Genovese Killer Anthony Arillotta and Mob Life

Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia.

In this Gangland Wire Crime Stories episode, Gary Jenkins interviews Anthony Arillotta, author of South End Syndicate: How I Took Over the Genovese Springfield Crew. Arillotta shares his firsthand experiences within organized crime in Springfield, Massachusetts, offering a raw and authentic account of his rise through the ranks.

Arillotta discusses the historical roots of the Springfield mob, tracing its ties to the Genovese family in New York. He provides insights into the city’s Italian American community, the evolution of ethnic gangs, and how he was drawn into the criminal underworld despite his family’s legitimate business background.

From his early years in gambling and marijuana distribution to his close association with made member Al Bruno, Arillotta details the inner workings of the mob, including the delicate balance between financial success and violence. He sheds light on the mafia’s induction ceremony, the betrayals, and the power struggles he faced. He discusses notorious figures like Freddie and Ty Geas and the murder of Whitey Bulger.

Beyond the crime, Arillotta reflects on his post-mafia life, his current business ventures—including a wine brand called Pazzo—and his efforts in youth mentorship to steer others away from the path he once followed.

Tune in for a gripping conversation that uncovers the realities of life inside the Genovese Springfield crew, the dangers of organized crime, and one man’s journey from the underworld to redemption.

Get a copy of Anthony’s book click here on the title, South End Syndicate: How I Took Over the Genovese Springfield Crew.

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[0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I am here with Anthony Arillotta.

[0:07] As you guys, if you are on Facebook at all or on YouTube, you may know this name. He has been quite prolific, and he’s got a great book out there, and he’s got a hell of a story to tell. And he’s a really – I just told Anthony, I said, you know, you’re a great interview because you know your stuff. And, Anthony, you really do. Welcome, Anthony. Oh, thank you, Gary. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to this. Now, the book is South End Syndicate, How I Took Over the Genovese Springfield Crew.

[0:37] And so, you know, I want to read just a little bit about one thing. I’m really impressed with this particular promos for your book, little blurbs that you get other authors to write in your book. T.J. English, who is New York Times bestselling author of The Westies and several others. And I just interviewed him recently, a prince of a fella. And this guy’s word means something to me. And T.J. Writes, the last days of the Roman Empire if you were populated by snitches, gamblers, mobsters, lowlifes, and homicidal maniacs. In other words, this book is entertaining as hell, chronicling one small parochial, though notorious, faction of the American mafia in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ariadna tells the story of the whole damn thing. South End Syndicate is a worthy addition to any organized crime bookshelf. So Anthony, that’s, that’s quite a compliment from a guy like TJ English. Wouldn’t you agree? Oh, I agree. Definitely. That was a really good write-up that he gave. And, uh, you know, he knows his, uh, he knows the, um, uh, the genre. So he does, he, he knows how to write it and, and he knows it, you know, he really knows it. He really does. Yeah. And he said, he, um, you know, his re you know, he can detect. The true, the true to the faith. Yeah. It’s got a good bullshit detector. I could tell that when I interviewed him. Yeah, that’s, yeah, that was really impressive.

[2:02] Anyhow, so let’s get down to talking about the book. You know, right now you’re not in witness protection or anything. You did testify, but you’re not in witness protection. So that’s, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of guys like that out there that are living on the streets so much for the old get you no matter what. But in the end, you wrote this book about your life, but you also talked a little

[2:26] bit about the old days, I believe. You know, I talked, let’s talk about the old days in Springfield, Matt, just a little bit before we get into that. You know, I interviewed this, I think it was Gina Cunningham. Her grandmother was Pasqualina Albano, and she had a heck of it. And that’s a heck of a story. There’s a lot of inner fighting and all that going on. And that was when Springfield got connected to the Genovese family in New York. Could you explain to the guys kind of how that first worked, how they, the, the Springfield became basically a crew or not a, maybe not a crew, but a, its own entity, but yet we’re connected to the Genovese family. Yeah. So like you have drugs today, you had alcohol back then.

[3:10] Organized crime really wasn’t established at that time where they had traditional mafia of families back in the early 1900s, but you still had Italian immigrants. And with that came a way that the Italians lived and brought their traditional ways over to America. And so they got involved in bootlegging, protection rackets, some of the same rackets that continued on throughout the years. Springfield was heavily populated with a large Italian immigrant city. It was flooded, a lot of, you know, you know, from Calabria, Naples, Sicilians, all, you know, throughout Italy. It just flooded into Western Mass to Springfield. And so back in those days, there was a lot of gang activity, like you would call today. It was the same thing, gang activity, The only was, you know, instead of Latinos and blacks and, you know, whatever other Chinese, it was, you know, a lot of Italian, Jewish and Irish gangsters, you would call them. And so Springfield was heavily populated with that. They started to create some known figures back then. And just through the hustling and the bootlegging created an organized crime presence throughout Western Mass in Springfield. How they got involved later on.

[4:39] With the New York connections where, you know, New York is heavily populated and then it’s only two hours away from Springfield. So there was some big heavyweights and a lot of people are related. This one particular guy, the Miranda family, they were like heavyweights in the Genovese family. And so I believe Philomena ended up marrying one of the Mirandas. One of her husbands was a Miranda and he was, you know, I, I believe it was, uh, Mike ended up being on the, uh, later on and like maybe in the fifties, but he was like on, uh, uh, you know, one of the panel administration for the, uh, Genovese crime family. And he had relatives in here. He was related to the Fioris.

