 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein Today, we got one of my all-time favorite people. I mean, this is he's like family to me He is a legend and a true American hero retired DEA Superstar agent Frank Vanessa Frank. Thank you for joining me. Hey, how you doing stuff? And This guy has lived a Some people have lived one movie script. Some people have lived two Frank has lived 20 We've had him on the show before Just audio. I don't think we've ever had a video and if people remember our past Appearances or Frank's past appearances on the show him and I have worked together For the last couple years in developing his autobiography, which is right now called chameleon and then a accompanying Hopefully a television show that we've had we've had at various stages of development over the last three or four years With some pretty big people And and I know one way or the other we're gonna we're gonna get it to the finish line but right now I want to kind of allow Frank to tell a story about It, you know people that are fans of us of the of the show and the pod know that we love to kind of find a mix and Match of history and modern day and try to find kind of connection points right now There's a lot of news out of what I call the great white north up in Montreal a lot of stuff was revolving around the rizzuto crying family and The Hells Angels and Everybody has been at war with each other over the last 10-15 years very unstable and Frank And I'm gonna shut up and just turn it over to Frank in in 10 seconds Frank in a in a Such a career such an accolated career a guy that was common so many commendations so many major cases for people that might not know he was the Pizza connection case. He broke the pizza connection open the entire heroin pipeline coming from Sicily into the east coast pizza parlors with the banana crying family and Chasar event Bonaventure and Gattano battle Menti. That was his case but he also did undercover work around the globe and Part of his undercover work took him to Montreal where he infiltrated the Catroni Contrera Group which were the precursors to the rizzuto's That's my that's my preamble Frank. Take it away. Tell us the story. Yeah, well, let's start in The famous meeting in Sicily in 1957 Where Joe Bonanno Carmine Galante lucky Luciano? Uh bottle of Menti they meet at the Palms Hotel in Sicily And it was determined that the Bonanno family will control all of the heroin Going into the United States That they would have complete control of heroin distribution to the families in the United States so What had happened was? One of the first things that they did Carmine Galante went to Canada and he got involved with Frank Catroni and The big thing that Carmine Galante was doing at the at the time Carmine Galante was a psycho and he used strong-armed tactics Throughout his whole his whole life So in Canada he was in charge of all the gambling And he was bringing in about 50 million dollars a year for the Catroni's But because of his strong-armed tactics He was kicked out of Canada. They kicked him out of Canada the Catroni's continued to bring in through bottle of Menti and Other other major Sicilians including the Dusty brothers Frank Dusty who was Grew up with Catroni so he was his like his capo So Frank I want to interrupt you for one second. We're taught you mentioned Frank Catroni So there were there were a number of Catroni's they all work together Right. There was Vic Catroni who was the godfather Who they called him the egg and then his baby brother was Frank Catroni who you just referenced Who became a very Major shot-caller in the Montreal Mafia on behalf of his older brother And we'll run in running point for his older brother in that organization on a lot of the narcotics ranks Yes, and and when I'm referring I'm referring to Frank Catroni and Frank Dusty Who was his capo and you have and after they after Catroni died, of course the Rizzou Di's Rizzou Di's took over that faction took over that part of it but anyway now me as an agent in New York in 1968 1969 we see Major violators in New York like Guido Pinoce Meeting with the Canadians now and I'm trying to think Pinoce Pinoce was a Gambino, right? Yeah, they call him the bull Guido the bull Pinoce We know the bull Pinoce and He was with Gambino and and there were meetings between Paulo Gambino, who's the brother of Carlo Gambino? Pinoce and Frank Dusty Okay, and it was all about doing heroin deals. So we had a surveillance And I think I'm one of the few people left from the 1969 surveillance of Dusty coming to New York staying at the Park Sheridan Hotel Okay, and he meets with Guido Pinoce So we we were already on Pinoce but apparently they must have felt the heat because again he came back in In May of 69 and again met with Paulo Gambino and Guido Pinoce and the word was they were doing a 12 kilo heroin deal because of the heat The deals didn't go down, but we got word that Pinoce was gonna drive to Montfrey all So we figured He's gonna pick it up and then instead of them bringing it down He was gonna go to Montreal So he had a Lincoln and he was having a service at Park Lincoln Mercury. I'll never forget at the Manhattan Yonkers line so we figured One of our bosses Says, you know, I know how he's gonna get the heroin back into the United States He's gonna put it in the tires of the Lincoln and So somebody