November 13, 2025 • 54 mins
What's your favorite pizza topping? Pepperoni? Anchovies? A kilo of heroin? If it's the drugs, the Sicilian mob had a pizza parlor for you! They created networks of drug wholesale hubs in modest pizza joints up and down the East Coast. But the FBI is the one that delivered when it came to justice.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio, Zaren.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yo Elizabeth Dutton. How are you favorite, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
How's your heart?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
My heart is good?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Wait, I'm your favorite Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah, you're my second favorite Dutton.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
What I know, everyone's favorite Dutton is Travis dud.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
No, your nephew. Oh he's technically.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
He's my favorite.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Yeah, but I tell you you know, my brother Travis,
he's a he's a big draw is everybody loves.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
He's got a lot of really stunning, attractive, like magnetic Duttons.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
For a long time in my life, I was always
Travis's sister anywhere you get, oh you're Travis's sister. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
My sister tells me about how that was. She was
considered Zaren's sister, Like, oh, hey, little brunette. You know
that's the whole thing, Like that must suck.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
It was like you go to a show, you go
to like see a band play, and like, oh you hey,
you're Travis's sister.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, I have a name. No, I don't.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Anyway, you know, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
I do.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Elizabeth. Now, you know out here in the West Coast,
you know, and I'm including like northern California, in this Oregon, sure,
Washington is when I'm talking about Cascadia. Thank you. We
have something with bigfoot. A lot of these states all
have going on big right, so you don't think of it,
at least we don't not here think of it. That
They also have that in other places, like in the
(01:19):
South and in like the Upper Midwest, like Michigan and
so forth. But it's also in New York. Really yes,
western Massachusetts and New York. They also have crazy bigfoot sightings.
And there are towns that have like whole like dedications
to Bigfoot.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
They call it big Fest.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
No that well, they call it sasquatch out in Whitehall,
New York. And in Whitehall, New York, they have a
sasquatch calling contest, so people line up, in this case
it was sixty contestants and they have the judges turn
around so they cannot see the contestants, and the contestants
then do their best bigfoot call or sasquatch call at
(01:55):
the judges or at the crowd.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Sasquatch sounds people like some people will tell you they've
recorded one, but you don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And now the people will just hear stuff in the
woods and ask people from Appalachia. You're gonna hear stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Oh yes, right, yeah. A fox will mess you up
exactly out here. A coyote, the.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Coyote, same thing, the yelping and saying your name, and
the wind. Who is that? How do you know my name?
So they do their fake bigfoot sasquatch calls, and then
they announce a winner.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Okay, right now.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
These people they in this town. They all gather in
a park and they got like the food trucks and
the vendor tables. It's like a whole festival and these people,
sixty people. One of these contestants was described as quote
a steam punk sasquatch hunter.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Oh of course, I just know it's a good day
for Elizabeth. I'm not going to be I love that
for them.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Okay, how about a ventulquist? Love it? Who's got a
puppet that's called Littlefoot?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I love it?
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I love it, you love it?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
The winner had a crazy call, and I won't do
an impression of it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Do they sound like Chewbacca?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Most of them sounds something like Chaca, except for this
one woman who went out there. She had like a
two two on and like fairy like clothing and she
screamed at the judges of it for her. She turned
around and screamed at the backs of the judges where
you can see them, like winsay and stuff like, oh
my god, she's screaming at me. I love happy for
(03:28):
there you go, Elizabeth. I thought it was ridiculous that
they named a winner of the Sasquatch Call contest. Yeah,
and well, we can probably put it up on Instagram, right,
I can a Facebook link for it, and then you go, yeah,
you can get a video to the interns and maybe
they'll put it up. I don't know. But the winner
was this guy named Grant Kennedy. So congratulations to Kenny.
(03:49):
Named after two US presidents.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
That means something.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And then about him is he wins.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
The love that for everyone there. I'm so happy for them.
I just white knuckled it through all those descriptions. Do
you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Pizza? What this is ridiculous crime?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
You damn right. Okay, I had to run back.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Something I love to do is speculate as to whether
a business is affront for money laundering or not.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You do do that?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
You love that?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Of course they're all time classic mattress stores. Mattress stores, yeah,
oh yeah, their conspiracy theories just like they abound online
about how nobody's ever in those Yeah, that they're only
in business to wash money or like the affront because
they're not very far from each other, like sometimes they're
like within a couple of blocks.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Oh yeah, and like are we really buying that many mattresses?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Right?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And now they're all online and people are buying them.
They show up their boxes like we're still going.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
To recently and it came in a box and then
it was just it just grew and grew.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Have you seen the videos where they like hurt people
when they pop out of the boxes. We get flung
out of windows and stuff. It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I kind of thought that might happen, but sadly you
didn't have.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
But you know, I like, so there are all these
conspiracy theories about mattress stores. I'm a sucker for a
good conspiracy theory, like you are. I am, although I
should be careful what I say because my Instagram algorithm
is like rife with a certain conspiracy theory right now,
I won't get into which one. And Instagram is listening,
I know, And so I see a lot of reel's
parsing footage and facts or like lack of facts. Oh
(05:55):
then I made the mistake of watching a couple of
them out of like morbid curiosity, and then I started
getting like much darker, more offensive conspiracy theory reels like
the world's a sick plays there and social media is
even sicker. So anyway, business fronts, there are storefronts that
don't see much foot traffic and don't seem to sell
anything in like high demand wig shops, some antique stores,
(06:20):
food places that either like never seem to be open
or they never have anyone in them.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Also a lot of florists florists yep.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I was reading recently on my favorite website, read it
about just this very thing, after I wrote this outline
that I saw it asking about have you seen any
like what business have you seen that you think are
front and.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Someone talked about a twenty four hour floorist.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Really, I'm telling you.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
It is dependent on like the shopping district. So in
a small rural town, there's a likelihood that the owner
of the shop like owns the building. Taxes are low,
it could be like a hobby or right off off
in a higher cost of living areas are one with
like more foot traffic.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Some of the shops are just inexplicable.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Totally, like my typewriter repair guy, Yes, that guy.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Have you ever been into a restaurant where you think it.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Might have been a front.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I'm usually surprised when I'm not having that thought because
I go to a lot of places where there aren't
people and I'm like, oh, hey, it's just me and
the chef and the one waitress, and I'm like, how
are they I've been here for three hours? How are
they staying?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Just like written in pencil on a paper tap.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I love those places. I seek them out, and then
I go back again to.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
See some of those places.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
It's like, it's either going to be the worst meal
of your life in killies or the best all time best.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Because it's a money laundering front, they got nothing to do,
they make a great meal.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Well, today I have the story of a restaurant that
was a front, and even better, it involves two of
your favorite elements of crime.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Stories really drugs okay.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And the mafia.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You know. So let's start off with our main character,
Gitano Barlamente. What a great Yeah, known as Dontano bat Lamente. Yeah, Tano,
but he was like don Tano. He was the Caapo
Familia of his hometown in Chinisi, Sicily. Wow. And he
(08:16):
was the head of the Sicilian mafia commission in the seventies.
Big dog girl so Kane, Yeah yeah, so Bartlamenti. He
was born in nineteen twenty three, the youngest in his
immediate family five boys, four girls, and the family they
were dairy farmers, so he dropped out of school and
he was ten to work at the dairy. In nineteen
(08:38):
forty one, he got drafted into the Royal Italian Army,
but he deserted during the Allied invasion of Sicily in
nineteen forty three to protect the good on him.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
No, he was just like, this is my chance.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Yeah, he's like who yeah, he's not from the north.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
They love It's true.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
So he married this woman, Teresa Italy, and this was
a big deal because her sister was married to Filippo Remi.
Remi was the Kappo mafia of Alcamo.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Okay, I think I've come across that name.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, he so Tano.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
He starts a lemon grove and he was able to
kind of like dodge some legal trouble that he'd gotten into.
And before long he ditched the lemons and he started
a construction business, and he supplied crushed rock for the
Palermo Punta.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Reci airport into Congrege.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Yeah, and he bribed officials to have the airport built
near his hometown. Was this a convenient place to build
the airport? Probably not, of course, not lucky for him.
His family property had plenty of rock and gravel for
the projects, so no cost to him.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So between the gravel business and the associative trucking transportation
business that he started to keep up with the project,
he was employing a heck of a lot of people
in town. They loved this. Yeah, it's not a wealthy area.
So soon enough, Battlelamente became the leader of the mafia
in Chin. That's nineteen sixty three. According to Giovanni Impastato,
(10:06):
brother of slain anti mafia activist Giuseppe Impastato.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Okay, there you go.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
It seemed that Battlamente was well liked by the Carbonieri
as he was calm, reliable and always liked to chat.
It almost felt like he was doing them a favor
and that nothing ever happened in Chinisi. It was a
quiet little town. I often used to see them walking
arm in arm with Tano Badlamenti and his henchmen. You
can't have faith in the institutions when you see the
police arm in arm with the Mafiosi and the Carbonara.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Aren't just the normal police, They're like the militarized police.
They're in Mexico. They have the machine guns in the
airport to the train station. Yeah, so you're watching like
the federal police.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Right watch.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
And as an aside, I love when Italian men walk
together arm in arm, like Yeah, I think it's terribly charming.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It is also they hold hands too.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
I love that battle Ofmente. His run as boss of
CHINII didn't last though. He got run out of town,
actually run out of Sicily by rival mafiosi. That was
nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
So he followed in his brother.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Yes, he followed in his brother's footsteps, and he headed
for the States. But he wasn't starting from scratch. He
had connections and he used them. See bart Lamentee had
deep connections to various drug rings. He knew morphine suppliers
in Turkey and they would process the stuff into heroin
in Sicily and then smuggle it into the US. He
(11:35):
knew Colombians who ran coke from South America to New York,
new the mall, and he knew about the network that
they used. So in the US pizza shops and other
mafia run businesses from New York to Illinois and Wisconsin.
They served as the base of operations. So this wasn't
something where people could go in and order a slice
with like an extra dusting of palm and like walk
(11:57):
out with a slice and a baggy of coke. These
were wholesale location and this is where distributors on both
ends met to make deals. Yes, and also they'd go
there to drop off earnings to be washed by the business.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
It's like Satrelli's pork Shop and the Sopranos where they're just.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Meeting meeting up there and it's a cash business, baby,
so they can wash it. And it wasn't just pizza joints.
