The Mystery of Chicago's "Zips": Potential links to Italian OC?

[cavita]

A major piece of the puzzle here I think is this mysterious "Operation Colossus" from 1988. If the CPD busted 21 guys, it would be very useful to actually identify who they were, where the Italian nationals involved were from, and what local Outfit guys they were working with. I'm wondering if it would make sense to try to put in a FOIA request with the CPD to see if some info could be released on this?

The attached is from a March 26, 1987 file I have on Rockford's underboss Frank Buscemi regarding the family's narcotics trafficking. I especially find interesting the "spin-off attempt to another Chicago Sicilian group."

[PolackTony]

A major piece of the puzzle here I think is this mysterious "Operation Colossus" from 1988. If the CPD busted 21 guys, it would be very useful to actually identify who they were, where the Italian nationals involved were from, and what local Outfit guys they were working with. I'm wondering if it would make sense to try to put in a FOIA request with the CPD to see if some info could be released on this?

The attached is from a March 26, 1987 file I have on Rockford's underboss Frank Buscemi regarding the family's narcotics trafficking. I especially find interesting the "spin-off attempt to another Chicago Sicilian group."

Oh wow. Something was definitely happening, and we're only now beginning to get the faintest glimpse of an outline of it. Interesting to note also the wording: "another Chicago Sicilian group". Not to make too much out of it, but it does indicate that at the time the Feds considered the Rockford Sicilians to also be under Chicago.

To me this goes to further suggest that there were (at least) two seemingly distinct groups of Sicilians operating in the region, around Rockford and then in and around Chicago. Of course, this brings up more questions than it answers!

[PolackTony]

Another thing to think through: during the same period that Chicago brought back the "old way" of inducting guys, they seem to have been working with a number of mafiosi that were brought over from Sicily. While purely speculative at the moment, I hadn't thought of it before and this brings up an entirely new dimension to this apparent shift in practice.

[PolackTony]

What I've been told is that Infelise had relatives in Italy working with Rappa who came over and were living in Chicago. Not sure if that was just the connection with the last names, but I think a lot of these drug murders in the 1980s were directly tied to immigrant italian/sicilian orgs. Frank Infelise's wife wrote a book about all of this that was a load of bullshit.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html

Thanks for this, I think there was quite a bit of this going on under the radar, as these weren't guys who were known as Outfit guys. Aldo Fratto was born on Sorbo San Basile, Catanzaro, right next to the comune of Taverna, where the parents of Lou Fratto were from. This again leads me to strongly suspect that there were still links between some Outfit guys and theor families back on Italy. Tullio Infelise was also from Sorbo San Basile. Rocky Infelise was Calabrese as well, but his parents were from Piane Crati in Cosenza, so not sure if he had any family link to this Infelise.

[PolackTony]

Between Rocky Infelise, DePietto, and Frank Rappa, Rappa is the only Sicilian. I still need to confirm Rappa's date of death. There was a Frank Rappa who died in Henderson, NV in 2007. Obit had him as a retired restaurateur. This guy was born 1932 in Borgetto, Palermo, married a Margaret Calato in Chicago in 1951, and then naturalized in Chicago in 1955. There were also a number of other Rappas in Chicago from Borgetto. So even if it's not the same guy I might suspect that the Rappa of interest was also from Borgetto.

In a 1984 NY Times article after the Pizza Connection bust, a Francesco Rappa was listed as one of the fugitives.

[SolarSolano]

Polack do you know where Francesco Infelise is from? Individuals in this article below from my view show more of the 'zip' faction in Chicago on the periphery as I believe they do work closely with the Outfit. Also any idea where the Salamone brothers are from? I believe they are both from Italy.

Oct. 24, 2000: 3 unsolved slayings link police, mob crews
David Jackson, Tribune Staff Writer
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
On a September day in 1997, a top assistant handed Chicago's police chief an inch-thick dossier of internal reports.

