The Mafia is back — but they’re not badder than ever, unless you’re afraid of podcasts or hang out in eyeglass shops.
Earlier this month, it almost sounded like old times. Ten alleged mafioso from the Gambino crime family — one of New York’s big five families — were indicted by the feds for alleged violent attempts to take over the city’s garbage hauling and demolition industry.
The charges included a hammer attack that sent one worker to the hospital and a threat to cut a New Jersey restaurant owner in half with a knife.
Then it was announced that the FBI was digging for bodies at two upstate New York horse farms allegedly connected with the Gambinos last week.
But the old guard isn’t impressed.
“I knew there’d be no murders [in the indictment],” John Alite, 61, told The Post. The notorious former hitman for the Gambino family estimates that he himself shot between 30 and 40 people, beat up another 100 or so with baseball bats and killed seven others. He served less than 19 years, total, in prison, partly because he cooperated with the feds.
Alite, who now has a mob-centric podcast and a website with merch that includes custom baseball bats for $200, says today’s Italian-American gangsters are lightweights.
“The mob is small time now. The idea of killing today? They won’t do it. They’ve farmed out a lot to black gangs,” Alite said. “They don’t know how to set up a team to do a killing. You need a shooter, you need a getaway car. These guys talk like children. They lost the mystique. We dressed with some style. These guys are in T-shirts and jeans.”
Michael Franzese is the son of one-time Colombo family underboss Sonny Franzese and grew up to be one of the family’s most powerful capos, at one point reportedly earning millions per week. He left the life in the early ’90s when he got out of prison on racketeering charges and relocated to California.
Now 72, Franzese has more than a million followers on his Youtube channel, is the author of several books about the mafia, and offers a $67 video course called “Wiseguy’s Guide to Getting What You Want.”
“It’s kind of over, I gotta say,” Franzese told The Post of today’s mafia. “The golden era of the Cosa Nostra was from the mid-’50s to the ’80s. Rudy Giuliani put a knife through the heart of the whole enterprise.”
Franzese admitted he misses some aspects of his old life, especially what he called “the brotherhood” of his fellow made men. He has a sense of humor about how he and other ex-mobsters are trading on their past notoriety with podcasts and motivational speeches.
“Sometimes I turn to my wife and say, Are we really doing this? It’s kind of hilarious. But that’s social media for you. That’s where the action is today.”
Franzese admitted he misses some aspects of his old life, especially what he called “the brotherhood” of his fellow made men. He has a sense of humor about how he and other ex-mobsters are trading on their past notoriety with podcasts and motivational speeches.
The recent Gambino family indictments are a far cry from the mob’s heyday in New York, when sensational murders like the 1985 assassination of Gambino boss Paul “Big Paul” Castellano and his underboss Thomas Bilotti outside Sparks steakhouse in Midtown rocked the city — and catapulted John Gotti, who ordered the hit, into gangster superstardom.
Images of the fallen Castellano — capo di tutti capi, or “boss of all bosses” — dominated headlines and TV newscasts ofor weeks. Late night host David Letterman joked that there was a new dish on the menu at Sparks: “Duck!!”
One thing that hasn’t changed are the nicknames the crime families bestow upon members. Before the media dubbed him the Dapper Don and Teflon Don, Gotti was known to his peers as Crazy Horse and Black John.
The recent 16-count indictment lists Joseph “Joe Brooklyn” Lanni, 52, of Staten Island; Vincent “Vinny Slick” Minsquero, 36, of Staten Island; and Francesco “Uncle Ciccio” Vicari, 46, of Elmont, New York.
Diego “Danny” Tantillo, 48, of Freehold, New Jersey; Angelo “Fifi” Gradilone, 57, of Staten Island; Kyle “Twin” Johnson, 46, of the Bronx; and Vito “Vi” Rappa, 46, of East Brunswick are also named, as are Salvatore DiLorenzo, 66, of Oceanside, New York; and James LaForte, 46, and Robert Brooke, 55, both of New York.
Several are accused of kicking up hundreds of thousands of dollars to Lanni — a made man who was the crew’s “caporegime,” or captain — through an intricate web of payments made by companies they owned, according to federal prosecutors.
“”It’s totally unfair,” Rappa’s wife Margherita told The Post. “He’s working all day in a restaurant 14 hours a day. It’s just accusations at this point. Vito is innocent. They had no reason to go after him.”