2001 in organized crime
Events
- April 5 – Bonanno crime family consigliere Anthony Spero was convicted of racketeering and ordering the murders of Louis Tuzzio, Paul Gulino and Vincent Bickelman. Spero had supervised a violent Bonanno crew out of a Bath Beach, Brooklyn social club for more than 20 years.
- April 12 – The Italian magazine L’Espresso puts Matteo Messina Denaro on the cover with the legend: Ecco il nuovo capo della mafia.
- August 3 – Members of the Albanian Rudaj Organization attack Greek associates of the Lucchese crime family at a social club in a conflict over controlling gambling rackets in Astoria, Queens, New York City.
- November – Giovanni Riina, Sicilian mafioso and son of Salvatore Riina, convicted of committing four murders in 1995.
- December 6 – The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York indicted members of the New Springville Boys gang from Staten Island, which prosecutors alleged was a mob farm team for the Bonanno and Colombo crime families. The crew was charged with burglarizing over 30 night-deposit boxes at banks across the country, netting $240,000, committing push-in robberies, loan sharking and money laundering. They were also charged with hijacking a truckload of marijuana worth over $1 million, and selling drugs in their neighborhood. Members included leader Lee D'Avanzo, Ned Bilali, Robert Catanese, Randy Gordon, Francis Costanzo, William "Big Billy" Fauci, Joseph "Fat Joe" Gambino, and Edward Shamah.
- Tadamasa Goto, the founding head of the Goto-gumi, a large affiliate of the largest known yakuza syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi, got a queue-jumping liver transplant at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles after giving a donation to the Center and getting a special visa deal from the FBI.
Arts and literature
Deaths