Metro

Lucchese crime family members busted in mob raid

A trio of Lucchese crime family associates infiltrated the city Department of Buildings, climbing to mid-level inspection jobs and pocketing tens of thousands of dollars a pop in bribes for years — even as they plied elsewhere their more underworld trades of guns, drugs and gambling, officials said today.

“They had developed a small beachead into this agency,” Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau said in announcing 29 arrests — most of them of accused Lucchese gangsters, including two of the organization’s top three men.

Lucchese “ruling panel” honchos Matthew Madonna and Joseph DiNapoli were the biggest trophies for the prosecutors, organized crime cops and city investigators who spent two years and conducted 64 phone taps and 54 search warrants in netting their prey.

But most startling among the arrests are the three accused mobster infiltrators, who somehow rose to supervisory positions in the scandal-plagued buildings department: brothers Frank Francomano and Carmine Francomano Jr. and Thomas Masucci.

“I’ll leave that for you to figure out,” Morgenthau said when asked how the three could possibly have been hired and allowed to flourish in the agency.

“This two-year joint investigation reminds us that the threat of traditional organized crime is not a thing of the past,” he said.

Also arrested were three accused bribe-taking buildings inspectors, some of whom had worked as inspectors for decades. It’s unclear, investigators said, if the three Lucchese-linked inspectors recruited the three non-gangster inspectors, or vice-versa, or whether they all just found each other on the job.

“Birds of a feather do flock together,” joked one investigator.

City Department of Investigation officials insisted that all 19 bribe-tainted residences, businesses and construction sites in Manhattan and the Bronx uncovered in the investigation have been re-inspected and are safe, even those where bribes were paid so inspectors would overlook violations.

The investigation began in New Jersey. Investigators with the Garden State’s Attorney General’s office were listening in on the phones of an alleged Lucchese-run, Internet-based sports gambling ring that authorities believe has netted $400 million for the crime family in the past two years. Prosecutors are now seeking to impound that money through civil forfeiture actions.

When information about New York-based mobsters and buildings inspectors started turning up on the New Jersey wiretaps, authorities there passed the information to New York, prosecutors said.

The New York investigation quickly “mushroomed,” said DA investigations chief Patrick Dugan. Soon, Dugan said, investigators were gathering intelligence about Lucchese narcotics dealing, loan-sharking and weapons trafficking.

So far, investigators have seized drugs, firearms, $430,000 in cash and boxes of gambling records. The 29 arrested are due to be arraigned this afternoon.