All language subtitles for Lords.of.the.Mafia.with.Robert.Stack.S01E08.The.Rise.and.Fall.of.La.Cosa.Nostra.in.America.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

The Lucchese
family was involved

in every aspect of New
York's economic system.

They were not educated
in the academic sense,

but they understood business.

Treachery ruled
supreme in that family.

The treachery that
was orchestrated
enabled the government

to effectively prosecute the
leadership of that family.

Not long ago,

the question of whether
the Mafia existed at all

was a valid topic of debate.

Many people, including FBI
Director, J. Edgar Hoover,

for years denied the very
existence of organized crime.

And for years, the country's
top racketeers were able

to elude the justice system.

With the exception of
post-communist Russia,

the US has long led the world

with the most pervasive

organized criminal
presence anywhere.

And while the Mob flourished

under Hoover's hands-off policy,

recent decades has seen
significant inroads

by law enforcement.

Some say the Mafia has
now come full circle,

returning to its roots
as a loose association

of disparate street gangs.

None illustrates this
reversal of fortune better

than the Lucchese crime
family of New York.

Named after the second
boss of the family,

this organized crime
dynasty traces its origins

back to the streets
of New York City

early in the 20th century.

New York was a port of entry

for most of America's
European immigrants,

and it became the
breeding ground

for some of organized crime's
most notorious members,

Al Capone, Lucky Luciano,

Meyer Lansky all came
from immigrant families

who settled in the
Five Points Area,

a crowded ghetto with a long
history of Irish, Jewish,

and Italian gang activity.

It was here that a diverse bunch

of these ethnic gangs
coalesced in the early 1930s.

Five large criminal
groups of families emerged

as a central core of a vast
nationwide crime syndicate

we generally to as the Mob.

The top gangsters
of the Prohibition

also formed a commission

consisting of the heads
of the Five Families

and a few others.

And it is here in New York

where The Commission members
still meet in secret,

still discuss business,
still order hits,

and still control the rackets

that have made these
Mafia bosses filthy rich.

Are you member
of any secret organization?

Yes, I am.

What
is the name of it?

Cosa Nostra in Italian.

Cosa
Nostra in Italian.

Our thing and our
family in English.

In 1963,
Joseph Valachi became one

of the first
members of the Mafia

to break omerta code of silence,

and to reveal the secret rituals

and inner workings of the Mob.

For the first time,

the public learned of the
five Cosa Nostra families

and the unique hierarchy
of these organizations.

At the top is the boss, his
underboss, and consigliere,

the Mafia equivalent of
president, vice president

and attorney general.

Next, the family has
a number of capos,

and each had a crew
made up of soldiers,

the lowest ranking made members,

who along with non-mid
associates usually work

at the street level.

The name at the top of
one of those family charts

was Gaetano Lucchese,

who had long ago Americanized
his first name to Tommy.

From then on, his became known
as the Lucchese crime family.

A gangster organization

that would later bear his
name was already evolving

when young Gaetano Lucchese
first arrived in America

with his parents in 1905.

The Luccheses who had
come from Palermo, Sicily,

were among hundreds of
thousands of immigrants

who came to this country
in search of a better life.

Instead of streets paved
with gold, however,

many found themselves on
the fringes of society,

performing backbreaking
work for meager wages.

The Lucchese family,

like all the other Italian
immigrant families,

they were determined
that their sons

and daughters would make
it in the New World.

And they would very
often say to their sons,

"I don't want you to
be a donkey like me.

I wanted to see you study.

You do your homework,
you go to school.

I don't want to hear there's
any problems in school.

I don't want to hear
that you are a truant.

I want you to get an education

and I want you to
do better than me."

Early on, though,

Lucchese felt the
lure of the streets.

Every block in an Italian
neighborhood had a social club,

and when they walked
past the social club,

they saw something
very different.

Guys in suits, beautiful suits,

with fedoras, Italian
handmade shoes,

big, beautiful cars, women.

Kids like Lucchese, they
wanted to hang around

'cause what did they see?

They saw the American
dream, money, power.

Nobody bothered these guys.

When Tommy
Lucchese was a teenager,

his father disowned
the son he was unable

to save from the streets.

