Current Chicago Players 2020

[SolarSolano]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

[PolackTony]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

I recall that Mandell was suspected in the Ruggirello murder, I wouldn't be shocked if he had some involvement in others. If he talks, we may learn a lot. I believe that Chuckie Russell took a number of secrets to the grave as well.

[Coloboy]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

I recall that Mandell was suspected in the Ruggirello murder, I wouldn't be shocked if he had some involvement in others. If he talks, we may learn a lot. I believe that Chuckie Russell took a number of secrets to the grave as well.

I always took Fosco with a grain of salt, as I know he had some axes to grind. However, based on his inside knowledge I always took it seriously when he would say "I believe the outfit is still capable of murder when needed" .

I think they still have their pro hitters who can be called upon extremely rarely to do things cleanly.

[chicagodog]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

I recall that Mandell was suspected in the Ruggirello murder, I wouldn't be shocked if he had some involvement in others. If he talks, we may learn a lot. I believe that Chuckie Russell took a number of secrets to the grave as well.

I always took Fosco with a grain of salt, as I know he had some axes to grind. However, based on his inside knowledge I always took it seriously when he would say "I believe the outfit is still capable of murder when needed" .

I think they still have their pro hitters who can be called upon extremely rarely to do things cleanly.

They are definitely capable of murder. But do the pro’s our weight the con’s. A guy like George Brown was a stoolie but who did he really take down? Carpelli who was low level and was probably going to get locked up for how loud he was regardless. Now if a major RICO case was brought up, the clean up process would begin.

[PolackTony]

Thanks a 1000 times for all of the additional names Cavita and PolackTony and ill add them to the list, but you have to tell me which crews they belong to right?

@Polack, i already have one Tony Buttitta...any relations? Also do you have any good evidence that Nick wasnt related to the Roti clan? Dont get me wrong but many of their members from the past were never caught doing something illegal, except for being labeled in newspapers...

I have many more names that I will have to look for when I get home tonight as I'm out of town. I have some guys' names and the crews they belong to as well as a few that I don't know who they're under.

Thanks again bud and take your time

I have many many more names than the following but I don't have the time to type them all and their birthdates, etc. but here are a few:


Bobby Abbinanti
Angelo Cassano
Dominic Cassano
Gino Cassano
Vito Cassano
Salvatore DeCesare
Anthony Dote
Carl Dote
Tom Forliano
Pete Labelestra
Santino Colella
Vito Pesoli
Natale Saraceno
Nick Sarillo
Joe Volpe
Joe Bastone
James Bastone
Ronald DeRosa
Mike Petruzzi
John Capodice
Robert Dinella
Dominic Mangiamele
Joe Mangiamele Vincenzo Ercolino Tom Giuliano Chris Giuliano Salvatore Molose Gil Valerio Frank Adamo

I've heard for years that Pietro "Pete" LaBalestra has a crew of "zips" operating in the western burbs around Addison. I've been told they're involved in drugs as well as real estate, construction, and dirty contracting (not sure what industries specifically but I would guess construction related). I was told that Sicilians operating in the west burbs were at least partly responsible for the big opioid issue in the local area, which ironically seems to have hit younger Italian guys hard and thus further depressed the potential Outfit recruitment pool. I've been told this now by a couple different people, so maybe there's something to it. The story is that LaBalestra and his crew own strip malls and other properties where they run and hang out in non-descript soccer clubs and social clubs which shut down and move periodically.

People here may recall the "Operation Espresso" case in 1994 where LaBalestra and some of his guys were popped for running gambling operations out of a bunch of Sicilian social clubs/cafes in Addison and Bloomingdale. Charge along with LaBalestra were Giuseppe Vicari and Ottavio Volpe. These guys were all in their 30s back then.

Any word, confirmation, or elaboration on any of this? Also, Villain has LaBalestra under Elmwood/Grand. What exactly are his ties to them? Was he under Andriacchi or someone else before? I wonder at this point if him and his guys are indeed still active if they're basically running their own crew out there.

This is what's been confounding me regarding Chicago's alleged zips. We all know in Rockford in the late 1960s and early 1970s underboss Frank Buscemi made a concerted effort to import many Sicilians and their families, set them up in business in pizzerias and later had them distribuing narcotics through those businesses. This Rockford network was tied into Buffalo, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Sicily and beyond. Frank Buscemi had a a history in Chicago from the 1930s until he moved to Rockford in late 1958. Rockford was represented nationally by Chicago on the Commission but they were pretty much left to their own devices. Some have said Rockford was absorbed by Chicago in the 1980s but what keeps bothering me is this- if Rockford was working with all these other entities in narcotics in the 1980s and 1990s (in the Pizza Connection and Iron Tower cases) it was very much out in the open and in violation of Chicago's narcotics "ban." If they were working independently with the other entities it must have been in conjunction with Chicago and perhaps some of these zips in the suburbs.

I'm continuing to look for a more solid connection to Chicago regarding narcotics and distribution but have yet to find any. The search goes on in future FBI files to be requested.

