JLSMITH: mobster Anthony “The Saint” St. Laurent Sr., leaves Las Vegas black mark:

Anthony "The Saint" St. Laurent Sr., what are we going to do with you?

Didn't we show you enough respect for one street guy's lifetime back in September 1993 when we added your name to Nevada's infamous List of Excluded Persons?


We bestowed upon you the highest honor Nevada awards mobsters and racketeers and cheats by placing you in the casino Black Book. (Population: 35.) The honor comes with a lifetime membership, and you're banned from setting foot in any of Nevada's sacred gambling halls.

You didn't lose sleep over it, I realize. But your Black Book membership was a signal Nevada gaming authorities believed you were a clear and present danger to the credibility of the casino industry. read more
John L Smith Review Journal

Gotti Junior may have killed his kid brother, but Frank Silva Jr. says, 'Not interested'

Frank Silva Jr. can live without knowing who killed his kid brother, even if federal prosecutors can't.The New Jersey man, standing in his front door Friday, said he's ignored testimony this week that mob legacy John A. (Junior) Gotti stabbed and then taunted a dying Daniel Silva back in 1983
. "Not interested after 26 years," the 52-year-old Silva said flatly at his rural home. "You move on."
His brother's name dominated the first days of the racketeering trial, with an eyewitness implicating Gotti in the killing inside an Ozone Park bar
Mike Bonner recalled the fatal March night at the Silver Fox, where a dispute between second-generation gangster Junior and a local barfly exploded into a barroom brawl. As glasses and punches flew, the prosecution witness said, the then-19-year-old Gotti slid away from the juke box, pulled a knife and stabbed Silva.
Bonner recounted seeing the badly injured 24-year-old victim propped up on a bar stool, splattered with blood.
"He looked like he was in bad shape," Bonner said. "Blood all over his shirt."
Prosecutors said a sneering Gotti returning to taunt the mortally wounded Danny with a cruel Porky Pig impression: "Th-th-that's all folks!"
Bonner said Gotti's father paid $10,000 to a crooked detective to make the case disappear.
The details were lost on Frank Silva, whose son Daniel is apparently named for his late uncle.
His father, Frank Sr., died three years after his brother, Silva said, and his mom is in declining health.
Asked how he coped with Daniel's death, Silva offered a blunt two-word reply: "Never did." Silva declined to discuss the case or his brother. It's a position he's taken for decades, even before the latest link to Gotti.
"I don't speak of family matters," he said before asking a reporter and photographer to leave the property

Gambino family hit man Charles Carneglia found guilty of 4 murders

A feared Gambino family hit man known for dissolving corpses in acid faced life without parole after his Tuesday conviction for racketeering and four murders
. Charles Carneglia, 62, betrayed no emotion as the Brooklyn federal jury returned its verdict at the start of the day. He never looked at the courtroom crowd - including the wife and twin daughters of one murder victim - as he was led away
"I'm happy the animal who murdered my father will be in jail the rest of his life," said Milta Delgado-Wheeler, whose father was killed by Carneglia during a 1990 Kennedy Airport heist."He has no remorse for the victims or families he has hurt."
Jurors apparently reached their verdict late Monday - and then slept on it before coming back. In addition to the murders, Carneglia was convicted of extortion and robbery charges after the jury deliberated for five days.Carneglia - one of John Gotti's most-trusted hitmen - was found guilty of killing armored car guard Jose Delgado Rivera at Kennedy Airport.
The slain guard's widow, retired NYPD detective Ana Delgado, gasped loudly before bursting into tears as the verdict was returned. The defendant faces a June sentencing.
Carneglia was not found guilty in the March 1976 slaying of court officer Albert Gelb. Prosecutors said Carneglia killed Gelb to prevent his testimony in a gun case.
"While we didn't get exactly what we wanted, it's important this guy will sit in a jail cell the rest of his life and wake up every morning and not be able to see the sun," said court officers union head Dennis Quirk.Seven mob turncoats portrayed Carneglia as a murderous Gambino family enforcer and a member of the late mob boss Gotti's inner circle.
Prosecutors said Carneglia became a made man in 1990 after murdering fellow Gambino member Louis DiBono in a garage beneath the World Trade Center. Carneglia was convicted of that murder.The other two victims were a pair of mob associates, both stabbed through the heart: Sal Puma in 1983 and Michael Cotillo in 1977.
Co-conspirator Kevin McMahon, a 5-foot-2 hood known to other mobsters as "The Midget," provided the most damning evidence against Carneglia - including witness accounts of the Rivera and DiBono slayings.McMahon was a homeless teen when he was taken in by Carneglia's brother, John. On the witness stand, he recounting growing up in the mob, spinning tales of jury tampering, body disposal, torture and murder.Carneglia dissolved the bodies of some victims with acid, prosecutors say.
Carneglia's lawyer offered a combination defense, citing his client's heavy boozing and heavy beard as evidence the mobster had turned his back on the Mafia.
Carneglia, employing a strategy used by John A. (Junior) Gotti, claimed he left the Gambino family in 2001 - well beyond the five-year statute of limitations for
racketeering.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/17/2009-03-17_gambino_family_hit_man_charles_carneglia.html

