John Gambino

Giovanni "John" Gambino (August 22, 1940 – November 16, 2017) was an Italian-born American mobster.

They were Sicilian Mafiosi, men from Palermo, whose father had brought the family to New York in 1964.

Born in Palermo, Sicily, he became a made member of the Gambino crime family in 1975 and a capodecina or captain, and head of the crime family's Sicilian faction, appointed by family boss John Gotti in 1986, according to Mafia turncoat Sammy Gravano.

Together with his younger brothers Rosario (Sal) and Giuseppe (Joseph) he formed a faction in the crime family known as the Cherry Hill Gambinos for their base of operation in the New Jersey town of that name.

Although they were distant cousins of family boss Carlo Gambino, they did not owe him allegiance.

When Sindona got in trouble and was indicted for the bankruptcy of the Franklin National Bank, John Gambino procured a false passport and helped to stage a bogus kidnap in August 1979, to conceal a mysterious 11-week trip to Sicily before his scheduled fraud trial.

However, Sindona also had put the Mafia’s heroin money at risk, due to his financial malpractice.

The real purpose of the kidnapping was to issue sparsely disguised blackmail notes to Sindona’s past political allies – among them Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti – to engineer the rescue of his banks and recuperate Cosa Nostra’s money.

Gambino accompanied Sindona’s attempt to recover the money, but the plans failed and Sindona was arrested, leading to the indictment of the Inzerillo-Spatola-Gambino network.

It remains unclear if any of the Mafia money Sindona had lost was recovered.

Giovanni Falcone, the investigating magistrate who was assigned the heroin trafficking case in 1980, estimated that by the late 1970s the Inzerillo-Gambino-Spatola network was smuggling US$600 million worth of heroin into the US each year.

Gambino had close relationship with the Italian banker Michele Sindona.

They dined often and openly at the luxurious Hotel Pierre on Fifth Avenue or the Gambino’s Café Valentino.

Gambino was a frequent guest at New York dinner parties in Sindona’s honour.

Indicted in 1980 in relation with the heroin trafficking network, he was convicted and sentenced to six-and-a-half years jail sentence for heroin trafficking in Palermo (the sentence in absentia was confirmed by Italy’s Supreme Court in 1985).

However, Gambino remained free because the US did not agree with Italian requests for extradition.

The Inzerillo clan had been on the verge of total extermination by Totò Riina and the Corleonesi during the Second Mafia War in Sicily when in 1981 the family boss Salvatore Inzerillo was killed.

With the intervention of the Gambino crime family in New York, a deal was worked out that allowed the surviving Inzerillos to take refuge in the US, with the agreement that none of them, or their offspring, could ever return to Sicily.

Many went to the New York area and joined forces with the Gambino family.

They were dubbed "gli scappati" (the escapees).

Despite a ban on drug dealing, the Gambinos were heavily involved in international heroin trafficking out of Bensonhurst.

John Gambino was the converging point in the United States for a consortium of heroin traffickers of the Sicilian Mafia, composed of the Inzerillo family and Stefano Bontade, and the final destination for its shipments of heroin that was refined in laboratories in Sicily from Turkish morphine base.

His relative Salvatore Inzerillo was the Gambino brothers’ principal interlocutor, the central personage in Sicily, with a myriad of interests and heavy capital investments.

John and Joe Gambino were acquitted in a 1984 New Jersey drug case in which their brother, Rosario, was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

On December 1, 1988, Italian and US law enforcement cracked down on the Gambino-Inzerillo network again with Operation Iron Tower.

Italian and federal prosecutors indicted some 200 defendants in Italy and the US on drug trafficking charges.

Among the arrestees was Joe Gambino, the owner of Cafe Giardino.

A crowd of about 100 had gathered at the cafe to hear a newly arrived Italian singer.

Federal agents moved in as the entertainment ended with one agent coming to the mike and saying, in effect, "This is your last dance."

Some of the partygoers thought it was a joke and laughed, while a few tried to run but were caught.

John Gambino wasn't charged – the FBI couldn't gather enough evidence against him – but was described in the court affidavit as the current leader of the "Brooklyn-based Sicilian faction of the Gambino family."

The brothers were released after initial indictments in 1988 and 1989.

Due to testimonies of Mafia turncoats such as Sammy Gravano of the New York Gambino crime family and Francesco Marino Mannoia, an Italian pentito who had become a government witness, Joe and John Gambino and six other defendants – including Francesco Inzerillo – were indicted on charges that they smuggled and distributed drugs, operated a number of organized-crime enterprises and took part in the 1988 murder of Francesco Oliveri.

John Gambino was arrested on January 4, 1990.

He later was charged in a superseding indictment with narcotics and racketeering violations.

On January 5, 1990, he was released on a US$2 million personal recognizance bond signed by his wife Vittoria Gambino and his son Tommy Gambino.

However, the brothers failed to appear at their arraignment on September 1, 1992, at the Federal District Court in Manhattan, forfeiting US$5 million bail.

The Gambino brothers ran the Cafe Valentino on 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (later renamed as Cafe Giardino).

The Gambinos hailed from the Passo di Rigano neighbourhood in Palermo, just as the Inzerillo clan, headed by Salvatore Inzerillo.

Together the Inzerillo-Gambino Mafia clan formed a transatlantic Mafia family, based in Palermo and New York.