The Outfit's African-Americans

[Wiseguy]

Upon a little further research, Roe was a mixed breed of half White (Italian) & half black. It was also revealed by his wife after his death, that Roe had been diagnosed with stomach cancer & only had a few months to live. Upon hearing that news, Roe had dismissed his bodyguard team & Giancana's men finally killed him in front of his house right by his car which was parked on the street.

Thanks, i wondered why his bodyguards were missing that faithful day. It seems that Roe died like a true gangster and committed "harakiri"

He definitley lasted longer than most would have in an unwinnable war at the time.

[Villain]

Upon a little further research, Roe was a mixed breed of half White (Italian) & half black. It was also revealed by his wife after his death, that Roe had been diagnosed with stomach cancer & only had a few months to live. Upon hearing that news, Roe had dismissed his bodyguard team & Giancana's men finally killed him in front of his house right by his car which was parked on the street.

Thanks, i wondered why his bodyguards were missing that faithful day. It seems that Roe died like a true gangster and committed "harakiri"

He definitley lasted longer than most would have in an unwinnable war at the time.

I completely agree, and i believe that he thought differently from his former partners, meaning he probably cooperated with the Outfit to an extent but as usual, since his rackets were too lucrative, the Mob wanted it all. I also think that Roe was also betrayed by some of his associates, since shortly after the hit almost all of them immediatelly started working for the Outfit in both the policy racket and the narcotics trade. Guys like Irving, Pullings, Mack, Anderson etc. all started under Roe

[Villain]

Excellent in-depth research and writing... these are the stories and I love to read because they spin off into other directions.

Thanks man.

Speaking about spinning off into another direction....even with the murder of Mack, and also the imprisonment of his brother Ranza followed by the indictments of Jimmy Cordovano and Sam Garafolo, the case still wasnt closed.

As I already explained in the story, the agents observed the late Nolan Mack buying dope from Battiato and from that point on, they connected the dots to Cordovano, but they also connected Macks previous supplier Americo DePietto.

This guy allegedly entered in the dope trade somewhere around the mid 1950’s, or to be exact in 1956, allegedly with the help of one African-American dope peddler known as William Wright, who in turn decided to go to Brooklyn, New York to spread his dope peddling operations in that area. So DePietto allegedly took over his operations in Chicago and became somewhat of an “overseer” of the dope peddling ring in certain territories.

Since the feds already managed to picture the late Nolan Mack with Battiato as his supplier, this was the “key” moment for the beginning of the end of the whole crew. In a matter of one month, the government managed to collect a dozen of witnesses, who in fact most of them were addicts, ready to testify against the crew in return for their freedom.

The first individuals who got arrested were Mack's former African-American associates Opal Cole and LaFauncie Johnson and incidental to their arrest, during search if the apartment, many notebooks were seized with names and phone numbers of many of the suspects. Quickly after that, another African-American crew member Charles Johnson was also arrested and few days later, in a record time, he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison on narcotics charges.

Also, the agents managed to gather evidence which supported the theory that DePietto, DeMaro and Battiato were suppliers of heroin for their distributors such as Cole or Johnson. The government also indicated that some of the suspects such as DePietto were connected to the Italian Mafia which was based in the Chicago area and was known as the Outfit. The government knew that suppliers such as DePietto and DeMaro allocated territories, consigned quantities of the drug, packaged wholesale amounts, collected money from the distributors and shared the proceedings with higher level criminals from the organization in which they belonged to.

In October, 1963, some 50 government agents arrested 19 persons in Chicago on charges for peddling narcotics and 6 more individuals from other cities such as Cleveland and St. Louis. The newspapers called it a massive crackdown on a $30-million Cosa Nostra narcotics operation and DePietto received the title as the "narcotics officer" for the Chicago chapter of the U.S. Mafia and that he allegedly answered only to” Momo Salvatore “Moe” Giancana”.

Now I don’t know if the newspaper men only wanted to bring the attention of their readers by making up stories or maybe they received word from some of the federal agents, since the real connection was established through DePietto’s operations at the North Avenue Steak House, in Melrose Park, where he and one Ernest Infelice were meeting with their main runners, but problem was that the steak house was actually owned by Giancana, which was later burned to the ground...so ill stop here because the rest of the story is quite long and its only about the Italians lol

[Villain]

Heres another interesting example regarding the African-American association with the Outfit...

During the late 1950s, Angelo LaPietra served under the regime of Fiore Buccieri in the Cicero area, but he and his brother Jimmy LaPietra also had long standing connections around the Chinatown area (Jimmy also lived there), and one evidence for that was LaPietra's close association in the dope business with the previously mentioned guys from Carusos crew, such as Cordovano and Garafolo.

Reports say that LaPietra’s main connection in the dope biz at the time, was one member of Gambino crime family known as Frank Pasqua. So besides Cordovano, LaPietra was also connected to a large dope peddling ring which included Joey Pacella, Anthony Annerino and Frank Panatera.

For example, Panatera was LaPietra’s main go-between guy with the Gambinos in New York. Story goes that one day Panatera allegedly has “shortened” LaPietra and the Gambinos on some dope deal, so he was savagely beaten personally by LaPietra himself.

Tony Annerino's job was to give the whole dope to one African-American runner known as Marvin Moses, who in turn worked for one prominent black gangster and long time Outfit associate of the South Side faction, known as Jeremiah Pullings.

Pullings was involved in all kinds of Outfit-related gambling operations and also in the sale of illicit alcohol. In fact, Pullings was the main guy who provided most of the Outfit-owned clubs with cheap booze and that is why he had to pay percentage to Joe Fusco, the Outfits main guy for legal booze in that same area.

