"Zips" doing hits for the mob? 70s 80s

[Adam]

Pistone mentions this and it seems to have found its way into mob lore, whether true or not, that in addition to bringing in Italians to distribute heroin, the mob bosses were also using them for hits. But do we actually have any evidence of this? I mean Luigi Ronsisvalle does some. And maybe Bonventre or Catalano may have done the Pietro Licata hit, but I'm having trouble thinking of others. At least to the level of leading to this belief that they were regularly used for US mob murders. Curious what others think.

[furiofromnaples]

I think that Galante was the only that used zips because dorant trust american mobsters. Another example was Stanfa that used zips because haven't enough men in Philly.

[Coloboy]

Tony shipped them in to hit Phil Leotardo, but they fucked it up! So there's one example.

Just going for a chuckle there. My knowledge mostly lies with Chicago, and as time goes on, most serious outfit researchers will tell you that the connection to native italians is/was stronger than many have thought. Specifically the Elmwood Park crew seems to have a long history with italian groups that continues to this day, and was often connected to the drug trade in some way. Whether or not they used them for hits is almost impossible to tell.

[PolackTony]

Tony shipped them in to hit Phil Leotardo, but they fucked it up! So there's one example.

Just going for a chuckle there. My knowledge mostly lies with Chicago, and as time goes on, most serious outfit researchers will tell you that the connection to native italians is/was stronger than many have thought. Specifically the Elmwood Park crew seems to have a long history with italian groups that continues to this day, and was often connected to the drug trade in some way. Whether or not they used them for hits is almost impossible to tell.

Yeah, there were a bunch of guys from Italy running around Chicago in the 80s and a number of murders connected to them. It’s clear that many of these guys had ties to the outfit but not at all clear if any of these murders were sanctioned/ordered by the outfit or if they were just internal things among the guys from Italy, or related to narcotics trafficking beefs or robberies, or what.

[Browniety86]

Tony shipped them in to hit Phil Leotardo, but they fucked it up! So there's one example.

Just going for a chuckle there. My knowledge mostly lies with Chicago, and as time goes on, most serious outfit researchers will tell you that the connection to native italians is/was stronger than many have thought. Specifically the Elmwood Park crew seems to have a long history with italian groups that continues to this day, and was often connected to the drug trade in some way. Whether or not they used them for hits is almost impossible to tell.

But they got the job done on the Mayor of Munchkinland (Rusty Milio)