Mafia loan sharks making a killing

ROME - When the bills started piling up and the banks wouldn't lend, the white-haired art dealer in the elegant tweed jacket said he drove to the outskirts of Rome and knocked on the rusty steel door of a shipping container

A beefy man named Mauro answered. He wore blue overalls with two big pockets, one stuffed with checks and the other with cash.

The wad of bills he handed over, the art dealer recalled, reeked of the man's cologne and came at 120 percent annual interest.
As banks stop lending amid the global financial crisis, the likes of Mauro are increasingly becoming the face of Italian finance.

The Mafia and its loansharks, nearly everyone agrees, smell blood in the troubled waters.
"It's a fantastic time for the Mafia. They have the cash," said Antonio Roccuzzo, the author of several books on organized crime. "The Mafia has enormous liquidity. It may be the only Italian 'company' without any cash problem."
At a time when businesses most need loans as they struggle with falling sales, rising debt, and impending bankruptcy, banks have tightened their lending to them.
Italian banks, which for years had been widely criticized for lending sparingly to small and medium-size businesses, now have "absolutely closed the purse strings," said Gian Maria Fara, the president of Eurispes, a private research institute.
That is great news for loan sharks. Confesercenti, the national shopkeepers association, estimates that 180,000 businesses recently have turned to them in desperation.

Although some shady lenders are freelancers turning profits on others' hard luck, very often the neighborhood tough offering fat rolls of cash is connected to the Mafia, the group said.
"Office workers, middle-class people, owners of fruit stands, flower stalls are all becoming their victims. . . . We have never seen this happen," said Lino Busa, a top Confesercenti official. "It is as common as it is hidden."
Many analysts say organized crime is already the biggest business in Italy. Now, Fara said, the untaxed underground economy is growing even larger.
"Certainly I am worried," he said. "The banking system doesn't work, and the private one that is operating is often managed by organized crime."
The consequences for Italy and its 58 million people are huge, Fara said. "Stronger organized crime means a weaker state."
Nino Miceli, an adviser to Confesercenti, said the Mafia's goal is to take over the struggling businesses.
When the loans, typically at interest rates in triple digits, are not repaid, the threats of violence begin, and restaurants, grocery stores, and bars become the property of criminal gangs.
"As we sit here in this cafe," he said over an espresso near the Colosseum, "do we really know who owns it?"
With a burgeoning portfolio of properties and businesses, the Mafia becomes more entrenched in the economy and has more outlets to "clean their money," Miceli said.
Confesercenti estimates in a new report that organized crime syndicates - including Camorra in Naples, Cosa Nostra in Sicily, and 'Ndrangheta in Calabria - collect about 250 million euros, or $315 million, from retailers every day.
Some of that money is the classic "pizzo," or protection money demanded of business owners. Miceli said his auto dealership was burned down when he refused to pay. But the mob's booming business, he and others agreed, is loan-sharking.
In Vigevano, a northern city of 60,000 near Milan, a group called Free Vigevano has helped nearly 100 people who had become entangled with the mob.
One of them, a 40-year-old salesman, said he got his desperately needed $15,000 - but at 30 percent monthly interest.
The salesman said he blames banks for pushing people like him into the arms of the Mafia.
"If they would be a bit more open with their credit, many people wouldn't fall into this trap," he said. "They only give money to those who already have it." Mafia

Pictures link 'Goodfella' Frank Sivero to Gambino goon Charles Carneglia

Frank Sivero, who played wiseguy Frankie Carbone in "GoodFellas," seems like old pals with Gambino hit man Charles Carneglia in photo turned over by turncoat Kevin McMahon to the feds.