Bakers worked too. A successful one was in Queen's and
that was owned by Salvatore Totoo. He was a big
guy in the Banano crime family in New York.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, Joe Bananas, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
So Catalano he connected Battle Ofmente with the American mafia
and Battle Ofmente. He had this whole crew of Sicilians
that he ran with.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Looks like a Godfather subplot.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
They were called the Zips, which was a slur used
by Italian American mobsters in reference to newer immigrant Sicilian mafiosi.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
So Catalano he would carry.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Around like forty pounds of heroin in a suitcase.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Forty pounds.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
He took fifteen different trips from Brooklyn to Chicago. He
went down to Miami Beach. He got paid five grand
for each delivery. So that's like thirty thousand today. And
according to the FBI quote from January nineteen seventy five
until April nineteen eighty four and estimated one point six
billion dollars worth of heroin one thousand, six hundred and
(13:20):
fifty pounds at the time was shipped to this country
in the plot. The cash profits were then illegally laundered
through a web of banks and brokerages in the US
and overseas. In total, the ring quote laundered many millions
of dollars in drug money, including twenty million dollars sent
to Switzerland through trading accounts at E. F. Hutton and
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Mean F.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Hutton money, Launders people. Listen, they did exactly.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Those brokerages not charged with any crime, of course not they.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Never are shocking.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Look at Deutsche Bank, right.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
So there was this undercover FBI agent, Joe Pistoni. He
infiltrated the Bonano crime fan in nineteen seventy six, and
then he delivered information that went on to bring the
whole operation crumbling down. So the FEDS they gathered all
this evidence and they used just about every investigative tool
they had. I'm talking like round the clock surveillance on
(14:15):
multiple different people across multiple continents.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
This is like when Rudy Giuliani was making his name as.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
USA, yes, before the hair dye ran.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Down his face.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, back when he was on the I guess like
you know the effective side of law enforcements.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Actually, thousands of phone calls got monitored, some of which
were like payphones in the middle of nowhere. So everyone
involved pretty much spoke Sicilian, which is not the same
as Italian. And it wasn't just Sicilian. They spoke in
code in Sicilian also.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
They did both their own language, then they did code words,
and then they also had like imagine a dialect as well, right.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
So you couldn't just translate it over. The FBI had
to assemble this team of like expert translators code breakers
to like work together to pull this all out, create.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
A Sicilian Nigma machine breer pretty.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Much, so things started to move. In April of nineteen
eighty four, this guy Pietro Alfano, he was a nephew
who was big in the mob in the Midwest. He
ran a pizza parlor in Oregon, Illinois. He flew from
Chicago to Madrid to meet up with battle Ofmente and
Battlemente was there with his wife and his son Veto.
(15:22):
So the FBI they're very interested in this trip, so
they let the Spanish authorities know just how interested they were.
On April eighth, Battle Ofmente and Alfano they went for
a walk together down the streets of Madrid. It's like
so evocative boom there were the Spaniards grabbing them up,
and they went and got veto two.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And they hated drugs Spaniards out of Franco.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
They the Spaniards have the craziest, like harshest heroin.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Yeah, So this triggered action stateside, right, So the next
day the FBI rounded up thirty members of the mafia
and various associates who worked with Battlemente. In the US,
six different bureau offices work together to make the arrest,
carry out the search horns because they knew as soon
as he gets busted in Madrid, they got to take
action over here. They got drug paraphernalia, tons of cash,
(16:13):
loads of weapons, like documents for days Battleamentee. He gets
extradited to the US in November of nineteen eighty four,
and federal prosecutors had to agree with a request that
Spain made. They said that Battleamente could not be sentenced
to more than thirty years in prison because that was
the maximum sentence under Spanish law for these cases. So like,
(16:36):
you can't exceed our sentencing. So like Feds are like,
all right, fine, send them over here. So the trial
kicks off. The media immediately calls it the pizza connection
because of all the pizza parlors that were fronting for
the drug sales. And the case was a monster, it
was super complex. It all started April twenty fourth, nineteen
eighty five. Twenty two total defendants, all Sicilian born men.
(17:00):
There was this fellow by the name of Tomaso Bouschetta.
He was on the stand for nine days. He was
this former Sicilian mafio so who became an informer after he.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Was arrested in Brazil.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
So according to The New York Times, he spent the
time quote detailing the structure of the mafia and naming
several of the witnesses as Mafioso. Bouschetta, in a federal
witness protection program, was expected to testify it several trials,
both in the United States and Italy involving members and
suspected members of the mafia. Another witness was Salvatore Contorno.
(17:37):
He was brought in from Italy to testify, and according
to The Times, he quote appeared at the hearing in
a suit, shirt and tie of contrasting shades of blue,
and spoke rapidly in Italian. He sounds rat right, I
love him and I'm sure, he's a horrible human being.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So he said theory. I love the idea.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Yes, he said he saw four of the defendants, including
Salvatory Catalono, at a mafia banquet in Sicily.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Could you imagine the food? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Oh, and he also saw him at a drug deal
involving forty kilos a heroin that too, I saw him
there too.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
It was just a small dealer.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
They hauled in this Swiss citizen, Paul Vadidell, he testified,
and he copped.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Taking in more than eleven million.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Dollars for this Turkish fugitive. That guy was the morphine
plug for the Sicilians, okay, and the Swiss guy said, quote,
there was a mountain of money, and he's he talked
about how it was like US currency, and stacks of twenties, fifties,
hundreds filled six suitcases. Another suspect testified that he'd taken
(18:46):
huge amounts of cash to brokerage firms in Manhattan on
behalf of members of the drug ring, and he said
he didn't know at the time that it was drug money.
He thought it was something he called black money from
restaurants and other places that want to avoid taxes by
moving the money secretly to.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Switzerland under the table money.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, and so The New York Times recounted his testimony
as such, quote in September nineteen eighty two, I stopped
going to New York to receive money, he said, after
an official at EF Hutton had disclosed that the FBI
was getting interested in our account in the United States.
So EF Hutton is like you sweating the Feds, The
Times added in quote. Another witness, Salvatore Amendeloto, testified earlier
(19:29):
that he had received almost ten million dollars in cash
from two men and had secretly transferred it overseas for them.
He said he picked up most of the money from
Francesco Castronovo, a defendant who formerly owned the Roma restaurant
in Medlo Park, New Jersey. So this is pretty much
like a classic mafia drug bust, albeit with the base
of operations being pizza parlors.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Let's take a break, but.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
When we come back, I've got some amazing ridiculousness for you.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Zara Elizabeth, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I'm loving this. You didn't mention I had one of
my other great interests pizza.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Pizza.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Oh that is true. And men named Salvatore. There's like
fifteen of them minute. So you know how when you
watch old episodes.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Of Law and Order, see I'm throwing in another thing
you love?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
What is it my birthday?
Speaker 4 (20:36):
You basically see the cast of the Sopranos before they
became stars. Like that show is thick with New York
actors like destined for greatness, although I'm not so sure
about today.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Here's my quick side rant about Law and Order.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I love that show.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
It's my go to my comfort watch. Lenny Briscoe sat Lenny.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
He was the best.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Jack McCoy amazing for the bulk of the first run.
Because it was canceled and then it came back a
few seasons ago. It felt like New York at the beginning.
The extras all looked like real people. Actors looked like
real people. The storylines were like about real feeling people,
working folks, and they had these amazing actors, some already
(21:21):
accomplished wh would like dip in for a guest turn,
but most were like working New York's theater actors. Yeah,
and a lot of times Law and Order was the
big break. So like casting folks like kept their eyes
on who made it, you know, onto the show Now though,
I feel like every crime involves someone violently rich, like.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
The pen House set.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Yeah, billionaires, venture capitalists like you rarely see working people
on the show anymore. And the actors have that like
la actorly look veneer's good hands. No, not at all
so and that's not how it was in the earlier seasons,
like where they film in New York feel more.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Like a set than a street now.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yes, yes, anyway, it's very much like what is this
the Cosby Show? Like you know you just got these
Brooklyn Browns?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Do anything clean?
Speaker 4 (22:10):
And yeah, I missed the gude exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I want like some punk kids who are mad that
they're getting like shake shaken down outside the bedego.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I want someone loading boxes onto a dolly. I can't
stop to talk. I can't answer the questions.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
But you got to.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Walk and talk for this.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
So New York actors, how do they factor into what
I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I'm so curious.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Elizabeth Saren, close your eyes.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Oh, I want you to picture it.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
You are an actor cal Saint John to be exact,
you played at Turnbull Ac.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
In the movie The Warriors.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
You do some off Broadway work, and you're starting to
get into casting. Last year, you were an extras casting
assistant on the film Pritzy's Honor. You've also been an
extras casting assistant on the TV show The Equalizer and
the blockbuster movie The Muppets Take Manhattan. It's through your
casting work that you got worried about this gig. You're
sitting in a room off the courtroom in Federal District
(23:14):
Court in Manhattan. With you are three other actors, Joe Nimmo,
Debbie Merrill, and Robert Petito. All of you have theater
experience and that's why you were selected. Of course, you're
all getting paid less than twenty dollars an hour for this,
but a job's a job, and this is interesting work.
There's the muffled sound of the busy courthouse hallway just
(23:36):
outside the door. The other door leads to the courtroom itself.
You've been running your lines at home for a week
or so. You haven't had a chance to rehearse with
the other actors yet, though, and it doesn't look like
you will have the time to do so. Joe Nimmo
is doing vocal exercises and clearing her throat. She's also
currently in rehearsals for an off off Broadway play called
(23:57):
Immortal Beloved, or so she told you when you all
gathered at the coffee maker in the corner of the
room when you first arrived, Robert Petito told you that
he's the artistic director of an off off Broadway group
called the American Ensemble Company. He's flipping through the pages
of his script, highlighting lines, and then flipping forward.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
A few pages.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
I find it very exciting to appear in court instead
of on stage, he says. You nod and take a
deep breath. Debbie Merrill is in the other corner of
the room doing deep stretches and leg lifts. She's humming
a tune and she has a huge smile on her face.
She told you she's recently played Christopher Reeves's roller skating
friend in Marriage of Figaro at the Circle on the
(24:36):
Square Theater. She straightens up and tells the room, you know,
actors have never been used before in a trial, so
this is history.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
She's right.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
When the federal prosecutors told you about the job, they
explained that you'd be reading transcripts of a pizzeria owner
and members of his family talking about money laundering he said,
the original conversations of the defendants were in a Sicilian dialect,
making it necessary to present the English transcripts to the jury.
You asked if you should do an accent. Please don't,
he said. He explained that normally prosecutors or court employees
(25:08):
would read the transcripts, but there were so many recorded
conversations in this case that the task was considered burdens
on the boring. And that's where you come in. The
judges clerk pokes her head into the room. They're ready
for you, she announces.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
You get up and shake your arms, ready.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
To put on the performance of a lifetime. Hey, guys,
you announced to your co stars. It's very important that
we get every word right. The four of you file
into the courtroom and everyone is silent.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
You don't know why, but you'd expected some applause. The
guy coughs.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
You and Robert Petito take your places in chairs just.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
In front of the witness stand.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
The squeak of the chairs dragging across the floor punctuates
the silence. You don't know this, but what you're about
to read is considered the most significant evidence against Tano Badlimente.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Today.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I'll be reading the part of mister Bodlamente. You tell
the courtroom, thank you, Saint John will do the introductions.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
You nod.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
The prosecutor repeats what you've said and adds that mister
Boblomente was calling from Brazil. He then tells the court
that Robert Petito will be reading the transcript of another defendant,
Salvatore Mazurko. You begin, I think that by the beginning
of next week they will come with twenty two parcels
or with eleven parcels, whatever you guys prefer. Robert responds
(26:27):
to you, his glasses perched on the end of his
nose as he looks down at the paper in his hand.
