Vincent C. (Vinny) Papa Sr.

Vinny Papa was one of New York’s main drug traffickers for decades. In fact, Papa was arguably the number one heroin trafficker for years. He had a notorious reputation in the city’s drug underworld.

Vincent C. (Vinny) Papa Sr. was born in 1917. He resided and operated most of his life from his neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, where Papa also ran several businesses including a tire repair shop, and a private livery car service named the Ditmars Private Car Service.

He got married young to a woman named Mildred and together they had three children - two boys and a girl. One of whom was his namesake son Vincent Jr., who later became affiliated with him in racket activity.

Vincent Papa

He settled his wife and kids into an unpretentious brick row house at 21-34 37th Street, where he resided for the rest of his days.

Vinny Papa was a very unassuming-looking man. He was of medium height and build with a full head of salt and pepper hair loosely swept back casually. He was not a flashy hood in any way, shape, or form.

Vinny preferred plain inexpensive looking shirts and pants. No jewelry or flashy Cadillacs, and no ostentatious shows of wealth or money.

It was his natural way, but in his earlier years, it also served to help buffer him from law enforcement scrutiny, until his reputation became such that uttering his name alone garnered attention.

It was said that Papa was loyal to his friends, but had a generally rough demeanor and nasty edge to him. Few were really close to him, but if he liked you he’d do a favor.

Papa was very closely affiliated with important members of both the Genovese and Lucchese Families in New York. But both the FBI and the DEA labeled him as officially “associated” with the Lucchese mob.

He had a lengthy criminal record dating back decades to 1938, with upwards of several dozen arrests ranging from burglaries, larcenies, assaults, and bookmaking, to an old 1969 narcotics conviction he served five years on.

Although he was never a formally “inducted” mafia soldier himself, Papa was still a highly respected operator and dealt within the higher echelons of the mob. He preferred to stay and operate independently of any one Family.

But over the years he was connected with Lucchese boss Carmine (Mr. Gribbs) Tramunti, his assistant Louis (Gigi the Whale) Inglese, as well as top members of several other borgatas.

He conducted his activities from several business locations he ran, as well as a private social club that became notorious as a mob hangout. The Astoria Colts Social Club on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria was a well-known meeting place for gamblers, varied hoodlums and suspected narcotics traffickers for decades.

Aside from Papa making it one of his main hangouts, longtime mafioso and Gambino soldier Anthony (Tony) Carubia was also known to frequent the club daily.

The club hosted daily card games for those neighborhood residents who liked to gamble. It was also a place where patrons could place a wager on a pony, their favorite sports team, or bet the New York number.

What was not as commonly known was that it also served as the headquarters for a huge bookmaking operation that accepted bets from an small army of runners and sub-bookies. In a separate room in the back of the club was a table full of telephones manned by phone clerks for that specific purpose.

Other numbers runners and bookies working on half-sheets would physically drop by the club throughout the day dropping off brown paper bags filled with either the policy bets or bookmaking “work” they collected that day. Anyone surveilling the club could readily tell it was more than just a little neighborhood gathering place for war veterans and the area’s retired denizens.

In between all the constant comings and goings of these gambling aficionados, professional gaming racketeers and casual visitors were men who the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics) and the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Squad say were among the most important heroin traffickers in the United States.

Vinny Papa was one of New York’s main drug traffickers for decades. In fact, Papa was arguably the number one heroin trafficker for years. He had a notorious reputation in the city’s drug underworld.

Years later, during the first of several major narcotics trials Papa would face, U.S. Attorney James Drucker accused Papa of conducting a massive drug operation in which he averaged distribution sales of approximately 25 kilograms of heroin per week. This went on for years.

Although he handled heroin as well as cocaine from time to time, heroin or “junk” as the mob guys refer to it as, was his baby. Papa became well known as the go-to guy for access to multi-kilo buys of “babania.”

His deep connections and reputation for always having a ready supply of heroin on hand for purchase became legendary dating to the mid-1960s.

Although often working in tandem with top mafia racketeers, Papa essentially ran his own independent gang of narcotics dealers. Men who allied with him and viewed him as the boss.