Lucchese came from a family

where he was the only criminal.

All the rest of the
people in his family

were quite straight, ordinary,

and for the rest of
days were very sensitive

and very ashamed over the fact

that they were even
related to this guy.

Tommy became
roommates with a boyhood friend,

Salvatore Lucania, who
would later be known

as Charles "Lucky" Luciano

credited as the founder
of The Syndicate.

His arrest record started
when he was 10 years old.

He moved out of the neighborhood

and he settled in East Harlem

and changed his name to Luciano,

so as not to shame his
family any further.

Along
with Lucky Luciano,

Tommy Lucchese's rise in
the underworld came quickly.

He developed a reputation as
being a stone cold killer.

By the end of World
War I, he was working

as Luciano's bodyguard
and favorite hitman.

Carl Sifakis researched
Tommy Lucchese

for "The Mafia Encyclopedia".

By that time, he was
already active with Luciano,

and the others, and
Albert Anastasia.

Now Albert Anastasia
was considered

the worst killer of them all.

He was the Lord High
Executioner, Murder, Inc.

Luciano always thought

Lucchese was a better
killer than him.

He could trust him
more, he was cool,

he followed orders.

Really, the modern
American Mafia,

as we know it, was born
up on those streets

in the boyhood rumbles of guys
like Luciano, and Lucchese,

and Frank Costello,
and Vito Genovese,

they all knew each other and
they were all in the same

what was called a borgata.

Borgata means like a gang,
a gang of delinquent boys.

East Harlem was a really
tough immigrant neighborhood.

I mean, it was poor, it was
violent, it was squalid,

it was crowded,

but it also produced
Fiorello La Guardia,

and it produced judges

and it produced
distinguished businessmen.

Why in an immigrant
neighborhood,

why do some go into the Borgata

and some go to college?

We don't know.

Lucchese,
Luciano and many

of their friends
eventually became members

of the large gang run by Joe
The Boss, Masseria Sicilian

who operated out of the Italian
neighborhood of East Harlem.

Bootlegging was
their main source

of illegal profit made possible

by the national ban on
the sale of alcohol.

While supporters of Prohibition

had hoped it would cure
America's social problems,

in reality, it
provided gangsters

with the opportunity
of a lifetime.

Lucky Luciano and his
criminal associates

worked out an elaborate
system to import

and distribute alcohol all
over the United States.

Meyer Lansky masterminded
the finances.

Tommy Lucchese organized
the transportation system.

Frank Costello
handled the bribery

of law enforcement
and politicians.

These were guys who
were innovative thinkers.

They were smart,
they were shrewd.

They were not educated
in the academic sense,

but they understood business.

They understood markets.

They had all the
requisite talents

to become great businessmen,

but for reasons that we
don't quite yet understand,

they went in another direction.

By the mid
thirties, the business

of bootlegging had become
highly competitive and dangerous

with violent turf wars
breaking out all over America.

In New York, Joe the Boss,
found his supremacy threatened

by a new Sicilian arrival,

the power hungry
Salvatore Maranzano.

Maranzano came over

and he tried to purify the Mobs

that would be all coming
from one part of Sicily,

and they would knock
off everybody else

and control everything.

Maranzano
trusted only Sicilians

from the same hometown as
his, Castellammare del Golfo.

And the feud between Masseria

and Maranzano became known
as the Castellammarese War.

As the war escalated,
younger Americanized Italians

and their Jewish
gangster partners
plotted to rid themselves

of what they called
the old Mustache Petes

whose rivalry, they viewed as
an obstacle to true wealth.

Meyer Lansky
summed it up best.

He said, "Look,

Chevrolet salesmen don't
shoot Ford salesmen, do they?"

He had made his point.

Why are you shooting each other?

There's plenty for everybody.

An
ambitious and cunning

Lucky Luciano pretended to
defect to the Maranzano camp.

He then lured his
old boss, Masseria,

to a Coney Island restaurant
where Masseria was executed,

reportedly by Vito Genovese,
Joe Adonis, Albert Anastasia,

and Bugsy Siegel.

Maranzano claimed victory

and called a meeting of
all the Italian gangsters,

proclaiming himself,
Boss of Bosses.

