FAMILY BUSINESS: GREG SMITH

As the DeCavalcante family transitioned into the late 90’s, the new leadership structure was causing a power struggle between Vinnie Ocean and Charlie “Big Ears” Majuri. With law enforcement continuing to hassle Wiggles, Ocean’s cash-cow was drying up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We interview the former FBI undercover task force officer and author of Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos, who spent 26 years undercover penetrating New Jersey’s DeCavalcante crime family, the criminal organization known to law enforcement as “The Real Sopranos” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While The Sopranos mainly focused on a fictional New Jersey mob, their fellow mafiosos in New York couldn’t be ignored. The fictional New York family was represented by Johnny Sacrimoni, better known as Johnny Sack. Vincent Curatola, a New Jersey native, portrayed the New York underboss with a steely cool that made him a hit with the legions of Sopranos fans. We spoke with Curatola in a wide-ranging interview, beginning with his fondness for New Jersey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As John Riggi is sent to prison, John “Johnny Boy” D’Amato, is made the acting head of the DeCavalcante family. Despite being unpopular in his own crime family, D’Amato would use his close friendship with John Gotti to become head of the DeCavalcante crew. Eventually, he is rubbed out by his own mafia family. His crime...being gay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Playing a New Jersey gangster was nuanced, one part menacing, but equally comedic. Federico Castellucio played the role of Furio Giunta , a Tony Soprano street-soldier who even tried to have a romantic fling with Tony’s wife Carmela Soprano. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1997, after the death of acting boss Jake Amari, Vinnie “Ocean” Palermo is named part of a three man panel that will now run the DeCavalcante family. Vinnie Ocean is considered the most likely candidate to be the real Tony Soprano, for a number of reasons. We trace his rise & fall in the mafia in this two-part episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Organized crime has always been catnip to savvy crime reporters, and as the years have progressed with the proliferation of rats, the storytelling has gotten more nuanced and more in depth. Former NY Daily News Reporter Greg Smith spent years reporting on orga-nized crime, and in 2003 he published a wide-ranging book on the DeCavalcante clan, and their hijinks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Sopranos considered by many the greatest show in television history, made the New Jersey mafia water cooler talk across the country from 1999-2007. While based on fictional characters, there was an actual mafia family neck deep in criminal activities across the Hudson River from their La Cosa Nostra contemporaries in New York. In New Jersey, starting in the 1960’s, the DeCavalcante family ran the show and are considered the inspiration for many of The Sopranos characters and storylines that fans are familiar with today. This season on FAMILY BUSINESS, we will look at the rise and fall of the DeCavalcante family. Sometimes truth is even more colorful than fiction... Family Business is an 8 episode investigative audio documentary focused on the most notorious mafia crime families and their impact and relationship with Hollywood. Each season we will take on another family, another city, and another set of nefarious, deadly and sometimes even comical, characters and their stories. We begin Season One with the DeCavalcante crime family based in Northern New Jersey. The DeCavalcante crime family is an Italian American crime family that operates in Northern New Jersey, particularly in Elizabeth, Newark and the surrounding areas in North Jersey and it operates on the opposite side of the Hudson, from the Five Families of New York, but it maintains strong relations with many of them, as well as with the Philadelphia Crime Family and the Patriarca Crime Family of New England, Its illicit activities include bookmaking, cement, and construction violations, bootlegging, corruption, drug trafficking, extortion, fencing, fraud, hijacking, illegal gambling, loan-sharking, money laundering, murder, pier thefts, pornography, prostitution, racketeering, and waste management violations. Interviews with informants, gangsters, defense lawyers, cops, family members, and journalists weave a true-crime tale. In Episode One, we will trace the rise & fall of the family, beginning with Sam 'The Plumber.’ DeCavalcante. Sam was a sitting member of The Commission, allowing his family a seat at the table with the 5 families that ran La Cosa Nostra in New York. We will discuss Sam 'The Plumber’s' career in crime & his arrests, leading to his semi-retirement to Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In hip hop, the end of the 80s ushered in a thriving music industry, with hip hop, diversifying itself immensely. In 1990 alone, A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, D Nice, Special Ed, LL Cool J, Vanilla Ice, and EPMD all had seminal releases. These artists would start to define the trajectory of hip hop music as it invaded white suburbs and penetrated the minds of American political thought as hip hop started to gain in popularity. The traumatic events inside the crack epidemic and the war on drugs resulted with draconian drug sentences, and most of the major drug kingpins facing huge life sentences or death. The crack trade that spawned 1000s of corner millionaires was now coming home to roost, and its path of destruction was young men and women just out of their teenage years, being shipped to federal and state jails for 30 year and two life sentences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There were many defining events as it relates to the intersection of crime, the War on Drugs, and hip hop throughout the 80s. That being said, there was a singular event that took place in Southside Jamaica, Queens, in February of 1988 that arguably changed the course of policing in this country, the mythology of the drug trade, and symbolically ended the crack era for the exalted hustlers inside New York City. This event was the execution of a rookie NYPD Cop named Edward Byrne. The NYPD, led by Chief Bill Bratton, would form the Tactical Narcotics Team, aimed at systematically taking down all drug crews in the city. In part 2 of our interview with Prince Miller, he discusses the ramifications of Ed Byrne’s murder and Fat Cat Nichols' cooperation with the government leading to the fall of The Supreme Team. **If you’re a fan of The Dossier, please visit our Patreon page for free and paid content featuring exclusive documents, unedited interviews, and monthly online meetups with other Dossier fans and the Dossier team. Go to Patreon.com/Dossier to subscribe!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices