Bonanno and Genovese gangsters and LI cop arrested in gambling network

Law enforcement’s takedown of a lucrative gambling ring shared by two mafia families has hooked a rogue Long Island cop and eight mobsters – including a guy known as ‘Joe Fish’, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. authorities.

Genovese soldier Joseph Marcario has been indicted along with four crime family colleagues and three Bonanno family members for running the betting business from legitimate businesses in Queens and Long Island for the past decade, the report said. Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Nassau County Detective Hector Rosario, 49, of Mineola, LI, was also accused of taking money from the Bonannos in exchange for staging raids on competing illegal betting parlors – including one based at a rival Genovese shoe repair shop, court documents showed.

“The defendants tried to hide their criminal activities behind the cover of a cafe, a football club and a shoe repair shop, but our office and our law enforcement partners revealed their illegal operations,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in announcing the arrests.

“Even more disturbing is the disgraceful conduct of a detective who betrayed his oath of office…when he allegedly aligned himself with criminals,” Peace said.

Court documents said the two organized crime families, in an unusual arrangement, collaborated to raise some $10,000 in weekly bets at the Gran Caffe cafe in Lynbrook, LI

Acting Genovese capo Carmelo “Carmine” Polito was also accused of running an illegal online betting operation where deadbeat players were beaten or worse.

“Tell him I’ll put him under the f——g bridge,” Polito told an associate to warn a debtor in 2019, according to court documents.

Authorities said Polito’s criminal record included a bank robbery conspiracy and conviction – knocked down later — for planning the murders of two associates of the Genovese family in Brooklyn on November 30, 1994.

Genovese defendant Joseph “Joe Box” Rutigliano, 63, of Commack, LI, was the only suspect to avoid arrest in Tuesday’s sweep, and he remained at large, authorities say.

Rutigliano was identified as the bagman for the family’s illicit earnings, collecting the money with co-defendant Salvatore “Sal the Shoemaker” Rubino, 58, and handing the money over to higher-ranking members.

Bonanno defendant Vito Pipitone, 40, was arrested in Wellington, Florida, while his older brother Anthony “Little Anthony” Pipitone, 49, of Deer Park, LI, was arrested locally in the operation where the money was laundered through secret money transfers, authorities said.

The Pipitone brothers pleaded guilty in 2010 to stabbing two teenagers who they believe vandalized a mob-linked Queens restaurant in 2004.

Hawaiian by Vito Pipitone the honeymoon was cut short when he was charged in the stabbings. He was sentenced to 3 and a half years for the crime.

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His older brother Anthony served over 3½ years for stabbing in Whitestone. While on probation in 2016, he earned two more years in the federal slammer for assisting with the Bonanno crime family. annual Christmas party in Staten Island.

Defendant Agostino Gabriele, 35, of Queens, picked up the money for Bonanno’s superiors, authorities charged.

Detective Rosario, questioned by the FBI, provided false information by denying any connection to the Bonanno family, according to court documents.

In addition to operating a shared cafe, the two families ran their own gambling dens, mostly at local social clubs, authorities said.

Evidence gathered by prosecutors included court-ordered wiretaps, testimony from cooperating witnesses and physical evidence, authorities said.

“This case is further proof that organized crime is alive and well,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said. “These violent criminal organizations operated secret underground gambling halls in local business establishments … with the assistance of a sworn member of law enforcement.”

Last April, a Florida-based Genovese family captain and five associates were arrested for racketeering for running a decade-old illegal gambling operation where losing bettors were subjected to extortion or threats of violence.