The night ‘The Cigar’ was snuffed out

[Confederate]

I believe the Sicilians also sold drugs to NON LCN members. I don't think the LCN were the Sicilians exclusive buyers.

[CabriniGreen]

Heres a confusing situation....

Galante gets killed.... now....

1. We have reports that briefly, Catalano was acting boss, and he met with Castellano...

2. Sonny Red started pushing to demote Rastelli...

3. Rastelli is incarcerated... but has the title....

Who was the most powerful guy at this point?

Sonny Red took heroin on consignment, and didnt pay... that's why the Sicilian crew got involved... after he was killed, Sonny Black became the designated distributor.. correct?

[CabriniGreen]

@Wiseguy


Now I feel like we are getting somewhere.... I cant stand that dismissive " there was a ban", like it was a real Iron clad rule and not LCN politics....

And to your point of how LCN isnt even a blip.... think about Cali .......

When the Sicilian Cupola wanted to get back into the drug trade.... they reached out to CALI.... ok fine...

But the URSINOS reaching out to the Americans is to me..... like what's going on here?

Did you see this bust?

https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2019/0 ... i/5253547/

Basically, Calabria organizes all the shipments from South America.... To Canada, they have access to various ports.....

So why were the Ursinos, going through the Gambinos, for coke, when the American LCN is "Marginalized" in the trade. It tells me Calis connects through Venezuela had to have come from the Sicilian Gambino crew, the SAME connections the Rizzutos had.

And Vito meets with Gambinos in NY when he wants to sort out his problems? Shit is compelling to me.....

Especially when you see the Bonnanos meet with the Violis, who had connections in Colombia... This is why I've said I think they were trying g to build the same type of contacts the Gambinos had.....

[CabriniGreen]

And when you say American LCN never aas in position to control coke... what about this then?

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/02/22 ... 635662800/

At a time when gangbangers from the Pjs were wearing thier coke money in NY.... the SAME sicilians were shipping tons of coke to Europe...

Fast forward 25 years or so.... and the Sicilians went to tap BACK INTO these SAME contacts, hell the SAME FAMILY EVEN..... I mean, can you get a SMALL idea of why I fi d this particularly fascinating?

[B.]

There were many Bonanno leaders who already had or would gain heavy influence in the wake of the Galante murder:

- Phil Giaccone was one of the most powerful leaders at the time. Wealthy, longtime member who had helped run the family as a captain in the late 1970s, along with being a conspirator in the Galante hit. Probably had strong influence due his close relationship to Rastelli initially, then was believed to be the boss candidate had the three captains faction succeeded in deposing Rastelli.

- Salvatore Catalano was acting boss for a period and the head of the zip faction, both of which put him at the top of the family.

- Stefano Cannone, consigliere. Involved in all top-level family affairs, including Galante's murder and all subsequent family matters. Stayed loyal to official boss Rastelli and was obviously one of the most powerful leaders before, during, and after Galante's reign.

- Philip Rastelli was in prison but it was still nearly two years before the three captains faction conflict came to a head and that faction had just committed a major multiple homicide to keep Rastelli as official boss, showing that in addition to Cannone, Napolitano, Massino, and other loyalists he also had other strong figures in the family behind him in the period immediately following Galante's death.

- Salvatore Ferrugia. Captain on good terms with various factions in the family who became acting boss, speaks for itself. Like with Catalano, doesn't seem to have been part of the long-term plan but a senior figure helping keep the organization in line for Rastelli.

- Sonny Napolitano - New captain influential in the "diehard" Rastelli faction, who would come to be described by Ruggiero as the family's "top captain" helping run the organization. Seems to have been in consideration for a long-term position in the hierarchy, with Ruggiero suggesting that Napolitano had his eyes on the consigliere position.

- Sonny Indelicato was a major power as captain and the promotion of his son and top soldier Trinchera as captains shows how quickly his influence was expanding. Sometimes overshadows Giaccone due to his name, style, and other hype, but one of the most dangerous rising powers in the family either way.

- Joe Massino - like Napolitano, a new captain and one of the main Rastelli loyalists. Part of the long-term plan for the administration as is evidenced by his inclusion on top-level affairs as a captain and later promotion to underboss.

An argument could probably be made for others, even.

--

- The most significant drug figures above were Catalano and Indelicato.

- Giaccone, Ferrugia, Cannone, Napolitano, and Massino don't appear to have derived much if any of their influence from drug trafficking, at least not at this time.

