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In this episode, we dive deep into a gripping story from the dark world of organized crime, centering on the infamous Bonanno crime family. Our narrative follows Larry Santoro, an unsuspecting cabinet maker who, finds himself entangled Frank Gangi and Billy bright, members of Tommy “Karate” Pitera’s brutal drug gang. Known for his ruthless enforcement and violent reputation, Pitera represents the deadly allure and hazards of the criminal underworld that ordinary people can stumble into, facing devastating consequences.
The plot thickens as Santoro is drawn into a botched robbery scheme alongside Pitera asociates Frank Gangi and Billy Bright. Their inexperience with residential break-ins quickly turns their plans for fast cash into a chaotic encounter. Breaking into a Russian jeweler’s home, they find themselves face-to-face with an elderly woman, struggling to keep control. The tension is palpable, showing how the criminal life can spiral out of control, especially for those unprepared for its high stakes and brutal outcomes.
As we unfold the story, we reveal connections between the Bonanno and Genovese crime families, as Frank Gangi attempts to profit from the heist by selling the stolen jewelry to mob contacts, including a Genovese captain. A pivotal moment arises when the stolen jewelry catches the attention of Joe Butch Corrao, a Gambino family capo who’s determined to reclaim a pair of prized diamond earrings. This leads to a tense sit-down meeting where we witness the mob’s complex hierarchy and decision-making dynamics. As different factions vie for control and respect, this meeting underscores the razor-thin balance required to survive in this world, where even the smallest oversight can unravel alliances.
The episode culminates with a series of betrayals and tragic outcomes, as Frank Gangi ultimately turns against Tommy Karate, seeking refuge in witness protection while others face severe repercussions. Join us as we explore the themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the steep price of a life in crime, through the brutal world of Tommy Karate Pitera and his deadly network of associates.
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Transcript
[0:00] Hey guys, welcome all you wiretappers out there. I’m back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. As you can see, this is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit officer, now turned podcaster and author, actually. So don’t forget, I have this new book about the Chicago outfit, Windy City Mafia, the Chicago outfit. Help me beat the algorithms of Amazon. Go out there and buy that book. Give me reviews on it. That way for $1.99, even if you don’t have a Kindle for $1.99.
[0:31] I get part of that. I get a little piece of that, but also it gets Amazon to put it out to more people. And so the more people that buy it, the more money I make, the more money I
[0:42] make, the better I like it. So anyhow, help me out if you can, guys. I have a New York story today. I go all over the United States from Kansas City and worked a mob here for many years. This is a New York story I happened to run into I thought was really interesting and really kind of telling for about how some of these guys work and they do different crimes and and kind of the I love the intricacies of of how guys work not just that they went out and killed 20 people or they dealt drugs and you go on or they did some kind of a score how do they do that so back in the 80s i believe that larry santoro was a cabinet maker and larry Santoro knew some guys in Tommy karate patera’s drug gang Tommy karate was a feared murder uh he was an enforcer he was he killed people out the ass he cut up their bodies he was a banana guy so he could deal drugs He had a huge drug gang. I did a whole show on, uh, Tommy karate. So go back and look at my, uh, old shows and find that Tommy karate show kind of overview of him.
[1:55] Anyhow, he, he knew guys in that crew. One of them was Frank Ganji. He was probably closest to Tommy karate. Frank Ganji had, uh, he had problems in the end. Uh, Billy Bright, uh, who will get killed in the penitentiary in the end. And a guy named Manny Maya or Maya, I don’t know much more about him other than he was a defendant in the drug conspiracy trial. The one time of karate went down, DEA worked a big case on him. I mean, karate, he will go on to commit many, many murders. And he brought this Frank Ganji in with him and to help do some of these murders. And Ganji, uh, was, is not the kind of guy you want to do murders with. They’re not the kind of guy you want to know your business. Karate, Tommy Karate, he really jacked up by taking this guy into his confidence. He should have known. He should have known after doing a few things with him that this guy is weak in the end. Tommy Karate was in the Bonanno family. He’s a made guy. He was in a faction of the Bonanno family. And there was a big split in the Bonanno family. And the three capos.
