Convicted serial killer Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi — whose first public appearance in five years is expected next week — is a witnesses who can put accused murderers Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme and Paul Weadick at the scene of the crime.
Flemmi, 83, the partner of Salemme’s rival James “Whitey” Bulger, will tell jurors he walked into the home of Salemme’s ex-wife just as Frank Salemme Jr. was strangling Steven DiSarro as his father watched and Weadick held the thrashing man’s legs.
Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme
Salemme suspected DiSarro was stealing from the mob's silent investment in his rock-and-roll club, The Channel, and ratting them out to the FBI.
Stephen Caracappa, one of the notorious NYPD "Mafia Cops" who moonlighted as a hitman for the Luchese crime family, died in federal prison last year. Caracappa, who was serving out his sentence at a federal detention center in Butner, N.C., died on April 8, 2017.
Caracappa and his partner, Louis Eppolito, 69, were sentenced to life behind bars in 2009 for committing eight mob-ordered executions between 1986 and 1990.
The city shelled out $18.4 million to settle seven lawsuits with the families of their victims, who included a diamond dealer the pair kidnapped and murdered, two Gambino made men, two Luchese mobsters and a mob-connected painters' union leader.
Eppolito remains locked away in a high-security penitentiary in Tucson where he too is expected to die behind bars.
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Stephen Caracappa (left) and Louis Eppolito.
Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito were two former New York Police Department (NYPD) police detectives who worked on behalf of the New York Mafia, principally the Lucchese crime family.
In 2006, they were convicted of labor racketeering, extortion, narcotics, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, eight counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Both were sentenced to life in federal prison.
In the history of the NYPD there have been many corrupt cops. Lt. Charles Becker, electrocuted at Sing Sing in 1915 for killing a snitch; Murder Inc. canary Abe “Kid Twist” Reles who went flying out of a Coney Island hotel window, while being guarded by cops (“Canary Could Sing But Couldn’t Fly”, the tabloids screamed); Frank Serpico and the drug scandals of the 1960s; Officer Michael Dowd who ran a dope empire out of a Brooklyn precinct.
Caracappa and Eppolito, though, were something altogether different. At $4,000 a month each, they were on permanent retainer for the Lucchese crime family.
Cops by day, hitmen by night they used police data bases to find turncoats, impeded investigations, and at $65,000 a pop, were killers.
The duo were given the contract to whack diamond dealer Israel Greenwald. He’d been cooperating with the FBI on an investigation and the mob was unhappy. Very unhappy. Caracappa and Eppolito got his address then snatched him off the street and blew his brains out in a Brooklyn warehouse. The body was buried in a garage where it stayed for 20 years until the dirty cops were ratted out.
Dope dealer and career criminal Burton Kramer dropped the pair in 2005. In court, he laid out a sickening buffet of murder, corruption and betrayal of public trust. Caracappa and Eppolito were both convicted of murder. Eppolito was sentenced to life plus 100 years. Caracappa received life plus 80 years. In April, at a prison hospital in North Carolina, Caracappa died at age 75 after a long fight with cancer. As he was dying he begged to be let out of prison. He was denied.
A lawsuit filed at the Montreal courthouse by Salvatore Cazzetta, 63, a member of the Hells Angels since roughly 2004, involves a case in which he and 20 others were charged in November 2015. At least 15 people have since pleaded guilty to some of the charges in the drug-trafficking case, but Cazzetta challenged the case brought against him. Two charges were tossed out following his preliminary inquiry and, on Dec. 6, the prosecution announced it would no longer prosecute him on the last remaining charge.
Cazzetta argues he was denied bail and detained between November 2015 and August 2017 without cause because prosecutors did not reveal evidence that was dropped in their laps shortly after Cazzetta and the other men were arrested.
The leader of the drug-trafficking network was arrested on Nov. 19, 2015, and co-operated with police immediately. Within hours of his arrest, he provided a sworn statement, recorded on videotape, and was given a contract to work as a witness for the prosecution. According to the lawsuit, the witness told the police that Cazzetta “had nothing to do with Hochelaga—Maisonneuve” and that Cazzetta had nothing to do with his drug-trafficking network. Four days later, a Quebec Court judge began hearing evidence in Cazzetta’s bail hearing, but the statement the witness gave to police was not mentioned.
Because of this, Cazzetta argues, the investigators and prosecutors “did not act in good faith, rigour and the honesty required” by people involved in the justice system.
The leader of the Chicago Outfit for more than a decade, John 'No Nose' DiFronzo, died on Sunday. The 89 year old had Alzheimer's disease.
DiFronzo was awarded his mob moniker 'No Nose' early in his career when part of his schnoz was sliced off as he jumped through the plate glass window of a clothing store window to escape after a burglary. Plastic surgery restored the mobster's nose, but the nickname stuck.
DiFronzo was part of a group convicted for the 1986 murders of Los Vegas mob boss Anothony Spilotro and his brother Michael. The so-called Family Secrets Trial led to indictments of 14 defendants who were affiliated with the Chicago Outfit. DiFronzo managed to escape the legal fate of many of his mob colleagues.
