Mafia and NYPD — Dee Ferdinand’s Testimony

by Rodney Stich

Editor’s Note: Rodney Stich Was a Pilot in World War II, the became an investigator for the Federal Aviation Agency, and later a major whistle blower about corruption.  He is the author of many books. This article is taken from his book “America’s Corrupt War on Drugs – and the People.”

Dee Ferdinand — Daughter of Mafia-CIA Insider   

Another source whose information dovetailed with Taus‘ information was the daughter of a Mafia-CIA figure. She provided me additional information about some of the crime figures Taus described. Dee Ferdinand, the daughter of Albert Carone, described the bizarre and complex relationships between her father, the Mafia, and the CIA. Al Carone was a member of the Gambino family and had connections to other crime groups in the eastern United States. He was also a detective on the New York City vice squad, a member of the military, and a CIA operative.

Dee said that her father was in the OSS during World War II (the predecessor to the CIA), working in military intelligence (CIC). After the war, he returned to New York, continued his relationship with the Mafia families, and also became a member of the New York Air National Guard, 27th brigade of the 42nd Infantry division. His earlier army rank was Sergeant, which eventually was raised to the rank of Colonel when he died in 1991. He is buried in the national cemetery at Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Carone was a white-shield detective in the 42nd and 81st precincts while working with the New York City police department. He took frequent leaves of three or four months at a time to carry out operations for the CIA, using military cover. His connections with the NYPD ended in 1966, after which he concentrated on Mafia related activities with the CIA.

Activities With Sicilian and American Mafia

Dee described some of the Mafia‘s meeting places and front-operations. She referred to a restaurant and catering place in New Jersey called “The Tides” and the “Riviera Club” in the Bronx. She said Cosmo Fish and Shrimp Company in Nevada had connections to organized crime.

She described some of the drug trafficking names that she heard in her home, including Shavey Lee’s in Chinatown, New York, where her father frequently visited. Dee said that Shavey Lee had drug connections in Hong Kong. She described the relationship between the Sicilian and American Mafia, and how the Sicilian Mafia first got started working with the CIA during World War II. She said that it was the Sicilian Mafia in Italy that controlled the American Mafia. She describe how Vito Genovese kind of adopted her father when her father was growing up in Brooklyn, and that relationship eventually got him into key positions within the Mafia families. Her father called Genovese, Uncle Vito.

JFK Assassination Ties

Referring to what her father and Marita Lorenz had told her (Marita Lorenz worked for the CIA. She was a girl friend to Fidel Castro and bore a son from their romantic relationship. She played a little-publicized role in the JFK assassina­tion), Dee said:

My father knew Frank Fiorini, the alias for Frank Sturgis. One and the same person. Frank Fiorini was there also [Dallas]. Jack Ruby was the payoff man involved with the JFK assassination. Marita had given me information about traveling by car with three Mafia-CIA figures from New Orleans to Dallas, arriving in Dallas the day before the assassination, and facts that strongly implicate this group with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Dual CIA-Mafia Ties

Dee described her father’s concurrent relationship with the Mafia, the New York City police department, and the CIA. Key points that she described were confirmed by independent sources, including Jim Rothstein of the New York Police Department and CIA operatives Gunther Russbache­r and Oswald LeWinte­r. She filled in missing Mafia and CIA links that FBI Special Agent Richard Taus had suspected during his FBI investigations.

Having grown up in a Mafia family and being friends with top Mafia bosses, Dee was very helpful in explaining the complex relationship between the Mafia and the CIA. She explained details of her father’s activities as a CIA paymaster, moving money to and from the Mafia families in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the CIA, the Mossad‘s involvement, and payoffs to the New York City police department.

Comparing Notes Between FBI and Mafia Families

Taus had given me a list of some of the Mafia figures that he investigated, and I asked Dee what she knew about them. She said that some of the people were her family. For example, she said, “Angelo Ruggiero was my father’s cousin.” Neil Dellacroce was related to her father. Referring to Joe Percillia by his alias, Joe Pickle, Dee said that he was with the Genovese family and the Gambino family as they merged. He was also with the Colombo family.

