Pubdate: Sun, 27 May 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Alan Feuer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: IN DRUG CASE, A CHIP OFF THE OLD BULL

Gerard Gravano's tattoo is large, but it is not terribly original.

The image of the bull inked onto the right side of his stomach is a 
reference to his father, Salvatore, the Gambino family hit man better 
known as Sammy the Bull. Mr. Gravano, however, did not come up with 
the design himself. Federal drug agents said it was a perfect replica 
of the advertising logo for Merrill Lynch.

The discussion of Mr. Gravano's body art came up in conversation last 
week in Federal District Court in Brooklyn just days before Mr. 
Gravano pleaded guilty to helping his father run a 
multimillion-dollar drug ring. Although the federal penal system has 
kept father and son apart for several months, they were standing side 
by side in court on Friday when both admitted to buying thousands of 
Ecstasy tablets in Brooklyn and selling them in bars and clubs in 
Arizona, where they lived.

The government has said that the elder Mr. Gravano was somewhat 
miffed when he learned in 1998 that Gerard had sent nearly two pounds 
of marijuana by mail from Tempe, Ariz., to Bayside, Queens. But once 
Gerard was arrested for the drug deal, Salvatore decided to supervise 
his son's drug activities in order to "make them more successful and 
less likely to be detected by law enforcement," court papers say.

The two Gravanos did seem to get along quite well during their 
one-hour plea hearing last week. After listening to his boy utter the 
words, "Guilty, your honor," Salvatore gave Gerard a nice, paternal 
pat on the head.

A 2nd Career for Strippers

The Ecstasy trade is apparently not the sole province of the Italian 
mob. The government says that the Israeli mafia is in on it, too.

Earlier this month, federal drug agents arrested Oded Tuito, a man 
they described as an Israeli gangster, who has been accused of 
smuggling more than one million Ecstasy pills from Europe to New 
York, Las Vegas and Miami over the past few years. The agents say Mr. 
Tuito is one of the world's biggest Ecstasy dealers. He employed a 
deceptively simple courier system, prosecutors said, using dancers 
from topless clubs to smuggle his drugs.

Mr. Tuito was picked up by the Drug Enforcement Administration in 
Barcelona, Spain, on May 18 and is expected to be extradited to 
Brooklyn soon. One of the topless dancers is already cooperating with 
the government, and she is likely to testify against him at trial.

While it seems that surgically enhanced women could attract undue 
attention at border crossings and might not be the most innocuous 
couriers around, investigators said they were perfect for the job 
because there was not much the women would refuse to do for the 
$10,000 in cash they got for every trip.

"After taking your clothes off night after night for a couple hundred 
bucks," one of the investigators said, "hopping a flight to Paris for 
10 grand doesn't seem like such a bad deal after all."

Following the Connections

If you need proof that there are numerous connections in the 
"connected life," consider the branches of the following family tree.

Federal prosecutors say that Mr. Tuito supplied Ecstasy to another 
reputed Israeli gangster, a man named Jacob Orgad. Mr. Orgad, they 
say, supplied the same drug to a dealer named Ilan Zarger, who in 
turn supplied the Gravanos' Ecstasy ring.

Federal agents say that drug peddlers working for Mr. Tuito in New 
York once sold Ecstasy to dealers who sold to patrons at the 
Limelight nightclub, whose owner, Peter Gatien, was acquitted of drug 
conspiracy charges in 1998. At Mr. Gatien's trial, a promoter named 
Michael Caruso took the stand and admitted to running a widespread 
Ecstasy ring inside the club.

After leaving the Limelight, Mr. Caruso moved to Florida, where he 
opened a nightclub in Miami with a fellow New Yorker named Chris 
Paciello. Mr. Paciel lo pleaded guilty last year to committing 
robbery and murder with a group of Brooklyn gangsters called the Bath 
Avenue Crew.

The Bath Avenue Crew was overseen by Anthony Spero, who was once the 
Bonanno family's acting boss. In March, Mr. Spero was convicted of 
ordering a murder on behalf of John J. Gotti, the jailed Gambino 
family don, among other crimes.

In his heyday, the senior Gravano served as Mr. Gotti's underboss in 
the Gambino squad. And to tie it all up, in 1998, Mr. Gotti's own 
son, John A. Gotti, was accused of using Mafia tactics to take 
control of the strip club Scores, the same place where Mr. Tuito is 
said to have recruited some of his couriers.
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