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.
• 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

• The 51st State starring Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle.
• Bandits
• Blow starring Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Jordi Mollà, Cliff Curtis, Ethan Suplee and Ray Liotta
• The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy
• Corky Romano starring Chris Kattan, Chris Penn and Vincent Pastore.
• The Fast and the Furious
• Heist starring Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito.
• Knockaround Guys starring Barry Pepper, Seth Green, Vin Diesel and John Malkovich
• The Mexican starring Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Gene Hackman and James Gandolfini
• The Score
• Swordfish
• Training Day

  Births

Deaths

• February 21 - Alfred Embarrato "Uncle Al", Bonanno crime family Capo
• October 22 - Raffaele Quasarano, Detroit crime syndicate leader and associate of Frank Costello and Frank Coppola.