November 7, 2024 • 29 mins
Host Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi sits down with former FBI Special Agent Ted Otto to talk about the current state of the New York mafia — and whether the five families are still active today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
High law and order criminal justice system listeners. It's me
Anna Sega Nicolazzi. We hope you enjoyed season one and
I am thrilled to let you know that season two
is on the way, with the entire first season now available.
We keep getting the questions, is the Mafia still around today?
Are the five families still alive and active? And what
(00:31):
happened after Joe Messina's conviction. To help answer these questions,
I recently sat down with just the right person, Ted Otto,
former FBI special agent whose career has been dedicated to
combating the New York City mom.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
In the past year or so, I've listened to a
lot of this stuff. I'm a podcast junkie. I have
to tell you, guys, you really have put together a
very very high quality product, and you're to be commended.
It's really well done.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Honestly, there's a lot of moving parts, and I'm certainly
happy and proud of what's been going out. But it's
really nice to hear it, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You're welcome. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So first, let me just get the simple things. I mean,
your name is much easier than mine, but if you
can just say your name, and also when you left
the bureau where you were within the organization.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
My name is ted Otto, it's Theodore Auto, but that
was on the way to the principal's office at Saint
Barnabas I did the most of the last twenty five
years of a thirty four year career working organized crime
in New York.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
What year did you leave?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I've left December thirty first, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
In this podcast in particular, in this season, we kind
of hit from nineteen seventy nine the murder of Carmi Galanti,
but even going back before then, up until Joe Messino
was victed, we ended about two thousand and five, two
thousand and six. Here we are talking twenty years after
that time. And so really the question is where did
(02:12):
the mafia go from there?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
First?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Just generally, you know, did it continue to decline? Where
is it today? And it's a question that certainly the
listeners keep coming back with just wanting to get a
better sense of where it is now.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And ironically, the answer to your question is actually contained
in your early episodes. Literally, from an historical perspective, the
American mafia was never more powerful than it was in
I think it was November of nineteen eighty five the
Commission indictments.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yep, correct, that case was.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Indicted in November, the convictions were handed.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Down eighty six.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yes, so the night before those indictments were handed up,
the American mafia was at the apex of its power,
and that case was prosecuted successfully. I'm happy to tell
you the American mafia has been on a very steady
downward trajectory. The effects and impact of the Commission convictions
(03:12):
never stopped resonating out and they still resonate to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
And you were primarily in the Gambino squad or was
it just a portion of the time that you were
focusing on organized crime.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I from eighty seven through ninety I was on a
Soviet counterintelligence squad. Great learning experiences like school, a lot
of office work, but really really fun stuff. After that,
I was an undercover agent in an international terrorism case
for a year. When that case ended, I transferred to
(03:45):
a violent crime squad in the office that we had
in Rego Park at the time, the Brooklyn Queen's Office,
and almost immediately, working with the detective Kathleen Donnelly, we
started working this really, really violent group of Bananoasso see
its in the southeast Bronx area, and they were just
a bunch of kids, but they were very, very violent,
(04:07):
and what we quickly learned is they were showing off.
They were trying to impress the local Banano family powerhouse,
Vinnie Bassiano, who as you know, eventually became the boss
of the family. But this is back in the early nineties.
Vinnie hadn't been straightened out yet. These knuckleheads, they would
shoot at each other, They were doing stick ups all
(04:28):
over the Bronx and Queens carjackings, they were pulling elderly
women out of Mercedes Benzes. It was just they were
just bad. But what they were trying to do was
catch Vinnie's attention. That crew, and they were probably about
a dozen or fifteen of them. Kathy and I just
we did the best we could to make as many
cases as possible because they were so unpredictable and so violent.
(04:52):
That was my first taste of organized crime. From ninety
one through ninety five. In ninety eight, I returned learn
to another violent crime squad. There were a lot of experienced,
older agents on the squad. It was all oc work
and we just did whatever we wanted. We were constantly
stepping on toes. We were Gambino cases, Colombo cases, Luczy cases,
(05:17):
and it was just a blest and we did really,
really good work. And then in two thousand and one,
that squad was in the process of being dissolved or disbanded,
and my partner, Cindy Peel, and I were then transferred
to the Gambino Squad in the summer of two thousand
and one and we worked there on the Gambino family
(05:38):
until twenty eleven or twelve, and then as the organized
crime program within the Office and the Bureau was consolidated,
the Lucas program was transferred to the squad. So I
finished the last nine or ten years on a squad
investigating both families, Gambino and Lucazy.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And so you really kind of dip back in I
think it was two thousand and one you said, so
really in the year that nine to eleven happened, and
obviously we know a lot of resources went understandably and
out of necessity into terrorism. And what impact did that
have on the organized crime that had been focused on
(06:20):
more before that.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I mean, there was an effect, The effect was felt,
but it was minimal. If you were working cases, and
any good experienced agent, their goal is to not only
work cases, but you want to work impactful cases. The
mafia is a big organization. You can't get them all,
but the higher up the food chain you work, the
(06:44):
more impactful the cases become. And that's the goal. Work
cases that hit them off as hard as we possibly could.
So we all understood after September eleventh and in the
years that followed, that there was going to be a
realignment within the FBI toward terrorism. Everybody was all for it.
(07:04):
We all grew up here for the most part, we
all smelled those buildings burning when they were on the ground.
We all tasted the metal in the air in early September.
