Newest Weapon for Gangsters: Blackberrys

Police often say organized crime in B.C. is big business. So perhaps it was only a matter of time before gangsters adopted the device of choice among corporate workaholics: the BlackBerry.

It has become so popular among B.C. gang members that an internal RCMP "threat assessment" on organized crime produced this year devotes an entire section to the device.

"It's something we've seen increasing over the last three to four years," Staff Sgt. Bruce Imrie, head of the RCMP's Vancouver Integrated Technological Crime Unit, said in an interview. And that poses a big challenge for law enforcement, because encryption and security features make the devices much harder to wiretap than land lines or cellphones.

"The BlackBerry (server) was created with corporate data security in mind," states the RCMP report, obtained by The Vancouver Sun through the Access to Information Act. "Until recently, this system was only affordable by companies such as Telus, CIBC, and the like; they are now more affordable and it is easy for individuals to set-up a network."

Imrie confirmed when police get a warrant for a criminal's BlackBerry messages it can be difficult to intercept them.

"The use of BlackBerries may allow them to circumvent lawful access ... (with) the encryption involved in the transmission," said Imrie.

Even when police confiscate a criminal's actual BlackBerry, he said, cracking its password to view the messages stored on it can be a challenge.

BlackBerries are most popular among a gang's highest-ranking members, said Imrie.

"Your general street-level criminal doing organized shoplifting is not as likely to have a BlackBerry as your high-end drug trafficker," he said. "(And) depending on the sophistication of the criminal organization, the use of the BlackBerry seems to increase."

However, as BlackBerries become more affordable, that distinction is starting to blur, he said, with the devices becoming more prevalent among all types of criminals.

RCMP Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, head of biker gang investigations in B.C., said BlackBerries are "extremely common" among the criminals his unit investigates.

"For a lot of groups, it's standard practice," he said.

Research In Motion, the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry, did not respond to a request from The Sun to comment on its security measures.

However in June, Scott Totzke, RIM's vice-president of global security, told The Times of London that its encryption is virtually unbreakable.

"Every message that is sent via a BlackBerry is broken up into 2Kb (kilobyte) packets of information, each of which is given a 256-bit key by the BlackBerry server," said Totzke. "That means to release the contents of a 10Kb e-mail, a person would have to crack five separate keys, and each one would take about as long as it would for the sun to burn out - billion of years."

The 500-page RCMP report, titled the Integrated Threat Assessment on Organized Crime, is produced each year.

Thanks to CanWest

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Where Were the Spilotro Brothers Killed?

For 23 years, it's been a mystery just where Chicago mob boss Tony Spilotro and his younger brother, Michael, were killed.

CBS 2's John "Bulldog" Drummond got the very first look at a home in unincorporated Bensenville where neighbors and others believe the Spilotros may have met their violent end.

No, the killing of the infamous Spilotro brothers didn't happen the way it was depicted in the movie "Casino." They were not beaten in an Indiana cornfield and buried alive.

Instead, the Spilotros met their demise in the basement of a home in unincorporated Bensenville, where they had been lured to their deaths with a promise of career advancement.

The brothers had worn out their welcome within the Chicago Outfit.

On June 14, 1986, Tony and Michael Spilotro met mob lieutenant Jimmy "The Little Guy" Marcello at a motel parking lot in Schiller Park.

The brothers got into Marcello's car in what amounted to a death ride. The Spilotros, however, were concerned about treachery. Michael told his wife, "If we aren't back by nine o'clock, something very wrong has happened."

The federal government's key witness, Nick Calabrese, testified in the "Family Secrets" trial that he was waiting as Marcello drove the car into an attached garage.

Ed Muniz, who bought the home in question in 2000, gave Drummond a tour of the house, where neighbors and friends say the Spilotros were slain.

"You could just see the layout of the house was perfect" and secluded for the Spilotro killings, said one acquaintance of organized crime figures, who asked that his identity be concealed.

It's not certain if Muniz's home is the location where the Spilotros were killed. But it's understood the fatal beatings occurred in a basement in the same area.

Marcello led the two brothers down to the basement. By the time they got into the cellar fists were flying; so were the knees. The Spilotros were met by a host of their former colleagues. They were beaten unmercifully. Tony Spilotro asked if he had a chance to say a prayer. The killers said no.

Although Muniz has his doubts about whether his home was the scene of the slayings, friends and family are concerned that something terrible happened in the basement.

"I had a friend who went down there, and he got a really weird aura," the owner said. "To my daughters, it kind of creeps them out a little bit."

Even his next-door neighbor -- now deceased -- was haunted by goings-on at the house.

Was this the house or not? Calabrese, the federal witness, couldn't find it for the feds.

CBS 2 shared its information with the FBI. Agents indicated they'll be looking into it.

Thanks to John Drummond

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"Gallo be Thy Name" Connects Gallo Wine to the Mob

Jerome Tuccille's newest book, Gallo be Thy Name, follows the family saga of how the Gallo wine family rose from abject poverty in the early 1900s to become the most successful wine company in the world though hard work, unfettered ambition, and crime. From selling Dago Red to Al Capone during Prohibition to conquering America's wine market with cheap wine brands Thunderbird and Ripple, and from the Great Depression to the roiling farm labor movements of the sixties and seventies, and from the '90s wine boom to today's financial gyrations the Gallos got rich with iconic brothers Ernest and Julio steering the ship. But the real story began before they were even born.