In the file's blunt law enforcement prose, then-Supt. Matt Rodriguez encountered a world of low-level corruption, organized crime and premeditated slaughter.

Some of the reports concerned his close friend Frank Milito, a politically connected North Side businessman who had operated gas stations and ran a Wells Street restaurant.

Rodriguez already knew that Milito had come under Cook County police scrutiny for the 1987 slaying of Amoco executive Charles Merriam, a high-profile case that made headlines for days and remains unsolved.

The chief had never questioned Milito's proclamations of innocence and had taken his buddy's word that Merriam was an unpopular corporate autocrat who stirred up many enemies.

But as he studied the papers on his desk that September day, Rodriguez learned that the Merriam killing was only one piece of a more troubling pattern. Milito and two associates had been investigated by several law enforcement agencies after two other unsolved 1980s killings.

Investigators encountered similar witnesses, suspects and gas stations in each of the three cases. They scrutinized Milito, his brother-in-law and their friend Pierre Zonis, a gas station owner who developed close personal and business relations with the family after he emigrated from Iran in 1968.

The details about Zonis had a particular significance for Rodriguez. Zonis was a Chicago cop.

Sworn into the department in October 1994, the 42-year-old recruit was given star No. 18487 and sent to patrol the North Side in the Town Hall District on the midnight shift, often alone in a squad car.

In the police narrative before him, Rodriguez could glimpse a constellation of gas stations where bookmaking, loan-sharking and business scams allegedly took place. There, crime syndicate enforcers and beat cops shared Styrofoam cups of coffee and envelopes of cash. Investigators turned to the stations for clues about the killings of Merriam and two mechanics who died in borrowed cars with bullets through their heads.

The vast majority of Chicago officers perform their duty with unnoticed valor. But Zonis is one of at least a dozen Chicago officers who have come under FBI or internal police scrutiny because of suspected crime syndicate ties since 1985, a Tribune examination of law enforcement records shows. His law enforcement career exposes disturbing flaws in Chicago police procedures for vetting recruits and investigating officers suspected of wrongdoing.

Detectives have not determined what, if any, role Zonis played in the slayings, but he figured in the backdrop of each case and was questioned by four law enforcement agencies at least six times.

At the garage he runs on his days off, the stocky patrolman rested a hand on a squadron of one-quart oil containers and cursed his accusers. "I was framed," Zonis said.

He claims some police and prosecutors engaged in a "sick and disgraceful" campaign to link him to felonies he didn't commit. "The only crime committed here is to my reputation," he said.

Almost since the day Zonis became a police officer, the department has been trying unsuccessfully to fire him for not disclosing he had been questioned by homicide investigators, as well as not revealing a 1985 gambling arrest that was later expunged.

Zonis was suspended for 23 months for not disclosing his gambling arrest, but the department's termination charges unraveled amid a series of bureaucratic missteps. As the city awaits a ruling from the Illinois Appellate Court, Zonis works at the police "call back" unit, handling requests for non-emergency service.

Testifying on his behalf as character witnesses at his police board hearing were a retired captain, a retired lieutenant, four sergeants and a patrolman.

Mechanic on a roll

His friends on the force call him "Z."

He calls himself "the most scrutinized copper in the world."

Pierre Zonis wouldn't discuss his boyhood in Tehran.

"It is so far back," Zonis said. "It's like everything else--what difference does it make?"

A B-minus student at the now-defunct Central YMCA High School, the teenager had a knack for fixing cars and landed a job as a mechanic at a garage on Irving Park Road and Broadway. Milito's brother-in-law Vincenzo D'Agostino and his brother bought that station in 1971 and hired Zonis.

Ten years later, Zonis used a bank loan to buy a Northwest Side Shell station. Soon after that, he bought a second station, at 6601 N. Sheridan Rd., from the D'Agostinos. He paid $60,000 for the business and inventory and got a U.S. Small Business Administration loan to complete the sale.