We got it. And I'm reluctant to say we did
more with less, because the changes were made, but they
weren't really noticeable. The team that I worked on was
just this confluence of personalities and characters, and we had
(07:29):
a mission. We worked together, five six, seven of us.
I mean, you know as well as I do that
probably the most important resource in these types of cases
is the investigative experience. And as the years went by
and we all of us we were working harder and
better and leaner. The experiences made us better agents, which
(07:55):
allowed us to do more with less.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And did you see the type of crime evolve or
change amongst the families that you got to know so
well during those investigative years.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's and I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted, it's
a violent organization. I mean, the MOP does not drop
bodies the way they used to in the seventies, eighties
and early nineties, but they still kill people, They still
hurt people. They were still victims out there. And what
I was always most proud of with the team that
I was fortunate enough to work on, it was victims
(08:33):
came first. We kept them updated and in the loop
to the extent we could while the cases were going on.
We were victim oriented all the time. One example of
that is in October of nineteen eighty six, those two
mafia cops Louis Epolito and Steve Cara Kappa.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Know it well, know the case, well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
They were involved in the kidnapping of a Gambino associate
from Staten Island but a name of Jimmy Hidell, and
he met a gruesome fate, tortured to death, I'm reluctant
to say it because I know the families and it's
just been an absolutely horrible experience. So that was October
eighty six, less than twelve years later. The youngest son
(09:17):
in the family, Frank Heidell. Frank was a bit nerdy.
He was on a different path. His brother was a
street guy. But his brother's death had such a profound
effect on him that he turned to the street. And
Frank went from this aspiring college student to another mob associate.
He wasn't built for it. First sign of trouble, he
(09:37):
started cooperating. He was a source for a couple of years,
and then pieces were put together. In April twenty eighth
of nineteen ninety eight, he was shot and killed outside
of a bar on Staten Island. That's what drove us.
Frankie's murder was not he was an FBI source. So
(09:58):
it's personal.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Absolutely, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Frankie's murder wasn't the only case we had. But you'd
meet people in your life, and in this instance, Frankie's mother, father,
and sister, you can't promise them anything other than we
would do everything we could to bring them a sense
of justice. Closures I wish I could dispense it. I can't,
but we made that promise that we would try. It
(10:22):
took us a number of years to do it. But
of the maybe twelve or thirteen people involved in that conspiracy,
I think ten or eleven either were convicted or pled
guilty to that murder, there was great satisfaction in that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I'll tell you there's no case I don't want to
say more important, because they're all important, but the murder
of a witness or someone who has been cooperating, I
think it hits us differently because they're out on a
limb to a degree, and that is the thing that,
certainly case like this, that probably caused their death. So
I understand that feeling, having seen these cases in my
own office, you know so for you don't read in
(10:58):
the papers certainly as much about out the mafia, and
in New York's Five Families in particular, as much as
you used to. But look, I know the cases are
still going on. I see them with friends of mine,
and they're working these cases. And for those that say
they're pretty much gone, what is your answer to that?
When asked about where the mafia is presently?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So over the years Citty and I had a lot
of trial experience. I know you had a considerable amount more.
But in the federal system, for agents to have fifteen
trials is a lot.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
That is a lot.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
We had fifteen trials, yep. But over the years, especially
during trial prep, the days of trial, you know the drill,
we would get newer agents from the applicant squad or
newer agents assigned to our squad, and from time to
time you get that frown expression, it's what's the matter,
and it's well. I was speaking to someone I met
(11:51):
the other day and they asked me what I did.
I told them and they were really excited, full of questions.
Then they asked me what I did in the FBI,
and I said worked the mafia. And they looked at
me in disbelief and said, to mafia, they're still around.
And I would invariably say, well, maybe we should all
just pat ourselves on the back, go back to the
(12:12):
generation before us and the generation before us. You know,
it might not be the most pleasant compliment you're going
to get, but it's a compliment nonetheless that we're on
top of this, we're winning this. Eventually, the American mafia
will no longer exist. It's not going to happen anytime soon.
But if this agent or that agent had twenty years
(12:33):
ahead of them in their career or twenty five, maybe
they'll be around when somebody gets to stick a fork
in the mob. It's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
It was interesting. I'm trying to remember who it was
that we spoke to for the season. It may have
been Jack Steubing, but someone said, don't make the mistake
turning the other cheek because they're gone, right, Because as
long as there's money, the mob will be there in
some form because they want that money. That is why
they exist. And do you subscribe to that same thinking,
like don't turn a blind eye because they're not as
(13:24):
prevalent because good work has been done, they will grow again,
or do you think they're just petering out somewhat.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think the answer is both. And you could look
at the Banano family and the Colombo family as prime examples.
If you start with the Colombo family going back, one
of the hallmarks of that family is they're always fighting.
They're always shooting at each other, you know, the Colombo War.
We have to be more specific, which Colombo War. The
Colombo War Colombo War or the Prafacci War or the
(13:53):
Gallow War, and the Colombo Squad was there. They had
some very very talented ages on the squad who sees
the opportunity and that family has been prosecuted close to oblivion.
And if you look at the leadership over the past
fifteen or twenty years, every six months there's a new
(14:14):
acting boss and then a week after their name the
acting boss, somebody from that squad is locking them up.
The Bonano family, they were left for dead in the
early nineties after they had been stripped of a commissioned
seat Gallant. They had been killed in the late seventies.
