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Mafia trial puts the ‘Pirate’ of Rome in the dock

Massimo Carminati, a former member of a neo-fascist group, is charged along with dozens of politicians and businessmen.

Sara Manisera |

Rome, Italy – Dozens of politicians, businessmen, and alleged gangsters go on trial on Thursday on charges including corruption, money laundering, and weapons possession in one of Italy’s most important mafia prosecutions in the past decade.

Italy’s Special Operation Squad (ROS) has, since 2012, investigated Mafia Capitale, a mysterious organisation based in the Italian capital that prosecutors allege involves politicians and other public officials working alongside mob figures.
  Italy’s long road of corruption

Important businessmen have been implicated and, according to the prosecutor of the case, alleged Mafia Capitale leader Massimo Carminati delivered envelopes full of money to bribe officials involved in managing public tenders.

Carminati is a former member of the neo-fascist group Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR), which was active from 1977 to 1988 and carried out several terrorist attacks, including the bombing of the Bologna train station that killed 85 people.

Known as “The Pirate” because of his one eye, Carminati gained a reputation as a ruthless mafia boss who controlled large parts of Rome.

Local legend has it that Carminati is immortal after he miraculously survived a close-range gunshot to the head by a police officer in 1981.

The trial opens at Rome’s Palace of Justice on Thursday before moving to Rebibbia prison. It is expected to last until July.

Luca Odevaine, a former deputy head of the mayor of Rome’s cabinet, has confessed to receiving 5,000 euros ($5,500) monthly from Mafia Capitale. Paolo Pozzessere, the former commercial director of Finmeccanica, an Italian public company, has been charged with corruption.

Like other organised crime groups, Mafia Capitale is allegedly involved in extortion, smuggling, and money-laundering, as well as above-board activities that have allowed it to effectively control large parts of Rome.

But Mafia Capitale is not a conventional mafia group, according to Nando dalla Chiesa, who heads the Observatory on Organised Crime.

“Rather than having a hierarchical structure, it is organised as a network with different members – those in charge of using violence, and those who apply a partial territory control,” dalla Chiesa told Al Jazeera.

A wounded woman receives assistance following the Bologna train station bombing on August 2, 1980 [The Associated Press]

Perhaps Carminati’s greatest power is his impunity, observers say.

In 2011, l’Espresso journalist Lirio Abbate wrote one of the first articles published about Carminati headlined The Four Kings of Rome.

Abbate, who has lived under police escort for the past seven years because of his journalism on the mafia, explained that Rome was divided among four bosses and one of them is Carminati – also dubbed the “Last King of Rome”.

Read Full Article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/11/mafia-trial-puts-pirate-rome-dock-151104055722963.html

Blog, Criminal, Organized Crime

Meet the Oldfathers: How 30 years after Goodfellas heist, veteran Mafia men

By ROB CRILLY FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Meet the Oldfathers: How 30 years after Goodfellas heist, veteran Mafia men struggled to use modern cell phones and got bartered down to $3,000 in a shakedown

 

  • Testimony in trial of Vincent Asaro, 80, who is accused of receiving money from notorious heist, revealed reality of modern Mafia life
  • His cousin Gaspare ‘Handsome’ Valenti, 68, who is a turncoat, revealed how Asaro hated ‘tiny keys’ of his mobile phone
  • Valenti told of meeting in Starbucks where he couldn’t drink the coffee because it would make him ‘wired’ 
  • They demanded payment of $5,000 debt from family member but he talked it down to $3,000 
  • Prosecution say Asaro was ‘made member of Bonnano family’ and involved in raid at New York‘s JFK airport which inspired Goodfellas

Three decades after allegedly pulling off one of the cash biggest robberies in American history, the men accused of stealing more than $6m in the Lufthansa heist were reduced to shaking down relatives for a few thousand dollars, according to secret recordings.

Vincent Asaro, 80, denies multiples charges of extortion, murder and violence that prosecutors believe spanned four decades as a key figure in Bonanno crime family.

The case against him is built on recordings made by his alleged associate Gaspare ‘Handsome’ Valenti, who wore an FBI wire for five years.

While the early evidence was a reminder of the power once wielded by New York’s five crime families, the later recordings show how the world of the mafia hood has changed.

Aging associates struggle to deal with mobile phones and meetings are held at Starbucks, rather than the social clubs favored during the 1970s and 1980s – and one could not even drink the coffee, saying it would leave him ‘wired’.

On the second day of the trial in Brooklyn, Valenti, 68, testified in minute detail how he had taken part in the Lufthansa raid – a robbery later dramatised in the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas – with Asaro.

But on Wednesday, he described a modest endeavor 32 years later: helping Asaro obtain money from a cousin, Carmine ‘Skippy’ Muscarello, who had inherited a house.

The episode began with Valenti, now 68, telephoning Asaro on his mobile phone in October 2010, to discover he was shopping in a local market for the ingredients for soup.

Ansaro answered: ‘I’m in Waldbaum’s. I’m shopping, I’m going to make lentil soup. I just bought lentils and some orzo and s***.’

They discussed the deal in a series of phonecalls, some apparently ending abruptly with dropped signals. Asaro said Skippy had promised him an ‘end’ – or a share – amounting to $5000 when he sold the house in Brooklyn.

fat

Valenti agreed to visit Asaro at his office in Long Island City where he was a manager for an electrical contractor. Perhaps he would wear a suit, he said.

‘Just be a gentleman,’ he added, ‘but do you want me to… you don’t want to get… uh?

‘No, no, no,’ answered Ansaro. ‘But let him understand that we want our money. I mean it Gar, I mean really he promised it to us. If you have to, then do it, that’s all.’

Valenti wore a wire to the meeting.

After waiting as Skippy orders parts on the telephone, he said: ‘Vinny wants this money. He felt he had the money coming to him.

‘Look, we did a lot of things for you… your brother, when Johnny was in trouble… ‘That’s not my debt,’ said Skippy. ‘That’s the only one that…

‘May your brother rest… ‘That’s my brother’s debt.’ ‘Wait. May your brother rest in peace…’

Valenti persuaded Skippy to speak with Asaro on his new mobile phone, but struggles to get through.

‘They made these numbers any smaller… it’s for Braille,’ Asaro can be heard saying.

Later he added: ‘I just got this phone the other day. It’s driving me crazy.’

drawmafia

Eventually Skippy spoke to Asaro and then said he was ready to write a check for $3000.

‘I’m gonna settle up with him but I don’t wanna here from you ever again, you understand? All right? All right?

They arranged to meet the following day, at a Starbucks on Cross Bay Boulevard, Queens.

‘You ever have any problems, you know exactly what you gotta do. You call me, Vinny or Jerry, and they’ll be there for you.’

They meet the next day at Starbucks, where Skippy produced the check.

Valenti has to apologise for leaving his coffee, which he explained would make him ‘wired’.

For Full Article – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3283389/Meet-Oldfathers-30-years-Goodfellas-heist-Mafia-men-struggled-use-modern-cell-phones-moaned-Starbucks-coffee-got-bartered-3-000-shakedown.html