1. Mob Gambling Operations Jobs
2. Mob Gambling Operations Job
3. Mob Gambling Operations Group
4. Mob Gambling Operations Definition

From Frank Iaconi to Carlo Mastrototaro, organized gambling was the mainstay of the Worcester Mafia.

By Steven R. Maher

The January 1950 marriage of Worcester Mafia boss Frank Iaconi’s daughter was spectacular, a scene right out of the Godfather. “The wedding took place in true millionaire fashion in Miami,” the Providence Journal reported. “The reception that followed at the Roney-Plaza Hotel, one of the city’s finest, even made a few not easily excited Miamians stare.”

The city of Toledo has long been mob territory belonging to the Detroit mafia, dating back to the last days of Prohibition when the Motor City crime family staged a successful siege on the Northwest Ohio rackets. Since the 1950s, Detroit’s interests in Toledo and other Michigan mob outposts in Ohio, have always been the responsibility of. The Mafia in Las Vegas. Gambling has always been a very important business in the Mafia. From card games to betting on horses and other sports, the Mafia has earned cash from all of them. They operated many illegal and luxurious gambling operations throughout the United States. It also didn’t hurt that the mob were experts at managing gambling rackets. But, like many smooth running operations, things fall apart (indeed this seems to be the main theme of Casino. In 2008, the Queens District Attorney charged the Gambino family with illegal sports and casino-style gambling operations, stating the offshore wires were processed and managed by Lorri’s Lounge.

Among those present at the extravaganza was Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Charles F. “Jeff” Sullivan, the Mayor of Worcester from 1946-1950. Until Jeff Murray in 2006, Sullivan was the last Worcester resident to be elected to state wide office.

Sullivan’s friends begged reporters not to mention that Worcester’s most prominent politician was attending the nuptials of the daughter of Worcester’s most prominent Mafioso. “He [Sullivan] just slipped down here for a little vacation, and it might prove embarrassing,” one pleaded.

Also present was Worcester Police Lieutenant William V. Massei. In 1940 Massei was appointed head of the vice squad, charged with the suppression of gambling in Worcester. Iaconi – described in Senate testimony as “the head of the gambling rackets in Worcester Massachusetts” – had no problems from Massei, who told the media, “There is no gambling or lottery in Worcester.” Iaconi, the man who headed the Worcester gambling rackets and Massei, the cop in charge of suppressing the Worcester gambling rackets, even owned summer homes in Westerly, Rhode Island “..within shouting distance of one another…”

Besides Lieutenant Governor Sullivan, there was another, unrelated Sullivan present: former Ward 3 councilman Philip F. Sullivan, who in 1946 was sued along with Iaconi for $57,300 by a die maker, who claimed he had been swindled out of his life savings in an Iaconi gambling den. The event had sparked a reform movement, spear headed by Worcester Telegram owner Harry G. Stoddard, which led to the adoption of Plan E government in Worcester. Philip F. Sullivan freely posed for photographers at the Iaconi wedding, praising the gangster as “a millionaire groceryman.”

Present too were other gangland figures. Frank Costello, the “Prime Minister” of the underworld and

America’s top racketeer, sent a personal emissary to the wedding.

Surveying this scene of splendor and opulence, basking in the glow of representatives of Worcester’s political establishment present to pay him homage, beaming at the respect shown by his underworld peers, Frank Iaconi must have commented to himself on his good fortune. Thirty years earlier, an immigrant fresh off the boat, Iaconi had labored in a public works project, digging ditches for a new sewer system,
“Iaconi literally rose from a job in a sewer gutter to a position of great power in the second largest city in Massachusetts,” recounted the Providence Journal.

Enormous gambling profits

Iaconi could afford such a pageant because of the enormous profits from his gambling rackets. Gambling would be the bread and butter of the Worcester Mafia for half a century, providing a healthy diet of cash.
In 1950 the Providence Journal published a lengthy expose about organized crime in Worcester, based in part on information from a member of the Worcester Mafia. The story described a “tri-city” criminal combine with cadres in Boston, Providence, and Worcester. This expose, and rackets expert Virgil W. Peterson’s testimony to the Senate Kefauver Committee, provides a basis of understanding how the Worcester Mafia grew from a bootlegging syndicate into a gambling cartel. Iaconi was front and center in both developments.
“He [Iaconi] dropped his pick and shovel in the 20s to take part in the gambling war that hit Worcester,” said the Journal. “From that he emerged with a small piece of the rackets and the reputation of being a pretty handy trigger-man.”

