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Gambino Associate Nabbed in Vegas, Indicted on ’02 Murder

November 9, 2014, 3:09 am
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The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York last week heaped praise on the Queens District Attorney’s Office for its work which helped federal authorities arrest an alleged mob associate who has been indicted on, among other charges, the 2002 murder of an illicit business partner in Howard Beach.
AUSA Loretta Lynch thanked DA Richard Brown and his staff for its “outstanding assistance” with the case against Gennaro “Jerry” Bruno, a reputed associate of the Gambino crime family, who was nabbed last week in Las Vegas on charges of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, narcotics trafficking, extortion, obstruction of justice, and the murder of Martin Bosshart, 30, on 155th Avenue near Lahn Street.
Bosshart, according the U.S. Attorney’s Office, was a “criminal associate” of Bruno’s who at the time of his death had begun efforts to exclude one of Bruno’s coconspirators from a lucrative marijuana importation operation. On Jan. 2, 2002, Bruno and other members of his crew, according to the indictment, lured Bosshart to 155th Avenue just off the Belt Parkway, where Bruno allegedly pumped a single shot at point-blank range into the back of Bosshart’s head, killing him instantly. His body was recovered at the scene.
“I was at the crime scene that night and saw firsthand that this was a deliberate and calculated execution of the deceased individual,” Brown said on Friday. “While it has taken more than a dozen years to bring the alleged triggerman to justice, I congratulate our federal law enforcement colleagues for their perseverance, commitment and hard work in ensuring that justice delayed is not justice denied.”
According to Lynch, Bruno evaded justice for years and conspired with other Gambino associates to obstruct an official grand jury proceeding into the Bosshart murder, while continuing to participate in the core money-making activities of the Gambino crime family, including drug trafficking and extortion.
A spokesman for Brown told The Forum this week that the DA’s office “supplied some information that had to do with the extortion part of the crime that [Bruno] was charged with.” In 2003, Bruno, formerly of Ozone Park, pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny, admitting that he was an enforcer for an illegal carting company that ran a multi-million-dollar trade waste fraud scheme involving bribery of key employees and cheating of several entities out of thousands of dollars in waste collection charges and threats of physical harm to competitors.
According to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Bruno “is currently in custody and is being transported by [U.S.] Marshals. We have not set a court date as of yet, and will not be able to until he arrives in [the Eastern District of New York].”


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Italian President to Testify at Major Mafia Trial

November 9, 2014, 3:09 am
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MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) - Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano is set to give testimony today in a major national trial of mafia bosses, as well as government ministers and police officials who stand accused of making deals with the Italian mafia in the 1990s, Italian news site thelocal.it reported.
State prosecutors are hoping that Napolitano’s testimony will provide fresh details on mafia bombings and assassinations that killed 21 people in the early 1990s, including two top anti-mafia judges. The 89-year-old Napolitano, a popular national figure, hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing.
Ministers from Italy’s former government are suspected of having held negotiations with Sicilian gangsters to end the violence engulfing Florence, Milan and Rome in exchange for softer prison terms.
The prosecution has set its sights on six mob-connected figures, including Sicilian mob bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Toto Riina; the latter threatened to kill prosecuting magistrate Nino Di Matteo last year.
Napolitano will testify in Rome behind closed doors before seven judges and the president of Sicily’s Palermo Court.
The president was called to testify after the country’s senior council of justice member Nicola Mancino, whose telephone had been tapped by prosecutors, called Napolitano, complaining about the trial, and asking the president for help. The recorded conversations of the phone calls have since been destroyed, at the request of Napolitano, who used his prerogative as president.
Prosecutors will instead ask Napolitano about two dozen questions about communications one of the suspects had with a former government advisor, Loris D’Ambrosio. In 2012, shortly before his death, D’Ambrosio had written a letter to Napolitano noting his suspicions that the Italian government had held negotiations with mobsters in the early 1990s to end the violence, Italian news agency ANSA explained.
The mob bosses had requested to be given access to Napolitano’s testimony via video link, but their requests were denied, Italy’s Gazzetta del Sud noted.
The details of Napolitano’s testimony are not expected to be revealed to the public in the near future, the local media reported.
Napolitano was the president of the lower house of parliament at the time of the mafia terror,
Italian media note that the trial is not expected to end before next year, after which the verdict could be appealed twice before becoming conclusive, possibly stretching the trial out for another year.


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Russian Mafia Gangster: How the Invasion of Ukraine Is Shaking Up the Glob...

November 9, 2014, 3:12 am
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Russian Mafia Gangster: Moscow police official brands ethnic gangs main pr...

November 9, 2014, 3:12 am
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Russian Mafia Gangster: Murder mystery: Who shot penny-stock promoters?

November 9, 2014, 3:12 am
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The New England Mafia: Connolly’s conviction to be weighed by Florida cou...

November 9, 2014, 3:13 am
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Retired Mob Boss “Skinny” Joey Merlino to Open Restaurant in Boca Raton!

