Philadelphia's Boston Crew

[Stroccos]

I used my contacts to reach out to some people (ie I dm'd John Alite on Facebook) asking about Tanso's status. Worst he can do is not respond. Cheech, if you're still in touch with Gene would you consider asking him?

Again, I have no agenda in this but the truth. I took it at face value that he was a member based on what was said here. But with that interview-
1 They didn't ID him as being made, you'd think they would.
2 If he was made, what's he doing attending an interview with 4 informants? That's just not something a member, even a retired one, would do.

I think Philadelphia deserves a re-evaluation. Much of our beliefs stem from Anastasia and his last two books- Goodfella Tapes and Last Gangster really carried a strong narrative that may not be the entire picture or completely accurate. Stanfa was made out to be an "old-world Don" in contrast with "Young Turk" Merlino and that appears to be an over-dramatization. Just because someone was born in Sicily and speaks broken English doesn't make them old-school and again, Stanfa was in the US for 20-30 years before becoming boss. It's not like he moved from Caccamo to take over.

Merlino with all of his partying and whatnot, appears to have been a traditional boss in regards to organizational protocol, more so than Stanfa. They don't seem to "make anybody and everybody" contrary to popular belief.

apparently we can add one more to the list Tommy Caruso


1. in there own podcast show they said Tanso was a solider
2. if we are to beleive tanso was made , he was only made because he was loyal to luisi lifelong friend of him and his family,

Merlino a boss who follows protocol ? yeah maybe after he got out of prison , but this is the 90s merlino i find it very plasubile he sold those buttons for the money

1 I heard "they" said he was a soldier and apparently I missed that. I'll have to rewatch it. Maybe I missed it and it'll change my perspective.
2 That likely would be why Tanso was made if he was.

*1 There's a hierarchy of sources combined with formal and informal terminology. Remember the Cleveland associate who was the #2 for a made member who identified himself as so&so's 'underboss.' We know that he was speaking informally and that a soldier does have an underboss within the mafia organization and its ranking system. We've had similar non-members refer to themselves as loyal soldiers despite not being made.
*2 That's generally not a reason to make someone although it has happened due to internal politics or the leadership liking someone.

Merlino's 1995-2000 Philly didn't have alot of making ceremonies in Philly at that time, it was between 5-10 new members during that 5 year period. It could have happened but it just seems odd to me that Philly beefed up its membership in Boston (with people they don't know) rather than Phila. itself. I looked at the FBI reports and it listed 3 members in Boston including the captain and that's what caused me to raise the question asking for additional proof of these other so-called members.

Merlino, his personal antics aside, past or present, I really haven't seen anything that shows he violated internal protocol. Perhaps making Natale as a soldier who then promoted himself to boss but for all we know, the Genoveses may have given the ok for that. Apart from the Luccheses, NY seems to recognize and accept Philadelphia which, if Merlino was that much of a rule-breaking disorderly LCN member, seems like they wouldn't.

your right to question it
1. , could be A similiar situation but we have a capo telling another capo that Vetere and Paul Pep are made , so if vetere and pep are made into phili its not to far of strecth that the other guys where to , because what conneciton to Phili did Paul Pep have ? also why wasnt Luisi calling carrozza a solider ? he was labeled a assocaite who could handle the drugs while the made guys werent spouse to touch it , this is the order Borgesi gave luisi

there is another wire tap where previte talks to bobby Luisis about how borgesi said no drugs , but that merlino wanted it to go down, that shows that Phili was setting up some rules for the boston guys

2. Luisi bought there buttons for 10k a month, , didnt Phili sought permission from the genovese family and got turned down , they went ahead and made the guys in boston anyway, its all about the money

yes it is odd , but so is making a guy a capo in a city with estbablished family like boston

[B.]

No clue either way about how many members they made. A lot of things sound strange from the outside, though. If we didn't have evidence of Shawn Vetere visiting Philly and maintaining contact, there'd be a lot of pushback on the board if someone said Vetere was still active. If we didn't have Luisi and Previte, we'd probably be fighting over whether any Boston guys were made at all. It all sounds far-fetched but here we are.

What gets me is when he says the plan was for him to become boss of his own separate Boston family. I notice he likes to call himself a boss and he explains on his show that because he a ran a remote crew far from Philly, it was "like" their own family. Luisi really wants to call himself a boss. I don't see what Philly's incentive would have been to encourage that, having a lucrative crew break off and start an unrecognized family at odds with the Patriarca and NYC families. I don't see where that would be in anyone's interest except Luisi's ego and even then he'd be losing the protection of Philly and expose himself to more trouble.

That said, I'm glad he is doing shows. I like hearing his take and we're better off having it than not, but as always I listen with scrutiny.

