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"FedFella" ex FBI agent Bob Hamer

John L. Smith for Las Vegas Review Journal

EDITOR’S NOTE: This partial interview by Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith with retired FBI undercover agent and author Bob Hamer first aired in its entirety Jan. 21 on KNPR-FM, 88.9 “KNPR’s State of Nevada.” A recording of the interview is available online at knpr.org.
JOHN L. SMITH: Thanks to television cop shows and movies such as “Donnie Brasco,” the public has an image of the undercover investigator that borders on caricature. Hard-drinking, wisecracking, two-fisted and ready to shoot first and then start the interrogation.
Bob Hamer shatters the stereotypes.
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SMITH: Let’s talk about one of those early stops. This is where our paths cross at some level.
I wrote a book called “The Animal in Hollywood” about a very tough guy in the L.A. mob, Anthony Fiato, and his experience both as a criminal and as a cooperating witness. You worked in the middle of his world. … Can you talk a little bit about working La Cosa Nostra in those days in Los Angeles. L.A. is a very big place, but the mobsters weren’t too hard to find, I assume, they were just hard to catch.
HAMER: The difference between L.A. and a lot of cities is we didn’t have a Little Italy. L.A. had Little Tokyo, they sort of have a Little Saigon. There are a lot of different ethnic communities there, but the Italian family wasn’t maybe as strong as maybe they were in other major cities. And as you well know they were sometimes dubbed as the Mickey Mouse Mafia. But they had some pretty significant key players that were involved. They reported to the Commission. They were legitimate La Cosa Nostra, Mafia guys as most of us refer to them. And Anthony Fiato was a major player in that whole organized crime scene.
I worked it both from a case agent perspective, when we were actually targeting Fiato, sat in on hours and hours of wiretaps when we were actually listening to his conversations. And then eventually, when we put together a pretty significant case, he decided to cooperate with the FBI and it was he and his brother Larry who actually introduced me into the L.A. Mafia family.
SMITH: How did you work African-American gangs when you’re not from that neighborhood?
HAMER: Every FBI agent is a college graduate. Most FBI agents have advanced degrees. Many are lawyers and accountants. Our African-American agents are well-educated. They’re not necessarily people who were brought up in the streets. They were brought up in middle or upper-middle income families. So it was almost as difficult for them to work undercover at a street level as it was for a white guy.
We have a couple agents that we tried to fit in and it just didn’t click. We had an informant that was willing to introduce an undercover agent and things didn’t click the way we would have liked, and one Friday night the informant was actually complaining about the undercover agent. And he said I could take you in and sell you. … I said, “OK, let’s do it.” He actually took me in, made one introduction and that’s all it took. I never worked with that informant again in that investigation. … We took down one guy, actually the head of the Back Street Crips, which if you’re familiar with Los Angeles, we were literally in the shadows of the Watts Towers. … When we finally did arrest him … I said, “You had to suspect a white guy, coming down here to sell drugs.” And he sort of lowered his head and shook his head and said, “I figure the police would be too stupid to send a white guy down here.” So by being so unconventional we were able to succeed in that particular investigation.
SMITH: The supernotes case, for those who aren’t familiar with that term, supernotes are highly developed counterfeit notes, generally as I’m aware $100 bills, created, depending on your source, as far away as North Korea and trafficked out of North Korea. … This is a case with international flavor. Can you talk about the case, how it got started, and how the notes got all the way to Las Vegas with a guy named Wilson Liu shoving them into slot machines at different casinos?
HAMER: The supernotes case is actually a fascinating investigation because again we originally were targeting counterfeit cigarettes and rumors of these supernotes were floating around. … We knew, based upon intelligence, that the money was coming out of North Korea, being manufactured in North Korea. … I came up with a story as why I needed counterfeit money.
At that time I was dealing with five separate kinds of groups in this whole umbrella of Chinese syndicate. So I put out the word with these five individuals that I was dealing with that I was looking for counterfeit hundred-dollar bills. … I ended up getting six or seven different samples of $100 bills. Some of them were pretty good, but it wasn’t the supernotes.
Every time they’d bring me a counterfeit hundred-dollar bill we took it to Secret Service … and Secret Service would say, “Yeah, this is counterfeit, but this is actually made out of Colombia, or this is made somewhere else, but this isn’t the supernote.” … Lo and behold, the supernotes, they did arrive. I had two different people bring me supernotes. When we got them, Secret Service was ecstatic that we finally had hit upon the supernotes.
The first note we got we brought it to one of the top analysts in L.A., and she said that it was real. And I kind of laughed, and I told my case agent, “Hey, we’re paying 30 cents on the dollar. If this is real, I’m glad to hear it because I’m going to mortgage my house and I’m going to buy as much as they’re willing to sell because this is a pretty good return on my investment.” Then they sent the bills back to Secret Service headquarters back in Washington, D.C., and they came back and said, “No, this is the supernote.”
SMITH: (W)hen people talk in broad terms … about international terrorism and propping up foreign governments that are basically gangster governments like, in my opinion, North Korea is, we talk in abstract terms, but you’re right there. The bottom line is that’s how some of these regimes stay in power and actually generate funds inside their own government by creating criminal activity and exporting it to the U.S.
HAMER: John, I give you credit. You were one of the few people to even report on this investigation. It amazed me … the trial took place in federal court at the same time that the O.J. Simpson trial was occurring. Each day I would walk past the state courthouse where the O.J. trial was, and you had Camp O.J. there and all these national news media covering the O.J. trial. Two blocks down, you’re literally dealing with a trial involving an act of war. It is an act of war to counterfeit another nation’s currency.
Eventually, President Bush announced North Korea was counterfeiting our $100 bill. As a result of this investigation the U.S. government came out and acknowledged that North Korea was doing that. This is an act of war. John L. Smith covered it and talked about it in his column and virtually no one else did. Ollie North wrote an article in his weekly column, but you didn’t see anyone else talking about this. We were more concerned with some washed up football player trying to get his memorabilia back. Listen play
John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith/