[2:59] Sonny Red and Delicato, Dominic Trinchera, and Philip Jack Leone, all ended up being murdered in that infamous basement tribal murder planned out by Joe Messino, which I talked about in the Joe Messino story. And Dominic, Sonny Black, Napolitano also was part of the planning of that and the implementation of it. They were trying to just protect themselves as well as their, uh, the boss of the Bonanno family, Rusty Ristelli, who was in, uh, prison at the time. And, and Joe Massino had gone to the commission and, and told them that he was getting information that these three capos were trying to, uh, we’re going to make a move on them and take over the family and boot Rusty Ristelli out. And Castellano supposedly reportedly told Joe Massino that, you know, you do what you got to do to defend yourself. And this is what Joe Massino did. And Joe Massino, of course, went on to be the boss and went on to then be the first mob boss in New York to ever turn.
[4:00] So go back in that Joe Massino story I did. It’s a great story. A lot of people really liked it because it had a lot of different experts and some former made guys as well as FBI agents that were Joey Massino. You know, Tommy Karate is working on Anthony Spiro, who put him under Frank Leno, who was a survivor of the three Capo murders, who ran out before they could take him down. And then he came back and all was forgiven. One of Tommy Karate’s most famous murders probably was the most famous was Willie Boy Johnson, which was kind of shows this inner family.
[4:34] And this story is about kind of inner family relationships and inner family cooperation. One of his more famous murderers was Wilford Willie boy. Johnson shot him down as he walked to his car. Johnson had been a really, he wasn’t a made guy. I think it was Indian. He’s been a real close associate of John Gotti. John Gotti liked this guy. He really liked this guy and been a Gambino associate and, They’d been, they’d done stuff together since they were kids.
[5:01] Willie boy had also been a top echelon and former the FBI for a long time. You don’t slide them little tidbits, not really anything that you’ll, you’re going to make a case on directly where he’d have to testify. And he’d been doing it for several years. I don’t know why, you know, whatever, what people do things for different motives. You know, I, you never know what a guy’s motive is, but it done that. But they’re, they’re the first trial of, of Gotti, which you got to not guilty you on there’s a prosecutor a lady named diane jackaloni and she wanted willy boy to testify and she had you know his control agent went to him they did not want to have him testify because that was going to out him that would take out their future source of information inside right next to gotti they didn’t think they really needed him to get the conviction uh jackaloni thought they did.
[5:52] And she ended up exposing him, fronting him out during the trial.
[5:56] And so that’s why Tommy Crotty ended up killing him at the request of the Gambinos and John Gotti. Now, these four guys I mentioned before, Larry Santoro, who was a cabinetmaker who set it up, and Manny Maya, who then connected Billy Bright and Frank Ganji to this little scheme, they robbed a Russian jeweler who mainly worked out of his house santoro again i think i said he was a cabinet maker and he was involved in a home remodel in the russian jeweler’s house this was in the canarsie section of brooklyn kind of a solidly upper middle class section uh in brooklyn and and their name was blumenkrant it’s more of a german name but uh russian germans i don’t know blumenkrant and they not only sold a lot of legitimate really high-end pieces but they also dealt with stolen jewelry which you know when you’re when you’re a fence yourself a lot of fences get robbed by their customers when they know they’ve got something big because you know the fence is meant less likely to cooperate with the police if you do get caught if you get caught you may have to give this stuff back depending on.
[7:04] Who’s connected to the fence but they didn’t really know this guy uh they probably knew he maybe dealt with some hot stuff but a lot of people knew that they didn’t know he was a connected guy They should have done their homework a little better. But these guys, they were not really experienced B&E or breaking and entering guys. They were not experienced home invasion guys. They were helping Tommy Karate kill people and helping him sell drugs and collect money and transport drugs and all that. They wanted the easy money. And Frank Gansey himself, he was a bad alcoholic. And during this time, he was needing more money, more money, more money because his cocaine addiction was really getting next to him. And he was spending a ton of money. His alcoholism was going out of control. And he was blowing money out the butt. And so, you know, this here, he gets a lot of, he can make a lot of quick money off of this deal.
[7:55] And not have to share it with Tommy Karate or any other buddy, any other guys in the mob. You know, lots of times they find out you work with a mob guy and they find out you made a score. They want to wet their beak, as they used to say. They want a taste of the action. He got Billy Bright, who had been in the penitentiary with and gotten to know there and was good friends with. And what’s interesting, what I learned about Billy Bright is he was a born-again Christian out of the prison. You know, he probably had gone to services in prison and probably had a little group, a safe little group to meet with in prison. But Billy Bright, he had no compunction about robbery, murder, or drug dealing. Took a look at this setup, met with this larceness cabinetmaker, Larry Santoro.
