Gangland Wire

Don’t forget to buy me a cup of coffee on your venmo app at ganglandwire. This is the first of a two-part series on the now-famous Apalachin meeting, and I got my good friend retired K-9 Sergeant Cate Kozalto sit in on the show. If you want to learn more about Cate, check out my YouTube channel and see our motorcycle tour of Bonnie and Clyde sites from Iowa to Louisana. There are lots of questions...

Wiretappers, this is the first of a 4 part series on mob meetings. Since November 14 is the 62nd anniversary of the famous Apalachin meeting in upstate New York, I decided to focus on mob meetings in November. Next week, I will release 2 episodes on the Apalachin meeting. The Chicago Tribune reported that sometime in 1979, representatives of the Outfit traveled top Philadelphia to discuss the new...

Hey Wiretappers, don’t forget t but me a cup of coffee on your venmo app. in this episode of our ongoing examination of the new England crime families, Camilius Robinson and I take a look at the far western Massachusetts city of Springfield. In the earliest days, this city was organized by members of New York’s Genovese family. The first known boss was “Big Nose Sam” Cufari. He was born around the...

Hey Wiretappers, don’t forget to buy us a shot and a beer on your Venmo app. Just hit up ganglandwire to help with the podcast expenses. Today my regular contributor Camilius Robinson provides us with more stories from Raymond L.S. Patriarca and his new England Crime family known as the “Office.” Wild Guy William Grasso began his mob career in New Haven CT as an associate of Columbo family under a...

Don’t forget to hit me up on Vemno at ganglandwire and buy me a cup of coffee to help with expenses. This is a republished story from November 2018 to finish out our month on the New England Organized Crime scene. Boston Globe Reporter Emily Sweeney has covered it all as a reporter and blogger. In her spare time, she has written two books on the history of organized crime in the Boston area. Emily...

Wiretappers, don’t forget to hit me up on Venmo. In this second of a two-episode series with retired East Providence RI Police Captain Joe Broadmeadow , we discuss his second book about members of Raymond L.S. Patriarca’s crime family. In Broadmeadow’s book, Unmade: Honor, Loyalty, Redemption he tells about the unusual crime career of Bobby Walason. Bobby Walason’s father threw him out of the hous...

Wiretappers, don’t forget to hit me up on your Venmo app. In this week’s episode, I interview retired East Providence (RI) Police Captain Joe Broadmeadow . He is a skilled and prolific true crime author who has written several non-fiction books and articles on members of the New England Crime Family, headed by the infamous Raymond L.S. Patriarca.  In this episode, we discuss his book Choices: The...

Welcome Wiretappers, don’t forget to hit me up on Venmo and buy us a shot and a beer. In this episode host Gary Jenkins and his main contributor Camulius Robinson take a look at Raymond L.S. Patriarca and New England Crime Family or the “Office” and their relationships with New York’s Genevose and Gambino families in connection with the pornography business.  The office is concentrated in Providen...

Don’t forget to buy me a shot and a beer on my @ganglandwire Venmo app. This week I am joined by Larry Henry , the Mob in Popular Culture blogger for the Las Vegas Mob Museum . He and I discuss “Handsome Johnny” Roselli who was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped that organization control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. Roselli was born in Brooklyn and traveled around the c...

Carmine Galante was born Camillo Galente on February 21, 1910, in East Harlem, New York City. Like many La Cosa Nostra mobsters his parents, Vincenzo “James” Galante and Vincenza Russo, had emigrated to New York City in 1906 from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. His father had worked as a fisherman. The Galante family had the three brothers Camillo, Samuel, Peter Galante, and two sisters, Josephin...

In the 1960s, the Chicago Outfit owned practically all the local government officials and a lot of cops. In this podcast we tell about a failed bribery attempt. An incorruptible Cook County Deputy named Donald Shaw refused this bribery attempt, even though an older and higher ranking officer named Dutch Bergbrieter encouraged him to meet with “Joey Doves” Aiuppa and to take the offered bribe. It s...

First of all Wiretappers, don’t forget to buy me a cup of coffee on Venmo at ganglandwire. Today we must thank our frequent guest host and mafia researcher screenwriter Camulius “Cam” Robinson. In this episode Cam goes deep into the Chicago Outfit’s influence over the Northwest Indiana organized crime rackets. In the Indian state line city of  Chicago Heights, IL over 50% of the population was Ita...