He then divided up the business

amongst those most loyal to him.

This was the beginning of
the Mafia crime families

as we know them today.

Maranzano formed five
specific organizations, okay?

And he set them up along
the lines of a Roman Legion.

He didn't call them families.

It was set up just
like Roman legions.

And they were to control
strictly the crime

within their very specific
organized territories.

But there
were those who found fault

with a new system.

Luciano and Genovese
were under him,

but they saw that he
was opposed to working

with the Jewish Mobsters.

And if you were in bootleg
at the time, you had

to be involved with
the Jewish gangsters

like the Purple Gang

that dominated the bringing
over liquor through Detroit.

Meanwhile,
Maranzano knew we'd
have to get rid

of the fast rising Luciano,

but Luciano would
send over Tom Gagliano

and Tommy Lucchese as spies
in the Maranzano camp.

Maranzano was no fool.

He knew he had to
get rid of Luciano

and the whole bunch and
Costello and the others,

so he was planning
to kill them all.

However, the two spies

that he trusted very much
was Gagliano and Lucchese.

Lucchese
warned Luciano of the plot.

Luciano loyalists
then counter plotted

and sent Lucchese to Maranzano's
office on the pretense

of having urgent
business to discuss.

Within moments, four
Jewish gangsters posing

as treasury agents
burst into the office

and lined Maranzano's
men up against the wall.

Lucchese fingered the victim

and the assassins carried
out the hit on Maranzano.

Lucchese ran out,

and when the police came,

there was nobody there
except a dead man.

And that cleared the way
for the American Mafia

to be established.

With great criminal vision,

Luciano, together with his
Jewish Mobster partner,

Meyer Lansky established
a national syndicate

of organized crime
and The Commission

to act as governing body.

In New York, the
Five Families set up

by Maranzano were reorganized,

and Tom Gagliano was given
leadership of one of them

with Tommy Lucchese
as his underboss.

After Gagliano died
from natural causes,

Lucchese took command,

and led the family to its most
prosperous and peaceful era.

Though his main
occupation was Mob Boss,

Lucchese kept a low profile

and maintained a front
in the garment business

to camouflage his
criminal activity,

He controlled one of
the big dress companies there,

and at the same time
shook down all the others.

They were taking like
30, 40 grand a year

for you to stay in business.

The real money,
of course, was in the rackets

Lucchese had come
to learn so well.

Along with loan sharking,

the Lucchese family ran another
traditional big money maker,

gambling.

It was a time honored
business for gangsters,

Italian, Jewish, or others.

Now Bugsy Siegel would
walk down a street,

and what first attracted
him was gambling.

There were gambling games out
on the street, crack games,

people rolling dice up
against the brick wall.

And he'd look down,

there'd be piles of
money laying around,

people betting money.

They can set up dice rooms

and it may not sound like much,

but when you have six dice
rooms going 24 hours a day

with high rollers, you're
taking in thousands

and thousands of
dollars an hour.

The Mob didn't
always agree on business.

One of the rackets

that caused the greatest
dissent was heroin dealing.

Tommy Lucchese opposed
drug trafficking

as it left the
family too exposed

to scrutiny on the streets.

Others, unable to ignore the
enormous profits embraced it.

All took their share of the
profits from the illegal trade.

Lucchese got
his cut, you know.

He kept away from it,
but he expected his cut.

But organized criminal
groups have always made money

with such favors as gambling,
prostitution, and extortion.

It was mostly after Prohibition,

The Mob began looking for
new rackets to exploit.

Tommy Lucchese's outfit was
particularly adept at coming up

with lucrative new schemes
to bring in piles of cash.

They were involved
primarily in crimes

such as murder, loan
sharking, gambling,

labor racketeering,
obstruction of justice,

political corruption,
you name it.

The Lucchese family was
involved in every aspect

of New York's economic system.

Lucchese
learned that the secret

to a successful
industry racket is

to seize control of a key union

then put the squeeze
on the business owners.

This tactic was
especially effective

in the garment and
construction trades.

In the case of
the garment center,

organized crime, Lucchese
family specifically discovered

that there's one
key to trucking,

that's Teamsters Union.

