Word: badalamenti
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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...
Even before the discovery of the pizza connection, Italian authorities had been seeking Buscetta, a native of Palermo and an ally of the Badalamenti organization, who had fled Italy in 1970 and gone to New York, where he acquired a second wife, a new daughter and new pizzerias. He also owned property in Brazil, where he was arrested in 1972 when police found 60 kilos (132 Ibs.) of heroin on his farm. Extradited to Italy, Buscetta spent eight years in various jails, living well and even giving away his daughter in a marriage held within the prison's walls...
...quantity of heroin to be delivered and set a price with Giuseppi Ganci, Catalano's chief lieutenant. The money would be wired from brokerage accounts at major firms to secret accounts in Switzerland, where it might remain for three or four months before a member of the Badalamenti family collected it. Meanwhile, as a sign of trust between the two groups, the heroin would be delivered. The actual smuggling is done in innumerable ways. One example: a year ago, FBI agents examined a load of ceramic tiles being shipped from a company located near Milan to an address...
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...