Thursday 22 September 2022 12:35 AM FBI files reveal how Mafia capo Frank Cali dodged arrest for DECADES trends now
A trove of FBI files reveal how former Mafia boss Frank Cali dodged arrest for decades as he rose in the ranks of the Gambino crime family.
The series of heavily-redacted files obtained by the New York Post tell how Cali ascended from a mere foot soldier for the crime syndicate, funding the operation through phone card scams, to the don, owning a multi-million dollar real estate empire.
Officials had referred to him throughout the years as a 'ghost' who kept a low-profile to avoid federal prosecution even as FBI agents tailed him for years.
Cali was only arrested once, in 2008, and served just 16 months in prison before returning to the crime family and becoming its kingpin.
By the time he was shot dead at the age of 53 by a QAnon madman outside his redbrick house in the upmarket Todt Hill neighborhood of Staten Island, Cali had developed a real estate empire.
A law enforcement official told the New York Times in the aftermath that 'Franky Boy' Cali was the complete opposite of flashy, former Gambino boss John 'Dapper Don' Gotti.
'He's basically a ghost,' the official said at the time.
A series of heavily-redacted FBI documents reveal how Frank Cali dodged arrest for decades as he rose in the ranks of the Gambino crime family
By the time he was shot dead in 2019, Cali had substantial real estate holdings in the Dominican Republic and owned a business that imported tomato sauce, olive oil and mineral water. Police are seen here investigating his Staten Island mansion after he was found shot dead on March 13, 2019
Cali started out in a crew under a rising captain, John D'Amico, or 'Jackie the Nose, who became the acting boss of the family in 2005, the Times reports.
He first fell on the FBI's radar in the spring of 1996, when he was around 30 years old, for helping lead a phone card fraud scheme for the Gambino crime family from a Park Avenue office building, according to the Post.
By that November, FBI agents in New York had concluded several Gambinos were involved in the 'production and distribution of telephone travel cards' and that they committed a number of federal crimes as part of the scheme — including money laundering, income tax violations, mail fraud and wire fraud.
'It goes without saying that the telephone card industry is one of the most important sources of illegal income for the Gambino LCN family,' one agent wrote in a report.
As part of the scheme, Cali, along with D'Amico and Joseph Watts, allegedly created a company called CNC to distribute phone cards, selling them on the street at 'the best price per country and offering the best discount to the distributors.'
The charges on the cards would then be billed to Georgia-based Worldcom.
The FBI agents estimated that the scheme cost the telephone company $94 million by October 1997, when agents in New York first contacted their counterparts in Atlanta about the 'bust-out' scheme.
According to one of the documents obtained by the Post, one member of the crime family 'paid Worldcom only a small percentage of his outstanding balance throughout the 10-month scheme.
'Gambino members such as [redacted] Frank Cali and others lined their pockets with millions in cash,' it continued.
The report added that in the beginning, 'CNC paid their debt and was considered trustworthy by Worldcom. However, CNC did not continue to pay their debt.'
Cali started off working phone scams for the Gambino crime family, eventually rising in the ranks to become the don and using his influence to build a real estate empire
Cali started out in a crew under a rising captain, John D'Amico, or 'Jackie the Nose, who became the acting boss of the family in 2005, the Times reports
At the time, feds listed Cali as just a 'proposed soldier' for the crime family, believing he had not yet taken a blood oath of loyalty.
But from there, the Post reports, agents became increasingly interested in Cali's whereabouts, tailing him in Brooklyn and photographing him with associates as they also interviewed confidential sources about him.
In one October 1997 report, an agent wrote that he was doing a 'spot check on 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst, recording that Cali was walking with an unidentified man before entering the Point After Sports Bar and Grill.
And by July, another agent created a report entitle Surveillance of Frank Cali on 18th