Rastelli was the boss in prison and Messino was sizing
(14:34):
up the family. But at the time the FBI foolishly
and the US Attorney's Office foolishly just took their eye
off them. I think, as you guys rightly pointed out
in your last several episodes, they came back with a
vengeance and then they were dispatched once again. And that family,
too is in total disarray.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And what about today?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Have they evolved with the type of crime I'm the
internet technology or is it really a lot of still
that back room loan sharking person to person crime that
has been really the bread and butter in the past.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Anyway, this is the unsatisfying part of my answer. You
come into the FBI with an expiration data in your
rear end, and I reached mine. I would have stayed
there forever and worked for free. That's how much fun
we had. And the case that we were working when
I retired, which I think is still ongoing, was the
(15:33):
most interesting case I ever worked. What's unsatisfying is that's
pretty much all I can say about it.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Right, No, No, of course, I don't want to risk the case.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
But it was like, I'm not going to say international
in scope, I'll say global in scope. This isn't some
second cousin from Sicily, although those cases exist as well.
This is something that was occurring all over the world
and it was absolutely fascinating. Maybe one day, when the
cases is judicated, we'll have another conversation.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I don't know why this came into my head right now,
and I'm really going sideways, but it's always been interesting
to me. Is that we focus on for this podcast.
We're talking about the Italian MAFI, but we know there
are other ethnic organized crime organizations as well, and in
your experience, how much cross pollination is there?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
For example, you know, we've certainly saw being in Brooklyn.
You had the Albanian gangs, you had Russian gangs, you
had other They were very organizer, making a lot of money.
They're not street gangs. But do they all really stay
to themselves based on that commonality of ethnicity or did
you see working together these different organized crime groups in
(16:43):
New York?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I think the short answer to your question is they
do work together, And the more involved answer is groups
like the Balkan organized crime. I'm reluctant to say much
about Russian I will see because I don't really know
much about it, but Albanian organ and ie crime they
do to an extent. They exist as their own entity.
(17:06):
But at least in our experience with Balkans and especially Albanians,
it's just there's almost like this aspiration on their part
to rub elbows with the Italians so they can exist
in their own smaller criminal enterprises. But the overlap association
wise with the Italians is considerable.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So really, within the various criminal groups, there is this,
at least an appearance of a hierarchy, with the Italians
remaining towards the top.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I don't know if it's like a formal hierarchy, but.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
It's just the perception maybe exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And it's listen, good bet or and different. I'll go
with bed. The Italian mafia has crept into American culture.
It's a part of contemporary American history and certainly looms
large in contemporary American culture.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
And have you seen the other organizations grow with time?
You know, have they taken some of the place of
the role that the Italian mafia has had, or have
they all just really worked side by side.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
To the extent they worked side by side. I don't
want to mislead you into believing that these Balkans or
Serbians or Albanians are asking permission. They're playing through one
way or the other. But they do gravitate towards I
guess their older brothers on the street. But the Italians
were here first in the early part of the twentieth century.
(18:36):
They elbowed everyone out of the way. And think about
what the commission was. It was remarkable in and of
itself that you had a twenty seven member of thirty
member board of directors, but only five of those members
had voting rights, and they agreed to it, and it
held them up together for the better part of fifty years.
(18:57):
In a perverse way, it's impressive.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Think that organized crime impacts the everyday citizen today.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
We know that in the past.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
We talked multiple times with different people about it really
touched every person in New York City for a time,
every bit of construction, all the windows. And while we
don't have that today, how do you think the everyday person,
at least some of them are still impacted, or maybe
they're not.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
No, they are impacted, but thankfully to a far lesser
degree than ever before. And if you'd like to talk construction,
it's the result of thirty or forty years of really
hard work that ran them out well. It minimized their
impact in the construction industry and has largely eliminated their
influence within labor unions. But the last significant Lukesey case
(19:44):
that I was involved in with my team there was
homicide drug dealing. It was a lot and one of
the four elements of that case was construction. And the
Lucas's and the Genovies were always better at construction rackets.
They had the connections. They had the developers, they had
the brand name contractors in their pockets. But in that indictment,
(20:07):
probably the most significant construction charge we had. It was
a state and federal funded project to construct an ambulatory
care clinic. It brought us Lebanon Hospital off of the
Grand Concourse, and it's an underserved community. I suppose, like
if you wake up in the middle of the night
and your infant is not well, you've got a helicab
(20:29):
and get down to Lincoln Hospital or get over to
Jacoby or miser Recordia. It's an effort. So Bronx Lebanon
was building out this clinic and the Lukeesy family saw
it coming from a mile away. Their rackets were in place,
their infrastructure was in place, and this two year project,
which was supposed to cost twenty six million, took five
(20:51):
and a half or six years at a cost of
well over fifty million dollars. And the victims are there.
There's money that's been swindled and extorted. And in that
three or four year period of time, you had an
entire neighborhood or part of the Bronx that was left
without access to an emergency room.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And that is I think a perfect example when you
think about it, for just every reason you said it.
You have a health care facility, right, it is something
that each one of us as citizens should have access to.
And here for greed and illegal gain, they are overcharging,
holding things up, and really the people that are suffering
are the people in those neighborhoods that need that facility
(21:33):
most and probably may not have the means to get
themselves somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And on that conspiracy, the Lucases were so good, and
it was the underboss, Stephen Krea, who was really good
at it, ultimately convicted for it, but they were so
good at it. They had both ends of the deal covered.
