THE BLACK HAND FORUM

This is a very interesting question, so I hope to see what comes of it. It's my strong belief that similar family links (including to Calabria) were an important element of drug trafficking in Chicago in the same period, and given the strong Calabrian element in Philly it wouldn't be at all surprising that longstanding familial connections back to Italy could serve to smooth the way for criminal connections later. I did a couple of cursory searches myself and nothing came up. I did note that there was a Giuseppe Scarfo named as part of a Calabrian narcotics ring in Australia in 1979, for whatever that might be worth.

Many years ago someone shared a newspaper article about two brothers from Italy (Calabria?) with the surname Scarfo who were either busted or at least investigated for drug trafficking in New York City in the 1980s. If I remember right, the article said they were (distant?) cousins of Nicky Scarfo. I don't remember if it specified 'ndrangheta connections but that seemed to be implied.

The article was online and I feel like it was a major publication (i.e. NYT). I don't know if there was any substance to the alleged Nicky Scarfo relation but I know I didn't completely hallucinate this article. It was over a decade ago that it was shared, so I might have some details wrong.

I've tried searching for various common Italian first names + the last name Scarfo and found nothing. No other obvious keywords turn anything up. I believe this was on the Real Deal, not American Mafia, but maybe someone from those days remembers it as we discussed it on the old boards.