This is Salvatore -- but his surname is not Maranzano.

In an article titled “Maranzano muddle” for the Mafia special interest magazine Informer, author David Critchley, Ph.D.,  makes a compelling and winning argument that the picture  seen here, which for many decades was widely considered to be that of Salvatore Maranzano, is not actually him.

“An apparent photograph of ‘Salvatore Maranzano’ has appeared in varied venues, ranging from books to the Internet. What those who print it fail to mention [Ed. Note: I'd say they fail to mention because they fail to know!] is that it’s not of Maranzano at all. The mistake made is a classic case of the much broader problem of inaccuracies plaguing accounts of the American Mafia, which spread myths and misunderstandings.”

I agree that the history of the American Mafia is riddled with more holes than a 1920′s-era Ford in Chicago during the Capone years, but this one about Maranzano has thrown me for a loop.

Supposedly, the only existing pics of Maranzano are the two of him dead in his office. Check out the link above to the Critchley article to see the photos of a dead Maranzano; warning, they are quite graphic. There is also a sketch of Maranzano that the article purports was ”made by the New York county coroner’s office at the time of his assassination on September 10, 1931.” Informer also includes a sketch of its own, based on what it believes Maranzano would’ve looked like at the time.

The article further reports, the “coroner’s sketch…  differ[s] from [the photograph that is widely considered to be that of Maranzano].”

I also report on organized crime over on my blog Cosa Nostra News.

If you’ve never heard of the “Ndrangheta,”  you’re not alone.   As powerful and feared as this ruthless organized crime syndicate is,  it is surprisingly not as well-known as the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.   But that is changing.   Connections with high-ranking government officials had helped the group to stay under the radar as much as possible.   The Ndrangheta  boasts  millions of dollars in  cocaine deals between Europe and South America while also developing strong ties, in more recent years,  with the Mexican drug traffickers.    The group is also involved in  illegal immigration, prostitution, and gun smuggling.    Ndrangheta’s strong  influence is  reaching beyond  southern Italy and Europe to include  Canada, Australia and North America.

This  “ honored society”  of approximately 10,000 members  originated in  Calabria, in Southern Italy,  and is still rooted there.     The group rose to power in the late 19^th century when Italy, and especially rural Calabria,  had a high rate of poverty and unemployment.    Members are recruited on the basis of blood relations and family lineage thus making informants nearly impossible.     Families have been known to intermarry to keep the bloodline.   Fathers groom their sons in a process where they become “boys of honor.”   At age 18,  boys  go through a ceremony and become “men of honor.”

In more recent years,  the Honored Society has gained  more attention in the media.    The Ndrangheta were blamed for the 2007 murders of six Italian mobsters in Germany after a feud  with a rival family back in Italy.     In 2011 an Italian judge sentenced 110 Ndrangheta members to a total of  1,000 years behind bars for crimes such as drug trafficking, extortion,  and murder.

The Ndrangheta is said to be the richest and most violent mafia group,  according to Italian officials.    Its  international dominance in the cocaine market alone is a force to be reckoned with  as the police continue to fight an uphill battle to bring the honored society down.

Like something straight out of a movie, a trial has started and the safety of the jurors and witnesses is something to be concerned about. The trial of John Burke, an alleged hit man for the mob has started today in New York. Believe it or not, this started a long time ago.

Back in 1982, Burke was accused of killing Daniel Zahn. Apparently, there was a beef between the two where Burke was allegedly shot in the throat by Zahn. After that, Zahn was killed. While Burke was cleared in the state trial, he is back in federal court now, with the charge amended to murder in aid of racketeering.

What has the prosecutors worried is that during the first trial a relative of Burke allegedly approached a witness for the state and “threatened” them by suggesting what the witness should say, specifically that she was intoxicated at the time of the incident, and that she remembered nothing. Because of this, they are worried that this same type of thing will happen again.

What I found that was exceptionally interesting, that someone claiming to be Burke ( I have no reason to doubt that it is him) actually has a blog about this ongoing saga. On the site, he claims to be innocent of all charges, and also emphasizes the fact that he will not cooperate with the federal government, who wants him to cooperate against John Gotti, Junior. He further wants the reader to know that he will not put his trust in man, but in his faith instead. Interestingly, he also airs all the dirty laundry about all the witnesses in his case. It’s intriguing to see the view from the accused themselves.