[8:39] They didn’t look very close, but, you know, they looked at it and they said, yeah, we can do that.
[8:43] They thought, from what they saw, that the jeweler’s wife would be home alone.
[8:49] And there would be a safe with a lot of jewelry. Really high-end jewelry in it day of the robbery they billy bright was holding a cash or a big stash of guns for tommy karate patera so he borrowed a couple of guns out of that stash and they stuck them in their belts and drove the neighborhood and parked down the street maybe a block or so away and then walked down the street like they knew what they were doing and and they cut through a backyard and went into the blumenkranz home through the back door and the back door and they found it was unlocked walk in and they don’t find they think the just the wife is going to be there and all they find is an elderly grandmother who doesn’t really speak english very well all she could do is start screaming in russian and pointing in her handbag at the same time landing larry santoro’s cousin another cabinet maker still in there working so they got to handcuff him and trying to calm the grandma down and she keeps pointing at her handbag and finally they get it and open it up and hand it to her and she takes some heart medicine out and starts gulping down pills so you know it’s kind of a out of control scene at first and finally get her calmed down they start you know searching around through the house they’re not finding the safe they’re not finding anything finally in a finished basement they just a find a bag that’s got a lot of high-end looking gold jewelry with diamonds and other stones in it and and i think maybe a couple of high-end watches, but anyhow.
[10:15] They find what they think is going to be a nice score. And it turned out it was a nice score. These guys, as I think I said this a minute ago, they don’t, they’re not experienced B and E guys. They don’t have a fence that they regularly work with that they is already set. Maybe they even already discussed the score with them and say, tell them about what they’re going to get and have the guy all lined up. They start asking, they have started asking around.
[10:41] And, and seeing who will buy this stuff. Well, Frank Gansey takes his share and he sells it to a Genovese captain and the owner of what’s, uh, uh, called the wrong number lounge guy’s name. They called him Sally dogs, Salvatore Lombardi. And he also takes another part of his share to a fourth Avenue jewelry store called Bianco’s jewelry’s Bianco jewelry’s jewelry store. And more than likely those guys are connected to, uh, you know, and Sally dogs, he, he was a mob drug dealer himself. even though he was in the Genovese family. Bananos were famous for selling the drugs and seemed to have the ability to sell drugs, but we know Gambinos were too, and this guy was at Genovese Capital. He was too. He took his first hit for manufacturing, selling Quaaludes.
[11:28] He went to prison for a long time. I think he maybe died in prison after they caught him on a wiretap, trafficking heroin, trying to buy a large bunch of heroin. So now you know that guy knows that they got this big score and he knows what the pieces are like and what they are i’m not sure about uh billy bright what he did with his but do know about this one new york is a huge vast city as you guy anybody’s been to new york knows but the mafia world and in kansas city or chicago or whatever that’s a small world that’s like a small town and people in small towns they talk you know they frequently uh associate in uh different bars they They talk to each other as, you know, one’s a Genovese guy. If they’re not at some war, one of a Genovese guy will meet with a banana guy that they, you know, they like. They like to drink with. They like to gamble with in the gambling social clubs and gambling joints. You know, they’ll do all kinds of stuff together.
[12:24] The stories of big scorers get around. You know, these guys, you know, crime is their business. You know, like policemen, that’s our business. So you hear about somebody that did something big time deal. Well, you want to know more about it. You start asking around. Well, somebody does a big score. They start hearing about it. Sally Bugs was not Sally Bugs, uh, uh, Sally dogs. You know, he told people, Hey man, I just, you know, I got some really nice pieces. I got a hell of a deal on this here. Look at this. You want to buy one of these? Or, you know, I, I, the word gets around that this guy has this and what they didn’t know at this time.
[13:00] A capo in the gambino family six foot four inch joe butch corral was really good friends with this russian guy not only that his joe butch’s wife had left a very expensive pair of diamond earrings with the russians and he wanted those earrings back but he not only wanted the earrings back this guy’s a mob guy right he wants a piece of that that uh caper he wants a piece of the action i mean come on man and they’re they’re buying it now at 250 000 now you know that didn’t mean shit you know you may the the jeweler probably uh told the police it was an insurance company it was 250 000 worth you know in fact you know you might be 10 or 15 000 you might get on the streets off of this stuff but he wants a piece of this 250 000 these guys you know they they want to know who did something where the swag is can i make money off of it uh can i maybe he’s robbed the thieves. Where is it now? Joe Butch, you know, he’s, you know, he’s all over this.
