Mobster Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso was the Lucchese family underboss during the 1980s and killed up to 100 people before becoming a government informant.
Wikimedia CommonsAnthony Casso was sentenced to 455 year .
For a few year in the eighties , Anthony Casso was one of the most unpitying hitmen and Mafia underbosses New York City had ever visit . But his emanation in the social status of organised law-breaking correlated directly to his paranoia .
The Lucchese crime menage mobster did n’t care if he dishonor sacred Mafia code and killed civilians on the mere suspicion they were informants . In fact , there was nothing Anthony Casso hat more than informants .
Public DomainA surveillance image of Casso from the 1980s.
But after three class as a fugitive , he was arrest while stepping out of the cascade . And in 1993 , Casso admitted to kill at least 36 people he suspected of being informants and ordering the execution of 100 more . Then , he talk some more .
Casso had move up from the cobblestone streets of South Brooklyn on his merits as a sleuth who could kill anyone who spoke to the police . But he ended up as an informant himself , imprisoned in a supermax prison house in Arizona and sentenced to nearly 500 yr behind bar — before he break down of COVID-19 in 2020 .
Anthony Casso’s Rise In The Mafia
bear on May 21 , 1942 , in Brooklyn , New York , Anthony Cassogrew up on Union Street near the borough ’s waterfront . He drop his time shooting Bronx cheer off tenement house buildings and brownstones with a .22 - caliber rifle that he ’d rig with a silencer and getting into teenage scraps with his fledgling South Brooklyn Boys gang .
Public DomainA surveillance image of Casso from the 1980s .
His godfather had been a captain in the Genovese crime kinsfolk . His father had a criminal record for burglaries in the forties but also work frankly as a longshoreman , and he cheer Casso to bide out of that life . Instead , Casso admired his father ’s past — and named himself “ Gaspipe ” after his father ’s rumored favorite artillery .
Anthony Pescatore/NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagesThe aftermath of the car bomb intended to kill John Gotti.
Then , at age 21 , Casso was poached into the Lucchese crime sept . It was the third - largest Mafia outfit in the city behind the Gambino and Genovese family line . He began as a loan shark and bookmaking enforcer for Christopher Furnari at the Brooklyn wharf . His sinister sensory faculty of sense of humor revealed itself when a dock doer refer having newfangled shoe .
“ Gaspipe took over a forklift and dropped about 500 pounds of cargo on the guy rope ’s metrical foot and broke most of his toes , ” a detective say . “ Afterwards , he laughed and said he require to see how good the new boots were . ”
While he would be hold back five times between 1965 and 1977 on state and federal charges ranging from rape with a gun to heroin trafficking , all example ended in dismissals after informant refused to take the stand against him . So Casso rise in the ranks and formally became a made man in 1979 with fellow Lucchese gangster Vittorio Amuso .
60 Minutes/YouTubeCasso died of COVID-19 in 2020.
Together , they extorted building declarer and trucking companies for labor conglutination peace , trafficked drug , and ran play racket . With member of Furnari ’s “ 19th Hole Crew , ” they form a burglary ring comprise of safe - crackers shout “ The Bypass Gang ” — robbing about $ 100 million by the conclusion of the ’ 80s .
The Mob’s Most Ruthless Killer
In December 1985 , Gambino household captainJohn Gottiorganized a takeover against foreman Paul Castellano , kill him without approving from The Commission , which regularize such acts among New York’sFive Families .
Lucchese genus Bos Anthony Corallo and Genovese political boss Vincent Gigante were furious — and employ Anthony Casso to seek retribution .
Anthony Pescatore / NY Daily News Archive / Getty ImagesThe aftermath of the car dud intended to kill John Gotti .
With Gambino capo Daniel Marino as their inside human beings , Casso and Amusolearned of a meeting Gotti had setat the Veterans and Friends Club in Brooklyn on April 13 , 1986 . They had an unaffiliated gang fishing gear the Buick Electra of Gotti underbossFrank DeCiccowith explosives . When Gotti invalidate his attendance last minute , only DeCicco was killed .
Then , when Corallo was convicted of racketeering in November , he made Amuso the Bos of the Lucchese family . Amuso officially took charge when Corallo was sentenced to 100 yr in January 1987 . Casso was made consiglieri and felt more untouchable than ever . Anyone suspect of being an informant , Casso either personally killed or order a hit on .
And to stay informed himself , Casso hired NYPD officers Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa . For $ 4,000 per calendar month , they tip Casso off about snitches or come indictments — and would eventually murder a total of eight masses for Casso .
Meanwhile , the FBI began surveilling Casso as he spent $ 30,000 on suits and endure up $ 1,000 eatery bills .
By the sentence Casso was made underboss in 1990 , he waskilling mistrust informant across Harlem , the Bronx , and New Jersey — total at least 17 people by 1991 . And as Casso begin build a $ 1 million mansion in the Mill Basin region of Brooklyn , bodies kept turning up in garage and car trunks — or else disappearing altogether .
Then , in May 1990 , Casso ’s NYPD sources tipped him off about a racketeering bill of indictment by the Brooklyn Federal Court . In reply , both Casso and Amuso go on the run . A year later , Amuso was caught in Scranton , Pennsylvania . As underboss , Casso made Alfonso D’Arco playacting honcho , but Casso carry on to go things from the shadows .
Over the next two years , Casso ordered some two 12 rout hits while in concealment , even going so far as to order his designer killed when he kick about late defrayment for the Mill Basin mansion . Hetriedto have Peter Chiodo , a suspected informant and Lucchese captain , and his sister killed — but both miraculously survived .
How Anthony Casso Became An Informant
Alfonso D’Arco soon recognize that Casso was n’t seek to quell the ascent of informants . Instead , Casso was executing individuals with abandon . fear for the life of his children , he contacted the FBI and became a government witness . Meanwhile , Casso tried to have a Union prosecutor and judge kill in 1992 and 1993 , respectively .
60 Minutes / YouTubeCasso died of COVID-19 in 2020 .
“ All of the families are in a state of disintegration , and the instability allows people like Casso to become powerful build almost overnight , ” said Ronald Goldstock , director of the state Organized Crime Task Force .
“ He ’s not vivid ; he ’s a psychotic killer , ” said William Y. Doran , head of the FBI ’s New York Criminal Division . “ I ’ve been alarm and frustrated that it has taken us so long , but we ’ll get him . ”
Doran ’s foretelling came straight on Jan. 19 , 1993 , when federal agents arrested Casso as he was coming out of the shower at the home base of his fancy woman in Budd Lake , New Jersey . He pleaded hangdog to 72 criminal countsincluding14 gangland killings and racketeering charges in 1994 . But he wanted a plea spate , and he grass out number like NYPD officers Eppolito and Caracappa .
While that garner Anthony Casso a dapple in the Witness Protection Program even as he was serve time in federal prison , he was ejected after a serial of bribes and assault terminated the agreement in 1997 . In 1998 , a federal judge convicted him of racketeering , conspiracy to practice murder , slaying , graft , extortion , and tax evasion — sentencing Casso to 455 class .
In 2009 , Casso was name with prostate gland cancer whilelanguishingin the United States Penitentiary Tucson in Arizona .
By the time Anthony Casso was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Nov. 5 , 2020 , he was already wheelchair - tie down and plagued by issues with his lung . On Nov. 28 , 2020 , a judge rejected his asking for compassionate expiration , and Anthony Casso died on a ventilator on Dec. 15 , 2020 .
After learning about Anthony Casso , read aboutthe mortal Mafia hitmen in story . Then , learn aboutRichard Kuklinski , the most prolific Mafia gunslinger of all time .
