The Cigar: Carmine Galante, Mafia Terror #NewYork #MobBoss

From the godfathers of American Mafia history, the brutal and blood-stained biography of Carmine Galante, the ruthless Bonnano boss who rose from tenement street thug to masterminding the legendary global heroin trafficking network, the French Connection – always with a cigar in his mouth.

The Cigar: Carmine Galante, Mafia Terror.

HIS WAR CRY: “I RULE EVERYTHING.”
FOR HALF A CENTURY HE ALMOST DID.

The son of Sicilian immigrants, Camillo Carmine Galante was raised in Manhattan’s Little Italy and by all accounts born bad. At age ten his home away from home was juvenile detention. By fifteen he was terrorizing the streets of New York’s Lower East Side, scoring high marks for the “errands” he was running for his La Cosa Nostra elders. When he turned twenty, Galante was already one of the mob’s top enforcers­–a sadistic thrill killer and clinically diagnosed psychopath with big dreams: whack his way into controlling organized crime the world over, vowing to kill Mafia chieftains Tommy Lucchese and Carlo Gambino and take control of their mob families.

Carmine “Lilo” Galante’s rise to Mafia star was infamous: hit man for the Luciano and Genovese crime families; named consigliere by Joseph Bonnano; he wiped out eight members of the Gambinos; on behalf of Benito Mussolini he assassinated the publisher of an anti-Fascist newspaper. “The biggest dope peddler in the country” according to law enforcement, Galante helped orchestrate one of the largest heroin trafficking operations on record—a power move too dangerous for his rivals in the narcotics trade. The heads of the five New York families decided that the psychotic Galante had to be stopped. On July 12, 1979, finishing his lunch in a Brooklyn restaurant, Galante got what he’d dished out his whole life: a shotgun blast to the face, his trademark cigar still clenched in his teeth…

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Mafia Mamma Movie - From Suburban Mom to Mafia Don #MafiaMamma

Mafia Mamma

While seeing to her long estranged (and now deceased) grandfather’s affairs in Italy, Toni Collette, a mild mannered suburban mom, unexpectedly inherits his mafia empire and finds herself stuck in the middle of a deadly mob war.

Guided by the firm’s trusted consigliere (Monica Bellucci), she hilariously defies everyone’s expectations, including her own, as the new head of the family business.

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Member of Mexican Mafia Arrested by US Border Patrol #Laredo #MexicanMafia

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Laredo South Station arrested a gang member with an extensive criminal history in Laredo, Texas.

U.S. Border Patrol agents while working their assigned duties apprehended several individuals near the Rio Grande. Border Patrol agents proceeded to transport the individuals to the Laredo South Station for processing. After record checks were conducted it was determined that all the individuals were in the country illegally.

In the group, a 44-year-old male Mexican national, Julian Duarte-Cazares, was identified as a Mexican Mafia gang member. Duarte-Cazares has an extensive criminal history that includes prior felony convictions for Aggravated Assault with a Weapon, Robbery, and several immigration violations.

Duarte-Cazares will be held pending processing for felony Re-Entry.

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Sinaloa Cartel Hitman and El Chapo’s Head of Security, El Cholo Ivan, Extradited to US on Drug Trafficking and Firearm Charges #ElCholoIvan

Last weekend, Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila, 42, of Mexico, aka Cholo Ivan, was extradited to the United States and made his initial appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to face international drug trafficking and firearms charges. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Nogales, assisted by the FBI’s Washington field office, are investigating the case.

According to court documents, between August 2009 and January 2016, Gastelum Avila was a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel, an international drug trafficking organization that was headed by Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka El Chapo, and Ismael Zambada Garcia, aka El Mayo. The Sinaloa Cartel is a violent, transnational drug trafficking organization based in Mexico that is known to be engaged in the manufacture, distribution, and importation of ton quantities of cocaine and marijuana from Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras to Mexico and into the United States.

Court documents also allege that at the time of his arrest, Gastelum Avila was a lead assassin for the Sinaloa Cartel and worked closely with Guzman Loera. He allegedly operated as the “plaza boss” for the Mexican city of Guamúchil, Sinaloa, and in that role, he supervised at least 200 armed men and controlled the drug-trafficking activities in that city and the surrounding area.

In January 2016, Mexican authorities arrested Gastelum Avila and Guzman Loera together in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico, as they attempted to flee arrest. In December 2018, a grand jury returned an indictment against Gastelum Avila. The United States requested his provisional arrest in February 2020 and Mexican authorities arrested Gastelum Avila based on that request in March 2020. Gastelum Avila remained detained in Mexico pending his extradition. He was extradited from Mexico to the U.S. on April 1.

Gastelum Avila is charged with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and over 1,000 kilograms of marijuana intending and knowing that those substances would be imported into the United States. He is also charged with knowingly and intentionally using, carrying, brandishing and discharging a firearm, including a destructive device, during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. Gastelum Avila faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for the drug conspiracy charge and a mandatory consecutive sentence of 30 years for the firearms offense. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Guzman Loera was extradited to the United States in January 2017. In July 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison for being a principal leader of a continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics trafficking, using a firearm in furtherance of his drug crimes and participating in a money laundering conspiracy.

This case is supported by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, acting Executive Associate Director Steve K. Francis of HSI, Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division and Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington field office made the announcement.

Trial Attorney Kirk Handrich of the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section is prosecuting the case. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided valuable assistance with securing the arrest and extradition of Gastelum Avila. The Criminal Division’s Office of Enforcement Operations also provided significant assistance.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

HSI is the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel, and finance move. HSI’s workforce of more than 8,700 employees consists of more than 6,000 special agents assigned to 237 cities throughout the United States, and 93 overseas locations in 56 countries. HSI’s international presence represents DHS’s largest investigative law enforcement presence abroad and one of the largest international footprints in U.S. law enforcement.

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Gangbuster: One Man's Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan

As gripping as it is prescient, Gangbuster: One Man's Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan, is the first-ever history of the battle waged by one rookie District Attorney, Philip Van Cise, against the KKK, organized crime, and government corruption at the highest levels throughout the 1920s. One century later, in the face of contemporary society’s divisiveness and fearmongering politics, the personal courage of this maverick’s battle against underworld figures and a mainstream white supremacist movement is more relevant and inspiring than ever.

At the height of the roaring 1920s, the ex-frontier town of Denver, Colorado, emerged from the postwar boom as the future of the American city. But the slick façade of progress and opportunity masked a murky stew of organized crime, elaborate swindles, and widespread government corruption. One man risked everything to alter the course of history.

Rookie district attorney Philip Van Cise was already making national headlines for a new brand of law enforcement. Employing military intelligence tools he’d developed during the Great War—wiretapping, undercover operatives, communication intercepts—Van Cise crippled the criminal empire of Lou Blonger, an ex-lawman who had risen from petty scam artist to master of the Big Con. But Van Cise had even darker, more malevolent forces on his radar.

The Ku Klux Klan had emerged as a shockingly mainstream middle-class movement, employing anti-immigration scare tactics, encouraging vigilantism, and instigating culture wars, all while claiming to protect true American values. Van Cise saw the toxic ideology for what it was: a new version of the Big Con sold as populism. Utilizing his pioneering surveillance techniques, Van Cise was determined to expose the Invisible Empire from within.

Gripping and exhaustively researched, this prescient chronicle of Philip Van Cise’s spectacular career as a feared gangbuster taking on organized crime, the KKK, and corruption at the highest levels of government is a cautionary tale that mirrors our tumultuous times

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