More profitable was Prohibition, the criminalization of alcohol, begun in 1920 and ended in 1933. Called “the noble experiment”, Prohibition made the Mafia. The end of Prohibition forced the mob to diversify into other rackets, one of which was gambling. Worcester followed this national model.
Iaconi formed a relationship with Worcester native Raymond L.S. Patriarca, a powerful Providence based mobster who in the 1950s became the Godfather of the New England Mafia. “Patriarca and Iaconi were associated together during rum-running days,” testified Peterson. “Iaconi worked for the Patriarca gang as a Providence-Worcester agent. Booze was run between the two cities.” In this capacity “Iaconi ran booze between the two cities for 50 cents a gallon and usually hauled about 300 to 400 gallons a trip.”

“Iaconi then left the bootlegging racket and began operating beano games, then horse betting, and then numbers,” said Peterson. This was no small time operation. Said the Journal: “His [Iaconi’s] rackets milk millions of dollars from the city’s economy each year. His numbers agents float in every industry, barroom, and public gathering place. At least half a dozen horse parlors operate brazenly not far from city hall, and about 20 others do business throughout the rest of the city.”

Worcester’s mob boss put his money to work suborning law enforcement. Massei at Iaconi’s daughter’s wedding was the tip of the iceberg. Worcester police detectives and officers provided security for Iaconi’s gambling parlors; cops actually stood guard at card games. When state police raided Iaconi gambling operations in Fitchburg, the bookies were tipped off and evaded arrest.

Symbolizing the relationship between law enforcement and mobsters was the attendance at the 1946 wedding of Iaconi’s son of no less a personage than the Sheriff of Worcester County. Six City Councilors (then called Councilmen) were also present. The occasion allowed the media to comment on Iaconi’s access to black market goods: “Even though many wartime rationing restrictions were still in effect, no one seemed to question the source of nearly 1000 steaks or the sugar that was dumped into the five-layer, 153 pound wedding cake.” This image, of politicians and cops gorging themselves on contraband steaks and cake at a Mafioso wedding, seems like a scene out of a mob comedy movie.

Important terminal

”Iaconi’s Worcester monopoly is an important terminal in the tri-city combine because of its immunity from police interference,” continued the Providence Journal. “Besides pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the syndicate’s reciprocal layoff system, Iaconi provides the only safe haven for ‘hot’ racketeers who merit syndicate protection. A racketeer on the lam from Providence, Boston, or any other city is assured of an undisturbed existence in Worcester if he has the O.K. of the syndicate, the former Worcester gangster reports.”

“When you say Iaconi is a shooting man, we laugh,” the defector from the Worcester Mafia remarked. “He doesn’t have to do any shooting. If someone comes into town that’s hot, he just tells the police to lay off. If someone comes in who’s not wanted, he picks up the phone and tells the cops where to get him.”
Iaconi’s control of Worcester also made it a safe place for Mafia leaders to meet. According to one published report, some 200 syndicate leaders, including Frank Costello, met at the Sheraton Hotel in Worcester in 1950.

Some believed that city officials had struck a Faustian bargain with Iaconi. One urban legend had it that Iaconi, in exchange for running his gambling operations without police interference, kept large-scale narcotics and large-scale prostitution out of Worcester. Credence to this “unholy procedure” was given by a May 1950 Worcester Telegram editorial.

“But when, throughout the years, top officials here have asked about gambling protection, the answer has been that there was an ‘arrangement’ with Iaconi which was to Worcester’s advantage,” read the editorial. “For through him, they said, Worcester was shielded from invasion by racketeers from Boston, Providence, and elsewhere who might have otherwise would have muscled in on the Worcester field, but were kept out by the squire of Shrewsbury Street. So Iaconi, we are asked to believe, was protecting Worcester.”

Rackets committee

Iaconi had such a strangle hold over Worcester that it took a United States Senate Committee to bring him down. Worcester police never succeeded in arresting Iaconi. In 1943 Massachusetts Attorney General Robert T. Bushnell conducted raids in Worcester and arrested Iaconi for promoting a lottery. Iaconi got off with a slap on the wrist: a $5,000 fine and a two-year suspended sentence.

The Kefauver Committee was established by the U.S. Senate to investigate organized crime, and named after committee chairman Senator Estes Kefauver. After hearing testimony in 1950, Kefauver himself said the committee would examine Iaconi’s tax returns. This triggered an Internal Revenue Service investigation of Iaconi, who was indicted on five counts in February 1953 of failing to pay a total of $217,875 in taxes on $350,000 in rackets revenue. The indictment alleged Iaconi had tried to wash clean his gambling receipts through front corporations in Worcester.