November 10, 2014, 6:45 am
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by Jose Lambiet

BOCA RATON — Retired mob boss “Skinny” Joey Merlino and a group of investors are set to open a restaurant in the heart of Boca Raton, Gossip Extra has learned.
The ex-Philadelphia organized crime head, now 52 and a Boca resident since 2012, is scheduled to get off his three-year supervised release next month, a rehabilitation period tacked on his 14-year prison sentence for racketeering.
Obviously, Merlino now wants to hit the ground running after swearing off a life of crime because, he said in a recent interview, “too many rats” surround him.
Two sources in the real estate business who asked not to be named tell me Merlino will be heavily involved in a restaurant that’s supposed to open at 39 SE First Avenue by year’s end.
The location was made famous by the original Matteo’s, and lately was occupied by the shuttered up Segreto.
The investors have already inked a three-year deal with the property owner, a company linked to controversial Palm Beach County landowner Jim Batmasian.
Daron Tersakyan, who worked on the deal for Batmasian, said he isn’t familiar with Merlino’s name but confirmed the deal with investors who “want to set up a high-end, South Philadelphia-style Italian place.”
Tersakyan promised to call back with more information but hasn’t.
Lewis Kasman, who also retired in the Boca area after working for famed New York crime boss John Gotti then turning FBI informant, said he’s been questioned by law enforcement about the venture.
“I can’t confirm nor deny that Joey is opening his own place, but I’ve been questioned about it by law enforcement over the past week,” Kasman said.
Because he is a convicted felon, Merlino cannot obtain a liquor license under his own name.
But in his latest interview with a reporter last year, Merlino said he was looking for investment opportunities. Merlino talked to Philly mob writer George Anastasia about opening restaurants, cafes, a Philly cheese steak shop and a cigar bar.


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The journalist who took on the Italian mob—and scared it to death

November 12, 2014, 2:43 pm
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Annalisa Merelli


Monday (Nov. 10) marked the end of a trial against two mafiosos, Francesco Bidognetti and Antonio Iovine, and their lawyer, Michele Santonastaso, who were accused of threatening a writer during a court proceeding in 2008. The lawyer was found guilty, but the bosses were acquitted. So why does the trial represent an important step forward in the fight against organized crime?
In 2006 journalist Roberto Saviano wrote a book called Gomorrah about the Camorra, unmasking the mafia-like organization thriving in his native Campania, Italy. The book quickly became a best-seller. Like any mafia group, the Camorra swears by the code of silence, or omertà, and takes a dim view of anyone who exposes its secrets. Even so, its reaction to Gomorrah was unprecedented.
The criminal organization decided Saviano had to pay for speaking up—with his life. And so, at the age of 26, he found himself in a kind of Italian witness protection program, one designed for targets of organized crime. Saviano writes:
I still remember the day that I returned—free for the last time—by train from a literary festival in Northern Italy to Naples’s central station and was met by the military police. They put me in an armored car. I didn’t talk. I kept my gaze on my feet as if I had been arrested, though they were saving my life. They said to me, “Sir, we’re sorry, but we must put you under protection.”
Gomorrah wasn’t the first book on the mafia. But what set it apart, what made it dangerous to the mafia bosses, were two elements. First Gomorrah hit the Camorra in the wallet, by focusing on the foreign and domestic business of organized crime. Second, it was a smash hit, capturing the public’s attention and imagination. It sold over ten million copies around the world and became an award-winning movie. Its impact was impossible for the mafia to ignore.
As journalist Eugenio Scalfari points out in the Italian-language Repubblica, Saviano changed the way Italians thought about mafia organizations: they were no longer merely criminal cabals, but gigantic, malignant influencers on the economy and politics of the country. They came to be seen as a force that hinders Italy’s development through corruption, tax evasion, and illegal labor, and could be blamed for many of its woes.
That is why, in 2008, during a landmark murder trial against the Camorra, two of the organization’s bosses threatened Saviano in open court. Of course, in true mafia style, the bosses wouldn’t be the triggermen. Instead, during the tribunal, they had their lawyer read a menacing letter that listed Saviano amongst those they would hold responsible for influencing the court’s verdict.
In typical mafia fashion, the letter didn’t contain any explicit threats. But those accustomed to the mafia’s linguistic tendencies could easily read between the lines. In the letter, Saviano, eerily referred to as “il buon Saviano,” “the good Saviano,” is repeatedly called a “prezzolato,” or “mercenary” journalist (or “pseudo-journalist”).
Quartz obtained the full text of the letter. In reviewing it, the mafia’s threat against Saviano was made clear by their quoting Saviano himself in the very letter that threatened him:
“…vogliono soprattutto silenzio, minimizzazione, vogliono che lo sguardo vada altrove…“
“They want silence most of all, [to] downplay, they want an averted gaze,” Saviano had written. He dared to defy what they wanted by doing the exact opposite: giving them infamy and attention and focusing the gaze of the world upon them.
On Monday, a court acquitted the two bosses for threatening the writer, but the lawyer who read their letter was found guilty, and given a year’s sentence, suspended. The logic is hard to grasp—the bosses’ threats were delivered but not made?—and Saviano himself called it a half-victory.
But while the bosses’ acquittal is disappointing to many, it’s important to keep in mind that the mere fact that this case was brought is, in many ways, a victory.

