Boss Earnings

[JCB1977]

Furthermore, the amount of drug transactions was staggering for Pittsburgh. Joseph "Little Joey" Naples, boss over Youngstown until he was gunned down in 1991, was ready to launder $200 million through one of Vic Calautti's Luxembourg contacts of illegal drug money in conjunction with the Zips they were working with in Italy. Vic Calautti from Youngstown was laundering money for Mike Genovese, Joey Naples, John Stanfa, Russell Bufalino and Billy D'Elia.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3 ... town&hl=en

[JCB1977]

I find it completely baffling that they would let this Strollo keep his entire bankroll like that. I think Massino got to keep a couple properties but they made him hand over all the cash and gold bars. They must have really wanted Strollo"s testimony if they would give him a sweetheart deal like that. Christ, is that the best deal that a rat ever got? I don't know how much time he got or how many murders he copped to, but letting him just keep 12 mill cash plus all his real estate is huge.

Strollo had a prosecutor gunned down, too.

I think the feds just wanted to put the Youngstown Mob to bed once and for all and underplayed their hand against Strollo due to their zeal to get this good and done.

No doubt about it Ivan. Strollo also had former prosecutor and defense attorney Gary Van Brocklin shot in broad daylight inside his law office. A hitman went in there and shot him in the leg as a warning to get a trial delayed. Regardless, Lenny had two casinos, one in Puerto Rico and one in the Caymen Islands under a corporation name, he owned a large fireworks company, 4 hotels between Puerto Rico and Grand Caymen...one of his partners in those businesses was Pasquale "Pat" Ferruccio. Joe Massino was bigger than Lenny Strollo. Old School guys like Lenny set themselves up for wealth. Not all gangsters did that.

What about Paul Gains?

He was already mentioned.

[Hired_Goonz]

Thanks for the info guys now I really want to learn more about Youngstown and Pittsburgh lol this sounds like some crazy shit.

[JCB1977]

All in all, my opinion is that I actually agree with Sonny Blackstein about Massino being full of shit. Massino had much more money coming in. Were the Bonannos into drug trafficking while he was boss? If so, ten of millions were unaccounted for. Montagna was connected to Montreal whose primary rackets were drug trafficking. How many informants tell partial truths? Most of them. They give the Feds what they want, it's a don't ask don't tell mentality. Cadillac Frank Salemme barely gave them anything...and it came back to bite him in the ass.

[Ivan]

I find it completely baffling that they would let this Strollo keep his entire bankroll like that. I think Massino got to keep a couple properties but they made him hand over all the cash and gold bars. They must have really wanted Strollo"s testimony if they would give him a sweetheart deal like that. Christ, is that the best deal that a rat ever got? I don't know how much time he got or how many murders he copped to, but letting him just keep 12 mill cash plus all his real estate is huge.

Strollo had a prosecutor gunned down, too.

I think the feds just wanted to put the Youngstown Mob to bed once and for all and underplayed their hand against Strollo due to their zeal to get this good and done.

Lenny put out a hit on the Mahoning County Prosecutor but the guy he put on it had trouble with his S&W 357 revolver and didn't kill him

Yeah Mark Batcho or whatever his name was. And he ran back to the getaway car the homeboy who drove him there actually asked him something like "Why dinchoo take a knife out he drawer and stab he to def widdit?!"

I can't remember the driver's name; I get the members of Strollo's NWA crew mixed up and I gave up on telling them apart years ago.

[Ivan]

Thanks for the info guys now I really want to learn more about Youngstown and Pittsburgh lol this sounds like some crazy shit.

Yeah it gets pretty wild sometimes.

Check out the Youngstown: Still Standing documentary. It's the best introduction to this stuff. Only about 1/3 of it is about the mob but the other 2/3 is necessary to really understand the mob stuff.

[Pogo The Clown]

Almost certainly. I don’t believe only some captains were required to pay tribute. That literally goes against the entire grain of the system. It’s a Nonsense. Literally.

And the amounts he quoted are ridiculous. Urso $500 a month? Let’s say he has 7 guys in that crew. That’s $70 each a month. Anyone believe that number?

