Hey fellas, once again, Im back with another free and also quite interesting article. Enjoy and I wish you all happy weekend.....and as always, dont forget to boycott all paywalls. Salut'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During the old days, when some of Chicago’s illegal rackets became more sophisticated and at the same time more lucrative, still there were those types of gangsters who loved the action and the adrenaline rush by working in the “old ways”, or by stealing cash, gold or precious jewels in the most ingenuous way, and in fact they were too badly addicted to the action to consider the penalties, and also they often compromised their own stature within the gangs they belong to, and sometimes even their own lives. Those same crooks usually didn’t operate only in their own city, but instead in their minds they have no limits or any type of borders regarding their favorite “job”, meaning they can operate anywhere they want to around the country. In the city of Chicago, this situation can be seen with the help of the unholy criminal “brotherhood” between robbers and mobsters, especially members and associates of local Italian Mafia. That same business relationship gave the burglars’ the opportunity to spread their rackets in many different directions, such as stealing cars, transporting narcotics and above all, murder.

During the 1950’s, in Chicago, one of the most prominent burglars was Carl Fiorito, a notorious criminal with long police record and also a murderer for the Mafia. The media and the press gave him the monicker “King of Thieves” mainly because Fiorito knew and worked with almost every possible thief around the country and he was also the prime so-called “job receiver”, since he knew every possible Outfit member in his own city. He was the city’s first and original old school burglar, same as the ones that you see in the movies, who in those days gave the term “burglary” a special meaning.

Before I continue, I want to make one statement because it seems there used to be two different individuals in Chicago with same name “Carl Fiorito”. One of the individuals was born in 1914, while the other one was born ten years later. I see that many researchers made the same mistake by thinking that it was the same person, a blunder which probably came from old newspaper articles which also made the same mistake at the time. In fact, it is quite easy to fall for it because both individuals were also involved in the same types of rackets. So, to be clear, this article is regarding the younger Carl Fiorito and only regarding his ventures within Chicago’s criminal underworld.


Carl A. Fiorito

BORN CRIMINAL

Carl Fiorito was born in 1924 to Anthony Fiorito and Lillian Alaia, on Chicago’s Northwest Side, the same area where he allegedly grew up. He lived at 519 N Hartland Street and so he was able to witness the life of crime, which was mainly presented by the local gangsters and mafiosi. By 1944 or during his early 20’s, Fiorito started his criminal career among the younger generation of thieves and burglars, and few of his close associates and also employers were Steve Tomaras, William “The Saint” Skally, Joe Spadaro, John Fioramonti and George Swier. Some of the guys like Skally, were also closely connected to the local Chicago Mafia, also known as the Outfit. In fact, Skally was close associate of Outfit big shot Sam Giancana and his band of crew members such as Leonard Caifano, Fiore Buccieri, Sam Battaglia and others. Skally lived through the bootlegging days, worked as a professional burglar and also controlled a multi-million dollar counterfeit ring, or in plane words he was a very lucrative criminal.

Everything which they thought it was lucrative and worth stealing, they stole it. For example, in May 1947 both Fiorito and Tomaras led 20 police cars on a wild car chase, which ended with their arrest. When the cops searched their vehicle, they found seven radio sets but the burglars claimed that they purchased the loot from unknown individual, and the next day they were released. Tomaras was represented by infamous mob attorney George Bieber, while Fiorito’s lawyer was Roland Libonati, possibly made member of the Chicago Mafia, and the whole case brought the attention from the media and the crime commission regarding the suspicious acquittals. This is also possible evidence that, with the help of their connections, both Fiorito and Tomaras were already under the protection of the Outfit.


Fiorito (left) and Tomaras (right) arrested by the cops

The following year Fiorito was arrested again regarding the stealing of a truckload of whiskey or 750 cases. The shipment was stolen while on enroute from Peoria Illinois; to New Jersey. Around 70 cases of whiskey were immediately sold with the help of Skally’s connections and also through the taverns which were located on W North Avenue, and were allegedly owned by Fioramonti and Swier. Besides Fiorito, almost all crew members were also arrested including Spadaro, Fioramonti and Swier and in end, only Spadaro received one year in jail while Fiorito received three-year probation.