All right, now there's another thing, you say. I met
the guy with the shirts four years ago, but there's
a little problem. But there's another guy here that has
there's ten percent acrylic I understand little about.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
This, Robert, but ten percent is not the bad.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
The prosecution interrupts you. Please note that the defendants used
code words to discuss the purity and price of heroin
and cocaine. You continue, A competent individual told me that
it is good cotton, but that it contains ten percent acrylics.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
It's not pure cotton.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
The cost over there will come to sixty cents, whereas
the other one will come to more than ninety cents. Robert,
the one that is a percat. You look up and
see that the gallery of the courtroom is riveted. This
is showbiz, baby, and you love it so.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Acting.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole researching
these researching these actors, and I absolutely have to share
with you the story of Debbie Merrill.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
She's the roller.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Skating Okay, please, I'll read to you from her bio
on her website skategreat dot com. Quote as the owner
of Debbie Merrill's Skate Great USA former the Glide with
Pride School of Skating trademark located located in Santa Monica, California,
Debbie has taught thousands of students from all over the world,
(28:10):
ages four to eighty four how to inline skate. She
is IISA certified, an award winning dancer us FSA silver medallist,
figure skater, actress, choreographer and spokesperson. Debbie brings an exciting
range of talents to her work. An accomplished actress as
well as international roller and ice skating performer, Debbie's appearances
(28:32):
include the film La Story and on Broadway The Marriage
of Figuaro, playing the role of Franchette on roller skates.
The play's director Andre Serban specifically wanted Debbie to choreograph
the unique and intricate skating secrets in the play, which
were widely hailed up and down the Great White Way.
Another precedent setting performance for Debbie was when she was
(28:54):
commissioned by the White House to perform for the American
employees or a Ramco Oil company in Saudi Arabia and
I E skated what does that even mean? Skated on
a special surface of silicone ice. Debbie is also the
first and only award winning rolling sambista Brazilian samba dancer
on inline skates and bringing it to the House of
(29:16):
Blues in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
A rollerblading somebista on the House of Lost My.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Mind with the Aramco reference, and then she goes on.
She talks about her TV credits and then she adds.
Debbie's list of celebrities clients include Steve Martin, Juliet Lewis,
Los Angeles' Mayor, Richard Reardon, Geena Davis, Mary Elizabeth most Antonio,
Kim Delaney, Downtown, Julie Brown and Melanie Griffith and family,
(29:46):
as well as thousands of health conscious men and women
who come from all over the world to Southern California
to learn from the very best.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I like that she can brag that she's taught Steve
Martin to rollerbok?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Did she teach Dakota Johnson?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
And that's right?
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Thank god? I love her.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Her photos are so intense.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Her Instagram account.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Oh, I got her website. I'm a huge fan. I'm
a huge fan.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
You're not being sarcastic in the least. You really do
like her stuff.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Oh no, I'm talking about Debbie. You love Dakota Johnson
fake and I love her. She's bonkers and I love her.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
But I also Debbie.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Debbie's hand down.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Debbie is the one with the intense photos, Like, oh
my god, yeah, like I thought you.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Were talk about Dakota Johnson. Did not the woman you
showed me her Instagram account where she's got the fake photos?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
She was she had for like Architectural Digest. She hates limes,
but they put like a bowl of limes and she
just kept talking about how much she loves them. She
was there was a thing recently where there she was
at some Halloween thing and she's like, I'm dressed as
I'm Dakota Johnson dressed as Dakota Johnson, and Dakota Johnson is.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Going to get drunk tonight.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Like she's just so meta, she's so funny, Debbie, She's okay.
I really wish I knew who she got to play
in the transcript recordings.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Oh yeah whatever.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Speaking of transcripts, batt Lamente he admitted that he talked
in code on the telephone, but he denied talking about drugs.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
They're like, well, what were you talking about. He's like,
I don't want to say pinocle. I don't want to
talk about it.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Salvatore Mazurko he said they were talking about importing precious gems.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Oh he's illegal, but.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Don't tell him anything.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
The trial went on for sixteen months. What it was,
it is to this day the longest criminal jury trial
in US history.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
I would hope.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Two defendants of the twenty two pleaded guilty. Okay, the
Vincenzo Roundazzo, he pleaded guilty using a false passport. Lorenzo Devardo,
he pleaded to possessing a pistol and a silencer. There
were some one percent charge. Oh yeah, there were some
one percent or like near one percent of Some of
(31:55):
the other defendants were not going to discuss that.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Awesome, like suddenly he's gone.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
So by the time the.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Jury delivered its verdict March second, nineteen eighty seven, there
were nineteen defendants. All but one were convicted, and just
like the defendant pool kept shrinking, the jury pool did too,
because the verdict was actually from an eleven member jury.
One of the jurors was excused because during deliberations her
(32:22):
family got threatening phone calls. So she's like, can I
not do this? They're like, yeah, you're good, you can go.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Really mean neither, So.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I was like, muscle it out. I don't care. You're
a jury member.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Now, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Jitano, the uncle Batlamente sixty four of Chinnisi, Italy, former
head of the mafia in Sicily. He got sentenced to
forty five years in prison.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Oh, he ain't going to make that.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
And find one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. Now,
remember he was extradited from Spain and they were like,
you can't give him more than thirty Yeah, So the
judge was like, all right, I'm going to sentence him
to forty five, but you got to release him after
thirty years.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Deals to deal. But still he's ninety four. It's not
going to happen.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Yeah, Salvatory the baker Catialano, forty six of Queen's. He's
the one who headed up the American side of the operation.
He was also sentenced to forty five years, but you know,
he wasn't picked up in Spain, so tough for and
he got a bigger fine, one point one five million
dollars and he had to pay a million dollars in restitution.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Ouch, that's a bite.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Here's another one, another Salvatory. Salvatory the little one, Mazurko
fifty seven of Baldwin, New York. He got a thirty
five year sentence, fifty thousand dollars fine, had to pay
five hundred thousand restitution.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Me no wonder. They have all these great nicknames. Their
all named sal You got.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
To keep Salvatory. Toto Lamberti.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
There you go, Toto Lamberto.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Lamberti fifty five of Woodmere, New York. He got twenty years,
fifty grand fine, five hundred thousand in restitution. His cousin Giuseppe,
the brother in law Lamberti.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
He was the Brotherho fifty five of Baldwin, New York.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
He got thirty five years, find one hundred and fifty
grand order to pay five hundred grand a restitution.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
And that's the end of the pizza connection or is it?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Oh, there's more after.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
This ad break, we'll find out.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah, Zaren, I'm still thinking about the brother in laws
(34:37):
and nickname brother in law that's up there with Vincent
the Chin Gagante, but he wasn't known as the chin.
He made sure that people when they would talk about him,
they pointed to their chin, so you couldn't get them
on the mics now. But they now they knew the
Federal the brother in law. I mean, that's like, hey,
you know the brother in law the b Yeah, exactly.
That's a great one.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
So it wasn't just New York that had a pizza connection. Washington,
DC wanted in on it too, and the Feds wanted
in on busting it. So that investigation started in nineteen
eighty four and became public in nineteen eighty seven, and
the trial took place in January of nineteen ninety and
this time it was just an eleven day trial didn't
(35:18):
go on as long and brief. You know who was
in on this, Salvatore Cotone, another Yeah, Sicilian who moved
to Virginia Beach. He played the part like in his
daily life of this like patriotic immigrant in love with
his new home and loves truth and justice.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Like a plumber or something. That was his front.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Well, you're gonna find out. So James Glass Junior, a
federal agent, he was like, that's not true. He's not
a good man, and I'm going to hunt him down.
He was so set on dismantling the Cootone organization that
he asked to be taken off the desk and put
back in the field to do it.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Damn, I'll take a pay cut. I don't care, right.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
According to the Washington Post quote, the investigation exposed a
ring of Sicilian natives trying to push cocaine through local
pizza parlors, torching restaurants that competed with friends businesses, contracting
hits on enemies of the Kotone family, and financially devastating
loyal friends who trusted their life savings to sal Kotone.
So Katone he came to the States in nineteen sixty
(36:20):
six when he was just nineteen years old. By the
mid seventies, he'd made his way to DC, and it
was there, according to the Post, that he quote found
a town hungry for pizza and virtually free of competitive
crime families. It was just wide open spaces.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
For pizza and free of crime families. How did you
figure that one out, Washington Post?
Speaker 4 (36:42):
So Kotone he opened his restaurant and immediately had beef
with competitors. Bass's was this like fashionable downtown restaurant on
fourteenth Street Northwest, and it was doing bang up business.
And Kotone is like, uhuh, not on my watch. So
he came up with a way to fix the situation.
He hired Alfred the butcher Toriello nickname Yeah to burn
(37:04):
Bastens to the ground. And then so Toriello and this
other guy, they filled soda cans with gasoline and just
torched the joint. But what about the drugs, aarn.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
What about the drugs?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Elizabeth Katani was all about it.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
He did huge, multi kilo cocaine deals and these went
down at like the Holiday Inn in Crystal City, a
Denny's in Fairfax, Virginia, the Commonwealth Doctors Hospital in Fairfax.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
How about Howard Johnson's and Arlington.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
Jos who knows the FBI was on him pretty early on,
and he loved it. He got a kick out of
evading them and like toying with them.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Wise, I'm a little.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
Afraid of Agent Glass, like I peel a little bit.
But then he referred to him as quote in my shadow,
and he would pretend to want to cut deals for
information with him. So Glass, he's like this sixteen year
veteran of the FBI at the time. He testified that
Kotone approached him a bunch of times off for information
because he wanted to cut a deal to free his brother,
(38:04):
Giuseppe Kotone quote, I was surprised that someone who claimed
to be so innocent had so much access to criminal.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Information, Glass said, interesting people.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
So what could Kotone deliver in exchange for his brother's freedom?
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Thank you for ask how do we get Giuseppe free?
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Thank you? He promised.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
A man who was marketing a cash of stolen American arms,
He's like, I've also I've also got a Greek who's
got a bunch of the district's drug trade oh, and
then there's this plumber from Manassas who's got a boat
on the Potomac, a home in Florida, and a pen
shot for.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Huge drug deals.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
I got talking and glasses like I want, I want
something a little bit more. It's not just mobsters who
can come up with a crafty plan, so can the FBI.
So Glass he recruited this guy, Vincenzo Hakanjin, and Vincenzo
told Kotone and he could put a hit on the
guy who set up Katoni's brother Giuseppe sent him to jail,
(39:06):
this guyln Franco Cassali. Yeah, so Vincenzo's like, I can
put a hit out.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
On Lon Franco Casali.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
It's going to cost you five thousand dollars and you
got to get me a drug hookup.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
And so Katoni is like, sounds like a deal to me, Like,
no problem.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
That I.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
And I got five grand floating around. So in October
of nineteen eighty eight, Vincenzo he shows Kotone pictures of
this bloody body and he hands him Cassali's favorite medallion,
like I did the job, here's your proof. What does
Katone say to him, God Bless America.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
That's what his line was.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
The thing was, the photo is fake, so Glass the
agent covered the guy in tomato paste and took a
picture really, and they got him a duplicate medallion, and
they got over.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
It wasn't even the real one.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
And then there they were in court and it was
called Operation Infamiita, a huge success. Infamita translates to a
violation of the Sicilian code of silence.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Oh so that you broke America.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Right, Infamiita not to be confused with Infanta the decembrist song.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I did not make that mistake, but I did a
couple of times.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
I was like, oh, no way, and I had to
listen to it.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
It took break, it took six years, but the Feds
did it. At trial Cootone, he denied that he knew
any of the Infamita defendants. He was like, I've never
financed any drug deals. I've never you know, put out
contracts or on anyone. Have I ever had a restaurant torched,
(40:46):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
I've never even eaten pizza.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
God Bless America.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
He said that after his brother Giuseppe was arrested, that
he made up crimes and connections just to keep the
FBI interested in him, because he was like hoping to
craft a deal to get his brother out.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
This is what he testified. Quote.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
The game was, if the fire goes up, I put
a little water on it. If it goes down, I
put a little wood on it.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
Either way, Cotone gets convicted by a federal jury of racketeering, conspiracy,
retaliation against an informant, eleven other felonies.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
But there's More's.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Aaron, Yeah, I love Mobe.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
In nineteen eighty eight, the year after the initial Pizza
Connection convictions, the FBI wanted to, according to the New
York Times, quote, capitalize on mafia paranoia after the Pizza case.
