According to FBI records, retired Boston Celtics star point guard Bob Cousy had social relationships with powerful east coast mobsters Jerry Angiulo and Frank (Frankie Sky Ball) Scibelli during and after his playing days in the NBA and was eyed by the feds for possible wrongdoing. Cousy is considered one of the greatest floor generals
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September 18, 2019 — Philadelphia mafia bookie and reputed flim-flam man Stephen Sharkey will take his fraud case to trial, per Fox29’s Dave Schratwieser, a longtime leading authority on gangland affairs in the City of Brotherly Love. Schratwieser reported the news of Sharkey’s deciding to roll the dice in front of a jury on his
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Below is an excerpt from Detroit gangster-turned-author Alan (Gunner) Tocco Lindbloom’s popular Lindbloom Chronicles, a series of blogs about his life in the mob back in the 1990s and early 2000s. I am constantly remembering stories I’d love to share. Stories usually sparked into existence by someone or some thing. For example, I have this
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September 16, 2019 – The feds scored a clean sweep last week in Chicago, as Four Corner Hustlers street gang lieutenant Stevon (Tito) Sims pleaded guilty to racketeering and drug charges, concluding the first phase of the government’s assault on the notoriously lethal drug crew based on the Windy City’s west and southwest sides. Next
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September 15, 2019 — From his federal prison cell in Portland, former drug kingpin Demetrius (Big Meech) Flenory organized a back-to-school giveaway for kids in his hometown of Detroit over the weekend, packing a local clothing store parking lot with hundreds of elementary and junior high school children and providing them thousands dollars of free
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September 13, 2019 — Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx will play fabled New York drug kingpin Kenny (Supreme) McGriff in a future movie according to the Gotti brothers, Irv and Chris, former owners of the Murder, Inc. hip hop label prominent in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Last week, Chris Gotti said in an interview on
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September 11, 2019 — Federal prosecutors specified their sentence- reduction request for notorious Washington D.C. drug boss Rayful Edmond this week, asking U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan to change Edmond’s life sentence to a 40-year term. The 54-year old Edmond has already done three decades behind bars for a non-violent narcotics offense. He’s been
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September 10, 2019 — They never found Jimmy Hoffa on his tip, nonetheless it earned him his freedom. Convicted drug dealer Don Wells, 88, died of natural causes last week in Detroit, 13 years after his debriefing with the FBI sent agents scurrying to dig up the former farm of a Hoffa ally-turned-enemy in search
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September 9, 2019 —- The Rolling Stones’ famous frontman Mick Jagger narrowly avoided being killed in a dispute with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in the 1970s, according to a new podcast interview with former Hells Angels Ventura chapter boss George Christy. The beef stemmed from $50,000 in legal fees accrued by the Hells Angels
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September 8, 2019 — Behind bars and abandoned by his men, embattled Philadelphia mob don Ralph Natale became the first official American mafia boss to flip when he cut a deal with the feds 20 years ago this month. In September 1999, Natale, a polished and gregarious gangland chief known for keeping physically fit and
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August 31, 2019 — The murder of Four Corner Hustlers street gang member Dominique (Snoopy) Green in Chicago in the summer of 2012 set off a violent chain reaction. Snoopy Green was the brother of Four Corner Hustlers enforcer Keith (Lil’ Keith) Chatman. He was slain in a hale of bullets on August 1, 2012.
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August 30, 2019 — With this week’s plea deal cut by Keith (Lil’ Keith) Chatman, next month’s Four Corner Hustlers federal drug and racketeering trial in Chicago will only have a single defendant. Chatman, a suspect in more than one gangland slaying, pleaded guilty to narcotics offenses Wednesday. The dreadlocked Chatman’s plea deal states he
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August 29, 2019 – This week’s Gangland News column sheds new light on the young buck recently let into Philadelphia mafia chief Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino’s inner circle. According to the Dean of American crime writing, Jerry Capeci, baby-faced New York wiseguy Pete Tuccio, who acted as Merlino’s driver and bodyguard while he faced a
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August 28, 2019 — Rudy Coles wants people to know he’s getting a raw deal. The 63-year old Detroiter is being held in a North Carolina prison on drug charges, awaiting a second trial. Last December, Coles had a conviction for conspiracy to transport narcotics overturned by a state appeals court. In 2013, Coles and
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August 28, 2019 — In some circles of working class Ohio, they called him “Saint Pat,” for the sense of pride he re-instilled in a community of suddenly shuttered factories and mills being ravished by gangland corruption. Pat Ungaro, the man who ushered in the anti-mafia era in the Mahoning Valley and the longest-ever serving
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August 22, 2019 — Another member of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang pleaded guilty to a federal drug and racketeering indictment this week, shedding one more co-defendant for an upcoming pair of trials which started with 11 alleged “Hustlers” ready to face a jury and is now down to six. The No. 1 target
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August 21, 2019 — The Bad Boys hung there after games, toasting their championship success among adoring fans. Another group of bad boys were often on the scene as well. After being a Metro Detroit dining and hangout staple for close to 40 years, Ginopolis’, the famous bar and rib joint in Farmington Hills, Michigan,