MEET THE FELLAS

By the late 1940’s, Fiorito was in business with several Chicago Outfit heavyweights such as Dave Yaras, Paul Labriola and Jimmy Weinberg. Since he grew up around the Northwest Side, it is quite possible that Fiorito already knew Labriola and Weinberg, and their large crew of burglars and hitmen. After the internal conflict that occurred in Chicago during the 1940’s, it is possible that Labriola switched his loyalty from the North Side crew to the West Side mob, and was “absorbed” by the Elmwood Park group under Accardo because of reasons that occurred years later. Besides extortion and murder, this crew was also involved in stealing cars and also car parts, an operation in which Fiorito found his true qualities. Rising Chicago Outfit members like Sam Giancana and Leonard Caifano were also quite interested in the so-called car-theft racket, mainly because that same operation also jumpstarted their own criminal careers. With the “blessings” of both Accardo and Giancana, with only 4 feet 11 inches tall, Fiorito officially belonged to a ruthless band of so-called burglars and enforcers.


Paul Labriola

As for Yaras, he was allegedly introduced to Fiorito by some of his associates from around the West Side and Lawndale areas, like James McCarthy. Yaras was a very serious mobsters who by that time already established himself as a killer for the Outfit but on the other hand, in Fiorito’s eyes he was just another quite profitable connection. During the early 1950’s Yaras often travelled to Florida where he accompanied some of his superiors in the mob and was also active in expanding the Outfit’s interests in that same area. In fact, McCarthy was one of the biggest jewel fences in the city of Chicago at the time, and so with the help of Yaras, he managed to get stash from thieves all the way from Florida. Sometimes they received most expensive jewelry which was stolen from wealthy couples at the Florida resorts, usually during the winter months. According to some FBI reports, during this period much of the stolen loot around the Miami area was later disposed in Chicago. For example, in January 1952, at St. Petersburg in Florida, Yaras, Fiorito and McCarthy managed to steal four cases filled with expensive jewelry which were valued at $40,000. In March that same year, Yaras and McCarthy were arrested during the investigation but were later released since the cops had no hard evidence to put them in prison.


Dave Yaras

Also, one of Fiorito’s new business partners in Florida was William Dentamaro, and together they orchestrated many “fine jobs”. Dentamaro also worked with some of the New York crime families but he was also closely associated with Santo Trafficante Jr., the top crime boss from Tampa and according to some reports, Dentamaro was considered a member of that same family. According to this, I personally believe that Yaras played a major role regarding Fiorito’s new criminal relationships with professional thieves from around the country.

PROFESSIONAL BURGLAR

After the slayings of his two close friends and partners in crime, Labriola and Weinberg, in 1954 Fiorito was brought back in Chicago because this time, the situation was different. During the following years, Giancana and his trusted cohorts were taking over the leadership of the Outfit and the West Side mob received complete control over the whole syndicate. Giancana’s underlings controlled every form of illegal racket, and every burglar who was somehow connected to the organization, had to pay “street tax”, meaning percentage from the stolen loot, whether it was cash, gold or alcohol.

Since Florida became the new place of business, by 1957 Fiorito still received instructions directly from Dave Yaras, who by now also spent most of his time in that same area. There are numerous government reports on meetings between Fiorito, Yaras and Dentamaro in various locations between Chicago and Miami and they became prime suspects in numerous burglaries and heists. For example, in February 1957, the trio made a theft of $60,000 worth of jewelry in Miami and later the stolen loot was quickly transferred to Chicago by one Peter Arnstein, where it had been exhibited to Ken Gordon, who was a known Chicago fencer for stolen jewelry.

After the arrival of the stolen merchandise in Chicago, the first guys for contact were Giancana’s people on the street such as James Torello, Steve Tomaras and Donald O’Brien, who in turn constantly received information about the arrivals of expensive shipments. After that, one of these guys usually contacted one of Giancana’s personal bodyguards known as John Mattassa, who in turn would arrange a meeting at a bar which was known as the Stop Light Lounge at the corner of Cicero Avenue and Roosevelt Road. Besides secretly owning the whole place, Giancana also had a big safe in one of the back rooms, which was actually a safe within a safe. Inside, Giancana kept all of the stolen loot and the only two individuals who had the combination to the safe were him and Mattassa. Many buyers or “fences” were brought out to that location almost on daily basis, and were shown the stolen merchandise by the thieves, such as Fiorito, usually in Mattassa’s presence. Also, from time to time if some of thieves brought something nice or quite expensive, Giancana would’ve just taken it for himself and never bothered to pay for the stolen thing. Story goes that sometimes Giancana’s safe was so full of stolen merchandise, and so his people needed to take some of the stuff to their own houses for the night and then return it the other day.