[5:29] And so, um, you know, it’s just like, you know, they had a satellite crew where they, you know, big no Sam Kane. He was from Calabria. He was, uh, you know, was in New York, but then came to, uh, Springfield. And so, you know, you got these active organized crime criminals and that’s when the mafia started to get organized, you know, in the thirties and starting to get structure and territories, they started getting the territories down. So there’s no, you know, they could stop the violence and the murders and, and, and have like territory split out so everyone could earn peacefully and big no sam kafari ended up being one of the uh you know well you’re going back to like you know philomena she was actually a woman i think they shot her like 30 times and um there was a few murders uh the guy the one of the bosses uh siniscauchi he was murdered biori i believe was murdered there was a lot of brutal murders back in the early 1900s here. And so when Sam came in, he kind of solidified his presence. And then the structure came out where there was mafia induction ceremonies.

[6:39] And Sam ended up blasting from the thirties all the way up into 1984 when he passed away, never spending one night in prison, never going to prison. He was just, he was a legendary mafia boss that, you know, you could put up there with Carlo Gambino, Tony Accardo. There was a, But he was a very notorious, he was at the Appalachian meet in 1957 when all the mobsters got rounded up.

[7:03] And he was there as a representative. So…

[7:08] Yeah, and that’s how Springfield pretty much formed its base with the Genovese side through. I know the Mirandas had a big role in it because of blood ties.

[7:19] Yeah, I think that Mike Miranda was, when Vito Genovese went into the penitentiary, he appointed a three-person commission to keep running the Genovese family. And he was one of those three people. And then he had these relatives out here at Western Mass. So just a natural kind of a connection, it sounds to me like pretty, pretty interesting stuff. How that, you know, how that developed, you know, you mentioned about comparing this to blacks or Latinos today and the gangs, you know, anytime you have a large cohort of people, newly arrived immigrants.

[7:53] And so Italians get here. What I’ve noticed in Kansas City, the Italians got here. Well, the Irish had been here for quite a while, and they had all the police and fire and, you know, Trice Holland jobs, you know, the lower end jobs sewed up and the unions. And they had all that sewed up and a lot of politics already sewed up. So the Italians get here and they’re like they’re kept out. You know, they’re not going to allow them to come in anymore than they can. So then you’ve got all these young, bright guys, Prohibition comes along and hey, here’s a way we can help our people and help ourselves and, and get a piece of the American pie. Everybody just wants a piece of the American pie and that’s what they wanted at the time. So it’s, uh, you know, and it’s, you know, still going on today, I would say it has greater or lesser extent. So Springfield had the Italian section back then, you know, was the South end of Springfield. But prior to that, like when my grandfather was here, the North End had Italians, the South End, six corners of Springfield was heavily populated with Irish and Italian. That’s where I grew up at first was six corners Springfield.

[9:01] And throughout the city and throughout the suburbs of cities, there was many Italian restaurants that. But instead of just being all stuck down in the South End, just like it is today, you could go anywhere throughout Springfield in the suburbs and eat authentic Italian meals from people that come right from Italy. To this day, they still have their families heavily involved in the restaurant

[9:26] business. So I grew up in Springfield. The South End was, when I was growing up, was basically the Italian section still. All my friends lived down there. I lived down there for a period of time. And, you know, as you get older.

[9:39] People move out. They want to get a better life. They want more peace and quiet. They move into a quieter neighborhood. And, you know, and so with that, the next immigrants that are coming in, uh, Spanish, you know, started moving in. So the more clients are moving out and the next thing, you know, little, but it’s still remained Italian businesses down there. And where we hung around growing up my whole life. And it was great. It was, uh, the, like I said, the presence back then, we had hundreds of guys lined up on corners all the way down main street you know you had the youngest guys like would be us then you had a little bit older across the street then you had a little bit older a few blocks down a little bit older another and then you had like we call them the grease balls from italy all down because we had a lot of italian social clubs italians come over the wife don’t want to get away from their wives go out play a little cards have an espresso and they had we had three italian clubs down the south end and it was you know we had restaurants pastry shops coffee shops everything you could think of. And it was really nice growing up. And it was just a nice, the camaraderie of being Italian growing up with that, because it doesn’t exist anymore here. And it really doesn’t exist anymore throughout the country. You know, you go down, Boston to me has the best Italian neighborhood in America.

[11:00] And the only reason that is still existing, all them, they moved out too, But Boston remains expensive to live there So all the tenements above Mostly college kids They’re paying $4,000 or $5,000 a month for rent.

[11:15] More for one bedroom apartment. So you don’t have any crime, criminal activity there and all the rest. And it’s loaded still with Italian restaurants and coffee shops, one after another. So it’s still got that Italian neighborhood feel to it. And especially the streets are so narrow. Springfield lost all that. You know, we still have some of the places where you can go buy your cold cuts and shop sausage and, you know, coffee shops and things like that. but it’s nowhere near what it was back when I was growing up. And it was just a really good, really good growing up in Springfield. We had a little gang of us, you know, we had a big gang of us actually. And we were, my generation was, you know, right around four or five years younger than me. It was kind of like the last generation that grew up down the South then where we were as hanging around on corners. My father was 100% a hard, probably one of the hardest working men I know. And I’m not just saying it because he’s my father. Anybody from here will tell you. And he was a sweetheart of a guy. And everybody will tell you that.

[12:23] He was a hardworking man. His only thing that he liked to do, and it’s not illegal, but he liked to bet on the sporting games. And he was pretty good at it. A lot of people would come and ask him for their picks. And he was actually good at picking the games. And that was his only thing he liked to do. Work. He was a sports fanatic And played golf and work And he worked seven days a week Hard work, hard work, hard work But being Italian He was a kid.