Admitting that the threats happened—regardless of  the outcome—is a welcome change. Because Saviano scared the mob, he exercised the strongest, and perhaps the only weapon the public has against organized crime: he did not avert his gaze, or choose to downplay the truth. He spoke up.
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Pioneer mob rat Frank Coppa avoids jail time after admitting role in Bonanno crime family hits

November 12, 2014, 2:43 pm
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Ex-capo Frank Coppa was the first made member of the notorious crime family to cooperate with the government in catching mob honchos.

BY JOHN MARZULLI


He made mob history and now his racketeering murder case is history, too.
Ex-capo Frank Coppa, the first made member of the Bonanno crime family to cooperate with the government, was sentenced Thursday to time served for his life of racketeering. He had spent two years in the can before being released on bail a decade ago.
Coppa, who appeared to tip the scales at well over 300 pounds, zipped into Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis' courtroom on a motorized scooter.
Federal prosecutor Amy Busa urged the judge to show leniency for the 73-year-old former gangster who is in failing health.
Coppa's decision to become a rat in 2002 set in motion the cooperation of the Bonanno family's underboss and several other captains.
"I was going to draw the analogy of dominos falling, but I would say it's more like being in a redwood forest and having one tree fall on another tree and another tree," Garaufis said. "With Mr. Coppa's cooperation the redwoods started to fall and many of them fell in this courtroom."
Coppa testified against then-boss Joseph Massino and admitted participating in several murder conspiracies including the killing of Dominick (Sonny Black) Napolitano who was rubbed out for introducing an undercover FBI agent calling himself "Donnie Brasco" into the Bonanno ranks.
"I'd like to say I'm really sorry for the people that were hurt," Coppa said.
Garaufis ordered Coppa to stay away from anyone connected to organized crime during his five years of supervised release - but it is unclear if the order bars him from meeting his son, Frank Coppa, Jr., who is a reputed soldier in the Bonanno family.


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Imprisoned mob captain back in RI for short stay

November 13, 2014, 2:11 pm
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Tim White

CRANSTON, R.I. (WPRI) – Mob capo regime Edward “Eddie” Lato is back in Rhode Island for the first time since his conviction in a sweeping mob case two years ago, but his visit will be short-lived, the Target 12 Investigators have learned.
Lato, 67, formerly of Johnston, was transferred to the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institution on Sept. 10 from a federal prison in Estill, S.C. He was serving a nine-year sentence for a federal conspiracy and extortion conviction.
Amy Kempe, a spokesperson for the R.I. Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, confirmed Lato was back in the state to face a state conspiracy charge for his role in an alleged illegal gambling ring that was busted open in 2011.
The state case was put on hold while the Rhode Island U.S. Attorney’s office wrapped up the federal case that also brought down former New England mob boss Luigi “Baby Shacks” Manocchio.
In 2012 Lato pleaded guilty to charges that he took part in a scheme to shakedown strip clubs for protection money and extort $25,000 from a used car salesman.
Of the nine defendants in the federal case – including former reputed underboss Anthony DiNunzio of East Boston – Lato received the stiffest sentence. At the time, U.S. District Court Judge William Smith cited Lato’s lengthy criminal record on sentencing day in June 2012.
According to a press release at the time of state case, Lato was swept up by the R.I. State Police along with 23 other individuals including longtime made members and mob associates.
Also arrested in the sting was Frank “Bobo” Marrapese – who was on parole for the 1987 gangland slaying of Richard “Dickie” Callie. He was released from prison in 2008 – and Alfred “Chippy” Scivola. Scivola was just released to home confinement from a charge in the federal case.
Using court authorized wiretaps, state police detectives unearthed a large illegal gambling operation they say was run by Vincent “Vinnie” Tallo.
“It is alleged that proceeds of these activities were funneled to Edward C. Lato via intermediaries,” the press release stated.
After the state case concludes, Lato will be returned to federal custody. His sentence is scheduled to wrap up in July 2019.



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Mobster ‘Chippy’ Scivola released from prison

November 13, 2014, 2:12 pm
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – A reputed Rhode Island mobster who served nearly two years in prison for conspiracy has been released to home confinement, the Target 12 Investigators have learned.
Alfred “Chippy” Scivola, 73, was released from Devens Federal Medical Center – a prison in Ayer, Mass. – on Tuesday, according to Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Chris Burke.
Scivola is now on home confinement, according to Burke. He would not release the town where Scivola is now living, but records show he lived in Johnston when he was sentenced in 2012.
Scivola was snared in a wide-ranging federal crackdown into organized crime. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy for his role in shaking down strip clubs for protection payments.
Also convicted in the sweep was former Patriarca family mob boss Luigi “Baby Shacks” Manocchio, who has one more year left of his 5 1/2 year sentence. The 87 year-old is currently housed at a prison in a low security prison in Butner North Carolina.
Scivola officially wraps up his sentence in January.





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Mob rat avoids prison for role in John Gotti-sanctioned cafe killing

November 14, 2014, 7:39 am
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Anthony Ruggiano Jr. was given time served for helping 'destroy the remnants of this Mafia that had been the cause' of grief to victim Frank (Geeky) Boccia's family, said Judge Jack Weinstein.