says it's gonna melt if he puts it up. But anyway, the boss says I want the serial numbers off the tires so midnight That the doors must have been open at Park Lincoln Mercury because we went right in And got the serial numbers off the tires. Okay We follow Pinoce to Montreal And of course when he's coming back, you know, customs are gonna check the serial numbers on the tires And of course towards the car, but it was clean. There wasn't anything in it but the following year Dostie sends down his His guy that distributive heroin his name was Lucian Lucian Madre I think it was M-a-d-e-r-e my dairy And Lucian Madre and we have surveillance of him meeting with Paul Odo who was Yeah, the Odo there was all there was an Odo brothers to Johnny Bat Beach Odo and yeah, those guys He meets with them at the Sheridan hotel we popped them and Madeira's car we get ten kilos of heroin okay, so It's I feel that during that two-year period They were bringing a load of heroin into the United States and we were missing it You know, we were we were lucky to to capture these three meetings and To follow Guido up to to Montreal So they were doing major heroin Did you actually did you get to go you went up to Montreal personally? Can you talk about what the What was the landscape like up there and kind of compare and contrast it? I didn't go into Montreal. Oh, you didn't go over the board. Oh, no. No. No, okay I'm up to the line Up to the line. All right. Yeah, and and he went into Canada and then there were reports by the young The Canadian Mount the police of the surveillance. Yeah, but I personally didn't go into Canada Did you did you ever I know you said Dostie came down to New York? Yeah rebalance on Dostie at the Park Sheridan in 1969 Two times in 69 as I say the first time He met with Uh, Guido Pinocchi The second time in August of 69 he met with Guido Pinocchi and Paulo Gambino and are you are you saying that Paulo Gambino was Carlos brother or was he one of the cut was one of the Brother, I think it was his brother. Well, because there was also the cousins that were the Cherry Hill Gambino Oh, I knew them that you're saying that separate. Okay later. I knew them but for some reason It's Paulo. I'm positive. It was his brother Paulo. It must have been a brother but then In August of that of that year we find Frank Dostie at Trying to think who passed who was killed. Oh Oh What's his name? It was Jimmy Palmeri was murdered in 71 and He was part of the Lucchese family. Okay, Paul Mary, right and we find Frank Dostie at his funeral in 71 so we had three I had three occasions to See Dostie in New York, it was Jimmy Paul Mary. We're talking about John Paul Mary Jimmy Paul Mary Yeah, and Will you surveil the? Does the way the way where where was it at? I'm pretty sure it was in Brooklyn. I can't remember. You know going back to 1971 and he I think they called him Jimmy Higgins. I think that was No, he was called Jimmy Called something else. I can't think of it. I know that Jimmy Jimmy Higgins was one of his aliases Nonetheless, what was a Gambino drug lieutenant? Yeah, okay, and The notion it's also I want to get your take on this Frank. It's interesting to think about You know when Carlo was the the godfather obviously everybody had the You know the lip service towards No drugs, but everybody knew that a lot of these godfathers that were No drugs were actually benefiting greatly from drugs the Carlo Gambino his own family, you know But then ten years later we had Paul Castellano that Obstensibly wanted to kill Gotti and his guys for for dealing dope so Did you at the time? Was it something that like you realized in in regards to the Italians that you were working that? on one hand it was considered a cardinal sin but on the other hand like On one hand you're hearing from tell me if I'm wrong on one hand you're hearing from Sources that the powers that be are saying it's a cardinal sin to deal But then on the other hand you're seeing all those people that are being told as a cardinal sin the deal And I'm buying dope from them right right that's the thing but It was interesting because they all said no no they're not involved and as I say I was involved with Probably all five family five families going dope, you know in in New York at the time and I As I say the cherry Hill Gambino's We're very much involved Another interesting tie Frank. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but Pino see His drug dealing activity took him Coast-to-coast. Oh, yeah, he was involved with the Shakedown of Wayne Newton, too, right and that right shakedown of Wayne, New Vegas. I mean in Vegas, but also in LA. I have a bunch of DEA reports. I did a little I did a little article on this Couple years ago, but I have a bunch of DEA reports about how Pino see was supplying cocaine to like the entire sitcom line-up on ABC which in that which in the 70s was huge It was like working Mindy happy days Laverne and Shirley and he had a guy I Can't remember his name, but he's the he played the dad on On Laverne and Shirley played Laverne's dad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know his name was Phil Phil something I know who you mean. He had put he was buddies with He had a restaurant he was buddies with Pino see and Pino see would come into LA from New York with a bunch of dope and They they take him on into the studio