Check it out for yourself at http://www.johnanthonyburke.com/apps/blog/show/next?from_id=14178649

Fat Tony Salerno

Much has been written about Mafiosi making their peace with God before shuffling off this mortal coil. Carlo Gambino, the unofficial boss of bosses, spent decades – most notably from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s – murdering and thieving while he ruled the crime family that still bears his name today. Dying in his bed having never served a day in prison, Gambino is famously said to have made a deathbed confession to a hastily summoned priest and died in a “state of grace,” cleansed of probably the most violent and horrible sins of which a human being is capable. Gambino took control of the family by killing his own boss – Albert Anastasia, the so-called Mad Hatter, former CEO of Murder Inc., a group of professional hit men, mostly Jewish, to whom the Mafia families would outsource any work, meaning murders, they needed done. It was just business.

Mobsters like Stephen “Beach” DePiro, a major player in the New Jersey underworld who now oversees the highly lucrative rackets along the North Jersey waterfront, think nothing of parading their religion before the judge when they are seeking parole. But the true test of a believer is how he acts when the Grim Reaper comes a-knocking.

Russel Bufalino, boss of the tiny Pennsylvania Bufalino crime family from 1959 to 1989, although he was also a significant player in LCN on a national level,  also got religion waiting to meet his maker while dying in the Springfield prison hospital.

These were men who, at least the savvier ones, left little to chance; otherwise, they would have ended up dead in the streets much, much earlier in their careers. It takes a certain something – a special combination of cunning and courage, daring, poise and to an extent, even fear, plus the ability to act both rationally and irrationally, a paradox. They are  an entrepreneur one minute, and the ender of human life the next.  Mob bosses can be likened unto kings. But pragmatism also plays a role. So if there were the chance of an afterlife, why spend it burning in hell for murdering however many people when all it takes is a little remorse expressed to a priest (a nice, fat donation doesn’t hurt either).

Old-time Godfather Joe Profaci, whose crime family was taken over by Joe Colombo and renamed after the Olive Oil importer’s death, giving birth to the Colombos, also one of the five families in New York that is still very much with us. (New York is the only city with more than a single Mafia family running it — always was, always will be.) Profaci, who lost his legacy because he had fallen out of favor with his fellow dons, had a rather bizarre notion of what it meant to be a good Catholic: Profaci was devout and made generous cash donations to Catholic charities. His New Jersey estate actually contained a private chapel. But then on one occasion, two thieves stole a relic from a New York church. Profaci mobsters recovered the relic and reportedly strangled to death the two thieves with rosaries. Still, in 1949, a group of New York Catholics petitioned Pope Pius XII to confer a knighthood on Profaci. However, the Brooklyn District Attorney quashed it.

Perhaps the earliest and most famous deathbed “conversion” in mob land was that of Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Flegenheimer), a  New York City-area Jewish American gangster of the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket. In 1935, in an effort to avert a pending conviction, Schultz had gone to the Commission – consider it as the board of directors of the Mafia – for permission to kill New York Prosecutor Thomas Dewey. His request was declined. Lucky Luciano and others were concerned, however, that Schultz would kill Dewey anyway (and he probably would have) so “the Dutchman’s” assassination was ordered that same year. So… he was critically wounded on an October evening of that year while holding court with three cronies in the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. Rushed to a hospital, he registered as being of the Jewish faith. But the next morning, feeling sure that he was going to die, he called for a Catholic priest. Father Cornelius McInerney was summoned. Schultz wanted to die a Catholic. Father McInerney gave him a few simple instructions, baptized him, and gave him the last rites of the Catholic Church. Dutch Schultz died on Oct. 28, 1935, and was buried in a Catholic cemetery, the Gate of Heaven, in New York City.

The list is endless. “Wild Bill” Cutolo, who was underboss of the Colombo family when he was murdered because he was so feared, the bosses thought he was poised to take over the entire family, also found religion after serving a stint in prison (he was facing a life sentence, but got off scot-free).

He even began living a sort-of double life as a mobster by day and charity fundraiser by night.

I spoke with a retired NYPD detective who arrested Wild Bill several times and also ran surveillance on him; the detective not only believes Wild Bill’s praying and churchgoing were sincere, he actually witnessed proof of it.

“He went to the same church as I did and I saw him there quite often,” the detective said.

Going to mass once a week once a week wasn’t enough for Cutolo, though. “Wild Bill had in his backyard a life-sized religious statue, I forget if it was a cross or the Blessed Mother,” the detective recalled. “Every morning he knelt before it and prayed.”