There's one Teamsters
Union local,

which represents virtually
all the truck drivers

and the garment center.

Now, if you take
control of that local

as they did, now
you've got power.

Why is it power?

Because if the Teamsters
Union suddenly goes

on strike, nothing moves.

The same
was true in construction.

As an assistant US attorney,
Michael Chertoff learned

how the Mob operated.

They had the ability
through the labor unions

to stop a job, to delay a job,

to make sure that the concrete
was delivered in a manner

that would be disruptive
to the progress of the job.

And they knew that by creating
these kinds of problems,

they could cost the companies
millions of dollars.

Now we're talking
here about hundreds

of millions of dollars.

We're talking about
four families,

primarily the Colombo
family, the Genovese family,

the Gambino family, and
the Lucchese family.

But the bosses of
these four families

had six general contractors,
six construction companies

that only these
companies were allowed

to bid on major projects
in New York City.

For every job that was over
$2 million, the contractor

that got the contract had to
kickback to the families 2%.

The
Lucchese leaders

took the construction
racket a step further

than the other families.

Lucchese family had
one little specialty

that everybody had
overlooked, but they found it.

They realized
something, which is that

if you're making
construction grade concrete,

you need stone.

Now it turns out they discovered

that almost all the stone comes

from quarries in Connecticut.

Well, they ship it by water
and it comes into Long Island,

but there's only one port in
Long Island that handles it

and then processes it for
construction purposes.

Perfect scenario. They got
control of the stone business.

The
Luccheses lent new meaning

to the old saying,

one man's trash is
another man's treasure.

They gained control of
the carting industry

and hauled in millions.

The World Trade
Center at one point,

their garbage bill was
$1.1 million a year.

That's a lot of garbage,

but not a million
dollars worth of garbage.

What could the World
Trade Center do?

They found out there was
only one garbage hauler,

which would pick
up their garbage.

Some business
owners rebelled against the Mob,

but found themselves
fighting a dangerous battle.

There was always the
threat of violence.

You know, we had tapes
where Mobsters would sit

with contractors and tell
them stories about people

who had disappeared or
people who had gotten beaten.

And all this was designed
to send the message

that it could happen to you.

So let me get this straight.

You guys want me to go
with your carting company,

even though it'll cost
me three times as much

as I was paying at
my old location?

That would be the
smart thing to do.

What if I say no?

What if I don't want
to use you guys?

You can't force me.

Hey, it's a free country, pal.

We ain't gonna make you do
nothing you don't want to do.

That's right.

This is a business decision
that you've gotta make.

You familiar with
Alden Supply Company?

Yeah,
they're across the street.

That's right. Ken
Strauss, the owner.

What, he's been missing
for about a month now?

One day he just didn't
come home from work.

The problem was that

Kenny made some bad
business decisions.

They divvied up
private businesses

such as the carting business

or concrete business
for themselves.

They ran their businesses
contrary to the American way.

They ran their way.

They enforced their
control over the businesses

and industries through fear.

For over three decades,

Tommy Lucchese ran his criminal
empire a great success,

without getting knocked
off or imprisoned.

He also successfully
kept his personal family

well insulated from
his Mafia family.

He died of natural causes.

And after his death,
his surviving relatives

actually changed the
spelling on his tombstone

to keep outsiders away.

Before he died, Lucchese
had one last bit

of underworld
business to attend to,

picking a successor to
run the organization.

His choice with approval

by The Commission was a protege

from the old neighborhood in
East Harlem, Anthony Corallo.

Even more than his
predecessor and mentor,

Anthony Corallo's
background was pure hoodlum

as former prosecutor,
Ronald Goldstock learned,

Corallo was an individual

who came up through the
family through violence.

People understood that.
People were afraid of him.

He was a person
that was respected

and so for him to head the
family was not surprising.

There was only
one thing standing in the way

of a smooth transition of power.

Corallo was heading
to a prison sentence

on a bribery conviction,
an unusual event

for the Mobster
nicknamed Tony Ducks

for his ability to duck the law.

Corallo was a person
who believed in murder

as a means of
accomplishing their ends.

