A trove of FBI files have revealed how former Mafia boss Frank Cali dodged arrest for decades as he rose the ranks of the Gambino crime family.
The series of heavily-redacted files obtained by the New York Post tell how he ascended from a mere foot soldier for the crime syndicate, funding the operation through phone card scams, to the don, owning a multi-million dollar real estate empire.
Officials had referred to him throughout the years as a ‘ghost’ who kept a low-profile to avoid federal prosecution even as FBI agents tailed him for years.
Cali was only arrested once, in 2008, and served just 16 months in prison before returning to the crime family and becoming its kingpin.
By the time he was shot dead at the age of 53 by a QAnon madman outside his redbrick house in the upmarket Todt Hill neighborhood of Staten Island, Cali had developed a real estate empire.
A law enforcement official told the New York Times in the aftermath that ‘Franky Boy’ Cali was the complete opposite of flashy, former Gambino boss John ‘Dapper Don’ Gotti.
‘He’s basically a ghost,’ the official said at the time.
A series of heavily-redacted FBI documents reveal how Frank Cali dodged arrest for decades as he rose in the ranks of the Gambino crime family
By the time he was shot dead in 2019, Cali had substantial real estate holdings in the Dominican Republic and owned a business that imported tomato sauce, olive oil and mineral water. Police are seen here investigating his Staten Island mansion after he was found shot dead on March 13, 2019
Cali started out in a crew under a rising captain, John D’Amico, or ‘Jackie the Nose, who became the acting boss of the family in 2005, the Times reports.
He first fell on the FBI’s radar in the spring of 1996, when he was around 30 years old, for helping lead a phone card fraud scheme for the Gambino crime family from a Park Avenue office building, according to the Post.
By that November, FBI agents in New York had concluded several Gambinos were involved in the ‘production and distribution of telephone travel cards’ and that they committed a number of federal crimes as part of the scheme — including money laundering, income tax violations, mail fraud and wire fraud.
‘It goes without saying that the telephone card industry is one of the most important sources of illegal income for the Gambino LCN family,’ one agent wrote in a report.
As part of the scheme, Cali, along with D’Amico and Joseph Watts, allegedly created a company called CNC to distribute phone cards, selling them on the street at ‘the best price per country and offering the best discount to the distributors.’
The charges on the cards would then be billed to Georgia-based Worldcom.
The FBI agents estimated that the scheme cost the telephone company $94 million by October 1997, when agents in New York first contacted their counterparts in Atlanta about the ‘bust-out’ scheme.
According to one of the documents obtained by the Post, one member of the crime family ‘paid Worldcom only a small percentage of his outstanding balance throughout the 10-month scheme.
‘Gambino members such as [redacted] Frank Cali and others lined their pockets with millions in cash,’ it continued.
The report added that in the beginning, ‘CNC paid their debt and was considered trustworthy by Worldcom. However, CNC did not continue to pay their debt.’
Cali started off working phone scams for the Gambino crime family, eventually rising in the ranks to become the don and using his influence to build a real estate empire
Cali started out in a crew under a rising captain, John D’Amico, or ‘Jackie the Nose, who became the acting boss of the family in 2005, the Times reports
At the time, feds listed Cali as just a ‘proposed soldier’ for the crime family, believing he had not yet taken a blood oath of loyalty.
But from there, the Post reports, agents became increasingly interested in Cali’s whereabouts, tailing him in Brooklyn and photographing him with associates as they also interviewed confidential sources about him.
In one October 1997 report, an agent wrote that he was doing a ‘spot check on 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst, recording that Cali was walking with an unidentified man before entering the Point After Sports Bar and Grill.
And by July, another agent created a report entitle Surveillance of Frank Cali on 18th Avenue, Brooklyn, New York,’ including pictures of Cali and several others as they visited Tony’s Luncheonette.
The agency finally categorized him as a ‘recently-made’ member of the Gambino family in March 1997.
Just one year later, a grand jury convened in the Eastern District of New York, but decided not to bring charges against Cali in the phone card scheme.
