By David Amoruso for Gangsters Inc.
Crime family Lucchese Gangster Anthony Villani was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Wednesday following his conviction for racketeering, money laundering and illegal game linked to his management of a large -scale online game company for the New York Mafia.
The game company, known as “Rhino Sports”, has worked since the early 2000s and reported at least $ 35 million in illicit profits during its operation. Villani Personally, has achieved more than $ 15 million in illegal profits from their work as a person responsible for the operation. As part of the sentence, he was ordered to pay $ 4 million in confiscation.
“Today’s sentence is due to Villani responsible for racketeering crimes committed on behalf of the Loqueuse organized crime family, while queuing the company’s chests and its own pockets with millions of dollars,” said the United States prosecutor Joseph Nocella. “The illegal game and extortion can be common for the mafia, but a prison mandate is a bitter result for gangsters who do not respect the law.”
Offshore game maif
Villani’s game activities were in continuous activity from at least 2004 to December 2020. During this period, it was organized online using offshore servers at Costa Rica and used local bookmakers to pay and collect cash earnings.
Bookmakers were responsible for taking bets from a group of bettors, collecting and paying individual bettors and settling with Villani. He received a percentage of income from each bookmaker.
The files obtained on the Operation website said that the illegal gaming operation of Villani has regularly taken bets between 400 and 1,300 bettors each week, most of which were based in New York and the Metropolitan region.
Villani has employed several trusted partners to help him manage the company. These employees included Louis Tucci, Jr. and Dennis Filizola, who reported directly to Villani. The two were responsible for collecting and collecting money from other bookmakers and frequently meet Villani. In addition, James Coumoutsos, who operated under the name of “Quick”, and Michael Praino, who operated under the name of “Platinum”, worked as Bookmakers.
The four men had previously pleaded guilty and awaited the conviction. As part of their sorrows, they agreed to pay around $ 1 million in confiscation.
Villani and Filizola also engaged in money laundering to hide the source and nature of the important illegal product. In the direction of Villani, Filizola took the product of the game company and used them to buy American postal services mandates in false names, which were then made to the order of one of the real estate companies in Villani to appear as legitimate rental payments.
A rat ate $ 300,000
But don’t let all these millions deceive you. Companies did not always work as smooth as you might think by looking at the figures. Somewhere in October 2019, Villani discovered that someone had stolen $ 300,000 in the game operation.
Villani wanted his money to return and applied some pressure on the thief (whose name was not published by the authorities). On April 27, 2020, Villani told the man: “I’m not going to repeat myself. I’m never going to say it again. We are just going to have a problem if I discover it. All right? And I don’t want to threaten you with my friends or anything, I’m not going to put myself in a fucking hole with this guy? “
The threats of Villani against the man intensified and on October 10, 2020, he said: “Listen, get the money.
On the basis of these threats and others, the man believed that Villani and his family friends of the crime Lucchese would physically injure him or kill him if he did not reimburse the debt. We will never know. The federals were already there and broke out Villani and his crew.
The 60 -year -old millionaire Lucchese Wiseguy – he is sometimes listed as a soldier and at other times as a captain – will now spend a little time in the slammer. It will give him time to think about what went wrong with his dollar several million business. When he comes out, he will always be relatively young – for a New York gangster. Will he take another swing to illicit millions or will he relax in Florida?
It has millions of options.
Copyright © Gangsters Inc.
