Top Russian Bosses

(From left to right)- Gafur Rakhimov, Semion "Seva" Mogilevich, Sergei "Mikhas" Mikhailov, and Avera Bitya.

Richard Francis Cottingham - The torso killer

Richard Cottingham,74, is a serial killer from New Jersey, active in New York between 1967 and 1980. He was nicknamed The Torso Killer due to his habit of dismembering his victims with surgical precision, usually leaving nothing but a headless torso behind. He pleaded guilty to two 1974 murders, closing the cold case deaths of 2 teenage girls. Officially convicted of 11 murders, his real toll is unknown.

He was arrested in 1980 when a motel maid heard a woman screaming inside his room. Authorities found her alive, but bound with handcuffs and suffering from bite marks and knife wounds.

The real Donnie Brasco

Donnie Brasco is a 1997 American crime drama film starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. The film is based on the true story of Joseph D. Pistone (Depp), an FBI undercover agent who infiltrated the Bonanno crime family in New York during the 1970s, under the alias Donnie Brasco.

In September 1976 Joe Pistone walked out of the FBI office and did not return for the next six years. The FBI erased Pistone's history. Officially, he never existed. Pistone became an associate in Jilly Greca's crew from the Colombo family. He later moved to the Bonanno family and became close to Anthony Mirra and Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano. He was tutored by Bonanno soldier Benjamin "Lefty Guns" Ruggiero.

The evidence collected by Pistone led to over 200 indictments and over 100 convictions of Mafia members.

After Pistone had spent six years undercover, he was ordered to end his operation. After Pistone departed, FBI agents informed Napolitano and Ruggiero that their associate was an FBI agent. Shortly after Napolitano was murdered for having allowed an FBI agent to infiltrate the family; he was shot dead and his hands were cut off. Anthony Mirra, who initially brought Pistone to the family, was also killed. Ruggiero was to be killed as well, but was arrested by the FBI while on his way to a meeting in order to prevent his murder. The Mafia put out a $500k contract on Pistone and kicked the Bonanno family off the Commission. FBI agents visited Mafia bosses in New York and told them not to bother with the contract. It was dropped by Paul Castellano who headed the Commission.

Benjamin Ruggiero died of lung cancer at the age of 68 in 1994. Ruggiero murdered 26 people. He refused to break omertà.

Anthony Mirra Dominick Napolitano A judge rejected Bonanno associate Ronald (Monkey Man) Filocomo’s bid for compassionate release from prison. Filocomo admitted killing capo Dominick (Sonny Black) Napolitano in 1981. He was sentenced to 20 years in 2004.

Mobster Sonny Black.

Pistone is now 81. “There are certain rules … one of the rules is that you don’t embarrass a made guy in front of other people, you do not put your hands on a made guy,” Pistone said. “Breaking these two rules will get you killed.” But it’s grifting … that’s why these guys get killed… more guys get killed after a big score because of greed.”

“You have to kick up to the capo then up to the top. If your score is $1 million and the capo wants $700,000 there’s nothing you can do about it.” He added: “And if they find out you’re holding back, you’re going to get killed.

Tao Liu - Cartel money launderer

Hong Kong businessman Tao Liu helped launder millions of cartel drug money, including for the Sinaloa Cartel. He awaits sentencing for that and trying to bribe a public official to get passports. Liu lived in Hong Kong but frequently traveled to the U.S. and Mexico. He was scooped up like a dog in Guam.

Liu, who boasted of his GOP connections, pleaded guilty.

Xizhi Li, 45, who lived in Mexico, played a pivotal role. He had direct connections to El Chapo. In 2018, cops in Miami seized more than $617k from a bank account of Xizhi Li, using the name "Franco Ley Tan," one of his 13 aliases. Chinese have set up elaborate networks to carry out money laundering schemes. The network hid drug money in casinos, Guatemala front companies, and through U.S. and foreign bank accounts. The group also used drug profits to buy American and Chinese goods, which are sent to cartels in Mexico for resale. The men face 20 years in jail.

Mexican cartel cocaine trafficker 'La Muñeca'

In 2019 Ana Marie Hernandez, 41, was sentenced to 11 years. She was nicknamed "La Muñeca" because of her Barbie-doll looks.

Hernandez is in federal custody in El Paso.

'La Muñeca' was extradited to the US after being on the run for two years. Hernandez is the wife of former U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent Daniel Ledezma. He plead guilty to conspiracy to import a controlled substance and aiding and abetting the bribery of a public official.