He was an individual who
grew up understanding

what power meant and
physical violence could do,

and he practiced
that from the time

that he began
criminal activities

through his years
as a labor racketeer

into controlling the family.

Corallo
began his Mafia career

in the Lucchese
family stronghold,
the Garment District.

By the 1950s, he was one of
the biggest labor racketeers

in the country.

He and an associate
allegedly put into power

the most infamous union boss
of all time, James Hoffa.

It is a complex area and a lot

of traditional organized crime
groups really didn't know

how to exploit it.

Tony Ducks Corallo,
Johnny Dioguardi did.

Johnny Dio was the individual

who created the Pope paper
locals in the Teamsters Union,

which enabled Jimmy Hoffa
to become the president.

Tony Ducks Corallo played a
menacing role within the area

of labor racketeering.

For decades,
gangsters operated

with virtual impunity.

On the local level, law
enforcement was corrupt

from top to bottom.

At the national level,
a limited war was fought

by the Federal
Bureau of Narcotics.

While the FBI, under the rule

of J. Edgar Hoover officially
said there was no Mob.

For a long time,
until he was embarrassed

into admitting the existence
of organized crime,

Mr. Hoover refused to
admit even the existence

of organized crime.

Various
explanations for
Hoover's position

include persistent rumors
of a secret personal life.

Mob threatened to
expose his lifestyle.

The idea of charging a
person with being a member

of a Mafia family was unheard of

because of the difficulty
the government would have

in trying to prove that.

They didn't have the
inside witnesses.

They didn't have
the tape recordings

of discussions between
members of the Mafia

who would recite the
names of the families

or the leadership
or who they might be

or the positions held by
this guy and that guy.

That came later.

Hard jail
time was the furthest thing

from the minds of the wise guys,

but that too was
about to change.

After years of operating
independently, local, state

and federal law enforcement
agencies began cooperating.

Ronald Goldstock headed
the New York State

organized crime task
force in the eighties.

For a period of time,
law enforcement had been

fighting a war of attrition.

Individuals were arrested and
invited for specific crimes.

They may be put in prison.

Generally, they were out

after a relatively
short period of time.

The FBI found
it a frustrating experience.

We would find a witness.

We would develop
evidence about the crime.

We would arrest the extortionist
and we'd put them in jail.

No matter how many we
arrested, as we like to say,

there was always a hundred
in line to take their place.

One thing
law enforcement knew was

that often Mob related murders
occurred with no witnesses

or with witnesses who
were themselves Mobsters

and not likely to speak
to the authorities.

But a member of
a gang was killed

that usually sent a message
to the others to keep quiet.

That all changed
with the RICO statute

and electronic surveillance
in 1968 and 1970,

and other methods of
dealing with problems

of organized crime, where
you could look at them

as groups of individuals
committing patterns

of criminal activity.

Greg O'Connell
and other prosecutors

recognized the importance
of the RICO statute.

The racketeering statute
was a brilliant invention,

which enabled the government

to charge not just a
specific isolated offense

of larceny or an arson
or a payoff or a bribe

or a murder in isolation,

which is the way the country
operated up until that time.

What this offense allowed
was the prosecution

of an actual organization.

You really can't
catch the leaders

of organized crime
on the streets.

That's not where they are.

Where they are is
in social clubs

or in restaurants
planning the activities

that the soldiers and the
captains are gonna carry out.

We would plant mics
in clubs and bars

and restaurants, in
homes in different rooms.

We would book telephones,
all by court order.

One of the things
were looking to do was

to use the RICO statute
to indict The Commission,

the heads of the five
New York crime families.

The organized crime task force
had extraordinary information

as to the Lucchese family

and some evidence as to the
heads of one or two others.

The FBI had bugs in on the heads

of three families at the time.

And so if you combine the two,

there was a mountain of evidence

that could be used to indict

and convict all of
the family bosses.

The New York
City Police Department

and the FBI began working
together with a common goal.

Rich Seta was a New York
detective on Mob duty.

At this point, the
marriage was made,

if you will, between the FBI

and the New York City
Police Department

Organized Crime
Investigation Division,

where a commitment of
detectives were assigned

to FBI squads.

And those squads were
dedicated to investigations,

proactive investigations
into organized crime families

in the New York City area.