However, there is always an exception to the rule, and in this case, we have “Fat Tony” Salerno. It would seem that no such religious epiphanies ever came to him, at least based on what was probably his last act as a Mafiosi; but the thoughts/inner feelings of another human being are inscrutable to us, unless the person in question tells us. Tony didn’t tell us. I am just conveying facts and reasonable assumptions based on those facts. And the facts are, while dying  in the same prison hospital that Bufalino had resided in at a different time, Salerno – jailed for life in the Commission Case, which launched Rudolph Giuliani’s career –  gave a contract to another inmate in the sick ward, an outlaw biker named Sailor who was dying of cancer but poised to be released on a medical hardship. Salerno sent Sailor to whack someone who had testified against the old-timeCosa Nostra street boss in one of his trials, according to an anecdote buried near the end of Charles Brandt’s, “I Heard You Paint Houses.”

Salerno's final resting place.

Frank Sheeran, the book’s subject and the contract killer who is widely believed to have put the bullet in the back of Jimmy Hoffa’s head, as well as shooting to death upstart mobster Joe Gallo, who started two Mafia wars and whom Jimmy Caan befriended while preparing for a role in a film called “The Godfather.”

Sheeran was in the hospital with Salerno and claimed to have witnessed these events. The subject of the hit has not been revealed; we don’t even know if it was ever carried out, but judging by Fat Tony, I’d lay odds that it was.

Salerno served as the “front” boss of the Genovese clan, actually tricking the Feds and something like half the mob into believing he was the boss, when he really wasn’t. (Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, a criminal mastermind who outplayed so many lesser but higher-profile men, was happy being in the shadows, limping around the Village in his ratty bathrobe in a rehearsed, beard-stubbled stupor.)

Back in the mid 1980s, when so much was made about John Gotti being the mobster from Central Casting, to me, it was Fat Tony who was the embodiment of the real mobster. There are no books about his life, but that’s the way it should be. The Mafia is a “secret society,” even though it is covered on a daily basis by nearly every major newspaper in the world.

Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno (August 15, 1911 – July 27, 1992) was convicted in 1986 as part of the Commission Case, which put away most of the legendary bosses, including Lucchese family boss Tony “Ducks” Corallo. Who could forget the precious few news clips of Salerno, crumpled fedora planted firmly on his head, chewed-up unlit cigar in his mouth, waving his cane and barking at the surrounding paparazzi. Gotti, refusing to duck, smiled and bowed at the mobs of press – like a prince offering his blessings to the f—ing peasants; Salerno hit them with his cane. There’s the difference.

I am not going to regale you with the story of his life, but I will touch on the highlights.

Born in East Harlem in 1911, Salerno established his base there and never strayed far from the community, maintaining his headquarters at the Palma Boys Social Club, much like Neil Dellacroce, underboss to Carlo Gambino for 30 years, did downtown in Little Italy at the Ravenite. Dellacroce was also underboss to Castellano, running the blue-color wing of the family (the street guys who did the dirty work) until he (Dellacroce) died of brain cancer, paving the way for Dellacroce protégé John Gotti to have Castellano killed in a spectacular early evening hit in front of Sparks Steakhouse, still open today.

By the 1960s, Salerno was said by prosecutors to helm Harlem’s biggest numbers racket, which they estimated earned as much as $50 million a year. Yet despite his notoriety among prosecutors, Salerno’s first criminal conviction did not occur until 1978, when he pleaded guilty to Federal tax and gambling charges, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison. The infamous Roy M. Cohn, Salerno’s lawyer, described his client as a “sports gambler” in a New York Times article.

In early 1981, after his release from prison, Salerno suffered a mild stroke and retreated to his Rhinebeck estate to recuperate. At the time of his stroke, Salerno was Genovese underboss.

During the 1980s, following the retirement of Philip Lombardo, Salerno ostensibly became boss of the Genovese family. He had reached the pinnacle of his power–and would spend almost all his remaining life behind bars.

And although law enforcement at the time thought thatSalerno was the boss of the Genovese family, it later became clear thatSalerno was not the true power:Salerno was only a “front man”. Ever since the death of boss Vito Genovese in 1969, the real family leader had been “Benny Squint” Lombardo. Over the years, Lombardo used several acting bosses to disguise his true status from law enforcement and the other fourNew York crime families. At the same time Lombardo was grooming Vincent Gigante as his successor. According to “Fish” Cafaro,Salerno became front boss in 1981 to protect Gigante, who seems to have taken a page from Lombardo’s book and ran all the way to the nuthouse with it.