Gambino soldier Peter Zucarro paints Mafia's image by the numbahs

Zucarro

It was a day of naming names in Brooklyn Federal Court Tuesday. You know: Quack Quack. Johnny One Arm Vinnie Mad Dog. Little Fat Joe.. Could Big Pussy be far behind?
Turncoat Gambino soldier Pete Zuccaro took the stand to testify againstCharles Carneglia who's accused of five murders.
In a tough, gravelly voice he told why the Mafia kills people:- "He cursed at a capo in Italian."
- "He didn't pass on money (a superior) could use for snacks in the jail commissary."
- Vinnie Gotti thought he was sleeping with his wife."
- "He didn't come when he was called."
Zucarro is nicknamed "Bud" for his marijuana business, and prosecutor Evan Norris asked how much he earned for the tons of pot he brought here.
"A lot of people ax me that," he pronounced. "To put a number on the money I made, it's hard. Millions. Lots."
Zucarro, 53, described how a Winnebago would pull into Carneglia's junkyard and they would take the pot and "put it into bales and numbah dem."
The law intercepted too many imports and they turned to homegrown - hydroponics, to be exactCheech and chong "You don't use soil," Zucarro said. "You put the plants in rocks, feed them liquid nutrients under artificial light, create the best climate." He had a warehouse in Brooklyn"It was like the Epcop center.."
He would save some to smoke, no doubt because he was always around scary Carneglia, who, Zucarro claimed, killed teenager Sal Puma with a small stiletto.
"You don't need a big knife," Carneglia told him. "You can use a small one and just wiggle it."
Zucarro said he started "doing robberies" and assaults at the age of 13, when he met Carneglia.
Asked how many assaults, Zucarro threw his body back and said, "You gotta be kiddin' me!" He told of the time John Gotto asked them to "slaughter but not kill Carmine Agnello who beat up Gotti's daughter Victoria, his future wife.
He would do anything Gotti said because "I thought John Gotti was the best thing that walked on this planet."
But when he died, "I didn't feel anything. By then, I thought he ruined it. The way he was so flamboyant. ... It was supposed to be a secret society and now everything was overexposed. How do you say, "Do as I say, not as I do.'"