I personally don't believe
we could have done the job

that we did without the help

and assistance of the New
York City Police Department.

They had an ability to
do things from their days

on the street as cops
and their experience

that we could not do, we
as agents, could not do.

We complimented each
other beautifully

and it couldn't have
been a better match.

And without them, as I say,
we would've never succeeded

as well as we did.

One of the most
significant achievements

of the joint effort was
the planting of a bug

in the Jaguar belonging to
Lucchese Capo, Sal Avellino.

Investigators learned that
Tony Ducks routinely rode

with Avellino to
discuss Mafia business.

Why we only got
150 trucks running

when we used to have
300 trucks running, Sal?

They got half of
that on the other side.

Tony, come on. We're
doing the best we can.

You're busting my chops here.

Well, this is our bread
and butter. You know that.

- I understand.
- I want to keep it that way.

- I understand.
- This is the business

that brings in
most of the money.

They knew the car
would be the key

to their investigation,

but planting a bug

in the Mobile Lucchese
headquarters was not going

to be easy.

The car was constantly garaged
at Sal Avellino's home.

When parked away from home,
it was never left unattended.

And when being driven,

Avellino drove deliberately
circuitous route

to throw off any
would-be tailers.

Members of the task force
waited for the right moment.

Meanwhile, the team practiced
the bugging procedure,

working with an identical car

and hoping for a break.

In under 15, ready? Go.

That
opportunity presented itself

one rainy March night

when Avellino drove to a
catering hall in Long Island

for a garbage industry function.

Avellino turned the Jaguar
over to two of his hoods,

whose job it was to
stand watch over the car

while their boss was inside.

Meanwhile, the team of
bugging experts were watching

from the far end
of the parking lot.

With rain pouring down on them,

the two guards finally
decided it was safe

to leave the car briefly

and ducked inside the hall.

That's when the task
force men made their move.

They scaled the fence

and dashed towards
Avellino's car.

In one motion, they
opened the door,

and went to work
on the dashboard

while one of the team kept watch

with a walkie talkie in back

in case anyone
approached the car.

Within minutes, he
had planted the bug

and just as quickly as they
got in, the team exited the car

and closed the doors,
being careful not

to leave any telltale
drops of water inside.

When Avellino left the
catering hall later,

his two bodyguards
helped him into the car,

none of them suspecting
even remotely

that the Jaguar had
been tampered with.

Here, Tony Ducks

and Avellino can be heard
discussing the merits

of inducting their
sons into the Mafia.

Andy Russo just
made his other son,

the youngest one boy.

When?

I guess on the last...

Recently, I don't know when.

I mean, you know,
in the last year.

They
make all their kids.

Yeah, he
made his two sons.

Would
you make your kids?

No, not now.

I mean not. My thinking
right now is no.

It might change
five years from now,

10 years from now,

but right now my thinking is no.

The original objective
of the investigation was

to capture evidence,
collect as much evidence

about the carting industry.

Well, what do you know?

They caught
conversations of the boss

of the Lucchese crime family
speaking about a variety

of crime family interests,
including the concrete case.

And those tapes
were the foundation

for what was later known
as The Commission Case.

This was the effort
by the US Attorney's Office

to bring down the heads of all
the New York crime families.

Michael Chertoff was
the lead prosecutor.

What the case did was

that we essentially proved the
activities of The Commission

over a 50 year period.

We had evidence about
the famous 1957 meeting

of the bosses in
Apalachin, New York.

We had evidence of other
Commission meetings,

and we actually demonstrated
members of The Commission

engaged in dividing
up the proceeds

of extortion in the
construction industry

in the city of Manhattan.

Bosses and their
lieutenants sitting down

and talking about how
to cut up the money

that they were receiving
from concrete companies

that were paying off
on every contract

that they engaged
in in Manhattan.

Basically what
The Commission did

was divide up every contract
involving the pouring

of concrete that was
over $2 million in value

among the four families.

The Bonanno family was cut
out of that conspiracy.

And every job would
result in a payment

of 2% of the contract
price to the bosses

who would then divided them
up among the various families

as their share of this
extortion operation.

