Where Is The Mafia Now? 10 Bonanno Family Members, Associates Indicted

Ten members and associates of the Bonanno crime family are facing murder, extortion, drug and gambling conspiracy charges, a 37-count indictment unsealed in federal court in New York revealed Tuesday.

Acting Bonanno family captain Ronald “Ronnie G.” Giallanzo, 46; mob soldiers Michael Padavona, 48, Michael Palmaccio, 45, and Nicholas “Pudgie” Festa, 36, and associates Christopher “Bald Chris” Boothby, 37, Evan “The Jew” Greenberg, 45, Richard Heck, 45, Michael Hintze, 53, Robert “Chippy” or “Chip” Tanico, 49, and Robert Pisani, 44, were arrested Tuesday and were to be arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Vera M. Scanlon in Brooklyn.

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The indictment stems from alleged activities in the Howard Beach section of Queens and elsewhere from January 1998 to this month.

“Today’s arrests reveal La Costra Nostra’s continued presence in the community,” Acting New York U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde said in a statement. “Through acts of violence, including murder conspiracy, loansharking, illegal gambling, robbery and other offenses, the defendants are alleged to have amassed a fortune in ill-gotten gains.”

The indictment alleges Giallanzo headed a loansharking operation in which Festa, Palmaccio, Padovona, Hintze and Heck participated. Even while jailed, Giallanzo allegedly directed underlings to commit acts of violence to ensure customers made their exorbitant weekly interest payments. Padavona also allegedly ran another loansharking operation with Greenberg and Tanico.

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The indictment also alleges Giallanzo and Padavona plotted to kill an individual who allegedly robbed members of their crew.

Padavona and Tanico also are accused of conspiring to obstruct a federal grand jury investigation by coordinating false testimony.

The Bonanno crime family is one of the five gangs that control the East Coast as part of the criminal syndicate known as the Mafia or La Cosa Nostra. American Mafia History says the Bonannos first surfaced in the 1880s, originating in the town of Castellammare del Golfo in Trapani, Sicily. In the early 1900s, several top members and their families moved to New York.

In the 1920s, the Castellammarese gang hijacked illegal liquor shipments from other gangs in a bid by leader Salvatore Maranzano to take over all illegal activity in New York. By the 1930s, the Castellammarese gang had joined up with Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonanno, Carmine Galante and Joseph Profaci, and Maranzano declared himself boss of bosses. Lucky Luciano, Tommy Gagliano and Tommy Lucchese also joined with Maranzano, and Luciano eventually took over as boss of bosses after Jewish gangsters murdered Maranzano. Bonanno took over the remains of Maranzano’s gang and expanded its reach to California and Arizona, leading the crime family for three decades.

In the mid-1980s, FBI agent Joseph Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco, infiltrated the gang, sending its top bosses to jail. In the early 2000s, Bonanno family mobsters began turning government witness, leading to 90 indictments. The family currently has about 150 made members.