And although a few of these men would go on to later join various Cosa Nostra Families themselves as full “inducted” members, in those early years they worked for Papa exclusively.

Some of the closest and most trusted of these associates included the personal men in his crew such as Virgilio (Virgil) Alessi, Anthony (Tony) Loria Sr., Peter (Petey Box) Giamarino, Frank D’Amato, John (Johnny Boy) D’Amato, Rocco Evangelista, Albert Evangelista, Jack Locorriere, Victor Euphemia, Anthony Stanzione, Vincent Papa Jr., Anthony D. Passero, and Daniel Ranieri.

Side Note: At least three of these men, Alessi, and the D’Amato brothers would later gain formal entrance to the DeCavalcante Family’s New York faction. Each would become a “made” man, with John D’Amato later rising to the acting boss position until he was killed gangland-style.

Other top associates he operated in tandem with over the years, most of whom also became mafia members included Joseph (Joe D) DiNapoli, Matthew Madonna, Louis (Gigi the Whale) Inglese, Carmine (Gribbs) Tramunti, Anthony (Tony) Vanella, Louis Cirillo, and Ralph (The General) Tutino.

Still others were mobbed connected junk dealers who ran their own smaller, independent distribution networks such as Bronx-based Lucchese Family associates Lawrence (Larry Nose) Iarossi and his partners Anthony Manfredonia and Vincent (Jimmy Feet) Panebianco. Or the Lucchese soldier Orlando (Bobby London) Della Paoli.

Side Note: It later came out that Louie Cirillo had been one of Papa’s main sources of supply. Cirillo was largely a shadow, an unknown in the mob for many years until his arrest in the 1970s. Ostensibly he was a lowly Bronx bagel baker, but in truth was one of the largest international heroin kingpins in the nation.

By the late 1960s, Papa was on law enforcement’s radar like never before. The narcotics agents constantly watched him and his associates in hopes that they’d make a mistake. The junk agents were also developing multiple informants who would give them a lead here, a tidbit there, about Papa’s narcotics rackets and other activities, and those of his associates.

Their first big break came on the night of February 3, 1972, when detectives trailed Papa and a companion to a nondescript apartment house at 1908 Bronxdale Avenue in the Bronx.

After surveilling Papa’s automobile from across the street, they witnessed Papa and his friend go into the building with what looked to be a light suitcase. Papa’s friend carried it easily with one hand.

Less than an hour later they both emerged from the apartment building with that same green-colored suitcase, except now his friend had to use both hands to lug it to the car, where he proceeded to place it in the trunk of his 1968 dark green colored Pontiac. Clearly, it weighed a lot more than it did when he first carried it in.

As they jumped in the car to start the ignition and drive away, the detectives quickly blocked Papa’s way and pulled them both from the car. The detectives thought they finally had the two hoods dead to rights and that they’d find a big haul of drugs in that suitcase.

Papa’s companion identified himself to police as Joseph (Joe D) Di Napoli, a well-known Bronx hoodlum. Inside that suitcase in the trunk detectives found it jam-packed with $967,450 in cold cash. The money was neatly stacked in bundles of $10,000 denominations each.

The suitcase was quickly confiscated and both suspects detained.

After extensive questioning, Papa and Di Napoli were charged with conspiracy to purchase narcotics but were eventually released from custody because police couldn’t prove any crime had been committed. But the money was held and later confiscated as evidence and further investigation.

When it was fully counted back at headquarters and totaled nearly one million dollars, the detectives nearly fell out of their seats. They now knew they were on the right track with the Papa crew.

IRS agents were now also called into the overall investigation.

Side Note: It was later alleged by authorities that at the time the $967,450 was grabbed by police along with the two suspects, Papa and Di Napoli were on their way to buy 200 pounds of pure junk.

By late 1972, Papa and 21 of his associates had been arrested, tried, and convicted for heading a massive heroin conspiracy they had operated from 1967 through 1972.