A "Goodfellas" actor made a couple of real-life cameos at the Brooklyn junkyard where prosecutors say Gambino hit man Charles Carneglia dissolved corpses in acid.
Frank Sivero, whose Frankie Carbone character was found hanging from a meat hook in a refrigerated truck in the flick, posed with Gambino crime family gangsters in several undated photos entered into evidence Wednesday at Carneglia's trial.
The government obtained the photos from mob rat Kevin McMahon, who testified the Sicilian-born actor visited the Fountain Auto Mall junkyard "a couple of times."
Sivero "had some kind of problem with somebody in jail, I am not exactly positive," McMahon said.
Sivero's agent, Mitchell Shankman, declined to comment.
The classic Mafia film has come up before in the trial. Carneglia was returning from the 1975 wedding of Luchese hit man Tommy DeSimone, played by actor Joe Pesci, when he was arrested by an off-duty court officer he is charged with killing.

By John Marzulli Daily News

Gangster John Gotti dipped neighbour in acid bath

It's been one of the last unsolved mysteries from the gangland career of John Gotti.Whatever happened to the neighbor who accidentally ran over and killed the mobster's 12-year-old son Frankie - and then vanished?The answer may be found in Brooklyn court papers filed this week by federal prosecutors.They say John Favara was shot to death on orders of the outraged Gambino crime family boss - and his body was dissolved in a vat of acid.Prosecutors say a cooperating witness has fingered a 62-year-old former mobster as the perpetrator in the 1980 affair.The court papers are related to an upcoming racketeering trial.The story of Favara's untimely demise is revealed in court papers filed in the upcoming racketeering trial of reputed Gambino soldier Charles Carneglia, according to The New York Daily News. Authorities have long believed Carneglia to be responsible for disposing of Favara's body after he was shot in March 1980 on Gotti's orders, the Daily News reported. Favara's body has never been found.Carneglia told a fellow gangster, now a government witness, that he got rid of the body by putting it in a barrel of acid, Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roger Burlingame told the newspaperNEW YORK http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-4708066.html

'Tough guy'

The feds indicted a reputed Genovese capo Monday for the 1977 murder of a gangster who, after his killer's gun jammed, snarled: "What're you gonna do now, tough guy?"

Prosecutors say Michael (Mikey Cigars) Coppola promptly drew a second pistol and gunned down John (Johnny Coca Cola) Lardiere outside a New Jersey motel.

Coppola, 62, went on the lam in 1996, after authorities asked him to submit a DNA sample to test against hairs found in a hat at the crime scene.

The FBI captured Coppola last year on the upper West Side, where he was living with his wife.

A DNA test of the forensic evidence was inconclusive; New Jersey authorities handed off the murder to case to the feds.

Coppola has pleaded guilty to the fugitive charges and is serving a 42-month sentence.

Godmother

Blonde beauty Georgia Duranti is a gritty and gutsy gal.Talk about life in the fast lane, Georgia did everything from driving getaway cars for mob stick up men to delivering mob messages on the down-low to Mafia boss Carlo Gambino.
Georgia's book, "The Company she keeps" is just terrific. We were both on the A&E (Love Chronicles) "Love & The Mob" in Spring 2000.... Georgia sends me an Invite every year to her "Godmother" gala held in her swanky Tinseltown diggs.
..
by. Anthony "The Animal" Fiato

Big Mob Boss

One of the world’s most feared mafia bosses accused of arms dealing, drug running, uranium trafficking and multiple murders has been captured by around 50 police commandos in Moscow

The pock-marked Semyon Mogilevich, known as the “Brainy Don” because of his economics degree, has reportedly ruled a powerful Eastern European organised crime ring since the 1990s.

He is thought to be worth around $100 million. He is wanted by the FBI, Interpol and the UK police for numerous international crimes including fraud, racketeering and money laundering

Police seized Mr Mogilevich, 61, and a large group of his bodyguards outside a Moscow supermarket on Wednesday night, Russian police confirmed today

State television showed footage of the alleged mobster as police held him and bodyguards against their luxury cars. They also broadcast film of the rarely photographed figure in custody, wearing jeans, a cap and leather jacket.