As his fortunes grew, Zonis married a Venezuelan-born Chicago schoolteacher and had three sons. But his avid gambling brought him into the courts and under FBI scrutiny.

In 1981, Zonis received a casino-sponsored junket to Resorts International in Atlantic City. There, he opened a $25,000 line of credit, then lost the entire amount in two days at the dice tables, federal court records show.

When the casino tried to collect Zonis' losses from his Chicago bank, the bank refused to honor the IOUs because it concluded that Zonis' casino signatures did not match the signatures Zonis had filed with the bank.

The casino sued, alleging Zonis "fraudulently induced" the casino to issue his markers, but the case was dismissed because the Atlantic City gambling contract could not be enforced under Illinois laws at the time.

A year later, in 1985, police obtained a warrant to search Zonis' gas station and arrested him for misdemeanor gambling after finding sports wagers in the desk in his office, police records show.

The charge was dismissed and expunged later that year. The case was handled by Robert Cooley, a corrupt former cop who became a court-fixing attorney and then a federal informant against the mob.

Zonis vehemently denies being a bookie or a bagman and describes himself as a hardworking father and exemplary police officer.

In statements to the FBI, mob figures and gamblers painted a different portrait.

`A decent guy'

During the 1980s, Zonis befriended Mario Rainone, a brutal crime syndicate debt collector who cooperated intermittently with the FBI before pleading guilty to extortion in 1992.

The two men grew close enough that Rainone became the godfather of Zonis' youngest son in a church ceremony. Rainone on two occasions lent Zonis more than $10,000 of the mob's money at a steep 3 percent per week interest, records and interviews show.

In interviews, Zonis gave conflicting statements about whether he recalled the loans. He said he did not remember how he and Rainone became friends.

"You see somebody three, four times a week, you think they're a nice guy," he said. "At that time, he was a decent guy."

A former crime-syndicate house burglar, Rainone by 1986 had learned to use beatings and mayhem to gain control of small businesses. He threatened to cut off the head of a restaurant owner in one extortion effort, federal court records show, and he said he would "blow away" the children of a pizza shop owner who owed $300,000.

From federal prison in Atlanta, Rainone refused to comment for this report. In an FBI statement, Rainone said Zonis was running a bookmaking operation. As an FBI agent watched in 1989, Rainone dug beneath a doghouse in the back yard of his suburban home and produced a handwritten list of the "customers" from whom he collected "juice" and "street tax."

Zonis owed $14,000, the paper said.

Zonis' gas station was used as a betting place or a drop-off for cash traded between mob associates, Rainone and other mob associates told federal investigators. In one instance, another mob crew member dropped off payments at Zonis' station and Rainone said he trusted Zonis to hold the envelope. Zonis denies that this happened.

As Zonis' relationship with Rainone continued, so too did his entanglement with homicide investigations.

The first victim was a mechanic for Zonis who had a gambling problem and carried on an ill-advised romance.

Members Only

Richie Campbell's body surfaced at 6:45 a.m. on a Sunday in March 1982, when an elderly man noticed blood dripping into a foot-wide puddle beneath a pickup truck in a Des Plaines parking lot.

Inside slumped a slender, blue-eyed Tennesseean in a Members Only jacket, size 8 cowboy boots and a tan mechanic's shirt with his name scrolled across the patch.

Detectives surmised that Campbell's killer had sat beside him in the pickup. The truck doors were unlocked and the ignition was on. The car went dead sometime in the night.

Police had no lack of potential suspects. They twice had been called to Campbell's Bensenville house to restore order after he and his brother argued over dilapidated pickup trucks--one police report said the brothers exchanged gunfire--but no arrests were made.

Campbell, 33, was married but dating the 23-year-old daughter of his former boss, Vincenzo D'Agostino, one of Zonis' American mentors and the brother-in-law of Milito.

