LOS ANGELES -- A federal grand jury has indicted seven alleged members of a Chicago crime family accused of trying to take over loan-sharking and illegal bookmaking operations in Southern California and Las Vegas.
The grand jury returned the indictment Thursday and the seven were arrested by FBI agents shortly after it was announced.
A key figure in the purported ring is Vito Dominic Spillone, 47, originally from Chicago, who moved to the Los Angeles area in 1976 and allegedly set up loan shark operations at the California Bell Club, one of the areas largest poker parlors, authorities said.
Also named in the 22-count indictment were John James Barro, 45, operator of Barro's Pizza, an Anaheim-based chain of pizza parlors; Frank Serrao, 55, Los Angeles; Joseph 'Joe Bello' Bolognese, 51, and Frank 'Little Frankie' Citro, 38, both of Las Vegas; John Clyde Abel, 40, Chicago; and John Meccia, 50, La Salle, Ill.
A bond of $50,000 was set for each of the defendants. They are to be arraigned July 23.
Spillone, a resident of Upland and owner of Angie's Wholesale Groceries, a restaurant supply company in South El Monte, spent five years in federal prison for loan-shark activities in Chicago before moving to California.
He was charged along with the others with conspiring to push local loan sharks and bookmakers out of the California Bell Club and other poker clubs in the Los Angeles area.
'It was a part of the conspiracy that various of the defendants would and did attempt through acts, threats and violence to take over, manage and control various bookmakers and loan sharks in the Southern California area and elsewhere,' the indictment charged.
They also were charged with attempting to expand their activities to Las Vegas and other parts of Nevada.
Spillone and Barro were named as the alleged ringleaders of the group. The indictment said further that all seven men were members and associates of a criminal 'family' operating with the consent and the permission of others in Chicago.
Justice Department attorney James Waltz described the arrests as a 'major case.'
The grand jury said Spillone and others collected on debts ranging from $400 to $40,000. They threatened rival loan sharks and some of the debtors with beatings and possible death if they did not meet their regular payments, described in the indictment as 'at least twice the enforceable rate.'
The indictment said also that the leaders of the loan-shark operations used members of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white-supremacy prison gang, as bill collectors.