Realizing that those who escaped that roundup would be looking
for opportunities outside the New York City area, the agents
decided to lure traffickers to Buffalo through the BSc storefront.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Huh, they're scrambling. Let's give him an option to run to.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
So BSc was the Buffalo Sicilian connection, okay. And it
was this Italian food import export company, sure in a
strip mall outside of.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Buffalo strip mall.
Speaker 6 (42:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
So word got.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Around that they trafficked in more than tomato, sauce and.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
All of that. They could hook you up with wholesale.
Speaker 4 (42:09):
Heroin that it is an ingredient, Yeah, exactly, so it's
all natural. So BS tested the import route. They had
a shipment of seven hundred and forty four cans of
tomatoes from Italy sent to the storefront. The FEDS knew
about this though, so they made sure that customs passed
(42:29):
the shipment through without inspecting it. So BSc was like
the roots clear, like whatever we ship isn't going to
be inspected by customs. So there was this informant and
an undercover FBI agent, the two of them. They went
to Palermo, Naples, Rome. They met with contacts from the
Greco clan that was allied with the Corleoneici branch of
(42:51):
the Sicilian mafia, and they set up the drug shipments.
I love that this is basically an FBI drug smuggling
ring at this point, like they're in every element of it.
A contact in San Francisco led the undercover operatives to
associates in New York and they were based in the
Cafe Jardino in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, which was owned by none
(43:13):
other than Giuseppe Gambino, a nephew of Carlo Gambia House,
late patriarch of Ambino crime family. Right, so, of course
the FEDS they set up bugs in the cafe. Per
the New York Times quote, one bug picked up many
conversations that the FBI said established the criminal nature of
the undertaking. It also picked up the sound of money
(43:35):
being counted and stuffed into a shirt, and at one
point an underling being slapped around for failing to keep
up loan shark payments.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
The FBI said.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
The bug recorded derogatory references to law enforcement officers. Giuseppe
Gambino called them fools and once speculated that the Italian
authorities had relaxed their vigilance, so he called a fool
kin slap around, and they like play it in court
with the thing. Anyway, So undercover agents they were trying
(44:05):
to get a one hundred kilo shipment of coke in
from Colombia, but it kept falling through, and the FEDS
they decided to close in because the mob was like
starting to get suspicious. And yeah, so according to the
Times quote, we whispered in their ear and kissed on
their next too much. One supervisor said, by way of
explaining how the agents had tried to mollify the sellers.
(44:28):
When no more excuses would do, the FBI ordered the arrests.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
What kind of metaphors whispering.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Give him some sugar.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
They busted two hundred and eight suspects, yeah, seventy five
in the US, the rest in Italy. All were charged
with running heroin and cocaine rings that supplied millions of
dollars worth of drugs to networks all over the US.
In Europe, among those arrested were Giuseppe Gambino and this
guy Nigel seven Subia, who was the son of Sioux Subia,
(45:02):
the High Commissioner to Britain from Mauritius. All these other
people connected to the pizza connection.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
But there's more.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
In nineteen ninety four, the FBI announced that the famous
Original Raised Pizza on Third Avenue near forty third Street
in New York was actually the headquarters for a major
drug ring. And this was a little different. This pizzeria
gang didn't just import coke from Columbia.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
To sell the coke heads in New York.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
They used New York as like this transit stop to
deliver drugs to three organized crime groups in Italy. That's
because cocaine was selling for three times what it cost
in New York, so there's way more money to be made.
So the pizza parlor gang they worked with two other
groups of like loosely affiliated traffickers. Two of those worked
(45:51):
out of a cafe and a butcher shop like Satreal's
in Brooklyn, as well as their houses in Brooklyn, Queens,
Staten Island. The pizza rhea was running like tens of
millions of dollars worth of cocaine and heroin through the place.
Do you think that the hold the Pepperoni picked.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
The pizzerias so they could be like if either you're
harassing them and you're like, come on, this is a
stereotype that the crime, come on.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Now hit the drupini.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
So this one on for three years at this joint.
But then authorities in both the US and Italy they
rounded up seventy nine suspects all overnight.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
I always like that they round it like a factory
of people.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
Yes, exactly, and all these like major hits, and they
charged them with drug conspiracies. The New York Times detailed
their own investigative reporting. Quote a thin man in a
white shirt and a red apron who was at the
cash register at Famous Original Raised Pizza, said he knew
nothing about any drugs or arrests, but he offered to
pass on a message to the Ambrosios, the three brothers
(46:51):
who owned the franchise and had recently been arrested, if
they phoned in. So this old guy is just manning
the front, the FED said the Ambrosio's. They had just
started on a plan to get the coke directly from
Columbia to Italy. That was a little bit trickier because
one shipment was intercepted at the Bogata airport. One hundred
(47:12):
and sixty eight kilos of coke was hidden in crates
of cut flowers that were supposed to be taken to
Italy on an Al Italia flight.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Because most of the flowers are grown in Bogato exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (47:23):
And some of the time though, they just used the
mail which I have to say that Italian post is
notoriously unreliable.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
When you're in Rome.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
They say that it's best to send any postcards or
letters at the Vatican instead of using Italian mailboxes because
they had a reliable post because it's a separate country.
The Italian mail can take months for it to get anywhere,
but the smugglers, they weren't worried. They sent some of
the cocaine to Italy through the mail. FBI agents followed
(47:56):
pizza parlor workers at once. As they went to the
post office, they watched these two guys hand a cardboard
box sealed with tape to a clerk. The men leave,
the agent sees the box inside like all the custom
slip it said, three shirts, four pairs of pants, ten
bars of deodorant soap, three containers of baby towel, four bedspreads,
(48:17):
and twelve baby towels. They open it up. Three kilos
of coke. That's it, Yeah, busted.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
So when you're shaking it around or you move the box,
nothing feels soft.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Three kilos so zaren what's your ridiculous takeaway? But first,
does this make you want some pizzas?
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Oh my god, I'm so hungry. You have no idea,
do you? I'm not sure if you remember this, like
I'm trying. I wish I could remember it better. But
there was like a tweet. I think it was a tweet.
It was about this guy who went to a pizza
place and he tries to order a pizza and the
guys look at him like, what are you talking abou
Oh yeah, sure here it takes them a half an
hour to make the pizza. There's nobody else in the restaurant,
(48:56):
and he says he's got the best pizza he'd ever had.
I'm pretty sure that was a money laundering place. I
think it was a coke laundering place, probably based on
the stories. Yeah, and I remember, like my father telling
me some of the details of the story this the
Pizza connection trial because it is the longest trial. And
also I knew an Alfano who was worried that they're
(49:19):
that they would be the people to remember this and
that they would think that, hey, you're one of those,
like you know, like Italians who are involved in this.
And I was like, I hate to break it to you,
bet Alfano is not that kind of name that's gonna
stick out, Like yeah, but I love how they won
using the pizzerias. And like I said earlier, it's like
a stereotype. It's like like the Italian opera lovers. It's like,
(49:41):
of course you're doing this through that, so uh mine
is I would like it if the if the Italian mafia,
if they're still involved deeply in cocaine and money laundering.
Was to give them the benefit of the doubt if
they would pick something like video game parlors and do
it through that oh yeah, because it's like, you don't
really see that going. But then just like of course
(50:02):
and the Mario brothers, why didn't we see this coming?
So what about you, Elizabeth?
Speaker 4 (50:08):
I am?
Speaker 3 (50:09):
I am.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
Now I've decided that if I think a restaurant is
a front, I'm gonna go in.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Oh yeah, because it's gonna be good food.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
Yeah. And then if and it's a bunch of dudes
and members only jackets sitting at a table and they
stare at me and they say we're closed, I'm like,
oh okay, Julie noted. So that's that's my takeaway. You
know what I would love?
Speaker 2 (50:29):
What was that Elizabeth talk back side of Pizza?
Speaker 7 (50:32):
M Oh my.
Speaker 5 (50:38):
God, I love Chee. I just heard about a crime
that is absolutely perfect for your show Modern Day. Some
guys in disguises break into the Loop using a moving
truck and a ladder get away with royal jewels on
mopeds and a hmm. It's a little too perfect for
(51:03):
your show. One thing I didn't see was a description
of these getaway drivers. Were they perhaps pulling retrievers in sunglasses?
Did you guys finally pull an art heist?
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Wait? No, we did not pull an art heist, and if.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
We did, we would not admit to it because we're
gonna have respect for our interns. We're not gonna just
sell him down the river like that.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
But wait, hold on, Dave's giving me a signal we
have another one.
Speaker 7 (51:28):
Heyzar and Hay Elizabeth, Yeah, those are the right names.
I was just wondering, did you guys rob the Louver?
I know it's been a minute since I've listened to
you guys, and I'm slowly catching up, but did you
guys rob the Loop?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
First of all, we would rob the British National Museum
before the Loop, yet respect for the Louver.
Speaker 4 (51:52):
Here's the thing the I the moment this story broke,
we were inundated with messages like your pigeons, everything, telegrams.
Everyone was reaching out and like you have to do this,
you have to do this, but it's like we have
to as you were strong, yeah, oh yeah, as you.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
Were saying like we need an act three.
Speaker 4 (52:11):
Like we don't know what's happened, and it's information slowly
dribbling out. There's like the Hubba hubb a guy who's involved,
like the gorgeous you know thief.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Oh, I thought you meant the detective, the well dressed there's.
Speaker 4 (52:24):
The dapper detective, which it turns out he's not the detective.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
But we're all going to pretend.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Yes, looks like the whole thing is just.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
So amazing, and so it will happen. But then when
it happened, when when the news broke, I thought this
is too perfect for like this is this is something
that we would make up. And then I realized they're
all going to think we did it.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Well, maybe we did.
Speaker 4 (52:48):
I can't tell you where I've been. I can't let
you see my passport.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yes, I actually have two passports for a good reason.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
Yeah, oh my gosh, that one. I can't wait. I
can't wait till we get all the details.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
Then can share it.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I can't wait till we get a Yeah, all the details,
wank wanky and share them.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Yeah. When the rude dudes the dogs family said too
what we've said too much?
Speaker 4 (53:16):
Uh, that's it for today. You can find us online
at Ridiculous crime dot com do you know that we
just won an.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Award the website The website did.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
The Clean Plate Club.
Speaker 4 (53:27):
Yeah. We also are at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky,
Instagram YouTube. You can find us at Ridiculous Crime Pod.
You can email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (53:37):
Please leave a talk back on the iHeart app. We
love hearing from you that way reach out.
Speaker 4 (53:48):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette,
produced and edited by Capo Fry Dave Coustin, starring Annale
Rutger as Judith. Research is by Pete Siala, Mari S
Brown and Sauce.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Distributor to Barie Davis.
Speaker 4 (54:03):
The theme song is by two guys who wandered in
looking for a slice, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post
wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and
makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Hawaiian
Pizza truthers, Ben Bollen and Noel.