and he'd be supplying Robin Williams and all the people on on happy days and Mork and Mindy it was it's crazy to hear you talk about we to Pino see from that aspect in New York and then Knowing that in that same time period. He's he's supplying guys You know Actors and actresses that were were like American icons. It was a mover and a shaker. Yeah, I honestly believe They were bringing in so much heroin from Montreal, I mean we were missing it. Let's face it We were missing a lot of it And and we were lucky when when we got this guy Lucian Madari and and Odo With the ten kilos, you know, so you can imagine every time Lucian came down From Montreal. He was carrying at least ten kilos Actors name was Phil Foster. I just love that. I don't think that was I don't think that was his real name I think he had an Italian surname, but his stage name was Phil Foster. Exactly Yeah, now, you know, all the other big names too during this time frame, you know, vada lament They was very much involved. You shut the Tommaso Bioschetta was very much involved. You had actually the pizza restaurants already going You know, I didn't get involved into the pizza restaurants until 83 but way before that they had all the Distribution restaurants around the United States and The one interesting thing that we saw that the Sicilian mafia Controlled all the heroin Importation and they supplied the American mafia families with the heroin People don't understand that there's two mafias, you know the Sicilian and the American mafia and they use one another for their own profits and The American mafia was also using the zips as we call them the people that work in These pizza shops to do hits for them, too You know, well, they were Sicilians that had come over to America To work for some of these American crime families and then they kind of became in some cases Many crime families within bigger crime families. Oh, yeah, very insular and I want to segue this for you we'll go for another 10 or 10 20 minutes and For let people know that Frank had a Alias a An undercover persona known as Frankie pizza Frankie Pagano who they called Frankie pizza Obviously Donnie Brasco gets a lot more Publicity but just so and we've said this before for people that were listening I don't know if people on YouTube have heard it, but there would be no Donnie Brasco if it wasn't for Frankie pizza Frankie Pagano I don't say that with any Slight against Joppa Stone, but but Frank, you know, he wrote the book literally on federal undercover law enforcement and how to go after the the Italian mafia and laid a lot of the Planted a lot of the seeds in the early 70s for what became the FBI Donnie Brasco investigation into the Bananos in the late 70s early 80s and Frank was dealing Literally and figuratively had got his hooks into Subordinates of Cheserey Bonaventure who was the the main zip Banano capo had been Carmine Galante's bodyguard Conspiracy to murder Galante we were into Cheserey Bonaventure and Baldo Amato. Yeah, and and They were distributing the heroin through the pizza shops and I I got involved in Philadelphia in the pizza shops and the heroin was coming straight from bottle from Cheserey Bonaventure and In in a year's time I bought over a million dollars worth of heroin From from the Banano family, you know Cheserey Bonaventure and all the people that were involved with him and Of course, you had Castellano in Brooklyn and they controlled You know all the distribution in New York Interesting time, I don't know people know I learned this from actually from Frank Part I mean, I think everybody knew that part of that pizza. Can I mean, it's not it's not breaking news or anything? Everybody knew that part of that pizza connection, which was centered around the Bananos If Manhattan Brooklyn, oh, and obviously they were spread across New Jersey. They were involved with the Gambino and the Cherry Hill Group, but I don't know if people realize that some of Bonaventure's guys these Sicilian gangsters were in Philadelphia Not working for Nikki Scarfo or Phil Testa or Angelo Bruno, but working for the Bananos in Philly Dominic Mass Amino, I believe was one of the big ones. They called a Mimi Mimi Mass Amino And he owned a lot of those pizza parlors, but he was based in Philly That's what I'm sorry. I meant I mean Mass Amino. I meant Dominic Monino who they called Mimi I was confusing him with yeah, Miles Joe mousey Mass Amino. No Dominic Monino aka Mimi who was Cheserey's main guy in Philly I didn't even know that the Bananos had a group in Philly, but but Frank was working them and Frank was and tell them Frank tell them I apologize for people that might have heard some of the audio in the years past But I want Frank to tell it for the for the new video audience but tell them how your Entry point for for some of these guys In the Bananos was pretending like you were a scarf all lieutenant Yeah, and then back then there was a lot more difficult to back check things back then And you played the role and they thought you were a capo under Nicky Scarfo It was so good We had rested we had arrested two wise guys in Philadelphia to Bruno people and So we're we're saying hey, you know, you're gonna go to jail if you don't cooperate So they said well, we're not gonna give you anybody in the Bruno family. So I said to them. Well, what about the Sicilians? Oh, the one guy