It was a total immersion into the life of a Mafia household … It was a real slow-going art. ibid. tape transcript woman
He [Castellano] was having a torrid affair with his maid [Gloria Olarte]. ibid.
The early ’80s was a golden era of our life, the Mob. New York was the seat of power for that life all over America. Fear City: New York vs The Mafia s1e2: The Godfather Tapes, Curtis Sliwa
The intention was to develop a Rico case against each of the families. We decided that we tap five family squads. ibid. DoJ dude
They realised we had bugs all over the place. ibid.
You cannot be in the narcotics business and stick it in your stomach. You can’t be in the junk business without going on the fucking streets. ibid. gangsta
There’s a fucking dispute over fucking money. I gotta make a decision I hate to make. ibid.
The five bosses and the Commission had a lot of control over a lot of legitimate businesses, and not only that, the bosses were in business together. ibid. DOJ dude
Rudy Giuliani has this idea of prosecuting the board of directions of the Mafia. And he would like you to work as his deputy. ibid. prosecutor
In the 1980s there were buildings going up all across Manhattan. Fear City: New York vs the Mafia s1e3: Judgment Day
… There’s jobs that did count in there like Trump … ibid. building gangsta on tape
The Gambino squad was getting their information from a bug they had on Paul Castellano. ibid. DOJ rozzer
The Concrete Club: The Club was the key … There’s eight companies that participate in The Club. Each of those companies was connected to a Mob boss … Everything is fixed … A kickback of 2% … Every construction job in Manhattan over two million in value would pay the Mob. ibid.
Carmine Galante had eighty-four entrance and exit wounds in his body. Five people participated in that killing. ibid. DOJ sole lady rozzer
We are going to be arresting the bosses of all five families … I told my bosses, we gotta go right now. ibid. DOJ rozzer
‘Frank Matthews was the No 1’ … ‘He’s literally fallen off the face of the Earth’ … ‘Frank Matthews was a far larger drug dealer than Frank Lucas’. Frank Matthews, Al Profit Youtube 2015
Matthews was setting up 100-kilo deals down in Venezuela with the French connection. ibid.
Until the 1970s La Cosa Nostra controlled almost all heroin entering the United States. ibid.
By 1971 the IRS and DEA estimate that Frank Matthews was generating at least 10 million dollars a year in profit. That is equivalent to 60 million dollars today. ibid.
Frank was supplying the biggest drug dealers in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Boston, New Haven Connecticut, Miami, New Orleans, all over the country. ibid.
They cut so much dope in the Ponderosa so that when the police raided it they found a half kilo in residue just left on the floor. ibid.
The indictment alleged that Matthews and his organisation imported heroin and cocaine into the US from 1968 to 1975. His lieutenants continued to operate even after Matthews fled. ibid.
They were two very different godfathers separated by 4,000 miles of ocean. John Gotti was the Teflon don, a New York mobster who adored public attention and defied lawmen to get him. Toto Riina was a peasant from rural Sicily, a boss who operated in the shadows. In the late ’80s and early ’90s it required two very different approaches to bring them to justice. Inside the Mafia: The Godfathers, National Geographic 2005
Gotti would have to eliminate Costellano to become boss. But Gotti was not the only one who wanted him out of the way. ibid.
Gotti: Each time the Gambino boss got off. Bribery and intimidation of witnesses saw to that. The nickname the Teflon Don was born. ibid.
Gravano would be the final nail in Gotti’s coffin. ibid.
In the 1960s the history of the Mafia changed for ever when the Sicilian Mob began flooding the United States with … heroin: heroin would turn the Mafia into a global organisation and make them more money than they had ever made before; but it would also sow the seeds of their own destruction. Inside the Mafia: Going Global
Shutting down the French Connection was indirectly opening the door to … the Sicilian Mafia. ibid.
Galante: a heroin man … multi-billion-dollar profits and unparalleled violence. In the ’70s the Bonanno family was known as … the heroin family. ibid.
The Sicilians set up a sophisticated smuggling system … Toto Riina … his factories were producing ton after ton of pure heroin. ibid.
The Sicilians had turned on Galante. ibid.
Henry Hill regularly used Pizza restaurants for his heroin drop-offs. ibid.
Upstate New York, November 1957: In the sleepy town of Appalachia an extraordinary meeting was taking place … A summit meeting of the entire leadership of the American Mafia. In fact until that moment many denied the Mafia even existed. Inside the Mafia: Mafia? What Mafia?
In Sicily all Mafiosi had to take a sacred blood oath that they would never betray the organisation … the novice was sworn in through a quasi-religious ceremony and became a so-called man of honour. The American Mafia followed exactly the same initiation ceremony. ibid.
The Commission: a Mafia board of directors made up of the bosses of the five New York families plus those of Chicago and Buffalo. ibid.
Hoover had almost no Italian American agents who would infiltrate the Mob. ibid.
In American the subject of drugs continued to dominate Mafia discussions. ibid.
It was perhaps the most lucrative criminal racket in history. Between 1979 and 1984 the Sicilian Mafia smuggled nearly two billion dollars’ worth of heroin into the US. It made mobsters on both sides of the Atlantic rich. It also led to war. In Sicily rival bosses fought for control of the heroin-trafficking empire. The terror this war unleashed drove on godfather to break omerta, the Mafia’s sacred code of silence. His act of betrayal would lead to a transatlantic assault on the Mafia and make the first serious dent in their worldwide power. Heroin was flooding into the United States in the late 1970s. Smuggled inside Italian food products and distributed through Pizzarias owned by the Sicilian Mafia. It was known as the Pizza Connection. The US faced an epidemic of heroin addiction. But for American gangstas heroin meant money. And lots of it. Inside the Mafia: The Great Betrayal
John Gotti is the most ruthless kingpin ever to rule the American Mafia. Kingpin: John Gotti, History 2018
In 1980s New York one of the most brazen and daring mobsters in American history captivates the entire country, uses brutal force to take what he wants and rises to control the Mafia’s most powerful crime family. ibid.
Dellacroce is prepared to take control of the Family but Carlo Gambino’s plan of succession bypasses his loyal lieutenant and instead crowns a white-collar capo as the new boss – his name is Paul Castellano. ibid.
The Gambino crime family is headed to war. ibid.
John Gotti is more determined than ever to take out the boss. ibid.
‘I ain’t never found the right track since, I don’t think.’ Drug Lords s1e7: Frank Lucas & The Country Boys: Heroin Kings of New York, Lucas, 2018
‘I wanted to be the richest black man in the world.’ ibid.
New York 1971: Addicts and prostitutes roam Times Square. But American Gangster Frank Lucas is at the top of his game … the king of Harlem heroin. ibid.
‘I was doing the most dope of anybody in the world.’ ibid. Lucas
‘I’m good at cutting.’ ibid.
As Frank’s reputation grows, so does his list of enemies. ibid.
Demand is so high than Frank can hardly keep up. ibid.
The Country boys are out of business. ibid.
Owney Madden was buried on the evening of April 24th 1965 in a cemetery near his home in Hot Springs, Arkansas … A man they used to call Owney ‘Killer’ Madden, Duke of the Westside. The Irish Mob s1e1, Netflix 2008
Madden’s sentence consisted of a minimum of ten years and a maximum of twenty years in Sing Sing prison: he would return to the street eight years later a new man. ibid.
Owney gained control of the biggest illegal alcohol business in America. ibid.