Steve Tomaras


LONG LIVE THE KING OF THIEVES

One of Fiorito biggest heists was the theft of a $400,000 worth of diamonds or four million dollars in today’s money. On August 21, 1958, Raymond Sunshine, who was the Chicago representative of Harry Winston, Inc., a diamond broker of New York City, with offices on the fifth floor of the building located at 55 E. Washington Street, had a very bad day because that same day, Fiorito together with Ted DeRose entered the offices and very violently slugged and kicked Sunshine more than few times, forced him to open the safe under the point of a gun, took the stash, left the scene and that was that. They made it look so easy like “Hello, thank you and goodbye”. In the end it was discovered that all of the diamonds and jewelry, as well as cash, had been taken. In fact, the bandits got away with six leather wallets containing diamonds of a value of more than $300,000, which were individually wrapped in paper, and on top of that certain currency was also stolen from the cash box.

From there, the duo headed for Berwyn where about 3 p.m. Fiorito entered the Commercial National Bank and under a false name “Carl Perri”, he inquired for renting a safety deposit box for a short period of time. He gave a Gary, Indiana; address and telephone number, both of which were fictitious. But the problem was that two FBI agents were already assigned to follow Fiorito regarding some previous robbery and so the agents received an order to arrest the suspect.

The next day, Fiorito was seized by FBI agents in a Near North Side hotel and they managed to find a $1,500 diamond ring hidden in one of Fiorito’s socks. Later the ring was identified by the owner and at the same time robbery victim, as the one taken from his finger by the robbers but he was unable to identify Fiorito as one of the two bandits. When the cops asked him on where did he find the ring, Fiorito asserted he got the ring as security on a $200 loan he made to a man he did not know at Arlington Park race track, the previous day. But the problem was that the investigators received positive results during the examination by the FBI laboratory in Washington of a suitcase and a portion of a metal adhesive tape container found in Fiorito's hotel room. Also in August 1958, a warrant to search the safety deposit box at the Berwyn bank was issued by a justice of the peace of Cook County on a complaint signed by Sunshine and two employees of the bank. The warrant was executed by a constable who caused the lock on the box to be drilled and the contents, as expected, were identified as the property of Harry Winston, Inc. After that Fiorito was charged with armed robbery and receiving stolen property but was later released on a $25,000 bond which was posted by a professional bondsman, probably mob-connected, and the trial was postponed.

While still being free on the streets, one of the most “unusual” things occurred on December 1, 1958, when a $1,500,000 fortune, in rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds, was stolen from the hotel lock box of Charles Staiger, the vice president of the same firm which was previously burglarized by Fiorito, meaning the Harry Winston, Inc., from New York. Staiger came to Chicago on November 28, to display the gems to clients and friends of Albert Pick, the owner of the hotel where the loot was kept. The stolen gems included a sapphire ring valued at $100,000, six diamond studded necklaces worth $60,000 each, and eight bracelets with price tags ranging from to $80,000. Some of the pieces even contained more than 40 matched stones in platinum settings. Again, the stolen gems were never found.

Fiorito was never questioned regarding the last case, although many clues again point to the Outfit and above all, Fiorito had a good alibi because he was facing from four to five years in jail, if convicted for the previous burglary but that was not the case, because according to one wiretapped conversation between the Outfit’s main corruptor and fixer Murray Humphreys and mob attorney Mike Brodkin, the case was already “fixed”. Besides being named by the media as Chicago’s “King of Thieves”, the government and the FBI also confirmed that same moniker at the time by labeling him as the “nation’s master jewel thief”, mainly because of his operations around country and also because he managed to beat every case. And since he was a millionaire in his own right, Fiorito bought a new home in Niles, Illinois; but the real problem was that not all of the money came from the burglary business because there was something darker within Fiorito.


Chicago’s “King of Thieves” Carl Fiorito


GREED

No matter how much money they made from various illegal rackets, still the narcotics business was always too tempting for many Outfit members and associates, including their bosses. One day, Fiorito’s longtime friend and mentor, William Skally, managed to sell $15,000 worth of pure heroin to a government undercover agent, meaning he unknowingly informed for the government by constantly meeting with the agent. After his arrest, Skally allegedly was quite aware that Giancana and Accardo were going to order his murder, just so they can protect themselves from the whole situation, and so he decided to spill the beans on some of his associates’ narcotics dealings, including Fiorito.


