Salvatore Pisello info

[richard_belding]

Recently gathered some information on Sal Pisello, Gambino soldier made famous in the early 80's for running a scheme involving record "cutouts' and payola with MCA records. A known drug trafficker and gem swindler, Pisello operated in both LA and NYC, owning homes in both cities. There are plenty of articles written about Pisello's history with MCA, and who he's been associated with mob-wise, but not much concerning his earlier crime career and drug activities leading up to the early 80's. Nearly all of this info comes from informant files, as well as Pisello's own file. Unfortunately, the info I had hoped to find the most has yet to come up- his making year and/or his crew involvement, so if anyone here can shed light and add it would be greatly appreciated.


- Born in Brooklyn in 1922, six-foot-three, 220 pounds, blind in the right eye. A high-ranking soldier in the Gambino crime family, part of Aniello Dellacroce's circle of criminals, according to the FBI.

- Started dealing in cut heroin in the 1950's.

- Pisello’s dope distributor in New York was said to Charlie J. Alaimo (AKA Charles Wings, Nathaniel Herman, Charlie Wino, Charlie King, Charles Alarimo, and Charles Allimo) a member of the Gambino organization and a major financier and distributor of heroin. Pisello, stationed in California provided Alaimo with Mexican heroin. Alaimo’s record included burglary and conspiring to import 54 pounds of heroin.

- "Subject suspected narcotics and precious gem smuggler.. close associates are among the top drug violators in organized crime... two separate reports, considered reliable, indicate Pisello had drug related contacts with Mexico and Panama... a major narcotics supplier of heroin from Mexico City... On two occasions, Pisello reportedly 'ripped off' other narcotics dealers for $250,000 has been known to carry a weapon." Sal definitely got around. He appeared to have spent the early 1970s hopscotching through Switzerland, France, South America Mexico, Japan, and especially Italy, with the authorities tracking him all the way, even monitoring his phone calls. "Italian National Police indicate that Pisello was described as an international swindler in 1969-70 for having committed fraud in the amount of 60 million lire (approximately $102,000) to the damage of a jeweler named Gerard at the Hotel di Paris at Monte Carlo.

- On September 25, 1974, (informant) NY T-1 advised Pisello had resided intermittently at the Hotel Flora, Rome, Italy, during the past two years."

- "On Sept. 19, 1974, Lorenzo Di Gesu, an alleged member of the Palermo Mafia registered at the Hotel Flora. Pisello and Di Gesu failed to meet. However, before checking out of the hotel, Pisello paid the Di Gesu bill."

- "On 10/7/74, DEA, NY, advised that on 9/23/74 Charles Alaimo and Edward Lino (two well-documented narcotics traffickers) were positively identified by the DEA surveillance in Rome associating with Salvatore Pisello. DEA surveillance determined that Pisello rented two apartments, one for Alaimo and one for Lino, in Vive Mardie.... Surveillance indicates that the three were constantly together and spending large amounts of money. They had a regular table at the Piccolo Mondo Restaurant.... Surveillance was terminated when the subjects entered France on Sept. 28, 1974.. Information was received from a reliable source that the subjects were definitely in Italy and France to arrange for a multi-kilo shipment of heroin.

- On the personal side, Pisello was described as a "boisterous, likeable extrovert" and a "good dresser who always wore dark glasses." Married for more than forty years to Assunta (nee Morlano), he also had a longtime mistress in New York, a wealthy Jewish divorcée named Lucille Barrie who was formerly married to the founder of Fabergé Cosmetics and was still a large shareholder in the company. Barrie once lent Sal $150,000, which he promptly lost at the track. Despite years of high living around the globe, Pisello "does not have a documented visible means of income," according to the intelligence reports. In 1972, he "exhibited the abilities of an excellent confidence man when he convinced Maine farmers, Maine state officials, and a charter airline president of his sincerity in a highly questionable business venture."

