In the late ’70s heroin and cocaine were the Family’s big money makers. ibid.
One of his closest allies Frank Gangi had turned. bid.
‘Anthony Casso was the single most treacherous organised crime figure in New York.’ Mobsters s3e5: Anthony Gaspipe Casso
Exclusive audio tapes and his only television interview take us deep inside the twisted world of a viscous Mob boss and career killer. ibid.
Casso decided to go with … the Lucchesi family. ibid.
The hit propelled Casso to the next level in his crime family. ibid.
In the mid-1970s Anthony Gaspipe Casso was raking in millions from his burglary ring known as the Bypass Gang. ibid.
In the spring of 1990 the heat came down on the kings of the Lucchese crime family. ibid.
May 5th 1981: a quiet night on the streets of south Brooklyn, New York. Inside a vacant social club a Bonanno crime family captain watched and waited. He’d invited three couples for a meeting. Word on the street was the three were planning a revolt. They wanted to overthrow the family’s new boss Phil Rastelli. Massino had told the three: come to the club ... Four men jumped out of a supply cupboard with guns blazing. Mobsters s3e6: Big Joey Massino
As his numbers and loan-sharking operations flourished, he expanded into a new mob racket: lorry hijackings. ibid.
He would take on a new job – murder for hire. ibid.
That July Sonny found out that one of his closest Mob associates Donnie Brasco was actually an undercover FBI agent named Joe Pistone. ibid.
Joe Massino was determined to restore the family name. Ibid
Joe Massino not only won the battle of the bug, he was defeating the FBI at its own game. ibid.
In 1992 after six years behind bars Massino was released. He returned home to a Bonanno family in total disarray. Massino got to work rebuilding the organisation. ibid.
By the mid-90s Joe Massino was something of a rarity in New York; all the other major Dons ... were behind bars. Big Joey Massino was the last boss standing. ibid.
Facing murder charges Vitale turned on his brother-in-law Big Joey and agreed to cooperate. It was nothing short of devastating. ibid.
Facing a possible execution Massino became the thing he always said he despised the most: he became a rat. ibid.
September 1983 ... The frozen corpse was authorities’ first glimpse into the ice-cold world of the one of the country’s most prolific and sophisticated murderers – Richard Kuklinski, aka the Iceman. Mobsters s4e2: The Iceman: Richard Kuklinski
Richard defaulted on his loan to the Gambinos, crossing one of their most feared enforcers, a man who is suspected of killing more than seventy people – Roy DeMeo. ibid.
A ruthless contract killer for the New York mob. ibid.
Within two years DeMeo would turn up dead in the boot of his own car. ibid.
Kuklinski also kept his pockets full with another racket – auto theft. ibid.
He was charged with five counts of first-degree murder. ibid.
His most startling claim was that he’d killed over one hundred men. ibid.
The act of betrayal against his former ally [Gallo] earned Persico his nickname: the Snake. Mobsters s4e6: Carmine the Snake Persico: Snake Eyes
The street gangs of Brooklyn battled for neighbourhood turf. ibid.
One by one the rebels snatched five top Profaci lieutenants, including underboss Joe Magliocco and Capo Joseph Colombo. ibid.
By March 1963 nine Gallo soldiers had been killed. ibid.
Once again the Colombo family was set on a war path and Carmine Persico would be the last man standing. ibid.
Created in 1970, RICO gave authorities a short cut. ibid.
The so-called Commission Trial began in September 1986. ibid.
Greg Scarpa was born in Brooklyn on May 8th 1928. Mobsters s4e7: Grim Reaper: Greg Scarpa
In the early 1950s Greg Scarpa was making a name for himself on the hard streets of Brooklyn as an earner and enforcer for the Profaci family. ibid.
Scarpa ran his own crew ambushing truck drivers at gunpoint. ibid.
On October 27th 1961 Greg Scarpa delivered his first bit of insider info ... As an FBI informant he traded information for cash and protection. ibid.
The Colombo family war had just got personal. ibid.
December 11th 1978: a black van pulled up to the Lufthansa cargo terminal. Four men got out ... The money was completely untraceable ... Nearly six million dollars. Mobsters s4e8: Jimmy the Gent Burke
He kept money flowing to Paul Vario and the Lucchese crime family. ibid.
The [cargo] hijackings brought in cash by the truckload. ibid.
Lufthansa: seventy-two boxes of cash, jewellery and gold bullion into the back of the van. ibid.
[Henry] Hill was arrested on April 27th 1980. ibid.
In 1963 while Marcello awaited trial for conspiracy in connection with his fake birth record, New Orleans teemed with questionable characters. Among them was an ex-Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald. He had abruptly moved from Dallas, but he was no stranger to the Big Easy ... Although there’s no evidence Marcello and Oswald ever met, they did move in the same circles, and shared a common enemy. Mobsters: This Time it’s Personal
Just two days after Kennedy’s murder, police transferred Oswald to the County Jail. Swarms of reporters and photographers gathered to catch a glimpse of the suspected assassin. Suddenly, a man emerged from the crowd and fired a single bullet into Oswald’s abdomen. Oswald was announced dead two hours later. Police immediately arrested the murderer: he was Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, another man with alleged ties to mob boss Carlos Marcello. Mobsters: Legacy of an Assassination
Murder: for the American Mob it’s just business. And some of those messages have demanded attention. The most violent, the most daring and the most shocking: the Mob’s greatest hits ... As many as 10,000 hits. Mobsters: The Mob’s Greatest Hits
Maranzano knew the Federal government had started using tax laws to go after gangstas and feared trouble from the Internal Revenue Service. ibid.
Luciano had planned the hit, and he quickly became one of the leaders in the criminal underworld ... Luciano revolutionised the way the New York mob was run. ibid.
Luciano proposed that the mobsters share the New York territories. ibid.
But when Joe the Boss Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano were taken out by organised hits, mobster Lucky Luciano rose to the top, and organised crime was born. ibid.
Like other gangstas Dutch [Schultz] built his empire by profiting from prohibition. ibid.
He [Thomas Dewey] won scores of convictions, and in 1946 saw to it that Lucky Luciano, an illegal immigrant, was deported back to Italy. ibid.
In Chicago, notorious gangsta Al Capone had wanted to teach a similar lesson to his rival – Bugs Moran. ibid.
Al Scarface Capone rose to power in the 1920s. ibid.
Capone had had enough: he decided to end the war once and for all. ibid.
Valentine’s Day 10.30 a.m. ... The Moran crew was waiting for their leader to arrive ... Men dressed in police uniforms arrived at the garage and walked into the building. ibid.
No-one was ever arrested in connection with the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. ibid.
Tony ‘Joe Batters’ Accardo ... A rising star was helping Accardo establish the Chicago Outfit as a mob powerhouse – his name was Sam Giancana. ibid.
In 1975 [Sam] Giancana was subpoenaed to testify before a Senate Committee investigating CIA plots to kill Fidel Castro. ibid.
19th June 1975 Oak Park, Illinois 10.30 p.m. What happened next remains a mystery. All that’s known for sure is that as he stood cooking Sam Giancana was shot in the neck. No-one was ever arrested for the murder. ibid.
Bugsy Siegel found himself on the wrong end of mob justice for breaking a cardinal rule – never rob the mob. ibid.