In a 1986 article, Fortune magazine rated Salerno the most powerful and wealthiest gangster in America, citing earnings in the tens of millions from loan sharking, profit skimming at Nevada casinos and charging a “Mafia tax” on New York City construction projects. At the time, he maintained a home in Miami Beach, a 100-acre estate in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and an apartment in Gramercy Park. (How on earth could Fortune calculate his net worth? And how could they know he was the wealthiest?)

“He was extremely powerful,” said Howard Abadinksy, professor of criminology at St. Xavier University inChicago and the author of several books on organized crime, in a New York Times article. He compared Salerno to the reputed head of the Gambino family at that time, Paul Castellano. “Castellano was perhaps first among equals, but Fat Tony would have been the other most powerful figure on the East Coast.”

In 1986, after the Commission Case trial that helped establish the use of RICO statutes against the mob, Salerno and seven other defendants were convicted of operating the “commission” that ruled the Mafia throughout the United States. He and others were given sentences of up to 100 years.

Salerno also was convicted in 1988 for a scheme to allocate contracts and obtain payoffs for constructing the concrete superstructures of 16 Manhattan buildings, including the Jacob J.Javits Convention Center. He was sentenced to 70 years on that conviction.

Salerno, who had been in failing health since entering the prison system in 1989, died of complications from a stroke that he suffered on July 18, the officials said. But not before he sent Sailor out on that little mission. Salerno was 80 years old.

On a wiretap at a mob hangout, Federal agents once recorded Salerno bemoaning a disrespectful young gangster who had called him “Fat Tony” to his face.

“If it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t be no mob left,” Salerno said. “I made all the guys.”

How true, Tony, wherever you are…

 I also cover the mob on my blog, Cosa Nostra News.

What? No Mario Puzo?  Well, the late Puzo penned a screenplay that essentially filled in the history not covered during the flashback moments of The Godfather 2 film. Further story development  includes more detail on Vito’s rise in power during the 20′s and 30′s, how Sonny entered ‘the life’, Tom Hagen’s college days, the youngsters Michael, Fredo and Connie’s innocence, what the family business would entail following prohibition, etc.

Here’s the backstory to, well, the creation of this backstory:  Puzo passed away in 1999, but what he envisioned as a prequel film to The Godfather series wasn’t going to sit on a shelf forever.  Instead, college professor/author Ed Falco (yes, he is related to The Sopranos star Edie Falco) was asked to look at, and excerpt from, screenplays Puzo wrote and develop it into novel form.

The end result is a winning combination of conflict, glory, family structure and often bloody resolution.  Deeper into the characters, Falco convincingly paints a picture of not the just minute details of looks and mannerisms (which he does a wonderful job of), but also gives a solid understanding of what’s going through each of their minds.  As Don Vito expressed to Sonny in the first film – “never let anyone know what you’re thinking” – thankfully Falco lets us in on the emotional strife, thought patterns and, sometimes, joy that resides in many of the characters we’ve come to know and love (and a few we meet for the first time).

Plot details will not be given away here, but expect a violent opening and a climactic finale. You will get know what made guys like Luca Brasi, Clemnza and Tessio (whom you’re familiar with) really tick. And how exactly did Vito feel about his eldest Sonny getting involved – tortured emotions indeed. Yes, all the expected elements fans have come to know and love about The Godfather are packed inside the pages of The Family Corleone. There are mob hits, bootlegging wars, and backstabbing – none of which hold a match to the pressures of maintaining family values!

While the main five crime families are fictional of course, woven into the fabric of this mafia saga are also little doses of creative non-fiction to tie in, from a realistic perspective, the cutthroat nature of a business that sprawls beyond the borders of New York, e.g. real life gangsters like Chicago’s Al Capone and Frank Nitti are made mention of during some character conversations.

Ed Falco did The Godfather series of books justice… bloody, dramatic, entertaining justice!  Below, watch the clever and entertainingly humorous video trailer for the book release.  Good stuff!

The Family Corleone is released on May 8th in hardcover by Grand Central Publishing.

Christian Cipollini is a freelance entertainment & true crime journalist, and the lead designer/co-founder of mob-themed apparel line Knokaround.

