Among those arrested in the joint FBI-Drug Enforcement Administration probe was a senior member of the Bonanno ruling administration, as well as capo Anthony “TG” Graziano, the father of “Mob Wives” star Renee Graziano.

Her ex-husband, ex-mob associate Hector Pagan, is now a DEA informant who gave the feds information that led to the massive sweep.

Anthony Graziano, 71, was released recently from prison but then quickly ensnared in an earlier DEA probe that predated yesterday’s developments.

In that previous case, Pagan reportedly wore a wire and secretly recorded conversations for the feds with his ex-father-in-law while discussing the collection of a loan-shark debt.

Graziano was indicted by Brooklyn federal prosecutors on those earlier charges just last week.

Yesterday, Bonanno ruling administration member, Vincent “Vinny TV” Badalamente, was charged with shaking down several restaurants and bars in Manhattan and Brooklyn and also allegedly “took over” a bar on Coney Island Avenue after its owner failed to pay back a debt, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said.

Bonanno capo Nicholas “Nicky Mouth” Santora was charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana and illegal gambling, according to an indictment unsealed yesterday    To read Click Here

.

 Primetime from ABC News:  They’re young, they’re pretty and they’re being taken for a ride. reports John Quinones

Primetime from ABC News on you tube

Chicago mob thief,  Arthur “The Genius” Rachel

By STEVE WARMBIR, Chicago Sun-Times

Maybe “The Genius” isn’t so smart after all.

Arthur “The Genius” Rachel, a 73-year-old mob thief, was found guilty Thursday of racketeering and other crimes for planning to rob an armored car outside a west suburban bank and break into the home of a dead mob boss in Bridgeport.

Rachel is perhaps best known for stealing the 45-carat Marlborough Diamond and other baubles in 1980 from a London jewelry store.

“The Genius” was put in prison for that crime too, although the diamond was never recovered.

Rachel’s senior-citizen partner in crime in the Marlborough Diamond theft, Joseph Jerry “The Monk” Scalise, was arrested along with Rachel for these latest crimes, too.

Scalise pleaded guilty last week, along with another geriatric criminal, Robert “Bobby” Pullia, as part of plea deals. The three men could each face about 9 years in prison.

They might be old but that doesn’t mean they weren’t dangerous, authorities said.

“It only takes one functioning finger to pull the trigger of a gun,” federal prosecutor Amarjeet Bhachu said.

Bhachu praised the FBI agents on the case, led by Agent Christopher Smith, who tailed the three thieves for months. The old thieves were often a challenge to keep under surveillance, since they would pull over while driving, drive at a snail’s pace or turn around in parking lots to see if anyone was tailing them..

At one point, the FBI did aerial surveillance of the men.

Most damning, though, were hours of secretly recorded conversations from a bug the FBI had put in Scalise’s van.read more Click  Here

CNN’s Anderson Cooper adds TV host Pat Sajack to the RidicuList after admitting he was drunk on TV.Website: http://www.cnn.com

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