The daughter worked at the bank where her uncle Frank Milito held his business accounts, and she lived in one of her father's Marine Drive condos. Her father didn't approve of the romance with the married mechanic, police reports indicate.

About four months before Campbell was killed, he got a call at home, his wife, Joyce, told police.

Joyce said she listened in on another extension as the daughter told Campbell that her father was aware of their relationship and was going to kill him or have him killed.

Campbell was fired by D'Agostino a few months before he was slain. He then went to work for Zonis as a mechanic.

About 10:30 on the night Campbell was killed, Zonis was at the station with Campbell and his brother Jerry Campbell. Zonis closed up and drove out, Jerry Campbell later told police. Jerry left right after him, leaving Richie there alone.

Richie Campbell was found in the pickup 8 hours later.

Vincenzo D'Agostino refused to talk to the police. He also did not respond to the Tribune's requests for comment.

Zonis said he has never failed to answer police questions about the homicide, which remains unsolved. "How am I a suspect?" he asked. "Somebody's imagination, that's what."

A gambler's demise

One of the most crucial mob insiders to help the FBI, James LaValley, also describes Zonis as a gambler and an associate of the North Side street crew.

A $700-a-week juice loan collector, LaValley was a fierce street fighter and high-rolling bettor with limpid eyes and silver hair. He turned to organized crime after he gambled away his River Grove electric company.

LaValley's "cooperation can only be described as extraordinary," Assistant U.S. Atty. Chris Gair wrote in a 1993 court filing. "Federal law enforcement agents have never determined that any assertion by him was untruthful."

LaValley, who entered the federal witness protection program, could not be reached through an attorney, a family member or federal authorities.

Once, when Zonis refused to pay off a juice loan, LaValley went into Zonis' gas station office and closed the door so Zonis could not get out, LaValley told authorities.

LaValley said he did not have to use force, as Zonis promised to make weekly payments.

Today, Zonis says he didn't know the man. "Whatever LaValley said is a lie," Zonis said.

In November 1990, LaValley told FBI agents about a four-year-old hit.

LaValley didn't know the victim's name. He described the 1980s killing of a man at a North Sheridan Road gas station--"possibly" on Albion Avenue, where Zonis' garage still sits today.

Homicide detectives presumed LaValley was speaking of the second of the three killings, the slaying of Zonis' friend Giuseppe Cocozza.

Framed family portrait

The compulsive gambler's body was discovered just after midnight in March 1986 in Evanston, 2 miles north of Zonis' station. A police officer peered through the windshield of an illegally parked Dodge Dart and noticed an overweight bald man sprawled across the front seat.

In a suitcase on the seat behind Cocozza's bullet-riddled body were a few shirts, a framed family portrait and two vials of prescription pills.

Cocozza was trying to leave town with $180 and an Italian passport. Eighty of those dollars were borrowed from his friend Zonis, according to a statement Zonis gave police. As with Campbell, Zonis was one of the last people to see Cocozza alive, investigators noted in their reports.

LaValley said Rainone told him he did the hit because the victim owed him money.

Rainone allegedly told LaValley he had been assisted by Albert Louis Vena, a mob associate who had been acquitted of two murders but served prison terms for burglary and the attempted killing of a Chicago police officer. Vena did not respond to interview requests from the Tribune.

Rainone also told LaValley that Vena drove the car and backed him up during the shooting, according to LaValley's 1990 statement to the FBI.

LaValley's FBI statement was not provided to Evanston detectives investigating the Cocozza slaying until about four years later. The report was passed along by Chicago Intelligence Division detectives examining the three unsolved killings, records and interviews show.

FBI spokesman Ross Rice said the information was not provided more quickly because it required verification. Rice said there were added concerns pertaining to the status of LaValley's court cases.

Fourteen years after his death, homicide reports exude the sweaty desperation of Giuseppe Cocozza's final days.