 Gang Tattoos

Gang Tattoos are a long-practiced custom throughout the world. Almost every gang, inside and outside the United States, has some symbol to show others of gang membership. Two of the most infamous gangs, the Vor v Zakone (also known as the Russian Mafia) and the Mexican Mafia, are prime examples of what gangs expect their members to tattoo on themselves.

Gang tattoos in the Russian Mafia are vastly different than gang tattoos in the Mexican Mafia.’ Tattoos done in Russian prisons are often done with extreme detail and care. Russian gangs members often devote themselves entirely to the gang, body and all, forsaking all friends and family members. Russian gang members, specifically the Vor v Zakone, cite multiple meanings to their tattoos; they are a highly secretive group. Gang members in the United States get gang tattoos to show membership. Many of the tattoos are simply symbols of membership with one specific meaning. Some of the tattoos are done in shoddy prison conditions by untrained “artists.” In this blog, I will show the differences between the two groups of people and how gang tattoos can lead to stigmatization, regardless of ethnicity.

Here are gang tattoos that most people would recognize as affiliation with a certain gang membership, such as the Aryan Brotherhood’s tattoos. The most prominent Aryan Brotherhood tattoo is a swastika along with ‘AB’ embedded on a shamrock, as seen below.

The numbers 666 can usually be found  on the leaves of the shamrock

Popular rapper Lil’ Wayne sports the tattoo below his right and left eyes

What happens to prison inmates with gang tattoos once they get released? Having gang tattoos visible to the public does not help the image of “ex-convict.” There have been a few examples of this problem recently in the news. There have been a few men on trial for various crimes who have very visible tattoos. It seems that the juries in these trials have been prejudiced when coming to decisions about the crimes. One court went so far as to cover up the defendant’s tattoos (although you can clearly still see the facial ones).

The Russian Mafia

Cathedral tattoo, as seen on Russian criminal

Huge tattoo of Madonna and Child

One of the most recognizable tattoos is the eight-point star, often placed on the chest and on the knees. This tattoo, when placed on the knees, means “I won’t stand on my knees before the authorities.” When placed on the shoulders it shows rank as Thief.

Eight-point star

Stars on the knees indicate the rank of Captain

Spider facing upwards indicates active criminal

~Erotic tattoos with the penis as the focal point

Sometimes tattoos are given by force. They are often put on the face by force. These particular tattoos are meant to stigmatize and embarrass the criminal. They could be given to a criminal for owing someone gambling money or breaking the unspoken “criminal code.” They often humiliate the person’s ethnicity, sexual orientation or involvement with prison officials. Humiliating tattoos are often forcibly given to the outcasts of prison, such as the child rapists. A tattoo that is often worn by homosexual men is a pair of eyes tattoos on the lower stomach. This can be seen in the above picture of the man with the Madonna and Child on his chest.

In the Russian prison system, tattoos tell your life story. If you have no tattoos, you do not exist. These tattoos tell the number of times you have been incarcerated, where you have been, what crimes you have committed and more. It seems that these tattoos are your entry into the very private world of the Russian prison. Many people have tried to decode the tattoos, but no one has gotten all of the meanings behind the tattoos ebcause there are so many variations, often kept private.

The Mexican Mafia

The Mexican Mafia (also known as Le EME) was formed in 1957 by Chicano gang members at Deuel Vocational Institution. In 1992, La EME membership was right at about 700 people. In 1998, it doubled to almost 1,500 people. Today, the membership continues to soar. Outside of prison, La EME is still an ominous threat to people, responsible for 10% of San Antonio’s homicide rate. California and Texas prisons both have large numbers of La EME gang members; however, these two branches of the gang are not linked. While both branches are under the umbrella name of the Mexican Mafia, the Texas branch calls itself “Mexikanemi” and the California branch “La EME.” There are also differences in name between southern California branches, Surenos, and northern California branches, Nuestra Familia.

The Mexican Mafia has a strict, written constitution that members must follow. The San Antonio Express-News learned from a 2005 trial that the Mexican Mafia “shall deal in drugs, contract killings, prostitution, large-scale robbery, gambling, weapons and everything else imaginable.” This constitution also outlines that members released from prison become “free-world soldiers,” required to serve the gang’s economic interest by dealing in drugs, racketeering and prostitution outside the prison. The most recently released parolees, deemed “Wolfpacks,” carry messages to gang leaders from inside the prison. There are 12 basic rules outlined in the Mexican Mafia’s constitution, including membership for life, a high level of integrity, and every member has the right to wear the Mexican Mafia Tattoo (discussed below). The Mexican Mafia does not have one specific leader; rather, there are many leaders with various “ranks” in the gang.