Memo to Mobsters: Don't "Adopt" Anyone - He May Turn Out to be a Rat

John A. (Junior) Gotti learned that the hard way with "adopted" son Lewis Kasman, who taped Gotti family meetings for the feds.Reputed killer Charles Carneglia is about to get a taste of the same medicine with "adopted" kid brother Kevin McMahon.Both mob turncoats are to testify in Carneglia's ongoing murder trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.Kasman, a former Long Island garment exec who wormed his way into Gotti's inner circle and called himself the adopted son of the late Gambino crime boss, wasn't close to Carneglia.McMahon was as close as you can get without being a relative. "When Kevin walks into that courtroom I would expect Charles will want to jump over the table and strangle him," a law enforcement official said.McMahon was not only a member of Carneglia's crime crew, he was like a member of the Carneglia family.In 1980, McMahon was a 12-year-old Irish kid from Howard Beach "at the beginning of his long and extraordinarily close relationship" with Charles Carneglia and his brother John, court papers show. McMahon is 20 years younger than Charles, 62, and John, 64.On a fateful day in March, McMahon lent his minibike to mob scion Frank Gotti who was accidentally hit and killed by neighbor John Favara as he drove home from work. Favara was slain on Gotti's orders and, prosecutors say, Charles Carneglia dissolved his body in a barrel of acid.Before the incident, McMahon had been "informally adopted" by John and Charles Carneglia. Charles Carneglia promised to protect the lad from retaliation for his role in Frankie's death.McMahon was treated as a member of the Carneglia family, living with them for long stretches, attending family dinners and going on Carneglia family vacations, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Burlingame said.Former capo Michael DiLeonardo has testified that McMahon was a "goofy kid" who taunted FBI agents, running up to them and grabbing his crotch.McMahon had jobs with Local 638 steamfitters union and Local 52 motion pictures mechanics union, but those paid only $40,000 a year, chump change for a wanna-be Gambino associate with an ailing wife and two kids.Prosecutors say he and Carneglia took part in extortions, art fraud and robberies, including the stickup of an armored car at Kennedy Airport in 1990 in which guard Jose Rivera Delgado was shot to death. McMahon dropped a baseball cap at the scene. DNA tests linked him to a strand of hair in the hat.Shortly after he was arrested in 2005 on an indictment charging him with racketeering for the Gambinos in Tampa, McMahon sent a "thank you" letter to Brooklyn Magistrate Robert Levy for releasing him on bail."As I was leaving the courtroom you said to me, 'Don't let me down.' I assure you I have not," he wrote. "As soon as I'm acquitted I'll write you again."McMahon turned on his adoptive mob family after he was convicted and faced 20 years behind bars. He is cooperating in hopes of winning a lesser prison term.Thanks to John Marzulli