[12:51] The mobsters would frequent his store and they were always around. I had family members also that were involved in the mafia, but not my father. Growing up, you grow up in this environment as a young man and you’re looking for opportunities and jobs.

[13:08] And so how did you start getting, becoming involved at what pulled you into that life? So I was always a wild kid growing up, getting in trouble at school, fighting all the time. I never had to worry about money because my father, like I said, had a, uh, was a hardworking man. He had the biggest, one of the biggest businesses in Springfield. He was into the fruit and produce and the wine grape business. He was the biggest wine grape distributor in all of mass. So I never, I lived at home. I didn’t have to worry about food on the table, paying any bills, which, you know, I believe is bad for a kid not doing that, you know, because it puts you in a complacent mindset and you don’t got that hustle instinct. Whereas another kid grows up poor, he’s out shining shoes at eight years old. He’s trying to help, you know, he wants to, what the other kids have. So I never had to do that. I just got involved because I love the action. I was a, I also was a huge gambler. It started off with me gambling and, you know, betting on sporting events at a young age, you know, like I was in the second grade at high school, you know, betting 25 cents a game, you know, with the little kid then. And it just, you know, went crazy.

[14:20] And, and then, you know, in my teens, I always getting in trouble and mafia had a huge presence and, you know, you know, John Gotti had just killed Castellano. You know, I’m at my, I’m only like 16 years old. You know, the mafia was, you know, big time news back then. I mean, it was nationwide and worldwide news. And to be involved with the mafia meant something. So everybody it’s like, oh, I know, you know, if you knew the boss, if people like Like Sam Kapari. Oh, I’m friends with Sam. Oh, I’m friends with Sam. I’m better friends with them. They wanted to be around the mafia. If they knew the mafia hung around at this restaurant, they all wanted to go to that restaurant. That’s what it was like. So.

[14:57] I just started being, you know, a wild kid gambling. And of course, the mobsters knew me because they know everybody in our area, especially the ones that are a little bit crazy and wild. And I just started getting involved more. I ended up getting a shooting case back in 1990, and I got a five-year sentence. That is when I came, you know, and I dabbled a little bit in some drugs prior to that, selling drugs. I never used drugs, but selling drugs, I just was small time prior to that. I went to state prison in 1990 for a shooting case. I got a five-year sentence with a mandatory one year. When I came out of that prison sentence after the year, that’s when I was pretty much a.

[15:44] I knew where I was headed. The streets were for me. That’s when I got approached by Al Bruno. He was a cousin on my mother’s side. He was a maid member of the mafia. He approached me. There was another maid guy that wanted me to be with him, but Al Bruno was the one that came to me first. He put me on record with him, meaning that I was now associated with the Springfield faction of the Genovese crime family. That was in 1991.

[16:10] And I just started hustling the streets with him. And that’s how I started getting involved with the mafia activity. But I was also involved with my own criminal activity. I was a large marijuana distributor. And that was where I made 90% of my money back then, was in the marijuana industry. I mean, I don’t want to say 90%, but the bulk of my money was, and the mafia had nothing to do with that. So I was a large marijuana distributor. I was in the cocaine business. I don’t consider it big, a few kilos a month. Um, I was in, but the marijuana business, I was the, one of the largest, if not the largest in Connecticut, Massachusetts, um, areas.

[16:54] And so the money, the money brought me in the money. Yeah. You know, I’m a crazy kid. Now I already got the violent reputation and now come with it. You know, at the end, we all want to make money and I’m not going to make it at my father’s business. Hard work, hard work. I mean, backbreaking work. So, and it’s his business. You know, it’s, you know, he’s got his, my mother and sisters and whatever his life to live. So I just started making it on the streets and I made a lot of it. So I did very well. Interesting. Now I’m always curious about how some of these things work. Now, did, uh, with the marijuana business and the drug business, that was all yours. Did you have to kick anything to anybody?

[17:36] And so that was just yours and they didn’t pay any attention to that. Now, now a big marijuana business like that, how did you, how, how’d you make those connections? How do you find somebody that will then bring you, you know, bales and bales of marijuana and truckloads of marijuana. How do you find that from the streets, from a guy that’s just, you know, selling dine bags or whatever for fun, for a little extra shop of spending money to get into those big bunches? I’m always curious about that. So it’s not like the mob doesn’t, you know, our area, they were very strictly, enforced, no drugs if you were around them. All right. So you could get killed for that. And the Genovese family, you know, there’s a lot of hypocrites, you know, because, you know, they sold heroin back in the day. And then they said there’s more selling drugs, but some of the guys still did and just don’t get caught and you don’t get killed and things like that. But when I went to that prison for the state prison for a year, you know, I was in a, a violent state prison, not County, not local, you know, and I was around guys that were doing life that could never get out. And so I made a lot of contacts with those people. Okay. So that’s when I pretty much learned how to really be an organized crime criminal rather than being some guy that’s just going out having fun, being a fly-by-nighter, just doesn’t make any money like most of the guys.