He had wives in New Jersey and New York and owed money to a girlfriend he took to the Maywood Park racetrack. He grew up in the Salerno province of Italy, near D'Agostino and Milito, and his boyhood friends helped him navigate Chicago. Cocozza ran D'Agostino's Irving and Broadway gas station and lived alone in a two-bedroom condominium D'Agostino owned and let him use rent-free as part of his salary.

Two weeks before he was killed, Cocozza was fired by D'Agostino after D'Agostino expressed suspicion that Cocozza stole a box of spark plugs. Cocozza took a job fixing cars at the station of D'Agostino's brother, Marco D'Agostino.

His gambling debts had driven him to Rainone, who drove into Cocozza's station on Saturdays to pump $20 worth of gas into his white Cadillac Seville then take another $20 cash from Cocozza, station workers told detectives investigating the homicide.

Rainone wasn't the only potential suspect. Cocozza was being pursued by another mob crew from whom he'd taken a juice loan, police records show. Before he was killed, he showed Zonis a business card with the pager number of this collector, a man named Ray, Zonis told police.

Evanston police found the card with Ray's pager number tucked in Cocozza's bloody clothing, and called it.

Chicago patrolman Renato DiSilvestro answered.

`You gotta be soft'

A round-faced immigrant with a pencil mustache, DiSilvestro had been a police officer since 1968. His personnel jacket showed 11 misconduct complaints in the two years since February 1984, three of them sustained.

In one, DiSilvestro was suspended for 30 days for giving false testimony in an insurance case when he sold a sports car then reported it stolen. The Cook County states attorney declined to prosecute, a police memo said.

In addition to his police duties, DiSilvestro held an interest in a travel agency, two hot dog stands and a jewelry store, police, court and law enforcement records show. He and mob enforcer Rainone shared a 1980s investment in the former London Fog nightclub on West Grand Avenue, Rainone told the FBI.

In a recent telephone interview, DiSilvestro staved off questions about the Cocozza slaying and his present activities.

"You asking me to talk about a murder? You gotta be soft, pal," he said. "I haven't got no comments to make to you."

"I'm from the old school," he added. "I'm not a rat."

About 3 p.m. on the afternoon Cocozza was killed, Evanston police records show, DiSilvestro and a man named Francesco Infelise gained entry to Cocozza's apartment through a janitor. DiSilvestro introduced himself as Cocozza's cousin and said he was concerned for Cocozza's well-being.

Under police questioning, DiSilvestro gave shifting accounts of his relationship with Cocozza. But he explained some of the daily exchanges that bound corrupt beat cops to gas station operators. DiSilvestro used to work the traffic detail on the outer drive, and when cars broke down, he and other cops steered city tow trucks to Cocozza's gas station.

"Cocozza in turn would give a kickback to the police," DiSilvestro told Evanston police.

DiSilvestro's sidekick Infelise in 1992 would be charged in federal court with helping to run a heroin and cocaine ring between Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Infelise fled from federal authorities during that case and is a fugitive.

Chicago police charged DiSilvestro with misconduct for failing to report to his superiors that he was being investigated by Evanston police.

In its important outlines, the Internal Affairs Division case against DiSilvestro mirrored the one swirling about Zonis today.

Both officers were charged with not reporting that they had been contacted by Evanston police investigating the Cocozza homicide. Each officer responded that he had no duty to report the contact because he was not read his rights. Each objected to delays in the internal probes--DiSilvestro's took 750 days; Zonis' dragged on five years.

The internal affairs investigation concluded that DiSilvestro brought discredit on the Chicago Police Department, and he was suspended for less than a month but allowed to stay on the force.

Fifteen months later, in April 1989, he was arrested with an automatic weapon at a "floating" crap game in an industrial building in unincorporated Leyden Township. DiSilvestro was described by then-States Atty. Cecil Partee as the floating casino's ringleader, press accounts show, and Partee said DiSilvestro and four co-defendants had "known ties to organized crime."