BY JOHN MARZULLI

A mob rat was sentenced Thursday to time served - he spent three days in prison - for the 1988 rubout of his brother-in-law that was sanctioned by the late Gambino boss John Gotti.
Anthony Ruggiano Jr., 61, was being rewarded for his testimony against Gambino capos Dominick (Skinny Dom) Pizzonia, Bartolomeo (Bobby Glasses) Vernace and hit man Charles Carneglia that helped the feds solve a number of unsolved gangland killings.
He was the son of soldier Anthony (Fat Andy) Ruggiano, a prolific killer and powerful soldier who ran a crew out of the Café Liberty social club in Ozone Park, Queens.
It was in the garden behind the social club where Frank (Geeky) Boccia was shot to death amid the tomato and vegetable plants in 1988 for striking his mother-in-law — Fat Andy's wife — during a domestic dispute. Boccia had been lured to the club by Ruggiano, and Pizzonia pulled the trigger.
There was solid support for Ruggiano Jr. in Brooklyn Federal Court from current and former FBI agents and prosecutors — but no love from Boccia's sister and daughter.
"I learned my brother's body was cut open and stones placed in him so it wouldn't rise to the surface of the ocean," said Josephine Boccia, the victim's sister. Frank Boccia's body was never recovered.
Jenna Boccia, the victim's daughter, also urged Judge Jack Weinstein to impose the maximum sentence of life in prison.
But the judge apologetically explained he could not do that.
“The defendant has been rendered a tool by the government to further destroy the remnants of this Mafia that had been the cause of your grief. Were he sentenced to life, that would destroy this tool,” Weinstein said.
Ruggiano Jr. wept as he apologized to the Boccias for the murder.
"I have deep remorse," he said. "I would trade places with him in a minute."

Ruggiano, whose drug habit kept him from being inducted into the crime family, told the judge he is now employed as a drug counselor.
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NJ Transit approves funds for legal dispute with family of mobster

November 14, 2014, 7:40 am
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BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG

Leaders of NJ Transit decided Wednesday to continue their years-long legal fight against the family of a convicted mobster. The agency’s board unanimously agreed to spend up to $150,000 on lawyers to challenge a court decision ordering them to pay $8.1 million to the family of Carmine Franco, who pleaded guilty in May to organizing a Mafia racketeering scam. Franco, known in Mob circles as “Papa Smurf,” is currently in federal prison.
NJ Transit already has spent $310,000 in legal bills related to the case.
The dispute arose from NJ Transit’s attempt to build a $10-billion train tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. The agency decided it needed to own a polluted, 1.89-acre piece of land on the border of Weehawken, Union City and Hoboken, directly above the tunnel’s proposed path.
The property was owned by close family members of Franco, 78 and from Ramsey, a known criminal who already had been convicted twice for mob-related conspiracies. NJ Transit eventually agreed to pay $990,000 for the plot, and took possession in June 2010, according to filed in Superior Court in Hudson County .
Four months later, Governor Christie cancelled the tunnel project.
The fight between NJ Transit and the mobster was just beginning, however. Franco’s wife and sister-in-law, who officially own the land, hired an engineer and an architect to re-imagine the weed-choked plot as the home of high-rise residential buildings with sweeping views of the Hudson River and Manhattan. When possibilities for redevelopment were considered, the land’s value multiplied to $9.1 million, said Paul V. Fernicola, the attorney representing Franco’s family.
A jury in Hudson County eventually agreed, and ordered NJ Transit to pay Franco’s family $8.1 million. NJ Transit appealed, arguing that Franco’s family should not have been allowed to introduce documents in court about possible residential redevelopment of the site, according to court documents.
Then NJ Transit ran out of money to fight the case. In November 2008 the agency allocated $2 million for lawyers working on property acquisitions for the ARC Tunnel. That money was spent, so NJ Transit’s board had to allocate additional money on Wednesday to continue its appeal.
Whatever happens in the court case, NJ Transit will own the land outright, Fernicola said. That means the agency still may be forced to clean up pollution on the site, which was used for years by auto repair, jitney bus and salvage yard companies, according to court records. An environmental review conducted in March 2012 and submitted in court documents found it would cost nearly $2 million to clean and cap pollution on the site.


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Mobster who had in-law killed gets off with time-served

November 17, 2014, 2:01 pm
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By Selim Algar