William Skally

Skally told the investigators that Fiorito constantly financed one large drug peddling ring, which was headed by Tony Dichiarinte, a known associate of both Elmwood Park and Grand Avenue crews. One of their main suppliers was a Jewish gangster known as Jacob Klein, who in turn received the dope shipment from members of the Genovese and Lucchese crime families in New York. After receiving the dope, Fiorito usually divided the stash between Ted DeRose and Skally, with the help of the Dichiarinte crew. In addition, according to one FBI document, by this time Klein was allegedly the so-called “overseer” for all purchases and payoffs for the Outfit regarding the narcotics business.

The investigators couldn’t go after Dichiarinte because he was already convicted on tax evasion charges and was sentenced to 6 years in jail, but they were able to go after other individuals because Skally knew a lot. The best information for the feds was about Jacob Klein and in fact, the Jewish gangster represented a huge target for the feds. This was obviously a very bad situation for Fiorito because his own life was also in danger, mainly because of Skally’s information. This means that Fiorito probably financed some of Skally’s drug deals and both the government and the Outfit were coming after him. Fiorito was also aware on what was coming next, and he knew that he was about to be visited by the Outfit, but this time in one quite unpleasant situation.


Tony Dichiarinte

As expected, Fiorito was called by mob lawyer Mike Brodkin, who in turn took Fiorito to have a chat with the boss himself, Sam Giancana. According to another wiretapped conversation between Brodkin and Murray Humphreys, during the meeting Giancana authorized Fiorito to “take care” of the Skally problem, or in other words, Fiorito received the “murder contract”. Since Skally worked with Fiorito, in Giancana’s eyes, it was Fiorito’s problem and in the world of the Mafia, the one who is sent to kill you, is usually some of your close friends or someone you trust, and the main point was that Skally trusted Fiorito, or maybe too much.

While being free on bond, on January 5, 1960, 50-year old Skally returned from one of his business trips in Las Vegas, Nevada, and immediately received a phone call from Fiorito, who in turn told him that the case was allegedly “fixed” and so they decided to have a chat regarding the situation. Skally came to Fiorito’s house, picked him up and drove off to River Forest, where they parked their car at some parking lot to have the alleged chat. As he sat on the passenger seat, Fiorito started acting a little bit nervous obviously because he had to kill his old friend and got noticed by Skally, who in turn immediately felt suspicious since he also was in a constant alert. In other words, both men began panicking and suddenly, Fiorito pulled out a revolver and they started struggling in the car, but somehow Fiorito managed to grab Skally with his one hand and with the other he placed the gun over the top of Skally’s skull and pulled the trigger, thus instantly blowing the victim’s brain.

Right after the cops discovered Skally’s body, they went straight to his house where they were greeted by his wife. The agents started asking questions and poor woman gave answers while being in tears regarding her late husband. When they asked her about Skally’s latest activities, his wife said that the night before the murder, her late husband told her that he was going to meet Fiorito. With that information, the investigators were 100% positive that Skally’s stories regarding the drug peddling crew were true and they also realized that Fiorito was probably behind Skally’s murder. But for now, the investigators waited for the outcome regarding Fiorito’s previous burglary case, and also waited for him to “slip”, meaning to arrest him while doing something wrong.

While being out on bond, Fiorito managed to sell $6,000 worth of heroin to undercover agents and completely destroyed all of his chances for staying out of prison. Here’s what three of the Outfit’s best “fixers”, Frank Ferraro, Mike Brodkin and Murray Humphreys, had to say about the whole situation:

HUMPHREYS: You said you were gonna have the kid (possibly Fiorito) raise some money.

BRODKIN: I told him to raise some. That’s right.

HUMPHREYS: Well, he better have some, because I don’t know yet, Ill find out in a day or so.

FERRARO: Yeah, but he got caught again now.

HUMPHREYS: But I can’t help that…I said to the guy I’m not interested in the guy (Fiorito), this is a bad guy. He’s been in trouble a lot of times. But that doesn’t make any difference. I saw the guy last week and asked him what happened with it. He said it was a bad kid and all that. I said I’m not interested in the kid…the other case was beaten.