The Mexican Mafia’s first symbol is the national symbol of Mexico – an eagle and a snake around a wreath, lying on crossed swords.

One of the Mexican Mafia’s gang symbols

Another popular tattoo of the Mexican Mafia is a handprint with the letters ‘eMe’ inside:

A more recognizable Mexican Mafia tattoo

There is a saying that goes along with this tattoo that says, “When the hand touches you, you go to work.”

Conclusion

  ~Stephano Vincenzo Massaro

  “Stereotypes become stereotypes because nine times out of 10 they are true.”

Louis Ferrante fulfils some of those preconceptions.

He is New York Italian, powerfully built, and was wearing a black shirt when interviewed for HARDtalk by Sarah Montague.

He worked for John Gotti of the infamous Gambino crime family, which pulled off some of the most lucrative heists in American history.

But he is younger than you would think, given that he ran his own “crew” and did nine years in jail before deciding to change his life and become a writer.

Ferrante’s moment of truth came when a prison guard at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center described him and his kind as “animals”.

Two months in solitary forced him to ponder the question: was he an animal? If so, why was he one?

“I thought about the people I’d victimised… and I realised I did deserve to be in a zoo,” he recalls.

For the first time in his life he started reading books, looking deeper into himself and searching for some answers.

He set himself the challenge to read the entire prison library.

“Prison was the greatest thing that happened to me, because it gave me time to look inside myself, the solitude that I needed to take a closer look at everything around me; to analyse myself.”

He educated himself and converted to Judaism.

Given his experience behind bars, Ferrante believes the prison services should be about giving inmates the opportunity to change their lives.

But before his own transformation, Ferrante’s “greatest aspiration” was always to be a member of the Mafia.

A kid with big balls and no brains can go from flat broke to fat pockets with one good stick-up. It’s the quickest money on the street

He started off as a kid, sawing the tops of meters to get the coins, and hijacked his first truck as a teenager, using a gun.

“I was 17 years old. I liked girls. I liked to drive fast cars. I liked hamburgers and French fries.

“And I’d just realised that I liked to hijack trucks”.

A common misconception about the Mafia is that you have to have a genetic link to a “family” in order to be a member.

Not so, says Ferrante. The most famous Mob bosses were not born into “the Life”.

Lucky Luciano, Thomas Lucchese, Carlos Marcello and Vito Genovese all started out as petty thieves, graduating to bigger crimes as the years passed. So did John Gotti and so did Ferrante.

Whether he is accurately described as a “boss” is debatable.

His memoir, Tough Guy, more modestly describes him as a “Mafia insider”.

But he was on the list being passed around the five Mafia families and was on the verge of being “made” when he was arrested for racketeering.

“I had a dozen good men under me… I was already equal to a made man, since I answered directly to the heads of my family.”

In a legitimate business he would be considered middle management.

At the height of his criminal career Ferrante had the trappings of wealth.

“I’d drop $10,000 at the tables in Atlantic City, pick up a $500 tab at a steakhouse, and hand out hundreds to anyone with a story.”

He made his money robbing trucks, selling on bent goods bought with fake credit cards made from stolen numbers, dealing with anything from high quality white goods to government bonds.

In an early mistake he robbed a truck load of cheap underwear.

“I was stuck with 500 boxes of brassieres I couldn’t sell as slingshots”.

But mostly his jobs were highly lucrative.

His book enables you to check what you think you know about the New York Italian underworld with reality.

You have to be Italian to be “made”? True.

Under no circumstances do you take your beef with another gangster to his home, involving his family. Also true.

He consorted with characters like Bert the Zip, Tony the Twitch and Barry the Brokester, who always maintained he could not pay you because he was broke.

Bobby Butterballs he leaves us to work out for ourselves.

He maintains that there is honour amongst thieves:

“Jimmy and I had no contract, no lawyers, no bill of sale; a handshake sealed the deal. Try that in the straight world”.

And he would have you believe that he was a nice cuddly gangster. He maintains he never murdered anyone.

But that was perhaps more by luck than judgement.

Ferrante glosses over quite how much he injured people, and he admits in his book that he beat someone up and left him not knowing whether he was alive or dead.