Michael (left) and Anthony Spilotro
As the upper echelon of the Chicago Outfit went to prison for life in the Family Secrets case, DiFronzo avoided further charges. He managed to hold the reigns of power well into his 80's.
Mexican authorities have arrested the wife of the leader of Jalisco New Generation, one of the country's fiercest drug cartels, as well as a top lieutenant for the organization, setting the western state of Jalisco on high-alert for reprisals.
Marines took into custody Rosalinda Gonzalez Valencia, the wife of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," in the city of Zapopan. Gonzalez is accused of managing the cartel's finances.
Mexico has been hunting 'El Mencho' with greater intensity since the end of last year. Jalisco New Generation has a reputation for battling with government agents.
Police anticipate a "violent reaction" from the cartel. The cartel shot down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket launcher in 2015, prompting Mexican officials to declare an all-out offensive against the group.
A life-and-death battle against drug dealers is being waged on the sprawling Blood reserve in southwestern Alberta. Canada’s largest reserve has been on the front lines of a fentanyl epidemic. Payments in the community are well known — a day after welfare comes out or a day after child tax benefits, and Canada Pension, dealers are everywhere.
Dealers who have been banished from the reserve simply set up shop in communities on the edge. They find drug mules, usually addicted band members, to carry fentanyl onto the First Nation and sell it. "We do have a lot of people who are in vulnerable situations and some of them don’t know how to deal with certain things” said a community leader. “We have dealers who come in from outside the community and take advantage."
"It’s the big guys, the dealers, that need to be caught.”
Jhon Jairo 'Popeye' Velasquez was arrested in Medellin. Popeye was in Pablo Escobar's inner circle and confesses he's committed 300 murders and ordered 3,000 more.
Velasquez was paroled in 2014 after spending 22 years in jail for plotting the assassination of a former Colombian presidential candidate. The slaying of the cartel-fighting Luis Carlos Galan during the 1990 presidential campaign he was heavily favoured to win marked the apex of drug violence in Colombia two decades ago. The cartel waged a bombing campaign across Bogota, Medellin and Cali, with many of the explosive devices planted by Velasquez.
Escobar even downed an Avianca commercial jetliner in 1989, killing all 107 on board, because he believed Galan's political heir, then President Cesar Gaviria, was aboard.
Deric "Tuna" McGuire, described as a Pagan's kingpin, was arraigned on 221 counts after his arrest in an investigation targeting motorcycle gangs.
He was arrested as part of 'Operation Patched Out' which is being hailed the largest OMG bust in the history of the Rhode Island State Police. More than 50 other suspects also appeared in court.
The raids resulted in the seizure of 53 illegal guns and large amounts of heroin and cocaine. McGuire was ordered held without bail.
Jailed Melbourne drug kingpin Rocco Arico won a small win in court after his prison term for drug trafficking was reduced on appeal.
Arico was jailed last year for 14 years, with a minimum of 10 years, for extortion, intentionally causing injury, possessing a firearm and drug trafficking.
He appealed against his sentence, and the Court of Appeal found Arico's sentence for drug trafficking was manifestly excessive and cut his jail term by two years, with a new minimum period of nine years.
Ben 'Notorious' Geppert, 26, is accused of harassment, a drug offence and domestic violence while Allaina Vader, 27, has been charged with assault. She allegedly bit a 40-year-old stranger's face and stomped on her head in a road rage dispute in the Gold Coast.
The couple are now in custody.
Rikki Louise with her man, ex-Bandido president Brett 'Kaos' Pechey.
Serial bikie daters Rikki Louise Sutton (left) and Allaina Vader
Brett 'Kaos' Pechey in his Soldiers of Mayhem gear, which he encouraged his other tattooed mates to buy.
Ben 'Notorious' Geppert, 26, filmed in a brawl outside a fast food restaurant.
Spanish Civil Guards captured more than 900 kilos of cocaine, and detained 10 amid an operation in the port city of Algeciras.
The drugs had come from South-America hidden in a cargo of fruit.
Spain made its largest cocaine bust in 18 years in December after over 5,800 kgs of the drug were discovered in a container ship travelling from Medellin. The ship also stopped in the southern port of Algeciras.
Fisherman Joseph 'Joe' Pirrello, 64, pleaded guilty to masterminding one of Australia's biggest cocaine smuggling syndicates after he was caught by police surveillance. A two-year investigation led to police catching the group on Christmas Day 2016 importing 500 kg of cocaine at Brooklyn, on Sydney's upper north shore.
Seven members from the 17-man syndicate have pleaded guilty to being involved in the operation, which led to the seizure of 1.1 tonnes of cocaine and 32kgs of heroin worth $370 million. Pirrello was found to be the common link between the 17 members, after more than 100 meetings between them were surveilled by police.
Facebook accounts revealed lavish lifestyles of the cocaine smuggling ring
Francis “Cadillac Frank” Salemme
"It’s the big guys, the dealers, that need to be caught.”