According to the feds, Pullings was considered important associate, and because of that, story goes that he demanded huge respect from his African-American cohorts in Chicago’s underworld. Besides Marvin Moses, another one of Pullings’ most prominent runners was Nathaniel Spurlark who lurked mainly around the West Side and Chinatown.

Story goes that Spurlak was connected to dozens of “junk crews” from different cities such as St. Louis, Huston, Los Angeles, Iowa, Indianapolis, and even Cleveland and Detroit. Even though the Detroit Mafia already had its own drug peddling sources, still some crews of the African-American criminal element of that same city received their shipments straight from Chicago or in other words, the Pullings crew.

Some of his most prominent members from the Detroit area were William Rouzer, Gladys Davis, Woodrow Wilson and Elaine Wilson. There was another dope peddling crew, but this time from the St. Louis area, which was also supplied by Pullings or Spurlak, and few of the most prominent members were Earl Williams, Sam Mays, Waddell Buchanan, Willie Foster and Ollie Jackson.

These two so-called “out of town” crews largely contributed to Pullings’ national drug peddling network and with the help of his Outfit connections, the feds also say that Pullings managed to form another connection in the New York area. The so-called new contact was one prominent Genovese member and close associate of the Lucchese crime family from the New York area, known as Harry Tantillo.

In September 1959, word came down that Pulling's was about to be indicted on narcotics charges and so he fled the city but at the beginning of 1960 he was seized in Indianapolis. In 1961, Pullings was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

[B.]

Now you're telling me black men were members of the Oufit?

I kid. This is an interesting topic, especially given the prevalence of black gangs in Chicago. Makes me curious about other US groups and their relationships to black criminals. I know of examples but would be curious how far back those associations go.

[Villain]

Now you're telling me black men were members of the Oufit?

I kid. This is an interesting topic, especially given the prevalence of black gangs in Chicago. Makes me curious about other US groups and their relationships to black criminals. I know of examples but would be curious how far back those associations go.

It started waaay back with the policy racket and the control of the black vote, and later during the 50s and 60s, same as the Italians, many Black gangsters also ended up in Mexico, and so ive seen few reports from those days regarding some new collaborations between the Mexican and African-American criminal elements mainly in the narcotics trade, which in fact was one of those crucial moments for the black gangsters to break off frim the Italians

[Villain]

In addition, during the early 1900s there was allegedly some type of commission of underworld figures in Chicago, and lasted only for few years, but the intetesting thing was that the African-Americans also had a seat.

The main bosses were Mont Tennes and his two brothers who ran the North Side with their headquarters at Center Street and Sheffield Avenue, James O’Leary ruled the Southwest Side around the Union Stockyards, Alderman Johnny Rogers had the West Side with the help of his Italian partner John Gazzola or Gazzolo, followed by Michael "The Pike" Heitler on the Northwest Side.

Now, the Loop district and downtown Chicago was ruled by Michael Kenna and John Coughlin with the help of their vice operators John Condon, Tom McGinnis, Patsy King, Sam Young, Mushmouth Johnson and Big Jim Colosimo. In fact, the African-American reps Young and Johnson controlled the so-called Black Belt.

[Villain]

Now you're telling me black men were members of the Oufit?

I kid.

Next is the Outfits Pleadian race

[PolackTony]

Thanks Villain this is a great thread. The rise of increasingly organized and vertically structured street gangs in the 1960s really took out the Outfit's control over rackets in the black neighborhoods of course. My understanding is that the Blackstone Rangers under Jeff Fort were particularly resentful of Outfit control and ran out black criminals who were working under or kicking up to the mob. The Stones had no qualms either up confronting and running out Italians who attempted to continue doing business in their territories without their authorization. I think it was similar with the Vice Lords on the Westside (the name itself chosen as an indicator that they viewed themselves as the rightful heirs to rackets in their community). Now, there are also accounts from the late 60s that I've heard of the Stones and VLs working with Outfit associated drug suppliers. They were open to continue working with the mob, but seemingly on their own terms as partners, as they were no longer going to tolerate being "run" or extorted like previous generations of black gangsters.

An interesting figure from this era was Mickey Cogwell, the chief of the Cobra Stones (aka King Cobras, originally the Egyptian Cobras in the 1950s). He had the reputation of being a very savvy and sophisticated gang leader and was claimed to have had close ties to the Outfit. The Chicago police department apparently had intelligence linking Cogwell to Caesar DiVarco and Joe Arnold. This would make sense as the King Cobras faction of Cogwell's organization had a large operation in the Cabrini Green pj's on the Near Northside. Cogwell was knocked down in 77 duento tensions with the leadership of the Black P Stones who feared and resented him as a threat to their dominance of the Main 21, a bird of directors of allied organizations under the Stones that predated the formation of the People Nation alliance in the late 70s. After Cogwell was taken out his organization renamed themselves the Mickey Cobras.

[Lupara]

I feel like African-American has a racist undertone. They are human beings thus no need to specify them by a particular heritage.

That said, great thread as always my man.

[Frank]

I feel like African-American has a racist undertone. They are human beings thus no need to specify them by a particular heritage.

That said, great thread as always my man.

How else could he make his point. You have to be kidding

[Pete]

I feel like African-American has a racist undertone. They are human beings thus no need to specify them by a particular heritage.

That said, great thread as always my man.

Wait hold on now African American is racist? I hope this is a joke and if it is I’ll be quiet lol if not then this is gonna be a long thread

[Pogo The Clown]

Guys Lupara was being tongue in cheek in light of recent events.


Pogo

[Lupara]

Sorry for the confusion guys, just breaking some balls as I probably do too often.

Carry on. [emoji3]

[Villain]

Sorry for the confusion guys, just breaking some balls as I probably do too often.

Carry on. [emoji3]

I swear I just saw this... respect my man