How could I have missed such a huge mob story? But there it was on the radio over last weekend: During the height of John Gotti's popularity and notoriety, the swashbuckling Dapper Don was also a Dashing Don, commuting by public transportation from Howard Beach to Manhattan each week.

"John's...

Lewis Kasman -- remember him? -- says he saved my life so I shouldn't write bad things about him. For all I know, he may be right. So, in that spirit, I will take things down a notch and just report that the self-described "adopted son" of the late John...

Did the Justice Department just orchestrate a bait-and-switch scam on a gullible, eager-to-believe citizenry?

Six weeks after the feds loudly proclaimed that they are still pursuing mobsters with a vengeance, the FBI has quietly cut the number of New York squads that investigate the notorious Five Families. There used to...

Mafia boss Carmine (Junior) Persico has managed to reclaim his favored dining spot in the federal prison complex in Butner, but the news out of his old Brooklyn haunts just keeps getting worse and worse for the jailed-for-life Colombo crime family chieftain.

Last week, another capo in his already...

Federal mob prosecutors in Brooklyn have started out their big new Mafia takedown case with some heavy spin, just as they did in a similar situation back in 2008. Court records show that the office of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch has steered the massive new Colombo family indictment to a...

The biggest and most damaging of the 16 indictments announced by Attorney General Eric Holder in the blockbuster FBI roundup of more than 120 mob defendants was achieved with lots of help from the nephew of a jailed Colombo family street boss, Gang Land has learned.

Sources say that Thomas...

It made the front page of the New York Times, and it put much of Gang Land in a high state of anxiety. Which is why we raced to find out just why the feds are so very interested in a couple of arm-around photos on the wall of Rao's,...

In a compelling account of his 14 years as a wannabe wiseguy, a reformed Brooklyn gangster claims that as a teenager he was recruited by a powerful Gambino capo who once plotted to whack John (Junior) Gotti because the Junior Don had the audacity to cheat him out of money.

Twenty-five years after the historic Commission case exposed the Colombo crime family's stranglehold over the union representing workers on all major New York construction projects, Local 6A of the New York Cement and Concrete Workers is still a family affair - in more ways than one.

Today,...

Memo to FBI agents: It's not a good idea to meet your informants out on the street, right near the Bureau's office.

Gang Land has learned that the cover of a longtime mob associate who was secretly working as a cooperating witness for the feds was blown...

Christmas comes but once a year, and the mob always tries to make the most of it.

That's the finding of a waterfront probe that has now spanned two holiday seasons. This week the investigation produced the indictment of a former top official of the scandal-tarred International Longshoremen's Association for...

A new name and a new town far away in Middle America may not be good enough to help turncoat mobster Sebastiano (Sebby) Saracino. He may need a new face as well.

Life in the federal Witness Protection Program is always complicated, but it would be especially so for Saracino,...

A federal judge's threat to throw the book against a sweet-talking 44-year-old con man with a laundry list of prior convictions has had the desired effect -- at least from the government's point of view. The guy got scared straight, and immediately turned on the mob.

Sources say that...

A top International Longshoremen's Association official lost his $256,000 annual salary this year when he was arrested for committing crimes on the waterfront. But the suspended ILA vice president, Nunzio LaGrasso, still has a dozen family members earning a very nice living as waterfront workers, Gang Land has learned.

Until...

Every now and again Gang Land learns of a scam that makes it tough to decide whether to cheer for the perp or the victim. This one's a prime example: A Harvard graduate who is an heir to the Vanderbilt and Whitney fortunes got taken to the cleaners for more...

The only time that Vincent (Chin) Gigante and John Gotti ever talked business as rival Mafia bosses, Chin made sure to tell Gotti how surprised and saddened he was to learn that the Dapper Don was going to induct his son into the Gambino crime family.

Twenty-two years later, it's...

Frank (Frankie Loc) Locascio, who was convicted in the most celebrated mob trial of his generation and sentenced to life in prison, says he has just remembered an important detail about a 1989 tape-recorded talk he had with John Gotti. The good thing about this sudden recollection is that he...

Armando Rea, a little-known Bonanno soldier, just learned what light-heavyweight champ Billy Conn found out nearly 60 years ago when he took on Joe Louis in one of the greatest heavyweight championship fights of all time: "You can run, but you can't hide."

Rea, who left his Bensonhurst, Brooklyn roots...

Call it Marino's choice.

Gambino wiseguy Daniel Marino - a still powerful capo who just celebrated his 70th birthday behind bars - is facing some difficult options in his pending federal case. Option #1 is a plea bargain which resolves all the charges he faces, including two murders, in exchange...

There was more than one shock wave in Gang Land last week after Attorney General Eric Holder issued his hard-nosed directive that the government will "continue to seek the death penalty" against Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano for the 2004 murder of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo.

First there was the surprisingly...