Gangland:7/21/16

[Dellacroce]

July 21, 2016 This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Feds Had Three Secret Snitches On Tap If The Mob Drug Kingpin From Brooklyn Went To Trial

Franco Lupoi put up a good front for more than a year. But the feds acquired so much evidence against the international drug kingpin during their two-year, two-country sting, there was no way that the mob-connected Brooklyn gangster was going to take his chances at trial last year. If he had, though, the feds had three secret weapons they were ready to use against him, Gang Land has learned.

Three of his six codefendants in his sale of heroin to an undercover FBI agent and in plots to smuggle heroin, cocaine, and marijuana from Italy, Mexico and Guyana had secretly signed cooperation agreements with the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office and were prepared to testify against the 46-year-old Gambino family associate.

And befitting the international flavor of the case, which also involved the Calabrian organized crime clan known as 'Ndrangheta, the lineage of the three codefendants who were ready to take the stand and back up the tapes and testimony of the Italian-American G-Man who snookered his paesano Lupoi are Chinese, Latino and Greek, according to court papers filed in the case.

The agent, whom Lupoi and his cohorts knew as "Jimmy," a well-heeled hoodlum who was eager to buy drugs and weapons, but whose identity remains a closely held secret, testified earlier this year via a video feed in a pre-trial hearing against 12 Italian gangsters charged with drug trafficking in Italy, including Lupoi's father-in-law, Nicola Antonio Simonetta.

In Italy, Lupoi and 'Ndrangheta leader Francesco Ursino are charged with selling 1.3 kilograms of heroin to "Jimmy." Lupoi is also charged there with conspiring with Simonetta to smuggle cocaine from Guyana into Italy by bribing an official at the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro, which U.S. authorities said was "an infamous hub of 'Ndrangheta activity" in February of 2014.

"In 2012, Simonetta traveled to Brooklyn and met with Lupoi and an undercover FBI agent, who recorded Simonetta and Lupoi discussing plans to ship narcotics between the U.S. and Italy," U.S. authorities said in a 2014 news release.

An FBI spokeswoman said she was unable to provide any details about the agent's testimony in Italy, but according to published reports in Italy, "Jimmy" testified that he met Lupoi several times in Italy — in Rome and in Reggio Calabria — and learned that his father-in-law knew a "high level" police official at the port of Gioia Tauro who was corrupt and would help them smuggle coke into Italy.

This Spring, as Jimmy was testifying against Lupoi's Italian cohorts, Federal Judge Sterling Johnson was rewarding Lupoi's three U.S. codefendants with very sweet "time served" sentences in Brooklyn. In each case, prosecutors filed sealed court papers containing so-called 5K1 letters that detailed the specific help that each defendant gave the government.

The biggest winner — in terms of least jail time — was Christos Fasarakis, a former bank manager. Fasarakis, 44, had $600,000 in cashier's checks he had purchased to wash money for the agent when he was arrested. He helped Lupoi launder more than $500,000 in drugs and weapons sales to the undercover agent during the probe. It began in January of 2012 and ended in February of 2014 with the arrests of seven defendants in New York and 17 others in Italy.

Even though the feds labeled him a flight risk because of his "familial ties to Greece," Fasarakis was released on $1million bail following his arrest. Time served for Fasarakis meant no time behind bars. Not bad for a guy whose recommended prison term called for between 87 and 108 months, according to assistant U.S. attorneys Kristin Mace and Kevin Trowel.

Admitted drug dealers Alexander Chan, whom Lupoi referred to as the "Chinese guy" during one tape recorded conversation, and Jose Alfredo Garcia, whom Lupoi called the "Mexican guy with the cartels" during the same conversation with the agent, also did pretty well for themselves.

Like Lupoi, who was sentenced to 13 years, Chan and Garcia each faced a mandatory minimum prison term of 10 years and a maximum of life when they were indicted and jailed two years ago.

Chan, who actually hails from New York but has family in Taiwan, is a recidivist drug dealer. He received five years for heroin trafficking in a Manhattan Federal Court case and was released from prison in 2006. He pleaded guilty to conspiring with Lupoi to import more than a kilogram of heroin into the U.S., and also to money laundering for plotting to send money to Guyana to smuggle cocaine into Italy — in frozen fish to a company controlled by 'Ndrangheta boss Orsino.

"Me and others had an agreement trying to sell a kilo of heroin," Chan told the court when he pleaded guilty. "Me and others had an agreement to send money out of the states to a foreign country to try to purchase cocaine for Italy," said Chan, regarding the money laundering caper.

His "time served" sentence meant about two years for the 49-year-old Chan, who was sentenced in late February, and was released from prison.

Garcia, 49, is also a recidivist drug dealer, with convictions for possession and distribution of heroin and cocaine. He may also be a recidivist snitch, according to a detention memo prosecutors filed when he was arrested. His last prison term, for "multiple charges including conspiracy to distribute over five kilograms of cocaine and using and carrying a weapon in relation to a drug crime" was only four years; using a weapon calls for a mandatory five years on top of a drug dealing sentence in most cases that do not involve cooperation.

