According to prosecutors, six men have been busted for their roles in an illegal internet gambling operation tied to the New York mafia.
The Lucchese crime family controlled operation involved hundreds of bettors and raked in over $13 million dollars from September 2015 until March of this year. The alleged ringleader Eugene Castelle is a reputed member of the Lucchese family and once served as both a captain and the Cosa Nostra families acting underboss. The indictment includes charges of enterprise corruption, promoting gambling, and money laundering among others.
“Eugene “Boopsie” Castelle“
Castelle now 56 was indicted along with other Lucchese family mobsters back in 2000 on racketeering charges and did an 88-month prison stretch before being released in 2008. Prosecutors said the mobster was back in business and received payment from the mafia run gambling operation for his leadership and protection from rivals. Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson said, “We’ve now shut down this illegal enterprise that was controlled by organized crime and will fully prosecute those who have been indicted.”
Also busted was Anthony Grecco the operations alleged master agent who managed activities including a website (www.stakestake.com) in Costa Rica. According to prosecutors, bettors either used their own unique username and password on the website to place wagers or called the company’s toll-free number. The 37 count indictment also included four other defendants who acted as “sheetholders” handling administrative duties for account holders and collecting a percentage of lost wagers.
Bail was set between $25,000 and $250,000 for the defendants by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun and they face up to 25 years behind bars if convicted.
These offshore sportsbooks mostly in CR have def become the norm and seem to be making some serious cash for most of the families. Not a big shocker that Eugene is still in the Lucchese family mix no matter what his official rank currently is.
Castelle’s brother John castelucci is the capo of the lucchese Brooklyn crew , he is Steve creas guy , another piece of evidence that says Vic amuso isn’t still boss of the lucchese family , if he was surely he would have his own guy in there , amuso is defo the boss in name only to keep the heat of crea , he doesn’t have any pull within the family
your probaby right dom vic is boss in name but saying that when vics wife died a couple of years ago the whole mob turned out including steve crea according to capeci the entire luchese family went none of them dared to miss it. Of course that does not mean he is running the family but he must have some influence
Maybe to make it seem like amuso is the boss to keep the heat off them , I just think if he was still boss and he carried weight within the family guys like zappola , lastorino , conte and baratta would have key positions within the family and they don’t seem to have allegedly they’ve been shelved , that tells me crea is boss
i dont know if thats keeping heat of them i mean the feds are getting the whole family on surveillance for a guy like steve who is low key that is hardly a good thing
I dont think vic amuso is making the decisions on the streets either. Steve is the boss but whats to say vic and steve dont have a good relationship i mean after joe Defede went to prison steve was made acting boss in the 90s and he was allegedly kicking up to vic alot of money whats to say steve is not giving vic a envelope.
Guys like barratta tried to kill steves thats why they are not in leadership position and that was not vic who was involved in that plot it was casso
At the end of the day steve is making the day to day decisions so he is the one with power its why guys like hooks and joey Giampa are doing so well because the bronx is running the show but i would not say vic has no influence in the family just yet his influence may have diminished from the old days but it is not entirely gone yet.