Bonanno Capo Nicholas “Nicky Mouth” Santora

 Jonathan Allen, Chicago Tribune

Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Five accused mobsters from two of New York City’s organized crime families were arrested on Friday on multiple charges including racketeering and extortion, federal law enforcement officials said.

Vincent Badalamenti, known as Vinny TV and described as a member of the Bonanno crime family’s “administration,” was the highest-ranking mafia member arrested in the sweep  He was apprehended at his home on New York City’s Staten Island, said Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Badalamenti, 53, and his mafia colleagues are charged with using violent threats to extort money and property from eight unidentified men between 1999 and 2011, according to an indictment filed at the federal courthouse in the New York City borough of Brooklyn on Friday.
In one incident, Badalamenti is accused of forcing a man to turn over control of his bar on Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue for failing to repay a debt, the indictment says.

Badalamenti was previously convicted in 2003 of extortion before being released from prison in 2005, prosecutors said.

In another incident, Anthony Calabrese, who prosecutors said holds the rank of soldier in the Bonanno family, is accused of intimidating a Staten Island pizzeria into handing over profits.

The arrests followed a years-long investigation by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration that included surveillance and covert recordings made with the help of convicted former crime-family members. They were secretly helping the government in exchange for lenient sentences, the U.S. attorney’s statement said

The same indictment resulted in the arrests of Vito Balsamo, 55, and Nicholas Santora, 69, at their homes in Staten Island and on Long Island, New York, and a Bonanno captain Anthony Graziano, 71, already in custody on an earlier extortion charge–to read the rest click   Here

The Heineken Kidnapping is a fictional adaptation of a true story

By Anna Holligan, BBC

The man known as the godfather of Dutch crime has been released from prison in the Netherlands.    Willem Holleeder served six years of a nine-year sentence for extortion. He has been a hugely powerful, notorious and influential figure on the Dutch underworld for decades.

Holleeder’s most infamous crime has recently been turned into a movie  soon to be released across Europe and there is a new Hollywood version in the making.  read more Here  

Angela “Big Ang” Raiola,  niece of late Genovese Capo  Sally Dogs” Lombardi

JANUARY 27–This season’s breakout star on “Mob Wives,” VH1’s hit reality series about big-mouthed mob molls, is a convicted felon who was caught repeatedly selling cocaine during the course of an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration probe targeting a mob-tied drug ring operating in New York City, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Angela Raiola, nicknamed “Big Ang,” was one of 15 defendants indicted–and later convicted–for their roles in the narcotics operation, which distributed crack cocaine, powdered cocaine, and marijuana in Brooklyn and Manhattan, according to court records.  read more Here

by enews  Celebrities  come out to gamble on the brand new horse racing drama on HBO. Find out why Hollywood stars Dustin  Hoffman and Nick Nolte signed onto the series. eonline.com

by AssociatedPress  911 call from Demi Moore’s home to be released; Michael Jackson immortalized in cement outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre; Brad Pitt to attend New Orleans homebuilding group gala. (Jan. 27) Lizzie knight AP showbiz minute