Beneath the E. & J. Gallo Winery's carefully polished surface is a sweeping story of passion and power, swirling with rumors of murder. In Gallo Be Thy Name, biographer Jerome Tuccille goes beneath the shiny surface of the Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery to unearth a story that began with the Italian immigrant brothers Giuseppe and Michelo Gallo bribing local police, Federal Agents, and elected officials all across the nation to sell bootleg wine. Trainloads of illegal wine and grapes were shipped from California to Chicago and New Jersey in a partnership with the Mob, and that was just the beginning of the Gallo Wine story.

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Widow of Mob Associate Linked to Illinois State Senator, James DeLeo

Illinois state Sen. James DeLeo (D-Chicago) -- who has made public statements questioning the existence of the Chicago mob -- was credited by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office with trying to help the widow of one of Chicago's most infamous slain mobsters.

The Northwest Side lawmaker is listed in a secret hiring database the then-governor's aides kept as the political sponsor for Anne Spilotro, the widow of murdered mob associate Michael Spilotro.

She's among 146 "recommended" job candidates linked to DeLeo by Blagojevich's office, though it isn't clear for what job.

Thirty-nine of them wound up being hired or promoted, according to the records, obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, making DeLeo one of the top go-to guys at the Statehouse for jobs inside the Blagojevich administration.

"There's names on there I've never recognized," DeLeo said when shown copies of the job lists bearing his name. "I don't even know where they came from, who hired them. I have no idea who most of those people are.

"It makes me angry people's names are on a list with my name coded in there [and] that I don't even recognize any these names."

DeLeo said he knew Anne Spilotro but had no idea why she was on his jobs list. "Would I remember that name? Would I remember that name?" DeLeo repeated. "I'd remember that name. I would remember that name."

Michael Spilotro's brother, Anthony Spilotro, was once the Chicago crime syndicate's Las Vegas boss. The bodies of the brothers were found buried in a shallow grave in an Indiana cornfield after they were beaten to death in a 1986 mob hit.

In 2007, Anne Spilotro testified in the landmark Operation Family Secrets mob trial that she felt ripped off by DeLeo and another investor who bought her business in the late 1980s, after her husband was killed.

Spilotro, an employee of the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation since 1998, said she never discussed changing jobs or a promotion with DeLeo. "I haven't even talked to him for years," she said.

Another name on DeLeo's jobs list is the daughter of Marty Gutilla, managing partner of Tavern on Rush, the bar DeLeo co-owns with Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and others.

Shauna Gutilla Kelley, a $99,924-a-year division head for the Illinois Commerce Commission, was hired by Blagojevich's administration in August 2003. Since then, her salary has risen 59 percent, state records show.

DeLeo denied persuading Blagojevich's administration to hire or promote her -- though he acknowledged recommending Kelley for a state job "two administrations ago," under now-imprisoned former Gov. George Ryan.

Thanks to Dave McKinney

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The End for "Pretty Boy" Floyd

Two cars traveled down a country road towards the Conkle farm, two miles south of a small town named Clarkson on the eastern edge of Ohio. It was 4:10 on the afternoon of October 22, 1934, and history was about to unfold.

In one car were four Bureau agents, led by Chicago Special Agent in Charge Melvin Purvis. In the other were four local law enforcement officers, headed by East Liverpool Chief of Police Hugh McDermott.

The group was searching for Charles Arthur Floyd—known far and wide as “Pretty Boy,” a nickname he hated and refused to answer to, preferring “Choc”—and they quickly realized they’d found him. Wearing a navy blue suit, Floyd jumped from a car he was riding in and bolted across a rolling field, pistol in hand.

Within minutes, Floyd would breathe his last.

Law enforcement had been closing in on Floyd over the past two days. Floyd, just 30 years old, had been in trouble with the law for about a dozen years. He’d stolen money, robbed banks, and reportedly killed some 10 people. But it was his participation in the so-called Kansas City Massacre—a brazen attack in June 1933 that killed four lawmen, including a Bureau agent—that brought the FBI into the chase.

Floyd had been traveling across the country in the fall of 1934 with another conspirator in the Kansas City attack—Adam Richetti, an ex-sheriff turned bad—and their two girlfriends when the net tightened. On the wet, foggy evening of October 20, not long after the foursome had crossed into Ohio, Floyd ran their car into a telephone poll. Floyd and Richetti camped out nearby as the women went to have the car repaired. The men were eventually spotted, and law enforcement was called.

Richetti was soon captured, but Floyd ran off on foot. Hungry and tired, the fugitive ended up on the Conkle place on the afternoon of October 22 and tried to hitch a ride. That’s when the FBI and law enforcement finally caught up with him.

Fleeing the pursuing officers, Floyd zigzagged across the farm towards a group of trees. All eight law enforcement officers followed, calling on him to stop. As Floyd looked over his shoulder to see the pursuit, gunfire rang out. Floyd fell. “I’m done for, you’ve hit me twice,” he said after officers approached.

As he lay dying, Floyd was questioned. He admitted his identity, but little else. He slipped into unconsciousness and died soon after.

After his death, the legend of “Pretty Boy” just continued to grow. His myth even sparked a revisionist ballad by folk singer Woodie Guthrie, suggesting Floyd saved “many a starving farmer” from losing their homes. While Floyd reportedly destroyed mortgage notes from a bank or two that he robbed in hopes of saving a few farmers from foreclosure, his reputation as a humanitarian or a “Robin Hood” is undeserved. He robbed and stole to support a lifestyle of flash and ease and didn’t hesitate to shoot and kill when it suited him.

For the FBI, Floyd’s death was another key victory in the war against gangsters.

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