[18:56] It’s about business sense too, and I have that. So it would be the same thing as a salesman in any business. How does he acquire connections? He goes out and sells. He tries to get accounts, which is to sell his product too. And then he also tries to get a place where he can get a product to sell at a good price. And so that’s basically what it is. And then you get involved in that business. You know, I started dealing with guys out of Boston at first and, you know, I’m new to the business. So, you know, they’re charging me way overpriced at first, but then it got to the point where I got so big. I was selling to Boston to the guys that thought that they were selling to me. I started selling to them and that’s how I got big in Connecticut. And, and so I had connections like I can’t even, I had every ethnic group there was doing business with me, heavily involved with Jamaican gangs. And I’m talking to serious Jamaican guys, gangs that were cutting people up in pieces in New York. They’re bad. They’re bad.

[20:01] Business with the irish crazy irish in boston lunatics i was in prison with them just like us crazy stab you shoot you they’re armor car guys they’re bank guys um i was doing business with the spanish you know tons of spanish friends doing big business all the black gangs that i was uh heavily involved with you know and when i say involved like you network you work together.

[20:26] And you know if i got if it might be i might come to the to one crew and looking to sell to them and they’ll be like here look at this and next thing you know i’m buying from them and selling to them and then i might be buying from them and selling to them it’s all you know depending on the connections that you make i had multiple a lot of them and then the more you’re in it the more you’re learning the more you’re going the more you know you’re getting access to better connections you know we started doing business in Mexico with the cartels um going over the border and grabbing the marijuana there and then bringing it back from there it led to that, and you know Texas we were getting from California locally too like local I was I got you know all the Jamaicans would get you know two three hundred pounds they’d be bringing me you know their weed their marijuana was a little bit less, uh, more commercial grade, you know, and there’s different grades all the way from marijuana for 200 a pound or 6,000 a pound. It all depends on what the market is and where, you know, what your, your customers want. So it’s just, it’s just a business. I mean, it’s just a regular business. And it’s legal today. It’s not like legal today. Yeah. So it’s like, you know, crime is an unethical crime to commit. it’s legal today. It’s just, you know, Uncle Sam wants their money and you’re not paying them to.

[21:54] And, you know, and with that, with the street stuff is, you know, you get a lot. I fronted all my stuff. You know, I would front. I had times where I had four or five hundred thousand on the streets. People owe to me. Yeah. With good for I never got beat once. I never got nobody never not paid me. So. But what I’m saying is, is like, you know, you, you network, you, you, I get a front that I fronted to these people, you know, a guy selling 10 pounds a week, I’ll give him 50. Now I don’t have to see him for over a month, month and a half. And so, yeah, it’s a networking. It’s a legitimate business.

[22:30] Everyone smokes pot. You could go up to a cop. You could approach a cop. Hey, approach a lawyer. You smoke marijuana. I mean, no cop is looking to get you in trouble for buying an ounce of weed. I never sold ounces, but you know, like you could just go up to a cop. You know, they’re looking for the heroin guys, the guy selling crack. Remember in the 90s when crack came out? Oh, yeah. Crack guys. even the cocaine guys because they’ve started making crack with it they’re looking for the cocaine guys now you know so there are big sentences marijuana you get a slap on the wrist nothing it was like you know in massachusetts the law under 50 pounds was a misdemeanor and i got caught with and i was a misdemeanor so now you’re making a lot of money and and your Your friends,

[23:15] Al Bruno’s crew, see this, I’m sure, and you’re a mover, and you’re a guy with connections. So you become more valuable to them, to that family, I would imagine. Now, how did he utilize you as you moved into the family more? Bruno is the type—.

[23:35] Bruno’s a businessman just like me. He was great at it. Prior to him being a mobster, he was a salesman and he was great. So, I mean, if he never got into the mafia, he would have been a multimillionaire legitimately doing all kinds of stuff. And so how it worked with us is, you know, the money that we made here stayed here. Now, that does, you know, it’s not like you’re not giving up money. How it worked with with us the people that were somebodies that were in the mafia, it would be a partnership so like when i went partners when bruno brought me around i went partners with him in the sports book making there was like four of us so we all got 50 and bruno got 50 so if we won 10 000 bruno got five and we got five okay but a partnership it same thing with the loan shark and if we had a hundred thousand out and we were making four thousand a week bruno got two we got two okay that’s how it started back in the early 90s, then after was just me and bruno and i was his partner and i was getting 50 he was getting 50.

[24:44] And on all the businesses so it’s it’s not like now if he ever knew the amounts of money that i was bringing in like I could care less about oh we made we made a hundred thousand in the sports, and I’m gonna get 50 you would have to make a week like that for me to say was considerable amount of money because I was making money like that on the side doing everything I did not just the marijuana like I said I wasn’t in the coke business and I was making tens of thousands of month just off the coke robin hijacking trucks uh joker poker vending machines in other um states connecticut and all this was under bruno this is how crazy it was when he put me on record in 91, We were doing business with another loan shark who was a rogue gangster. He wasn’t affiliated with nobody, Albert Calvinis. In fact, they call him the boss at one time around here afterwards when I went away.

[25:50] And we were doing business with him, giving him two points. We owed him $400,000. This was in the early 90s. Bruno knew nothing about that. And so like I’m working with Bruno but I’m also got 400,000 out with this guy and I’m still a young kid I’m only 22 years old and so it’s um you know what Bruno what they liked about me with the real the gangsters really liked about me at first was I had you know I was a ballsy kid and I was violent I could you know inflict violence that’s what they really want because these guys were old school gangsters and and it come to the day they’re going to want you to pull the trigger these guys had that old school mentality you know especially bruno anthony de lavo you know these guys are going to be like hey i had a kill why should what you get in here without because then they resent you afterwards they don’t respect you when you don’t kill what happens is oh really yeah they look at you i’m like you never busted it you know this guy never did nothing you know they don’t even though you’re a made guy they don’t they don’t look at you like Like the other made guys that pulled the trigger four or five times and were involved in multiple hits, you know, so they knew I was violent. And I was also a very, you know, what you don’t see in the mafia is you don’t see guys that can commit murder, pull that trigger, be violent, and also make millions of dollars. Yeah. And that’s it.