For reasons that are not clear from court records, the charges against DiSilvestro were dismissed and expunged.

DiSilvestro retired from the police force in 1993 and moved to Las Vegas, where he receives a $27,000-a-year pension from the city. He said in the interview that he is still under FBI scrutiny. "They want me so bad they could taste me," he said.

Asked why he joined the Chicago Police Department, DiSilvestro said he wanted to fight crime. Then he acknowledged a second motive: Despite the inconsequential pay they earned in 1968, he said, officers wore nice clothes and had "nice homes and everything else."

"I'm not gonna spell out nothing, but everybody knows how it works," he added with a chuckle.

"You know that everybody is on the take," he said. "Everybody who's been in Chicago for years knows how Chicago operates. It's always been like that and it ain't gonna change."

DiSilvestro said Chicago's crime syndicate would always work to influence the city's police commanders. "They'll never stop. You understand that, don't you? It will never stop. What draws them together? The green stuff."

DiSilvestro said he knew Zonis, but he would not discuss their relationship.

Zonis said he had no idea who DiSilvestro was.

Honorable mentions

At the end of his police application, Zonis was asked if he had anything to add.

"I will make a great police officer," he said.

In some ways, he did. Zonis' police work won three honorable mentions and a complimentary letter.

But while Zonis excelled at his new job, the department bungled its screening procedures and then its handling of allegations against him.

On his police application, Zonis said he had never been sued. In fact, three unsatisfied customers won court judgments against Zonis and his station; the city Department of Consumer Services fined him for deceptive practices and an improper repair; and Resorts International sued in federal court to recover its $25,000 gambling debt.

While Zonis was preparing to join the force, he fell under surveillance by the police Intelligence Division during a gambling investigation and was spotted with an organized crime figure, police records show.

Those surveillance reports were brought to the Internal Affairs Division's attention after Zonis joined the department as a probationary officer. But internal affairs concluded that Zonis had been seen doing nothing illegal while he was under surveillance. Because he had not been a member of the department, police officials concluded that he had not violated department Rule 47, which prohibits associating with criminals.

A year later, police internal affairs investigators laid their trap for Zonis. They asked Evanston detectives to question him about the Cocozza homicide, to see if he would report the interview to his superiors, as required by police rules.

An Evanston detective questioned Zonis about the Cocozza killing. But the detective's report did not state that Zonis had been read his rights or informed he was a suspect. Zonis did not report the interview.

In September 1995, the Internal Affairs Division closed its case against Zonis, saying the department could not fault him for failing to report the Evanston police interview.

Two years later, Zonis was listed as an organized crime associate in a publication by the Chicago Crime Commission, a longstanding crime watchdog group.

Put under a sudden spotlight, the department changed course and reopened the internal affairs case against him.

In a January 1998 interview with internal affairs officers, Zonis said any questions about his expunged gambling arrest were a violation of his civil rights.

He denied knowing Rainone's loans came from the crime syndicate. Asked if he paid "juice" loans, Zonis said he didn't know what the word meant.

In the hundreds of pages of internal police reports and court records that would be filed as Zonis' disciplinary case wound its way to the Appellate Court, some of the most disturbing pages involve the Merriam homicide case.

A few hours before the 1987 slaying, a call was placed to Merriam's unlisted home phone from a pay phone inside Zonis' station. Zonis told Cook County sheriff's investigators he had no idea who used the phone and didn't know anything about the killing.

When investigators asked him to take a polygraph test, he got an attorney who said Zonis would have no further contact with the investigators.

Former sheriff's investigator William Behrens told the Police Board he had served Zonis with a subpoena demanding the names of his gas station employees and advised Zonis of his Miranda rights.

But a review of the Merriam homicide file showed no subpoena and no report saying Zonis was read his Miranda rights.

That was one of several missteps that undermined the case, which ended with a suspension instead of dismissal.