[14:02] Capos heard it. Lieutenants heard it. Soldiers heard it. It was everywhere. So Tommy Karate hears about it too. And he figures out that, you know, it was his guys that did it, but they didn’t tell him about it. They didn’t ask his permission, which you’re supposed to deal a score like that. You should ask Tommy Karate’s permission and then shared a piece of the, the swag with him. Well, then he finds out about this story. Joe Butch Correo and, and being he’s a Gambino and Tommy karate has long done stuff back and forth with the Gambinos and, and John Gotti in particular. So they have, you know, as I told you early on, yeah, he killed, uh, uh, Willie boy Johnson for John Gotti. So he, he likes to stay in with the Gambinos and, and getting points with them. So, you know, he goes and he goes to Gambinos and said, okay, here’s the deal. These guys did this. I, they didn’t ask my permission, uh, but I am responsible for them and their actions. We need to have a sit down. So they have a sit down over it. And Frank Gansey had a cousin who was a Genovese capo. So he, he said, so he’s made guy. So he can sit down with Joe Butch and Tommy Karate. The three made guys have a sit down to decide what to do about these associates that got a little, you know, out of their lane, if you will, kind of went off the tracks for a little bit.
[15:20] Joe butch he’s putting on an act and he’s a joe butch is a big guy and he and he’s a tough guy he he’s not in a capo they used to describe him as a war capo he he’s a bad man i had a friend that was in a penitentiary with him uh steve saint john used to walk the track with him and at one time and he agrees he said he said this is a kind of a soft-spoken gentleman guy but but he could tell he said this is this is a bad guy who who do what he needs to do ross ganji the general to be this guy explains you know this is my cousin and you know we’ll get your diamond earrings back i’m pretty sure i’m not sure about half the score and and talks about his cousin he said you know now there’s nothing i can do with this guy he’s his own man and i can’t order him to really do anything and he’s been a problem and he really uh what he does he tells those other two guys and And that’s not Patera obviously knew it because he’d done a lot of crime with Ganji before. He’d done murders with Ganji, had Ganji’s help for murders. But he tells Joe Butch in this meeting that, you know, he’s a drunk. He drinks too much. He does too many drugs. I can’t do anything with him. And, you know, if you think about that, when he says that, he’s kind of given his permission, indirectly his permission. You know, you do what you got to do with this guy because we can’t do anything with him.
[16:40] Patera did speak up for him. He said, you know, I’ll be responsible here. I’ll get what I can and give it to you, Joe Butch. And, you know, by the end, Joe Butch was happy.
[16:52] He accepted that. And, you know, they broke up and went their separate ways.
[16:56] You know, what was kind of interesting is this meeting, the cops were following, the DEA was following a lot of these guys because they were working on Tommy Karate Paterin. They followed him where this meeting was. They were always curious about what this meeting was. And they found it was really a mafia hotspot. And it was, you know, like you find a hotspot like that that nobody knew about before. Then you, you like throw guys on there and you write license plates down for the next, you know, several months and get, take pictures. If you can, uh, they’re, they’re like, uh, I mean, that’s like gold, man, gold mine, find a spot that they’re using. They don’t think anybody knows about, but Tara, Tommy karate will regret saving Frank Ganji. Cause in the end.
[17:36] Frank gansey nephew genovese capo will testify against tommy karate patera billy bright will not testify he’ll go to the penitentiary and he’ll end up getting killed in prison supposedly because he’s involved in the killing of a guy named ryder whose cut whose brother uh was uh a drug dealer in the Gene Gotti, Angelo Ruggiano heroin conspiracy. And so he knew Billy Bright was involved with that murder with Tommy Karate. They can’t do anything with Tommy Karate, but he did have Billy Bright killed in prison. It’s my understanding that Frank Gangi will go into witness protection. He’ll confess to all the murders he was involved with with Patera and all the drug dealing.