Hitting the Hitman

Hitting the Hit Men

Even alleged killers can be beaten up by a gang of thugs.
by Brendan McGarvey
Two reputed Mafia hit men got their asses kicked in a bar brawl on Delaware Avenue two weeks ago. The brawl started inside a Delaware Avenue club on a Thursday night when younger members and associates of the Philly Mafia started mouthing off to members of a gang from 10th and Oregon.
The men badly beaten in the brawl are both suspects in the murder of Raymond "Long John" Martorano. Martorano was gunned down in his car during rush hour Jan. 17 and died several weeks later. The two alleged hit men are brothers.
According to underworld sources, the brothers were in the club with several of their friends when they got into a verbal disagreement with members of an Italian-American drug gang known as the 10th and Oregon crew.
"The older brother was mouthing off and the 10th and O guys just started swinging," said one mob source. "The brothers and another friend got their asses kicked. Both brothers were knocked out, and one lost a piece of his ear in the brawl. The brothers were beaten so badly that they're still walking around with black eyes and swollen lips."
Underworld sources claim the young mobsters feel they have to retaliate to save face.
"Something bad is coming," another Cosa Nostra source told City Paper in an interview earlier this week. "Somebody is going to get killed over this."
The two brothers had been riding high since the murder of Martorano. "People have been treating them like mob royalty," said the source. "Everybody on the street knows they killed Long John."
The older brother has been openly dating the wife of a high-ranking gangster who is serving a sentence for racketeering. According to police and mob sources, the brother and the gangster's wife have been seen at several trendy restaurants in Old City over the last two months.
The 10th and Oregon crew responsible for the beatdown of the Mafia goodfellas are themselves new neighbors in South Philadelphia.
The former leaders of the 10th and O crew had numerous run-ins with the Mafia and with the Pagans motorcycle gang, but they've recently relocated to South Jersey, hanging out at a restaurant near the Deptford Mall.
The 10th and O crew is now under new leadership and appears to be as violent and as fearless as the previous generations of crew members, who sometimes worked hand in glove with the local Mafia and sometimes waged war against them.
In a related story, a former member of the Northeast Philly mob, also known as the K&A gang, claims that no one in the underworld wants to buy Martorano's Lincoln Towncar -- the car he was riding in when he was shot three times.
Last week the source told City Paper in an interview in Cosí in Old City that the Martorano-murder car is spooking potential buyers.
According to the source, the former head of the K&A gang was given an opportunity to buy Martorano's car. The former crime boss was once best friends with Godfather Angelo Bruno and had worked closely with Raymond Martorano.
"Look at that car," the retired K&A gangster told a friend. "Long John died in that thing. There's still cigarette butts in the ashtray. It's scary. I don't wanna buy it. It's too weird. It feels like Long John is still there."
Coincidentally, Martorano may have been killed in part because of his friendship with members of the old K&A gang.
Underworld rumors were rampant, according to both law enforcement and gangland sources, that Martorano was planning to take over the local Cosa Nostra with the help of North Jersey gangsters and with local muscle provided by the K&A gang.
"Martorano thought it was his turn to be boss," one mob insider told City Paper. "But the current boss disagreed. Martorano lost that argument Goodfellas he ain't. ."