- The above stated was the ambitious veal cattle export proposal that prompted a summit meeting of investigators from the New York State Police, New England Organized Crime Intelligence Division, U.S. Customs Service, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and the Securities and Exchange Commission at the strike force office in New York on June 6, 1972. Notes of the meeting indicate the investigators were "skeptical" of the plan in part because they could find no address or telephone number for Regency Beef, Pisello's alleged exporting firm. Nonetheless, Pisello did manage to ship one load of eighty-five veal cattle from Bangor, Maine, to Italy on June 15, 1972. The shipment was stopped at the airport by Italian officials, however, because it was not accompanied by a required document from federal veterinarians in the U.S.

- According to a DEA intelligence report, Pisello flew to Italy on June 16 to "straighten out" the matter and deliver the necessary documents. "He brought incomplete documents of questionable authenticity, and he was advised by the U.S. Agriculture Attaché not to present them to the Italian Ministry of Health. In spite of the advice, Pisello presented the documents and then proceeded to cause a scene. He was ushered out of the offices as soon as possible and informed that the U.S. Attaché would meet and discuss the importation problem with Italian officials at a later date.... The US Embassy has not heard from him since.

-Pisello apparently moved to Los Angeles sometime in the mid- 1970s, when FBI agents began picking up information about his local business dealings. "U.S. Customs reported that David Esses is a jewelry fence for Pisello. Esses resides at 1155 La Cienega Blvd s Angeles, and is owner of Jade East Importer, 202 Beverly rive. Esses is well documented in DEA files and was allegedly involved in the 600 Ibs of heroin smuggled into Florida from Hong Kong."

- In LA, Pisello was widely known as a pal of Angelo Marino and Vincent Albanese, two high-ranking California mobsters and while in LA, Pisello represented himself as the manager of the Roma DiNotte Restaurant, a known mob gathering place.

- Pisello appeared to be particularly active in the Beverly Hills area. "Informant said that Pisello told him the male ****### who has assisted Pisello in collection of 'protection payments' to Pisello by Bijan's Clothiers in Beverly Hills is named Benny Shells and is described as approximately 6' 7", 265-270 lbs, in his mid 30s. According to the informant, Benny Shells has worked for Pisello in the past and is often used for collection of debts because of his appearance."

- The informant went on to tell FBI investigators about a phone conversation he heard between Pisello and a New York mobster named Rudy Farone regarding Aladena ("Jimmy the Weasel") Fratianno, who was then in the federal Witness Protection Program and informing on his mob associates all over the country. "Pisello stated that they would kill Fratianno whether he was under the protection of the U.S. government or not.. and Farone, in a laughing manner, described what they had done to a 'canary who could sing but could not fly.' Both Pisello and Farone considered this a humorous incident where they eliminated a witness to their criminal activities."

- by 1976, Pisello was widely known to the virtually all of law enforcement and news reporters who covered the mob, as a major narcotics dealer with deep ties to Mexico narcotics dealer Jorge Asaf Bala. Pisello’s financier for his early deals, aside from Charles Alaimo was Edward Lino who also had heroin contacts in Italy while Alaimo heroin contacts Hong Kong.

- In November 1977, another informant told an FBI agent he'd had dinner with Pisello at the pricey La Scala restaurant and later met with Tony Roma at Tony Roma's Restaurant in Beverly Hills. While in the presence of the informant, according to the FBI report, "Pisello and Roma discussed their involvement in using mob' money to purchase restaurants in the Los Angeles area, and that the money was coming from Meyer Lansky, through Jack Rosen, Lansky's son-in-law. Later that evening, according to the informant, Pisello used a pay telephone at Tony Roma's and placed a call to a person Pisello said was Aniello Dellacroce. The informant spoke with the individual and was told, 'Anything my friend Sal says to you, you better believe, because Sal, he's number one.'"

- Pisello opened up his own Los Angeles restaurant in 1978, La Roma di Notte ("Rome by Night"), on La Cienega Boulevard just outside Beverly Hills. It drew a rave review from Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Lois Dwan: "The lightest hand that has been set to Italian cooking in this city for many a moon," she enthused. "A Sicilian out of New York, he is a big, graceful, smiling man with great energy and no untoward modesty.... At one time he worked with the U.S Department of Agriculture in experimenting with a new crossbreed of cattle for Italy." Roma Di Notte was later destroyed in a mystery fire, along with its financial records. Fire officials said it was arson.

