The top mobsters busted in Thursday’s Gambino takedown are savvy wiseguys who aren’t about to give up their power – even if they go to jail.
So says famed Gambino-buster Bruce Mouw, the former FBI supervisor who for 18 years tormented the family by wiretapping their talks and turning made men into rats.
“These guys aren’t going anywhere,” he said of John “Jackie Nose” D’Amico and other high-level hoods.
“You’ve still got D’Amico as acting boss. He’s still going to run the family. They’ve got to keep the money flowing. Nothing’s going to change.
“They’re all experienced guys,” Mouw said.
Of the busted gangsters, “Jackie the Nose . . . is probably the most senior. Here’s a guy who was John Gotti’s driver. He’s a smart guy, got a great personality.”
D’Amico tried to keep a low profile and hated that outsiders knew his nickname, Mouw said.
“During the Gotti trial, one of the agents was testifying about some surveillance tapes . . . and Jackie gets really mad and goes out of the courtroom, and he says, ‘Mr. Mouw, Mr. Mouw, why do they call me The Nose’? ”
One of the indicted Gambinos, Nicholas “Little Nick” Corozzo, managed to bolt his home before he could be hauled in. He’s now a wanted fugitive.
“The other sharp guy is Nicky Corozzo,” Mouw said. “He’s a prolific moneymaker. Shrewd, shrewd, tough little guy.”
“He was famous for what you call sneak hits. A sneak hit is when somebody kills somebody where it’s not sanctioned by the family. They’d ask, ‘What happened?’ [He’d say,] ‘Don’t know nothing.’ ”
Had it not been for turncoat Joseph Vallaro, a trusted Gambino associate who secretly wore a wire for the feds for more than two years, the family’s top bosses might never have been nailed, Mouw said.
The lawman said reports of the Gambinos’ death are greatly exaggerated.
He should know – the ex-G-man lives just a mile from John “Junior” Gotti. The mob scion’s manse in Oyster Bay is one town away, and Mouw ran the FBI’s Gambino Squad from 1980 to 1998.
He believes Junior is still involved in the family business – and that the top mobsters arrested on Thursday are making plans to run the family business from jail.
Despite the hit on its hierarchy and the gradual loss of most of the family’s crooked construction-industry income, the Gambinos continue to rake in big bucks from extensive bookmaking and loan-sharking operations, Mouw said.
“If [prosecutors] get convictions, this will take out the next generation of captains and bosses – the D’Amicos, the Corozzos, and that’s a lot of experience, a lot of talent and history.
“But people are still going to gamble. They’re still going to take loans. And even if these guys don’t get out of jail, they can run their business from the can.”