Nicholas (Jiggs) Forlano

Jiggs Forlano was a capo in the Colombo Family whose crew included the notorious Carmine Persico and the equally notorious D'Ambrosio brothers . He also became one of the biggest shylocks in New York City after partnering up with a Jewish mathematical genius named Charles (Ruby) Stein.

Nicholas (Jiggs) Forlano was born on September 24, 1913, in Manhattan. He resided for decades at 33-42 28th Street in the Astoria section of Queens.

By at least the late 1950s, he also owned a winter home at 1500 Bay Road in Miami, Florida, and later at 480 Northeast 180th Drive, where he would spend several weeks on and off each year.

He married a Jewish girl named Sophie, and they had two sons together. By 1968 or 1969, he and his wife had relocated permanently to the Hallandale section of South Florida.

Jiggs Forlano

Jiggs stood about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 185 pounds. He had a full head of close-cropped jet-black hair, which was greying at the temples, and black wolf-like eyes.

He could be engaging and disarming when he wanted to be but could just as quickly turn nasty at a moment's notice.

FBI # 886909, NYCPD # B-131906

Although originating out of the Harlem area where there weren’t many Profaci hoods, somewhere along the line, Jiggs became acquainted with and ended up affiliated with the Joseph Profaci Family of Brooklyn.

By the late 1940s, he would be formally inducted as a soldier and by at least 1955, he would rise to a capo status.

He became close to a Jewish hood who was an active shylock during the late-1940s and partnered up with him for the next several decades. His name was Charles (Ruby) Stein .

The Golden Boys

Together, “Ruby and Jiggs” would become the biggest names in the loanshark racket in New York City. By 1953, they had developed an expansive shylock network second to none.

The duo was well known throughout the entire underworld and would lend large sums of money to other loansharks. They became known as “shylock’s shylocks,” lending money to mob guys from all the Five Families and independents as well.

Another major customer set of Ruby and Jiggs were bookmakers and policy bankers, who may have been hit hard with wins.

They also lent to major businessmen, dress manufacturers, corporate executives, producers of Broadway shows, bar and nightclub owners, and restauranteurs. These were among the more active industries they served.

Ruby Stein

With Joe Profaci's backing and the willing contributions of various other well-heeled soldiers, captains, and those in the hierarchies of various borgatas that invested with them, the Ruby and Jiggs combo was said to have built a massive bankroll.

Local and federal law enforcement estimated that on any given day, Ruby and Jiggs had upwards of $5,000,000 out “on the street,” generating profits between 1 to 2% interest or “vigorish” weekly—that equates to between $50,000 and $100,000 revolving cash profits every week that were divided up among themselves and their mob investors and benefactors.

In 1963, Johnny (Bath Beach) Oddo, a top Profaci capo, was said to have invested/loaned Ruby and Jiggs $50,000 into their loan business. Later that same year, Oddo and Gambino capo Carmine (The Doctor) Lombardozz i were said to have invested an additional $16,000 over a three-month period.

Depending upon who was investing and how much was being invested, the duo might pay their various Mafia benefactors returns of one-half to three-quarters of one “point” weekly. That provided a guaranteed 26% to 39% net profit annually, in cash, tax-free, no questions asked!

And Ruby and Jiggs guaranteed every penny of those investments, with their lives, I might add.

That still left a very hefty net profit structure of anywhere from 26 to 78% into their pockets after paying their mafia superiors and various mob partners. They would all make untold millions for many years!

Needless to say, they were the “golden boys” of the mob. And, of course, I’m sure that as members of the Profaci Family, old man Joe and that Family’s hierarchy earned handsomely over the years.

Even if that monetary figure was exaggerated, as law enforcement and underworld informers often did, it is a very safe assumption that Ruby and Jiggs did, indeed, constantly have millions out on loan. So, any way you wanna slice it, that’s a lot of “gelt,” as they say in Hebrew!

