Word: badalamenti
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Court-approved wiretaps turned up other names, including that of Pietro Alfano, the Sicilian-born owner of an Oregon, Ill., pizzeria whose uncle, Gaetano Badalamenti, was suspected of smuggling heroin into the U.S. from Brazil...
...case broke in April, when Spanish authorities, who had been tipped off by the Americans, arrested Alfano, Badalamenti and his son in Madrid. A day later, federal authorities in New York released an indictment charging the three and 28 others with conspiracy to violate drug laws. Within a month, the number under U.S. indictment had grown to 38. According to federal officials, the members of what was quickly dubbed the "pizza connection" had smuggled some 1,650 Ibs. of heroin, with an estimated street value of $1.65 billion, into the U.S during the past five years. The arrests, particularly those...
...alleged masterminds of the drug ring lived in different countries. Gaetano Badalamenti, arrested in Madrid last week, was the Sicilian connection. Badalamenti was described as one of the heads of the worldwide Mafia. His "big cheese" in the U.S. was Salvatore Catalano, purportedly a leader of the Bonanno crime family...
According to the FBI's 341 -page affidavit, Badalamenti and his deputies in Sicily purchased opium from Pakistan and Afghanistan, oversaw its production into heroin, then exported it to the U.S. There Bonanno-family members, including Alfano and his fellow restaurateurs in the Midwest, acted as middlemen. Finally, the money was collected by the Catalano Mob faction and laundered through prestigious New York City brokerage houses...