Born in Harlem, New York on June 16, 1914, Anthony “Tony Iodine” Donato — aka Tony Russo — was a longtime underworld associate aligned with key Mafia members from Upper Manhattan.
In 1931, at the tender age of only seventeen, he was first picked-up for burglary. In the coming years, Donato’s “rap sheet” grew to include many other arrests for offenses ranging from criminally carrying a pistol, assault and robbery, vagrancy, disorderly conduct, criminally receiving stolen goods, interstate theft (truck hijacking), grand larceny, murder, violating state narcotics-laws, and parole violations.
The New York Police Department said Tony Donato and his brother Frank were both devout criminals through and through, neither of whom were ever known to hold a legitimate job or occupation their entire lives.
Instead, what “The Iodine Brothers” did after trying their hand at different criminal pursuits was to eventually gravitate to the narcotics trade. By the early 1950s, they had became known as major wholesale drug traffickers.
