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Fear City
Recently Netflix released a 3-part series title Fear City. This documentary tells the story of how the New York office of the FBI made a RICO case on the heads of the 5-Families otherwise called The Commission.
Charlotte Lang
In this episode, I interview retired FBI agent Charlotte Lang who was recently a key figure in the Netflix documentary Fear City. The FBI first assigned Ms. Lang to review wiretaps searching for evidence that the Commission gave the order to murder Bonanno acting boss Carmine Galente. Ms. Lang tells how she was also assigned to monitor Paul Castellano while he met with Fat Tony Salerno at a lunch meeting in an upscale Manhatten restaurant. Ms. Lang revealed that she and another female agent, who was obviously pregnant, entered an upscale Manhatten restaurant and convinced the hostess that they had to sit at an adjacent table to Castellano because otherwise, her pregnant friend would be too close to the air conditioner. They were able to pick up several nice tidbits of conversation over this 3-hour lunch. In a review of old surveillance tapes of the Ravenite Social Club agents found that a Bonanno member named Bruno Indelicato arrived at this Gambino social club shortly after the Galente murder. The producer of Fear City was able to obtain this footage showing Indelicato being congratulated by various Gambino members including the underboss Dellacroce. Ms. Lang tells how they found a witness who got the license number and description of the Galante hit team and from that they suspected Indelicato. They were able to find the car and obtain some fingerprints. She and her partner tracked down Indelicato and obtained a set of major case prints to compare with a palm print on the suspect car. The fingerprint examiners got a match and they charged Indelicato with the Galente murder. Ms. Lang explains that the tape of Indelicato being congratulated by the underboss of another family after the murder was one more piece of evidence that tied this murder to the other mob bosses.
The takedown of the Commission
The final piece of evidence was actual proof that the bosses of the 5 families would meet. she tells how they were able to obtain information that a Commission was going to take place. They set up a surveillance and obtained video footage of all 5 bosses and underbosses leaving a house. The documentary Fear City contains the actual surveillance footage of this activity.
Show Notes by Gary Jenkins
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