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August 20, 2019 — Cancer-stricken Chicago mafia enforcer Charles (Chuckie the Electrician) Russell didn’t make it to his sentencing in federal court on weapons violations. The 70-year old mob heavy was supposed to be sentenced this fall but died in hospice care last week, out of prison on a medical bond since 2018. Russell’s brother-in-law
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August 19, 2019 —,The feds in Western Massachusetts are breathing down the neck of reputed Springfield mob crew boss Albert (The Animal) Calvanese. One of the Calvanese’s alleged lieutenants Anthony Scibelli was arrested by the FBI last month for collecting juice loan payments and assaulting a wired-up debtor in front of Calvanese’s headquarters, the Our
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August 18, 2019 — Retired Major League Baseball player Ron LeFlore credits his rags-to-riches journey from the inside of a prison cell all the way to pro sports stardom in just three years to a single deceased Detroit mobster. In an interview with the Metro Times, the 71-year old LeFlore, who is back in the
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Indianapolis drug boss Richard (Ricky Rich) Grundy and several of his Mob Family crew lieutenants were found guilty of narcotics trafficking at a federal trial that required a change of venue from the Circle City to Evansville. The 30-year old Grundy and four co-defendants had their first trial end in a mistrial last month immediately
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Philadelphia mob boss Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino foreshadowed his brash and rules-flouting reign at the helm of the Bruno-Scarfo crime family with his bold antics in the years before he fought and won a shooting war for power in the organization. A batch of newly-acquired FBI documents, including a series of informant “302” reports shows
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August 14, 2019 — After three decades behind bars, Michael (Harry O) Harris, one of the most infamous west coast crime bosses of all time and the co-founder of the iconic Death Row rap music label, will walk free from prison. The 57-year old Harry O ran a massive cocaine empire out of Los Angeles
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Philadelphia mobster Marty Angelina has been called in front of a Pennsylvania grand jury to answer questions about a shooting he was involved in back in 1992, according to the new episode of Mob Talk Sitdown on YouTube. Mob Talk Sitdown is hosted by award-winning reporters Dave Schratwieser and George Anastasia. The 57-year old Angelina
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The horrific Manson Family murders occurred 50 year ago this week. Hippie guru and cult leader Charles Manson sent several of his followers to slaughter seven people over two nights in August 1969, which became known as the Tate-LaBianca slayings. The grisly homicides included the butchering of pregnant Hollywood starlet Sharon Tate, celebrity hairstylist Jay
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August 11, 2019 — The Philadelphia mafia’s acting boss Joseph (Uncle Joe) Ligambi is retiring, according to the newest episode of Mob Talk Sitdown on YouTube. Ligambi has headed day-to-day affairs for the Bruno-Scarfo crime family for most of the last two decades. Philly mobologists and award-winning reporters Dave Schratwieser and George Anastasia host the
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August 7, 2019 — Retired Irish mob boss John Berkery is adamant that the new Martin Scorsese film about slain labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa is a sham. The movie, titled, The Irishman, and starring Robert DeNiro as protagonist Frank (The Irishman) Sheehan, an east coast mob enforcer and Al Pacino as Hoffa, is a
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The FBI has been searching for Jimmy Hoffa’s remains for 44 years. Nobody has ever been arrested for the biggest mob hit of the 20th Century, but the feds continue to investigate it vigorously four and a half decades later. Ever since the Teamsters boss vanished from a Bloomfield Township, Michigan restaurant parking lot on
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July 31, 2019 – Former Rochester (NY) mafia figure Thomas Torpey, who was one of the last remaining links to the city’s Alphabet Wars of the late 1970s and early 1980s, died this month from a fall where he shattered his hip. The Irish 72-year old Torpey had been battling cancer. He was released from
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July 30, 2019 – Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared 44 years ago today. His kidnapping and murder have become steeped in mythology ever since, the quintessential American unsolved mystery and an urban legend that spans cities and generations like few others, if any, in history. Hoffa vanished from a Bloomfield Township, Michigan restaurant’s parking lot
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July 29, 2019 – Reputed Rhode Island Pagan’s Motorcycle boss Deric (Big Tuna) McGuire was granted bond last week to await trial on a drug and weapons indictment from home instead of behind bars after Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Netti Vogel ruled wiretapped phone conversations he was caught on inadmissible because of a faulty
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Hippie cult leader Charles Manson and his “Family” are the subjects of Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, a nostalgic, pop-culture infused tale of Los Angeles in the summer of 1969 and the seven murders committed by Manson’s followers that shook the nation and established Manson himself as an icon of
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Before he probably butchered his wife. Before the “Chase.” Before the decade in prison he did for an armed robbery in Las Vegas to steal back memorabilia he believed had been boosted from him in the first place. O.J. Simpson, 72, was at the center of two state drug probes during his NFL playing days