From his garage on a recent morning, Zonis joked about the department's case.

"I'm supposed to be a mob hit man because a pay phone in my gas station was used?"

Zonis said he would not take the polygraph test because his attorney told him the results were not admissible in court.

Besides, he said, police might tamper with the results to convict him of a crime he didn't commit.

Officer Zonis said of the police: "They can manipulate the test."

Closing the file

When Supt. Matt Rodriguez closed the internal police file on that September day in 1997, his immediate concern was Zonis.

Rodriguez says today that he had not heard the officer's name until then. He recalls thinking that Zonis had an unusual first name, and he remembers slipping Zonis' picture out of the internal police file so that he could study it.

But a police internal affairs probe wouldn't begin for another month, until after the Crime Commission listed Zonis as a mob associate.

In the meantime, Rodriguez vacationed in New York with Milito. On the streets of Manhattan, the two men of humble backgrounds shared a moment apart from the pressures of their jobs. They took in a street festival, dinner and a Broadway play.

Rodriguez says he did not mention the unsettling police reports he had seen. Nor did he utter the names of Richie Campbell, Giuseppe Cocozza or Charles Merriam.

[Patrickgold]

Check out this article from the 80s about a fugitive zip in Chicago in the 80s

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html

[PolackTony]

Check out this article from the 80s about a fugitive zip in Chicago in the 80s

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html

Thanks for this buddy. I had forgotten about the very interesting case of Esposito. While LE didn't appear to have any evidence that he was connected to the Outfit at the time of his arrest, absence of evidence is of course not evidence of absence, so I think this is a possible (high suspicion) case. At the very least, its hard to imagine that this guy was lamming it in Chicago (first working out on Mannheim and then opening a fancy restaurant in River North) in the 80s without at least their nod. The question of course is how he wound up in Chicago in the first place. Without making too much out of it, I think that it is worth noting that there have, of course, been Outfit members with family from Acerra.

We already have accumulating evidence pointing to links between the Outfit and the Sicilian mafia and SAC, with some suggestions of potential links to the 'Ndrangheta as well. With this, we have the possibility of connections to the modern Camorra as well.

[PolackTony]

Polack do you know where Francesco Infelise is from? Individuals in this article below from my view show more of the 'zip' faction in Chicago on the periphery as I believe they do work closely with the Outfit. Also any idea where the Salamone brothers are from? I believe they are both from Italy.

Thanks for this brother. I haven't revisited the Millito/Zonis stuff in a while, I'm going to spend some time going through it again.

Francesco "Ciccio" Infelise was the older brother (b. 1952) brother of Tullio Infelise (b. 1956), so again from San Sorbo Basile, Catanzaro. Their parents were Paride Infelise and Pierina Fratto.

Here's a pic of "Cicciuzzu" Infelise:

Ciccio Infelise.PNG

And one of Tullio and Ciccio together:

Tullio and Ciccio Infelise.PNG

[Patrickgold]

Check out this article from the 80s about a fugitive zip in Chicago in the 80s

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html

Thanks for this buddy. I had forgotten about the very interesting case of Esposito. While LE didn't appear to have any evidence that he was connected to the Outfit at the time of his arrest, absence of evidence is of course not evidence of absence, so I think this is a possible (high suspicion) case. At the very least, its hard to imagine that this guy was lamming it in Chicago (first working out on Mannheim and then opening a fancy restaurant in River North) in the 80s without at least their nod. The question of course is how he wound up in Chicago in the first place. Without making too much out of it, I think that it is worth noting that there have, of course, been Outfit members with family from Acerra.

We already have accumulating evidence pointing to links between the Outfit and the Sicilian mafia and SAC, with some suggestions of potential links to the 'Ndrangheta as well. With this, we have the possibility of connections to the modern Camorra as well.

Don’t forget the house in River Forest where Accardo was living lol. I think it’s a no brained that the Outfit set him up. No way he could have survived on his own and bee that successful without them helping him.