Speaker 6 (54:17):
Brown Redicus QUI Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
to my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio, Zaren.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yo Elizabeth Dutton. How are you favorite, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
How's your heart?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
My heart is good?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Wait, I'm your favorite Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah, you're my second favorite Dutton.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
What I know, everyone's favorite Dutton is Travis dud.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
No, your nephew. Oh he's technically.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
He's my favorite.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Yeah, but I tell you you know, my brother Travis,
he's a he's a big draw is everybody loves.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
He's got a lot of really stunning, attractive, like magnetic Duttons.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
For a long time in my life, I was always
Travis's sister anywhere you get, oh you're Travis's sister. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
My sister tells me about how that was. She was
considered Zaren's sister, Like, oh, hey, little brunette. You know
that's the whole thing, Like that must suck.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
It was like you go to a show, you go
to like see a band play, and like, oh you hey,
you're Travis's sister.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, I have a name. No, I don't.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Anyway, you know, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
I do.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Elizabeth. Now, you know out here in the West Coast,
you know, and I'm including like northern California, in this Oregon, sure,
Washington is when I'm talking about Cascadia. Thank you. We
have something with bigfoot. A lot of these states all
have going on big right, so you don't think of it,
at least we don't not here think of it. That
They also have that in other places, like in the
(01:19):
South and in like the Upper Midwest, like Michigan and
so forth. But it's also in New York. Really yes,
western Massachusetts and New York. They also have crazy bigfoot sightings.
And there are towns that have like whole like dedications
to Bigfoot.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
They call it big Fest.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
No that well, they call it sasquatch out in Whitehall,
New York. And in Whitehall, New York, they have a
sasquatch calling contest, so people line up, in this case
it was sixty contestants and they have the judges turn
around so they cannot see the contestants, and the contestants
then do their best bigfoot call or sasquatch call at
(01:55):
the judges or at the crowd.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Sasquatch sounds people like some people will tell you they've
recorded one, but you don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And now the people will just hear stuff in the
woods and ask people from Appalachia. You're gonna hear stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Oh yes, right, yeah. A fox will mess you up
exactly out here. A coyote, the.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Coyote, same thing, the yelping and saying your name, and
the wind. Who is that? How do you know my name?
So they do their fake bigfoot sasquatch calls, and then
they announce a winner.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Okay, right now.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
These people they in this town. They all gather in
a park and they got like the food trucks and
the vendor tables. It's like a whole festival and these people,
sixty people. One of these contestants was described as quote
a steam punk sasquatch hunter.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Oh of course, I just know it's a good day
for Elizabeth. I'm not going to be I love that
for them.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Okay, how about a ventulquist? Love it? Who's got a
puppet that's called Littlefoot?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I love it?
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I love it, you love it?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
The winner had a crazy call, and I won't do
an impression of it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Do they sound like Chewbacca?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Most of them sounds something like Chaca, except for this
one woman who went out there. She had like a
two two on and like fairy like clothing and she
screamed at the judges of it for her. She turned
around and screamed at the backs of the judges where
you can see them, like winsay and stuff like, oh
my god, she's screaming at me. I love happy for
(03:28):
there you go, Elizabeth. I thought it was ridiculous that
they named a winner of the Sasquatch Call contest. Yeah,
and well, we can probably put it up on Instagram, right,
I can a Facebook link for it, and then you go, yeah,
you can get a video to the interns and maybe
they'll put it up. I don't know. But the winner
was this guy named Grant Kennedy. So congratulations to Kenny.
(03:49):
Named after two US presidents.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
That means something.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And then about him is he wins.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
The love that for everyone there. I'm so happy for them.
I just white knuckled it through all those descriptions. Do
you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Pizza? What this is ridiculous crime?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
You damn right. Okay, I had to run back.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Something I love to do is speculate as to whether
a business is affront for money laundering or not.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You do do that?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
You love that?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Of course they're all time classic mattress stores. Mattress stores, yeah,
oh yeah, their conspiracy theories just like they abound online
about how nobody's ever in those Yeah, that they're only
in business to wash money or like the affront because
they're not very far from each other, like sometimes they're
like within a couple of blocks.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Oh yeah, and like are we really buying that many mattresses?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Right?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And now they're all online and people are buying them.
They show up their boxes like we're still going.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
To recently and it came in a box and then
it was just it just grew and grew.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Have you seen the videos where they like hurt people
when they pop out of the boxes. We get flung
out of windows and stuff. It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I kind of thought that might happen, but sadly you
didn't have.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
But you know, I like, so there are all these
conspiracy theories about mattress stores. I'm a sucker for a
good conspiracy theory, like you are. I am, although I
should be careful what I say because my Instagram algorithm
is like rife with a certain conspiracy theory right now,
I won't get into which one. And Instagram is listening,
I know, And so I see a lot of reel's
parsing footage and facts or like lack of facts. Oh
(05:55):
then I made the mistake of watching a couple of
them out of like morbid curiosity, and then I started
getting like much darker, more offensive conspiracy theory reels like
the world's a sick plays there and social media is
even sicker. So anyway, business fronts, there are storefronts that
don't see much foot traffic and don't seem to sell
anything in like high demand wig shops, some antique stores,
(06:20):
food places that either like never seem to be open
or they never have anyone in them.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Also a lot of florists florists yep.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I was reading recently on my favorite website, read it
about just this very thing, after I wrote this outline
that I saw it asking about have you seen any
like what business have you seen that you think are
front and.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Someone talked about a twenty four hour floorist.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Really, I'm telling you.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
It is dependent on like the shopping district. So in
a small rural town, there's a likelihood that the owner
of the shop like owns the building. Taxes are low,
it could be like a hobby or right off off
in a higher cost of living areas are one with
like more foot traffic.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Some of the shops are just inexplicable.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Totally, like my typewriter repair guy, Yes, that guy.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Have you ever been into a restaurant where you think it.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Might have been a front.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I'm usually surprised when I'm not having that thought because
I go to a lot of places where there aren't
people and I'm like, oh, hey, it's just me and
the chef and the one waitress, and I'm like, how
are they I've been here for three hours? How are
they staying?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Just like written in pencil on a paper tap.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I love those places. I seek them out, and then
I go back again to.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
See some of those places.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
It's like, it's either going to be the worst meal
of your life in killies or the best all time best.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Because it's a money laundering front, they got nothing to do,
they make a great meal.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Well, today I have the story of a restaurant that
was a front, and even better, it involves two of
your favorite elements of crime.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Stories really drugs okay.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And the mafia.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You know. So let's start off with our main character,
Gitano Barlamente. What a great Yeah, known as Dontano bat Lamente. Yeah, Tano,
but he was like don Tano. He was the Caapo
Familia of his hometown in Chinisi, Sicily. Wow. And he
(08:16):
was the head of the Sicilian mafia commission in the seventies.
Big dog girl so Kane, Yeah yeah, so Bartlamenti. He
was born in nineteen twenty three, the youngest in his
immediate family five boys, four girls, and the family they
were dairy farmers, so he dropped out of school and
he was ten to work at the dairy. In nineteen
(08:38):
forty one, he got drafted into the Royal Italian Army,
but he deserted during the Allied invasion of Sicily in
nineteen forty three to protect the good on him.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
No, he was just like, this is my chance.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Yeah, he's like who yeah, he's not from the north.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
They love It's true.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
So he married this woman, Teresa Italy, and this was
a big deal because her sister was married to Filippo Remi.
Remi was the Kappo mafia of Alcamo.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Okay, I think I've come across that name.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, he so Tano.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
He starts a lemon grove and he was able to
kind of like dodge some legal trouble that he'd gotten into.
And before long he ditched the lemons and he started
a construction business, and he supplied crushed rock for the
Palermo Punta.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Reci airport into Congrege.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Yeah, and he bribed officials to have the airport built
near his hometown. Was this a convenient place to build
the airport? Probably not, of course, not lucky for him.
His family property had plenty of rock and gravel for
the projects, so no cost to him.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So between the gravel business and the associative trucking transportation
business that he started to keep up with the project,
he was employing a heck of a lot of people
in town. They loved this. Yeah, it's not a wealthy area.
So soon enough, Battlelamente became the leader of the mafia
in Chin. That's nineteen sixty three. According to Giovanni Impastato,
(10:06):
brother of slain anti mafia activist Giuseppe Impastato.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Okay, there you go.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
It seemed that Battlamente was well liked by the Carbonieri
as he was calm, reliable and always liked to chat.
It almost felt like he was doing them a favor
and that nothing ever happened in Chinisi. It was a
quiet little town. I often used to see them walking
arm in arm with Tano Badlamenti and his henchmen. You
can't have faith in the institutions when you see the
police arm in arm with the Mafiosi and the Carbonara.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Aren't just the normal police, They're like the militarized police.
They're in Mexico. They have the machine guns in the
airport to the train station. Yeah, so you're watching like
the federal police.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Right watch.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
And as an aside, I love when Italian men walk
together arm in arm, like Yeah, I think it's terribly charming.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It is also they hold hands too.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
I love that battle Ofmente. His run as boss of
CHINII didn't last though. He got run out of town,
actually run out of Sicily by rival mafiosi. That was
nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
So he followed in his brother.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Yes, he followed in his brother's footsteps, and he headed
for the States. But he wasn't starting from scratch. He
had connections and he used them. See bart Lamentee had
deep connections to various drug rings. He knew morphine suppliers
in Turkey and they would process the stuff into heroin
in Sicily and then smuggle it into the US. He
(11:35):
knew Colombians who ran coke from South America to New York,
new the mall, and he knew about the network that
they used. So in the US pizza shops and other
mafia run businesses from New York to Illinois and Wisconsin.
They served as the base of operations. So this wasn't
something where people could go in and order a slice
with like an extra dusting of palm and like walk
(11:57):
out with a slice and a baggy of coke. These
were wholesale location and this is where distributors on both
ends met to make deals. Yes, and also they'd go
there to drop off earnings to be washed by the business.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
It's like Satrelli's pork Shop and the Sopranos where they're just.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Meeting meeting up there and it's a cash business, baby,
so they can wash it. And it wasn't just pizza joints.