A veteran mob rat was rewarded with a sentence of time served — just three days — for helping to whack his own brother-in-law despite pleas for punishment Thursday from his victim’s relatives.
Calling his cooperation “historic,” prosecutors said Gambino associate Anthony Ruggiano Jr., 61, helped the feds bag capos Bartolomeo “Bobby Glasses” Vernace and Dominick “Skinny Dom” Pizzonia with his insider testimony.
His singing on the stand against former family hit man Charles Carneglia also helped solve a slew of cold gangland cases, prosecutors said.
The son of late Gambino soldier Anthony “Fat Andy” Ruggiano Sr., a busy triggerman who ran a crew out of an Ozone Park cafe, Ruggiano Jr. was sentenced for his role in the murder of his brother-in-law Frank Boccia in 1988.
The hit – sanctioned by Gambino don John Gotti – was in retaliation for Boccia’s ill-advised manhandling of Fat Andy’s wife after she refused to cough up cash for a baptism.
Boccia was lured to the old man’s wiseguy-filled social club, Cafe Liberty, where he was shot five times and then gutted to prevent his body from floating.
Groveling before the court, Ruggiano Jr. apologized to Boccia’s relatives as they seethed in the jury box during the proceeding.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
A former junkie, Ruggiano Jr. said that he had cleaned up his life in the witness protection program and abandoned his life of crime.
“I was born and raised in a family whose values were rooted in organized crime,” he said. “I grew up in the shadow of my father.”
But the mobster’s tearful pleas were met with disgusted glares from Boccia’s daughter, Jenna, and sister, Josephine.
Unmoved by the fruits of his cooperation, the women focused on justice for their loved one.
“It is inconceivable how Mr. Ruggiano can live with himself,” Josephine Boccia told the court before sentencing, noting that her brother’s innards had been emptied and that his body was never found.
“It is the request of my family for the maximum penalty,” she said.
Just a baby when her father was murdered, Boccia’s daughter said the specter of his slaying has left her psychologically disfigured.
“The anger you have left with me is indescribable,” she told the hoodlum, adding that her heartbroken family told her for years that her dad was still alive and had abandoned them.
“I can’t tell you what that did to me as a child,” she said. “I pray today that justice prevails.”
But the pleas for punishment were mere formalities as Judge Jack Weinstein contritely explained that even the most nauseating cooperators were given breaks in the courtroom.
“In this case the defendant has become a tool of the government to destroy the remnants of this terrible group of the mafia that has been the cause of your grief,” he explained.
Aware of the outcome beforehand, the two women hung their heads and nodded as Weinstein expressed his sorrow for their loss.



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Belongings of Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, including rare Frank Sinatra photo, to go up for auction

November 17, 2014, 2:01 pm
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More than 150 items from the estate of notorious mob boss Sam Giancana will go up for auction Saturday. Auction items include a rare photo of Frank Sinatra, furniture from the home Giancana was murdered and more.
BY LARRY MCSHANE

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Saturday, No
Ba-da-bing, bad-da-bid.
More than 150 items from the estate of long-dead Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana will hit the auction block Saturday, including a rare shot of Frank Sinatra with the Mafioso known as “Momo.”
The black-and-white photo was taken inside the Park Sheraton Hotel — where New York mob boss Albert Anastasia was murdered while sitting in a barber’s chair in 1957. Sinatra surfaces again in a shot taken at the Fontainbleu Hotel in Miami with Giancana’s daughter Antoinette.
Giancana was among the most notorious mob bosses of the 1960s, when he reportedly shared a mistress with President Kennedy and plotted with the CIA to murder Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Plenty of other photos, along with furniture from the suburban Chicago home where Giancana was murdered in 1975, highlight the sale run by Munari Auctions in Las Vegas. The pictures include a July 1960 shot of Giancana with girlfriend Phyllis McGuire, one-third of the singing McGuire Sisters. There are also candid shots of Giancana with fellow Chicago gangsters like Leonard (Fat) Caifano and pictures from his boyhood.
For the more romantic, there are Christmas and Valentine’s Day cards to his wife, Angeline. “Faithfully yours always, Sugar Daddy, Mooney” reads the inscription on one — with Giancana signing off using another of his nicknames. A medical report done on his bullet-riddled body is also up for sale, as is a photo taken inside the family mausoleum where he lies in Hillside, Ill. Giancana was gunned down while cooking in the basement of his suburban Oak Park, Ill., home in 1975.








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Cold case, San Mateo: Mob hit suspected in 1952 car-bombing death of prominent sportsman

November 17, 2014, 2:02 pm
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By Natalie Neysa Alund
Bay Area News Group