“The government is understood to have based its case before the Grand Jury on evidence that allegedly showed Iaconi had funneled illegitimate funds through legitimate enterprises,” Worcester’s daily newspaper reported. “It was reported that East Side Package Store, 129 Shrewsbury Street, and Central Wholesalers Grocery Inc., 76 East Worcester Street, Worcester, were cited before the Grand Jury as evidence of Iaconi’s legitimate enterprises.”

Massei, the vice squad commander who attended the 1950 wedding of Iaconi’s daughter, was indicted by the same grand jury for failing to report $74,739 in taxable income over five years.
In July 1954 Iaconi pled guilty to one count and served eleven months in federal prison in Danbury Connecticut. Not long after being released from prison Iaconi died of natural causes.

Carlo Mastrototaro

Fast-forward thirty years to the 1980s and things were remarkably the same, with different players. Carlo Mastrototaro was the boss of the Worcester Mafia with corrupt cops protecting his enterprises, albeit a tad subtler than in Frank Iaconi’s days.

Mastrototaro had risen high in mob circles. After Boston based underboss Gennaro J. Angiulo was jailed, Patriarca reportedly promoted Mastrototaro to underboss, the second in command of the New England Mafia.
But in the early1980s Mastrototaro had a determined adversary who emerged from the same geographic and ethnic terrain as the Worcester Mafia: District Attorney John A. Conte.

It is hard to find anyone in the Worcester media with a good word to say about John Conte. He made reporters’ lives difficult. Obsessed with keeping the District Attorney’s office nonpolitical, Conte made himself almost completely unavailable for comment on crime stories. Legend had it that one Worcester Telegram reporter had programmed his computer to automatically type into stories that Conte had no comment. Conte’s rare press conferences or comments inspired Diane Williamson to dub Conte “The Phantom”.

Conte was elected state senator in 1962. In 1973 two Worcester Lodges of the Sons of Italy gave Conte their achievement award. As a state senator whose district included Worcester’s east side, Conte must have crossed paths with Mafiosi at public events in certain neighborhoods. That didn’t stop Conte from prosecuting them years later as District Attorney. Given the damage done to Italians’ reputation by the Mafia, there is some historical justice in the prominent role played by an honest Italian-American like Conte in a concerted effort to disrupt the Worcester Mafia.

“Operation Big League”

Past law enforcement efforts to dismantle organized crime failed because Mafiosi were prosecuted as individuals for solitary acts. RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was to prove so effective against criminal syndicates, was in its infancy. Conte approached the Worcester Mafia as an organization, which had to be taken apart from top to bottom, from Mastrototaro at the heights to the low level street operators. Conte was on the cutting edge of jurisprudence, using a RICO-style approach before RICO itself became fashionable.

Conte was convinced that the mob was dealing narcotics.

“I think there has been one myth that has been prevailing in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the past few years: that organized crime is not into drugs,” Conte told reporters at a press conference. “I think we can dispel that and say point blank that wherever we find gaming and organized crime, we positively seem to find drugs also.”

In October 1980 the investigation got underway. Code-named “Operation Big League”, it began with electronic surveillance in locations around Worcester County between February and August 1981. 500 cassettes of audiotapes, each sixty to ninety minutes long, were compiled recording bookmaking, drug deals, and other sundry crimes.

In August federal, state, and local police raided 17 locations in Worcester, Clinton, Saugus, Springfield, Agawam, Brookline, and Concord. “All aspects of organized crime, from gaming and drugs to extortion, porno shops and prostitution – you name it, it was all uncovered in one fashion or another in this investigation,” said Conte.

The evidence from the raids and the electronic surveillance was brought before a grand jury and 44 people were charged:

• Mastrototaro and four other men were indicted for running an extensive gambling operation. Operating out of a location on Green Street in Worcester, the enterprise took bets, ran a lottery by phone at several locations in Worcester and one in Clinton. Counting those indicted in later investigations, this network may have had over seventy operatives throughout Worcester County.

• Mastrototaro was charged in connection with the theft of $45,000 worth of pornographic videos, which were to be sold by Mastrototaro’s pornography store United Books on Main Street in Worcester. (See following story.)

