April 5 – Bonanno crime familyconsigliereAnthony Spero was convicted of racketeering and ordering the murders of Louis Tuzzio, Paul Gulino and Vincent Bickelman. Spero had supervised a violent Bonanno crew out of a Bath Beach, Brooklyn social club for more than 20 years.
April 12 – The Italian magazine L’Espresso puts Matteo Messina Denaro on the cover with the legend: Ecco il nuovo capo della mafia (Here is the new boss of the Mafia).
August 3 – Members of the Albanian Rudaj Organization attack Greek associates of the Lucchese crime family at a social club in a conflict over controlling gambling rackets in Astoria, Queens, New York City.[1]
December 6 – The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York indicted members of the gang from Staten Island, which prosecutors alleged was a mob farm team for the Bonanno and Colombo crime families. The crew was charged with burglarizing over 30 night-deposit boxes at banks across the country, netting $240,000, committing push-in robberies, loan sharking and money laundering. They were also charged with hijacking a truckload of marijuana worth over $1 million, and selling drugs in their neighborhood. Members included leader Lee D'Avanzo, Ned Bilali, Robert Catanese, Randy (Randy The Jew) Gordon, Francis Costanzo, William "Big Billy" Fauci, Joseph "Fat Joe" Gambino, and Edward Shamah.
Tadamasa Goto, the founding head of the Goto-gumi, a large affiliate of the largest known yakuza syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi, got a queue-jumping liver transplant at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles after giving a donation to the Center and getting a special visa deal from the FBI.[2]
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