“Sergei Schneider has been arrested. He is better known as Semyon Mogilevich. He has several names, several nationalities and has been wanted for more than 15 years,” said Anzhela Kastuyeva, a Moscow police spokeswoman.

The arrest was made in connection with an investigation into an alleged $2 million tax evasion scheme run in connection with Arbat Prestige, a successful chain of Russian cosmetic stores. Vladimir Nekrasov, the owner of Arbat-Prestizh, was arrested in the same raid.

Monya Elson, a known associate of Mr Mogilevich, claimed in an interview given ten years ago that the Ukrainian was “the most powerful mobster in the world”.

An investigation by US newspaper the Village Voice, which apparently brought a death threat for its author, cited classified FBI and Mossad documents claiming that he was responsible for trafficking nuclear materials, drugs, prostitutes, precious gems, and stolen art. He was also said to have run a series of contract hit squads operating in the US and Europe.

Mr Elson claimed Mr Mogilevich, who was born in the Ukraine, controlled everything going in and out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, which he called a ‘’smugglers’ paradise

The Mogilevich family were reported to live in two opulent villas near Prague where they reportedly operated torture chambers run by young enforcers trained by veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war.

In December 1994, British police officers, tipped off by their counterparts in eastern Europe, first began investigating allegations that the Mogilevich organisation might be laundering profits from arms dealing, prostitution, extortion and drug trafficking through a firm of London solicitors.

Detective Sergeant John Wanless, who investigated the Red Mafia’s role in the UK at the time told the Sunday Times: “Semion Mogilevich is one of the world’s top criminals, who has a personal wealth of $100m. As a result of the effect of his financial impact on the City of London, he clearly falls in the category of a core criminal.”

In 1999 London investigators attempted to question him once again, this time over a $10 billion money-laundering scheme that unwittingly embroiled the Bank of New York and a network of other leading financial institutions in the UK, America and six other countries

Mr Mogilevich is also included on the FBI wanted list for racketeering, securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. The Bureau warns that he should be considered armed, dangerous and an escape risk.

During a 2005 speech in Hungary Robert Mueller, then FBI director said: “Right here in Budapest, Ukrainian-born Semion Mogilevich established the headquarters of his powerful organized crime enterprise.”

The group engaged in drug and weapons trafficking, prostitution and money laundering, and organized stock fraud in the United States and Canada in which investors lost over 150 million dollars.”

UK authorities and the FBI are unlikely to ever get the opportunity to question the man even after his arrest as Russia has no extradition treaty with either country.

Boston Mobster

Frank Capizzi, was an associate of the Notarangelis--"Indian Joe" and "Indian Al" who started a renegade gang that tried to muscle in on some of Angiulo's racquets.. .Joe and Al were both whacked out by hitman Johnny Martarano of the Winter Hill Gang. . When FBI agent Zip Connolly was convicted in federal court, Frank Capizzi wrote Judge Joe Tauro a five page letter about what it was like to be machine-gunned by Whitey Bulger in 1973 as Capizzi and two other hoods rode in a car in the North End. The driver, Al Plummer, was decapitated by the bullets

. Frankie Capizzi and his family begged well respected "made man" Paulie Intiso to get him off the hook with the Hill and Angiulo. . Capizzi knew Paulie since he was a kid. .He cried like a baby but he got to live as long as he stayed out of Boston. . . I started out in the Patriarca mob in Paulie Intiso's crew.

Paulie is mentioned in my book. "The Animal in Hollywood"

Anthony Fiato .
.

Whitey Bulger was a rear admiral

Whitey Bulger of the Winter Hill Mob had a gay one night stand with handsome actor Sal Mineo. Mineo was known for his Academy Award nominated performace opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Bulger killed plenty of people with tommy guns and pistols, but he slew Sal with cupids arrow right in the ass

Louie Gelfuso aka " The Couch"

Louie "the Couch" Gelfuso was a Capo in the Milano Crime Family. He was nicknamed " The Couch" by FBI agent's who were listening to the planted bug in his broken-down-dump of an aparment


Gelfuso was always laying down on his couch while he was watching soap opera's like an old scrub woman. He would talk to the soap show characters, and he would even cry at some of the sentimental scenes.