- Salvatore Catalano is one of the most important heroin traffickers in the history of the US and Sicilian mafia. His promotion to acting boss could be seen as a sign that drug trafficking was important in Bonanno politics, but that's ignoring that he was also in charge of all other activities among the Bonanno and general Sicilian element in Bushwick, Middle Village, Ridgewood, and surrounding areas, a central area to the Bonanno family. This would have been a bigger factor in running the Bonanno family than Catalano's role in the drug network, even if the drug network was more lucrative. His role as acting boss included more than simply managing drug trafficking, something he had been doing before and after he was acting boss. Following his incarceration for drug trafficking, lost his captain title and appears to have lost most of his influence in the Bonanno family much like Carmine Galante did 25 years earlier on a similar sentence. Contrast this with other family figures not involved in major drug trafficking who did manage to keep their influence and titles in prison.

- Indelicato was a suspected trafficker in the period leading up to his death but not on the level of Catalano. Indelicato had a crew with a particularly tough reputation involved in all kinds of crimes and operations which no doubt factored into his position in the Bonanno family. If he did have some important role in drug trafficking, his death appears to have been of no lasting significance in the drug network and the only fear of retaliation came from his son and a minority of close associates.

- I didn't mention Cesare Bonventre on the list even though he did have power in the family beyond his captain position, as I basically put him under Catalano. He was a major figure in the drug network, though, and his death like Indelicato's had no lasting significance among drug traffickers beyond maybe upsetting his close paesans.

- Contrast this with Rastelli and Massino. Rastelli went to prison and though a feared old time drug trafficker usurped power, family leaders and the Commission stood up for him and killed the usurper and kept Rastelli in charge until his death despite much of his run spent in prison. This was done a second time with the murder of the three captains. Few bosses, imprisoned or otherwise, have had two triple homicides committed in their favor solely to take out usurpers, much less in under two years. Joe Massino also went to prison and kept his title as underboss and was voted in as new boss before his release. Neither of these guys were powerful drug traffickers but the loyalty and influence they had in family politics outlasted and outweighed the short-term influence of drug traffickers like Galante, Catalano, and Indelicato.

[B.]

Consider this, too. John Gambino was a major heroin trafficker and had a large degree of influence in the drug network as well as the Gambino family before his incarceration and demotion. While in prison, with his drug operations severely damaged if not destroyed, he was re-promoted to captain and following his release from prison his role in drug trafficking appears to have become significantly lessened. Meanwhile he reached his highest rank in the family and we have examples of him administering high-level Gambino organizational affairs, none of which involved drugs. What do we take from that? While he was once important in drug trafficking circles and this may have intersected with his involvement in the Gambino family and aided his influence earlier on, it was not the source of his power and he was able to succeed in mafia politics separate from drug trafficking.

[CabriniGreen]

on the John Gambino thing, you guys continuously forget that Riina basically decapitated the Sicilian side....and if you've been keeping up with Sicily, they have been waek and trying to rebuild that ever since... especially once the Vorleonesi hardliners started to fade away.... you are simplifying it way too much....

[CabriniGreen]

The drug OPERATION faded bacause of the arrest and the situation in Sicily. Cali still had those connections decades later.... unless you think he went to Venezuela, or Colombia and built them himself....

[CabriniGreen]

I swear.. B. if I'm drug centric you are DEFINITLY Bonnano centric, lol...

I'll try to tackle your bullet point one by one to the best of my knowledge....

[CabriniGreen]

Phil Giaccone was powerful, no argument there....

But there were three Indelicato capos.... right? So he directly controlled 3 crews, I thought it was Sonny Red who wanted boss?


Cannone, did he stand up to Galante at all? Ferrugia, as I understood it was an old timer, respect Ted and chosen as a kinda " Placeholder" until the conflict in the family could be worked out, so no faction had an advantage over the other. I saw him as like a DiBella, but instead of a being installed by a powerful capo, he was installed by consensus.

[CabriniGreen]

When you say Indelicato wasnt on the level of Catalano, I agree wholeheartedly.

He was a trusted, maybe THE trusted distributor for the Sicilian heroin. He took a consignment and didnt pay. That's why the sicilians got involved, to the point of providing Sicilian shooters. In LCN, when its TOUR problem, usually YOUR crew handles the work. It was true for Gotti, and I'm sure many other examples.....

[CabriniGreen]

Galante had the support of many if not most of the family's captains and presided over some of the induction ceremonies (though they were only verbal), so his authority was recognized throughout the 1970s. Ruggiero described Galante maintaining contact with Sabella and presumably others when he returned to prison. If one report is true, Galante also attended some kind of Commission-type meeting to settle the Colombo family dispute in the later 1970s.

Dom Cicale claims he was told by a ranking Genovese member that Galante's murder was because Galante actually had too much support within the Bonanno family and posed a threat to the other families.

