massive auto thefts and so on, which frequently operated with a certain amount of law enforcement cooperation or at least benign neglect. These law enforcement figures found that narcotics dealings put too much pressure on them for it to be ignored.
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In 1979 the only solution seemed to be the removal of Galante. He was assassinated in a spectacular hit in a Brooklyn restaurant. But before he could be killed, the Zips had to be "neutralized." This was done in typical Mafia style. The Zips were recruited to join in the Galante hit. The wild men did so since it clearly meant they would enjoy even greater profits thereafter.
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Of course, the Mafia bosses were not trying to crimp the narcotics operation. They simply wanted a bigger slice for themselves and to run the operation less blatantly.
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Paul Castellano, successor to the late Carlo Gambino, informed the Zips that most of the spoils had to be funneled to him and, allegedly, his family, despite a death sentence punishment hanging over any family member engaging in the drug trade.
That
, Castellano determined, did not apply to himand he could exercise his usual greed and keep much of the profits for himself. The Zips, under their leader Sal "Toto" Catalano, agreed to the new deal.
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It soon became clear, however, how little they respected the deal. The Zips started varied operations of their own in Gambino family territory without the godfather's consent, making it apparent that they really only felt obliged to answer to their bosses in Sicily. The Zips' power grew on their bloated drug profits. Castellano recognized the fact that the Zips were becoming more powerful in Brooklyn than were his own soldiers, who resented the Zips and their boss who was swallowing so much of the drug revenues. Something had to be done.
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Many killings, carried out in Mafia crosscurrents of treachery took place before matters were settled. Soldiers on both sides died, but a new player entered the picture. Federal authorities started massive prosecutions that were to make the careers of future FBI director Louis Freeh and future New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Numerous arrests were made in what became known as the Pizza Connection case. Some of the players died, primarily Catalano's top aide Cesare Bonventre, whose death may have been ordered by Catalano or Castellano or the pair operating together. The prosecutions resulted in wholesale convictions, Catalano drawing a 45-year sentence. Castellano was murdered in a plot masterminded by John Gotti.
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The Zips were not completely eliminated, but their numbers were greatly reduced. And they did take some bad raps. Four months after Gotti seized leadership of the Gambinos, his top aide, Frank DeCicco, was killed in a car bombing. That attack, aimed at killing Gotti also, focused attention on the Zips, since the New York families long ago established a rule against such bombings in the city. Such murders produced too much heat if some soldiers' kin or some innocent bystander happened to be killed. However, the Zips came from Sicily where car bombings were a Mafia way of death.
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As it turned out, the DeCicco killing was the work of Genovese crime boss Chin Gigante, who hoped the technique would shift suspicions to the Zips. It was one of the few times the Zips were "not guilty."
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See also:
Bonventre, Cesare; Catalano, Salvatore "Toto
."
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Zwlllman, Abner "Longy" (18991959): Crime syndicate founder and New Jersey boss
With the exception of Meyer Lansky, Abner "Longy" Zwillman was the most feared and respected member of the "Jewish Mafia," the tough, bright Jewish gangsters who played a key role, certainly the equal of the Mafia-bred mobsters under Lucky Luciano, in forming the national crime syndicate. Like Lansky, Zwillman sat in on the top council meetings of the syndicate, and there was no nonsense, as has been much perpetuated in recent years, that said only Italians could vote. Despite various descriptions of the national commission of the Mafiawhich was actually limited in scope and authoritythe ruling group of the syndicate was the so-called Big Six, equally divided between Italians and Jews. Members of this group (after the imprisonment of Luciano) who continued to rule into the early 1950s were Lansky, Zwillman, Frank Costello, Joe Adonis and Tony Accardo, and Greasy Thumb Guzik.
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Zwillman worked closely with Lansky, Luciano, Costello and Willie Moretti in the early days. Moretti, an early boss of a tough Jersey crime family, was his junior partner and provided murder muscle when Zwillman needed it. Zwillman was one of the key figures in the new combination's successful efforts forcibly to absorb the Dutch Schultz empire. In the process, Zwillman became the undisputed boss of crime in New Jersey, in fact becoming identified as "the Al Capone of New Jersey."
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His political power in New Jersey was awesome. Officials in many localities hopped to his tune, and, in 1946, Republican governor Harold G. Hoffman personally solicited Zwillman's support. Three years later, the mobster passed the word to the Democratic candidate for the governorship, Elmer Wene, that he would contribute $300,000. All Zwillman wanted in return was the right to name the state's attorney general. Wene refused and lost the election.
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