Identifying Underworld Informants: Two Gambino Informants

April 2013 Contents
Column

Identifying Underworld Informants

Two Gambino informants had very different fates

By Edmond Valin

Carmine Lombardozzi

"On July 11, 1963, two men wearing makeup disguises entered a Brooklyn florist shop and fired five bullets into its owner before escaping. Shot dead was forty-year-old Gambino Family soldier Alfredo 'Freddie the Sidge' Santantonio. It didn’t take investigators long to figure out why. Nearly eighteen months earlier, Santantonio and two criminal associates were sentenced to eight years in prison for trying to sell stolen bonds. But unlike his accomplices, Santantonio never saw the inside of a cell. When Colombo Family member and informant Gregory Scarpa was asked at the time about the murder, he told the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 'it was common talk in Brooklyn that [Santantonio] was killed because he was cooperating with the government.'”

Fourteen and a half pages, including six and a half pages of notes and two photographs.

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Identifying Underworld Informants

October 2012 Contents
Column

Identifying Underworld Informants:

Bay-Area informants proved crucial for FBI

By Edmond Valin

Fear of boss Cerrito (above)
caused at least one San Jose
mobster to become an informant.

"By the early 1960s, the FBI had persuaded at least three members of the San Jose, California, Mafia and one member of the San Francisco Mafia to share confidential information. At a time when the FBI’s knowledge of the Mafia was limited, these sources identified members, revealed organizational history and helped the Bureau build a storehouse of Mafia intelligence."

Eight pages, including one photograph and three pages of notes.

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Identifying Underworld Informants

April 2012 Contents
Column

Identifying Underworld Informants:

Two 'Made' Members Provided

the FBI with Info on Philly Mob

By Edmond Valin

"...In Philadelphia, the FBI managed to persuade two inducted Mafia members to share confidential information. Their disclosures provided the foundation for the Bureau’s understanding of the Philly Mob. Although FBI documents are carefully crafted to protect the identities of informants, enough clues were left in the documents to make identification of the two Philadelphia informants possible."

Four pages
Including one image and one page of notes.

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October 2011 Issue of Informer

October 2011 Contents

Though Gaspare Messina was one of a very small number of American Mafiosi ever to occupy the position of boss of bosses, few remember his name today. There are a number of reasons—including timing, background and overshadowing by more dynamic and tragic figures—that even true crime aficionados have found Messina forgettable.

In the lead feature in this issue, Richard Warner helps make Messina memorable by exploring his origin, his reign in New England, his brief tenure as supreme arbiter of the American Mafia and his quiet retirement in a Boston suburb (preview).

Acquaintances reportedly believed Tommy Carroll was always destined for a violent end. A gangster and bank robber, Carroll lived life on the edge, as he partnered with better known outlaws like “Baby Face” Nelson and John Dillinger. Carroll is the focus of Jeffery S. King’s feature article in this issue (preview).

Informer returns to the New England Mafia for its third feature, the initial article in Thomas Hunt’s series on Providence-based crime boss Raymond “the Man” Patriarca (preview). Also in this issue: Bill Feather provides a membership chart for the early Profaci/Colombo Crime Family (preview). Ed Valin takes another look at the FBI informants in the Chicago Outfit (preview). Patrick Downey deals with gangster combustion (preview). Richard Warner follows up on his July column by addressing additional J. Edgar Hoover rumors (preview). Thom L. Jones tells readers how an interest in sea otters sparked many years of research into the Mafia (preview). Informer reviews Al Capone and His American Boys by William Helmer (preview).

Seventy-six pages. Published October 13, 2011.

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Identifying Underworld Informants

October 2011 Contents
Column
By Edmond Valin

Post-Giancana Outfit was
fertile soil for FBI informants

"A careful examination of declassified documents shows the penetration of the Chicago Outfit by the FBI in the 1960s was greater than is commonly recognized. Taking advantage of the turmoil within the Outfit during boss Sam Giancana’s imprisonment and subsequent departure from Chicago, the FBI appears to have persuaded more than ten made members to share confidential information."

Five pages including a half page of notes and three photographs.

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July 2011 Issue of Informer

July 2011 Contents

Crime historians have puzzled for decades over FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s long denial of the existence of organized crime. Following the Apalachin Mafia convention of 1957 and Joe Valachi’s revelations in the early 1960s, Hoover and his Bureau joined the war on organized crime. Hoover, however, never explained his earlier reluctance , and various theories—some baseless and cruel—have emerged to fill the void in the historical record.

In this issue, author Alex Hortis shares with us a recently discovered handwritten Hoover memo from 1970 that serves as a window into the director’s earlier position (preview). Hortis and Informer columnist Richard Warner (preview) double-team many of the myths that have circulated about Hoover.

The New England Crime Family receives special attention in this issue. We begin with Part 1 of Richard Warner’s history of the Mafia in Boston (preview). A look at some of the better known underworld meeting places on Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island (preview), and Bill Feather’s New England Mafia Membership Chart (preview) follow.

In his first article for Informer, historian Ed Valin puts together historical clues to track down two of the FBI’s best confidential informants (preview).

Author Patrick Downey devotes his quarterly Dead Guys in Suits column to a discussion of siblings eliminated by their underworld rivals (preview). Then, in the issue’s final pages, Informer editor/publisher Thomas Hunt looks at an extremely early prediction of the Sicilian Mafia’s demise (preview).

Fifty-six pages. Published July 22, 2011.

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Roemer's Men in the Outfit

July 2011 Contents
Feature Article
By Edmond Valin

Butch Blasi

"In 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered the removal of all devices used by the FBI to listen in on organized crime figures. The order was particularly devastating in Chicago, where for years the FBI had monitored activities and recorded conversations at Outfit hangouts through secret listening devices... In response, the FBI instituted an informant development program, in the hope of nurturing a “double agent” within the Outfit..."

Five and a half pages including three photographs and one page of endnotes.

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