Prosecutors proved that Papa operated one of these sub-networks through three main wholesalers: Stanzione, Locorriere, and Euphemia, who distributed his product to a large amount of smaller drug dealers throughout Queens, the Bronx, and the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

In another sub-network of his organization, he partnered with Tony Passero. They operated mainly through the wholesalers Alessi, Evangelista, Ranieri, and D’Amato. Later on, Alessi became Papa’s primary partner.

There were so many others. Retailers such as Angelo Paradiso, Joseph Ragusa, Joan Moreland, and Stanton Garland among many others. It was a huge distribution chain.

Prosecutors proved in open court that Papa had been the owner of two suitcases that contained 160 pounds of pure “China White” heroin, and that third suitcase which had contained the $1,000,000 in cash. And that he was a kingpin of drug distribution across the city.

Aside from the 22 named defendants, were an additional 32 unindicted co-conspirators who supported his drug distribution networks.

Joe Ragusa had been a wholesale distributor of junk until he repeatedly fell short of his financial obligations to Papa. Thereafter, he was only utilized as a “stash man” to take possession of the heroin for later distribution by others, who would pick up multi-kilo loads as it was sold piecemeal.

At times, Ragusa, who later turned state’s evidence and testified against Papa at his trial said he stashed as much as 160 pounds of white China heroin at a time for the gang.

Moreland served as one of the main links to West Harlem’s black addict population. So did Garland.

In court testimony, it came out that In addition to the above-mentioned locations and meeting places that the Papa organization used to plan and execute their drug networks, was the famed Prudenti’s Italian Restaurant in Long Island City. It was a favored dining spot for Papa’s crew.

He and his codefendants all received heavy jail terms, with Vinny Papa himself receiving the stiffest sentence of 20 years in federal prison. This sentence was in addition to an income-tax evasion indictment brought against Papa covering the same time period. He later pled guilty and took a five-year concurrent jail term to wash out all the cases.

But the feds weren’t done with him yet. Vinny was in for a wild ride.

In 1975, Papa was again arrested and indicted anew with 15 of his drug crew for heading what federal and local authorities said was one of the largest interlocking narcotics operations to ever exist in New York City.

In fact, because the Big Apple is largely viewed as the gateway for the vast majority of heroin brought into this country, indeed Vinny Papa was thought to be at the very summit of narcotics kingpins in the entire nation!

In this second drug indictment, a Queens County-based NYC police officer named Donald Hayward was among those charged in the case. He was charged with possession of narcotics with intent to distribute, and with receiving and transporting more than one pound of heroin in 1971.

Each additional defendant was also charged with a conspiracy to receive, buy, sell, and conceal both heroin and cocaine worth several million dollars.

Among the most important of those codefendants was Vigil Alessi of Long Island City, Queens, who was described as Papa’s righthand man and chief assistant.

Collectively they moved amounts of drugs ranging from one-eighth of a kilogram to 34 pounds of heroin at a time.

In another related indictment, retired police lieutenant Pasquale Intrieri was charged with federal income tax evasion for receiving over $100,000 in payments from Papa’s gang that he evaded more than $28,000 in taxes on for the years 1969, 1970, and 1971.

Intrieri, as well as another detective named Frank E. King, were also accused of having worked as bodyguards for Papa and his son, and to have also conspired with Papa to harbor two fugitives from justice.

While he was serving his first sentence and dealing with the second narcotics case coming up, Papa had also been brought before a federal grand jury probing the so-called “French Connection” case.

This was the disappearance and subsequent massive theft of 398 pounds of heroin and another 120 pounds of cocaine from the police property room, where all seized contraband and other items are stored awaiting trial of various defendants and criminal cases, or kept for safe-keeping before the evidence is eventually destroyed once the court cases are over.

The “Police Property Clerks Office”, located at 400 Broome Street in Lower Manhattan, was typically where all illegal guns, weapons, narcotics, and various other illegal drugs, counterfeit money, smuggled items, and all forms of contraband are safeguarded after police seizures.

It was a highly secured, Fort Knox type building that boasted Bomb-proof walls and steel-reinforced doors.

Papa figured very prominently in these highly publicized thefts of heroin from the Property Clerks Office.

