jimmyb wrote: ↑Thu Mar 15, 2018 1:47 pm
TommyGambino wrote: ↑Thu Mar 15, 2018 11:56 am
JeremyTheJew wrote: ↑Thu Mar 15, 2018 11:16 am
there i believe was also a third Cherry Hill Gambino wasn't there? Gieuseppe or is that Rosario?
the book Octopus: The Sicilian Mafia International Reach (not sure on exact title) by Claire Sterling was a pretty good book explaining the Heroin trade as well not just the Bonanno, but Gambino Zip factions. The info might be out of date, she was also a believer in the Red Invasion.
its interesting bc she brings up the Sicilians having a crew in Philly that was infiltrated by DEA.
-also interesting to note that the guy who flipped and intro the DEA to sicilian mafia members was more scared of the Philly mob (lead by Bruno at the time) then the Sicilians
Yeah, Joe Gambino is a third brother, he's made with the Gambinos, never gone above soldier though
Yeah you guys are right on. It's interesting (and a bit confusing), but in terms of the CH Gambinos John and Joe are members of the NY Gambino crime family, while Rosario is a member of the Passo di Rigano cosca I believe. Rosario is def made guy in Sicily, not NY either way. A number of government documents and news articles described Rosario as a made member of the NY Gambinos, but we know now that's not true.
And right, DEA infiltrated the CH Gambinos in South Jersey/Philly. The agent was Frank Panessa. I've talked to him quite a few times. He also dealt with Amato and Bonventre from the Bonanno org. So yeah, the Bonannos and Gambinos were part of the same trafficking networks at times. Interesting note about Panessa: he would deal with Rosario directly, but John Gambino would never speak w/Panessa. Panessa was not "a friend of mine or ours" in others words, so John kept his distance (pretty smart actually).
According to Leonetti, Scarfo told him that he was introduced to Rosario Gambino in the 1970s as an amico nostra by, I believe, Angelo Bruno, which led to Scarfo incorrectly believing that Rosario was a member of the Gambino family. Later, in the 1980s, Rosario was involved in a beef with members of the Philly family which led to a sitdown between Scarfo and Gotti, where Gotti told him that Rosario was in fact a member of the Sicilian mafia, not the Gambino family. Leonetti claimed that John Gambino was always known to him as a member of the Gambino family.
I'm not sure if Gotti recognized Sicilian membership, but we know that Angelo Bruno recognized Sicilian membership as "the same thing" during his travels in Sicily as well as when Sicilian mafiosi visited Philadelphia. In addition, Bruno allowed John Stanfa to transfer from the Caccamo family to the Philadelphia family*. I'd be curious if Paul Castellano also recognized Rosario as an amico nostra, though it doesn't seem Rosario ever transferred. I believe that Castellano, himself from a line of Sicilian immigrant mafiosi, did recognize Sicilians like the Inzerillos and their people, which would include Rosario Gambino.
What's interesting is that aside from John Stanfa, the Philadelphia had virtually no zips in their family despite Bruno's open attitude toward the Sicilian mafia and the extensive contacts he made in Sicily during his stay there in the 1960s. He describes having dinner with dozens of high-ranking Sicilian mafia members in Palermo, for example.
* - An early 1980s government report claims that John Stanfa was originally inducted into the Sicilian mafia. Two decades later, his relative Nino Giuffre of the Caccamo family would flip and testify that John Stanfa sponsored him into the Caccamo family in the 1980s, when Stanfa was on the run following Bruno's murder I believe. Stanfa's brothers, father, and I believe other relatives were of course members of the Caccamo family as well.