He had serious motivation to lie. And IMO has clearly done so.

That is not accurate. It has been documented that Vincent Gigante did not take tribute from every Capo in his family. As an example Arilotta just talked about how the Springfield Crew did not send tribute to NY. We also have other informant terimony that for years the Montreal Crew did pay any tribute either. So that is at least two families were we have confirmation that not every Captain was required to pay tribute.


If we want to outside NY we have the example of Harry Riccobene not being required to pay tribute to Angelo Bruno except for a Christmas tribute.


Pogo

[FriendofHenry]

I find it completely baffling that they would let this Strollo keep his entire bankroll like that. I think Massino got to keep a couple properties but they made him hand over all the cash and gold bars. They must have really wanted Strollo"s testimony if they would give him a sweetheart deal like that. Christ, is that the best deal that a rat ever got? I don't know how much time he got or how many murders he copped to, but letting him just keep 12 mill cash plus all his real estate is huge.

Strollo had a prosecutor gunned down, too.

I think the feds just wanted to put the Youngstown Mob to bed once and for all and underplayed their hand against Strollo due to their zeal to get this good and done.

No doubt about it Ivan. Strollo also had former prosecutor and defense attorney Gary Van Brocklin shot in broad daylight inside his law office. A hitman went in there and shot him in the leg as a warning to get a trial delayed. Regardless, Lenny had two casinos, one in Puerto Rico and one in the Caymen Islands under a corporation name, he owned a large fireworks company, 4 hotels between Puerto Rico and Grand Caymen...one of his partners in those businesses was Pasquale "Pat" Ferruccio. Joe Massino was bigger than Lenny Strollo. Old School guys like Lenny set themselves up for wealth. Not all gangsters did that.

What about Paul Gains?

He was already mentioned.

I must have missed it. I only saw Gary's name.

[FriendofHenry]

I find it completely baffling that they would let this Strollo keep his entire bankroll like that. I think Massino got to keep a couple properties but they made him hand over all the cash and gold bars. They must have really wanted Strollo"s testimony if they would give him a sweetheart deal like that. Christ, is that the best deal that a rat ever got? I don't know how much time he got or how many murders he copped to, but letting him just keep 12 mill cash plus all his real estate is huge.

Strollo had a prosecutor gunned down, too.

I think the feds just wanted to put the Youngstown Mob to bed once and for all and underplayed their hand against Strollo due to their zeal to get this good and done.

Lenny put out a hit on the Mahoning County Prosecutor but the guy he put on it had trouble with his S&W 357 revolver and didn't kill him

Yeah Mark Batcho or whatever his name was. And he ran back to the getaway car the homeboy who drove him there actually asked him something like "Why dinchoo take a knife out he drawer and stab he to def widdit?!"

I can't remember the driver's name; I get the members of Strollo's NWA crew mixed up and I gave up on telling them apart years ago.

Ya Mark went to Paul's house I believe it was on New Year's Eve, to surprise Paul when he came home bit Paul came home early. Surprise as Paul was known to have a drink or 10 Mark was a customer of mine and believe me he wasn't the sharpest knife in the box. Me either drivers name?

[JCB1977]

Lenny Strollo's Former Home

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandho ... 7592-23624

Mike Genovese Home (87 Acres of private property)- Photos taken many years after he died while home was under construction (7000 sq ft)

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandho ... 707#photo0

Joey Naples Home (Coincidentally he was gunned down in the driveway while checking on construction of the home)

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandho ... 2677-43908

These guys made a ton of money. No evidence of Strollo being tied to any drugs, that was Naples' thing. But this was a small area compared to NYC.

[Villain]

Even though he wasnt the boss but still...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicag ... y,amp.html

[Ivan]

Me either drivers name?

Probably "LaShawn" or "TrayShawn" or some shit.

Doesn't matter, I'll forget it 30 seconds after reading it. So don't worry about it.

[Ivan]

No evidence of Strollo being tied to any drugs, that was Naples' thing.