Over a period of several years, corrupt NYC detectives conspired with Vinny Papa and other hoods to slowly but surely sneak package after package, kilo after kilo, out of the “seized property” clerks room in Manhattan by substituting glassine bags of flour and other powdered substances like cornstarch for the heroin.

When this massive theft was finally discovered years later, red-faced law enforcement authorities and top New York politicians scrambled to quickly inpanel a grand jury to investigate the situation.

This probe became an embarrassing political football. It was quickly ascertained that deep corruption within the highest echelons of the NYPD existed and that a combination of police bribery, collusion, conspiracy, and an actual criminal partnership between the mobsters and police existed in order to steal and then sell hundreds of kilograms of heroin, worth untold millions of dollars to the drug addicts of Gotham City.

Side Note: The drug thefts supposedly came to light when a property room clerk noticed bugs eating into the bags.

Once detectives investigated they soon discovered that there were bugs because the powder was actually flour and not heroin. It was estimated that over $70,000,000 in narcotics had been removed from that room and sold back to drug merchants across New York.

Subsequent to these probes into Papa’s drug activities, and the later theft of heroin tracing all the way back to the infamous French Connection case of the early 1960s, Papa had been subpoenaed for his testimony about what he knew of the theft.

He clammed up and received a complimentary 2- to 4-year contempt sentence to run concurrent to his federal narcotics sentence. In short, Vinny Papa got buried under the weight of multiple jail terms.

Vincent (Vinny) Papa died in July of 1977.

He was set upon and attacked by several other inmates at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was serving out his 22-year narcotics sentence.

Papa was stabbed eight times with homemade “shanks” and bled to death on the concrete floor of the prison exercise yard. Prison guards later found three makeshift steel knives near his lifeless body.

Prison officials said the killers did a real job on him. Each of his wounds was deep enough to have caused death.

Authorities suspect that Papa was murdered to silence him from possibly giving information to federal agents about narcotics dealing, bribery and rampant police corruption, in an attempt to reduce his jail sentence.

Side Note: Another notorious heroin kingpin from Manhattan’s Lower East Side by the name of Herbert (Herbie) Sperling, who was also behind bars serving a life sentence with no parole, was later indicted and tried, but acquitted of hiring the assassins.

Vinny Papa had allegedly provided evidence to U.S. Attorney Thomas Puccio against various top police officials, narcotics detectives, and other law enforcement officials who were connected to Papa’s operations that he had corrupted over the years, as well as officers he collaborated with to steal the narcotics from the Property Clerks Office.

Supposedly he had given evidence against them, but not against mob guys per se...still, the mafia sees a rat as a rat, regardless of who you might rat on.

He was branded a “rat” and Papa subsequently paid the price for allegedly having reached out to prosecutors offering his assistance. The mob had supposedly placed a murder contract on him.

He was buried in St. John’s Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, just a few miles from his home in Astoria. A mob burial ground with such infamous Mafia luminaries as Vito Genovese and Carmine Galante to name but a few.

Whether it’s true or not that he did inform, nobody will ever know for sure. But that was the label he got branded, and the penalty for being thought of as a snitch...Vinny Papa was only 59 years old.

Postscript: Papa’s son, and his two nephews all got deeply involved in narcotics dealing. His son Vinny Jr. was nabbed on the same drug indictment as Vinny.

Both nephews faired even worse. Gerard (Gerry) Papa and Michael (Mikey) Papa we’re each shot to death in separate incidents in the years following Papa’s own murder.

Mikey and his young, pregnant wife were killed in their Bayside, Queens home during a cowboy-style robbery of their drug stash.

And Gerry was shot to death at a Brooklyn luncheonette in a vendetta gangland-style execution by alleged Colombo Family killers.

There’s an old saying that “what goes around comes around”...it would seem that for the Papa family that held very true.

Until next time...”The Other Guy”

Vinny Papa on Mob Fireside Chat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5yU2_V6u1g

Vincent C. (Vinny) Papa Sr.

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Vincent C. (Vinny) Papa Sr.

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