Don’t forget to buy me a cup of coffee on your venmo app at ganglandwire. In this show we talk with our British friend, David Breakspear. He spent a large part of his life “under care” as they say in Great Britain. This means he was incarcerated because of life on the wrong side of the law. In this episode former cop and host, Gary Jenkins talks with a reformed man, writer, mob historian, and crim...

This is a possible title for my upcoming documentary about the Kansas City mob war of the 1970s. This is the story of the ruling Civella brothers, Nick and Cork Civella and the upstart young Turks, Nick Spero and his brothers, Mike, Joe and Carl Spero. A quick overview if you don’t remember the multi-episode podcast I did on this conflict. Basically it is the generation gap played out in a mob war...

John “Pudgy” Matassa, Jr is reportedly connected to the Outfit’s Northside/Rush Street crew. He is the son of retired Chicago Police officer.   Northside/Rush Street crew history Covered Rush Street, which was the entertainment district of Chicago, and the rest of the Northside of Chicago, extorting porn shops (Red Wemette), night clubs, bars, as well as traditional loan-sharking, and gambling. Se...

This is a short bonus episode containing the opinion of a Wiretapper who is a member of the Chicago Laborers’ District Council LiUNA. This is a real deal strong Chicago union who looks out for 20,000 members.  Give this a listen and then go onto my next episode in which myself and Cam Robinson examine the government’s case and the Outfit history of the participants. I was once a member of the Unit...

Louis “Lepke” Buchalter was a 1930s New York City racketeer. Authorities believed Albert Anastasia appointed him to run his Murder, Inc., enforcement squad. Crime buster Thomas Dewey will set his sights in Lepke as an example of Mob violence and will eventually prosecute him for murder and obtain a death sentence. Eventually, Lepke will appeal to the governor for a commutation from his execution a...

Holleeder challenges the Hells Angels In Part 2, David Amoruso continues the story of Dutch master criminal Willem Holleeder and how he became the leader of a major Dutch motorcycle gang called the No Surrender. and eventually challenged the American based Hells Angels. It will be during this time he starts extorting money from a real estate named Willem Endstra. Holleeder and Willem Endstra laund...

Willem Holleeder In this story about Willem Holleeder, I interview a Netherlands based crime writer David Amaruso about the John Gotti of the Netherlands. He was a young guy from the middle class with all the advantages of a nice family until his father’s alcoholism caused the Heineken Brewery to fire him. Holleeder gets back at the Heineken company Willem Holleeder burst into the European public’...

Scarpelli made several attempts to “go legitimate,” first by investing several thousand into a jewelry boutique, and when that failed, he worked at a shipping company owned by his brother. He ultimately wanted to own an auto salvage yard, but as a felon, licensing would have been difficult to obtain in Illinois. To make ends meet, he had a partnership with a small-time, unsuccessful bookie, and ha...

Don’t forget to buy me a coffee on Venmo at ganglandwire. This week, Chicago writer and Outfit historian, Camillius “Cam” Robinson and I talk about Butch Petrocelli and the Wild Bunch. As a special bonus in the sho0w notes, Cam has written a short piece with additional facts and stories about Butch and this feared hit team of young Turks in the Outfit. I had a great time talking with Gary on Gangl...

In this special bonus episode, I thank our generous contributors with an extra episode in which our most faithful fan, Chicago resident and mob historian Ben Ellickson does a dramatic read of an in-depth article about the upper echelon of the Chicago Outfit published on August 18, 1963, and written by one of their best mob reporters, Thomas Powers. I thank Ben for his never-ending support with his...

How did Roy DeMeo get into a Life of Crime Roy Albert DeMeo was born into the Mafia neighborhood of Bath Beach Brooklyn. As a teenager, he starts loansharking while enrolled in James Madison High School.  It would be during this time he is noticed by a Gambino crime family soldier named Nino Gaggi who takes him under his wing.  Growing up in this atmosphere young Roy DeMeo, not unlike Henry Hill,...

As Anthony Casso progressed in his mob career, he became more suspicious and violent. One of the many interesting stories about Gaspipe is his interactions with the Russian Mafia of Brighton Beach. Gaspipe Casso was a very prolific thief during his life. He was not choosy who he worked with as long he could make money. He developed a close alliance with a Ukrainian mob boss named Marat Balagula. T...

Gaspipe Casso – the early years Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso was born May 21, 1940. Before his career ended with the U. S. Marshal’s office and Witness Security, mob bosses would promote him to the formal position of  Underboss of the Lucchese crime family. Gaspipe Casso will gain the reputation of being a “homicidal maniac.” Anthony Casso was the youngest of the three children born to Michael and Marg...