They mostly operated out of a finance and mortgage front company named IRH Corporation, Suite # 2604, at 375 Park Avenue in Downtown Manhattan. This company was also useful in a unique way.

Forlano and Stein would accept shylock payments in checks as well as cash, simply depositing the paper checks in one of their accounts or “recirculating” the checks out as “loans,” keeping the revenue flowing.

Ruby was said to have a near-perfect mathematical memory, able to keep complex sets of numbers and calculations all in his head, vastly reducing the need for incriminating shylock money ledgers and gambling records. It served them well all through the years.

Major Bookmakers, Too!

Jiggs Forlano had a criminal record that began in 1930 and included the following arrests:

1930 - petty larceny

1935 - disorderly conduct

1935 - sale of narcotics (18 months)

1943 - bookmaking

1943 - policy (10 days)

1956 - disorderly conduct

1961 - policy and vagrancy

1962 - felonious assault

1964 - felonious assault

1965 - felony bookmaking, vagrancy, conspiracy

1967 - consorting with known criminals

1967 - gambling

1968 - felonious assault

By the late 1950s to early 1960s, Forlano had also invested in and became a partner in Paradise Homes Corp., a real estate development and construction firm in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

And as though being arguably the biggest shylocks in New York City and certainly among the largest in the entire United States wasn’t already enough on their plate as an accomplishment, the dynamic duo was also considered to be among the major horse and sports bookmakers in the city.

They also operated, in partnership with several Jewish mob associates, a nationwide bookmaking lay-off business (edge office.) They provided this service to gambling offices to help offset uneven betting volumes so bookies could help turn a guaranteed profit at week's end.

And “Hold on to your hats, folks,” that’s not all!

In another facet of their operations, Stein and Forlano had expert handicappers set the Las Vegas “line” daily. This is integral to the operation of any bookmaking office. Without a sharp odds-making line each morning, a bookmaker could, and often did, go “bust” through the offering of “bad” and loose odds.

This weekly “service” was offered at a price to local mob bookmakers throughout the city and out-of-state bookies as well. There were many willing gambling customers.

Put it all together, and all through the 1950s and 1960s era, Ruby and Jiggs were among the most important underworld figures there were.

Switching Sides

By the early to mid-1960s, the FBI, several highly placed member informants, had compiled lists of the structures of the various Cosa Nostra Families in New York. Jiggs Forlano was listed as one of ten “capo di decina” in that Profaci/Colombo Family.

The feds were also subsequently able to list the memberships for individual “crews” or regimes.

The following soldiers were alleged to have reported to Forlano: Carmine (The Snake) Persico, Alfonse (Funzi) D’Ambrosio , Ralph (Whitey) Tropiano, Leonard (Big Lenny) Dello, and Salvatore (Sally D) D’Ambrosio, among several others.

During the infamous Gallo-Profaci Gang War of the early 1960s, Jiggs initially joined the Gallo rebel faction along with Carmine Persi co and many others from a disgruntled rank-and-file who felt Profaci was too greedy a boss.

Some of their main grievances included a mandatory monthly “head tax” imposed on them, which the bosses of the other borgatas had long ago eliminated, and an unfairly high “tribute” cut from various racket operations the soldiers ran.

Forlano was designated the boss of the rebels by their faction. So, he was a prime target for extinction by Joe Profaci and the established hierarchy. But instead of killing them, Profaci successfully lobbied and wooed both Jiggs and Persico, as well as many of their followers, back into the Family fold.

This was done for two reasons.

Forlano controlled vast sums of money “on the streets,” and his death would have been counterproductive in the long run. Junior Persico controlled one of the largest and most deadly regimes in the Family.

By winning them back and denying the Gallo gang those “assets,” so to speak, it severely weakened the opposition and strengthened Profaci's all the more. It was a smart strategic move in this underworld chess game of life and death. And Joe Profaci was nothing if not smart!