You know when a construction project you have the contractor
and the owner. Right, yep, they had both. They had
the owner of the hospital literally the hospitals. The hospital
(22:01):
was in bed with them. They had both ends covered
and they were eating off of both sides of the table,
so to speak. And again they couldn't care less who
lives in this neighborhood. Who the heck cares? Let them
deal with it. If they have to help, you know,
go find a livery cap. They get down the concourse
that it didn't it was of absolutely no concern to them.
(22:22):
If there's money to be made here, there's money to steal,
and we're going to put our hands in both pockets here,
and they did. They did it well, but thankfully it
caught up with them.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
What areas of crime in the more recent years, did
you see that organized crime either continued with or maybe
new avenues.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Without going into a lot of detail, and it's stating
what is obvious, the role that at least one of
the five families plays in international drug trafficking is stunning.
In the world of trafficking. If you're a drug dealer
and you can access a complete kilo of cocaine, you're
(23:03):
in a stratosphere. You were so far above street level
stuff that's one kilo. If you can bundle twenty kilows,
you're a big marka. You're a trafficker. What this scheme
involved was trafficking cocaine on an industrial scale, like mind
blowing amounts of coke, mind blowing. That's one of the
(23:27):
aspects that really grabbed our attention, specifically my attention as
I was heading out.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
The door, that the drug trade was alive and well.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
When it came to organized crime, which and again we
talk about all there's money to be made, but each
kilo that's there, everything, well, that's going to go to
a user and it goes out from there. And as
we know with the narcotics trade, it's not just the
people using, but there's a lot of crime that surrounds
it as well.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Right, And I guess the big picture conversation here is
what's happening to the mob. And one of the litany
of reasons the Mob is just at tridded down to
where it's at now is you need listen no further
than your last episode when the boss of a family
Joe Messino, when he stands up, goes to trial and
(24:16):
essentially has a life sentence or worse, staring him in
the face on his way out of the courtroom, says
I'd like to I'd like to talk to you when
a boss does that, Like, what kind of an imbecile
would sign on to choose a career path in the
mob where everyone's going to give me possibly give me up,
(24:37):
including the boss who's giving me the orders. Like that
level of hypocrisy is just mind blowing. But getting back
to where we started, and you mentioned drug trafficking. If
you ask any mobster this story about their induction ceremony.
After you're inducted, you are introduced to the people in
(24:57):
the room. Okay, got that, and then sit down. Here
are the rules. Rule number one no drug trafficking. Oh okay.
If you go back to where you guys started in
your podcast. The seminal event in the history of the
Mob Commission, aside from the prosecution, was that conference up
(25:19):
in that famous get together that the Appalachian. Yes, the
Appalachian Conference took place, and I think it was November
of nineteen fifty seven, one month before the seminal meeting
occurred at the Grand Hotel des Palmas in Palermo, and
that's where the Sicilian goes in Ustra and American mafia.
(25:43):
That's where they laid out the future of their heroin
trafficking trade. It was one month before that Commission meeting,
where of course among the rules, chief among the rules
are no drug trafficking. Yeah, sure, okay. The level of
hipocrisy is laughable and it's one of the things that
(26:03):
has led the mafia, the American mob, to the point
where it's at right now, which is what really just
worn down. It's still there. There are still five discreet families.
Still it's one hundred year old criminal enterprise dedicated exclusively
to committing crimes. There's no good side of the mob.
(26:24):
There's nothing good about it. It's just all crime, all
the time. But it's on its way out, and I
can only hope and pray that whether it's twenty years
or forty years, there's some I don't know, a bunch
of agents and prosecutors in junior high school right now,
who forty years from now will have a conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And describe the actual end, right, the actual end. As
you're saying that was like, there's so many different types
of crime that I would give anything to just hear
that conversation, right, I mean, so many different types of crime.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
We wish we could finally put an end to it.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
But I think for various reasons, you know, you talk
about homicide, the various motives that people commit those crimes.
There's old as time, so it doesn't go away with
the mob. They're motivated by money, so when there's money
to be made, they somehow continue to rise to the surface,
although it's harder to get to the top, it seems.
And again I'm certainly no expert, but just by talking
(27:19):
to all of you who are, it just seems to
be the more you clamp down you can harness it.
But you least so far, it continues to seep somewhere.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, and it's just you need I don't know the rapture,
its crime's not going anywhere, but the structure that the
mafia represents, that's what's going to go. The organization, that
cohesion that it provides its members. Eventually that'll be gone.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
With what you just said, Ted, I mean both from
the beginning you gave some specifics, but also because that
is the legitimate answer, is that while it's been very
successfu we've been very successful being lawn for horse meant
it's like combating crime, and if we actually had the answer,
we would have done it on so many different levels.
But it's just keep fighting the good fight, you know,
and hoping that whether it's technology, resources or something that
(28:12):
someone comes up with that how amazing would it be
if we could actually put an end to it, And
certainly here we're talking about organized crime, no less in
other areas, it would just be a great thing.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, it'll be confined to the dustbin of history with
the Roman Empire or where you know you name it.
There are plenty of objects to look at in that
dustbind and this will be one of them.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Thank you to Ted for sharing his time and expertise
with us. If you haven't already, you can listen to
the entire first season of Law and Order Criminal Justice
System wherever you get your podcasts, and remember season two
is coming soon. Follow Wolf Entertainment, iHeart Podcasts, and me
Ana Sega Nicolasi on social media to stay updated and
(28:59):
be the first to know when the new season drops.
