Anthony (Tony West) DeLutro

Tony West was a very well-known mafia member who served in the personal crew of capo later turned underboss, Aniello (O’Neil) Dellacroce. In fact, Tony was actually one of Neil’s closer and more trusted associates over the years.

Anthony (Tony West) DeLutro was thought to have been born on Spring Street in Manhattan’s Little Italy section in 1927. As an adult, he made his home for many years in an apartment at 166 Mulberry Street.

He had an older brother named Cataldo (Charlie the Animal) DeLutro, who was Tony’s partner and also became a Gambino member.

Tony and Charlie West were very well-known mafia members who served in the personal crew of capo later turned underboss Aniello (O’Neil) Dellacroce. In fact, Tony was actually one of Neil’s closer and more trusted associates over the years.

He was an all-around hoodlum who was very engaged in a host of different racket activities which included burglaries, heists, frauds, fencing stolen goods, narcotics, cigarette bootlegging, loansharking and extortion, strong-arm work, and infiltrating Manhattan bars and nightclubs.

Change in the Penal Code

In 1965, he was one of 122 men identified by the New York Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as among the top shylocks operating within New York City.

DeLutro was accused of having extended a $5000 shylock loan to a midtown Manhattan nightclub owner on the Eastside and then threatening and then beating the man when he fell behind on his weekly vigorish payments. The businessman testified before an investigative panel probing the New York shylock rackets.

(L-R): Neil Dellacroce, Tony DeLutro, Anthony (Figgy) Ficarotta, Louis Amirante, Nicholas (Nicky the Blond) Frustaci

(L-R): Dellacroce, Michael (Mike Tally) Caiazzo, Tony DeLutro, Frank (Frankie Dap) Dapolito, attending a wake.

His testimony, along with that of many other victims, helped convince New York State to increase the penal code penalties of usury from that of a misdemeanor offense in which those convicted faced a maximum of one year behind bars to a felony which increased the maximum jail term to up to four years.

Post Office Burglary Ring

When he was 37 years old, Tony got pinched by the feds for being one of the key operatives in a major burglary ring that broke into numerous United States Post Offices in various sections of New Jersey.

On August 12, 1964, there was a highly publicized sweep of 13 ring members throughout the greater metropolitan area conducted by FBI agents and U.S. Postal Inspectors that was on all the nightly television stations and in the newspapers.

Federal authorities touted the arrests as the most lucrative post office burglary operation in United States history. They said that $700,000 in stamps, cash, and blank postal money orders were stolen from eight New Jersey post offices in the first five months of the previous year alone.

They said the gang was divided into specialists who performed the actual burglaries, and those who then ‘fenced’ or disposed of the stamps and money orders, converting them into money.

Operation Breakdown

For instance, one of those indicted, Bedrich Polla, was a Manhattan-based coin and stamp deale, and owner of the Phoenix Coin & Stamp Company, of 100 West 43rd Street who helped convert the stamps into cash.

Another of those indicted was a former Union County, NJ, policeman named Nicholas Guzzo in whose home the gang kept their cache of guns and ammunition, burglars tools, several badges, and police uniforms.

Postal authorities started a separate investigation to see if the seized police uniforms were the same ones used in a $1,500,000 postal truck holdup two years earlier in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The Assistant U.S. Attorney said that the burglary gang set records in at least two of their heists. He said they took a record $529,920 in money orders from the Keyport, New Jersey post office that past March 12th, and a record $77,000 in stamps from the Fairview, New Jersey post office on January 12th of that year.

Prosecutors said they believed that the gang had actually hit more post offices than those listed in the indictment, possibly exceeding $1 million dollars in their total take. They even stole a money order "validator" machine. After the actual thefts, the ring utilized a small group of "passers" who would cash the blank money orders up and down the east coast.

13 Men

The 13 men named in the 28-count indictment were charged with conspiracy to burglarize U.S. Post Offices, grand larceny, and the criminal receiving and transporting of stolen stamps and money orders.