says I mean, well, they're not Italian. Yeah Yeah, they're not they're not Italian like us. There's a silly So we came up with the story That I was a made guy in Philadelphia, and I was in charge of all hijacking Because we knew they had cigarette machines. They had 80 cigarette machines in Restaurants around Philadelphia, you know, when you walked into the into the vestibule you had the machine where you pulled The lever to get the cigarettes well, they had 80 of them So these guys approach one of the banana people and say hey You know this guy Frankie Pogano Just hijacked a big shipment of cigarettes. Would you be interested in it? And so of course, they said yeah So at the time they were paying seven dollars and ten cents a carton Legitimately buying the cigarettes to put in their machines So what we came up with the idea we would offer them the cigarettes at four dollars a carton Right off the three dollars and ten cents a carton as an investigative expense and make me somebody So they set up a meeting to meet with the Sicilians and the Sicilians meet us at a mob restaurant in Philadelphia now you have me and an agent that was in quotes my bodyguard behind me and These two guys from Philly and the Sicilians are sitting across the table from us and so The wise guy from Philly says to the Sicilians This is Frankie Pogano. He's a friend of ours Meeting that I'm a made guy If he would have said this is Frankie Pogano, he's a friend of mine. That means I'm associated Right, but I'm not made So the Sicilians saw this and then of course the Sicilians saw these two guys Serving me drinks when the food came out. They made sure I was the first to get the food so I started selling them cigarettes and After about four or five months, you know, I did my sad face and I said to the Sicilian I He says what's wrong with me used to call me Cugina cousin And I says, well, you know, I get involved in other stuff. He says, what do you mean? I says, you know, I'm involved in white powder. Well, why didn't you tell me we control all the white powder? So he says who you buying from so at the time I was buying off somebody in the Genovese family in New York who we hadn't arrested So I says, oh, I'm getting it off so and so in the Bronx It says he gets it from us from now on you get it from us and that's how the pizza connection started You know a short time later. I made my first buy of eighty five thousand dollars And I was in and they never questioned You know who I was and it's funny because we used to hang out at an after-hours place And you'd have the Bruno family there, you know with Nikki scarf on all of them and I'd be with the Sicilians so the brutal the Sicilians never went over to the Bruno family and says I would have said take cuts of the front you forgot all who see So that never happened and they're Everything they they complied it in me. We went to Europe. We we We supplied them with the Baldo Chesroy Bonaventure with quinine You know to cut the heroin It was really good Didn't you tell me at one point Frank that before So Chesroy goes down in that big pizza connection bus But for people that know the history of the the pizza connection in Chesroy. He didn't make it to trial He was murdered. He never did for insubordination He had gotten there was a lot of friction after the Galante assassination and Bonaventure became I think at the time he was the youngest capo He was in New York City only 25 years old. That's all and he was a capo A lot of power went to his head and he started but has with with Phil Rastelli who was Yeah, he did but the thing was Chesroy turned out to be just like little galante. He was money hungry, right? They will make it they were bringing in a million dollars a day on a heroin trade and yet He was short-changing everybody below him. I remember I bought a package From this is a story. I wanted people to tell I wanted you to tell us what I was leading up to So tell the story they I That the original heroin that I bought was 90 90 something percent pure Which is normal, you know, you never get like a hundred percent, but 90 percent is pure heroin and Me as a dope dealer, I could cut that and I could make millions of dollars with it So I did one deal with the Sicilians and it came back 32% and So I complained I says, what are you giving me this crap for I can't make any money with this He says that's what Chesroy gave us and we have to take what he gives us, you know But the Sicilian I mean I was a golden goose and fill it up Anybody that's buying a million dollars worth of heroin is their golden goose So about a week later, I Meet with one of the Sicilians and he hands me sixteen thousand dollars. I said, what's this? He says well, you know, I feel bad That the last package was so bad, but I don't have any control over it It's Chesroy calls the shops and he handed me sixteen thousand dollars um And but that was Chesroy's downfall. Yeah, I was gonna say I think that would that played a role in some of the the cumulative Uh, it was a culmination. I think of a number of factors that led to his murder, but I know that part of the Issue where where he was being called when Chesroy was being called on the carpet and having to answer to to Rusty um Was related to He he was ripped. He wasn't I think in some ways he might have looked at you as You know, I don't these are my these are guys that