Mario Gigante, the older brother of legendary Mafia boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante and a fellow member of the family business – the Genovese crime family – died of natural causes last week at the age of 98, Gang Land has learned.
Although a low key wiseguy whose notoriety was chiefly linked to his younger brother, in 2004 Gigante briefly served as acting boss of the crime family while Vincent Gigante was in prison and fighting to overturn the conviction that ended with his death the following year.
In 1997, Mario Gigante copped a plea deal to cover racketeering allegations that he was the driving force behind a violent monopoly for the crime family that controlled the waste hauling business in Westchester, Rockland and Orange counties in New York, as well as New Jersey. All told, Gigante allegedly controlled 14 separate private sanitation companies worth more than $100 million.