SAN MATEO -- Wealthy Peninsula sportsman Tom Keen started his morning on Feb. 2, 1952 by giving some duck eggs to a friend. Then he kissed his wife goodbye and got into his Cadillac.
Moments later, when he turned the key in the ignition, a fiery ball of flames consumed the garage of Keen's prestigious 16-room San Mateo home. The 56-year-old man was dead from a suspected car-bombing mafia hit that remains a mystery.
"No one was ever singled out as the car bomber, but the mob was the suspect," San Mateo Police Sgt. Rick Decker said of the more than half-century old cold case that centers around Keen, who held a prominent position in dog-racing circles across the nation.
The proof, Decker said, is inside the department's meaty case file -- a beat-up box containing deteriorating manila folders that contains evidence, including pieces of detonator wire and chunks of shrapnel removed from Keen's body after his death.
Evidence revealed that when Keen started the Cadillac in his garage at 105 Hayward Ave., sticks of dynamite strapped to the bottom of the car exploded.
The blast blew Keen's body into the back of the car, shearing off his legs. Neighbors rushed to the scene believing a water-heater had exploded and called the fire department.
To friends, Keen was a "hearty backslapping sportsman with a million friends," according to reports published by the Oakland Tribune in 1952.
A businessman and engineer, he built the country's first dog-racing track in Belmont in the late 1930s and later established and ran the Town and Country track in Bayshore City.
Keen owned the International Totalizer Co. in Belmont. The company had a virtual monopoly on installing dog-race betting equipment at tracks throughout the nation in cities including Denver, Miami and Chicago.
What may have been his downfall, police said, was his invention of a machine that shows the odds before a race and the race's winning payoffs.
Published reports from the San Mateo Times indicated gangsters wanted to buy Keen's business because "anything that is mechanical can be rigged for a profit" and that gamblers were angered by Keen because "the odds on the dogs weren't coming out of his machines the way the boys wanted them to."
The unidentified sources said Keen refused to sell and his machine guaranteed absolute honesty in betting odds. San Mateo police investigators were looking into reports that, the year before his death, Keen resisted gangster proposals to "fix" the machines in the interest of gamblers.
Decker, who oversees the cold case, said Keen also had connections to "Scarface" Al Capone. Keen and local two local business partners set up a dog-racing track on property owned by Capone in Cicero, Ill, where he became closely associated with one of Capone's "front men" Edward J. O'Hare, who was killed in a 1939 gangland slaying that was never solved.
Keen later dropped out of the Chicago scene and moved to San Mateo, where he continued running dog tracks.
Today, cold case homicide investigators said they don't have much hope of finding out who placed the dynamite under Keen's car.
Too much time has passed, Officer Anthony Riccardi said. "Anything that's been kept quiet for more than 50-60 years likely involves the mafia and typically people don't talk when the mob is involved. Ever."
In addition, evidence is deteriorating and the suspect and witnesses would be very old, if not dead, Decker added.
"If the guy who did it was 18, he's 80 now, and most of the people involved in the case were in their 40s," Decker said. "The suspect and witnesses are likely about 100 today. Like with Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance, it appears it's a true mafia case that may never be solved."
Anyone with information about this case is asked to call police at 650-522-7626
Contact Natalie Neysa Alund at 510-293-2469. Follow her at Twitter.com/nataliealund.


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Chinese mob linked to World Cup betting ring bust in Las Vegas

November 20, 2014, 1:05 pm
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By JEFF GERMAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

A reputed ranking member of an Asian crime syndicate has been tied to the World Cup betting ring raided this summer at Caesars Palace, according to evidence seized by the FBI.
Documents obtained by FBI agents show a Macau casino junket company associated with Cheung Chi-Tai — whom authorities have identified as a leader of the Hong Kong-based Wo Hop To Triad — was among several companies the international betting organization is believed to have used to settle up wagers with its wealthy customers.
Among the listed customers were widely known English soccer club owners Matthew Benham and Tony Bloom, who is regarded as one of the biggest sports bettors in the world. The customers were not charged in the case.
During the Las Vegas raid, agents also retrieved photos from a computer of several international passports, including a Hong Kong passport belonging to Cheung, according to an FBI report.
The evidence was part of hundreds of pages of exhibits attached to court papers filed by federal prosecutors defending the July 9 raid at three luxury Caesars Palace villas occupied by eight defendants. Days before the raid,agents enlisted the help of Caesars Palace and one of its Internet contractors to pose as technicians and get a glimpse inside the high-tech gambling operation.
Cheung and his ties to the junket company, Neptune, are well-known to law enforcement authorities in Nevada, Hong Kong and Macau. He has been mentioned in news articles on the crucial role of junket operators in the Macau casino industry, which is well-represented by Las Vegas gaming giants.
Junket operators help casinos attract high rollers, promising them free hotel rooms, travel and other perks.
“We’ve been monitoring (Cheung) for some time,” Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett said. “We’re extremely focused on removing any elements of organized crime in Nevada, and we’ve been working very closely with the FBI.”
State gaming agents participated in the Caesars raid.
According to the FBI report, Cheung was identified in 1992 by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations as one of nine leaders of the Wo Hop To Triad.
In 2011, according to The Wall Street Journal, a Hong Kong appeals court judgment said Cheung was a triad leader who ordered a subordinate to “injure and later kill” a casino dealer in Macau. Cheung was not charged in the killing, but the subordinate was convicted.
Las Vegas lawyer David Chesnoff, who represents one of the key defendants in the betting case, Paul Phua, denied his client has had any association with Cheung.
“This is just speculation that has nothing to do with Mr. Phua and is only being presented in light of the weakness of the government’s case and the constitutional mistakes made by law enforcement,” Chesnoff said.
Chesnoff also denied that a betting ring existed.
“There is no organization,” he said. “They were high rollers invited to Las Vegas as the guest of a major casino, which has been taking their money for years.”
But in court papers, federal prosecutors said the defendants had requested an “unusual amount of electronics equipment and technical support” for the villas to monitor World Cup soccer games in Brazil.
A Caesars Palace investigator told FBI agents before the raid that in one villa alone there were eight computers, five workstations, more than 20 monitors, and additional large-screen televisions and Internet lines. The resort was asked to issue 19 keys for that villa, which agents said resembled a typical “wire room” associated with an illegal betting operation.
Prosecutors contend Phua, a wealthy Malaysian businessman who frequents poker tables in Macau and Las Vegas casinos, is a ranking “known member” of Hong Kong’s 14K Triad, one of the world’s largest criminal syndicates.
They produced FBI reports in their court filings that show the agents received information from Malaysian authorities in 2009 linking Phua and another key defendant, Richard Yong, to the 14K Triad.
Yong, a Malaysian businessman who runs a junket company in Macau, was described as an associate of the 14K Triad. He provided “front money” for an alleged 14K Triad member’s credit application at The Venetian and MGM Grand, one of the reports alleged. Yong “guaranteed” a $1 million line of credit for the suspected triad member at both The Venetian and MGM Grand.
The crime figure, whose name was removed from the report, was later charged with defrauding the casinos out of $1.3 million in gambling debts. He remains wanted by local authorities in the bad check case.
Yong’s San Diego lawyer, Michael Pancer, said the government has “absolutely no evidence” that Yong is part of a triad.
“He’s not a member of any triad, and he’s not alleged to be a member of any triad,” Pancer said, adding he doesn’t believe the fugitive wanted for passing the bad checks was even a triad member.
Pancer said in court papers that when FBI agents questioned Yong, he denied being a 14K member but admitted he had friends who were members.
Phua, Yong and their 23-year-old sons are free on bail posted by poker star Phil Ivey and other poker professionals.
Prosecutors last week suggested in court papers that Phua used his connections to bribe his way out of Macaufollowing his arrest there in June on organized crime and illegal gambling charges.
After his mysterious release, Phua flew to Las Vegas, where he and seven associates resumed their illegal gambling operation and eventually were taken into custody, prosecutors alleged.
In the documents, prosecutors said text messages collected from his son’s cellphone during the July 9 Caesars raid show that between $4 million and $5 million in Hong Kong dollars, roughly $515,000 to $644,000 in U.S. currency, was paid by Phua “under the table” to get released from custody in Macau.
One June 19 message says that one of the Macau officers who arrested Paul Phua was a friend of his and that “they are negotiating now. Hopefully, they want only money.”
Chesnoff strongly denied the allegations.
Authorities have alleged that the schemes in Macau and Las Vegas involved hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal World Cup wagers. More than 20 other people were arrested with Phua in Macau.
Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter.