Thanks for the info on Buscemi and Rockford. I'm glad that you're continuing to look into it and look forward to hearing back if and when you find more. At this point I think it's clear that the notion that Chicago had a consistently enforced blanket ban on narcotics has been both overstated and simplistic. As I'm sure you're aware, @Villain has contributed a lot of good info laying out the connections to the narcotics racket over different periods in Chicago. The main thing is that the administration was concerned with insulating itself from the repercussions of narcotics trafficking and keeping it at arms length, so you see I think over the broader arc evidence of contradictory or hypocritical policy on this and periodic purging of Outfit associates involved in narcotics. Involvement also of course varied by crew. We know already some of the earlier connections of Heights guys like Roberto to Sicilian drug trafficking, and during the '60's and '70's Alderisio and his guys -- most prominently Nicoletti -- were clearly involved in narcotics trafficking, likely partnered to some degree with large black organizations responsible for street-level distribution operations such as the Vice Lords and Black P Stones. Ovid Demaris discusses Nicoletti overseeing narcotics, and listed Johnny DeBiase as one of his partners, leading me to suspect that Lombardo was also likely involved (and we already know that the Spilotro brothers were involved in drugs). A question here would be whether Alderisio, Nicoletti, et al. had any direct links to Sicilian trafficking operation in this period, or as seems most likely they were being supplied by other US families (Lucchese, Bonnano, maybe Detroit?). There are indications also that at least during the '90's Grand Ave had some degree of oversight of narcotics operations under Lombardo's direction, farmed out to the C-Notes and Spanish Cobras and other Latin Folks organizations (see John Hagedorn's work on this). @Villain I believe has additionally documented apparent drug connections between Outfit guys and the Maniac Latin Disciples, who have had very close affiliations to Mexican cartels and Puerto Rican trafficking operations since the '70's.

The role (both in terms of narcotics and the exact nature of their connections to the Outfit hierarchy and crew structure) of the West suburban "zips" remains a mysterious and I think very important one for understanding the post-1986 Outfit. As I've mentioned before, I've found descriptions of a CPD intelligence unit bust in the late 1980's of what was alleged to be a narcotics ring of "newly arrived immigrants from Sicily and mainland Italy". As Villain and I noted in another recent thread, there were a bunch of Outfit related drug operations busted in the late '80s'. Some of this stuff could've been going on for awhile, or maybe it was started or ramped up under Carlisi, who knows. This could've also had some relation to the folding of Rockford under Chicago as you've noted. Or it could be something else.


FWIW I've been told that there was some sort of Italian police report (I'm not sure which agency exactly, but was told that the report was published in Rome) from some time in the last decade or so apparently claiming that Chicago was among the US families importing the largest numbers of Italian OC operatives. Important if true. We already have evidence of Sicilian involvement in Chicago via LaBalestra and his guys, and as I noted above Aldo Cardelicchio seems to have been connected to Pugliese OC. Given DiFronzo's close family ties to Bari and the fact that Cardelicchio was operating in EP territory, this makes me wonder about potential associations with regional Italian OC groups based on familial and personal connections to Chicago. Lots we don't know, and lots that remains very murky.

Heard the same and would love to see the report.

Thought I'd share this excerpt from a Tribune article following Cardelicchio's arrest in 2001:

"Law-enforcement sources said Chicago and the western Cook County suburbs are playing host to an increasing number of organized-crime figures from Italy who are on the lam from authorities there. Known by local mobsters as "Zips," the Italian expatriates have been linked to drug trafficking and violence and are feared even by homegrown organized-crime figures, the sources said."

[Tonyd621]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

I think the James Gerage of Omega construction was definitely connected too imo, just another one to add.

[funkster]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

I think the James Gerage of Omega construction was definitely connected too imo, just another one to add.

Interesting. Missed that one.

[Tonyd621]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

I think the James Gerage of Omega construction was definitely connected too imo, just another one to add.

Interesting. Missed that one.

I think Scott B did an article on it too for what its worth

[funkster]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

I think the James Gerage of Omega construction was definitely connected too imo, just another one to add.

Interesting. Missed that one.

I think Scott B did an article on it too for what its worth

yup, popped up in a google search. Thanks.

[Tonyd621]

Personally - that's what I find a little concerning about the Outfit - when they do hits, they are done well. I think a lot of other murders have been linked to them that stay out of the media (Ruggirello being one). You look at NYC and see these murders taking mob bosses down - its just not happening in Chicago. Sure they don't hit as often as they used to, but when they go after a Jarrett or a Zizzo or a Chiaramonte they go down.

Mikey DeFelllipis was an electrician apprentice for someone I knew well when he disappeared. Lots of rumors out there.

I think the James Gerage of Omega construction was definitely connected too imo, just another one to add.

Interesting. Missed that one.

I think Scott B did an article on it too for what its worth

yup, popped up in a google search. Thanks.

I remember an article also they said they were questioning some guy, but the guy supposedly used to work at the bar the guy Norberto Velez worked out of as a bouncer. Its all connected imo. Im not stating anything as fact just want that out there.

[funkster]

Velez was the guy who was murdered in Wrigleyville, correct?

[Tonyd621]

Velez was the guy who was murdered in Wrigleyville, correct?

Yeah, he was a bouncer at the cubby bear iirc

[funkster]

Right. Guy was crewed up with Albie and Panozzo and those guys as I recall. Haven't heard anything on that in quite some time.

[PolackTony]

Right. Guy was crewed up with Albie and Panozzo and those guys as I recall. Haven't heard anything on that in quite some time.

Yes and per Scott B Jeff Hollingshead was his roommate in the Wrigleyville apartment where he was killed. Scott claimed that the story was that Norbie Vélez had been a collector and enforcer but fell afoul due to an unpaid loan.

[Philly d]

I have a question....by looking at all of those Outfit-connected legit enterprises, I wonder if they still contract other smaller contractors, so the guys can take some of their work on sub-contract basis? Because if they do, its very easy to scheme, meaning any sub-contractor who will enter into business with them, will probably receive very little in the way of profit and on top of that, the sub-contractor’s end of the business deal bears most of the risk if any investigation occur......

That’s the Outfits bread and butter. You bid a job using union rates, sub it out using non Union rates and you pocket the rest. Walk around to non major construction sites and you usually find Hispanic and polish workers who are definitely not union.

I don't know much about construction. Why bid it using Union rates in the first place?