Joe Profaci

He had been a seasoned mob tactician since the 1920s, and in short order, the hunters became the hunted. Former friends became deadly enemies. And what would follow became the stuff of mob legend:

The attempted strangling of opposition leader Larry Gallo at the Sahara Lounge in Brooklyn by his so-called “friends” Persico and Salvatore (Sally D) D’Ambrosio.

The attempted assassination of Jiggs in front of his Astoria home. Gallo hitmen emptied a revolver into Forlano’s car as he sat in it but missed him with every single shot.

The attempted “kidnapping” of Ruby Stein off a midtown Manhattan street corner where he kicked, punched, and screamed his lungs out, successfully thwarting his assailants from “snatching” him and most likely killing him.

There were numerous other incidents as well that made for mob havoc in New York City during the era and kept the daily tabloids humming.

Persico’s defection, in particular, was a major blow to the Gallos. He had been among their closest friends and associates over the years.

For his duplicity, he earned the additional nickname of “The Snake,” and the Gallos would make several additional serious attempts to kill him.

A Major Falling Out

By the war's end, Forlano and Stein had maintained their high status and position in the mob. They would go on unimpeded for several more years until their partnership imploded from within. They had a major falling out by the mid to late 1960s.

It seems that Ruby had been indicted and convicted on tax evasion charges related to their racket operations. He would be sent to federal jail to serve several years.

Jiggs, of course, was supposed to mind the store while Ruby did his jail time as good partners expect of each other. But there was one problem with that plan.

Jiggs Forlano was a gambler, and a degenerate gambler at that. And a big spender to boot. He was constantly in need of money and was soon scheming against his longtime partner in crime.

Forlano approached boss Joseph Colombo , who had risen to head the Family after Profaci's death in 1962. Jiggs suggested a plan to rob Ruby.

Joe Colombo mugshot

He knew that Ruby kept a suitcase packed with cash in his Jackson Heights apartment. The suitcase was alleged to hold upwards of several hundred thousand in cold cash, which they used in their daily rackets operation. Colombo eagerly acquiesced and signed off on the planned burglary heist.

How he got wind of it is unknown, but Ruby soon became very suspicious of his old partner and quickly safeguarded his funds, placing them safely out of reach, and that was the end of that.

Later, when Ruby was paroled from jail, he officially ended the partnership that had been “Ruby and Jiggs.” It was the end of an era, and both would suffer the consequences of that fateful decision.

Ruby would continue his shylock business for another decade or so. He was said to have loosely aligned with Fat Tony Salerno of the Genovese mob.

He also befriended Jimmy Coonan, a young Irish tough from Manhattan’s Westside. He utilized the up-and-coming hoodlum as a driver/bodyguard and loaned him money to start his own loanshark business.

Ruby Stein disappeared shortly into their friendship. Later, his headless torso washed up on the beach in Far Rockaway, Queens. It seems that Coonan and his gang thought it fiscally better to kill the old hood rather than repay him.

Jiggs fared significantly better than Ruby in that he kept his head but still floundered in the coming years. Jiggs was “tapioca,” as they say in the street.

His gambling ways had caught up with him. No longer the big-money producer he had been during his years with Ruby, he struggled to keep afloat.

After Profaci’s death and Colombo and Persico’s subsequent rise to power, the hierarchy sidelined Jiggs. He was knocked down from his capo status to that of a mere soldier, and with the loss of his rackets revenue, a new day was dawning, and it didn’t include Forlano.

He relocated permanently down to Florida and affiliated with the Family’s South Florida regime.

Jiggs spent more and more time at the horse and dog tracks down there and did his best to scheme as he could.

He started associating with the likes of Tommy Farese and Johnny Irish Matera, two Colombo members who had gained some prominence in Dade and Broward Counties. Forlano would figure peripherally into several major probes of mob activity in the region but would not be charged.

On March 28, 1977, while at the local racetrack, Nicholas (Jiggs) Forlano collapsed to the pavement and died from a massive heart attack. He died doing what he loved best. Jiggs was only 62 years old

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

Nicholas (Jiggs) Forlano

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