High law and order criminal justice system listeners. It's me
Anna Sega Nicolazzi. We hope you enjoyed season one and
I am thrilled to let you know that season two
is on the way, with the entire first season now available.
We keep getting the questions, is the Mafia still around today?
Are the five families still alive and active? And what
(00:31):
happened after Joe Messina's conviction. To help answer these questions,
I recently sat down with just the right person, Ted Otto,
former FBI special agent whose career has been dedicated to
combating the New York City mom.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
In the past year or so, I've listened to a
lot of this stuff. I'm a podcast junkie. I have
to tell you, guys, you really have put together a
very very high quality product, and you're to be commended.
It's really well done.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Honestly, there's a lot of moving parts, and I'm certainly
happy and proud of what's been going out. But it's
really nice to hear it, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You're welcome. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So first, let me just get the simple things. I mean,
your name is much easier than mine, but if you
can just say your name, and also when you left
the bureau where you were within the organization.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
My name is ted Otto, it's Theodore Auto, but that
was on the way to the principal's office at Saint
Barnabas I did the most of the last twenty five
years of a thirty four year career working organized crime
in New York.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
What year did you leave?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I've left December thirty first, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
In this podcast in particular, in this season, we kind
of hit from nineteen seventy nine the murder of Carmi Galanti,
but even going back before then, up until Joe Messino
was victed, we ended about two thousand and five, two
thousand and six. Here we are talking twenty years after
that time. And so really the question is where did
(02:12):
the mafia go from there?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
First?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Just generally, you know, did it continue to decline? Where
is it today? And it's a question that certainly the
listeners keep coming back with just wanting to get a
better sense of where it is now.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And ironically, the answer to your question is actually contained
in your early episodes. Literally, from an historical perspective, the
American mafia was never more powerful than it was in
I think it was November of nineteen eighty five the
Commission indictments.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yep, correct, that case was.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Indicted in November, the convictions were handed.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Down eighty six.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yes, so the night before those indictments were handed up,
the American mafia was at the apex of its power,
and that case was prosecuted successfully. I'm happy to tell
you the American mafia has been on a very steady
downward trajectory. The effects and impact of the Commission convictions
(03:12):
never stopped resonating out and they still resonate to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
And you were primarily in the Gambino squad or was
it just a portion of the time that you were
focusing on organized crime.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I from eighty seven through ninety I was on a
Soviet counterintelligence squad. Great learning experiences like school, a lot
of office work, but really really fun stuff. After that,
I was an undercover agent in an international terrorism case
for a year. When that case ended, I transferred to
(03:45):
a violent crime squad in the office that we had
in Rego Park at the time, the Brooklyn Queen's Office,
and almost immediately, working with the detective Kathleen Donnelly, we
started working this really, really violent group of Bananoasso see
its in the southeast Bronx area, and they were just
a bunch of kids, but they were very, very violent,
(04:07):
and what we quickly learned is they were showing off.
They were trying to impress the local Banano family powerhouse,
Vinnie Bassiano, who as you know, eventually became the boss
of the family. But this is back in the early nineties.
Vinnie hadn't been straightened out yet. These knuckleheads, they would
shoot at each other, They were doing stick ups all
(04:28):
over the Bronx and Queens carjackings, they were pulling elderly
women out of Mercedes Benzes. It was just they were
just bad. But what they were trying to do was
catch Vinnie's attention. That crew, and they were probably about
a dozen or fifteen of them. Kathy and I just
we did the best we could to make as many
cases as possible because they were so unpredictable and so violent.
(04:52):
That was my first taste of organized crime. From ninety
one through ninety five. In ninety eight, I returned learn
to another violent crime squad. There were a lot of experienced,
older agents on the squad. It was all oc work
and we just did whatever we wanted. We were constantly
stepping on toes. We were Gambino cases, Colombo cases, Luczy cases,
(05:17):
and it was just a blest and we did really,
really good work. And then in two thousand and one,
that squad was in the process of being dissolved or disbanded,
and my partner, Cindy Peel, and I were then transferred
to the Gambino Squad in the summer of two thousand
and one and we worked there on the Gambino family
(05:38):
until twenty eleven or twelve, and then as the organized
crime program within the Office and the Bureau was consolidated,
the Lucas program was transferred to the squad. So I
finished the last nine or ten years on a squad
investigating both families, Gambino and Lucazy.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And so you really kind of dip back in I
think it was two thousand and one you said, so
really in the year that nine to eleven happened, and
obviously we know a lot of resources went understandably and
out of necessity into terrorism. And what impact did that
have on the organized crime that had been focused on
(06:20):
more before that.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I mean, there was an effect, The effect was felt,
but it was minimal. If you were working cases, and
any good experienced agent, their goal is to not only
work cases, but you want to work impactful cases. The
mafia is a big organization. You can't get them all,
but the higher up the food chain you work, the
(06:44):
more impactful the cases become. And that's the goal. Work
cases that hit them off as hard as we possibly could.
So we all understood after September eleventh and in the
years that followed, that there was going to be a
realignment within the FBI toward terrorism. Everybody was all for it.
(07:04):
We all grew up here for the most part, we
all smelled those buildings burning when they were on the ground.
We all tasted the metal in the air in early September.
We got it. And I'm reluctant to say we did
more with less, because the changes were made, but they
weren't really noticeable. The team that I worked on was
just this confluence of personalities and characters, and we had
(07:29):
a mission. We worked together, five six, seven of us.