Collecting money, he says, was easy for him. “I collected $20,000 from a guy who owned a dress company in a garment centre. I threatened to hang him out the window. He paid, even though his office was on the first floor.”

When HARDtalk presenter Sarah Montague asked him how he asserted himself in prison he used elliptical phrases like: I would have to “declare myself” or “express myself”.

Writing his life story cannot have been an easy decision. The Mafia are not keen on insiders discussing their modus operandi.

He has changed the names to protect the innocent and conceal the guilty, and says as a matter of honour he has never ratted on his former associates.

~Stephano Vincenzo Massaro

Today’s subject: Virginia Hill.  To simply call her a ‘mob moll’ is, as any true mob enthusiast would agree, a tragic injustice.  She was as ‘gangster’ as most of the wiseguys she surrounded herself with.  Hill knew the underworld and worked it like a pro.  Like all the tales of organized crime’s most notorious… she too would be hounded by the law for years.  The following piece references the photo to the left; another wild moment in Virginia Hill history!

1951

The fiery former lover of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (1906-1947) (whom she’s most noted, but was known to be friendly with other gangsters as well) is pictured here, in Denver, after being questioned by District Attorney Lawrence Stone.  Hill sparked the law’s interest on many occasions for sure, but this particular incident was the result of her temper.   To explain…

Virginia Hill had been flying about the country, from San Francisco to El Paso to Denver – the latter where she was scheduled to connect to Spokane.  Well, she missed the connection and was promptly scooped up for questioning. Aggravated by the constant inquiries, she lashed out hard, throwing a solid punch at Stone and another investigator.  According to the papers, the assaulting habits didn’t begin there. While in El Paso, she threw a shoe at one reporter – and slapped another.

If a picture tells a story… her’s was far from over.

Hill’s troubles while in the Mile High City were almost minor when compared to the most immediate problems that awaited her at final destination of Spokane where IRS agents seized her home for unpaid taxes.

Christian Cipollini

You can watch his daughter Renee Graziano who is one of the stars of the popular reality show on VH1 called Mob wives, which shows the everyday aspects of the women who are associated to the men in the business but have nothing to do with it! Anthony is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn while awaiting trial for conviction charges that entails violations in New York and Florida for bookmarking aka murder of a rival gangster, conspiracy to commit murder and illegal gambling to investment fraud.

“In 1994, Graziano ordered his crew to find and kill John Pappa and Calvin Hennigar, both mobsters with the Colombo crime family. On one occasion, the two men had fired shots inside a topless bar in Staten Island owned by Graziano, wounding one patron. An enraged Graziano had sent his Brooklyn crew hunting for them. However, Graziano later met with Colombo family representatives and agreed on a settlement to the problem. Graziano called off the murder order, but in 2002 he would be indicted on two counts of murder conspiracy due to this episode.”

New York mobster Anthony Graziano and formerly ranked consigliere of the Bonanno crime family inveterate performing racketeering, extortion, loansharking, narcotics and murder, his investment scams, carefully disguised by the once successful Bulls and Bears Fund, defrauded customers out of $11.7 million.

Renee’s ex-husband Hector “Junior” Pagan turned himself over to authorities for armed robbery and brandishing a weapon in a 2009 incident. Turns out to avoid jail time Pagan made a deal with the FEDs wearing a wire while speaking with his former father-in-law. Having reconciled the hurt and betrayal of the father of her son AJ, all three are in the witness protection program.

New York rapper Ron Braunstein, aka NECRO - whom we've profiled here before - has recently unleashed a new music video for the a track on his upcoming Murder Murder Kill Kill EP.  The song - "Tough Jew/Rabbi Holding Guns" is actually under Necro's long-discussed side-project called the Jewish Gangsters. 

The video has already reached over 100,000 views (he's a DIY type of guy that apparently works the social media as hard as he does on controversial lyrical writing). Shot around the city, "Tough Jew/Rabbi Holding Guns" features a collage of street imagery, cross-sections of culture, a belly dancer, python snake, Uzi sub machine guns, mobster t-shirts, a thugged out Necro and his crew, plus a little lyrical homage to old school mobsters like Arnold Rothstein and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

The EP Murder Murder Kill Kill has not been given an official release date, and Necro is simultaneously working on a full-length titled The Godfathers (with Kool G. Rap).

Christian Cipollini is a freelance entertainment & true crime journalist, and the lead designer/co-founder of mob-themed apparel line Knokaround.