The federal government claims to have dismantled an organized criminal ring reminiscent of the Mafia’s heyday, encompassing illicit gambling parlors in New York City and Long Island and a police investigator suspected of protecting the profitable scams.
Nine individuals, including the detective, were charged with racketeering, unlawful gambling, money laundering conspiracy, and obstruction of justice in two indictments announced on Tuesday. The defendants were referred to as “Joe Fish,” “Sal the Shoemaker,” “Little Anthony,” and “Joe Box.”
The chief federal prosecutor in Brooklyn said that the racketeers used fronts such as a coffee shop, a soccer club, and Sal’s Shoe Repair.
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said, “Today’s arrests of members of two La Cosa Nostra crime organizations indicate that the Mafia continues to contaminate our neighborhoods with illegal gambling, extortion, and violence while using our banking system to further their criminal schemes.”
He termed the accused detective’s behavior “reprehensible.”
Hector Rosario, a detective with the Nassau County Police Department, is suspected of collecting money from the Bonanno crime family in return for directing police raids against rival gambling clubs.
Rosario was one of seven defendants who appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday, according to CBS New York. Rosairo has been suspended without pay awaiting an administrative hearing, according to Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder.
9 individuals with ties to organized criminal families face federal accusations. https://t.co/MiiOKR9uQ5
17 August, 2022 — CBS New York (@CBSNewYork)
A lawyer for Rosario did not immediately reply to a request for comment about his client and the charges against him, which include obstruction of a grand jury investigation and lying to the FBI.
In addition, prosecutors named Carmelo Polito, 63, as the acting commander of the Genovese criminal family. He is accused of racketeering, money laundering, managing an illegal gaming enterprise, and extortion. His bail was set at $1,100,000
Prosecutors said Polito is accused with trying to extort a person who lost several thousand dollars in wagers made via the website. Polito reportedly directed another person in an October 2019 conversation about a delinquent debtor whose “face” he had previously threatened to “break” to send the following message to the debtor: “Tell him I’m going to dump him under the f—-ing bridge.”
While the heyday of organized crime in New York has long since passed, and many forms of gambling that were once the Mafia’s exclusive domain are now legal in the state, Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly stated that the indictments demonstrate that “organized crime is alive and well in our communities.”
She said that the Genovese and Bonanno organized crime groups allegedly ran clandestine gambling parlors in local businesses since 2012, “earning large sums of money in back rooms as families naively shopped and ate only feet away.”
Michael Driscoll, the chief of the FBI’s New York office, said that members of the five organized crime groups “every day indicate that they are not opposed to cooperating to advance their unlawful schemes, using the same weary ways to extort money from their victims.”
Driscoll added, “Our active investigations demonstrate that the Mafia refuses to learn from history and accept that they will eventually face justice for their crimes.”