He was a very powerful capo but I've never heard this, perhaps he was "acting UB" for a short while.
Paul Vario was also the "owner" of the Kennedy Airport and conducted all truck hijacking operations there with his underling - James Burke.
Vario was the Lucchese "owner" of JFK, they ran it together with Gambinos in a sort of partnership. I forget who ran the Gambino end of the action, but I remember reading that John Gotti got a cut of the Lufthansa heist because JFK was ran jointly between the families, makes sense since JFK isn't too far from Ozone Park.