Among the suspects was the man prosecutors identified as the main ringleader, Daniel Bozza, 43, who was held on $100,000 bail. The actual burglary specialists were identified as; Michael Pizzo, 31, of Edison, NJ; Ronald Jones, 27, and Robert Williams, 42, both of Jersey City; Edward Kuhle, 29, of Keansburg, NJ; and Charles Mulhearn, 27, of West New York, NJ.

Several men were named as disposing of the stolen loot. These "fences" were named as Peter Tonnessen, 27, and Salvatore Guarnieri, 43, both of Brooklyn, NY; Frank Polak, 43, of Astoria, Queens; Anthony Santangelo, 32, of Iselin, NJ; and our man Anthony DeLutro, 37, of Manhattan.

Prosecutors listed the eight New Jersey post offices hit as Fairview: $77,000 in stamps and 863 money order blanks; Morganville: $583 in stamps; Middletown: $4,536 in stamps and 717 in money orders; Woodridge: $12,323 in stamps and 450 blank money orders; Keyport: $5,861 in stamps and a whopping 5929 in money orders; Paramus: $17,324 in stamps; Hillsdale: $39,230 in stamps; and Morganville: theft of the validating machine for processing the money orders.

Trial Drama

During their subsequent jury trial, the presiding judge revoked DeLutro’s $50,000 bail after prosecutors stated to Judge Jacob Mishler that DeLutro had attempted to intimidate a government witness outside the Brooklyn Courthouse earlier in the month.

Adding to all this drama during the trial was Tony’s brother Charlie who had been thrown out of the courtroom just the week before for creating a disorder. ‘Charlie the Animal’ started cursing and muttering objections to the prosecutor's reports that his brother should be sent back to jail.

Despite his best efforts to thwart justice, Anthony DeLutro was convicted by a jury trial for his part in the post office burglary ring, but later, he got lucky when his federal conviction was reversed on appeal. DeLutro hit the street and immediately went back into the mouth of the wolf - his old Little Italy neighborhood.

Heroin Trafficking Network

Less than one year later, in 1965, Tony West DeLutro got slammed with another blockbuster indictment. He was one of 19 mafiosi indicted in what authorities described as a huge $90,000,000 a year Mafia heroin trafficking network operated by "top echelon" wholesalers and distributors.

In late January 1965, a Brooklyn County Grand Jury returned federal and state indictments charging the suspects on seven counts of conspiracy and possession of narcotics with intent to sell.

Kings County District Attorney Aaron Koota said, “We believe that we have smashed the top echelon of one of the largest rings of wholesalers and distributors of narcotics in the New York area. We have estimated that this group would turn over approximately $30,000,000 in narcotics into the retail market every four months.”

At midnight on February 2, 1965, coordinated teams of 90 federal agents and NYC police fanned out across the city to make the arrests. Starting at 1 AM, authorities raided numerous locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. The NYC Police Narcotics Squad coordinated with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to plan the campaign to root out these networks.

Follow-Up to the French Connection

The D.A. said this was a follow-up investigation to the famed January 1962 French Connection bust. It was meant to keep the pressure on those same traffickers whom authorities knew were retooling their operations.

Although the gang maintained their drug stashes in Brooklyn, in truth, this drug network had its roots in Manhattan’s Little Italy. Authorities said all those arrested faced exposure of between 7.5 to 15 years in state prison upon conviction of the top count.

The investigation began in 1963, and during the course of the probe, more than six pounds of pure heroin was seized, estimated to have a retail value of $2,000,000 on the street.

Nailed along with DeLutro were such Little Italy-based mafia luminaries as hoodlum Frank (Frankie Boy) Tuminaro, 36, of 285 Mott Street.

He was the brother of Lucchese soldier Angelo (Little Angie) Tuminaro who was thought to have been the kingpin behind the infamous French Connection case and Patsy Fuca and his brother Tony, who were actually nephews of the Tuminaro brothers.

Also nabbed was his partner Frank (Chico) Gangi, 35, of Brooklyn.