I mean, you know as well as I do that
probably the most important resource in these types of cases
is the investigative experience. And as the years went by
and we all of us we were working harder and
better and leaner. The experiences made us better agents, which
(07:55):
allowed us to do more with less.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And did you see the type of crime evolve or
change amongst the families that you got to know so
well during those investigative years.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's and I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted, it's
a violent organization. I mean, the MOP does not drop
bodies the way they used to in the seventies, eighties
and early nineties, but they still kill people, They still
hurt people. They were still victims out there. And what
I was always most proud of with the team that
I was fortunate enough to work on, it was victims
(08:33):
came first. We kept them updated and in the loop
to the extent we could while the cases were going on.
We were victim oriented all the time. One example of
that is in October of nineteen eighty six, those two
mafia cops Louis Epolito and Steve Cara Kappa.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Know it well, know the case, well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
They were involved in the kidnapping of a Gambino associate
from Staten Island but a name of Jimmy Hidell, and
he met a gruesome fate, tortured to death, I'm reluctant
to say it because I know the families and it's
just been an absolutely horrible experience. So that was October
eighty six, less than twelve years later. The youngest son
(09:17):
in the family, Frank Heidell. Frank was a bit nerdy.
He was on a different path. His brother was a
street guy. But his brother's death had such a profound
effect on him that he turned to the street. And
Frank went from this aspiring college student to another mob associate.
He wasn't built for it. First sign of trouble, he
(09:37):
started cooperating. He was a source for a couple of years,
and then pieces were put together. In April twenty eighth
of nineteen ninety eight, he was shot and killed outside
of a bar on Staten Island. That's what drove us.
Frankie's murder was not he was an FBI source. So
(09:58):
it's personal.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Absolutely, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Frankie's murder wasn't the only case we had. But you'd
meet people in your life, and in this instance, Frankie's mother, father,
and sister, you can't promise them anything other than we
would do everything we could to bring them a sense
of justice. Closures I wish I could dispense it. I can't,
but we made that promise that we would try. It
(10:22):
took us a number of years to do it. But
of the maybe twelve or thirteen people involved in that conspiracy,
I think ten or eleven either were convicted or pled
guilty to that murder, there was great satisfaction in that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I'll tell you there's no case I don't want to
say more important, because they're all important, but the murder
of a witness or someone who has been cooperating, I
think it hits us differently because they're out on a
limb to a degree, and that is the thing that,
certainly case like this, that probably caused their death. So
I understand that feeling, having seen these cases in my
own office, you know so for you don't read in
(10:58):
the papers certainly as much about out the mafia, and
in New York's Five Families in particular, as much as
you used to. But look, I know the cases are
still going on. I see them with friends of mine,
and they're working these cases. And for those that say
they're pretty much gone, what is your answer to that?
When asked about where the mafia is presently?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So over the years Citty and I had a lot
of trial experience. I know you had a considerable amount more.
But in the federal system, for agents to have fifteen
trials is a lot.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
That is a lot.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
We had fifteen trials, yep. But over the years, especially
during trial prep, the days of trial, you know the drill,
we would get newer agents from the applicant squad or
newer agents assigned to our squad, and from time to
time you get that frown expression, it's what's the matter,
and it's well. I was speaking to someone I met
(11:51):
the other day and they asked me what I did.
I told them and they were really excited, full of questions.
Then they asked me what I did in the FBI,
and I said worked the mafia. And they looked at
me in disbelief and said, to mafia, they're still around.
And I would invariably say, well, maybe we should all
just pat ourselves on the back, go back to the
(12:12):
generation before us and the generation before us. You know,
it might not be the most pleasant compliment you're going
to get, but it's a compliment nonetheless that we're on
top of this, we're winning this. Eventually, the American mafia
will no longer exist. It's not going to happen anytime soon.
But if this agent or that agent had twenty years
(12:33):
ahead of them in their career or twenty five, maybe
they'll be around when somebody gets to stick a fork
in the mob. It's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
It was interesting. I'm trying to remember who it was
that we spoke to for the season. It may have
been Jack Steubing, but someone said, don't make the mistake
turning the other cheek because they're gone, right, Because as
long as there's money, the mob will be there in
some form because they want that money. That is why
they exist. And do you subscribe to that same thinking,
like don't turn a blind eye because they're not as
(13:24):
prevalent because good work has been done, they will grow again,
or do you think they're just petering out somewhat.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think the answer is both. And you could look
at the Banano family and the Colombo family as prime examples.
If you start with the Colombo family going back, one
of the hallmarks of that family is they're always fighting.
They're always shooting at each other, you know, the Colombo War.
We have to be more specific, which Colombo War. The
Colombo War Colombo War or the Prafacci War or the
(13:53):
Gallow War, and the Colombo Squad was there. They had
some very very talented ages on the squad who sees
the opportunity and that family has been prosecuted close to oblivion.
And if you look at the leadership over the past
fifteen or twenty years, every six months there's a new
(14:14):
acting boss and then a week after their name the
acting boss, somebody from that squad is locking them up.
The Bonano family, they were left for dead in the
early nineties after they had been stripped of a commissioned
seat Gallant. They had been killed in the late seventies.
