ANTHONY `GASPIPE` CASSO

Casso was born in 1940, like his father before him, Casso had always yearned to become a soldier within a Mafia family. In 1961, when Casso was just starting out, he became associated with a guy known as "Christy Tick", otherwise known as Chris Furnari, who was a made guy in the Lucchese family.

In 1962 Casso had his first brush with the law, when he was picked up for running a bookmaking operation on the docks, he was fined $50 and served just 5 days in jail. During the next 10 years Casso would begin his rise in the Lucchese family and would be arrested several more times in doing so. Charges such as assault, bank robbery, dealing in heroin, bribing state parole officers and selling stolen properties, were usually met with acquittals or thrown out for lack of evidence.

In the early 1970's Casso met Vic Amuso, the 2 would become very close friends and would one day run the entire Lucchese family. Casso had by now developed a fearsome reputation; some say he was quite psychotic, with an explosive temper. In 1974 Casso became a fully fledged made man in the Lucchese crime family and from here he really began to make great waves in the underworld and became one of the family's biggest earners. Casso set up what became known as the bypass gang, a gang of top class thieves who could bypass any alarm system around, even the most sophisticated of systems. He employed some of the best safecrackers and electronic experts in the world and stole millions of dollars in cash and jewellery. In no less than 5 years the gang had stolen around $100 million, and Casso had become a man who could earn and was therefore getting noticed by some of the top men within the family.

Casso also went into business with some Russian émigré's who were earning large sums of cash by ripping of the government thanks to a gasoline tax scam, due to a small loophole in the law that made it possible. Mara Balagula was one of the early Russian Mafia leaders in New York and needed Cassos help when a rival Russian mobster threatened him. The Russians had set up a daisy chain of gasoline wholesalers, the Russians made money by selling the gasoline to a retailer who paid the 7.1% of the tax to the wholesaler who then disappeared with the money. This was a very lucrative scam and Balagula needed Cassos help when Vladimir Reznikov tried to take over his business by holding a gun to his head. Casso solved Balagulas problem by shooting Reznikov dead, and in turn Balagula brought Casso into the gasoline scam giving Casso the opportunity to earn even more money.

By the time 1986 rolled by Casso had become one of the Lucchese family's top earners and with the friendship of another of the family's top earners Vic Amuso firmly cemented, the future looked good for Casso. In 1986 the legendary Lucchese godfather Tony Corallo was sent away in the Commission case, this left the family without a guidance, under Corallo the family had enjoyed its most fruitful years, but with him gone it was down hill for the family as none of the top contenders for the number one spot were anywhere as savy as Corallo, after weeks of deliberating the family's masses agreed that it would be the turn of Vic Amuso. Amuso immediately made Casso his consiglieri, and by 1989 he rewarded his friendship further by appointing him underboss.

Although everything looked rosy to begin with it would only be a matter of time until the two men began to cause serious unrest within the family thanks largely to their greed. They began demanding more and more of the family's profits and shared less out to the others. This bred resentment within the family and they were detested by many of their underlings.

Casso and Amuso had become victim to their own power trip. Their unnecessary slaughter of good soldiers meant that they had to go on the run from the feds, the first boss and underboss ever to do so. They also became the first leaders of a Cosa Nostra family ever to appear on the FBI's most wanted program.

In 1992 Casso was finally apprehended in New Jersey. The feds took him in and debriefed him and he stunned the authorities by letting them know he was ready to turn stool pigeon in order to cut down his inevitable lengthy prison term. Casso sang chapter and verse about everything he had ever done in the Lucchese crime family and buried a lot of people with his evidence. However the FBI had their reservations about some of the information that he had given them and after some research the FBI found that Casso was not telling the truth about certain aspects of his statement. The Feds learned that whoever Casso didn't like from other crime families he would make up something to implicate them in an attempt to take them down. But the Feds grew wise to this and told Casso he was full of shit. This went against Casso in the long term, as Casso was no longer deemed fit to stand on a witness stand to deliver quality testimony.

Even though Casso had tried to cooperate with the government he was still given a life sentence for his 49 murders that he took part in, not to mention the various other crimes that he had committed. He should have kept his mouth shut because he would have faced a life behind bars anyway, at least then he might have had some self respect left.

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