Bakers worked too. A successful one was in Queen's and
that was owned by Salvatore Totoo. He was a big
guy in the Banano crime family in New York.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, Joe Bananas, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
So Catalano he connected Battle Ofmente with the American mafia
and Battle Ofmente. He had this whole crew of Sicilians
that he ran with.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Looks like a Godfather subplot.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
They were called the Zips, which was a slur used
by Italian American mobsters in reference to newer immigrant Sicilian mafiosi.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
So Catalano he would carry.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Around like forty pounds of heroin in a suitcase.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Forty pounds.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
He took fifteen different trips from Brooklyn to Chicago. He
went down to Miami Beach. He got paid five grand
for each delivery. So that's like thirty thousand today. And
according to the FBI quote from January nineteen seventy five
until April nineteen eighty four and estimated one point six
billion dollars worth of heroin one thousand, six hundred and
(13:20):
fifty pounds at the time was shipped to this country
in the plot. The cash profits were then illegally laundered
through a web of banks and brokerages in the US
and overseas. In total, the ring quote laundered many millions
of dollars in drug money, including twenty million dollars sent
to Switzerland through trading accounts at E. F. Hutton and
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Mean F.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Hutton money, Launders people. Listen, they did exactly.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Those brokerages not charged with any crime, of course not they.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Never are shocking.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Look at Deutsche Bank, right.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
So there was this undercover FBI agent, Joe Pistoni. He
infiltrated the Bonano crime fan in nineteen seventy six, and
then he delivered information that went on to bring the
whole operation crumbling down. So the FEDS they gathered all
this evidence and they used just about every investigative tool
they had. I'm talking like round the clock surveillance on
(14:15):
multiple different people across multiple continents.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
This is like when Rudy Giuliani was making his name as.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
USA, yes, before the hair dye ran.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Down his face.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, back when he was on the I guess like
you know the effective side of law enforcements.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Actually, thousands of phone calls got monitored, some of which
were like payphones in the middle of nowhere. So everyone
involved pretty much spoke Sicilian, which is not the same
as Italian. And it wasn't just Sicilian. They spoke in
code in Sicilian also.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
They did both their own language, then they did code words,
and then they also had like imagine a dialect as well, right.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
So you couldn't just translate it over. The FBI had
to assemble this team of like expert translators code breakers
to like work together to pull this all out, create.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
A Sicilian Nigma machine breer pretty.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Much, so things started to move. In April of nineteen
eighty four, this guy Pietro Alfano, he was a nephew
who was big in the mob in the Midwest. He
ran a pizza parlor in Oregon, Illinois. He flew from
Chicago to Madrid to meet up with battle Ofmente and
Battlemente was there with his wife and his son Veto.
(15:22):
So the FBI they're very interested in this trip, so
they let the Spanish authorities know just how interested they were.
On April eighth, Battle Ofmente and Alfano they went for
a walk together down the streets of Madrid. It's like
so evocative boom there were the Spaniards grabbing them up,
and they went and got veto two.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And they hated drugs Spaniards out of Franco.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
They the Spaniards have the craziest, like harshest heroin.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Yeah, So this triggered action stateside, right, So the next
day the FBI rounded up thirty members of the mafia
and various associates who worked with Battlemente. In the US,
six different bureau offices work together to make the arrest,
carry out the search horns because they knew as soon
as he gets busted in Madrid, they got to take
action over here. They got drug paraphernalia, tons of cash,
(16:13):
loads of weapons, like documents for days Battleamentee. He gets
extradited to the US in November of nineteen eighty four,
and federal prosecutors had to agree with a request that
Spain made. They said that Battleamente could not be sentenced
to more than thirty years in prison because that was
the maximum sentence under Spanish law for these cases. So like,
(16:36):
you can't exceed our sentencing. So like Feds are like,
all right, fine, send them over here. So the trial
kicks off. The media immediately calls it the pizza connection
because of all the pizza parlors that were fronting for
the drug sales. And the case was a monster, it
was super complex. It all started April twenty fourth, nineteen
eighty five. Twenty two total defendants, all Sicilian born men.
(17:00):
There was this fellow by the name of Tomaso Bouschetta.
He was on the stand for nine days. He was
this former Sicilian mafio so who became an informer after he.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Was arrested in Brazil.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
So according to The New York Times, he spent the
time quote detailing the structure of the mafia and naming
several of the witnesses as Mafioso. Bouschetta, in a federal
witness protection program, was expected to testify it several trials,
both in the United States and Italy involving members and
suspected members of the mafia. Another witness was Salvatore Contorno.
(17:37):
He was brought in from Italy to testify, and according
to The Times, he quote appeared at the hearing in
a suit, shirt and tie of contrasting shades of blue,
and spoke rapidly in Italian. He sounds rat right, I
love him and I'm sure, he's a horrible human being.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So he said theory. I love the idea.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Yes, he said he saw four of the defendants, including
Salvatory Catalono, at a mafia banquet in Sicily.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Could you imagine the food? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Oh, and he also saw him at a drug deal
involving forty kilos a heroin that too, I saw him
there too.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
It was just a small dealer.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
They hauled in this Swiss citizen, Paul Vadidell, he testified,
and he copped.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Taking in more than eleven million.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Dollars for this Turkish fugitive. That guy was the morphine
plug for the Sicilians, okay, and the Swiss guy said, quote,
there was a mountain of money, and he's he talked
about how it was like US currency, and stacks of twenties, fifties,
hundreds filled six suitcases. Another suspect testified that he'd taken
(18:46):
huge amounts of cash to brokerage firms in Manhattan on
behalf of members of the drug ring, and he said
he didn't know at the time that it was drug money.
He thought it was something he called black money from
restaurants and other places that want to avoid taxes by
moving the money secretly to.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Switzerland under the table money.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, and so The New York Times recounted his testimony
as such, quote in September nineteen eighty two, I stopped
going to New York to receive money, he said, after
an official at EF Hutton had disclosed that the FBI
was getting interested in our account in the United States.
So EF Hutton is like you sweating the Feds, The
Times added in quote. Another witness, Salvatore Amendeloto, testified earlier
(19:29):
that he had received almost ten million dollars in cash
from two men and had secretly transferred it overseas for them.
He said he picked up most of the money from
Francesco Castronovo, a defendant who formerly owned the Roma restaurant
in Medlo Park, New Jersey. So this is pretty much
like a classic mafia drug bust, albeit with the base
of operations being pizza parlors.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Let's take a break, but.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
When we come back, I've got some amazing ridiculousness for you.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Zara Elizabeth, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I'm loving this. You didn't mention I had one of
my other great interests pizza.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Pizza.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Oh that is true. And men named Salvatore. There's like
fifteen of them minute. So you know how when you
watch old episodes.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Of Law and Order, see I'm throwing in another thing
you love?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
What is it my birthday?
Speaker 4 (20:36):
You basically see the cast of the Sopranos before they
became stars. Like that show is thick with New York
actors like destined for greatness, although I'm not so sure
about today.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Here's my quick side rant about Law and Order.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I love that show.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
It's my go to my comfort watch. Lenny Briscoe sat Lenny.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
He was the best.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Jack McCoy amazing for the bulk of the first run.
Because it was canceled and then it came back a
few seasons ago. It felt like New York at the beginning.
The extras all looked like real people. Actors looked like
real people. The storylines were like about real feeling people,
working folks, and they had these amazing actors, some already
(21:21):
accomplished wh would like dip in for a guest turn,
but most were like working New York's theater actors. Yeah,
and a lot of times Law and Order was the
big break. So like casting folks like kept their eyes
on who made it, you know, onto the show Now though,
I feel like every crime involves someone violently rich, like.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
The pen House set.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Yeah, billionaires, venture capitalists like you rarely see working people
on the show anymore. And the actors have that like
la actorly look veneer's good hands. No, not at all
so and that's not how it was in the earlier seasons,
like where they film in New York feel more.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Like a set than a street now.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yes, yes, anyway, it's very much like what is this
the Cosby Show? Like you know you just got these
Brooklyn Browns?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Do anything clean?
Speaker 4 (22:10):
And yeah, I missed the gude exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
I want like some punk kids who are mad that
they're getting like shake shaken down outside the bedego.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I want someone loading boxes onto a dolly. I can't
stop to talk. I can't answer the questions.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
But you got to.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Walk and talk for this.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
So New York actors, how do they factor into what
I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I'm so curious.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Elizabeth Saren, close your eyes.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Oh, I want you to picture it.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
You are an actor cal Saint John to be exact,
you played at Turnbull Ac.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
In the movie The Warriors.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
You do some off Broadway work, and you're starting to
get into casting. Last year, you were an extras casting
assistant on the film Pritzy's Honor. You've also been an
extras casting assistant on the TV show The Equalizer and
the blockbuster movie The Muppets Take Manhattan. It's through your
casting work that you got worried about this gig. You're
sitting in a room off the courtroom in Federal District
(23:14):
Court in Manhattan. With you are three other actors, Joe Nimmo,
Debbie Merrill, and Robert Petito. All of you have theater
experience and that's why you were selected. Of course, you're
all getting paid less than twenty dollars an hour for this,
but a job's a job, and this is interesting work.
There's the muffled sound of the busy courthouse hallway just
(23:36):
outside the door. The other door leads to the courtroom itself.
You've been running your lines at home for a week
or so. You haven't had a chance to rehearse with
the other actors yet, though, and it doesn't look like
you will have the time to do so. Joe Nimmo
is doing vocal exercises and clearing her throat. She's also
currently in rehearsals for an off off Broadway play called
(23:57):
Immortal Beloved, or so she told you when you all
gathered at the coffee maker in the corner of the
room when you first arrived, Robert Petito told you that
he's the artistic director of an off off Broadway group
called the American Ensemble Company. He's flipping through the pages
of his script, highlighting lines, and then flipping forward.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
A few pages.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
I find it very exciting to appear in court instead
of on stage, he says. You nod and take a
deep breath. Debbie Merrill is in the other corner of
the room doing deep stretches and leg lifts. She's humming
a tune and she has a huge smile on her face.
She told you she's recently played Christopher Reeves's roller skating
friend in Marriage of Figaro at the Circle on the
(24:36):
Square Theater. She straightens up and tells the room, you know,
actors have never been used before in a trial, so
this is history.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
She's right.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
When the federal prosecutors told you about the job, they
explained that you'd be reading transcripts of a pizzeria owner
and members of his family talking about money laundering he said,
the original conversations of the defendants were in a Sicilian dialect,
making it necessary to present the English transcripts to the jury.
You asked if you should do an accent. Please don't,
he said. He explained that normally prosecutors or court employees
(25:08):
would read the transcripts, but there were so many recorded
conversations in this case that the task was considered burdens
on the boring. And that's where you come in. The
judges clerk pokes her head into the room. They're ready
for you, she announces.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
You get up and shake your arms, ready.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
To put on the performance of a lifetime. Hey, guys,
you announced to your co stars. It's very important that
we get every word right. The four of you file
into the courtroom and everyone is silent.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
You don't know why, but you'd expected some applause. The
guy coughs.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
You and Robert Petito take your places in chairs just.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
In front of the witness stand.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
The squeak of the chairs dragging across the floor punctuates
the silence. You don't know this, but what you're about
to read is considered the most significant evidence against Tano Badlimente.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Today.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I'll be reading the part of mister Bodlamente. You tell
the courtroom, thank you, Saint John will do the introductions.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
You nod.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
The prosecutor repeats what you've said and adds that mister
Boblomente was calling from Brazil. He then tells the court
that Robert Petito will be reading the transcript of another defendant,
Salvatore Mazurko. You begin, I think that by the beginning
of next week they will come with twenty two parcels
or with eleven parcels, whatever you guys prefer. Robert responds
(26:27):
to you, his glasses perched on the end of his
nose as he looks down at the paper in his hand.
All right, now there's another thing, you say. I met
the guy with the shirts four years ago, but there's
a little problem. But there's another guy here that has
there's ten percent acrylic I understand little about.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
This, Robert, but ten percent is not the bad.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
The prosecution interrupts you. Please note that the defendants used
code words to discuss the purity and price of heroin
and cocaine. You continue, A competent individual told me that
it is good cotton, but that it contains ten percent acrylics.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
It's not pure cotton.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
The cost over there will come to sixty cents, whereas
the other one will come to more than ninety cents. Robert,
the one that is a percat. You look up and
see that the gallery of the courtroom is riveted. This
is showbiz, baby, and you love it so.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Acting.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole researching
these researching these actors, and I absolutely have to share
with you the story of Debbie Merrill.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
She's the roller.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Skating Okay, please, I'll read to you from her bio
on her website skategreat dot com. Quote as the owner
of Debbie Merrill's Skate Great USA former the Glide with
Pride School of Skating trademark located located in Santa Monica, California,
Debbie has taught thousands of students from all over the world,
(28:10):
ages four to eighty four how to inline skate. She
is IISA certified, an award winning dancer us FSA silver medallist,
figure skater, actress, choreographer and spokesperson. Debbie brings an exciting
range of talents to her work. An accomplished actress as
well as international roller and ice skating performer, Debbie's appearances
(28:32):
include the film La Story and on Broadway The Marriage
of Figuaro, playing the role of Franchette on roller skates.
