General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[Tonyd621]

He's looking after sports book, white collar, and internet type rackets.
It says he became acquainted with the Chicago outfit early on when he was pulling off air freight cartage and heists at the airports.

"That 10-year prison term further forged ties between Dellorusso and shot callers in the Chicago Outfit, including future bosses Michael (Fat Mike) Sarno and Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis, who were serving sentences for racketeering sources claim"

I've always liked Scott, but his articles have became so much more interesting after it went to a paywall. Either these stories are old and wanted to wait for a good reason to get this out, like paying for them...or he's working harder.

[PolackTony]

In one of gangster reports most recent article it says Patty Dello Russo (Lucchese UB) is working with the Chicago outfit with "Irish guys and a few italians"

I can’t comment on that. Interesting if true of course. But it wouldn’t be shocking to me. As I reported here recently, a former Lucchese associate with strong Chicago connections told me that there were and continue to be lots of links between all of the NYC Families and Chicago.

IIRC when Dello Russo was pinched for extortion back in ‘93, it was stated that he was involved with a group extorting Union locals in both NYC and Chicago. So there’s clearly some history there.

[Coloboy]

He's looking after sports book, white collar, and internet type rackets.
It says he became acquainted with the Chicago outfit early on when he was pulling off air freight cartage and heists at the airports.

"That 10-year prison term further forged ties between Dellorusso and shot callers in the Chicago Outfit, including future bosses Michael (Fat Mike) Sarno and Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis, who were serving sentences for racketeering sources claim"

I've always liked Scott, but his articles have became so much more interesting after it went to a paywall. Either these stories are old and wanted to wait for a good reason to get this out, like paying for them...or he's working harder.

This type of intel is further re-enforcement for me that Sarno was always operating as a sort of front/screen for DeLaurentis' and maybe even Inendino. That's not to minimize his power or influence, but it just makes more sense that if Cicero took a drivers seat in terms of control over the outfit in the 2000's at some point that the real power was the most senior, older guys in that crew.

[funkster]

He's looking after sports book, white collar, and internet type rackets.
It says he became acquainted with the Chicago outfit early on when he was pulling off air freight cartage and heists at the airports.

"That 10-year prison term further forged ties between Dellorusso and shot callers in the Chicago Outfit, including future bosses Michael (Fat Mike) Sarno and Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis, who were serving sentences for racketeering sources claim"

I've always liked Scott, but his articles have became so much more interesting after it went to a paywall. Either these stories are old and wanted to wait for a good reason to get this out, like paying for them...or he's working harder.

Yeah, i've been getting the alerts on his articles and hes definitely posting more Chicago related stuff which has me about to subscribe. My guess is he's providing more content now that people are paying.

[Tonyd621]

He's looking after sports book, white collar, and internet type rackets.
It says he became acquainted with the Chicago outfit early on when he was pulling off air freight cartage and heists at the airports.

"That 10-year prison term further forged ties between Dellorusso and shot callers in the Chicago Outfit, including future bosses Michael (Fat Mike) Sarno and Salvatore (Solly D) DeLaurentis, who were serving sentences for racketeering sources claim"

I've always liked Scott, but his articles have became so much more interesting after it went to a paywall. Either these stories are old and wanted to wait for a good reason to get this out, like paying for them...or he's working harder.

Yeah, i've been getting the alerts on his articles and hes definitely posting more Chicago related stuff which has me about to subscribe. My guess is he's providing more content now that people are paying.

I went to gangsterbb forum and I am not a member someone posts the full length versions of Scott's articles including this one.

[funkster]

I went ahead subscribed, figure it's only a few bucks a month.

Interesting he also has Dino Marino as bigger player in Cicero these days, that's what Boba's "source" said as well.

[Patrickgold]

Just heard the news Bobby Salerno passed away in Arizona. Another old time made guy gone. He was completely retired and was the last to get out of prison from the Infelice case

Meant to ask you when you first posted: do you have a link to an obit?

I have not seen one yet. I just heard he passed from a friend. I’ll check to see if I can find one.

[Dr031718]

Scott B posted on it. Said the family didn’t put out an obituary

[Patrickgold]

Scott B posted on it. Said the family didn’t put out an obituary

I just saw that. Really does not state anything. In fact no date of death given. Basically just talks about the infelice indictment. No mention that he’s a product of Taylor street or what he was doing when he got out of prison.

[funkster]

Where did you hear that he was trying to make money on the streets after he got out Patrick? Just stuff you heard in passing?

[Coloboy]

Questions for anyone with knowledge about the last year‘s of the northside crew…

Solano died in 92. Is this commonly accepted as the time that whatever was left of the crew was folded under grand Avenue?

Also, I’ve read that Vena at one point might’ve been a northside guy? Anything to back this up? With his background as a C Note, I figured grand Avenue was more likely.

Lastly, what was Joey Andriacchi‘s connection to the northside group? Vena supposedly came up being close to Joey A, but wasn’t Andriacchi always an Elmwood Park guy aligned with Difronzo?

[PolackTony]

Questions for anyone with knowledge about the last year‘s of the northside crew…

Solano died in 92. Is this commonly accepted as the time that whatever was left of the crew was folded under grand Avenue?

Also, I’ve read that Vena at one point might’ve been a northside guy? Anything to back this up? With his background as a C Note, I figured grand Avenue was more likely.