[27:13] I was just going to comment about that. See, some people move in and move up because they’re a huge moneymaker. And some people are violent. Sure. And rarely, you know, are the killers and the ones you can depend on for that. But rarely did I’ve noticed that you can have both. Right. And so you could do both, which is interesting. That made you like a double whammy for Bruno. Man, especially a big moneymaker on top of all that. Sure. And it’s like, I think any group of men, you got to prove you’re tough. Whatever group of men it is, whether it’s a police unit or a football team, you got to prove that you’re tough.

[27:55] No different, right? You’re going to get tested, but it is. And even on the streets, there’s bullies that bully people, and then they bully the wrong person, and then they turn into the biggest coward you put up. And that’s pretty much what it is. Anybody can be a tough guy, you know, and bully guys because of maybe who their father was or who, you know, they got a lot of guys around him. But, you know, going to come a day, what happens if, you know, I gave somebody 50,000 worth of marijuana and the guy said, fuck you, I’m not going to pay you. Well, that guy is going to get shot. And that’s no, that’s how you build your, that’s how you build your reputation. I mean, there’s tough guys are a dime a dozen. There’s guys that didn’t fight, but pulling that trigger is a totally different level. Yeah, that’s for sure. You know, um, yeah, you know, some guys, you know, you got a guy that’s the smaller individual, you know, say he’s, you know, five feet four and you got a guy six feet tall that knows how to fight MMA style fighting. It’s not a fair match, but you take that five foot four guy and get put that pistol in his hand. Who’s going to win that?

[29:06] You know there’s an old saying uh big or small no matter the size i will equalize samuel colt so well you know what i used to always say too it’s like yeah i’m you know i might be five foot you know say your guy’s five foot four five foot five right yeah but you got a gun in your pocket now i’m what now i’m seven foot six you know now that now the tide has turned you know it’s not uh.

[29:32] Yeah so did you have like a making ceremony then where you eventually inducted and and you went through the whole ceremony and everything and had people stand around guarding the door and make sure nobody came in you had to wear a suit was that is that how that went down you had everything right but with me i was in my boxers your boxers yeah penitentiary or something i was in my boxers in a bathrobe. I came out with the knife on the table and all the guys around, like you said, and this and that. And, uh, the boss at the table would, uh, one of the high powered captains. And I was in a bathrobe and my boxes with the gun and the knife. Man, I thought you had to wear a suit to that ceremony. You know, back then in the days, you know, it was, it’s, you know, they called it the honored society was if you were Italian and you, that was a dream come true. Yeah you know to be inducted into the mafia anybody that was a wild kid growing up that’s what you wanted today you got to be a nut to every people want to get you know nothing out there to there’s nothing that you could say to to get your button that it’s going to prove to anything unless it’s a networking type business type of uh corporation type thing where you know made guys like a brotherhood like the the masons or the yeah you know um you know like a secret just group like that you know that they help each other out and things like that it was an honor.

[30:58] To, uh, to be inducted. You had to pull that trigger back then. You know, some guys escaped through, you know, without having to do it, but I would say, you know, all the way up the majority back then had to, you know, shoot to get, uh, inducted. Yeah. I believe that. So now you’re moving up and you’re moving up and, but there’s only so far to go in this crew here. It’s not like you’re in New York city where there’s several crews and You can go to Capo and then the next one up above and then the under boss, the consigliere and all those different ranks. You’re a young guy that’s immensely successful. You’re a racketeer and a gangster, it sounds like, as Sammy the Bull once talked about the difference in the two. And so now where do you go from here? You’re looking at Big Al’s, the boss. Do you aspire for that?

[31:49] Yeah, so you could still get those same positions here. We’re still, uh, we’re still a family, you know, like even the Genovese family in New York, you got a Manhattan faction, you got a Bronx, you know, faction, got a New Jersey faction, you got a Florida faction, you got a Massachusetts faction. So you still got the positions of a boss here. What we never did was you don’t need an under boss, you know, because you don’t have like 300 guys underneath you. So a boss here, it’s pretty much like, he’s like a captain running a crew. We had so many guys made guys and associates and throughout Western mass in Connecticut that they did an article in the Boston Herald and said, uh, in 2006, Michelle McPhee wrote from page of the newspaper and it’s on my Instagram. I posted it. She said there was more wise guys and made members of the mafia and associates throughout new England, Western mass Connecticut, you know.

[32:47] Than anywhere in the country per capita. You know, so meaning, you know, we, we don’t have 10 million people living here, but the amount of gangsters and organized crime associates that we had per amount, the, uh, the, the people that lived here, we had more compared to what they had in the Bronx and Brooklyn, the strongholds of like where the mafia is, you could still rise up. And I, you know, I started in 91, but I didn’t end up getting made until 03. And along the ways, I mean, I went and got killed. I was a proposed member. Then they wanted to kill me. And then I was proposed again. And then I, you know, so I was like throughout those, that time, not only did I have the illegal stuff, I was involved in like a dozen bar restaurants, nightclub. I had the biggest nightclub in Connecticut. So that, you know, that’s where I ended up. I had real estate. Developments that I had. So not just the illegal money, I had legitimate money that I was actually.