BRODKIN: The other lawyer, the young lawyer, that argued the case before the Supreme Court, argued it the other day.

HUMPHREYS: Well, that’s what I said I’m not interested in the kid, I’m interested in…

BRODKIN: They revoked his bond. They were looking for him and I told him to duck until after Christmas. I had to bring him in.

HUMPHREYS: He must be a dumb [bad word] getting caught right away.


Murray Humphreys


From the above conversation we can see that Brodkin at least tried to convince Humphreys to help Fiorito regarding his second charge, but the old gangster refused to even talk about the subject because he already managed to “fix” the first case, but “washed his hands” from the second one because nobody from the old timers wanted to be connected to the narcotics trade. Abandoned by their Outfit contacts, in no time, both Fiorito and his partner in crime Ted DeRose were convicted for the burglary and each received 10 years in prison. But on top of that, Fiorito received additional 10 years for the narcotics charges, which in no time became 20 years prison term, but he was never convicted for the murder of William Skally. (in addition, few years later DeRose became secret informant for the government).

LOYALTY AFTER BETRAYAL

While in jail, rumors started spreading that Fiorito was allegedly “singing” in jail, meaning he was allegedly giving away inside information. Those same rumors were probably invented by the feds so they can place pressure over Fiorito, so they can get to Giancana. But, according to Brodkin, he completely denied the false stories by stating that he knew the “kid” from way back and vouched for him in front of the Outfit’s bosses. Brodkin was right because Fiorito was really a “standup guy” who served his time and kept his mouth shut. As for Jake Klein, the alleged master mind behind the whole operation, completely “vanished” from the Chicago area and invested some of his cash in legitimate enterprises such as the Flamingo Hotel in Wheeling, Illinois.


Mike Brodkin

By the late 1960’s, many of the old dope peddlers such as Fiorito, Frank Carioscia, Fred Coduto and Louis Guido were either released from prison or somehow won their appeals. As usual, in no time, all of them were back in business. During this period one of the leading Outfit groups was the Fiore Buccieri crew and so, the new so-called “chain of action” started with one dope peddler known as Tony Legato, who in turn was a close associate of one of Buccieri’s associates and dope peddler Ernest Infelise. Legato’s job was quite simple, meaning he or one of his close associates Abe Migdall, had to hop on a commercial plane to New York or Florida once a month, and bring back between 5 or 10 kilos of pure heroin, which was later divided between few of the Outfit’s most trusted dealers, such as Fiorito.

CRIMINAL TO THE CORE

Fiorito bought a new home in the Lake View area and was completely out of the burglary business, but continued with his other businesses as usual. By 1970, Fiorito also acted as collector for the Fiore Buccieri crew and during one of his ventures in Las Vegas, Nevada; he together with another associate known as George Peara, introduced themselves as gambling operators for Buccieri, under the names “Frank” and “Rocky”, to one quite rich World War II veteran and also Hollywood actor who went by the name of Audie Murphy. The two gangsters first took from Murphy around $90,000 in losses on horse bets, which were allegedly never made. But two months later, Murphy had a winning streak and accumulated $112,000 in credit, but he never saw the money since he wasn’t able to reach the two gangsters and as usual, he was told by other people that the wagers had been allegedly placed too late for the races involved. From that point on Murphy wasn’t able to contact anyone from the so-called opposite side and the money was forever gone.


Audie Murphy

Story goes that Murphy became quite mad and at first, he thought that the guys were probably Buccieri’s brother Frank and their underling Ernest “Rocky” Infelise, and so he personally called the current Outfit underboss at the time, Fiore Buccieri, and told him that he wants his money back. Buccieri allegedly told Murphy that he and his brother didn’t know anything regarding any bets that were allegedly made by Murphy, and also one of Buccieri’s associates involved in overseeing all of bets for the crew, also said that he never saw Murphy or his name before. So, being the connected guy that he was, Murphy called one of his government people who in turn specialized in hunting down organized crime individuals, and showed him tapes of telephone conversations which were recorded by Murphy himself. After listening of the voices which were recorded on those same tapes, it was determined that it wasn’t Frank Buccieri’s or Rocky Infelise’s voices, but instead it was the voices of Fiorito and Peara.