Yeah I've never heard anything about Strollo being into drugs at all. He would have admitted it too as he admitted to everything.

Though for whatever it's worth, towards the end from what I understand much (most?) of his gambling customers were black drug dealers because they were the only ones living in the core city of Youngstown who had any money.

[Wiseguy]

Not sure where you are getting millions from. His own testimony says he was only getting 500 bucks to 2 grand a month from his top Capos. When he flipped he only had something like 10 million in cash and assets and that was after being boss for 13 years, UnderBoss for the 8 years before that and a top Capo for the 5 years before that. So it's clear he was not pulling in millions a year.


Pogo

That’s crazy. Lenny Strollo in Youngstown, OH had $6 million in real estate assets alone with another $12 million in cash that was recovered by the Feds and he was just a Capo. They let him keep all of it after he agreed to testify. Mike Genovese, boss of Pittsburgh, made a $25 million deposit into Swiss Banks in 1992 through money launderer Vic Calautti. Smaller family bosses had a much bigger piece of the pie than NY bosses not having to share territory.

HOLY FUCKIN SHIT! 25 million in 1992 dollars? I had no idea that even the boss of a small family would have dough like that. I wonder what a guy like Buffalino was worth then?

I find it completely baffling that they would let this Strollo keep his entire bankroll like that. I think Massino got to keep a couple properties but they made him hand over all the cash and gold bars. They must have really wanted Strollo"s testimony if they would give him a sweetheart deal like that. Christ, is that the best deal that a rat ever got? I don't know how much time he got or how many murders he copped to, but letting him just keep 12 mill cash plus all his real estate is huge. Did Sammy Bull get to keep any dough as a part of his generous deal? I'm sure Sammy made a lot more than what Massino is claiming here, just based on all that money from the 80s construction boom alone not to mention all his other illicit revenue streams.

Think about it....As far as Pittsburgh is concerned, they controlled all of Western Pennsylvania, Northeast Ohio, the entire panhandle of West Virginia and parts of Western NY. That is a huge geographic territory with NO COMPETITION. Point is, they didn't have to compete with other families. It's like they said in the movie Donnie Brasco, 5000 wiseguys chasing the same nickel in NYC. Pittsburgh had the unions, gambling, casinos, extortion, loansharking and by the mid 1980's after the old man John LaRocca and Gabriel Mannarino died, Genovese aggressively pursued narcotics trafficking. The Pittsburgh connection from Goodfellas was Paul Mazzei and Chucky Porter and they were moving a ton of blow in conjunction with Ramon Sosa, a Cuban National in Miami, FL. Plus, Mike Genovese laundered tens of millions over the years into commercial real estate in the Pittsburgh area through two crooked democratic ward bosses. His son just recently sold about $8 million in commercial real estate that his father purchased and put into a private trust. The real estate was not in the best section of town but a developer bought it to turn into apartments and condos.

The New York metro area has 5 families because it can support that many. Past or present, there is more money there than anywhere else. Most other cities were cow towns comparably.

[JCB1977]

Almost certainly. I don’t believe only some captains were required to pay tribute. That literally goes against the entire grain of the system. It’s a Nonsense. Literally.

And the amounts he quoted are ridiculous. Urso $500 a month? Let’s say he has 7 guys in that crew. That’s $70 each a month. Anyone believe that number?

He had serious motivation to lie. And IMO has clearly done so.

That is not accurate. It has been documented that Vincent Gigante did not take tribute from every Capo in his family. As an example Arilotta just talked about how the Springfield Crew did not send tribute to NY. We also have other informant terimony that for years the Montreal Crew did pay any tribute either. So that is at least two families were we have confirmation that not every Captain was required to pay tribute.


If we want to outside NY we have the example of Harry Riccobene not being required to pay tribute to Angelo Bruno except for a Christmas tribute.


Pogo

Agreed Pogo. Tony Grosso of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's largest numbers operators for years was independent of LCN and did not pay tribute. He made $30 million per year with over 5000 numbers writers but had all the politicians with him who he shared with LCN as his tribute...not monetary amount was kicked up to anybody