A sweeping federal indictment has charged
the entire leadership structure of the Colombo crime family in a scheme
involving labor union shakedowns, extortion, loansharking, drug
trafficking and money laundering.
Reputed
Colombo street boss Andrew "Mush" Russo, 87, and his
underboss, Benjamin Castellazzo, 83, were scooped up by federal agents
and New York police, along with seven other members of the Colombo crime
family, a U.S. attorney spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Russo's consigliere, Ralph DiMatteo, 66, was also charged in the indictment but remains on the run, prosecutors said.
Among those charged was 75-year-old capo Vincent "Vinny Unions" Ricciardo, who was recorded
during a phone call in June threatening to kill a labor union official
if he didn't play ball, according to the 19-count indictment.
'I'll
put him in the ground right in front of his wife and kids, right in
front of his f***ing house,' Ricciardo says in the disturbing recording
described in the indictment.
'I'm not afraid to go to jail, let me tell you something, to prove a
point? I would f***ing shoot him right in front of his wife and kids,
call the police, f*** it, let me go, how long you think I'm gonna last
anyway?'
The other
captains, or capos, arrested include Theodore Persico Jr., 58, - the
nephew of the late Colombo boss Carmine Persico - and Richard Ferrara,
59.
Colombo
soldier Michael Uvino, 56, and associates Thomas Costa, 52, and
Domenick Ricciardo, 56 - Vincent's cousin - were also booked.
The
indictment against the crime family members lays out multiple schemes in
a long-running campaign to infiltrate and take control of a
Queens-based labor union and its affiliated health care benefit
program, and to a conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with workplace safety certifications.
Russo,
Castellazzo, DiMatteo, Ferrara, Persico, Uvino, and Vincent and
Domenick Ricciardo colluded with fellow defendants Erin Thompkins, 53,
and Joseph Bellantoni, 39, among others, to devise a scheme to launder
money from union healthcare contracts and payments through various
channels linked to Bellantoni, and eventually to the Colombo crime
family's leaders, according to the indictment.
'Today's
charges describe a long-standing, ruthless pattern by the
administration of the Colombo crime family, its captains, members and
associates, of conspiring to exert control over the management of a
labor union by threatening to inflict bodily harm on one of its senior
officials and devising a scheme to divert and launder vendor contract
funds from its health care benefit program,' Acting U.S. Attorney
Jacquelyn M. Kasulis said of the high-profile arrests.
'In
addition, for their own enrichment, the defendants conspired to engage
in extortionate loansharking, money laundering and fraud, as well as
drug trafficking.'
'This
Office and its law enforcement partners are committed to dismantling
organized crime families, eliminating their corrupt influence in our
communities and protecting the independence of labor unions.'
The
feds also arrested a soldier for the Bonanno family, 59-year-old John "Maniac" Ragano, who is charged with loansharking, fraud and
drug-trafficking offenses.
Ragano
is accused of leading a scheme to issue fraudulent workplace safety
training certifications to construction workers, according to the
indictment.
Rather than provide
candidates the proper training, Ragano and fellow defendant and business
partner, John Glover, 62, allegedly falsified federal paperwork,
indicating hundreds of workers completed mandatory safety courses that
they did not actually complete - or even attend.
Instead,
various defendants used Ragano's pseudo-schools to conduct meetings
involving Sicilian mafia members and to store stashes of illegal drugs.
Meanwhile
they generated cash using the schools in Franklin Square and Ozone Park
as 'certificate mills', charging $500 a pop for construction safety
training certificates without providing any training or testing,
according to the indictment.
The final
defendant, Vincent Martino, 43, was charged along with Vincent
Ricciardo, Ragano, Costa, and Glover with conspiracy to distribute
marijuana by transporting large shipments of the drug across state lines
in vehicles from New York to Florida.
'Everything
we allege in this investigation proves history does indeed repeat
itself,' FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Driscoll said concerning the
indictment. 'The underbelly of the crime families in New York City is
alive and well.'
'These
soldiers, consiglieres, underbosses, and bosses are obviously not
students of history, and don't seem to comprehend that we're going to
catch them. Regardless of how many times they fill the void we create in
their ranks, our FBI Organized Crime Task Force, and our law
enforcement partners, are positioned to take them out again, and
again.'
According
to the indictment, the defendants and their co-conspirators committed
and are charged with a wide array of crimes – including extortion,
loansharking, fraud and drug trafficking – on behalf of the Colombo
organized crime family.
The
document asserts that Russo, Castellazzo, and DiMatteo, as well
captains Persico, Ferrara and Vincent Ricciardo, initiated direct
threats of bodily harm, to control the management of the labor union
that they were targeting, and influenced decisions that benefitted the
family.
According
to the U.S. attorney's office, Colombo captain Ricciardo and his
cousin, associate Domenick Ricciardo, collected a portion of the salary
of a senior union official for roughly 20 years, threatening the
high-ranking official and his family with violence - and even murder -
if he did not comply with the family's demands.
In
2019, the family sought to divert more than $10,000 per month from the
union's healthcare system directly to the administration of the Colombo
crime family.
The
suspects were taken to federal court in Brooklyn Tuesday afternoon and
will appear before a judge via videoconference to face the slew of
charges against them.
Unlike the others, Vincent Ricciardo was arrested in North Carolina and will be arraigned in Charlotte, also Tuesday afternoon.
Russo, known as 'Mush,' is a cousin of
Carmine Persico, and first rose to prominence in the family when he was
promoted to acting underboss in 1973. Carmine Persico, nicknamed the
Snake, died in 2019.
Russo was
sentenced to 14 years in state prison in November 1986, until his
release in July 1994, under special parole conditions.
He
first ruled as street boss from 1996 to 1999, bringing the then-warring
Colombos back from the brink after a devastating civil war, but was
arrested again in 1996 by the FBI, who slapped him with racketeering
charges, claiming he illegally controlled and oversaw Long Island's
garbage hauling industry.
In August
1999, Russo was convicted of jury tampering and sentenced to 57 months
in prison, compounded by 123 months for both parole violation and his
involvement in the racketeering case.
After
his release in 2010 at 76 years old, Russo again took over the family
as street boss after his parole expired, succeeding the incarcerated
Ralph DeLeo, while Persico's son, Alphonse "Allie Boy" Persico, served
as acting boss.
In 2011, he was
arrested again on racketeering charges, garnering a 33 month sentence.
He resumed his role as street boss on his release in 2013.
The
Colombo family is one of five major mafia organizations in the
northeastern United States. The others are the Genovese, Lucchese,
Gambino and Bonanno families.
The latest indictments leave it unclear who remains to take control of the Colombo syndicate on the street.
The
entire administration of the Colombo crime family, including Russo and
Castellazzo, already pleaded guilty to a variety of mobster activities
in 2012.
The New York mafia has been
weakened by several blows in recent years, including arrests,
fratricidal struggles and competition from other criminal organizations,
but they are still considered active.
The
reputed boss of the Gambino clan, Frank Cali, was shot and killed
outside his home in the New York borough of Staten Island in March 2019.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9990007/Colombo-crime-boss-arrested-feds-one-famed-five-families-fraud-corruption-raid.html