On the day of his arrest, prosecutors cited a tape recorded talk in which Garcia had boasted he would make a drug dealer "disappear" if he stole a $12,000 up front payment and demanded that he be detained. They argued his remarks indicated that Garcia still had a "willingness to commit violent crimes" as was a danger to the community.

Like Chan, Garcia was released from prison in February, after two years behind bars.

Meanwhile, appeals lawyer Peter Tomao, who was assigned to represent Lupoi after Judge Johnson declared that the Brooklyn drug dealer was broke, has asked the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside the 13 year prison term that Johnson imposed as excessive and petitioned the appeals court to send the case back for re-sentencing by a different judge.

Lupoi's sentence was three years more than his mandatory minimum sentence, but nearly six years greater than the high end of his sentencing guidelines of 87 months. Tomao argued that in order for the Judge to go so far above the recommended sentence, he would have had to detail his reasons, which Johnson did not do.

Assigning a new judge would be fair, without being wasteful, Tomao argued in his filing last month.

"Judge Johnson did not conduct an evidentiary hearing, preside over a trial of this or a related case, or issue a written opinion," he wrote. "Indeed, the principal thing which Judge Johnson did was to sentence Lupoi in an arbitrary manner. Under the circumstances, remanding to a different judge would not result in judicial inefficiencies and would preserve the appearance of fairness."

The Case Of The Aging Gambino Capo And The Medical-Grade Marijuana From California

Longtime Gambino capo Michael (Mickey Boy) Paradiso and two dozen mob associates from four crime families, including two women, were indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on drug, gambling and tax charges Tuesday following a two year investigation that was triggered by a Waterfront Commission probe of marijuana and Oxycodone trafficking on the New York piers.

Paradiso, the only made man in the case, was a capo during John Gotti's heyday. He has spent many years behind bars, but he's also had some good days in court. In the 1980s, jurors believed lawyer James DiPietro's argument that Mickey Boy was telling a tall tale when he was tape recorded telling his brother that he had killed ten people, and they acquitted him of murder.

Paradiso has long been linked to the September, 1985 attempt to whack Luchese underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso by a ragtag crew of family associates. The failed rubout led to the abduction by rogue NYPD Mafia cops Lou Eppolito and Steve Caracappa of one of the would-be assassins, Jimmy Hydell, and his subsequent torture and murder by Casso in October of 1986.

In the current case, Paradiso, 76, was picked up discussing the marijuana scheme in several wiretapped talks last year, according to a six count indictment. In one talk, he discussed the seizure of a load of marijuana by detectives last year with underling William Oliva. In a second talk, Paradiso was heard telling another associate that Oliva, "was supposed to see me every week."

Authorities said the schemers made "hundreds of thousands of dollars per month profit" from February of 2014 to November of last year by cultivating and purchasing hundreds of pounds of high-grade marijuana in California and shipping it to New York for distribution and resale.

"In total, the marijuana distribution scheme is alleged to have generated more than $15 million in illegal revenue, based on average proceeds of more than $350,000 per month over a 21-month period," according to a news release distributed by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton and Waterfront Commissioner Ronald Goldstock.

Authorities said that Lawrence Dentico, 33, the grandson of longtime Genovese capo and former acting boss Lawrence (Little Larry) Dentico, was pressed into a supervisory role in the drug ring following the arrest of another ring member on unrelated charges in June of last year.

Zhanna Dumorne, 39, whose husband, John Kelly, 52, was also indicted, allegedly helped the ring funnel "proceeds of the scheme from New York to California through the use of a fictitious corporation, Regional Food Brokers, Inc.," according to the news release.

The second woman in the indictment, Destiny Saetern, 32, was arrested in Sacramento and charged with "assisting with the cultivation of medical-grade marijuana on farms in California and purchasing marijuana from other local growers for export to New York" according to the release.

Colombo associate Stephen Gallo, 64, was the "primary distributor and seller" of the marijuana that was shipped to New York. "Gallo picked up packages of marijuana from United Parcel Stores throughout Manhattan and transported the packages to storage locations until the contents could be redistributed and sold," the authorities said.

In a separate scheme, during which undercover NYPD detectives posed as customers, Gallo and two others were also indicted on charges of selling hundreds of illicitly acquired Oxycodone pills.

Gallo and three others were also charged with running an illegal gambling business that generated $1 million in revenue from November of 2014 until November of last year. Like most bookmaking operations these days, the ring allegedly used online betting software and an off shore wire room in Costa Rica.

NY FBI Boss Calls It Quits

Diego Rodriguez, a veteran FBI agent who oversaw the largest Mafia takedown in U.S history five years ago and who has quietly headed the agency's flagship New York office for the last year and a half, has decided to end his long government career, Gang Land has learned.