[gaspipe]

Luisi seems pretty full of shit.

[JoeCamel]

I don’t think he seems full of shit at all more just slightly out of touch On thinking that he having his own crew that he could pull a joe gallo and have a So to speak commission recognized LCN family everything else seems pretty truthful. A legend in his own mind. Joey probably was like yeah whatever buddy and let him think whatever he wants but also the acceptable minimum for a family is ten members by the rules so I suppose he could have started his own family if Joey recognized him as having his own family

[JoeCamel]

His subjective POV also might have something to do with the way he says things and explains things. He’s kind of unrefined but that’s the way a lot of members have been as LCN went downhill. He doesn’t strike me as a liar at all more just a north shore working class nice guy. I’m basically from the north shore and he’s a pretty
Good example of an archetype of guy from around here. I think hes always probably kind of been similar to how he is now

[gaspipe]

South shore here and I agree. He's like every north end contractor ever.

[JoeCamel]

South shore here and I agree. He's like every north end contractor ever.
[/quote/]

You mean “ Evah “

I yoosta own patland mane ta hatfad Connecticut

[JoeCamel]

Don’t know what the fuck happened there.

[NJShore4Life]

New Gangster Report article by Scott says Philly’s Boston crew is active , Vetere is Capo, and they also kick up a piece to the New England LCN.

[Pogo The Clown]

Maybe they are kicking up to Tony "The Ponytail" Parrillo.


Pogo

[Wiseguy]

Maybe they are kicking up to Tony "The Ponytail" Parrillo.


Pogo

According to the article, they're kicking up to "underboss Matty Guglielmetti." Which, ya know, would make sense since Parillo is only consigliere. Cough.

[scott22]

You guys are real ball busters, I swear. In terms of Philly, I've pretty much broken all the major news the last five years, GA, Dave, Capeci's reporting follows mine not the other way around. On that record by itself (we can sit and debate Det and Chi numbers until the cows come home, but I'm talking Philly), I'm genuine curious to ask the Pogos and the Wiseguys of the world, what exactly makes you so incredibly dismissive of the intel I'm providing?


SMB

[scott22]

Genuinely curious I meant to write.

On another note, you think Guglielmetti is retired? He and GBorgesi weren't cellmates at Fort Dix? The pizza place in Westerly, RI ran by a Philly native, is just a place Anthony Borgesi, "Snitch" Frangipani and others in GBorgesi's orbit happen to drive hours to and from every week is to just hang out for a few cold beers?

[scott22]

Here's the article:

Skinny Joey, Mikey Lance and Baby Dom weren’t the only heavy hitters in the Philadelphia mob to get facetime with New York mafia heavyweight, Patsy Parrello, a powerful Genovese crime family captain who runs the organization’s Bronx faction. It wasn’t a Christmas party invite like the sly Skinny One got, but it was an audience with a genuine New York power player all the same.

There’s been quite a bit of scuttlebutt about the Philly mob hierarchy as of late, and one name has stayed out of the fray: Good ole’ Georgie Boy. Maybe that’s a good thing for him? It means he’s not in handcuffs or a guest of the government.

However, make no mistake, Georgie Boy remains at the front of the line in terms of shot callers in the Bruno-Scarfo crime family and it’s hard to reach that status in the mafia without being able to politic.

Georgie Boy is one of the all-time best. And don’t forget it.

The Philadelphia mob’s reputed acting boss, George (Georgie Boy) Borgesi, met with Patsy Parrello in the spring of 2016 in South Philly about The Safety Group, a risk management and fire prevention-restoration company with offices in Pennsylvania and New York. Gangland News’ Jerry Capeci, the Dean of American crime writing, broke the news of the meeting in a 2017 column. The Safety Group was on the verge of opening its Philadelphia outpost and the company was having some unspecified “problems,” with the city’s Bruno-Scarfo crime family.

Parrello came to Philly with his bodyguard Israel (Buddy) Torres to meet behind closed doors with Borgesi in May 2016, according to Torres caught on an FBI wire discussing the trip. Borgesi was just off parole restrictions after a 13-year federal prison stint he served for racketeering and allowed to roam free – per sources, Borgesi used his time behind bars to network and was leveraging mob contacts he made from around the entire country to further his stature in the Philly mafia.

Borgesi, 56, has been overseeing the Bruno-Scarfo family on a day-to-day basis in Philly on behalf of his boyhood pal, Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino, for the past 18 months, per sources. The cool-as-the-breeze Merlino, 58, resides in Florida these days and doesn’t want to be involved in routine leadership duty. When Skinny Joey took over the Philly mafia by winning a shooting war in the 1990s, Borgesi was his consigliere.