[33:52] Prospering very well in. Throughout those years, that’s what I was doing. In 96, Bruno, I got caught with the marijuana. Bruno wanted to kill me, wanted to chop my head off. He told my father he was going to leave me for dead on my front steps. And so I got shelved. Shelf means I got banished for a two-year period. They can’t banish me. I had the biggest crew. I was the biggest money maker. I had the biggest violent guys around me. And all I did was just, I just networked in other cities and made more connections. I was dealing with the top, I was dealing with captains in New York city and the other families, Boston, everywhere I was going dealing, Connecticut. And so I had, I just started building up reputations and networking and, and I didn’t get inducted until Oh three in that life. So I guess there came

[34:40] a time when you and, and Al Bruno bumped heads for real. We always, me and Al Bruno had like a father son relationship. You know, it was exactly what the way it was. You know, he used to talk, go to my father and say, why does your son always go against the grain? Why is he, he thought my father would be like, oh, he’s crazy. You know, things like that. He, he don’t want me hanging around one time with this kid, Emilio Fusco, who’s a made guy in our area in Springfield. And he says, I don’t want you hanging around with Emilio. I said, why not? I go, you talk with him. I go, because I don’t want you to hang around with him.

[35:16] I go out that night. Who am I with? The kid Emilio. He comes to my house the next day, Bruno, because we used to have to settle up and do the work once a week. He goes, you go out last night. It was Saturday. This is every Sunday. He would come over my house. He said, you go out last night. He goes, yeah. He goes, who are you with? You with the kid Emilio? Now he knew because everybody told him everything. Everyone reported back to him. He goes, you were with Amelia? I said, yeah. He goes, but why do you always define me? Why did I tell you not to hang around with him? Do you hang around him? So we had a relationship where we…

[35:46] You know, was like father and son, but I know that he really, um, he wanted to make me with him.

[35:53] Bruno’s problem was he, he wanted too much control. Like, you know, he would, he would, uh, investigate me worse than the IRS could, you know, like we’d be, he goes, how do you do it? He goes, you’re out to dinner every night. He goes, you got a wife, you got three kids. He goes, you don’t work.

[36:08] He goes, and you’re out. You smoke, you, you got cigar. You hear it. I go, Bruno, I go, when I go out, we all chop up the bill. He was like on me like that. And because the reason was because his son would always run back to him and tell him I’m in the drug business. And then he used to tell, if I find out Anthony’s in the drug business, I’m going to chop him in half. I’m going to cut him in half. So that’s what I was dealing with. It was like 50, 50. Could I have gotten killed? Absolutely. So we never had a falling out where we hated each other ever. It was just all little things like that. When I got caught with the marijuana, if he ever knew the millions and millions of dollars that I made and he never got a penny of it that he would stick to his stomach if he ever found it ever knew but I was just good at that I was just good at making money and being good about not you know flashy like his son was flashy I didn’t need a you know to walk around with a hundred thousand dollar watch and driving around with brand new Mercedes or anything you know I was but you know I’m about making the money so I had a me and Bruno never had a thing where I could say, I hate that guy. Like Emilio Fusco, I wanted to kill him. Every other guy I wanted to kill, I could tell you dozens of guys I wanted to kill, right? And they, you know, it was just, we hated, we had hatred. Emilio was a made guy. He came from Italy and they made him in like 96.

[37:27] And he tried to get me killed several times. And I swore, I said, I told him, I said, I’m going to kill this kid one day. We’re the same age, but me and Bruno never had a, like, I’ve never had feelings like that towards him. And he never, it was never like that. Like I said, it was like a father-son type relationship. I mean, I pled guilty to killing him, but not like, and that’s hard to believe.

[37:50] But it wasn’t like what’s reported and the way it went down. And that’s pretty much why I wrote the book. And that’s pretty much why I do podcasts and to tell people what really, I don’t try to say I’m innocent at all, you know, but it’s not what they think went down.

[38:11] The way it went down. Uh, interesting. That’s, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’m guilty and I’m not saying that, but it’s not the way, you know, it went down the way, like, you know, I, I wanted to take his position or, you know, you know, anything like that or the motive. And I could walk you through the whole thing and you’ve got common sense. You’re going to be like, yeah, you’re definitely involved in it, but you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Guys. That’s why you got to get this book. It’s a, it’s going to give you a real insight, inside look at how this thing that we study, we talk about, we’re interested in, and we want to know more about how it works.

[38:50] If you really want to find out how it works. Now, I’ve got one last question here for you. I got to know about Freddie and Ty Gease. I know you know them. You were close to them. They were in your crew, I believe.

[39:03] If they heard the way you just said their last name, they would probably want to do to you. They want to do me like they did the whitey, huh?

[39:13] It was funny. It was funny. It was funny because we were in trial and they were going to the trial. The judge, but he wasn’t calling them geese. He was calling them, he was calling them gay as. Gay as. It’s called E-A-S. So he was calling them gay as. How about G-A-S? G-A-S. That’s how you say it. All right. So, you know, the paranoid, schizophrenic tie got all upset because the way the judge was referring to his last name, you know, maybe, but he was paranoid over that, you know, ask me about them. That’s kind of like, I got an Italian FBI agent that came here back in the sixties and I’ve got, I know him really well. He’s retired now. We talk all the time and we both worked to mob in Kansas city. And he said, yeah, when I first came here, everybody was an Italian. Yeah.