The play's director Andre Serban specifically wanted Debbie to choreograph
the unique and intricate skating secrets in the play, which
were widely hailed up and down the Great White Way.
Another precedent setting performance for Debbie was when she was
(28:54):
commissioned by the White House to perform for the American
employees or a Ramco Oil company in Saudi Arabia and
I E skated what does that even mean? Skated on
a special surface of silicone ice. Debbie is also the
first and only award winning rolling sambista Brazilian samba dancer
on inline skates and bringing it to the House of
(29:16):
Blues in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
A rollerblading somebista on the House of Lost My.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Mind with the Aramco reference, and then she goes on.
She talks about her TV credits and then she adds.
Debbie's list of celebrities clients include Steve Martin, Juliet Lewis,
Los Angeles' Mayor, Richard Reardon, Geena Davis, Mary Elizabeth most Antonio,
Kim Delaney, Downtown, Julie Brown and Melanie Griffith and family,
(29:46):
as well as thousands of health conscious men and women
who come from all over the world to Southern California
to learn from the very best.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I like that she can brag that she's taught Steve
Martin to rollerbok?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Did she teach Dakota Johnson?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
And that's right?
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Thank god? I love her.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Her photos are so intense.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Her Instagram account.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Oh, I got her website. I'm a huge fan. I'm
a huge fan.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
You're not being sarcastic in the least. You really do
like her stuff.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Oh no, I'm talking about Debbie. You love Dakota Johnson
fake and I love her. She's bonkers and I love her.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
But I also Debbie.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Debbie's hand down.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Debbie is the one with the intense photos, Like, oh
my god, yeah, like I thought you.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Were talk about Dakota Johnson. Did not the woman you
showed me her Instagram account where she's got the fake photos?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
She was she had for like Architectural Digest. She hates limes,
but they put like a bowl of limes and she
just kept talking about how much she loves them. She
was there was a thing recently where there she was
at some Halloween thing and she's like, I'm dressed as
I'm Dakota Johnson dressed as Dakota Johnson, and Dakota Johnson is.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Going to get drunk tonight.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Like she's just so meta, she's so funny, Debbie, She's okay.
I really wish I knew who she got to play
in the transcript recordings.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Oh yeah whatever.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Speaking of transcripts, batt Lamente he admitted that he talked
in code on the telephone, but he denied talking about drugs.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
They're like, well, what were you talking about. He's like,
I don't want to say pinocle. I don't want to
talk about it.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Salvatore Mazurko he said they were talking about importing precious gems.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Oh he's illegal, but.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Don't tell him anything.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
The trial went on for sixteen months. What it was,
it is to this day the longest criminal jury trial
in US history.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
I would hope.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Two defendants of the twenty two pleaded guilty. Okay, the
Vincenzo Roundazzo, he pleaded guilty using a false passport. Lorenzo Devardo,
he pleaded to possessing a pistol and a silencer. There
were some one percent charge. Oh yeah, there were some
one percent or like near one percent of Some of
(31:55):
the other defendants were not going to discuss that.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Awesome, like suddenly he's gone.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
So by the time the.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Jury delivered its verdict March second, nineteen eighty seven, there
were nineteen defendants. All but one were convicted, and just
like the defendant pool kept shrinking, the jury pool did too,
because the verdict was actually from an eleven member jury.
One of the jurors was excused because during deliberations her
(32:22):
family got threatening phone calls. So she's like, can I
not do this? They're like, yeah, you're good, you can go.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Really mean neither, So.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I was like, muscle it out. I don't care. You're
a jury member.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Now, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Jitano, the uncle Batlamente sixty four of Chinnisi, Italy, former
head of the mafia in Sicily. He got sentenced to
forty five years in prison.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Oh, he ain't going to make that.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
And find one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. Now,
remember he was extradited from Spain and they were like,
you can't give him more than thirty Yeah, So the
judge was like, all right, I'm going to sentence him
to forty five, but you got to release him after
thirty years.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Deals to deal. But still he's ninety four. It's not
going to happen.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Yeah, Salvatory the baker Catialano, forty six of Queen's. He's
the one who headed up the American side of the operation.
He was also sentenced to forty five years, but you know,
he wasn't picked up in Spain, so tough for and
he got a bigger fine, one point one five million
dollars and he had to pay a million dollars in restitution.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Ouch, that's a bite.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Here's another one, another Salvatory. Salvatory the little one, Mazurko
fifty seven of Baldwin, New York. He got a thirty
five year sentence, fifty thousand dollars fine, had to pay
five hundred thousand restitution.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Me no wonder. They have all these great nicknames. Their
all named sal You got.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
To keep Salvatory. Toto Lamberti.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
There you go, Toto Lamberto.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Lamberti fifty five of Woodmere, New York. He got twenty years,
fifty grand fine, five hundred thousand in restitution. His cousin Giuseppe,
the brother in law Lamberti.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
He was the Brotherho fifty five of Baldwin, New York.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
He got thirty five years, find one hundred and fifty
grand order to pay five hundred grand a restitution.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
And that's the end of the pizza connection or is it?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Oh, there's more after.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
This ad break, we'll find out.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah, Zaren, I'm still thinking about the brother in laws
(34:37):
and nickname brother in law that's up there with Vincent
the Chin Gagante, but he wasn't known as the chin.
He made sure that people when they would talk about him,
they pointed to their chin, so you couldn't get them
on the mics now. But they now they knew the
Federal the brother in law. I mean, that's like, hey,
you know the brother in law the b Yeah, exactly.
That's a great one.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
So it wasn't just New York that had a pizza connection. Washington,
DC wanted in on it too, and the Feds wanted
in on busting it. So that investigation started in nineteen
eighty four and became public in nineteen eighty seven, and
the trial took place in January of nineteen ninety and
this time it was just an eleven day trial didn't
(35:18):
go on as long and brief. You know who was
in on this, Salvatore Cotone, another Yeah, Sicilian who moved
to Virginia Beach. He played the part like in his
daily life of this like patriotic immigrant in love with
his new home and loves truth and justice.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Like a plumber or something. That was his front.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Well, you're gonna find out. So James Glass Junior, a
federal agent, he was like, that's not true. He's not
a good man, and I'm going to hunt him down.
He was so set on dismantling the Cootone organization that
he asked to be taken off the desk and put
back in the field to do it.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Damn, I'll take a pay cut. I don't care, right.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
According to the Washington Post quote, the investigation exposed a
ring of Sicilian natives trying to push cocaine through local
pizza parlors, torching restaurants that competed with friends businesses, contracting
hits on enemies of the Kotone family, and financially devastating
loyal friends who trusted their life savings to sal Kotone.
So Katone he came to the States in nineteen sixty
(36:20):
six when he was just nineteen years old. By the
mid seventies, he'd made his way to DC, and it
was there, according to the Post, that he quote found
a town hungry for pizza and virtually free of competitive
crime families. It was just wide open spaces.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
For pizza and free of crime families. How did you
figure that one out, Washington Post?
Speaker 4 (36:42):
So Kotone he opened his restaurant and immediately had beef
with competitors. Bass's was this like fashionable downtown restaurant on
fourteenth Street Northwest, and it was doing bang up business.
And Kotone is like, uhuh, not on my watch. So
he came up with a way to fix the situation.
He hired Alfred the butcher Toriello nickname Yeah to burn
(37:04):
Bastens to the ground. And then so Toriello and this
other guy, they filled soda cans with gasoline and just
torched the joint. But what about the drugs, aarn.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
What about the drugs?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Elizabeth Katani was all about it.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
He did huge, multi kilo cocaine deals and these went
down at like the Holiday Inn in Crystal City, a
Denny's in Fairfax, Virginia, the Commonwealth Doctors Hospital in Fairfax.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
How about Howard Johnson's and Arlington.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
Jos who knows the FBI was on him pretty early on,
and he loved it. He got a kick out of
evading them and like toying with them.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Wise, I'm a little.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
Afraid of Agent Glass, like I peel a little bit.
But then he referred to him as quote in my shadow,
and he would pretend to want to cut deals for
information with him. So Glass, he's like this sixteen year
veteran of the FBI at the time. He testified that
Kotone approached him a bunch of times off for information
because he wanted to cut a deal to free his brother,
(38:04):
Giuseppe Kotone quote, I was surprised that someone who claimed
to be so innocent had so much access to criminal.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Information, Glass said, interesting people.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
So what could Kotone deliver in exchange for his brother's freedom?
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Thank you for ask how do we get Giuseppe free?
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Thank you? He promised.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
A man who was marketing a cash of stolen American arms,
He's like, I've also I've also got a Greek who's
got a bunch of the district's drug trade oh, and
then there's this plumber from Manassas who's got a boat
on the Potomac, a home in Florida, and a pen
shot for.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Huge drug deals.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
I got talking and glasses like I want, I want
something a little bit more. It's not just mobsters who
can come up with a crafty plan, so can the FBI.
So Glass he recruited this guy, Vincenzo Hakanjin, and Vincenzo
told Kotone and he could put a hit on the
guy who set up Katoni's brother Giuseppe sent him to jail,
(39:06):
this guyln Franco Cassali. Yeah, so Vincenzo's like, I can
put a hit out.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
On Lon Franco Casali.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
It's going to cost you five thousand dollars and you
got to get me a drug hookup.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
And so Katoni is like, sounds like a deal to me, Like,
no problem.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
That I.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
And I got five grand floating around. So in October
of nineteen eighty eight, Vincenzo he shows Kotone pictures of
this bloody body and he hands him Cassali's favorite medallion,
like I did the job, here's your proof. What does
Katone say to him, God Bless America.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
That's what his line was.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
The thing was, the photo is fake, so Glass the
agent covered the guy in tomato paste and took a
picture really, and they got him a duplicate medallion, and
they got over.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
It wasn't even the real one.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
And then there they were in court and it was
called Operation Infamiita, a huge success. Infamita translates to a
violation of the Sicilian code of silence.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Oh so that you broke America.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Right, Infamiita not to be confused with Infanta the decembrist song.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I did not make that mistake, but I did a
couple of times.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
I was like, oh, no way, and I had to
listen to it.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
It took break, it took six years, but the Feds
did it. At trial Cootone, he denied that he knew
any of the Infamita defendants. He was like, I've never
financed any drug deals. I've never you know, put out
contracts or on anyone. Have I ever had a restaurant torched,
(40:46):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
I've never even eaten pizza.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
God Bless America.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
He said that after his brother Giuseppe was arrested, that
he made up crimes and connections just to keep the
FBI interested in him, because he was like hoping to
craft a deal to get his brother out.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
This is what he testified. Quote.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
The game was, if the fire goes up, I put
a little water on it. If it goes down, I
put a little wood on it.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
Either way, Cotone gets convicted by a federal jury of racketeering, conspiracy,
retaliation against an informant, eleven other felonies.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
But there's More's.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Aaron, Yeah, I love Mobe.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
In nineteen eighty eight, the year after the initial Pizza
Connection convictions, the FBI wanted to, according to the New
York Times, quote, capitalize on mafia paranoia after the Pizza case.