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Crime experts document unholy alliance between Mafia and Vatican

November 20, 2014, 1:07 pm
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Crusading Italian anti-Mafia magistrate Nicola Gratteri presents Acqua Santissima co-authored with Antonio Nicaso of GTA on often-close relationship between Mafia and church at International Book Festival
By: Peter Edwards Star Reporter, Published on Fri Nov 14 2014
There’s no small measure of irony in the title Acqua Santissima, the latest book by crusading anti-Mafia magistrate Nicola Gratteri and Toronto-based, internationally respected organized crime expert Antonio Nicaso.
It translates to “Holy Water,” but could also have been “Troubled Water” or “Polluted Water,” since it documents the often unholy alliance between the Mafia and the Vatican.
Nicaso and Gratteri presented their book Sunday at the Inspire! Toronto International Book Fair in a bilingual forum in English and Italian.
Gratteri made headlines a year ago when he warned that Pope Francis’s life might be in danger from the ’Ndrangheta crime group, the Mafia strain now considered more dangerous than the more famous Sicilian Mafia or American La Cosa Nostra.
In an interview Friday, shortly after Gratteri arrived in Toronto, the co-authors had profuse praise for the Pope and his plans to reform the Vatican bank.
“It made me believe that he was in danger,” Gratteri said, his comments translated into English by Nicaso.
Gratteri is no stranger to death threats himself. He was awarded the Civil Courage Prize in Washington this fall, after a quarter-century of putting hundreds of mobsters behind bars.
He and Nicaso found themselves intensely criticized by some members of the press and church before their book even hit the stands, although they’re quick to say they are not antichurch.
“Our criticism is like an act of love for the church,” Nicaso said.
“I was surprised,” Gratteri said. “Usually, people in the church are very reflective and do their homework.”
Acqua Santissima is the latest work the pair have co-written on the ongoing relationship between the Mafia and power, which they say runs even deeper than its lust for money.
“There is corruption without the Mafia, but there is no Mafia without corruption,” Gratteri said. “The Mafia is built on corruption. The ultimate goal is power.”
In their research for Acqua Santissima, they uncovered the story of how two priests were murdered in Calabria in 1862 by the ’Ndrangheta.
“Nobody was aware of the two murders,” Gratteri said. “It showed that the ’Ndrangheta never had respect for anyone.”
He and Nicaso note how mobsters love the parades, rituals and other trappings of the Roman Catholic Church, while missing its essential messages of love and peace.
“It’s a strange situation,” Gratteri said. “They show a devotion for symbols, processions. It’s not like an intimate relationship with God.”
“They don’t feel that being a Catholic and being a mobster is a contradiction,’ Gratteri said.
Gratteri said he’d like to see uniform rules in place for the Catholic Church when dealing with criminals.
He noted how John Papalia of Hamilton was denied a burial mass after his 1997 murder, while Montreal Mafia leader Nicolo Rizzuto received a full mass after he was slain in 2010, even though they had convictions for similar drug crimes.
They note how mobsters don’t feel remorse after murders, since they routinely blame their victims.
“They say that they are forced to kill because they tried to advise the victims,” Nicaso said.
“When you eliminate the sense of remorse, you can do everything.”
More on thestar.com


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Italian police catch mafia initiation rites on camera leading to arrests