Lastly, what was Joey Andriacchi‘s connection to the northside group? Vena supposedly came up being close to Joey A, but wasn’t Andriacchi always an Elmwood Park guy aligned with Difronzo?

There was a CI who IIRC stated that Matassa was capo of the Northside after Solano’s death, so my guess is that it remained a distinct crew for at least some time after.

I don’t know that it’s known for a fact who Vena reported to when he was an associate in the 80s. He is from the Grand Ave Patch and was a C-Note. It’s been said that he came up under Lombardo (which is fully plausible as the C-Notes saw Joey as their “Godfather”), but after Lombardo got locked up Vena seems to have started running with guys associated with the Northside. Mario Rainone (who is himself from Cicero, not the Northside), Pierre Zonis, Jimmy LaValley. They were doing collections and such and Rainone and Nick Gio, at least, were working for Lenny Patrick, who at that time was an associate of the Northside crew. I don’t know that Vena was actually working for Patrick himself, or if he was just called in to assist on some jobs. LaValley claimed that Vena assisted Rainone in the 1986 murder of Giuseppe Cocozza, which seems to have been related to Zonis and his close ties to a shadowy group of Far Northside business owners from Salerno (Francesco Militello, Vincenzo D’Agostino). I don’t know if these guys were Camorristi, or what their exact relationship was to local LCN, though I suspect that there was some link. They were operating in the same area (Rogers Park) where Patrick was based at that time (on Devon and Bell), so they may have all been working together, but again I don’t really know what the actual connections were there.

Scott I believe has stated before that Andriacchi was affiliated in the past with the Northside crew. I can’t comment on this as I don’t know what his source was and don’t recall ATM if there are other sources for this. Andriacchi is from Grand Ave and is the first cousin of Lombardo’s (recently deceased) wife, Marion Nigro. Andriacchi (his family is from Simbario, Vibo Valentia, the same hometown as the Rotis, Spinas, Bertuccis, Nardis, etc, of Bridgeport). Joey A and Marion grew up in the same building on Ohio St that Lombardo later spent most of his adult life in. This is the same block (Ohio and Leavitt) that is considered the “Motherland” of the C-Notes and thus it can be presumed that Vena and Andriacchi very likely have some ties from the old neighborhood. Now, again, how that translates into formal mafia connections, I’m not sure.

Andriacchi, so far as I know, was always affiliated with Elmwood Park, which is why the Northside thing never made sense to me (though we know that guys can change crew assignments of course over time). Recall that this crew was originally based on Grand Ave (Accardo, Capezio, Cerone) and then later moved its base of operations to Humboldt Park (Chicago and Homan/Pulaski) and thence to Elmwood Park. DiFronzo was also from Grand Ave (where many immigrants from Triggiano, Bari, like DiFronzo, settled); the DiFronzos lived at Erie and Wolcott before later moving to the suburbs. What came to be called the Grand Ave crew was, of course, originally the Battaglia crew, based out of the West burbs (though Battaglia was originally from Taylor St), but shifted its main base of operations to Grand Ave after Lombardo took it over. Prior to that, Grand Ave would’ve been seen as Elmwood Park crew territory (though it’s unclear to me if Johnny DiBiase, the original “Johnny Bananas” and apparently one of the main outfit guys around Grand Ave when Lombardo was coming up, was an EP or Battaglia crew member).

Always helpful to keep in mind that neighborhood networks and crew/mafia structures aren’t always isomorphic. We tend to over emphasize the territorial nature of Chicago. Nick Calabrese made it clear in his testimony that the crew structures are less strictly geographic than I think we tend to assume. The Calabrese bros are a great example themselves. They grew up in Grand Ave (also on Erie, two blocks west of the DiFronzos at Hoyne), moved to Elmwood Park, had some early connection in the North Suburbs, then became formal associates of the Cicero crew and then moved to the Chinatown crew when LaPietra (who had been a soldier in the Buccieri/Torello crew) was appointed capo of that crew. You’d think that they’d be Grand Ave or EP guys (and obviously they had relationships with EP guys), and if we never knew for a fact what crew they belonged to we might be arguing over whether they were with EP or Chinatown.

[NorthBuffalo]

I'm sure a big factor also is some of these guys having relatives in certain crews - I've read on this forum that Vena's father "Blind Louie" was a Grand Avenue guy probably under Alderisio who appears to have been Lombardo's boss as well.

[Snakes]

North Side was a lucrative area in the 60s and early 70s. Lots of guys from different crews had interests there.

[PolackTony]

North Side was a lucrative area in the 60s and early 70s. Lots of guys from different crews had interests there.

Yup. We know that guys like Obie Frabotta, Lenny Gianola, Alderisio, and Marshall Caifano were active on the Northside (which was itself a large densely urban territory with a bunch of distinct neighborhoods and lots of economic activity. Not at all equivalent to a suburban town like Stone Park or something), to the point that some CIs in that period thought that Caifano was a Northside member. Also, as we now know that for at least part of that period, Alderisio and Caifano were direct with Mooney, in theory at least the entirety of Chicagoland would’ve been their “territory” (again, it’s a good deal to be a soldier with the boss). Frattiano also stated that Frabotta had been a soldier direct with Accardo when he met him in the 50s, so that could also be part of the context of his interests up North (Lakeview/Town Hall District).