CHICAGO -- An FBI tip that a mob figure was marked for death led to Operation Strawman -- the agency's first successful attempt to infiltrate organized crime in Las Vegas casinos, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The five-year investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force culminated this week in the indictments of 15 major crime figures, including mob bosses in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Kansas City and Las Vegas, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The underworld figures are charged with conspiring to steal more than $2 million in profits from two Las Vegas casinos, the Stardust and the Fremont, the newspaper reported.
Among those indicted were the three top Chicago mob bosses -- Joey Aiuppa, 75, Jackie Cerone, 69, and Angelo LaPietra, 62.
The investigation marked the first time in the 14-year history of the federal Omnibus Crime Act that government agents made extensive use of clandestine surveillance, eavesdropping and court-approved breaking and entering. FBI agents stole cars and broke into homes and offices during the investigation, the Tribune said.
The investigation began in May 1978, when FBI agents learned a Kansas City mob associate was slated for death. The agents received court permission to bug the telephones of mob bosses in hopes of preventing the murder.
The attempt to stop the killing was unsuccessful, and the murder investigation failed to reault in any arrests, but the FBI learned from the phone taps that an umbrella organization representing mobsters from four cities was siphoning profits from the Las Vegas casinos.
Then, for the first time in the mob's 37-year history in Las Vegas, the FBI was able to penetrate the practice of skimming profits off the top of gambling operations, to avoid paying the Nevada gaming tax and federal income tax.
Agents tapped telephones and planted listening devices in lawyers' offices, insurance companies, private homes, garages and automobiles. They also set up phony businesses, including one that backfired, the newspaper reported.
Before the investigation, federal authorities reportedly were unaware the Chicago mob was involved in the scheme to skim the profits and divide the illegal funds among the Midwestern mobs.
Wiretapped conversations showed the money would be transported to Chicago, where it was divided and distributed by armed couriers, including a Chicago policeman, to crime families in the four cities, the newspaper said.
The police officer, Anthony Chiavola Sr., has since retired. He was among the 15 indicted.
Also indicted were Anthony Spilotro, 45, the mob's Las Vegas rackets boss; Joseph Lombardo, 54, who was convicted for trying to bribe a U.S. senator in a land deal; Frank Balistrieri, 65, the Milwaukee mob boss; and Balistrieri's two sons, Joseph, 43, a lawyer, and John, 34, the family's business manager.
Others indicted were Chiavola's son, Anthony Jr., also a former Chicago policeman and now awaiting sentencing for a jewel heist; Milton Rockman, 75, a reputed Cleveland mobster; Carl DeLuna, 55, the No. 2 Kansas City mob boss; Carl Civella, 72, the Kansas City mob leader; Peter Tamburello, 51, a Kansas City mobster, and Carl Thomas, 51, a former Las Vegas casino operator.