November 20, 2014, 1:07 pm
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Arrests of 40 suspected gangsters, on charges of criminal association, illegal arms sales and extortion, followed a two-year investigation using wire-taps and hidden cameras
Secret mafia initiation rites have been caught on camera for the first time by Italian police, who on Tuesday arrested 40 suspected gangsters in raids across the north of the country.
The arrests, on charges of criminal association, illegal arms sales and extortion, followed a two-year investigation using wire-taps and hidden cameras in locations known to be frequented by mobsters, police said.
“For the first time the swearing-in ceremonies have been recorded live,” Milan prosecutor Ilda Boccassini told journalists at a press conference following raids which saw 37 people landed behind bars and another three placed under house arrest.
“For the first time we heard it from the voice of the mafia,” instead of relying on details from police informants, she said.
Those arrested are believed to belong to three clans based near Milan but affiliated with the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, an organised crime group made up of networks of hundreds of family gangs even more feared and secretive than the Sicilian Mafia.
Police said the arrests were fresh proof of the deadly southern group’s expansion into the rich industrial north of the country. Those in handcuffs include a 17-year old boy and boss Giuseppe Larosa, known by the nickname “Peppe the Cow,” according to Italian media reports.
The video and audio recordings revealed the swearing in of ’Ndrangheta mobsters to an elite membership known as “Santa”.
New members swore allegiance “in the silence of the night and under the light of the stars and splendour of the moon” to “safeguard my wise brothers”.
An unnamed boss leading the rite in police videos published on Italian newspaper websites can be heard telling the new Santa that they are now expected to be their own executioners should they stray from the ’Ndrangheta’s code.
“From now on it will not be other men who judge you, you will judge yourselves,” the man says.
In what he describes as the “oath of poison”, he says there are two alternatives open to the disloyal: “Either you poison yourselves or you take this (gun) which shoots. There must always be a bullet reserved; one for you.”
Boccassini said the Santa’s affiliation “is in their DNA and under their skin and they can leave the ’Ndrangheta either by collaborating with the state or through death”.
The name ’Ndrangheta comes from the Greek for courage or loyalty. Its tight clan structure has made it famously difficult to penetrate.
She referred to a conversation wiretapped in July last year, where boss Michelangelo Chindamo was heard saying that “the music may change but the rest remains ... we can never change”.
He warned mobsters with him that “having a mobile phone in your pocket ... is like having a policeman in your pocket,” and cited anti-mafia magistrate Boccassini and police wiretaps as exactly the sort of threat the clans faced.
Notebooks were discovered during the police raid which detailed the rites, investigators said.
Boccassini said the proof gathered by the police was so solid that those arrested would be dealt with under a fast-track trial procedure which would do away with preliminary hearings.





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Elaine Smith, a former FBI special agent, wrote a book about her career.Elaine Smith, a former FBI special agent, wrote a book about her career.

November 21, 2014, 8:24 am
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Ken Eto, also known as "Tokyo Joe," survived a mob hit to figth back with Smith.Ken Eto, also known as "Tokyo Joe," survived a mob hit to figth back with Smith.CARMEL, Ind. -
At age 36, Elaine Smith got a late start as an FBI agent - but she quickly made up for lost time.

The story of her trailblazing career is a story filled with violence, intrigue and the mob.

"His name was Ken Eto, 'Tokyo Joe'," Smith told Eyewitness News reporter Kevin Rader in her living room.

It was Chicago, February 1983. Eto was shot three times by the mob.

"The first survivor out of 1,100 mob murders in the history of Chicago to live and tell about it and he only knew one name in the FBI and it was my name," she continued.

Smith's new book, "A Gun in my Gucci," details how two outsiders would work together to take down the Chicago mob.

"To have a mobster ask for you on his deathbed is an amazing thing," she added.

But he didn't die and for the next 17 years Eto and Smith, who has called Carmel home for the last ten years, made the mob pay. The two mobsters who botched the murder met their untimely death one week later.

"Oh man, this is great stuff. I can't wait to get it written down and tell everybody. We gotta open a case on this. We need to do this and this and this. I was very excited. I knew it was a pot of gold," she remembered.

Forty-five mobsters would be brought to justice in cases involving millions of dollars. The Teamsters would be turned inside out and former Illinois Governor George Ryan would be turned out of office in disgrace.

"Everybody suspected George Ryan, but no one had hand-to-hand payment to him, but he had," Smith noted.

Even today, 12 years after she retired, Smith handles the handcuffs with the expertise of an FBI agent and she misses that .45 pistol.

"I left the FBI and I knew it was going to be changed. I would have loved to stick around to see how it would be changed and see how things were going to go," Smith reflected.

She says the book which she dedicated to her husband Tom, who was also an FBI agent, took six months to write.

"People ask, 'Did you do any undercover?' I said no. I never wanted to be anyone's girlfriend, wife or somebody's secretary. That is not why I went to school and that is not who I grew up to be," she stated.

She grew up to be the first Supervisory Special Agent in the Chicago FBI. A position she held the final 10 years she spent in the bureau.

"I think this would be a fabulous movie. You would just need to sex it up," she concluded.

But there is an abundance of violence and intrigue.

By the way the Smiths are both retired from the FBI, which means they were the very first Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

But they didn't try to kill each other. They helped each other.


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