Rastelli was the boss in prison and Messino was sizing
(14:34):
up the family. But at the time the FBI foolishly
and the US Attorney's Office foolishly just took their eye
off them. I think, as you guys rightly pointed out
in your last several episodes, they came back with a
vengeance and then they were dispatched once again. And that family,
too is in total disarray.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And what about today?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Have they evolved with the type of crime I'm the
internet technology or is it really a lot of still
that back room loan sharking person to person crime that
has been really the bread and butter in the past.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Anyway, this is the unsatisfying part of my answer. You
come into the FBI with an expiration data in your
rear end, and I reached mine. I would have stayed
there forever and worked for free. That's how much fun
we had. And the case that we were working when
I retired, which I think is still ongoing, was the
(15:33):
most interesting case I ever worked. What's unsatisfying is that's
pretty much all I can say about it.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Right, No, No, of course, I don't want to risk the case.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
But it was like, I'm not going to say international
in scope, I'll say global in scope. This isn't some
second cousin from Sicily, although those cases exist as well.
This is something that was occurring all over the world
and it was absolutely fascinating. Maybe one day, when the
cases is judicated, we'll have another conversation.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I don't know why this came into my head right now,
and I'm really going sideways, but it's always been interesting
to me. Is that we focus on for this podcast.
We're talking about the Italian MAFI, but we know there
are other ethnic organized crime organizations as well, and in
your experience, how much cross pollination is there?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
For example, you know, we've certainly saw being in Brooklyn.
You had the Albanian gangs, you had Russian gangs, you
had other They were very organizer, making a lot of money.
They're not street gangs. But do they all really stay
to themselves based on that commonality of ethnicity or did
you see working together these different organized crime groups in
(16:43):
New York?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I think the short answer to your question is they
do work together, And the more involved answer is groups
like the Balkan organized crime. I'm reluctant to say much
about Russian I will see because I don't really know
much about it, but Albanian organ and ie crime they
do to an extent. They exist as their own entity.
(17:06):
But at least in our experience with Balkans and especially Albanians,
it's just there's almost like this aspiration on their part
to rub elbows with the Italians so they can exist
in their own smaller criminal enterprises. But the overlap association
wise with the Italians is considerable.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So really, within the various criminal groups, there is this,
at least an appearance of a hierarchy, with the Italians
remaining towards the top.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I don't know if it's like a formal hierarchy, but.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
It's just the perception maybe exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And it's listen, good bet or and different. I'll go
with bed. The Italian mafia has crept into American culture.
It's a part of contemporary American history and certainly looms
large in contemporary American culture.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
And have you seen the other organizations grow with time?
You know, have they taken some of the place of
the role that the Italian mafia has had, or have
they all just really worked side by side.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
To the extent they worked side by side. I don't
want to mislead you into believing that these Balkans or
Serbians or Albanians are asking permission. They're playing through one
way or the other. But they do gravitate towards I
guess their older brothers on the street. But the Italians
were here first in the early part of the twentieth century.
(18:36):
They elbowed everyone out of the way. And think about
what the commission was. It was remarkable in and of
itself that you had a twenty seven member of thirty
member board of directors, but only five of those members
had voting rights, and they agreed to it, and it
held them up together for the better part of fifty years.
(18:57):
In a perverse way, it's impressive.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Think that organized crime impacts the everyday citizen today.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
We know that in the past.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
We talked multiple times with different people about it really
touched every person in New York City for a time,
every bit of construction, all the windows. And while we
don't have that today, how do you think the everyday person,
at least some of them are still impacted, or maybe
they're not.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
No, they are impacted, but thankfully to a far lesser
degree than ever before. And if you'd like to talk construction,
it's the result of thirty or forty years of really
hard work that ran them out well. It minimized their
impact in the construction industry and has largely eliminated their
influence within labor unions. But the last significant Lukesey case
(19:44):
that I was involved in with my team there was
homicide drug dealing. It was a lot and one of
the four elements of that case was construction. And the
Lucas's and the Genovies were always better at construction rackets.
They had the connections. They had the developers, they had
the brand name contractors in their pockets. But in that indictment,
(20:07):
probably the most significant construction charge we had. It was
a state and federal funded project to construct an ambulatory
care clinic. It brought us Lebanon Hospital off of the
Grand Concourse, and it's an underserved community. I suppose, like
if you wake up in the middle of the night
and your infant is not well, you've got a helicab
(20:29):
and get down to Lincoln Hospital or get over to
Jacoby or miser Recordia. It's an effort. So Bronx Lebanon
was building out this clinic and the Lukeesy family saw
it coming from a mile away. Their rackets were in place,
their infrastructure was in place, and this two year project,
which was supposed to cost twenty six million, took five
(20:51):
and a half or six years at a cost of
well over fifty million dollars. And the victims are there.
There's money that's been swindled and extorted. And in that
three or four year period of time, you had an
entire neighborhood or part of the Bronx that was left
without access to an emergency room.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And that is I think a perfect example when you
think about it, for just every reason you said it.
You have a health care facility, right, it is something
that each one of us as citizens should have access to.
And here for greed and illegal gain, they are overcharging,
holding things up, and really the people that are suffering
are the people in those neighborhoods that need that facility
(21:33):
most and probably may not have the means to get
themselves somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And on that conspiracy, the Lucases were so good, and
it was the underboss, Stephen Krea, who was really good
at it, ultimately convicted for it, but they were so
good at it. They had both ends of the deal covered.