We also proved that
The Commission had
authorized the murder

of Carmine Galante,
who was the boss

of the Bonanno family in 1979

and we did that in
the old fashioned way.

We used fingerprint evidence,
we used eyewitness evidence,

and we used
circumstantial evidence

from videotapes and photographs.

And with that evidence, the
wiretaps, the physical evidence,

the fingerprints, we were
able to put together a picture

of the activities
of The Commission

really going back
to the early 1930s.

When the
case ended, the top ranks

of the New York Mafia
were off to prison.

Tony Ducks was sent away
for the rest of his life.

It was a milestone in the
war against organized crime.

All of us who worked

on the case knew it was
gonna be a legendary case.

This was the top
echelon of the Mafia.

For the first time we were
gonna prove the existence

of a Commission, that there
was a nationwide syndicate.

We were gonna prove events

that had occurred
30, 40, 50 years ago

that one had read about,

but that had never actually
been established in court.

We knew that to take down the
bosses who were long viewed

as the most secretive
and the most hidden

and the most powerful members

of organized crime would
be a devastating blow.

And at the end of the case,

when every single
defendant was convicted

on every single
count, I think we felt

we'd achieved a victory
that was really remarkable.

Subsequent to his conviction,

along with other top Mobsters,

Tony Ducks Corallo was handed
a 100 year prison sentence.

His two decade term as boss
of the family was finished.

When he turned over the reigns
of power to Vicar Amuso,

Corallo probably didn't know

that he was indirectly
contributing to the downfall

of his own crime family

and to a certain extent,
the entire New York Mafia.

Former assistant US
attorney, Greg O'Connell,

believes the assumption
of leadership

by Amuso and his chief eight,

Anthony Gaspipe Casso was
a major turning point.

I think that once Tony
Ducks Corallo picked Vic Amuso

to run the family
along with Gaspipe,

that was the death null of
the Lucchese crime family.

It was a reign of terror in
the Lucchese crime family

where treachery ruled
supreme in that family

and where the treachery that
was orchestrated by Amuso

and Casso enabled the government

to effectively prosecute the
leadership of that family.

One event
that led to trouble

for the Lucchese family was
when the new family leaders went

into a window replacement
racket with the Genovese family

through a mutual
associate, Peter Savino.

What happened was Peter
Savino as a Genovese associate

who was directly associated
with a guy named Jerry Pappa,

who was then a soldier in
the Genovese crime family

were looking for a business to
enter, not just any business,

but some profitable business

they might know something about

and they were experienced
in construction.

And Peter Savino had met someone

who was involved in the
window replacement business

and thought that might
be a lucrative industry

for him there.

In the seventies, we all
experienced the oil shortage

and the dramatic rise in pricing

in fuel, oil and gasoline.

And it became readily apparent
that it was cost effective

to replace windows in your
home and in businesses

to offset the price of heating.

The New York City
Housing Authority,

if you looked at New York
City, you saw the number

of housing projects, housing
developments that they had,

had a tremendous
amount of windows

and a tremendous amount of money

that they were
pouring into heating.

It all came as a
part of a program

to better insulate the buildings
and reduce energy costs.

So these many, many
buildings in New York City

and elsewhere in the country

didn't have thermo pane windows.

They had windows that had
been there for 40 years

that let a whole lot of heat
out and a whole lot of cold in

It didn't take the LCN very
long to figure out an angle

and the angle was to
have selective installers

bid rig, get the bid

and then assess them a price

of $2 per window
for labor piece.

So if you multiplied the
number of housing developments

by the number of windows in
place that have been replaced,

you could see the significance
of this windows case.

While Vic
Amuso and Tony Casso waited

for profits to pull in
from the window racket,

the law began to
catch up with them.

A murder investigation
led authorities

to victims buried under
Peter Savino's factory.

Upon digging up those bodies,

as we were standing
there watching this
evidence come to us,

we realized that we had
what we needed to roll

and to confront and roll
yet another very influential

and knowledgeable person
in the Genovese family

and that was Peter Savino.

And he ran around for 18 months,

wired up in a secret
undercover investigation

against numerous members and
captains and an underboss

and consiglieres of
various crime families

until finally we
pulled the plug.