are my guys that I'm giving and and He wouldn't necessarily think possibly that it was a slap in the face to you. He didn't know you personally I heard he was doing this to guys that were Big big shots in the Bananos were getting cheated in deals by him Uh, and that was part of the reason Rusty, uh had him uh at a sit-down which Allegedly Right well and and Chesroy From what I can gather the final straw was A situation where he told Rusty Rustela to go fuck himself And and stormed out of a sit-down and then they killed him a couple weeks later Telling him that they were taking him back to see Rusty so he could apologize or they you know, they could make nice and they killed Yeah, and they chopped him up and put him in 355 gallon drums It was a tall guy. It was like six five six six. Yeah, it was a tall Sicilian I want to let's wrap this up with uh Keep it in Philly as we end and I want you to tell the story and I'll call her up I'll color it up a little bit, but uh 1983 This is right before the bust is going to come down in 84 um And you're you're out with some guys in a in a club and the Selena brothers Uh Are are spotted and and they kind of Tell you something that is that's about to happen and then it happened. It happens. Yeah We were in a private club called club on shantae In cherry hill and as I say you had the bruno people in there nicky scarp Well, I I say the bruno family meaning nicky scarp on all of those people and you had the Sicilians okay and so alberto flickalora says you see those two guys over there and he points to the Selena brothers And he says they've shown no respect He says we're men of honor and they show no respect And that's what he said to me a month later. They were both killed. Yep maddie and and toto Yeah a month apart from one another It might have been less than a month, but around these these were tough people these Sicilians were tough And uh, just to tie it into today uh, peace was eventually dropped but initially Joe legambi who would become the boss of the philadelphia mob Is now like a part-time conciliary a very very esteemed member of the east coast mafia very very well respected He was indicted For this murder or for what I should say for one of the murders I don't know if it was for matt for maddie or for toto But him and yogi marlino who was the alleged current boss of the of the philly mob joey marlino's uncle yogi and uncle joe legambi were indicted For for the murder conspiracy of the selena brothers. I believe that they were tasked with They played some role in in Taking the body from where it was killed to where it was found Yeah, they put they put them in a trunk of a car a car. Yeah And they found them in the cars Yeah, so uh, uh toto selena was found uh in depford, uh Juniper court gloucester county Was stuffed in uh, two tracks two plastic trash bags in the in the trunk of the 79 catalac. Yes um And then maddie, uh had been uh Had been murdered Or had been disappeared Like a month before that I think um And they found him in a trunk He's or or yes, he's still this as of november of 83. He was still missing No, but then they did find them right uh, so It's just interesting to see how uh joe legambi who would eventually rise to Pretty historic heights could have been tripped up by that murder He was eventually convicted Later that in that decade of the frankie flowers murder got out of that in 97 on an appeal and then Had had his ascent But uh, I also was told that that might have been A way for for legambi to get made was to be involved in the selena hit Oh, I I believe that, you know, it took it took him another three years though because of uh His connection to chuckie merlino and merlino ended up getting demoted They wanted to keep merlino's guys at a distance for a while But it's interesting that legambi kind of plays a role in some of this old schools You know, you have to understand during that time. I'm talking about 1982 1983 When I was in undercover there were 22 hits around me. Yeah, 22 people got hit You know talking about the testers and of course originally angelo bruno, but but then Phil testa and everybody that came in his son salvia Well, frank, this was great, man. Uh, we're gonna we're gonna bring you back again I'm I'm excited for the for the video audience to get a look at you because we've only really been doing video for a little over a year now Um, and we're getting a whole new audience whole new group of people that didn't didn't really know about us And when we were just audio so we'll bring you back on and then you'll be hearing hopefully a lot more about frank's uh project His story about his life Book form television that we're both of us are working on to say that frank had a storied life Or a storied career in federal law enforcement as a is a gross Understatement. He is truly a legend in DA circles and like I said, he literally wrote the book on how to do undercover work at the federal level so we pay a debt to frank and uh Hey, man. Thank you so much for coming on and shedding shedding insight and telling everybody. Uh, you're amazing life stories Okay, stop. Thank you. All right. So, uh, I will see you next week. I am scott bernstein another long form edition We'll see you next week, but we'll be coming out with some quick hitters Every day or two as we normally do og pod for benny behind the glass. I am scott bernstein