[40:05] So, I catch myself saying that once in a while. Yeah. Old habits are hard to break. So, you know, what was the deal with them? I mean, these are a couple of bad dudes, a little bit I’ve read about them. And, of course, they hit the headlines big time. And that murder was brutal, man. I mean, it was brutal. Right. Well, listen, here’s the story with them. I used to call them the Beverly Hillbillies. You know, the Beverly Hillbillies? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, they originally, I think they were born in California. And they uh they migrated to uh i think worcester for a little bit and then uh um springfield west springfield they were um the family owned a jewelry store and they were nothing on the streets like i reason i call them hillbillies like i met ty in prison we were both young kids and we’re both in state prison our first time ever and he used to chew tobacco you know you would you know he was like a hillbilly i i you know i used to call him a hillbilly like we had plans when we got out Freddie, the brother, believe this or not, was a prison guard. Freddie was a prison guard. I’m in state prison. I meet his brother. And me and the brother were always in trouble getting into fights in there. And they warned us, next time you guys fuck around, we’re going to ship you to the max, which was Walpole, one of the most dangerous prisons in America. Sure enough, he ends up beating up the Spanish kid.

[41:23] And they shipped him out. And I was supposed to… And I was getting out in February of 91. He was getting out in March of 91. Well, he ends up beating up a guard. Yeah. So he doesn’t get out until 96. He did like four years straight in the hole, but they, you know, they were good kids. They weren’t killers. Then they weren’t, they were just, you know, type of kids that would fight all just like me. They weren’t my muscle. They were friends of mine that if we had an issue and I says, guys, come on, they would come with me just like if they They needed someone to come with them. They were very ballsy kids, just like us, just like me and guys I grew up with my whole life. We’re all ballsy kids growing up. And as the years went on, Ty ended up coming home. So then when I got out in 91, I started to hang around with Freddie was no longer a prison guard. And they knew nothing about making money on the streets.

[42:17] You know, their thing was, Freddie’s thing was, cause Ty was still a young kid. He don’t even know nothing on the streets was, you know, credit card fraud, things like that. You know, maybe, um, low level, low level selling a little Coke, you know, and to scam guys, nothing like that. When I started hanging around him, that’s when I started, you know, getting him involved when selling some marijuana, we were hijacking trucks. We started making money doing that. I did a little loan sharking with him. He used to come to me. I used to give him the money. He’d have guys that want to borrow 30,000. you know we gave it to this one of these guys one time and we are charging him high amounts of juice i think we’re getting like we’re charging him four points we’re getting like uh 1200 a week off the guy and he couldn’t pay anymore next thing you know we took over to the guy’s bar and then after that we partners in his bar in westfield and then we ended up becoming the partners with the guys rest a bar in um cape cod which was like doing five million a year and gross back in the 90s So that’s how I started making one with Freddie. And then these guys never killed anyone prior to that. They were tough kids. If I needed them to go around, I would, you know, bring them.

[43:24] Would end up, you know, and I could go on and on and on and on and on stories with them. But, you know, it gets reported that they were muscle for me. They were never muscle. They never did anything for me. If there was, if we had to go shoot someone, I would go shoot with them. If we had to go beat someone, which we beat several people up, I was right there by the Smashing people with clubs and bats and knives and everything Muscle to me is when you say to somebody Hey, go give that guy a beat and report back to me type of thing You know, I didn’t I didn’t build my crew like that You know, I get accused of having a biggest crew, I don’t call it a crew. I call it a network of my friends.

[44:01] I network and I consider you my friend. I have you at my house. You come to dinner. I sell you 100 pounds of marijuana a week. You don’t report. I’m not your boss. Next week, you might sell me the marijuana. So that’s how I considered them. And I considered them the same thing. Things just started getting very deep. The mafia, in the mafia world, in Springfield, New York started coming. And I mean, it’s, it’s a story, Gary, that I could go on and, and, and talk till tomorrow night to explain treachery that happened, you know, what they did, but it just started getting a lot more serious where, you know, the, the beating now we’re getting into, now we’re talking about murders and murder plots and murder conspiracies. And when, and then it started, we started committing murders and like, you know, they, they were with me. And, uh, on my first hit that I did for the Genovese family in New York was in New York city, them two brothers came with me. That’s how I got made into the, uh, the family.

[44:57] Um, we went out, we went and shot, uh, a union guy nine times on the streets of New York. And so the two brothers came with me to do that hit. And, you know, that’s a, that was like a ballsy move to do something like that. You know, we had to travel to two and a half hours to New York. We had to get there, wait there with silencers for the guy to come out of his house. I mean, you know, there’s a lot of risk involved in there. Meaning who knows if the guy’s got a gun and shoots back. I mean, not only when you’re going to jail, but maybe you get killed, right? They were good kids. Fast forward, they could be out here talking with me just like you are talking to me right now. And they chose a different path and that’s why they’re in prison. Freddie ends up killing Whitey Bulger in prison. It was reported that they stabbed. They didn’t stab him. What happened was.

[45:42] They, he hit him with a lock in a sock and Whitey was so old that the bruising of, you know, hitting a 90 year old man that’s in a wheelchair, the bruising that it was causing made his eyes bulge out of his head. You know, it, his whole face got so swollen that it looked like his eyes got gouged out, you know, and this is coming right from the, um, the, the, the guy in West Virginia that, you know, like one, uh, how you call it? The path, path, forensic pathologist. The forensic guy. Yeah. Like one of the guys that did the autopsy. Yeah. The guys that, you know, he, he would know exactly, you know, cause it was for it all. He hates, you know, rats. And that’s why he killed the guy. Listen, if he did, you know, hate rats, then why, how could he be a prison guard ever? You just don’t flip on a night’s, you know, the light. And one day you’re locking guys up in their cells and the next minute you’re killing them because, you know, it was nothing that, you know, they, they report that for, it was for notoriety purposes that that went down and everything. Interesting. Well, it was quite a shock. I remember when I first read the headlines. It’s like, oh my God.