Ledezma is serving a 10-year prison sentence for allowing hundreds of kilos of cocaine into the U.S. border in 2005 after he was paid $100k. Hernandez was implicated in the cartel bribery scheme and charged. She was set for sentencing in 2011, but fled to Mexico before being captured again in 2015.

Larry Eyler - The Highway Killer

Human remains found at a northwestern Indiana farm have been identified as a victim of the late serial killer Larry Eyler. John Ingram Brandenburg, Jr. of Chicago was among four young men found on an abandoned farm on October 18, 1983. Two others, Michael Bauer and John Bartlett, were identified, leaving one victim still nameless. Eyler confessed to at least 21 killings before dying in an Illinois prison in 1994 from AIDS. He was on death row for the 1984 murder of Danny Bridges, a 15-year-old.

Victim Daniel Dewey “was bound alive with [an] elaborate rigging. Knotted ropes lashed him wrist-to-wrist, ankle-to-ankle, wrists-to-ankle. Another cord was wrapped around his neck to his feet. The more the victim squirmed to break free, the tighter the ropes constricted his breathing until he was asphyxiated.” For 29 years his headstone read simply: “Unidentified Homicide Victim.”

Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch

On-the-run Dublin gangster Gerry Hutch would be killed by enemies or arrested if he was spotted in Ireland. Five years ago the Hutch gang stormed a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel to murder rival Daniel Kinahan. Hutch is officially wanted for the murder of David Byrne. Hutch in disguise leaving the funeral for his brother Eddie.

The gunmen failed to kill their main target as Kinahan and his top henchmen escaped through a back door. The Monk fled Ireland weeks after. The event would become a pivotal episode in the Hutch-Kinahan war and sparked a wave of retaliatory murders. A cycle of bloodshed resulted in 14 murders over the next two years.

Drug trafficker David Byrne was shot dead.

Daniel Kinahan reinvented himself from drug kingpin to boxing promoter and has suggested he will never return to Ireland from his bolthole in Dubai. The 43-year-old issued a lengthy statement in which he claims to be “a legitimate and respected businessman” Gardai believe Hutch has been lying low in Spain, Portugal and Turkey. Every law enforcement agency in Europe is now aware he’s a wanted man so he’s under serious pressure. The veteran criminal has a €1m bounty on his head by the Kinahan cartel.

Michael Roberto out and about

Notorious Calgary killer Michael Roberto has regained his liberty. The man who admitted being a part of multiple gang killings is now a free citizen. Roberto was originally convicted of three counts of first-degree murder in the New Year’s Day 2009 shootings at the Bolsa Restaurant. Rival gangsters Sanjeev Mann was killed along with Aaron Bendle and bystander Keni S’ua. Roberto eventually pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to commit murder, discharging a restricted firearm with intent and commission of offence for a criminal organization.

Prosecutors called it a “deal with the devil”. In a videotaped interview with cops, Roberto talked about his killings. “Five, and four of them were because of the war that I was involved in because I lost friends,” he said. “One was having to do business. Towards the end, I wasn’t even really about business or making money. It was always to get revenge because I lost people, I lost friends, and I knew they were coming after me so I wanted to get them first.”

Ylli Didani torpedoed

Albanian Ylli Didani, 43, was indicted on a drug conspiracy charge in Detroit. Along with the late Marty Tibbitts, the men were building a submarine designed to store cocaine and attach itself via magnets to the hull of cargo ships crisscrossing the Atlantic. Their prototype submarine was called "The Torpedo." Tibbitts was portrayed as the drug ring's financier, bankrolling the purchase of cocaine.

Tibbitts' death in a vintage plane crash forced co-conspirators to abandon submarine plans. The drug ring was torpedoed in 2019 as cops seized more than 3,400 kg of cocaine worth more than $100m in a banana shipment in the Netherlands.

Todd Gouwenberg whacked

Todd Gouwenberg was gunned down outside the Langley Sportsplex. He was a former MMA fighter with long ties to Lower Mainland gangs, including the HA.

Cops noted Gouwenberg’s 20-year history in organized crime in B.C.

Gouwenberg’s execution is the Lower Mainland’s third in four days. Gouwenberg was related to the UN gang and its ongoing conflict with rivals from the Red Scorpion/Kang group and the Brothers Keepers.