NEW YORK, United States (AFP) – by Jennie MATTHEW
The FBI said it leapt from the pages of a mafia novel. But fiction turned reality Thursday when prosecutors unveiled charges against 46 alleged mobsters, making dozens of arrests up and down the East Coast.
The arrests spotlight an Italian mafia purportedly alive and kicking in 21st century America, not confined to Hollywood legend, and one which prosecutors said has diversified in keeping with the times.
The defendants are accused of orchestrating a vast criminal enterprise that stretched from Massachusetts to Florida, engaging in extortion, arson, fraud, illegal gambling, firearms trafficking and assault.
They allegedly come from the ranks of the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese and Bonanno families — New York gangs with Sicilian roots — as well as from a Philadelphia organized crime family.
The suspects span generations, from a 24-year-old millennial to an 80-year-old, and include defendants who went by colorful nicknames such as “Muscles,” “Tony the Cripple,” “Mustache Pat” and “Tugboat.”
“The indictment reads like an old-school mafia novel, where extortion, illegal gambling, arson and threats to ‘whack’ someone are carried out along with some modern-day crimes of credit card skimming,” said FBI official Diego Rodriguez.
“But the 40-plus arrests of mob associates, soldiers, capos and a boss this morning show this isn’t fiction,” he added.
The FBI arrested 39 suspects on Thursday with three others already in custody. Another defendant is expected to surrender “in the next few days,” while three remain at large, the US attorney’s office said.
They are charged with racketeering conspiracy, arson, illegal firearms trafficking, and conspiracy to commit assault, prosecutors said.
Most face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Assault, maim and kill
“The mob remains a scourge on this city and around the country,” said Manhattan’s top prosecutor Preet Bharara.
“From loan-sharking and illegal gambling, to credit card and health care fraud, and even firearms trafficking, today’s mafia is fully diversified,” he said.
“As alleged, threatening to assault, maim and kill people who get in the way of their criminal schemes remains the go-to play in the mob’s playbook.”
During Thursday’s raids, three handguns, a shotgun, gambling paraphernalia and more than $30,000 in cash were impounded, prosecutors said.
The years-long investigation by the FBI and New York’s organized crime task force amassed thousands of hours of testimony from a cooperating witness and an undercover FBI agent who worked for alleged mobster “capos” or captains.
A 32-page grand jury indictment, which prosecutors unsealed on Thursday, details assaults, threats and arson allegedly carried out by the mobsters.
The indictment described the assault of one victim with glass jars, sharp objects and steel-tipped boots, and the maiming of another with a pipe.
One of the defendants, named as Anthony Vazzano — also known as “Tony the Wig” and “Muscles” — was stabbed in the neck during an altercation at a bar in the Bronx in January 2013, prosecutors said.
Significant blow
To evade law enforcement, mobsters allegedly used code to arrange meetings at highway rest stops and restaurants, the indictment claimed.
Illegal gambling was a major source of funds — one New York establishment held poker tournaments and took bets on the horses — while sports gambling businesses operated in New York, Florida, New Jersey and Costa Rica, it added.
The crime ring allegedly sold firearms and untaxed cigarettes, and engaged in credit card fraud conspiracy and health care fraud using corrupt doctors to issue unnecessary prescriptions for an expensive cream, it stated.
New York police chief Bill Bratton, who retires next month, said the charges “deal a significant blow to La Cosa Nostra, which the NYPD is committed to putting out of business.”
US popular culture has long been fascinated by the Italian mafia, inspiring a clutch of award-winning Hollywood films and TV series.
But in real life, mafia members can be notoriously difficult to convict.
Last November, an octogenarian reputed mobster was tried in Brooklyn over the spectacular 1978 New York airport heist immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s hit movie “Goodfellas.” A jury in the federal trial acquitted him.
Vincent Asaro, allegedly a member of the Bonanno family, was accused of murder, violence and extortion that supposedly spanned 45 years from the late 1960s.