NEW YORK –Thirty mobbed-up suspects – including a ringleader known as “Papa Smurf” – were arrested Wednesday in a probe of the garbage-hauling industry, authorities said.

The purported wise guys – members of the Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese organized crime families – were busted in a federal racketeering investigation, officials said.

The suspects were due in Manhattan Federal Court later Wednesday. Two additional suspects are expected to surrender.

Read full story

Tony Zerilli/ from WDIV video

For decades now we’ve heard of endless tips about the whereabouts of Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa, who vanished in 1975: a stadium, a freeway, an incinerator. And most recently, a driveway in Roseville.

Now comes the latest.

WDIV aired an exclusive interview Sunday night with the Tony Zerilli, 85, described in the past as the Detroit Mafia’s underboss.

Zerilli claims he knows what happened to Hoffa and where he’s buried: About 30 miles away from the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills where he was abducted on July 30, 1975.

 For more click here.

Steve Neavling

An unlikely alliance between gangsters and the mafia was discovered by the FBI during an investigation of a loan-sharking ring, the New York Post reports.

The newspaper wrote that the Brooklyn-based FBI arrested purported Gambino crime family member James Ferrara, alleged Westies gang member Daniel Hanley and reputed Demon Knights motorcycle gangster Peter Kanakis.

The FBI says the trifecta were running a menacing, illegal outfit.

“Allegedly members of three different organized crime enterprises, these defendants nevertheless banded together and spoke the same language of violence, threats and intimidation to their victims. Such tactics will always be met with the full force of the law,” US Attorney Loretta Lynch said.

STORIES OF OTHER INTEREST

• Congressman Rogers Loses Bid to Become Chairman of House Homeland Security Committee
• Homeland Security to Use Underwater Drones Based on Fish
• New Border Patrol Station in Arizona Set for Grand Opening
• FBI Worries Most Wanted Man Is Hiding in Mormon Community
• Federal Judge: Undercover FBI Operatives to Remain Anonymous During Terror Trial

The Movie "Donnie Brasco"

Former FBI Agent Joseph Pistone, better known by his alias Donnie Brasco, told a commission in Canada that the mafia is a menacing “plague on our society,” the Montreal Gazette reports.

During the highly anticipating testimony, Pistone said the structures and traditions of the mafia are identical around the globe.

“That’s why the Mafia has survived so long, because they have stayed the same as far as their rules and regulations,” Pistone testified. “They keep their members in line by fear and intimidation. If you get caught breaking one of these rules, you’re gonna die.”

Pistone, who is wanted dead by the mafia, was shielded from cameras and protected by enhanced security, reported.

Pistone sought to erase the public’s romanticized image of the mafia, saying the mob is deadly and disruptive.

Joseph Pistone

Mafia expert and former undercover FBI agent Joseph Pistone, better known as Donnie Brasco, is expected to share knowledge of the criminal underworld to Montreal officials as early as Monday, the Montreal Gazette reports.

Pistone is known for bringing down members of two of New York City’s most notorious mobs – the Bonanno and Colombo crime families – by earning their trust during a six-year sting operation in the late 1970s.

But don’t expect Pistone to reveal much about the mafia in Canada, the Montreal Gazette reported.

According to an author who has spoken with Pistone, the former agent doesn’t have specific information on the mafia in Montreal.

Steve Neavling

 Accused mobster Joseph “Mousie” Massimino is suspected of conducting Mafia business from behind closed bars, the Philadelphia Daily News reports.

Among the evidence is a letter that Massimino sent to a friend in 2005 while locked up in New Jersey’s South Woods State Prison.

The letter advises a friend to “get in touch with Michael and tell him to tell his mother to tell her husband that he better get my f—in money.”

Federal prosecutors plan to argue their case at an upcoming mob-racketeering trial.

Massimino’s attorney, Joseph Santaguida, hopes to convince a judge to keep the letter from the jury.