[SolarSolano]

Polack do you know where Francesco Infelise is from? Individuals in this article below from my view show more of the 'zip' faction in Chicago on the periphery as I believe they do work closely with the Outfit. Also any idea where the Salamone brothers are from? I believe they are both from Italy.

Thanks for this brother. I haven't revisited the Millito/Zonis stuff in a while, I'm going to spend some time going through it again.

Francesco "Ciccio" Infelise was the older brother (b. 1952) brother of Tullio Infelise (b. 1956), so again from San Sorbo Basile, Catanzaro. Their parents were Paride Infelise and Pierina Fratto.

Here's a pic of "Cicciuzzu" Infelise:
Ciccio Infelise.PNG


And one of Tullio and Ciccio together:

Tullio and Ciccio Infelise.PNG

I'm going to PM you -

[PolackTony]

Polack do you know where Francesco Infelise is from? Individuals in this article below from my view show more of the 'zip' faction in Chicago on the periphery as I believe they do work closely with the Outfit. Also any idea where the Salamone brothers are from? I believe they are both from Italy.

Now, when it comes to the Salamones, I think things get very interesting. I'm reasonably sure (always welcome corrections of course) that they are from Cinisi. So now, with the Badalamenti/Alfano Pizza Connection also looming in the near background, we see the potential cross-pollination with B.'s excellent recent thread on the 1970s-era Sicilian Outfit informant (who maybe coulda been Needles Gianola). It becomes very possible that the ongoing presence of an identifiable Cinisi/Terrasini network in Chicago and the surrounding region still informed the later apparent operation of figures from that area of Palermo in Chicago and Rockford. A very interesting set of possibilities to consider at least. If it were the case, as I suspect, that Frank Rappa was from Borgetto/Partinico, then that is another potential layer, of course.

So far as I can tell, Filippo (Phillip), Giuseppe (Joseph), and Vito Salamone were/are the sons of Giuseppe Salamone and Fara Randazzo of Cinisi (her family also seems to have links to the Giannolas in Cinisi). The kids were born in the 40s and 50s, and entered the US via NYC from 1956 to 1958. They were naturalized in the 60s in Chicago and the family resided in the Galewood area near Wabansia and Cicero at the time (I note also that in the 60s the Francesco Rappa that I identified earlier, from Borgetto, lived near North Ave and Kostner).

[PolackTony]

Check out this article from the 80s about a fugitive zip in Chicago in the 80s

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html

Thanks for this buddy. I had forgotten about the very interesting case of Esposito. While LE didn't appear to have any evidence that he was connected to the Outfit at the time of his arrest, absence of evidence is of course not evidence of absence, so I think this is a possible (high suspicion) case. At the very least, its hard to imagine that this guy was lamming it in Chicago (first working out on Mannheim and then opening a fancy restaurant in River North) in the 80s without at least their nod. The question of course is how he wound up in Chicago in the first place. Without making too much out of it, I think that it is worth noting that there have, of course, been Outfit members with family from Acerra.

We already have accumulating evidence pointing to links between the Outfit and the Sicilian mafia and SAC, with some suggestions of potential links to the 'Ndrangheta as well. With this, we have the possibility of connections to the modern Camorra as well.

Don’t forget the house in River Forest where Accardo was living lol. I think it’s a no brained that the Outfit set him up. No way he could have survived on his own and bee that successful without them helping him.

Yes, good catch, and thank you again.

[PolackTony]

Also for the above post on the Infelise Bros -- the name of the comune is Sorbo San Basile, of course (typo in post).

[PolackTony]

Just to confirm the article that Solar posted about the hit on Giuseppe Cocozza -- Cocozza and the D'Agostinos were from Auletta, Salerno, while Frank (Francesco Rocco) Milito was from Teggiano, Salerno and was married to a D'Agostino woman.