• A drug network was exposed selling cocaine, marijuana, Valium and other controlled substances. Mastrototaro was not indicted on any drug related charges, but some of the men charged with helping Mastrototaro running a gaming syndicate were also charged with running the drug operation.

• To complete the analogy with Frank Iaconi’s era, three Worcester cops were indicted for conspiracy to sell cocaine and other defalcations. One of the cops was nicknamed “Security”, apparently for his efforts at safeguarding Mafia activities. All three later pled guilty to charges of trafficking cocaine.

“The main purpose [of Operation Big League] is to prosecute organized crime and bring to public attention the connection between drugs and gaming in organized crime operations,” Conte said at a press conference. “The public will know there are police agencies that want to bring down organized crime.”

Mob Gambling Operations Jobs

As a result of intelligence developed from “Operation Big League”, two other large-scale prosecutions of organized crime later took place. One was “Operation Rackets” in June 1983, in which thirteen were charged with running a wagering network in the Leominster area. In March 1984 Conte obtained indictments in “Operation Underworld” against thirty-seven participants in a Worcester area gaming operation. A number of those indicted had east side addresses, and three had the last name Mastrototaro.

Carlo Mastrototaro was not indicted in “Operation Rackets”. By this time he had pled guilty to a number of “Operation Big League” charges and was sentenced to eighteen months in jail. In 1984 was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for his part in a $1 million scheme to defraud 3,000 persons in a bogus travel agency scam.

Some conclusions

Organized gambling was long the lifeblood of the Worcester Mafia. Two conclusions can be drawn from this chronicle. First, modern technology -sophisticated electronic surveillance – is the best tool for penetrating and dismantling illegal, dangerous networks. Second, such gambling syndicates can only thrive in an atmosphere in which they are tolerated by a complacent or corrupted law enforcement.

Introduction

TheAmerican Mafia, also known as ‘the Mob,’ has attained the status ofpop icons within American culture. This outcome has been due tomovies which have depicted members of the Italian Mob as ruthless butlikable individuals. Many films centered on the Mafia have a scenewhere a group of tough-looking mobsters sit around a table playing agame of poker. This famous scene is probably why many peopleassociate casino table games with the Mob. Is the Mafia involved ingambling? To answer this question, we should first gain anunderstanding of who the Mafia are.

Historyof the Mafia

Theterm ‘Mafia’ primarily refers to an intensely hierarchical ItalianAmerican criminal society that has existed in the US from the 1900s.Members of the organization are predominantly of Italian originbecause the Mafia is an offshoot of the much older Sicilian Mafia.Sicily is in Europe and has been an autonomous part of Italy from thetime of the Romans.

Asthe largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily has been conqueredand ruled by multiple empires. This successive occupation byoppressive regimes is the reason why the people on the islandacquired their rebellious streak. The Sicilian Mafia could itself bea descendant of revolutionary groups formed to oppose the foreignoccupation of the island.

Mob Gambling Operations Job

TheMafia in America

TheMafia emerged in poor immigrant neighborhoods of major Americancities on the east coast in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Duringthis period, the fascist dictator Mussolini was in power in Italy andwas hell-bent at eradicating all opposition to his regime. Theoutcome was political upheaval in Italy, marked by the arrest andexecution of members of the Sicilian Mafia. The result was asignificant departure of Sicilian immigrants from the Island to theAmericas. Some immigrants ended up in Brazil and Argentina while anotable majority arrived on the shores of the USA.

Mob Gambling Operations Group

Theharsh living conditions and high unemployment escalated crime inghettos like New York East Harlem. As a means of protection and as away to pool meager resources together, residents in Sicilianneighborhoods began to form loose coalitions made up of skilled andunskilled laborers. The government opposed the formation of suchgroups because they represented opposition to the rule of law in theghettos. This outcome caused the loose coalitions among Sicilianimmigrants to morph into a hierarchical underground organization. Themembership grew to include Sicilian immigrants from all major ghettoson the east coast.

Thisis how the American Mafia came into being. The essential unit of theMafia was, and still, is the ‘family’ whereby family refers to eachdistinct underground criminal organization in the Mob. Because NewYork ghettos were at the epicenter, the first five leading Mafiafamilies were all from New York. These Mafia families are Lucchese,Gambino, Genovese, Bonnano, and Colombo. These Mafia families wereinvolved in both legit and illegit businesses. The organization hadvast networks of legit grocery stores, restaurants, and clubs. It wasalso involved in several underground criminal activities, whichincluded illegal bookmaking operations, illegal gambling pools,illegal gambling halls in addition to drug and liquor trafficking.