Rodriguez, a former New York City school teacher who joined the FBI in 1990, has told his large staff of supervisors and other colleagues that he is retiring next month. Rodriguez, who was appointed as Assistant Director In Charge of the New York office by FBI Director Jim Comey in December of 2014, declined to discuss his departure. But sources say he will be joining Univision, the large Spanish language television network that is now the fifth largest network in the country, as Director of Security.

A spokeswoman for Univision declined to comment.

The St. John's University graduate earned his field agent stripes as a member of an FBI SWAT team and the Organized Crime Drug and Enforcement Task Force. He worked with the DEA and NYPD to take down South American and Mexican drug traffickers until 1997, when he was assigned to San Juan, where as a SWAT team member he worked closely with the Puerto Rico Police Department.

In 2011, a year after he returned to New York to head the FBI's criminal division, Rodriguez was not only involved in the overwhelmingly successful arrests of 127 defendants with ties to seven crime families. He was also the architect, six weeks later, of the slashing of 25% of the office's mob-busting agents, and reducing the number of squads that investigate the notorious Five Families from five to three.

Several former FBI supervisors, including James Kossler, who oversaw all organized crime squads from 1979 to 1989, and Lin DeVecchio, who ran a squad with responsibilities for two crime families for several years, ripped the move as a "big mistake." They argued that it would enable wiseguys to retrench and reassert themselves, and revive some of their dissipated rackets.

Yesterday, a former FBI supervisor who disagreed with the cuts then — and still views them as a mistake — refused to criticize Rodriguez for the cutbacks, saying that they were the handiwork of-then Attorney General Eric Holder and former FBI Director Mueller.

"Rodriguez had no choice," he said. "It was their way, or the highway," he laughed.

Rodriguez was not working in New York three years ago, when the number of family squads were further reduced to two, and the number of agents to about 40, where they remain today.

But there is no question that the FBI's mob family squad staffing cuts that Rodriguez put in place, coupled with a seeming lack of interest in organized crime cases by the two U.S. Attorney's Offices in the city, have led to a dramatic reduction in the number of racketeering indictments against New York mobsters.

During Rodriguez's tenure as New York FBI boss, there has been only one major federal racketeering indictment against any mob-connected defendants — of Genovese wiseguy Robert Debello and several others for charges that include murder conspiracy — and that was primarily the result of diligent work by Nassau County detectives.

[willychichi]

In the current case, Paradiso, 76, was picked up discussing the marijuana scheme in several wiretapped talks last year, according to a six count indictment. In one talk, he discussed the seizure of a load of marijuana by detectives last year with underling William Oliva. In a second talk, Paradiso was heard telling another associate that Oliva, "was supposed to see me every week."

Colombo associate Stephen Gallo, 64, was the "primary distributor and seller" of the marijuana that was shipped to New York. "Gallo picked up packages of marijuana from United Parcel Stores throughout Manhattan and transported the packages to storage locations until the contents could be redistributed and sold," the authorities said.

Using the phone and UPS, not the smartest moves by a couple of seasoned guys.

Thanks for posting Dellacroce

[Hailbritain]

Thanks , delly . Much appreciated

[Pogo The Clown]

Using the phone and UPS, not the smartest moves by a couple of seasoned guys.

Yeah that was very stupid. These guy's never seem to learn not to use phones because it is 2016 and they are still doing it.


Thanks for posting this weeks column Dell.


Pogo

[Allie Boy]

Using the phone and UPS, not the smartest moves by a couple of seasoned guys.

Yeah that was very stupid. These guy's never seem to learn not to use phones because it is 2016 and they are still doing it.


Thanks for posting this weeks column Dell.


Pogo

That woman in your avatar. Do you by any chance know her name?

[B.]

Being a Colombo associate and given his age, Stephen Gallo very well could be Larry Gallo's son Stephen. Would be something if a Gallo was still involved with the Colombos.

[Pogo The Clown]

That woman in your avatar. Do you by any chance know her name?

I'll ask her after she is done blowing me.


Pogo

[BillyBrizzi]

That woman in your avatar. Do you by any chance know her name?

I'll ask her after she is done blowing me.


Pogo

Those are not real, are they??

[Allie Boy]

That woman in your avatar. Do you by any chance know her name?

I'll ask her after she is done blowing me.


Pogo

Those are not real, are they??

Of course they are real.

[Pogo The Clown]

They are real and they are spectacular.


Free cookie if anyone gets this reference.


Pogo

[willychichi]

They are real and they are spectacular.


Free cookie if anyone gets this reference.


Pogo

Terry Hatcher has some nice tits

[Wiseguy]

They are real and they are spectacular.


Free cookie if anyone gets this reference.


Pogo

Terry Hatcher has some nice tits

I can't believe you sent her into the sauna to do that!

[kingfromqueens]

Not a square to spare

[Wiseguy]

I worked out with a dumbbell today. I feel vigorous!

[Pogo The Clown]

They really want me out of here. They’ve downgraded me to some sort of a bunker. I’m like Hitler’s last days here.


Pogo