A rat through and through

The ratings for last night's edition of "60 Minutes" will no doubt be boffo. They had a football playoff game lead-in. They had a segment with Roger Clemens, professional baseball player, denying he took steroids. And they had Johnny Martorano, professional murderer, waxing philosophic about the art of blowing people's brains out.
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You'll have to forgive Emily Connors for not tuning in. Johnny Martorano helped murder her husband 33 years ago, as Ed Connors stood in a phone booth in Dorchester.
"You know what?" Emily Connors said of Martorano's schtick. "It's getting old."
She got that right. It would almost be bearable to watch this stuff if we knew it would be over and done with. But it's pretty obvious Martorano's appearance was the launch of another attempt to capitalize on the very marketable concept of the sensitive sociopath. After Martorano wraps up his government-witness obligations, which allowed him to trade the 20 human lives he took for 12 years in prison, there will be another kill-and-tell book. Another movie treatment. Some clueless Hollywood type will be snookered by all this tough-but-thoughtful hit-man jive, and we'll have to endure an endless string of breathless whispers about scripts, stars, and on-location shoots in Southie and Winter Hill.
Liesguys Lit is a lucrative genre. It's revisionist history for murderers, allowing them to imbue their venality with a sense of nobility that is otherwise missing from the brutal act of shooting someone in cold blood. And the best part for the purveyors of this junk is that almost everyone who can dispute its authenticity is either dead or not talking.
It's just as well Emily Connors didn't watch last night, because Martorano's performance was far more offensive to his victims than anything he said in court some years back when he got the sweetheart deal that allowed him to walk out of prison last year.
Johnny told Steve Kroft he didn't enjoy killing, but that he did it for his family and friends.
What a guy.
"You could never pay me to kill anybody," said Johnny, who, by job description, was paid to kill people.
"I didn't enjoy risking my life," Johnny said, "but if the cause was right I would."
He never got around to identifying these causes. Perhaps it was to free Tibet, or maybe help the nuns pay off the mortgage at an orphanage. Oh, and even though Johnny is a government witness he is not a rat because he's testifying against those who ratted before he ratted.
Got that?
Like all these criminals who trade their infamy for a few bucks, Johnny Martorano comes across as a guy who is sorry only that he got caught.
Paul Rico, the disgraced, and now dead, former FBI agent who helped Johnny kill people also helped frame a guy named Joe Salvati. Asked how he felt about Salvati doing 30 years for a murder he didn't commit, Rico replied, "What do you want, tears?"
Well, yeah, actually, we do. It would be refreshing to see one of these guys look into a camera and say, "I can't make up for my past. But I don't want to talk about it, either, because all it will do is hurt the families I already hurt."
Don't hold your breath waiting for that one.
There were a lot of names thrown around on "60 Minutes" last night. Whitey Bulger. Stevie Flemmi. They mentioned Martorano's first victim, Robert Palladino, and his last two, Roger Wheeler and John Callahan.Crime, Bulger,Flemmi,Weeks,Connolly,Rico,

Jimmy Hoffa hit

Americans' fascination with the Mafia has produced a slew of best-selling stories, from "The Godfather" to "The Sopranos." Behind these riveting tales of crime, murder and corruption are writers who sought out true stories.
As a trial attorney with a knack for cross-examination and interrogation techniques, part-time Ketchum resident Charles Brandt embarked on a career as a true-crime writer. Brandt's works reveal the activities of the nation's most notorious crime families, and include the long-unsolved mystery behind the murder of Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa.
"They helped elect a president and kill a president," Brandt said. "I didn't intend to write about the Mafia, that's how it worked out."
In a free talk, "Writing About the Mafia," at the Community Library in Ketchum tonight, Nov. 12, at 6 p.m. Brandt will discuss his work and experiences.
Brandt gained the trust and respect of Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, who confessed to Brandt about his mob hits, which included Jimmy Hoffa. "I Heard You Paint Houses" is a result of Brandt's five years of recorded interviews with Sheeran and will become a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro.
"Confession is a basic human need," Brandt said. "Sheeran wanted to tell his side of the story."
Brandt is working on another book about an FBI agent framed by the Colombo crime family.
Mr. Brandt wrote a fascinating and great book in "I Heard You Paint Houses" which is extremely important to understanding the latter half of the 20th century. A must read...

"I Hear You Paint Houses" finally reveals how James Hoffa died and what became of his body. Thanks to Charlie Brandt we can all stop sneaking into the Meadowlands in the middle of the night and digging for him.

Louie Dragna : Los Angeles Crime Family

Louis Tom Dragna aka Lou Allen aka "Louie longlegs" was at one time the acting boss of the Los Angeles crime family .

He has an arrest record dating back to 1946. Louie Dragna was one of the top earners in the history of the LA mob.

He made a ton of gelt in the garment business. Dragna participated in the murder of "Russian" Louie Strauss. He was convicted with Mobster's,Joe "JS" Sica , Frankie Carbo, and Blinky Palermo , of extorting boxing champion Don Jordan's manager.

His last conviction came in 1980 when It came out in the Forex , Mafia, extortion trial, that Louie Dragna admitted to his membership in the Mafia, and that he betrayed the membership structure of the Los Angeles Mafia to FBI agent Jack Barron in 1976.