Sources say that Outfit underboss Fiore Buccieri was quite glad that the whole things was over, allegedly because he thought that his own brother was doing business behind his back. In fact, this was just another of the Outfit more sophisticated schemes which were executed since the 1940’s. Many high-level Outfit members and associates were known for sending some of the underlings around different parts of the country, with the privilege to use the names of those same high-level guys, just so they can extort gamblers and also to lend huge amounts of cash to those same victims. And if the cops ever arrested some of their underlings, they were simply going to show their true identities and the bosses also had strong alibis for being someplace else. One of the best pieces of evidence is that after the whole situation and also Buccieri being one of the most feared individuals in the whole Outfit, nothing ever happened to both Fiorito or Peara. But obviously no one thought that old man Murphy was able to go that far. In May 1971, Murphy took a plane from Martinsville, Virginia; to Chicago but during the flight, the plane crashed and all of passengers died, including Murphy. Story goes that the late Murphy previously planned to bolster his finances by receiving loans from the Teamsters’ Union, the same union from which the American Mafia was receiving its loans for their Las Vegas casinos and other important criminal ventures.


Outfit boss Fiore Buccieri

In 1970, Fiorito was also arrested by the feds for the possession of 20 guns, which means that besides selling drugs and extorting rich gamblers, he was also involved in selling arms on Chicago’s black market. Even though during this period Fiorito was looked upon as a “veteran” gangster, who “made his bones” and once rubbed shoulders with the Outfit’s top echelon, still according to some reports, he was considered by some of his associates such as Coduto, as very illiterate individual, which became the main reason for many back-stabbings. For example, here’s one recorded conversation between Fiorito and Coduto, in which the latter tries to convince Fiorito that there is allegedly too much “heat” and things are going pretty “slow”:

CODUTO: Hello.

FIORITO: What do you say, Diavolo?

CODUTO: What's happening?

FIORITO: Not much.

CODUTO: Yah.

FIORITO: Did you do any good, like the last time?

CODUTO: No, i, Madonna-- I saw you Saturday.

FIORITO: Yah, I know.

CODUTO: You know, over there.

FIORITO: Yah.

CODUTO: And, uh, well that guy did he tell you.

FIORITO: No, he told me there's a lot of trouble.

CODUTO: Well, ah, their just looking for me, ah, I had to go into court a couple of weeks ago.

FIORITO: Yah you?

CODUTO: Yah.

FIORITO: For what?

CODUTO: Ah. They nailed me-- they wanted to nail me for that fine again. And I had to hire a lawyer to go in, and . . . we got it all straightened out. We got the time straightened out, everything.

FIORITO: Hmm, huh.

CODUTO: They wanted to add four hundred and, ah seventeen more days. They wanted to hire, ah, they wanted to nail me for the fine.

FIORITO: I didn't know that. I know that's the first time I heard that?

CODUTO: Yah.

FIORITO: How about that other thing. The one, you know that, the last time I saw you.

CODUTO: Nothing, I, I, doing, I know nothing. Carl, they're like bees. (According to the government, this may refer to narcotics agents.)

FIORITO: Huh?

CODUTO: They're like a bunch of bees.

FIORITO: Yah?

CODUTO: Yah.

FIORITO: You can avoid that.

CODUTO: Might as well just cool it and leave it. You know. About that, but that other guy ain't got nothing anyway. Nobody's got nothing.

FIORITO: No just, huh?

CODUTO: No, if, ah, anything happens I'll get in touch with ya.

FIORITO: Alright.

CODUTO: It should be about a week or ten days. I don't know.

FIORITO: Okay, take it easy.

CODUTO: Okay.

FIORITO: Alright, I'll see you then, Hey.'


As I previously stated that Coduto has told Fiorito that because of the constant federal raids, the operation was on the downfall and that he was nabbed for something and he might “cool out” for a bit. But in reality, Coduto was stealing Fiorito’s customers behind his back by convincing them that his product was the “best”. Here’s one conversation between Coduto and one of Fiorito’s dealers known as Paul Moore:

CODUTO: How do you like my stuff? I said, '

MOORE: It's good. No doubt about it. It is the best we've ever bought.

CODUTO: You are making more off of mine than Fiorito's aren't you?

MOORE: I never said I was dealing with him.

CODUTO: Yeah, Carl on the North Side.

MOORE: Well, it is true that we are making more off of your stuff than anybody else's.

CODUTO: Well, it is not all Fiorito's fault. He cuts the stuff with sugar and screws it up a lot of times, but we actually got the same source, the same guy.

