 Welcome into the original gangsters podcast. I am your host Scott Bernstein quick hitter edition. We're going to go over to New Jersey where there was a big FBI sting at the airport Tito borough Airport. Last weekend took down a Lucchese mafia associate as well as a leader of the Nine Trey gangsters, a faction of the Blood Street gang. His name is Edwin E Money Spears. It's been in the news, you know, the last two decades for his role as a leader of the Nine Trey gangsters as well as an associate and social companion in some cases with little Joe Perna, who is kind of a mafia, one of the mafia princes of the Garden State from the Perna mob dynasty out there for a while was one of the co-leaders of that Lucchese faction. And in the 2000s, he was working really closely with E Money Spears. They both went down in operation heat. So Edwin Spears E Money got nailed at the airport last weekend trying to take a million and a half dollars worth of cocaine in marijuana onto a private plane. And they were headed out of the country. FBI stopped them in their tracks. They are right now being held without bond in the Metro Detention Center in New York City. You know, like I said, he is a previously convicted felon. And for mob watchers and for people that want to, you know, play the what if game and do some math or some potential math and how things play out and how, you know, people can get jammed and dominoes can then fall. And I'm not, I don't, that might be a little premature and I'm not trying to, by any means, say that E Money Spears is someone that would cooperate. Everything I've heard, he is as hardcore OG as it comes, even though he's about 50. He's a guy that really believes in the code and I don't believe he is a threat to flip. But what I will report is that he was named as a potential suspect back in 2007 in the murder of Lucchese mob soldier, Frankie Legano, who was killed in front of the Seville Diner, which was his, his place of business in East Brunswick, New York off Route 18. He was killed in April of 07. He had been outed as a state police informant. And a guy was a numbers whiz at a college business degree had been very close to former Lucchese acting boss, Al Fons, little Al Arco had been a driver of his. And in the 2000s, he was kind of the boots on the ground for the Lucchese's bookmaking affairs in, you know, certain parts of New Jersey, working, or was part of a gambling ring in East Brunswick, Welford, right by the jets and where the jets and the Giants play at the metal lands and word started to circulate or I should say word started to drip to the FBI that was investigating at the time in New Jersey State police that the Lucchese family or there were informants that were telling them that the Lucchese family had farmed out the contract to the nitrate gangsters and E money spears group. That's neither here nor there. It's never been proven. It was investigated. No charges were ever brought. Little Joe Perna was received this button about five or six months later in the ceremony in Tom's River. There are people that told the FBI that his participation in the Logano hit got him his, you know, that was in making his bones and got his got his induction in the Lucchese crime family as a result months after that. There are also reports that were going coming into investigators that the leaders of the Lucchese's specifically at that time, Maddie Madonna wasn't happy with the way that the murder was carried out. Some people have attributed to that to the nitrate gangsters being so brazen carrying it out and brought daylight. He allegedly made very well known his misgivings and his displeasure with the hit, but didn't seem to block or with the way the hit went down, not with the hit, but didn't seem to disrupt a little Joe Perna's rise. And right now, you know, he's looked at as a guy that will most likely be a major player in this family going forward for the next 20, 30 years. But it's just something to think about that connection and that that angle to this, I guess. But E Money Spears is looking at, you know, he's this is a federal case as opposed to the state case, but a lot of money and a lot of drugs. So we will see right now the Lucchese's in New Jersey are being allegedly run by George E. Neck. Sepola took over for the Pernas who, I guess, taken a step back a little bit. That whole Perna mafia dynasty, they led the New Jersey, Lucchese racket through the 2000s and 2010s. I'm sure they'll be back in the mix or still are in the mix. Like I said, little Joe Perna ain't going anywhere and just walked out of his sentence from this operation he in the last year or two. So something to keep an eye on. Edwin E. Money Spears, leader of the Ninetrate Gangsters, I guess his specific faction is called the nine three headbusters. This, by the way, this whole story was broken by Dave Schratwizer, where at mob talk, sit down news, shout out to him. He's always such a great job. Him and Georgia on stage always have their finger on the pulse on anything that's happening in the New Jersey or Philadelphia underworld. So we'll keep you updated on the OG pod. I'm Scott Bernstein.