You know when a construction project you have the contractor
and the owner. Right, yep, they had both. They had
the owner of the hospital literally the hospitals. The hospital
(22:01):
was in bed with them. They had both ends covered
and they were eating off of both sides of the table,
so to speak. And again they couldn't care less who
lives in this neighborhood. Who the heck cares? Let them
deal with it. If they have to help, you know,
go find a livery cap. They get down the concourse
that it didn't it was of absolutely no concern to them.
(22:22):
If there's money to be made here, there's money to steal,
and we're going to put our hands in both pockets here,
and they did. They did it well, but thankfully it
caught up with them.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
What areas of crime in the more recent years, did
you see that organized crime either continued with or maybe
new avenues.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Without going into a lot of detail, and it's stating
what is obvious, the role that at least one of
the five families plays in international drug trafficking is stunning.
In the world of trafficking. If you're a drug dealer
and you can access a complete kilo of cocaine, you're
(23:03):
in a stratosphere. You were so far above street level
stuff that's one kilo. If you can bundle twenty kilows,
you're a big marka. You're a trafficker. What this scheme
involved was trafficking cocaine on an industrial scale, like mind
blowing amounts of coke, mind blowing. That's one of the
(23:27):
aspects that really grabbed our attention, specifically my attention as
I was heading out.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
The door, that the drug trade was alive and well.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
When it came to organized crime, which and again we
talk about all there's money to be made, but each
kilo that's there, everything, well, that's going to go to
a user and it goes out from there. And as
we know with the narcotics trade, it's not just the
people using, but there's a lot of crime that surrounds
it as well.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Right, And I guess the big picture conversation here is
what's happening to the mob. And one of the litany
of reasons the Mob is just at tridded down to
where it's at now is you need listen no further
than your last episode when the boss of a family
Joe Messino, when he stands up, goes to trial and
(24:16):
essentially has a life sentence or worse, staring him in
the face on his way out of the courtroom, says
I'd like to I'd like to talk to you when
a boss does that, Like, what kind of an imbecile
would sign on to choose a career path in the
mob where everyone's going to give me possibly give me up,
(24:37):
including the boss who's giving me the orders. Like that
level of hypocrisy is just mind blowing. But getting back
to where we started, and you mentioned drug trafficking. If
you ask any mobster this story about their induction ceremony.
After you're inducted, you are introduced to the people in
(24:57):
the room. Okay, got that, and then sit down. Here
are the rules. Rule number one no drug trafficking. Oh okay.
If you go back to where you guys started in
your podcast. The seminal event in the history of the
Mob Commission, aside from the prosecution, was that conference up
(25:19):
in that famous get together that the Appalachian. Yes, the
Appalachian Conference took place, and I think it was November
of nineteen fifty seven, one month before the seminal meeting
occurred at the Grand Hotel des Palmas in Palermo, and
that's where the Sicilian goes in Ustra and American mafia.
(25:43):
That's where they laid out the future of their heroin
trafficking trade. It was one month before that Commission meeting,
where of course among the rules, chief among the rules
are no drug trafficking. Yeah, sure, okay. The level of
hipocrisy is laughable and it's one of the things that
(26:03):
has led the mafia, the American mob, to the point
where it's at right now, which is what really just
worn down. It's still there. There are still five discreet families.
Still it's one hundred year old criminal enterprise dedicated exclusively
to committing crimes. There's no good side of the mob.
(26:24):
There's nothing good about it. It's just all crime, all
the time. But it's on its way out, and I
can only hope and pray that whether it's twenty years
or forty years, there's some I don't know, a bunch
of agents and prosecutors in junior high school right now,
who forty years from now will have a conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And describe the actual end, right, the actual end. As
you're saying that was like, there's so many different types
of crime that I would give anything to just hear
that conversation, right, I mean, so many different types of crime.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
We wish we could finally put an end to it.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
But I think for various reasons, you know, you talk
about homicide, the various motives that people commit those crimes.
There's old as time, so it doesn't go away with
the mob. They're motivated by money, so when there's money
to be made, they somehow continue to rise to the surface,
although it's harder to get to the top, it seems.
And again I'm certainly no expert, but just by talking
(27:19):
to all of you who are, it just seems to
be the more you clamp down you can harness it.
But you least so far, it continues to seep somewhere.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah, and it's just you need I don't know the rapture,
its crime's not going anywhere, but the structure that the
mafia represents, that's what's going to go. The organization, that
cohesion that it provides its members. Eventually that'll be gone.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
With what you just said, Ted, I mean both from
the beginning you gave some specifics, but also because that
is the legitimate answer, is that while it's been very
successfu we've been very successful being lawn for horse meant
it's like combating crime, and if we actually had the answer,
we would have done it on so many different levels.
But it's just keep fighting the good fight, you know,
and hoping that whether it's technology, resources or something that
(28:12):
someone comes up with that how amazing would it be
if we could actually put an end to it, And
certainly here we're talking about organized crime, no less in
other areas, it would just be a great thing.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, it'll be confined to the dustbin of history with
the Roman Empire or where you know you name it.
There are plenty of objects to look at in that
dustbind and this will be one of them.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Thank you to Ted for sharing his time and expertise
with us. If you haven't already, you can listen to
the entire first season of Law and Order Criminal Justice
System wherever you get your podcasts, and remember season two
is coming soon. Follow Wolf Entertainment, iHeart Podcasts, and me
Ana Sega Nicolasi on social media to stay updated and
(28:59):
be the first to know when the new season drops.
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