end, which he did eventually get.  

Vincent Asaro eventually was able to collect 240,000 dollars, half of which he stole from one of the informants on his case.  Vincent also brought Joey Massino a box of gold and jewels as his end of the robbery.  That turned out to be a bad move, because Joey Massino is one of the informants that helped put together the RICO Case.

The FBI taped Vincent Asaro complaining about the Robbery to an informant. "We never got our right money,what we were supposed to get. We got fucked all around, Got Fucked all around, that fucking Jimmy Burke kept everything."  I guess he was pissed but he was still close to Jimmy Burke because even many years later he had his guys move the body of Paul Katz who he murdered with Jimmy Burke in 1969.

Vincent Asaro is now 78 years old and a Capo on the ruling panel that runs the family with Boss Tommy Di Fiore.  Vincent's father was a made man and so is his son Jerome who is indicted along with the rest of them.  Vincent has a bad gambling habit and he was even demoted from his Capo position and placed under his son when he took too much cash from his crew.  The FBI has some great tapes of him bad mouthing the Boss Tommy Di Fiore over cash and even former Boss Joey Massino.

It is never boring when you live in the Mafia, but this one instance goes to show that the FBI will get you no matter how many years have passed.

A "Secret" Criminal Organization?

The FBI has downsized its Mafia Squad in New York.  They used to have a squad for every family but today they only have two squads, about twenty five agents for all the families.  One keeps tabs on the Gambino and Lucchese and the other handles the Genovese,Colombo and Bonanno.  I was working with the C-38 squad or the Colombo Squad, now they are gone.  The mob squads used to be a sought-after assignment for Agents but today its all about Terrorism, so any Agent who wants to move up in today’s ranks gets in one of the terrorism squads.


So what does this mean?  Could this be the end of the Mafia?  That is doubtful.  They need to return to their roots of operating as a secret organization. John Gotti took over the Gambino Family at the wrong time.  The FBI was determined to step up their assault on the Mafia Families.  John shot his way to the top of the family.  He basically thumbed his nose at the Mafia Commission by killing Paul Castellano without the okay from them. He really thought he was smarter than the old men on the commission, guys with 50 years of experience.  John wanted to guide the family into what he thought was a good direction.  Big Paul was much better suited for the job.  He operated on another level by using the Unions to consolidate the construction, waste and concrete business. John Gotti and his brother, on the other hand, were moving heroin and shylocking.  

John Gotti

Big Paul operated a very profitable poultry business called Dial Poultry that sold wholesale chicken all over the East Coast.  He even worked with Frank Perdue from Perdue Chicken.  John Gotti takes over and he makes his Capo's show up every week at his club The Ravenite in Little Italy and this circus made it easy for the FBI to Identify all the guys in power.  Then he strolls around in his 3,000 dollar suits when he has no job.  He was a Capo who beat up a guy honking at him and then stole a few hundred dollars. That is not boss material.  They want to make a movie about him?  So lets celebrate a guy who kills a neighbor for accidentally running into his young son.  The kid was on a non street legal mini bike and did not observe basic traffic laws and got himself killed.  So the big Mafia guy John Gotti had his men kidnap the neighbor and make him disappear so his family can not have closure. John Gotti was not a good boss and he was no Al Capone.  

The Gambinos will grow and become bigger on a worldwide scale but we will not hear about it because the new bosses will not be some hotheaded crooks from Brooklyn.  They will be men who can operate on an international level.

Tony Accardo aka "Joe Batters"

Al Capone consolidated the Outfit in Chicago and streamlined it, but his kind of flashy rule wore out its welcome.  The new bosses knew that to much publicity was bad for business.  They knew that the politicians would take their money for gambling but not drugs, so they stopped it.  Tony Accardo or Joe Batters would rule the family for many decades without spending a night locked up.  He would die a free man but his Outfit would face many problems in the future.  The new leaders would forget some of the lessons they had learned from the past.  They still have some guys on the streets but can they rebuild the family? 

The LA Family has maybe 7 or 8 guys left but how active are they?  They could go the way the Gambinos are headed, but they would need some solid men to step up.  The major problem with all the Mafia Families is where they find recruits.  Contrary to what is written in the media, it is not pressure from new criminal groups at all that holds back the mafia families.  Most of these groups will not even be around in 10 years. No criminal group controls the drug trade or things like prostitution, that is bullshit.  The old boss Peter J Milano came from another time when Italians were looked down on and many were poor.  Today this is not true, they have assimilated into American society.  

I used to talk with Jimmy Caci for hours in Terminal Island and he would talk about how messed up things had become.  Jimmy gave his life to the Mafia and at the end he told me it was a waste.  Jimmy did about half his life in prison for the Mafia. In the end Jimmy had just his family and real friends.

Hollywood will keep churning out Movies like The Gangster Squad or any number of TV shows about Mickey Cohen or Whitey Bulger but it will be the same stuff.  Guys dressed in suits screaming at their underlings. Bad writing and they wonder why people don't watch their work.

I never saw Jimmy or Teddy Persico raise their voice at a single guy in their Crew,  Hang arounds or guys who were chased, sure they would dress them down, but they would also really hurt someone, not just bark.The truth is Sammy The Bull lied out in the open and nobody really went after him.  Sure they made some moves and pretended to go after him but it was his own drug dealing that brought him down.Once you flip and join Team USA you are safe.

The Mafia will be around for a number of years but I believe that you will be hearing less about them.  The smaller families will disappear because who in their right mind would want to join them?  The bigger families will go international and it will be years until we find out what they did.

All we have to do is look at history. For many years there were no real stories.  They found out about Murder INC from Abe Reles and he spilled his guts on how it worked but he was limited.  Then you had Joesph Valachi and he had a good understanding about the structure of the Mafia.  Then it was Jimmy Frattiano from Los Angeles and he really put it on the map.  Its been one book after another and we had an actual boss flip!  Joey Massino of the Bonanno family is the biggest to flip up to today.  Why would a lowly Soldier keep his mouth shut when bosses flip.

The future is in their hands!