[18:25] And uh and what happened i i said this in my tommy uh karate patera show but i remind you what happened with frank gansey he was a bad alcoholic he was feeling guilty and remorseful about because they were cutting up bodies tommy karate had like a hot tub or something and and uh he’d have gansey come over and and strip naked and help him cut up bodies and then take them at this uh cemetery they They had a wooded area up in Gravesend and Brooklyn and buried the bodies with the heads separately and cut them up so he could put them in bags and things like that. He was like a real Roy DeMeo kind of guy, a Gemini method kind of a guy. Ganji is, I think he’s arrested for DUI. He’s in a cell just for the DUI, nothing else. He’s feeling guilty and remorseful, and he tells the jailer, hey, call the FBI. Get an FBI agent down there. Tell him who I am. He’ll want to talk to me. And so he turned him. That’s the story of Frank Ganji, Billy Bright, Larry Santoro,
[19:29] a guy named Manny Maya, who I never did figure out whatever happened to him. He went to jail with all the crew that were in the drug conspiracy with Tommy Parade.
[19:41] Get my tongue in front of my eye teeth. I can’t see what I’m saying. Here’s a snippet from an interview that Frank Ganji did while he was in witness protection. Actually, he went and witnessed protection for a while. He didn’t like it. Came back out. He’s died since. And he gave an interview to a guy out in Las Vegas who has the Joy Ciccone show. It’s on his YouTube channel, so you might get that if you want to listen to the whole interview with Frank Ganji. I just snagged a little bit of it just so you could see, you know, kind of what he had to say and what his voice sounded like.
[20:13] I got caught. And I had to do a two- to four-year sentence. in New York. And meanwhile, pot business blew up. Philly, without the street, that was supposed to be part of the business. Right, right. Without the street making nothing. $1,000, $1,000 with the man. But when I got out, you know, he made me a partner of the business. But meanwhile, the business was in the red now. A friend of ours, a very close friend of ours, had brought me a profit of $350,000 worth of pot. So Billy comes visit me in prison one day, and he says, Frankie, he says, listen, you know, I think officers are going to try to kill me to take the officers over. We got to kill him. Two weeks left to go on my prison sentence. I called Billy I said, Billy, just wait until I come home Don’t do nothing until I come home I go on a storm show two weeks You know.
[21:07] Billy took the limousine up With my girlfriend to pick me up from prison They’ll hand me like a $5,000 Lot, you know, from my pocket You know, and then I was making Thousands of dollars a day, Billy, I just got out of jail Billy kept talking about killing off I really wasn’t into killing somebody Right now, I just got out of jail So thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate y’all tuning in the show don’t forget i like to ride motorcycles and don’t forget that if you got a problem with ptsd and you were in the service go to the va website and get that hotline number and if you have problems with drugs or alcohol be sure and go to uh angelo reggiano’s youtube channel and look for that hotline number he’s a drug and alcohol counselor uh as well as an entertainer a mob entertainer uh he’s down in florida i believe and if you have a problem with gambling, you know, that 1-800-BETS-OFF is a good place to go.
[22:01] And, you know, I got a lot of stuff to sell. I sold my newest book at the start of the show. I’ve still got my two mob movies, Gangland Wire, which is about the Kansas City end of the casino movie. You’ll see how that all got started and what was going on here and how they uncovered all that money coming out of Las Vegas. It started at the TROP, and then from there, they figured out it was a lot more money is coming out of the TROP, the Stardust going to Chicago and Kansas city was getting the trap money. So, you know, it’s a, it’s kind of a complicated story, but I tried to simplify it in my documentary gangland wire. And also at the same time in Kansas city, we had a mob war going on the Savella Spiro war. And so I have brothers against brothers, which tells the inside look, gives you an inside look at that mob war here in Kansas city. And I have a book too about called leaving Vegas, how FBI wiretaps ended mob domination of Las Vegas casinos, man. It’s a mouthful, isn’t it? Uh, so I also got that book out there that it also tells that story. And if you get the, um, uh, Kindle version, you can click on links in there and here are the actual wiretaps.
[23:11] So I think that’s all I got to sell guys. And I really appreciate you listening in and all your kind comments on my ganglandwire podcast, Facebook group. You have to be either invited or you had to find it and then ask to join and answer the questions to answer that you’ll agree to the rules. We’ve got too many scammers in that thing and had to really clamp down on it. It’s a big group. There’s a lot of good discussions, a lot of great pictures in there. And my YouTube channel, I got all kinds of comments in there. Keep making those comments, answer questions. I read every one of them. I like those comments. I like answering the questions and interacting with you guys. So thanks a lot, guys.
What happened to Manny????