THE DOSSIER

As the DeCavalcante family transitioned into the late 90’s, the new leadership structure was causing a power struggle between Vinnie Ocean and Charlie “Big Ears” Majuri. With law enforcement continuing to hassle Wiggles, Ocean’s cash-cow was drying up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We interview the former FBI undercover task force officer and author of Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos, who spent 26 years undercover penetrating New Jersey’s DeCavalcante crime family, the criminal organization known to law enforcement as “The Real Sopranos” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While The Sopranos mainly focused on a fictional New Jersey mob, their fellow mafiosos in New York couldn’t be ignored. The fictional New York family was represented by Johnny Sacrimoni, better known as Johnny Sack. Vincent Curatola, a New Jersey native, portrayed the New York underboss with a steely cool that made him a hit with the legions of Sopranos fans. We spoke with Curatola in a wide-rangi...

As John Riggi is sent to prison, John “Johnny Boy” D’Amato, is made the acting head of the DeCavalcante family. Despite being unpopular in his own crime family, D’Amato would use his close friendship with John Gotti to become head of the DeCavalcante crew. Eventually, he is rubbed out by his own mafia family. His crime...being gay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Playing a New Jersey gangster was nuanced, one part menacing, but equally comedic. Federico Castellucio played the role of Furio Giunta , a Tony Soprano street-soldier who even tried to have a romantic fling with Tony’s wife Carmela Soprano. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1997, after the death of acting boss Jake Amari, Vinnie “Ocean” Palermo is named part of a three man panel that will now run the DeCavalcante family. Vinnie Ocean is considered the most likely candidate to be the real Tony Soprano, for a number of reasons. We trace his rise & fall in the mafia in this two-part episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Organized crime has always been catnip to savvy crime reporters, and as the years have progressed with the proliferation of rats, the storytelling has gotten more nuanced and more in depth. Former NY Daily News Reporter Greg Smith spent years reporting on orga-nized crime, and in 2003 he published a wide-ranging book on the DeCavalcante clan, and their hijinks. Learn more about your ad choices. Vi...

The Sopranos considered by many the greatest show in television history, made the New Jersey mafia water cooler talk across the country from 1999-2007. While based on fictional characters, there was an actual mafia family neck deep in criminal activities across the Hudson River from their La Cosa Nostra contemporaries in New York. In New Jersey, starting in the 1960’s, the DeCavalcante family ran...

In hip hop, the end of the 80s ushered in a thriving music industry, with hip hop, diversifying itself immensely. In 1990 alone, A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, D Nice, Special Ed, LL Cool J, Vanilla Ice, and EPMD all had seminal releases. These artists would start to define the trajectory of hip hop music as it invaded white suburbs and penetrated the minds of American political tho...

There were many defining events as it relates to the intersection of crime, the War on Drugs, and hip hop throughout the 80s. That being said, there was a singular event that took place in Southside Jamaica, Queens, in February of 1988 that arguably changed the course of policing in this country, the mythology of the drug trade, and symbolically ended the crack era for the exalted hustlers inside...

The years of 1987 and ’88 ushered in the golden age of hip-hop, when a few groundbreaking artists, acting as cultural critics, show the power of this art form. Led by the protest rap of KRS-One, Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, among others, hip-hop was now shining a light on the plight of the inner-city struggle, the crack epidemic, mass incarceration & other societal plights. The presidential race...

As hip hop and the war on drugs hit the mid 1980s, it can be argued that both commercial endeavors hit their strides in inner cities across the United States. As crack cocaine exploded, members of the United States government enacted one of the first steps in the revolution of our criminal justice system in soaring incarceration rates. The comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 was the first revi...

If any story defines what New York was like at that time, it's the story of New York City subway vigilante Bernard Goetz's shooting of unarmed black teens. On December 22, 1984, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, Darrell Cabey, and James Ramseur were shot and wounded by Bernard Goetz after they accosted him on a New York City subway train in Manhattan. In America, you would think that we would learn from ou...

In the dynamic early years of hip hop, you could still see the influences of the disco era in the fashion the samples, and the party music played via car stereos in different neighborhoods in New York City. The hip-hop releases for 1982 and 1983, included Wildstyle the first feature film to reveal the nuances of hip-hop culture written by Fab Five Freddy and directed by Charlie Ahern. The film exp...

In America in 2024, we have all watched major American cities burn the result of a powder keg that exploded around incidents of police killings. We should all know the names by now: George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breanna Taylor, Stephon Clark, Philando Castille, and more. As the list goes on, the debate surrounding race, policing, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs, it seems, has reached the...

From its start, the art of Hip-Hop music has not only defined our countries generations, it has done so by reporting on social and criminal injustices in America. Referred to as the “Black CNN,” Hip-Hop music, throughout the past 40 years, has been reporting all of societies major issues and complex policies that remain to this day. Whether it is the subject of brutal and biased policing, over-cro...

The Sopranos considered by many the greatest show in television history, made the New Jersey mafia water cooler talk across the country from 1999-2007. While based on fictional characters, there was an actual mafia family neck deep in criminal activities across the Hudson River from their La Cosa Nostra contemporaries in New York. In New Jersey, starting in the 1960’s, the DeCavalcante family ran...

Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops insid...

Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops insid...

Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops insid...

Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops insid...

Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops insid...

Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops insid...

Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops insid...

Join hosts Nicole Luciano and Johnny ‘The Greek’ Anagnopoulos, two of the producers of The Dossier, as they break down all things crime and hip-hop, gleaned from their years of investigative work on the topic. From the Biggie and Tupac murders, to the twenty plus killings that are tangentially related to Death Row Records, Suge Knight, the Bloods, the East vs. West rivalry, the gangster cops insid...