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July 24, 2019 — Windy City wiseguy John (Pudgy) Matassa got a break on his prison sentence for embezzling funds from a Chicago labor union and then got testy with the judge who shaved off eight months of his time at a sentencing hearing this week. The portly “Outfit” advisor will do a half-year behind bars
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July 23, 2019 — Reputed Detroit drug chief Jimmy Lattner recently accepted a plea deal in his state gun case out of Macomb County, Michigan and will serve three years in prison. He faced a 10-year term if convicted at trial in charges stemming from a search of his property following the murder of his
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July 21, 2019 – The persistence in itself is impressive. And the more things change in Memphis, Tennessee, the more they stay the same. Fabled Memphis drug kingpin Ronnie Woods was indicted recently on more narcotics-trafficking charges. Back in May, Woods, his two brothers, Steve and Bernard, and 35 other alleged associates and conspirators were
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Earlier this year, Gangster Report gained access to five boxes of the police case file covering the stunning July 1979 Michigan Federated Democratic Social Club Massacre. The files provide fresh insight, detail and context to the grisly gangland slayings and triple beheading tied to internal acrimony in Detroit’s black mob, known at that time as
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July 19, 2019 – In the name of the Pagan’s Motorcycle Club’s directive to push into North Jersey, Pagan’s enforcer Robert (Hellboy) DeRonde will do four years in state prison. The 55-year old DeRonde was sentenced this week after copping a plea in Essex County Superior Court, admitting to beating Newark Hells Angel Motorcycle Club member Jeff
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The 18 months leading up to the Dadeland Mall Massacre set the tone for what was to come. If the Dadeland Mall Massacre was the tipping point that took Miami and Dade County into Cocaine Cowboy overdrive, the writing was on the wall when it happened. Coke was officially big business and South Florida was
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The brazen robbery of drug kingpin German Jimenez Panesso’s Miami home in the spring of 1978 set off a chain of events eventually resulting in the infamous Dadeland Mall Massacre in nearby Kendall, Florida over a year later. Panesso, 37, and his bodyguard Juan Carlos Hernandez, 22, were gunned down at Dadeland Mall’s Crown Liquors
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Drugs, guns, money and a monster black market economy proved an explosive combination in Miami of the 1980s. Narco czars representing different South American cartels made South Florida both their lavish playground and body-splattered battle field.  Last week was the 40-year anniversary of the infamous Dadeland Mall Massacre, a brazen double homicide carried out in broad
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Historians trace the birth of the entire crazy “Cocaine Cowboys Era” in South Florida to a single event: the headline-grabbing Dadeland Mall Massacre on July 11, 1979 where two Miami drug world figures were slain in a Wild-West style shootout in the upscale mall’s liquor store. The audacious gangland hit foreshadowed a coming decade marked
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The Indianapolis underworld was shaken to its core by the emergence of Richard (Ricky Rich) Grundy and his Circle City “Mob Family” this past decade. Taking Hoosierland by storm in the early 2010s, the Grundy crew left a trail of bodies in its wake on the way to cementing a place for itself on the
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July 11, 2019 — Ricky Rich is known around the Circle City for his luck, having a knack for avoiding death from his enemies on the street and long sentences behind bars from his foes in law enforcement. His rivals in the drug world have a half-million dollar bounty on his head. The government has
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When Bonanno crime family don Carmine “The Cigar” Galante declared himself the so-called “capo di tutti i capis,” or “boss of bosses” of the New York underworld, the mafia’s ruling body declared him a dead man walking. On the sweltering-hot afternoon of July 12, 1979, the 69-year old Galante and two of his men were
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Demetrius (Big Meech) Flenory took his Black Mafia Family to epic heights: from the streets of Detroit down to Atlanta and from coast to coast. New York to L.A., the names Big Meech and BMF rang loud as could be across the United States in the early 2000s. BMF was unlike any other African-American criminal
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July 6, 2019 — Detroit mob luminary Antonino (Tony Cigars) Ruggirello died this week of natural causes. The 85-year old Ruggirello was a crew boss in the Tocco-Zerilli crime family for decades and had been acting in an advisory capacity to mafia administrators in the Motor City during his final years, per sources. His father,
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July 5, 2019 — His drug dealing days appear to be behind him. Sketchy real estate deals, those might be another story. Back in the 1980s, Sylvester (Seal) Murray was one of the biggest drug world figures in Detroit, Michigan, a high-ranking lieutenant in Young Boys, Incorporated (“YBI”), the most impactful and infamous of the city’s
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July 3, 2019 – Veteran Philadelphia mobster Salvatore (Shotsie) Sparacio died in prison recently, the owner of a dubious distinction. The 96-year old Sparacio passed away late last year as the oldest inmate residing in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He was convicted of racketeering in November 1995 at age 72 and lived out of the remainder
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Philadelphia mob captain Santo (Chester Sam) Idone had his tenure as a mafia administrator derailed by a dispute with New York’s Gambino Crime Family over a video poker machine, snippets of which were caught on tape by the FBI for posterity. Idone, who led a Philly mafia crew out of Delaware County, Pennsylvania for two
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