Realizing that those who escaped that roundup would be looking
for opportunities outside the New York City area, the agents
decided to lure traffickers to Buffalo through the BSc storefront.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Huh, they're scrambling. Let's give him an option to run to.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
So BSc was the Buffalo Sicilian connection, okay. And it
was this Italian food import export company, sure in a
strip mall outside of.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Buffalo strip mall.
Speaker 6 (42:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
So word got.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Around that they trafficked in more than tomato, sauce and.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
All of that. They could hook you up with wholesale.
Speaker 4 (42:09):
Heroin that it is an ingredient, Yeah, exactly, so it's
all natural. So BS tested the import route. They had
a shipment of seven hundred and forty four cans of
tomatoes from Italy sent to the storefront. The FEDS knew
about this though, so they made sure that customs passed
(42:29):
the shipment through without inspecting it. So BSc was like
the roots clear, like whatever we ship isn't going to
be inspected by customs. So there was this informant and
an undercover FBI agent, the two of them. They went
to Palermo, Naples, Rome. They met with contacts from the
Greco clan that was allied with the Corleoneici branch of
(42:51):
the Sicilian mafia, and they set up the drug shipments.
I love that this is basically an FBI drug smuggling
ring at this point, like they're in every element of it.
A contact in San Francisco led the undercover operatives to
associates in New York and they were based in the
Cafe Jardino in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, which was owned by none
(43:13):
other than Giuseppe Gambino, a nephew of Carlo Gambia House,
late patriarch of Ambino crime family. Right, so, of course
the FEDS they set up bugs in the cafe. Per
the New York Times quote, one bug picked up many
conversations that the FBI said established the criminal nature of
the undertaking. It also picked up the sound of money
(43:35):
being counted and stuffed into a shirt, and at one
point an underling being slapped around for failing to keep
up loan shark payments.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
The FBI said.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
The bug recorded derogatory references to law enforcement officers. Giuseppe
Gambino called them fools and once speculated that the Italian
authorities had relaxed their vigilance, so he called a fool
kin slap around, and they like play it in court
with the thing. Anyway, So undercover agents they were trying
(44:05):
to get a one hundred kilo shipment of coke in
from Colombia, but it kept falling through, and the FEDS
they decided to close in because the mob was like
starting to get suspicious. And yeah, so according to the
Times quote, we whispered in their ear and kissed on
their next too much. One supervisor said, by way of
explaining how the agents had tried to mollify the sellers.
(44:28):
When no more excuses would do, the FBI ordered the arrests.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
What kind of metaphors whispering.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Give him some sugar.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
They busted two hundred and eight suspects, yeah, seventy five
in the US, the rest in Italy. All were charged
with running heroin and cocaine rings that supplied millions of
dollars worth of drugs to networks all over the US.
In Europe, among those arrested were Giuseppe Gambino and this
guy Nigel seven Subia, who was the son of Sioux Subia,
(45:02):
the High Commissioner to Britain from Mauritius. All these other
people connected to the pizza connection.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
But there's more.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
In nineteen ninety four, the FBI announced that the famous
Original Raised Pizza on Third Avenue near forty third Street
in New York was actually the headquarters for a major
drug ring. And this was a little different. This pizzeria
gang didn't just import coke from Columbia.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
To sell the coke heads in New York.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
They used New York as like this transit stop to
deliver drugs to three organized crime groups in Italy. That's
because cocaine was selling for three times what it cost
in New York, so there's way more money to be made.
So the pizza parlor gang they worked with two other
groups of like loosely affiliated traffickers. Two of those worked
(45:51):
out of a cafe and a butcher shop like Satreal's
in Brooklyn, as well as their houses in Brooklyn, Queens,
Staten Island. The pizza rhea was running like tens of
millions of dollars worth of cocaine and heroin through the place.
Do you think that the hold the Pepperoni picked.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
The pizzerias so they could be like if either you're
harassing them and you're like, come on, this is a
stereotype that the crime, come on.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Now hit the drupini.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
So this one on for three years at this joint.
But then authorities in both the US and Italy they
rounded up seventy nine suspects all overnight.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
I always like that they round it like a factory
of people.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
Yes, exactly, and all these like major hits, and they
charged them with drug conspiracies. The New York Times detailed
their own investigative reporting. Quote a thin man in a
white shirt and a red apron who was at the
cash register at Famous Original Raised Pizza, said he knew
nothing about any drugs or arrests, but he offered to
pass on a message to the Ambrosios, the three brothers
(46:51):
who owned the franchise and had recently been arrested, if
they phoned in. So this old guy is just manning
the front, the FED said the Ambrosio's. They had just
started on a plan to get the coke directly from
Columbia to Italy. That was a little bit trickier because
one shipment was intercepted at the Bogata airport. One hundred
(47:12):
and sixty eight kilos of coke was hidden in crates
of cut flowers that were supposed to be taken to
Italy on an Al Italia flight.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Because most of the flowers are grown in Bogato exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (47:23):
And some of the time though, they just used the
mail which I have to say that Italian post is
notoriously unreliable.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
When you're in Rome.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
They say that it's best to send any postcards or
letters at the Vatican instead of using Italian mailboxes because
they had a reliable post because it's a separate country.
The Italian mail can take months for it to get anywhere,
but the smugglers, they weren't worried. They sent some of
the cocaine to Italy through the mail. FBI agents followed
(47:56):
pizza parlor workers at once. As they went to the
post office, they watched these two guys hand a cardboard
box sealed with tape to a clerk. The men leave,
the agent sees the box inside like all the custom
slip it said, three shirts, four pairs of pants, ten
bars of deodorant soap, three containers of baby towel, four bedspreads,
(48:17):
and twelve baby towels. They open it up. Three kilos
of coke. That's it, Yeah, busted.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
So when you're shaking it around or you move the box,
nothing feels soft.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Three kilos so zaren what's your ridiculous takeaway? But first,
does this make you want some pizzas?
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Oh my god, I'm so hungry. You have no idea,
do you? I'm not sure if you remember this, like
I'm trying. I wish I could remember it better. But
there was like a tweet. I think it was a tweet.
It was about this guy who went to a pizza
place and he tries to order a pizza and the
guys look at him like, what are you talking abou
Oh yeah, sure here it takes them a half an
hour to make the pizza. There's nobody else in the restaurant,
(48:56):
and he says he's got the best pizza he'd ever had.
I'm pretty sure that was a money laundering place. I
think it was a coke laundering place, probably based on
the stories. Yeah, and I remember, like my father telling
me some of the details of the story this the
Pizza connection trial because it is the longest trial. And
also I knew an Alfano who was worried that they're
(49:19):
that they would be the people to remember this and
that they would think that, hey, you're one of those,
like you know, like Italians who are involved in this.
And I was like, I hate to break it to you,
bet Alfano is not that kind of name that's gonna
stick out, Like yeah, but I love how they won
using the pizzerias. And like I said earlier, it's like
a stereotype. It's like like the Italian opera lovers. It's like,
(49:41):
of course you're doing this through that, so uh mine
is I would like it if the if the Italian mafia,
if they're still involved deeply in cocaine and money laundering.
Was to give them the benefit of the doubt if
they would pick something like video game parlors and do
it through that oh yeah, because it's like, you don't
really see that going. But then just like of course
(50:02):
and the Mario brothers, why didn't we see this coming?
So what about you, Elizabeth?
Speaker 4 (50:08):
I am?
Speaker 3 (50:09):
I am.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
Now I've decided that if I think a restaurant is
a front, I'm gonna go in.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Oh yeah, because it's gonna be good food.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
Yeah. And then if and it's a bunch of dudes
and members only jackets sitting at a table and they
stare at me and they say we're closed, I'm like,
oh okay, Julie noted. So that's that's my takeaway. You
know what I would love?
Speaker 2 (50:29):
What was that Elizabeth talk back side of Pizza?
Speaker 7 (50:32):
M Oh my.
Speaker 5 (50:38):
God, I love Chee. I just heard about a crime
that is absolutely perfect for your show Modern Day. Some
guys in disguises break into the Loop using a moving
truck and a ladder get away with royal jewels on
mopeds and a hmm. It's a little too perfect for
(51:03):
your show. One thing I didn't see was a description
of these getaway drivers. Were they perhaps pulling retrievers in sunglasses?
Did you guys finally pull an art heist?
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Wait? No, we did not pull an art heist, and if.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
We did, we would not admit to it because we're
gonna have respect for our interns. We're not gonna just
sell him down the river like that.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
But wait, hold on, Dave's giving me a signal we
have another one.
Speaker 7 (51:28):
Heyzar and Hay Elizabeth, Yeah, those are the right names.
I was just wondering, did you guys rob the Louver?
I know it's been a minute since I've listened to
you guys, and I'm slowly catching up, but did you
guys rob the Loop?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
First of all, we would rob the British National Museum
before the Loop, yet respect for the Louver.
Speaker 4 (51:52):
Here's the thing the I the moment this story broke,
we were inundated with messages like your pigeons, everything, telegrams.
Everyone was reaching out and like you have to do this,
you have to do this, but it's like we have
to as you were strong, yeah, oh yeah, as you.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
Were saying like we need an act three.
Speaker 4 (52:11):
Like we don't know what's happened, and it's information slowly
dribbling out. There's like the Hubba hubb a guy who's involved,
like the gorgeous you know thief.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Oh, I thought you meant the detective, the well dressed there's.
Speaker 4 (52:24):
The dapper detective, which it turns out he's not the detective.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
But we're all going to pretend.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Yes, looks like the whole thing is just.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
So amazing, and so it will happen. But then when
it happened, when when the news broke, I thought this
is too perfect for like this is this is something
that we would make up. And then I realized they're
all going to think we did it.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Well, maybe we did.
Speaker 4 (52:48):
I can't tell you where I've been. I can't let
you see my passport.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yes, I actually have two passports for a good reason.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
Yeah, oh my gosh, that one. I can't wait. I
can't wait till we get all the details.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
Then can share it.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I can't wait till we get a Yeah, all the details,
wank wanky and share them.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Yeah. When the rude dudes the dogs family said too
what we've said too much?
Speaker 4 (53:16):
Uh, that's it for today. You can find us online
at Ridiculous crime dot com do you know that we
just won an.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Award the website The website did.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
The Clean Plate Club.
Speaker 4 (53:27):
Yeah. We also are at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky,
Instagram YouTube. You can find us at Ridiculous Crime Pod.
You can email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (53:37):
Please leave a talk back on the iHeart app. We
love hearing from you that way reach out.
Speaker 4 (53:48):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette,
produced and edited by Capo Fry Dave Coustin, starring Annale
Rutger as Judith. Research is by Pete Siala, Mari S
Brown and Sauce.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Distributor to Barie Davis.
Speaker 4 (54:03):
The theme song is by two guys who wandered in
looking for a slice, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post
wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and
makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Hawaiian
Pizza truthers, Ben Bollen and Noel.
Speaker 6 (54:17):
Brown Redicus QUI Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
to my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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