Merlino brought Michael (Mikey Lance) Lancellotti and Domenic (Baby Dom) Grande to a 2014 Christmas party at Parrello’s popular Pasquale’s Rigoletto on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and introduced them as “friends of ours” to members of the Genovese rank-and-file, according to federal court records. Skinny Joey introduced Mikey Lance at the party as “the guy who’s running Philly.”

Sporting a relatively clean criminal record, the quiet and unassuming Lancellotti, 58, is Merlino and Borgesi’s “street boss,” the man responsible for day-to-day affairs on the street, according to sources. The transcript from federal wire intercepts of the 2014 Christmas party in the Bronx hosted by Parrello shows Merlino reassuring Genovese soldiers that Mikey Lance doesn’t mean to offend them by keeping to himself, explaining to them he’s more of a doer type than a talker type.

The 41-year old Baby Dom is reportedly being groomed to one day in the future head the Bruno-Scarfo crime family by Merlino and his longtime, thick-as-thieves inner circle, sources claim. Grande, who exhibits Merlino-esque swagger, is a drug dealer, skyrocketing mob capo and skipper of a crew that took back Atlantic City for the Bruno-Scarfo clan, according to the feds.

Shortly after Parrello traveled to Philly with Buddy Torres to speak with Borgesi in May 2016, the two of them and Skinny Joey Merlino were caught up in the so-called “East Coast LCN” case in August of that year. The indictment nailed more than three dozen wiseguys spanning multiple east coast cities and resulted in convictions across the board. One of Parrello’s men flipped and wired up on Merlino for two years.

Parrello, 76, pleaded guilty in return for a seven-year prison sentence. He’s scheduled for release in 2022. Merlino eventually copped a plea to a minor gambling charge and did a year in the can. The 70-year old Buddy Torres pleaded out too and was just sprung from prison last month. Torres once beat a panhandler outside Parrello’s restaurant with a baseball bat on Parrello’s orders.

Borgesi met with now-deceased Gambino crime family lieutenant Joe Billotti in 2015 in Florida, per sources, as one of his first acts of “networking with New York” when he finally got to the point where he was no longer “on paper”(free of parole supervision). He also alleged to have reopened the New England wing of the Philly mob which he helped create back in the late 1990s, but went away while he was behind bars.

Borgesi’s crew members make frequent trips to a New England crew hangout in Westerly, Rhode Island, per sources. During his prison stay, Borgesi became close friends with rumored New England mob underboss Matthew (Good Looking Matty) Guglielmetti from Rhode Island and Guglielmetti reportedly receives a “piece of the action” in the Philly mafia’s Massachusetts and Rhode Island business.

In 2017 and 2018, when Skinny Joey Merlino was under indictment in the “East Coast LCN,” Borgesi was chauffeuring him to court appearances in New York and attending attorney-strategy meetings with him, according to sources. Merlino is also aligned with New York’s Lucchese family via its New Jersey satellite.

Borgesi took the reins as the Philly mob’s acting boss in August 2019 at the joint 80th birthday and retirement party for Bruno-Scarfo elder statesmen Joseph (Uncle Joe) Ligambi, Borgesi’s real-life uncle on his mother’s side, per several sources. Ligambi was the crime family’s acting boss for most of the last two decades and currently holds a consigliere-type role in the borgata.

Borgesi’s daughter’s wedding later that year was under heavy surveillance by the FBI and revealed a seating chart, per law enforcement sources, that mirrored the Philly mob’s hierarchy, with specific tables for administration, captains, soldiers and associates. Shawn Vetere, busted as part of the original Bruno-Scarfo New England crew in 2000 along with Borgesi and Merlino in a sprawling racketeering case, was allegedly present at the wedding and sitting at the captain’s table.

Baby Dom Grande was at the captain’s table as well. Grande and Borgesi and Merlino’s underboss Steven (Handsome Stevie) Mazzone were indicted in November for racketeering offenses. Both have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

[B.]

Scott -- have you heard anything about the Boston guys maintaining contact with the Philly family while Borgesi was in prison? Or did the connections lie dormant until Borgesi was released?

Many years ago I was looking some of these people up on social media and saw that Borgesi's wife (who he married in prison) was friends with Shawn Vetere. Monacello said Borgesi's wife would leave her car unlocked and Borgesi's crew members would put money in the glove compartment, so she would know most of George's associates.

I thought Monacello said Borgesi had no soldiers in his crew at the time, only proposed members like him and Anthony Borgesi. I wonder if the Boston members were assigned to someone or if they were left adrift for a while. Given how close Monacello was to Borgesi you'd think he would have heard something about Boston.