His situation is very close to Joe Magliocco in the early 1960s. Magliocco may have been killed, too, if he hadn't died of natural causes when he did.

This thread might be of interest:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3115
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3115&start=40

And this one is focused specifically on Galante's authority as boss:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2001

I gotta ask, why post this?

And then post all the other stuff, that contradicts this post?

[CabriniGreen]

I've have NEVER seen anyone go to such lengths saying Rastelli was such a power or respected like that....Not saying necessarily he wasnt.... but I've NEVER seen a Rastelli thread, lol

Massino literally had to kill everyone to become Boss, including his biggest ally in Sonny Black...

To be honest B. all those murders, imo were just a continuation of the Banana split, ( lol, pun not intended)
They would have happened eventually anyway. They couldnt be run in receivership by the Commision forever. The power had to be consolidated somewhere...
Same with Canada, blood HAD to flow to get those people back in line.

And I wouldnt attribute Massinos success to anything but himself. Massino really understood power, the structure of it, how to manage it. He knew how to read people and situations.....

I really believe the families did it for THEIR own interest, with Galante talking about merging the families or whatever.

I dont think the Genovese were doing Rastelli any favors. I thought they were openly backing Sonny Reds faction.... And it was the Gambinos who supervised and the sicilians who set him up. THEY had a vested interest in Galantes death...

The Colombos were pro Galante, I dont know... could Corrallo be described as pro Rastelli?
Corrallo?

To say the Commision was Rastellis ally, to me it's like saying the Commision wanted revenge for Paul. Not really, it was a couple families whose interest ( Construction) was hurt by his murder, and they reacted as such....

[Wiseguy]

@Wiseguy


Now I feel like we are getting somewhere.... I cant stand that dismissive " there was a ban", like it was a real Iron clad rule and not LCN politics....

And to your point of how LCN isnt even a blip.... think about Cali .......

When the Sicilian Cupola wanted to get back into the drug trade.... they reached out to CALI.... ok fine...

But the URSINOS reaching out to the Americans is to me..... like what's going on here?

Did you see this bust?

https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2019/0 ... i/5253547/

Basically, Calabria organizes all the shipments from South America.... To Canada, they have access to various ports.....

So why were the Ursinos, going through the Gambinos, for coke, when the American LCN is "Marginalized" in the trade. It tells me Calis connects through Venezuela had to have come from the Sicilian Gambino crew, the SAME connections the Rizzutos had.

And Vito meets with Gambinos in NY when he wants to sort out his problems? Shit is compelling to me.....

Especially when you see the Bonnanos meet with the Violis, who had connections in Colombia... This is why I've said I think they were trying g to build the same type of contacts the Gambinos had.....

Again...the Gambinos (and LCN in general) can have contacts for drugs, move lots of it, and make a lot of money....and still be marginalized in terms of the overall drug trade compared to the DTOs who move the vast majority of drugs.

And when you say American LCN never aas in position to control coke... what about this then?

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/02/22 ... 635662800/

At a time when gangbangers from the Pjs were wearing thier coke money in NY.... the SAME sicilians were shipping tons of coke to Europe...

Fast forward 25 years or so.... and the Sicilians went to tap BACK INTO these SAME contacts, hell the SAME FAMILY EVEN..... I mean, can you get a SMALL idea of why I fi d this particularly fascinating?

Again...I'm talking about the American market. That article is talking about the Sicilians moving cocaine to Europe.

You can go back to when cocaine first started coming on the scene. The LCN certainly got involved with it, as they have pretty much every other drug to some extent or another. But they were never in the kind of controlling position for cocaine in the U.S. like they were with heroin in the past. Pretty much from the early days to now, the Colombians have been the top cocaine suppliers in New York City.

[B.]

Galante had the support of many if not most of the family's captains and presided over some of the induction ceremonies (though they were only verbal), so his authority was recognized throughout the 1970s. Ruggiero described Galante maintaining contact with Sabella and presumably others when he returned to prison. If one report is true, Galante also attended some kind of Commission-type meeting to settle the Colombo family dispute in the later 1970s.

Dom Cicale claims he was told by a ranking Genovese member that Galante's murder was because Galante actually had too much support within the Bonanno family and posed a threat to the other families.

His situation is very close to Joe Magliocco in the early 1960s. Magliocco may have been killed, too, if he hadn't died of natural causes when he did.

This thread might be of interest:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3115
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3115&start=40

And this one is focused specifically on Galante's authority as boss:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2001

I gotta ask, why post this?

And then post all the other stuff, that contradicts this post?

Nothing is contradictory. The drug traffickers had immense short-term influence, but in overall mafia politics (inside and outside of the Bonanno family) they weren't supported in the long-term.