Stop Gangsters

There are quite a few famous gangsters that ended up becoming informants and in almost all of these cases, the so called “rats” are doing well and living free, as opposed to the gangsters that they helped lock up. Contrary to what a criminal will tell you, informants are rarely hurt and harmed, especially those that have protection. The general thinking is that once you “rat out your crew” they will come after you but the truth be told, no one is coming after you. They are too busy trying to defend themselves in court to be worried about who sent them there. The last thing a ratted out gangster wants is more attention from the Police by trying to inflict harm on the informant. They have much more important things to worry about.

At one time the Mafia had a code of silence called omertà which was religiously followed, by penalty of death or serious physical harm. For the most part, this code of silence worked until the 1970’s when the US Government developed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The RICO act was instrumental in bringing charges to hundreds of Mafia members all over the US and with the RICO Act’s very hard jail sentences as well as the forfeiture of propert and assests from criminal activities, many gangsters started rolling over on their Mafia Familes.

Some of the more famous Italian Mafia informants.

Sammy "Bull" Gravano

Sammy “Bull” Gravano rose through the ranks of the Gambino Crime Family until the weight of numerous murder charges and RICO started to weigh on him. Sammy started to tell the FBI all about his Boss, John Gotti’s crimes and as a result of Sammy becoming an informant, a wave of arrests were made as more and more Mafia members started to save themselves by telling the police what they knew. At the time, Bull was the highest member of a Mafia family to become an informant. He wouldn’t be the last.

Sammy left Witness Protection and moved to Arizona, living out in the open and even doing TV interviews. at one point he dared the Mob to come after him saying, “They send a hit team down, I’ll kill them. They better not miss, because even if they get me, there will still be a lot of body bags going back to New York. I’m not afraid. I don’t have it in me. I’m too detached maybe. If it happens, fuck it. A bullet in the head is pretty quick. You go like that! It’s better than cancer. I’m not meeting you in Montana on some fuckin’ farm. I’m not sitting here like some jerk-off with a phony beard. I’ll tell you something else: I’m a fuckin’ pro. If someone comes to my house, I got a few little surprises for them. Even if they win, there might be surprises.”

October 2002 he was convicted for his part in a major ecstasy trafficking organization, which also involed his wife, son and daughter. He is currently serving a 19-year sentence and recently contracted Graves’ Disease, a thyroid disorder which causes fatigue, weight loss with increased appetite, and hair loss. He will most likely die in jail.

Henry Hill

Henry Hill is a former Lucchese crime family associate and FBI informant whose life was immortalized in the 1990 Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas, in which Hill was played by Ray Liotta. Henry idolized the Mafia and began running errands and washing Mobsters cars. After a brief stint in the Army, Henry returned to New York where he became deeply intrenched in the Mafia.

One of his most famous heists was the Lufthansa heist in 1978, where an estimated $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewels were stolen. Henry Hill was also involved in a point-shaving scam with Boston College and even some NBA referees.

Eventually the heat came down on Henry. Although the Mafia tried to stay away from drug dealing, Henry couldn’t resist the huge profits and the taste of the drugs. He started breaking the cardinal rule of being a drug dealer, “Don’t get high on your own supply” Soon paranoia took over and eventually, Henry was arrested. While in jail, the FBI played some secret tapes from some of his Mafia buddies, where they talk about “wacking” Henry. This was enough for him to testify and tell the police everything he knew.

He went in to the Witness Protection program but eventually was kicked out for being arrested too many times, mostly for drugs and alcohol related issues. Henry now lives in Malibu, California and owns a couple of Italian restaurants and apparently doing pretty well for himself.

Frank Calabrese JR

Frank Calabrese Senior

Frank Calabrese Junior, son of Frank Calabrese Senior is the most recent member of the Mafia to turn in his fellow mobsters. In a case that involved the unsolved murders of over 18 people in the 1970’s and 1980’s Frank Calabrese Jr wore a secret recording device and recorded his father telling him about all the murders he was involved in. While the two of them were in jail together, Frank Jr decided to help the FBI keep his father in jail. He also had help from his uncle,a made member of the Chicago Mafia also known as, The Outfit. Nicholas Calabrese recently testified against some of the most powerful members of the Chicago Mafia Calabrese began to cooperate in 2002 after authorities confronted him with DNA evidence on a bloody glove that linked him to the 1986 killing of mob hit man John Fecarotta. He is now serving 12 years and 4 months in prison for his participation in the numerous murders.

We’ll be doing more stories of famous informants. Stay tuned!