 Welcome into the Original Gangster's podcast. I'm Scott Bernstein. Quick hitter edition. I want to talk about some cross-pollination, if you will, in the East Coast mafia between the New York Gambino crime family and the guys in Philly, the Bruno Scarfield plan, and some subtext from both the Gambino's racketeering bust out of New York last week as well as another indictment out of Philadelphia early this year. It deals with the Laforte brothers, Joe Laforte and his brother Jimmy Laforte. They're both in jail right now, awaiting trial. Jimmy Laforte was taken down in the Gambino bust, one of 10 Gambino's that were arrested on racketeering charges last week, and then Joe Laforte's been in prison since the spring. Joe Laforte was the CEO, Chief Operating Officer of PAR funding, and PAR funding was, for lack of a better description, legalized loan sharky. They found some loopholes and got into a space of the lending business that's called merchant cash advances. If you're a business that is having trouble to make payroll or what was happening during the COVID pandemic where there was all this downsizing and gushing, hemorrhaging capital, these were the type of places that some people had to go to and these are the type of places that are charging up to 40% interest on these loans that are legal loans and they are dispatching mafia-like tactics in collecting. If you're a fall behind on your payments, PAR funding was sending a goon squad literally around the country to physically attack, intimidate, and threaten people that had taken money out. It's alleged in this fraud case that came down, targeting PAR funding recently, earlier in 2023. It's a case out of Pennsylvania and both Joe and Jimmy LaForte are tied into that case and then Jimmy LaForte just got brought in to the case, just as strictly the Gambino case, but they have a very interesting mafia lineage. Their grandfather was Joe the Cat LaForte who was a staple in the Carlo Gambino and then the John Gotti regime. He was very, very close to Neil De La Croce who was a mentor to John Gotti. He was a huge earner, one of the biggest earners in the Gambinos of that era, owned a lot of real estate. A lot of the real estate was in Manhattan, Mulberry Street. He owned a big chunks of what was Little Italy or still is Little Italy, but it was a bigger version of the back then, owned the property that housed the Ravenite Social Club, which was Mr. Neil's for a long time, and then transitioned to one of Gotti's headquarters when he was on top of the mafia in New York. Joe the Cat was a very respected guy who, I need to do a little bit more research on this in reporting, but I've heard that once Neil died, he didn't get along with Gotti as much as he had did when he had Neil as a buffer that him and Gotti sometimes butted has. Nonetheless, he was a capital regime in the Gambinos for decades. These two, Joe and Jimmy LaForte are his son, Buddy LaForte, who was also a maid guy, not a capo, but these are Buddy's sons. And Joe lives in Philadelphia. Jimmy, I believe, lives in New York, but comes to Philadelphia quite often. And they're both charged with some real nasty, nasty offenses when it comes to, again, intimidation tactics and just overall fluggish behavior. Jimmy LaForte is allegedly a maid guy. We know that from court filings. He is making ceremony, according to this most recent indictment, took place in October of 2019. Joe LaForte was named as an associate of the Gambino crime family in his most recent bust. I'm told he's a maid guy. So I guess the government right now doesn't feel comfortable enough to say that, but I'm told that they're both maid guys in the Gambino crime family. So what I kind of want to discuss for a very brief, brief period of time here and just, you know, give some food for thought, but, you know, the subtext of this, in my mind at least, and it's been subtext that I've been talking to people about and pondering and researching since the PAR funding fraud indictment that came down. And then it popped back up in my mind last week when the Gambino case landed. How was this or how could this ricochet on the Joe Merlino, Joe Lagambi, Georgie Borgesi group, the leaders of the Bruno Scarfield crime family. This PAR funding is operating in the middle of Philadelphia. I know that there are some very high ranking members of the Philadelphia mafia who had relatives that were working there at certain points. I know that there are members of the Philadelphia mafia that have been seen coming and going out of PAR funding over the last handful of years. And I would be remissed if I didn't ask some questions. And what I answer myself, which is how could the Gambino's be operating in Philadelphia without sharing a part of those operation profits with the Philadelphia mafia. And according to the government, the PAR funding people collected half billion dollars in fraudulent profits. They're in the process of trying to pay back at least a quarter of a billion to people that were defrauded. But that's a lot of money. And I just don't find it possible that they could be making that much money in the middle of Philadelphia and not sharing with the Bruno Scarfield crime family. So it leads me to extrapolate that even further that the Laforti brothers not only have the potential to harm the Gambino's, they also potentially have the ability to harm the guys in Philly. And I want to say that I have no inclination whatsoever. I've never, I haven't heard, I have no reporting or haven't been told by anybody that the Laforti brothers are considering flipping. They're known as standup guys, tough guys and true to the code. I'm just saying they're looking right now, if convicted of that, at a nice chunk of time. And now you got people in New York City looking for bodies. Again, I'm not connecting the Laforti to those bodies, but you can connect the bodies that the potential bodies that the FBI is looking for in New York to the Gambino bus that Jimmy Laforti is right in the middle of. I don't know what kind of ammunition the Feds would have to jam up the Laforti brothers, but just like if I'm in New York right now, and if I'm Lorenzo Monino or Italian Dom Sheffalu, I ain't sleeping well tonight because they're digging for bodies up in the Hudson Valley. Over the last couple of months in Philadelphia, I just, I don't, again, I don't know, I don't have, I haven't heard this. I don't know if they're thinking this, but if it was me, and I was Uncle Joe Lagambi or George Warburg Gacy, Joey Merlino out in Florida who claims he has nothing to do with the Philadelphia mob anymore, despite what the government claims. I might be a little bit worried about what's going on over at Par Funding and the fact that one of the principles in the Par Funding case just got roped into another case regarding racketeering and acts of violence. Someone told me that Joe the cat wasn't a guy that was known as a tough guy, wasn't known for violence, he was an earner. They said Jimmy, his grandson, someone said to me, they called Joe the cat, they called Jimmy the leopard. He's a much more dangerous cat than his grandpa was and Joe Laforte, who was the lead defendant in the Par Funding case, they call him Joe Mack, not to be confused with his dad, buddy or his grandpa Joe the cat, but and Joe Mack is another guy that can hold his own and can be quite imposing. And I think there were a lot of people according to the government that felt threatened. So we should see but it's just kind of an interesting subplot I think to what's been going on with the Par Funding case and the case and the Gambino's. Keep an eye on what's going on with the Laforte brothers. I will always be updating you on the most pressing breaking news in the organized crime landscape around the country. This is a quick evolving story. It's fluid, things are changing every day, but I will keep you updated. I'm the OG pod, I'm gangsterreport.com, everything that's going on in New York City with the Gambino's right now, as well as the Par Funding case out of Philadelphia. OG pod, I'm Scott Bernstein.