TheMafia and Legal Gambling

TheMafia had been involved in illegal gambling in major east coastcities before the government legalized gambling in 1931. Thegovernment had the desire to entice the Mafia to move their gamblingoperations to the state of Nevada and away from the east coast. Inthis way, the administration hoped to put a leash on the Mafia’sgambling revenue stream as well as lower crime in east coast cities. The 1931 gambling legislation turned out to be a genius move by thefederal government.

By1940 major Mafia families from New York and Chicago had set up basesin Las Vegas. Major Mafia families did not waste the opportunity toenter legal business and were among the first groups to investmentsin Las Vegas. The Desert Inn, the Thunderbird, and Flamingo are someof the earliest and best-known casinos with certified ties to the NewYork Mafia. By 1946, the Mafia had been playing a pivotal role in thetransformation of Highway 91 to the glamorous Las Vegas strip.

Mob Gambling Operations Definition

TheChicago Mob was not to be left behind for long and by 1950 was behindthe creation of the Stardust, Fremont, Sahara, and Riviera. By thistime, Las Vegas was the number one gambling destination in the US. Anincreasingly large number of tourists came from the west coast andsouthwest as compared to the east coast in the early days. This couldbe because the involvement of the Mafia was mostly unknown in thewest. The infamy of the Mafia did keep tourists from visiting LasVegas early on, but this changed as the reputation of their casinosspread.

By1970, the Mafia families that had been in Las Vegas from itsinception found a way to recoup their investment. This opportunitywas in the form of the legislature that allowed public corporationsto own and run casinos. The families made colossal profits by sellingtheir casino establishments to other public and private investors. Agood example is when a New York Mafia family sold the Desert InnCasino to multimillionaire Howard Hughes. It is worth noting that asubstantial number of Las Vegas casinos do not have any affiliationwith the Mafia. Private mega-corporations, with no ties to the Mafia,now own most of the casinos.

TheMafia in Italy

Despitethe attempts of Mussolini to purge the island of Sicily of the Mafia,the original Sicilian Mafia has evolved to become a significantpolitical power in Italy. Well-known Mafioso has gone on to holdsignificant positions in government and industry in thisMediterranean Nation. However, even in their home country, theItalian Mafia is no stranger to controversy. The group has beenlinked to known attempts to undermine the government’s gamblingmonopoly in Italy.

A national-wide new feature hasexposed that the Italian Mafia is behind a scheme targetinggovernment-approved slot machines. The group is said to have soughtthe aid of foreign hackers in rigging the slot machines connected tothe Italian government gambling control network. The outcome was thata percentage of the money from the slot machines was diverted toMafia offshore coffers. Computer hackers were able to install linksto external gambling platforms by creating a parallel networks tothose controlled by the government.

Furtherinvestigations have revealed that the Italian Mafia has been involvedin the manufacture, supply, and installation of cloned slot machinesacross the nation. The affected gaming machines have includedwell-known brands, including Rischiatutto and Normandia 2 slotmachines. The Italian government asserts that it has taken steps toeliminate the Mafia backed slot machine smuggling ring. Thegovernment has also promised that gambling within the country is toremain under the firm control of the administration.

Conclusion

Thepresent-day Mafia in the United States is known to be still active innortheastern cities, including New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia,Buffalo, and New England. The Mob is also present in several citiesin the Midwestern United States, including Chicago, Kansas,Cleveland, Detroit, and St. Louis. The organization has a minimalpresence in the south and west coasts in cities including Denver, NewOrleans, and Los Angeles. However, the Mafia today are not asinvolved in the gambling arena as they were once were. Anyaffiliation of a gambling establishment to the Mafia is more likelyprofessional than criminal.

Otherthan the USA and Italy, there is hardly any other country in whichthe Mafia has been directly involved in gambling. This, however, doesnot mean that there aren’t other equally organized criminalorganizations that might be interested in gambling. These groups maybe active in the gambling sector within their country of origin.

Thiscan be said of such countries such as Russia, India, Malaysia, and avast host of other countries the world over. Such criminal groupscould be involved in the manufacture and distribution of gamingequipment. They may also be involved in the creation of legal orillegal gambling establishments. The involvement could also be higherup in government where a criminal group can influence legislationaffecting gambling. It is virtually impossible to rule out theinvolvement of criminal groups in gambling because of the undeniablelure of huge earnings. However, you need not fear when visiting alegal betting establishment anywhere in the USA.