Gelfuso really had the Fed's almost pissing in their pants with laughrer, when he said to a soap character who was claiming she was a virgin to her boyfriend,, " you fucki'n douche bag , your cherry is so far up your ass, you can use it for a tailgate."

BARTENDER HAMMERS MOBSTER

Frank "Puggy" Sica (on the right) was the hoodlum brother of big time Los Angeles racketeer, Joe "JS" Sica . Frank was a pint sized punk,with a big chip on his shoulder... He was nothing like his older brother, JS, who was well connected and respected by Mafia figures all over the country. Puggy Sica and Sal Di Giovanni were burglars in the Sica gang.. They both got their clock cleaned by a bartender who first shot at them, and then beat the fuck out them both for punching and kicking a woman to the floor in a Hollywood gin mill.. The woman was Sal the Creep's girlfriend... Sal got beat so bad he looked like a racoon because he got two black eyes.. .Frank Sica had been arrested plenty of times, but my old lawyer Eddie "the Fixer" Gritz kept him out of the pokey.. .When I was an enforcer for JS, I hated seeing this little drunken fuck.... Anthony Fiato

..Another true Hollywood story

Mob Killer lived the good life in the joint

Ronnie "The Pig" Casesso.

When I first met Ronnie "The Pig" Casesso he was in Walpole prison courtesy of the snitch Joe Barboza. .Casesso was a made guy in the Patriarca Crime Family who had gotten the death penalty for being one of the shooters in the murder of a minor hood named Teddy Deegan.. "The Pig" caught a big break when his sentence was reduced to life in prison because the death penalty was repealed.

Casesso.had the run of Walpole in those days...Here's how strong Casesso was. My friend Ronnie Rome was related to Casesso through marriage. He was also in the vending business with mob boss, Jerry Angiulo.. Rome gets a call from Casesso. who tells him to bring a pin ball machine to Walpole for the warden as a gift. .I decided to take a ride with Ronnie Rome....When we get there I expect to be frisked by the guards, but its not that way. Then I see Casesso really has the run of the place...He's in for murder, and not only is he not behind bars, he's not even inside the prison.. He's lying on the grass working on his tan outside of the front gate. "The Pig" is acting more like the warden's brother-in-law, than a prisoner.
. . ..

We greet and I see how informed "The Pig" is.. He is really happy to see Ronnie Rome Rome tells him I was with Nicky Giso.( Nicky was a Patriarca made guy),.but Casesso had already heard. He had . .better news sources than the Boston Globe . He offered us a drink....For a guy in prison , he was a gracious host.

We asked him how some of the guys from our neighborhood were doing. Casesso said," you just missed "The Bear", (Jimmy Flemmi, the brother of Stevie Flemmi)' he was just here getting a tan,.''we are going to eat good tonight,'Chinese food, 'in a swell joint down the street." I couldn't believe it. ."The Pig"
was living better than most guys on the outside. He laid woman in a motel down the road, and he even stayed overnight. He dropped in on the warden anytime he wanted anything. He was more free than the guards.

Everybody was afraid of Ronnie "The Pig." They all knew he was Raymond Patriarca's buttonman and he had killed plenty of times.. When we were leaving he told us to watch out for "those people", meaning The Patriarca Crime Family, " they will use you".. I laughed, and told Casseso to get my cell ready. ..Ronnie "The Pig" Casesso died in prison, but he lived like he was as free as a bird.......
..
.Anthony ."The Animal" Fiato.....

Pizza Face Puggy

Puggy Zeichick bankrolled a seven figure juice loan operation that was backed by Mafia mobster Anthony Fiato's mob muscle. Zeichick and Fiato incorporated all the top west coast Jewish bookies and loan sharks into their crime syndicate.. Law enforcement and Mafiosi alike referred to Anthony Fiato and Puggy Zeichick as the Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky of Los Angeles...

Sleazy Sal and Pal

Sal "Sleazy Sal" Esposito was a porn-peddling Harlem-to-Hollywood transplant -- with two-bit ties to theTinsel Town Mob. Sal switched gears to drug dealing --- when he palled-up with a low-leval hood named 'Rhode Island Rocky " The pair provided junkies with pure China-white smack. Mafia mobster's bled them broke --- constantly raking them over-the- coals for cash ..

Sal is mentioned in Mafia mobster Anthony Fiato's book ----"The Animal in Hollywood"

Another True Hollywood story