The windows case was
successfully prosecuted

through a cooperating
witness, Peter Savino.

He had the inside
knowledge, if you will,

of the machinations
that occurred

that allowed this
case to proceed.

How the bids were rigged,

how the payments were
extorted and distributed.

When we indicted
the windows case,

Vic Amuso and Anthony
Gaspipe Casso,

who were then the
boss and underboss,

the two highest ranking members

of the Lucchese
crime family fled.

And while they were on the lamb,

they began a series of contracts

on their own leadership

which we later
prosecuted Vic Amuso for

and Gaspipe Casso.

And they knocked off captains

who they thought
might be treacherous.

They labeled them as rats

and ordered their own
soldiers to kill their own

and it happened
half a dozen times.

The
murderous actions

of Gaspipe Casso led authorities

to believe he was either
insane or just plain stupid.

Stupid to a degree that
is almost breathtaking.

It is almost inconceivable

that in an organization
originally founded by a guy

who was so low key,

you would never guess this
man was a Mafia leader

to be replaced ultimately
by a psychopath.

Amuso and Casso
became increasingly paranoid.

They even turned on their own
chief executioner Peter Chiodo

when he failed to
carry out a hit.

After an attempt was
made on his life,

Chiodo flipped and
became a witness,

so did acting underboss,
Little Al D'Arco.

In 1993, D'Arco walked
into the FBI's office

in White Plains, New York after
being falsely labeled a rat.

It was an event law
enforcement was waiting for

in their ongoing war against one

of the world's most successful
criminal dynasties ever.

This
is it. Let's hear it.

Okay.

I'm gonna tell you what I know

and I'm gonna tell
you how I know it.

For
the Lucchese family,

the curtain was closing.

Prosecutors were able once again

to strip away the top layers
of the family leadership.

Vic Amuso was still the boss
of the Lucchese crime family.

I think the government's view

of the situation
based on the evidence,

and their current
understanding is

that he hasn't relinquished
control, but he could.

Former
FBI agent, Bonavolonta

believes the Lucchese family
is in serious trouble.

The new leaders,
the leaders of today,

the second and third team as
I have always called them,

they're tied not by
honor, respect and family,

they're tied by the economy.

They're tied by money,
they're tied by greed.

And greed and money,
those ties are much easier

to break than honor,
respect and family.

So what we're finding
is a much less competent

Mafia leader today, La Cosa
Nostra leader today than we had

in the seventies and eighties.

You know, you ever
see those charts,

you know, the
original Neanderthal

or the Lucy, wherever it is,
the earliest men that kind of,

they look sort of apelike,

but as the time goes
on, they get smarter,

their brain cases get bigger,

and now they're erect homo
sapiens in business suits.

It's the opposite way here.

Though
Thomas Dewey promised

to rid the country of the Mob

and Robert Kennedy made the
same promise decades later,

it has only been in recent years

that new laws and new approaches

to fighting organized crime
have started to pay off.

Federal, state and local
police have finally figured out

how to work together
effectively.

Legislators have at last given
prosecutors laws with teeth.

The once powerful dynasty

that was the Lucchese family
has also been affected

by cultural changes
since the early 1900s.

Old world traditions
transplanted

in the land of opportunity,

provided just the
fertile conditions needed

to produce criminal masterminds

as Lucky Luciano, Meyer
Lansky and Gaetano Lucchese.

Later replacements
for the founders

of the national crime
syndicate seemed

to have taken a
Darwinian step backward.

If people think
the battle is over,

if they walk away from
from the constant need

to fight organized crime,

then in 10 years or 20 years
organized crime will come back.

Though many have proclaimed
the death of the old Mob,

especially the dynasty once
ruled by Tommy Lucchese,

law enforcement officers caution

that the Mafia is
down, but not out.

They remind us of
the amazing power

of criminal enterprises
to regenerate.

And while the Lucchese

and other crime families
may never regain the power

of decades past, they continue
to operate in the shadows.

They're constantly
devising new rackets

and new ways to
allude prosecution.

Perhaps a final
chapter will unfold

as law enforcement further
refines its efforts

to stay one step ahead
of the wise guys.

I'm Robert Stack.
Thanks for joining us.