MOORE: And sometimes if our guy doesn't have stuff I will duke (supply) him myself.

CODUTO: Sometimes the source will screw Fiorito because he is not too sharp. He doesn't know what he is getting. But when we go into buy our stuff we go in with $150,000 to $200,000 at a crack. So, our guy wouldn't screw us. Besides, we would go over and pick him up and bring him over here and chop his head off if he did that to us. He can't do that to us.

But the thing was that Moore was loyal to Fiorito and later during another conversation he told Coduto:

MOORE: It is not a very good idea with all this heat for you to be duking Carl on the North Side.

CODUTO: Who? Me?

MOORE: Yeah. Last week you said you were duking him.

CODUTO: Only small stuff.


SECOND BETRAYAL & THE KING’S DEATH

But there was one much bigger problem, and neither Fiorito nor Coduto could’ve possibly predicted the upcoming trouble. Besides being allegedly very loyal to Fiorito, still in the end when Moore got pinched by the feds, he immediately started “singing” big time. On February 22 and 23, 1971, the top ring leaders such as Fred Coduto, Frank Carioscia and Louis Guido were arrested by federal agents and charged with violations of the federal narcotics laws, while one week later, Fiorito was also arrested by the feds on conspiracy and narcotics charges, mostly because of Moore’s testimony and also because his name was constantly mentioned during the conversations between Coduto and the informant, and also his own recorded conversations. Fiorito was arrested minutes after a jury found him guilty on the gun charges and the agents seized him the same moment he left the court.

They were all indicted by a federal grand jury and held in custody until they were able, in mid-March, to post bond. Later that month, separate warrant applications were made to the Parole Board requesting the arrest of the defendants on the ground that they had violated the terms of their mandatory releases in that they had violated the federal narcotics laws and associated with persons having criminal records. In plane words, some of the guys constantly made the same old mistake by dealing heroin while being free on bond, which in the eyes of the government these fellas were drug dealers for a very long time period, besides being imprisoned multiple times in the past. For example, Fred Coduto’s brother Joseph was previously killed because of the narcotics business and now, he even tried to implicate even his own nephew Joseph Jr. The most dangerous thing was jeopardizing their own lives and also the lives of their families, since during the 1970’s the Outfit was killing drug dealers with the blink of an eye, courtesy of the new leadership headed by Accardo, Joey Aiuppa and Gus Alex.

In the end, since he was convicted on two charges and was also considered the leader of the narcotics operation, Fiorito received 12 years in prison, while Coduto and the rest of the gang, they all received 10 years sentences. On April 20, 21, and 23, 1971, the court held mandatory release revocation hearings in Chicago for the petitioners Coduto, Guido, and Carioscia, respectively, but on May 3, 1971, the board of parole revoked the mandatory releases of all three petitioners. In 1979, Fiorito’s son Anthony “suddenly” died and I personally don’t have any information regarding the cause of his death, and on whether his father was present or was still in jail. It is also possible that Fiorito’s wife Hellen divorced him before or after their son’s tragic death. Twenty years later, in April 1999, Carl Fiorito died of natural causes at the age of 75, as a free man. He left behind his former wife, his son Carl Jr., his daughter Lillian, and also two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. The funeral services were held at the Bormann Funeral Home in Melrose Park, and the late Fiorito was later buried at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Was it worth it? By the mid 1950’s Fiorito was one of the richest professional burglars in the city of Chicago and probably around the country. He was close associate of the Outfit but he never became a made member of the Mafia, I think, because many inductions occurred during that same time period. No matter his stature and respectability within the criminal organization, Fiorito was able or had the amount of cash to take his family and to go anywhere he wanted around world. But his limited understandings and deep criminal mentality, placed him on the wrong path by being also involved in one of the most dangerous rackets, such as narcotics, which obviously led him to his downfall. Besides that, Fiorito went to prison twice and always kept his mouth shut, mainly because he grew up with a different generation of mobsters who were able to do anything at any time, but in the end, they lost everything because of wrong decisions and above all, because of greed. So, again, was it worth it? I personally believe, no.

Cheers

Really good work here, TD!

Thanks a lot buddy and I really appreciate your constant support. Cheers!

This was a brilliant read and filled in a much needed half hour. Thanks

You're welcome and Im quite glad that you liked my work.

...btw, heres another pic of Fiorito from 1951...

Obituary from 1979 regarding Fiorito's son...

From 1949...