Dee said that her father’s primary connections were originally with the Genovese and then with the Gambino family, and also the Colombo family through Joe Percillia. She said her father also had lesser connections to other Mafia groups.

Growing Up in a Mafia Family

Dee described life growing up in a Mafia family, explaining:

You have to understand when I was growing up, there was no such thing as organized crime being spoken. It was a way of life with certain people in your home, or you were in their home, or whatever. You didn’t know what these people did. Everybody’s dad was like everybody else. They went to work every day and that’s it. 

Would they talk about killing people? No. Nothing seemed dysfunctional. It was just a family. You didn’t think anything odd. What you saw in your home and how you were treated by these people was not how they were on the outside. You didn’t think about it. You didn’t know what these people did. It came out after a while as you got older. You wouldn’t talk about something like that. What is spoken in the home never goes beyond the home.

Referring to Santos Trafficante, Dee said, “He was a good friend of my dad. He was at my wedding. Uncle Sonny. That’s what I called him.” Referring to Sam Giancana, she said, “Giancana was a good friend of my dad.”

Drugs and the New York Police Department

Dee said her father was a detective and “bag man” in the New York City police department, collecting money that was distributed to captains and inspectors as payoffs for “looking the other way” where drugs were involved. Dee explained that her father, while a plain-clothes detective in the New York City police vice squad, paid money to the captains and inspectors of different precincts, and paid off mob figures. Referring to Inspectors Jack Lustig and Vince Nardiello, Dee said, “They were involved in the payoffs, and these are the people my father worked with.”

CIA Paymaster

“My father was not only part of organized crime, but also a CIA paymaster.” When I asked where that money came from, she replied, “The monies always came from the agency or the mob, in cash.” When I asked what crime families were paid off, she said, “All the families.”

Mob Boss Castellano As Frequent Breakfast Guest

She described how Paul Castellano, the boss of the New York crime families, was a frequent breakfast visitor at her home, and how she knew him as Uncle Paul. (Castellano was later murdered on orders of John Gotti.) Dee explained that Castellano was a brother-in-law to the former mob boss, Paul Gambino, and got the job because his wife was Gambino‘s sister.

Assassins For the CIA

Dee described how the Mafia handled assassinations in the United States that were requested by CIA personnel, explaining, “When the Agency needed people assassinated in the United States, the mob was used.” (The CIA does its own assassinations overseas. Deep-cover operatives Gunther Russbacher and Russell Bowen had reluctantly described their role in assassinations many years earlier.)

Drug Deals Between the Mafia, CIA, and Mossad­ 

Dee said that her father started in drug trafficking in the Vietnam days, for the CIA and the Mafia. Explaining other aspects of the Mafia’s drug dealings, Dee said, “Sam Giancana did a lot of drug deals with the Agency.” She added that organized crime and the CIA had regular drug dealings with Noriega and the Mossad, and that former Mossad operative Michael Harari was routinely involved. “A lot of this money was split with the Mossad and the Agency. They had to use the mob; there isn’t too much difference between the CIA and the mob. They worked together.”

Frequent Contacts With CIA Agent Shackley­ 

Dee described the frequent contacts that her father had with CIA agent Theodore Shackley relating to drug trafficking. (Several CIA operatives described Shackley’s drug involvement to me over the past ten years.) Dee described how she called Shackley several years ago, demanding that her father’s grave marker be changed, showing him as colonel instead of staff sergeant. (Sergeant was Carone’s permanent military status and colonel was his temporary commission status.) Within two weeks, the marker was replaced, showing his rank as Colonel.

Operation Amadeus: Joint CIA-Mafia Drug Smuggling Operation

Referring to the CIA-Mafia drug trafficking, she said she knew from what her father said that the drugs coming from South America went to the Colombo, Genovese, and Gambino families, and that it was a joint CIA-Mafia drug operation under the code name Operation Amadeus. She said that during World War II, Operation Amadeus was involved in transporting Nazi officers from Germany into South American countries. According to her father’s notes, Operation Amadeus split into several other operations, including Operation Sunrise and Operation Watchtower.