[46:51] Yeah. It’s shocking. People call me up and I just had prison in 17 and this happened in 18. And I had got the first job ever I ever got in my life was selling cars. I never had a job in my life. I worked for my father. That was it. So I had a, you know, I got a job that was good. I started selling cars. I don’t know nothing about cars, nothing about engines, anything about that. Right. And so somebody tells me a calls me up and they said, Hey, Whitey Bolger just got killed. I said, so what? And they said, you know, who’s in the prison with that killed that he got killed. And I said, Freddie, I knew right away he did it because that’s the type of, if you knew Freddie, that’s a type of son that he would want to do for the notoriety of it. Now I’m, you know, worried because they were co-defendants of mine on one of the trials that we beat got found not guilty in 07. I’m at the work and it was national news, worldwide news. Because Whitey was like, you know, I think number two on the most wanted list behind Bin Laden, right? For a long time. Yes, he was. With that, I’m on the TV. They’re showing pictures of me because, you know, they’re going to link me with them. Like, who’s Freddie? Like, when you say who’s Freddie, all right, he killed Whitey. But if he didn’t kill Whitey, nobody would know who Freddie is. Right? Right. So now then, who is this guy? Oh, he worked for the Genovese family guys, and that’s how you’re going to refer to him. So when they say that, I was the boss, so they say it worked for me.

[48:13] You know what I’m saying? And he did work with you. He worked with me. Yeah, we did. Like I never considered him a subordinate or there were just guys that were in my crew that I had guys that were 10 times more killers than they, they only killed the only guys they ever shot and killed was when they were with me. They didn’t kill no one else or shoot anyone else. You know what I’m saying? So it’s like, you know, like, uh, were they tough kids? Absolutely. Do they got both? But we all had balls. We had a lot of guys like that back then. Yeah. It’s crazy world. Crazy world. You came up in guys. You got to get this book. There it is. There it is. Yeah. That’s in syndicate. How I took over the Genevieve Springfield crew. Anthony Arillotta.

[48:56] Anthony, this has been great. I really appreciate you being so candid with us and kind of telling us how it is. Guys like you, it’s, it’s been this big mystery for a long time and, and how all this works, especially for me. And I came up, I was a young policeman out here following these guys around and I never knew what was going on. I just knew that they went from here to here and they had this license plate and they met this person, they had this business and he went there. So it’s been a real revelation for me these last two years talking to you guys. I’m glad you’re talking. Now you’re going to have, you got a YouTube channel, correct? Yeah. So you probably got some amazing stories too, in your line of action. Well, not quite that amazing, but. Someone got to pull stories out of you one day.

[49:41] No, but yeah, so I got a, um, I got an Instagram is my name. Anthony or a lot. I’m on Facebook. I’m on all that stuff, social media, but I have a wine coming out. It’s called Pazzo P A Z Z O in Italian. That means crazy.

[49:57] It’s a good story. My father was in the wine grape business, so I’m proud that I’m involved in the wine business itself. It’ll be out for pre-orders next week, and then it’s launching in March, where it’s actually going to be able to be distributed. And yeah i have a mafia youtube channel called mafia money mayhem and the mafia okay and i’m gonna be starting that up back up because i have to sell i’m not in the selling business i’m i’m selling uh wine and uh books and so i gotta start you know you know a lot of people are interested in this mob genre i get so many messages a day when you’re coming back when you’re coming back when you come back. So, um, I am going to come back. I don’t, and I can, and I like talking about everything, not just mob stuff. So a lot of people out there, I guess DM people that are depressed, people that want to eat, live healthy people. How do you get through adversity? You know, like I love talking about all that stuff. I like, you know, I think like, that’s what I can, you know, help people like give back to people. So, you know, if I can help anybody get through something through the, you know, how I lived would be that. So yeah, going forward, uh, that’s what I got going on. No, I’m helping. I got my cousin and my nephew, my nephew’s MMA and my cousin in Worcester, Danny Dogemo, he’s fighting.

[51:18] My nephew’s fighting this week. My, uh, Danny Dogemo’s fighting, um, uh, February 15th. I’m helping out all those young kids in the Worcester area, young kids, good kids that will get them off the streets and get them into the box. And, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m sponsored them. I get them, you know, I helped them with their fighting and, you know, get them cause they have nobody and they’re going to end up going to prison. So this way, keep them on the right road.

[51:43] All right. Great. Anthony, thanks a lot for coming on the show. Hey, Gary, thanks for having me. Great job. Good talking to you. All right. Uh, guys, you know, I like to ride motorcycles, so watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the street. And if you have a problem with PTSD, if you’ve been in this service, go to the VA website and they have a hotline on there. And if you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, Anthony Ruggiano, he’s a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida, of all things. And he has a hotline on one of his website or his YouTube channel. I can never remember. This is not a paid promotion for him. I just want to give you some resources out there that I think would be entertaining too or fun for you. And if you have a problem with gambling, there’s plenty of resources out there for that so uh we all need help once in a while and and i’ll be the first one to admit it and my life has been a whole lot better since i asked for it back years ago so thanks a lot anthony arelotta and uh south end syndicate how i took over the genovese springfield crew and get that book guys thanks Anthony thank you.