Federal charges, though, were later filed against John Gotti Jr, the reputed leader of the family at the time, but was dropped by prosecutors.
He told the Post at the time: ‘I was a victim. I lost a lot of money on that deal.’
Cali was ultimately shot six times and run over by a pickup truck outside his Staten Island home
The suspected killer believed he was sent to kill Cali by Donald Trump
Meanwhile, Cali continued to rise in the ranks of the crime syndicate until he pleaded guilty to an extortion case in 2008.
The case involved a plan to build a Nascar track in Staten Island, but the Gambino family controlled the trucking operation that would have hauled dirt to fill the track’s foundation.
His lawyer at the time described the gangster to the Times as ‘smart, mild-mannered and low-key.’
But prosecutors in Brooklyn highlighted his involvement in the phone card scheme and other operations as they argued he should be locked up.
The prosecutors claimed he took a percentage of the proceeds from an annual Italian festival and installed illegal Joker Poker video machines in a café in Brooklyn, splitting the money with the café owners after providing the Gambino family with a 10 percent cut.
At one of the hearings, the Post reports, prosecutor Joey Lipton told the judge that Cali — who had risen to the rank of captain — was only successful in avoiding jail time for these past crimes because of his ability to hide from the spotlight.
‘Cali, like other members of the family, has sworn a blood oath to the organization to commit criminal activity,’ he said. ‘Cali has been successful in fulfilling that oath, in large part because he’s been careful.’
He was ultimately sentenced to just 16 months in prison — and when he got out, he allegedly continued his rise in the crime family, reportedly rising to boss in 2015 after acting don Domenic Cefalu stepped down.
Cali used his influence to build a real-estate empire, with substantial holdings in the Dominican Republic.
He also owned a business that imported tomato sauce, olive oil and mineral water, as well as a large fruit store in Brooklyn, and later an Italian supermarket.
As boss, prosecutors said he tapped his connections in Italy and imported many members and associates in his crew from Sicily, where he was seen as a man of ‘influence and power,’ according to the Times.
He was also identified in 2014 as an associate of Brooklyn baker Franco Luporia, who was suspected of playing a role in a heroin pipeline from Italy to the United States.
The case drew a lot of attention, the Times reports, because it seemed to suggest the Italian crime group behind the pipeline was seeking to expand to New York.
He was laid to rest in a private service before his remains were taken to Moravian Cemetery
Anthony Comello, of Staten Island, was deemed unfit to stand trial in 2020
Cali was ultimately shot six times and run over by a pickup truck outside his Staten Island home on March 13, 2019.
His wife and young children were inside the house and one man, believed to be a family member, ran outside, collapsed and cried, ‘Papa! Papa!’
The gangster was laid to rest days later in a private service before his remains were taken to Moravian Cemetery.
The mourners were a who’s who of current figures of interest to authorities which photographed some of them as they carried Cali’s casket out of the funeral home before taking him to the cemetery. Four black unmarked police cars watched the service from across the street.
‘They want to know who shows up, who the players are, who’s going to possibly take over, who’s active, who’s not, the pecking order.
‘Unfortunately, it’s very limited. But they have to take what they can get,’ one law enforcement source told The New York Post about them being there.
Once the service at the Scarpaci Funeral Home was over, his casket was driven to the nearby cemetery and was placed in a crypt in the Hillview Mausoleum, an extravagant two-tier building where the thousands of spots are highly coveted.
The suspected murderer meanwhile, a QAnon conspiracy theorist, was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial in 2020.
Anthony Comello, of Staten Island, had no ties to the mafia but had apparently convinced himself he was on a mission for Trump.
‘He ardently believed that Francesco Cali, a boss in the Gambino crime family, was a prominent member of the deep state, and, accordingly, an appropriate target for a citizen’s arrest,’ his lawyer stated.
He said that Comello’s support for ‘QAnon’ went beyond mere participation in a radical organization but evolved into a delusional obsession.