CIA-Mafia Drug Money Trail

Repeating what she learned from her father, Dee said part of the money trail went through a bank in England, to the Bahamas, Bank of Zurich in Switzerland, among others. She said her father carried cash between Mafia figures and the CIA.

Targeting the Blacks in Harlem

I told Dee what Rothstein had told me about CIA drug sales to the blacks in Harlem, and Dee gave me another side of that operation. She confirmed that the CIA and the Mafia did target the blacks in Harlem for drug consumption, adding:

In Harlem, the blacks, definitely. It was their [CIA-Mafia] mainstay. That’s how their money came, but it backfired on them. They really didn’t think it would get into the white communities as much as it did. They targeted blacks and Puerto Ricans. My father was always saying, “Who gives a shit about the niggers!”

Dee told me about calling Congresswoman Maxine Waters‘ office and explaining who she was and about the drug trafficking, including the targeting of the blacks, and the lack of interest shown by Waters’ staff. That reflects similar lack of interest shown by Waters’ office when some of my drug trafficking sources also volunteered information about their CIA-DEA drug trafficking knowledge.

False Sexual Charges

Dee explained how internal politics within the NYPD resulted in her father being falsely charged with child-molestation offenses, causing him to be sent to the psychiatric unit of South Oaks Hospital. He was then given a choice of retiring or being prosecuted. “My father wound up with a full pension. Charges were dropped. This is how they set them up.” Other CIA operatives, including long-time CIA veteran Gunther Russbacher, had told me years earlier about the CIA’s use of pornographic and prostitution services used to get incriminating evidence on key political figures for blackmail purposes.

“I’m not long for this world; it’s over­.”

After being ousted from the New York City police department, Carone moved his family to New Mexico (August 1980). He continued his military and CIA connections, traveling frequently to various military bases, including Kirkland Air Force Base, Fort Bliss (El Paso), and others. Eventually Carone fell out of favor with the CIA. Following a trip made to Mexico in 1984, Carone told Dee that he “wasn’t long for this world; it’s over.” Dee said her father felt the CIA had poisoned him, which prompted him to start revealing other CIA-Mafia secrets to her, asking that she eventually make the information known. Before his death, Carone was diagnosed with chemical toxicity of unknown ideology by doctors who sought to determine the cause of his medical symptoms.

Oliver North‘s Involvement with CIA-Mafia Activities

Dee described how her father made frequent reference to a John Cathey and his contacts with Cathey involving drug trafficking activities in the Contra operation. Cathey was the alias frequently used by Oliver North.

Input from CIA Operative Gunther Russ­bacher 

Because of Gunther Russbacher‘s varied CIA background and dealings with organized crime families, I called him in England and asked if he knew Al Carone. He did, and started giving me additional information, including the fact that Carone was known as “Big Al,” and that one of his aliases with the Chicago mob was “Pincheron. ” Russbach­er said that Carone was working with the Delente and Bufalino crime groups.

Input from CIA Operative Oswald LeWinter­ 

Oswald LeWinter, another long-time CIA operative with whom I had been in contact for years, said he also knew Carone. During that conversation, LeWinter told me that in the Pizza Connection cases, Justice Department prosecutors filed charges against certain Mafia figures such as Gaetano “Don Tanino” Badalamenti, while protecting higher figures in the drug trafficking organization. This coincided with what Taus had told me. LeWinter described how Tomasso Buscetta, the mob witness used by Justice Department prosecutors in the Pizza Connection cases, was a CIA operative who would testify, and who would cover up, as desired by government prosecutors. LeWinter said that New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato was heavily involved with the Mafia.

Much more about Taus in other books.

[An excerpt from Rodney Stich’s book, about Richard Taus, will appear soon on Gumshoe.]