Angelo (Little Angie) Tuminaro

A Gaggle of Defendants

Other Brooklyn-based defendants included Vincent Rigogliosi, 52; Alexander (Tuddy) Rigogliosi; Anthony (Tony Flip) Macaluso, 49; Joseph (Foxy) Forina; August (Porky) Giardino; and Henry (Harry) Halitzer, 48, who happened to be free on bail from a previous drug case he had in Florida at the time of this second arrest.

Queens County residents included Bonanno capo Michael (Mike Bruno) Consolo and Frank Gangi’s brother, future Genovese bigwig, Rosario (Ross) Gangi, 25, both of Middle Village.

Residents of Manhattan’s Little Italy included four known Genovese soldiers - Salvatore (Sammy Meatballs) Aparo, 35, 2232 First Avenue; Charles (Crazy Chalutz) Gagliodotto, 58, 55 E. Houston Street; Carmine Perrone, 28, 235 Mulberry Street; and Philip (Philly Brush) Tartaglia.

Also arrested were Michael (Mickey) Viggiano, 28, 285 Mott Street; Alexander Schoenfeld, 50, 415 Grand Street; Vincent Cordato, 42, 184 Lafayette Street; Bonanno soldier Angelo (Moe) Presinzano; and, of course, Tony DeLutro himself, of Mulberry Street.

From the Bronx, police nabbed two well-known dealers: William (Billy) Paradiso, 36; and Throgs Neck’s Frank (Chuck) Viserti, 38, who years later would gain fame as one of the original leaders of East Harlem’s notorious Purple Gang.

As though fighting these two major criminal indictments were not already more than enough of a headache for the sieged Gambino soldier, six years later, the 43-year-old Tony West was nabbed yet again.

Another Drug Bust

This time around it was for a federal narcotics conspiracy. He was one of 19 drug dealers and city hoodlums named in a major indictment charging they operated a huge dope ring in West Harlem, the Bronx, New Jersey, and elsewhere.

Arrested along with DeLutro this time were the notorious black drug kingpin Frank Lucas and many members of his black, Harlem-based organization.

Black drug kingpin - Frank Lucas

When teams of DEA agents raided the Lucas residence in Teaneck, New Jersey, they found over $500,000 in small denomination bills, which was obviously the result of retail narcotics "street sales" by his many minions who were out there selling $10 to $50 bags of "China White" heroin to their legions of drug addicts on West Harlem’s street corners from the previous months.

The arrests were the results of an intensive DEA investigation that took over one year to complete.

Among the more noted of those named in this indictment were Joseph (Joe the Grind) Mangano, 43, of Yonkers; Frank Palatta, 42, of Hartsdale; Roberto Rivera, 44, of Spring Valley; Frank Lucas, 44, of Teaneck; Frank Caravella, 38, Saint Julian Harrison, 51, and DeLutro, the last three all of Manhattan.

Lucas and Harrison were known to be among the biggest heroin merchants operating in the Harlem and Bronx sections of the city.

Cigarette Smuggling

By at least 1967, Tony DeLutro had gone headfirst into the cigarette smuggling racket. He was now deeply immersed in both the financing and trafficking of wholesale quantities of untaxed cigarettes that were being brought up weekly from Virginia and the Carolinas into New York City by the truckload.

By 1969, he had been repeatedly arrested by tax agents for possession of several truckloads of untaxed cases of cigarettes, and New York State Tax Investigators was identifying him as a major cigarette bootlegger.

Posing with the boys (L-R): Mike D, Ernie Grillo, Mike Corallo, Joe (The Cat) LaForte Sr., Tony (West) DeLutro

Although he did his best to stay out of the headlines in future years, Tony went on to operate in Manhattan as a respected mafioso for nearly 30 years longer.

Anthony DeLutro passed away on March 27, 1997. He was waked at the famed Guidetti Funeral Home on Spring Street, the final resting place for many a wiseguy.

‘Tony West’ was a dyed-in-the-wool hoodlum from the get-go. That’s a compliment to a guy who was very devoted to his craft! His older brother Charlie had died nearly a decade earlier. Cataldo DeLutro passed away in 1987.

Until next time...”The Other Guy!”

Anthony (Tony West) DeLutro

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Anthony (Tony West) DeLutro

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