International cocaine ring operating out of Goodfellas-style Queens NY pizzeria busted
A drug-smuggling operation was run out of the pizzeria by night but it was a normal restaurant by day, Italian police say
New York police bring down a multi-million pound cocaine trafficking operation Photo: Alamy
By Nick Squires, Rome
8:54PM BST 07 May 2015
In a plot line that could have come straight out of The Sopranos, an Italian pizzeria in the New York borough of Queens was revealed on Thursday to have been the linchpin in a multi-million pound cocaine trafficking operation across the Atlantic.
The drug-smuggling operation, which involved New York crime families working closely with the powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia of Calabria, was run out of the ordinary-looking pizzeria, called Cucino a Modo Mio, or "I cook it my way".
"In the evening, the family ran a good pizzeria. In other hours they were running" the drug trade, said Andrea Grassi, the head of an Italian police special operations unit.
Italian police and FBI agents conducted predawn raids in Calabria, the stronghold of the 'Ndrangheta, in which they arrested 13 people, many of whom were still in bed asleep.
They were alleged to have been key members of the network, in which cocaine produced in Central America was imported to Europe via the US.
The arrests were the culmination of a year-long investigation by American and Italian police into the syndicate, which bought cocaine in Costa Rica, shipped it to Delaware and Pennsylvania, and then sent it across the Atlantic to Europe.
The cocaine was hidden in shipments of fresh cassava, an African root vegetable. More than three tonnes of cocaine was seized in Spain and the Netherlands last year after being smuggled across the Atlantic in containers full of cassava.
Gregorio Gigliotti, 58, the owner of the pizzeria, along with his wife and son, was arrested in March in the Little Italy neighbourhood of Queens.
The family was allegedly in league with the US-based Genovese crime clan, including an alleged godfather called Anthony "Tough Tony" Federici, who owns a nearby restaurant.
Police found more than $100,000 (£65,500) in cash on the premises.
Weapons were also stored in the pizzeria – six pistols and a shotgun were found by the FBI.
Italian investigators say 'Ndrangheta is now more powerful than the better known Cosa Nostra of Sicily and ranks as the biggest cocaine trafficking organisation in Europe.