- "In 1977-78 Pisello was subject of a Los Angeles FBI-DEA Task Force Title 3 investigation... based on allegation that Pisello was directing large scale narcotics transactions involving Aniello Dellacroce, acting boss of the Carlo Gambino crime family."

- "On 10/27/77, a confidential informant jointly developed by FBI and DEA, who is a wholesale fish and lobster merchant, advised he had been approached by Pisello on that date to use his business of importing fish from Europe to include the importation of narcotics. Pisello advised he had recently returned from Europe where he had established a contact in Turkey for a large quantity of narcotics. Pisello advised he desired several loads of fish to be imported to establish a routine and thereafter one load would be primarily narcotics.

- The informant, Marty Antoci, agreed to help the task force nail Pisello. He was given $15,000 in government funds, which he gave to Pisello as a loan to help launch the smuggling operation, and he was fitted with a hidden microphone to record his conversations with Pisello. On October 28, as Pisello was getting ready to fly to New York to set up a drug purchase, he gave Antoci a small vial containing what later proved to be 84 percent pure cocaine.

- That's my whole thing," Pisello said. "Ever since I've been corming here, that's my whole thing. See, I'm involved with you to make money, only for that reason and no other. But out of one condition. The condition is that you open your mouth to anybody, Marty, I swear to God..." "You told me, I'm dead," Antoci replied. "Marty, I'll take an oath on my children, I shouldn't see them alive anymore, too, and my mother, who I buried. I'll tell you now, Marty."

- When Antoci expressed concern that he would end up losing his money on the deal, Pisello replied, "Yeah, but you see, you shouldn't worry or nothing, you see, when you do business with a man-remember, a man. When you do business with punks in the street, then you do what you wanna do-understand? But you'd never blow your money with me, you see, cause I'm a man. You understand what a fucking man is?"

- Pisello apparently never set up the drug smuggling scheme, possibly because he learned that the authorities were watching him, and he never returned the $15,000 to Antoci. A few weeks later, Antoci reported that he'd received a phone call from Pisello saying he'd learned that his conversations had been electronically intercepted by the government. "You're a dead man," Pisello told him.
The drug investigation petered out after that, with investigators deciding there was "insufficient evidence to prosecute Pisello." They turned the matter over to the IRS because of the $15,000 in government funds that Pisello had pocketed.

- Despite countless man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent dogging his tracks over a fifteen-year period, he'd never even been arrested for anything related to drugs, much less convicted.


- Tuchinsky v. Pisello, a 1984 lawsuit: Salvatore James Pisello was being sued by Joseph Tuchinsky, a San Fernando Valley businessman, for failure to repay a $65,000 loan.


- on August 23 1984, Pisello was finally indicted by the federal grand jury in Los Angeles on tax evasion charges. It was all very undramatic. Pisello wasn't even officially arrested. Trial was set for October 30, 1984. Eventually, Pisello would be convicted and sentenced to two years, and ordered elligble for probation after serving one-third if the sentence, eight months.

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

Great post! Thanks.
If Pisello died a free man,
he was one slick dude.
Probably very rich too.

[jimmy_beans8]

Great read RICH

[SonnyBlackstein]

Great read RICH

+1

[DPG]

That’s some awesome info. Don’t know why there hasn’t been a movie or even a Mobster episode made about this guy. I rented Gotti a couple nights ago and boy was it terrible, not to mention if you watched Jr Gottis A&E special then you basically saw the entire movie. I’d rather see an in depth movie of Jr Gottis actual activities at this point. Reading Scars testimony shows he had a lot more going on then most people think. If you want a quick laugh go check out his and Alite’s wiki pages.

[richard_belding]

Pisello , circa mid 1970’s

C85B7A19-FA15-4E08-806A-45459A88E445.jpeg

[JeremyTheJew]

Interesting it says Neil Dellacroce was the Acting Boss. I allways thought it was allways Paul Castellano as AB.

Looks like this guy was huge in dope and havent heard of him till now

[richard_belding]

Adding to an older post. Photo of Charlie ‘Wings’ Alaimo, Pisello’s key distributor in the U.S

8F8BC43B-BB72-4E40-A0A9-2560A7D3B385.jpeg